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Chapter Seven
Erik
My dragon is about to tear me apart at the seams.
This was supposed to be a normal job, just like any other. The Night Guild is probably the most dangerous criminal organization I’ve ever encountered. It’s my duty to help the Raven Society by protecting Astrid and her daughter.
Falling for them, however, is completely not part of the plan.
How can this be happening?
Fate is a tricky bitch, that’s for damn sure. Of all the people I could be hired to protect, I come across the descendant of the only woman I ever loved, a thousand years later?
If the Night Guild is smart, they’ll stay far, far away from Astrid. Because if anyone tries to harm so much as a hair on her head, I will end them. And it’s not just Astrid I feel protective of. It’s Lilli, too. When I’d rushed into her room and her eyes landed on me, her face had gone from panicked to relieved in an instant. She’d smiled and lifted her arms up to me as if she’s known me her whole life.
The dragon saved me, she’d told her mom. In that moment, I felt like more of a hero than I’ve ever felt in all my years as a bodyguard. All the bullets, blades, and spells I’ve thrown myself in front of pale in comparison. I’ll do anything to keep that little girl safe. Anything at all.
But my emotions are clouding my judgement, and that’s the first rule of being a bodyguard. No emotion. Stay detached. It’s hard to be logical when you’ve got so many feelings rushing through you. I’ve got to find a way to distance myself. It doesn’t matter how I feel, or how my dragon feels. It’s best if I take a step back, for the sake of both Astrid and Lilli.
I distract myself by thinking through the Society’s current plan of attack with the Night Guild. At our last meeting, which was just yesterday, I’d volunteered to come here. Tamsin, a witch from Scotland and a renowned hematologist, had taken on the task of reverse engineering the drugs I found when raiding the lab not far from here. Ven, Luciana’s friend, is still trying to find the owners of all the stolen grimoires she’d recovered from the Night Guild. The rest of the team is working on finding additional Guild facilities so we can conduct more raids.
The main reason I’d chosen to come here is that the Night Guild’s facility in the town of Skei, only about twenty miles away from Astrid’s house, is so close to where I was born. I want to know what the Guild is up to in my home. I don’t even have a house in Norway anymore—I keep residences in Victoria, Zurich, and Bali—but it still holds a place in my heart. My roots, where my soul belongs. And I’m not about to let the Guild conduct their dirty work here.
I own my own company, with dozens of supernatural bodyguards working for me. If I were smart, I’d call in one of my employees to handle this. But the idea of letting Astrid out of my sight makes my dragon claw at my insides. I can’t walk away from this now. I have to see it through to the end.
I’ll protect Astrid and Lilli both. And I’ll make sure the Night Guild is dismantled forever.
Over the course of more than a thousand years, I’ve watched civilizations rise and fall, including my own, the Vikings. Witnessed history unfolding: wars, famines, pandemics, religion, art, culture.
Nothing, in all that time, has been more important to me than this job.
And in order to do that job, I have to do the hardest thing of all. I have to convince myself that I don’t care about the woman I’m here to protect.
