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Feeling his pain as if it was my own, I dropped to my knees, clutching my own side in agony. I barely registered Stefan joining me on the bedroom floor, panic exuding from him as he desperately tried to comprehend what was happening. I could hear his faraway voice, calling my name. Unable to answer him or to let him see what I could see, the vision had dragged me in and I was unable to pull away. I had to see it through until the end.
I was with him on his funeral pyre, listening to his ancient language fall from his beautiful lips in a muffled chant. His blond hair was long, matted with his sweat and tears. His handsome face was streaked with blood and dirt as he cried out into the night sky. His voice was heavily accented and hoarse. Not only could I hear the the pain in his words, I could feel it searing through my entire body. "Let me die. Release me from this suffering."
And for the first time, I saw Solveig. Statuesque with dark blond hair and blue eyes, she took great pleasure in releasing him from his humanity. His last human vision was of her face as she cradled his head to her, letting him drink from her wrist.
"I will see you soon, my lover," she whispered to him in the same dialect.
Flashes of his life rushed through my mind. They were each so vivid that it was like reliving my own memories. I was able to glimpse Stefan as a child, playing at the sea with his siblings. The vision morphed to see him on his first hunting expedition. I witnessed first-hand the quiet beauty of his mother and the imposing strictness of his father.
I cherished the glimpses of his disarming smile in the sunlight, admiring the human softness of his skin. More than anything, it was his laughter, his freeness that captivated me. He was a carefree young man, his entire life in front of him until that fateful day he met his untimely death. He fought a battle that would immortalize him for me, a life he had never imagined possible.
How long had it taken him to accept his immortality? To let go of his mortality? A decade? A century? Seeing him through these memories as a human made my own struggle easier. He'd been forced to change, to adapt to his new existence. He hadn't asked for this life either. Even though I detested Solveig, if not for her intervention, Stefan and I would have never met. She'd saved him for me.
The memories made a full circle until I watched his immortal life begin and I was strangely pulled from his memories. It was if there was some sort of disconnect and I couldn’t access anything else from his mind at the point of his change to a vampire.
My eyes popped open. "Did you show me your life? Your memories?"
He looked at me strangely, narrowing his eyes in confusion. "Vackra, I have told you what little I remember of my human life. I can recall my siblings names… but the memories are hazy at best. As the centuries pass, the faces from your human life grow harder to recall. Why do you ask?"
"I saw you. The day you died," I recalled, squinting as I struggled to remember every detail. "I watched a sword inflict the fatal blow. I was with you as you lay dying on a funeral pyre. I heard you beg for death."
Blinking, I attempted to swallow past the knot in my throat. "Then I saw you as a child, then a young man. It was like I was there with you as you aged, up until the moment of your human death. I saw her."
Stefan was speechless. His eyes went round, his lips parting slightly. His voice was barely perceptible. "Who did you see, vackra?"
"Solveig. She took great pleasure in killing you."
"Yes, she found great pleasure in taking human life. She was a decent maker but was extremely sadistic. She was kind to me. Others...she enjoyed to torture. She was slowly going insane, vackra. It is not an excuse, only an explanation."
He effortlessly leaped to his feet. He offered me both of his hands and pulled me up. "Shower and come to my office. There are things I need to share with you."
***
Still shaken from my experience, I was freshly showered when I entered Stefan's office. It was a masculine space, filled with dark, heavy furniture. The bookshelf was filled with books, ancient looking weaponry lining the dark brown wall. One sword on display reminded me of my vivid memory from his past. I walked to the wall and my fingers hovered over the hilt. It was so tempting to touch it, to hold it in my hand…
"You do not have to be so hesitant, vackra. Whatever is mine is now yours."
Startled at the sound of his deep voice, my eyes jolted from the sword to his face, offering him a distracted smile. My fingers absently brushed over the ancient metal. "This sword. This is the one you used the night you died. Your brother spent hours forging the metal to create this for you. You were proud to carry it."
Facing him, I noticed that his hands were gripping the arms of the chair. His eyes became stormy, luminous in the light from the windows. They were filled with an emotion I couldn't understand as he stared past me and focused on the weapons.
And his mind...his mind was a jumble of hazy memories and undisguised admiration. I'd staggered him again, rocked him to his very core. He didn't want to remember his human life, yet I kept dredging it up, memory after painful memory.
"It is difficult to recall, however I do recall it being a gift from Ragnarr," he murmured. His eyes never left the sword. "How is it possible that you know what I cannot remember?"
I was just as confused as Stefan. The memories seemed to appear in my mind with no coercion. "I don't know, Stefan."
He extended a shaky hand to me, his anxious mind silently pleading for me to come to him. He was unsettled, shaken and he needed our physical connection. Crossing the room, I sank into his lap. His hand stroked up and down my back as I nestled against him. He buried his nose in my hair, breathing in deep, ragged breaths. I felt his mood start to calm, his mind becoming less frantic as he methodically stroked my skin.
As his panic lessened, his cheek came to rest against the top of my head. Rubbing circles over his heart, the sun from the window made tiny prisms from my ring dance across his chest.
"We have another matter to address," Stefan murmured against my ear.
As he’d been calming himself, I'd been slowly relaxing, enjoying the comfort of his touch. Even the caress of his hand was unleashing a warmth that was spreading through me. I was considering throwing him on the desk so I could straddle him to prevent him from talking. "Ugh," I groaned, frowning. "Will it involve conversation?"
I began nipping along his throat and he tipped his head back in allowance of my tender bites. He curled his lip back in a beautiful smirk, the worry vanishing from his handsome face.
"Obviously."
