The Blood is Love: A Dark Vampire Romance Read online

  The Blood is Love

  The Dark Eyes Series, #2

  Karina Halle

  Copyright © 2021 by Karina Halle

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  Cover Design: Hang Le Designs

  Edited by: Laura Helseth

  Proofed by: Chanpreet Singh

  Contents

  Dedication

  Playlist

  Prologue

  1. Lenore

  2. Lenore

  3. Lenore

  4. Absolon

  5. Lenore

  6. Lenore

  7. Lenore

  8. Absolon

  9. Lenore

  10. Absolon

  11. Lenore

  12. Lenore

  13. Lenore

  14. Lenore

  15. Lenore

  16. Absolon

  17. Lenore

  18. Lenore

  19. Lenore

  20. Lenore

  Epilogue

  About the Author

  Also by Karina Halle

  Dedication

  For my Finnish mother for giving me her sisu (but please, don’t ever read this book)

  “You stare, there’s smoke in your eyes, I get close, my blood is the price.” – Parsonz Curse, Royal Thunder

  “There is no place I can go, there is no place I can hide. It feels like it keeps coming from the inside.” – The Big Come Down, NIN

  “Touch your lips to mine, that we may make a kiss that can pierce through death and survive.” – The Blood is Love, Queens of the Stone Age

  Playlist

  Just like I did for Black Sunshine, there’s an important playlist to go with The Blood is Love. You can find it here on Spotify (if you don’t use the app, just message me and I’ll share!)

  Prologue

  Finnmark, 1350

  On the third day, it started to rain blood. At least, that’s what it looked like to Ivar Skarde as he surveyed the sky from inside the cave. A brilliant red sunrise lit up the clouds to the east, saturating the horizon, just as rain began to fall. Each shimmering droplet reflected the sunrise in such an otherworldly way that it could have been beautiful if Skarde had been in the mood to see things as such.

  But he wasn’t. The plague was spreading north throughout Norway, and it was only a matter of time before it would reach him too, in the desolate, cold and blurry border between his home country and the Kingdom of Sweden. Though the Sámi people he had been living with didn’t rely on the grains in which the disease spread (of course, at the time they had no idea it was caused by rats which would often feed on the grains), Skarde didn’t feel safe. Death taunted him at every corner. He wouldn’t rest until he could somehow be free from the threat of death forever, whether it came from the plague or something else.

  Skarde used to be a warrior for King Magnus VII. A formidable one. Death was present at every battle as the king levied his crusade against Novgorod, and it was one that Skarde would always conquer, without fear, even as many of his comrades succumbed to it in violent ways. But that all changed when he almost lost his life, an errant sword during the battle of Orekhov. As Skarde lay there bleeding outside the fortress, snow falling on him like tears, he lost consciousness. Became one with the dark. And there he saw things so horrible, that when he woke up in the infirmary, he had a new appreciation for death, one born out of fear. Fear that when he died, he would be sucked into the black hole, the endless void, of pain and suffering for all eternity.

  It took ages for him to heal back in Norway, and when he finally did, the black plague was spreading throughout Oslo. Skarde took the opportunity to leave, to head north, up and up and up, hoping to leave all the death behind him, the death he felt was coming for him, like it had lost its chance and wanted a rematch.

  Eventually, Skarde heard things on his travels up north. That many of the Sámi people hadn’t converted to Christianity, that some of them were shamans, that the mystical legends of the frozen north were true.

  That there were things you could do to cheat death—forever.

  So Skarde went to them. The Sámi people were not a monolith and their religious practices, even language, differed between regions and tribes, and many were distrustful of a former soldier for the king, especially since monarchies had tried to wipe out their ways. But eventually he found one tribe that took him in. This tribe lived in the low mountains, keeping a small herd of reindeer for food, clothing and transportation. They also practiced animism, their own form of witchcraft, and harbored a supposed connection to the underworld.

  Seppo was the leader of the group. Though Skarde didn’t speak their language, Seppo seemed to understand what Skarde wanted. But Seppo wouldn’t give it to Skarde so easily, not something so heavy, that came with such a price. Skarde ended up living in a cave by himself, set apart from the tribe, for a year before Seppo deemed Skarde ready. In that time, Skarde had picked up on the Northern Sámi dialect that the tribe spoke, allowing him to converse with Seppo, who told him the following: A noaidi, a mediator between the human world and the saivo, the underworld, would come for him one day and take him on a journey. This would happen after three things happened on three days:

  The first day there would be a small earthquake, a sign that the underworld was waking up.

  The second day lightning would strike the ground, as Tiermes, the God of Thunder and protector of humans, would try and warn Skarde, or anyone foolish enough to go against the laws of the world, that they were making a mistake.

  The third day, the sky would rain blood, signifying the sorrow and pain that was to come.

  This was the third day, rain against a red sky. Yesterday there was a lightning storm that struck a pine tree in the distance, blasting all the branches off of it until all that was left was a charred pole. The day before that, the earth shook for a minute. At first Skarde was convinced it was just a reindeer herd stampeding nearby, but after the lighting and the blood rain, he knew that his time had come.

  He stared at the rain falling for a moment, that blazing red sunrise permeating the crisp white snow, making it look blood stained, then he turned around to get his fur hat and coat, preparing for the journey.

  When he turned back around, there was a man standing in the entrance to the cave.

  Skarde had a fright.

  The man was dressed in a long heavy black coat, different from the Sámi’s traditional wear, and instead of a face he had a deer skull with short, three-pronged antlers.

  Skarde stared at the man, wondering how the skull was fastened to his head. He peered at the deep dark and empty eye sockets, trying to see a glimpse of the man underneath, but there was none to be found.

  The man raised a hand, fitted with a furry glove, and pointed to the horizon.

  We go, the man said, but to Skarde the voice didn’t sound like it was coming from the mask. It sounded like it was coming from inside his own head.

  Skarde nodded, feeling nervous now, and as the man turned from the cave, Skarde followed him.

  They walked past the gathering of huts where this Sámi tribe lived, and the reindeer skinned door of the largest one opened, Seppo stepped out. Seppo’s face was grave. Skarde had thought that Seppo would at least be happy that Skarde’s time finally came. If not for that, then at least Skarde, who was feeling like he was a nuisance to the tribe, was leaving for good.

  But Seppo didn’t look happy. And as others came out of their huts a
nd stared at the deer skull man and Skarde, they watched with a mix of revulsion and fear. One of them even spit on the ground and Skarde wondered if it was for him or for the noaidi.

  Skarde raised his head high, remembering that this was what he wanted, and that he was a warrior, and that he wasn’t afraid (even though he was) and he followed the man. They walked for hours. Past rivers and treeless plains, over hills where snow still lived at the top, down through mossy pine forests. The walk was silent. There were no birds, they saw no animals, and the noaidi didn’t say a single word to Skarde.

  Eventually they came to a stop in front of a large rock that sat adjacent to a steep hillside. The rock was huge, at least twenty feet high, and a smooth dark gray. It didn’t seem to fit in with the surroundings at all.

  The man moved to the back of the rock, to the dark space between the rock and the hillside, and motioned for Skarde to follow.

  Skarde didn’t want to go. He knew there was something very wrong about the rock, that it didn’t belong there, that the dark space that the noaidi was disappearing into was a space he’d never come out of. There was death in that darkness, the very death that Skarde was trying to escape.

  Death, and evil.

  Skarde swallowed hard and stood his ground. Perhaps if he turned around he could find his way back to Seppo. Maybe they would take him in again. Maybe he could stay with them until the plague was gone and then he could go back down to Oslo and start life over, find a wife, have a child, do the things he never got a chance to do. Skarde was old, in his early sixties, but he was handsome and strong and he had money put away and he knew he could still carve out a happy life for himself.

  Death will always find you, a voice said.

  It seemed to come from the dark space, where the noaidi had gone, but the voice didn’t belong to the skull man.

  The voice belonged to Hell itself.

  I will find you, the voice went on, raspy and inhuman and disembodied. Dripping with malice. Ivar Skarde. You cannot cheat death again. I will come for you and you will be back inside that void, to suffer for eternity. No escape.

  Suddenly, a cold, icy wind smelling of sulfur came out of the dark space behind the rock, blowing back Skarde’s long black hair, chilling him to the marrow of his bones.

  You only have two choices, the voice continued. To run away knowing there is truly no escape. Or to come forward and join me. Become one with the darkness you try so hard to avoid. You cannot escape death, but you can become death.

  Become death? Skarde thought to himself.

  A coward would run away, the voice said. A warrior would step forward and choose to become something greater than he is, greater than he’ll ever be. Greater and more powerful than any creature in this world. You can become death, and in becoming death, you will live forever. Your blood will be eternal. You will have nothing to fear. All will fear you.

  The wind blew again, and this time it seemed to tug at Skarde like invisible hands, pulling him to the dark space.

  All will fear me, Skarde thought. Eternal blood. Eternal life.

  He fought against the wind for a moment, waited to hear more from the voice, but the voice had ceased.

  He made his choice.

  He stepped forward and the sulfur wind pulled him to the space behind the rock and Skarde stepped through.

  The space was dark and dank and there were a million screams filling his head and the wind kept pulling Skarde along, but soon there was light reaching his eyes and Skarde had the impression that he wasn’t going into a cave, but just going around the rock and out the other side.

  And he stepped through the crack and into the light, expecting to be on the other side of the rock.

  He was. But nothing looked the same.

  There was snow on the ground where there wasn’t snow before.

  There were trees, pine and birch.

  There was a stream.

  Beyond the stream, where there couldn’t physically be an ocean, was an ocean. Churning waves. Above that, dark clouds that sent out forks of lightning that struck the surface.

  And this world was a red world.

  The leaves on the trees were red.

  The stream was red.

  The ocean was red.

  The lightning was red.

  It was a beautiful bleeding world.

  The noaidi stood in front of him as before, ever stoic, ever silent, and raised a hand to point to the distance. Skarde noticed the hand didn’t have the mittens anymore. The hand was human, and it was only bone. A living skeleton. And then Skarde knew there was no face under that mask, that it wasn’t a mask at all.

  But he was no longer afraid.

  And he followed the skeleton finger as it pointed to a castle in the distance made of crumbling stone, a sprawling, decaying place.

  Skarde started walking to the castle, but the noaidi stayed behind by the rock. Perhaps guarding it, perhaps because this was something that Skarde had to do on his own.

  Skarde walked along the crimson river. At times he was certain it was actual blood flowing, like he was following an artery of some giant beast. Other times, it looked like red-tinted water. Sometimes he saw hands poking through the surface, and if he looked too closely, he saw faces too.

  He followed the river as it led him toward the ocean shore and the castle, and as he approached, he saw two people on horseback set off from the crumbling entrance, coming toward him. There was something about them that was off-putting, like the horses didn’t move the way they should, or didn’t seem quite right, even at a distance.

  But as the horses got closer, Skarde saw what was so strange about them.

  They were made of bone and metal and stone.

  A crimson mane and tail of twigs and leaves.

  Fire that leaked from their nostrils.

  And above them sat cloaked men with no faces, only dark space beneath the hoods.

  They were his escorts, waiting patiently for Skarde to approach them before the faceless men turned their horses around, one on either side of Skarde, leading him to the castle.

  Skarde kept glancing at the horses as they walked beside him at an uneven pace, at their hooves of iron, their skeleton legs of copper intertwined with muscle and veins. Smoke leaked from the horses’ eye sockets and mouths, nostrils that belched flames. With each hit of their iron hooves on the ice-crusted snow, sparks shot out.

  Eventually they reached the castle and, up close, Skarde could see it was just ruins. Inside everything was red and black and soulless.

  The horses and their riders stayed out front, guarding the entrance, and Skarde stepped inside, the stone flooring beneath his feet uneven, snow and red leaves blown inside the cavernous, cold room, making it look like it was splattered with blood.

  Come forward, the voice said again. It came from the darkness at the back of the castle, where the room disappeared into a void. Come forward and claim your throne.

  Skarde hesitated, then stepped forward, stopping where the light started to fade into black. It seemed as thick as tar and he had the notion that if he stepped forward, inky hands would drag him in.

  “A throne?” Skarde asked into the void. “My throne?”

  The voice said nothing.

  “Where am I?” Skarde went on.

  You are in the Red World, the voice said. This will be your world, once you claim your throne. There are many worlds, many layers, of which you will discover, places you can go that no humans will be able to go. Some of these places you will be able to create yourself. This is one of them.

  The way the voice said humans gave Skarde a pause.

  “Are you not human?” he asked.

  The voice let out a mirthless laugh. I am not. And soon, neither will you be. You will become something else. One with the darkness, one with the madness, one with the power of eternal life, a power you can grant to others, to make them just like you. The power and control of blood.

  Skarde stood where he was, feeling fear once again.
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  Do not be afraid, the voice said. Fear is something for humans, not for what you will become. Fear is what they will feel when they look at you, knowing the darkness that has replaced your heart and runs in your veins. Now, come closer and look me in the eye and I will give you what you’ve come here for.

  Skarde took in a deep breath, wanting to turn around and leave. But at the same time, he realized it wouldn’t be so easy. He was in this world now, not the one he knew, and he was at the mercy of this place, of that voice. He had no choice.

  This was what he wanted. This was what he asked for.

  He took a step into the darkness and as he imagined would happen, the darkness reached out for him. He let it take him into the black until it brought him to a stop.

  His eyes adjusted.

  He was in some big dark space, with walls that turned into smooth, leaking rock, like a cave, like he was underground, that stretched up and up into a red lightning sky.

  In the flashes of crimson, he saw a giant creature sitting on top of an equally large throne. A glimpse of horns and eyes and battered wings and decay. A sight so terrible that Skarde had to quickly look away, as if every human instinct he had knew that no one living should ever see such a thing, could ever comprehend it. To stare at it was to die.

  He looked down at the base of the chair instead.

  At the cloven hooves of the beast.

  At the voluptuous naked woman at the creature’s feet.

  She was lying there on her side, staring at Skarde with so much love and adoration that he was immediately hard, and his blood was running hot.