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  Ruled

  Vampires of Scarlet Harbor Book Three

  Keira Blackwood

  Copyright © 2018 by Keira Blackwood

  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.

  This is a work of fiction. Any resemblance to any actual persons, places, or events is coincidental. All characters in this story are at least 18 years of age or older.

  The cover utilizes stock images licensed by the author. The model(s) depicted have no connection to this work or any other work by the author.

  Edited by Liza Street

  Contents

  Introduction

  1. Chapter One

  2. Chapter Two

  3. Chapter Three

  4. Chapter Four

  5. Chapter Five

  6. Chapter Six

  7. Chapter Seven

  8. Chapter Eight

  9. Chapter Nine

  10. Chapter Ten

  11. Chapter Eleven

  12. Chapter Twelve

  13. Chapter Thirteen

  14. Chapter Fourteen

  15. Chapter Fifteen

  16. Chapter Sixteen

  17. Chapter Seventeen

  18. Chapter Eighteen

  19. Chapter Nineteen

  20. Chapter Twenty

  21. Chapter Twenty-One

  22. Chapter Twenty-Two

  23. Chapter Twenty-Three

  24. Chapter Twenty-Four

  25. Chapter Twenty-Five

  26. Chapter Twenty-Six

  Epilogue

  Also by Keira Blackwood

  Misdelivered: Chapter One

  Misdelivered: Chapter Two

  Grizzly Bait: Chapter One

  Grizzly Bait: Chapter Two

  About the Author

  Newsletter

  Introduction

  Ruled marks the end of the Vampires of Scarlet Harbor series, and that goodbye is bittersweet. But it’s time for Tyr to come home, and for the happy ending everyone deserves.

  In a thousand years of existence, Tyr has not found his amor aeternus and expects he never will. He’s lost after he was forced to kill, breaking his oath of non-violence. It takes a special connection to remind him of the man he wants to be. This is Tyr and Ashley’s story.

  Chapter One

  Tyr

  December 20, 873

  Unsettled Icelandic Coast

  The island was known by many names. Snæland rang truer than the rest, for more than anything else the island was, as the word suggested, a Land of Snow.

  Waves crashed against black sand. The shallow water along the coast appeared whiter, yet also more majestically cerulean than it did along the banks of the Motherland. A blanket of white powder coated the rest of the landscape, from trees to blunt cliffs to open fields. It was said that summer brought as much green as the winter brought snow, but summer was not within sight.

  Some traveled to this place for trade, others for the prospect of staking claim to its uncharted lands. Most were like me—rower, farmer, builder—whatever the master required. The man who’d most recently bought me was a warrior long past his prime, and a fool. He’d been on the wrong side of every trade I’d seen him make, and had allowed every bit of what he earned to dwindle away. That was the reason we were taken to Snæland—because there was nothing else left.

  Icy wind bit my ears, and cut straight through thick layers of fur. I was grateful for the warmth of the thick hair upon my head, and that upon my face, though nothing combated the piercing gales. My shoulders ached, and I’d long ago lost feeling in my limbs. Surrounded by trees, I lifted the end of another log from the snowy forest floor, and hoisted it onto my shoulder. Arne and Geir pushed and pulled their long saw beside me, dropping another lumbering pine to the ground. The crash echoed through the cluster of trees, dampened by the powder below. The same sound repeated, and again from another direction, a thunder booming through the forest.

  I moved one foot in front of the other, following the heavily carved path back toward the settlement. The snow beneath my feet was tightly packed, worn down from hours of dragging trees back and forth. Ten of us carried, ten cut, ten built. Daylight was too short for breaks, and soon, darkness would fall once again.

  The first night we’d slept on the Karve, the longship that had carried us to the island. After a near endless night, we’d gone to work. Day had lasted a fraction of the time that the darkness had, and threatened to return all too soon. It was said that in warmer months the days were bright and long, but we’d have to survive winter to see it.

  White turned to gray as the sun sank behind distant cliffs. I continued toward the site of construction, toward the sounds of hammers crashing down on nails. Two others headed again for the forest, and crossed paths with me as I walked—Gunnar, with his thick yellow beard, and Astrid, with her rosy cheeks and auburn hair. No words were spoken between us—there was nothing to say, but their tense faces told me they shared my fear—there was no chance of completing the longhouse before nightfall.

  I delivered my wood, and turned back for more. Halfway between settlement and the forest, the sky turned from dark to black. Just one more log and I’d call it a night. Just one more trip and I’d be done.

  The sound started just after nightfall, after the last shreds of light seeped away—light beating of a heart, a drum.

  Boom. Boom.

  There were people in the distance—the team chopping wood, other settlers in other camps. Somewhere, someone must have been creating the music. Still, the rhythm was unsettling, more so than silence in the blackness.

  The hair standing on the back of my neck had nothing to do with the cold. And a sinking feeling clouded my wits. I had never been a superstitious man. Still, the stories haunted me—stories of vargar, cursed wolves with glowing red eyes, of wolves that transformed into creatures that looked like men, of violent death. It wasn’t difficult to imagine, not in a place of so much darkness.

  The drum grew louder as I approached the woods. BOOM. BOOM. There were no voices, no sounds of saws, nor talk of returning to camp.

  “Hello,” I called, as I reached the tree line. I could see no one, hear no one. There were only trees, snow, and still blackness.

  There was no answer.

  Squinting, I searched for signs of life between the trunks of towering trees, stepping carefully so as not to trip. At first there was nothing—only branches shaved from trees, wood pulp, footprints, and packed snow. There was no laughter, no voices.

  Then I caught a flicker of movement up ahead. Someone was there, on the ground.

  I ran forward, toward the form in the snow. I knelt beside him, and took his hand. Thick red beard, wide nose, and laugh lines around his closed eyes—it was Arne.

  BOOM. BOOM.

  “It’s going to be okay, Arne. We’ll get you back to camp. All of you,” I said. But I didn’t see any of the other men. “Where is everyone else?”

  Arne’s eyes didn’t open. He didn’t respond to me at all.

  The sound of the drum grew closer, louder. It mirrored my racing pulse, my instinct to run. But I didn’t. I rose to my feet and stepped further into the woods, searched for those who were missing.

  Sets of glowing red eyes lit up in the darkness, some on the ground, some from the trees above. I stepped away slowly, one foot, then the next. I could still run. I could make it to camp, alert the others, and live to see another day.

  My face hit the ground before I realized the creature was on my back. The snow was an ice wall on my face—hard, wet, and crushing on impact. I struggled to free myself, bu
t his hands were on my shoulders, his feet on my back.

  “You’ve been chosen.” His voice was sharp.

  Chosen for what? I couldn’t ask, my face was buried. I wished to run, to be anywhere but here.

  “I am known as Odin,” he said.

  Stabbing pain pierced my neck, and my strength was drained. The drums faded, as did my wits. He was the wolf in man’s clothing, bringer of endless night. There was no escape. My life was over.

  “Welcome to the Ulfhednar.”

  Present Day

  Atlantic Ocean

  My eyes opened, only to find a rippled metal ceiling above me. I reached over to my right, and switched on the bedside lamp. How much time had passed since I laid down to rest was uncertain, but it couldn’t be much longer before the ship arrived.

  I dressed in the ill-fitting attire that had been provided for me—slacks an inch too short, a short-sleeved shirt with shoulders two inches too narrow. Given the circumstances, I was grateful to have dry clothing of any sort.

  The feeling of solid ground beneath my feet was still foreign, a surprise with every step. Lush carpet tickled between my toes, offering no indication of the hard metal of the floor beneath. I opened the freezer, and took out a pouch of A negative.

  The hunger had been undeniable since I’d been pulled from the water. I hadn’t managed to regain the control I’d had for so many years. The mirror was a testament to that. After decades in the ocean, I should have been a water-logged husk of the man I used to be. I wasn’t.

  The face that looked back at me was one I didn’t recognize. It wasn’t due to damage, nor age. It was youth—the smooth skin of a young man. Every wrinkle had been a testament to the man that I was. All of that was stripped away with the healing power of human blood. The appearance of youth was a reminder of the lives I’d taken on that boat. It was a reminder that I’d lost everything that I stood for, and broken my promise to Lyra.

  The life that I had chosen had been stripped away, from my oath of nonviolence to my place in the world. I was distant from everything—my home, my family, even my face. I’d been consumed by the need to feed when I’d been pulled from the water, a need that hadn’t driven me in centuries. Their blood had healed the damage the water, the fish, and time had caused, and with the blood I took, the self I recognized disappeared.

  I put the unopened bag of blood back in the freezer and walked across the shipping container to the tablet by the door. I was still in awe of the technology, of how something so small could do so much. A computer the size of a book. With two taps on the glass screen, I could see outside, that it was night, and that the weeklong ship ride across the Atlantic was at an end. Bright lights grew closer, a skyline I would know no matter how many years had passed. I was home, returned to Scarlet Harbor.

  Chapter Two

  Ashley

  The gold plating was cold beneath my fingertips. It was an awesome choice—a new throne for the new me. The fabric was black velvet, the cushion—super cushiony. It was perfect for looks, and for comfort.

  With the new ‘Visit Me’ hours in place, I needed something to be right, even if it was just a chair.

  Ronaldo, shirtless and scrumptious, ushered in the next of my guests before returning to his place by the wall. There weren’t enough vampires left in my royal guard after the attack a month before, but the ones that hadn’t croaked were super loyal.

  The third vampire of the night entered and kneeled at the base of my throne’s dais. He was big, in a round way. His face looked young, too young for the bushy beard that covered it, and his scowl told me this was going to be another boring hour of whining.

  “Thank you for seeing me, Ms. King,” he said.

  I wondered if he meant anything by that. I usually got ‘your majesty,’ and ‘queen.’ If he meant to insult me, he failed.

  “Sure,” I replied. “What can I do for you, Mr…?”

  “My name is Alejandro Velasquez,” he said.

  It sounded fancy the way he rolled the words off his tongue. I figured eventually I could be one of those jet-setting vampires who toured the world in their eternal lives. But not until the dust settled—which it never seemed to do. It hadn’t been that long that I’d been queen, but I was ready for a vacation anyway.

  “I’ve come to you with a dispute over feeding ground,” he said.

  Oh great, another one of those. I rolled my eyes, but he didn’t seem to notice, or care. Either way, he kept talking.

  “It’s mine,” he said. “I’ve hunted the same block by the strip club on Nutmeg Street for years. No killing, mind you, long before you set the rule. It’s smart for business anyway, no cops if there’s no bodies. Anyway, I like the dancers. They’re just the right amount of desperate to follow me to an alley for the promise of cash.”

  Eww.

  “So everything’s been good for a long time, for always,” he said. “Then this guy shows up from nowhere, in my alley, draining one of my girls.”

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  “Beat the shit outta him,” he said. “Of course.”

  All thoughts of fancy speech were gone, replaced by genuine interest. If this guy bested the other, then why was he here? The story wasn’t over.

  “And then?” I asked.

  “I told the bastard not to come back,” he said. “Except next night, he did. This time he had two of them.”

  “The girls?” I asked.

  “Yeah,” he said. “And he had the balls to threaten me. Can you believe that? Guy comes to my place and threatens me.”

  “And you came crying to me about it?” I asked.

  “He had a gun,” Velasquez said. “Said he had those shiny purple bullets. He can’t threaten me with that and get away with it.”

  I looked up to find a pretty redhead leaning in the doorway. Violet. The grin she wore told me she was enjoying the show.

  “How old are you?” I asked Velasquez.

  “Ninety-seven,” he said.

  “Really?” I asked. “Because you sound like a child, coming to Mommy to cry instead of dealing with your problems like a big boy.”

  I nodded to Ronaldo, the guard by the wall.

  “He’s not killing. You’re not killing,” I said. “Have some complimentary blood packets and work it out yourselves. You know, like adults.”

  Velasquez’s baby face contorted with displeasure, as he looked from Ronaldo to me. The shirtless guard held out a velvet bag containing three frozen pints. It was the standard sorry-not-sorry parting gift for my subjects who had no real problem to solve.

  Velasquez rose to his feet, with a little help from Ronaldo and Orlando. The two escorted the big guy out, as was custom since that one dude threw himself at me. No weapons, no walking around unattended. New rules were always being added. It was exhausting sometimes.

  Violet stepped in and toward the wall, out of the way as they passed.

  When they were gone, I hopped down.

  “Ready?” Violet asked.

  She certainly was. A set of swords were strapped to her back, pistols to her thighs. She had her hair pulled up, the way she did when she was expecting a good fight. I looked forward to giving her one.

  “Yep,” I replied.

  Violet stood up straight and smiled before leading the way down the hall to our sparring room.

  There’d been mats on the floor when we’d started, wooden weapons on the wall. Violet had ordered all of them removed on day one. She was twice as badass as Walter, at least in spirit. I liked that. He handled me with kitty gloves, like a little kitten that could break if he even tried to pet its fluffy little fur. I was no kitten.

  “I enjoyed the show,” Violet said.

  “What?” I asked.

  I dropped my long sleeve shirt in the corner of the room, and the long puffy skirt I wore over my black leggings.

  “The way you handled that guy’s dispute,” she said. “You’re getting better at this.”

  “Oh,” I said. Violet w
asn’t exactly generous with compliments, so it made the ones I got all the more meaningful. “Thanks.”

  Violet kicked off her boots, then reached behind her head and drew two long, painfully sharp blades. She tossed one through the air to me, which I caught without getting cut.

  Violet spread her feet apart and lowered her shoulders, readying herself for my assault. A smile spread across her face, and she waved me forward. “Come at me,” she said.

  I lifted the sword—a feeling that grew a little more natural every day. With two hands on the hilt, I held the blade up in front of me, just like Violet had taught me.

  Our blades clashed, me striking, her defending. I went for different targets, just as she’d shown me: neck, arms, legs. She read every attack coming, and blocked. It just made me more eager to get in a blow.

  I stomped her foot, catching her in place, and sliced high. Violet threw her head back, falling just below the line of my strike. I tried to adjust, but she was too fast. Down on the floor, she kicked my legs out from under me, knocking me to my back. My sword clattered to the ground, just out of reach. Glad there was no wind to get knocked out my chest, I rolled to the side and reached for my blade.

  Out the corner of my eyes, I saw her, back on her feet, a flash of light on silver. This was going to hurt.

  I thrust my hand toward my teacher, using the force of motion to direct the air. Violet flew across the room, her perfect ponytail loosened and messy as her back crushed through the drywall.