💥 This is a rough draft and is unedited. Each word is battle-born. Read at your own risk, be kind, and enjoy.

Image by Benmyhre

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🫦 Read with caution. Vikings and spiciness ahead.

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The wind whips over the ship, howling through the fighting deck, sending salty spray flying through the canvas sail stretched above us. The ship pitches and dips in the turbulent waves despite its enormous bulk, like we’re nothing more than a leaf in the wind.

Water sprays over the edge, stinging my skin, and my knuckles whiten as I grip the railing, squinting through the view port.

“Heave!” Commander Henlock shouts from the rudder to the oarsmen in their compartments below deck.

“Heave!” I repeat, as his command is nearly lost to the squall. The fifty warriors manning the oars groan and row with all their might. “Heave!” I shout again. Widening my stance, I squint into the storm in search of a familiar flash of red.

Seventeen battleships left the southern port, and I’ve only seen a dozen of them in as many days. Sailing the Screaming Seas is a risk, one we are all familiar with, and yet, no matter our sacrifices and the blood we’ve spilled across Soothlund in the name of the gods, they test our armies still.

Raking my teeth over my bottom lip, I make my way across the deck, my boots finding purchase on the wet planks. Every crew member I pass is a mask of pure determination as they battle waves and wind.

With a violent gust, one of two ropes tying the sail taut above our heads snaps. The warrior tightening it loses his footing and slams onto the deck, sliding and colliding with the side of the hull as I lunge for it, tying it off once again to prevent it from doing more damage.

“Hold fast!” I bellow, my voice barely audible above the crashing storm. Even I strain to tie the thrashing fabric down. “You are Hel’s warriors!” I shout for all to hear. “You have survived far worse than a raging squall! And your home awaits you beyond the horizon!”

A chorus of shouts answers from above and below, and the crew’s spirits are bolstered.

A sudden lurch sends me stumbling, and I grab hold of a mast to steady myself. The ship groans and creaks, its timbers straining against the force of the waves. For a moment, I hold my breath as we crest a wave and plunge down the other side.

When the ship hits the water’s surface again, I make my way below deck, past the pawing, anxious horses in the stable to Leore’s quarters, only to stop at the sight of Arless in the girl’s doorway, gripping a threshold as a servant tends the retching princess. Stepping closer, I meet Arless’s tired gaze.

It has been days like this, and I have no idea how much more the princess can take.

“We need to get her off this ship,” Arless murmurs so only I can hear. The ship lurches again, and the servant holding Leore’s hair back loses her foot and goes flailing.

Arless grabs the princess as she slides, clutching the girl against her as she braces her foot against a built-in bedpost to keep her body flush with the wall.

Arless’s face is a mask of annoyance, but the gleam in her eyes as she rests her chin on Leore’s head gives her soft heart away. The princess shudders, green-gilled with dark circles under her eyes from endless days of little sleep. Seasickness is one thing, but two days of storms and as many spent watching the princess retch have been nearly unbearable.

The lanterns swing wildly from the ceiling as the ship pitches again.

“It will be all right,” Arless murmurs, stroking the girl’s hair away from her clammy face. “We are nearly there. You’ll be on solid ground soon enough.”

The princess nods, her eyes never opening. I’m not sure what’s worse, staying above deck in the cruel wind or down here with the scent of brine and sweat and vomit.

After a final, silent exchange with Arless, I turn back for the upper deck. The gray day is quickly fading to dark, and if my senses are right, we should be in Crowsgate by sundown tomorrow, and we’ll have another slew of problems to worry about then.

As if sensing my thoughts, Hagrid, the steersman, gives me a grimacing smile as I approach. “Not to worry, my lord. We’ll be back in Rockhavn, drinking ale in Filch’s Tavern, by the full moon. Even if it means sailing through the jaws of Hel herself to get there.”

I nearly laugh at that. “This is nothing to Hel’s gates,” I assure him. “I’ve been there.” But it’s what awaits us when we moor in Crowsgate that troubles me most.

***

Battleships anchor in the harbor, and as the sky darkens with the threat of another storm, I stand on the shore, staring at ruins as the crew unpacks our supplies from the rowboats. Arless helps the princess, the young girl weak and uneasy on her feet.

But all of that is overcast by the racing of my heart.

This place was home once. It was safe. It was a beacon for commerce and a place of expansion and wealth. Now, it’s a weather-ravaged carcase of soot-covered remains and the memories are as cuttingly painful as they are precious.

“Thorne.” Arless walks up beside me, her tone grave. We told ourselves we’d never come back to where our lives were destroyed in a single moment. Where our happiness ended and our vengeance was born. A place reeking of nightmares and death—the place responsible for our rebirth as Darkborn. “The last three battleships are on the horizon, which means we’re all accounted for.”

I say nothing as I scan this all but forgotten place.

“The army must rest,” she continues carefully, and gently, Arless lays her hand on my bicep. “And we need to feed.”

“Then set up camp,” I murmur, clearing the emotion from my voice. The memory of my sister and me playing in the oak wood behind the township lodges in my throat, alongside my last memory of my wife. “I have no desire to feed.” I step away, thoughts of Tilly in her knitted blue and white dress with her long flowing hair filling my mind.

Arless grabs my arm. “You know that’s not how this works.” Her tone is thick with warning. “You can’t ignore it, and it’s been days since we’ve fed. I know you’re hungry. I feel—”

“Goddammit, Ari!” I shout. “No!” I scowl at her. Sweat beads down my back and on my forehead, and my hunger pulses with its own heartbeat in my veins, elongating my teeth. But the thought of fucking and feeding in the place my wife burned to death the day I was bound to love and honor her, makes bile rise in my throat and I want to puke in disgust.

Arless only scowls back. “You will not be a danger to our warriors, Thorne. They didn’t risk their lives for us so that you could be so needlessly reckless when it matters the most.” She leans in closer, cursing me under her breath. “And you will not put Leore’s life at risk after everything we just went through.” She seethes the words, and though I know she’s right, there’s a war in my head and burning in my heart that I can’t ignore either.

“I know this is hell for you,” she whispers, her breath catching. “You know I do. But you will feed, brother.”

My nostrils flare in anger, but I know I’m being selfish. I feel Arless’s anguish. This is the worst case imaginable for us, and yet, our anatomy—our control—requires this.

My heart thrums in my ears. The bloodlust thickens my tongue and engorges my cock and muscles. I am furious and agitated, and I want nothing more than to shout and beat on my chest like a fucking animal because this is all so unfair.

Then I realize dozens of our warriors are watching us . . . Imara and Leore among them.

“Fuck!” Turning on my heel, I stride toward the relics of our past, the run-down cottages, shops, and longhouses. Everything was abandoned after the fire, because Crowsgate was no longer safe. Whoever hadn’t died at my binding ceremony fled, or was killed by the Krosses traitors.

Clenching my hands into fists, I stalk through the snow-dusted streets, my head pounding as the thirst continues to build. I am not so far gone I cannot control myself, but Arless is right. We’ve been our worst Darkborn selves, and I will never be that monster again. Even if it feels like a betrayal and kills what’s left in my soul to do it. I refuse to rob our loyal warriors of their honorable deaths, the way the Darkborn’s honor was stolen from us.

But I need space first, because stronger than the hunger is the memory of roaring flames and falling rafters. The scent of urine and burning flesh. The screams. The crying. The desperation in that final, excruciating breath when all I could think was I’d failed; I’d kept no one safe.

When the old alehouse comes into view with its caved-in roof and the remains of its heavy oak doors hanging from its hinges, partially barred shut, I fall to my knees. None of us came back here after we were turned. We were too busy learning to control our bloodlust and harness our rage. We never buried or burned anyone’s remains. We never truly said goodbye.

For all I know, my human body still lies in there with my wife. Arless and Lucian, probably somewhere in the masses, and Sylas undoubtedly lies with Letty and my sister. And the realization makes me shatter.

***

It’s full-dark when I arrive at Sy and Milla’s abandoned homestead in the hills. Not a sliver of light escapes the thick cloud cover and the first flurries of snow land on my cheeks.

The fields Sylas once toiled over are overgrown with shrubs and covered in snow. When I step inside the home, it is eerily vacant. Everything is cobwebbed and weather-beaten. The door creaks in the wind, slamming against the timber siding. Knowing it was once filled with so much life, my heart aches anew.

A few jars roll on the dusty floor as the wind howls through the rafters, and Letty’s glass wind chimes, hanging in the window by barely a thread, tinkle and clack as I pause beside her collapsed bed.

The dress she was wearing the day I brought Sylas news that Hornstalk was sacked, lies in a tattered and faded heap on the floor, like it has housed dozens of mice families in the sixteen winters since we left. It hurts to think how different our lives would have been had we heeded the old blacksmith’s warning. But as I stare at Moose’s threadbare pallet at the end of Letty’s bed, I realize our fates had been decided long before we were killed.

“Rat bastard,” I mutter. Hel was waiting for everything to come to pass, so she could seek her own vengeance in the name of the gods, and Moose had been witness to all of it. For the first time since parting ways in Soothlund, I am I grateful Sylas isn’t here. It would break him all over again to relive this.

Glancing around, I consider what I might take to the Keep to give him when he returns. The ribbons from their binding ceremony, once knotted in a design on the wall, flap in the wind and my heart cinches so tight I have to breathe through my nose so I don’t lose my shit again.

The day my sister told me she was in love with my best friend was one of the happiest days of my life because I knew I would always have them both.

When I found out I was the uncle of a beautiful baby girl, I vowed to do and be everything she needed when her parents couldn’t. I would protect her. I would spoil her. I would topple the world if anyone hurt her.

Now she’s nothing but charred remains like the rest of them.

I smell human blood long before I hear three sets of footsteps approaching, and I growl with a dangerous melding of hunger, desire, and outrage.

When her scent hits me, my cock thickens in my pants, and I practically snarl. “You risk your life following me here, Commander.”

Imara stops in the doorway, the torch in her hand bathing the interior in flickering shadows. Though, I cannot see who she has brought with her. “I risk my life every day for you, my lord.” Her sharp tongue never ceases to amaze me, but my gaze finds the pulsing of her throat immediately. My eyes nearly roll back in my head with the need to taste her.

“You should leave,” I grit out, squeezing my eyes shut.

“Gladly,” she retorts. “But I have something for you first.” Imara swallows thickly. “Two somethings, actually.” Two shieldmaidens step into view. I can smell their fear, but also their arousal, and I frown with confusion.

“Did you not demand I never feed from your shieldmaidens again?”

Imara meets my gaze in the torchlight. “Yes, well, you need to feed, and they were willing. So—” Shrugging, which is completely out of character, Imara glances around the abandoned home, but it’s sadness that crumples her features slightly, not judgement or disdain for me.

The shieldmaidens approach, one with short blonde hair and the other with long, dark braids, but my attention is on Imara as she turns and leaves.

“No,” I tell the warriors. The one with the torch lifts it higher to see my face fully. “Not here.” I nod toward the barn. “Not this place.”

There’s sadness in their eyes, an understanding, and I realize Arless told them where they would find me. “Of course, my lord,” the blonde one says.

“Grab those cloaks from the wall. They aren’t needed here anymore,” I mutter, and as the shieldmaidens collect what I will wrap them in when the deed is done, to keep them warm while their bodies replenish, I step through the house and into the doorway.

To human eyes, Imara would be a mere shadow, descending deeper into the darkness. The snow landing in her footprints begins to erase her completely, as if her surprising gesture never happened at all.

But I see the way her shoulders slump and notice her footsteps falter. She pauses at a rusted cowbell on the rotted fence, running her finger over it. She hesitates, then pulls her hand back into the warmth of her fur cloak as she peers around the homestead thoughtfully.

“Imara.”

She startles and glances back. There’s a shimmer in her eyes that wasn’t there before.

“Thank you.”

She dips her chin, clearing her throat. “I didn’t do it for you. I did it for everyone else.”

I almost smile. “Of course.” And though I dip my head in understanding, Imara holds my gaze. One heartbeat. Two. Finally, she blinks and continues down the hill, her pace quickening.

Staring after her, I have a dozen questions. But as the throbbing in my pants worsens and my fangs elongate with the need to feed, I know those are thoughts for another day.

There’s more Darkborn coming - stay tuned!

Until next time….

xo, Lindsey (and Scarlet)

P.S. If you want to read ahead in the Darkborn’s story, you can find more chapters in my Scarlet Hearts After Dark reader community. Create a free account and read for free.

The places:

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