The first was, “Vengeance.” It depicted an angry sea and a deep purple sky at dawn. The clouds and water seemed to overlap, creating the visage of a sweeping dragon that roared toward land.
The second was called, “Soul.” Taken an hour or so before the sun set over calm seas, shades of yellow and gold twirled with the sun and seemed to create a dragon at peace.
The third was labeled, “Fury.” Caught at night, it was an unusual picture that captured the full moon shining over the ocean in the wake of a bad storm. Prisms of blue, a dragon appeared to materialize out of nowhere. Anger burned in its eyes, caught by the reflection of lunar light on the water.
The fourth was, “Pride.” Shades of deep blue and purple, lightning splintered the sky, and the visage of a dragon seemed to appear, unfazed by the weather. Almost as if it defied nature itself.
“Good thing this is a big house with lots of space.” Sean squeezed her hand. “Because these definitely deserve to be shown off.”
“Only if my sisters agree,” she said as she continued to analyze them.
“Of course, we agree,” Sam said gaily as she placed a beer and a margarita between them and flashed her straight, white teeth at Sean in a wolfish grin. “C’mon guys, we’ve only got a few weeks left of summer. Let’s party!”
They chuckled and shook their heads as Sam danced around the room before she linked arms with Mema Angie and they swung in circles. When they looked Sean’s way in invitation, his eyes widened, and he pulled Cybil into his arms, declaring, “Already dancing.”
“I hate dancing,” Cybil mumbled and scooped his phone off the table in passing.
“Me too,” he said. “That’s why we’re gonna pretend till they get distracted by the lobster rolls. They’re too damn jolly.”
“Right,” she agreed and clicked into his photo album as he wrapped an arm around her lower back and pulled her a little too close.
“Um,” she began to say but trailed off as she started to scroll through the pictures of the tree.
“Um what?” he murmured.
“Huh?” She shook her head, not sure what they had been talking about as an image became clearer and clearer through the turbulent leaves.
“I’ll be damned,” she whispered and sent it to her email before she clicked on the picture of the Yggdrasill. “Double damn.”
“What?” he said.
Though tempted to pull the pictures up on her widescreen TV, she didn’t want to ruin everyone’s good time so she showed Sean the tree first. “Look at this. Do you see it?”
She watched him closely as he narrowed his eyes at the picture. As she suspected, he appeared troubled. “I’m not sure what I should be—”
“Knock it off, Sean,” she said softly. “I know you see the man’s face and the dragon tattoo on his neck.”
She flipped to the picture of the ash with the Yggdrasill symbol. “And you see that too don’t you?”
It was hard to miss considering the carving glowed.
Sean’s eyes met hers and his voice lowered. “We need to talk.”
“I’m glad to hear you finally admit it.”
“We’re heading out to the garage,” Cybil announced as she pulled Sean after her. “We’ll be right back.”
“Don’t do anything I wouldn’t do,” Sam called out with an envious smile.
A few minutes later, Cybil and Sean sat beside each other on a workbench in the garage. After a long swig of beer, he told her things that helped make sense of what she had been experiencing.
“I knew Megan, the woman who lived here before me. She was my best friend.” He sighed. “I forgot she even existed until around the time my realtor contacted me. Then it all came back. Megan, her sisters, everything.”
“Your Scottish realtor.”
“Yes.” His eyes went to hers. “The same man who contacted you.”
“I knew it.” She shook her head, disappointed. “Why not tell me sooner? I thought we were friends.”
“We are, Cybil.” His eyes didn’t quite meet hers. “You know how much I care about you.”
“Okay, then tell me what’s going on,” she said. “And I’ll tell you why you think you have feelings for me.”
His brows shot up in surprise. “I don’t have—”
“Yes you do, and we both know it.” She held his hand. “And that’s fine…and explainable. But I need answers first, okay?”
He seemed a little thrown but continued nonetheless.
“Yeah, okay.” He shot her a look. “You remind me of Megan sometimes. She was assertive too.”
“It’s the only way to be,” she said. “Now tell me what’s going on.”
“It’s hard to understand. To piece together.” He clenched his jaw. “But after the Scotsman came, I started to remember things. Megan, Veronica…and Amber. How much she had meant to me. The only reasonable explanation I can come up with is that someone must’ve wiped my memory.”
Sean pulled out his wallet and handed her a picture. “This is them. All three sisters.” He looked at her with a worried, almost sad expression before he pointed out who each one was. “But now they’re gone.”
“Where?” she murmured, eying the attractive women before she looked at him. “Where’d they go, Sean?”
He took another long swig of beer. “You wouldn’t believe me if I told you.”
She set aside her drink. “Try me.”
So he told her a fantastical story. How each sister had vanished from Winter Harbor. He told her about Rune staves and stones with Viking symbols that apparently transported them back in time to ninth-century Scandinavia.
“Once all my memories returned, I realized the last time I saw Amber was in February of 2015.” He took another swig of beer. “So she’s been gone for eighteen months.”
Cybil squeezed his hand and kept her voice soft. “You really cared about her, didn’t you?”
“I did,” he said with a touch of sadness. “She must’ve used some sort of magic to let me down easy though because I’ve been drawn to Julie for a while now.”
“Yet you two haven’t gotten together,” Cybil said.
“Not really.” He took the picture back and stared at it. “Something’s just not clicking. Not like with Amber.”
“Are you still in love with Amber?”
“In love?” He shook his head. “No…I don’t think so. I’m not sure I ever was.”
“You were.” Cybil tapped the picture. “But she’s not the love of your life. Trust me. There’s someone else out there for you.”
“You sound convinced.” Sean’s brows drew together as he looked at her. “Care to share?”
“She’s coming. Soon. And she’s not Julie.” Cybil braced her hands on the edge of the bench. Though wary of telling him too much, he could clearly handle it based on what he’d just divulged. “You think you’re attracted to me because I’m connected to her somehow. A link.”
Her eyes met his and she took a deep breath before continuing. “Sean, I’m a prophet. I see or sense things before they happen.”
He eyed her for a long moment before he said, “Okay.” Then he nodded and came clean. “Your lawyer’s real name is Grant MacLomain, or Grant Hamilton depending on who you ask. For whatever reason, he wanted you and your sisters to move here. He never said why just that it was important. When the ash tree started growing, and I became familiar with your photography, I figured something was up. After seeing that Yggdrasill carved into the root today, I’m sure of it.”
“So the tree’s fairly new,” she whispered.
“Yup.” His gaze held hers. “It started growing a few months after I bought the house. So maybe a year and a half ago.”
“Yet it looks ancient.”
“That’s right.”
Cybil considered him for a few moments, not sure she wanted an answer. “And somehow all of this is connected to my dragon pictures?”
“It makes sense,” Sean polished off his beer, “considering the men Meg
an and her sisters traveled back in time to be with were dragon-shifters.”
A shiver of awareness rippled through her. One she had felt again and again since moving here. So now she knew for certain that the warnings she’d gotten in her dreams from the man beneath the tree were true. She needed to keep her sisters away. She needed to keep them safe.
But how was she supposed to do that?
After all, they were of dragon blood too.
All of them except for her.
“You’ve got that same haunted look in your eyes that you get when you’re staring at the house,” Sean murmured. “Now I’m starting to understand why.” He snorted. “Hell, you’re a prophet. I have to say, I never saw that one coming.”
“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you sooner.” She shook her head. “I’m sure you can understand, it’s just not something I tell people.”
“Not even your sisters?”
“Nope. Only my dad knew.” Cybil decided it was best to share everything regardless how difficult. “He’s also the only other person who knew that my sisters are dragon-shifters.” She released a shaky sigh. “Heck, they don’t even know what they are. Not yet anyway. Hopefully never.”
“No shit,” he said as surprise then compassion lit his eyes. He wrapped an arm around her shoulder. “I’m glad you at least had your dad to share all this with.”
Cybil merely nodded and left it at that. She had been close to her father and still felt the pangs of his loss.
Evidently sensing her need to move on, he said, “So your sisters are dragon shifters and don’t even know it.” He shook his head. “That’s incredible.”
“Tell me about it.” She was grateful she finally had another person to share with. “Try being the only one holding everything together over the years. My biggest task was trying to keep them from thinking they were going crazy.”
He looked at her oddly. “So I take it they’ve almost shifted?”
“They came close,” she said. “But something always keeps it from happening.”
“What does that mean?” he asked. “They came close?”
“It doesn’t matter.”
“But I’m interested.”
“Really?” She eyed him. “Why?”
“Outside of the fact that anyone would be...” There was a hint of emotion in his voice. “I’d kinda like to know more about who Amber ended up with…because Kol was half dragon.”
“You know his name,” she said softly.
“Yeah, I know his name.”
“All right.” Cybil squeezed his hand again. “Sometimes their skin glistened unnaturally if they got too worked up. Other times, their eyes brightened when they shouldn’t have. Almost catlike for a second or two.”
His brows shot up. “Really?”
“Really.”
She was about to say more when the door burst open. Samantha peeked her head in, her eyes expectant before she locked on them and frowned. “Darn, I was hoping to catch you two in action.”
“No party to be found here,” Cybil quipped and grinned.
Sam rolled her eyes. “My party planning will likely come to a grinding halt considering Lauren just showed up. Get in here before I shoot her. Gawd is she dull.”
“Yeah, yeah. Get back in there,” Cybil said. “I’m coming.”
“You better be,” Sam shot before she vanished.
“She’s hard on Lauren,” Sean said.
“Always has been.” Cybil took a few sips from her margarita. “But believe it or not the party planner and the botanist really do love each other.”
“How is Samantha doing with her new business?”
“Awesome, actually. She’s a natural.” Cybil grinned as she stood. “She’s doing so well she’ll be competing on Shark Tank.”
Sean laughed. “You’re shitting me.”
“Nope.” Cybil laughed as well. “Apparently the idea of hosting divorce and break-up parties and all it entails is becoming a big hit.”
“Close one door and open another, eh?”
“You bet.” She pulled him after her. “Let’s go head off a civil war before it begins.”
“Hey.” Sean stopped her. “Are we okay? Have we overwhelmed each other with too much information?”
She faced him. “What do you think?”
“I think I’m good.” He squeezed her hand and looked a little deeper into her eyes. “I also think I’ll believe the whole I’m-meant-for-another-girl when I see it.”
She quirked the corner of her mouth. “Well, at least you’re not focusing on the whole I’m-a-prophet thing.”
He grinned. “Just another bump in the road.”
“So I’m a bump.”
“You’re something,” he said softly.
Their eyes held for a long moment. In another life, one not dictated by a higher power, she would have enjoyed falling in love with a guy like Sean. But something else was happening. Something she had no control over.
Change.
The man beneath the tree flashed through her mind.
All she had seen of him so far were snippets and shadows. Yet tonight as she looked at the leaves in the picture, she finally saw a smidgen more. His pale blue eyes. New angles of his face. More dimensions.
Then there were his emotions.
Her emotions.
His need to fight their connection was as strong as hers.
Yet there was more…she had heard it whisper through her mind when she looked at the Yggdrasill.
Her Viking finally had a name.
Heidrek Sigdir.
Chapter Two
“FEELING HOT, HOT, hot,” Samantha sang as she lounged with her legs bent over the backside of the couch and her butt wiggling in time to the music. Her face hung upside down over the edge of the seat, giving everyone an ample view of her cleavage.
“You are being indecent, Samantha,” Lauren said, her eyes skirting to Sean as she nibbled on her lobster roll from the opposite couch.
Sam chuckled. “I’m being human, Ms. Stiff.” She grinned. “Sign your damn divorce papers already and try it out. It’s not half bad.”
“She’s right.” Mema Angie smiled at Sam. “You are being indecent.” But then she swung around until she was upside down in the same position looking at Lauren. “But it’s quite fun. You should try it, dear.”
Appalled, Lauren shook her head and continued studying her cell phone as if it offered an escape from all the horror. Sean, not seeming to notice them, lounged back with a full stomach and worked on another beer as he watched a Patriot’s pre-season game.
Cybil eyed Lauren discreetly while she looked at Heidrek in the picture of the ash tree. Ever the politician’s wife, her sister wore business slacks and a tasteful shirt buttoned up to the neck. Remarkably beautiful, petite and barely pushing five-foot-two, her blond hair was tied back tightly.
Sam pulled her temples back and eyed Lauren. “You know your face is going to rip right off if you keep wearing your hair like that.”
“Samantha,” Mema Angie chastised.
“What?” Sam did a backward somersault off the couch until she sat cross-legged in front of Lauren. “I’m serious.” She tapped Lauren’s knee and gestured toward the glass of wine in her sister’s hand. “Take a real sip. Not a pretend one.”
“I am not pretending,” Lauren said crisply, not bothering to look at Sam.
So Samantha shimmied closer, propped her elbows on either side of Lauren and offered her best puppy dog eyes. “Pa-lease.”
“No.”
“Please.”
“Leave me alone.”
Sam pouted and squeezed Lauren’s knee, her number one tickle spot. “Please.”
Lauren fought a smile and pushed Sam’s hand away. “No. I am enjoying my wine at the current rate in which I’m drinking it, thank you.”
“Ugh.” Sam rolled her head on her neck then huffed, “Fine,” before she sprang to her feet, plunked down on Sean’s lap and purred in his ear, “How ‘bout y
ou? Want another beer?”
He wrapped his arm around her waist and nodded absently as he watched the game.
“Oh, come on.” She whacked his chest. “Everyone needs to stop being so boring.”
“Darling, I’m not boring in the least,” Mema Angie declared, still upside down.
“You’re right, you’re not.” Sam grinned and started tickling Sean. “And nobody else needs to be either.”
He didn’t say a word but growled in her ear and tickled her to the point of distraction before he tossed her on the opposite couch and headed for the kitchen.
Cybil smiled. Sam finally seemed to be free of her ex-husband and doing well for herself. Yet she sometimes wondered how genuine it all was.
They had been high school sweethearts. For all intents and purposes, Rick had been the love of Samantha’s life. Was it so easy to move past that? She had no idea because she couldn’t relate. But she did sense a rocky future for her lighthearted, flirtatious sister. One weighed down not by the future but by the past.
Her eyes went to Lauren, a sister who faced the opposite of Samantha’s plight. She would be weighed down by the future, and things of her past would almost seem light of heart though they were stifling.
Her eyes drifted to her photographs.
What did they mean?
Because they were part of this somehow.
Vengeance. Soul. Fury. Pride.
The previous storm had abated, but a new one was rolling in, its distant thunder rumbling through her thoughts as her eyes returned to Heidrek. Yet another man she wasn’t allowed to possess. Because if one thing remained true, love didn’t belong in a prophet’s life. It could never be real. Not when you constantly saw other people’s futures. More so, when you saw inside their hearts.
And no heart was one hundred percent devoted.
At least not to her.
Having long ago accepted that, she had embraced protecting and steering her sisters in the right direction. The safest course she could find based on what she knew about them. And they were all so very different. It was a life full of predictable unpredictability. That was the best way she could put it. She lived for them because though they didn’t know it, they were unstable, teetering on the edge of something they did not understand.
Rise of a Viking (The MacLomain Series: Viking Ancestors' Kin Book 1) Page 2
