She wanted him all over her, inside her. Penetrating her. The sharp stab of the storm lashed over her skin, and Freyja opened herself to it, power crackling through her.
The tips of her hair flickered with static. As if he felt the change in her, Rurik thrust his hips against her, hands shackling her wrists as he pinned them above her head. Hard lips captured hers, brutal and ravenous. No kiss to steal her breath, not this time. This was meant to own, to possess her.
And it did.
Freyja threw her head back, breathless with need. Thunder rumbled through the building, the storm lancing the air outside. She felt it within her, lightning flickering along her nerves as Rurik’s roughened cheek rasped against her throat. Her heart pounded like a drum as his arms slid around her, bringing her into his powerful embrace. Hands slid up her back, locking her in place as his tongue darted down to the crevice between her breasts. The sharp nip of teeth stung against her tender skin, marking her. Freyja dug her fingers into his scalp, helpless to resist.
What was she doing? With a stranger, no less?
But then his hand slid over the black wool of her dress, cupping the unbound weight of her breast in his palm, and Freyja’s protest died on her lips.
For she was curious, despite knowing the danger to her reputation, her heart, her body, despite everything…. Not once had she ever felt such desire for a man. Just a little taste, she told herself. To see what he would do, how it would feel.
Thunder cracked, rattling the iron sheeting on the roof. A drop of icy rain splashed across her face, shocking her. Then Rurik brushed aside the neckline of her dress, his hot mouth capturing her nipple.
There was no more thought of protest. Freyja gasped in shock, throwing her head back as his tongue traced torturous circles around the aching bud. Then his hands were beneath her bottom, hauling her up, moving her legs around his hips. His body nestled between her thighs, the hot surge of his erection brushing against her hip.
Yes. Yes. More.
“Curse you,” Rurik breathed, drawing back just a little. One hand thrust against the stable wall behind her for stability, the muscles in his forearm tightening. “I’m trying to go slowly.” He laughed, breathless as he nipped at her jaw. “You taste delicious.”
Don’t stop. Freyja dug her nails into the hard muscle of his shoulders.
“I won’t.” The rumble came deep from his throat, the sound trailing over her skin. Then his mouth captured hers again and though her mind fought to latch on to something, she couldn’t chase the thought down.
Not with his hips thrusting against hers, the rasp of his buttons riding over the sensitive skin of her inner thighs. Not with his tongue pressing into her mouth, practically daring her to meet him back. Not with his hand sliding over the small of her back, and pressing her harder against him.
His erection brushed between her thighs, thick and heavy, and Freyja’s eyes shot wide open at the sudden shock of sensation that streaked through her. Outside, lightning flashed, the light searing her eyes as it flickered between the gaps in the timber door. All she could see were bands of light as she shut her eyes, her moan fading against the thunderous wind as Rurik’s body rode over hers, again and again, taking her closer to an edge she wanted to throw herself off—
A primal scream filled the air, echoing across her skin and rattling the roof of the stable.
Freyja felt Rurik freeze, his face lifting from hers and his hard body pinning her to the wall. Her heart thundered a ragged vibration in her ears.
“What is it?” she whispered, her hands still clasping his shirt.
He looked at her, eyes drugged and dazed in the low light, his body easing away from her. Wind battered the stables, another piercing war cry shattering the fury of the storm. It reverberated through the village like the call of an enormous horn.
A chill spiraled all the way through her.
She knew that cry.
She could feel the might of the great beast soaring past, its wings thrusting a downwash of wind over the tiny buildings and his power pulling at her.
Rurik shoved away from her, striding toward the door. He cracked it open, rain whipping over his hardened frame and wetting him instantly. Lightning flickered in the streets, too often for it to be natural. It stabbed the ground again and again, as if driven by something beyond the whim of earthly law.
“The dreki,” she whispered, and hurried after him.
Rurik’s body spilled heat through her as he glanced down, lashes wet with rain. “Stay here.”
Her thighs were wet with need, her body still trembling. One kiss, one touch, had shattered her resolve. How lucky for her the dreki had broken the moment, for she had little doubt she would otherwise be lying on her back in one of the stalls right now, with her skirts around her hips and a “Yes” on her lips.
Freyja didn’t know what was more dangerous. The wyrm outside? Or the man watching her with hot need still burning in his golden eyes?
“He won’t hurt me,” she whispered, pressing between him and the door to see. Rain stung her flushed lips, little razors of sensation against her cheeks.
The lightning lit the sky again, revealing the flash of wings over the rooftops. Light gleamed silver over scales. Beautiful. Dangerous. And so compelling she almost stepped out into the rain to see more of him.
Rurik hauled her back against his chest with a hiss, his arms locking over her breasts. “Do you have no sense, woman?”
He muscled her inside with appalling ease, slamming the door shut behind them and leaving her light blind in the darkness. Another primitive scream cut the air above them, and she looked up. Something whipped against the roof and Freyja screamed as Rurik drove her down into the straw, his heated body covering hers. Shards of timber lashed them both, an enormous sheet of iron tumbling where they’d just been standing. The noise ricocheted around the stables. Hanna squealed, and another horse snorted.
Then it finally fell silent.
Freyja trembled, feeling the press of Rurik’s hips against her bottom. His weight shifted as rain drove inside the hole in the roof, and he let her lift her head.
“You’re not hurt?” he asked.
“There… there are two of them,” she whispered.
“Aye.” A grim tone. “Foolish Freyja. Did you not see?”
“See what?”
“You spoke of the golden wyrm beneath Krafla,” he said, looking up with a hard expression darkening his face. “And the one outside was silver.”
Not her dreki. As if he read her face, Rurik’s gaze softened. “Not yours, no.” He levered himself to his feet. “Stay here. And do not come out until I come for you.”
“Where are you going?”
“To see who dares to enter the golden wyrm’s domain,” he replied, in a hard-edged voice.
Chapter 6
Rurik strode through the storm, the rain plastering his shirt to his chest.
Spreading his arms wide, he summoned the power to transform, a surge of fury igniting in his chest. How dare these interlopers intrude in his lands? When he’d been banished from the court at Hekla, he’d claimed the north of Iceland, and none dared trespass. The dreki queen insisted Rurik was not to be roused; both out of a sense of wariness for his might, and simply because she knew how much the isolation would cut at him.
Amadea was more serpent than dreki, in some ways.
And this could not be tolerated. He felt his arms lengthen and—
“Where did it go?” a man bellowed.
Rurik froze, power whispering through his veins. He stood on the knife-edge of the shift, the dreki punching inside his ribs as it waited for him to free it.
A hand caught his arm and Rurik suppressed the change as he whirled, his head swaying for a second at the sudden loss of momentum.
“Which way?” Haakon demanded, searching the skies. Raindrops clung to his blond eyelashes, highlighting the arctic blue of his eyes. In them, Rurik could just make out the faint madness of obsession.
“There are two of them,” Rurik said, gesturing to the south. “They went that way.”
Toward his home.
Fury caused the vein in his temple to throb. His gold, his lands, his volcano. If they thought for one second he’d tolerate—
“Two?” Haakon met his gaze. “Mother of God.” He crossed himself, then turned for the stables. “I need to get the horses.”
Rurik was seconds away from tearing the dragon hunter’s throat out and simply erupting into flight when he caught sight of Freyja, peering through the stable door.
It swayed his intentions as nothing else would.
This was not done between them.
She’d surrendered to his touch, moaning beneath his kiss in a way that made his blood run hotter than lava.
But the second he revealed his hand, her wariness would return and he would lose all chance at claiming her.
Rurik let his power ebb until he could feel the rain stinging his skin once again.
“Have care, Haakon,” he said quietly. “You know not what you face.”
A twisted plot that threatened to sweep innocents into its midst, for the arrival of two dreki could mean nothing more than war, and he was certain he knew who sent them. Amadea wouldn’t care if humans were killed. But he did. There were rules—dreki laws—he abided by, and they were innate to his nature. The queen and her brother cared little for moral restraint, but there were enough dreki still at court who did.
Honor and honesty were vital to dreki nature.
“Perhaps it is the wyrms who don’t know what is coming,” Haakon growled, swinging up onto his black Friesian when his man brought it out for him. Haakon reined the beast into a tight circle, shooting a look at his men.
Rurik caught the reins. “I doubt that.”
The two men stared at each other.
“This is not your fight, scholar,” Haakon spat. Tension knotted in his clenched knuckles. “And I will not yield to pleas nor empathy.”
“Nor sense, so it seems.”
Haakon’s lips thinned. “The last time I saw a storm like this was the day I first laid eyes upon my wife. She was lost in the forest, and the clouds brewed like this above me. I swore then I would have her, and I would protect her forever.” He tugged the reins free of Rurik’s hold. “And I failed her. If the dreki has her, then I will take her back. If he has killed her, then I will have vengeance, pure and bloody. And nothing you say can sway me.”
There was one thing Rurik could say, but he did not know enough of the story to speak of what he knew. This was Árdís’s secret. Wasn’t it?
“Gunnar, get the men ready! We’ll lose them if we wait too long!” Haakon yelled over his shoulder.
“What about the ballista?” called the man he’d addressed as Gunnar.
“Leave it.” Haakon whirled his horse, but it balked as Rurik’s grip tightened on the bridle. “Here, now!”
“You’re a fool to leave your machine here,” Rurik told him, with strangely glittering eyes. “You face two dreki, and you have not the ability to defend yourself without it. Don’t let vengeance blind you. Or all you shall do is see your men dead, and your bones blistered with dreki fire.”
Haakon bared his teeth. “Let go of my horse, scholar.”
Rurik considered him for a long moment. He let go of the reins, stepping out of Haakon’s way. “Let their deaths be on your head then.”
“Bring the ballista, Gunnar! You can join me at Krafla,” Haakon snapped, and drove his horse into the dying beats of the storm. But he glanced over his shoulder toward his men as he went. “Hyaah!”
“So be it,” Rurik whispered, still full of doubt about whether he had done the right thing. He believed in fate, and no dreki should pit his will against that capricious entity. He had done his best to sway the man.
Let Haakon ride into his destiny. Rurik had other matters to resolve.
These newcomers, these challengers, would find no entry to his lair. He’d sealed it with his power when he left, and there were few still left on this earth who could cut through his magic.
They would know that, which made him wonder just why they were here.
What mad scheme did Amadea plot now?
“You think he won’t return,” Freyja said, as Rurik stared after Haakon. She’d heard their argument, and a part of her knew Rurik’s focus on her had shifted.
Lanterns filled the night, and Haakon’s men tried to hitch his supply wagon to the horses. They’d thrown a tarpaulin over the ballista, but the rain was coming down in steady sheets now.
“Fool.” Or at least that was what she thought Rurik murmured. The wind snatched the word from his mouth as he turned back toward her.
“Why did you warn him?” Freyja asked, wiping the hair from her damp cheeks. She didn’t wish to see that ballista make its way inland. “He’ll kill one of them with that ballista, and I thought you were on the dreki’s side?”
Rurik glanced toward the south darkly. “I have no wish to see that machine pierce any dreki’s hide. But I think without it Haakon will be little more than a delicious morsel to those dreki, and that I do not wish for. There is a debt to be repaid there, and his golden dreki will pay it when he finds her.”
“Her?”
Rurik looked at her sharply. “Krafla’s dreki did not take his wife. There is only one other who wears golden scales, and I think Haakon’s fate leads him toward her.” He shrugged, and she couldn’t help noticing the way his shirt clung wetly to him. “I believe they are... destined to meet again.”
Freyja watched Haakon as he vanished at the edge of the town. “So, you save his death for another?”
“What makes you think death is his fate?”
Freyja frowned. “You’re playing word games with me.”
“Perhaps. You seem awfully insistent upon the fact dreki eat humans.”
“Unlike others,” she snorted, “I do not fall for those foolish romantic stories people like to tell.”
“No?” A faint smile touched his lips. “Did your dreki eat you all up, Freyja? Or did it leave you alone? You still haven’t told me the story of your meeting.”
Freyja frowned, and wrapped her arms around her. “It ate my ram. Perhaps its belly was full when I saw it?”
She almost imagined Rurik growled under his breath. “You eat lamb, do you not? Perhaps the dreki likes lamb too? That does not mean it eats people. There are treaties in place to help promote peace between both species. I think the last thing it would do is break the treaty. Besides,” he looked thoughtful, “those foolish, romantic stories had to come from somewhere.”
She threw her hands up in disgust. Virgin tributes, and happily-ever-afters.... They belonged in fairy tales, and nothing else. “You’re as bad as my mother. She too dreamed of forbidden romances. Of dreki walking among us in human form, and seducing stupid girls.”
That faint smiled deepened. “Who says they do not?”
“Have you seen one? Has anyone? Not in recent times, if ever. Even though they can change shape, there is always a touch of the dreki still in them. They say their eyes remain lizard-like in appearance, and the sight of the holy cross reveals their true form.”
“And when they say this, are they speaking of dreki or of your devil?” he mused. “It sounds like someone shaped those particular stories.”
Of all the.... “You are a very frustrating man.”
“I would like to believe. That is all. One day I think you will meet a dreki in mortal flesh, and then you will believe too. We all need a little bit of romance in our lives. A little bit of magic. You shouldn’t trust all of the stories, but you should believe some, Freyja. After all, you’ve met Krafla’s dreki. And he is clearly interested in you, if nothing else, from the sounds of your story.”
Freyja snorted, and gathered a handful of her skirts as she headed for the inn. �
��You’re as big a fool as Haakon is. And I’m going in to bed. This is quite too much excitement for me for one night. Goodnight.”
“Freyja—”
She turned, wind whipping her skirts past her and blowing his hair back off that clean, masculine face. For a second she thought he was about to plunge them straight back into that reckless, passionate moment they’d shared in the stables. A moment when something inside her—something she’d never even encountered before—overruled logic and sense, letting the storm erupt within. Freyja’s heart skipped a beat.
“Would you like to break your fast with me?” he asked, instead.
Freyja hesitated. A part of her still felt that foolish, breathless moment in the stables, and the roughness of his hands on her skin. Heat flooded her cheeks. This man was dangerous. “I’m sorry, but I intend an early start. I need to get home and see to my father.”
Thought raced through his amber eyes, but then he merely smiled and slid his hands into his pockets. “I will bid you adieu then. Until we meet again.”
“I doubt that,” she whispered.
Somehow he heard her. “You should not doubt fate, Freyja. That is like spitting in her eye.”
Freyja shivered, one hand on the inn’s doorknob. She could not escape this mysterious man fast enough. “I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in anything I cannot touch with my own hands, or see with my eyes.”
Rurik turned to eye the storm. “Why does that not surprise me?” His smile widened, or the half of it she could see did. “Run, Freyja. You might not believe in fate, but I do. We will meet again. I am certain of it. And when we do....”
He looked back toward her, amber eyes ablaze in the darkness of the storm, and Freyja jerked the door open. That look in his eyes spoke of inevitability, and she had the breathtaking feeling she wanted to run toward it, throw herself off that cliff.
She no longer knew whether she could trust herself. Not when Rurik was involved. For she wanted something only he could give her, and while a part of her yearned, just once, to touch the sun, another part of her remained wary. Perhaps he could teach her what passion felt like, what love felt like, but there was always the risk he might shatter her well-protected heart instead.
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