As binding as a dreki’s oath, the goodwives often said, to indicate manners of legal standing. No dreki would willingly break his word.
She'd felt powerless when Benedikt jerked her out to the green, hooded and vulnerable. Powerless when she cowered beneath the unknown, wondering when the dreki would strike. She hated that feeling.
Yet her hands tugged at her hem, taking the small knife she wore secreted in her boot and slicing a strip of the black wool free. Shaking slightly, Freyja bound it over her eyes, the wool irritating her reddened skin. He was not taking her power away. He had asked, and she had complied. That gave her some illusion of control.
“Why?”
Power washed over her, hot and liquid, an enormous cascade of it. Every inch of her skin tingled, her stomach pooling with heat. Tidal waves of molten power. She wanted to reach out and drag her hands through it, but something warned her not to.
“Because I do not wish you to see me,” a man’s deep baritone voice said.
Freyja’s jaw dropped open, her hands rising automatically to her blindfold.
“Don’t,” he warned.
Somehow she stopped herself, though she couldn’t contain the shock. He’d said there was little reason to shift shape. And with that thought came another, unbidden. Why do the dreki hunger for virgin flesh, Freyja? Not to eat, for a certainty. Which means….
“Because we are jealous creatures,” the dreki replied, his bare feet rasping over the stone as he stepped closer. She heard skin shivering over muscle as he knelt in front of her. “We do not like it when someone has touched what is ours.”
Fingers came out of nowhere and stroked her cheek. Freyja jerked, her heart racing, but his touch was soft. Gentle. Like a man soothing a startled filly. Insanely hot, as though the volcano’s fire burned beneath his skin.
And suddenly suspicion burned within her.
This wasn’t the first time a man’s skin burned with an unnatural heat. No. It couldn’t be. Could it?
“What do you want of me?” she whispered. But she knew. Oh God, she knew. And even as she thought it, she suddenly started putting together the little puzzle pieces in her mind.
He hesitated, but not, she thought, for lack of courage. Gauging her reaction, most likely. “It is time, Freyja.”
His warm hand cupped her cheek and she softened, leaning into it. Hungering for… something. Not want, not need. So desperately did she want to be touched as if someone cared.
And this fearsome creature had never hurt her, nor betrayed her.
But had he misled her? She didn’t know the answer to that.
“Yes,” she whispered, leaning into the dreki’s touch. There was only one sure way to find out if her suspicions were true.
Let me burn my fingers, just once….
His hand caught hers, drawing her fingers to his scalding lips. “You will not be burnt, Freyja, but you will burn, this I promise.”
And a dreki never lied.
Chapter 13
Arms swung beneath her and lifted her with appalling ease, swinging her against a chest that was chiseled with muscle and entirely hairless. Freyja pressed a palm over his heart, feeling the erratic thump of it deep within him. An almost purring sound echoed in his throat. Pleasure. As he swept her under the overhang of the cave into a blackness that she noticed even with her eyes bound, she slowly rested her head against his shoulder.
No sight. But she could smell him, that sweet cinnamon smell that seemed almost familiar, and she could hear the rapid thump of his heartbeat beneath the curl of her palm. Her fingers flexed, exploring the feel of him. She quite suspected he was completely naked, and despite everything that had happened to her today, she couldn’t help feeling curious about this fact.
The only man she had ever come into such close contact with was Rurik, that night in Akureyri and again in the barn. Her cheeks flamed as a flash of memory struck her: gasping beneath his kiss, grinding her hips against the hard bulge of his erection, begging, her nails digging into the hard slab of his shoulders….
And again suspicion danced within her.
Perhaps it was the dreki she curled against. His voice was deeper than Rurik’s, but something in the timbre of it reminded her of the man, and they were much of a build perhaps. Strong, sleek muscle slid beneath her fingers. She flexed again, tracing the harsh edge of his clavicle, dancing her fingers up the thick column of his throat as she explored. She couldn’t deny how similar they seemed....
“If you keep petting me like that I shall not make the bed,” he purred in her mind.
Instantly Freyja’s curious touch froze. “The bed? You have a bed?”
What would he need such a thing for? Then her cheeks heated again. There was only one purpose she could think of….
“I created it for you, Freyja. The night you came here, hunting for your ram.” His mind brushed against hers, a dark caress that made her gasp. A feeling of overwhelming satisfaction flooded through the link between them. “Dreki can manipulate raw matter if they will it, and create small pockets of existence out of Chaos magic. The dreki court is one such place. A... sidestep into another world, if you will. Or a small pocket of existence within a bubble of Chaos. It’s how Tiamat first created the universe, except her bubble expanded until it contained the entire world, and many others. You’re about to enter one, so it may feel strange at first.”
“Why would you create it for me?” she whispered, though her heart ticked loudly in her chest.
“Would you prefer that we do this on the floor of the cave?”
This? Freyja swallowed.
“Because I want you,” the dreki added in a quieter thought-thread. “There have been no other women for me. Not for a long time. You are important to me, and I wanted us to have time alone, where we will not be interrupted.”
“Why me?” She turned her face in the dark, feeling her breath refract off the skin of his throat.
Another low growl sounded deep in his chest. “Vixen.” Then he laughed. “Because nobody has ever challenged me the way you did.” And he sounded incredibly pleased with this fact. His arms tightened, possessive and strong. “Fierce,” he whispered in her mind.
And Freyja stilled.
Fierce. A word that another man had used for her. A man who hadn’t been there today to rescue her.
She felt that soft brush against her senses and pulled everything about herself in tight, thrusting up her mental shields as she sorted through the sudden cacophony of thought. All her suspicions seemed to form into one loud voice.
Memories flooded through her:
Rurik suddenly turning up in Akureyri, a stranger the likes that even the local port town had never seen.
Rurik, with his deep knowledge of dreki culture, and the way he’d challenged Haakon about killing the dreki.
Rurik, kissing her in the barn, his touch setting her alight even as he proclaimed fate had thrown her into his path.
Suddenly it all made a horrid kind of sense, like a dozen misshapen puzzle pieces abruptly fitting into place. And she didn’t know how she felt about that. Angry that he’d lied to her. Relieved, that all the little things that hadn’t quite added up finally made sense. And also a vague, choking sense of loss.
Because some part of her had begun to look at Rurik in a way that saw him in her life forever, and now there was no chance of that.
“I do not like it when you close yourself off,” he growled.
“You may have my body, my lord,” she responded tartly, even as she worked her way through her confusion, “but you do not have the right to all of me.”
Tension radiated through his menacing build. Oh no, he did not like that at all, and now she had a powerful, irritated dreki to handle.
Strange, how fear was the last thing she felt. She knew this man—or creature. He wouldn’t hurt her, of that she was certain.
No, not physically.
Freyja slid a hand down his chest, enjoying the soft feel of his skin and the power that she suddenly
felt. He had the ability to take her mind, rip it apart, and steal any of her thoughts. But he wouldn’t. She knew so little about this curious beast, but that was one truth. There was more honor in a single eyelash of this inhuman creature than in Benedikt’s entire being.
“You think to taunt me?” He didn’t sound irritated anymore. Intrigued, perhaps. “You throw such challenges in my face without thought to consequences.”
“Consequences?”
“Yes,” he hissed. “You’ll let me in by the end of this night, Freyja. I swear you shall.”
The dreki turned her sideways and Freyja clung to him, sliding her arms around his neck. A cool wash of power whispered over her skin like static, as though she’d stepped inside the heart of a storm itself. “What is that?”
“It’s a portal to my Chaos bubble.”
The static shot straight through her, current consuming her until she gasped. Whatever they stepped into, she could feel the immensity of his power riding through the walls and humming through the floors. The air was cooler here too, and something sweet lingered in the room like a scented oil. It wasn’t painful, but she couldn’t escape it.
“Here we are, Freyja.” He let her slide slowly down his body, each glorious inch of him pressing against her. Freyja’s feet landed on the floor with a small jolt, and she leaned against his chest to catch her balance.
Her hands fought to make sense of what her eyes could not tell her. Bare skin met her touch everywhere, and she could feel the heavy thrust of his cock against her stomach. Her first instinct was to step back, but as her fingernails raked over his abdomen, she found herself hovering in indecision.
And then an evil thought brewed.
It would serve him right for deceiving her. “I want you,” Freyja whispered. “I’ve never before wanted a man like I want you.”
Hands softened on her hips. “Never?”
“Never.”
The dreki stilled. “Surely there has been one....”
“Not a single one.” Let him chew on that.
A faint growl sounded in his throat. Then he moved past her, the brush of his skin against her sleeve turning her head. Fingers trailed over her hip. “Let me close the portal so we won’t be disturbed.”
Behind her she heard the soft swish of a rug—or carpets—parting beneath his heavy tread. Freyja’s heart jumped into her throat as she lifted her hands. Dare she? A wave of resolve swept over her. Pandora… Psyche… she knew their weaknesses well. And the growing certainty in her heart made her fingers jerk to the blindfold and tug it free.
Freyja blinked as the room swam into view, the haze of candlelight melting over an enormous bed covered in decadent red sheets of some material she’d never seen before. Cushions spilled over the surface, white and gold and red. Her eyes couldn’t quite take in all of the gilt. Mirrors clung to walls everywhere, sconces gleaming with candlelight. And small lashes of static lightning seemed to arc through the walls, as if they weren’t quite solid.
Her eyes lifted to the arched stone ceilings far above. Columns of heavy rock supported the roof, craggy and unfinished, as though he’d hewn this bubble out of the heart of the volcano itself. The mixture of savage nature and human decadence suited him.
Freyja’s breath caught as she took a step forward, toward the bed. A room fit for a prince.
The sudden loss of static alerted her to the fact that the bubble was now closed. She spun on her heel, the strip of black wool hanging from her fingertips as her gaze raked over him. One hand splayed against a stone circle in the wall as he whispered ancient words to the stone.
Golden windswept hair brushed against his nape, smooth amber skin sweeping all the way down…. Her ruthless gaze raked over the heavy muscle in his back and the taut globes of his buttocks. Her mouth dropped open, but it was too late. Something told him she was watching him.
Rurik turned around sharply.
Amber eyes narrowed over that once-broken nose as he saw her glaring at him. Silence fell, and Rurik tilted his head curiously. “You don’t seem surprised.”
“I only just figured it out,” Freyja snapped. “Fierce? That’s a word you use to describe me, in both forms.”
“I see. You’re angry.”
Freyja set her hands on her hips. “I was starting to care for you. I trusted you, and you don’t know how rare that is for me.” There was a lump forming in her throat. “You told me ‘we were done here.’ And I felt bad about your history and what your family did to you. I even tried to cook something nice for you....”
Those eyes turned considering. “You thought I had said we were done?”
Freyja stilled. “That’s what you said.”
There was a dangerous look in his eyes. “It was an uncomfortable conversation for me, one that brought up many old memories. I didn’t mean....” He cursed. “And you: ‘Not a single man has ever tempted me’?” he paraphrased her, crossing his arms over his broad chest, a move that highlighted everything else.
Do not look down. Too late. She could feel heat spilling into her cheeks. “You deserved that. You lied to me!”
“I never lied,” he growled, taking a step toward her. The hard planes of his stomach were dusted with golden hair, and his cock bobbed against—
She jerked her gaze to his face, with its sensual mouth and cat-slit eyes. The dreki swelled within him. Not quite human, not quite her Rurik. But still there. “Not directly,” she replied, recalling a half-dozen statements that, in hindsight, had revealed all. “That must have required some very careful wording.”
“Oh, it did.”
Anger swelled. “The whole time I was tied to that stake, I waited for you to come for me, but you—”
“I did come for you.”
“For me?” she demanded. “Or to flaunt your might in front of Haakon and his men?”
“For you.” Rurik’s eyes shuttered, and he stepped toward her with dangerous allure. “Everything’s been for you. Do you think I would take human form for the sheer enjoyment of it? I told you this was fate, Freyja. The night you dared come into my lair was the moment I knew you were the one. How could you doubt I would come for you? You’re mine, Freyja.”
“Don’t say that.”
“Why?” he asked. “You know I cannot lie.”
“I challenged you,” she pointed out. “That’s why you did this. And you might not lie, but your wording—”
“You’re mine,” he growled out, and there was nothing to say to that, no means with which to misunderstand him.
Freyja tilted her chin up stubbornly, aware the ground was shifting beneath her.
“Of course it’s because you challenged me.” His voice turned gravelly. “You’re beautiful, but I have seen beautiful women before. No, what captured my attention was your fierce pride and stubbornness. Your determination. The storm brought me a warrior in female flesh, and I knew then that I wanted you. You were utterly glorious that night. Because you challenged me. Because, in all my long years in exile, I have never met a woman who dared.”
Freyja’s gaze dropped, then she jerked her head away, the image of his nude body burned into her retinas. He was taller now than he’d ever been as Rurik, bristling with heavy muscle, the ripple of his abdomen giving way to the proud jut of his cock. A creature that sauntered toward her with unearthly grace, knowing that it alone was the ultimate predator.
She swallowed, her voice suddenly very small. “And what happens when you’ve conquered me?”
“How does one conquer a storm?”
That was not an answer. How typically dreki of him.
Freyja took a step back as he took one toward her. She had refused to allow Rurik to court her, knowing she risked her heart. Yet a small part of her had begun to think perhaps he might own some genuine feelings toward her. She liked his flirting. She liked having him chase her. She’d even begun to think of him as something more: a potential husband, a lover, a friend. A whisper of a dream she’d not even thought existed in her heart. A
nd this time, it was no small dream.
An impossible one now.
The dreki did not fit into her future. Rurik had, but he did not.
“You do not seem pleased.”
“You’re not who I thought you were.” None of this had turned out to be what she had thought it was, and a little part of her ached at the loss.
“You made your own assumptions and I didn’t bother to correct them.”
“Because it served your purpose!”
He took a dangerous step toward her. “And what do you think my purpose is?”
Freyja didn’t look behind her, but she could almost feel the heavy presence of the bed at her back. Her fists clenched and she tipped her chin up, the scrap of wool still in her fingers. It was very clear what he had wanted of her now.
“If that was all I wanted, Freyja,” he purred, “then I would have had you last night.”
A smile curled over his made-for-kissing mouth. Dangerous. Despite everything, her heart started thumping faster, excitement flooding through her veins, as her body recognized that look.
“You’ve cornered the dreki in his den,” Rurik whispered in her mind, the touch of it trailing over her heated skin. “Now what do you think I should do to you for disobeying me?”
“I didn’t disobey you.” Another step back. Then another. She dropped the blindfold, her chin tilting with the same stubborn arrogance he owned himself. “You told me to put the blindfold on, and I did. You never said I mustn’t take it off.”
“You argue like dreki.” His hand reached out toward her, and Freyja’s breath caught in her throat. “Or a solicitor.”
“Considering the fact you willfully deceived me, you have little ground to stand upon,” she shot back.
“True. But now we’re here, and you know the truth. What are you going to do now?” His burning gaze lit her blood on fire. “Always stubborn, my Freyja. I think that is what I like about you most. That you never fear what you probably should.”
“Why should I fear you?” She took another step back, the backs of her knees hitting the bed. “After all, you’re the one who warned me you don’t intend to harm me. No, what was it? You planned to eat me all up.”
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