Vengeance of a Viking (The MacLomain Series: Viking Ancestors' Kin Book 2)

by Sky Purington

  Story Overview

  Recently divorced, Samantha is all about new beginnings. Her own company. A beautiful seaside house in Winter Harbor, Maine. A chance to reconnect with her sisters. But fate has something else in store. Tenth-century Scandinavia and a reality she never could have anticipated. After being whisked back in time not once but twice, she ends up in a situation she didn’t see coming. Kidnapped by a Viking.

  Of dragon blood, Bjorn Sigdir knew the moment he met Samantha that she was nothing but trouble. How else could it be? She bears the mark of Gungnir, the sword given to Odin by Loki. A blade he is convinced will ruin his people and all affiliated with them. Determined to protect his kin, he concocts a plan that will keep Samantha and her unfortunate tattoo far away from trouble. Or so he thinks when he yanks her back in time.

  One a captor, one a prisoner, Bjorn and Samantha embark on a journey full of unending strife. Feisty and independent, she has her own mind. Headstrong and stubborn, he does too. However, they soon have bigger problems than their mutual dislike of each other. Secrets. Ones that force them closer and forge something unexpected. Respect. Attraction. Desire. Yet they face a huge obstacle. If they give into love, all could be lost, including everyone they care about.

  Series Overview

  Long ago, a new tribe was born onto Midgard, or Middle Earth, via one of the Nine Worlds, Múspellsheimr, a place of fire and lava. They were a clan of Vikings who were half man, half creature. A species called dragon that was more powerful than any other. Three dragon lineages were born of the first family. Two warred with each other. One remained neutral. All except the Sigdir clan were eventually assumed extinct until a tenth-century Viking determined to keep his MacLomain descendants safe angered the gods. When that happened, old enemies surfaced and unknowing allies from the twenty-first century were forced into the open. Now war will wage as three families born of another world are submerged in an age-old blood feud.

  Vengeance of a Viking

  The MacLomain Series: Viking Ancestors’ Kin

  Book Two

  By

  Sky Purington

  COPYRIGHT © 2016

  Vengeance of a Viking

  Sky Purington

  This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales, is entirely coincidental.

  All rights reserved. No part of these books may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews.

  Edited by Cathy McElhaney

  Cover Art by Tamra Westberry

  Published in the United States of America.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Previous Releases

  About the Author

  Chapter One

  Winter Harbor, Maine

  2016

  “WHY AM I so drawn to you?” Samantha whispered as she stared at the photograph hanging at the end of her bed. Taken by her sister, Cybil, it was large and expensively framed. Titled, Vengeance, it was one of four in a collection called Dragons of Winter Harbor.

  Dragons.

  As it turned out, they weren’t just mythological creatures caught in cloud-swept ocean landscapes by her talented sister, but living beasts. She had learned that first-hand when she was recently catapulted back in time to tenth-century Scandinavia. When she saw men shift, then take flight.

  When she saw her sister do the same.

  Only then did she truly believe everything she had been told. Dragon-shifters existed. More than that? It seemed she was one too. If that wasn’t one for the ages, everything else that happened was. From the seers to her unbelievable family lineage, to the men she’d met…Vikings. Tall, fierce, brooding…or at least one of them. And hell if she could get him off her mind.

  “Sam?”

  She blinked, snapped out of her reverie and glanced at Sean standing in the doorway. “Yeah?”

  “You were a million miles away again,” he said softly. “Still thinking about Cybil?”

  “Of course, I am,” she replied automatically. Because the last thing anybody needed to know was that she was mulling over a man who lived over a thousand years in her past. A gruff, moody, bearded stranger who was so-not-her-type.

  “You’ll see her again,” Sean said. “You said so yourself.”

  “I did.” Her eyes met his. “And I will.” Though she wanted to rant, rave and release a variety of emotions, she winked, patted his shoulder in passing and headed downstairs. “Hungry?”

  “Naw, I ate a few hours ago,” he said.

  She knew he was eying the shore beyond the floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking Frenchman Bay. Better yet, the impatient blond pacing the dock and scowling at the old ash tree.

  “Sure you ate,” she muttered, not believing him in the least. She stared blindly at the refrigerator’s contents, not hungry but just as edgy as Sean.

  Everything had been off-kilter since she returned with Sean’s long lost best friend, Megan and her daughter Svala. For some reason, time went by differently between the present and the past so though Megan had been gone under two years she had aged more than twenty-five.

  Sean checked his watch. “I wish Megan had let me go to the doctor’s with her.”

  “Mema Angie’s with her so she’ll be fine.” Samantha mustered up a smile and tossed him a beer. “I’m glad to see you two reconnecting so well despite…”

  When she trailed off, unsure how she should phrase it, he perked a brow and twisted off the beer cap. “Despite the age difference?” Sean shrugged. “She’s still the same Megan I knew on the inside.” His brow edged higher. “And she still looks great.”

  “Very true.” Samantha opened a wine cooler.

  The truth was Megan had to have changed. She’d been the Queen of a Viking tribe for well over two decades. Yet the change Samantha referred to had nothing to do with age or looks, and Sean knew it. Megan had returned to the twenty-first century to seek treatment for cancer. Her husband, Naðr Véurr, had begged her to from his deathbed.

  “I take it Lauren already left?” she said.

  “Yeah, a while ago.”

  “Damn it.” Samantha shook her head, as always, exasperated by her younger sister.

  Despite what Sean told Lauren, she remained unconvinced that Cybil traveled back in time. It didn’t matter that Sam, Megan, and Svala had materialized before her very eyes beside the ash tree. Her sister just refused to believe it. She must be overtired, she said. It had been a long few days. And Megan and Svala? They must’ve come from some medieval party. Friends of Sam’s. That explained it all. Because anyone friends with Samantha was undoubtedly strange.

  Now Lauren had flown home to convince her ex-husband to come save the day. To help find Cybil because the boats she’d hired couldn’t locate her and she had to be here somewhere.

  “You
don’t think her ex will really come do you?” Sean said.

  “And leave his new bimbo?” Samantha snorted. “That’d be the day.” She shook her head. “Lauren just wants an excuse to see him.”

  When Sean glanced out the window again, Samantha frowned. “You’d do good to steer clear of Svala, hon.”

  Sean muttered something under his breath that sounded a lot like, “She’s about as crazy as they come,” before he took a swig of beer.

  “She sure is,” Samantha agreed, eying her. The Viking woman was Megan and Naðr’s daughter. Not only did she hitch a ride forward in time at the very last minute but she was a ferocious, bitter little thing.

  But she was also very beautiful.

  And Sean had noticed.

  “Seriously, Sean,” Samantha reminded, tempted to lean her hip against the island and flirt with him to divert his attention, but she wasn’t in the mood. “Svala made Cybil’s life a living hell and has done the same to her own parents. She’s mad at her mom for not seeking treatment sooner, and now she’s upset because coming here left Svala’s father alone. If that isn’t enough, she disobeyed her dad at every turn.” She shook her head. “Trust me, she might look all grown up, but she’s got a long way to go.”

  Sean nodded, tore his eyes from Svala and started sifting through paperwork. Born and raised in Winter Harbor, he now ran his own fishing business. With black hair and more of an eternal five-o-clock shadow than usual, she’d always found him overly attractive. But then most women did.

  She cocked her head and fought the urge to touch his face. “Are you growing out your beard?”

  “Nope.” He rubbed his chin as he studied a sheet. “It’s too warm right now.”

  “Does it really keep you that warm out on the water when it gets cooler?” She plunked down and rested her chin on her palm as she studied him. “I mean it’s just hair.”

  “Sure, yeah,” he said absently as he made notes.

  “Nobody grows a beard as well as my brother,” Svala said. “Especially not men from this era.”

  Startled, Samantha and Sean’s eyes shot to the deck side doorway. Svala was so light on her feet they hadn’t heard her approach.

  Sean shrugged and returned to his paperwork. “Good thing beard-growing isn’t a competition around here then.”

  “Maybe it should be,” Svala spat as she strode inside. Refusing to wear anything modern, she still wore Viking garb, complete with a cotton tunic, brown leather pants, multiple small braids and of course, several daggers tucked around her waistline.

  Sean chuckled and shook his head, not giving Svala the attention she clearly sought.

  “I have no time for weak men who do not stand up for themselves,” Svala huffed, her eyes lingering in challenge on Sean before she redirected her attention Samantha’s way. “Tell me, woman, do you look at Sean and wish he had a better beard? Do you wish he was my brother, Bjorn?”

  “That moody bastard?” Samantha shot back, not backing down. “Hell no.”

  When Svala’s eyes widened, and she pulled a knife, Samantha sat on the counter island and made a come-hither motion. “C’mon sweetheart, I’d like to see you do it.” She patted her chest. “You take me out, and you’re never getting home. Understand half-pint?”

  Eyes wide in defiance, Svala was about to step forward when the front door opened, and her mother’s voice flooded the hallway. Samantha hopped down from the counter and smiled in greeting as Megan and Mema Angie joined them.

  “How did it go, Mother.” Svala looked Megan up and down thoroughly. “Have they fixed you? Can we go back to father now?”

  “Not yet, but they will, Daughter.” Megan smiled at them all, squeezed Sean’s shoulder, then urged Svala to follow her outside. “Let’s go talk so that you might better understand things.”

  Svala narrowed her eyes one last time at Samantha before she strode after her mother.

  “She’s such a—” Samantha started before Mema Angie cut her off.

  “Not only is she a woman caught in an era she doesn’t understand but she’s the daughter of parents who are sick, perhaps dying.” Mema Angie cast Samantha a stern look as she plunked down a folder labeled Cancer Center of America. “Remember that.”

  Samantha frowned and nodded. She might not like Svala, but she did like her parents.

  “So what did the doctor say?” Sean asked. He frowned at the folder but didn’t touch it.

  Mema Angie put a hand over his in comfort. “With treatment, Megan has a good chance.”

  Samantha bit her lower lip and got busy making tea for Mema Angie. She knew what ‘a good chance’ meant, and there was nothing good about it.

  “No, no, dear,” Angie murmured and held up Samantha’s wine cooler. “If you don’t mind, I’d prefer one of these?”

  “Absolutely!” Samantha hoped she sounded upbeat as she grabbed another. Yet as afternoon turned into evening and they went over the details of Megan’s appointment, she barely touched her drink. None of them did.

  Sean and Mema Angie had been staying at the house round the clock since Samantha, Megan and Svala arrived so Sam thought nothing of eventually saying, “Goodnight all, see you in the morning.”

  Three days had come and gone since she returned to the future yet as she lay in bed and stared at Cybil’s photograph it felt like years. Did she miss her sister? Yes. Did she want to go back? Yes. But what bothered her most was that it wasn’t for her sister.

  No, it was for something else…or should she say, someone.

  Bjorn.

  But why?

  He clearly wanted nothing to do with her, and typically she would feel the same way. Still. Something about him drew her. Maybe because she could empathize with him about his mom being sick. Or maybe it was because she felt responsible for his current distress. She had been in some sort of magically induced state and told him beforehand that he would wreak havoc because of what happened. That he would seek vengeance after his father ended up on his deathbed.

  Samantha released a long breath and continued to stare at the picture. 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. She pressed her palm to her forehead and closed her eyes but the dragon was always there. And she knew who it was…he was.

  Bjorn.

  She had no idea how she knew but didn’t doubt it was him for a second. For some reason, Cybil had captured images of dragons in nature that tied in with men from the past. Viking men. The Sigdir’s. She just knew it.

  But she sure as hell didn’t want it...or him.

  As usual, she tossed and turned all night, unable to sleep. The next morning, she watched the sun rise over the Atlantic from beneath the old ash tree. She looked up through its seemingly normal branches and tried to see what her sister had seen. Cybil. Her oldest and favorite sister. A mystery until recently.

  Until she learned they were all half dragon.

  And that Cybil was a prophet amongst other things.

  The tree, a Yggdrasill, was brought to life by Kjar, a demi-god who was family to the Sigdir’s. He had created it to connect his world with theirs. A gateway between Cybil and her new man, Heidrek. It was only supposed to be a means for Heidrek to warn Cybil and her sisters away. To keep them safe. But Unfortunately, Kjar didn’t know the most important fact about Cybil. And that changed everything. Like Heidrek and Kjar, she was also a demi-god. So instead of keeping them all separated, the tree became a conduit between then and now.

  Between tenth-century Scandinavia and modern-day Maine.

  Samantha still had no idea how it worked. Better yet, how she had tapped into it and was able to transport people through it. Because as of right now, she was the only one able to do such a thing.

  She rubbed her hip when her tattoo warmed.

  “Your tattoo’s been bothering you since we arrived, hasn’t it?” Megan said as she handed her a cup of coffee and sat down beside her.


  Samantha shrugged and thanked her. “On and off. Nothing major.”

  Apparently, Sam’s tattoo was a depiction of a Gungnir, a sword given to Odin by Loki. She had been dreaming about the symbol to the point of distraction. So she decided to get it out of her mind and onto her body. After that, no more dreams. Peace.

  Until now.

  Megan considered her. “I think we both know that tattoo means something. That it’s somehow linked to all of this.” She squeezed Sam’s hand. “Just like you are.”

  “I know,” Samantha murmured, grateful for Megan’s comfort yet troubled by the connection between the tat and her strange, blossoming abilities. “But it doesn’t seem like it’s a good thing…” Her gaze went to Megan. “Except for being able to get you here. That was good.”

  When Sam first traveled back in time and again when she had transported Megan here, the tat burned something fierce. So she knew it possessed magic. It also burned before she told Bjorn he would seek vengeance because of his father. According to Cybil, her exact words were, “Vengeance, terrible vengeance. Sought by a Viking King’s son over a broken heart.”

  That sounded pretty damn ominous.

  Now the tattoo was warming on and off again, and she had no clue why.

  “I’m grateful to be here, but I worry about you, Samantha,” Megan murmured. “You’ve changed since we first met. You’ve become more distracted. Less…enthusiastic.”

  She liked Megan and the friendship they’d formed. The woman was remarkably insightful and easy to talk to.

  “You’re worried about me? Please don’t be. I’m okay.” Sam shook her head. “You need to focus on you and getting better. We need to focus on that because I’ll be there every step of the way to help.”

  “That’s kind of you to say but what about your life?” Megan smiled. “What about your career and all the newly divorced people you could help?”

  “They’ll just have to manage,” Sam said. “Thanks to Jackie’s inheritance, I don’t need to worry about money. So I can focus on being here for you.”