Sam couldn’t help but contemplate what she’d learned at the Dragon Lair. The distance Matthew had put between him and his son. Regardless, it wasn’t her place to judge him. She hadn’t lived his life.
“I’ll be glad too,” she murmured, frustrated that she might have been able to help them if the enemy didn’t have access to her mind.
“Thank you for what you’ve done for my kin, Sam. You have great courage.” A flicker of curiosity lit his eyes. “I hear Tait came across some difficulty in the future…with one of your sisters?”
She knew damn well he was hedging toward something. “Yes, unfortunately. Lauren, it seems.”
“Yet two sisters were there,” he said softly.
Her eyes met his. “You’re wondering about Shannon, aren’t you?”
“Yes,” he said bluntly as they made their way through the crowd. “Shannon.”
Like Bjorn, Matthew had been hit by one of the enemy’s darts. According to Cybil, he said Shannon’s name when he finally broke free from his unnatural slumber.
Sam was about to respond when Tait’s words interrupted them from a nearby fire. “Shannon knew me…recognized me.”
Matthew scowled as Sam stopped and frowned at Tait. “Hey…” Her words died away as she got a good look at him. Something was way off. “Are you okay?”
Tait’s dead eyes remained on the fire. “I never should have left…I tried not to…”
“Left where?” But she knew. The twenty-first century. Alarmed, she sat next to him and waved a hand in front of his face. “Tait, answer me. Are you all right?”
He chugged down the remnants of his horn and finally looked at her, bleary eyed as he slurred, “I never should have left.” He frowned. “Why did I leave when I wasn’t supposed to?”
“I don’t know. I really don’t.” She frowned and shook her head. “I only envisioned getting Sven and me back to the Yggdrasill. Not you.”
Tait’s eyes narrowed, unconvinced. “I need to go back, Sam. They cannot be alone.”
“I will go with you,” Matthew said, his scowl only growing fiercer.
What was with these guys? Even Matthew seemed a little more ferocious than usual though he was fine moments ago. She perked her brows at him. “Don’t you want to stick around to see your son?”
Before he could respond, she narrowed her eyes on Tait. “What’s going on at home anyway? What do you know?”
Tait shook his head, suddenly confused. A second later, he seemed perfectly clear-minded as his direct gaze stayed on her. “I’m dying.” Then his eyes clouded over, and his haunted gaze returned to the fire. “And so is one of your sisters.”
“What the hell are you talking about?” she asked, growing more fearful.
“This is but the remnants of time-traveling,” came a low voice. “Matthew, leave us now. Tait, go rest. I will speak with you later.”
Sam’s eyes met Kjar’s, and a feeling of relief washed over her. It was good to see the massive, demi-god Viking again. With tattoos wrapped over his bald head and two skinny braids hanging from his goatee; Kjar was a force of nature. Whether it be in battle or seeing to his kin.
“Now,” Kjar growled at Matthew when he hesitated.
Matthew shot Tait one last look then vanished into the crowd.
“Nephew,” Kjar repeated and held out his hand to Tait. “Time for rest. You need to gain your strength.”
Tait nodded, took Kjar’s hand and allowed his uncle to pull him up then nudge him along. The demi-god watched to make sure he was heading in the right direction before he held out his hand to Sam. “Come dance with me, woman.”
“Is Tait going to be okay?” Sam kept frowning. “He didn’t act this way when he traveled to the future. But now that he’s been trapped out of the house—”
“Tait will be all right,” Kjar interrupted. “So will your sisters.” He kept holding out his hand. “Please dance with me, Samantha.”
“And Matthew’s behavior?” She shook her head. “What was that all about?”
“He is being affected by his dragon blood,” Kjar grunted. “Nothing more.”
Her worry began to lessen as she stared at him. Tait and her sisters would be okay. And Matthew was just struggling to tame his dragon. Nothing more. She didn’t need to stress about any of them right now. Though she sensed Kjar used magic on her, she didn’t fight it. Couldn’t. Instead, she relaxed, joined him and focused on other things. “How have you been, Kjar?”
The look in his eyes said everything. He missed Naðr Véurr. Worried about him. “I am well enough.” His eyes searched hers. “How are you, Sam?”
She didn’t doubt that he had been filled in on everything.
“Honestly?” Sam shrugged. “I’m feeling a little off right now.” Her eyes narrowed slightly, but she didn’t get upset. “And I’m not talking about you using godly magic on me.” She worked to lighten her voice and focus on idle conversation. “I met your daughter, Näv.” Sam quirked a brow. “She’s something else.”
“Yes,” he agreed. “Just wait until you meet my other daughters.”
Sam finally managed a weak smile, nodded and said nothing. The last thing she needed to do was meet another demi-god seer.
Kjar eyed her for a long moment as if he understood her melancholy better than she did. Sam knew at the root of it, she simply wanted to be with Bjorn. To reunite properly. That maybe a tiny part of her was wondering what he and Katla were up to. But she respected that they needed time alone. That Katla was leaving, and Bjorn was saying goodbye to a big part of his life.
“Come with me,” Kjar murmured and pulled her after him.
“Where are we going?” she asked, relieved by the cool air and spitting snow as they left the building.
Kjar said nothing but led her along. People nodded and smiled at her as they passed, but Sam thought nothing of it.
“Please.” Kjar gestured at the door to his lodge. “Enter.”
Sam frowned at him. “Are you coming too?”
“No.”
“Okay,” she said, wary. “Is Aella in there?”
“No.” He urged her again. “But a friend is.”
“Okay,” Sam murmured before she entered.
A fire crackled, and at least a dozen glimmering shields surrounded the room alongside a variety of weapons. No sooner did she enter than Näv appeared out of the shadows. “It is good to see you again, Samantha.”
Well, Kjar might’ve mentioned this. Sam sighed, not so sure she was ready to deal with a seer. Especially Näv or Vigdis. Nonetheless, they’d given her good advice back home so she nodded hello and sat as Näv poured ale into a cup and urged Sam to drink.
“No offense but the last thing I want to do is drink…” she started to say before Näv flicked her wrist and the shields hanging around Kjar’s lodge became something else entirely.
“Only demi-gods, dragons and seers can see what lies within the shields. Mostly what pertains to their individual lifeline,” Näv said softly. “See what they want to show you, Samantha.”
Sam’s eyes widened as the shields became something similar to televisions but of varying shades and textures. Almost like she was watching a television out of the nineteen-seventies. Each one showed Bjorn at various ages. When he took his first step, when he spread his wings for the first time…when he dreamt of her. Sam’s eyes widened as his endless dreams unfolded before her eyes.
A first kiss she didn’t remember.
Then far more.
More than she ever could have anticipated.
Dreams that inundated him. So many she was shocked he found love despite it.
Normalcy.
Then suddenly, his dragon was alone in a dark place, searching, seeking, looking for his other half. Looking for Bjorn.
Somehow she knew it was when he first got shot with the dart.
Caught in that awful nothingness, his dragon could only make contact with its human half in fleeting dreams. Flashes within their shared consciousn
ess. It was desperate and trying to help him from within that deep abyss. One cut off from the world, bereft of hope.
Until there was something.
Her.
A whispered response to his call. Someone he didn’t think existed.
Mesmerized by the female dragon, drawn to her, he followed a faint flicker of light. One that took him from the darkness but not for long. There he found Mema Angie. The only one watching from the other side of a photograph.
A picture made of magic and demi-god seers and dragons.
But Angie wasn’t the only one on the other side of that picture. And she certainly was not the one who spent long hours staring back. No, it was she who responded to him to begin with. A female dragon who could see him even though her human half could not.
Samantha.
His mate.
In that brief period of time before he was drawn back into the darkness, an idea occurred to him, and he concocted a plan. One he shared with her dragon. A way to reunite with his human half then be with her.
Sam’s eyes widened as his plan unfolded in snippets seen within the shields.
A grand manipulation of not only her mind but Bjorn’s.
First, she saw herself at the top of Mt. Galdhøpiggen when she told everyone that she dreamt of the Gungnir. She had to get it out of her head and onto her body. Her dragon had been behind that. It was a mark Bjorn’s dragon knew his human half would recognize. One that he made sure he dreamt of often.
“Oh my God,” she whispered, watching the shields as they told the story.
Convinced she had been marked by Loki, Bjorn set out to protect his people and yanked her back in time. After all, he had dreamt that if he did and brought her to a specific location in a mountain, she would find the actual blade. And so, just as their dragons planned, she was drawn. Following folklore—which wasn’t true in the least—once she got it and pressed it to her tattoo, Bjorn would then have the power to control her and keep his people safe.
As foreseen, once Bjorn and Samantha came together, destiny took care of the rest. Because once a dragon finds their mate, there is no turning back.
“So all along, Loki had nothing to do with this?” she whispered. “With us coming together?”
“No,” Näv murmured. “It was all Bjorn’s dragon... and yours. They were very clever. When his dragon knew his human half was heading for Mt. Galdhøpiggen’s peak with Heidrek and Cybil, it saw an opportunity. It knew that the peak of that mountain is the only place you could travel back in time to with dragonly assistance.”
“I wondered how I did that the first time. I assumed it was because I’m a Gateway Seer.” She frowned at Näv. “Why Mt. Galdhøpiggen?”
“Because you are a seer, Samantha,” she responded. “Which means Mt. Galdhøpiggen will always be your birthright home. A place where your magic is strongest.” A wistful smile curled her lips. “A place that would draw you across time if two dragons were determined to come together.” Admiration lit her eyes, and she reiterated, “Very clever dragons. Because had they tapped into your Gateway Magic, Aella would’ve known exactly what you are and never allowed me to pull you back in time when I assisted Bjorn.”
“Wow,” Sam whispered, her wheels still spinning. “What about my tat warming or burning at various times?”
“Your dragon,” the seer responded. “A way to steer you in the right direction.”
“I’ll be damned,” Sam murmured as she tried to process everything. Her eyes stayed on the seer as the images in the shields faded. “But what about the Gungnir blade? Who put it in the cave?”
“That is where I came in,” Näv said softly. “For in that dark place where the enemy sent Bjorn’s dragon, all things repressed dwell. So it was not so hard for his dragon to find my other self. She who keeps lunacy from affecting my sisters and me.”
Sam’s eyes widened. “Your other half? The crazy chick who yanked me back in time?” She flinched. “No offense.”
Näv nodded. “Yes. She and I made the blade. Because of that, though it could certainly inflict pain at appropriate times, it could do no real harm to you or Bjorn. It was something created to bring you together. To connect you. That is why it didn’t kill him when you stabbed him. It could only help not harm you.”
The seer’s lips curled up slightly. “All that aside, now you can better understand why when Bjorn helped my other self bring you back in time the transition was so amorous. His dragon’s thoughts were influencing you quite a bit. One in particular. One of many you will soon start to remember. One of several you and Bjorn shared in a dream.”
Samantha’s eyes widened on a shield as she watched a dream unfold.
As she at long last remembered it.
She was young, maybe sixteen or seventeen, as she tromped through the woods with a backpack and flashlight. She recognized the area. About ten minutes away from her home in Vermont, a small waterfall and trickling stream cut through the forest. She went there to find solace. To get away from all the oddities of what she now knew was her repressed dragon.
It was also where she went to grieve over her mother’s illness.
A small fire flickered ahead, igniting green leaves through the night. Her heart leapt as she jogged the rest of the way. Then there he was, standing in the clearing waiting for her.
Bjorn.
Younger and beardless, he closed the distance quickly, lifted her and spun her. Both laughed, happy to see one another again, even if only in a dream. Then he kissed her. Long. Passionate. Thorough.
Sam put a hand over her mouth as she remembered all they did that night. How he had listened as she shared her sadness about her mom.
“I’m going to miss the sound of her saying my name,” Sam murmured to him, her eyes damp as she shook her head. “She always insists on calling me by my full name. Never Sam. It drives me nuts but now…” She shook her head. “Now I can’t imagine not hearing it.”
“I understand why she insists on calling you it,” he said softly. “It is a beautiful name.” His eyes held hers. “Might I continue to call you that instead of Sam?”
Sam knew what he was doing. How in his own way, he was trying to preserve the memory of her mother for her. So she said, “I’d like that, Bjorn.”
As the night wore on, her sadness eventually fled. They laughed and talked as she taught him how to make S’mores Samantha style. Light on the chocolate, heavy on the marshmallows and don’t forget her special ingredient, cinnamon. It had turned into a sticky food fight that ended with them on the ground.
That was the first night they slept together, and he took her virginity in a dream.
A tear rolled down her cheek, and she whispered, “That’s why I kept smelling marshmallows and cinnamon around Bjorn. Because of that night with the S’mores. How did I never realize that?”
But she knew. That scent was something from her childhood. The years with her mom. So she had repressed the familiar sweetness…until now. Until she remembered with vivid clarity that incredible time with Bjorn.
“It was an unforgettable night,” he murmured close to her ear.
Sam spun, shocked to find herself no longer in Kjar’s lodge but Bjorn’s. Not only was Näv there but Katla and Vigdis.
“How did I get here?” she whispered.
“Through the shield you were looking at,” Bjorn said. “They are Aunt Aella’s shields and can do many unique things for seers.”
“I summoned you here, Sam,” Katla said. “Because I wanted to see you before I left.”
Bjorn stepped away as she approached and took Sam’s hands.
“I want to thank you for what you did for my son, Samantha.” Katla’s eyes were wet, but happy too. “He should have shifted a long time ago. I should have insisted. But I didn’t. Mostly because I was frightened for him. Agnar was threatened by dragons, and I feared he would have hurt Sven if he embraced his beast.”
Katla’s eyes stayed with Sam’s as she continued. “But then, as you now kn
ow, Sven was never in a rush to shift. And his aversion only grew stronger with age. He became bitter at the dragon because he was angry with his father. In his mind, the two went hand in hand. Then as time went on, I think he feared it.” She shook her head. “I think some part of him didn’t know what it would be capable of. Would what lay in his heart manifest through the dragon? Would it try to hurt his father?”
Katla squeezed Sam’s hands. “What you did was brilliant and selfless. For Sven. For my whole family. He embraced his dragon and learned that he would not harm his father. That it wasn’t in him. Instead, he could see Bjorn more clearly. He could understand his mind far better than he could before. He could understand his heart.” She smiled softly. “You have given all of us a fresh start.” Her eyes went to Bjorn. “A new beginning.”
Sam tensed. Did that mean they were getting back together?
Katla’s eyes returned to Sam, clearly sensing her unease. “You do not truly understand what it is to be mated to a dragon yet, do you?” For a split second, she thought she saw envy in the other woman’s eyes, but it vanished a heartbeat later as a peaceful smile curled Katla’s lips. “As far as anyone knows, I have passed on to Valhalla, and I relish the idea. It is time for me to return to my home at Mt. Galdhøpiggen’s peak. Perhaps there, I will at last find love.”
“There is one there who waits for you, friend,” Näv murmured. “He has not forgotten you.”
A knowing light flickered in Katla’s eyes, but she offered no response as she embraced Samantha and whispered, “Take good care of Sven and Bjorn.”
Before Katla turned away, Sam grabbed her hand and met her eyes. “I’m sorry for any harm I caused your marriage,” she said softly. “No matter how unknowing it was.”
“You never need to be sorry, Samantha. None of it was your fault, or Bjorn’s.” Her eyes went to him before returning to Sam. “He tried hard to suppress those dreams. To avoid them, to forget them...for me. Years later when we became friends, he asked me to help him forget you with magic. So I did. I locked away all those dreams. Not because I intended to go back to him but because I couldn’t stand to watch him suffer.”
Vengeance of a Viking (The MacLomain Series: Viking Ancestors' Kin Book 2) Page 24
