Ripped from thought, her eyes flew to his. “My name is Lauren, not woman.”
His brows rose, cocky almost, and whatever seriousness existed moments before between them vanished as he offered a crooked grin. “Are you not a woman then, Lauren?”
“Yes,” she snapped, finally lowering the blade but keeping a solid grip on it. “But that is not my given name any more than man is yours.”
“But I am a man.” Tait chuckled. “And you can call me that if you like.”
“I would never,” she said, appalled.
Tait scratched his temple, shook his head then kept chuckling as he grabbed two beers from the refrigerator and set one down in front of her. “You could probably use this…Lauren.”
She looked down her nose at it. “I do not drink beer.”
Tait continued to look amused as he took a swig from his bottle and eyed her. “Maybe you should.”
“And maybe you should not,” she retaliated, gesturing at his old bottle. “Not if you imbibe that quickly then want another.”
His brows shot up as a grin hovered on his lips. “You are serious, yes?”
“Of course I am serious.” Lauren kept looking down her nose at him. “It is not a good idea to take more than a random sip of alcohol in any given situation.” She gestured at his empty bottle then the one in his hand. “To drink like you do means you do not care about maintaining your faculties.” Her eyes widened. “You care nothing about maintaining control.”
Tait stared at her like she had sprouted an extra head. “Control?” He eyed her over. “Something I assume you think you have a lot of despite your current situation?”
Lauren was again surprised by how well-spoken he was despite his appearance. He should be cursing and vulgar by nature, yet he wasn’t. Why? She glanced out the window at the ash tree, almost as if it could answer her question. Silly. It was just a tree. Not created by a demi-god Viking. If anything, at this point she related it more to Samantha. How could she not considering Sam always seemed to materialize or vanish when around it?
For some reason, though she only meant to glance at it, the tree, as always, snagged her attention. More so, a deepening sensation that she would not be able to escape it. That somehow it was part of an unavoidable future.
“Where are my sisters?” she whispered. “Where are they really?”
She didn’t realize she had spoken until Tait said, “Cybil’s with Heidrek at the Fortress and Sam’s with Bjorn at their new fortress.”
Lauren blinked, looked at him and shook her head. “What?”
“Both of your sisters are queens now, Lauren.” Tait shrugged. “Well, Sam will be soon enough. Once she marries Bjorn.”
Lord, what would this man say next? What tales would he spin? But as their eyes held, she knew he believed every word he said. And for a split second, she did too. Long enough to say, “So they are okay? They are safe?”
Because if nothing else was true, she did miss them.
And she was lonely.
She might have said otherwise before they vanished, but it was nice to be around them. To hear conversation and laughter even if she didn’t participate. To feel like she belonged somewhere even though they didn’t particularly want her there.
“They are safe with my cousins. Heidrek and Bjorn would never let harm come to their mates,” Tait responded, his voice compassionate. “But it would not matter because your sisters are strong dragons. You should be proud.”
Lauren’s eyebrows snapped together. “Excuse me?”
Dragons? Was he out of his mind? Yet she felt that familiar doubt. The feeling she was experiencing more and more lately. The one that said the locks holding shut all the doors in her mind were weakening.
“Excuse you for what?” he said before he took another swig of beer.
Lauren inhaled deeply and stabilized herself. She needed to remain in control at all times. Not entertain thoughts she would have to lock away.
“You were able to get in this house,” she announced, ignoring his question. “So it stands to reason I might be able to get out.”
“It does,” he agreed, not appearing all that convinced. “Then where will you go?”
“Home.” She frowned, smoothed her hair, thrust her shoulders back and headed for the deck door. “I do have a home, after all. And this is certainly not it.”
As she strode for the door, she kept that thought firmly in mind.
Home.
Her brownstone.
It did not matter if she continued to live there alone for a while longer. Charles would return soon. He promised he would. And that would happen quicker if she were there waiting for him. So she didn’t hesitate but focused on the door and kept walking…only to hit the same barrier she always did.
“No,” she whispered and tried again. But it would not work. She could not cross the threshold. She braced her hand on the doorjamb, closed her eyes and tried to rally her emotions. Why wasn’t this working? Why had it worked for Tait but not for her?
“Maybe I need to help you like you helped me,” he said softly over her shoulder.
Lauren spun, her eyes wide. When had he come so close? She went to raise her knife, but it was gone.
His eyes dropped to her hand. “You tossed your blade on the couch.”
Her eyes flew to the sofa. There it was. And he was between her and it. When had she thrown it aside? But she figured she knew. When she had become so focused on the door and returning home. Returning to Charles.
While tempted to bolt around Tait she remained perfectly still. He might be overly large, but she had a feeling he could move fast. That she wouldn’t stand a chance if she tried to make a break for it.
“I told you I am not going to hurt you, Lauren.” Tait stepped closer. “And I mean it. I do not hurt women. I will not hurt you.” His eyes roamed her face for a flicker of a second, almost as if he didn’t mean to do it. “And I do not desire you like I did before.”
“So you would hurt me if you desired me?” she murmured, baffled that she engaged him at all but unable to stop herself as she focused on the brown depths of his eyes.
Confused, he shook his head. “No.” He blinked several times as though he barely understood what he had said. “My words were unrelated.” He shook his head again. “I will not hurt you, and I do not desire you.”
“Why would you say unrelated words?” she said softly. “That makes no logical sense.”
Tait frowned and shrugged, so close now she could feel his heat. “I say what I think. Why does it always have to be logical?”
“For starters, it would be easier to follow.” Every muscle in her body seemed to burn as she locked up tightly, unsure what to do next. Dart around him? Try to go outside again? Either way, she needed to do something so as she debated she bent her knee and slowly pulled off her heel. If nothing else, it could double as a weapon.
“I have never been told I am hard to follow,” he murmured as the corner of his mouth inched up slowly.
“I am surprised.” Lauren worked to even her breathing as it grew choppy and her heartrate increased yet again. What was this? If not an impending cardiac arrest, perhaps part of the strange happenings in this house when he was near or in it?
“Are you surprised?” Tait said.
Lauren blinked, caught somewhere between imagining her impending doom and whatever Tait was talking about. But she supposed none of it really mattered right now. What did matter was getting into a safer position.
“No need,” he said and slid by her out onto the deck.
“No need to what?” she replied, confused. It almost sounded like he responded to her thoughts.
“There’s no need to get into a safer position because I will not hurt you.” He held out his hand to her. “You got me inside now I will help you get out.”
She eyed his hand. “I am surprised you stepped back out there.”
“Why wouldn’t I?” He kept grinning. “Now I know I’m no longer trapped.�
�
“But what if you are again?”
“It would be worth returning the kindness and trust you showed me, to begin with.”
Taken aback, her eyes met his again. She wasn’t sure what to say. So she kept with what made sense. “It was not kindness or trust I showed you.”
He kept his hand held out. “Then what was it?”
“Determination to get home,” she whispered and took his hand before she gave it another thought.
“Lauren, what are you doing?”
She froze at the sound of Charles’ voice and turned back. Where was he? The front door was open and banging against the wall in the wind.
“Charles?” she called out, but no one responded. So she called out again and started toward the kitchen only to have Tait stop her.
“No, Lauren. Something is wrong.” He squeezed her hand. “Try to step outside. Try to come with me.”
“No, my husband is here,” she murmured and attempted to pull her hand away, but he wouldn’t release it.
“Let me go.” She struggled against him, yet Tait wouldn’t let go. Rather he tried to pull her closer.
“No!” She started to whack at him with her heel, but he dodged. “My husband has arrived, and all of this will finally get sorted out.”
“No, Lauren,” Tait growled, stealing the heel and tossing it aside. “Something is very wrong here, and you need to try to get out.” He gestured behind him. “This way. With me.”
“Why would I do that?” Her eyes widened on him as he tried to pull her out but could not.
“See?” she said. “It won’t work because Charles is finally here.” Lauren yanked away and strode toward the front door, only vaguely aware of what she’d said, she was so eager to see him.
“Ah, there you are, little one,” came a voice nearly as deep as Tait’s but far smoother. Slippery almost. “I was wondering when I would finally be able to reach you.”
Lauren stopped short as not Charles but a tall, eerily beautiful man with red eyes entered the front door and sauntered down the hallway toward her. “Have you not had enough of this place, then, little dragon?”
She froze and narrowed her eyes as an icy chill raced up her spine followed by searing heat. This was danger. He was danger. And she was having none of it.
What happened after that made absolutely no sense…possessed no logic.
It was almost as if she became an entirely different person. One she had no control over as she yanked off her other heel, released a deep-throated growl, whipped it in his direction then bolted straight at him.
“There you go, little one,” the man said as he dodged her heel, scooped her up and threw her over his shoulder.
Only as he headed out the front door did she finally come to herself enough to comprehend not only what had happened but how she had acted. More than that, whose name she was screaming to come save her before everything vanished and she was swept into oblivion.
Not Charles’ name but Tait’s.
Chapter Three
TAIT RACED AFTER Lauren only to have the enemy whip something at him. Whatever it was disoriented him and his vision blurred. Nonetheless, he focused on the sound of Lauren’s voice and called on his dragon. Not to embrace but to guide him.
And his dragon came through, thinking logically despite Tait’s high emotions.
He would follow her straight into the afterlife if for no other reason than that she was kin. Focused, Tait narrowed his eyes on the door as the enemy fled, more so, the Nidstang that had appeared outside. Thinking fast, he scooped up one of the buttons that had popped off her blouse and placed it dead-center on the kitchen island. One way or another, the message would be received.
Things had not gone well here.
Trouble had come.
Because Lauren would have never left this house without a button.
Then he bolted after her. She was there, right there, steps in front of him, screaming his name. Yet the faster he raced, the further away she seemed.
“Lauren,” he roared as he exited the front door and ended up in the last place he expected.
Standing in front of the ash tree on the other side of the house.
At least at first.
Seconds later, she screamed his name from…above? He looked up into the leaves, confused, before everything swirled away and he was standing somewhere else entirely. An ash tree still stood in front of him, but it wasn’t one he recognized.
“Tait?”
He spun, confused when he found Samantha behind him. “Where am I?” He looked around, desperate. “Where did Lauren go?”
Sam’s eyes glittered almost as if her dragon were erupting before she pointed through the forest. Tait started jogging in that direction toward Cybil who stood at the foot of another ash tree. “Cybil?” he questioned. “What are you doing here? Where are we?”
Cybil said nothing but pointed through the forest in another direction. Tait narrowed his eyes. Who was that a ways off? She was lovely and stood beneath yet another ash. He jogged in her direction only for her to shake her head and point in yet another direction.
That’s when he saw the last person he expected.
Shannon.
He was drawn to her. Yes, she was beautiful, but it was more than that. A connection he didn’t understand. Naturally, she stood beneath yet another ash tree.
Or perhaps they were all truly Yggdrassill’s? Time portals of one sort or another?
Tait was about to speak to Shannon, but she shook her head and pointed through the forest at the same moment Lauren screamed again. His eyes held Shannon’s, and for a moment he was tempted to stay, but the pull to save her sister was too strong, so he bolted through the trees.
Across rivers.
Up ledges.
Down slopes and jagged paths.
He never shifted because he sensed unusual danger. Nonetheless, his dragon gave his human strength as he headed north alone into enemy territory. Or at least he thought he was alone until his cousin Matthew stepped onto the path in front of him.
At first, he figured he was some sort of sentinel or spiritual guide in whatever was happening, but his cousin firmly put that notion to rest when he punched him in the face. Tait had no chance to regroup before Matthew came at him again. Then again until he landed on his back in a stream. Tait roared with rage and tried to fight back, but it was too late. Matthew grabbed him by the front of his jerkin and punched him so hard everything went black.
When he finally awoke, he was in a cave with his hands tied behind his back and his feet roped together as a rabbit cooked over a crackling fire. He flinched at the sting of his bruised cheek as he shimmied into a sitting position and glared at his cousin. Matthew, meanwhile, munched on hare and eyed him with discontent.
“What happened?” Tait grunted and pulled at his bindings only to find them bound by dragon magic. “Loki’s balls,” he muttered and glared at Matthew. “You did this?”
“Yes,” Matthew confirmed and took a swig from his skin. “If I had not, you would be dead.”
“How so?”
“Do you really need to ask?”
Tait still had no idea what to make of Matthew’s behavior lately. Or should he say how magnified his disgruntled attitude had become since he learned Tait had met Shannon. So this had to be about that.
“I do not desire Shannon, Cousin,” Tait said. “I barely know her.”
“You lie,” Matthew grumbled and kept eating. “But my feelings about that woman have nothing to do with why you are here now.”
Tait clenched his jaw and narrowed his eyes. “Let me go. Now.”
“Why?” Matthew’s chewing slowed as their eyes held. “So that you can continue being lured by the enemy? Chasing a female dragon you do not really want?”
What? Tait didn’t know what to make of that, of anything coming out of Matthew’s mouth, so he forced himself to relax and not think about Lauren. The way her cry for him to save her made him react. The pure desper
ation he had felt.
“So tell me, Cousin,” Tait said softly, trying to repress his anger. “Tell me everything you know because I am at a loss.”
“I would think everything I know is obvious, is it not?” Matthew said. “You are being tricked into pursuing the enemy, and I am trying to stop you.”
“But how do you know any of this when I don’t even know how I ended up in the twenty-first century?” Tait looked around. “And where are we again?”
He made no mention of seeing the Nidstang beforehand. Not yet anyway.
Matthew was about to respond when another voice drifted through the night. “You are here, Cousin Tait.”
“Until you are there,” came another voice.
Tait frowned. Were those his cousins? “Astrid? Freyja?”
“Yes, Tait,” Astrid replied.
“It is us,” Freyja finished her sentence.
Tait grinned as they appeared. Where some of his kin found them exasperating, he had always found these two entertaining. Born of Kjar and Aella, they were powerful seers in their own right. Some said it was only because their older sister Näv kept their mind’s clear by locking away their craziness in her alternate ‘self.’ And supposedly they were only crazy to begin with because they were born to a demi-god and the most powerful seer on Midgard.
“Hello, cousins. It’s good to see you both.” He kept grinning. “I can only hope you’re here to untie me…and to tell me what happened to Lauren.”
“Yes,” Astrid confirmed with a solid nod.
“Soon,” Freyja agreed, smiling a little too sweetly.
Though born a few years apart, the two of them always spoke in tangent as if they were twins. As if they shared a womb. However, while they might seem of the same mind, they looked nothing alike. Astrid was tall and larger boned where Freyja was even tinier than Näv.
Tait’s brows lowered in confusion as they sat next to Matthew and proceeded to eat. “Aren’t you going to untie me?”
“We should,” Freyja said.
“And we will,” Astrid followed up.
“After they eat,” Matthew said then took another swig from his skin.
Soul of a Viking (The MacLomain Series: Viking Ancestors' Kin Book 3) Page 4
