Pride of a Viking

by Sky Purington

  “Put me down, Kodran,” she said softly, having gone still the moment he did.

  He did as asked but didn’t let her go. Couldn’t. Not as their eyes met and he recalled the pain. The end of what they once had.

  After all, he had been the head seer in another life who helped her escape.

  And she had been the dragon Hallstein raped and impregnated.

  “Eluf,” she whispered, her eyes damp as she closed them to his. “You shouldn’t have done this, Kodran. Now Hallstein’s going to chase us down, and when he does, he’s gonna realize who you are.” She shook her head. “And that’ll be the end of all this.”

  “Maeva,” he murmured, as he cupped her cheek, caught in the strong emotions of another life. All they had done for love.

  “No.” She pulled away and finally met his eyes again as she shook her head. “Please don’t call me that. We’re not them anymore. We can’t be.”

  “But you are,” Grant said as he appeared. “And much like the plight that befell Adlin, Eluf began slowly aging when he met his one true love. Or so that’s what we surmise. And much like Adlin’s, your love story did not have the sort of happy ending others had. Not really.”

  Not really? Not at all.

  “I am sorry but time is limited,” Aunt Aella said as she appeared at the entrance alongside Uncle Kjar. “It’s time to begin your journey.”

  Kodran frowned. “Our journey?”

  Aunt Aella nodded then headed inside. “Please follow me.”

  “No.” Erica shook her head. “The only journey ahead for me is with Hallstein.”

  “So you think,” Grant murmured before he said a quick chant and followed Aella. “If you two dinnae join me within a minute, then you have chosen an unfortunate path indeed.”

  “What does he mean by that?” Erica shook her head again and peered over the edge of the cliff. “Hell, looks like I won’t be heading back that way...unless.”

  “Do not even think about shifting, Erica,” Kjar said, his eyes on Kodran. “If she does, Hallstein will know within seconds and be at our doorstep.”

  “Or,” Erica countered. “I’ll be well on my way back, and he’ll never know I was here.”

  “We both know it won’t happen like that,” Kjar warned. “And it will not sit well with me if you bring that monster straight to my wife and daughters.”

  His uncle was not to be taken lightly. Especially when it came to his immediate kin.

  “But—”

  “Stop, Erica,” Kodran cut her off. “We might not want to be here, but we will not put Kjar’s kin in harm’s way.”

  “We might not want to be here?” When Erica looked at him he thought for a split second he saw hurt flash in her eyes. “So you don’t want to be here either.”

  He was about to respond when it suddenly became difficult to breathe. It seemed Erica felt the same because she started gasping for air. It didn’t take him long to figure out what was happening. Grant wasn’t taking any chances and had done this with a chant.

  They were being forced to follow because of magic.

  “Come, Erica. We have no choice.” Kodran grabbed her hand and pulled her after him. The moment they entered the cave it became much easier to breathe.

  “Ah, there you are,” Grant murmured as he joined Aunt Aella in the massive cave at the center of the home of the seers.

  Kodran stopped short when he realized large shiny shields were hanging everywhere. They were similar but not quite the same as the ones Aella and Kjar had in their lodge back at the Fortress. A means to communicate with each other when she was here, and he was there. And of course, a way for him to stay in touch with his daughters as well.

  No sooner did he think of them when his cousins Näv, Astrid, and Freyja appeared. Right behind them was the head seer, Vigdis.

  “It is good to see you again, Cousin,” Näv said in greeting.

  “Very, it has been too long,” Astrid said.

  “Far too long,” Freyja finished for her.

  “Agreed.” Kodran looked between them as a sneaking suspicion crept up on him. “What’s going on? Why are you here?”

  “I think you know,” Vigdis murmured.

  “I think he does too,” Aunt Aella said softly as she looked from the shields then back to him. “You recognize them, yes?”

  He did, vaguely. Like a memory he couldn’t quite recollect.

  “They were Eluf’s,” Kjar said as his eyes met Kodran’s. “They were his way to continue helping Maeva long after she left by assisting her descendents. Erica’s sisters.” A wise look entered his eyes. “More than that, they were how you intended to find your way back to your one true love.”

  Half a breath later, Aunt Aella stomped a familiar twisted cane. It had been Eluf’s in another life. He shook his head as he realized what was happening but it was far too late. Not only his aunt and uncle were chanting but his cousins and Grant Hamilton.

  So much power.

  Too much.

  And here he and Erica were at the center of it surrounded by a seer’s shields, magical tokens in their own right. Not only that but they had belonged to the most powerful seer ever born to Midgard.

  Eluf...now Kodran.

  “Oh, hell no,” Erica began before her words were drowned out by twisting wind and compressed air.

  Then everything went black.

  Chapter Three

  Ancient Scandinavia

  Sometime just before 45,000 B.C.

  To better understand the time period and region...

  Six percent of Europeans are descended from the continent’s first homo-sapien founders, who entered Europe from the Near East in the Upper Paleolithic era 45,000 years ago. The descendants of these earliest arrivals ended up in two places. One of which was the mountainous Basque country, where people still speak a language completely different from all other European languages. The other was Scandinavia. Another eighty percent arrived 30,000 to 20,000 years ago, before the peak of the last glaciation, and ten percent came in the Neolithic 10,000 years ago, when the ice age ended, and agriculture was first introduced to Europe from the Near East.

  Now on to the story...

  BY THE TIME the dust settled and she could see again, Erica knew she was pretty much screwed. As far as she could tell, they were still in the same cave, and everyone had vanished but her and Kodran.

  “Please tell me we’re not where I think we are,” she whispered.

  Kodran frowned and looked around before his eyes met hers. “My guess is they sent us back to the beginning. Back to where it all started.”

  “Wonderful,” she muttered and eyed him. He was a damn good-looking man with those thickly lashed baby blues and dark hair. Not to mention that body. His frame wasn’t all that different than what it had been in another life even though he wasn’t a dragon. He had been tall, muscled and very powerful. Yet all that had started to dwindle because of Hallstein...or Bard as he was known back then...or now if they wanted to get technical.

  Erica tore her eyes away from Kodran as emotions threatened to surface. She hadn’t wanted to go down this road with him again. She hadn’t wanted to face this. Because if she had learned anything about Hallstein in the past few months, it was that with a sort like him, history was only destined to repeat itself.

  “Why do you suppose they sent us here?” she finally asked. She would give anything not to be here, most especially this cave. The memories were too sharp and far too sad. At least the ones at the end.

  “You know why they sent us here,” he murmured. “It was...an important place for us.”

  Erica refused to look at him but headed for the entrance. Yet the closer she got, the heavier her heart felt. She was remembering what Maeva once had. The overwhelming sadness she experienced when she knew their time together was drawing to an end.

  “We might not like it, but we’ve been given a second chance,” Kodran said. “I seem to remember a time when we would have done anything to be dragon mates
. Anything to bond like that.”

  Erica spun and met his eyes. “Are you serious?” She shook her head. “How do you think that’s going to go down considering what else you did for me in that life? Because like it or not, you’re not my only dragon mate.”

  “Tell me.” He ground his jaw and closed the distance before she could shift away. “I know Eluf...me...” He shook his head as he gripped her shoulders lightly. “I know a lot now but not everything. Some of it is still vague. Hard to remember.” His eyes pleaded with hers. “I found a way to help you in that life...to ease your suffering when Bard made you his.” His frown grew heavier. “How?”

  “It doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “All that matters is that he has a hold over me now.” She did her best to sound affected by the time she spent with Hallstein. Because if she could convince Kodran she was starting to care about the enemy then just maybe... “He has a hold over me that despite my need to kill him to protect our families, isn’t going to go away. It exists, Kodran. He exists. And he’s my mate every bit as much as you are.”

  He let go of her as if she had stung him. “Did you lie with him?”

  Though she suspected he already knew the answer, if he needed to hear it out loud, so be it. Especially if it made him keep his distance.

  “Yes. Several times.” She stepped away and embraced her cold inner lawyer. “Not only was it the logical thing to do but...”

  “But what,” he growled when she didn’t finish her sentence.

  “Well, you know.” She shrugged and tried her damndest to remain cool and detached beneath the turbulence of his gaze. “Like I said...I was becoming affected by him.”

  The truth was she would have stuck a knife through Hallstein’s heart every moment of every day if given half a chance, but Kodran didn’t need to know that. No, the best thing now was for him to find her undesirable, no matter what it took. Because despite being run down, she could tell by the way he had been looking at her that he was more than taken by her physical appearance.

  His eyes lingered on hers before they narrowed and he clenched his fists. It seemed based on his next words that he could only be dissuaded so much by jealousy. “I want to know what I did for you in another life. I need to know what Eluf did to make things easier.”

  “And I need to know where we are,” she said, trying to get his mind off this and on to more important things. “Obviously, we’ve traveled back in time but aren’t you curious to when exactly? Before or after my pregnancy? Before or after the mass genocide of my people at the hands of the enemy.”

  In retrospect, that worked against the whole her-lusting-after-Hallstein angle, but it did seem to detour Kodran. Or so said his flinch before he focused less on her and more on their surroundings.

  “This was my home...our home,” he said. “For a long time.”

  She nodded. Back then, though not immortal, dragons and seers lived for a very long time. And this cave at Mt. Galdhøpiggen’s peak had been Eluf’s before any other seer’s. Not only that but at one time they had considered it theirs. In secret, of course.

  “I know it was your home,” she said. “But I remain more curious about where in time we are. Do you think it’s really back when...”

  Erica’s voice trailed off as a man close to Kodran’s age strode into the room. Her heart slammed into her throat at the sight of him. Eluf. He was nearly as handsome as Kodran with his broad shoulders and chiseled features only his eyes were a deep, dark brown. It seemed he couldn’t see either of them as he barked, “Asmund, come now. We must find a way to navigate around the dragons. I must find a way to keep her safe.”

  “Yes, mentor,” a man murmured as he rushed into the cave.

  Her eyes widened. He might look different, but she knew it was Anthony.

  “They can’t see or hear us, can they?” she whispered as she joined Kodran.

  “It doesn’t seem so,” he replied, his posture tense as he watched the transaction...as he looked at himself in another life.

  “There has to be a way,” Eluf murmured as he paced and thought about it. As he did, images started to flash in the shields.

  “Those are the ideas running through his mind,” Kodran said softly. “The shields magnify them, sort out every possible outcome based on that idea, then relay back the best case scenario.”

  “Convenient,” Erica replied, impressed, not recalling that particular trick. It seemed, perhaps, for all she thought she remembered everything, she didn’t. She glanced at Kodran. But then she and her true dragon mate hadn’t fully come together yet, had they? She and Kodran hadn’t had sex. Which meant it was very likely she still had a lot to learn because intimacy with him was the only way to absolute truth and power.

  She frowned and returned her gaze to Eluf.

  “I remain curious about something,” Kodran said softly as his eyes slid to her. “Assuming that she knows who we were in this life, I’m surprised the evil version of Maeva has been trying to make her way back into our world through your sisters. Why waste her time on anyone but you?”

  Erica didn’t reply because he was getting too close to her secrets. To figuring out what Eluf had done. She needed to remember that Kodran had been remarkably intelligent and intuitive in another life and that had likely not changed.

  As their eyes held, fire spiked through her veins, and her heart skidded into her throat again. Hell. Being so close to him was going to become a problem real fast.

  “There has to be a way,” Eluf said before he stopped pacing and his eyes shot in their direction.

  “What is it?” Asmund asked as he stopped short behind Eluf.

  “I do not know,” Eluf murmured, yet Erica got the overwhelming feeling he might. That though he couldn’t see them he sensed them. “What I do know is that there might be hope after all.”

  Erica and Kodran glanced at each other and frowned.

  “He knows we’re here, doesn’t he?” she said.

  “He knows something,” Kodran confirmed before his eyes returned to the seer.

  “Well, I’d say so,” came a whisper from beside them. “Bloody interesting twist, aye?”

  Erica automatically stepped a little closer to Kodran in response to the teenage boy who appeared beside them. She widened her eyes as she took in his attire. A kilt? “Who the hell are you?”

  “Adlin MacLomain, of course.” He gave Kodran a disappointed look. “You havenae told her about me?” Then, as if he wasn’t really all that concerned his attention returned to Eluf with approval. “’Tis an entertaining journey you’re on. So glad I can tag along.”

  Erica was about to respond when Kodran shook his head. “I’m sure you know who he is. I’ll fill you in later about why he’ll be joining us on occasion.”

  Damn it. He was speaking to her telepathically. “Get out of my head, Kodran.”

  He frowned and was about to respond when he seemed to realize he had, in fact, just spoken within her mind. And they both knew what that meant.

  They were bonding.

  “No.” She shook her head as she saw the truth in his eyes. “Not gonna happen.”

  His pupil’s flared before his gaze returned to Eluf and Asmund. It seemed he was of the same mind. At least as long as he thought she was bonded with Hallstein.

  “Och,” Adlin muttered as he grinned and looked between them. “This will be a more entertaining journey than I thought, aye?”

  Neither of them responded but paid attention to Eluf as he finally looked away, and made a flourish with his hand. When he did the images in the shields faded.

  “So you have a plan then, Eluf?” Asmund said.

  “I have the root of a plan,” Eluf murmured as he strode out. “Follow me.”

  “Exit stage right,” Adlin declared, his eyes twinkling as they followed Eluf before they flickered between her and Kodran. “Why do I get the sense he didnae want to share more with you two around?”

  “Because you likely know more than we do,” Kodran grumbled a
s he kept eying the shields. She knew he hoped they might tell him more. That they might trigger memories he had clearly forgotten. Or—she narrowed her eyes—maybe he remembered more that he was letting on.

  “So what’s next?” Erica plunked down on a rock and eyed the Gungnir blade sheathed at his side. “We touch that...” She tapped her heels together. “And say I wish I could go home over and over?”

  Kodran shrugged and held the blade out to her. “It couldn’t hurt, but I have a feeling it might just get us deeper into this.”

  “Aye, laddie,” Adlin agreed as he locked his hands behind his back and cocked his head at the dagger. “That is a telling piece.”

  “It is,” Kodran granted. “Would you care to share what you know because given who you are, my guess is it’s a lot.”

  “The same could be said about you, lad,” Adlin returned as his brows shot up and his eyes met Kodran’s. “Were we both not wizards of a sort? Masters at magic? Young until love made us old?”

  Erica kept eying Adlin, somewhat amazed he was here but based on what he just said, it made sense. What better comrade to have along than a man who had been through a similar situation to theirs...minus the dragons.

  Kodran’s eyes met Erica’s before they returned to the shields. But in that brief glance, she saw his struggles. How confused and angry he was. And while some of it was at her being with Hallstein, more had to do with who he had been in another life. The secrets Eluf had clearly been trying to keep from his future incarnate.

  “I do not know where to go next,” Kodran finally said. “When I journeyed to Mt. Galdhøpiggen’s peak, it was for answers from seers. Not this.”

  “Understandable,” Adlin replied. “But it seems to me that they are giving you answers by sending you here.” He looked at Erica. “Both of you.” He shrugged. “So if I were you, I would find a place out of the way to rest, formulate a plan then make the best of your circumstances.”