by Kate Pearce
Come taste me, the fire seemed to beckon.
A hint of magic lingered inside her—that was a good sign. But when she swept her hand near the flames, that overwhelming need to consume the fire wasn’t there. It was as if she didn’t thirst for it anymore.
She pressed her hands against her face, expecting cold. What she found was far worse—she produced barely enough cold to chill meade in a cup. Damn it.
Another explosion shattered a section of wall to the southwest and jolted her out of the moment. She couldn’t stay here anymore trying to make something work that wasn’t meant to be anymore. A moment of regret at her lack of abilities passed through her, but she shoved it aside. Lamenting could come after she helped these people.
But how? Her gaze flicked to the south and then the west to where villagers ran for the river. She had to make a choice. Fight with what little she had or escape. The moment she took a step sound her march turned into a run.
Steinn, you better be alive and fighting!
By the time she reached the wall, bits of it littered the streets. Through the wide cracks in the wall, she made out flares of light from the red dragons—and one beautiful bright white light. Knurre and Steinn continued to fight.
Her face broke out into a wide smile, only to have that smile die a ghastly death. No more than a hundred paces away men in light gray coats marched over what was left of the wall. They spilled into the city and some of them came her way.
She clenched her fists. She had hardly any magic and not a weapon to her name other than her blade. As much as she wanted to fight, only a daft fool would toss rocks at men who could bring her down easily. She darted toward the Frost River and didn’t look back.
***
Freya give me strength.
Steinn kept chanting that phrase again and again. Holding tight to his resolve as tightly as he held the reins. All he could do was lean close to his dragon while the animal dove and plowed through the invaders.
Sand from the storm stung his eyes, but he ignored the pain and focused on guiding Knurre to the targets closing in on the city.
Targets galore stormed the gates. There had been too many of them. Before the wall had caved in, he’d focused on culling the first wave. Sweep after sweep, battling brisk winds and sand crawling into his eyes and mouth, he steered Knurre to burn and freeze anything in their path.
All the while he had to ignore the nagging feeling that Drifa was within the city’s walls. No matter how strong she always tried to be, she was still a flesh and bones woman capable of being broken.
So far everything progressed as planned—until a stray gust of wind knocked them off course. He pulled hard on the reins to the right to return them back to hitting the next wave. But that damn stubborn dragon bucked hard as if he’d had enough of taking Steinn’s orders.
“Not now, you scaly, son-of-a—!” he grated.
The other warriors dove and soared around him, avoiding return fire from the invaders, but the dragon’s strange behavior sent them spiraling away from the wall to the smaller mountains to the west.
“Stop!” He lost the reins, cursing as he clung with whitened knuckles to the saddle. “The city is burning!”
His stomach lurched from the hard spin and he shut his eyes, breathing hard through the maneuver. Hold on. Hold on. Hold on. If he let go he was done for. One moment he heard the roar of the wind and in the next he hit a snowdrift hard and rolled over the snow to a dizzying stop.
A blackout should’ve come next. He’d hit his head hard enough to knock some sense into him. He was a fool to think Knurre could be controlled. That dragon better hope his sword wasn’t within reach…He stretched out his hand, finding nothing but crisp snow mixed with dirt. He’d landed somewhere along the lower hills to the mountains.
He wavered to stand, hoping that white demon was close enough for him to strike. Close enough for him to take the reins and use the thick ropes to choke the dragon until it moved no more. But he caught no sight of the dragon until his gaze swept the turbulent sky. The lizard flew east. The saddle hung off the side and the reins trailed in the wind.
“Knurre!” he roared.
The blur of white disappeared into the darkness and didn’t return.
Steinn had no choice but to watch with rising fury as what remained of the city wall crashed into the ground and the invaders’ metallic monster plowed through it. There was nothing between them and the Women of the Frost now.
10
Drifa helped the last villager onto the escaping boats as they headed south down the river.
“You should get on, Lady,” a longboat captain urged. The others flashed him urgent looks to cast off and flee. She was nothing more than a fool who wished to stay behind.
“Take these people to safety. My place is north of here with the Women of the Frost.” For good measure she nodded to the man who secured the boat to the pier and walked away from them.
The city burned beyond the pier and all she could do was hide among the shadows. There wasn’t anything to fight anymore unless the invaders had left those machines behind like before. Their monstrous grumbling carrier had rumbled through leaving nothing but flattened, burning homes and dead bodies. The dragon’s keep was a charred hole in the ground. The stench in the air weighed heavy on her shoulders.
They had failed these people.
Whatever power her family’s lineage had given her had diminished the moment she had laid with Steinn. Flashes of him crossed her vision. His smile. The way he looked at her from across a field or the sky. She might never see him again.
The sandstorm had receded. Other than smoke, not a single dragon was in sight. Her friends must’ve flown to the north after the invaders. As to whether they’d live to come for her she didn’t want to guess. She stumbled as her thoughts distracted her.
Letting regret overcome her wasn’t the best plan either. She forced herself to move when she slowed down. She was still Drifa Ragnardottir. The chieftain’s eldest daughter. She’d been summoned to make things right. If she had to find a boat, anything hollowed out would do, then she’d do it to fulfill her obligations. She’d reach the north and join the others to protect the Women of the Frost.
She returned to the pier to find all the boats gone. The only thing that remained was a fishing boat half submerged in the icy water. Which meant she needed to walk. Not the fastest conveyance, but sitting around wasn’t an option.
So she began to walk toward the snowline beyond the city. Each step was progress into Niflheim. Establishing a goal firsthand was important, right?
By the time the snow crunched under her leather boots and the mountains grew taller, she spotted someone waiting on a hill not far from her.
A laugh escaped from her mouth and she couldn’t stop. “Where have you been, Steinn?”
“Waiting for you after a very long walk,” he replied. “What took you so long?”
***
The long walk had been good for Steinn’s bitter mood. Seeing Drifa’s beautiful face, even more so. Even if the Gates to the Frost had fallen, she’d survived and now he had a chance to take her away from all of this.
As to how he’d do that was another matter.
They rested for a bit on a rocky ledge along the snow. She didn’t shiver once, even with her thin cloak.
“Are you cold?” he asked.
“You get used to it after a while. Haven’t you gotten used to it after looking for Knurre in Niflheim?”
Just thinking about the dragon made his stomach clench with anger. “That was a few years ago. I was a lot more foolish back then.” He sighed as much more pleasant thoughts came to mind. “My uncle took me so many places, but none of them prepared me for the far north.”
She nodded and urged him to get up so they could walk again. Getting up was hard. He’d have bruises for days from the rough landing.
“Is that where you found Knurre?” she asked.
“As a child I heard the legends. That the ice dr
agons roamed all over Niflheim, but when I searched none of them could be found until I explored beyond the stronghold of the Women of the Frost into the far reaches of the north. Once there I discovered where they hid away so finding a dragon for us was merely a waiting game.”
She looked away when he’d said the words “for us,” but he kept going.
“I found an overhang with adequate shelter from the winds where I could place my tent.” She didn’t interrupt him while he talked about his hunt across the icy plains. How the dragons had hunted him instead of him following them.
“How did you survive?” she finally asked. She was pretty when her smile revealed her dimple.
“Apparently, I don’t taste very good.”
Her mouth dropped open. “One of them tried to eat you?”
“Knurre, that scaly bastard, grabbed me like this—” he demonstrated with clenched fists. “And he bit me on the shoulder. The moment he pierced my flesh he let go for some reason. We’ve been together ever since then.” His voice trailed off.
“I happen to think you taste just fine.”
“Oh, do you now?” His mouth dried and his cock stirred in his trousers.
The way she parted her lips nearly did him in. Her tiny pink tongue darted out to wet her bottom lip and he clenched his fists. A part of him itched to fling her over his shoulder and find a sheltered spot to claim her womanhood. In moments it would be over and afterward she’d never be able to return to the north—but that very act would bring her pain.
He had to talk about something else before he entertained such madness. She spoke first.
“We have to reach the others, but we don’t have the supplies or the clothing to cross the mountains.” She bit her lower lip as if in thought. “We’re stuck.”
He didn’t have the means to return her to the Women of the Frost and he couldn’t rejoin the others. Not without a dragon. Fending off the invaders was a problem he couldn’t fix either.
Not without Knurre’s help.
He took in the view, not expecting her to settle into his lap.
“Share your warmth with me,” she said softly. She wrapped her arms around his shoulders, draping her cloak over him, too. Her softness pressed against him and he only dared to steady her place in his lap by holding her waist. Did she sense his unease? How his stomach tightened into vicious knots and his heartbeat sped up like mad? Her forehead was close enough to his lips for him to sample her skin. To further add to his agony she tilted her head and drew her cheek along his jaw until her lips rested against his pulse point. He couldn’t contain the moan that escaped his mouth.
This wasn’t the time or the place, but he wanted to taste her secrets again. To feel her tremble while he brought her pleasure. His right hand rode the curve of her hip, over her breast, to reach the delicate line of her collarbone. His fingertips traced circles in the dip between her breasts until he caught something faint thrumming against his touch.
It was her heartbeat. It raced as wildly as his. Did that mean she felt the same way he did?
“What do we have to do to rejoin the others?” she whispered, breaking the silence. “You’re hiding something. What are you keeping from me, Steinn?”
He sat like stone for a moment. “You must choose me, Dri. Be my woman. Only as a united front can we control Knurre and help any of the warriors who’ve gone north after the invaders.” His grip on her hip tightened. “But I won’t force you to do this with me. You’ve shown me countless times that you don’t want me.”
After his confession, he expected her to agree. To reject him again like last night. Hadn’t he exposed his soul multiple times to her? It took everything he had to get off that bed the other night and let her go.
After a moment of silence, a sweet blush touched her cheeks and she pressed her mouth against his. She didn’t kiss him though. Perhaps it was a promise of something more. He felt her fingertips, ever so slowly caress the sides of his face down to the stubble on his chin. The light touch made him shudder.
Oh, how I want you, Dri.
He had a final chance right now to change her mind. If he wanted to, like any chieftain he could’ve simply told her she was going back north. He could’ve dragged southward until they found a town and a boat to take her back to the Women of the Frost.
But in his heart he didn’t want to. They were meant to be paired. His body yearned to be connected to hers. Just holding her made him itch for them to be skin-to-skin, heart-to-heart like when she’d slept.
Finally, she made her intention quite clear. “So where are we going then to find Knurre? Do you think he returned back to where he came from?”
Not likely. Knurre was smarter than most dragons, but the beast had no interest in going that far away. Somehow the two of them always ended up back together—even if they were apart for days or weeks.
“He flew east.”
So they walked together away from the mountains and the snow until they returned to the southbound river. From there they travelled to the east.
After a few hours, she asked him, “How long do we have to walk? Is this always how you find your dragon?”
He shrugged. Knurre never made sense. Only time would be wasted trying to figure out why that stubborn lizard made the decisions it made. “My brother would always follow him away.” He sighed. “I regret giving him such a task. I should’ve allowed him to ride. To learn how to defend the clan against danger. He never complains.”
At his side she nodded as if she understood. “We all make choices we believe are in the best interest of others, but we hurt them instead.”
Their walk led them into the hilly plains to the northeast of the gates. The mountains were still visible to their left and weighed on his mind. Perched on a soft bed of dirt, the failed savior of the Gates of the Frost snored without a care.
What a waste of strength and power.
If he could make a fine tunic, boots, and coat with the beast, he would’ve done it already.
“Knurre!” he snapped.
A single ear rose, but the dragon didn’t budge. Not far from the beast, the saddle and his pack lay in a heap. At least they had supplies.
They approached the lizard—with Steinn going first.
“So what do we do now?” she asked him.
“We setup camp. How long has it been since you’ve eaten?” Her stomach had growled plenty of times during their walk to concern him.
Preparing the camp was a simple affair of setting up crystals for warmth and offering her food. She didn’t say much while he spoke.
“My uncle told me the white dragons could be bound to a rider in a manner much deeper than the reds.” She listened quietly while he continued. “I thought all this time it was about me choosing a dragon, but instead it was Knurre who picked me as his rider. And now he must choose you as well.”
She swallowed the meat slowly. “And what happens if he doesn’t want me?”
Steinn’s jaw twitched. “He’ll attack you and after that I will kill him.”
Once she finished eating she left his side to go to the dragon. Approaching from the head or tail wasn’t wise so she went to where the saddle had sat. Steinn followed close behind her. After all the times Knurre had attacked her, Steinn couldn’t shake the unease from his body. This had to be done, but he wondered if there wasn’t another way to do it.
By the time she got close, the dragon stirred to life, but didn’t make an aggressive move. Like a snake waiting to strike. He’d been around the lizard long enough to sense when it was ready to attack desert moles or other animals that got too close to its wide mouth.
Drifa extended her hand toward the wide expanse of white scales along Knurre’s belly. The dragon’s ribcage slowly expanded and contracted—a good sign that meant the beast was relaxed. Matter of fact, all Knurre did was angle its head away from her extended hand. And yet the need to stand between them circled his stomach. If the beast lunged for her, there was only so much he could do.
&
nbsp; She got even closer until she touched the dragon. Growing bolder, she ran her hand along the creature’s flank, up its long neck until she reached the mouth. Her fingertips brushed against the tip of Knurre’s snout and the breath he held came out in a rush. Drifa’s lithe fingers traced a circle under the scaly chin and drew upward. An innocent smile touched her lips and he blew out a sigh of relief.
“You’re nothing more than a playful puppy,” she whispered to Knurre. She tapped hard against the firm muscle along its neck. She continued down along his neck until she reached the place where the saddle had been. The dragon’s head didn’t so much as twitch. Matter of fact, the only movement came from the smooth undulation of its tail, the flutter of its wing tips.
His white dragon had finally chosen her as his second rider. But one act still remained.
“Are you sure you want to do this? You can still return to Niflheim.” His throat grew dry, but he managed his words.
Her head turned and just seeing her beaming at him filled him with desire. “We’ve faced so many things. Every time we survived I believed I was one step closer to walking away from you to go back north, but I need you more than I need them. My heart is here with you. With you by my side I’m prepared to face the consequences.” She shrugged off her cloak and left it on Knurre. His gaze watched the sway of her hips as she strode toward the tent he erected. Her dress clung to her curves.
His heartbeat quickened. For each step she took, he took one with her—until he couldn’t take it anymore. He strode faster, finally reaching for her to gather her in his arms.
11
Steinn had never kissed her so fiercely before. His hands roamed all over her body, reaching and stroking the places she wanted to be touched. Once he released her lips, a question remained.
“What happens next?” she asked him.
“As my woman you deserve a proper bed for your first time.”
It left her breathless to see him feeling the same. “Does that mean we’re not going to do anything, then?”
