Chapter Fourteen
AVA STARED AT him blankly for a moment before she blinked several times and looked away. “It’s way too soon to talk about marriage.”
“You are right.” But she wasn’t. “I am sorry.”
“No, you’re not,” she said softly. She might be looking at the ash, but he knew she didn't really see it. “You’re testing my inner dragon, feeling out my thoughts.” Her eyes returned to his. “I’ll come to you when and if I’m ready, Soren.” She shook her head. “No sooner. Do you understand?”
Though he should let it rest, he did not. Could not. His dragon wanted to draw hers out. It wanted to see inside her not just fleetingly but all the time. To pull her close. Not let her wander off again with her tail tucked between her legs to some desolate place of punishment.
“Tail tucked between my legs?” she whispered, catching his thoughts. She narrowed her eyes. “Is that what you think I did?”
“It is not what I think.” He rested his hand over hers. “But what you think.”
She pulled her hand away and looked at the tree again. “Stay out of my head.”
“That is impossible most of the time.” He sighed and continued eying her. “You are not a criminal, Ava. Nor are you a coward.”
Rather than respond, she pulled her knees to her chest and remained silent, her thoughts churning in denial at his words. He knew better than to keep pressing, so he allowed them to settle into silence when he would much rather talk and get to know her. Then again, the more time they spent together, the more he knew her anyway. Their minds grew closer and closer by the moment.
Eventually, she spoke. “You would make a very good king Soren. I hope after I leave that will happen.” She hesitated a moment, her voice growing softer. “As to how I feel about being married to a king? I won’t be. Mates or not, I’ll be going home to confess and face my crimes.”
“What do you think they will make of that?” He kept with logic because she seemed to prefer that. “Humans do not know dragons exist in your time, no?”
“No.”
“So you will have to convince your people you are half dragon, yes?”
She pressed her lips together and nodded.
“This is why you fled to another country and put yourself in seclusion, is it not?” He rested his hand over hers again, understanding her very clearly. “Because to confess you would have had to tell them what happened. That would mean showing your people...your government, that dragons existed which would be equivalent to telling them that aliens existed, right?”
Before she could respond, he went on, seeing straight to the heart of her. “You may not have shifted, but you used dragon magic to make sure those satellites did not pick up the heat of your dragon eyes.” He shook his head. “You fled to seclusion not to avoid punishment, which would have no doubt been a lifetime of scientific torture as they studied what you were, but to protect our kind. Dragons in the future.” He squeezed her hand. “How can you for a moment think that cowardice?”
“I always sensed you were modern in my dreams,” she whispered. “Now, I see why. You know an awful lot about the twenty-first century.”
“Of course I do,” he said. “Far too many of my kin are from there not to. They are from your very era.”
“I know,” she said. “I tend to forget that...the way time passes differently. Your mom, even your grandparents, would have only been a few years older than me, in my time.”
“Yes,” he confirmed. “Not only that, but I have traveled to the future several times. Like Sven, I educated myself to the ways of the twenty-first century.”
“You mean to the ways of twenty-first century women.” Her eyes slid to him. “Because you knew there was a good chance that like your father and grandfather, you would be fated to one.”
“I did.” He nodded. “It was a logical assumption, yes?”
She pulled her hand away again. “Did you do this before or after Agatha?”
“Some before,” he confessed. “Some after.”
“Going before couldn’t have been a good thing.”
“No,” he replied. “Originally, I told her it was to learn more about where my bloodline came from. Eventually, I came clean and told her while that was some of it, it wasn’t all of it. I had been curious about women my age in the future. I wanted to be prepared if the legacy started by my grandfather and his brothers continued on.”
“It’s good you were honest with her,” she said. “Though that couldn’t have been easy for her to hear.”
“No.” He shook his head. “But we moved past it, and I truly loved her.”
After that, silence settled again, her mind churning all the while as she sifted through what they had talked about. Eventually, she spoke again, her voice whisper soft. “You know what I’m curious about?”
When he looked at her in question, she went on.
“Why didn’t our dragons let us know when you were in the twenty-first century?” Her eyes narrowed. “Based on how they’re behaving now, you’d think they would’ve sensed each other right away, no matter how far the distance.”
“I don’t know,” he replied. “Perhaps it has something to do with why I was able to turn from my dreams of you to allow myself to love Agatha? Perhaps there was some sort of barrier that helped put distance between us. That kept my dragon separate.”
“Hmm.” Something occurred to her, and her eyes narrowed further. “While I like the idea of your dragon prioritizing Agatha, I can’t help but wonder if we weren’t being influenced by this prophecy long before it started unraveling. Because Tess and Rokar certainly were.”
“I thought of that myself,” he conceded. “And it is a distinct possibility.” He shook his head. “Would it not have been more beneficial to Níðhöggr’s plan for us to meet sooner, though? To spark our connection earlier so that we might lead the others when the time came?”
“Unless that would have changed the course of things,” she countered. “The prophecy sparked when a curse lifted in Scotland, right? So, maybe if we knew each other before that, nothing would have gone as it should.”
“You sound like the wizard you’ve been spending so much time with,” he teased, hoping to lighten her mood some. To draw her away from endless self-blame. “But I agree, Fate, or perhaps your ancestor, had a plan.” He put his hand over hers yet again, not just needing to comfort her but craving the simple contact. “Though I am beginning to think the plan has always been yours.”
“Not just mine,” she said softly, finally not pulling her hand away. “But yours too.” She met his eyes. “Whatever we did, we did it together.”
“We did,” he agreed. “But you discovered it first.”
“How do you know?”
He frowned, realizing he didn’t know. “Actually, I don’t. I guess I just assumed based on everything we have learned so far and because Tess basically said as much.”
“She did,” Ava agreed. “But it was more that she sensed it than actually knew it.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Nothing says you and I didn’t figure out this mysterious plan together. Because we sure as hell executed it together.”
“No, nothing says we did not formulate it together,” he agreed, sensing something. “Yet did we truly execute it together?”
“We must have.”
“Why?”
“Because infected dragons made it here...” She trailed off and shook her head. “Nothing says we did that together though, does it?”
“No,” he said. “While it’s good to keep hope I’m not so sure we should assume it went smoothly.”
“But it could have.” She looked at him, more optimistic than he expected. “We might have been the only couple to make it here. We might’ve shared an entire life...”
He squeezed her hand, hoping that was the case. Yet his dragon’s sudden sadness told another tale. “I would like to think we enjoyed a lifetime together too.” While he could have held back, he didn’t. He would not. “That
we did, in fact, marry and have children, and they had children...”
Rather than shun the idea as he expected, the corner of her mouth curled up a mere fraction. “I don’t think marriage existed forty-five thousand years ago.”
“Maybe not.” He tilted her chin until her eyes were aligned with his. “But that does not change how I feel. What I would have wanted. Though you are not ready to hear it, it’s what I still want even though we haven’t known each other very long.”
“You feel too much way too fast,” she whispered, her eyes dropping to his lips.
“Yes.” His gaze dropped to her lips as well. “And I think you do too. You’re just not used to listening to your dragon. What it wants...needs...”
Before she could respond and deny him, he wasted no more time.
He showed her exactly what that was.
Chapter Fifteen
AVA SHOULD HAVE pulled away and kept her distance from Soren but she couldn’t. Not just her dragon but her human half disallowed it the moment his lips touched hers. After that, she was lost. Outside herself in a way she didn’t recognize. Immersed in the tender exchange.
Or at least it was tender until she groaned, grabbed his jerkin, and sought more.
Kissing Soren was like a first kiss wrapped up with a thousand perfect kisses. When their tongues met and danced, she felt young yet womanly and seasoned all at once. She had never experienced such riveting excitement from a kiss, so she could only imagine what sex with him would feel like. Something she was so hungry for, she had to stop this now. If she didn't, she would be lying on this grass with her legs spread in ten seconds flat. Maybe five.
So though it took a great deal of effort, she unclenched her hold on him, rested her hand against his chest, and pulled her lips away enough to murmur, “We should get some rest.”
He nodded, his breathing as ragged as hers, the desire in his eyes unmistakable. “Yes.”
She heard the strain in his voice. The overwhelming urge he fought not to take her here and now. To give both their dragons and human halves what they craved. Thankfully, he was strong enough not to act on it, or she would have given in.
She would have given anything to have him this very second.
Maybe, in the end, it was the fact she had literally just met him and her human half needed a smidge more time to deem sex acceptable. Had she been Shea or Tess, God love them, it would have been different. But as a rule, way back when, she had required a few dates before she took a man to bed.
A scruple, as it turned out, that she ended up cursing all night.
She tossed and turned, so damn aroused it hurt. She wasn’t in heat, but it felt like it. Images from what seemed like all the haunted dreams she’d had over the years bombarded her only now they had a face.
His. Soren’s.
Every erotic dream she’d had of him played over and over, leaving her burning up and covered in sweat. Finally, just before dawn, she gave up and went outside to get some fresh air. Soren had insisted he would watch over her while she slept, but he had fallen asleep sitting against the wall, which was good. She wanted him to get some rest.
Not surprisingly, she found Tiernan leaning against the tree outside, watching the horizon as the first glow of orange lit the sky.
“Hey there.” She yawned and leaned against the tree beside him. “Up early, as usual, I see.”
“Usual?” He cocked a brow. “You’ve known me mere days.”
“Am I wrong that you’re usually up this early?”
“Nay,” he conceded, handing her a skin of water. “I havenae slept well for some time.”
“Anything to do with your magic being off lately?” Or the mysterious woman you won't talk about? She kept that to herself though because she knew he would only deflect.
“Aye, ‘tis my magic being off.” He looked at her, letting the matter rest. “What about you, lass? Typically, you seem to sleep well.”
Actually, she hadn’t slept well for years. Not until the prophecy first sparked. Since then, she'd slept like a babe when it probably should have been the opposite. She couldn’t help but wonder if it had to do with Soren coming into her sphere. As if her dragon knew it and in turn, soothed her human half.
Until last night that is.
Damn kiss.
“I’ve just got a lot on my mind,” she lied. Though, in all honesty, a lot had been on her mind all night. So what if it was sex related?
“Skáld’s Domain has shrunk again,” he mentioned.
“Has it?” she replied. “Did you know Leviathan thinks that’s bad?”
“I think the Ancient sees but one side of things,” Tiernan said. “One side of the Burn of Transition.”
She frowned. “What do you mean?”
“Though Skáld is drawing power and making his Domain smaller,” the Scotsman said. “There is opportunity in it. Two sides to the coin.”
“Speak English.”
Humor lit his eyes. “I am.”
She gave him a look. “You know what I mean.”
“I think the Ancient is right in part,” he explained. “Skáld is using the energy of his Domain to get to Midgard, specifically to you, but there’s an opportunity for you and Soren in that. A means to use it to your advantage.”
“I don’t understand.”
“Though I dinnae know the dynamics,” he said. “The double-headed serpent is getting here through something you and Soren created, Ava. He’s following a path of fated mates that he has no right to.” His eyes met hers in warning. “He’s following a path that should be impossible. That is yours and Soren’s alone. Nobody else, even a brother, should be able to access it.”
She frowned and crossed her arms over her chest. “Any theories why that is?”
“Nay.” He shook his head. “Unless...”
When he trailed off, clearly not wanting to put voice to something, she prompted him along. “Unless what, Tiernan?”
“Well,” he said reluctantly, “dragons of a certain ilk can do extraordinary things.”
“Dragons of a certain ilk?”
“Yes, Daughter.” Vigdis appeared at the entrance of the cave, her eyes dark with Ancient Matter, Níðhöggr’s possession. “Dragons of a certain ilk.”
“What does that mean?” Alarmed, she frowned between them. “I’m going to need you two to be a little more specific.”
“Dragons that are twins,” Soren said softly, appearing beside Vigdis, seemingly jolted awake by certainty. His eyes met hers. “Skáld and I shared a womb in another life.”
Shocked, she shook her head, trying to wrap her mind around that. The implication. “How do you know?”
“Because his fraternal twin draws closer,” Vigdis—Níðhöggr—said. “Using not just the energy derived from his twin beginning to remember the dragon he once was, but more.” His eyes narrowed on Ava. “You.”
“Yeah, I got that already—”
“No, Daughter,” Vigdis bit back. “You remember nothing of what you did,” he seethed, his eyes suddenly moist. “The sheer risk you took...the monster you created on top of the one that already existed.”
“What are you talking about?” She was at her wit's end, wishing she could scream rather than stay calm. She wanted to let her dragon have its way and wrangle the information out of Vigdis.
The seer made to respond but instead bent over and coughed out the Ancient Matter. With it, any hope of getting more answers.
“Sonofabitch,” Ava ground out.
“What’s going on?” Groggy, Tess appeared alongside Soren at the lair’s entrance. “You okay, Sis?”
“No,” she nearly shot back but managed to harness the inner calm that had seen her through many a negotiation. “Everything’s fine.”
“Right, sure it is.” Tess yawned and eyed Ava. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen you so riled.” She frowned at Soren. “What happened?”
“I’m not riled,” she denied. Evidently, she didn’t appear as collected as she had
hoped. “I just...” She scanned her surroundings, looking for anything to redirect their conversation. She locked on the lake in the center of the Realm. “I just need a bath.”
Tess looked from Ava to the lake and nodded. “Now that I get.”
She plodded back into the lair, mumbling that she still wanted to know what she had missed once she woke up some.
Ava met Soren’s eyes and shook her head, speechless at first until she found her voice. Screw being diplomatic or keeping the peace. “When the hell’d you realize you were Skáld’s twin? It better not have been last night when you—”
“It was not,” he assured. “Come, let us gather our belongings then head for the lake. We will talk along the way, yes?”
While his tone grated on her nerves, she realized it was the same one she would have used if she were him. An octave meant to soothe and urge the other to see reason. To think before acting on emotions.
“Yes, belongings,” she managed.
“Are you all right, Ava?” Tiernan said softly as they headed inside. “You dinnae seem yourself.”
“Because I’m not,” she muttered. “Can you blame me?”
Before he could respond, she stalked off to retrieve her satchel and fur, then went outside to refocus. Granted, a lot was going on, but she needed to pull herself together. Her dragon had no right to hijack her personality and make her feel so out of control.
“That’s what’s happening though,” she said under her breath.
It had to be. She’d spent her entire life perfecting her level nature, her calm mind, only for it to develop cracks left and right thanks to the earthquake that was Soren coming into her life.
And his twin brother, Skáld.
Three peas in a pod.
“That’s it,” she whispered. The revelation hit her like a ton of bricks. When Soren stepped out of the lair and met her eyes, she filled him in. “I know exactly why your tattoo has three heads now.” She shook her head. “While the others are right about it to a degree, they don’t know what I do.”
Viking's Crusade (Viking Ancestors: Rise of the Dragon, #6) Page 9
