Viking's Ransom (Viking Ancestors: Rise of the Dragon, #4)

by Purington, Sky

  In the meantime, Leviathan upon entering their alcove, eyed the cat warily.

  “He might make for good flavoring on the meat,” Leviathan said into his mind.

  “Only if I want to lose my mate,” Eirik replied.

  “Damn straight.” Kenzie narrowed her eyes between them before they landed on Eirik. “Just to be clear, my animals are like the kids I never had. That’s how important they are to me.”

  He nodded, fully aware of how much she cared. “I would never harm them, Kenzie.”

  “I know,” she murmured before her eyes narrowed on Leviathan who only smirked and shrugged a shoulder before he replied, “It’s hard for my dragon to make such guarantees when it is clear Eirik will not be sharing you with me.”

  When she narrowed her eyes, even more, he chuckled and winked. “You should know better than to think I would harm anything you care about, woman.”

  “So what happened last night outside of the obvious, sweetie?” Shea said, her eyes on Kenzie before she considered the sunlight streaming over her. “And would you like to sit somewhere else? I know the sun—”

  “I’m fine,” Kenzie said softly, as she closed her eyes and tilted her head back to the sun much like Floyd just had. “It feels so...good.”

  “It does, does it not?” Vigdis murmured, as she appeared, her voice different and her eyes swimming with blackness as they remained on Kenzie. “See the Gemini try to break free from her cage.”

  They had seen this before in others. She was possessed by Níðhöggr with what they called Ancient Matter. It appeared when the Great Serpent wished to speak directly to them.

  When Leviathan went to draw his blade on the seer, Kenzie came to her feet and shook her head. “No, it’s all right.” Her eyes went to Vigdis, better yet Níðhöggr, as she ignored his comment and addressed something else. “What happened to Dagr? Where is he now?” She blinked back tears as she began to tremble. “Has he been harmed?”

  “Long past harmed,” Níðhöggr whispered but the malice that had been there before was lacking now. “Safe beyond his cage.”

  Though Kenzie’s trembling waned as her eyes stayed with the seer’s, silent tears still fell as she whispered, “He died then, didn’t he?”

  Eirik’s heart about stopped at that. What was she talking about?

  “I knew him back then, didn’t I?” she went on, her eyes growing distant though she still stared at Níðhöggr. “I knew him then I...” She blinked, confused and lost as her words trailed off and her eyes turned to Eirik’s. “I knew him before...or at least I think I might have.”

  “Safe beyond his cage,” Níðhöggr echoed before Vigdis coughed and released the matter in a wisp of oily black smoke. Once she did, she began chanting to dispel it, but it did the last thing anyone expected.

  It didn’t dissipate like it had every other time but shot directly into Kenzie.

  Chapter Nineteen

  WHERE MOMENTS BEFORE sunlight had been on her face now the fires of hell rained down as she peered up into the face of the largest dragon she had ever seen. Kenzie knew the moment their eyes connected, exactly who he was.

  Níðhöggr.

  The bastard behind this whole war.

  Yet as he stared down at her, she saw something more than just a cruel creature trying to wage war. Deep in his fiery dark gaze, there was something else. Something she couldn’t quite put her finger on. But it wasn’t as cruel as she thought it would be. Not nearly.

  Was she actually sensing affection?

  Moments later, he vanished entirely, and one world snapped away to be replaced with another. What had clearly been Múspellsheimr returned to being Earth, or Midgard, and black oily smoke was curling away from her mouth.

  Acting on pure instinct, understanding what to do, she chanted in a foreign language evidently native to her previous life, and the smoke vanished. Meanwhile, Floyd’s fangs were bared, and his hackles were raised as he hissed not only at Eirik but anyone who tried to get close to her. And though he might be a toothpick sized appetizer by dragon standards, he was a vicious little thing.

  “It’s all right, Floyd,” she murmured. “I’m okay now.”

  Just like that, his hackles lowered and he stopped hissing. When he did, she patted him, and he calmed further.

  She eyed everyone, well aware that the Great Serpent tended to tell its host one thing and those around it another. “What did Níðhöggr say to you guys?”

  “That we should journey to our ship and sail on the eve of the full moon,” Eirik said, an odd expression on his face. “That when we do, we too will flee our cage.”

  The ship Níðhöggr spoke of had to be one of six ported in a harbor here, built by Heidrek and Bjorn before they were taken. Each ship had a dragon prow carved into the likeness of a Sigdir dragon and a fiery dragon face on its sail that matched the eventual color of the tattoo on their arm.

  “He said all that then?” she murmured, frowning at him as an odd sensation washed over her. “What did you make of it?” She cocked her head. “And why do you have that look on your face?” She frowned as she realized everyone wore a similar expression. “All of you, for that matter?”

  Eirik’s face smoothed before he glanced from Shea back to her clearly wondering if he should say anything.

  “You should,” she said, calling him on it as she continued to frown. “What is it, Eirik? What’d I miss?”

  “Níðhöggr was not just within you but around you,” he replied softly. “He was visible to all of us in spirit form.”

  “What?” she whispered, shaking her head. “Really?”

  “Yes,” Shea said just as softly, a touch of awe in her voice. “Not just that but his wing was wrapped around you despite the small area.” Her eyes met Kenzie’s. “He was offering you comfort, Sis. No doubt about it.”

  “Comfort,” she mouthed because she couldn’t quite find her voice as her eyes returned to Eirik...as she remembered seeing Dagr in their previous life. “This all has to do with him, doesn’t it?”

  “I think so,” he replied, following her thoughts as he pulled her close and simply held her. Something he was remarkably good at. “We will follow your ancestor’s advice and journey to our ship then sail on the full moon. When we do, we will get to the root of this mystery...the root of all the pain.”

  “So much pain,” she echoed, as a fresh round of grief washed over her. Grief that she couldn’t explain. That made no sense without the memories attached to it. As if drawn, her eyes drifted to his dragon tattoo, and she pulled back, startled. “The color in the middle is brighter now.”

  “Yes,” he confirmed, his eyes still on her. “Only in the middle and nowhere else just like before.”

  “Not precisely the middle but a little lower,” she whispered before her eyes shot to his as his speculations became abundantly clear. When she couldn’t find the words, he spoke for her.

  “The color is where a dragon would carry her—”

  “No.” Her vision blurred with tears as she put a finger to his lips. “Don’t say it.” She shook her head and pleaded with her eyes as grief churned her gut even more. “Just don’t say it.”

  “Oh, shit,” Shea whispered, her voice shaky as she caught on.

  Oh, shit was right. Because the location of the ever brightening color on the dragon was exactly where a female would carry her baby when she was pregnant. But what did that mean? Was she pregnant in that last life? Was Dagr trying to remind her? Níðhöggr with his cryptic words? It made no sense, but it hurt like hell regardless made worse by the fact that she couldn’t remember exactly why.

  “This is all getting a little too crazy,” she managed as she backed away from Eirik and kept shaking her head. “We need to...focus.” She looked to Shea, grasping for normalcy, or even a smidge of the sort of saucy lightheartedness only her Cupid sister could dish out. “Right, Shea?”

  Her sister blinked away moisture, understanding what Kenzie needed. Quick to comply, Shea nodded an
d managed a winning, sparkly smile. One that helped push back the darkness some. “I couldn’t agree more, Sis. Totally time to refocus.” Her eyes went to Eirik. “So what’s next?” She slid Davyn a promising smile before she winked at Kenzie. “Maybe more skinny dipping somewhere while we wait for the next full moon?”

  “That does sound appealing,” Vigdis agreed, her eyes flickering with interest between Leviathan and Rokar. Yet her lust didn’t quite ring true, did it? If anything, she would say the seer was envisioning a certain fire demon rather than a dragon.

  Kenzie managed a weak smile as her eyes returned to Eirik’s. “So when is the next full moon anyway?”

  “Two eves from now,” he replied. “More than enough time to get to the ships.”

  “Good.” She nodded, her hand drifting subconsciously to her belly as she looked around. Though she would always cherish their time here together, there was also a sense of finding out the worst news of her life in this location. “If it’s not too much to ask, I’d rather head out and spend the next two days anywhere but here.”

  “I could not agree more.” Eirik’s eyes went to everyone else. “We will break our fast, then join you soon, yes?”

  Translation, he wanted time alone with her. What was there to say, though? She had no answers. She didn’t know what was at the root of all the pain. What was behind the closed door of her memory.

  “And you will not know until the time is right,” he said softly, following her thoughts as he urged her to sit on a rock before he prompted her to eat and drink what turned out to be refreshingly cold water.

  “You need to keep your strength up.” He sat beside her and started eating as the others left. “Then we will...talk as we travel.” His eyes met hers, and he offered a comforting smile even as he outright flirted. “Or do other things that might help you relax.”

  He truly had no idea how inappropriate his timing was, but she liked that about him. That he was easing into being normal almost as much as she was. Because that’s exactly how she felt as she chewed her food, closed her eyes and tilted her face back into the warm sun again. Whatever was happening was shifting things considerably. The sun should be uncomfortable right now. More so, she shouldn’t be eating but puking after what had to be at least twenty minutes of direct rays. And that didn’t include the sunlight she may have soaked up while she was still sleeping.

  If she wasn’t mistaken, this area had been completely shaded yesterday. Not anymore though. She peered up at what had been a solid canopy of pines far overhead. “Is it me or have those branches moved...maybe even the trees themselves?”

  “They have,” he confirmed, eying the trees as well before his eyes dropped to hers. “But then we are in Níðhöggr’s Realm where the land shifts whenever it likes.”

  “Right.” She narrowed her eyes. “So the trees shifted to put me in direct sunlight which usually drains me but doesn’t seem to be affecting me adversely at all now.”

  “So it seems.” He cocked a grin that made his already handsome face drop-dead gorgeous. “The land seems to not only know what is happening to you but is being far kinder than it was to your sisters on their adventures.”

  So it seemed. But why? A question she had a feeling she would get an answer to before all was said and done.

  “It’s nice seeing you smile,” she murmured, shaking her head when his grin faded. When he realized this wasn’t the best time to express happiness. “No, don’t stop.” She sidled closer. “If you want to smile, Eirik, please, smile. Because I have a feeling it’s something you haven’t done a whole lot of in your life.” When she met his grin, it wasn’t forced but a result of the brief flash of contentment on his face. “Whatever’s going on here, whatever crap tore our world apart in our past life, can’t be a part of this one. Sure, we’ve gotta figure it out, but after that, it’s done...it’s behind us.”

  “You make it sound as though you would like to remain with me,” he said, blunt as ever but she appreciated it. “Wherever that may be.”

  “Well, it’s safe to say I want to get to know you better,” she chided, still grinning as her skin burned and she blushed again. He had a way of making her do that a lot. “We seem to be...pretty compatible.”

  That was such a weak term for what they were in bed, it almost sounded silly. She had never felt anything like him and knew flat out, she never would again.

  “I thought you were going back to your boyfriend?” he said softly, mirth in his eyes as he perked a brow.

  “I didn’t say that,” she countered.

  “You did,” he reminded.

  “It didn’t seem like you were too concerned though,” she reminded as well.

  “I am not.” His eyes leveled with hers and he remained blunt but this time in a way that made her breath catch. “I love you, Kenzie, and though I would never stop you if you went back to him, I cannot guarantee my dragon will be so gracious.”

  “Love me?” she mouthed because the words got caught in her throat. “Do you know me well enough to feel that strongly in such a short amount of time?”

  “It does not matter how long I have known you.” He shrugged, his eyes never leaving hers. “I feel how I feel and do not question it.”

  She nodded, not sure what to say other than she liked his forthrightness. It seemed Floyd felt the same way because though he sat between them, he leaned against Eirik and tossed her a whisker-twitching stamp-of-approval look only Floyd was capable of. One that told her she was going to get another look entirely if she didn’t start being just as truthful.

  “I wasn’t going back to him,” she muttered before she took a swig of water then looked his way. “I lied about my ex.”

  “I know,” he replied, his unwavering eyes still with hers.

  “Of course you do,” she murmured, caught in his gaze for a moment before she inhaled deeply and looked away.

  The truth was, she nearly kept talking. She nearly told him she felt the same way. That she might just love him too in breakneck time. But it didn’t fit anywhere on her tongue mainly because she simply had no way to identify if what she felt was love because she had never felt it for a guy before. Yes, she understood that they were fated mates, but why did that mean she had to gravitate toward him? That she had to accept that as fact?

  “It’d be a little boring and predictable if we just gave in to the fact that we were fated mates, don’t you think?” she blurted out, her eyes returning to his. “I mean honestly, like it had to be for pre-arranged marriages of the past, how much would it suck to be told you had to be with someone the rest of your life and not be able to put up a little fight?”

  He stopped chewing and eyed her thoughtfully before he swallowed and finally spoke. “We are dragons, Kenzie, so the same rules do not apply.” Then he shrugged and seemed to give it more thought. “But I understand the human perspective. That just giving into something you have no choice in would be jarring. As jarring, I imagine, as having to give up everyone you love because they cannot be around you anymore. It is hard... to accept.”

  Damn, well, when he put it like that. “This, you and me, isn’t hard for you to accept in the least, is it, Eirik?”

  “No,” he replied, his eyes with hers again as he polished off his meat and urged her to do the same. “You are an easy choice. The best I have ever had.”

  Maybe because it’s the only one you’ve had she nearly said but bit her tongue. He didn’t deserve anything that sounded like a snide comment or a hard truth.

  “Kenzie,” he murmured, whipping her onto his lap so fast, her head spun before her eyes found his. She not only heard his words but saw the stark truth in his gaze as he continued. “You have to consider the sort of man I was as my life faded from one of Midgard to one of Helheim. And the only way for you to do that is to look through my mind’s eye all the way back. To see, even in my transition, that I was not like Davyn, Håkon, and Rokar but more like Sven. Even Soren.”

  She had heard about them all, but one di
dn’t make sense. “Rokar pursued women as much as Håkon and Davyn?” Then she really thought about how much Davyn had been like Shea before they hooked up. “He pursued women as much as Davyn? Really?”

  “Yes, Rokar was much like Davyn before he fell in love with his wife,” he confirmed. “But we are not talking about Rokar right now.”

  “No,” she murmured, already getting sucked into his gaze, into what he was about to show her if she were willing to look inside him. “We’re talking about you.”

  “We are,” he confirmed.

  Then just like that, he opened himself up to her before she had a chance to say no.

  Chapter Twenty

  EIRIK HAD NEVER let a woman who wasn't kin look through his mind’s eye but understood as Kenzie tried to argue her way out of being fated mates—which was really just her way of giving him freedom to impregnate another woman—that he had to let her all the way in. She needed to see the man he was from start to finish.

  So he let her see in the blink of an eye his numerous conversations with Emily and Håkon then those with his cousins before he started to make everyone nauseous. He let her see how differently he saw women from his male kin. How of course he wanted to lie with them, but he wanted to get to know them first. To see if it would be worth being with them in the end.

  “It will always be worth it,” a young Håkon had exclaimed, grinning as he glanced between an equally young Davyn and Rokar before his eyes landed on Eirik. “Have you not heard what we have told you, Brother? How tight and sweet the heat is between a female’s thighs?”

  “Especially a female dragon’s,” Davyn added. “It will about burn your cock off, but in a way you will never forget.” He winked at Håkon then assured Eirik, “It will not matter how well you know her first.”

  “What’re they teaching you now?” Emily had said, joining the conversation as she rolled her eyes at the other three. “Don’t listen to them, Eirik.” She squeezed his hand and met his eyes, very serious. “Wait for the right girl then give it your all. It’ll be so much better if you do.”