Don’t worry about her? All he could do was worry about her. Especially in her current position. Big Red could have already killed her, but fortunately he preferred to gloat first.
“See, she is nothing but a weak female,” the enemy declared, sneering in her face.
Moments before Big Red sank his teeth into Tess’s vulnerable neck, Rokar slammed into him hard, and the two of them went rolling. As they had back at the very beginning, they battled on the ocean floor except this time Rokar had the advantage.
The enemy was weakened considerably where Rokar was stronger than ever.
Just like Tess, seen clearly in her need for vengeance.
“I’m nothing but a weak female, eh?” she growled, disgusted as she raced after them. “Says the dragon who’s about to get his ass handed to him.”
Tess built up enough speed and whacked Big Red so hard with her tail that she flung him away from Rokar. That gave them the window of opportunity they needed to finish the red dragon off once and for all. Rokar got a hold of his neck with his teeth, and Tess found the soft spot above his heart and dug her talons in deep.
Though Big Red struggled, he knew he was in trouble.
He should have gone up for air sooner.
He kept flailing, struggling for all he was worth, but his weakened body couldn’t handle fighting them both with their enhanced strength. Soon enough, his struggles lessened, he stilled, and his heartbeat slowed to a crawl.
Thump...thump...then one more faint thump and he was gone.
Yet another enemy had been slain.
Not interested in lingering as blood filled the water, they swam alongside each other and shot into the air, reveling in their victory. Thankfully, it was to clearer skies than before.
The unnatural storm that had plagued them was finally gone.
“It’s changed again,” she said into his mind. “My dragon’s telling me my tat changed again...that with Big Red’s death we’re officially free of what bound us.”
As eager as her to see what that meant, they raced back to the ship, shifted and landed. Before they did anything else, though, Rokar embraced Tess tightly, grateful she was all right and not slain by the enemy.
“I’m okay,” she assured.
“Thank the gods.” He brushed his lips across hers and met her eyes. “That could have gone very differently back there.”
“But it didn’t.” She smiled. “We made it, sweetheart. The bastard’s finished.”
He nodded, his eyes lingering on hers for another moment before they looked to the others. Magnus and Vigdis stood close together flirting, and Soren and Leviathan seemed happy to see Tess and Rokar well. The Ancient clapped Rokar on the shoulder and nodded. “You have made me proud dragon.” His eyes went to Tess. “You both have.”
“They have made many proud,” came an echoing voice before a dark shadowy figure shaped like a woman appeared near the helm. This was why Big Red finally ended up in Midgard. A certain deity had ensured it would happen once she knew Tess and Rokar had found each other. Once they were ready to face their enemy once and for all.
“Hel,” Tess murmured. “You’re back.”
“Yes, child.” The goddess looked upon them fondly. “You have seen Níðhöggr’s ash?”
They knew she wasn’t referring to the one in Níðhöggr’s Realm.
“Are you so sure?” Hel said, answering their thoughts.
Tess shook her head. “I don’t understand...how can the ash that tethered my soul be the same one in Níðhöggr’s Realm?”
“Is the Maine Ash not the same?” the Goddess said softly. “Are they all not one and the same?”
While everyone knew Níðhöggr’s Ash seemed to protect the Maine Ash and might even have a connection to Skáld’s Ash, how could Tess’s ash be connected as well?
“It is all part of the same journey,” Hel said, again reading their thoughts, “as two great enemies wage a war that leads to both an end and a beginning.” Her eyes met Tess’s. “To the rise of the dragon...and to those left behind.” The goddess’s eyes rose to the flaming dragon on their sail. “The hottest point of the flame is always blue.” Her gaze returned to them. “Two souls forged together in the heart of the Burn of Transition.” Her attention settled on Tess. “Several souls saved thanks to a loving dragon ancestor.”
“The tree was on fire until he saved them,” Tess murmured, suddenly understanding something. “Those were the words I said in a trance when I was a teenager.” Her eyes met his. “I had it backwards. I should’ve said once you save them, the tree would be afire. Because you did save those infected dragons somehow. What we did helped...” Her eyes searched his, and she understood even more. “It was the Burn of Transition that brought me back to the future at the beginning...to the tree, your dragon’s voice asking me to return to you...then the storm, before traveling back in time straight to you.”
“No...more than just you...” Tess swallowed hard, as she refocused on Hel’s comment about a loving ancestor saving ‘several’ souls. Wide-eyed, she pulled up the back of her shirt and turned for Rokar to see. “What’s changed?”
Rokar started to speak but lost his words when he saw it. Lost everything but that incredible sense of anticipation he had felt under the influence of demon magic at the Willow yesterday.
A sense something remarkable was going to happen.
“Oh my God,” Tess whispered, looking through his mind’s eye while he brushed his fingers affectionately over what had been added. “Are those...are they...” Her misty eyes met his over her shoulder. “Do I see what I think I see?”
He’d never know how he knew it as he touched the two little dragons etched into the design, seemingly playing in the branches above the larger dragons, but he knew.
“Bjárr,” he whispered, “and Leah.”
“How?” she said hoarsely, her eyes turning to Hel. “I don’t understand.”
“Don’t you?” Hel said softly.
Tess blinked several times before understanding dawned in her eyes. “Níðhöggr did this...he didn’t just tether me but Rokar and,” she shook her head, “Bjárr? Leah? But how?”
“With help from me of course,” the Goddess replied, not cocky just matter-of-fact. “Connections that were always meant to be yours...children who deserve love who were caught in a curse.”
Baffled, Rokar shook his head. “I don’t understand.” He glanced from Tess to Hel, remembering Eirik and Kenzie’s tale, their destined children. “Was Bjárr once Tess’s? Leah mine?”
“No,” Hel said. “Yours is a different situation. The children’s souls were connected to each of you individually lifetime after lifetime but now that you have come together as mates, they are yours. Both of yours.”
“What about Axle and Helga?” Tess shook her head, visibly trembling. Rokar pulled her close, eager to steady and soothe her. “And why are you talking about our kids like they’re here and not in a tattoo?”
“As to your former partners,” Hel said. “Their souls were not intricately tied to the children like yours are. They will move on, find happiness, and other young souls meant to be born to them.”
He could tell by Tess’s expression that she was as relieved to hear that as him.
A knowing gleam entered Hel’s eyes. “As to your children, they were tethered as you were, kept safe in Níðhöggr’s Ash.” Her eyes went between them. “And now look, here you are.”
Tess’s eyes rounded even more at the implication, and she rested her hand over a belly he knew was not filled with a child yet. “Are you saying...”
“Not filled with a child yet,” Hel echoed, her eyes turning to his. “But your tree grows, changes and evolves, does it not?”
Rokar bit back a heavy wave of emotion. He wanted to fall to his knees and thank any god willing to listen. So he did a thousand times over telepathically to Hel because he knew she played a part. He wanted to kiss her smoky not-quite-there feet and shed happy tears instead of the heartbroken
tears that had coated his cheeks for far too long.
Yet, as was her way, Hel vanished before he had a chance to say or do anything. But not before she left final words on the wind. A warning that the battle might be won, but the war was far from over.
The First Blade must find its new master, he of Thor’s blood, because Skáld was coming.
Worse yet, he meant to leave nothing but destruction in his wake.
Chapter Thirty-Three
CAUGHT SOMEWHERE BETWEEN the euphoric feeling of knowing their children would be reborn and fear for what Ava and Soren faced, Tess looked to the dragon on the sail. “I’ve never been so happy and scared at once.” Her eyes met Rokar’s. “Somehow Skáld’s coming here, Earth, Midgard, and I guarantee it has everything to do with Ava.”
“Yes,” Rokar agreed. He did as Hel requested and handed the First Blade over to Soren, ensuring his cousin saw through his mind’s eye just how much power had gone into this sword. Then he repeated Heidrek’s words.
“See that my son stays true to his path and leads as he should. Nothing should stop him...even himself...” Rokar gestured at the blade. “That is yours now, Cousin. Wield it well.”
Soren nodded, emotion flickering in his gaze at his father’s words then wariness and admiration when he eyed the sword. Then a little something else as he seemed to relax. If she didn’t know better, she’d say the blade already set him out on his predestined path. One he might already understand to a degree.
“We should get back.” Though he spoke to Soren, Rokar looked to the sea with unmistakable longing. “So that you might find your mate and see through your adventure.”
“Yes,” Soren agreed, his expression different, calm as his eyes met Tess’s. “But getting back is not as dire as it feels. Ava remains safe, and Skáld is not able to get here quite yet.” He impressed Tess with his level thinking, setting aside his own desires so that Rokar might see through the rest of his adventure the way he wished. “What would you like to do, Cousin? We both know that sail could get us to the Fortress in a magical flash.” He looked from the sail to Rokar. “Or perhaps in an hour or so?”
“I could get you back even sooner, Soren,” Magnus volunteered.
“No,” Soren said softly. His eyes remained on his cousin. “There is time...if my cousin wishes to enjoy what has been lost to him for so long.”
Rokar’s eager gaze went to the sea before his brows furrowed in concern, and his eyes returned to hers. “We should get back right away—”
“Now, see, you’re doing it again.” She put a finger to his lips. “Trying to please everyone else when you should just do what you want to do.”
“But time is a factor,” he murmured against her finger.
“There’s time enough for this.” Just like Soren, she knew full well what Rokar longed for right now “There’s time to do a little sailing.” Her eyes flickered from the sail to him. “To get out there and really enjoy the open sea.”
He pressed his lips against her finger, then palm before his eyes swept over everyone. “Yes?”
“Yes,” everyone said, smiling.
So they hit the water and sailed down the Scandinavian coast, happier than either of them had been in a very long time. They had overcome so much, and if the war were won in the end, they would have a brighter future ahead than either could have imagined.
Rokar was kid-like as he sometimes manned the rudder while other times, stood at the bow alongside his dragon’s figurehead, alive in a way she had never seen him before. It was heartbreaking to think such joy had been taken from him but clear in the set of his chin and eagerness of his eyes, he was moving forward in every way possible.
After touching base with a fellow Årud he felt would see to his men well in his short absence, Magnus had agreed to return to the Fortress with Vigdis so that everybody might sit down and discuss what lay on the horizon.
“Thank you, Tess,” Magnus said, joining her at the stern a while later. The Fortress loomed in the distance. “For everything.”
“Everything?” She smiled when she understood. “You and Vigdis then?”
“We are trying to find our way back to each other,” he replied. “Which is something I gave up hoping for years ago.”
Despite his careful words, she knew they were making their way back to each other quickly. That they had enjoyed a night that rivaled her and Rokar’s.
“It’s amazing how quick we are to misjudge people,” she said softly. “To assume the worst of them. I certainly did with my ex.” She shook her head. “After it was over, I didn’t trust my initial judgment, didn’t remember the man he was when I met him. Sure, now I know magic was involved but heck, I wish, being a dragon and all that it might have occurred to me then that something was way off.”
Though she spoke of her and Axle, Magnus understood their story paralleled his and Vigdis’s tale in a way. Vigdis had thought Magnus drained her magic on purpose and had an eye for other women, but nothing could have been further from the truth. In the end, she left him without exploring what had come between them, to begin with. She forgot the reasons she had loved him and assumed the worst, believed the worst.
Just like Tess had of Axle.
“It will be good to try once more,” Magnus murmured, leaving it at that. His eyes stayed with Tess’s. “Though you have not shared everything you witnessed in Múspellsheimr, I know all of it. As Leviathan knew you and Rokar made the return of the First Blade possible, I understood my ancestor’s role in everything...the connection you and I share.”
She nodded. “I know the Burn was caused by your ancestor’s magical contribution.” She shook her head. “I just still don’t understand how demon magic made the whole process work. Why the demon’s burn didn’t kill our ancestral dragons.”
He looked to the Fortress again. “While I cannot answer all your questions yet I can tell you that my kind had to have suffered the infection on Múspellsheimr as well.” His eyes went from Vigdis to her. “How else could I be here with the capacity to love?”
“Good point,” she said softly.
“They await us,” Rokar exclaimed, still the man she met but the best version of him now. He grinned from her to the shore. “All of my kin.”
Sure as heck, they did. So many people waited on the dock and shore it brought tears to her eyes. They weren’t there for her, Leviathan, the demon, seer or even Soren. No, they were there for Rokar.
They knew the man he once was had finally returned home.
While she urged him to spend time alone with them after they docked, he only would with her by his side. He wanted them to know she was his. That he had found love again. He was happy. Based on the looks on the faces of his grandparents, parents, cousins, and so many more, they knew and were truly joyous.
“So Ava’s gone?” Tess asked her sisters yet again when they settled around a fire in the main lodge a little while later. Kenzie’s cats Pink and Floyd sauntered around like they owned the place, fires burned and people laughed and danced, celebrating not just Rokar returning to himself but another enemy defeated. More hope resurrected. “She was here and then went back to the future with the Scotsman when she knew Soren was coming? Really?”
“She insisted on it,” Sage said. “She wouldn’t have Mom and Dad there alone.”
“I get that, I really do.” She shook her head. “But shit, Skáld could get them all in one fell swoop without any of us there to help.”
“Tiernan is there,” Shea reminded. “And hell if that sexy Scot is gonna let anything happen to her.”
Tess well understood the ‘sexy’ part when she got a glimpse of him through her sister’s mind. Tall, kilted, muscled with a few tats, he was gorgeous. She quirked the corner of her mouth when Rokar’s eyes met hers from across the way.
“I didn’t think you preferred Scotsmen,” he said into her mind. His amusement was obvious as he reminded her just how hot it was between her and him with select images designed to tease. “When you so
clearly enjoy Norsemen.”
“I prefer a dragon to a wizard, and you damn well know it,” she purred before she turned her attention back to her sisters.
“So what’s Ava’s plan?” She patted Kenzie’s dog, Harley absently when he plunked down beside her. “Because I would think it’d be to grab our parents and get her ass back here right away.”
“She’s fine, Sis,” Kenzie said. “We’ve been in contact with her, and she’s heading back soon.”
“So Mom and Dad are good?”
“They are.” Sage cast a knowing glance from her to Rokar. “Everyone’s fine for the moment. We’re officially in a holding pattern until we know what comes next.” She gave her sister a look and dished out words Tess knew she’d said to every sister at the end of their journey. “You defeated your enemy and made all of us that much stronger.” Her brows swept up. “Tonight’s your night, Sis. Yours and Rokar’s.”
“Right,” Shea echoed. “So why are you here talking to us when you could be on your mate’s lap?”
Tess glanced from Rokar to them, thinking the same thing but fully aware it wasn’t time quite yet. There was more to be said. She might have found closure over Leah’s death, but her sisters were still in stand-by mode.
“No, we’re not,” Sage said softly. She put her hand over Tess’s and met her eyes. “I’m not sure if you realize it, but you’ve kept us with you more often than not on your adventure...and you let us in...you let us see and feel...”
It took her a moment to realize what Sage implied.
“I’m so sorry,” she whispered, blinking back more blasted tears. She looked from sister to sister. “I never meant to shut you out.”
“Don’t ever say you’re sorry.” Sage crouched in front of Tess, held her hands, and searched her eyes. “We don’t blame you for a thing.” She shook her head. “Or Axle now that we understand.”
“No, we don’t,” Shea agreed brushing a tear from Tess’s cheek when it slipped free. Cupid that she was, with love at the heart of everything, she put things in perspective in a way Tess understood best. “It’s just been one long road, right Sis? Sometimes rocky, sometimes impassable but like all roads, it gets cleared and fixed, and you can travel down it again just fine.” Her eyes flickered from Rokar to Tess. “Could be it’s an even smoother road now.” She winked. “And your bike just eats up the pavement.”
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