Chapter 16
The dragon and his rider swoop over the clearing, their silhouettes looming alarmingly larger as they lose altitude.
The silver moon catches on the steed’s scales, lending them the gleam of blackened iron. Fitting for a creature whose hide is said to have more in common with metal than with leather.
Instead of congealing with fear, my blood beats with fascination. It isn’t the first time I’ve seen one, but it is the first time I’ve been near enough to glimpse the dragon’s underbelly.
Ever since I learned the color of the scales along their front determined their age, I’ve eagerly observed the ones who’ve flown over our valley—soft-white for hatchlings, silver for adolescents, steel in adulthood. Past a millennium, and their undercarriage veered to black.
According to the elders and the endless hours spent in the longhouse studying with them, only one full-black dragon exists. And he predictably belongs to the Vampyr King, Taeric Skarnir.
The approaching dragon’s belly gleams a shade of gray just shy of steel. An adolescent, like me. Killable, like me.
Oddly enough, our similarities give pause to my fear. That is, until moonlight flashes on its deadly wing claws that are wrought from the same metal as the talons on their feet: pure iron.
The only metal capable of harming and scarring a valkyrie. I may be in the company of creatures who are weapons in and of themselves, but the absence of my bow makes my shoulders itch with unease.
The dragon sketches another almost lazy circle through the midnight sky, opalescent eyes roving over us as though looking for something…someone…
Smoke billows from its slitted nostrils like ashen clouds. Is fire building on its tongue, or does it come from its lungs?
How I wish I hadn’t been so sheltered, that I’d been taught more about the world and the beings inhabiting it.
Saga skitters back another step and lets out a soft whine that makes my skin pucker, and the other wolves fold in around us.
I twist my neck, hunting for Nordin in the pockets of darkness amid the forest. When I find him carving a path toward me and Saga through the furred bodies, I exhale long and deep.
What is it about this male that makes me feel like nothing bad can touch me in his presence? Is it as simple as the hero worship delusion he pointed out the night of my journals’ desecration?
Gods, why am I even thinking of Júl again? Even learning he burnt them out of fear and not out of spite bruises all the soft parts of me and fissures the hardened ones.
As he rounds his sister, his long fingers trail along the side of my leg, spiking my reckless heart. I pray Saga’s too distraught to notice my reaction to her brother. Does he notice it, though?
The better question is: Does he ever not notice my body’s every traitorous flutter and flush?
He finally unlatches our stares and clasps his sister’s head. “Zaskja’s covered in my scent and wearing my cloak,” he murmurs close to her folded ear.
Nordin’s words don’t appear to reassure Saga one bit, for her ears remain pinned and her hackles raised. She mustn’t feel like that will be enough to conceal my scent from the dragon and vampyr.
“If he lands, you and the others run to the pass through the forest.” Though Nordin’s tone is placid, the rest of him is on edge. “I realize that means several extra miles, but dragons are too large to fit between the trees.”
The shallow whine that forms in Saga’s throat makes Nordin peer over his shoulder.
The dragon has dropped another few feet. It’s possible his intent isn’t to land but to gain a clearer picture of us.
Nevertheless, Saga retreats some more while the other wolves stalk in front of us to form a wall. I must admit that my new awareness of the creatures’ taste for valkyrie blood has dampened my urge to get up, close, and personal.
“Leif.” Nordin whistles, capturing the shifter’s attention. “Carry Zaskja.”
Leif sidles close enough for me to leap from Saga’s back to his without touching the ground. Once seated, I sink my fingers into the fur at his scruff, my stiff knuckles cracking as they bend.
Nordin retraces his steps toward me, cheekbones no longer tinged from the flush of his run. His complexion has grown as milky as the clearing beyond the tall, tawny trunks.
He reaches up and palms my bobbing knee. The combination of warmth and pressure settles its bounce.
His palm drifts up my thigh, then back down to my knee. “The vampyr won’t break the truce. Odin’s Sons can’t afford another enemy.” After another soothing caress, he adds, “They wouldn’t survive another enemy.”
May he be right.
Vanoo lets out a raucous growl that makes Nordin snatch his hand back and pivot. His lids twitch when he beholds the dragon, whose wings are now level with the crowns of the tall firs. If the creature isn’t about to land, then it’s about to hover uncomfortably close.
“Is this habitual?” I ask, my voice skipping with nerves.
Nordin looks back at me. “Is what habitual?”
“Vampyrs and dragons visiting the Wilds during Myrknótt?”
He rolls his lips. “When we hunt, they steer clear of the forest.”
So, they are here because of me.
Why must Odin’s creatures possess such a keen sense of smell?
“But again, there’s a truce,” Nordin reminds me, as though a line of ink on parchment is enough to keep monsters at bay.
“Between shifters and vampyrs,” I mumble.
The reminder that I’m not a werewolf hardens Nordin’s expression, turning his jaw to stone and his eyes to chips of ice. “You’re a Vale.”
Will my affiliation with his family and pack suffice?
When he sucks in air, my heart misses a trillion beats, and I choke out a, “What?”
He raises his hands in front of his face, his irises gleaming as vividly as the smile that kinks his mouth, as brilliantly as the claws that tip his fingers. “Looks like the toxin’s finally out of my system.”
A weight lifts off my chest.
“Everyone!” Nordin’s voice knifes the air, sharp with authority. “Hold your ground. Two whistles, and you fall back.”
I expect Nordin to shape-shift now that he can, but what does the Alpha’s son do? He squares his shoulders and stalks toward the clearing in skin.
In fucking skin!
Once he breaches the tree line, panic inundates my system, flooding my tongue with the taste of metal. Under my breath, I hiss out, “Shift. Come on.”
Leif peers over his shoulder at me and whuffs. I’m guessing he means to calm me. It fails to work.
My mind runs even wilder. I picture the dragon enveloping Nordin in flames. I picture his beautiful hair crumbling to ash. I picture the beast thrusting a wing claw into Nordin’s thorax and lifting him just high enough for the vampyr to scalp him with a silver blade.
Mor says my imagination is a thing of beauty, but she’s wrong; it’s ugly and ruinous. It coils around my chest like a vine made of thorns, causing me unnecessary injury.
Nordin tilts his head toward the sky, the moonlight painting his long strands a blinding hue. I try desperately to remind myself of the truce. That whatever happens to me, nothing will happen to him.
“Greetings!” Nordin calls out.
The salutation seems ill-suited, since the vampyr hasn’t made the trip for a friendly chat over a stein of mead.
Blood, not honey wine. Vampyrs thrive on what runs through our—
I gasp because the dragon has just spewed fire at the ground. Icy air carves down my throat, stifling the sound of my terror. It barely abates when I realize the creature’s intent was to clear the ground of snow and not to roast Nordin.
Slowly, the beast retracts its webbed wings, and then it lands. There’s no deafening bang, yet the ground beneath Leif’s paws seems to groan as the creature settles its full weight into the earth.
Saga yips at Tyron until the latter falls back a few paces, coming to stand on the side of me Saga can’t reach. I meet his annoyed stare. One I merit for dragging them into this impossible situation.
“Do you need something that couldn’t wait until the end of Myrknótt, Son of Odin?” Nordin doesn’t even bother to cloak his displeasure with congeniality.
The vampyr’s crimson eyes, the only part of him that crests from his hooded shawl, scroll over the lot of us before coming to rest on Nordin.
“There’s nothing I, or my people, need from you, Child of Fenrir.” The voice that seeps through the fabric obscuring the bottom half of the caller’s face is unmistakably masculine. It’s also oddly common. Here I expected it to be flecked with an accent, or wet from a mouthful of blood.
“Then what brings you to the Wilds on our most sacred day?”
“The Wilds belong to all, do they not?” The man’s tone is menacingly pleasant. “But if you must know, my dragon felt restless, and when he’s restless, I listen.”
Nordin’s tense shoulders form harsh angles beneath his leathers. “Unless you want wolves to hunt on your holy days—”
“Odin’s veneration isn’t governed by punctual revels, so we’ve none of those.” Even though I cannot see the vampyr’s mouth, I presume it’s quirked in derision.
“Well, Fenrir’s is. Out of respect for the truce that exists between our people, may I suggest you retreat to Hasam?r before my people feel threatened by your presence?”
“You may suggest it.” The lilt in the man’s voice is unmistakable this time. “How come there are two of you in skin, Stormsson?”
My heart grows so cold that its beats congeal.
He’s noticed me.
Instead of climbing onto Leif, I should’ve scrambled to the ground and taken cover beneath him.
“Shouldn’t all your people be locked in fur until the full moon wanes?” The vampyr’s head tilts to better trail his dragon’s stare, which has been pinned to me since landing.
“My cousin was harmed with silver, so she couldn’t shift. I decided to keep her company in skin this year.”
“Your cousin on your father’s or mother’s side?” The man’s irises seem to grow brighter, redder.
“Try all you want to penetrate her mind; she’s a shifter.”
I suck in air at the news of what he’s attempting. Though I’ve never learned to shield my mind, I’ve heard it said that when one is surrounded by wolves, the pack’s innate shielding magic extends to those with permeable skulls, just like their piss wards guard all living souls within them.
“Except—and correct me if I’m wrong—shifters aren’t the only ones who can resist compulsion, Stormsson.”
“Look, although I’d love to stay and chat, I’d like to finish celebrating the holy day with my friends and family. Come back tomorrow—any time that suits you—and tell our sentinels to fetch me. I’ll meet you at the pass, and we can discuss my family tree at great length.”
Though the vampyr chuffs good-naturedly, there is nothing good-natured about the way he rolls his shoulders back and straightens his neck. I’m not the only one to sense it, seeing as more than one growl ripples through the trees.
The sound slits the dragon’s pupils and prompts the beast to unfurl his sinewy wings.
The vampyr emits a soft cluck and pats the beast’s long neck. A moment later, the creature retracts its wings. Nevertheless, the cycle of vaporous air that swarms in and out of his nostrils remains harried.
“I’m here now. Why don’t you make introductions?” His focus is now on Nordin.
Nordin, whose golden claws catch the moonlight and scatter it across the fresh snow like sparks from the forge.
Leif’s muscles bunch beneath me. Will the dragon give chase if we take off? Will he hover over the unguarded pass until we emerge and snatch me then?
“Zas, want to meet a real-life dragon?” Nordin asks, wrenching me out of my morbid contemplations.
“Um…” I lick my lips.
What is he playing at? Does he want me to say yes or to feign shyness?
“Perhaps some other time, but thanks for the offer!” I call out.
“I fear we’ll have to reschedule,” Nordin says with false amity.
Without haste, the vampyr lifts his hand to his head and eases his hood down, which drags the shawl obscuring the bottom half of his face low.
I blink at his smooth scalp and fearsome facial tattoos that festoon his skin—one on his cheekbone, the other swooping over his forehead like an artfully tousled lock.
Do all the Sons of Odin ink their faces, or is this the mark of a vampyric mating bond? Do the Sons of Odin have life mates?
I glance at Nordin, trying to glean if he finds the markings as disturbing as I do, or if he’s used to them. If only I could be privy to his expression, but all I see is the sweep of his long white hair, snarled from his unplanned dip in a fjord and ensuing nap.
The vampyr clucks, making his dragon stoop and extend his wings.
Assuming the animal is about to spring off the singed earth, my ribs ease their grip on the organs beneath.
But then the vampyr plants his boots on his steed’s wings, stands, and hurls himself into the air and back onto the ground with a speed that makes him appear more wraith than man and puts werewolf velocity to shame.
He lands in a noiseless crouch, then straightens vertebra by vertebra. Just as indolently, he plucks off his leather gloves and tucks them into the waistband of his leather trousers.
I can’t make sense of his clothing removal. Unless his blood runs hotter than a shifter’s? Do vampyrs even have blood in their veins—aside from what they steal from others?
The dragon flicks his neck until his face hovers over his master’s, pupils striping the milky, rainbow hue of his startling irises.
“I don’t believe we’ve been formally introduced yet, Nordin Stormsson. I’m Kjell Blaka, General Vaelen Blaka’s younger brother.”
“I know who you are.” Nordin’s growled reply slips beneath my cloak and causes my skin to fracture into goose bumps.
The vampyr, whose age I cannot pinpoint, though I’d lob him somewhere in between Saga and Nordin, grins, exposing short fangs that taper into needle-fine points. “I’m an observer for King Taeric Skarnir.”
He must state his rank to make himself sound harmless—a mere glorified scout instead of some warmonger like his older brother.
“I asked you to leave, Blaka.” Nordin turns toward us and booms, “You all heard me ask the vampyr to depart, correct?”
The wolves surrounding me bare their teeth and growl their assent.
“I heard you, Stormsson, but I cannot, in good conscience, leave without understanding what unsettled my dragon.”
I catch the edge of Nordin’s jaw twitching a heartbeat before he sounds those two shrill whistles.