Her Crowned Dragon Myth (Viking Ancestors: Realm of Fire #2)

Prologue

–Katana–

“WHERE ARE YOU?” I called out, my voice echoing down the long, dark, gothic-style hallway with its towering arched ceiling. “Why did you bring me here?”

Perhaps summoned or lured would be a more apt description, because it always felt that way whenever I found myself wandering this strange castle that never seemed to lead me anywhere near the man I could sense but never saw.

Yet I heard the deep rumble of his voice and understood his strange dialect.

“I am here, Katana,” he replied, just as he always did, only his tone was more insistent this time. Almost threatening. “And you must come to me. Be with me. Hand me the crown. Become my queen.”

A chill swept through me at those last three words. He had never said them before, let alone taken that tone.

“Come to me,” he whispered, suddenly right in my ear, his breath icy against the side of my neck, his voice shifting as if he were morphing into another man entirely. “Bring it to me.”

I was frozen in place. Unable to move. At his mercy.

Helpless in a way I had never been before, and I didn’t like it one bit.

Nor did my inner beast, a dragon I hadn't embraced in years.

Yet she roared to the surface now and took over before I could stop her, breaking free of whatever sinister hold he had over us.

“Come back,” he roared as my vision hazed red and I shifted into my dragon, racing down the corridors far faster than before, desperate to get away from him. “Come back to me, Katana!”

Never, I vowed, turning a corner I had never seen before, only to find myself at the top of a wide set of stairs leading to a truly impressive great hall.

Though tempted to stop and admire the towering glass spire overhead, I flew down the stairs, desperate to escape his allure, only to find that the further away from him I was, the more it intensified.

“I said come back to me,” he boomed. His voice reverberated through the hall, shaking my dragon to the core, making me sluggish as I reached the bottom, slowing me down no matter how eager I was to get to the freedom awaiting me on the other side of that monstrous front door.

“Never,” another deep voice ground out.

His voice was more familiar. The one I often sought but never found. A voice that affected my dragon almost more than my human half, sending a blazing heat through me, despite having never laid eyes on him.

Even now, I could not see him.

Instead, a silver crown sizzling with black was hovering before me, calling to me, coming to me.

“Stay where you are, Katana,” he warned, even as the chill at my back and the need to flee intensified. “Do not come to me. Do not...”

He said more, but I could no longer make out his words. All I could feel was the tether between me and the sinister voice tightening, pulling me backward, luring me in.

Close.

Closer.

Too close now, until he was all around me and all went very, very dark.