Chapter Two
–Torsten–
WHILE I COULD say I would heed my liege, Blaze, in all things, no matter what he asked of me, I knew I would have gone to the twenty-first century to seek out Katana, whether I had ultimately been ordered to or not.
I would have defied Odin himself to finally lay eyes on her.
“Yet is it so wise?” my older sister Freya, or Frey as she preferred to be called, had asked even after Blaze had ordered me to go. She looked at me warily. “Do you think this woman you seek will be able to handle both sides of you as well as you hope?”
By both sides of me, she meant my unfortunate affliction with multiple personalities, a rarity among humans, never mind dragons.
“’Tis irrelevant whether ‘tis wise,” I told my sister, who did her best to remain by my side and watch over me, whether I wanted her there or not.
I was a grown man who not only excelled at fighting but had risen to second-in-command of the Keep, proud of and grateful for my rank and position within the Realm.
Moreover, I was content with my role, even though some felt I should feel otherwise, given that my father had been liege before Blaze, making me the rightful candidate to rule.
Nevertheless, I knew my place, given I had not defeated Blaze in battle when he had no choice but to fight us if he hoped to rise to the top and prove he was the strongest dragon.
Or should I say my better half knew his place?
My darker side didn't quite see things the same way. Rather, I often sensed he was waiting for the perfect opportunity to strike, which was unfortunate, given Blaze was my closest friend. Though daunting, it hadn’t bothered me too much because, for the most part, my better, more noble side remained at the surface.
At least until recently, before the Realm of Fire prophecy had ignited.
Since then, or specifically since I’d met Blaze's mate, Marjorie, my darker side seemed increasingly prevalent, yet strangely enough, somewhat tamed by her.
And that wasn’t the only odd thing happening.
There had been other subtle changes taking place, too, that I hadn’t shared with my kin. Namely, I was becoming more aware of both my personalities, no matter which was prevalent at the time, whereas before I had no memory of what happened when locked within one personality or another.
So, I was acutely aware of the shift within when I finally laid eyes on Katana.
I wasn’t sure what I expected her to look like, but nothing born of my imagination could have prepared me for her stunning, exotic beauty.
Though her body was slight, there was just enough curve to catch my attention.
Her face seemed designed by the gods, from her flawless skin, delicate cheekbones, and plush little lips to the beguiling tilt of her thickly lashed, luminous, pale cedar-brown eyes. Eyes I could lose myself in.
Even though I had hoped, prayed, she would meet my better half, the moment I spied the sizeable dark-haired man beside her, holding a blade no less, my darker half took over.
Even worse, my dragon was moments from surfacing, determined to end the man for having the nerve to defend her from me, of all people.
Hell, the nerve to stand so close to her.
Yet, despite her slight stature, it seemed she knew how to protect herself when she did the last thing I expected and took up a battle stance. Holding her knife at the ready, her gaze flickered from my face to somewhere above my head.
“Stay back,” she warned, the sound of her voice as enticing as the rest of her. She shook her head and looked around nervously before she flared her dragon eyes at me, and she pointed at the spot over my head. “I don’t trust that, which means I don’t trust you, stranger.”
“I think we both know we’re not strangers, Katana,” I replied, liking the feel of her name on my tongue.
“We are when you wear that crown,” she countered.
At least she wasn't denying we had already connected across time, even if only in our dreams.
I frowned. “What crown?”
I might act aloof, but this wasn’t the first time I had been accused of wearing one, however ethereal it might have been at the time. There was no solid crown on my head. Not yet, but someday soon, if it were the last thing I did.
I was the rightful ruler of the Keep, after all, not Blaze.
“You're wearing a silver crown sparking with darkness,” she cut back, meeting my frown. “The one you tried to lure me back in time with...” She trailed off and shook her head, as if confused. “Or he tried to lure me with.”
“He who?” the other man said through clenched teeth, clearly not liking the looks of me any more than I did him.
Though he kept his blade at the ready and his eyes trained on me, I got the sense he knew my sister was close.
That he felt her presence in ways he should not, and I didn’t like it.
Truth told, the only reason he wasn’t dead already was because I, too, wanted to know who Katana referred to and suspected I wouldn’t find out if I whipped a blade through the man’s neck.
“Someone else,” she replied, her wary gaze dropping back to my face. “Someone as dark as you are right now.”
Right now? Did that mean she sensed both sides of me?
While telling, it was inconsequential at the moment.
Who she now referred to was because I suspected he was the evil at the root of the prophecy, determined to lay waste to the Realm.
When Blaze and Marjorie came together, that evil resided within the false king, Haldor, who had been slain since then by his own brother, Skarde, a warrior warlock who now possessed that very darkness.
“Where did you see him, Katana?” I ground out, already knowing the answer even as I asked. It had been at the Keep in a vision, when I warned her to stay here. Yet I wanted to get a feel for how she appeared when she lied because I didn’t doubt she would. “Where did you see the enemy?”
“I didn’t see him.”
Her lovely dragon eyes flared again as if she couldn’t help it, allowing me to see she was not, in fact, lying after all. Not entirely anyway.
“I only heard him and then you,” she went on. Her gaze flickered from a crown only she could see back to my face. “Before I saw the crown.”
Strange that she only saw the crown, because I had been standing there and had seen her lovely little dragon. Then I’d warned her not to come to me. To steer clear of what swelled up behind her.
A darkness that drew her inner beast in a way I could see even now.
“No,” I growled, refusing to allow Skarde anywhere near her when I sensed him drawing closer when he shouldn’t be able to, given the centuries between them.
Moving fast, I whipped my blade at the other man and headed for her, thinking I would be able to throw her over my shoulder without much issue, but soon realized there was more to these two than met the eye.
That became clear when the man dodged a well-aimed dagger that rarely missed its mark, an impressive move that complemented hers as she spun away before I could scoop her up.
Then they nearly pierced me with their blades in a maneuver that aggravated me, prompting my sister to intercept the man from where she’d been discreetly assessing our interaction.
Despite being impressed by the relentless, methodical way the two worked together, standing back-to-back as they fought us, I was growing increasingly frustrated and impatient.
“’Tis unexpected, ja?” Frey said into my mind, clearly as impressed as I was, though she kept it from her face while trying to get a blade past the man’s well-matched counterthrusts. “Truly impressive.”
I didn’t need to look her way to know she wasn’t just talking about the man’s fighting abilities.
“I need to get her out of here, Frey,” I made clear. “Skarde is drawing closer.”
“How?” There was a frown in her internal voice when she referred to the ash tree nearby. “This Yggdrasil only leads to the Realm, does it not? To the mother of all trees itself?”
She spoke of the monstrous golden ash overlooking the Realm that connected us to the other eight worlds ruled by our All-Father.
“’Tis rumored that it can connect to other Yggdrasils in the Realm if the mother tree chooses,” I replied. “But ja, it should lead back to the Realm.”
Or so we could only hope, given the darkness had seemed to access the mother tree when Marjorie and Blaze came together. Yet we had been told by our head seer, áma, that it hadn’t infiltrated the Realm.
What if it had, though?
What if she’d been wrong?
Whether she had been or not, Katana belonged to me and no other, so no matter where we ended up, I would have her if it were the last thing I did.
Even now as she battled me, determined to keep me away, I knew she wouldn’t refuse me in the end.
Her inner beast would welcome mine, and I would own her, body and soul.
Before my thoughts wandered to all the delicious ways I intended to claim her, and a distracting arousal took over, I wasted no more time with this dance of blades and ordered Frey to keep the other man away so I could make my move, pulling forth godly magic I rarely used.
Magic that could drain me, and I wasn’t supposed to utilize against a person’s will, but the way I saw things, Katana would be grateful for it later if it meant keeping her out of Skarde’s hands.
Not just that, but it was only a matter of time before she realized she wanted to be nowhere else but with me, allowing me to pleasure her and most certainly breed with her, making her the first woman I had ever felt that way about.