Chapter Four
–Torsten–
IMIGHT BE very different from my darker half, but when Katana suggested we go our separate ways to keep me safe and to keep the crown out of Skarde’s hands, I responded exactly as my other personality would have.
Exactly as my inner dragon demanded.
I stopped short and told her that would never happen. Then I made the things she may or may not have already figured out clear.
“You will remain by my side at all times, where I can protect you,” I told her, never more serious, already drawn to every part of her, from her appearance to her thoughts. I especially liked seeing her in clothing from my homeland. “I will have my fated mate nowhere else.”
I could tell by the way her breath caught and her eyes flickered with her inner beast before she rallied her emotions that she hadn't expected me to say that.
Nor did she anticipate feeling how strongly I meant it, because I knew she did.
There was no need to hear my words or see it in my eyes.
She felt it in my inner beast, right down to my soul.
While I had no intention of going about things the way my darker half had or likely intended to, I would have her one way or another.
She would be mine.
“While it goes against my grain to assume things,” she replied, finally finding her voice, “assuming is certainly what you’re doing right now, Torsten.
” She shook her head and kept walking, as if she needed to escape the moment, if not my very words.
“I’m here to help however I can. That’s it.
Then I have a job to get home to. People who depend on me. ”
“I suspect my mother said something similar to my father at some point when they first came together.” I fell in beside her, noting how fit she was and how well she kept pace despite her shorter stature.
“Yet in the end, they could only ever be by one another’s side.
Only ever be mates for this life and all to come. ”
This time, she stopped short and looked at me. Her delicate ebony eyebrows shot up. “Your mother was from my century?”
“Ja,” I confirmed. “Having traveled back from the very house you reside in now through the same tree.”
“My God,” she whispered. “You’re serious?”
“I am,” I replied. “Like many before her, she traveled back to the Sigdir tribe and the Realm, only to unite with her fated mate.”
“That’s why your sister looks a little Latin,” she realized. “Why your skin looks darker than I would have expected of a Scandinavian from this era.”
“So I’ve been told,” I said. “My mother was originally from Brazil.”
“That’s incredible,” she said softly, starting to walk again. “All of this is.”
“Wait,” I said when I sensed something behind us, but saw nothing. “Something, or someone, is coming.”
While the protector in me wanted to take up arms in front of her and battle Skarde to the death if it were him, something told me I needed to keep her hidden for now, until I understood why she was so drawn to him.
So, I grabbed her wrist, backed her into a crevice in one of the rock walls, unsheathed my blade, and positioned myself sideways in the limited space so I could protect her from the enemy, before chanting under my breath.
“What is that you’re chanting because...” she whispered, trailing off when I shook my head sharply at her and put a finger to my lips, urging her to be quiet.
My darker side would likely have just kissed her to keep her quiet.
“’Tis a means to protect you,” I replied telepathically, curious whether she would hear me so soon after our first in-person meeting. If it were as my parents and kin claimed it would be.
“Your powers are divine,” she exclaimed, her inner voice breathy, as if the sound of me speaking like this affected her as much as it did me, despite her only uttering four little words.
It wouldn’t have mattered what she said.
They would have sounded better than anything I’d ever heard telepathically, and my inner beast fully agreed, coming to attention even more than it already had since I laid eyes on her.
Or should I say since my darker side laid eyes on her, as he’d been in charge at the time, despite my seeing her just as clearly in a way I had never been able to before, when one personality overtook the other.
“’Tis divine power I just summoned when chanting,” I confirmed, ensnared by her luminous brown eyes, when I should be keeping an eye on our surroundings, not surprised she'd so swiftly figured out the nature of the magic I’d used. “Inherited from my mother.”
“Because she’s half Valkyrie,” she realized, catching my thoughts. Her eyes widened once more. “Which means you’re a what? A god?”
“Demi-god,” I corrected, more aware of her proximity than ever. The subtle yet telling scent she emitted all for me. How flawless her skin was, making me long to touch her, even if only to cup her cheek. To run my fingers along her dainty neck, then through her silky obsidian locks.
Fight it, I preached to myself. Don’t do what your darker half would. You’re not him.
So, despite sensing she would be receptive to my touch, regardless of the possible danger we were in, I tore my gaze from hers and kept my eyes fixed on the direction from which we had come.
“You can see whoever’s coming, but they can’t see us,” she said, understanding without seeing the protective yet transparent veil I had cast over us. She paused before continuing. “Yet it comes at a cost, doesn’t it? Just like it did when your other half used it not once but twice.”
He did? I hadn't sensed it. Then again, godly magic was different than dragonly magic.
I refrained from frowning lest she read on my face how right she was that it came at a cost and should only ever be used sparingly, lest it reduce me to one personality for life, and not necessarily my better half.
Worse yet, end my life entirely. Even though she remained silent after that, seemingly not needing an answer at the moment, I knew she remained curious about things she couldn’t sense quite yet but soon would.
I tensed when I thought I heard something again but saw nothing.
Yet someone was there. I was positive of it.
So certain I nudged Katana into the crevice even further, put my back to her, and unsheathed a second blade, staying out of sight so I could attack whoever was coming at the last second, hopefully catching them by surprise.
Truth be told, I probably should have shifted by now, but that was the surest way to let Skarde know exactly where we were.
Though I felt Katana’s tension matching mine, there was also a thread of desire she couldn’t control at my proximity. In fact, her scent wafted around me so enticingly I was moments from throwing caution to the wind and doing what my other half would have already done by now.
Acted on my overwhelming desire for her.
I would have summoned every bit of divine power I could to protect us, sheathed my weapons, and turned to her.
Then I would have shown her how much better I could be than my darker side.
How loving I would be, kissing her more passionately than he ever could, touching her so tenderly she would weep with want.
“So you say,” another voice taunted into my mind, daring me as only my other half could when he grew especially frustrated with my choices and actions and wanted to take over.
“Yet you are too weak to take what you want. Too soft to slake your lust with your fated mate here and now, knowing it would bind her to you forever, and she would never be able to walk away from you after that. Away from us.”
Pulling forth even more godliness, I drove him away, deeper into the recesses of my mind, and braced myself to attack whatever was drawing closer. Steps away now. Right there until I knew they were on us, but I still couldn’t see them.
At least at first, and not before Katana.
“Taro?” she exclaimed, ducking under my arm and rushing out, only for the divine veil that Frey and I were using to fade away, explaining why we hadn't been able to see each other, but the other two could, given how close they must be.
Too close for my taste as Katana threw her arms around the tall, black-haired man.
I managed to keep silent, though, knowing my darker side would do the opposite if any other man dared to lay a finger on her, let alone embrace her.
“You’re here and safe,” she exclaimed, holding Taro as tightly as he held her, setting my inner dragon on edge in a way that admittedly made it difficult to behave civilly.
“I am,” Taro replied, his troubled gaze never leaving me, just as I refused to look away from him. “No thanks to Frey.”
“Brother,” Frey said, as relieved to see me as I was to see her. When she nodded hello rather than embrace me, her gaze mostly on the other two as well, I knew she was as mistrustful of the embrace as I was, which told me something altogether different.
“You desire him,” I said into her mind. “Despite him not being to your taste at all, as you called it when we observed him from afar.”
“That was before I saw him fight,” she countered, her compliment vague. “’Tis a rare day when a man can match me so well, and one from the future, no less.”
He did fight well. I would give him that.
And while he might have earned her respect, my inner beast sensed her attraction to Taro ran deeper than either of us might have expected when we arrived in the twenty-first century.
I also sensed she wasn’t going to give herself to him so easily, any more than he would to her, and I couldn’t say why, hoping it had nothing to do with Katana and him embracing.
That their friendship was more than it might seem at the moment.
“Even though I didn’t want you here, I’ll admit I’m glad to see you,” Katana murmured in Taro’s ear, thinking she was being discreet, but I knew Frey caught it, too, and wasn’t pleased, judging by the slight downturn of her lips.