Chapter one
Eisa
Idunn landed with a crack on the flagstones of the weather-beaten road, releasing her hold on our body with a speed and a certainty that left me stumbling.
We must have flown for at least twelve hours, although I’d lost count over the seemingly endless sea, and my entire body felt like it had been through a meat grinder. I wiped the blood from my nose that had become as routine after shifting as the wave of nausea that washed over me.
At least I’d mastered the urge to vomit.
“Where are we?” Branka’s dark, supple skin replaced the golden scales of her dragon, Bryndis, as quickly as my own. She looked around unimpressed. “This is the capital?”
“No.” Arik had shifted from Baldur’s shining white scales, and I felt Idunn purr appreciatively in my chest at the sight of him all tattooed and scarred and naked.
He gave me a look that I knew too well, and I hid my blush by ducking down to fish my clothes out of my pack.
“Thank the gods for that,” Branka muttered as she also began to dress. There was no elegant solution to the problem of clothing as a drage, so we all just became rather used to being naked in front of each other. “This place is dismal.”
I had to agree with Branka as I looked around at Arik’s chosen landing spot: it was something of a desolate hellscape.
It must be around midnight, but the darkness couldn’t hide the scraggly trees sagging under the weight of their own rotten bark.
Mist poured over the gray fields and down the side of the cliff behind us, and the sea crashed uneasily, as if equally dismayed by the scenery.
Arik pressed a kiss to my temple and threw a cloak over my shoulders. I looked up at him, my mate who I had resisted claiming, even after our souls had joined as one.
The corner of his mouth twitched in what I knew now was his private smile.
Clothes, Kjaere. The endearment echoed across the moonlit bridge that joined our minds and sent a wave of heat licking up my spine.
“So why are we here, exactly?” Jorgen asked, breaking the spell between us as surely as an attack by a pack of garmr.
Arik didn’t reply as he pulled on his trousers, his eyes firmly on me. He gave me a meaningful look at the cloak that was my only protection against the wind.
Do you need help dressing, Kjaere? The suggestion in his voice made me blush as I pulled on leather trousers under the cloak, the thighs and shins reinforced with that overlapping dragon scale pattern that I’d admired when I first met my mate.
Every movement made my shoulders ache. My jacket posed a particularly challenging obstacle as I winced through my discomfort.
As you can see, I’ve managed.
You’re about to keel over where you stand, Arik drawled into my mind as he dressed. Baldur agreed, a surge of protectiveness flooding our bond.
I just told you I’m fine, you overgrown mother hens.
I could fly for hours more, Idunn added indignantly as I sat on a rock to lace my boots, my jacket finally—and painfully—in place.
Perhaps, Baldur replied, his growling voice full of amusement. But we should keep your human in one piece if we can, Kjaere.
Arik caught my arm as I swayed. His heat wrapped me in warmth as I steadied myself against his broad chest. Hours, huh?
“That’s fine. Don’t answer me,” Jorgen interrupted, watching us with a particularly amused expression. “Please let us know when you’re done gazing longingly into each other’s eyes.”
“You’re one to talk,” Branka quipped, elbowing him in the ribs.
Jorgen retaliated with a pinch to her backside.
“Everyone expects me to be all gooey around you. It’s downright unsettling when Arik does it.”
I hid my smile by pretending to be very focused on the clasp of my cloak.
“We’re stopping because Idunn and Bryndis are tired,” Arik said as he finally pulled his shirt over his head. “Stormhold is at least a three hour flight, and you know how volatile newly mated females can be. Especially when sleep-deprived.”
Branka and I let out twin snorts of indignation.
“Bryndis is perfectly alert,” Branka insisted.
“Idunn being tired has nothing to do with her temperament,” I said at the same time.
Oh, it does, Idunn yawned into my mind. I intend to incinerate first, ask questions never where my mate’s safety is concerned.
As do I, came the huskier female voice of Bryndis.
“Traitor.” Branka looped her arm through mine. “I’ll never get used to that. Her voice goes all echoey when she’s speaking to both of us.”
“Echoey?” I laughed.
“You know what I mean. I’m almost jealous that you can hear her.”
“It’s not something I can control,” I reminded her. I had no idea that I could hear all dragons until I’d been bonded for weeks, and it still unsettled me when one of them popped into my head unexpectedly.
I leaned down to grab my pack with my free arm and grit my teeth to avoid yelping in pain.
Fine, are you? Arik took the bag from me in a smooth motion and slung it over his shoulder next to his own. As dragons, we carried our packs in our claws, but it felt much heavier than it had when Idunn and I were flying over the ocean.
He frowned as he wiped another dribble of blood from my upper lip with his thumb.
I’m a tiny bit sore, I relented. His gray eyes were shot with silver as he seemed to strip me bare, like my soul and my thoughts were an open book. It was a long flight.
You did well, he conceded as he drew ahead of our party to guide us to the gods knew where. Remind me to kiss all of your sore parts better when we stop for the night.
I stumbled as a vivid picture of where those kisses might be placed flashed across my mind.
Idunn purred, and something inside me went a little molten.
Branka caught my elbow. “You okay?”
“Perfect.” I scowled at the back of Arik’s head. You’ll pay for that.
Despite initially fighting the idea that I’d be forced to bond with a mated dragon, thus tying myself to another without much choice in the matter, I didn’t regret anything I’d done with Arik.
If anything, I wanted more. I wanted things that I wasn’t ready to say out loud to anyone, not even my dragon.
Arik’s responding laugh made fire lick my insides.
Looking forward to it.
“Goddess, help me,” I muttered.
“What’s that?” Branka frowned, and I realized she still didn’t know I could hear Arik in my head. I’d revealed that I could hear the other dragons when the odemarksdyr had attacked Ironholm a week ago, but this unusual part of our bond was still very much a secret.
Had it only been a week? Hearthmother save me, it felt like so much more.
Arik and I hadn’t discussed what to do about our unique mental connection, or if it was something we should reveal to our reirhold, and I felt a niggle of guilt for keeping it hidden.
You can tell Branka, Arik cut in gently. She’s your best friend.
I knew he was right. But there was also a part of me that liked having this secret. I was oddly proud of this connection we had formed by the grace of whatever gods or goddesses blessed the drage.
Norns, Arik corrected. Not gods or goddesses.
Stop listening in on my thoughts, I chastised without any real bite.
Arik laughed across the mental bridge. Stop shouting them at me then, Kjaere.
“Ugh. Let me know when Idunn is done with you,” Branka sighed dramatically. “I’m only your best friend after all.”
“Sorry.” I flashed her a smile, trying to ignore my mate, whose shoulders were shaking in silent laughter. “She’s done now.”
“You were gone a long time.” Branka looked between me and the back of Arik’s head with suspicion. “What did she want?”
“Just complaining about being tired. Is Bryndis not?”
“Oh, she’s exhausted,” Branka said happily. “But that won’t stop me from jumping Jorgen’s bon—“
Jorgen choked on a cough, and Arik whacked him on the back rather harder than necessary.
I laughed, lowering my voice so only Branka could hear me. “I thought you two were waiting?”
Branka shrugged as her cheeks darkened in the gloom. “You know how it is. After a battle, I mean.”
She spoke quietly as if it would prevent Jorgen from overhearing. Based on the tense line of his shoulders, it wasn’t working.
My cheeks heated at the memory of what Arik and I had done after the same battle.
Delicious, Idunn murmured sleepily.
“And oh, Eisa. It was…” She broke off with a dreamy sigh.
“Magical?” I suggested.
In front of us, Jorgen cleared his throat. Arik offered him a water skin.
“Everything,” Branka finished, her eyes bright in the dark.
Jorgen looked back at his mate with the world’s most stupid grin on his face, and Branka threw her pack at him.
He caught it deftly, his steps a bit lighter than they had been as he blew her a kiss.
“I’m glad,” I murmured, squeezing Branka’s arm. “You deserve to be happy.”
Branka smiled at me, her eyes still slightly shadowed by her past.
“I do, don’t I?” I laughed as she shouted ahead to the men, “So where exactly are we going?”
“There’s a small village with an inn about two miles out,” Arik replied. “We’ll rest there for a few hours.”
“Two miles?” Branka groaned, looking wistfully into the sky. “Can’t we just fly closer?”
Jorgen chuckled at his mate’s distress. “Don’t worry, love. I’ll carry you if you collapse.”
And you? I asked, jogging a step to catch Arik’s hand. Will you carry me?
Always, Kjaere. He squeezed my hand as he interlaced our fingers. Any excuse to throw you over my shoulder.
We trudged down the road for what felt like hours, and I was surprised when Arik finally announced that we had arrived.
The only thing that distinguished the village from the rest of the bleak surroundings was deeper darkness where the buildings stood, their outlines faintly illuminated by the moon and stars.
Not a single light was visible in the village.
I sincerely doubted we’d receive a warm welcome when we’d be tearing someone from their bed to greet us.
Arik and Jorgen stopped before a building that was only a fraction larger than its neighbors, and Jorgen jiggled the handle.