Page 14

14

NAKED

I don’t know when Bjorn crawled to me upon my couch, but I wake with his massive body curled around mine beneath the white lambswool blanket. All is silence and sunlight in Baldur Siguresson’s home; as I realize my dream was no dream at all, I gaze up, seeing a dozen luminous skylights set into the timber and sod roof of the underground house, lighting up the space.

It provides Baldur’s elegant artist’s home with ample daylight, the perfect light to paint to. I realize it must be late afternoon as I see the sun has crossed its zenith, the light slanting towards the eastern timbers of the house.

Everything here is beautiful, artful, and serene. I lay on the couch, just breathing quietly now, as I recall strange dreams.

Dreams of battle, bloodshed, and of my family, they feel jumbled and intense now that I’m awake. They’re nothing that ever happened in real life, but they’ve left an impression on me, as I take a long moment to just lay here, soaking up the peace and quiet of Baldur’s home.

A stark contrast to where I just was in nightmares.

I don’t feel Baldur anywhere inside the house, though his faintly musky, paint-and-sunlight fragrance lingers all around me. I inhale now, feeling strangely refreshed, as if by his scent alone, rather than just the restful quiet here.

It’s the oddest sensation as I pull in another lungful of Baldur’s unique scent, deep into my lungs. Pushed by my inner drakaina, who likes that scent and wants to roll around in it like a cat, I open my lips and inhale deeply now, rolling it across my tongue and tasting it.

Because it’s not just that Baldur has Blood Magic, which resonates with mine—and strong Blood Magic, at that. It’s because his scent is like nothing I’ve ever smelled in a dragon before; though there are hints of our natural musk and fiery flavor, it’s almost like his entire body has been crystallized to perfection in sunlight, then painted with a layer of oil-based color upon my tongue.

The effect is vivid; all around me, colors seem more bright, as I taste that flavor. The strangest thing is that it’s ineffable. Though I have a few things I can compare it to, Baldur’s scent is truly unique, nothing I can pinpoint as I try again to understand it.

And fail.

Beside me, Bjorn sleeps like the dead, snoring as he conforms to me. I take a moment to peruse him now, sending my brighter drakaina’s aura through our bond and deep inside his body, to check on his recovery.

Baldur’s hide-and-seek portals did a number on us. That, plus Mikkel’s ongoing shitstorm of wrath, drained Bjorn like crazy in a short amount of time as we raced to find this place.

But being here in Baldur’s home has been good for Bjorn. Deep inside, I can feel his great golden dragon stir towards mine now, far stronger than before. Though we were badly drained by whatever Baldur’s portals did to us, it seems he’s given all that energy back now, as Bjorn gives a sleepy rumble and cinches me tighter to him, though he does not wake.

I search for Aesa’s crimson-gold and white signature inside me, filling my aura’s holes, but I can barely find it now. Though my Blood Magic has been strengthened by being in Baldur’s home, and Bjorn’s too, Aesa’s has not been given any such benefit, after everything that was done to us.

Her vibration hardly sings at all inside me now, as I feel her Truthstone give a slow pulse on my chest. It’s as if even that power is waning, as so much of her spirit’s vitality was sucked away through the Council’s holes inside me.

Thanks to Mikkel going ballistic, plus Baldur’s endless portals, I feel now how Aesa’s soul-imprint inside me is nearly gone. A deep sadness grips me, to know she gave us so much, only to have it be mercilessly ripped away in a single night.

Her Truthstone sings upon my chest then, as it flares bright crimson, vivid with golden sigils. As if to say, I haven’t given up yet , some part of me feels Aesa’s protection breathe at the back of my neck, as her great crimson eyes pierce mine.

A spirit can only help so much from the Void, however, and I know that once the last of her gift has been ripped from me by all these magical shenanigans, there will be no more.

Aesa may only have one gift left to help us with, as I put my hand over her gem on my chest now, saying a silent prayer. The silver gem flares, bolstering me—before it resonates with a different kind of knowing.

And I look up.

Baldur stands beside me now, looking down at me on the couch. He’s dressed in the same wild man outfit from earlier with no shirt on, as I blink that he snuck up on me without me sensing it at all; not my usual.

As I struggle out of Bjorn’s snoring grip, clutching the wool blanket to my chest and bristling, he holds up a quiet hand. He watches me as his cool blue eyes stare me down.

A drowning noontime-midnight color that I want to fall into? endlessly.

“Peace. I am not here to harm you,” Baldur says as I stare into those incredible, ethereal eyes. As he says it, I do feel peaceful. Gentle quietude fills my bloodstream, when all I wanted to do before was rage.

It’s the strangest sensation, as the tirade I was about to unleash upon him is just halted. He didn’t flood me with darkness like Mikkel, or eros like Strom, or even hard-won restraint like Bjorn.

It’s only a deep peacefulness that suffuses me now, like I spent the last ten years meditating on a mountaintop in Tibet. I blink and fall silent. I know Baldur didn’t flood me with his energy, as I search deep within and find nothing connecting us, no bond or anything else magical. It’s only his calm presence, radiating out to touch mine.

Soothing me—completely.

“How did you do that just now? Calm me like that?” I ask him then, as I once again fail to figure him out.

“I have practiced many years to be this calm, and to have such an effect on others. Or did you think I was born this way?” he says now as the slightest smile touches his lips.

It makes him go from artistically handsome to drop-dead gorgeous in half a heartbeat, as I raise my eyebrows at the sudden change. Then he lets me feel it; the massive starburst of power that smolders deep beneath his glacial calm.

As even the barest flash of that gargantuan magic hits me, I feel a vast pull inside my blood, right to my groin. All of a sudden, I’m beyond hot and bothered as my inner Blood Magic drakaina riots hard, bursting and roiling inside my veins with searing, bright magic.

I heave deep breaths as my heart pounds, trying to get my shit under control and failing as the place between my thighs slicks, wet. Because Baldur Siguresson is just that mighty a scalding wellspring of magic, like some kind of fucking cosmic star being born, as he gives me the barest taste of what his power can really do.

I want it—all of it—as even my darker Bone Magic lifts its head inside me now, knowing how much food Baldur could be for my united Bloodwalker dragon. That kind of power could take us up against the Black Dragon and back again. I just know it.

Before he smoothes it all back down, glacial and calm once more .

“Jesus!” I breathe now. I watch him, shocked at just how powerful he is and how effortlessly he hides it from any casual observer—not to mention my reaction to him.

Which has me shocked and shivering now, but not in a bad way, as I stare at him with amazed eyes.

“I’m not him. Though I must say, I have meditated quite a lot longer for my enlightenment than he did.” Those perfect lips quirk again as a hint of renegade twinkle takes Baldur’s dark blue eyes. It makes him just too ridiculously handsome, in that wild man of the arts sort of way.

It’s clear he’s also a clan shaman of some sort, however, from all the potions and such decorating his shelves. But that smile, plus the tiniest flare of his power still blazing through me from what he did earlier, makes me scalding hot to take this elegant wild man into my bed.

Not only is he gorgeous and insanely powerful, he’s also calm as fuck. And I need some calm in the massive shitstorm of my drakes now, as everything inside me roars, wanting this incredible, calm, and powerful dragon in our bond.

To the depths of my blood and back.

Aesa’s Truthstone agrees with me, as it flares hard now upon my chest, fiery crimson sigils flashing hard through its watery silver and gold light.

But Baldur and I have a helluva lot to talk about before we even approach any of that. I see it in his eyes as he becomes wry; I feel it in myself as I pull back now from being this insanely attracted to someone I honestly just met.

Because my attraction to Mikkel was this fast and strong —and look where that got me, I think now as I hold myself back from just jumping Baldur and getting it on. I wrangle my inner Blood Magic drakaina back down, though she rages for a big ol’ taste.

Which is not going to happen unless we set some things straight.

“Your Third Drake is ferocious.” His deep blue eyes pierce me now, and I know he read my mind. “I am just as ferocious, but of a different sort.”

“A different sort how?” I challenge him then. Even though I’m still sitting on his couch and he’s still towering above me, like hell am I going to let my dragon’s libido run the show and invite him in under the blanket here with me.

Though a big part of me wants to—oh, yes, it does.

Cocking his head, Baldur evaluates me then. It makes him look like the handsomest inquisitive bird, as he watches me with those etheric, unfathomable eyes.

He hunkers down beside the couch now, putting himself at eye level with me, just below it. With his elbows slung around his knees in his crouch, he gazes deeply at me. I don’t miss the gesture he just made, as I feel our inner dragons brush past each other, shivering me to the tips of my toes and back.

Because in his strategic hunker, Baldur’s changed the power dynamic between us, making me the dominant one in our encounter. Some part of me feels grateful for it, as I take a deep breath and find my inner calm again, rather than the raging sexuality I’m tempted to jump into with him.

Ready now for this strange negotiation we’re about to dive into, at last.

“You wear Aesa’s Truthstone. A powerful emblem of the ancients, and beyond useful in olden times, now come again.” Baldur’s gaze flicks at the still-raging silver stone on my chest. The fingers of his left hand ripple then, like he wants to reach out and touch it. But he doesn’t.

As I feel vast self-restraint in him, to his core.

“What do you know of it?” I ask. My brief meeting with Hekla in the Void makes me think perhaps Baldur knows a helluva a lot more about my current situation with the Black Dragon than even I do, having had a visionary sister like her.

“Some. Only tales and folklore. Though my sister saw it often in her visions, and knew it would surface again on one who was worthy in modern times.” Baldur’s gaze flicks back to me.

Honesty pours from him as he watches me; I know there’s far more to his tale, and I will get it as we speak more with each other, but that the full story is just too immense to tell right now. Again, it makes me feel somehow peaceful, as I nod to him, content to wait and hear it later.

As I do, that small quirk of a smile lifts his lips again, his eyes blazing.

Gorgeous.

“I would very much like to tell you more, Bloodwalker, so you can understand where I fit into the vast weft and weave of this ancient pattern, pulling tight now all around you.” He holds my gaze, speaking from his utter honesty as he sets his right hand to his heart. It makes the stylized blue and silver dragon tattoo there flare with light, as his dark midnight eyes blaze with a far brighter light—sky-blue and opaline, tinged with flickers of gold now, from his inner dragon.

“But you have to understand that I am not a hero like yourself, or a warrior like your First Drake,” he continues, as we speak in a strange heart-to-heart, though I don’t know him at all. “Neither am I a rogue like your Second Drake, or a ruthless pirate like your Third. What I am, is a mystic. And you need a mystic right now to balance the chaos inside you that your unstable bond and this unholy curse upon you have created. Only a shaman can heal mystical wounds and imbalances, as I am. A shaman that your Bloodbond needs right now. Just as my sister always knew it would.”

Baldur looks at my hand now, and it’s only then I realize I’m still clutching the palm-sized blue scale from his dead sister. It sings with her energy as Baldur gazes at it, responding to him; a sad, haunted smile takes his lips now as he holds his hand out and I give it to him.

Quietly, he turns the blue scale over in his hands, perusing it. His expression is both sad and understanding, as the energy in the blue scale surges.

Then gutters out—gone.

“My sister is at peace. Finally.” The saddest, most beautiful smile takes him. His gaze flicks up, and his dark blue and blazing sky-opal eyes pin me with such a fierce energy that I’m swept away by them.

Undone by the power in that gaze.

“Thank you. For bringing her home to me so she could finally rest,” he says. Lifting the scale to his lips, he kisses it gently.

Then sets it aside on a table, empty now of the soul it once held.

“I saw Hekla’s last moments at Riksfold. She fought valiantly,” I say now, because though I know Baldur’s said he’s not a warrior, I can feel that furious energy still churning inside him, way down deep beneath his learned calm.

“She always did.” His lips quirk into a smile again, as I feel simultaneous peace and fury inside him.

It’s a heady and potent combination; if Bjorn and I had a thousand years to perfect our hard-won techniques to calm our vast rage, we still might not even approach what Baldur can do with his power.

It makes me wonder yet again how old he is, but before I can even ask, he says, “One thousand and seven years. A drop in the bucket compared to my sister, who was nearly two thousand at the time of her death at Riksfold.”

“How did your parents have babies so far apart?” I’m astonished now, and curious, because it’s extremely rare for Blood Dragon couples to live that long, much less have children all through that immense a time span.

Baldur’s smile becomes sad now, beautifully wistful, as he regards me. “My parents, Hans and Embla Siguresson, were champions of their time and deeply in love. They lived a thousand years, though they had only two children in all that time and were killed in battle for their King just five years after I was born. I have few memories of them, though all my memories are good ones. My sister Hekla raised me after that. She was a Bloodwalker like you, though I am merely destined to be a Bloodwalker’s second Blood Drake and Fourth in her bond. Which I am content with, all things considered.”

“Your sister was a Bloodwalker? And a visionary, able to see the future, wasn’t she?” I ask now, knowing that my drakes and I have received both the benefit and the curse of Hekla’s visionary power from her energy in the Void.

“She was a seer-type Bloodwalker, yes.” He nods. “She had true visions of futures to come. Not all of them came true, but most did. Timelines can change; no future is ever set in stone. But she saw many things… and saw what needed to come to pass, to save the world from devastation.”

“The black Dragon of All Souls. The Usurper. She saw it killing our world in a vision, didn’t she?” I ask now, feeling to my very blood and bones it’s true, as Aesa’s stone rings upon my chest.

“She did. And she did everything she could in her vast lifetime to prevent it,” Baldur says now as he regards me, before heaving a deep sigh. “But we will speak of those things soon. For now, since you are a guest in my home and your First Drake is out, probably for the entire night until he is recovered enough to wake, would you do me the honor of accompanying me out to the hot springs? It’s been a long, unsteadying day and I could use an evening soak. What say you?”

As I gaze at him now, I feel no threat from Baldur Siguresson. He knew we were coming; he’s known about me all his life from his sister’s visions, and I know he means us no harm.

Still, I hesitate to be alone with him, after everything that’s gone so disastrously sideways with Mikkel whenever he and I were alone together. Reading my mind yet again, Baldur just smiles and says, “I am not your Third Drake. I can handle my libido, under any situation.”

“Can you?” I say, as I sense a sudden hint of innuendo from him.

“Oh, yes.” His eyes darken as that innuendo is confirmed.

And I understand then that Baldur wants to be alone with me. To suss out everything that may be between us—even though we don’t know each other at all yet.

“Alright, then,” I say now, because I know Bjorn will be just fine, left here in Baldur’s home. “But that mud puddle of a hot springs out front is hardly luxurious, and was barely above body temperature when I was in it last.”

“Good thing there’s a far better hot springs out back, which is decidedly hotter.” Baldur gives me that little smile again, and it’s devouringly hot.

Still, I feel he has impeccable control not just over his star-fire power but over his libido as well. I get not a single touch of his dragon’s immense energy surging out to touch me now, much less mate-taste me like he did at The Vault.

Baldur’s given me a sample of what he truly is, and of what lives beneath his cool-as-a-cucumber artist’s perfection. I know there’s far more, however, as he invites me towards a rear staircase leading up from the main house, out a far door.

I hesitate to rise from the couch now—it means I have to leave my swaddling blanket behind. But it’s nothing Baldur’s not already seen; with a quick sigh, I flip the blanket back and push up to standing, letting him see me now in my full glory, butt-ass nude before him.

“Beautiful. So beautiful,” he says now, though his eyes don’t rove my figure one bit. It’s as if he’s talking not about my body but my soul, as his deep blue eyes penetrate me to my core.

Making me feel far more naked than I’ve ever felt in my life.

“Come. This way,” he says again before I can respond, gesturing us towards the rear stairs. Blessedly, he takes the lead, but not before letting his eyes course down my entire body and back up in one great big, decadent slide.

“And I mean both your body and your mind, Hog Skjaldm?r, in addition to your warrior’s fury and your incredible savior’s soul.” He pins me with those eyes, then turns, leading the way out of his home as I’m left trailing in his wake.

Furiously blushing like I haven’t done since my teens.