Page 36 of Thorulf
Somebody with great magic.
Tiny Jade, however, was clueless as she rolled around in glee, flapping her wings in delight at the buoyant clovers. She seemed to especially like the way they caught the dying sun and made her look green.
“Ohwow,” she whispered when she didn’t justlookgreen butbecamegreen. When her scales shimmered with magic and took on the hue of the clovers.
“Well, what are you up to, little one?” came a gentle, kind voice with a Scottish brogue before the magic she’d sensed manifested in an old man. Adorned in a cinched white robe, he had snow-white hair and a gnarly cane as he peered down at tiny Jade curiously.
In turn, she stared up at him with wide, guilty eyes, clearly contemplating bolting.
“No, no, my friend.” His merry light blue eyes gentled. “Dinnae be afraid. My name’s Adlin, and I’m here to see you home.” He crouched and held out his palm. “Come, hop on. For you have a very important role to play in life.”
She did? It seemed tiny Jade was just as curious because her eyes grew wide with renewed excitement and curiosity, and she hopped right up. Trusting him, she sat and cocked her head, waiting for him to go on.
“Well, of course, you do,” he exclaimed, clearly having an internal conversation with her tiny dragon. “How could you not? Just look at you, covered in the land of ‘Eire, the color of Jade.” His smile grew all the more when sunlight splashed off the clovers and washed into her eyes like glittering emeralds. “Ah, beautiful,” he praised. “That color suits you all the way around.”
Tiny Jade blinked her brand new eye color as though adjusting to dragon-style contact lenses and preened, pleased with his compliment. More than that, it seemed she’d decided she was home when she became solid.
Just like Maya had when she’d entered Helheim at the same age.
“Oh, I’m afraid not, little Jade,” Adlin said when he realized her intentions. “It might seem like it, but Ireland isnae your home.” He looked east then west, as though seeing both her future and past in modern-day America and medieval Scandinavia. “Your home is with my ancestors.”
His ancestors? The Sigdirs?
When tiny Jade pouted, shook her head once, and stomped her foot, Adlin chuckled. “But it is, and you must go.”
This time Jade took action and tried to hide under Adlin’s sleeve, but he plopped her back in his palm and shook his head. “Now, you dinnae want to be hiding when he comes, do you? When you see the great magic and power that will show you the way?”
Tiny Jade tilted her head in question, no doubt intrigued that she would be meeting someone even more enchanting than Adlin. Big Jade agreed. It wasn’t every day a gal met a Scottish wizard the day they were born. She felt sort of honored by it.
But then it seemed that was just the sort of day she was having.
Moments later, thunder rumbled, and lightning didn’t crash into the clover patch but zigzagged down without touching the ground, leaving an all-too-familiar god behind.
“Thor!” She was just as thrilled to see him as tiny Jade, whose dragon eyes grew wide as saucers at the ageless, gloriously built god. The epitome of power and strength in a young dragon’s eyes.
Adlin nodded hello to Thor and chuckled again. “It seems little Jade sees a future for herself elsewhere after all.” He kept chuckling when her baby dragon took action. Well on her way to who she would someday be, tiny Jade sauntered across Adlin’s palm, then sort of half delicately leapt, half flailed into Thor’s open palm. Quick, sure to act like she’d been anything less than graceful, she tucked her wings in neatly and batted her lashes at him.
“Hello, Jade,” Thor said with that deep, delicious toe-curling voice of his. “Or should I call you troublemaker?”
Tiny Jade cocked her head thinking about that before she nodded, preened, and batted her lashes even more. Meanwhile, Thor and Adlin exchanged words big Jade couldn’t hear. All she knew was they were watching out for each other. Adlin would see his Norse ancestors protected, and Thor would see Jade protected.
“Are you ready to go home then?” Thor asked tiny Jade. “Are you ready to follow your sisters?”
Tiny Jade nodded before, a blink later, she faded along with everything else. The cool Irish coast vanished to be replaced by warm darkness and a spicy, scrumptious male scent. She cozied into it at first until she realized who she was cozying back against.
Hell. When had she and Thorulf cuddled up together? She remained still, barely breathed, and assessed her surroundings. The fire was down to embers, and Loki sat at the exit, eyeing the early dawn with anticipation. As far as Jade could tell, she and Thorulf slept on a fur with another fur covering them. His arms were wrapped so securely around her, she almost thought he was terrified to let go.
Either that or afraid she’d get away before he’d had his fill.
She squeezed her eyes shut against the admirable erection pressed against her backside and tried to figure a way out of this without waking him. More so, without...three, two, one, too late. Arousal slammed into her, and with it, a scent that would likely reach him from the four corners of the universe.
Or, as it turned out, pretty darn close to that.