Freyja’s eyes stung with tears as she watched him devour the bowl. Then another. How could she harden her heart to this? She wanted to thank Rurik for this gift, even as she knew it took her down a dark road where she would only end with her heart broken.
Rurik had made it clear he saw her as a conquest. He was dreki, and she was human. He wouldn’t want her when she was old and gray, and she could not live in his world. There was no future for them. None. So she dried her tears, savored the soup, and then brushed off her apron to complete her afternoon’s chores.
Only to find the bloody stables were swept clean, her lambs were feasting on hay she hadn’t provided, and there was an enormous ram bleating in the spare pen, his horns magnificent and his wary eyes rolling as though he’d just had the shock of his life. He probably had. She could only imagine that flight. Freyja stood stock-still in shock. A ram. A cursed ram. She was right back where all of this mess had started.
If only I didn’t go after my ram that night....
And the dratted man—dreki—was nowhere to be seen. She never heard him in the house, nor did she ever see him.
“Stop it!” she called, turning in circles in her empty barn after she found a necklace of extravagant emeralds she barely dared touch. “I promised you one night. Nothing more!”
Silence remained her only answer.
Freyja snatched up the necklace and shook it, suddenly furious. “You will not charm me, you arrogant beast! There is nothing more I can offer you! Stop this foolish game!”
“They were your rules, dearest Freyja.”
She spun in circles. Not a hint of him. “My rules? I promised you one night, nothing else.”
“You promised me your heart, if I could give you your most secret desire.”
Everything stilled within her. “I didn’t mean it.”
“Are you saying you lied to me?”
“No!” She bit her lip. All she’d meant was to put him off and grant herself space. “I just.... It was a jest, nothing else.”
“I am dreki, Freyja. Our word means everything, or else we’d have brought war to this world long ago. It is all that keeps us from chaos and we must abide by our promises.”
She turned. “Where are you? Show yourself.”
A caress stroked her back. Freyja spun, but she was all alone in the barn. “Why should I? Unless you plan to thank me properly for my gifts.”
“Thank you?” she growled. “I want to give them back. I’m not keeping them.”
“I’m not accepting them back.”
“Damn you—”
“Throw them in the bog for all I care. They were gifts, Freyja. Courting gifts. You may do with them as you like. I daresay your father is enjoying his new boots, however.”
Her heart plummeted through her stomach. “You leave my father out of this.”
“Very well.”
“And you are not courting me. Stop this madness. I won’t abide by it. There is no future between us. Nothing but misery. You got what you wanted, so let me be.”
Another gentle caress cupped her face. “Stubborn, Freyja. I have barely begun, and you know nothing of what I want from you.”
“That’s not fair. I don’t want this.”
Silence.
She turned, feeling utterly wretched for the words that spilled from her lips.
“You wanted me the other night,” he finally replied, and she had the feeling that she’d almost hurt him. He, with his unshakeable sense of pride and place in the world.
“That’s not—” She broke off with a curse. “Yes, I wanted it. Once. Something to remember you by. But we have no future, Rurik, and I am sensible enough to admit it. This might be a game to you, but it is very real to me. You will ruin me, if you haven’t already. And... I might have given up on the idea of marriage and children, but I should still like to hold my head up high when I walk into town. You don’t understand what you cost me.
“Besides”—her voice quavered—“I’m not the only one who might lose something here. You have dragon hunters searching for you. They know you took me. Haakon and his friends, Magnus and Andri, visited yesterday. They’ll be keeping watch for—”
“Friends?” A dark shiver rolled through her at the sudden pressure that pushed at her mental shields.
Freyja clutched her temples. “You’re hurting me.”
Instantly the pressure was gone. “I’m sorry. But I know those names, Freyja. And they want me to know them. They’re not dragon hunters. They’re dreki, in mortal form.”
“Dreki?” She knew she’d sensed something strange from Magnus, a predatory intensity that made her feel uneasy.
“Don’t go near them,” he suddenly warned, and all of his courtly charm evaporated. “Don’t welcome them into your house, nor challenge them. They’re not like me. Or Magnus certainly isn’t, and if he thinks you have my interest he’ll hurt you to get at me.”
“I have no intention of drawing his ire. What are you going to do?”
Silence.
“Rurik!” She took a step toward the barn doors. “Rurik, you’re not going after them, are you?”
It was a long time before he answered, and she felt the distance between them, as though he was flying away from her. “Would you care if I did?”
She knew what the sensible answer ought to be. But she couldn’t for the life of her utter it. “Yes!” Freyja threw the thought back at him. “Please be careful. I don’t want to see you hurt, even though I cannot allow this to continue between us.”
There was only a grim sense of acceptance in the link between them. “I’ll be careful. After all, I am not finished with you yet. I will see you later. You can thank me for my gifts then.”
And then he cut the connection and she found herself alone in the barn, her heart thundering in her chest as she wondered what he was doing now.
Courting aside, nothing could chill her more than the thought of Rurik in danger.
Rurik melted into mortal form in the small village near Freyja’s homestead. Picking up the bag he’d dropped, he shook out his clothes and put them on, and then he went hunting.
A forlorn shape sat in the taproom, holding his head in his hands. From the smell of him, Haakon had finished several ales, and possibly more.
Rage smoldered in his heart, rage at all Freyja had endured. Rurik let the door shut behind him with an audible click, grateful the dragon hunter was alone.
Haakon’s head jerked up, and weary blue eyes met his, devoid of emotion. Shadows bruised the man’s eyes, and his face looked gaunt, as though something had stripped him of the vitality he’d worn on the docks in Akureyri.
“You,” Haakon said in a toneless voice. “I thought you’d headed south.”
“I heard what happened,” he growled. “I know what you did to her. What type of man can you call yourself?”
He stalked the man through the warm shadows. Haakon’s breath caught as Rurik prowled closer, but he moved before the man could even blink.
Shoving Haakon against the wall as he tried to stand, Rurik pinned him there, one hand around the man’s throat. Haakon tried to break his hold, but Rurik simply lifted him higher, until the man’s boots dangled off the ground. Haakon gasped.
“I can abide challenges to my territory,” Rurik admitted, feeling heat fill his eyes as he let the dreki slip its skin, just for a moment. Haakon kicked dramatically as he no doubt saw the cat-slit pupils and the golden haze of the dreki in Rurik’s irises. “I even find myself feeling sympathetic for your foolish quest to hunt and kill me. But still, that does not give me an excuse to swat you like the fly you are....” His grip tightened until Haakon’s face began to mottle. Rurik leaned closer, until their noses almost touched. “But if you ever go near Freyja again, or threaten her, or let her be tied to a fucking stake like you did, then I will make your death a slow one, do you understand me?”
Releasing the man, he stepped back as Haakon sagged against the wall, clutching at his throat and coughing
air back into his lungs. Haakon’s eyes were wide with fright. “You,” he sputtered, finally understanding what he faced.
“Yes, me,” Rurik replied, stepping back out of reach before the hunter did something stupid, like reach for his knife.
Haakon lurched to his feet, and then stayed there, shaking against the wall. “You were there all along,” he rasped. “Right under my nose.”
“For a man who hunts dreki, you are quite terrible at spotting them.”
Haakon threw himself at Rurik, his fist swinging. Rurik sidestepped, and then flipped the hunter onto the table, slamming him flat on his back on the timber. The breath whooshed out of Haakon, and Rurik stepped away, the muscle in his jaw ticking. “Don’t make me kill you.”
Haakon rolled upright, his eyes bloodshot and swollen. “Why don’t you?”
He came again, and again Rurik drove him down, hammering an elbow between his shoulder blades. Haakon grunted on the floor, trying to rise, but his arms gave out, and he slowly rolled onto his back. A bitter laugh exploded from his lungs. It sounded like it came from a man who’d lost all trace of himself, and it stopped Rurik from making another move.
“I won’t kill you,” he said slowly. “I think you’re punishing yourself enough. Killing you would be too easy.”
“Did you know I see her every night in my dreams?” Haakon whispered, hauling himself slowly into a sitting position. “Every night since I’ve been here. Begging me to rescue her. And these cursed storms don't help. They only serve to remind me of the night I first met her, when she was lost in the rain outside my village.”
“I never had her,” Rurik pointed out, squatting in front of the man. They stared at each other, and he realized what he hadn’t seen before. This man was broken. And all it would take to drive him off the edge of the cliff would be a slight nudge.
After all, he wasn’t the only one who could enter dreams.
“The dreams started the night Magnus joined your party, didn’t they?” he mused.
Haakon flinched, then frowned. “Yes.”
Rurik reached out a hand and hauled the dragon hunter to his feet. “Your friends are not human, Haakon. Nor are they your friends. Magnus and Andri belong to the dreki court, and they’re here to kill me on their queen’s whim. You’re a tool to them, nothing else, and if you aren’t careful, then you’ll end up buried six feet under. Magnus is not the type of dreki to care for human foibles, nor share any hint of sentiment, not like I do. I’m sure you’ve had doubts. I’m sure you tried to test them the same way you did me that night we dined, but flinching at the feel of iron is an old wives’ tale, nothing more. Magnus has been sending you the dreams.”
A new fury roused in Haakon’s eyes. “Why?”
“Because he wants me dead,” Rurik replied, turning for the door. “But he won’t confront me directly, not until he’s certain he can beat me. No doubt you’re a distraction, one meant to wear me down.”
Haakon followed him out onto the village green. “Then this was all a wild goose chase.”
Sympathy stirred through him. Don’t meddle.... “Maybe. Maybe not. You saw a golden dreki steal your wife—or thought you did—and I am quite clearly a golden dreki, though I had nothing to do with what happened to your wife.” He paused. Árdís must have had her reasons. “But there is one truth I know, that you do not. Your wife is still alive.”
“You said you didn’t take her.” Haakon’s face paled. “How do you know that?”
“I am dreki. You know I cannot lie.”
“Where is she?”
Rurik paused. He had little reason to give this man any hope, beyond a vague shared sentiment. He knew little of human emotion, but if that were Freyja.... There was nowhere on this earth she could be taken where he would not hunt for her.
Fool of a dreki. He closed his eyes. He finally understood what was happening to him, and why he could not simply leave this quest to win her heart alone. Perhaps he and Haakon shared more than they knew?
“I don’t think you’re ready to know the truth,” he said slowly, trying to sort through his thoughts of Freyja. “But you will be. Soon. And when you are,” he smiled, “come and find me.”
Spreading his arms, he felt them lengthen into wings as the dreki took shape with a burst of volcanic heat. Haakon stumbled back, shielding his eyes and face from the wash of power that erupted.
When it was done, Rurik smiled a particularly dreki smile. “Let us hope I am still alive to tell you the tale of your missing wife.”
Then he launched himself into the skies.
Chapter 16
Rurik returned to the house. There was no sign of Freyja, though her scent lingered all over the place, ingrained in the homestead. A scent that filled his heart with joy.
There was an old dreki tale that spoke of kataru libbu, an alliance of the heart. Dreki were the half-souled, and he’d always felt somehow incomplete. When the great goddess tore her soul to pieces to share it with her new dreki offspring, she had left them vulnerable, always hungering for the other half of their soul.
A myth of the dreki court. Some dreki found their other halves, the twin flame to their soul. Some did not. But all hungered for them. It was a concept beyond that of the mates they took, the lovers they consumed.
The second he saw Freyja, he’d known there was something different about her. He’d been unable to deny his yearning for her, and even now her distance from his side ached within him.
Was she the other half of him?
Was that why he was so helpless to walk away from her, so determined to claim her?
Some instinct stirred in his chest. He could not walk away from her. It would be like cutting out his heart. Freyja. Fierce, stubborn Freyja, who had brought him out into the light, brought him back to life. Without her, all he faced was an eternity of hibernation.
A dreki bugled, somewhere far to the south of him, reminding him this was not the time for such speculation. His enemy was still out there, somewhere.
Rurik turned to face the brewing storm on the horizon, looking for Magnus.
The bastard had used Haakon and his men to test Rurik, but why? Why not face him? He remembered battles between them as youths, where they’d tested their strengths against each other. Battles he’d won every single time.
There was a reason he’d been his father’s heir. A reason his uncle and mother plotted for his exile, rather than outright killing him. If Stellan or any of his sons had challenged Rurik, then there was a possibility he would have defeated them.
“Are you frightened to confront me?” he whispered, sending the thought-thread lancing through the skies as he searched for his cousin.
Magnus’s awareness linked with his, the other dreki’s fury searing his mind. “Frightened?” Magnus spat. “How dare you?”
“What else am I to think, when you hide behind the plots of puny humans?”
Days ago, he’d refused to offer challenge to Magnus, his pride standing between him and the thought of openly acknowledging Magnus was ranked above him. But that was before he’d come to realize what Freyja meant to him. There was no moving forward until he defeated this threat.
“I offer challenge,” he called, feeling the heat of his cousin's surprise. “You and me. No mercy. Let us settle this once and for all.”
Magnus could choose not to accept.
“Unless you are wary of battling me?” Rurik added. “I always won, did I not?”
There was a long moment of silence. He almost didn’t think his cousin would accept.
“That was a long time ago. Come and fight, you filthy cur. I am not frightened of you.” Magnus’s thought-thread linked with his, and for a second Rurik saw more than Magnus expected him to. Always a problem when two dreki linked. Magnus swiftly hid his thoughts, but there was enough there to cause Rurik to falter.
Magnus did not intend for this to be a fair fight.
“One hour,” Rurik whispered, knowing he would be facing two dreki, and not one.
Sympathy for Andri’s dilemma stirred through him, even as a hint of doubt assailed him.
Could he defeat both of them? Knowing he would not—could not—harm the cousin he loved?
Magnus faded from his consciousness. And Rurik was left standing there, gripped by indecision.
What if he did not win? He was relying on Andri’s honor to stay out of this, even though he knew some hidden pressure forced the youth to join Magnus in this plot.
If he didn’t win, then what did that mean for Freyja?
She had not accepted him, not completely.
And he wanted so much more from her than merely a conquest, but how could he tell her that? He did not have the time.
Except... there was one last gift he could give her.
One last way to prove his intentions toward her were serious, and one way he could offer her protection, if Magnus defeated him.
Rurik slowly turned and looked at the house.
“You... you get out of here!” Freyja’s father snapped as Rurik entered, maneuvering with wicked speed around the dining table. “Benedikt told me what you are, and what you intend with my daughter! You leave her alone, you foul beast!” He snatched up a cross and started praying in Latin. “Our father who art in Heaven....”
Rurik’s temper flared. He had no time for this. “Did Benedikt also mention precisely what he’s threatened her with over the past few years? The coin he’s offered for her if she allowed herself to become his mistress? Or the threats he made when she would not?”
The prayer faded as Einar gasped. “What?”
It dampened Rurik’s temper to a smoldering coal, but the heat remained. Freyja had refused to allow her father to share her burden out of some misguided attempt to protect him, but in doing so, she’d not allowed him to protect his daughter. “Your precious Benedikt threatened to name her a witch if she’d not lie with him. Who do you think tied your daughter to a stake and offered her up to me? Who do you think has been stealing your sheep over the years, and whispering in local villagers’ ears so they would not buy your daughter’s barley when she tried to trade it? I have been talking to many of the locals. Some spit on your daughter’s name for dealing with the devil—which you and I both know she has not done—but others admit they were afraid Benedikt would turn his wrath on them if they traded with Freyja, or tried to help her. She’s slowly starving because of Benedikt, and you cannot see it. He wanted to cut off all of her resources so the only person she could turn to was him, when she was finally desperate enough. That is the snake whose words you listen to.”
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