Her father. Freyja’s nostrils flared.
“I understand why he helped you, but I do not understand why you helped him,” Freyja murmured. She had no intentions of leaving Rurik behind, nor of turning her back on Andri even for a second. “You came here to kill him, and I won’t forget that.”
For the first time, conflicted emotion showed on Andri’s face. He looked down at his cousin. “I came here because I was ordered to. My father wanted him dead and promised his lands to my brother.” For a moment, he seemed more of a boy than a man. “You do not argue with my father. I am not the son he would choose,” Andri replied, and lowered his gaze. “My father thinks my weakness is my mother’s fault. She’s his second mate, and he’s never thought highly of her. I was given a choice: prove I can be a son he is proud of, or watch her suffer. I had to come. I had to... to protect her. But being here... seeing Rurik again. It reminds me of everything I once was.”
A hush fell.
“What will your father do when he hears you failed and watched your older brother die?”
More emotion in those dangerous eyes. Andri blinked through long lashes. “I do not know. His heir is dead. Some within the court will say Magnus earned his death for daring to trespass on Rurik’s lands, but... my father’s loyal companions will take offense at this death.”
A chill ran through her. “They’ll come for him again.”
“Maybe.” The word echoed in the hollow chamber. “Some will be wary to rise against their prince. Magnus was one of the best, and Rurik defeated him. They’ll—”
“Their what?” she broke in.
The dreki met her gaze. “He did not tell you?”
“He did not tell me quite a few things, from the sounds of it,” she said angrily. A prince.
“Rurik was his father’s heir,” Andri said. “Which makes him a prince of our people. When his father was killed, Rurik was offered the means to fight for the throne or to go into exile. He chose exile.
“So not only is he their prince, but he is more powerful than most of the entire court. If my father’s dreki come again, they’ll come in force.”
“I won’t let them hurt him,” she whispered fiercely.
“What are you?”
She’d been asked that question so many times. Circles, circles, what did the damned circles have to do with her and her mother? Freyja rested her elbows on her knees, next to where Rurik rested his head on the edge. A golden gleam seemed to emanate from his body, highlighting the dark waters, but he seemed quite oblivious to the world around him. “I don’t know,” she admitted. “My mother called me a Daughter of the Storm, and I think she knew some lore that gave rise to me, but... I don’t entirely understand how it all works.”
For so many years she’d been trying to hide from her nature, to suppress the unnaturalness within her. Every time the locals crossed themselves, she’d looked away and locked her true nature deep within her, but the past few weeks had pushed her to accept truths she’d long turned away from.
There was power within her.
Immense power.
And it seemed both tied to the elements as Rurik’s magic was, but also somehow separate.
Andri squatted down beside her. He was naked, but until that moment she hadn’t truly noticed it. He eyed Rurik with a faint frown. “Whatever you are, you’re a threat to him, because you’re the one person who could stop his people from accepting him. Without allies, Rurik has no hope against Stellan, regardless of your powers. And his people will never accept you, or any children you might bear.”
A stark chill ran through her. “His people exiled him.”
“He is beloved among those who were his dreki. I hear their mutters, their whispers that things would be better if Rurik were king. There is no love for my father, Stellan, but none are strong enough to challenge him.”
“Except for Rurik,” she said, finally understanding.
“Except for Rurik. But you’re human and he is dreki. It’s the one thing that could turn those who are loyal to him, against him. You’re not dreki. Mating with you goes against the creed, and his people will consider this an act of defilement of his pure blood. We can take humans as lovers, but they are never accepted as our consorts, and their children are bastards. They will never accept you as his mate, and he can never come home again.”
Home. The blood ran from her face. Home. Rurik’s greatest dream, the one that had put shadows of loss in his eyes. His sister, his brother, his people... all things he could never have if he tried to stay with her.
A cold knot seemed to settle in her chest. “Rurik and I never had a future,” she said quietly. “I have always known that.”
“And yet you fought for him?”
“I love him,” she whispered.
“Love.” Andri seemed to consider the word. He frowned.
“Rest,” she whispered, brushing a strand of wet hair from Rurik’s temples, knowing she could not explain. “Rest and heal.”
Chapter 21
A week later, Rurik awoke.
He was still submerged in the pool, and the waters were finally cool against his skin, as though he’d adsorbed all of the heat within the volcanic waters. Vague memories returned: of a hand cupping his forehead as though checking for a fever, and a pair of lips pressing gently against his cheek. Of words whispered in his ear that stole straight to the heart of him, even through his protective coma.
“I love you, Rurik. And so I must set you free.”
“Freyja?” Rurik staggered to his feet, his knees still shaky, though his body finally felt whole. “Freyja?”
“She’s gone,” Andri said, stepping out of the shadows and staring at him.
No! He bared his teeth, primitive urges arising within him and shaking the volcano around them. His dreki heart ached, hollow once more, as though it had lost something far more precious than just love. “Where is she?”
“She’s gone,” Andri repeated, stepping between him and the exit to the cave. “I explained what would happen to you if she accepted your mating bond.”
Rurik’s head swiveled toward the youth, and he forced his fingers to curl into fists, rather than smashing him flat. “You explained what, precisely?”
“The truth.” The words came out of Andri in a rush. “She’s human and you’re not. You cannot mate with her, or the entire court will turn against you. You can’t defeat them all, and they’ll destroy you for daring to pollute your bloodline.”
“They can try.” He shoved past the lad, but Andri slammed both hands against his chest.
“No!” the boy burst out. “No. I won’t let you do this. Your people need you. They need their prince. You’re our only hope.”
Stillness slid through him. “You have a queen.”
“We have a monster.” The words tore from Andri in an almost sob. “You don’t understand what has changed. Your mother doesn’t believe in honor, or in dreki code. The strong make their own rules, and only the strong survive Hekla. I didn’t even believe in the power of right, until I saw you again. Until you made me believe it doesn’t have to be this way anymore.” The youth’s eyes filled with tears. “I lost my way, Rurik. Everything you taught me had been ground to dust under the never-ending erosion of my father’s will. I stopped believing. I have done things I will regret forever, but it wasn’t until I saw you again that hope gleamed. You tried to save me. You wouldn’t hurt me even when I worked against you because you gave your word. You don’t know what that means to me.”
Rurik’s heart thudded dully in his chest. “If I’d stayed, I would have plunged the entire court into a war it couldn’t cope with. Dreki would have had to choose sides.”
“Father killed Áki, Príor, and Sámaur.” All of them powerful warriors who might have swayed the court, and stood against Stellan and Amadea. “Marduk fled, and no one has seen him since. The court’s already at war, and no dreki trusts another, for fear their words will reach Amadea’s ears.”
Marduk, the
little brother who was named after a god-killer. Rurik froze, turning all his predatory attention upon Andri. Marduk and Árdís were the reason he’d accepted exile, rather than fight. His little brother had been barely across the threshold of adulthood, and no match for Stellan and his sons. Not yet, anyway. “Are you certain he’s still alive?”
“Árdís seems to think he is.” Andri hesitated though. “She doesn’t say much, and told Amadea she didn’t know where Marduk has gone, but I’ve heard whisper among your father’s dreki that his heart still beats. As for your sister, my father’s promised Árdís’s hand to Sirius.”
Andri’s other black-hearted brother. “What does Árdís think of this?”
“What do you think?”
Árdís would be furious, but with her uncle’s dreki around her and no allies, there might not be much choice. Rurik paced, his knuckles cracking. He’d only ever intended to protect those he loved.
Could he kill his uncle? Could he challenge him?
Stellan’s not the dangerous one.
Truth, said his dreki magic.
Amadea was only queen with Stellan’s backing. As a female dreki she wasn't powerful enough to face challenges herself, but with her brother standing at her side, who could unseat her?
And could Rurik honestly kill his own mother?
“I’ll think about it,” he said hollowly. This was no small cause he had to commit himself to. And Andri spoke part of the truth. Those who might be his allies at court would balk at seeing Freyja by his side.
How could he make that choice? He’d only just found her, and she was everything to him. Only with her at his side did he feel whole. Dreki spent their entire lives searching for their twin flame, the one lover who completed them.
And he knew now she was it.
But as prince of his people, he owed them more than he’d given them. How could he stand aside and see his sister forcibly mated, and his brother hunted down and killed? How could he speak of duty and law and right to Andri, when he would not even accept the duty his people needed from him?
“My father’s been in contact with me.” Andri hesitated. “I have to return.”
“What did he say?” Rurik demanded, in a chilled voice.
The lad was young, but his eyes were ancient as their gazes met. “Someone must be punished for this failure, and for Magnus’s death.”
“He’ll kill you.” Rurik stepped forward, trying to catch his cousin’s arm.
Andri backed away, his lips pressed together in suppressed emotion. “Maybe. Maybe not.” Andri shuddered. “There is a great deal I could survive, and he has already lost one son. Only Sirius and I remain, and Stellan likes having a spare in the wings. If I do not go, then he’ll choose another to take my place.” Thick lashes swept down over his eyes. “He’ll choose my mother to submit to my punishment.”
No. Rurik bared his teeth. “And the court allows this?”
There was no honor in punishing females or kits. And dreki youths were to be cherished, because they were so rare.
“Who can stand against him?” Andri asked simply.
Damn him. Turmoil turned Rurik inside out. He needed Freyja. This was no simple choice his cousin asked of him, but... this was wrong. And he was the only one who might stand a chance at uniting his clan and casting out the usurpers.
“I need to speak to Freyja,” he said, because this was not a choice he could make alone. “And maybe you’re wrong.... I don’t think she’s entirely human.” Some part of his subconscious had been dwelling upon what he’d seen when she confronted Magnus. “I knew she could shift the earth and touch the storm, but what she did during that fight was more than simply open herself to the elements. She controlled them. She more than matched a dreki, especially one of Magnus’s power.”
“Only dreki control the elements,” Andri said softly. “She’s not dreki.”
Did they? There was one other, but he’d barely seen fragments of that myth long ago in his youth, and he’d not studied enough to remember what it was. More a glancing recollection. But Daughter of the Storm. He’d heard that name before. Somewhere. “She might have some dreki blood within her,” he argued, though he wasn’t entirely convinced. “In the Dark Ages, when our numbers were dwindling, some dreki took humans for mates.”
“And when it became clear the progeny of such couplings could not fully control the powers they’d been gifted from their dreki side, the clans set to hunting down their descendants and killing them,” Andri said incredulously. “That’s why it’s forbidden.”
“Maybe they didn’t find all of them,” Rurik countered. “Maybe some of them could learn to control their magic?”
“And maybe her powers will spiral out of control—”
“If anyone thinks to move against her, then they will deal with me,” he snapped. That was one decision that could be easily made. “Stay here, and wait for me. I will speak to her.” He turned to leave.
“Rurik!”
He shot his cousin one more glance.
“Even if she isn’t entirely human, you still can’t have her. You’re of the First Bloodline. Your children would lose the gift of fire, and no dreki would follow you. It’s forbidden. It’s been that way since the courts first formed.”
“She is my twin flame,” he said gently, seeing the boy flinch. “The other half of my soul. And I cannot walk away from her.” His heart grew heavy. “I will think on what you have told me about the court. Don’t make any rash decisions. I will need you if I decide to face your father.”
There were debts to be paid before he could seek out his mate.
Rurik stopped in the village, following the scent of his old enemy—the man who’d saved his and Freyja’s lives. Haakon could finally add a dreki to his dragon-killing tally, and Rurik hoped none of Stellan’s men ever discovered how their leader had died.
Haakon jerked upright as Rurik’s hand clasped over his shoulder. He’d been slumped over the table in the taproom, staring so intently at nothing he hadn’t even heard Rurik enter.
“You again,” Haakon slurred, and then wiped a tired hand over his face.
“Me,” Rurik said, surveying the room. Only one of Haakon’s men lingered there, keeping careful watch over his leader, and sharpening his blade. “Out.”
The man arched a brow, and looked to Haakon. “Go,” Haakon said, slinging his leg over the bench so he straddled it. “He’s not here to kill me, Gunnar.”
Gunnar hauled his enormous bulk to his feet and left—but not after shooting Rurik one last threatening glance.
“You survived,” Haakon said, the second the door shut behind his man.
“It would take a great deal more than my cousin’s assault to kill me—so don’t go getting any ideas.”
“What do you want?” the man growled.
Rurik stared down at his nemesis. There were a pair of coins in his hand, and he turned them over and under his fingers, moving with dexterous grace. They reminded him of what he owed this man. He bared his teeth. “Every move you have made since you arrived has been against me, but you also saved Freyja’s life. I owe you nothing, for we are even now. But another of my kind does, another of my... line. And dreki always pay their debts.”
While Haakon might have hurt Freyja, he had done so for a reason, and that reason was a lie. How many other innocents had been swept up in this mess?
“You hunt the dreki who took your wife,” Rurik said, and Haakon sat up straighter. “This truth will cost you,” he warned.
“Then I’ll pay it. What do you want?” The man stood, yellow bruises splayed all up his face, as though he’d gotten in some fight. “I have gold! I have—”
“It will gain me nothing,” Rurik interrupted, holding his hand up in the air. “But it will cost you. Cost you the depths of the lie you have been telling yourself ever since your wife vanished.”
“Curse you!” Haakon suddenly roared. “Do not toy with me!” He kicked over a chair, then turned and upended the bench
. “Tell me where she is!”
As the other man subsided into a pulsing heap of fury, Rurik closed his fist around the coins, his choice made. “There is only one golden dreki beside myself,” he said. “Her name is Árdís, and she is my younger sister. She resides in the dreki court below Hekla.”
As Haakon strode toward his bag, Rurik stepped in front of him, shoving him to a halt. “You will never get into the court. It was built with magic and resides between this realm and the next, created out of pure Chaos magic. A realm within a bubble of power. Over a hundred dreki live there. Perhaps you could kill one, but they will chew you up and spit you out before you even set foot in the place.”
“I don’t care.” Haakon tried to shove past him. “That dreki took my wife!”
“She did not steal your wife, you fool,” Rurik hissed. “She was your wife.”
“What?” Haakon slammed to a halt, the breath hissing out of him.
“Think about it,” Rurik warned. “Dreki do not eat humans, unless provoked. And what need would Árdís have to steal away your wife, when she has no interest in mating with her or eating her? You said yourself that your wife—Arja—had eyes like polished amber. You describe my sister’s mortal form. Her coloring. Tell me this, did she like berries? They were Árdís’s favorite too. And she despises smoked cod with a passion. She loves to lie in the grass, warming herself in the sun, and she has an obsession with jewelry, particularly emeralds.” He saw the other man flinch. “I don’t know if your wife had a temper, but Árdís does. She is petulant and spoiled, but when she laughs she could light the entire room.”
The color drained out of Haakon’s face. “No,” he whispered, but it was with the tone of a man who knew he was wrong.
“Yes,” Rurik corrected, righting the chair. “Your wife was a stranger to your village, one caught out in a wild storm one night, a storm the likes of which you’ve never seen before. Those are the kinds of storms dreki ride upon. None of you knew her, you said.”
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