Yet as they entered the lodge and far too many men turned their eyes Lauren’s way, Tait started to suspect he had a problem. Because that pesky feeling of jealousy had returned except now, it was even stronger.
Determined to ignore it, he pulled the first woman who headed his way into his arms and started dancing. Then he pulled her as close as possible. She was one of several he frequently brought to his bed, but for the life of him, he couldn’t seem to focus on her. More alarming, he wasn’t aroused in the least. Convinced it was because Lauren was moving further away and affecting his mood, Tait danced them closer to the head table. He narrowed his eyes when he saw who Sam had sat her next to.
Kodran.
His brother.
Soon enough, Matthew joined them. Lauren, not surprisingly, stiffened even further and leaned closer to Sam. Samantha, however, leaned closer to Cybil and Heidrek and murmured something to them. Soon enough, Tait learned what and felt an annoying sense of satisfaction.
When Heidrek stood, the room quieted as he introduced Lauren. She was Cybil and Samantha’s sister, and nobody was to touch her. “My cousin Tait will be Lauren’s protector until she takes a mate, is that understood?”
The crowd agreed, and some even toasted her arrival.
“She is very tense, is she not?” The woman in his arms rubbed her body against his and murmured in his ear, “Which tells me you have not had her in your bed yet, protector.”
Her presumption annoyed him. More so, the fact he should be overly aroused right now but was not. Worse than all of that, though? When he set her aside and headed for the table, he was angered that Lauren had just been disrespected by one of his people.
Disrespected?
Since when was he worried about a woman he had already lain with disrespecting one he had no intention of laying with?
Tait greeted everyone as he sat down across from Lauren and tried his best to grin rather than narrow his eyes at Kodran. “Brother.” He nodded. “How fare those at the Dragon Lair? Mother and Father? Runa? Meyla?”
Kodran was about to answer when a voice came close to his ear. “Why don’t you ask me yourself, brother?”
Tait couldn’t help but smile and laugh as he pulled Runa down beside him and wrapped his arm around her shoulder. “It is good to see you again, little sister.” He looked her over to make sure she was okay. “Why are you here? Why are you no longer within the safety of the Lair?”
He loved few as much as Runa and worried about her far too often. Because of her youth, she was more vulnerable than most.
“It is always good to see you too, Brother,” she agreed before she kissed him on the cheek, tucked herself close to his side and smiled. “Sam brought me here. Mother and Father say that one location does not seem safer than the other nowadays and they prefer me to remain close to Heidrek and Cybil.”
“That makes sense,” he agreed and welcomed a horn of ale when it was handed to him. “Has there been any improvement with Meyla?”
“Yes.” Runa smiled. “She finally awoke.”
Their former king’s eldest daughter and one of his favorite cousins, Meyla was supposedly killed by the enemy but had survived. Though they thought they would lose her because she was human, she had pulled through with the help of his parents and Aunt Veronica and Uncle Raknar who had stayed at the Lair to care for her. Her scars were grievous, but her positive attitude reassuring. While everyone knew her husband Valan would be by her side if he could, he remained in a self-induced trance as he tried to track down their long lost daughter.
“I am glad to hear Meyla is doing well,” Tait said. “I will go visit her soon.”
Runa nodded, leaned a little closer and whispered in his ear, “And will you bring your new charge with you? It looks like it would do her good to be anywhere but here.”
Before he could respond, Runa smiled at Lauren and introduced herself.
Lauren barely managed a weak smile as she nodded hello then resumed trying to listen to Sam and Cybil. But Tait knew she didn’t hear a thing they said. Rather, her posture was only growing tighter and tighter, as her eyes continued to flicker from Kodran and Matthew to the roomful of men.
She might have a fierce little dragon inside her, but it didn’t seem to lend her all that much support when she needed it. Tait thought about her confrontation with the enemy. Her dragon did come forth but only when she was truly in danger. So though she might not it seemed to know who was and was not a real threat to her.
“You should take her outside to look at the trees,” Runa murmured. “If not, I fear she might stop breathing very soon.”
He frowned. “Why the trees?”
Runa met his frown. “I was told you met her before today? That you are cursed to be together, yes?” Before he could respond, she continued. “Why would you not have asked one of her sisters more about her in light of that?” Again, before he could respond, she said, “Lauren likes trees. They give her comfort though it will not seem like it at first.”
What was she speaking of? Trees? Lauren? It made no sense based on what he knew of her.
“You do not know the affliction I have been suffering under, Sister,” he began but stopped mid-sentence when Lauren, Matthew, and Cybil stood. Confused, he stood as well and followed.
“Walk with me, Tait,” Cybil said softly as she wrapped her arm around his and they followed at a borderline uncomfortable distance. “Let’s catch up.”
Tait tried to move her along but she was purposefully slowing them down, and he knew better than to challenge her. Not only because she was his new queen but because she was a dragon, seer, and demi-god.
“I would like to think before all that, it’s because we’re friends,” she murmured in response to his thoughts.
“Always,” he assured and offered a weak smile. “Forgive me, my Queen. It is difficult to be apart from her.”
“I know.” Her eyes held his. “And I’m sorry I’m making you suffer, but she needs a bit of what Matthew can offer right now.”
“And what is that?” he growled before he thought better of it.
“Someone who bothered to learn about her before she arrived,” Cybil provided. “Someone who used to enjoy trees just as much as her.”
Tait remembered a time when Matthew was different. When he was not so fierce and hateful. When he laughed and smiled. Back before his wife was killed in battle. While many would take great pride that she had gone on to feast with Odin in Valhalla, he had only grown bitter. Different.
“Matthew only does this now to spite me,” he said, unaware how much he was going to say until he said it. “He is angry because he cannot embrace his dragon and because he knows I desire Shannon.”
“Right, Shannon. Someone you’ve met briefly yet feel so strongly about,” Cybil said softly. “Why do you suppose that is?”
“Perhaps she is my mate.”
“Perhaps,” Cybil murmured as they exited and kept a small distance behind Lauren and Matthew. “Yet you’re cursed to stay close to Lauren.”
“Exactly.” He frowned as Matthew stopped beneath a tree not that far from his lodge. “Despite what you say, it makes no sense that she would be comfortable enough to be alone with Matthew. Very few people are, never mind Lauren.”
“I agree to an extent,” Cybil said. “Yet there they are, and she seems a whole lot less tense, wouldn’t you say?” Her eyes met his again. “Life and the connections we make in it are mysterious, Tait. Sometimes they make sense. Sometimes they don’t. But I think you’d probably agree with me that a connection like they’re making now is a good one if it helps them relax a little.”
“There is something to be said for relaxing,” he agreed reluctantly, edging closer to them if for no other reason than he was in physical discomfort. “Yet I have not been able to relax since I met her. And today did not help when I heard a man in my lodge with her.”
When Cybil looked at him curiously, he explained what happened.
Her expression gr
ew more troubled, and Heidrek entered their minds.
“There is nobody by that name at this fortress.” He sensed Heidrek’s contemplation. “The only time I heard that name mentioned before was when we learned about the first three dragon bloodlines on Midgard. Einar was one of them. Our direct ancestor. Have you tried to track Einar down or the woman she said was in your lodge beforehand?”
“Not yet.” Tait felt more the fool for not having shared this earlier. “Do you think this is trouble, Cousin?”
“I think it was worth mentioning right away. Please tell me if something like this happens again,” Heidrek returned, yet he sounded more curious than angry. “I will have men search for them and speak with Uncle Kjar and Aunt Aella. If this is somehow connected to our ancestor, they may know more about it.”
Connected to their ancestor? How so? And if it were, why was he or she reaching out to Lauren?
“Yes, my King.” Tait nodded out of habit even though he couldn’t see him.
“Always Heidrek to you,” his cousin said before leaving his mind.
Cybil took Tait’s hand and met his eyes. He was surprised not only by what she said but that she had blocked Heidrek from hearing. “I have a bad feeling, Tait. Please promise me you’ll take care of Lauren no matter what.”
He was about to say she might be better off asking Matthew but saw the concerned look in her eyes. The genuine worry. So he tried his best to reassure her and said words that he didn’t intend to say. But when they rolled off his tongue, he knew they were true. “I would lay down my life for Lauren, Cybil. Never doubt that.”
No sooner did he say it than he felt something stir. Some sort of magic. Not necessarily evil, just different. Foreign.
“What is happening?” Lauren said softly, fear in her voice as she stared at the tree then Matthew before she stumbled back, and her eyes shot to Tait. Not in anger or haughtiness but because she wanted him with her. Because she thought he could save her from the enemy.
An enemy she was convinced was coming again.
“What is it?” Matthew said. “I do not see anything.”
But Tait did.
The Nidstang was mere feet away from the tree’s roots with blood dripping down its pole. Before Lauren could take another step back, she was in Tait’s arms, and his sword was drawn. The only problem? There was nothing concrete to fight.
Until there was.
Kodran.
“Brother?” Tait said, confused as Kodran seemed to rush at them from the direction of the Nidstang, his sword swinging. Matthew jumped into the fray as Tait began fighting his brother to defend Lauren, all the while ordering Cybil to flee.
Naturally, his new queen did no such thing but pulled free her own sword and tried to help only to hit an unseen wall. Nothing about this made sense, and it only grew more confusing as white light swallowed everything and the air compressed. Barely able to move, never mind fight, Tait did his best to pull Lauren close before a loud roar filled his eardrums and they were suddenly falling.
Caught in too much unpredictable power with his only thought to protect Lauren, Tait shifted and wrapped her safely in his talon before they crashed down into the ocean at the base of a monstrous waterfall. Seconds later, Kodran crashed down beside them, in dragon form as well, and caught Matthew seconds before he was killed on jagged rocks.
What in Loki’s Hel was going on?
And it only got worse.
Moments later, Runa landed on top of them, also in dragon form.
After that, it was a turbulent scramble to keep from crashing against the mountainous shore in violent waves while at the same time protecting Lauren and Matthew because neither could shift. Not that Tait supposed it would matter much considering how difficult their situation. He was a strong dragon and could barely handle the environment, let alone Runa.
Though nearly tempted to forfeit all to protect his baby sister, he had made a promise to Cybil to protect Lauren. Yet Tait knew deep down in a place he was barely able to acknowledge, he would have no choice but to save the difficult little woman. His dragon wouldn’t allow him to do anything else. And he soon found out how true that was as he struggled to get them to the surface only to hear her heartbeat fill his ears.
The skidding thump as it turned sluggish…as she struggled for air. The unusual way it palpitated as water filled her lungs and her blood flow slowed more and more.
“Woman,” he roared into her mind, surprised by the emotions screaming up inside him. “You are not permitted to leave me.”
Yet her heart slowed as he struggled against the turbulence and waves and what felt like Loki’s wrath unleashed on Midgard. A mere breath before he gained balance, and shot up out of the ocean, her heart slowed to a distant crawl but not before he heard her whispered, echoed response in his mind.
“My name is Lauren, not woman.”
Chapter Six
LAUREN STOOD AT the end of one of the hallways in her mind and debated her next move. She could hear Tait pounding on the door she’d shut him away in. She could hear his mighty roar. She could, as always, sense his need to get to her. Tired, feeling as though she had inhaled too much water while swimming, she crossed her arms over her chest, turned and narrowed her eyes on the dragon picture hanging beside her.
“I already took you off the wall,” she murmured and was about to remove it again when Tait’s usual roar changed…became different somehow.
Monstrous.
Inhuman.
Determined to make him stop, she started down the hallway to his door. The one she had locked him away in too many times to count.
“Where are you, woman?” he roared, starting to sound more like himself the closer she got.
“I told you my name is Lauren,” she responded politely only to realize she had roared it and her whole body was trembling. More alarming, she was no longer in her hallway but her bedroom back in the Maine chalet.
“Come back to me, Lauren,” he said, much closer now.
Lauren’s eyes widened as he appeared at her door.
“Come closer.” He shielded his eyes as though looking into the sun. “I cannot see you through all the glare.”
“What glare?” She shook her head and repeated her words from before. “There is nothing behind me but a wall and pictures.”
“Just take my hand, Lauren.” He held out his hand. “Please.”
“No, absolutely not.”
“Please.”
“No.”
“Hel, then I will make you,” he roared seconds before he lunged at her and everything became bizarre. She wasn’t enfolded in his arms but dark, shiny scales. She felt a wealth of warmth and comfort she never could have imagined.
Wait, that wasn’t true. She had felt this before or something similar.
When he held her in his arms earlier and dried her.
But she wasn’t dry now. She was wet and unable to get the water out of her lungs. Until she felt his breath—his fire—fill her lungs and burn away everything that kept her from breathing. Her hallway and bedroom started to melt away but not before her eyes locked with the dragon’s in Cybil’s picture. Not before human eyes became catlike and pulled her through a long tunnel until air rushed into her lungs and she inhaled deeply. Like a warm wind in early summer, it rushed through her body, soothing places she didn’t know existed. Warming the hallways in her mind until several doors unlocked and things tucked away were revealed.
Yet none of it mattered.
All she wanted to do was feel this never-ending bliss.
This sweet release.
She had never felt anything so freeing, so absolute in the way it filled her and made her willing to forgive. To…let go?
Heat flared at how strongly it affected her. Heat that had to do with defiance, rage then acceptance. Then something else. A new sensation. One that made her inner thighs ache and her breasts feel heavy. When the ache spread up her torso and turned to pleasure, she groaned.
“It’s okay,�
� someone murmured. “You’re safe.”
Lauren bolted to awareness, unfamiliar with the feminine voice as she blinked against blinding light. “It is okay,” came the same soothing voice. “It is me, Runa. I have a cool cloth to your head, Lauren.”
Runa? Tait’s teenage sister?
More confused than ever, she tried to sit up, but a strong set of hands pushed her back down with a deep voice to follow. “It is me, Matthew, Lauren. You are well. Safe. But you must come into awareness slowly, or you will do yourself more harm.”
Her vision was slowly clearing, but she still couldn’t speak.
“What matters is that you are alive.” Runa stroked Lauren’s hair back from her forehead gently. “As is Tait.”
Lauren still had no idea what to make of any of this and tried to say as much only to feel exhaustion overwhelm her. Unable to escape it, her eyes drifted shut. When she awoke again, it was to the sound of a crackling fire and the smell of something rather appetizing.
Drowsy but feeling better than she had in a long time, she cuddled closer to the warmth, released a sound that reminded her of a cat purring then dozed off again. When she woke up again, a fire still crackled, and she felt remarkably comfortable. Cozy almost. Until she opened her eyes and was shocked to realize why. She was cuddled against Tait who was, as far as she could tell, sound asleep.
“Oh no, you do not,” she tried to say but only managed to whisper it because her throat was so dry. When she attempted to push him away, a firm hand landed on her arm.
“Stop, Lauren,” Runa said, her brown eyes relatively warm as she sat beside her on the bed. “Do not touch my brother in anger. He has been through too much to save you.”
To save her? Not likely. More like trying to have his way with her. Yet she was unable to voice any of that. Thankfully, Runa brought a cup to her lips and helped her drink.
“Before you speak and say things you will regret,” Runa said softly. “Know that Tait did not try to have his way with you but instead forfeited a part of his soul to save you.”
Soul of a Viking (The MacLomain Series: Viking Ancestors' Kin Book 3) Page 8