Viking's Crusade (Viking Ancestors: Rise of the Dragon, #6)

by Purington, Sky

  “It would have been wiser for Father and Uncle to share what that is sooner.” He frowned. “What good do cryptic warnings do me?”

  She tapped her temple and referred to Skáld’s influence over them. “Cryptic because someone else might be listening, right?”

  “Right,” he relented. There was an appreciative gleam in his eyes when he glanced her way. “You have a good mind, Ava. A logical one I sense you put to good use often.” His eyes narrowed ever so slightly as if he sensed something else. “Or at least you did...”

  His thickly lashed eyes were like smooth dark chocolate as they lingered on hers, drawing her into a place far too delicious. Far too dangerous. She cleared her throat and tore her gaze away before she lost herself.

  Rather than respond to his comment about her mind, she turned his attention back to the ship, determined to work on solving their puzzle rather than going anywhere near her past. Because she knew full well, that was what he had been sensing. Her dragon was getting through to his too damn fast.

  “They’re raising the sail,” she pointed out.

  “Yes.” His curious gaze remained on her for another moment before turning to the men. “It’s very interesting that we get to witness this. And even more interesting still that we have been brought to our ship at the beginning of our journey rather than at the end like everyone else.”

  “I guess you really needed that message driven home.” She rounded her eyes a little when the sail was unfurled. “There’s nothing on it.”

  “Not yet there isn’t,” he began but trailed off when Bjorn and Heidrek looked their way.

  “Father?” he said because Heidrek definitely looked directly at them. “Can you see us?”

  Neither responded. Heidrek gestured that they come aboard.

  Unsure, she and Soren glanced at each other.

  “What’s your dragon telling you to do?” she asked.

  “To trust this,” he replied. “Yours?”

  “It’s undecided,” she lied. The truth was she had no idea what to make of its response. Sort of tentative but eager at the same time. As though it wanted to show Soren something.

  Better yet, show his dragon.

  “We will need to be truthful with each other,” he said softly, calling her out immediately which, usually a fan of being direct rather than evasive, she appreciated.

  “I know you are not as close to your inner dragon,” he went on. “Even so, it’s surfacing, and you must listen to it, Ava.” He tilted his head in question. “What is it telling you?”

  “That we should go,” she said, replying before she thought twice. “It wants to show you something.”

  He searched her eyes for a moment before he nodded. “I trust that...you and your dragon.” He slid his hand into hers again. “We will go then.”

  Like before, she did her best to ignore her response to his touch. How her dragon seemed to swim madly beneath the waters of her subconscious eager to break through and be itself. To show her everything it had likely been trying to tell her for years in haunted dreams.

  What she never could have foreseen when they boarded the ship, however, was what it wanted to show Soren. More than that, how raw, vulnerable, and out of control it would make her feel.

  Yet she had no choice but to cope when the ship headed somewhere truly unexpected.

  Chapter Four

  THE MOMENT HE helped Ava aboard the ship, his father and Bjorn faded away, and the face of a red, fiery dragon appeared on their sail. Soon after, the ship left the dock and made its way out the narrow exit, seemingly of its own volition. Meanwhile, he kept her by his side at the stern of the boat and scanned their surroundings for trouble.

  Her concerned eyes went to him. “This hasn’t happened before, has it?”

  “No.” He looked to the sail. “We are on an adventure we truly have no control over.”

  “I feel as though I should be terrified,” she said softly. “But I’m not...just anxious about what my dragon intends to do.”

  “I feel something similar,” he said. “Though mine is more curious than anything at the moment.”

  Thankfully, the sky was overcast but not stormy, and the sea was calmer than it had been in months. While inclined to take to oar, he knew it was pointless, so he urged her to sit.

  “We should talk, yes?” Though tempted, he tried not to stare at her beguiling beauty. Rather he worked to remain somewhat detached, so his dragon didn’t overcome him again. “Perhaps we should get to know each other better?”

  “That would probably be wise,” she agreed. “Though not so strangely I suppose, I feel like I know you better by the moment.” Her voice dropped an octave. “That I’ve always known you.”

  He nodded in agreement. “I feel the same.” He met her eyes. “This is what our kin felt only not so quickly. They, at least, had a few days to acclimate.”

  “Not us, though.” Ava frowned. “The clock to war is counting down far too fast to have the luxury of taking our time.” She shivered then notched her chin as if fighting her own reaction. As if determined to face mating with the same resolve she would saving the world. “Whether we want to or not, I have a feeling we’re about to learn a whole lot about each other in a short period of time.”

  “I think you're right,” he said. “Though more time would have been good, it doesn’t change the fact that I do want to learn more about you.” He considered her. “Perhaps starting with why you are so out of touch with your inner dragon?”

  Her gaze lingered on his eyes a moment before she looked to the sea. “Let’s just say my job didn’t allow for my dragon’s emotional response to things, so I learned to repress it.”

  “What was your job?”

  “I was a government diplomat.” Her gaze stayed trained on the horizon as though she looked for a shore that was no longer there. A past that had ceased to exist. “I helped governments and people get along. Found a bridge between cultures and different beliefs. I was a peacekeeper. And I was damned good at it. I made a difference.” She sighed. “Or at least I did.” She swallowed hard, her expression stoic. “Until the day I made too much of a difference.”

  When he looked at her in question, Ava shook her head. “It doesn’t matter now.” She pressed her lips together, fighting emotions, and took in their surroundings once again. “At least it shouldn't.”

  “But it must.”

  “Why?” She kept shaking her head, grappling with whatever happened. “I’m sorry...it’s too much to share right now...or maybe ever.”

  He was about to respond that her dragon likely felt the opposite of that but didn’t have a chance when she stood, narrowed her eyes on the horizon and frowned. “I’ve got to be seeing things.”

  Soren stood as well and peered at the coast they were closing in on. One rich with greenery and tropical plants. Moments later, the temperature increased dramatically. It seemed they had not only traveled to another time but another part of the world. “You know this place?”

  “I do,” she whispered.

  Half a breath later, they no longer stood on the ship but the sandy shore.

  “This is crazy.” Ava shook her head, frowning. She looked from their boat bobbing out past the breakers to the palm trees swaying in the wind behind them. “What the hell kind of journey are we on?”

  “One our dragons and likely your ancestor, Níðhöggr want us on,” he said softly, noting the deep concern on her face. “Where are we, Ava?”

  “Somewhere I wish we weren’t.”

  She sighed, sat on a rock and shrugged. Where moments before she had appeared distressed, now she was expressionless. As if this place didn’t affect her in the least.

  He was about to speak when he heard a faint sound thanks to his dragon’s advanced hearing. A woman sobbing softly if he were not mistaken. Drawn to it, his heart aching for no logical reason, he headed in that direction.

  “Don’t,” Ava called out. “Please...just stay here, Soren.”

  Hi
s human half tried to listen, to respect her wishes, but his dragon drove him on. It needed him to see something. To understand. The foliage was thick, but it didn’t take long to locate a small cottage in the middle of nowhere. A lonely desolate place.

  Driven by the need to soothe whoever cried, he stepped inside only to find Ava curled up in a ball on a small cot. Though everything in him wanted to take her in his arms and bring her comfort, he realized she was as much a part of the past as his father and uncle Bjorn had just been.

  The furnishings were scarce, and her belongings minimal. The place barely felt lived in.

  “Where am I?” he whispered to himself. “Where are you, Ava?”

  “In self-induced seclusion,” she said softly from behind him. “Not saving the world village by village as I led my sisters to believe but instead saving the world from myself.” Ava looked to the version of her on the cot before her gaze met his. “If you wouldn’t mind, I’d rather you not linger long. What’s in the past is in the past.”

  Then she turned and headed back for shore.

  While initially, he wondered why he needed to see such a personal time in her life, he realized he never would have known about this otherwise. Even with her dragon surfacing, what he saw now was part of something so deeply repressed, even her sisters hadn’t sensed it. While yes, Tess had kept secrets from her kin too, something told him Ava’s ability to keep truths hidden was more finely honed.

  Not only that, but he sensed her ability to keep secrets was a talent she’d acquired not in this life but the one on Múspellsheimr when they’d fooled Skáld. When they manipulated him right under his nose with Ava at the heart of it. They still had no idea to what extent she had cast his former brother beneath her spell. How far she had gotten convincing him that she was his closest confidant.

  Perhaps even ‘infecting’ him with love.

  He clenched his fists when his inner dragon roared up, both desperate to soothe the woman on the cot and pursue and confront the one who had just left. She who had played a dangerous game in their previous life.

  Yet now wasn’t the time for anger but compassion. He needed to understand her better. Not just the woman crying but the woman who led up to that moment. Who had done something so bad she thought she needed to isolate herself like this.

  He returned to the shore and sat beside her on the rock where she silently stared at the sea. Though tempted to put his arm around her shoulders or hold her hand in comfort, he knew by the look in her eyes, she needed some space. So he waited for her to speak, positive they would not end up back on their ship until she did.

  Something she seemed to understand as well.

  “I know my dragon’s forcing my hand with this stunt,” she relented. “But that doesn’t make it any easier.” She released a shaky sigh. “We might be destined for each other, but right now, I barely know you.”

  While that might be true at the moment, at one time they had known each other better than anyone else. They just needed to remember. Find each other again.

  “I understand how hard this is,” he replied. “It’s one thing to know you have to mate with a stranger, but it’s another to have to bare your soul. To reveal things normal people get far more time to share...who enjoy a more natural courting process.”

  “Natural,” she whispered then looked skyward. “I suppose that is what normal people would get.” She looked at their boat and shook her head. “But we’re no more normal than the situation we’ve been thrust into.”

  “No,” he agreed. “This is...different...and difficult.”

  “You have no idea.” When her eyes finally met his, they were resolved. “But you will when I tell you what a monster your fated mate really is.”

  Chapter Five

  WHY DID SHE ever think she could run from this forever? That when she left her self-induced prison to go to her sisters’ aid in Winter Harbor that her past wouldn’t follow her? Especially once she realized they were part of an ancient prophecy that had everything to do with their dragons.

  Though she wanted to crawl into the woman curled up on the cot back there, she was too much of a pragmatist to think she could go in any direction now but forward. That meant sharing with Soren.

  It meant sharing with her mate and traveling down the path their dragons laid out for them.

  Or her ancestor, Níðhöggr.

  Either way, she and Soren were officially tasked with saving the world so she needed to step up when she’d much rather skulk away. The world was better off without her. She was no hero but a downright threat to humanity.

  “In the end, I didn’t save a village,” she stated bluntly, coldly because remaining detached was the only way she kept going. “Instead, I single-handedly killed a village.”

  Silence settled before Soren found his tongue. “What happened?”

  “Simply put, I lost control of my dragon at the worst possible moment, and it cost...”

  She tried to keep talking, but her vocal chords shut down. Instead, she saw the look of terror in the man’s eyes that had stood across from her. Heard the sound of the semi-automatic machine guns going off when he responded instinctually to something that horrified him.

  Then she heard the cries of innocent men, women, and children being slaughtered.

  Barely aware of Soren’s arm around her shoulders, she kept shaking her head before she blinked, focused, and pushed her emotions down sharply. Right now, her mission was to tell the truth, so she did.

  “The hostage negotiator was shot down before he made it to the village that day, so I stepped in,” she said softly. “I’d done it before and knew I could handle it...thought I could.” She released a choppy sigh. “My first mistake was not realizing how much the guy had already gotten under my skin. His history of raping and slaughtering innocents was unbelievable...still.”

  She pulled free of Soren and sat up straighter, determined not to slide into the quicksand of her shady past. “I was almost there...I almost had him talked down...then I saw red.” She shook her head. “And he saw my fucking dragon eyes.”

  Ava rolled her head when her neck muscles stiffened. When that fateful day arose in her mind. She could still feel the sand sting her skin from the hot desert wind. Still feel her heart slam into her throat and taste the dryness in her mouth. Everything had gone into slow motion when panic lit the terrorist’s eyes. When he saw something in her fiery gaze that must have seemed like the devil coming for his unholy soul.

  “Once he saw my dragon, that was it.” She clenched her fists, wishing she could reach back in time and change things somehow. “The situation was out of my control. There was no reasoning. No stopping it. He and his men started shooting, and I didn’t have enough back-up to stop what happened after that.” She nodded once, taking responsibility. “Because I couldn’t repress my dragon’s inner rage, I was responsible for the deaths of sixty-four innocent people.”

  “But—”

  “No buts.” She stood and shook her head again. “Never once have I not taken responsibility for my actions, and I don’t intend to start now.” Though tempted to shy away from the horror that would surely be there, she met Soren’s eyes and gave it to him straight. “It was a top secret mission and will remain that way. Which means my sisters can’t know. Nobody can.”

  “Nobody in D.C. ever blamed me,” she went on. “But then no one saw what that terrorist witnessed despite satellite imagery.” She shook her head. “I was wrong for being there, to begin with. For thinking I had control over my inner beast and situation.”

  She kept a firm expression. “So I turned in my resignation, told my sisters I was traveling overseas to work with villages in need then went off the radar where I couldn’t hurt anyone again.” She gestured in the direction of the cottage. “That’s where I remained up until a month ago and would still be there to this day had Níðhöggr’s prophecy not sparked, and forced me to go to Maine.”

  Soren considered her for a moment before he looked to the
sea, seemed to weigh things out, then looked at her again. When he spoke, he didn’t try to convince her it wasn’t her fault or point a finger at the terrorist himself but approached things differently.

  “How long had you been repressing your dragon before that?” he asked. “And did it ever surface prior? Or even threaten to surface?”

  “No, not once,” she said. “I had it fully under control. Maybe too much under control because I didn’t shift when it happened. It didn’t even occur to me to shift and try to save those people.” She shrugged a shoulder. “Hell, I don’t know if I even could have. Honestly, I almost felt entirely human for a time. As if my inner dragon had melted away from lack of use.”

  “And you repressed your dragon because of your job?” he said. “Because you feared what ended up happening?”

  “In part, yes.” She sat again, glad he was attacking this clinically. Most people would be outwardly appalled. Or in his case, being her fated mate, he might have been too forgiving. She didn’t want forgiveness. Not for a second. It wasn’t deserved. “I realized during puberty that my inner dragon could easily heighten my emotions if I let it. When I decided what I wanted to do for a living, that a life of civil service was for me, I had to choose humanity over my dragon.”

  She remembered how difficult that had been at first. How her dragon had pressed back. But eventually, she won. It just took endurance. Perseverance. Knowing that she was doing it for the greater good.

  That the world meant more than the connection she shared with her inner beast.

  “Like I said, I got so good at repressing my dragon that I almost forgot it existed,” she went on. “Until that day when it roared up out of nowhere furious with a man who wasn’t all that different than many before him.” She frowned. “The world is chock full of evil, and he was just another in the line-up. A dime a dozen at that point.”

  “Perhaps it wasn’t the man himself then.” Soren’s tone remained matter-of-fact, his true take on the situation impossible to read. “Maybe it was something going on with you. Something happening in your life at the time. Or perhaps even one of this man’s previous crimes triggered something in you. More specifically, triggered your dragon.”