by Ann Gimpel
My throat had thickened, and the tears from last night were back in force. “That’s what makes it so awful,” I sobbed. “I feel like I stuffed a puppy in a sack and drowned it. My head understands I didn’t actually commit an act of unspeakable cruelty. And I also recognize he needed to die. There was no other way, but I hurt. Here.” I twisted a hand to tap my breastbone, sweeping the gemstones from my tears out of the way.
“Ye’re half dragon, darling. The dragon is mourning the loss of one of its tribe. I feel the same crushing sense of sorrow, but ’tisn’t as harsh because Cadir dinna share blood with me.
“Ye were lost in your own pain last night, but the Celts and Odin were exchanging toasts and slapping one another on the back. They were thrilled. They’d engaged an enemy and emerged victorious.”
“I noticed all that,” I said. “The dragons weren’t celebrating. They’d huddled off to one side. Zelli told me she’d find me soon, so I assumed they were leaving.”
“My take as well. ’Tis one thing to fight alongside allies, but another when they’re whooping and cheering over something that rips your heart out and drills holes in your soul.”
Oblivious to everything but having me back, Mort purred on. I took solace from his simple, feline presence. The rest of my room came into focus. Someone, probably Tansy, had left a teapot and a plate with biscuits on the far side of the room.
“We’ll get past this,” Bjorn said in English. “We must. Yesterday was necessary, but—”
I placed filthy fingers over his beautiful lips. “I get it. We have a long road ahead. Nothing is promised.”
“Except us. We’re promised.” He kissed my fingers.
“Ick. I’m so dirty. You shouldn’t be kissing me.” I untangled myself to the accompaniment of an outraged yowl from the cat. In his little world, I should remain in my bed forever with him curled on top of me, protecting me from everything wicked in the world.
“Shall we find a spot to bathe?” Bjorn’s mouth curved into an inviting smile.
Twisting, I set my feet on the chilly floor. Part of me voted with Mort and fully agreed remaining in bed was the best choice. I stood creakily and turned to face my narrow pallet. Bjorn’s hair spread around him in a shining arc. Gems from my tears twinkled from the spots they’d fallen.
“Damn but you’re gorgeous,” I murmured.
“The feeling is mutual.” He winked broadly and sprang from the bed in a fluid motion that upset the cat.
My body felt like it was a million years old; muscles ached that I didn’t even remember having. “Aren’t you sore?” I asked Bjorn.
He shrugged. “Used to it.”
I rolled my eyes. “Don’t be such a guy.”
“Bath,” he urged and wrapped me in his arms. The warmth of his body soothed and aroused me by turns.
“One of the lower levels has geothermal pools,” I told him. “We could walk, or—”
“I vote for teleporting. Faster.”
I smiled, my bleak mood from earlier dissipating as Bjorn’s cock rose in a column and pressed into my belly. Reaching for my magic, I was pleasantly surprised to find it mostly intact. Either I hadn’t run through as much as I thought escaping from my dragon father, or I’d slept enough to replenish my stores. Maybe a little of both.
It took very little to transport us from my room to the warm, steamy cavern that held two hot pools. Bulbs of soaproot lay on a small table along with a collection of motley towels. We had the place to ourselves. I had no idea what time it was, but usually a witch or two was taking advantage of the water to soothe aching joints.
I hated to let go of Bjorn, but it was necessary. Shucking my clothes, I left them in a messy pile with my jewelry on top. Beside me, he’d done the same. “Come on,” I said and walked into the warmest of the pools, sighing as the mineral water closed over my legs, thighs, and finally shoulders.
“This feels so good.” He sank to the sandy bottom and tilted his head back until all his hair was wet.
I grabbed one of the roots and broke it open, layering the thick, creamy goo on his hair. I scrubbed and rinsed and scrubbed some more until the water ran clear. The astringent scent of soaproot was piquant and pleasing.
“Submerged hot springs feed these pools, right?” Bjorn asked.
I nodded. “They’re self-perpetuating. Fresh water seeps up through the sand beneath our feet. The witches built drains to keep each pool from overflowing.”
Bjorn settled me across his lap until I straddled him. Reaching for another bulb, he washed my hair, moving down my body with his soapy hands. Both of us were splattered pretty good with Cadir’s blood. When the last of the copper smell dissipated, it was a relief.
“I haven’t seen soaproot in a long time,” he said.
“It’s all we have,” I told him. “Supplies from all the wrecked stores ran out years ago. No one has the fat and lye to make soap.”
“We do in Vanaheim, and elsewhere too. The elves make everything they require. So do the dwarves and giants. I have a feeling the Nine Worlds are about to get a whole lot closer. In years past, Odin never worried Midgard believed themselves an independent entity. I’m pretty sure those days are over.”
I thought back to what Odin had said about being connected to all the worlds in his realm. “You may be right about that, but the mortals won’t like it. At all. Magic has turned into their nemesis.”
“I don’t want to talk about Odin or the Celts or anything with future stenciled across it.” Bjorn tightened his hold across my back and closed his lips over mine. Steam from the hot water rose around us, reminding me of an approving dragon.
I hugged Bjorn and ran my fingertips over the corded muscles in his back. My breasts pressed against his chest, and desire rocketed through me.
Hot. Sweet. Urgent.
I opened my mouth to his tongue and snaked a hand between our bodies until my fingers curved around his cock. He made a noise like a large jungle cat on the prowl. Part purr, part growl. All savage need. The uniquely male sound kicked the lid off my hunger for him, and I couldn’t wait.
I didn’t need anything fancy, but having him inside me, filling me, was the most important thing—the only thing—in my universe. He bit my lower lip and then strung biting kisses along the side of my face to my ear and lower to the hollow in my neck. Bending my head, I licked his nipple. I could only reach one of them, but the deep growling purr that aroused the fuck out of me grew more intense.
He gripped my hips and twisted me until I was facing the same direction as him, my back to his chest. I was beyond reason, beyond anything but longing for him that cut to my soul. When he lifted me, forearms against the underside of my thighs, I writhed with anticipation.
His cock seated at the entrance to my body and slid in bit by bit. I wanted him hard and fast, but I’d take fucking him any way I could. Magical bands formed beneath the water’s surface. Glowing warmly, they wrapped around my thighs and held me suspended.
Once his hands were free, Bjorn reached around me. He closed one around a painfully erect nipple and plunged the other between my legs. I yelped with pleasure as sensation cascaded through me. The water both slowed things down and intensified my desire.
He took me from behind, driving into me first slow, then faster, then slow again while he rubbed my clit and bit the juncture where my neck and shoulder joined. I reached around and held onto his ass. The play of his muscles as he thrust into me was a whole other high.
Orgasm washed through me, leaving me so stimulated I leapt from crest to crest like a mountain goat pumped up on drugs. In the midst of one of the shallow troughs, Bjorn lifted me from his cock, got his arms under me, and carried me out of the water.
A flurry of magic arranged the towel pile into a rough bed. He laid me down tenderly and knelt between my bent knees. His cock jutted from a nest of spiky blond curls, hot, hard, beautiful. I wanted to take him into my mouth, finish him that way, but he had other ideas.
He raised my legs
, placed them on his shoulders, and then slid home. It felt like he belonged inside my body. I never wanted him to leave. Such a beautiful man. Muscles bunched and released as he started fucking me again. His coppery skin had developed a rosy glow; his nipples were tight buds. Hair spilled around him, lending him an ethereal appearance.
He slid his hands beneath my ass, raising me as he thrust deeper, harder. His face contorted into a mask of passion, and I couldn’t not have come if I’d tried. Swept into his need and his passion, I joined him in release. Semen jetted into me, and I rocked against him to intensify his pleasure.
Breathing hard, sucking air in great gulps, we clung to each other as our passion subsided. He was still rock-hard inside me, but time with him felt stolen. We’d sated ourselves for now. More stolen moments would find us. Or we’d find them.
“Thank you, darling Rowan,” he murmured and tickled my ear with his tongue.
“Och, sure and ’tis I who should be thanking you,” I slid into an Irish lilt.
He shook his head. “You’d have no way of knowing, but I stopped briefly in Belfast on my way back from the dragons’ tunnel exploding.”
“Why there?” I was curious.
“I miscalculated. Anyway, humans scattered like mice. One took a shot at me.”
I smoothed errant locks of hair away from his face. “Yeah. Odin’s let’s-all-gather-at-the-river Kumbaya strategy will be a hard sell.”
Bjorn’s expression turned serious. “Many problems face us. That one isn’t ours. If Odin wants to make nice with Midgard, he’ll have to figure something out.”
“He can send Loki to do his court-jester routine. Think of the advantages. Convivial. Persuasive. Just before he knifes you in the back and lets slip he was the instigator behind the Breaking.” Bitterness lined my words.
“And Loki would agree in a heartbeat to anything that would move him out of Jotunheim, but it’s not going to happen. He’ll like as not escape, but when he does, he’ll lay low.”
“Sorry.” I held Bjorn tighter. “I shouldn’t have brought him up.”
Bjorn shrugged. “He’s part of what we have to deal with, and—” He angled his head to one side as if he were listening to something. And then I heard it too. Or I heard Zelli. Presumably, the voice in Bjorn’s head was Quade.
“Be there soon,” I told my bonded dragon.
“Playtime’s over,” Bjorn said, sounding wistful.
I kissed him a good one, tongue and all, before I wriggled out from under him. “We’re lucky we had even this long,” I said. After a quick dip back into the pool to rinse myself, I picked up the damp towels and hung them from hooks. That done, I gathered my discarded garments and readied a quick travel spell.
“Ready?” I asked Bjorn. He was on his feet and was cleaning himself with a damp towel.
“I am.” He gathered his own clothes, tucked them beneath one arm, and laced his fingers with mine. “You’ve made me a very happy man.”
I swallowed a smartass rejoinder about all men being happy after they’ve come. It was deflection on my part to distance myself from the scary emotions buffeting me. I was falling in love with him, and it terrified me.
“Ro?”
I opened my mouth, but nothing came out.
“It’s all right. I understand,” he said.
I leaned into him. “You’re amazing. I don’t deserve you.”
“Nay, my love. We deserve each other. We deserve an island of peace and love and joy, a place to retreat to when the world is too hard to bear. You’re that place for me, and I’m that place for you.”
His words resonated at a bone-deep level as I transported us back to my chamber. Mort had left. Perhaps he anticipated I’d be leaving, and he didn’t want to watch me go. Again.
I had clean clothes hanging from hooks, but they were running thin. “Hold up,” I told Bjorn, who’d begun sorting his blood-spattered vest, shirt, and breeches.
“Why?”
“Not keen on the blood stench being part of whatever comes next. Let me drop your garments in the wash kettle and find you something clean.” Before he could protest, I snagged his things from their heap on the floor and ran out of the room and down the hall. After leaving his garments in the perpetually bubbling wash cauldron, I culled through the stack of clean clothes until I located things I thought would fit him.
“Thank you.” He took the items from me and slithered into them. The trousers were a bit short, but not too bad.
“We rotate clothes,” I told him. “Makes what we have last longer.”
“I always knew witches were smart.”
He sat to put on his boots. I did the same. After grabbing biscuits from the plate near the door, we walked outside into the light of a fading day.
Quade, Zelli, and Dewi stood not far from the entrance to the caves beneath Ben Nevis. “We gave you as much time as we could,” Dewi said.
“Aye, ’tis past time to leave,” Zelli added.
“Where are we going?” Bjorn asked.
“Many places,” Quade replied. “Our first stop is Valhalla. Odin has gathered representatives from eight of the Nine Worlds. Once we are done there, we shall go to Fire Mountain.”
I cocked my head to one side. “You just came from there, didn’t you?”
“We did.” Dewi bobbed her head once.
“We sat before the council and relayed what occurred with Cadir,” Zelli told us. “It would have been their right to banish us for breaking one of dragonkind’s most sacred laws, but they showed clemency.”
“I dinna sit with the council,” Dewi informed us. “I remained with Zelli and Quade awaiting the will of the other council members.”
My heart hurt for her. “You did the right thing,” I said. “The only thing.”
“Aye. My way of seeing it too, yet it cost me. I shall never be the same. Although it dinna take long, my trip to Fire Mountain holding Cadir’s heart in my claws was the longest journey of my life. It has marked me. Scarred me.” She squeezed her scaled lids shut as if sealing out an image she wanted behind her.
“The two of you”—Quade looked from me to Bjorn and back again—“how have ye fared?”
“It hasn’t been easy,” Bjorn said. “But we have each other.”
My heart that had ached for Dewi cracked open. What he’d said was so simple, and so spot on, it knocked reality sideways. Having him by my side made all the difference, and I was a fool for not appreciating the power of our connection.
Zelli’s whirling eyes zeroed in on me. Her jaws lolled in a smile, and she puffed steam our way. Clouds of it. Dragon steam made me feel all was right with the world. Bjorn draped an arm around my shoulders.
“Och, ye’re right,” Dewi said out of the blue.
I batted clouds of fluffy mist aside. “Who’s right?” I asked.
“Ye have each other,” Quade rumbled, “but eventually ye’ll have another to love and care for.”
Bjorn’s face split into the most incredible smile. Even with that, long moments passed before understanding surfaced. Reeling from shock, I placed a splayed hand over my belly. “It’s not possible,” I sputtered.
“’Tis brand new.” Zelli was still grinning.
“Aye, he wasna there last night. Dragon hatchlings have a way of making their presence known.” Dewi bugled. The other dragons took up the refrain until the clearing was filled with steam and trumpets and joy.
Bjorn twisted me in his arms until I faced him. “How can we do this?” I asked as worry about battles and borderworlds filled me.
“We can, and we will. I love you, Rowan. And I love our child. I’ll keep you both safe.”
He sounded so fierce—and so determined—I pushed my doubts aside. Nowhere was safe and hadn’t been for a long time. Nothing about that had changed.
“Hurry,” Zelli urged. “Get on. We have to leave.”
“Just like that? Business as usual?” I joked to cover my vast insecurities. How could I be a mother? I had no idea w
hat to do.
“Aye. No worries about the bairn. Ye couldn’t harm it if ye tried.”
I vaulted to Zelli’s back as something occurred to me. “This new development”—I stumbled over words—“was it also foretold. Kind of like Bjorn and I were?”
“Ask Odin,” Dewi said. “We’ll be there soon.”
Magic and the beat of Zelli’s wings closed around me. I shut my eyes and said a quick prayer to any gods who might be listening to give my son an easier path than the one I’d trod. Now I knew he was there, I felt the faint beat of new life within.
It thrilled and terrified me. I had a hell of a lot of work to do before he was born. The sooner I got cracking, the sooner I could give my child my undivided attention… It was a nice dream, but not much more. As Midgard shattered and bled, I’d be lucky to find time to give birth, let alone moments to raise my child.
I gulped air to steady myself and reminded myself I wasn’t alone anymore. My child wouldn’t be, either. We had Bjorn, and we’d figure things out as we went.
* * *
You’ve reached the end of Dragon’s Blood. Dragon’s Heir, last of the Dragon Heir books will be along soon. Read on for a sample from Chapter One. And yes, I know, what a place to stop. But I have no choice. The parts that come next are a whole other book.
Thanks for loving my stories enough to keep on reading them.
Book Description, Dragon’s Heir
Rowan hasn’t made a dent in coming to terms with her black-to-his bones dragon father when she gets pregnant. The dragon-child isn’t even here yet, but everyone’s already fighting over his future.
* * *
The third (and last) book in a magic-laced, fast-paced, fantasy trilogy. With dragons.