“You are a gem, sister. Maintaining your composure when I just fucking lost my shit,” Mikkel says as he keeps his forehead against hers.
“Rikyava’s the gem.” Lærke pulls back now, fire in herpale eyes as she narrows them at Mikkel in the wan light. “Your Bloodmate dideverythingfor you these past days. From making sure the Storm Dragon King didn’t end you, to all the shit she went through in Iceland, then Bloodbonding andlife-matinga complete stranger… she performedmiraclesto rescue you. Even standing up against the Black Dragon to get us the fuck out so we all could be alive to even fucking chit-chat right now. You’d better say you’re grateful.”
“I am grateful. I am.” Mikkel twists to look me right in the eyes, holding my gaze.
“I know.” I squeeze him around the waist, letting him know I already forgive him. How could I not, when I feel his remorse pouring through him, so deep and agonized?
“It wasn’t me who got us out, though, when it counted,” I say now, as I know deep inside my heart who the real credit goes to. Turning, I look at the partially healed Bjorn, wondering how in seven hells he used Baldur’s dying magic to make the portal that got us all out of Copenhagen, stat.
“I did what any good warrior would do to protect my life-mate,” Bjorn says with a growl now as he nuzzles my nose, then kisses me. That kiss is long and deep as he wraps me tighter in his arms, so tight it’s almost uncomfortable, though there’s no way in hell I’m ever leaving it.
Despite my crazy exhaustion, I feel Bjorn’s kiss do something to me as it sends tingles all through me. It’s like the light within me rekindles to his touch as he kisses me.
I revel in it now, needing him more than life itself. Everything inside me leaps to Bjorn’s love, and his furious righteousness and protection of me. It doesn’t escape me, however, that the impossible magic Bjorn pulled out of his ass today saved us all—most especially me, when I had been gone inside my Bone Magic.
Blacker than black.
Mikkel might be a liability with his unpredictable wrath, but I’m the worse liability. I know it’s true because something deep inside me calls tothe Dragon of All Souls—something that is the worst part of me, and always will be.
Not only that, but everything today nearly went catastrophic when I tried to control that fell beast with the most horrible darkness inside me. I still feel it as I sit here now with my drakes.
Something in me told me I could command it. Something deep within my very blood and bonesstilltells me I could best that creature and wield it, if I only tried harder.
Despite there already being somebody who can command it better than me.
“Litha. She’s Ruta… somehow,” I say as I suddenly recall what I saw on Litha, searing across her forehead today during the battle. As I revive that memory of Litha’s blistered scar that exactly matched Ruta’s when I broke my Excommunication by the Black Dragon Knights, I feel it get shared with my entire Bloodbond. Even Lærke gets a little, as Bjorn growls and Ström inhales, and Mikkel sets his jaw.
Knowing that somehow our enemies, Ruta Bein and the Bloodwalker Litha, are the same.
“The Black Dragon Knight’s High Council is compromised,” Ström says then, as he inhales, deep. “Rikyava, you saw the damage your Excommunication recoil caused on Ruta when you and Baldur broke it in Iceland. If you saw that same scar on Litha, who we now know is a Bloodwalker and a fucking ridiculously strong one to be able to command the Black Dragon and have Emil Beck as a Bloodmate, a Bloodwalker in his own right… then it’s time for the Council to know.”
“We thought the Council was our enemy before, when they were trying to fuck with you, Rikyava, and come after Ström, Mikkel, and Lærke as Bone Mages.” Bjorn is ferocious as we hash out our situation in this unknown, ancient space. “But it’s far worse than that. They’re compromised, right to the very top—allowing Litha to wield them in disguise as Ruta. Litha has an agenda to bring down all of BloodDragondom with the Black Dragon, and save only Bloodwalkers and their mates to build our Lineage anew. With herself and her drakes right at the very top.”
“And with Emil Beck leading the Jarldom in Copenhagen now, I’m sure,” Lærke spits as her pale eyes flash murder.
“You heard Emil; he’s no friend to us or to King Erdhelm.” Mikkel’s dark eyes burn in the half-light. “With the former Jarl of Copenhagen dead, Emil will take that position if he hasn’t already. It doesn’t matter that the Black Dragon killed the Jarl rather than Emil. The Danish Jarldom is ridiculously strong, even with their palace decimated. They have heaps of militia all around Denmark. With Emil, Litha, and the Black Dragon leading the charge with perhaps the entire False Black Dragon Knights behind them as Litha pretends to be Ruta… the King is fucked.”
“Mikkel’s right,” Bjorn growls as his recovering dragon suddenly thunders, shuddering the greenery nearby and stirring the wispy light all around us. “We have to get back to the palace. We have to warn King Huttr?—”
“I’ve got a better way,” Ström says as he pulls from our cuddle and shakily rises. Determination is in his eyes as he regards me, then smiles wryly.
Ström turns away and begins to hunt around the fountains, then narrows his eyes as he peers into the overgrown vines and tree roots for something.
“What are you doing?” Something about his manner has got me tingling now, and not in a good way, as I push up to standing in the dim hall.
Though I barely make it in my exhaustion.
“My great-grandfather needs to know everything we’ve discovered,” Ström says stubbornly now as I see he’s pushing aside piles of dried leaves from the ancient trees, as if looking for something.
Gazing at the pillars all around us, backed by a luminous, dark forestinside the hall, he spies something and a smile lifts his face. As he steps over, bending to retrieve it, I see it’s a small but tarnished silver knife, probably left behind by whoever occupied this place last.
Strom returns, bouncing the silver blade in his palm.
“What are you going to do?” I ask him now, as I eye that silver knife. Hardly more than a letter-opener, it’s not a find to be terribly excited about, as there are probably tons of ancient artifacts scattered throughout this place, left by whoever was here last.
Ström’s eyes are triumphant, though.
In a way I don’t trust, as I lift a scathing eyebrow at him.
