Chapter Five

R UNE HAD BEEN counting down the hours for a sign she could leave Ulrik's coronation celebration without offending anyone and finally saw it when she spied jorn's little black dragon. He was tromping along a wooden table investigating the succulent meat laid out only to go still, perk his head, and look directly at her.

"jorn," she nearly whispered, sensing his overwhelming need to be close to her again.

The only way to do that was to make their way back to their nightmare.

"I must take my leave now, friend," she said to Rafe, as he rarely left her side. She nodded once. "Tell King Ulrik I wish him well always and will see him again soon."

He nodded once in return, seeming to understand she was embarking on a physical and spiritual journey. "Travel safe, my friend."

Keeping to the shadows only a seer and goddess could find during such a raucous celebration, Rune pulled up the fur hood of the cloak Rafe had given her and made her way out of the village and along the wall, certain jorn would follow her from where he stood at the shore.

As she traveled, the first snowflakes of the season fell, and a sharp chill edged the wind, telling her theirs would be a more challenging journey but one that warmed her blood regardless if it meant she could be with him. If they could step away from all they were supposed to be for a few short days and be together, even if only in friendship.

Chanting into supple leather trousers, a leather tunic, and sturdy boots beneath her fur cloak, she left behind fading daylight and climbed up the rocky path behind the Fortress into the mountains and ever-darkening forest. She finally stopped well beyond prying eyes and waited on a ledge overlooking the dark sea below. Other than the distant sound of drums and merriment below, all was peaceful, and the easy swoosh of wind through the trees put her at ease.

There was no sign of jorn's little dragon, but she hadn't expected there to be. Not at this juncture when the man himself appeared moments later. As always, her heart leapt at the sight of him when he melted out of the darkness and stood at her side once more as if he'd never left it.

"Are you well?" His hand slipped into hers as they gazed at the distant sea together, her with seer sight and him with dragon eyes. "Were the festivities too..."

When he trailed off, she knew he'd worried about her the moment she was among so many of his kind. He had feared something would happen to her he might not be able to stop.

"Yet you need not fear nor worry," Rune murmured, following not just his thoughts but his heart. She squeezed his hand rather than look at him just yet because if she did, she might never look away. "All went well, my friend. There is no need to worry because—"

"Yet there is a need to worry," he said through clenched teeth, squeezing her hand in return. Fire flared in his dragon eyes when he looked at her. "Zane is too bold by half, and you are—" he ground his jaw and narrowed his eyes, trying to get his emotions under control— "you are you, Rune." She stilled when he cupped her cheek, making clear just how much he was losing control of his inner beast. "A target for many these days even as they lust for you. Surely you realize you are both distrusted and desired by my kind. So lusted after, it could become dangerous for you at any time, never mind the uncertain future of which you speak."

"Again, you need not worry about me," she whispered because it was hard finding her voice when she was lost in his warm touch. Lost in the fear and desire she saw in both his human and dragon eyes because both were there. Both were terrified for her. Helpless to do anything but lean her cheek into his touch, she closed her eyes and simply relished the feel of him. "I am very strong, min store kj?rlighet . Very powerful."

She didn't care if the childhood endearment was too much. It felt as natural on her tongue now as it had in their youth, however different the meaning might be between children and a grown man and woman.

"You are strong because fate has given you no other choice," he said softly, brushing the pad of his weapon-roughened thumb over her lower lip, invoking a sharp rush of heat that pooled below. "Yet you need not be with me, min lille elskling. With me, you can shed your obligations and worries because all I require is you as you are here...now... us as we are here and now."

"What is that, though?" she murmured, keeping her eyes closed because she didn't want to open them to a reality where she might not be able to be with him. So she kept them shut even as she felt him move closer with the quiet stealth of a dragon and felt his heat burn through her cloak, past her clothing to the bare flesh beneath. "What are we truly?"

"I think you know exactly what we are," he said softly, his mouth so close to hers she could feel his hot breath fanning her lips. "What we have been for years now."

How she wanted to close the distance and kiss him but feared what might happen if she did. What if their nightmare revealed, as it insinuated, that they would be torn apart forever? Did that mean he would be killed for loving her? That the dissent already growing between their kind would lead to his end if her fellow seers caught wind of it? His fellow dragons?

"We should not," she managed hoarsely, swallowing hard. "Not until I better understand if it will mean you harm."

She opened her eyes and stepped away before his lips found hers because he was moments from kissing her, and the truth of it was right there in the anguished way he looked at her.

"I do not care what happens to me," he ground out, fighting his inner beast's urge to take the matter out of her hands. "Not if it means finally being together as we should be." As if daring her to say otherwise, he narrowed his eyes and shook his head. "As I know you want every bit as much as me."

"I do," she confessed, taking some small comfort in saying it out loud. She was in just as much pain thinking it might not be possible. "But your life means more to me than my own wants and needs, jorn."

His gaze held hers for a long, tortured moment before he hung his head and clenched his fists, still fighting his inner beast. "Then it is settled...for now." After he inhaled deeply, trying to gather himself, he raised his head and looked at her again. "We are, as we have always been, the closest of friends." He narrowed his eyes again, only with a flicker of his inner beast flaring in his unwavering gaze this time and made clear there were limits. "Yet if we discover something along the way that allows us to be otherwise, there will be no stopping me from taking you, min lille elskling. No stopping me from seeing you lose yourself in the way I make you feel because it will happen again and again until you are addicted to it. Addicted to me ."

The possessive way he said it, combined with the vivid thoughts he wanted her to catch of the many ways he intended to bring her pleasure, made desire shoot through her so sharply her knees weakened. Defending herself against the ruthless onslaught of sensual visuals, she forced herself to close her mind to him.

"I do not like it when you do that," he murmured, the heavy arousal straining against his leather pants impossible to miss.

"Nor do I like when you try to cripple me with need to get your way despite my wishes," she countered.

"I have only done it this once."

He fell into step beside her when she made her way into the woodland lest she give herself to him then and there like she wanted to.

"Though I wish I had told you how I feel far sooner," he went on, grumbling about his hesitancy. "Wish I had told you years ago, and often at that."

Her too, given a few short years ago, when times were better, she would have given herself to him and him alone. Not to say she'd given herself to any other in the meantime. She had not. Could not.

"Why?" he said softly, startling her when he caught her thoughts because he shouldn't have been able to. Yet she felt his stark relief when he slipped his hand into hers again as they traveled. "Why could you not take another when so very many were, are , willing? Would die for it, even?"

Though she knew better than to answer honestly, given his inner beast had clearly locked onto her in a way that could bypass her seer powers, she knew, hoped , he would eventually find out. Even if they couldn't be together in the flesh, he should know she had saved herself for him.

She was about to respond when a flash of light caught her attention through the steady snowfall, and she stopped. "Did you see that?"

"I did." He pulled his axe free, took up a defensive position in front of her, and held his weapon at the ready.

"jorn, I'm a powerful seer with divine magic at my disposal," she reminded him, as she had multiple times over the years when they had come across anything suspicious together. "So I think I should be standing in front of you, ja ?"

"Over my dead body," he growled. His skin sheened black with his inner dragon, telling her he was moments from shifting. "As I have told you time and time again, when we came across one thing or another, be they a stray warrior or a woodland creature with bad intentions, I will protect you, not the other way around."

"And as I have always said, how very alpha of you." She sighed and ducked around him. "Yet this time—" she gestured at the Light Turned Drifting Orb— "we are finding our way back to a nightmare and all that went wrong."

"We are ." He frowned and kept his axe right where it was. "A nightmare that could easily manifest and try to harm you."

"Or," she said softly, smiling in awe, "it could do the very opposite."