Chapter Ten

Z ANE HAD HOPED talking about their past might trigger Savannah's memory, but he could tell by her inner struggle she felt more than she actually remembered. While that was something, it was nowhere near what he wanted. He craved seeing her look at him like she once had. Craved her bright smile when he showed up in the twenty-first century. Longed for the way she'd looked at him before she had shunned him.

He knew she had questions. Felt them churning in her mind. Things weren't making sense going off what he'd told her of their past, and she was sharp enough to pick up on it. She had always been bright, needing to understand why people did what they did, so he wasn't surprised by her chosen profession. Sometimes, he couldn't help but wonder if deep down she had chosen it for another reason as well, but kept that to himself for now.

It seemed continuing their conversation would be taken out of their hands anyway because the sharp scent of sulfur filled the cave moments before their young dragon incarnates tumbled by the entrance on an unseen wind.

Wind they now knew was the vicious breath of her former captor.

"They're, we're , older now," Savannah exclaimed. When she started to race after them, he grabbed her wrist, withdrew a blade, and shook his head. "Never rush after things, mitt hjertes flamme , for you never truly know what you chase."

"And then there's that," she murmured. Her eyebrows flew together when she looked at him. "Why would you call me your heart's flame if I'd shunned you? It makes no sense."

"You talk when you should be acting," ?se growled, appearing at the doorway with multiple blades drawn as if she'd been standing outside the entrance protecting them all along. "Did you hear that?" She sniffed in disgust. " Smell that? It has the scent of dragon death. Of putrid decay and—" she released a low, deep growl— "hatred and evil."

"On this, I could not agree more." Whether it was a memory or not, Zane pressed a dagger into Savannah's hand. "While I will protect you with my life, you should still be armed. There's no way to know if your inner beast's magic can protect you against what we might see next."

"So, is that what we're calling the darkness inside me now?" Savannah said, tentatively taking the hilt of the blade. She frowned. Her eyebrows swept up. "My inner beast's magic ? Because I think we both know whatever this is I'm capable of could have everything to do with the bad guy possessing me whenever he's in the mood."

"Either way," Rafe said, appearing at the entrance of the cave beside ?se. "I think it best we follow whatever memory you just witnessed. Anything that's in the opposite direction of that scent."

It seemed they were all in agreement because the others appeared as well, falling in around Zane and Savannah as they headed after their young dragons.

"Yet not all that young this time," Savannah said, more in sync with his thoughts by the moment. "They were considerably larger. You especially."

They were, and it worried him. She'd been close to breeding age from what he could see. Too close for comfort. Why hadn't he found a way to get her out of there yet? Because he knew his incarnate hated what was happening. Loathed the beast that had Savannah collared in that life. Enraged by the thought of him laying one talon on her, never mind anything else.

"Why does it all feel so different down here now?" Zoey said, sticking especially close to Savannah as they traveled further into the tunnels that would eventually lead them to the base of Níeh?ggr's Ash and, hopefully, somehow, the standing stones. "It looks like a regular earthen tunnel, and the scent's fading yet..."

When she trailed off, Rafe explained. "Because we draw closer to the stones and, in turn, the memories skirting them. Magic is intensifying in ways even our inner beasts have trouble understanding." His attire switched from that of a Viking to the black robes of his calling. "Magic born of dragonkind's home world."

"I do not much like it," Magnus grunted, with multiple weapons drawn.

"Nor should you." Rafe kept Quinn close as they traveled by torchlight once more. "There's a good reason we left that world behind, for few are so dark and corrupt."

"And we did leave it," Savannah murmured, scanning a tunnel that looked less and less like Earth and more and more like Múspellsheimr. A tunnel not of fresh earth and rock but one burnt by fire and brimstone. "I'm almost certain of it."

Zane didn't need to ask what she meant because he knew she spoke of the two of them. Somehow, some way, they had fled that place. She had come with him when he went to Midgard and sought peace.

"Something's ahead," Quinn warned. Her throat thickened with emotion. "Something incredibly loving..." There was no missing the confusion in her voice. "Then, after that, something terribly heartbreaking."

It turned out she was right because when they entered the next cave, it was just as terrifying with its darkness and lava pools, yet there was still a lightness to it that was hard to explain. One that made no sense until they spied their two incarnates rubbing necks across the way.

"We're even older now," Savannah said softly. His dragon was nearing adulthood, dwarfing hers. It was muscular and a sight to behold. She had a noble, prideful bearing about her as they rubbed against each other affectionately. They weren't mating by any means but simply adoring one another as only dragons could.

"But not as Múspellsheimr dragons did," Zoey said, following their thoughts as much as the rest of them because of everyone's growing bond. "Males didn't show females affection like this. They were objects meant for breeding."

"Objects owned by male dragons," Magnus said darkly, understanding just like everybody else that while what they witnessed was moving, it was also extremely taboo. "And I'm certain you did not own Savannah in that life, Zane."

"I did not," Zane replied just as darkly despite how much his heart swelled at the sight of her. Despite how much he felt the overwhelming love for Savannah his incarnate had felt. Love he still felt to this day. "Yet I didn't care." He shook his head once, certain of it. Remembering it. "I loved her from the moment I protected her from her captor as a baby dragon to this very memory, then long after."

"And I, you," Savannah said hoarsely, blinking back tears as memories gradually revealed themselves. "You stood watch over me always. And when you gained enough prestige and became leader of my captor's males just under him, you were trusted to guard me alone and could finally show me." She continued watching the affectionate dragons, and a tear trickled down her cheek. "Yet we could never be together, and we both knew it."

"Never," he repeated through clenched teeth, noting the shiny bits of metal in her collar and the cave that was all hers, however atrocious its state. Remembered with bitterness what his incarnate had faced. "Considering you were royalty, such as it was on that world."

"I was," she managed sadly, clearly feeling her incarnate as well. "That's why I was collared and never caged. Why I was eventually given my own cave for breeding. My father was a king in his own right, and I was given to a fellow king for political purposes. An exchange for one thing or another."

"And I was the son of a lesser king with superior fighting skills and good form, given to your captor for one thing or another so he might make me into his own mighty warrior and trusted slave," he sneered. "Only ever to protect and serve him." He couldn't take his eyes off Savannah's dragon if he wanted to. "And guard you until you were of age to rut. An esteemed position, to be sure. One given to me because he thought I protected you from an invader when we were but newly acquired baby dragons."

"It never occurred to our captor that you were protecting me from him," Savannah said softly, slipping her hand into his. "And you made sure of that over time, becoming the perfect soldier and mighty warrior. One who did his bidding until he put you just beneath him in charge of everything."

"Then what?" ?se wondered when the memory faded and the cave returned to normal. She scowled expectantly from where the memory had been to Zane, her tone venomous. "Did you end his life?" She bared her teeth in a sneer, chomped, and made a motion with her head as if ripping a rival's throat out. "Did you gut him with your bare teeth? Inflict the same pain on him he had inflicted on so many others?"

"I do not know." He narrowed his eyes and met her look with shared vengeance in his heart, seeing eye to eye with ?se for the first time in years. "But I promise you this. Everything in my incarnate wanted it with a fury that is hard to put into words. With a bloodthirst that plagued my every waking moment."

?se thought about that for a moment, undoubtedly feeling out his inner beast, before she nodded once with approval, liking what she sensed inside him. "Then we can only pray you achieved your goals."

"On that, we agree." He nodded once in return and urged everyone to continue into the cave, eager to see what came next. Hoped it would be a good ending, even though no signs pointed in that direction.

"How could they?" Savannah wondered telepathically. "Even though we sensed I left that awful world with you, my captor, your king, would have never let me go, and we both know it. I was a prize capable of bearing him offspring. Prized possessions he could trade for more esteem. Females of royal blood he could use to bring him even more glory."

Zane didn't respond because he had no idea what to say. All he could do was feel. Hate. Loathe. Long for a moment he had no idea if he'd ever actually lived. All he knew was he had spent the better part of his time on Múspellsheimr wanting to end her captor in tortuous ways. Spent every waking moment biding his time to release her from brutality.

Which offered some unexpected clarity.

Enough to assure her he hadn't given up.

"Whatever happened, I know without a doubt I would have died trying to save you from him." He ground his teeth and fought a sharp wave of bitterness. "I never would have abandoned you when I went to Midgard."

"I know," she whispered into his mind, sounding different than she had earlier. Affectionate in a way that told him whatever reasons she had for shunning him when they were younger, she wanted to make her way back to him. Wanted to love him like she knew he loved her.

What she didn't know, could not know until he was certain the darkness attached to her was removed, was he hadn't listened. Could never listen. Yes, he'd enjoyed females because she'd enjoyed other men, and it had infuriated him, but he never ever abandoned her.

Not in mind, body, or soul.

"That's why you changed so much during our transitional years," Magnus exclaimed telepathically, picking up on things the closer they all grew again. "Why you became so callous toward females and far too arrogant. You had been shunned by your mate and were lashing out. Turned away by the only female you ever truly loved."

"Ja," he admitted, sure to keep Rune in mind to block his cousin from seeing too much. The seer had claimed merely thinking about her protecting his secrets would work, and he could only hope she was right. "It was a truly difficult time. One I would not wish on my worst enemy."

Where he thought Magnus might ask more questions because it would make sense, his cousin merely grunted with acceptance and went quiet in his mind.

Someone else, however, did not.

"I sense a strange disturbance in the movement of time in your era," Tréan said telepathically, his inner voice more of an echo and with good reason, as he was not only hundreds of years in Zane's past but in Ireland. "Is all well? Are you making strides?"

"I am," he replied to someone who had become a very good friend over the years. "My mate is here."

"Good." Tréan clearly sensed Zane's tension because he broke it with humor. "Have you convinced your kin to stop wearing those damnable wolf fur cloaks yet?"

He flinched and grinned even though his wolf shifter friend couldn't see him. "I've had little time but will make a point of it."

"That would be wise and much appreciated." He heard the returned grin in Tréan's voice. " I look forward to seeing you again soon with hope that all the strife will be behind you. All is well here. Your daughter and Magnus's are safe and happy, yet they miss you."

"And we, them." Eager to see his daughter, Freya, again, he fought back emotion. "Take care, old friend."

" And you ," Tréan replied before all went silent.

"Tréan sounds nicer than I thought a wolf might," Savannah said aloud, clearly aware everyone had caught the conversation. "A surprising choice, leaving your daughters with a creature that would normally be our prey."

"Clever, in my opinion," ?se replied, surprising him with her support. "What dragon in their right mind would look for the offspring of dragons with wolves of all things?" She snorted. "I certainly would not."

"Nor I," Rafe agreed, supporting him as well. "Wise, indeed."

"Yet still curious." Savannah glanced at Zane in a way that told him she was, as she would call it, psychoanalyzing him. "I get that you, Zoey, Tréan, and the girls were all brought together in dreams, but what's at the root of that, do you think? Why would—"

"Look," Quinn gasped, cutting her off. "Just ahead."

Just ahead turned out to be an adjoining cave through a small tunnel that revealed something truly terrible. Beyond his worst nightmare.

"No," he ground out hoarsely at the same time his incarnate appeared at the opposite entrance of the cave and released a deep-chested keen of disbelief at what he came upon.

"Oh no," Quinn murmured, flinching in pain. She put a hand to her midriff at the same moment as Savannah, clearly feeling what she had.

"Where is he?" ?se roared, yet again surprising Zane. This time shocking him with her fury as she strode into the cave with two blades at the ready and turned in circles, eyeing her surroundings with rage. "Where is he so I might cut him down myself for this?"

"He is not here anymore, cousin," Zane said darkly, feeling outside himself when he homed in on Savannah's dragon incarnate curled up in a ball on the floor, collar still in place. "It is too late. She's..."

Unable to utter the damning words, he watched with detachment as his incarnate didn't show discretion anymore but, having returned from one mission or another on behalf of his king, roared in pain and rushed to her. Watched as he ripped the chain from the wall, gathered Savannah against him, and wrapped her in his wings.

Wrapped her and the unborn offspring of her captor in his wings.

"Oh, Dios ," Savannah kept whispering over and over, switching back and forth between Spanish and English. "Oh, God."

Feeling her pain and confusion snapped him out of his tortured stupor, and he pulled her into his arms. Needed to soothe her now as much as he had back then. Needed her to know he would protect her no matter what it took.

"It will be okay." He gathered her in his arms and rested her cheek against his chest as his incarnate did the same. Held the back of her neck firmly, just as he had in their last life.

" How? " she said on a soft sob, twisting her hand in the front of his tunic. "How was it ever going to be okay? Nothing about this is okay. Nothing is..."

He frowned in confusion and caught her when Savannah's words trailed off, and she went limp against him.

"What is this?" He scooped her up, trying not to panic when he looked at Rafe and Quinn, who would know better than anyone what afflicted Savannah. An icy chill of fear spiked through him. "Tell me she has not caught the illness plaguing our females."

"Somehow, I doubt it," Zoey said softly, gesturing at the memory as it faded. Savannah's dragon had passed out against his dragon, clearly overwhelmed and exhausted from what she'd suffered. "If anything, I'd say you're connecting more and more to your past and getting closer than ever to your truth."

As it happened, she was right, and far more would reveal itself within hours.