Chapter One

Winter Harbor, Maine

Present Day

S AVANNAH BOLTED AWAKE, as she had too often lately, in a cold sweat, terrified. Where was she?

Had she gone through the door?

Did she find what she was looking for on the other side?

Had she lost the man who'd wanted her to stay behind?

She blinked against a bright light, trying to understand where she was, only to realize she'd dozed off in her car sometime overnight. Where she could have used a dim, stormy morning, blinding sunlight glimmered off the snowy woodland surrounding her.

"Why am I still here?" she muttered under her breath, tossing things this way and that before she found her sunglasses and slid them on with relief. "All I needed to do was drive . Go. Leave already."

Yet here she sat, not ten minutes away from the chalet she'd rented with her friends over the winter. Rather than hopping on the highway yesterday and heading south like she should have, she'd pulled over and parked at a location overlooking Frenchman's Bay and stared at a blazing melon-colored sunset. Then, frustrated she hadn't just kept going, she stared some more as the moon rose and glittered off the choppy blue-black water.

Deep down, she knew there was only one direction she could go. Not toward the door that plagued her or the light that called to her even now. Rather, she was doomed to drift back to the voice in her nightmare.

Drift to a beast without a face.

More than that, she would never forgive herself if she didn't go to her friends' aid—especially her best friend Zoey's aid, who had already traveled back to tenth-century Norway days before over the shoulder of a brutish Viking named Magnus. She had tried to stop him from taking her, but it was too late. He was gone before Savannah could summon the fire to keep Zoey safe.

Not to say she hadn't come close. Damn close. But Magnus was faster, and they'd vanished within the magic of the ash tree next to the chalet. Apparently, it was one of several Yggdrasils designed to help people travel through time between ancient Scandinavia and present-day Maine.

Rune, their demi-god seer landlord, who seemed to be at the root of so much, claimed Zoey was doing just fine and had even fallen in love with Magnus. She also claimed Zane, the bad guy in all this last Savannah had heard, revealed he was also trying to get to the root of who the real enemy was in their era. Evidently, that's why he had behaved so strangely, leading others to distrust him. Not just that, but it seemed he was hiding children in ancient Ireland with a pack of wolf shifters lest this enemy discover them. One was Magnus's daughter.

The other, surprisingly, was Zane's.

She wasn't sure what to make of everything she'd been told other than she didn't entirely trust it or its source. In her experience, it was best to depend on herself when it came to most matters, so putting blind faith in Zane and not seeing with her own two eyes that Zoey was okay didn't sit well.

Not at all.

Especially when it meant taking Rune's word for it.

Rune hadn't treated her poorly so far. She'd been nice enough. But Savannah didn't trust nice, and it had already become more than clear Rune liked to keep secrets because she'd yet to answer any of Savannah's questions.

Why did you trick my friends into traveling back in time?

Why not be upfront with us all?

What is your plan here because you clearly have one?

Why do we all see different things in the living room via your magic?

That last one irritated her the most, and she'd let Rune know it on more than one occasion because the seer had designed the whole thing. She'd known precisely which Viking dragon Savannah's friends would be meant for. Moreover, she'd ensured they were led back to their fated mates via what they saw magically on the walls or ceiling.

Some might say that meant Rune could be trusted, but Savannah remained dubious. She preferred people being forthright rather than evasive. Nor was she inclined to trust someone who seemed to play God with the lives of her and her friends, moving them around on a chessboard only she understood.

Suffice it to say, she and Rune weren't the best of friends from the get-go, and things only grew tenser between them when the door in Savannah's nightmare appeared in the living room.

"Tell me what it means already," she'd fumed. "What am I supposed to do?" As much as she hated asking Rune, she couldn't help herself. "Should I try to open it? Go through it?"

The last time she'd asked, just last night, Rune's response had really gotten under her skin.

"Tell me, Rune," she'd exclaimed when the striking seer with her long ebony hair and haunting beauty remained vague. "Tell me if I should seek out that door in tenth-century Norway? If it'll lead to something that will help my friends? Help the ongoing war between kingdoms?"

"No," Rune had said, finally giving her a direct answer, however softly it had been spoken. "It will not ." She'd locked gazes with Savannah and shook her head, her dark, luminous eyes unusually compassionate. "It will only lead to heartbreak."

Something about the way she'd said it sent chills straight down her spine and made her want to flee. Run away when in nightmare after nightmare, she only ever ran toward it.

Only even ran further away from him.

And so, she did when she'd peeled out of the driveway yesterday, needing to escape the nightmare even as she craved it like nothing else. Craved it enough that when she had tried to leave Winter Harbor altogether, it held her back.

"Diablos no puedo ir," she cursed in Spanish that she couldn't go before slamming her hand on the steering wheel and exclaiming that she should have already been gone in Portuguese. "Eu já deveria ter ido embora."

"Should you have been?" whispered through her mind. His deep, masculine voice set her on edge like it always did. "Or are you finally right where you are supposed to be?"

Rather than respond because she refused to acknowledge him, better yet submit to him because that's how it always felt, she clenched the steering wheel tightly and ground her teeth. Was it the door that made her flee the chalet, or was she just running from him? Doing her best to get him out of her head once and for all?

"Why not find out?" he taunted.

"You would like that, wouldn't you, Zane?" she ground out, certain it was him based on his accent alone. Who else could it be, given what she'd heard about him? What she knew of the voice from her nightmare?

Naturally, he gave no response, but she hadn't expected him to. Not with the games he played in the distant past. Because she knew he was up to something despite claiming he was an ally. Otherwise, why let her walk through that door in her nightmare? Why not stop her when she sensed he could have? Why let her charge straight towards death?

Because it had been her end.

She was certain of it.

That meant she was undoubtedly a Valkyrie like her friends and had died in magical flames. Perished despite being a shield-maiden goddess from Norse mythology destined to protect him like her friends protected their mates. She couldn't imagine it. Hardly envision a reality in which she'd been Zane's protector and possibly his mate.

Yet everything seemed to point in that direction.

She and her friends had been the only ones in their Fire Anoynomous Support group for dragons with fire issues. All except Savannah had come together with their fated mates in the tenth-century. Had been part of a life before this, in the far distant past, that told a backstory about an ancient time when dragons first came here from their home world, Múspellsheimr, and times were tumultuous.

"What does that have to do with me, though?" she murmured, narrowing her eyes. "What was my role ?"

Now more than ever, she believed she'd had one, and Zane was at the heart of it somehow—and not necessarily in a good way, either. The more she'd thought about it, the more angry she grew at him and the more dangerous he felt.

And that was ultimately what made up her mind.

She had to find a way back in time to protect not only Zoey but also, quite likely, her other friends and the innocent people whose destinies could be ruined by Zane's actions.

Almost from the moment she thought it and started her car, a tiny red dragon bounced off her windshield, wild-eyed and flailing as their gazes connected before it was sucked away by an unseen wind. It tumbled along, caught like a kite in an angry gust toward the chalet before it was gone.

She didn't realize she'd been holding her breath until she was racing down the icy roads of Winter Harbor, her vehicle fishtailing, until she slid into the driveway, leaped out of her car, and started running.

Where was it?

Where had it gone?

Because she knew it was being sucked toward destruction. Toward certain hell in the distant past.

"Stop," she cried, sliding around the corner of the chalet. "Don't!"

Yet when she took in her surroundings, all was calm, and sunlight sparkled over the bay. Nothing else was there. No red baby dragon. No violent windstorm. Everything was eerily quiet and peaceful.

Too peaceful.

"You lured me here, didn't you?" she said softly, certain she was right when she spoke to Zane. "You're playing games, just like you always have. Barely there, but still there too much."

Only this wasn't a dream.

She was wide awake.

"Which one are you right now?" she murmured, fully aware he had two distinct personalities. One was gentler and more tamed. The other, much like the voice in her nightmare, brimmed with darkness and violence simmering just beneath the surface. A rabid beast eager to get out and reap revenge. On what, though? That's what always eluded her.

What made him so angry?

Primal?

And again, why did that, such a large part of him, make her so enraged?

As a psychologist, she could have easily gotten to the root of it if he were human or even a shifter of this era, but Zane was neither, and the bloodlines coursing through his veins made him a threatening challenge.

Yet some small part of her she wouldn't admit to wanted to figure him out. See if she could make sense of the conflicting emotions he seemed to battle. Which was strange in itself given he was pretty much a stranger. She had felt him, though. Sensed his presence. So, as far as dragons went, he wasn't completely unknown because she was fully aware her inner dragon noticed his. Even grew as frustrated as her human half.

Was it just her inner beast and human half that was so angry at him, though?

Sometimes, it felt like more. Without a doubt, who she once was in another life. Either way, he was a puzzle, and she rarely shied away from them, even if he was half dragon. Because male dragons were something she generally avoided. Their fire was too alluring, and that was more than a little dangerous, given how easily she could manipulate it.

After all, she could bend them to her will in moments.

More than that, once she did, it allowed her to extinguish their fire, leaving them vulnerable to anyone who meant them harm. If that wasn't bad enough, she sometimes sensed her dragon might take it one step further. It might even go so far as ending their life if it meant they never breathed fire again. And that made her wonder, not for the first time, why be drawn to fire if she only ever intended to douse it eternally?

Yet what if she didn't? What if it were just some sort of defense mechanism on her inner beast's part? If that were the case, should she risk trying to bend Zane to her will? Would the good outweigh the bad if she could get to the heart of him and discover his secrets? Find out what role he truly played in everything happening in tenth-century Norway? To that end, should she seek him out rather than wait? Run toward him rather than away if it helped bring everything to light?

As if responding to her thoughts, the wind whipped up, and the door she'd seen in the chalet materialized near the tree, once again partially open. There wasn't light on the other side this time, but darkness.

And for some reason, it drew her in even more than the light.

It compelled her so strongly she barely heard Rune calling to her from the deck. She did, however, hear words whispered on the wind telling her to trust the door. Find what was on the other side. It would reveal so very much. She would have all her questions answered.

The final ember would have risen.

She blinked in confusion at those last words. The ominous yet hopeful octave of them. The allure they had for her. Over her. A compulsion that made her drift forward, eager to step into the darkness. Desperate to understand what lay beyond.

While she sensed Rune drawing closer and yelling something, her words faded on an increasing wind. Some small part of her knew she should heed the seer's warning and stop, but she couldn't do it any more than she could in her nightmare. Nor could she have foreseen what happened when she pushed the door open further and took that final step, crossing the threshold into darkness.