Chapter Two

Norway

990 A.D.

Z ANE PACED IN front of the massive fireplace in his private chambers and muttered in frustration. He had thought he'd have more figured out by now, but he didn't. Not when it came to Savannah and who she might be. And nothing was more conflicting. Nothing felt more aggravating and heartbreaking in ways he couldn't put words to.

"Why not go to the future and take her before anything happens?" his father, Vicar, had wondered when all this began. "Because something will happen. We both know it."

"Because Rune said this had to play out if we wanted to discover who our unseen enemy is," he'd replied. "That means every twenty-first-century woman must travel back and reunite with their mates first. It's the only way to lure our enemy out into the open."

"Even so," his father had countered. "You have long felt darkness in Savannah. Long understood something isn't right about her. Knew that she was capable of great harm."

He had. That was true. Yet he knew things his father didn't. Understood he could not go to her any sooner. So now here he was, trying to figure out how to save her before possibly having to destroy her. Either way, whatever came of all this, his inner dragon would not let harm come to her until things unfolded as the seer requested.

That, as it happened, was finally happening.

So said the commotion outside his door moments before he felt something breach the parameters of the Realm. Seconds later, he knew the males within his kingdom, too many to count and vicious all, had sensed her.

Cursing under his breath, he raced outside, shifted, and took off for the cave where he and Magnus had reunited only days before. As expected, dozens of males were heading that way, eager for a fertile, healthy female.

Worse yet, several had already landed at the mouth of the cave.

"You need to come," he said telepathically to Savannah's friends, making sure his sense of urgency translated. "Savannah has arrived, and it's not good. She'll need you. I will keep your presence secret from the bulk of my dragons to maintain the ruse we still war with each other unless we have no choice but to reveal the truth." He spoke directly to Ulrik's mate, Keira. "You must not come, my Queen. It will be far too dangerous for your unborn offspring."

He felt her friends' alarm at that as he crashed down and roared so loudly at his males that the ground shook. They were not to harm the female who had just arrived.

She was his.

While he knew better than to say that last part, given who she might be, his inner beast gave him no choice. She was his until, quite possibly, she could not be anymore. Unfortunately, it appeared that moment might come sooner than he'd hoped when males who'd already ducked into the cave staggered back out, not because of his warning but because of something else.

Something that had a great deal of power over them.

No small thing, considering they were a mix of Múspellsheimr and Ancient, which were generally more primal and powerful than the average dragon. Yet they staggered out weakly, several falling to the ground in roars of anguish. Roars that told him Savannah was more than just a force to be reckoned with.

She might very well be their unseen enemy.

Whether she was or not, it did nothing to change how impactful it was laying eyes on her dragon for the first time. Because not so shockingly, all things considered, Savannah wasn't in human form but had embraced an inner beast he knew she'd long repressed. While not nearly as large as her male counterparts, she was sizeable for a female and blindingly beautiful.

Her body was long and curvy, yet somehow still elegant. Scales the color of copper caught in the sunlight were nearly as brilliant as her luminous, smoky dark gray eyes flickering with pale reddish gold. Eyes that locked with his when he roared that all stay back.

More daunting still, he told them they were in mortal danger.

Thankfully, not only his second-in-command but his father were right behind him, a solid wall between Savannah and the damage she could inflict. Meanwhile, his mother, Trinity, swooped in to assist with the disabled.

"You need to get her beneath the Keep," his mother warned telepathically. "That's the only place she'll be safe until we figure this out."

Saying it was one thing and doing it another based on the way Savannah's eyes flared at him, and an all-too-familiar darkness flickered around her. A shadow he'd seen one too many times when dreaming about her over the years. Dark magic that ruled her in ways she didn't understand, given the confusion and horror he felt fluctuating inside her.

"I need Rafe," he said into Magnus's mind, sensing more by the moment how to face off with the pretty dragon growing more and more agitated. Her copper-spiked tail flicked back and forth, and she bared her teeth at him. "And not all of Savannah's friends, after all. Just Zoey and Athena. Quinn would be too much for her."

"Yet Quinn is essential to—"

"Who I said and no more," he seethed, making clear this was a very dangerous situation. "If you do not listen, Savannah will have all kingdoms and dragons descending on her within minutes, viewing her as the enemy above all enemies." Sensing his mother struggling with his wounded dragons, he knew where Quinn would be needed and said so. "Send your mate to the northern tip of the Realm, Rafe. My mother will await her there with dragons that need healing, if it can even be done at this point. We can only pray it can..."

He might have trailed off, but he knew everyone got the message. If these dragons were lost, it might already be too late.

When Savannah hissed at Zane, clearly unhappy about being backed into a cave, he spread his wings and roared, using his imposing size and inner Múspellsheimr to intimidate her if such were possible.

"It does not feel like it is, son," his father warned, sensing the ever-rising fury growing inside her. " You need to get out of there until you have others aiding you. She's too powerful. Too distrustful of everything, even as she embraces her inner beast."

"If I leave and she gets loose, there's no telling how much damage she'll do," he replied. "And I will not let that happen."

Even though it sounded like he said it to protect his people and those of other kingdoms, deep down in a place that had dwelled inside him for many years, he knew it had to do with Savannah above all. There was nothing he wouldn't do to keep her safe.

Nothing he would not do to find a way back to her if possible.

As it turned out, the choice might very well be taken out of his hands, or talons as it were, when Savannah went perfectly still and narrowed her eyes at him. More pointedly, narrowed her eyes in a way that made his dragon still, too. When her pupils shrunk to pinpricks and shone black with tiny flickers of gold struggling within the darkness, he staggered back a step or two.

In that singular moment, as their eyes continued holding, he felt her intense rage as more of an internal struggle. One in which she was every bit as captured as he'd long imagined, hoped , she might be.

"Get out of there, son," his mother roared into his mind. "She's too powerful. Worse yet, her power rules her rather than the other way around."

He felt his parents' fear for him, but there was no reality in which he would flee Savannah now she was here. Now that she'd crossed the threshold of something he barely understood, he knew whatever possessed her wanted her life as much as it did his fellow dragons. Just as much as the lives of every female who had grown ill in this era.

Until then, Savannah herself had little say in the matter.

Or so he assumed as his dragon pushed back against what she threw at him. Pushed back against a strange weakening in his inner flames. What felt like a draw on his very soul, both human and dragon. More daunting still, a drain on his inner Múspellsheimr, the most powerful part of him. A side that came to full attention when Savannah spoke to him telepathically for the first time.

"?Por qué no caes como el resto?" she roared into his mind. The gold in her eyes sparked and spit as if fighting the pulse of her ever-darkening aura. "?Alejarse de mí!"

Although he didn't speak the Spanish dialect, he knew she used it occasionally, so he understood what she'd said. She wanted to know why he wasn't falling like the rest of his dragons because she wanted him to get away from her.

However, at the root of it was terror mixed with a raging power she lost control over more by the moment. Darkness he would fight to the death if he could free her of it.

So, despite his dragon weakening under her power, he pressed his wings against the cave entrance, trapping her in, lowered his head until they were at eye level, and made things clear. "You go no further, Savannah." Then, because he somehow sensed she'd understand. "No further unless you go through me, mitt hjertes flamme."

He had called her his heart's flame in too many dreams to count, and she'd always responded well, so perhaps it would get through to her. And it did, only not the way he'd anticipated. It didn't result in a moment of recognition that mayhap they remembered each other from another life but pure, unabashed fury.

"You," she seethed in English. The darkness in her aura flared darker still. "I knew it was you!"

He barely had a chance to register she thought nothing of destroying him when she revved up, her chest expanded, and she roared fire at him. Fire that might have very well seared his dragon to death had Athena not appeared with her shield and defended him, dispersing the sizzling hot magically tainted flames.

"Enough, Savannah," came Zoey's voice before she—also in human form— stepped in front of Athena once the flames ceased and looked up at Savannah with determination. She spoke with the only voice that might get through to her right now. "You will not harm Zane or any dragon here unless you're willing to go through me. More so, you would not want to, my friend." She shook her head. "Never want to because that's not who you are."

"It is not," Rafe agreed, also in human form, as he stepped in beside Zoey in his dark wizard robes and looked at Savannah with a kindness Zane wasn't entirely sure he could trust. But what choice did he have? Especially given he sensed foreign magic in Savannah's aura.

Magic that didn't belong to her.

"Come back to us, Savannah," Rafe went on. "Step away from the door and come back to us."

Zane and Rafe had never been particularly close, even as boys, but once upon a time, they had loved and trusted each other. So now, in light of all the changes happening within their kingdoms and Magnus's assurance Rafe could be more trusted than most, he was willing to try to bridge the gap. Especially if Rafe could get through to a part of Savannah that was beyond Zane—a part he wanted her freed from no matter what it took.

"I stepped through the door already," Savannah bit back, her tone a mighty roar in all of their heads. She narrowed in on Rafe. "And now I see what's on the other side. Beasts who want to enslave me and, worse still, take him." Her gaze homed in on Zane, and her aura pulsed wickedly. "Then there's him. Always him. There, then not. Pulling me close and then letting me go. Allowing my death." Her tail flicked once sharply, cutting down several stalactites before her steady gaze at Zane turned downright venomous. "So I will allow his death...better still, be his death."

Zane wasn't sure what to focus on first. That Savannah was so willing to kill him or that there was someone on the other side of the door she was trying to protect. Because he knew about the door. He'd sensed it more than once in fleeting dreams and knew it had to do with her. Them . And nothing good was attached to it, no matter how peaceful its presentation.

"You will neither allow nor be Zane's death, Savannah," Rafe said, his tone demanding yet gentle all at once. Darkness fluctuated in his aura. His dragon eyes glowed with the same silvery gray as the stone surrounding them. "Because you have not really gone through the door but were led to believe it by something else. Something you must push past before it consumes you entirely."

"You lie," she ground out, yet Zane felt her hesitancy—her inner struggle against something she could not see. None of them could except Rafe because when he began chanting, Savannah roared at the cave ceiling and swung her head back and forth as if trying to shake something off.

"I do not lie, and you know it," Rafe said between chanting, his aura growing darker still. "You must fight it, Savannah. Push past it. Know that you did not cross the threshold. You are still here with us. With Zoey and Athena. So go to them. See them. Make your way back to them."

Rather than reply, Savannah kept shaking her head, struggling much harder before she released a deep keen of anguish mixed with rage. A heartbreaking sound that made Zane want to go to her all that much more. Help her fight off whatever she battled.

But Rafe shook his head sharply at him and kept chanting.

"Fight it, Savannah," Rafe urged between chants. "Fight it and find your way back out. Break free from what binds you."

In response, Savannah's keen turned back to roars of rage and anguish. She staggered this way and that, her tail swooshing dangerously. Her wings were akimbo and flailing as she attempted to use her dragon to fight whatever clung to her despite not knowing how to manage her serpentine body.

In the meantime, despite blinking back tears for her friend, Zoey kept prompting her back, too, telling her it would be all right. She was stronger than what held her. The strongest person and dragon she knew. She could fight and conquer anything.

"In fact, I dare you to win, my friend," Zoey said in challenge. "I dare you to beat whatever it is you're fighting."

Something about that helped because Savannah's keens of anguish faded, and her roars of rage increased. Moments later, the darkness in her eyes began fading, and she flailed about more violently. Crashed off rocks. Then, at last, she keened in what sounded like agony one last time and slumped to the ground.

"Stay away from her," Zane warned when Rafe started toward Savannah. Her dragon had shifted back to human, leaving behind a stunning woman passed out on the ground. "No one touches her but me."

Rafe might have just saved her, but Zane's inner beast refused to let any other male dragon too close to her. He ordered his second-in-command and father to keep guard, shifted back to his human half, and went to her before Rafe could.

"You should be careful about touching her, too," Rafe cautioned him. "It's impossible to know if whatever's attached to her might harm you as well."

"I dare it to," he growled, unable to do anything but scoop up Savannah and keep her close. Safe in his arms. "Pray it will so I can cut it down and keep her free of it always."

"You lied to us, Zane," Zoey murmured. "You have gone to the future. You do know Savannah." Shocked by what she felt coming off him as he gazed down at a face that had only grown more beautiful with age, Zoey narrowed her eyes. "And you've been there more than once. Several times from what I can sense."

Rather than admit to it quite yet, he allowed himself a moment to admire Savannah. The delicate arch of her eyebrows and the sinful fullness of her plush lips. The deep, warm tone of her flawless, sun-kissed skin. Her dark, crimson-tipped curls were as long and luxurious as he remembered, and the lush curves of her body were as tempting as they'd ever been. Curves he did his best to ignore before untimely arousal got the better of him.

"You need to chant us beneath the Keep, Rafe," Zane said. "It's the only place she'll be safe for now."

"Unwise." Rafe gave him a grim look. "I might have been able to help her get past whatever grips her, but that same magic could just as easily latch onto me and, in turn, my mate." He shook his head once and sighed. "Forgive me, cousin, but I will not risk Quinn's life. Not for anything or anyone."

Though tempted to argue with him, Zane understood well enough the lengths dragons would go to for their fated mates. He understood that no amount of persuasion would convince Rafe otherwise.

"Then we take the tunnels." Sensing the searing loss of one of his own, Zane strode deeper into the cave. "Because flying her back there is no longer an option. Not when one of the males she just attacked succumbed to death, making Savannah a target not just from this kingdom and all its numerous lethal dragons but all the surrounding kingdoms."

If that weren't damning enough, things only got worse moments later.