RURIK STRODE THROUGH the storm, the rain plastering his shirt to his chest.

Spreading his arms wide, he summoned the power to transform, a surge of fury igniting in his chest. How dare these interlopers intrude in his lands? When he’d been banished from the court at Hekla, he’d claimed the north of Iceland, and none dared trespass. The dreki queen insisted Rurik was not to be roused; both out of a sense of wariness for his might, and simply because she knew how much the isolation would cut at him.

Amadea was more serpent than dreki, in some ways.

And this could not be tolerated. He felt his arms lengthen and—

“Where did it go?” a man bellowed.

Rurik froze, power whispering through his veins. He stood on the knife-edge of the shift, the dreki punching inside his ribs as it waited for him to free it.

A hand caught his arm and Rurik suppressed the change as he whirled, his head swaying for a second at the sudden loss of momentum.

“Which way?” Haakon demanded, searching the skies. Raindrops clung to his blond eyelashes, highlighting the arctic blue of his eyes. In them, Rurik could just make out the faint madness of obsession.

A good thing Haakon looked away, for Rurik’s face tingled just enough to know he’d not been quite human in that moment.

“There are two of them,” Rurik said, gesturing to the south. “They went that way.”

Toward his home.

Fury caused the vein in his temple to throb. His gold, his lands, his volcano. If they thought for one second he’d tolerate—

“Two?” Haakon met his gaze. “Mother of God.” He crossed himself, then turned for the stables. “I need to get the horses.”

Rurik was seconds away from tearing the dragon hunter’s throat out and simply erupting into flight when he caught sight of Freyja, peering through the stable door.

It swayed his intentions as nothing else would.

This was not done between them.

She’d surrendered to his touch, moaning beneath his kiss in a way that made his blood run hotter than lava.

But the second he revealed his hand, her wariness would return and he would lose all chance at claiming her.

Rurik let his power ebb until he could feel the rain stinging his skin once again.

“Have care, Haakon,” he said quietly. “You know not what you face.”

A twisted plot that threatened to sweep innocents into its midst, for the arrival of two dreki could mean nothing more than war, and he was certain he knew who sent them. Amadea wouldn’t care if humans were killed. But he did. There were rules—dreki laws—he abided by, and they were innate to his nature. The queen and her brother cared little for moral restraint, but there were enough dreki still at court who did.

Honor and honesty were vital to dreki nature.

“Perhaps it is the wyrms who don’t know what is coming,” Haakon growled, swinging up onto his black Friesian when his man brought it out for him. Haakon reined the beast into a tight circle, shooting a look at his men.

Rurik caught the reins. “I doubt that.”

The two men stared at each other.

“This is not your fight, scholar,” Haakon spat. Tension knotted in his clenched knuckles. “And I will not yield to pleas nor empathy.”

“Nor sense, so it seems.”

Haakon’s lips thinned. “The last time I saw a storm like this was the day I first laid eyes upon my wife. She was lost in the forest, and the clouds brewed like this above me. I swore then I would have her, and I would protect her forever.” He tugged the reins free of Rurik’s hold. “And I failed her. If the dreki has her, then I will take her back. If he has killed her, then I will have vengeance, pure and bloody. And nothing you say can sway me.”

There was one thing Rurik could say, but he did not know enough of the story to speak of what he knew. This was Árdís’s secret. Wasn’t it?

“Gunnar, get the men ready! We’ll lose them if we wait too long!” Haakon yelled over his shoulder.

“What about the ballista?” called the man he’d addressed as Gunnar.

“Leave it.” Haakon whirled his horse, but it balked as Rurik’s grip tightened on the bridle. “Here, now!”

“You’re a fool to leave your machine here,” Rurik told him, with strangely glittering eyes. “You face two dreki, and you have not the ability to defend yourself without it. Don’t let vengeance blind you. Or all you shall do is see your men dead, and your bones blistered with dreki fire.”

Haakon bared his teeth. “Let go of my horse, scholar.”

Rurik considered him for a long moment. He let go of the reins, stepping out of Haakon’s way. “Let their deaths be on your head then.”

“Bring the ballista, Gunnar! You can join me at Krafla,” Haakon snapped, and drove his horse into the dying beats of the storm. But he glanced over his shoulder toward his men as he went. “Hyaah!”

“So be it,” Rurik whispered, still full of doubt about whether he had done the right thing. He believed in fate, and no dreki should pit his will against that capricious entity. He had done his best to sway the man.

Let Haakon ride into his destiny. Rurik had other matters to resolve.

These newcomers, these challengers, would find no entry to his lair. He’d sealed it with his power when he left, and there were few still left on this earth who could cut through his magic.

They would know that, which made him wonder just why they were here.

What mad scheme did Amadea plot now?

* * *

“You think he won’t return,” Freyja said, as Rurik stared after Haakon. She’d heard their argument, and a part of her knew Rurik’s focus on her had shifted.

Lanterns filled the night, and Haakon’s men tried to hitch his supply wagon to the horses. They’d thrown a tarpaulin over the ballista, but the rain was coming down in steady sheets now.

“Fool.” Or at least that was what she thought Rurik murmured. The wind snatched the word from his mouth as he turned back toward her.

“Why did you warn him?” Freyja asked, wiping the hair from her damp cheeks. She didn’t wish to see that ballista make its way inland. “He’ll kill one of them with that ballista, and I thought you were on the dreki’s side?”

Rurik glanced toward the south darkly. “I have no wish to see that machine pierce any dreki’s hide. But I think without it Haakon will be little more than a delicious morsel to those dreki, and that I do not wish for. There is a debt to be repaid there, and his golden dreki will pay it when he finds her.”

“Her?”

Rurik looked at her sharply. “Krafla’s dreki did not take his wife. There is only one other who wears golden scales, and I think Haakon’s fate leads him toward her.” He shrugged, and she couldn’t help noticing the way his shirt clung wetly to him. “I believe they are... destined to meet again.”

Freyja watched Haakon as he vanished at the edge of the town. “So, you save his death for another?”

“What makes you think death is his fate?”

Freyja frowned. “You’re playing word games with me.”

“Perhaps. You seem awfully insistent upon the fact dreki eat humans.”

“Unlike others,” she snorted, “I do not fall for those foolish romantic stories people like to tell.”

“No?” A faint smile touched his lips. “Did your dreki eat you all up, Freyja? Or did it leave you alone? You still haven’t told me the story of your meeting.”

Freyja frowned, and wrapped her arms around her. “It ate my ram. Perhaps its belly was full when I saw it?”

She almost imagined Rurik growled under his breath. “You eat lamb, do you not? Perhaps the dreki likes lamb too? That does not mean it eats people. There are treaties in place to help promote peace between both species. I think the last thing it would do is break the treaty. Besides,” he looked thoughtful, “those foolish, romantic stories had to come from somewhere.”

She threw her hands up in disgust. Virgin tributes, and happily-ever-afters.... They belonged in fairy tales, and nothing else. “You’re as bad as my mother. She too dreamed of forbidden romances. Of dreki walking among us in human form, and seducing stupid girls.”

That faint smiled deepened. “Who says they do not?”

“Have you seen one? Has anyone? Not in recent times, if ever. Even though they can change shape, there is always a touch of the dreki still in them. They say their eyes remain lizard-like in appearance, and the sight of the holy cross reveals their true form.”

“And when they say this, are they speaking of dreki or of your devil?” he mused. “It sounds like someone shaped those particular stories.”

Of all the.... “You are a very frustrating man.”

“I would like to believe. That is all. One day I think you will meet a dreki in mortal flesh, and then you will believe too. We all need a little bit of romance in our lives. A little bit of magic. You shouldn’t trust all of the stories, but you should believe some, Freyja. After all, you’ve met Krafla’s dreki. And he is clearly interested in you, if nothing else, from the sounds of your story.”

Freyja snorted, and gathered a handful of her skirts as she headed for the inn. “You’re as big a fool as Haakon is. And I’m going in to bed. This is quite too much excitement for me for one night. Goodnight.”

“Freyja—”

She turned, wind whipping her skirts past her and blowing his hair back off that clean, masculine face. For a second she thought he was about to plunge them straight back into that reckless, passionate moment they’d shared in the stables. A moment when something inside her—something she’d never even encountered before—overruled logic and sense, letting the storm erupt within. Freyja’s heart skipped a beat.

“Would you like to break your fast with me?” he asked, instead.

Freyja hesitated. A part of her still felt that foolish, breathless moment in the stables, and the roughness of his hands on her skin. Heat flooded her cheeks. This man was dangerous. “I’m sorry, but I intend an early start. I need to get home and see to my father.”

Thought raced through his amber eyes, but then he merely smiled and slid his hands into his pockets. “I will bid you adieu then. Until we meet again.”

“I doubt that,” she whispered.

Somehow he heard her. “You should not doubt fate, Freyja. That is like spitting in her eye.”

Freyja shivered, one hand on the inn’s doorknob. She could not escape this mysterious man fast enough. “I don’t believe in fate. I don’t believe in anything I cannot touch with my own hands, or see with my eyes.”

Rurik turned to eye the storm. “Why does that not surprise me?” His smile widened, or the half of it she could see did. “Run, Freyja. You might not believe in fate, but I do. We will meet again. I am certain of it. And when we do....”

He looked back toward her, amber eyes ablaze in the darkness of the storm, and Freyja jerked the door open. That look in his eyes spoke of inevitability, and she had the breathtaking feeling she wanted to run toward it, throw herself off that cliff.

She no longer knew whether she could trust herself. Not when Rurik was involved. For she wanted something only he could give her, and while a part of her yearned, just once, to touch the sun, another part of her remained wary. Perhaps he could teach her what passion felt like, what love felt like, but there was always the risk he might shatter her well-protected heart instead.

And she’d long known what it felt like to have your feet swept out from under her, time and time again.

Freyja ducked inside the inn, shutting the door and pressing her back against it. A rush of exhilaration swept through her veins, and she couldn’t, for the life of her, understand why.

Fate, indeed.