Chapter One
Warmund
After a full year in this world without magic, this Earth, Warmund could no longer feel any heat from his fires. He’d held onto his ability to shift into a dragon for as long as he could, but every day had made it harder to do so. He’d even found a forest to live in for a while, staying in his dragon form for a few days before he woke up one morning human and naked and unable to shift.
It hurt more than he thought it would. On the plus side, though, nobody was trying to kill him anymore. That was certainly a benefit to living in this world, rather than the one he was born into. There were no greedy uncles or vengeful cousins who thought killing him would somehow hurt the father who’d banished him.
Warmund grunted as he fastened his thick coat against the cold. His co-workers on the construction crew laughed at him for needing something so heavy while it was still fall weather. Warmund wasn’t used to this, though, not even after a year. The first winter he’d spent here, he’d been living in the forest or on the streets. He’d nearly frozen to death, even with the sparks of flame left in his belly. This winter, with no internal heat, promised to be hell.
Well, maybe not. If all went according to plan, he wouldn’t be here for the winter.
A grin crossed his face as he strode away from the construction site for probably the last time. He’d done his time here. Worked hard, given himself a comfortable life and integrated seamlessly into this culture. Now it was time to go back to Byrelmore and do what he intended to do years ago. His father, the king, would try to stop him if he knew what Warmund was up to, but there wasn’t any way that he could know. Time passed differently in Byrelmore; this one year on Earth translated to a hundred years there.
Besides, Indulf was too busy with his new mate and son to care about what happened to the son he’d already banished once.
Warmund snorted, pushing those dark thoughts from his mind. What did he care about Indulf and what he thought? They’d been on opposing sides long enough that Warmund no longer cared anything for his father. It didn’t hurt to be banished. It didn’t sting to think that nobody had come looking for him since he’d escaped from the Exiled Lands to Earth.
He had what he needed.
There might not be magic in this world, but there was science, and the scientific theory wasn’t so different from magic once he started looking into it. It had taken a while for his brain to wrap around all the jargon, but he’d finally figured it out. Using various papers he’d found on time travel and the multiverse theory, he had figured out a way to change the direction a portal between this world and Byrelmore would take.
And once he did that, he’d go back in time. Back more than twenty centuries, to when he lost everything that was most important to him. The day assassins had attacked the palace, killed his stepmother and kidnapped his sister.
Wildref was not going to be separated from her true life, her destiny. She was the princess and heir to the throne, and instead, she’d grown up in this world, without even a spark inside of her. Now, though they had found her, Indulf refused to do anything about it; refused to tell her, as though learning about her history would ruin her life instead of enriching it.
She was too heavily protected for him to tell her now, as an adult, who she really was. That guard, Thonis, had always been around her whenever Warmund had tried to find a way to talk to her when he first arrived. But, no matter. This was going to work. He was going to go back and stop her from being kidnapped in the first place. If possible, he’d save his stepmother, too, but Wildref was his first priority. He’d make sure that she grew up in the world she was meant to be in, not this cold, magicless place where she was just some ordinary girl.
If his father knew Warmund’s plans, he’d try to stop him. Just as he did before when Warmund first tried to use these time-travel portals to find Wildref. It was Indulf’s own fault for being so blind that Warmund rebelled against him in the first place; he’d had no intention of killing his father, just forcing him to step down so that he, Warmund, could do what was necessary.
He hadn’t been going to kill him, no matter what people thought.
Warmund shook his head as he got into his car and drove away. That didn’t matter. None of it. The past was over. Once he was successful in his mission, it will never have happened. Time itself would be changed. Yes, it most likely meant that his new little brother was never going to be born, but he never met the boy, and when he was finished with this, he wouldn’t even know things had changed.
Nothing was more important than getting Wildref back.
As he headed to the house that served as home base for dragons in this world, coming through with diplomatic missions or visiting their Earth-born mates’ families, he glanced at the device he’d built based on the theories he’d read. There was no telling if it would work until he actually tested it, but Warmund had been raised with a strong education in magic. He knew enough that he was certain this would work.
He was never a mage himself. Never taught to use magic besides the basics of being a dragon. He had spent a lot of time with mages, though. In fact, most of his lovers were mages, and he was always eager to hear what they had to say about magic. Besides that, he was a dragon. Dragons had a good amount of inborn magic.
Nerves twisted in his stomach. This was going to change everything and could very well kill him. There were certainly enough theories about what might happen when a single person existed at the same time but in separate spaces. Warmund really didn’t care, though. He wasn’t afraid of dying. For so long this guilt had clung to him—it was his fault that Wildref had been taken in the first place. If he had to die to correct the mistake, then so be it.
But there was still an itch at the back of his mind. If he was going to die in this mission, perhaps it would be wise to have one last night of carefree fun. He could go to a bar and pick up a woman, or two, and spend the night having passionless sex. He could utterly exhaust himself and quiet the few doubts in his brain. It was customary for a warrior to have a warm bed before a battle, after all. This wasn’t a battle in the purest sense of the word, but that hardly mattered.
It would be difficult to find a woman that wanted to be used in the ways he had in mind, though. If he had to hold himself back, which he would have to do with any casual woman, then it was best to just forgo the sex entirely. It wasn’t as though his prospective partners would miss what they didn’t know they could have.
Then again, perhaps there was another way.
A slight smile was on his face again by the time he pulled up to a spot across the street from the house he was looking for. He could feel a slight crackle of magic in the area; so many portals being opened up must have drawn magic into this world. Good. He picked up his special device, checking it. The moonstone he’d stolen from the center was starting to glow slightly. So, it was picking up on the magic of the area. Good. That meant it was at least working.
He looked up again, studying the house. Now he just had to get inside long enough to use the portal when it opened.
A woman came out, dressed in old, dirty clothes. She strode with determination to the beds of wilting flowers lining the building. Warmund leaned back, watching her. He’d seen her around a few times but never really got a good look at her face. She was the woman who had been there when he first came to this world. He’d been badly wounded, and she’d patched him up before he made his escape.
She was a beauty. All curves. Legs that tapered from thigh to ankle, hips and ass that gave a man something to hold onto in various sexual positions. A narrowed waist and large breasts. She wasn’t perfectly proportioned, really, but Warmund had never liked perfection in his women. This was a girl he’d be willing to settle with vanilla sex for. He had a feeling that even the most vanilla would be exciting with her. In fact, he was certain he’d had dreams about her before.
His loins tightened briefly, and he cleared his throat, forcing those feelings away. Now wasn’t the time to be getting horny! Maybe later, if there was time…
He got out of the car and jogged across the street. Just five minutes around the house would let him track the surges of magic here, allowing him to figure out when the next portal would be opened. There weren’t any cars on the street or in the carport; this curvy gal must be on her own. Warmund grinned as he approached. If luck was with him, he might even be able to convince her to let him in the house.
“Hi there,” he called.
The woman sprang to her feet and looked around. When her gaze fell on him, her eyes widened, and her jaw dropped. Her gaze swept down his body, and a faint pink blush colored her cheeks. If he could still access his dragon and fires, he was certain he would have been able to smell the arousal on her. He’d always been considered an attractive dragon, broad shoulders and a strong body, but it seemed like the women in this realm were even more affected by him than in Byrelmore. At least, they allowed themselves to show that attraction more readily.
“I was wondering if you could help me,” Warmund said, slowing to a stop.
Just then, the front door opened, and a black-haired woman with skin the color of fresh-tilled Earth came out. “Penny, the twins woke up, and I can’t get Alex to stop crying.”
Penny’s shoulders sagged a little. She glanced at Warmund briefly before shaking her head. “Excuse me,” she said, skirting past him.
Warmund didn’t acknowledge her. His gaze was on the woman; Katrina, as she was known. Wildref, as he knew her. His sister.