Ancient Scandinavia

Sometime just before 45,000 B.C.

To better understand the time period and region...

Six percent of Europeans are descended from the continent’s first homo-sapien founders, who entered Europe from the Near East in the Upper Paleolithic era 45,000 years ago. The descendants of these earliest arrivals ended up in two places. One of which was the mountainous Basque country, where people still speak a language completely different from all other European languages. The other was Scandinavia. Another eighty percent arrived 30,000 to 20,000 years ago, before the peak of the last glaciation, and ten percent came in the Neolithic 10,000 years ago, when the ice age ended, and agriculture was first introduced to Europe from the Near East.

Now on to the story...

BY THE TIME the dust settled and she could see again, Erica knew she was pretty much screwed. As far as she could tell, they were still in the same cave, and everyone had vanished but her and Kodran.

“Please tell me we’re not where I think we are,” she whispered.

Kodran frowned and looked around before his eyes met hers. “My guess is they sent us back to the beginning. Back to where it all started.”

“Wonderful,” she muttered and eyed him. He was a damn good-looking man with those thickly lashed baby blues and dark hair. Not to mention that body. His frame wasn’t all that different than what it had been in another life even though he wasn’t a dragon. He had been tall, muscled and very powerful. Yet all that had started to dwindle because of Hallstein...or Bard as he was known back then...or now if they wanted to get technical.

Erica tore her eyes away from Kodran as emotions threatened to surface. She hadn’t wanted to go down this road with him again. She hadn’t wanted to face this. Because if she had learned anything about Hallstein in the past few months, it was that with a sort like him, history was only destined to repeat itself.

“Why do you suppose they sent us here?” she finally asked. She would give anything not to be here, most especially this cave. The memories were too sharp and far too sad. At least the ones at the end.

“You know why they sent us here,” he murmured. “It was...an important place for us.”

Erica refused to look at him but headed for the entrance. Yet the closer she got, the heavier her heart felt. She was remembering what Maeva once had. The overwhelming sadness she experienced when she knew their time together was drawing to an end.

“We might not like it, but we’ve been given a second chance,” Kodran said. “I seem to remember a time when we would have done anything to be dragon mates. Anything to bond like that.”

Erica spun and met his eyes. “Are you serious?” She shook her head. “How do you think that’s going to go down considering what else you did for me in that life? Because like it or not, you’re not my only dragon mate.”

“Tell me.” He ground his jaw and closed the distance before she could shift away. “I know Eluf...me...” He shook his head as he gripped her shoulders lightly. “I know a lot now but not everything. Some of it is still vague. Hard to remember.” His eyes pleaded with hers. “I found a way to help you in that life...to ease your suffering when Bard made you his.” His frown grew heavier. “How?”

“It doesn’t matter,” she murmured. “All that matters is that he has a hold over me now.” She did her best to sound affected by the time she spent with Hallstein. Because if she could convince Kodran she was starting to care about the enemy then just maybe... “He has a hold over me that despite my need to kill him to protect our families, isn’t going to go away. It exists, Kodran. He exists. And he’s my mate every bit as much as you are.”

He let go of her as if she had stung him. “Did you lie with him?”

Though she suspected he already knew the answer, if he needed to hear it out loud, so be it. Especially if it made him keep his distance.

“Yes. Several times.” She stepped away and embraced her cold inner lawyer. “Not only was it the logical thing to do but...”

“But what,” he growled when she didn’t finish her sentence.

“Well, you know.” She shrugged and tried her damndest to remain cool and detached beneath the turbulence of his gaze. “Like I said...I was becoming affected by him.”

The truth was she would have stuck a knife through Hallstein’s heart every moment of every day if given half a chance, but Kodran didn’t need to know that. No, the best thing now was for him to find her undesirable, no matter what it took. Because despite being run down, she could tell by the way he had been looking at her that he was more than taken by her physical appearance.

His eyes lingered on hers before they narrowed and he clenched his fists. It seemed based on his next words that he could only be dissuaded so much by jealousy. “I want to know what I did for you in another life. I need to know what Eluf did to make things easier.”

“And I need to know where we are,” she said, trying to get his mind off this and on to more important things. “Obviously, we’ve traveled back in time but aren’t you curious to when exactly? Before or after my pregnancy? Before or after the mass genocide of my people at the hands of the enemy.”

In retrospect, that worked against the whole her-lusting-after-Hallstein angle, but it did seem to detour Kodran. Or so said his flinch before he focused less on her and more on their surroundings.

“This was my home...our home,” he said. “For a long time.”

She nodded. Back then, though not immortal, dragons and seers lived for a very long time. And this cave at Mt. Galdhøpiggen’s peak had been Eluf’s before any other seer’s. Not only that but at one time they had considered it theirs. In secret, of course. 

“I know it was your home,” she said. “But I remain more curious about where in time we are. Do you think it’s really back when...”

Erica’s voice trailed off as a man close to Kodran’s age strode into the room. Her heart slammed into her throat at the sight of him. Eluf. He was nearly as handsome as Kodran with his broad shoulders and chiseled features only his eyes were a deep, dark brown. It seemed he couldn’t see either of them as he barked, “Asmund, come now. We must find a way to navigate around the dragons. I must find a way to keep her safe.”

“Yes, mentor,” a man murmured as he rushed into the cave.

Her eyes widened. He might look different, but she knew it was Anthony.

“They can’t see or hear us, can they?” she whispered as she joined Kodran.

“It doesn’t seem so,” he replied, his posture tense as he watched the transaction...as he looked at himself in another life.

“There has to be a way,” Eluf murmured as he paced and thought about it. As he did, images started to flash in the shields.

“Those are the ideas running through his mind,” Kodran said softly. “The shields magnify them, sort out every possible outcome based on that idea, then relay back the best case scenario.”

“Convenient,” Erica replied, impressed, not recalling that particular trick. It seemed, perhaps, for all she thought she remembered everything, she didn’t. She glanced at Kodran. But then she and her true dragon mate hadn’t fully come together yet, had they? She and Kodran hadn’t had sex. Which meant it was very likely she still had a lot to learn because intimacy with him was the only way to absolute truth and power.

She frowned and returned her gaze to Eluf.

“I remain curious about something,” Kodran said softly as his eyes slid to her. “Assuming that she knows who we were in this life, I’m surprised the evil version of Maeva has been trying to make her way back into our world through your sisters. Why waste her time on anyone but you?”

Erica didn’t reply because he was getting too close to her secrets. To figuring out what Eluf had done. She needed to remember that Kodran had been remarkably intelligent and intuitive in another life and that had likely not changed.

As their eyes held, fire spiked through her veins, and her heart skidded into her throat again. Hell. Being so close to him was going to become a problem real fast.

“There has to be a way,” Eluf said before he stopped pacing and his eyes shot in their direction.

“What is it?” Asmund asked as he stopped short behind Eluf.

“I do not know,” Eluf murmured, yet Erica got the overwhelming feeling he might. That though he couldn’t see them he sensed them. “What I do know is that there might be hope after all.”

Erica and Kodran glanced at each other and frowned.

“He knows we’re here, doesn’t he?” she said.

“He knows something,” Kodran confirmed before his eyes returned to the seer. 

“Well, I’d say so,” came a whisper from beside them. “Bloody interesting twist, aye?”

Erica automatically stepped a little closer to Kodran in response to the teenage boy who appeared beside them. She widened her eyes as she took in his attire. A kilt? “Who the hell are you?”

“Adlin MacLomain, of course.” He gave Kodran a disappointed look. “You havenae told her about me?” Then, as if he wasn’t really all that concerned his attention returned to Eluf with approval. “’Tis an entertaining journey you’re on. So glad I can tag along.”

Erica was about to respond when Kodran shook his head. “I’m sure you know who he is. I’ll fill you in later about why he’ll be joining us on occasion.”

Damn it. He was speaking to her telepathically. “Get out of my head, Kodran.”

He frowned and was about to respond when he seemed to realize he had, in fact, just spoken within her mind. And they both knew what that meant.

They were bonding.

“No.” She shook her head as she saw the truth in his eyes. “Not gonna happen.”

His pupil’s flared before his gaze returned to Eluf and Asmund. It seemed he was of the same mind. At least as long as he thought she was bonded with Hallstein.

“Och,” Adlin muttered as he grinned and looked between them. “This will be a more entertaining journey than I thought, aye?”

Neither of them responded but paid attention to Eluf as he finally looked away, and made a flourish with his hand. When he did the images in the shields faded.

“So you have a plan then, Eluf?” Asmund said.

“I have the root of a plan,” Eluf murmured as he strode out. “Follow me.”

“Exit stage right,” Adlin declared, his eyes twinkling as they followed Eluf before they flickered between her and Kodran. “Why do I get the sense he didnae want to share more with you two around?”

“Because you likely know more than we do,” Kodran grumbled as he kept eying the shields. She knew he hoped they might tell him more. That they might trigger memories he had clearly forgotten. Or—she narrowed her eyes—maybe he remembered more that he was letting on.

“So what’s next?” Erica plunked down on a rock and eyed the Gungnir blade sheathed at his side. “We touch that...” She tapped her heels together. “And say I wish I could go home over and over?”

Kodran shrugged and held the blade out to her. “It couldn’t hurt, but I have a feeling it might just get us deeper into this.”

“Aye, laddie,” Adlin agreed as he locked his hands behind his back and cocked his head at the dagger. “That is a telling piece.”

“It is,” Kodran granted. “Would you care to share what you know because given who you are, my guess is it’s a lot.”

“The same could be said about you, lad,” Adlin returned as his brows shot up and his eyes met Kodran’s. “Were we both not wizards of a sort? Masters at magic? Young until love made us old?”

Erica kept eying Adlin, somewhat amazed he was here but based on what he just said, it made sense. What better comrade to have along than a man who had been through a similar situation to theirs...minus the dragons.

Kodran’s eyes met Erica’s before they returned to the shields. But in that brief glance, she saw his struggles. How confused and angry he was. And while some of it was at her being with Hallstein, more had to do with who he had been in another life. The secrets Eluf had clearly been trying to keep from his future incarnate.

“I do not know where to go next,” Kodran finally said. “When I journeyed to Mt. Galdhøpiggen’s peak, it was for answers from seers. Not this.”

“Understandable,” Adlin replied. “But it seems to me that they are giving you answers by sending you here.” He looked at Erica. “Both of you.” He shrugged. “So if I were you, I would find a place out of the way to rest, formulate a plan then make the best of your circumstances.”

“And where would that be?” Erica asked. “Because neither of us knows where out of the way is here.”

“Nay? Are you sure?” Adlin looked between them. “At one time this was your home. A place you found great love and I imagine peace. Does it not stand to reason that if you just listen to your instincts, if you remember, you’ll find out where you need to go?”

About the last thing she wanted to do was focus more attention on Kodran and reminisce. But she knew Adlin was right. They had been thrust into a situation in which they needed to work together or possibly be discovered.

“Yet I get the sense we’re ghosts of a sort here,” Kodran said. “Is that not safety enough in its own way?”

“Aye,” Adlin conceded. “But did you not also sense that Eluf knew you were here because I bloody well did. And if he sensed you, that means Hallstein or any of his minions might too.” He shook his head, resolved. “’Tis risky to do anything but work together until you learn what you need to in order to win your war.”

“Convenient,” Kodran muttered under his breath.

“I couldn’t agree more,” Erica seconded.

Yet she didn’t miss the aggravated look he shot her. She supposed it matched the one she wore. But was it for the same reason? As far as she was concerned, he could be a little more grateful for all she’d done and was doing when it came to the enemy. Because she knew he knew. But instead, he seemed more of the mind that she get back to it and good riddance.

“Can you blame me?” he murmured into her mind. “All things considered?”

The feel of him in her mind seriously turned her on. Not good. 

“Get out of my head,” she growled.

His nostrils flared and his body tensed. Not only did he smell her arousal but was responding to hearing her speak within his mind for the first time. Something she definitely should not have done.

“Och, I think ‘tis time for me to take my leave for a wee bit,” Adlin said. “It seems—”

“No!” both Erica and Kodran said at the same time, but it was too late. Adlin faded then vanished.

“Shit,” Erica muttered.

Kodran appeared to agree based on his aggravated expression. “He’s gone. Grant said it would take a lot of energy for him to visit.”

“Grant?” Her frown deepened. “You mean Grant Hamilton?”

“Yes.” Kodran kept looking the shields over as if searching for something. “You know him, I believe.”

“You could say that.”

His eyes went to hers. “How do you know him?”

“Is that really our priority right now?” She gestured at the cave. “Or finding a hideaway until we figure out our next move.”

“Hideaway.” He snorted. “Where do you suppose that is in a mountain full of ancient seers who are more powerful than we can imagine?”

“Well, I don’t know.” She planted her fists on her hips and narrowed her eyes. “You tell me, Eluf.”

His lips thinned, and he shook his head. “We both know the only connection I have to Eluf is through my memories.”

“And we both know the same goes for Maeva and me,” she retaliated.

“Do we? Because it doesn’t feel that way to me.” He narrowed his eyes in return. “It feels like you know more than I do.”

Erica clenched her teeth as images of them bickering flashed in her mind. They had done this before. Her as Maeva and him as Eluf.

As if Kodran sensed the same, he shook his head, ran a hand through his hair in frustration and turned away. “What we need to do is take Adlin’s advice and find somewhere safe.”

It was that—him turning away from her in irritation—that made her remember something. “We had a spot.” She shook her head as the memory flitted in and out, just out of grasp. “Near here. Somewhere safe.”

“Where?”

“I’m not sure,” she whispered as she scanned their surroundings. Yet as she looked around, red skirted her vision, and she was drawn back to his blade.

“Your dragon knows,” he murmured, following her line of sight before he unsheathed the jagged-edged blade and held it out. “Listen to her.”

Erica closed her eyes and inhaled deeply before opening them again. “The last time we both touched that, it didn’t go so well.”

“Maybe not. But at least it showed us some of what we forgot,” he said. “As to whether things go well from this point forward is up to us.” He shook his head. “As I see it, there’s no choice anymore.”

Again, her muscles tensed at what sounded like him pushing her away. And again, she had to remind herself of two things. First, that’s what she wanted him to do. Second, he thought she had mated with his archenemy.

“Fine.” Erica stopped overthinking and did what made sense. She took the blade. “Holy...” she whispered as images started slamming into her mind. If Kodran hadn’t wrapped his arm around her waist and allowed her to slump against him, she would have hit the ground.

“I see you,” she whispered. “Kodran...Eluf...what you created for me...”

“This way.” She handed the blade back and found the strength to walk down a narrow hallway hidden in shadows. One specifically meant to hide not just dragons and seers, but truths. “Do you remember?”

“Yes.” He was right behind her, almost as if he was ready to catch her if she fell. “It was very important.”

She nodded and didn’t respond as she made her way down a hallway of rock that only grew narrower. Tighter. For most, it would close you in and make it harder to breathe out of sheer design, but it did the opposite for her. It made her feel relieved. Open. Ready to come home. But there was more. Courage. An overwhelming feeling of hope.

And somehow she knew Eluf had created it solely for her.

Kodran had.

“No, you can’t give me credit because I’m as much at the whim of all this as you are,” he murmured, close behind her and obviously following her thoughts.

They were in big trouble based on the way her skin was heating at his close proximity. More than that, how rapidly his thoughts were starting to merge with hers. It shouldn’t be this way considering they hadn’t physically mated.

But it was.

And it was happening at an alarming rate.

Erica didn’t respond but kept walking until the hallway grew far larger then stopped abruptly at a ledge. Another tunnel of rock went up and down as far as the eye could see. She barely paid attention to the long drop as she hopped the short distance, then continued until she hit a dead end. Okay, what was the deal? She felt around the edges, searching for something, maybe a hidden door, but there was nothing.

Meanwhile, Kodran had stopped in the opening a ways behind and was staring up then down. Curious, she returned only to be startled by the massive gap between them. Her jaw dropped as the red cleared from her vision and she saw how wide it really was. At least sixty feet. What the heck?

His eyes met hers. “You didn’t know you just implemented dragon magic to make the hop over there, did you?”

“Of course not.” She frowned. “I don’t understand.”

“I do. Because I’m still holding this.” He held up the Gungnir blade. “Catch, and you’ll see.”

With reflexes born of another life, she caught it when he whipped it her way.

Breathing became non-existent as she suddenly saw what the blade meant to show her. What the cave systems really were.

“Holy hell,” she whispered as everything became clear.

The hallway she had just jumped from connected with the hallway she stood in and made up what would normally be a scabbard on a blade. Erica walked to the edge and looked down. That hallway to nowhere was the handle. She cocked her head and looked up far beyond what the human eye could see. Son of a gun. If she wasn’t mistaken, that was the shape of a blade with several gashes in the rock stemming out from the main one.

“This entire area is a massive recreation of the dagger in your hand,” he murmured in her ear, as he suddenly appeared behind her and pulled her back against him. “This is where I gave you sanctity in another life. This is where we fell in love.”