Page 19 of Heart of Fire
She knew thatcry.
She could feel the might of the great beast soaring past, its wings thrusting a downwash of wind over the tiny buildings and his power pulling ather.
Rurik shoved away from her, striding toward the door. He cracked it open, rain whipping over his hardened frame and wetting him instantly. Lightning flickered in the streets, too often for it to be natural. It stabbed the ground again and again, as if driven by something beyond the whim of earthlylaw.
“Thedreki,” she whispered, and hurried afterhim.
Rurik’s body spilled heat through her as he glanced down, lashes wet with rain. “Stayhere.”
Her thighs were wet with need, her body still trembling. One kiss, one touch, had shattered her resolve. How lucky for her thedrekihad broken the moment, for she had little doubt she would otherwise be lying on her back in one of the stalls right now, with her skirts around her hips and a “Yes”on herlips.
Freyja didn’t know what was more dangerous. The wyrm outside? Or the man watching her with hot need still burning in his goldeneyes?
“He won’t hurt me,” she whispered, pressing between him and the door to see. Rain stung her flushed lips, little razors of sensation against hercheeks.
The lightning lit the sky again, revealing the flash of wings over the rooftops. Light gleamed silver over scales. Beautiful. Dangerous. And so compelling she almost stepped out into the rain to see more ofhim.
Rurik hauled her back against his chest with a hiss, his arms locking over her breasts. “Do you have no sense,woman?”
He muscled her inside with appalling ease, slamming the door shut behind them and leaving her light blind in the darkness. Another primitive scream cut the air above them, and she looked up. Something whipped against the roof and Freyja screamed as Rurik drove her down into the straw, his heated body covering hers. Shards of timber lashed them both, an enormous sheet of iron tumbling where they’d just been standing. The noise ricocheted around the stables. Hanna squealed, and another horsesnorted.
Then it finally fellsilent.
Freyja trembled, feeling the press of Rurik’s hips against her bottom. His weight shifted as rain drove inside the hole in the roof, and he let her lift herhead.
“You’re not hurt?” heasked.
“There… there are two of them,” shewhispered.
“Aye.” A grim tone. “Foolish Freyja. Did you notsee?”
“Seewhat?”
“You spoke of the golden wyrm beneath Krafla,” he said, looking up with a hard expression darkening his face. “And the one outside wassilver.”
Not her dreki. As if he read her face, Rurik’s gaze softened. “Not yours, no.” He levered himself to his feet. “Stay here. And do not come out until I come foryou.”
“Where are yougoing?”
“To see who dares to enter the golden wyrm’s domain,” he replied, in a hard-edgedvoice.
Six
RURIK STRODE THROUGH the storm,the rain plastering his shirt to hischest.
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. Thedrekiqueen 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 athim.
Amadea was more serpent thandreki, in someways.
And this could not be tolerated. He felt his arms lengthenand—
“Where did it go?” a manbellowed.
Rurik froze, power whispering through his veins. He stood on the knife-edge of the shift, thedrekipunching inside his ribs as it waited for him to freeit.
A hand caught his arm and Rurik suppressed the change as he whirled, his head swaying for a second at the sudden loss ofmomentum.
“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 ofobsession.
