Page 58 of Heart of Fire
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She was gone.
Rurik raged as morning revealed an empty bed, tearing at the walls with his claws and scattering the piles of gold with the lash of his tail. It spilled everywhere, sparkling in the light reflecting off his scales, but for the first time in his life it failed to soothehim.
Like mostdreki, he loved gold, loved its shiny allure and glittering beauty, craving its presence in an almost obsessive way; but it was cold and it had no light of its own and it could not give him what hewanted.
He screamed his rage into the skies, feeling the walls of the tunnels shake and tremble around him. Beneath him the volcano stirred, hot molten lava licking at the crust that covered it, and bubbling below. He felt its heat seep through his mind, answering the frustration in hisroar.
To unleash its lava would sate him. To let it burn and explode into the air, like adreki’srage, the earth’s furious answer to a stormabove.
But there was a little cottage out there on the moors, its lights flickering cheerfully in the night. To unleash the mighty fury of Krafla would bury that cottage in ash or lava, sweeping away the one thing he wantedmost.
Rurik let his head fall, his wings trembling with suppressed rage and pain. How could he win her back? Why would she not succumb to him? Why hold herselfback?
And how had she stepped from this world, back into herown?
He had never felt this way before. The wyrm’s form separated him from the emotion he felt in his human form, yet even now he felt thwarted. He ached, and it wasn’t a pleasantache.
He had to win herback.
Somehow.
Fourteen
FREYJA GRABBEDTHE milking bucket as she opened the front door, and nearly went head over heels. Dawn light silvered the sky in the east, gleaming on the thing at herfeet.
An ancient Viking helmet sat on the stone step, the burnished brass filled to the brim with gold and gemstones. Freyja’s heart dropped to her stomach and she stepped over it, staring around. A single day had passed without a sign of her lover. She’d spent most of it tending to the jobs at the farm, but she couldn’t deny that every whisper of wind made her heart race a little faster, and every shadow that flitted over her made her shoulders slump when she looked up and found onlyclouds.
He hadn’t pursuedher.
He hadn’t even reached out toher.
Untilnow.
And she didn’t know how she felt aboutthat.
The world was quiet. Freyja’s gaze took to the skies, but there was no sign of him there either, curse him. “You cannot buy me,” she whispered, glaring down at thetreasure.
She stared so long at its gleam that the sun began to warm the back of her neck, the single milking goat they owned bleating at the fence. Freyja sighed. Would one of thedrekieven think this was mercenary, or would he consider this a courting gift? She had no way of knowing. Not without confronting him in his lair, which she was loath todo.
But if she accepted the treasure—even for one day—then he would think he had won. Freyja grumbled under her breath, despite the way her body heated. Every moment she’d spent in his arms was imprinted on her skin like a sensory burn. “Cursedwyrm.”
A part of her wanted to go backthere.
A part of her didn’tdare.
The jingle of tack caught her ear, and Freyja realized what she’d been hearing, but not acknowledging, for several minutes: the soft thud of hoof beats on the marshy ground. The blood drained out of her face and she swung her milking bucket over the helmet to cover it, turning just in time to see a threesome of riders trot around the end of herbarn.
Freyja hurried forward, trying to draw their attention away from the house and what rested on the doorstep, tucking her hands in herapron.
“Good morning,” she called in a barely civil tone, as Haakon rode into view through the morningmists.
He had some nerve in cominghere.
His fur bristled over his shoulders, rimed with the morning’s frost, and the rasp of stubble darkened his cheeks. Those cold blue eyes locked on her through thick dark lashes. “Good morn.” He gave her a clipped nod, his gaze searching the yard as if looking forsomething.
Freyja’s gaze slid past him to the two riders that followed silently at his heels. A chill ran through her, though she didn’t know why. Magnus and another man, one she didn't recognize. Both were dressed in menacing black leathers, with a crossbow strapped to each of theirbacks.
