This had gone on long enough.
With one efficient move, he reached up and pulled his t-shirt over his head.
Lottie, peeking through her fingers, gasped. “What are you doing?”
He stepped closer, back into her personal space where he could feel the warmth of her body. “We can’t—not unless you know everything.”
She lowered her hands, and her gaze dipped momentarily to his pectorals. Her eyes tracked to the left, and he knew she was trailing the lines of his tattoos over his shoulder. The runes inscribed there would have told her a lot about his family’s history if she knew how to read them. In fact, Mikkel’s tattoos had been very similar to his, and he’d probably shown them off to her when they’d…
Eiric closed his eyes, forcing the mental image of his brother with her away from his thoughts.
“What are you talking about?” Lottie asked.
He opened his eyes to find her studying him. A small frown line appeared between her eyebrows.
“My family,” he said. “And yours, since Mikkel was the father of your babies.”
“My babies?” She seemed completely bemused. “You took off your shirt to talk to me about my kids?”
Eiric groaned. This was why he’d never told anyone outside the clan about his family. About who—andwhat—he was.
“It’s easier if I just show you.”
He hoped to all the gods his ancestors were descended from that she would not panic at the sight of his dragon form. If she tried to escape, he’d have to chase her, make sure she didn’t tell anyone about him. As it was, he was breaking about seventeen laws and decrees of his people by showing her his true nature. Magnus would probably string him up on the rafters of the great hall by his feet if he learned about that. Their mother, however…she might be glad that he’d found someone to confide in.
Eiric took a deep breath and turned his back on Lottie. She wasn’t reallyhisin any way, and yet it had fallen to him to show her his world. Her children would inevitably be a part of it—they would reap the benefits and also inherit the enemies of his people. They needed to be protected at any cost, and he couldn’t do that without bringing her in on the secret.
He bent down and removed his boots. Then he shucked his jeans, dropping them in a haphazard pile on the pebbles. Lottie didn’t comment, though he felt her burning gaze on his back. He didn’t dare look at her.
Instead, he waded into the surf, the cold water lapping eagerly around his ankles, then his knees. The pebbles gave way to a rocky bottom, and his feet instinctively searched for purchase beneath the dark waves. The sea called to him to change, to relinquish his human form and embrace the wild beast within. Already, the tendrils of power leaked through his skin, swirling in the air around him. He only needed to let go.
Eiric shed his underwear, then threw it to the shore. It was wet, but he’d ruined enough clothing as a volatile teenager that he always tried to save whatever items he could before a change. He glanced at Lottie, then. She stood where he’d left her, her arms crossed over her chest. He was several yards away from her now, so her features blurred in the darkness, but he knew that she hadn’t taken her gaze off him. She wouldn’t.
With that, he faced the sea again and answered her call.
He closed his eyes and let the change take over.
Six
Lottie
Eiric liftedhis powerful arms over his head and plunged into the waves.
Lottie stared into darkness. He’d brought her here to go skinny dipping? Without her? It was a beautiful moonlit night, and the air wasn’t very cold, but Lottie knew from previous experience that the Norwegian Sea never lost that frigid bite, not even at the height of summer.
A massive shape emerged from underwater. Lottie’s mouth dropped open. A whale! She’d seen them from afar from time to time, on the open sea, if she chose to travel by boat across the vast bay to Ålesund. But this guy had swum too close to the shore. Would it get beached? And where was Eiric? It couldn’t be safe to swim with whales at night.
Then her brain accepted what her eyes were seeing. In the silvery light of the moon, a big, horned head poked through the surface. This was no whale, and the creature’s tail wasn’t the flat, double-leaf-shaped limb she’d seen at a distance.
No, this was something else altogether. Lottie sank into a crouch and scooted to the side, seeking shelter behind a tall rock.
“Eiric?” she whisper-shouted. He’d been underwater for a while now, and if he surfaced somewhere else, he might have avoided the bigthing.
The creature placed one foot on the beach. Its talons were sharp, glinting in the low light. Then it straightened, extending a long, graceful neck, and rose to its full height. Its body was twice the size of an elephant’s. Its wings unfurled as it shook water from them.
Lottie whimpered and cowered behind the rock.
Holy shit!There was a dragon standing on the shore. It crawled from the sea, and it probably ate Eiric, since he so unwisely went swimming at the exact moment this mythological monster decided to take a nighttime stroll.
