Before he smoothes it all back down, glacial and calm once more.
“Jesus!” I breathe now. I watch him, shocked at just how powerful he is and how effortlessly he hides it from any casual observer—not to mention my reaction to him.
Which has me shocked and shivering now, but not in a bad way, as I stare at him with amazed eyes.
“I’m not him. Though I must say, I have meditated quite a lot longer for my enlightenment than he did.” Those perfect lips quirk again as a hint of renegade twinkle takes Baldur’s dark blue eyes. It makes him just too ridiculously handsome, in that wild man of the arts sort of way.
It’s clear he’s also a clan shaman of some sort, however, from all the potions and such decorating his shelves. But that smile, plus the tiniest flare of his power still blazing through me from what he did earlier, makes me scalding hot to take this elegant wild man into my bed.
Not only is he gorgeous and insanely powerful, he’s also calm as fuck. And I need some calm in the massive shitstorm of my drakes now, as everything inside me roars, wanting this incredible, calm, and powerful dragon in our bond.
To the depths of my blood and back.
Aesa’s Truthstone agrees with me, as it flares hard now upon my chest, fiery crimson sigils flashing hard through its watery silver and gold light.
But Baldur and I have a helluva lot to talk about before we even approach any of that. I see it in his eyes as he becomes wry; I feel it in myself as I pull back now from being this insanely attracted to someone I honestly just met.
Because my attraction to Mikkel was this fast and strong—and look where that got me,I think now as I hold myself back from just jumping Baldur and getting it on. I wrangle my inner Blood Magic drakaina back down, though she rages for a big ol’ taste.
Which is not going to happen unless we set some things straight.
“Your Third Drake is ferocious.” His deep blue eyes pierce me now, and I know he read my mind. “I am just as ferocious, but of a differentsort.”
“A different sort how?” I challenge him then. Even though I’m still sitting on his couch and he’s still towering above me, like hell am I going to let my dragon’s libido run the show and invite him in under the blanket here with me.
Though a big part of me wants to—oh, yes, it does.
Cocking his head, Baldur evaluates me then. It makes him look like the handsomest inquisitive bird, as he watches me with those etheric, unfathomable eyes.
He hunkers down beside the couch now, putting himself at eye level with me, just below it. With his elbows slung around his knees in his crouch, he gazes deeply at me. I don’t miss the gesture he just made, as I feel our inner dragons brush past each other, shivering me to the tips of my toes and back.
Because in his strategic hunker, Baldur’s changed the power dynamic between us, making me the dominant one in our encounter. Some part of me feels grateful for it, as I take a deep breath and find my inner calm again, rather than the raging sexuality I’m tempted to jump into with him.
Ready now for this strange negotiation we’re about to dive into, at last.
“You wear Aesa’s Truthstone. A powerful emblem of the ancients, and beyond useful in olden times, now come again.” Baldur’s gaze flicks at the still-raging silver stone on my chest. The fingers of his left hand ripple then, like he wants to reach out and touch it. But he doesn’t.
As I feel vast self-restraint in him, to his core.
“What do you know of it?” I ask. My brief meeting with Hekla in the Void makes me think perhaps Baldur knows a helluva a lot more about my current situation with the Black Dragon than even I do, having had a visionary sister like her.
“Some. Only tales and folklore. Though my sister saw it often in her visions, and knew it would surface again on one who was worthy in modern times.” Baldur’s gaze flicks back to me.
Honesty pours from him as he watches me; I know there’s far more tohis tale, and I will get it as we speak more with each other, but that the full story is just too immense to tell right now. Again, it makes me feel somehow peaceful, as I nod to him, content to wait and hear it later.
As I do, that small quirk of a smile lifts his lips again, his eyes blazing.
Gorgeous.
“I would very much like to tell you more, Bloodwalker, so you can understand where I fit into the vast weft and weave of this ancient pattern, pulling tight now all around you.” He holds my gaze, speaking from his utter honesty as he sets his right hand to his heart. It makes the stylized blue and silver dragon tattoo there flare with light, as his dark midnight eyes blaze with a far brighter light—sky-blue and opaline, tinged with flickers of gold now, from his inner dragon.
“But you have to understand that I am not a hero like yourself, or a warrior like your First Drake,” he continues, as we speak in a strange heart-to-heart, though I don’t know him at all. “Neither am I a rogue like your Second Drake, or a ruthless pirate like your Third. What I am, is a mystic. And you need a mystic right now to balance the chaos inside you that your unstable bond and this unholy curse upon you have created. Only a shaman can heal mystical wounds and imbalances, as I am. A shaman that your Bloodbond needs right now. Just as my sister always knew it would.”
Baldur looks at my hand now, and it’s only then I realize I’m still clutching the palm-sized blue scale from his dead sister. It sings with her energy as Baldur gazes at it, responding to him; a sad, haunted smile takes his lips now as he holds his hand out and I give it to him.
Quietly, he turns the blue scale over in his hands, perusing it. His expression is both sad and understanding, as the energy in the blue scale surges.
Then gutters out—gone.
