Like Ström’s tattoos, this is ancestral magic, which doesn’t exist anymore among our people. But Baldur learned at the feet of someone who was practically an ancient.
And is ancient himself—vastly learned in the sigildric binding arts.
Baldur does nothing to me now, however, except use his own ornately tattooed dragon body to calm me. He feels me come back from my dark near-Wraith; adjusting his position, he moves his elegant head so I can see deep into his drowning midnight blue eyes, a ring of stunning diamond white around them now.
I’ve never seen eyes that color on a Blood Dragon; I fall into them now as everything inside me is mesmerized by this ancient conundrum of a creature.
Baldur takes the moment to shift down—commanding me back from my shift at the same time. I’ve never felt someone command me from my shift so effortlessly, even my own King; a talent only the strongest Royal Blood Dragons possess.
I realize then that Baldur could give our King a run for his money, if he ever challenged Huttr for the throne. He’s not destined for that, though; I see knowledge of his fate shine in his eyes now as we return to human form in the much-disturbed hot springs, which has lost most of its water thanks to our huge dragon-bodies roiling around in it.
Baldur has only one destiny, as he cups my stunned face in his hands and gazes deep into my eyes, searching for my answer.
Me—though I’m not certain I should go there.
Even though I need to.
Conflict sears through me now, and it’s not Mikkelanymore, as Baldur stares into my eyes. He’s a hair’s breadth from kissing me, and me him, when something inside me roars not to.
Though I know Ihaveto take Baldur as my Fourth Bloodmate to save Bjorn and Mikkel, Ström and my King, and everyone else now in danger from the Black Dragon’s rise, something inside me hesitates.
It’s not my inner dragons anymore, but a part of my soul that calls me back from the brink, some ineffable, deep part of the warrior that I am, which I cannot take back.
Because I’ve always made myownfate, dammit—and I’ll be fucked if I back off from that now. Baldur sees it in me, in my eyes, as I hesitate. I watch his tremendous hope die as he pulls back from me.
His hands dropping away from my face, lifeless, as shock fills him.
“You don’t want me,” he says, tunelessly, as he stares at me.
“I never said that,” I argue, though I hold my own in the water, and do not reach for him.
“You didn’t have to say it.” His smile is beyond dreadful now, the saddest, most heartbroken thing I have ever seen, as he gazes up at the sky. He watches the setting sun for a long moment, as I see his long lashes close. He heaves a huge, ragged breath.
And I see two tears track down his perfect face.
I feel his heartbreak with those tears. It’s the most awful thing, because I know I caused it. I can’t move in my own stubborn battle against fate and destiny, though I’m only sitting here in the hot springs with a potential Bloodmate.
Even as I curse myself a thousand times and a thousand times more for my pig-headed stupidity and having just ruined all this for us, Baldur heaves a sigh. The saddest smile lifts his lips as he opens his eyes.
And he looks at me, kind and bereft, beautiful and broken, all at once.
“Come. We should go back to the house. Night is cold here when the sun sets, and we still need to figure out what to do with that curse the Knight’s False Council have put on you.”
“You still want to help me?” I blink then, feeling wretched, yet stillunable to say that I’ll take him. Within me, both my dragons gnash their teeth and wail, though my Blood Magic drakaina does it far louder. As she roils inside me, I know I’ve just ruined it with this potential drake, which could have been so good for her.
A chance I’ll never get back, now that he knows I’m just that stubborn against fate.
“Of course I still want to help you,” Baldur says as he gives me a complicated look, then steps over the rim of the hot pool and brisks off with his hands, beginning to dress. I don’t miss the way he’s not making eye contact with me anymore, however, as I follow him out of the pool and similarly brisk off, though I have nothing to get dressed in.
In fact, he’s avoiding looking at me altogether now, as he laces up his soft leather and fur-lined boots, then gestures us back down the stone path. As he takes the lead, I curse myself for the worst kind of fool, as I try to find words to make this better and fail.
I know I should take him as a mate, that I’msupposedto take him as a mate to give us any chance at all against the Black Dragon, but some part of me can’t.
It’s that part of me I hate now, as I follow him back down to the house in the settling darkness, a shadow devouring us from the western cliffs.
Everything inside me knows I’m beyond idiotic to reject him; yet, the deepest part of me just can’t accept any predetermined fate. If I do, then I know my life is just a matter of odds. And the odds of us surviving anything having to do with the Black Dragon are beyond frightening; they’re the blackest kind of cancer.
Which makes even the hardiest warrior’s blood run cold.
