His last statement creates a renewed awkwardness between us. Tension fills the space as he pins me with an almost accusatory gaze now—and damitall, I have to drop my eyes.
As a flaming embarrassment fills my cheeks.
“Do not hide from me.” I startle as I feel Baldur’s fingertips touch my chin and cheek. It makes me look up, to find he’s closed the distance between us.
Very near now, as I stare up into his incredible, dark blue eyes.
“You owe me no apology, Hög Skjaldmær.” His voice is soft as a sad smile takes his lips, hauntingly beautiful, enigmatic, and wry. “You owe me nothing, not even embarrassment. It was my choice to follow my life-path as I have done, waiting for you. I have had centuries to come to terms with my fate. You’ve only had an hour to come to terms with yours. Learning that you have so little hope facing off with the Black Dragon… it would make any true warrior roar in the face of fate. You have to—and I understand. I know what that feels like, and why you cannot take me as a mate now.”
“I can’t accept that we have so little hope.” I gaze up at him, feeling beyond terrible. “I can’t accept that all my actions, my entire life, everything I do to face the Black Dragon… that it’s just all beyond my control somehow, and I have no free will or choice to affect the outcome.”
“There is always free will and choice,” Baldur says. “Though my sistersaw countless futures, what she always knew is that those futuresdependon our choices. Fate isn’t predestined; it can change. What I have practiced through the eons ishowto change a person’s fate through our most ancient Blood Dragon magic. I aim to increase your odds of beating the Black Dragon, with or without me, when you come to it. If you would let me, now.”
“What are you going to do?” I ask then, because I know he’s brought me into this private space for a reason, his innermost sanctuary of artistic expression, and where he uses sigils to rework fate.
“I’m going to change what’s been done to you,” Baldur says, as his dark blue eyes get that strange, faraway look. As his gaze roves not just my face and body now, but also my aura, I can feel him looking into the Void, to see what the dark curse the Black Dragon Knights Excommunicated me with has done to my Bloodwalker dragon.
“I can feel the holes inside you, Rikyava. I can see them with my waking eyes,” Baldur says now as he gradually returns, pinning me with his incredible gaze again. “I’m unsure if I can fix them, per se, without becoming your drake… but what I can do is fill them with my power to help you stabilize in your quest. Whether or not you decide to bond me, I will gift you with my energy, to take over where Aesa’s wanes… a new creation, to make you something new, and regain what you have lost. If you accept, it will give you far more than you could have ever dreamed. Far more to fight the black Dragon of All Souls with when it comes for you, at last.”
“Whether I bond you or not, you can do this?” I have a moment of hope now, though some deep part of me is crushed that he has an alternative to being mine.
“Yes.” He nods, though as his gaze intensifies, he lifts his hand back up to my face. Touching me with his fingertips, he skates them over my jaw, then trails them down my neck. As he brushes them like the softest paintbrush over my collarbones, it makes my breath catch.
Everything inside me coiling up into a delicious, desirous clench.
“Bonding me is up to you,” he says now, as his eyes follow his touch. I feel the deepest sensation, like the brushes of his fingertips curl and flow all through me now, whispering over things unseen. It makes my bright Blood Magic drakaina race through my veins as I heave hard breaths and my heart thunders now, deeply aroused at the impossibly sensual feeling.
In a way none of my other drakes have ever done for me.
“But I cannot help it if I won’t do everything I can to seduce you, right here—right now,” Baldur murmurs as his gaze pins mine again—scalding and full of power. The opaline ring around his deep blue irises has gone a searing diamond-white, on fire with passion, the eyes of his drake.
As he watches me now like I’m something he’d very much like to eat, to devour and win as his prize, a shiver rushes through me. My inner drakaina trumpets in triumph, as she wings all through my veins towards the skies.
Even my inner black dragon likes that look very much. I’m about to say something when Baldur leans in, brushing the softest kiss over my lips. It’s almost nothing, just a wisp of touch.
But it makes everything inside me roar now—to take him and never look back.
“My dragon wants you, Rikyava—and I can feel how yours wants me,” Baldur murmurs at my ear as his nose touches my cheek. Tracing little circles with his nose, he brushes his lips over my jaw, then bites just a bit.
And it makes everything inside me thunder.
“Resist if you must,” he says, sexual and beautifully clever.
It’s then that I realize the next however long is not just going to be some kind of healing session for me, to undo whatever the Black Dragon Knights did to me, but also a sensual torment. Because Baldur Sigurðsson is going to do his best to make me take him as my Fourth Bloodmate.
And it’s up to me whether I resist.
“I can’t give in to fate.” I’m stubborn now, though even I know how breathy my voice sounds, as everything inside me grips, shivers, and shakes.
“Then succumb to destiny instead,” Baldur whispers in my ear.
He’s pulling away, watching me with a hot look from his scalding blue gaze.
As he gestures to the table.
“Climb up. And let’s begin.”
17
