Then kisses me one last time and pushes away—lifting the sexiest eyebrow ever.
“I just found new bedding for us, Rikyava—it’s over there, in the vaults.” Bjorn chuckles as he holds me away from him now, though I notice how he’s not relinquished his grip on my hips. “If we fuck again, our auric fire is just going to blast right through yet another set of sheets and burn our mattress, though it didn’t seem to touch our leathers. We need to get some control over this new power, lest we just burn up everything around us every time we fuck.”
“Or just spend all our time having sex on the floor. Because last night… was fucking glorious,” I tease him now. Though Bjorn’s made a good point, that we need to investigate this auric fire that’s been surging between us all, every time one of us experiences intense emotions.
And now, if we fuck.
“You can bet I’m going to want to fuck like that all day and all night… so getting at least some control over this flame phenomenon is probably a good idea.” Bjorn chuckles as he gives me his most incredible Bjorn-smile now, sexy as shit. “I still feel spent from everything we’ve been through, like I don’t have enough energy to shift into my dragon. It’s a lot closer now, however, since last night. This new connection between us… despite something inside me telling me to be cautious and investigate this properly… I just want to fuck you all over again, Rikyava. And feel that incredible fire roar between us—always.”
“Do you think it’s a side effect of our Bloodbond? Or something new?” I ask as I move in and kiss Bjorn now, loving how much more eloquent he’s become about his emotions since we bonded. I indulge and run my fingers through his long golden hair as we kiss, which is unbound right now and a-freaking-mazing.
“I think it’s a side effect of you being fucking sexy, that’s what it is,” Bjorn growls into my lips now, as he bites me and palms my ass, possessive but still thoughtful. “Really, though, we should probably get a better handle on this magic. Or else we’ll just be fucking when we’re supposed to be fighting our enemies. Letting our guard down when we should be staying sharp.”
As Bjorn revisits the topic of everything we’re still up against, I pause. I know he’s right, but I just can’t bring myself to abandon this cozy little staycation from reality just yet.
Even though I can feel the noose tightening on all our necks.
“Fine. Fuck,” I sigh now as I finally get it together, knowing we need to address what comes next. “Just for the record, though, I don’t want to leave you, ever. Last night was amazeballs… and I want it known that what I really want to do is stay here like this. Forever.”
“It is known,” Bjorn says as he gazes deep into my eyes, kissing me again. “I feel it.”
As he pulls back, Bjorn smiles at me now, truly smiles—and it’s so glorious it catches my breath. Because when Bjorn actually smiles, it’s likethe sun coming out in spring and warming your entire body after a cold, long, dark winter.
It’s incredible, as his gold eyes light with the fullest power of his dragon in them now. I stand, shocked, as a deep pleasure roils all through me from my drakaina celebrating.
Before he leans in and kisses me hard—and I forget everything except him.
“Hey! Enemies? The Black Dragon? Danger? Do either of you remember anything about all that? Or are you just going to stay here and fuck like rabbits and forget why we’re here, completely?”
As Ström’s teasing, flirty tenor voice enters the room, I turn, having not felt him coming, I was so wrapped up in Bjorn. It doesn’t bother me right now, though, as Bjorn and I turn, facing him. Bjorn and I part, though my First Drake still keeps a hand around my naked waist as he laughs.
The best sound in the world, as everything inside me celebrates.
“You two are in a soaring good mood this morning. I can’t imagine why.” Ström’s green eyes twinkle as he arrives, still dressed in his russet leathers from yesterday. His gaze slides up my naked body mercilessly now, and I know from his lurid teasing that he felt everything Bjorn and I did last night, though it doesn’t bother him one bit. “It’s good to see. I hate to interrupt, but I believe I have some interesting news for you both. I finally found out who occupied this vast underground citadel last and set up all the food stores and such we’ve been enjoying since we arrived. It’s going to knock your socks off.”
“You’ve discovered something in the library’s annals?” I ask now, astounded that Ström has perhaps found something else useful for us in all his sleuthing while Bjorn and I fucked.
“Some journals, actually, in one of the more recent sections of the library, which hadn’t rotted away to mold and dust.” Ström nods as he watches me, then Bjorn. “You’ll never guess who wrote them.”
“Just spit it out,” Bjorn rumbles, though even his short words come with an amused twist of a smile this morning for the jubilant Ström.
“Aesa,” Ström says as he looks at me now. Ignoring my nakedness, he nods at the Truthstone on my chest. “Aesa was the last dragon to fortify these ruins, and actively use them, five thousand years ago during the Blood and Bone War—Aesa and the True Black Dragon Knights. This was their last holdout against the Black Dragon, apparently. A place of such utter secrecy and powerful magic that the Black Dragon couldn’t find them here for quite some time. It never actually breached the underground, apparently; only finally discovered the fortress-city above. Which caused the last battle against the creature, when Aesa finally took the very last of the True Knights and fought it in their last encounter, at that lake up in Magnussen lands.”
“Which means we’re in my people’s lands right now, somewhere.” Bjorn lifts his eyebrows as shock takes his features before he scowls. “I made a portal that took us right back home, then—my home. Though I’ve never been to this place before, or even knew it existed.”
“From the maps I’ve found in the library, I’ve discovered we’re about sixty leagues west of the lake we were at for our Trial of Truth. Very high in the mountains,” Ström says now as he nods. “It’s some kind of ancient fortress-citadel that was built long before the war, maybe even twenty thousand years ago by our ancient Ancestors. Apparently, it was already in a state of near-ruin when Aesa and her group found it, and refortified just the underground with their magic.”
“That’s why we couldn’t get in until my ring from Maryse and Aesa’s Truthstone flared together.” My fingers stray to Aesa’s silver stone, quiet now on my chest. “Aesa was a top general in the war against the Black Dragon, and the leader of the True Black Dragon Knights. It would stand to reason her Truthstone would have a resonance with the one place that was her last hideout for the Knights when the Black Dragon was rampaging.”
“But your ring?” Bjorn juts his chin at it as he frowns more. “Isn’t thatactually something created by your Ancestor Hedda who made the Black Dragon, rather than her sister Aesa, who opposed it?”
I glance down and see the silver ring that is always on my finger, day or night. As I look at it now, a hum runs through Aesa’s Truthstone on my chest, as if the two are related.
“Maybe they’re connected because Hedda and Aesa were sisters and shared the same bloodline?” I say now, thinking about it.
Even as I say it, however, I know that isn’t right. Aesa’s Truthstone doesn’t hum in affirmation on my chest. Deep within, I know something else is going on between the ring and the stone, and why both resonate with this ancient city.
As I ponder it, wondering what else might be sequestered in this place, which might be useful for us in our battle against the Black Dragon, I suddenly feel Baldur wake.
