Awakening the dragon
By day, Leo Ström works as an assistant in a tattoo parlor. By night... Well, he isnât quite sure what happens at night. He just knows that itâs best if he restrains himself.
Ink is more than just superficial decoration to Rhea Carlisle. Her ability to read her clientsâ souls in their tattoos gives her work its special magicâand it allows her to see that thereâs more to Leo than his brilliant blue eyes.
The passion that kindles between them might be Leoâs salvation. Or it might be the end of the world...
Rhea set down her mug. âSo roll up your sleeve.â
âActually, I was thinking of the Midgard Serpent.â
Rhea laughed nervously. âRight. Because that wasnât at all awkward the last time.â
âI wasnât present the last time,â he reminded her.
âAt least not mentally. And you said you could focus on an event from the past.â
She looked suspicious. âWhy does it have to be the serpent?â
âBecause the question I want answeredâDo I tell you beforehand?â
âItâs not a parlor trick, so, yeah, that information would be useful.â
âRight. Sorry. I want to find out exactly when and where I got the tattoo.â
âAnd you donât want to know where you got the others?â
Leo gave her an apologetic smile. âNot from you.â
Prologue
Blood ran into his eyes as he struggled to his feet. The groans of the maimed and the dying around him were eclipsed by the battle cries of his comrades who remained, and by the crack of iron against leather and woodâand against flesh and bone. They never should have followed their enemy into the woods. Theyâd been set upon by forces they couldnât count, swarming out from behind every tree and every rock like a band of brigands, surrounding them with no room to maneuver, no way to stand in shield formation. It quickly became every man for himself.
Through the blood and mud caking his vision, he caught sight of the sudden arc of a battle-axe swinging down on him from his left. Heâd lost his shield, and he turned and parried with his sword, but heâd taken a fierce blow to his sword arm from the last man heâd killed, and he stumbled back under the force, pain radiating like fire through his arm to the shoulder. The next swing from his opponentâs axe he couldnât evade, and the blade caught him under the ribs, hooking in the links of his hauberk. He prayed to the Allfather as he went down that he might take one more enemy with him as he died. Let him die an honorable death. The axe descended, and he summoned all his strength, thrusting his sword to meet the bastardâs gut as his enemy fell on him.
The blade should have split his skull. He thought heâd felt the blow. But he was blind as a newborn kitten in the muck and mud. And then he realized he must have gone deaf as well. Silence fell over him like an oncoming bank of fog, muting the clangs and cries, engulfing him in an utter lack of sensation. Perhaps heâd died. But this was no Valhalla. This was...nothing. Had Odin not chosen him after all? Could this be Fólkvangr, the field of the slain in Freyjaâs domain? Or was he in cold and empty Helheim? Surely heâd not been consigned to the Shore of Corpses. He was no oath-breaker; and murderâit didnât count in war.
A hand, cool and feminine, touched his forehead. Perhaps this was only the in-between place where warriors waited for the Valkyries to come for them. He tried to clasp the hand but found he couldnât make his limbs work. A cool kiss now brushed his forehead.
âBeautiful one.â The whisper at his ear was a soothing breeze, quieting the fire in his veins with the beauty of its cadence. âYou shall not die.â
Was he to go back out to the battle? He must be in the tent being tended by his fatherâs slave girl. Heâd lost consciousness.
âDid I kill him?â His voice came out in not much more of a whisper than his benefactorâs, though much rougher. His throat still felt the fire that had eased from the rest of him. A fever, no doubt, had taken him. Heâd lain delirious and was only now coming around. Yes, this made sense. âDid I send my foe to Hel?â
âYou were victorious. And I have claimed you.â