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With a whoosh of my wings, I launch skyward and head north. The sky is streaked lavender and orange as the sun sets. It takes only thirty minutes to cross a hundred miles and reach the town near the Valkyrie fort. I head for the vacation house of my friend and drop down in the yard outside. After Astrid climbs off me, I shift back into human form.
“That was… incredible,” Astrid says breathily.
“And you survived,” I say with a chuckle.
“Whose house is this?”
She looks up at it, and I can tell she’s impressed. It’s a nice house, modern with expanses of glass amidst the cherry-toned wood.
“A friend of mine, Josh. Fellow dragon shifter. He has several and is rarely at this one. I have an open invitation to use it whenever I want, and we need a place to stay tonight.” I point to the sky, which is almost entirely black at this point.
Astrid frowns. “We aren’t going to head to the fort now?”
“I don’t think it’s the safest to be tromping up a mountain in the ice and snow in pitch black dark. Plus, the snow is starting to fall again. Another storm is coming.”
“I suppose you’re right. I just…”
“You miss Lilli.” I nod. “Let’s get settled in and you can call her.”
I shoot my friend a text that I’m crashing at his house, then I punch in the code on the front door keypad. Within a few minutes, we’re inside and I get a fire going while Astrid talks to Lilli and Luciana. There’s only a starter log in the fireplace, though, so I head out back to the shed where there’s usually more. It’s right off the back of the house, a simple wooden structure that juts off from the main building. Josh likes to do wood carving, so it serves as his shop, too. Tools of the trade are strewn about on tables and shelves that line the perimeter of the shed.
Apparently, though, Josh hasn’t been here for quite some time. The store of logs is all out, though there’s a large log that’s sitting on the floor of the shed with an axe next to it, as if someone had intended to cut it up but never got around to it. With a shrug, I pick up the axe and start hacking away at the wood. I’ve got a lot of pent-up tension from the encounter with the coven, so it feels good to have an outlet. Within a couple minutes I’m warmed up, and I strip off my shirt, tossing it on the nearby table.
Strangely, the sound of the wood splitting has a Zen quality. The feel of the axe in my hands, the warmth in my muscles. It had made my blood boil seeing how Astrid’s mother treated her and how Althea let her cheat, almost costing us the challenge. But more than that, what’s got me buzzing with energy is the joining spell that Astrid cast. I’d never felt anything like that in my life. When our magic merged fully, it’d been incredible. A rush like no other. And it had felt… intimate. As if I knew Astrid in the most raw and naked of ways.
Just thinking about it now makes my dick harden in my pants and my dragon crawl to the surface. Knowing we’re bound together, that I could claim her and she could claim me, that our magic is one…it’s driving me wild. But Astrid had seemed scared. Of me? Of my dragon? Either way, we are one and the same. Something about me made her shrink back, and it’s killing me.
I feel a pulse of magic behind me and I turn, axe still in hand. Astrid stands in the doorway of the shed, as if she’d sensed me thinking about her. Obsessing about her. It’s dim out here, but the light from the house shines through the slats of the wood, illuminating her. As if it’s drawn to her, same as I am.
“Need any help?” she asks. There’s something in her expression I can’t quite read.
I shake my head. “No, but thanks.” I lift the axe again and bring it down, splitting off another log for the fire. “How’s Lilli?”
“Fine,” she says. “She’s apparently quite taken in by some sword collection you have in your house.”
I nod and swing the axe again. “Just a few relics from over the years.”
Astrid doesn’t say anything else while I finish chopping logs, she just watches me work. When I’m done, I hang up the axe properly, then bend down to carry in the freshly cut wood.
“I can at least help with that,” Astrid says, striding toward me.
She bends down to scoop up the logs, but I reach out before she can, placing a hand on her shoulder. Her eyes flick to mine. The words come out before I can stop them.
I have to know.
“Are you scared of me? Of my dragon?”
Astrid freezes. “I told you, it’s just a thing with heights. I don’t like flying on airplanes, either…”
“No.” I shake my head. “I mean back in the cavern. When you did the joining spell. It worked. I could feel it. But then, you… you pulled back.”
She takes a step away from me. “I’m not scared of you, Erik,” she says softly.
“Then what?”
“I—I’ve just never joined with someone who wasn’t a witch before. It was…” She nervously tucks a piece of hair behind her ear. “I felt very… exposed.”
I stare at her, trying to form words for what’s going through my head. But then she starts talking again.
