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He didn’t pull away until my throat had gone hoarse from screaming and I was incapable of forming the words I needed to beg for mercy.
My body was still quaking when he reached over my head to release my wrists. Soft whimpers escaped me as he pulled the covers around me and tucked me in, kissing my forehead as my eyes fluttered closed.
In my exhaustion, I fell asleep, and I didn’t wake up until morning.
When I opened my eyes, he was gone.
CHAPTER9
Nykor
I’d lost control.
I shouldn’t have walked back in that room, but I had been unable to resist. I may be Dragonborne, but at my heart, I was still a man, and she was still the woman meant to be my mate.
Myhumanmate.
A woman that would live and die long before I approached the beginning of old age.
A woman I would have to bury one day, just like I had to do with Yasmina.
A visceral jolt of sorrow caused my entire body to stiffen. Her hazel green eyes flashed before mine, and I turned my head, swallowing my pain and trying to remain strong for the sake of the human girl right in front of me. I needed to get her to safety, and then I could run far and focus on destroying every monster that came through the rift.
If I was too busy fighting, I could ignore the pulsing ache in my frigid heart.
I closed my eyes for a moment, but with her so near, I couldn’t resist opening them once again to watch her as she slept. Right now, she looked so peaceful, like she didn’t have a single worry in the world, and it made it even harder to turn away.
I wanted to stay and protect her myself, but I couldn’t risk that.
I could feel her body calling to me. Everything about her was a temptation, from her scent to her gorgeous blue sapphire gaze, to the fiery way she stood up to me like no one ever had before. It was addictive, and it made something inside me come alive.
I needed to put an end to this before it went too far. It didn’t matter that she was meant for me.
I cursed the failure of my magic for the thousandth time. Every night when she’d been sleeping, I’d tried calling on my power to open a portal and send her back home to Earth. Each time, it failed me.
I didn’t know what was blocking it, but what I did know was that whatever wizard or sorceress was conjuring such a spell was powerful. It took a great deal of mystical energy to stop a Dragonborne from using his magic.
Tomorrow morning, I would resume the journey back to the capital city of Glacierhold. I would take her and leave her in the care of crown steward Valtimir. He would see to it that she was kept safe with people of her kind, and I would remain the protector of the north.
Even now, I could hardly make myself move out of the doorframe and put distance between us. She was resting, thoroughly exhausted from the overwhelming pleasure I’d forced from her body. I cocked my head, watching as her eyelashes fluttered against her rosy cheeks.
Destiny was a hard thing to turn your back on.
I wanted to climb in bed with her, but I wasn’t sure I could resist sliding my hard cock inside her. I gritted my teeth, trying to get ahold of myself. I was stronger than this. I was more than my feral urges. I was once considered a king, but I’d turned my back on that duty long ago so that I could focus on the scourge in the north.
Just like you need to turn away from her.
I had felt the magic of destiny come between us, trying to bridge the gap between her heart and mine, and I refused to heed its call. I wasn’t willing to face that ever again.
Finally, I gritted my teeth and forced myself to take a step away from her, then two and then three, until I was halfway down the hall. I swept out of the Dragonborne Keep, desperate now to put as much distance between us as possible.
I spent the rest of the night patrolling the mountains. I swept over the mountain passes and the old, abandoned villages and towns, reminiscing about how they’d been swarming with creatures of all kinds. This place had once been a place of life, of laughter, and of love, but now it was a frozen tundra devoid of life.
The rift had been torn for a long time. Living within reach of it had been dangerous, increasingly so until I’d decreed that the people of my realm were to move south, that the old capital of Icehelm was no more, and the southern city of Glacierhold would be the new capital city of Icegard. That had been fifty years ago. Since then, the enemy had continued to push further south, taking over small border towns without warning, and killing anyone that dared live too far north in cold blood. Since stepping away from my duties as king, I had been able to focus solely on the defense of my realm, but it was only in the past year or so that things had started taking a turn for the worse.
I had passed the message onto Steward Valtimir to begin preparing the army. My fear was that the realm was soon going to break into open war, and I wanted them to be ready. I hoped it wouldn’t come to that, but as I flew over the mountains, I knew that was no longer a realistic hope.
There were so many more beasts down below. Armies of orcs, trolls, and ice giants were gathering in much higher numbers, their ice glowing purple with the devious magic of Helheim. When I flew closer to the surface, I recognized an alarming number of ice wraiths, more than I’d ever sensed before.
