Viking Claim (The MacLomain Series: Viking Ancestors Book 2) (8 page)

“Raknar?”

He closed his eyes and shook his head.
Loki’s balls
. “You’re not safe here, Veronica. Go back.”

Yet he knew he wouldn’t let her go unescorted. He didn’t trust Hamdir and whatever small following he might have.

“Come back with me then,” she said softly.

And he should. Just like that. Calmly escort her back. But he was still too volatile. Lost. So he held out his hand and curled his fingers without looking at her. “Come here.”

When she made no movement, he whispered, “Please.”

That seemed to be the key because she made her way over. The moment she was within arm’s length, he grabbed her wrist and pulled her the rest of the way until she stood in front of him. He clasped her slender thighs and slowly ran his hands up until he grasped her hips and met her eyes, words hoarse, pleading, “You need to stay away from me.”

“I know,” she whispered but didn’t move away.

They stayed that way for several long moments. Him staring up, challenging. Her staring down, not fleeing. Unable to stop himself, he fell forward onto his knees. The shore declined just enough that he could wrap his arms around her lower back and rest his cheek against her stomach. He closed his eyes. “I don’t think you know a thing at all. Not about me. Not about this.”

Her hand rested tentatively against his head, her words whisper soft. “And I don’t think I want to…but here I am.”

Raknar turned his nose to her stomach, her womb, and inhaled deeply. She smelled of wet, hot desire, of something he hadn’t paid attention to in a very long time with a woman. Yes, he lay with women when necessary. Enough so that his seed didn’t dry up. But he’d not truly basked in the scent of a woman since his wife, now enemy, Yrsa…and her sister, Aesa.

But even they had not smelled like this.

Sweet. Innocent but not virginal. Defiant. Confused. Lost. Ready.

Veronica smelled of needs he didn’t know he had. Foreign yet familiar. Something deep down inside started to claw its way up. Part man, part dragon, a strangled sound broke from his chest as he pushed up her tunic and pressed his lips against the silky soft yet firm plane of her abdomen.

“Raknar,” she groaned, the sound strangled as she grabbed his head and whimpered.

He flicked his tongue in and around the tiny alcove in her stomach that attached to her womb then twirled down until he skimmed it along the line of her trousers. With a quick flick of his fingers, he loosened the strings and yanked down the material enough that he could skim the knob at the top of her pleasure.

The moment she moaned, he gripped her hips and pulled the pure sweetness into his mouth, licking fast between nips. Delicious. Well worth devouring. When she cried out, he laved his tongue one more time before he grabbed the back of her thighs and pulled her down hard.

Shocked, aroused, straddling him, she was like liquid in his arms when she slid down against him. He wrapped an arm around her back and cupped her head, his eyes searching hers through the darkness.

Sinking into her now might mean a direct shot to Valhalla with no hope for return. Death by erotic pleasure. He wanted her
that
badly. But he wouldn’t take her. Not now. Not this way. But he couldn’t stop his tongue or his need to taste her so he grabbed her hair and tilted back her head. A small gasp broke from her lips as he nibbled then trailed his tongue up her slender neck.

Veronica stilled when he grasped her tightly, clamped his teeth down on the side of her neck and thrust up his hips. When she again whimpered, blood pooled thickly in his groin. The dragon within was pleased with her submission. The man within was working his way toward something unforgettable…something he knew would be the end of him.

Her mouth.

Lips, tongue, teeth, he trailed over her jaw, sampling every inch until he hovered over her perfect lips and breathed in her breath…desperate. Totally his. Vulnerable. Eager. Waiting. Yet he couldn’t close the distance. Raknar tasted her through the scant space between their lips, the heat throbbing through her, through him. He’d never wanted to taste another so much, never wanted to sink into and make another
his
so much.

Yet he froze.

Could not.

Sensing his hesitation, perhaps even embarrassed by it, Veronica snapped out of the spell she’d been under and blinked. She eyed his lips, still a little dazed, before she abruptly pulled away then stood.

“Thank God one of us has our wits about us,” she muttered as she cinched her trousers and adjusted her tunic.

Wits? About the last thing he felt was smart. No, he was about as foolish as they came.

“
Hel
,” he said under his breath.

“Sure, if that’s what you want to call this. Feels about right.” Clothes once more in place, Veronica stared down at him. “I followed you to make sure you got back safely so c’mon then.”

Raknar came to his feet. “Nothing will hurt me out here. But you?” He shook his head. “You need to be seen safely back.”

“Then back we go,” she murmured and walked.

Let her go. This is best.

But he couldn’t. Not yet. He followed, grabbed her hand and pulled her against him. Not to kiss or touch. Just to hold.

“What are you
doing
,” she rasped against his chest and though her hands wedged between them to push him away, she didn’t. He felt her need to break free from him as much as he needed to get away from her but…just a few more moments. So he folded his arms around her, rested his chin on the top of her head and breathed her in. Held on. To her. Them. This.

She pulled away too soon, shaking her head. “I can’t. We can’t.” She started walking. “I’m sorry.”

Raknar ran a hand through his hair in frustration and followed, saying nothing. The best thing he could do right now was let her go. Let Kol have her. Anyone but him. Women he loved didn’t come to a good end. Not that he thought he could love her.

He came to a halt, frowning as he watched Veronica walk away.

No.

Not love.

But Raknar knew it was.
Hel
, he had known before he stepped out of the English forest exactly what this was between them. Disgruntled,  he strode after her. “Veronica, wait.”

“Veronica?”

Raknar scowled as Kol trotted out of the night and stopped in front of her, eyes concerned. “You slipped away without me seeing.” He glanced at Raknar. “But I see you’re safe enough.”

“I am, thanks.” She nodded toward the celebration. “I’m heading back now. Care to join me?”

“Of course.” Kol wrapped her elbow with his and started walking. “Nice night for a stroll.”

Raknar was no fool. The minute his brother sensed he and Veronica were getting intimate, he wasted no time heading this way. And while moments before he might have been content to let his brother have her, now he wasn’t quite sure. So he strode along her other side, closer than he probably should.

Though Veronica didn’t look his way, he could still feel how aware of him she was. Kol was of dragon blood so he could sense precisely where her desire lay…and it wasn’t with him. Regardless, his brother was not one to give up easily so he steered her closer to the shore and away from Raknar.

Instantly territorial, Raknar’s nostrils flared and he followed.

They narrowed eyes at one another over her head.

“If I'm not mistaken, she turned you away, brother,” Kol said, words low, dangerous.

“And if I'm not mistaken, she has never desired you,” Raknar shot back.

Veronica suddenly stopped short and stepped back, her expression borderline disgusted. Hands on her hips, she shook her head and said the last thing he expected.

“You can both stop whatever this is. I’m not staying and if I were.” She shrugged, totally unapologetic. “I certainly wouldn’t want to be with either of you. Nope, I think I’d much rather be with Kjar.”

“So you said you would prefer to be with me and walked away from them both?”

“I did,” Veronica declared to Kjar and Megan as she sipped the God-awful ale. All right, so it wasn’t that bad. But who knew she liked warm beer? Ugh. Uncouth. Her little secret.

Kjar again flung back his head and laughed, merry eyes on her as he chomped on what appeared to be a chicken drumstick. “Are you sure then? After all, I'm a demi-god.”

“Oh, stop throwing that one around,” Megan said, chuckling as she eyed the brothers across the fire.

It was easy to forget that Kjar’s grandfather was Heimdall, Guardian of Bifröst, the Rainbow Bridge that connected Asgard (realm of the gods) to Middle Earth. Or so he said. Seeing how she apparently traveled back in time, she was inclined to believe anything right now. Or maybe that was just the ale at work.

Though Kjar chuckled, he soon grew serious as he followed Veronica’s gaze to the king’s brothers. “One loves you. One is in love with you. What think you of that, woman?”

“I think it’s a shame,” she murmured, willing away the heat that burned her cheeks as she eyed Raknar. He’d removed his tunic a while back and his bronzed, beautiful torso made her ache to touch him. She’d never wanted to run her fingers over the hard contours of a man’s body so much. In truth, unlike her sister Amber and now Megan, she wasn’t an overly sexual person.

“You were just told a man is in love with you and you think it’s a shame?” Megan said.

“What?” Veronica said absently.

When Megan snapped her fingers in front of her face, Veronica blinked, confused. Frowning, she looked at her sister and repeated, “
What?
”

“A demi-god just told you that one of the brothers is in love with you,” Megan said softly. “Aren’t you curious which one?”

No. Yes. She shook her head but said nothing as she sipped.

“She's afraid to hear the answer,” Kjar provided.

“I am not.” But she was. “Because it doesn’t matter. Once I go home, I won’t be coming back.”

Her thoughts kept drifting to how she had felt in Raknar’s arms. The astounding way he made her feel. It was unnatural yet somehow more natural than anything she’d ever felt. Definitely knee-weakening and erotic but something far more profound. Soul deep.
Hers
.

While she might like it, she didn’t like it at all.

“Hey, though you might have the cylinder nothing says the tattoo will appear,” Megan said.

A prompt. A dare. Because if the tattoo appeared on her skin as it had on her sister’s shoulder when she traveled back in time, Veronica was most certainly locked into all this. She took another deep gulp from her horn. She didn’t do tattoos. Sure, they might look hot as hell on Raknar but she’d never been one to mar her body with ink.

Yet in Megan’s case, she’d had no choice.

If a tattoo appeared on Veronica, one of two that were interlocked on Raknar or Kol, she’d know exactly who she was here for. And, unless she utilized what was in the cylinder, what the gods had given her to exercise free will; she could ignore what the seers intended.

Kjar swigged from his horn then shrugged. “True enough. The tattoo might not appear.” His wise eyes turned her way. “Imagine returning to the future without a tattoo. That’d be telling.”

Veronica narrowed her eyes but quickly smoothed her expression. “We have a few cousins floating around. Maybe one of them is meant for the king’s brothers.”

“We have one cousin who has kept in touch and if I never see her again, it’ll be too soon,” Megan said.

Veronica understood her sister’s response but was feeling pretty good from the ale so couldn’t help but say, “The only reason you don’t like Dayna is because she said pull the plug on Sean when no one else would.”

Megan’s expression darkened. “Dayna knew jack shit about surviving. Just because a guy’s on life support doesn’t mean you pull the plug.”

“Dayna?” Kjar asked.

But both sisters ignored him.

“You barely even knew Sean then. She did,” Veronica argued. “And she knew he didn’t want to live his life as a vegetable. That’s why she voted to let him go.”

“I knew him enough. We’d chatted at the bar and struck up a friendship.” Megan ground her jaw. “He was so full of life. Not the kind of guy that wanted out.”

“Dayna knew him far longer,” Veronica reminded then sighed. Though the ale was certainly catching up with her, she realized she had gone too far. “I’m sorry, Sis. It all worked out in the end. Sean’s good…alive.”

Yet they both knew he wasn’t the guy he’d been prior to nearly drowning. Veronica had met him a month before things almost went terribly wrong and he had been another person entirely. Fun. Flirtatious. Full of life. The Sean that came back after being clinically dead for nearly half an hour was different. Lost. More subdued. Not himself. Even his eye color seemed different. Less brown. More green. Veronica blinked a few times as though on the edge of understanding something but the sensation fled as soon as it came.

All in all, one thing was for sure, Megan would never have made a permanent home in Winter Harbor, Maine if Sean hadn’t returned from the dead. And Veronica still didn’t know why. Either way, her sister found happiness and Amber? Well, the rest was history after she met Sean.

“I miss him so much,” Megan murmured.

Veronica knew her sister was feeling horrible about leaving her best friend behind. But there could be no better reason than for true love. And Sean would agree...had agreed.

“God, Sis, I’m sorry.” Veronica wrapped her arm around Megan’s shoulders. “I didn’t mean to be a bitch."

“It’s okay,” Megan whispered as she stared at Naðr. “I had no choice.” She shook her head. “I just wish Sean…and Amber weren’t so far away. That what I found here didn’t separate us.”

“Maybe it won’t,” Veronica said because she couldn’t stand the pain in Megan’s eyes. “Maybe it’ll somehow bring us all closer together.”

“Here’s to that.” Kjar raised his horn. “Here’s to friends and family finding each other against the odds.”

Veronica raised her horn, hoping to encourage Megan. “I’m all for that.”

Megan clapped her horn against theirs, but Veronica suspected she did it because she was quickly learning how to act more like a Viking queen…how to show peace and unity in front of others.

As if he sensed her distress, the king held out his hand from across the fire and Megan stood. “Talk later.”

Then she was gone.

Veronica sighed and stared at the ground. “I shouldn’t have said anything about Sean.”

“Unresolved issues from our past never truly go away,” Kjar said. “They will always find their way to the surface.”

“There’s nothing unresolved about what happened to Sean.” Veronica shook her head. “All ended well enough.”

“Then why do you and your sister still speak of it?”

Guilt. Anger. Frustration.

The
past
.

Done.

But she’d give Kjar something, demi-god that he apparently was. “Dayna lived her whole life in Winter Harbor. She went to school with Sean. In fact, she owned Megan’s house before she did. Dayna made great money managing various fishing companies in the area.” Veronica cast him a wry look. “And like Megan, she loves boat building.”

“Does she,” Kjar murmured.

“Yeah.” Veronica shook her head and drank. “It should come as no surprise that she and Megan were close. Though only a few years older, Dayna was the mother figure that our actual mother sort of drifted away from being.”

Before he could speak, Veronica held up her hand and shook her head. “Don’t get me wrong, Mom tried but never hard enough. She was always part of our lives in increments after she left Dad. Between jobs and men. But she tried. She really did. Or at least I thought so. Megan didn’t entirely agree.”

Her eyes met Kjar’s. “I sometimes wish she did but I suppose in the end I’m glad it went like it did. It made Megan stronger. It made all of us stronger for that matter.”

“I understand,” he said softly.

“So do I.”

Her eyes shot up when Raknar appeared out of nowhere and stood in front of her. She couldn't help but wonder how much of that he caught. Quite a bit apparently based on his response.

“How the heck—”

But he cut her off. “I want to know more about you, Veronica. All the moments that made you the woman you are today.”

He was no longer bare-chested but wore a sleeveless tunic, which wasn’t any more merciful on her womanly senses. His broad shoulders and muscled arms were a masterpiece.

“How did you get here so fast?” She shook her head. “You were just across the fire talking with Naðr and Kol.”

“You were distracted with thoughts of your sister.” Raknar nodded at Megan, who was once more cuddled in Naðr’s arms. “Were you not?”

Sure. Maybe. “Distracted, but not that much.”

Raknar held out his hand. “Come, walk with me.”

She shook her head. “That’s a bad idea. And we both know it.”

“I want to walk you home.”

“Home?” she said, incredulous as she looked up at him. “Bit of a jaunt across time, isn’t it?”

He continued to hold out his hand.

“No,” she said but it sounded ridiculously like a slur. Like she’d had too much to drink. Yet she plowed on. “You will not walk me anywhere. I can’t have you kneeling in front of me again.”

Crap. Had she just said that? Not good.

Drunk.

Then, as if to repeat the horror, or absolute awesomeness from earlier, he again crouched in front of her. Except this time he wasn’t seducing. At least she didn’t think so when he cupped her cheeks and met her eyes. “Let me take you to bed. Let me keep you safe.”

“Nothing about you is safe,” she slurred.

Hell, she really
did
slur.

Raknar held out the crook of his elbow. “Safe. I promise.”

“Are you…safe?”

“He’s safe,” Kjar said. “There is no doubt.”

The world was tilting even as she sat so she had to make a decision. Trust Raknar or not. “Don’t carry me out of here.”

Raknar again offered his elbow. “I’ll walk you home.”

“I’m fine.” She stood and realized she wasn’t fine in the least.

Raknar wrapped her arm around his and started walking. “Not far then.”

Not far? She put one leg in front of the other, clueless as to what he meant. Until she did. Only when they were well beyond the fire and near the gates did he swing her into his arms.

“I’m fine,” she mumbled into his neck.

“Yes, just tired,” he murmured.

“Yes,” she agreed. Not sure what he meant to do with her, she wrapped her arm around his neck, nuzzled her face and closed her eyes.

Safe.

The word screamed in her mind so harshly she almost jerked her head but couldn’t. Yet it didn’t matter. Because he was. Raknar was safe. He might drive her insane sexually, but she could trust him to take care of her.

“Veronica,” he whispered.

Confused, she tried to keep hold of him but he was laying her down.
A
soft fur covered her. Then his voice, so gentle, near. “I will not leave.”

“You should,” she whispered. “Now.”

That was the last thing she remembered saying before she drifted off. It was impossible to know how much time passed before she pried open her eyes only to immediately squeeze them shut.

“Too bright,” she mumbled against the fur.

“It’s raining, woman. Not bright at all.”

Her eyes shot open at the sound of Raknar’s voice. Oh no. What had she done? Veronica lifted her head slightly then flopped it back down when a headache pounded. She was lying on her stomach. That’s about all she knew at this point. Grasping for a blanket, she was relieved to discover she still wore clothes because the fur was nearly down to her knees.

She rolled onto her back and peered around. Thankfully, Raknar was not in bed with her but sitting in a chair in the corner of the room. Long, muscled legs spread casually, elbows propped on the armrests, he watched her. A fire crackled and rain pounded on the high ceiling.

“Hey,” she muttered as she yanked up the fur and eyed her surroundings. She was definitely not where Megan usually had her sleep. Various weapons hung from the walls and it was bigger. And the bed? Much bigger. “Where am I?”

“In my bed,” he said. “I told you I would keep you safe.”

His bed? Well, that explained the amazing scent. Masculine. Wild. Like sweet, sinful fire. Like how he smelled when he knelt and licked her…oh
God
. What had she
done
the night before? Veronica rubbed her forehead and frowned. “Tell me you didn’t sit there all night watching me.”

“I cannot say that,” he said easily. “Because I did.”

“Fabulous,” she murmured as she slowly sat up and wrapped her arms around bent knees. “You didn’t need to do that.”