Endre: Brothers Of The Dark Places Read online

  Table of Contents

  Epilogue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Taka

  Bonus

  Bear Lust

  About the Book

  Bearly Friends

  Bear Baby

  2 Fighters Bear

  Bear Mission

  Chapter 12

  Bearing His Baby

  About the Author

  Endre

  Brothers Of The Dark Places

  Miranda Bailey

  Copyright © 2017 by Miranda Bailey

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

  With loving thoughts to my sister. May your heart always be full of the love we have for you.

  Contents

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Taka

  Chapter 1

  Bonus

  I. Bear Lust

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  II. Bearly Friends

  I. Bear Baby

  About the Book

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  II. 2 Fighters Bear

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  III. Bear Mission

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

  III. Bearing His Baby

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  About the Author

  1

  Thyra

  Somewhere in the Atlantic Ocean on a Boat

  The mast cracked with a devastating sound, a sound that sent the chill of doom down my spine.

  How would I get through this without a mast? The engine was dead and would not start, no matter what I did to repair it. Without the engine, I had no power to use the radio, my batteries were drained. I had not been able to call for help.

  I knew I should have installed a solar panel, but I’d put it off, hoping to make it to my next destination without the added expense.

  At least the keel hadn’t dropped off the bottom of the old yacht I’d chosen as my escape. Nightmarish pictures filled my mind of images I’d seen in the past, lifeless capsized yachts, with no crew aboard and never to be seen again. There would be no chance of survival, at all, without the keel.

  The boat would capsize and fill with water, and maybe I’d have time to get off of it and into my dinghy but if it sank, it would take the dinghy with it. Maybe before I could unhitch it, perhaps with me still aboard. There would be no hope to live to see another day if I ended up in the water without the dinghy, even if I was able to grab my Emergency Position Indicating Radio Beacon, my body temperature would drop too low before I could ever hope for rescue.

  I wasn’t exactly sure where I was anymore, but I knew I’d been drifting south, into very cold waters, because the temperature had changed so much. I thanked whatever gods had kept me alive until now, hoping they would hear my prayers to not change their minds. Maybe I should activate the EPIRB now, I thought to myself as I watched lightning dance across the sky. I’d have to let go of the tiller to do that though, the EPIRB was below deck.

  I held to the tiller as the sails fluttered down in the rain, lightning flashes lighting their descent. I blinked rain out of my brown eyes, and watched as the sails come down. The fluttering canvas blocked my vision of the sea before me.

  It wasn’t as if I could see much anyway, there was nothing out there but massive waves and waves that were even bigger than the massive ones. I was going to die, I’d become resigned to it. The gods were playing with me, toying with me like a cat with a bug or a mouse. How long can we prolong this, they must be saying as they laugh at me.

  It all started when I left Brazil, heading south to explore the coastline. I heard on the radio that a bad storm was coming so I went out to sea, hoping to avoid the storm. I wasn’t your average woman; I’d crossed the Atlantic single handed the year before. I’m a seasoned sailor. I’m also an ex-wife trying to escape her obsessive policeman husband.

  Even after our divorce, he harassed me. He’d plagued me at work, at home, and even managed to get his buddies to harass me on the road by pulling me over whenever they saw me driving. I’d put up with it for two years after our divorce, then, I’d sold my car, even the house my parents had left me when they died in a car accident. I’d sold everything I owned, took my savings out of the bank, and headed out of Louisiana to the coast of Virginia, where I’d bought a boat from a man desperate to sell it. I’d bought it, paid someone to teach me how to sail it, and made sure it was up to the task to handle an Atlantic crossing before I’d escaped Travis and the rat-race of modern life.

  I had no family, my friends had become distant after my divorce, there was nobody to worry over or to worry over me. I left it all behind. It had taken weeks to cross over to the Azores, but when I arrived, I’d beaten the odds, I’d conquered my fears, and I knew, there was little I couldn’t handle in this world. I’d restocked, had a few repairs made, and spent some time relaxing. I’d headed down to the Caribbean Islands next, racing to beat hurricane season. I’d gone down, and explored the Caribbean properly. I’d even considered finding a man to spend some time with, but none of the men had the smile of the man in my dreams. None had measured up.

  I decided then, that the thing to do was sail down the South American coast. Everything was fine until my engine died. I hadn’t realized it, but my batteries were going with it. When the engine died, I’d decided to try and repair it, before I tried to call for help. That was my second stupid mistake. The first being to sail out away from the storm, of course.

  When I finally gave up and picked up the handset to call for help, I saw that the light on the radio was dead. All of the lights were dead. My navigation equipment, that little light on the small television I used as a screen for my nav equipment when I was sailing. It was all dead. Then the storm decided to change tack and plowed into me.

  I’d fought my way through it for hours, using the sails when I could to try and get out of it, but then, just as darkness fell, the mast cracked. Now, all I could do was stare at the pile of sails as wind and rain lashed at my body and face while dread filled me with calm. At least I’d be rid of Travis, once and for all.

  Everyone said drowning was peaceful, if you accepted it and didn’t fight it. I’d freak out just holding my breath to go under the shower to rinse out my hair sometimes. Drowning was one of my greatest fears, it was why I’d chosen to sail. Face your fears and all that shit. Now, there was a very distinct possibility that drowning was exactly how I was going to die.

  Without an engine or mast to hoist the sails, I was well and truly fucked.

  With a sigh I let
the tiller go, scraped my light-honey colored hair out of my face and fought the wind duck my head and go below. There was nothing else I could do on deck. I took out a bottle of whiskey I’d been saving for hard times, a gift from a fellow that had admired my “spunk”, as he put it just before I left the dock we were both moored at. I poured a glass full and sat down in the dark. I struck a match to light one of the lanterns I used at night, rather than the batteries, and gulped the silky alcohol down without a chaser. I glanced at the EPIRB but then looked away. I’d waited too long. I’d freeze to death before help could come.

  I breathed in fire and wiped at my mouth as the burn traveled through my chest, soothing the panicked breathing I could no longer control. As my respiration calmed, clarity came. I might be on my way to death, but I’d met the world head on. I’d challenged it, maybe one too many times judging by my latest predicament, but I’d come out on top a time or two.

  I took one last gulp and stared out of the portholes that served as windows. Lightning lit up the darkness outside, more waves and rain. Yep, I was totally going to die.

  Then the world tilted and I was suddenly floating in water.

  <><>

  Endre

  I flew high above the storm, living up to my name, the one that rides alone in ancient Norse. She was out here somewhere, the woman of my dreams. I’ve waited all my thousands of years for her; the last 28 had been nearly unbearable. The dreams I’d had of her since she’d turned 20 years old hadn’t helped.

  Now, she was down there somewhere, in a storm that rarely occurred in the southern hemisphere, about to die unless I could find her. I circled down, rain pelting the leathery skin of my black scales tipped with electric blue. The water just rolled away and the lightning wouldn’t come near me, it didn’t dare to.

  I searched for her yacht, the one I knew she had to be on if she was in this part of the Atlantic. We hadn’t yet formed a full mental bond, something about her kept that part of her from me. She still believed in magic though, or else our bond would be broken. I knew she’d had a hard life full of tragedy, her dreams were sometimes full of pain and sadness, but somehow, she’d managed to retain her belief in magic.

  Now, I just had to prove to her it existed and find her.

  I searched for hours, scouring the ocean for a tiny boat in the vast ocean. I was beginning to lose hope; my connection to her was growing dimmer, until it was almost gone. I wondered if it was only as she entered the land of the dead that I was able to find her. I could enter her world here, but it would not be the same. Fear made my heart stand still, I’d found her though, I had to act quickly.

  That’s when I spotted the boat, capsized and without a keel. I dove into the water as a seal, my own unique ability to shift into any animal I wanted to came in handy at times like this. I searched the boat, and found the entry.

  Shooting inside I found her floating lifelessly, her face peaceful in the darkness that was no match for my eyesight. I can’t be too late; I thought as I shifted into my human shape and pulled her to the bottom of the capsized boat. I can’t be too late, not when I’ve finally found her!

  She opened her eyes when I shifted into my dragon form, her eyes vacant but evidence that she still lived. I just had to get her warm to keep her alive. I tucked her into my powerful arms and took flight, just as the boat sank beneath the waves. I flew swiftly, headed for home, for the warmth of my home. She would soon start to warm, tucked against my body, but not enough. She’d been in the water almost too long.

  I flew through the storm and out of it, snow now taking the place of rain. I passed over a desert landscape of frozen white, down into the ice blue of frozen tunnels slowly melting above a pocket of heat that few knew about, and down, to a place even fewer knew existed.

  I was soon in a large opening, as big as a city, beneath the ice caps, a land of green fields and warmth that would shock the human world, if they only knew it was here. I felt leathery lips stretch as I looked out over the kingdom I’d wrenched from the cold, heartless iceberg now called Antarctica. I was king here, king to none, but still king.

  Hands waved as I passed and I squinted. Something was not right. Why were there people in my lonely kingdom? I came down from the protective layer of ice above and locked in on one face. Taka, the king of a land long forgotten somewhere in the Atlantic, hidden beneath the dark waters of the ocean, waited for me at my longhouse.

  “Forgive the intrusion, Endre, but I come, after all of these years of your self-enforced solitude, to intrude. There has been a great calamity in my world, an earthquake that has wreaked absolute havoc. I come to ask for shelter for my people until we can make repairs to our own world.”

  I shifted back to human form as I looked my brother over. He had barely aged at all, still the handsome devil he’d always been, but now I could see the weight of worry bowed his shoulders. The woman in my arms distracted me as she began to move around, but she soon settled down.

  “Of course, Taka. Please, make yourselves at home.” Any other time I’d have told them all to leave me to my solitude, but I had Thyra to care for and, truly, I could not turn my brother away. Not when he needed me.

  I heard footsteps follow me inside, but I ignored them, taking the burden in my arms to my bedroom as they all began to explore the rest of my home. I took Thyra to my bed, a creation of my own, designed from driftwood gathered three centuries before, when wooden tall ships made a habit of becoming ship-wrecked off the coast of South America and sprinkled the ocean surface with shattered planks of wood.

  I put her down on mattress made from linen and stuffed with dried moss from the green fields outside. The fields weren’t really grass, more a lichen than anything, but the dried plants were useful for making cushions and fires, when needed. The linen on the bed came from my travels through the magical world, solitary trips I would take when my heart could bear no more quiet and I’d seek out the hustle and bustle to be found within the anonymity of a busy, but magical city.

  I stood over Thyra for a moment, gazing down at the woman that had been haunting my dreams for years now. She was here at last, and for the life of me I was terrified. I’d often fantasized about what the day would be like, how I’d explain who I was, who she was to me, and then, life would go back to my version of normal, with the addition of a companion. Looking at the face that was brave, even during her unconscious state, and I suspected I might be in trouble.

  I heard something break outside, some bit of pottery fell to the floor and shattered from the sounds of it, and winced. One of the reasons I’d remained alone, people often broke things with their carelessness. Best not to think about that, though.

  I glanced at a very damp Thyra and realized what I needed to do. I started with her top, pulling away the soft white cable-knit sweater she’d been wearing, and then I removed her water-laden shoes and her pants. The denim jeans wanted to cling to her skin, but they peeled away slowly as I pulled them from the top. Tan skin, pebbled with gooseflesh, met my gaze, and I couldn’t help but stare.

  She was resting on her back now, her head turned away from me so that I could not see her features, but I could see her long neck and had to stop myself from running my fingers down its length. She wasn’t overweight, but she wasn’t overly thin either, and her collar bones were only just visible. From there, her golden skin covered breasts large enough to fill my hands, and then some. I’d left her underwear on, a functional gray cotton bra and gray panties, so I did not see anything that she would not have shown in a bikini, yet I still felt like I was intruding.

  That didn’t stop my gaze from traveling down her ribs, over her flat stomach, to stop at the very top of the pink lace at the top of her gray panties. Was that a tattoo? I bent over her and looked closer. Around her hips she wore the evidence of her travels, tattoos of state coins from Louisiana and Virginia, and images of the coins from the other countries she had traveled in. I knew she’d done some research because they were images of old coins, not the Euro c
oins now used in several of the places she’d visited. The coins were placed to form a belt, low on her hips, with space in between each for a new coin. The places she’d hoped to travel, I guessed.

  She moved, drawing long, shapely legs up to her chest as she turned on her side and began to shiver. I took a thick blanket from the end of the bed and put it over her, removing her wet undergarments once she was hidden by the blanket. She soon grew quiet once more and I settled in a chair beside the bed, another of my creations, and waited for her to wake up. She was in a dreamless sleep now, likely the result of exhaustion and shock, and I wished for a moment that I could rest beside of her. It had been a long day, one filled with anxiety for both of us, and now that I had her here safe with me, exhaustion pulled at me hard.

  Something else shattered outside and I closed my eyes as I remembered Thyra wasn’t my only guest. I inhaled deeply in the hopes of calming myself, but then raised voices came, and I knew they’d wake Thyra if I didn’t act now. She needed to rest and I needed to deal with those outside of my bedroom. I could no longer put it off.

  “I’m sorry, I don’t mean to interrupt,” I said to the two young people arguing over a pot of honey I’d bought in a Mayan market, “but could you please keep it down? My other guest has had a very violent shock less than an hour ago and needs to rest.”