Her grin widened. “Yes!”
“Great.”
Ski watched her grab hold of her backpack after situating her dog in her other arm. She hadn’t even realized she’d left the dog’s carrier back at the house.
Ski reached across to open the door for her.
“Thank you.”
“Welcome. Hey,” he said before she could get out. “Would you like to go out some time? You know . . . like, on a date?”
Still smiling, she shook her head. “No.”
Ski blinked, then asked. “So you don’t like me.”
“No, I like you.”
“Okay. You don’t find me attractive.”
“No, you’re really attractive,” she said with a laugh.
“But you won’t go out with me?”
“No.” She was still smiling.
“Could you tell me why?”
“No.”
“O–okay. Well . . . see you tomorrow.”
“Okay! See you tomorrow!” She got out of the car, using her cute ass to close the door. Then she ran up the stairs and disappeared into the Bird House.
Confused, he went to start the car, which was when he realized someone was standing beside it.
He looked up and saw Vig Rundstöm glowering down at him.
Jace walked into the Bird House. She was still smiling as she closed the door.
“Hey, chica,” Kera said, coming around the corner. “You look happy.”
“I just got asked out on a date.”
Kera in her cut-off shorts and United States Marines T-shirt, plus bare feet—the woman was not big on shoes—clapped her hands together. “Eriksen, right?”
“Yeah.”
Appearing more excited than Jace, she asked, “So you guys are going out?”
Still smiling, Jace shook her head. “No.”
The grin on Kera’s face, however, faded away. “No?”
“No.”
“So you don’t like him?”
“No, no. I like him. I think he’s really hot.”
“But you’re not going to go out with him.”
“No.”
“You gonna tell me why?”
Jace started toward her room. “No.” She waved at her friend. “See ya!”
They stayed like that for several long minutes. Ski staring at the Raven and the Raven staring back.
They all called Vig Rundstöm the Pit Bull. Not normally to his face, but they weren’t above doing that. Unlike the other Ravens who just seemed stupid, Rundstöm seemed . . . off. The fact that Kera Watson, a former Marine and even-tempered female who was sorely needed by the constantly emotional Crows, had taken up with him had become a source of discussion. Two people couldn’t be further apart in personality.
But Kera was new to the Crows and perhaps she had no real understanding of the man she was lying down with most nights.
Vig Rundstöm, of the Rundstöm bloodline, known for their berserker-like tendencies in battle since the early days of the gods.
Which was why Ski seriously thought he’d be forced to kill the man right there, in the Crows’ driveway, until Kera Watson walked out of the house and yelled, “Ludvig Rundstöm! Stop that right now!”
“He started it,” Rundstöm argued, forcing Ski to cringe at what the Ravens called “logic.”
“You mean he started it by breathing?” the pretty Crow asked.
The disturbingly big Raven shrugged enormous shoulders and replied simply, “Yes.”
Shaking his head, Ski started the car, and pulled out of the driveway.
Maybe it was best that Jace had turned him down. She was close friends with Kera Watson, which might mean eventual double dates—and Ski didn’t think he could spend time outside of Clan work with that idiot.
CHAPTER TEN
A gain Jace was already in the Protector library by the time Ski woke up. Although he did get a later start than usual.
He was exhausted. As soon as he’d returned after dropping Jace off, he’d been pulled into another job with two teams.
It could be his imagination, but it seemed as if they were working more than usual. And the previous night had been messy, the group walking in on a sex rite that included an orgy and several human sacrifices.
It had been kind of horrifying. Not the sex part. Ski wasn’t against sex magic in general. But including death in rites that usually celebrated life and pleasure was . . . strange. Something not normally done. And these weren’t Satanists, who could be all kinds of trouble. These were pagans. Of different faiths.
Honestly, Ski didn’t know what to make of it all. He just knew that shutting the whole thing down before too many lives were taken had involved a lot more work than he’d expected.
But seeing Jace hunched over the table, pencil in hand, deep in translation work did nothing but cheer up his morning.
He felt that pang of regret again. Not quite sure why she wouldn’t go out with him. But he was part of the honorable Protectors. Unlike the Giant Slayers or Ravens, he wasn’t about to start pestering her until she finally gave in just to get him to stop. That was not his idea of the start of a healthy relationship.
Kilmar sat at the table also. He seemed to be doing the logging work that Jace had originally been hired for.
That didn’t bother Ski. He could tell she’d been dying to dive in to some of the books she’d had her hands on.
He did have one problem, though . . .
“You’re writing it out longhand?”
Slowly, sheepishly, Jace raised her gaze to his. “Well—”
“No. We have technology. You will use it.”
“But—”
“No,” Ski said again, determined on this point. “Kilmar, please get our guest another laptop.”
The younger Protector frowned. “But wouldn’t longhand look nicer?”
“Kilmar,” Ski pushed, tempted to slap his brother.
Kilmar shrugged at Jace. “Sorry.”
“Where’s that dog?”
“That dog,” she shot back, “is at the Bird House playing with Brodie.”
“Bear will be disappointed.”
“Is there a problem with my dog?”
“Not at all—until he chews up the first book. Then expect all Helheim to break loose.”
Sighing, she leaned back in her chair.
“So Kilmar knows Russian?” he asked, motioning to the book Ski’s brother had been logging in.
“No. Those books are all written in Latin. Strange, since they were published in the forties.” She waved her random thought away. “We all know that Kilmar has a basic understanding of Latin.”
Ski smirked. “That was mean.”
“Just a little.” She crinkled her nose, letting him know she was just teasing. Not surprising, since Ski was pretty sure she’d never let Kilmar near her if she didn’t like him. “You look a little tired today,” she noted.
“I am. Busy night. Ever heard of sex rites that involved human sacrifices?”
“Satanists?”
“No.”
She frowned. “That’s unusual.”
“That’s what I thought.”
“We had a job last night, too. We’ve had a lot of those lately. Each Strike Team usually only goes out once, maybe twice a month at the most. But lately, each team has been going out every week. That’s strange.”
“We’ve been busier than usual, too. I’ll mention it to Ormi.”
Kilmar returned with one of their most expensive laptops, still in the box and untouched. Ski smirked, realizing how much his brothers liked the Crow; they didn’t usually give out their best equipment to just anyone.
“Do you know how to type?” Ski asked, watching as Jace opened the box and pulled everything out.
“Yes.”
“Are you going to eat?”
“I’m not really—”
“I’ll make you something.”
“Why do you ask when you don’t even lis—”
“I’ll make you something
hearty.”
“Jace? Jace.”
Jace looked up and saw that her Strike Team stood around her, dressed for battle.
She leaned back in her chair and cracked her knuckles. “What are you guys doing here?”
“We have a job.”
“Oh. Uh . . . yeah . . .” She went back to her work. “Just come get me when we have to go.”
“We have to go now.”
Surprised, she looked at her team leader. “In the day?”
Tessa stepped back, gesturing to the ceiling-to-floor windows the way Ski and Ormi had recently done. It was becoming a definite pattern. “It’s nighttime, sweetie.”
“Oh. Uh . . . okay.”
Nodding, Jace pushed her chair back and realized that she might have been sitting too long in one position because she couldn’t move her neck.
Leigh immediately saw Jace’s problem and gently placed her hands against the tight muscles. “Relax and breathe,” she told Jace.
Leigh’s First Life had been as a massage therapist. A good one, too. She immediately tweaked the tenseness out of Jace’s muscles with just the tips of her fingers.
As Jace felt the pain drift away, she saw Erin reaching toward the table. “Don’t touch the books!” she snapped.
Leigh’s hands stopped moving and everyone froze.
Jace sighed. “I’m not raging. I just don’t want anyone to touch anything.”
“Oh,” they all said together, going back to what they were doing, except for Erin, who’d been the one about to touch the books.
“I have everything where I need it,” Jace went on. “And some of these books are ancient. They need to be handled carefully. Not by someone who uses their hands to force ink into the flesh of another.”
Erin’s brows peaked. “You have one of my tattoos.”
“So I know what I’m talking about.”
Tessa looked around the now-empty room. “Were the Protectors nice to you?”
“They’re great to me.”
“Because they leave you alone?”
“Pretty much.”
“And you like that,” Annalisa noted.
“It was heaven.”
“Why didn’t you just tell us?” she asked.
“Tell you what?”
“That you’re an introvert. It would have made life easier for those of us—”
“She means Rachel,” Erin muttered.
“—who thought you were just shy.”
“I don’t know. It seemed rude to just come out with, ‘I’m not a people person. Get the hell away from me.’ I’m pretty sure the only one who wouldn’t have been insulted by that was Erin.”
Erin nodded. “She’s right. I’m the only one who wouldn’t have been insulted by that.”
Once she felt she could move her neck without screaming, Jace stood, taking the clothes handed to her by Kera.
She quickly changed from her blue jeans, black T-shirt, and running shoes into the Crow combat outfit. Black jeans, steel-toed black work boots, black bra, and black racing-back tank top that allowed her to easily unleash her wings.
Once dressed, she carefully folded the clothing she’d just removed and looked at her team. That’s when she realized they were staring at her. Almost gawking.
“What?” she asked.
“Wow,” Alessandra announced. “You are really not shy.”
Erin handed Jace her two blades and she placed her foot on the seat of her chair so that she could strap the weapons to her leg.
Jace tugged her jeans down to cover the leather holster and dropped her leg back to the floor. She then unleashed her wings, shaking them out and loosening up her shoulders so that flying would be easier.
“I can’t believe the Protectors left you alone in their precious library.”
“They had a job tonight. And I’m not really alone.”
Jace motioned to the top of one of the book stacks. Ski’s cat, Salka, sat there, licking her paw and keeping a close eye on her.
“She’s been watching me since Eriksen left. I get the feeling if I tried to do anything to destroy even one of these books, she’d rip my throat out.”
Erin nodded. “That’s a good cat.”
The team headed toward the exit.
“What’s the job tonight?” Jace asked, hoping she wouldn’t be out too late. Having several gods-related assignments in one week was unusual and exhausting. Plus her mind was already thinking of the books she’d left behind. She couldn’t wait to get back to it all in the morning.
“This should be an easy job,” Tessa told her. “In and out.”
In the fetal position, Jace hit the window and went through it, glass exploding around her and falling to the ground thirty stories below.
She spun out into the air, floating for a few seconds before gravity stepped in and her body dropped.
She loosened her shoulders and unleashed her wings, catching the air and immediately heading back up. She tilted forward and dived through the now-open window and into the midst of the battle.
Jace rammed her body into the man who’d thrown her, wrapping her arms and legs around him and dropping them both to the floor.
He threw her off again and Jace flipped across the carpeted floor. Once she stopped, she rolled over onto her stomach, then up on all fours, and charged again.
“Fuck!” the man screamed out, quickly crab-walking back, away from her. “Get this bitch away from me!”
Jace landed on him again, placing her hands against his shoulders and shoving him to the ground. She pinned him there by his throat and grabbed hold of her fighting blade with her free hand.
“Wait—”
She cut off his words by ramming her blade into the side of his neck, severing the artery. She yanked the weapon out, then slammed it in again. Just to be sure.
That’s when another set of hands grabbed Jace by the hair and yanked her up and off, tossing her away.
“You bitch!” someone screamed. “You killed him! You killed him!”
Jace was just getting to her feet when she was kicked and sent flying into a ceiling-to-floor glass mirror.
The glass shattered and she went down with all the pieces crashing around her. She closed her eyes and tried to cover her face to protect it, but she could still feel her body being cut.
“Jace!” she heard Kera call out. But Kera was in her own fight. They all were.
Ski gazed up at the ceiling. “How did they get all those bodies pinned up there?”
“No idea,” Gundo replied. “But it is one of the more interesting sacrifices I’ve seen in a while.”
“Now we know why Ormi sent you out with us.” Borgsten walked around the ten-thousand-dollar-a-night bungalow, looking for more clues. “Is it just me, or does this seem like too nice a place for a sacrifice?”
Borgsten was right. Most sacrifices they’d come upon over the years were either done out in nature or in the cheapest hotel or motels that could be found. Because no one asked questions in those places. Not when there were drug dealers and gunrunners in the other rooms.
But a five-star hotel-and-bungalow complex in Palm Springs?
“We need to find out who rented this room.”
“And why they needed so many offerings.”
“How many do you count?” Ski asked. There were whole bodies pinned to the ceiling with thick metal spikes, but there were also some body parts scattered across the floor.
Gundo sighed. “I don’t know. Ten. Twelve.”
“Thirteen?”
“Maybe.”
“Thirteen is usually the anti-Christians,” Bear reminded them. He never wanted to call them Satanists, but Ski had no idea why. Maybe he thought the term was too limiting.
“Should we call the Pope?” Gundo asked and they all turned to face him. That’s when he laughed and added, “Just kidding.”
Borgsten shook his head. “You know the Protectors haven’t dealt with a Pope since the Crusades.”
“That was
an ugly time.”
“It wasn’t our fault!” Bear argued. Like he always did. “Things just got a little out of hand.”
“Do we have to go over this again?” Ski asked. “Really? It was nearly a thousand years ago. I can’t believe we’re still talking about this.” Everyone fell silent but then Ski just had to add, “And it was totally our fault. The Inquisition was not our fault. But the Crusades . . . all of them . . . absolutely our fault.”
“But—”
“Let’s just leave it at that.”
They went back to searching for evidence when Gundo suddenly gasped, “Holy shit!”
“What?”
“You need to see this.”
Ski walked into the sunken living room. There was a gorgeous fire pit right in the middle surrounded by big, comfortable couches and a fur rug. As he stepped around the couches, he saw all the jewelry. Had to be millions of dollars’ worth.
“Is that stuff . . . is it real?” he asked. He knew watches, but he’d never been big on sparkly jewelry and he’d never dated women who were into much of that, either.
Gundo crouched beside the mound and picked one piece up. He held it up to the light, head tilting, eyes adjusting.
“I don’t have a loupe but . . . I think so.”
“So they offered up humans . . . and gold and diamonds?”
Bear now stood beside him, arms crossed over his massive chest. “Are the Crows really sure they got rid of Gullveig?”
Ski scratched his head. “Ormi’s going to have to go back to Chloe. Because I’m not doing it.”
“That won’t go well,” Gundo guessed. And he was most likely right. Chloe did not like to be questioned by the other Clans. About anything.
Still staring down, Gundo gave a small grunt.
“What?” Ski asked.
He reached down and picked something up from under the jewels. “Is this . . . is this straw?”
“Why would there be straw on the floor of a ten-thousand-dollar-a-night bungalow?”
“I think we need to let Ormi know what’s going on,” Borgsten said from the doorway.
Ski nodded. “Yeah. I want to get back and—”
He turned, head tilting until he’d almost turned it upside down. But it was that sound. What was that sound? And where was it coming—
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