Simone was on her knees, coughing and wheezing from all the smoke she’d taken in when Chloe joined them, crouching down in front of the woman, waiting until the pretty blonde looked up at her.
And that’s when Chloe said, “Soooo, neighbor, about that lawsuit . . .”
Vig checked on his brothers. They were mostly fine. A few wounds, some future scars they could brag about to some hottie in a bar.
“You all right?” Vig asked Siggy as he helped him up.
“Yeah. My head hurts, though.”
“Did the Mara touch you?”
“No. I fell into a tree.”
“Of course you did. Tessa?” Vig asked the Crow. “Can you check Siggy’s head? He fell into a tree.”
Tessa nodded. “Of course he did.”
Kera walked by, her gaze searching.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’m looking for Betty’s assistant. She was here.”
“Betty? Betty Lieberman?”
“Yeah.”
“She always has the hottest assistants,” Stieg said. “I love Betty.”
Vig didn’t even bother to reply to that and instead asked Kera, “Why the hell was Betty’s assistant here?”
“I don’t know. She had duct tape on her legs and hands. I assume they were holding her captive.”
Stieg yawned and asked, “Should we go after the other rich assholes who were trying to raise a god?”
“Why?” Vig asked.
Kera gawked at him. “What do you mean why? What they did was wrong.”
“Of course it was wrong. But I know you—you’re not going to run around killing a bunch of pathetic rich people and you’re not going to let us do it either.”
Kera rolled her eyes. “Okay. You’re right. But we can alert the police.”
“Alert them about what, exactly? The Nordic goddess they were trying to bring into this world?”
“That the Mara were helping them?”
“That the world actually has Nordic gods? And Greek gods? And Rom—”
“Okay, okay! I get your point.”
“Isn’t she cute when she forgets this isn’t normal for most people?” Vig asked, pulling Kera into a tight hug.
“Shut up.”
“Uh . . . Kera?”
She looked at Stieg. “What?”
“You may want to do something about . . . that.”
Vig lifted his head and watched sweet Brodie prance by with a Mara arm hanging from her mouth.
Kera gasped, horrified, and ran after her dog. “Brodie Hawaii, you drop that arm right now!”
Brodie took off running, and Kera chased her all over the yard, the Mara and stupid rich people forgotten.
“Your girlfriend’s weird, bruh,” Stieg joked.
“As compared to what?”
Brodie spun around and dashed back the other way, a panicked Kera trying to stop her. “Brodie Hawaii, you come back here! Don’t forget! You represent all pit bulls! This looks bad on all pit bulls!”
Stieg stared at Vig. “Everything.”
Brianna, still coughing, walked into her apartment.
She knew she should have gone to the hospital but all she wanted to do was go home. She just wanted to go home.
She opened up a bottle of red wine and poured herself a glass.
The most important thing at this point was that she had to get her job back. But how?
Maybe if she groveled enough . . . Betty might take her back.
With her glass of wine, Brianna walked toward her bedroom. She just wanted a shower and to get some sleep. But she stopped by the mirror over her couch and stared at herself. That’s when she saw it. She had a gold necklace around her neck. It kind of reminded her of a bracelet because it was thick and open in the middle, the ends fashioned with dragon heads. It was beautiful but . . . why was she wearing it? She didn’t remember putting it . . . putting it . . .
Brianna blinked. Shuddered. The wineglass slipped from her hand and hit the hardwood, splattering red wine across the floor. Brianna grabbed her stomach, her entire body beginning to shake. As she watched herself in the mirror, Brianna moved her hands to her chest, up to her throat.
“Nnnn . . . o,” she stuttered out instead of screaming. “N—”
She watched in horror as the skin on her chest stretched out from her body. It was like a hand was trying to punch its way out of her. But . . . but that wasn’t possible.
That wasn’t possible!
Gullveig tore her way out of the girl’s body, pushing bone, muscle, and skin out of her way until she was able to suck in clean air.
She laughed, pushing the girl’s remains down to the floor and stepping out of her body like a suit. Gullveig raised her arms overhead and stretched. It felt good to be back on this plane of existence. Such an interesting world. So much to entertain herself with.
So much gold.
She loved gold. All of it.
She walked to the balcony and opened the double windows and stared out as the sun began to rise in the east.
“I see you failed,” she said to Shona-sari, whom she knew now stood behind her. She glanced back at the Mara, but those grotesque little fangs held no appeal, so she returned her gaze to the sun. “You let Skuld’s Clan stop you.”
“It wasn’t just the Crows. It was the Ravens. They teamed up.”
“Oooh. How horrifying. Crows and Ravens. Did they squawk or just caw at you and your females?”
“Goddess—”
“No. Don’t bother.” She gestured to the body on the floor. “Just clean that up. And quickly. I’m starving and I want to order in some food. Oh.” She returned to the body of the girl, removed Freyja’s torc, and peeled the skin off the corpse.
Gullveig smiled at the Mara leader. “Forgot I’ll be needing these.”
She headed to the bathroom. “I know it’s early but you know what would be delightful . . . a mimosa. See if you can whip one up for me, would you, hon?”
“Wait,” the Mara said before Gullveig could close the bathroom door. “What are you going to do now?”
“Well, after you clean this up and order my food and get my mimosa—I do love champagne in the morning!—you’re going to set up a meeting for me with Hel.”
The Mara took a step back. “Why would I do that?”
“Well, one reason is I told you to. And the other is that you and your dentally challenged girls fucked up. And I need an . Hel can provide one.”
“Hel won’t help you.”
“Don’t underestimate how far I’ll go and how much rage dear Lady Hel still has. Just set up the meeting.”
“And you?”
“Me?” Gullveig asked, smiling. “I have a job to go to. But I think it’s time for a promotion. Don’t you?”
CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR
Betty hung up the phone and blew out a breath. It looked like Yardley would need plastic surgery again due to a fight a few hours ago. The girl never protected her face during a battle! So Betty would need to come up with another believable lie for her client-slash-sister-Crow.
The last time this had happened, she’d let it sneak out that Yardley’s nasal passages had collapsed and had to be repaired due to her “tragic” cocaine use. But the truth was that Yardley’s nose had collapsed because it had been completely demolished by the ax head of a blood-soaked demon. A truth that could never be told, so they went with the cocaine story.
Of course none of those stories could come directly from Yardley’s camp. Instead, to avoid any serious digging by the press, Betty would have this next story leaked to one of the gossip sites. She just needed to come up with a story first.
“Maybe it’s time for her to get bigger tits,” Betty murmured.
Betty shook her head and pushed her ten-thousand-dollar office chair away from her desk. She needed to see the wound. Find out if it could be treated by Tessa or if plastic surgery was really necessary. Then she could take it from there.
Betty stood and went to her
private bathroom. She adjusted her black skirt and bright silver blouse. She fixed her hair and redid her makeup. Satisfied with what she saw staring back at her—she knew her fellow Crows wouldn’t care what she looked like, but the paparazzi lurking everywhere certainly would—Betty went back to her desk. She grabbed her blazer from the back of her chair and pulled it on just as Brianna sauntered through the door.
“Well, well, well,” Betty laughed. “Look who’s walked back into my office. And what brings you here, my dear? A little begging? A little pleading? I don’t know, I’ve already seen some great résumés for your position.”
When she didn’t get a stuttering little “please don’t fire me,” Betty finally looked up at her assistant.
Instead of listening to her, Brianna was wandering around the office, looking at the statues and paintings that past and present clients had gotten Betty as a way of saying “thank you!” The cheapest thing among them could be sold for over six figures. Not that Betty would ever sell any of this stuff. She loved it all too much.
“Hello? Earth calling, dingbat. Come in, dingbat,” she joked.
When Betty still received no answer, she began to get a little worried. “Brianna?” She walked over to her. “Are you all right?”
Brianna turned to her, and that’s when Betty saw the torc around the girl’s neck. It was filled with power and if she looked at it too long it would blind her.
“Brianna, where did you get that necklace?”
“This one?” Brianna asked, the tips of her fingers stroking the gold. “I had it taken from my idiot sister when she wasn’t looking. Now it’s mine.”
“Brianna, you can’t keep that necklace.” Not because Betty was worried that Brianna would use the power in it, but because she knew what it would attract. Something Brianna would never, in a million years, be able to handle.
“That’s cute,” Brianna sighed, reaching out to touch the fifty-thousand-dollar diamond and gold necklace Betty had bought herself as a treat a few years back.
Betty slapped the girl’s hand away. “What is wrong with you?”
“I want that necklace.”
“You can’t have my necklace.” Betty sighed. All right. Maybe Erin was right. She’d been too hard on this twit. Now Betty would have to pay for her mental health recovery. She hated when she had to do that.
“Sweetie,” Betty said very carefully and slowly, “I think I need to take you to a nice, friendly doctor who can help you.”
Brianna’s hand suddenly reached out and caught Betty by the throat, yanking her close. And now that flesh touched flesh, Betty saw her. All of her. And she wasn’t Brianna.
“Do you dare put your hands on me, human?” she hissed in Old Norse. A language Betty had forced herself to learn so she could always understand what she saw.
“Such a rude people. I have much to teach you.” She yanked the necklace off of Betty’s throat, pulled back her arm, and shoved Betty across the room and into—and out of—the big picture window.
Gullveig watched the human female crash through the thick glass and fall to the ground below. She heard screams from the street and smiled.
“What was that?” voices from the hallway demanded. “What’s happened? Did you guys hear that?”
“Brianna? What’s happened?”
Gullveig faced the human girl in the doorway. Carol. Her name was Carol. And she was one of the agents. Gullveig had Brianna’s memories, so she would be able to navigate this world quite nicely.
“She snapped,” Gullveig said in perfect American English. “Threw herself out the window.”
Eyes wide, Carol ran over to the opening, placing her hands carefully so she didn’t cut herself on the broken glass.
“So sad . . .” Gullveig went on. “We’ll need to arrange for the funeral, though. It should be a classy affair.”
“Wait,” Carol said.
“We can’t wait. We have to think about people’s schedules. Everyone in Hollywood will want to come.”
“No. I mean . . . she’s moving.”
Gullveig spun around. “What?”
“She’s moving. Betty’s not dead.”
Gullveig went to the destroyed window, pushing the girl aside and looking down. The human had fallen five flights, landing on a small patch of grass outside the building. But that wouldn’t protect her from the fall, and going through the window alone should have killed her. Unless . . .
“Gods-damn Skuld and her Crows!”
“Sorry?”
Gullveig glanced at the female next to her and quickly rearranged her plans.
“She’s mad, you know. Insane.”
“Betty?”
“Betty.” Gullveig leaned in a bit. “She needs to go away. To heal. From her mental illness. For a while.”
The female frowned. Then, slowly, she smirked.
“You’re absolutely right,” Carol said. “We can’t have Betty’s crazy here. How will that affect our clients?”
“Exactly. And our clients are the most important thing.”
Carol nodded. “I’ll take care of it. I assume you’ll be managing things for Betty while she’s gone . . . ?”
“Of course. I wouldn’t want to let her down, now would I?”
“No, you wouldn’t.” Carol walked off, heading to the door. “I’ll call an ambulance and get Dr. Rosen on the phone. He’ll be happy to help.”
“Excellent.”
Gullveig moved to the desk, pulling over the leather chair and sitting down in it.
She grinned as she put her feet up on the desk and placed the sparkly gold and diamond necklace beneath her torc. She didn’t even have to check to know the two looked absolutely stunning together.
Glancing around the office, Gullveig nodded. “Oh yes. This will do quite nicely.”
Laughing, Kera slapped her hands against the shower wall, trying to get her balance. Not easy when she had Vig behind her, buried deep inside her, and fucking her silly.
Really silly. She couldn’t stop laughing. Not because it wasn’t one of the best fucks she’d ever had. Because it was.
The issue was that this was supposed to be a shower only. It had felt like days since Kera had had one and she’d come in here just to get clean. Not to get laid. But try telling that to “But I’m a Viking!” Rundstöm. He wasn’t really good about the whole waiting thing and since Kera hadn’t really said “no” . . .
Vig leaned over her, blocking the water pouring from the showerhead.
“Stop laughing!”
“I can’t help it!”
“I’m a powerful Viking! You’re supposed to be in my thrall!”
Now they were both laughing.
“Vig! Stop it!”
“Why aren’t you thralling?”
“That’s not even a word!”
Vig stood straight, bringing Kera with him. He slid his hand around to cup her jaw and turned her face toward him and up. He kissed her, the water from the shower beating down on them. And his hand slid down her stomach and in between her legs.
Kera’s giggles turned to a gasp and she gripped his arm, her fingers digging into the skin.
His fingers stroked her clit while he took her from behind, his cock still buried inside her.
Vig’s finger began to make circles and Kera’s entire body tightened, legs shaking. She pulled out of their kiss so she could scream out, the orgasm rocketing through her.
When she could think straight, she realized that Vig had her bent over again and he was pounding into her, his breath coming out in hard pants until he came, his fingers holding her waist tight.
He bent over her, his lips kissing her neck, nibbling her ear, until he finally pulled out of her.
“Are you okay?” he asked, which was when Kera started giggling again. “Woman, you’re still not thralling!”
Vig pulled on his jeans and sat down on the bed. Brodie put her head in his lap and rolled over onto her back, a silent order for him to pet her chest and stomach.
“She was amazing in battle. And Odin always says you have to keep your best warriors happy.”
“Does this mean that Brodie will be heading to Valhalla one day?”
“Sure. They already have battle dogs. She’ll just be a battle Crow. Until then, though, she’ll be our dog.”
“Our dog?”
Vig froze, realizing his mistake. “Uh . . . I mean . . . uh . . . your dog. She’s your dog. Of course, she’s your dog.”
Kera sat down on the other side of Brodie. She let out a long sigh.
“Vig—”
“Please don’t . . . run. Or fly away.”
“Vig—”
“I know. I know. I jumped the gun. I’m not trying to crowd you.”
“Ludvig.”
“Just give me a chance!”
“Are you done?”
“Yes.”
“Good. Because all I was going to say was you may want to consider a doggy door because—”
“Brodie Hawaii! Walk time!” a Crow yelled from outside and Brodie scrambled off the bed, shot out the door, and two seconds later a window somewhere in the house broke as Brodie most likely went through it.
“Because I can’t keep buying you new windows,” Kera said with a shrug. “And I’ve fallen in love with you. But if you tell the Crows, especially Erin, that I said it first, I will tear your toenails out while you’re sleeping.”
“That’s not a problem because I actually said it first.”
“You did? When?”
“Yeah. About five months ago. You walked to my table, brought me a fresh cup of coffee and another bear claw, and then you smiled. It was a really pretty smile. When you walked away, I said, ‘I love you.’ ”
“I didn’t hear it.”
“That’s because it was more like,” he mumbled through barely opened lips, “ ‘I love you.’ ” Vig rolled his eyes. “Kera, stop laughing at me!”
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