Leif didn’t like the gleam in his friend’s eyes. He glared at him. Harald calmly met his eyes. “All four of them,” Leif bit out between clenched teeth.
His stallare grinned. “Well, isn’t that something.”
“Not. One. Fucking. Word.”
Harald held up his hands in mock surrender. “I would be the last person to talk about how the mighty king got his ass kicked by four wolverine creatures. Or that a woman defeated them all and saved his hide.”
Leif groaned. Harald would be the first person not only to tell the story, but embellish it and then regurgitate it for centuries. “I was drugged.” Both the excuse and his voice sounded feeble.
“You hold on to that small comfort.” Harald clasped his hands and a megawatt grin spread across his face. “Hold on tight with both hands.”
Leif glared back, but his friend’s grin didn’t diminish. “Don’t we have more serious business to discuss?”
Harald’s face fell. “It’s true,” his stallare said quietly. “If Loki’s minions are adding poison to their arsenal that can affect you like this, we need to step up our game.”
A hazy memory floated up from Leif’s subconscious. He looked around the room. “Where’s my phone?”
Harald frowned. “It wasn’t in your pocket when we cut your clothes off.” He swallowed and shook his head, as if to clear his mind of unpleasant images. “Did you get it back from the girl?”
“I don’t know.” Leif mentally reached into his mind, ordering his brain to help him remember. “I know I took pictures of the wolverines. There’s important data on there, we need to find it.” He pressed a hand to his forehead when his head throbbed again. “Shit, I can’t remember what I did with it.” An image of his hand engulfing a slender wrist holding his phone rose in Leif’s mind. “The girl must have it.”
His stallare stood. “Fuck, Leif. You don’t think she would have stolen it? Do you think she’s working with the wolverines?”
“If so, why would she save me?”
Harald paused. “She wasn’t on the scene when we got there. Maybe she took it with her.”
“Even more reason to find her.”
“I don’t like this.” His friend tugged at his facial hair. “If the wolverines have other toxic weapons, we may be beyond well and truly fucked.”
Leif slumped back in the bed, his immortal body carrying the unfamiliar weight of old and tired. They had battled Loki and his creatures for a century and they had always been one step ahead of the half god’s monsters. Leif thrived on battle and had done so even as a mortal. It was what he was bred to do. Everything about him—his body, his physical strength, his analytical mind—contributed to an almost unstoppable warrior. This battle would be no different.
Since Odin had sent him back to Midgard to dwell among humans once more, he had not lost a single one of his warriors. He looked at his oldest friend. They had grown up together. Harald had been there when Leif took a wife, when his children were born.
When he had lost his entire family.
He could not accept losing Harald, or any of the others. “We will find a way to defeat our enemies. We always do.” He met his friend’s gaze until Harald nodded.
“You rest. I’ll go speak with the others and see what they have to say. Maybe the youngsters will have some suggestions.” He rose. “I’m too old for this crap.” Harald marched out of the room, slamming the door behind him.
My sentiments exactly. Leif settled deeper in his bed. Loki’s wolverines were just the latest in the half god’s demented arsenal. They had fought weird lizards that walked upright, unusually large wolves, and humanlike creatures that were strong but dumb as battle-axes. These wolverines were intelligent and used a dangerous poison as their weapon. It should have cost Loki a lot of magic to create them. Somehow the half god had figured out how to enhance his powers. Leif wanted to tell his Vikings and Valkyries to not patrol alone, but their numbers were small. Sending them out in groups would limit the area they could cover.
Once again he tried to remember what he’d seen the wolverines do in that alley. It had something to do with the poison. He needed to find the woman so he could get his phone back. He ignored how much the thought of seeing her again pleased him and forced his thoughts back to fighting Loki and his minions.
The information on that cell phone might be crucial. If Loki’s creatures defeated Leif and his warriors, the human realm would be vulnerable to the half god’s manipulation, leaving the world ripe for Ragnarök—the final battle destined to destroy both Asgard and Midgard.
Chapter 4
Someone was following her.
Naya didn’t yet know who, but the fine hairs standing up on the back of her neck were never wrong. Walking down the sidewalk, careful not to increase her pace, she glanced over her shoulder under the pretense of flicking her hair. The quick jerk of her head made her dizzy.
She hated how weak she felt. Fever still hummed through her body and spiked at inconvenient times. Like during the meeting with her new client that morning. Luckily, he had been distracted by the security plans she’d presented. She was confident in her work, although it had taken her two days to do a simple preliminary recommendation. Something she usually whipped out in five hours. Her illness had forced her to take frequent breaks and long naps.
In her mind, she processed the scene of the street and sidewalks behind. With her photographic memory, she logged each detail and then zoomed in on the pertinent ones. The silver Escalade had been behind her for three blocks. She’d be more worried if it was one of the gray or black sedans the black ops handlers usually drove, but she hadn’t seen any of those while using this identity. Of course, the wolverines had known who she was. Were there others like them looking for her? Maybe they drove silver SUVs. She had to be vigilant.
Last time the sedans appeared, she had gone underground and relocated to a new city with a new name. She didn’t have time for that now. The nightclub account was too lucrative. The money for this job alone would cover Scott’s upkeep and therapies for a year.
Dr. Rosen had emailed her about some promising research looking into artificial hormones. She just hoped they didn’t interfere with the massive amounts of junk already swimming around in Scott’s body. Why had the cocktail that made her a comic-book freak fried her brother’s circuits so completely? She reined in her thoughts. She had to concentrate.
Blondie’s friends had driven a black Escalade. Could this be them again? Her aching leg muscles distracted her and Naya slowed down. This must be what normal humans felt like. So many times she’d wished for normality. A body without superstrength and a brain that didn’t constantly draw optimization graphs and possible outcomes charts. Now, she wasn’t so sure.
She sank down on a bus stop bench and made a show of digging around in her bag for her MP3 player. While popping in the earbuds, she surreptitiously checked her surroundings. She need not have bothered. The Escalade slowly crept up the street and she could now see the two men in the front seat. Both of them stared straight ahead.
They may have changed from a black luxury SUV to a silver one, but she recognized the red beard and the snow-white blond crew cut from the night in the alley. Why were they following her? She’d saved their friend. They should be on her side. Blondie had liked her enough to kiss her. Naya slumped down on the bench but winced as the injury in her side made itself known. It still throbbed angrily.
A series of human emotions flooded her senses: smallness, loneliness, tiredness—all completely useless. Maybe she’d get on the bus for a while and just ride around, a great way to get in a nap and confuse the men in the car. And she’d get out of her own head. It was never a good place in which to spend a lot of time.
“Ms. Brisbane, there you are,” a smooth voice on her left said.
Shit, where had this guy come from?
Cheap brown shoes, off-the-rack blue suit, bland tie, dark sunglasses, basically a complete government-agent-wannabe kit. Naya hadn
’t even noticed him approaching, never mind sitting down.
“Here I am,” she singsonged, blinking away the fevered haze clouding her vision. It was pointless to pretend she was someone else.
Where was that freaking bus? Cops and buses, never there when you needed them.
Although this guy probably was law enforcement. Some under-the-radar, supersecret black-ops branch. She’d long suspected the lab had connections deep in the government, or in fact was a branch of the government. They seemed to have unlimited resources and access to information beyond even the best civilian hacker. She’d narrowly escaped their cyber tracers eight months ago, when she lived in Seattle. She turned to face the man.
“You were very hard to find.” The handler’s lips stretched in a smile. She didn’t need him to remove his sunglasses to know it didn’t reach his eyes.
She shrugged.
“Where’s your brother, Ms. Brisbane?”
Naya shrugged again.
The guy stared at her and then popped the muscles in his neck. “I don’t like playing games,” he said, his voice ice-cold.
Well, neither did she, but she wasn’t the one who insisted on this rabbit-and-fox game. She was sick and tired of being the rabbit. And now she was a sickly rabbit. Forced to run from the fox, she had to fight the wolverines too. Her cheeks flushed and she could feel her scalp tingle. Actually, her whole skin tingled and ached. Being injured really sucked.
Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the silver Escalade still crawling up the street toward her. The two men inside faced straight ahead, but their eyes were as far to the right as they possibly could be.
Amateurs.
“Ms. Brisbane, what do you think of my proposal?”
Oh shit. What had he been rambling about? She glared at him.
His right hand moved toward his coat pocket. “I think it’s time the two of us took a walk. Don’t you?”
Naya popped her earbuds out and dropped the MP3 player in her bag. The SUV was almost in front of the bench now. She stood.
The suit did as well.
She turned toward him and partly opened her mouth as if she was going to say something.
His hand hesitated on the way to the pocket that most likely contained a gun.
She pretended to drop her bag and leaned down to retrieve it.
He leaned over as well, reaching for the bag.
Swiftly, she punched her elbow into his nose. A loud crunch and a deep male groan made her smile. She twisted and drove her heel into his groin.
His moaning shifted up several octaves. Nice falsetto.
The Escalade stopped. Both men forgot to pretend they were not looking at her and stared openmouthed. She opened the backseat door and slung her bag in before catapulting her body after it.
Two heads swiveled toward the backseat in unison, their mouths still open.
“Drive!” she shouted as blackness embraced her.
* * *
Leif stared at the small woman lying in the middle of the four-poster bed. They’d put her in one of the fortress’s guest bedrooms. According to Ulf and Harald, she’d demolished a guy’s nose before kicking the sausage between his legs into hamburger meat. If he didn’t know firsthand that she’d defeated four wolverines, he’d have accused his men of lying.
She mumbled something and turned over, exposing a bare shoulder in the process.
His loins immediately tightened.
Leif sighed. Why did his body—why did he—find this woman so fascinating? She wasn’t a Valkyrie, and although he liked human women, he’d never been drawn to one like this.
Long black lashes swept over lustrous cheeks as she slept. In his mid-teens, he’d accompanied his father and other warriors on a raiding trip to Langbardaland, which people now referred to as Italy. As a randy teenager, he’d found the dark-haired beauties sensually exotic compared to the blonds at home, but even then his body had not responded as it did now.
Her build was slight, but there was strength in every sinewy limb of her graceful body. And in her face.
He thought of the angry lacerations above her hip and for the first time in days, his berserker stirred. Leif let his head fall back as his inner warrior’s anger rose. It wanted to find whoever had done this to the woman—find and kill them. Leif quickly secured the mental bonds that tied his berserker to himself. The connection was frail, but at least it was there. He allowed a small amount of relief to trickle through his veins.
He watched the woman in the bed again. Her wounds were deeper than his, and weakness still plagued his body.
Irja had applied an herbal tincture to the woman’s wounds. It wouldn’t counteract the poison in her bloodstream, but it would speed up the healing of her skin. At least her body would be able to fight the poison better if it didn’t also have to deal with an infection.
He owed her his life, but could only stand by and watch as she fought for her own. There had been another time he’d kept vigil by a woman’s sickbed, feeling equally useless, watching his wife, Solveig, die. Before the dark memories surfaced completely, the door behind him opened quietly.
Irja glided across the carpet and nodded once, a quick dip of the head, the standard way his people informally greeted their king. “How is she?”
Leif much preferred it to the whole head-to-knuckles thing. Just as he much preferred being upright. A warrior couldn’t protect his people when he was flat on his back in the sickbed.
He turned toward her. “I don’t know. She’s resting peacefully, but that may be because the poison has shut down her body.”
The Valkyrie laid her palm against the small woman’s forehead. “Her fever is down. Her immune system is purging the poison quicker than yours.” She pulled the bedcover a little higher. “Her body is unusually powerful.”
“She doesn’t look powerful.” Which was why his loins’ interest puzzled him. Except for the teenage trip to Langbardaland, he had always favored tall, muscular women, usually blond. Nordic women.
He should ask Irja if this weird attraction could be a side effect of the poison, but not in front of the woman. “How can a mere human survive a poison that had me recovering for days?”
Irja looked up and frowned. “She’s different.”
Leif startled. “Different how?”
“Something inside her is helping the process. Almost like with us. But not the same.” She hesitated. “I won’t know until I run more tests.” She quietly walked out of the room.
Leif returned to watching the sleeping woman. Why did she save him and then keep his phone? They’d found the device in her bag. Ulf was working on retrieving the images.
She sighed contentedly and his cock twitched, betraying its attention. Maybe he’d just been without a bed partner for too long. Sex helped calm the berserker, and he desperately needed a way to better control his warrior spirit. In full battle fever, he wouldn’t be able to distinguish between friend and foe. Leif would most likely kill those closest to him, and Odin would be forced to reclaim him and induce the eternal sleep.
Leif scratched the inside of his arm. His bicep itched like crazy. Frowning, he checked his tattoo. The head of the serpent grinned maliciously. He twisted to inspect the inside of his bicep. The rune right above the unfinished tail glowed brilliant gold. That couldn’t be right.
He sucked in a deep breath.
None of the Valkyries under his command had ever tempted him. He had not made any new female acquaintances. Except for—
His mind refused the thought.
The dark-haired woman could not be his själsfrände, his true mate. He shook his head and turned his arm back over to stare at his hand. It was faint, but he could make out the tail of a serpent just above the wrist.
It couldn’t be. The poison must be playing havoc with his system.
As if she knew he was thinking about her, the female sighed and rolled over. The covers glided down, revealing delicate clavicles and the upper curve of her breasts.
L
eif’s groin tightened again. He cursed and quickly walked out of the room.
After retrieving a long-sleeved shirt from his chambers, he took the stairs down to his office to meet with his warriors. The office was a place where he spent more time than he would like. When he’d first come to Midgard a century ago, being king meant organizing hunting parties and defending the fortress from invaders. Now he had to write reports on security threats and communicate with liaisons and the kings of other bands of Norse warriors. There were five other main outposts in the world, plus scattered Vikings and Valkyries working by themselves in areas that Odin and Freya considered too sensitive to risk drawing attention to.
Loki’s creatures popped up in a variety of places, but Odin and Freya had learned to predict where Loki would next form an outpost by looking for ancient artifacts or geological formations. Something about ancient rock enhanced the half god’s power. The gods’ council was unstable due to political infighting, and Odin and Freya couldn’t risk confronting the half god without solid evidence. That would shift alliances and weaken the council further. But they could send their own warriors in secret to protect the humans from Loki’s creatures. When the monsters were sighted at a location in Midgard, the two gods established a more permanent band of Vikings and Valkyries in those places. Leif communicated mostly with the North American warrior tribes around Steep Rock Lake in Northern Ontario and Taos in New Mexico.
At least now they stayed in touch electronically. The mounds of papers he used to have to deal with were thankfully obsolete. He much preferred typing on a keyboard to scratching parchments with a goose feather or tracing ballpoint pens on paper. Modern times weren’t all that bad. He was a big fan of indoor plumbing too.
In the office, his band of warriors were lounging or standing in various positions. Those seated quickly stood when Leif strode through the room. He pulled the cuffs of his shirt down and then gestured for them to return to their previous positions.
Harald had claimed one of the chairs in front of the desk. Ulf usually took the other, but today he’d lost out to Astrid.
Viking Warrior Rising Page 4