The Viking Queen's Men

by Holley Trent

  “You want to come.”

  He didn’t need to be a psychic to know that.

  He rolled them over without even slipping out of her and took her lips in a breath-stealing kiss before tossing her ankles onto his shoulders. He grabbed her by the hips and rocked in and out of her in short thrusts.

  Harvey returned from the bathroom and sat on the bed’s edge. His gaze lingered at the place Ollie’s cock met her cunt, and he swallowed hard.

  Briefly, she considered opening up her mind and reaching out to him to see what he was thinking, but before she could decide, he bent down and pulled her nipple into his mouth.

  “Fuck!” Tess spat, and her hands grabbed whatever they could.

  “Don’t forget this,” Ollie said. He’d stretched her well, so he thrust deeper, and longer, forcing a yip from her at the peak of each joust. She didn’t know what the “this” Ollie referred to was, and really didn’t care.

  Having both of them tend to her at once was a sinfully decadent thing. She already knew their amazing mouths, fingers, and cocks would become her addiction, though hopefully, not her downfall. She couldn’t very well sit on her throne—which was a special rolling chair in the conference room—and a dick at the same time.

  But damned if she didn’t feel free and safe when she was between them—like nothing else was important as long as they were touching.

  Harvey pulled her clit between his fingers, and lifted his mouth from her breast to whisper, “Shhh,” when she cried out. He flicked his thumb over her wet peak, and she had to bite down hard on her lip to stifle her expletives. For them to not want her to win the orgasm race, they certainly seemed to be trying hard to send her over the edge.

  When Harvey leaned in and kissed her, she thought, “Fuck it,” and let go. She moaned into Harvey’s mouth and scratched at any parts of them she could reach—Ollie’s thigh, Harvey’s wrist over her belly.

  Ollie went right along with her, his cock expending his seed into her sheath and his fingers digging into her hips. “Impatient, isn’t she?”

  Harvey eased off her and sat up. “One of few annoying qualities, though easy enough to correct.”

  “I agree. It’s expected, though. She’s been running wild for too long. It’s about time she belonged to someone.”

  Tess sighed. “I’m right here, guys, and I have ears. Hi.”

  Ollie let her legs down and gave her a rakish wink. “Hi, baby.”

  It was his turn to walk to the bathroom.

  Harvey eased onto the bed beside her and nestled her against the front of his body. “It’s okay to belong to someone, Tess. I like it.”

  She snuggled her ass against him and allowed her body to relax, muscle by muscle. “Me, too.”

  She doubted he heard her. His breathing had gone slow, and arm over her waist limp.

  Ollie returned, studied their position in the middle of the bed, and groaned. “Are there beds built for this kind of thing?”

  She patted the space in front of her, and he took it.

  “We could always keep separate rooms.”

  “We could pretend to for the sake of public relations. Tongues are going to wag enough as it is.” He folded her hand in his and closed his eyes.

  A moment later, he was asleep, too.

  Somehow, Tess didn’t think she was going to make her flight, and she didn’t really care. Before she succumbed to sleep, too, she reconnected with the Afótama web and reached out to Nadia. “Need a new flight.”

  Nadia returned a sleepy, mental sigh. “Are they fighting again?”

  Tess chuckled quietly. “Only to see who can snore the loudest.”

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Tess climbed up the secret staircase into the living quarters at the Norseston mansion high-spirited and laughing. It was good to be home.

  Home.

  She didn’t know when she’d started thinking of it as such.

  Maybe she hadn’t known how to recognize the thrill because she’d never really had a home before. Places to live, yes, but no place where she felt she belonged.

  Harvey, at the front of their four-person queue, opened the door at the top of the stairs and Nadia followed him through, only to walk into his back when he stopped abruptly.

  “What’s wrong?” Tess climbed to the landing and nudged Nadia out of the way.

  Standing in the hall with her hands clasped behind her back and wearing a drawn expression was Nan. “I’m glad you’re home safely,” she said quietly.

  Tess couldn’t get a read on her, but her gut said her grandmother was angry.

  But, at whom?

  Ollie pulled Tess clear of the staircase and shut the fire door. “What happened, Muriel?”

  “We’re not certain of anything just yet, but I think it’s time we took a closer look at who comes in and goes out of Norseton.”

  “May I speak frankly?” Harvey asked.

  “As long as you do it aloud. Funnily enough, that’s the more secure communication method at the moment.”

  Harvey nodded. “You said ‘who comes in and goes out.’ Are you including Afótama in that number?”

  “Yes.”

  “Our security as well?”

  “Especially. In your absence, Tess, I put all the staff on paid administrative leave. Joe and Jody are working to clear them one at a time. So far, only Lora’s back.”

  Tess ducked out of Ollie’s shadow and joined her grandmother’s side. “Where are the rest? If they’re all gone, why are we having a stealthy hallway conference?”

  “They’re on leave, but most are in the area. I don’t know how many are in the building at the moment. The butler has an apartment in the basement, and I couldn’t exactly throw him out of it.”

  “Here I was, thinking you were going to yell at me and Nadia for traveling unescorted, but it seems we have a much bigger problem. What is it?”

  Nan shook her head. “It’s probably a good thing you didn’t take staff. Until we know for certain whom we can trust, stick with sure bets. Nadia, Jody, your uncle, or one of your men.”

  Tess’s cheeks burned hot at her grandmother’s use of the word “men,” but she should have known Nan wouldn’t judge. Nan was a practical woman. She might have even suggested Tess take both as lovers and dazzle them so they’d call off their stupid challenge.

  “Under no circumstances are you to go anywhere alone.”

  Tess opened her mouth to speak any one of several complaints, but Ollie clapped his hand over it. “Baby, everyone knows you’re the queen, but the folks in this hallway know she’s the lady in charge.”

  Of course.

  “I don’t think she’s bossing you around because it’s her birthright, but because she’s your grandmother. I doubt she wants to lose any more of her family”

  Nan nodded. “Thank you, Oliver. We can move to my sitting room, and I’ll lay out all the facts I have.”

  They followed her down the hall filed into her soundproof suite. Tess’s rooms were nowhere near as kitted out. She hadn’t had time to approve the upgrades, though she planned to make them a priority as soon as the staff was back.

  Nadia leaned against the desk edge.

  Tess sat in the middle of a Viking sandwich on the plush sofa.

  Nan settled primly onto her antique wingback chair and straightened her screen-printed three-wolf-moon T-shirt. Tess would have laughed at her grandmother’s eccentricities if the mood hadn’t been so solemn. Nan cleared her throat. “The last time we had to clean house like this, Tess, was after you went missing. We’d like to keep this as quiet as we can to keep the Afótama web calm. If we can handle this swiftly, no one outside the inner circle will catch wind of it.”

  “What happened?” Tess got a sinking feeling.

  “Fiona’s boy Ricky went missing yesterday. I thought perhaps he left the complex and got lost, but—”

  “No.” Tess shook her head. She knew that was wrong because she felt him, thanks to Ollie. She always felt a general disquiet
ude from Fiona because of her illness, and she wouldn’t have noticed if the other woman’s stress shifted from one kind to another. She’d learned to more or less tune Fiona out when she surveyed the web. The children, though—they were different.

  She hadn’t felt a disruption from Ricky because Ricky didn’t know anything was wrong. He thought he was safe with whomever he was with, and Tess didn’t know if that was good or bad.

  “And I’m the conduit, so it’s my job to figure out where he is, isn’t?”

  “It won’t be easy,” Nan said. “When I was in your place, I couldn’t track the children. I fear we may be up against the same enemy, and one who knows far too many of our secrets.”

  “Plucked off from the inside.” It took all the fortitude Tess could muster to keep her terror from leaching into the web. She wouldn’t be able to keep up, and everyone would know soon that something was wrong.

  “No, no, no.” Ollie grabbed her hand. “I’ve got you.”

  “Thank you.” With his help, she compartmentalized her thoughts and stored them away.

  “Use all the help people willingly offer you, Contessa,” Nan said. “The queen’s power is a mighty thing, but grows when she has a lens to direct and multiply it.” She pushed her glasses onto her nose and stood.

  She rummaged through the tubes of rolled maps in the stand by her desk and pulled out the one she sought. “You have two lenses. I think your odds of success in all you endeavor are remarkably high.”

  Harvey squeezed Tess’s knee and gave her thigh a reassuring rub. “We will succeed.”

  Tess couldn’t help but to grin. “We, huh?”

  His smile in return was predatory and drop-dead sexy. “We’re sharing, Tess. Remember?”

  How could she forget?

  SERIES NOTE

  I hope you’ve enjoyed The Viking Queen’s Men! This novel is the first of many stories set in and around Norseton, and Tess’s love affair with Harvey and Ollie (and theirs with each other) continues in The Chieftain’s Daughter.

  In the mood for romance with bite? The Norseton Wolves novellas spin off from book two of The Afótama Legacy and start with Beast. Want to learn more about the fairies Heath and Thom? Read Prince in Leather—the first book in the Hearth Motel series—when you finish The Chieftain’s Daughter.

  The Afótama Legacy, Norseton Wolves, and Hearth Motel series timelines all intertwine. Although there is some character overlap, each series stands on its own. You’ll have a fuller reading experience if you read them all on the prescribed timeline.

  Reading Order:

  The Viking Queen’s Men (The Afótama Legacy #1)

  The Chieftain’s Daughter (The Afótama Legacy #2)

  Prince in Leather (Hearth Motel #1)

  Unwrapping Mr. Roth (Hearth Motel #1.5)

  Viking’s Pride (The Afótama Legacy #2.5)

  Viking Flame (The Afótama Legacy #3)

  Knight in Leather (Hearth Motel #2)

  Surrendering Saul (Hearth Motel #3)

  The Viking’s Witch (The Afótama Legacy #4)

  Norseton Wolves

  Beast

  Loner

  Idler

  Scion

  Maker

  Elder

  Scout

  Seer

  Angel

  The Norseton Wolves novellas are set further along in the world’s timeline, but you can read them at any point after The Chieftain’s Daughter.

  Turn the page for a peek at The Chieftain’s Daughter, but before you do, be sure to subscribe to my paranormal romance newsletter so you’ll receive a notification when the next Afótama, Norseton Wolves, or Hearth Motel story is available.

  THE CHIEFTAIN’S DAUGHTER

  It has been nearly a thousand years since the Afótama have had a chieftain, and the old Viking gods have decided it’s time to return some power to the tribe’s men. Harvey Lang and Oliver Gilisson have barely settled into their roles as queen’s consorts when new powers awaken along with undeniable hungers.

  Queen Contessa now has two chieftains and twice as many problems. She’s not only in the midst of using her powerful psychic abilities to track long-missing clanspeople, but now has to contend with mercenaries targeting the Afótama’s New Mexican desert home and a megalomaniac fairy queen wants to take Ollie’s sons. Further, her two men seem to have forged an incendiary connection that has left her feeling cold.

  If Harvey, Ollie, and Tess are to be the leaders who finally return magic to their people, they must first come to terms with having power of their own. And to balance their strengths, they may have to become a true ménage instead of a sometime threesome.

  ___

  CHAPTER ONE

  Of all the parts of the body Harvey Lang could find scintillating, it was fingers that intrigued him most.

  His queen and lover’s fingers were long, elegant, and rarely still. Even when her lovely face displayed no signs of her inner turmoil, her hands did. She drummed her fingers or threaded them between each other in different configurations. She traced unreadable scribbles on tabletops and on the back of his hand. She pulled them through his hair and made knots while she pondered the day’s dilemma.

  Her fingers were rarely still even when she slept.

  But now, it wasn’t her fingers driving him to distraction. His gaze fixed on the fingers belonging to the person skillfully dismantling and cleaning a semiautomatic Beretta pistol. An odd activity for any other library, but the Afótama clan’s royal library doubled as a ready room...and, on occasion, a den of debauchery.

  The fingers were calloused and rough. They were bronzed from sun exposure and scarred from thirty-eight years of mistakes. When balled into a fist, those fingers could disfigure a man.

  Harvey had learned that firsthand.

  He moved his own fingers to his bruised jaw and rubbed it. That fight had been two months ago. The swelling and discoloration had ebbed, but the injury had left a sort of psychic scar.

  An emotional one.

  If it hadn’t been for Tess’s intervention, that fight might not have ended in a draw.

  They may have still been feuding rivals instead of fast friends.

  Or were they more than that?

  Tess knelt in front of Harvey, snapping her fingers in front of his eyes.

  “Yes, sweetheart?”

  “Have you heard anything I’ve been saying? What world did you drift off to?”

  He grabbed one of her long, dark curls and twined it around his index finger. That had always been meditative for him—the spirals’ familiar shapes, their smoothness against his skin. He’d always been one of the very few she’d allowed to breach her personal space so intimately, and the years he hadn’t been able to touch her had been some of his worst.

  He let the curl fall against her chest and met her warm hazel gaze. Her psychic tendrils lapped against his mental shielding, requesting entrance. Seeking a fuller connection.

  If she’d wanted to, she could force her way in. Take the information she sought. As queen, she had the power, and not just by their law, but by blood. She had to be strong, though. Her role as queen of their clan was to keep them all connected, but that sometimes meant she had to hold herself apart—lock down her thoughts so they didn’t leach into the collective consciousness and put a damper on otherwise good moods.

  Right now, she was open for him.

  He let her in so she’d know he was holding nothing critical from the conversation.

  “You really want to know?” he asked.

  She folded her arms atop his legs and offered him one of her rare grins—the kind that reminded him of exactly what she was. A semi-reformed rogue. Her lips inspired carnal thoughts. She could seduce without even trying. Without touching. His turgid cock could attest to that.

  She inched her fingers up his thighs. “I don’t know what’s distracting you, only that it’s potentially scandalous.”

  “That surprises you?” He leaned down and pressed his lips to hers. Her mo
uth opened for him and his tongue traced lazy figure eights around hers.

  “Mmm. Everything about you is scandalous.” She put a hand to the back of his head and pulled him down to deepen their kiss. “Now who’s distracted?” she projected telepathically and never lost a beat with her tongue.

  “You really want to know what I was thinking?” He pulled her up so she straddled him on the leather chaise.

  “Oh, your dick’s telling me that.”

  He broke their kiss with a chuckle and stared up into her knowing gaze. “Are you sure I wasn’t hard before you walked over?”

  She pushed up one of her dark eyebrows. Her lips twitched at one corner. “We’re discussing Afótama business. How the hell do you find that arousing? Personally, I find it quite stressful.”

  “That’s not what’s turning me on.” He grabbed her hand, kissed it, and gently rolled her off his body.

  “Do tell,” she said aloud.

  Tess’s cousin and aide strode into the room and closed the heavy wood door behind her.

  Perfect timing.

  Tess sighed.

  He winked at her.

  Nadia propped her hands on her hips and looked at the three of them in turn. As always, she wore a neck-to-toe black ensemble. Even without the leather she so often favored, she cut an intimidating figure. She was the epitome of a modern Viking woman. It wasn’t just her shockingly red hair, her confident posture, and her fondness for bladed weapons. She cared deeply about her family, her clan, and their history. She’d fight for any of those things, and had already done so on occasion in the few months since Tess became queen.

  Nadia was born into her role—to be aide to her cousin—just as Tess was born into hers.

  “What’d I miss?” Nadia asked.

  Still assembling his gun, Tess’s other lover said with a laugh, “We were talking about the missing Ricky Freberg and other items of group importance.”

  Nadia cut her gaze to the lounger and scoffed. “Right. Business of the procreative sort, I bet. I’m surprised you didn’t join in, Ollie.”