by Jaid Black
MADALYN LED HER NEW, and thankfully female, goat into the corral, then affectionately patted both animals on their heads. “Victoria, I’d like you to meet the newest addition to our family.”
“You’re still gonna call him Victoria?” Drake wrinkled her nose. “That’s just wrong.”
“I’ve been calling him Victoria for weeks. He answers to it. I can’t just give him another name.”
“Then what’ll you call the female?”
“Hmmm…”
“Maybe you should give her a male name. Fair is fair. Besides, people might get the wrong idea if they both have female names.”
Madalyn rolled her eyes. “Have you ever heard of lesbian goats?”
“Yeah. I think most of them have had partial mastectomies.”
“Very funny.”
“So anyway, what are you going to name the female?”
Madalyn pondered the question as she inspected the new goat from head to tail. “She kind of looks like a Thor to me.”
“Thor?”
“The name of the hero in my first film.”
“Ahhh. We’re back to Song of the Viking.” Drake sighed. “Thor, the girl, and Victoria, the boy. I suppose it works in an Alice in Wonderland sort of way.”
While feeding the goats, Madalyn recalled the day’s events. The trip into Zhitana had been fun. She always had a good time with Drake, but being able to hang out sans reporters breathing down their necks had been beyond great. It made her wish her sister would stay forever.
“Alaska is gorgeous.”
“Yeah, I know.” Madalyn glanced up and smiled. “Every time I leave the cabin, I have a hard time remembering I’m still in the United States. It’s a different world in the Arctic.”
“That it is. I hate to leave it.”
Something wrenched in the vicinity of her heart. Realistically, Madalyn knew her younger sister wouldn’t stay in Alaska forever, but she wasn’t quite ready to give her up yet, either. CACW could wait. This time was for the Simon sisters.
“Why don’t we drive down to the coast and see if we can spot any whales?” Drake asked.
Madalyn appreciated the change in topic. Thinking about her sister going back to Utah was depressing. “That could be fun. I’ve never seen a whale, except on TV.”
Drake nodded. “Same here.”
“Then let’s do it! I’ll go get the keys to the snowmobile.”
“Don’t forget your polar bear fur. It’ll keep you warm.”
Madalyn sighed at the reminder of the ugly thing. She tossed a golden-red curl over her shoulder. “Fine. But if we run into any of its living relatives and they want to know why I’m wearing their cousin, I’m pointing in your direction.”
OTAR AND HIS MEN had walked for miles and seen nothing. No foot impressions, no markings left behind by Outsider vehicle tires—no nothing. He scanned the terrain once more, his dark eyes alert. If the warriors of Army had come this far north, they had left it without a trace.
“Iiro!” Otar barked.
“Aye, milord?”
Before Toki had risen to the throne, he had been called that title by all and sundry. Now only a few addressed him thusly, those who thumbed their noses at Toki in secret.
“You’ve seen nothing?” Otar inquired, knowing the answer but wanting a verbal confirmation.
“Nay.”
After receiving the same answer from Luukas, Otar said, “there’s no point in continuing this search. There hasn’t been any new snowfall in days. Had the Outsider Army come through here, we would have seen some proof by now.”
The trio of men started back toward their world, careful to cover up their foot impressions as they walked. Another two hours and they’d be safely ensconced inside Lokitown, the capital of New Sweden. Until then, they would remain alert, prepared for any eventuality.
Otar’s gaze continued to scan the horizon. He wouldn’t relax until he and his men had made it back to Lokitown without espying an Outsider. Were they to spot one en route, the enemy would be killed. No Outsiders came this far north—ever. If one came now it could only mean trouble.
“I’ve heard whisperings,” Luukas said in a low voice, “that the Revolution will begin in two fortnights. Is it true, milord?”
“You know I cannot discuss this,” Otar rumbled. “Just be prepared to battle at a moment’s notice.”
“The valar are surfacing,” Iiro pointed out.
Otar glanced toward the icy waters, a slight smile forming on his lips. Valar—whales—he’d always loved them. So gigantic, yet so graceful. Much like a Viking.
His thoughts turned back to war, his gaze still on the water giants. The whisperings Luukas had heard were true, and he wondered who would be foolish enough to discuss strategy with anyone outside Lord Ericsson’s inner circle. Though Otar trusted Luukas, none from the inner circle should be loose-lipped with anyone—not even with underlings they placed their faith in.
Two fortnights and the Revolution would begin. Any warrior or soldier in his right mind would be dreading it. Yet Otar felt no trepidation.
Excitement. Eagerness. The desire for vengeance. But no fear.
His jaw tightened. He hoped he delivered the death blow to Toki; the bastard had put his family through so much. For himself, Otar did not care. But for his mother and twin sister, he cared mightily.
Annikki, Otar’s mother, had begged him not to take part in the Revolution. She cared naught for vengeance and didn’t want to lose her only son. As much as he grieved for her possible loss, Otar knew the Revolution was his destiny.
Mayhap death was his destiny, too.
It had been that knowledge that had kept him from seeking a bride on the marriage auction block for all these years. At thirty-four, he was well past the age when he should have taken a wife.
Some rebels, like Luukas, married and reproduced so their lineage could continue after their deaths. To each their own, Otar supposed—but he still felt it was wrong to force a wife to your side, get her with child, then leave her without a mate to help raise the babe.
“Milord,” Iiro whispered, breaking Otar from his thoughts. He came to a sudden stop and jumped behind a nearby boulder. Immediately on guard, Otar and Luukas followed suit.
“An Outsider?” Otar murmured, his muscles tensing from behind the rock, preparing for battle.
“Two.”
Damn it. “Tell me their position.”
Iiro gave him his answer. Otar retrieved two blades from his braes, ready to hurl them with deadly accuracy. Primed for battle, he crouched down and motioned for his men to follow him.
Chapter
Five
“They are breathtaking,” Drake sighed. “Pristine mammoths living in an environment that is untainted by Big Brother and his chemicals.”
Madalyn wouldn’t have put it in those words precisely, but she got the point and more than agreed. She’d never seen anything so big and beautiful in her life. TV didn’t do the whales a lick of justice.
“They’ve got a great life,” Madalyn mused. She pushed the polar bear skin off her head, letting her golden-red curls spring free. “They swim, sleep, have sex, and eat. Where do I sign up?”
“They aren’t hunted by the news media vultures, but there are plenty of poachers out there hunting and killing them on a daily basis.” Drake snapped dozens of photos with her digital camera. “I hope this damn camera’s memory card doesn’t run out of space,” she muttered.
“That’s sad,” Madalyn said quietly, feeling a sense of camaraderie with the whales. She knew all too well what it felt like to have a bounty on your head. “People disgust me.”
“That’s another CACW motto.”
“Huh.”
“We better get back to the cabin,” Drake said suddenly, making Madalyn look over at her quizzically.
“Why?”
“I don’t know. Just a weird feeling in my belly.”
They started walking toward the showmobile.
“Is this
like the time we were visiting Mom and Dad and you wouldn’t drive down US-31 because you were convinced the cows in Old Willy’s pasture were possessed by the devil?”
“It wasn’t the devil himself,” Drake sniffed defensively. “It was just some kind of evil spirit.”
“Right.”
“It was my twenty-first birthday and I’d had too much to drink.”
“And smoke.”
Drake frowned. “I get the point! And noooo, it’s not like that.”
“Or how about that dream you had about Aunt Benny? You made us drag an old lady for a three-mile hike across town because you were certain that her car was going to explode.”
“Well, we didn’t get in the car, did we? Who’s to say what would have happened if we had?”
“Hmmm…”
“Look,” Drake said, annoyed, “I follow my gut instincts. Sometimes they’re right and sometimes they’re wrong, but I always follow them.” Her boots crunched over the snow. “It’s kept me alive, and you unfound, thus far.”
Madalyn conceded the point. “I’m just teasing you.” She smiled and tucked one of her little sister’s silky black tresses behind her ear. “I love you just the way you are. Paranoid schizophrenic or not.”
Drake half snorted and half laughed. “Gee, thanks. I think.” She stilled, her expression growing serious. “We need to get to the snowmobile now.”
Something in the way she’d said “now” made Madalyn nervous. The word had come out almost as a plea—something Drake never made. “Okay,” she breathed out. Her gaze darted around as the hair at the nape of her neck began to rise. “Let’s go.”
“I don’t think you will be going anywhere, wench,” a low, masculine voice growled in a thick accent.
Madalyn gasped as a powerful, callused hand grabbed her neck from behind and wrapped around her throat. Her eyes widened and her heart raced, threatening to beat out of her chest. She opened her mouth to scream, but his other palm slapped mercilessly over her mouth.
“Who are you? A warrior from Army?” he gritted out from behind her. Hot breath blew against her neck. “How did you find us?”
She had no idea what he was talking about and was too scared to care. His hand prevented her from answering, anyway. He must have remembered that, for he removed it a second later.
Her terrified gaze shot over to Drake. Her sister was being manhandled by two huge men, both of them trying to wrestle her to the ground. “Get off me!” Drake bellowed. “Let me go!”
“I asked who you are,” the menacing voice demanded. He tightened his hold around her neck, causing her throat to gurgle and her forehead to perspire. “’Tis wise do you answer me.”
The fact that he spoke in antiquated, heavily accented English barely registered. Madalyn was too hysterical to give his speech much thought.
She was going to die!
“M-my name is M-Madalyn,” she wheezed, gasping for air. “Please—you’re hurting me.”
One minute he was standing behind her, threatening to strangle the life out of her, and the next she was being jerked around to face him, the polar bear skin she wore falling to the ground. She couldn’t help but struggle for breath when she got her first look at him.
Frightening was too mild a word.
Towering over her by almost a foot, he was as heavily muscled as he was tall. Though his body was mostly covered by animal furs, she could feel the power in his grasp. His hair was black and hung just past his shoulders. A braid snaked from either temple to the back of his head, keeping his hair from falling into his eyes. And those eyes…
Black, ruthless slits. No mercy to be found there.
Their gazes clashed. The man stilled, his muscles cording. His eyes widened almost imperceptibly, recognition dawning. “Victoria?” he said, puzzled.
The name of the heroine in Song of the Viking. He knew who she was.
Madalyn’s hysteria rose. “If you do anything to harm me or my sister, the government will kill you!” she spat. She didn’t know if that was true, but desperate times called for desperate words. “If you know who I am, then you know I speak the truth!”
His nostrils flared and he stared at her surreally, as if he couldn’t believe she was standing there. Then his gaze narrowed, his eyelids growing heavy with telltale arousal.
Oh no, Madalyn thought, terror engulfing her. What do I do?
His eyes widened and his entire body started shaking. Gurgling sounds issued from his throat.
Madalyn instinctively took a step back out of his clutches, wondering if he was having a seizure. Could fate and timing be that wonderful for a change?
He fell to the ground a moment later, incapacitated. Drake—good ol’ survivalist Drake!—stood behind him. Wielding a stun gun, she stood amid the three felled bodies like a female Dirty Harry.
Yes! Yes! Yes!
“Let’s get out of here,” Drake said shakily, sounding more terrified child than accomplished heroine. “I don’t know how long the jolts will last.”
Those words snapped Madalyn out of her trancelike state. Taking her sister’s hand, they ran to the snowmobile as fast as their feet would carry them.
“Kom hit, lilla flicka,” growled the biggest man, the one who had recognized Madalyn as Victoria.
His dark head came up, those black eyes narrowing as he began crawling toward her. She freaked out.
“Hurry!” Madalyn screamed, her entire body shaking. “Put the key in the damn ignition!”
“I’m trying!” Drake yelled back, her voice frantic. Shaky hands fumbled with the keys. “Shit!”
The snowmobile roared to life. The felled man on the ground roared in fury.
Her entire body trembling, Madalyn sighed with relief as the snowmobile raced off, leaving their attackers far behind. Green eyes round, she worried her bottom lip, watching the strange man with the strange accent until he was well out of sight.
OTAR HAD NEVER FELT LIKE MORE OF A FOOL. He’d been so taken aback by the discovery that he’d managed to capture his Victoria that he had behaved more the love-struck boy than the seasoned warrior.
And now look at me, he thought, disgusted. He pulled himself up off the ground, a growl of rage erupting from his throat. His only solace was in knowing that Victoria’s sister had managed to take out all three of them. ’Twould keep Iiro and Luukas from carrying humiliating tales back to the Underground.
“We must seize them,” Iiro ground out, pulling himself to his feet. “Before they tell others of us.”
Otar nodded. He could only pray to Odin they were not too late.
“Kom, så sticker vi.” Let’s go. His gaze honed in on the telltale tracks left behind by the vehicle the wenches had escaped in. “Before there is snowfall and their trail is lost to us.”
Iiro and Luukas followed closely behind. Otar’s jaw tightened, adrenaline pumping through every muscle. He had never looked forward to hunting anyone with the eagerness he now possessed.
Victoria—Madalyn…
His cock stiffened in his braes. She would belong to him.
Chapter
Six
“Mayday! Mayday! Hello? We’ve got a one-niner-niner! This is an emergency, you idiots!”
Madalyn chewed at the tip of one acrylic nail as she watched her sister wear a circle on the kitchen floor. Nobody at CACW knew they were in trouble yet. The longer it took to reach them, the more nervous she became.
This wasn’t good, she realized, walking toward the window and peering out of it again. Those men might already be looking for them! If Drake couldn’t get someone from CACW on the line pronto, they would have to abandon the cabin and head toward Zhitana.
“Well?” Madalyn whispered. “Anything?”
“No. I still don’t have a signal. I don’t know what to do!”
“We have to leave, Drake. You can keep trying them while we drive toward an Inuit village.”
Drake nodded. “Yes,” she mumbled, her gaze darting around as if searching for somethin
g. “You’re right.”
“What are you looking for?”
“The camera.”
Madalyn pointed toward a chair. “I threw it there when we first arrived. Why do you want it now?”
“Those men stopped us for a reason.”
“Yeah, it’s called murder! Or rape and murder.” Madalyn shivered. “Let’s just get out of here, Drake. The longer we stay put, the more freaked out I get.”
“Hang on a second,” she said, fumbling with the digital camera. “I think there was more to that little attack than meets the eye. Did you notice the odd clothing they wore under their polar bear skins?”
“No, I never saw anything but the furs. I did notice how funny they talked, though.”
“Funny?”
“Yeah.” Madalyn frowned thoughtfully. “They had thick accents, and their English was…odd.”
“I know what you mean. I just can’t pinpoint why it was odd.”
Madalyn was silent for a moment. “It was very Old World. Like they still lived in the 1500s or something.”
“Yeah,” Drake breathed out. She swallowed hard. “How weird is that?”
“Very weird. But we can discuss this on the way to Zhitana. I want to leave!”
“Hang on a second, I think I found something. I did! Come look!”
Madalyn raced over to the other side of the room. Peering over her sister’s shoulder, she saw something in one of the digital photographs. Namely, the three gigantic, odd-speaking men. Their images weren’t readily apparent unless you knew what you were looking for, but they were definitely there.
“They didn’t want to be photographed,” Madalyn murmured, her eyes widening. “I wonder what they were doing that they didn’t want to be spotted?”
“I don’t know and hopefully we will never find out.”
“Right. And on that note, let’s get the hell out of here.”
“I want to hide the camera first,” Drake insisted, glancing around. “I wonder where we can put it so nobody can find it.”