by Jane Cousins
Waking this morning, she’d been half hoping she’d imagined the way Fen unbalanced her. That’s why when the Chief had stated breakfast was ready, she’d volunteered to wake Fen.
Damn, part of her regretted not killing him last night. The rest of her was strangely looking forward to sitting across the table and eating breakfast with him… was she ill?
Fen stifled a yawn as he walked into the open Fire Station kitchen, more than happy to note Levi, their rookie, was manning the grill. At least something was going right today. The kid was a master in the kitchen, something Fen knew the Chief would be chatting to him about once his probation period was up. Levi didn’t belong in the Fire Station, his passion was obviously food, but he had to give the kid points for trying.
Fen grabbed a tray and started loading food on it… hmmm, his favourite bacon and jalapeño omelettes, he took two. Filling a large mug with black coffee, he grabbed a seat at the long trestle table next to Mills. Kristo was there, the Chief, Pryia, Troy, and of course Brodie. From the sounds echoing up from the ground floor, he assumed the rest of the crew had finished breakfast already and were now cleaning and restocking the truck.
“Well?” The Chief directed the question Fen’s way once he’d consumed half the contents on his plate.
“Fucked if I know, Pete.” He didn’t sugar coat it. After two hours of questioning Brodie last night he still didn’t have a clue what the hell was going on. Who was setting these mysterious ultra-burn fires, or, for that matter, how. “I’m eighty percent sure Brodie is the link…”
The entire table looked towards Brodie, who ignored the attention, too busy enjoying the tasty blueberry pancakes. Rule three of being a Valkyrie, eat when you can.
“But she doesn’t know anyone here. So we’re not talking about revenge.” Fen continued.
“What about enemies?” Pryia enquired, her short brown hair gleaming in the shaft of sunlight streaming through the nearest window. “Valkyries must collect enemies like most women collect shoes. Perhaps one followed her here?”
Brodie looked up at the sudden silence, swallowing a large bite, she realised that a response was required. “The rules are strict. Enemies and allies change from battle to battle. At any one time, over thirty battles are being fought on the many plains of Fjornfiall. But we are hired, the challenge is pre-determined, the battle is fought until victory is claimed. To break the rules, to pursue a combatant on any other plain such as here on Earth…” Brodie shook her head, returning her attention to her plate. “… the Gods would not allow it.”
“Yeah, okay… but forgive me.” Mills held his palms up in surrender. “What about enemies here on Earth? You’re kind of… direct, have you… upset anyone recently?”
Brodie frowned hard at Mills, shook her head abruptly and once more shifted her focus back to her plate.
Fen intervened. “Brodie and I went over this last night. When she’s not on the battlefield plains, she spends her time practising her sword skills, or working out at the gym located conveniently at Valkyrie Headquarters in Los Angeles. She maintains a one bedroom apartment off site, where she sleeps when she’s on the Earth plain waiting to be assigned her next campaign. Mainly the apartment is used to store weapons.”
Brodie forced herself not to react to Fen’s stark description of her life. Did she sense disapproval in his tone? She liked her life, it was very… satisfactory. Though the way Fen related the facts like that, it made her life sound very… narrow.
She pushed back on a small sliver of niggling doubt. No, her life was good, fulfilling even. She was a Valkyrie, she existed to fight. Descended from a long line of women blessed by the Goddess Freyja, to war in her name.
To stay alive, she trained, stayed fit. It’s not like she didn’t have friends, her fellow Valkyrie were her sisters… though many of them, like Lena, were married now, starting families. They had less time to socialise outside of the fighting plains.
And she had family… though it had been three years since she’d seen her mother on the Earth plain. The battle against the Loithien had been raging for well over one hundred years on the higher plains of Fjornfiall. But she received regular communiques from her mother, telling her of the progress of the battle and recounting, in graphic detail, her most recent kills.
In all regards, except for this enforced holiday, her life was perfect… wasn’t it?
Grr, see, this was what holidays did, they made you soft. Well, she was having none of it, she would train today until she collapsed from exhaustion.
The Chief shifted in his seat. “Okay then, let’s focus on the ignition point.” He looked over at Troy. “What can you tell me about the rock?”
Troy ran frustrated fingers over his shorn to the scalp blonde hair. “It’s hot.” He ignored the eye rolls of the others at the table. “No, I’m serious. It’s been ten hours and the radiant heat off of it is still blistering hot.”
“A rock?” Brodie looked around the table. “Someone threw a rock into my living room?”
“Yes.” Troy nodded in confirmation. “We were lucky to find it, too much damage was sustained at the other sites. And by the time they’d cooled enough to sift through, all we were left with was a pile of ash and rubble. But now, thanks to your efforts to keep the fire from spreading, and the Chief’s prompt arrival, we know how these fires are starting.”
“Where is it now?” Fen enquired.
“Downstairs in the hot box.” Troy referenced the bare cement walled safety room. “Transporting it was a bitch.”
“Is it special somehow?” Mills finished off his coffee.
“Other than being ridiculously hot?” Troy shrugged. “I’m a fireman, not a geologist.”
“We need to get one of the family geek squad to take a look at it.” The Chief shifted his gaze to Fen, his senior investigator. “You’d better take care of it.”
Fen nodded, pushed his empty plate away and got to his feet. “I’m on it.” Halting suddenly as Pete cleared his throat.
“You forgetting anything?” The Chief enquired, blue eyes lit with mild amusement as he glanced at Fen and then meaningfully over at their Valkyrie guest.
“You want me to run Brodie back over to Hidden Cove first?”
Pete shook his head. “Four fires in four nights? And the only two links we’ve been able to establish is a rock and Brodie. Someone’s lobbing incendiary rocks into homes and businesses… we don’t know who and we don’t know why, so I suggest you keep Brodie close and figure it out.”
Fen opened his mouth to argue and then snapped it shut. The Chief was generally mild mannered and laid back, but when he issued a command, he expected it to be executed.
Spending time with Fen dove tailed nicely with Brodie’s plans to wear him down until he caved in to her request that they fuck. But at the same time she was unsure if spending a lot of time with him not having sex… waiting for him to buckle to her offer… was in her best interests.
Wasn’t it a bad idea, getting to know him? What if she grew to despise Fen so much that she could no longer stomach the idea of having sex with him? Then she’d have to waste valuable time searching for a new candidate.
What if he proved weak? What if he annoyed her and she accidentally, in the heat of the moment, killed him just to shut him up? She’d be on holiday forever.
What if… go on, you are a Valkyrie, afraid of nothing and no one. What if she got to know him and she… liked him? It seemed an impossible idea. But she had been taught by the best military strategists to consider all possibilities, no matter how ludicrous.
After all, she was already dealing with this unnerving craving to see the man without his clothes once more. What was up with that?
Perhaps she was being fanciful, driven a little stir crazy by this enforced holiday. Perhaps this was nothing more than a simple case of lust. The man did have a beautifully sculpted body, solid muscles, along with those stunning cerulean eyes. She met his gaze and things low in her body melted and heated at
the same time.
By the Sword, she needed to kill something before she did something stupid. “I need to practise.” Brodie barely managed to get the words out from between clenched teeth.
Fen recognised the look of bloodlust simmering in Brodie’s shattered ice storm eyes, he’d witnessed it enough times in his sister, Hadleigh’s eyes, when they’d been growing up. Warriors, when they got that look had to be managed carefully, they had to be distracted, their attention focused away from all the innocents in the room.
Huh, he’d just had a great idea. He knew exactly what to do with Brodie whilst he was investigating these arson attacks. The perfect place where she’d be safe and maybe if he was really lucky, she’d find someone new to harass to have sex with her.
Crap, and just why did that idea irritate him?
Man, her timing sucked. Two years ago, if a woman of Brodie’s calibre approached him with an offer of sex, he would have grabbed her by the hand and gone AWOL for a twenty-four hour marathon of hot, naked, monkey sex.
These days, he was ten kinds of wary every time a strange woman so much as looked his way in the supermarket. Wondering if she’d seen one of the fantastical online dating profiles, presumably created by his mother. Heavens knows why he had to be shirtless in all the photos. More frustrating that the sites wouldn’t let him cancel those profiles, no matter how much he complained.
So of course he was suspicious as hell to have Brodie appear, with her long, long legs, and offer of no holds barred, entanglement free sex. It had to be a trap… somehow. But oh, Goddess, if it wasn’t, he was about to shoot himself in the foot big time.
Fuck, he was at a crossroads. Do the mature thing and find Brodie someone new to focus on, or indulge in a bout of hot, rough, Valkyrie sex that might have life changing consequences on his single status?
It was a dilemma of epic proportions, the decision not helped along as Brodie rose to her feet, giving him another glimpse of those gorgeous toned legs of hers, set off to perfection by the tiny khaki shorts she was barely wearing.
He averted his eyes in self preservation. “I’ll just need two minutes to change… then I’ll drop you at the Fitness Centre. You can practise there to your heart’s content.”
He prayed he wasn’t going to regret this decision, letting the chance to indulge in hot - no holds barred - sex with an all too eager Valkyrie slip though his fingers. As he stomped off to change, Fen wondered why the mature path always felt like the hardest masochistic road to travel?
Fuck… and just when, during this debacle, had he become a grown-up? The hits just kept on coming.
Chapter Five
Fen walked through the doors into the training arena and stopped abruptly, confronted by a cluster of bloodied, bruised, and broken Enforcers seated in the gallery. One of them sprawled out on the floor, clearly unconscious.
Shit, what had he done by bringing Brodie here?
He strode over to Elijah, head of the Enforcers, who was standing by the railing, his back to Fen. Even his cousin hadn’t escaped the Valkyrie’s wrath by the looks of things. Blood smeared the back of his neck, his grey t-shirt was ripped up one side and he was cradling his arm to his body. Fen was guessing broken collarbone.
Damn, what had he been thinking introducing a sexually aggressive and bored Valkyrie to the family Enforcer Guild?
Reluctantly, he moved to stand next to Elijah, might as well take his lumps now.
Elijah’s head snapped around for a brief moment, flashing him a grin before returning his attention back to the arena. “Fen! Can we keep her?”
Whoa. When was the last time Elijah had smiled at anything?
“She was exactly what we needed, a breath of fresh air… the grunts were growing way too stagnant and lazy.”
Several of the nearby Enforcers groaned in protest, though to Fen’s ear, a couple of those groans sounded like they were issued in real pain.
“Suck it up.” Elijah shot back at them. “So? I’m serious… I need her here, Fen.”
A bolt of alien possessiveness shot through Fen’s gut, shocking the hell out of him. But Brodie wasn’t his anything to bestow.
“Since Hadleigh stopped practising with us full time and took up with those supersized - sun born - Maat Warriors, we haven’t had anyone driven by bloodlust to present us with a real challenge.”
“Goddess, I’d pay good money to watch Hadleigh go at it with the Valkyrie.” Taite declared from behind Fen, adjusting the bag of ice he held against the swollen and bruised left side of his face.
A chorus of agreement by the gallery of wounded Enforcers at that idea sounded, along with a few more groans. The bastards were all insane. Fen shook his head, crazy and deadly, every single one of them. And in less than eight hours, Brodie had taken their measure and mown them down.
“The word’s spread about her. I’ve had over two dozen calls from Enforcers on duty who want a crack at her.”
Fen knew Elijah meant on the training field, but for some reason that bolt of weird possessiveness jolted through him again. Crap, he’d known the woman less than twenty-four hours. Refused her offer of sex at least three times, and assumed the role of guardian, and protector, against some unknown foe who liked to hurl superheated rocks around. He shouldn’t be having any personal feelings about the woman, she was part of the job, nothing more.
“The arson investigation takes first priority, Elijah, and she’s here on holiday, maybe she’s got better things to do than hang out with a bunch of lunatics who share a sword fetish.”
Fen had barely finished speaking when a bloodcurdling war cry split the air, his eyes immediately flicking to the training arena. Currently set up like a fake battlefield, with ditches, tunnels, pipes, trees, and running paths. At the centre of which sat a large hill, with a flag fluttering on top.
“What the hell was that?” Fen’s heart was racing. His fight or flight instincts having kicked in.
Elijah grinned, leaning forward intently. “She’s making her move, just watch.”
* * *
Brodie was having so much fun. Bursting out of the dirt she began to make a run for the platform hill in the middle of the training ground. It kind of shocked her to discover how much she was enjoying herself.
In comparison, Valkyrie training was a complete yawn, and totally predictable. Her opponent always female, her height, or similar. Their weapons always swords or knives. And because they had all been trained by the same Masters, their techniques basically mirrored one another. Moves easily anticipated. So the long bouts were all too often won due to an individual’s endurance, rather than skill.
She was also seriously jealous when it came to this wonderful facility. The training arena was huge, located in the deceptively sized Bright Fitness Centre. With excellent state of the art toys, and a layout that could be rearranged at the push of a button, with elements easily added and changed, such as weather or visibility.
At the commencement of the training session they’d been issued electronic swords, that would record the amount of damage they caused. The first test of the day, fighting a horde of computer generated opponents, who could inflict real pain thanks to the light weight vests they wore that issued a small electrical shock whenever an Enforcer took a hit.
Brodie approved heartily of that, if you didn’t get hurt, you didn’t learn.
And now, to close out the day’s exercises, they were battling for supremacy over territory. Or, more precisely, the platform hill that took up a large amount of space in the centre of the arena. Victory going to the last person standing to take the flag fluttering away at the top.
Brodie couldn’t seem to stop smiling. This was her sixteenth and final run at the hill. She was bruised, blood splattered, some of the blood even belonging to her. She had a burn across her left upper arm, and an aching right knee that she was choosing to ignore.
Now this was a holiday!
She was starting to see the attraction in visiting new places and meeting new people.
If they could be guaranteed to be as highly skilled as the Southern Sanctuary Enforcers, sign her up. And she wasn’t just talking about their obvious weapons skills. The real thrill was in not knowing what magical abilities each of the Enforcers had. Every foe was unpredictable, and she loved it.
Opponents who could spit acid, change the dirt beneath you into quicksand, emit a humming sound that made you want to claw out your own ears, leap fifteen feet into the air, and any number of other weird and wonderful magical talents.
She hadn’t realised how heartily sick of going up against demons she was, armed with precise intel on their every weakness and strength, no surprises, never any real… challenge. That’s what had been missing in her life.
Take this final round for instance. Jodie, her opponent, was an apprentice, an Enforcer in training. And shaking her hand before the bout, Brodie had been a little worried for the younger girl.
Jodie was several inches shorter than her, pale and waif like, with big brown soulful eyes and kind of… breakable looking.
Brodie had been contemplating going easy on her until one second after the siren blared to announce the commencement of the bout, when Jodie shot her a brilliant, smug smile, and abruptly disappeared from sight. The sneaky little cow had tried to play her. And to think, she, of all people, had been about to underestimate another female warrior.
Magic, unpredictable, unexpected magic… damn, being able to turn invisible, that was so cool.
It took several precious minutes to work out that Jodie could only disappear for three second bursts. The cat and mouse game that followed forcing Brodie to utilise more than just her physical prowess, she had to be patient, she had to listen, she had to trust her gut instincts as she stalked the training arena.
That’s why she was making a break for the flag now, every instinct she had was telling her Jodie was headed up the platform hill. Heart racing, blood pumping, adrenalin coursing through her veins she increased her speed, she wanted that flag.