Vikings Unleashed: 9 modern Viking erotic romances

by Kate Pearce

  “You’re assuming they didn’t come back to Earth. If they did, their asses are mine.” Reaching back, Ivar grabbed a laptop out of the backpack slung across the back of his chair.

  Val appeared at Erik’s elbow. “What do you mean?”

  Tapping furiously at his keyboard, Ivar didn’t bother glancing up. “I put a tracking device in all of Bryn’s boots.”

  Disbelief expanded inside Erik, both at Ivar’s audacity as well as a small bloom of fragile hope that Bryn might be found so easily. “You—”

  “Yes, there’s one in yours too.” Ivar waved one hand. “All of yours. No, I’m not sorry if it invades your privacy.”

  “Just tell me where she is,” Erik demanded.

  “Gladly.” There was a short pause, then Ivar sighed. “You’re not going to like it though.”

  “Why?” It was all Erik could do not to snatch Ivar up by his shirtfront and shake the information from him. “Tell me, damn it.”

  Ivar’s expression flashed from frustration to helplessness to grief. “Because gods and giants can zap up and down anywhere on Earth they want. We can’t.”

  Oh, gods. “Where are they?”

  “Still in the U.S., but in the middle of fucking nowhere. Even if we hijack a plane to get as close as we can, it’ll take another day to get there.” Ivar slammed a fist against his chair. “Assuming they don’t move her.”

  “Maybe I can help,” a mellifluous female voice called.

  They turned as a unit. Erik already had his gun out.

  “Sif,” Ivar rasped, incredulity coloring his tone.

  She inclined her head. Her wheat-gold hair fell in shining waves to her waist, but her famed beauty was marred by the lines of stress at the corners of her eyes and mouth. She was dressed as a regular woman—sneakers, jeans, and T-shirt. “I can take you anywhere you want to go.”

  “Why should we trust you? How did you even know to come to us?” Holm voiced the same questions racing through Erik’s mind. “You’re a goddess, and we know Frey’s in league with the giants.”

  Actually, they didn’t know it, they just strongly suspected it, but Holm said it like it was hard fact.

  A smile twitched across her face. “Isn’t it obvious? Sure, all the prophecies talk about the heroic battle and deaths of specific gods, including my husband, but do you think the men are the only ones who will perish? No. I’m fundamentally connected to earth. If it’s destroyed by fire and water, what do you think will happen to me? I die too.” She tugged at the hem of her very modern top. “What do they call it nowadays? Ah, yes. I’ll be a…civilian casualty of this war. It helps me to help you.”

  Nauma stepped forward and bowed. “We thank you for your offer. We’re grateful for the assistance.”

  The golden earth goddess looked mildly amused. “So you’ve Seen that I won’t betray you, völva?”

  “Yes.” Nauma beckoned to the men. “You should get going. Now.”

  Sif held out her hands. “Just tell me where. I know every centimeter of this realm—I can get us there without going to Asgard first.” She glanced at Holm. “And to answer your other question, I didn’t know to come to you. Loki came to you, and I followed him. I felt him defile the earth by setting foot off that mountain we had him chained to, and I wanted to know why he came to this tiny corner of the world before he returned to Jötunheim.”

  If Bryn was somewhere in the U.S. and Loki was in Jötunheim, then who had Bryn? Frey, or some other ally of Loki’s? There was only one way to find out.

  “We’ll take the transportation offer.” Erik stepped forward and clasped Sif’s forearm. “Thank you.”

  “Don’t thank me.” She shook her head. “It’s mostly self-serving—I won’t lie. Thor and I will live or die based on what happens now. I’d rather we live.”

  “Understood.” Ivar reached into his backpack and pulled out a small box. He flicked it open and held it out to the team. “Comm units. They’ll work anywhere on the planet.”

  Val, Holm, Erik, and Nauma each took one tiny earbud, and Ivar slipped another into his ear.

  With a quick jerk of his chin, Erik summoned his men, and Val and Holm formed a small circle with him and Sif.

  “Longitude and latitude coordinates work for you?” Ivar gave her a smile that was so bright with relief and gratitude it hurt Erik to look at him. He wasn’t sure there was much to be grateful for yet. He needed Bryn in his arms, alive and in one piece, before he’d feel anything except sick with rage.

  The goddess nodded. “Coordinates are fine.”

  Ivar rattled off a string of numbers and directions that meant little to Erik, but he felt heat and magic surge up his arm from Sif. Then it felt as if he’d been jerked forward into utter darkness, a cool breeze brushed his skin, and finally brilliant, blinding light exploded before his eyes. He blinked to bring the world into focus, flinching from the glare of sunshine, and saw they were in the middle of a rocky desert, a compound of old Quonset huts before them.

  “Looks abandoned,” Val said quietly.

  Ivar’s voice sounded in Erik’s ear. “It was, until recently. An old research facility they haven’t used since they stopped testing nukes on U.S. soil. You’re in Nevada.”

  “Which one is Bryn in?” The howl of hot, sandy air stung his nostrils and ears, rendering his enhanced scent and hearing useless.

  A moment of static and then Ivar spoke. “Her shoe’s currently in the third hut from the right, second row in. Hopefully, she’s still wearing it.”

  As if Erik had needed that reminder. “Yeah. Thanks.”

  “I’ll be going now.” Sif flipped something coin-like through the air, and Erik’s hand snapped out to catch the spinning disc. A small rune stone carved with the symbol for rowan—the tree associated with Sif. “You can use this to call me if you need me, but I’m no use in a fight, as my husband has pointed out many times.”

  “Thank y—”

  A blood-curdling scream ripped through the air. A battle cry, thank all the gods. Bryn was alive and awake and able to fight.

  Erik spun toward the noise as the goddess disappeared with a whoosh of displaced air.

  8

  Bryn pried her eyes open during teleportation, though her entire body throbbed as if she’d been beaten with a baseball bat. She was wrapped in something—a blanket? Too tight to really move, but the end of the cloth flapped around her head, enough so that she could peek out at her surroundings without giving away that she was awake. They went to Jötunheim first—she recognized the symbols carved into the walls of the giant king’s great hall. They walked a long way with her bobbing against Loki’s back, and it was all she could do not to vomit. She heard the rush of water—a river? She never found out for sure because he shoved her into the arms of another man. Then another teleportation to a place so hot she felt her mouth dry in seconds. Were they in the land of the fire giants? The dark flames they wielded made her little fire-conjuring spells of old seem like child’s play. Her heart hammered, fear coating her tongue. The fire giants were some of the most vicious, with an insatiable appetite for human flesh. No wonder they were helping Loki jump-start Ragnarök. Earth would become their buffet.

  She was dumped headfirst onto the floor and got a mouthful of dirt. A reflexive cough erupted from her, no matter how she tried to repress it.

  “Ah, she’s coming to. Good.”

  The baritone voice was smooth and pleasantly well-modulated. She knew that voice.

  “Frey,” she hissed. This was one of the few times she was sorry to be right.

  Someone jerked the end of the blanket, and Bryn went rolling until she slammed hard into a wall. She got her hands up in time to cover her head, but the impact made the breath wheeze out of her lungs. Refusing to give in to the dazed shock, she rocked up on her hands and knees, spitting the grime out of her mouth.

  She forced herself to her feet, though icy tingles shot up her legs from having been in a cramped position so long. Bracing herself against the
wall, she took stock. Her head hurt from whatever Loki had hit her with, and she could feel dried blood crusting her left eyebrow. The room swayed before her, nausea gripping her gut. She blinked hard, breathing in through her nose and out through her mouth.

  “Head hurting?” Frey asked solicitously. He’d always been well-liked, seen as one of the more amiable gods. There was something…off…about him now, a gleam in his gaze that reminded her of a rabid animal. Dangerous. Very, very dangerous.

  She licked dry lips. “You helped Loki get loose.”

  “Very astute.” His smile was so genial it made her skin crawl. She glanced around the room. It was more of a bunker than a room, a long space with corrugated metal walls that curved up into a rounded ceiling. It stank of age and ill-use. The floor wasn’t actually dirt, but was coated in over an inch of filth and sandy soil.

  Some kind of old military facility? It looked like something from the Cold War-era. They definitely weren’t in the land of fire giants, but that didn’t tell her where they were. She saw a few swarthy-skinned fire giants speaking to an icy pale frost giant at the far end of the bunker. They’d shifted sizes down so they looked like basketball player-sized humans, but she knew them for what they were. Plus, the frost giant had two heads.

  A few facts about Frey clicked into place, especially his unusual marriage. She returned her focus to him. “Your giantess wife flipped you to the jötunn side.”

  That cheerful grin turned wicked. “She can be very persuasive.”

  She nodded as if that made perfect sense. In a way, it did. Of course he’d have been susceptible to his wife’s influence. The fact that he was mild-mannered and Freya’s twin brother had probably made other gods turn a blind eye to his obvious vulnerability. “So why kidnap me? I’ve had nothing to do with Asgard politics in centuries.”

  “You think this is just about politics? Perhaps you’re not that astute, after all.” That maniacal gleam entered his gaze again, more intense this time. “I took you because of him.”

  “Erik?” She shook her head, and that was the wrong thing to do because her skull gave a sickening throb. “Until two days ago, I hadn’t had any involvement with him since the day he died and ascended to Valhalla.”

  “Ah, the World’s Chosen. The prophecy always seems to focus on him, but it’s going to be very hard to repopulate the planet without his woman, won’t it?” He ran his tongue along his teeth. “I’m sure you’ll be very entertaining before I feed you to my new friends. Valkyries are always fun. Such fighters—it’s delicious. I’ve had several of them lately.”

  The way his gaze raked over her body left her with no illusions about what he intended. Her gorge rose, memories flashing of battles where men had raped and pillaged their way through villages. Women sold as sex slaves, whored out to whomever paid their masters the most silver. She’d witnessed it, helped those she could, but there was only so much she could do about an entire culture. Contemporary times were much kinder to her gender.

  Frey, however, was not from contemporary times. And kindness wasn’t what he had in mind.

  A door opened near the giants, letting in a shaft of piercing light and whipping wind. Kata stepped inside. One of the giants grunted and reached out to touch her. She went for the knife strapped to her belt, but Frey called, “Leave her be, Surtr. Kata, come here.”

  Surtr. The king of the fire giants. Shit. The jötunn grunted, his gaze following Kata as she walked down the long bunker. When she reached them, Surtr turned his gaze on Bryn. His thick lips peeled back in a grotesque smile that promised an experience night terrors were made of. Her heart pounded with sickening dread. She was alone, unarmed, and outnumbered five-to-one by beings more powerful than her. Only Kata would offer an even fight, and Bryn doubted Frey would let her tear his little pet apart.

  She gave the other valkyrie a look of pure disgust.

  “Traitor,” she hissed. “You’re supposed to be my sister, supposed to fight with me. If he’s had several valkyries lately, then you’ve betrayed us all. I hope this is worth it, knowing what will happen when Odin and Freya get hold of you.”

  Kata went deathly pale, but her chin rose. “There are more forces at play than you know.”

  “Every backstabbing bitch has an excuse.” Bryn watched Frey take a menacing step toward her, his genial expression dropping to reveal a look that would freeze the blood.

  Guilt and shame shone in Kata’s brilliant blue eyes. “You, of all people, should know that nothing is ever as black and white as it looks on the outside.”

  True, but Bryn didn’t give a damn at the moment. She saw no reason to be fair when she was about to become a meal. “Yeah, and those shades of gray will haunt you for all eternity. Been there, done that. What he wants to do to me is gonna keep you up at night. Have fun with that.”

  Kata actually heaved as if she was going to puke, but then she squared her shoulders. “May I go now, Frey?”

  “Oh, that’s right,” Bryn taunted. Because, hey, what more did she have to lose? Playing on the other valkyrie’s obvious remorse couldn’t hurt. It at least delayed the inevitable. “Running away like the coward slut you are is going to make it all better. If you don’t have to watch what your treachery unleashes, it won’t give you nightmares.”

  “Shut your mouth!” Frey swung out to backhand her, but Bryn managed to sidestep the blow.

  Fury lit his gaze, and he launched himself at her.

  He was a god, and he had backup, which meant her chances of survival were slim to none. Her chances of victory were nonexistent, but if she was going to go down, she was going down fighting. Maybe that gave him what he wanted, the sick fuck, but she could do nothing else. She was a valkyrie and it wasn’t in her nature to stand there and take it. This asshole wanted to murder her just so he could screw up some ancient prophecy. Well, she hadn’t asked to be part of any prophecy, so fuck that.

  He caught her around the waist and dragged her to the floor. Instead of resisting, she went with the momentum, using it to hit the ground at a roll. She managed to get out from under him and crawled away. He caught her ankle, trying to yank her back. With a quick glance over her shoulder, she slammed her heel into his nose.

  It gave a very satisfying snap and blood poured down his face. He screamed, his hand loosening and she got her feet under her, scurrying away, deeper into the bunker. Her gaze shot around, trying to find another exit. A window, a skylight, anything.

  All she found was old office furniture, coated in grime. She had only a few seconds before the god caught up with her. He moved almost soundlessly, but the busted nose meant she could hear the wheeze of his breathing. Her heart slammed against her ribs, and the sensation of being hunted sent adrenaline coursing through her veins. Fight or flight. The raven in her voted flight, but she resisted the urge to shift. Being a bird would let her fly, but it also meant she couldn’t fight. She needed an exit strategy first or she’d just be flapping around in a dingy cage. She reached the end of the bunker. No escape, but she found the next best thing: a weapon. An old chair with a leg broken off. She picked up the leg to use as a club, already swinging it as she turned.

  With a deep-throated battle cry, she connected hard with his stomach, doubling him over. She brought the metal bar down on his back and he hit his knees.

  A ball of ice slammed into her, knocking her back into a filing cabinet. Her head connected hard, and stars burst before her eyes. Long enough for the frost giant to be on her. He rammed both fists into her sides, crushing her between them, and she felt ribs give way. Grabbing the front of her shirt, he lifted her with one arm until she was level with both of his heads. She kicked and punched, but only managed glancing blows. He pulled her in close, and she gouged her thumb into one of his eyes. He bellowed, the sound half-rage and half-pain.

  He flipped her over his head, launching her across the bunker. She hit a heavy metal desk, her leg twisting badly beneath her, and her ankle snapped. The air rushed out of her lungs so that her scr
eam emerged a soundless gasp. She tried to roll away from the desk, but massive hands pinned her. Two albino-pale heads stared at her upside down, both mouths smiling in obscene delight. He bent and bit her collarbones, cracking them like twigs, and tearing into her flesh. A shriek of sheer agony ripped from her.

  “Enough of that! She’s mine first!” The giant was wrenched away, and Frey stood over her.

  He spun her around, shoving her legs apart and ripping at her clothes. She struggled, slicing at him with her talons, though moving her arms at all was excruciating and her energy levels were in the toilet. Fear and pure adrenaline kept her fighting. She slammed the heel of her unbroken leg into Frey’s thigh, but missed his groin.

  Shit.

  “I hear something!” Kata’s shout echoed through the bunker. “Frey, someone’s outside.”

  Two small, percussive booms rocked the building, and Bryn curled in on herself, arms thrown over her head. Acrid smoke hit her nose. The grinding squeal of metal rending pierced her ears, and then she heard nothing but a high-pitched whine. She shook her head, trying to clear the noise so she could hear what was going on. Sunlight poured into the space, scouring wind and sand whipping into her eyes. People seemed to be scrambling in every direction, some pouring in, others fighting them off.

  The first sound that came through was Holm’s roar. His battle-axe gleamed as it swung at a fire giant. She’d never been so happy to see that pain-in-the-ass berserker before.

  The cavalry had arrived.

  Unfortunately, as she lay there bleeding and broken, she thought they might be too late to save her. But maybe they could stop the traitors from ending the world. She could hope for that because she had no hope left for herself. The injuries were catastrophic. It felt as if half of her ribcage had caved in, and she struggled to breathe.