Vikings Unleashed: 9 modern Viking erotic romances

by Kate Pearce

  “Vikar.” She swallowed nervously, but there was nowhere to go.

  “You promised,” he said roughly. “You agreed that you’d be willing.” He didn’t move, just touched her, waiting. “I agreed I wouldn’t hurt you. If I don’t touch you, you will be hurting, baby. I’m too big to take you if you’re not ready. So I’m going to touch you right now, just a little. Right here, on the outside of your pants.” His thumb made a slow, sensual pass down her sex.

  She was wrapped around him, riding his bike. And she’d be riding him within the hour. She’d given him her word—now he was giving her his. He’d have what she’d promised, but he’d keep his part of their bargain, too. No pain. Uncertainly, she relaxed, the tension leaving her legs. Allowing him to take charge seemed wrong, but the motor’s smooth gait sent waves of delicious vibrations through her. And that damned hand of his didn’t move. She wriggled, rocking into him.

  “See?” He whispered his question. “That’s not bad at all, is it? You could enjoy that much, couldn’t you?”

  “Vikar…” The heavy, hot weight of his hand between her legs had her waiting for something she didn’t recognize.

  “I bet,” he ground out, “you have fantasies, right? Maybe, when you’re alone at night and somewhere between the dream world and awake, maybe then you think about finding yourself a big, hard mercenary. Someone tough enough to give you exactly what you need.”

  “I—” Her voice broke. Maybe indeed.

  Unexpectedly, he offered her reassurance, the promise of a softer side she could reach. “I’m just going to give you pleasure now, and all you have to do is enjoy it. You can do that, can’t you?”

  She could. “Yes,” she answered.

  “Close your eyes,” he suggested. “While I stroke this soft pussy of yours.”

  HEL’S BELLES

  Hel’s Belles MC

  Book One

  by

  Dayna Hart

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  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  Welcome to an alternate universe, where the discovery of an element called aether has allowed for near-magical inventions and the rise of steam- and clockwork-power. While there are stories set in the medieval timeline of this alternative universe, beginning with Lessons Learned in the Love Is… anthology, this story begins a new arc of the story, in the year 1938, with a group of Norse gods who have found their place running steampowered-motorcycle clubs.

  Hela is the daughter of Loki, queen of the realm of Hel, the place the weak, infirm, and elderly go when they die. Tired of seeing people wind up in a place she doesn’t believe they belong, she’s decided to do something about it while she’s in the mortal realm: she helps rescue women from the men who abuse them.

  When Two, a berserker, second in command to the largest motorcycle club in the country, and the son of Odin, is appointed to mentor her through the birth of her new club, the attraction is immediate and intense.

  But Hela has seen too many cases of love gone wrong. She’ll need to learn to trust both Two and herself if they have any chance at love.

  If you enjoy this story, please sign up for my newsletter, and be the first to learn about new releases, bonus content, and more.

  DEDICATION

  To my boyzes, who put up with Mom-on-deadline while I wrote this. To Hub, who did the same, but doesn’t want me to apologize for being a writer, anyway—my life would suck without you.

  As always, The Shiny Group (you know who you are). I can’t imagine doing this writing gig without your support, and I’m glad I don’t have to. I love you all to bits.

  To The World’s Fastest Readers: Kate, Crys, and Ella, I owe you, and I thank you from the bottom of my heart.

  Lori, thanks for holding my hand while I wrote this one, and for not letting me quit even when I really wanted to. You were right.

  Zoe, thank you for all the organizing and formatting and hand-holding. This has been a great experience, and I’m grateful to you for it.

  And to you, dear reader: thank you.

  1

  Steeltown, United States

  September 10, 1938

  I need booze.

  A fight.

  Maybe some hot, sweaty sex.

  Something to take the edge off.

  I’d thought the ride would do it—wind in my face, tires humming along the asphalt, going twenty-five miles an hour, except through the turns. Usually it’s enough to forget everything, like I become part of the universe in a way no automobile would ever allow. The steam-powered motorcycle beneath me rattle-bangs, the water-recycler’s kicked in, and then it returns to its usual hungry growl. I’m grateful for the distraction from my thoughts, my mood. Another woman left the clubhouse today to return to her abusive husband, and while it’s her right, and I will forever support her choice—it makes me want to scream, all the same.

  Maybe I’m expecting too much of people. Humans have their limitations, after all.

  Limitations which are, I will admit, offset a little by their ingenuity and inventiveness. They’ve come up with such brilliant things, like my ‘cycle, for one.

  Aether is new here in the States, though they’ve been using it in Europe for years. So little is understood of its properties, but it affects things, makes unlikely scenarios…more likely. Agitated aether lenses in goggles can allow the wearer to see things that unfolded in the past, or so I’ve heard. Export of them has been strictly regulated since The Great War.

  But while the Europeans have been content to continue the same uses for which the aether has been known to them for ages, the Americans have been experimenting. Trying it in engines, in airships, in operating rooms and medicines.

  Some of the results have been phenomenal, like the airship colonies—huge ships tethered together in the sky to create a city in the clouds. Some of that same aether-technology powers my steamcycle, which can run for hours on a few gallons of water.

  Some uses, unfortunately, have had less success. But humans are entrepreneurial is the point; they will keep trying. Though, truth be told, as long as I have my ‘cycle, I don’t much care what else they do with the aether.

  I turn into a spot beside Aegir’s Gin Mill and stop. In the sudden quiet after I cut my motor, I can hear the sound of music from behind the Mill’s doors. I stretch muscles that are far too tight for the short ride from Cogham to neighboring Steeltown and Aegir’s. It’s the stress. And it’s not the risks I take to rescue these women, or the frustration I feel when they return home afterward.

  And it’s not the revue, Les Folies Belles, or the nightmares and headaches running a nightclub brings. Or that it’s the first legitimate business I’ve owned in this lifetime—although it’s also a convenient way to launder the finances from my slightly less legitimate sources.

  No, it all comes down to the meeting I have in thirty-six hours, when Allfather will arrive to hear my petition. Odin himself, though we don’t call him that Earthside anymore. I have all my paperwork in order, and there’s no reason he should deny my request, but who knows what gods think? And Allfather has some kind of history with my father, which could mean just about anything. Probably something bad, but of course, Loki didn’t give me any information before he left town.

  Again.

  Sliding off my ‘cycle, I run my hands down the denim of my trousers and straighten my jacket. An autumn wind shears through the lingering summer heat, ruffling my hair as I open the door to the bar. It’s amazing to think that just five years ago, this would have been against the law. Secret codes, special knocks—all of them to enter dark little basements and indulge in booze that tasted like nightmares. And now, Prohibition’s over, and I can simply walk into this club and order a drink. Or several, if I should choose.

  I take a moment to let my eyes adjust. Candlelight flickers on the tables, casting pale, gleaming fingers on the polished wooden floors, the bar counter, and the crystal on the shelves behind it. Black, circular tables squat amid wooden benches padded with tu
fted black leather. Gas chandeliers cling to the ceiling, and light flickers and dances among the crystals but doesn’t leave the heights for the floor. Little clouds of blue-grey smoke puff up like sinuous dragons from long, elegant holders held by long, elegant women, twining with their amber brothers floating from the stubby cigars held by men with stubby fingers.

  Most of the patrons are dressed in their Sunday finest, though in most cases, their threads are showing signs of wear. Me, I’m comfortable in my Levi’s and a billowy blouse. I get a look or two, though they don’t last long. I have that effect on people, sometimes. Still spoiling for a fight, I’m almost disappointed no one looks too hard or for too long.

  A four-piece band stands at the back of the club. One of them is playing a steamophone, a clockwork variety of saxophone, though the instrument is old and a little shabby, much like the musicians themselves. Their singer is a mechanical bird, literally a canary, the voice of some woman stamped onto a series of small disks inserted in the clockwork belly, the noise amplified through a trumpet-shaped beak.

  Aegir welcomes me with a smile and the club’s signature drink—an Aegir’s Sun—poured even before I sit at one of the small tables. It looks like sunlight in a tall glass, and tastes like it was brewed in someone’s bathtub. But the booze is, if not good, least forty proof and reasonably priced. I know how lucky I am to be able to afford it, these days. Aegir gives me a long look and shakes his head. “You’re not going to cause any trouble tonight.”

  It’s not a question. “Of course not.” I grin at him, but in the mood I’m in, I don’t suppose I’m likely to convince him.

  “Just be careful, yeah?”

  “Sure.” I’m already slipping toward the dance floor. I throw myself into the Savoy Swing, the Carolina Shag, and more varieties of the Lindy than I actually know, though it doesn’t seem to matter, so long as I keep moving. Dancing doesn’t really purge the last of my adrenaline, but it does keep me from getting completely corked. The world does have a definite happy glow to it, and I’m warm from the inside out when he walks in.

  Tall, dark and handsome. Not just his coloring, either, though his eyes and hair are dark, and even in the dimness of Aegir’s his skin is sun-warmed, but there’s a look about him. Something wild. He’s dressed in jeans, a T-shirt, and a pair of riding boots. He must have come in on a ‘cycle of his own, and I scan the front windows to see if I can catch a glimpse, but only my own orange motorcycle gleams under the streetlamps.

  I watch him cross to Aegir and order a drink, surprised when he takes a tallboy full of the sunlight drink. I watch him take a sip, and wait for his reaction. His lip doesn’t curl, he doesn’t cough—instead, he gives an appreciative smile. He must have known what it tasted like and ordered it anyway. I’m not sure what it says about him, or me, that I like him for it.

  He grins at something Aegir says, and it’s a beautiful thing to see. Dimples dig into his cheeks like furrows in a garden, and his eyes crinkle at the corners.

  Disgusted with myself for staring at him like some sort of gawking child, I rejoin the dancing. I’m in the middle of a sugar push when I catch him staring at me. I fumble the steps and try to bring my attention back to what I’m doing, but his attention on me is like a weight. A warm, distracting one. I keep on, though—I need this too much right now to be distracted.

  Dancing helps, but I’m not tired enough, and I push myself through the steps. Every now and again, I take a break to order another drink and leave Aegir a ridiculous tip, since he won’t let me pay for my hooch. On one such trip, a man catches me by the arm when I falter, and I thank him. But when I try to pull my arm from his grasp, he holds tighter, and I give him a withering glare. He simply laughs.

  “Let go of me,” I tell him quietly.

  He calls me a name I’ve heard a thousand times before, and I sigh. Not only does he have to be a bad egg, he has to be unimaginative, too? I cast a quick look at Aegir. I tried. Really, I did. Surely he sees that? He doesn’t seem to see anything, however—he’s busy providing glasses to the patrons at the other end of the bar.

  Then it’s too late to worry about Aegir. The man holding me is trying to pull me close, muttering the things I have, purportedly, caused him to imagine with the way I dance. I wrench my arm from his grip, and he growls, lurching after me. “Come on, baby.”

  He seems to think that might actually work, and I shake my head. When he reaches for me again, I turn on him, aim my fist at his solar plexus, another to his throat, and he’s gasping for air. He turns purple—not from the lack of oxygen, but rage—and I brace myself for another attack. The guy snarls and leaps for me. He stops up short, like a dog reaching the end of his line, as Aegir’s hand claps around the guy’s shoulder. From the way he flinches, I’d guess the bartender has hit a pressure point. “I tried,” I tell Aegir, who nods and waves me away.

  I’m surprised by the understanding, and grateful. Then the rush of the fight leaches away from me like water down a drain, and I work my way toward a table. I’ve been dancing much longer than I thought, and I’m tired. Still on edge, but exhausted. It’s not a combination I like.

  When I stumble, a pair of strong arms catch me, and I look up, startled, into a pair of dark eyes. “You okay?” he asks, and his voice is deep, and it catches something in me so I’m like a guitar string, plucked and thrumming. I nod, grateful for his support, because I feel a little dizzy. I’d like to blame it on Aegir’s Suns, but I haven’t had one in hours.

  It must be the dancing.

  I reach to steady myself and my fingers wrap around something metal. Surprised, I look down to see pewter fingers curled around mine. A copper coil runs from a ring around the thumb and around the thick wrist. I try to blink away the hallucination, but it stays, and I realize it’s truly a metal, mechanical hand.

  From a distance, I see my own fingers dancing across the silver and copper surface, tracing the design etched into the back of his hand like a tattoo. “It’s beautiful,” I breathe, and realize he’s gone still behind me, his entire body rigid around me like a wall, keeping everything else out. Still without really meaning to do it, I slip my index finger into the curl of his hand, tracing the line of his fingers. His fist opens and I trace the whorls on his fingertips that look like fingerprints.

  He shivers.

  “You can feel that?” I whisper, and feel his nod. “Amazing. It’s stunning work,” I say, still softly. “Beautiful.”

  “You’re one of the first people to say so.” His words aren’t bitter, though they could be. Instead, they’re matter of fact, and somehow that seems sadder to me.

  I tip my head to look at him over my shoulder, and a sudden wash of heat and awareness flows over me. I’m a modern woman—which is just a polite way of saying that I don’t worry much about what people think or say about me, and I tend to do what I like. It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve met a man in a gin mill that I’m interested in making time with, though this would be the shortest of acquaintances. Now that we’re touching, I don’t want him to let go.

  “You don’t dance?” I ask him, and there’s a hitch in his breath, something I can feel, with his chest against my back the way it is, rather than hear.

  Though there’s no sign of it when he answers. “I might manage a turn around the floor.”

  He turns me in his arms, right there, and instead of leading me into a swing or a hop, we waltz.

  And he dances like a dream.

  I’ve never been a great dancer. It’s surprising to no one who knows me that I’m too prone to leading, but this— it’s less about following or leading, and more like we simply agree on how to move, like we both think the same thing at the same time.

  Our gazes lock, and I realize there are flecks of gold in his eyes, which are a shade of blue as dark as midnight, and not the brown I was expecting.

  The band seems to notice us and segues into a jazz-infused waltz number. I’m all too aware of his body—our thighs, occasionally brushing, his han
d around mine, the metal one against my back. It seems to run a little hot, but the pressure is soothing. And although his hand is in a perfectly appropriate space at the base of my spine, the heat of it slides down my tailbone, sparking an answering heat inside me.

  “Tyr,” he says, when, in a sudden fit of nerves, I ask his name.

  “Tour,” I repeat, with a little more vowel and less rolling of the r. My accent’s gone to pot. “Hela,” I tell him. Short e, short a, so that I always wondered if my name was supposed to be Helen, but Loki ran out without finishing even that.

  “You took care of things quite nicely, earlier,” he says. There’s frank admiration in his gaze, and it sends a warm flush through me.

  “Aegir might never forgive me,” I answer with a grin. “I told him I’d try to behave. And I really did, but…”

  He laughs outright, and we continue to glide across the floor.

  After moments or hours, he leans forward to whisper in my ear. “You have a place to stay?” he asks, and I nod, unable to speak. People come from miles around to visit Aegir’s—the man himself is a legend, as is his establishment—and it occurs to me Tyr must be a tourist, and thinks I might be one too.

  “Want to come home with me, instead?” he asks. From any other man, it might seem forward, even insulting, but there’s a gentleness in his voice, a genuine question in his eyes, like he’s not really sure what I’ll say. It’s incredibly attractive, and so I don’t consider it for long. I’m a modern woman, after all, and since I got everything else I was looking for when I came to Aegir’s, it would be a shame to give up getting it all. I give him a quick nod, and he smiles. It’s brief, but it’s enough to transform his face, and in such contrast with the predatory heat in his eyes that I shiver in his arms.