“You know, we actually have lives. Things to do. But what I don’t have time for is dealing with idiots. Fuck them and fuck their lost shit.”
Her ex-husband stared at her, then said, “Maybe I can talk to Tessa. She’s always more reasonable.”
Chloe’s eyes narrowed and she grabbed the first thing she could reach off her desk and chucked the bronze statue at her ex’s head. He ducked and the statue embedded itself in the wood of her door.
Tessa immediately pushed her way into the room—Chloe knew that her second in command had been listening at the door, waiting for things to go to shit—and grabbed Josef by his overpriced designer T-shirt.
“Okay,” Tessa quickly said, “thank you so much for stopping by, Josef. Have a wonderful day.”
She shoved the blond idiot out into the hallway and quickly slammed the door. Tessa threw up her hand. “No!”
Chloe now gripped one of the battle blades that she’d dropped onto the desk last night. “Just let me kill him,” Chloe begged. “Please.”
“Odin will lose his mind. Remember the last time a Crow killed a Raven leader? It did not end well.”
“That was, like, a thousand years ago.”
“It doesn’t matter! Not. End. Well.”
Snarling, Chloe tossed her weapon onto her desk.
“So . . . do you want me to call a meeting?” Tessa asked.
“Don’t you dare call a meeting. We’re not kowtowing to these fuckers. If they are losing their crap that is not our problem.”
“It will be if they keep thinking we did it.”
Chloe sat in her office chair and slapped her hands against her desk. “Then let them bring it,” she said, making sure her tone was deep and dark. “Right to our door.”
Tessa threw up her hands, “Chloe! They just did bring it to our door! That’s why I had to call Armand the installer to fix it. Again!”
Chloe shrugged. “Oh, whatever.”
CHAPTER THREE
Amsel turned off the engine and announced with a smile, “And that’s how I was murdered! With two shots to the back of the head while on my knees. Man, was I mad about that.”
Kera closed her eyes and took a moment. Hearing someone happily describe how she was “murdered” was so very weird.
“If you touch back here,” Erin went on, “you can feel the scars from where the bullets exploded my skull.”
Unable to take a second more of this discussion, Kera pushed the passenger-side door open.
Erin had invited two other Crows with them. Maeve Godhavi and Annalisa Dinapoli. They were part of the same “strike team” that Erin was in. A team that Kera would supposedly be joining once her “wings unfurled.” Something that sounded a lot more horrific than it probably should.
They’d only gone about fifteen miles before Erin had pulled onto a long driveway that led to a big, Tudor-style house.
They walked to the large double doors and knocked. The doors opened and Kera looked up at a large man with dark hair and even darker eyes.
He glared down at Erin. “What do you want?”
“To be a happily married wife and mother.”
“No, seriously. What do you want, Amsel?”
“What do you think we want? Where’s Rundstöm?”
“In the back.” Then the man slammed the door in their faces.
“Wherever you go,” Annalisa joked, “you bring joy and good humor.”
“Me?” Erin began walking around the outside of the building, Kera and the others following. “Everyone loves me. I am a whirling dervish of good cheer and affection.”
Kera snorted at that, having met people like Erin Amsel more than once in her life.
Erin stopped and faced Kera. “Problem, new girl?”
“Only with the fact you won’t use my name.”
“In the Crows you have to earn that respect.”
“I already earned respect . . . with two tours in Afghanistan as a United States Marine. What about you? What have you done?”
“Jesus, Mary, and Joseph. I hate the military types.”
“What does that mean?”
“What does it sound like it means?”
“Do you have something to say to me?” Kera asked, stepping close to Amsel. “I’m right here. You might as well say it.”
There was that moment, both of them staring coldly at each other, where Kera really thought they were about to go at each other. Not a “girl fight” either. But a real fight. With blood and pain and the serious risk of death.
They were seconds, nanoseconds maybe, from doing just that.
Then Maeve leaned in and announced, “My glands are swelling.”
Kera and Amsel blinked at each other before looking over at the pretty Indian-American woman with the worried expression on her face.
“Pardon?” Kera asked.
Maeve pressed her fingers to her throat. “My glands. They’re swelling. I think I’m sick. I should go home.”
“You’re not sick,” Annalisa groaned. “Why do you always think you’re sick?”
“I can feel the virus moving through me. I need to call my doctor. I need a course of amoxicillin. Or flucloxacillin. Or ticarcillin. Something with a ‘cillin’ attached to the end of it.”
“If you have a virus, an antibiotic will not help you,” Kera explained.
“So you’re a doctor?” Maeve snapped. “You know what I’m dying of?”
“Dying? Two seconds ago you had swollen glands.”
“Swollen glands today. Riddled with cancer tomorrow. Dead by Thursday.”
Kera glanced over at Amsel. “Wow.”
“Yeah,” she said before turning and walking off. Kera followed while Maeve and Annalisa bickered about the status of Maeve’s health behind them.
They went around the side of the house, briefly stopping when they passed some bushes. Like the Crows, the Ravens had an Olympic-size, in-ground pool. A pool a small group of very well-built men were making use of.
“Yowza,” Kera muttered.
“We never said the Ravens weren’t pretty.”
That was putting it mildly. The men were more than pretty. They were big. Built. And gorgeous.
“They’re all Vikings?” Kera asked, unable to look away.
“Yup. They can trace their ancestry all the way back to the long boat.”
Erin led the girls through Raven territory until she spotted the small wood house buried deep on the outskirts. But as she neared it, she sensed something sidling up behind her.
With a grin, she planted her feet, and turned at the waist. She struck out with both fists—and was expertly blocked.
That was the thing about Crows fighting against Ravens. It was kind of like fighting a larger twin. In nature the birds were not that different and Odin had created the Ravens for no other reason than to be able to stand toe-to-toe with or against the Crows.
Hundreds of years later, things hadn’t changed much between them.
“What do you want, Amsel?” Stieg Engstrom barked down at Erin.
“Just here to see your smiling face.”
“I don’t smile.”
“And doesn’t that make you sad?”
“ No. ”
Engstrom really didn’t smile. Ever. He was like a big, angry oak. Tall. Wide. Cranky. He wasn’t always angry, but he was never what one would call happy either. Or amused. Or anything on what Erin would call the “Enjoyment Spectrum.”
Which was what made torturing him so much fun for her.
“We’re here to see Rundstöm for some trading.” She pointed at Kera as she approached them. “We have a new girl.”
Engstrom glanced at Watson, did a weird little double take, then nodded. “Oh. Yeah. Stay here. I’ll get him.”
Watson watched Engstrom walk off. “Is there a reason we can’t go to the man’s house ourselves?”
“Rundstöm? You don’t want to sneak up on Rundstöm.”
“It’s not really sneaking, is it? It’s morning.
Not too early. He apparently has a business.”
“Rundstöm is a little—”
“Crazy,” Annalisa tossed in. “No one fucks with Rundstöm. Even the gods, who pretty much fuck with everybody, never fuck with Rundstöm. Because he’s crazy. And he comes from a long line of crazy.”
“Yeah, but—”
“When people say he’ll take the skin off your back . . . they mean literally. Because he comes from a long line of skin-removing Vikings and that’s what they do.”
“How does he run a business if you’re all afraid of him?”
“His stuff is great,” Erin stated matter-of-factly.
The giant who’d gone off to retrieve the “scary” Rundstöm walked back out of the house, followed by another giant who had to dip down a bit to clear his own doorway.
He was a dark version of Giant Number One. Black hair that nearly touched his shoulders, a dark brown beard that covered the lower half of his face. He wore dark green jeans, a black, worn T-shirt, and thick black work boots.
“Now,” Erin softly explained, “the thing to remember with Rundstöm is no sudden movements. No loud noises. Don’t do anything that might freak him out. Just smile—but don’t bare your teeth when you do—and let me do the talking. He tolerates me.”
But to be honest, Kera could barely hear the directions. Her heart was beating too fast. And tears began to well in her usually dry eyes—a “flaw” that used to bother her ex-husband. Her lack of tears over anything.
What choice did she have, though? When she was looking at the man who’d saved her life?
So, ignoring all of Erin’s warnings, Kera charged over to Giant Number Two and threw herself right into his arms.
Vig Rundstöm wrapped his arms around Kera Watson’s perfect, perfect body and held her tight.
Tighter than he probably should. He couldn’t help himself, though. She was alive.
Alive and well and in his arms. Hugging him back, and whispering, “Thank you!” over and over against his ear.
Kera finally pulled back a bit, her hands reaching up to grasp his face. She smiled and he saw tears in her eyes.
“I—” she began.
“So you two know each other?” Erin Amsel asked, the Crows having sidled their way up alongside them to get a closer look.
Kera blinked and immediately replied, “He’s a customer.”
“A customer?”
“Yeah.” She looked back at Amsel and the other Crows. “A favorite customer. Used to come into the coffee shop I worked at. I always called him ‘four bear claws and a black coffee.’ ”
“Really?”
Vig felt Kera’s body tighten. “Yeah,” she barked back. “Really.”
“And you greet all your favorite customers with your legs around their waist?”
Kera unwrapped those legs from Vig—something he was not happy about—dropped to the ground, and turned to face Amsel.
“No,” Kera replied. “Sometimes I just get on my knees and give ’em blow jobs in an alley.”
“Did you learn that in the Marines, too?” Amsel asked.
A direct hit that Vig knew would turn ugly. He was already reaching for Kera as Stieg was going for Amsel. But Maeve beat them all, stepping between the two women and holding up her phone.
“I put my symptoms in . . . cancer. I have cancer.”
“You,” Amsel said, “do not have cancer. And,” she added, “if you keep talking about cancer you’re gonna eventually get it!”
“Are you wishing cancer on me?”
“No. But now that you mention it . . .”
With a noise of disgust, Kera grabbed Vig’s hand and led him back into his house, closing the door behind them.
She relaxed against the door and let out a relieved sigh. “I don’t know what’s wrong with me,” Kera announced, “but all I want to do is beat that redhead. Beat her and beat her and beat her until she stops squawking at me.”
Vig nodded. “That’s not surprising. You’re trying to get used to the new and improved you. It’ll take time for your body to adjust.”
Kera didn’t seem to care about any of that.
“Vig,” he said, finally introducing himself. “Vig Rundstöm. And all I did was ask a god a favor. But trust me, if you weren’t already worthy, Skuld would have completely ignored me. You’re here, Kera, because Skuld thought you deserved to be.”
“Put it any way you want. You saved my life.”
“I couldn’t. It was too late for that.” When Kera shook her head, he explained, “Kera, you weren’t already dying. You were on your last breath. Your soul was transitioning from this world to the next when Skuld took it. So I didn’t save your life. I just gave you a shot at a second one. A brand-new life as a Daughter of Skuld. As a Crow.”
She gazed at him, a wide smile suddenly breaking out across her beautiful face.
“What?” he asked.
“I don’t think I’ve ever heard you say anything but”—she dropped her voice several octaves—“ ‘four bear claws and a black coffee please.’ Oh, and ‘I’m fine . . . and you?’ ” She laughed. “I didn’t know you could say more.”
“I speak when I have something to say.”
She nodded. “Your C.O.s must have loved you then.”
Vig frowned. “My C.O.s?”
“Your commanding officers? In the military? What were you? God, please don’t tell me you were Air Force,” she teased.
“I’m not in the Army. Or Air Force. Or anything like that. I’m not even American. I’m Swedish.”
She blinked. “You are?”
“I’ve been here since I was nine, but I’ve only ever been a Raven. A Swedish Raven.”
“And that means . . . what? Exactly.”
He gave a small smile. “No one’s told you anything, have they?”
“There’s been a lot of yelling. My God, there’s been so much yelling.”
“The Ravens, the Crows, the other Clans . . . we are the human representatives of the Viking gods on this plane of existence. We are the hammers of the gods. Some say fist of the gods, but . . . that always makes me think of that movie Caligula, and that makes me uncomfortable. So I like hammer. We are the hammers of the gods.”
“We are?”
Vig nodded. “Oh yes, Kera. We are.”
“Okay.” Kera blew out a long breath. “I’ll try not to freak out about that.” Even though Vig sensed she was starting to freak out. He could see it in her eyes.
He decided to distract her. “So . . . what made you think I was in the military?”
She glanced off before lying. “Nothing.”
“Kera . . . you’re a very bad liar.”
“Well . . . the hair . . . the beard . . . sometimes you wear that green jacket with the pockets that looks kind of military.”
“Aren’t I a little scruffy to be in your military?”
“True . . . unless you . . . ya know . . . snapped a little.”
“Snapped?”
“You know.” She suddenly rubbed her nose. “Had a little bit of a . . . breakdown.”
Vig took a step back. “You thought I was insane?”
“No,” she said quickly, moving closer. “I thought it was just a little PTSD with possible brain injury.”
“Brain injury?”
“It’s happened to a few of my buddies.”
“Is that why you wouldn’t take my money sometimes?”
She cringed. “I also kinda thought you were homeless.”
Vig heard something coming from his back door and he turned to see Siggy trying to sneak back outside.
“What are you doing?” he asked his teammate.
“Trying to go away before you notice me.”
“It’s a little late for that.”
“Yeah . . . I know.” Then Siggy burst out laughing and ran out, slamming the door behind him.
Gritting his teeth, Vig turned back to Kera. “So all this time you thought—” A burst of laughter from the front
of the house cut the rest of Vig’s sentence off.
Vig blew out a breath. “Forget it.”
“Vig—”
“No. You came here for a reason. Would you like to see the weapons I made for you?” he asked Kera.
“For me?”
“I just finished them. I knew you were going to need them.”
“So what else?”
Kera looked away from the amazing weapons that lined the walls of Vig Rundstöm’s workshop. A wood building not too far from his little home.
“Huh?”
“What else?”
“What else what?”
“What else led you to believe I was a homeless vet?”
“Your thousand-yard stare didn’t help.”
“That’s my battle stare.”
“But you used it at the coffee shop . . . where there was no battle.”
“I only used it on the other servers so that they’d get you so that you could serve me.” He shrugged. “It worked. I just didn’t realize how well.”
“Didn’t you notice that I kept giving you pamphlets from the Wounded Warrior Project?”
“You were a vet. I thought you just wanted me to donate money.”
“Did you?”
“Yeah. Because it’s a worthy cause and I wanted to impress you.”
Kera brushed her hair off her face. “How? When you never told me you donated money to Wounded Warriors.”
“I figured I’d eventually tell you.”
“Excellent plan.”
Vig opened his mouth to speak but ended up just letting out a disgusted sound, shaking his head, and walking over to a big, wooden cupboard.
Kera bit her lip and wondered how she’d gotten it all so wrong. About Vig, that is. She’d been completely wrong about him.
For the past ten months that he’d been coming into the coffee shop, she’d thought he was a broken man. Another vet tossed aside and forgotten by the government and society he’d fought to protect.
Instead, he was anything but. And knowing that . . . it changed everything about him. About how she saw him.
In other words . . . she was suddenly sizing the man up like a side of beef.
Prime beef.
Vig pulled something out of a cupboard that was filled with more weapons, each one marked with a piece of paper that had a name on it. He walked over to a large table and placed a leather sheath on it.