by PJ Friel
My entire body tensed, fists curling at my side.
She pressed a hand to her chest and laughed. “Sorry! Didn’t mean to scare you.”
“It’s fine. I’m fine.” If I said that enough, maybe I’d believe it.
I skirted around her as if the flaming aura I saw could actually burn me. Judging by the frown she gave me, she thought I needed help. She wasn’t wrong, but I needed to get away from her before I choked on my own hypocrisy.
I feared Outlanders.
I distrusted Outlanders.
I also was one.
CHAPTER 2
TRYGG
Fuck people who burn popcorn.
The noxious smell slithered under my door and wound around my chest like a pit viper, ready to sink its fangs into my throat.
God, I hated popcorn. Nothing could entice me to eat it. Not butter. Not caramel. Not candy. Keep that disgusting shit as far away from me as possible. The communal kitchen down the hallway didn’t qualify as far enough.
I tried to ignore the stench, but when you’ve been blessed with a supernatural olfactory system—or Super Sniffer as I liked to call it—there’s nowhere to hide from goddamn burnt popcorn. I pulled my shirt up over my face and squeezed my nostrils closed.
Nothing helped.
Time to take out the source.
I stomped across the room and dragged open my door. The full force of the stink jet-streamed right into my nostrils. I gagged. The burger I had for dinner fossilized in my gut.
Motherfucker must pay.
I charged down the hallway and into the shared kitchen, zeroing in on the offender. Bart, fellow bodyguard and future corpse, waved his hand over a nose-hair-burning bag of vile maize. His beefy paws circulated the stench all through the room.
“Seriously, asshole?” I snatched the bag from him, dumped the blackened contents into the sink, turned on the water, and let rip with the garbage disposal.
“Hey!” He yanked the empty bag from my hands. “I was going to eat that.”
“You can thank me for saving your life by not popping another bag. That shit stinks.”
He jammed the bag into my chest. “Seriously, dude?”
“We talked about this after your two a.m. fish fry last week. No noxious odors in the shared kitchen.”
“Popcorn is not noxious. Screw you and your freaky nose, Mackenzie.”
I crumpled the bag and beaned him. “Not even on your prettiest day, sweetheart.”
“You owe me food. Mr. Hinterland is leaving in fifteen minutes to go view a property with DG, and I didn’t eat earlier.”
“Too busy tapping that little waitress?” Bart gave me a look, but the secretive motherfucker never tapped and told. Didn’t matter. I could smell the sex on him. “What property?”
“Some warehouse that DG wants to buy and put another club in.”
I scoffed. “Always competing with his dad.”
Mordechai Hinterland was a boss in every sense of the word. My employer, my mentor in all things Zen, and the mob boss of the Devourer Mafia. His son, DG, was a pale imitation of the original, and a real asshole.
Bart scoffed. “This place isn’t going to win any competitions.”
“Meaning?” Bart didn’t usually comment about our employer.
“The location of this place is sketchy as hell, man,” Bart said, head in the refrigerator, looking for something to stick in his maw.
Sketchy? Engage boss mode. “Elaborate. Do you need backup?”
“No, but I sure wouldn’t take a date there.” He pulled his head out of the fridge and moved to the pantry.
Bart wasn’t a pussy. This was bad.
“Why would he want to buy this place then? If the area’s too dangerous, no one will go.”
Bart shrugged and slammed the door on the pantry. “Dunno, man. When the hell do they stock our kitchen?”
“When you stop whining like a little bitch about it.” He gave me a look. “Tomorrow. Every Monday and Friday.”
His stomach chose that moment to growl. He clutched it and glared at me. “I hate you. That was the last bag of popcorn.”
I laughed. “Thank fuck.”
“If we get jumped and I’m too weak from hunger to protect DG, it’s on you.”
“Drama queen.”
“Douche bag.”
“That’s Boss Douche Bag to you, former employee.”
I’d threatened to fire Bart a dozen times in the past six months since I’d become head of security.
“At least if you fire me, I can go get some food.”
I shook my head. I was going to regret this. “Fine. Go get something to eat. I’ll take your shift.”
Bart grinned and thumped me on the shoulder. “Best boss ever. I owe ya one.”
I tagged him in the gut as he booked for the door. “Saving your malnourished ass and putting up with DG for the evening? That’s worth at least two.”
“Whatever you say. You have exactly ten minutes. DG’s in his private room down in The Stage. Don’t show up too early.” He didn’t let the door hit him.
Private room. Great.
“Give your pretty little waitress a kiss for me,” I yelled after Bart.
“Fuck you!” he yelled back, but I could hear the laughter in his voice.
He knew I was kidding. I didn’t share.
I made my way back to my room and grabbed my holster and Glock off my desk. After checking the magazine, I slid my gun into the holster and positioned it at the small of my back. An extra mag went into my pants pocket. Not that I’d need it. After shooting guns for more than two hundred years, I rarely missed.
I smoothed my hands through my hair, so I didn’t look like a raven on crack, then grabbed a tie and looped it around my neck. My suit jacket was the last piece of armor I added, more psychological than tactical. Getting shot wasn’t a concern. It would take more than a bullet to put me down. But if I was going to be around DG for any length of time, I’d need my shield of professionalism firmly in place.
A short jog down the stairs from the second floor to the first spat me out in the reception area between the entrance to the Theater of War and the Dance Stage. Two different crowds, one big building. Twenty minutes after six. Not many people milling around yet. They’d start to pack it in around eight thirty before the start of the first exhibition fight.
Personally, I didn’t see the draw. Watching two men beat the shit out of each other for the amusement of others wasn’t my jam. When I broke out my fists, there was nothing amusing about it and damn sure the other guy would laugh about it at his own peril. To each their own, I guess.
I gritted my teeth and headed for DG’s private room in the Dance Stage. It was one of several VIP rooms that could be rented for the night if someone wanted to throw a party at the club, but have a little privacy as well. As head of security, I had keycards to all the rooms, including DG’s.
A glance at my watch told me that DG had seven minutes to show his weaselly face or I was going in after him. I didn’t give a shit about his privacy and I didn’t put up with his shit, either. If we were supposed to be somewhere at a certain time, I considered it part of my job to make sure we got there as scheduled. DG could wet his dick on his own time, not his father’s.
Right as I got to the private room, the door slid open and DG stepped out.
“What do you want?” he asked.
His lip curled, the flesh almost touching his nose. He reached behind him and pulled a tiny white-haired woman out of the room and against his side. Eyes averted, body trembling, she plastered herself to DG’s designer suit. When DG dropped his arm onto her shoulders, she sucked in a sharp breath.
“Your father is waiting.”
I spoke to DG, but focused on the woman. Unlike many of the club’s female patrons, DG’s companion wore a long-sleeved, navy silk pantsuit. The only skin showing was via the neckline that plunged open to her creamy alabaster belly, showing a flash of her tiny, pert breasts.
Out
of habit, I drew in a deep breath.
Ozone.
That scent marked her as an Ice Elemental from Niflheim, but I was the only one in the room who would realize what she was, unless she chose to share the information. Odd that she’d be with DG. Elementals didn’t usually stray from their very tight-knit communities, let alone date outside their species.
I suppose times were changing, and had been for the last three hundred plus years, ever since the Failing, when the dimensional gates between Earth and the other eight realms had gotten jacked six ways from Sunday, and Odin went MIA. Outlanders couldn’t get back home. Sure, they could still come here, but only someone truly desperate would use that one-way ticket—like the worst of the worst.
The only things that had not changed since the Failing were humans remaining ignorant to the Outlanders living among them, and the powerful glamour that kept the new inhabitants looking human and speaking the local language.
Thank Odin the glamour didn’t drop. I was an Outlander-Human mutt. Who knew what I’d end up looking like if it did. But other than being grateful for that small blessing, Odin could kiss my ass.
I drew in another breath and frowned. As delicious as the Ice Elemental looked with her mass of curly hair and silver-blue eyes, her scent was a sickening mix of ozone, peach, blood, and fear.
There wasn’t a mark on her, but that didn’t mean anything. Women flocked to DG because of his gym rat body and expensive clothes, but the guy wasn’t as nice as his wardrobe and they found that out quickly enough.
“You can tell him that I’ll be there in a minute.” DG glared at me. “Give us some privacy.”
He was the heir and I was only the hired help, but my hackles rose at the thought of turning my back on a woman in trouble. I reached out. “Are you all right?”
DG knocked my hand aside. “She’s fine and not yours to touch.”
“That’s for her to decide.”
We glared at each other, neither blinking. He had a couple of inches and probably thirty extra pounds of muscle on me. It wouldn’t save him. DG was a clumsy brawler, relying on his strength and bulk and the fear others had of his father’s power to win any fights.
Only my respect for Mordechai stayed my hand. “Are you all right?” I repeated. “Do you want to leave?”
DG squeezed the woman’s shoulders. “Answer him, girl.”
She winced and I clenched my fists. “DG...”
“I’m fine,” she said, raising her chin. “I’m right where I need to be.”
“Satisfied, Mac?” DG gave me the kind of smile that I loved to punch off men’s faces.
I relaxed my fists. “What’s your name?”
She shot DG a glance as if asking permission. He nodded. “Jalena,” she said.
“Jalena, if you need help, you ask for me, okay? Trygg Mackenzie.” I didn’t say it, but I was sure she understood that I would end this prick if I found out he was hurting her or any other woman without her consent.
DG bristled and took a step toward me.
Hit me. Please. If he just gave me an excuse.
Jalena reached up and touched his cheek, pulling his attention back to her.
“Jalena has everything she needs right here.” DG slid her hand down to his crotch.
The Elemental’s pale skin flushed bright pink, but she didn’t pull away. “Goodnight, Mr. Mackenzie.”
Nothing I could do. “I’ll be at the bar.”
“Fine.” DG had to have the last word.
With that, I spun on my heel and got the hell away from him before I changed my mind. I had no idea how a man like Mordechai Hinterland could father that. Nature and nurture both took a shit on the job as far as I could see.
I took a deep breath and shook out my arms, shook off my pissy mood. Mordechai waited at the bar. Four years ago, I’d sat in that spot, working on my fifth scotch on the rocks. He’d offered me a job and a drink from his personal flask. Best damn mead I’d ever tasted, and he brewed it himself.
After a few more sips of that mead and a calm conversation with Mordechai, I’d felt the first modicum of control that I could remember in a long damn time. Like, over three hundred years. Everyone one of them spent endlessly fighting against urges that sickened me to even think about them, let alone act on them.
“Evening, sir.”
Mordechai looked over his shoulder and grinned at me. “Evening, Trygg.” Most people here used my last name or called me the abbreviated Mac. He always called me by my first name, unless I displeased him. “Looking good. Where are you headed off to?”
“Wherever you and DG are. I’m taking Bart’s shift.”
Mordechai frowned. “I thought today was your day off.”
I shrugged, not wanting to get into the popcorn debacle. “I was bored. Where’s James? Isn’t he supposed to be with you tonight?”
“I sent him home a couple hours ago. I hadn’t planned on going out again tonight.”
“I see.” I didn’t like it that James hadn’t told me he was leaving early, but I didn’t say anything to Mordechai. James would hear about it, though.
“His wife went into labor.”
“Ah. That explains a few things.”
Hinterland chuckled. “Indeed. When your baby is entering the world, all you care about is getting to the woman you love.”
His smile faded and I felt the grimace on my own face. His wife had died in an accident about a decade ago. I didn’t talk about dead wives. Ever.
“Drink?” He offered me his flask.
It was tempting as hell.
“I’m on duty, sir.”
“We both know you could be three sheets to the wind and not lose a man.”
His gaze drifted down to my left pec. The tattoo there was the reason I’d been walking this earth for over three hundred and fifty years. I was marked by Odin, supposed to be one of his warriors—a berserker—but I only worked for those I respected.
“What can you tell me about the building we’re going to see tonight?”
Mordechai shook his head. “I don’t know anything about it, other than that the location is less than desirable.”
“Ahh, not one of your urban renewal projects then?”
It wouldn’t be the first time that Mordechai had done something like that. He actually cared about the community he lived in and reined in his men, which was the only reason I stayed working for him after I found out that he ran the mob.
“Not as of this moment, but you never know.”
“We’re going to be late. Let’s go.” DG’s bellow interrupted us.
I gritted my teeth. The hot-tempered, mouthy little prick thought the world bent to his will. If bullets flew tonight, I knew who I’d jump in front of. “Ready, Mr. Hinterland?”
Mordechai shook his head. “Some days....”
I smiled at my boss, not out of any shared amusement at the youthful disrespect his son had just shown him. No, my smile was to cover my urge to rip DG’s fucking throat out.
Warriors of Odin weren’t noble knights. We were berserkers. Unstoppable. Immortal. Fearsome. Fighters with supernatural abilities given to us by the Allfather himself. Most of us were wholly human. Some, like me, were born of Outlander blood, too. We were all the hosts of caged monsters. And it wasn’t that long ago that I was one bad mood and a shot of scotch away from slaughtering everyone around me.
CHAPTER 3
BRYN
Dezi pointed at an Asian woman beside us at the stop light. “Human.”
“Yep.”
She pumped her fist. “I’m on a roll today.”
I tried to get into the spirit of things. We’d been playing this game since the day I told her that I wasn’t human, or as Dezi liked to call it, “My Coming Out Day.” I guess the title was accurate, except I hadn’t been the one keeping secrets from my adoptive parents. They’d kept secrets from me. I’d refused to talk to them since.
“Guy in the pickup truck behind me. Jotun?”
“Nope. Va
nilla.”
“Human? Really? Damn it! There goes my winning streak. What was I up to anyway?”
I shrugged. Heck if I knew. She was trying to distract me. Never going to happen. Already I could feel shadowy fingers crawling up my spine.
An hour and fifteen minutes to sunset and we weren’t getting to our destination any faster.
I pointed with my chin. “Light’s green.”
Dezi pressed the accelerator. The car crept forward. I banged my head in frustration against the passenger window.
Most people had no idea how to drive defensively. They gawked. They rode bumpers. They drove erratically. Accidents waiting to happen.
Not Dezi.
“Couple car lengths. That’s really all the distance you need at this speed,” I said for the millionth time since we’d both gotten our licenses.
“I know how to drive, B.”
“You know how to coast.”
It was virtually impossible for her to wreck us, but making us late for any and all appointments was completely in her wheelhouse.
Dezi had her reasons for poking along like a blue-haired granny, but if she didn’t get the lead out, I’d toss her in the backseat and take matters into my own hands.
Did that make me a crappy friend?
Maybe. With sunset approaching, I didn’t care.
We hit another red light and I groaned. “How much farther?”
“It’s right up the road. Chillax.”
“You chillax. We’re about to be carjacked by that little old lady tailing us in her wheelchair.”
“Har. Har.” Dezi sassed at me, but she went a little faster when the light turned green. Only five under the speed limit instead of ten. Good thing Romig Road wasn’t a speed trap.
I could literally run there faster.
Five minutes later, the car decelerated and I gritted my teeth.
“Dez, I swear to god, if you don’t—”
“We’re here.”
I squinted against the green aura glowing around her and looked out of the driver side window as she hooked a left. In the parking lot of the warehouse waited three Outlanders.
Not one Outlander.
Not two Outlanders.
Three freaking Outlanders.
