Playing Easy to Get

by Kresley Cole

  “Maybe, but you know, my whole life was changed because of one postage stamp.” Allison reached into her purse and pulled out a stamp book. “I hope it brings you the same luck it brought me.”

  “Carla, cleanup on aisle eight.”

  She saw the woman cringe as Dan’s voice sounded over the PA system. She tucked her book into the pocket of her apron. “I better go.”

  Allison stopped her. “Oh no, honey, let me handle this.”

  Vince frowned as she pulled away from him. With determined strides, Allison went to the cleaning station and pulled down the broom and dry solution. Then she made her way over to where Dan was at the front of the store.

  His eyes widened as he saw her. Before he could say anything, Allison handed it to him. “You know, Dan, for once in your life try and be a decent human being to someone. People work a lot better and harder when you treat them with dignity.”

  And with that said, she headed for the doors.

  Vince took her hand as they entered the parking lot. “Are you all right?”

  Allison nodded as she took her last look around. “Yeah, I am.” She pulled him to a stop and faced him. “You do know how much I love you, right?”

  “I hope as much as I love you.” Then, he pulled her into his arms for a quick kiss and as their lips met, Allison realized that what she’d said to Vince really was the truth. The past had definitely left its mark on her, but the future was entirely up to her and she planned on making it a great one.

  And it was one that would definitely include him.

  Hunter’s

  Oath

  Jaid Black

  To Patty Marks,

  a graceful fighter in every sense of the word.

  Thanks for everything, Mom.

  Prepare thyselves for the inevitable demise of the wicked. Hunt down and steal as many wenches from the Outsiders as needed for the continuity of our line. To prevail, we must breed women and bear much fruit.

  ’Tis not I, a humble servant of the gods, who decree this, but the gods themselves:

  Go forth and hunt, men.

  —VIKINGLEGEND

  Chapter One

  Alaska

  Thirty-two-year-old Sofia Rowley sat in the back of the taxi, gazing out the window but seeing nothing. Leaving Alaska today wasn’t possible, since Fairbanks was at least two hours from the army base. She’d have to stay in a motel near the airport and catch the first flight back home tomorrow.

  She welcomed the thought of the sun beating down on her face when the plane landed in Tampa. Alaska in February was bone-chillingly frigid.

  This is where Sam died, she thought, gazing at the treacherous, icy terrain all around her. Snowcapped mountains thrust up everywhere, creating a picturesque but deadly panorama. She didn’t know how the cabbie was plowing through this stuff. Experience, she supposed—and strong chains on his tires.

  Exhausted from jet lag, grief and lack of sleep, Sofia raked her crimson fingernails through her long blond hair and sighed. She itched to tie the wild mane of curls back into a ponytail, but she hadn’t remembered scrunchies when she’d hastily packed. Word of her brother’s death had driven everything else from her mind.

  I don’t know what to do, Sam. I don’t know how to go on without you.

  Her life, so driven and purposeful, suddenly felt unfocused. Rowley Travel no longer held any allure. Her twenty-two-year-old brother’s death had forced her to recognize that work and Sam had been her sole sustenance.

  It was time to start anew, to live instead of merely existing. Sam would have demanded no less. Indeed, her brother had been harping on her for years to go out and enjoy herself more often. She recalled a conversation they’d had just a few months ago, while he was here on a classified assignment.

  “You should get out and date more, Sis,” Sam told her. “I’ve always seen the way guys look at you. And while it kinda grosses me out—I mean, you are my sister, after all—I know why they do. You’re the type of woman every man wants for his own: smart, kind, hardworking, gorgeous, and as much as I hate to say this out loud, you’ve got a killer body.”

  Sofia chuckled into the phone. “I think you’re being generous. The looks in the family all landed on you, kiddo.”

  “That’s a bunch of bullshit and we both know it.”

  “Oh? Then how come men rarely ask me out?”

  “Because you always put out you-don’t-stand-

  a-chance-with-me vibes. Men are basically pathetic and insecure. Trust me on that one, Sof.”

  She shook her head and grinned. “Am I really that bad? I don’t mean to be.”

  Sam’s voice grew serious. “You raised me after Mom and Dad died, and I can never thank you enough for it—”

  “Sam, you don’t need to—”

  “—But I’m grown up now and you deserve to find your happy ending. Don’t waste your life behind a desk, Sis.”

  Sofia smiled sadly. Her brother had been her best friend, her only real friend. His death had left a gaping hole in her heart and her life that might never be mended.

  Fatigue overwhelming her, Sofia’s eyelids slowly closed, thick dark lashes fanning down. The pain inside was raw and powerful; she welcomed the respite a short nap would bring.

  No matter how old I live to be, Sam, I will carry you in my heart and memories forever.

  Sofia’s eyelids slowly batted open. She stretched and yawned, feeling a bit more refreshed. Wondering how long she’d been asleep, she glanced at her wristwatch. She stilled.

  Four hours?

  They should have reached Fairbanks by now.

  Her gaze darted outside the taxi. Sofia’s pulse soared when she realized that nothing looked familiar. It was dark outside, but she could see that the terrain had become impossibly harsher and more mountainous. The road—were they even on a road? Sofia’s eyes widened. She didn’t think they were.

  “Sir,” she called out to the back of the taxi driver’s bald head. “I don’t think you’re going the right way. I wanted to go to Fairbanks.”

  He said nothing. Her heartbeat picked up as an ominous feeling stole over her.

  “Sir!” Sofia yelled, her voice sounding hysterical even to her own ears. “Where are you going?”

  Their gazes locked through the rearview mirror. Again, the cabbie said nothing. His driving increased in speed, and true panic set in.

  He was kidnapping her! The thought was stunning, numbing. A sense of surreality set in. This just couldn’t be happening. She had to be dreaming!

  A thick, opaque barrier of glass kept Sofia from lunging at him. Thinking quickly, she fumbled for the door handles, preparing to jump out of the taxi. If the fall killed her, it didn’t matter. She’d rather jump to her own death than be raped and murdered by this evil, grotesque little bastard.

  But the door handles wouldn’t budge. Making small, terrified sounds, Sofia rattled the handles harder to no avail. The driver must possess a mechanism that kept backseat passengers from opening the doors until they paid their fares.

  Oh no.

  God, help me!

  Sofia kicked against the door with all her might. “Let me out!” she screamed, her heart hammering loudly in her ears. Her fists pounded against the glass divide that separated them. “Open the fucking door!”

  The cabbie didn’t even acknowledge that she’d spoken. His silence was more frightening than any words he could have spat back at her.

  She was going to die. Perhaps slow and torturously.

  Her heart slamming against her breasts, Sofia slumped helplessly back against the seat.

  Chapter Two

  Hannu, New Sweden

  Present Day

  The bride-hunter lied to me!” a disgruntled Viking spat.

  “They always lie!” another angry male voice boomed in. “’Tis treachery that they are permitted to deceive us, milord!”

  “It costs us nigh unto our last coins to purchase a bride. The bride-hunters should make certain that the wenches are p
rime candidates to bear Viking fruit. Not just physically, but emotionally as well!”

  Enraged demands that the bride-hunters be whipped and imprisoned erupted in the hall. Lord Johen Stefsson sat in his chair at the apex of it, soldiers surrounding him on all sides of the raised platform.

  Not that Johen required their protection; a more skilled warlord did not exist.

  Johen stood seven feet tall, his battle-scarred body honed of three-hundred-twenty pounds of solid muscle. He wore black leather boots and braes, and a sleeveless green silk tunic that stood in stark contrast against his naturally bronze skin. The emblem of a dragon was emblazed on the gold bangles clasped around his powerful biceps, signifying his authority.

  Lord Stefsson could defend himself with deadly skill did the situation require it. In this instance crowd control would not be a problem, as Johen was firmly on the side of the people who looked to him for leadership and guidance.

  “Enough!” Johen bellowed, his eyes narrowed into gray slits. Two braids plaited back against his temples served to keep his dark brown hair out of his eyes; the shiny mane fell to mid-back. “I hear your cries, men, and I do not take them lightly. I will speak to our king about this issue on the morrow.”

  The crowd of fifty quieted, appeased mumbles rippling through the gathering like a wave. Nods of approval and respect told him they would give him time to find a solution before taking matters into their own hands.

  Not that talking to the jarl would do them any good, Johen thought, disgruntled. Toki was of a mind to make coins, not friends.

  One day his corrupt rule would come to an end. Until that time arrived, all Johen could do was act as an intermediary between Toki and the people of his sector. Failing that, there would be no choice but to revolt again.

  The Revolution had been won less than two fortnights ago, the old, corrupt jarl dead and deposed. Under the former king’s rule, bride-hunters had gotten away with far too much, sharing the profits of very little work with the crooked jarl.

  But now a new government was in power and lots of changes were to be made. It would take time, though. Years and years of neglect and abuse couldn’t be turned around in less than one month.

  Lord Stefsson assessed the crowd, his battle-trained mind accustomed to sizing up war opponents rather than men he was meant to rule. ’Twas a vastly different role, one that would take some time to grow accustomed to, yet he was eager for the challenge. His people had been neglected for far too long and deserved to be governed by a noble who had their best interests at heart.

  The Revolution had been both necessity and inevitability. In the Viking world that existed below the earth’s dirt and leaves, where none from the Outside knew of its existence, war was not taken lightly. ’Twas resorted to only when obligation dictated.

  For mayhap two thousand years, the Viking clans of New Sweden, New Norway and New Daneland had thrived below the ground deep in the earth’s belly. ’Twas the decree of the gods that they go there and dwell, the ancient prophets predicting that one day soon, mayhap in Johen’s lifetime, the number of wenches who lived above the ground would dwindle to near extinction.

  The Vikings would live on, the Terrible Northmen destined to rule the world once again. Their people had been forewarned by the gods of the events to come. ’Twas their duty to preserve their way of life, which could only be done if those who dwelled above the ground knew naught of their existence.

  The king of New Sweden, Toki, had flirted with being discovered by Outsiders one too many times. For that, and for his brutal tyranny, Lord Stefsson, commander of the independent sector of Hannu, had thus far refused to let his people be swallowed into the belly of New Sweden. Toki hadn’t dared gainsay him for fear that Johen would throw his weight toward the jarl’s enemy—the king of New Daneland.

  The warriors of Hannu had revolted after Toki claimed the throne, declaring Johen their leader instead. Situated between mainland New Sweden and the barbaric kingdom of New Daneland, their small but well fortified zone thrived.

  His people were dependent on New Sweden for nothing—except for brides. Until a new jarl overthrew the corrupt one, ’twas unlikely any significant changes would be demanded of the bride-hunters.

  “’Tis a bride-hunter’s job to ensure that the wenches they steal from above the ground are not wed to Outsider men.” Johen frowned, his face grim. “If they are not doing what they earn their high wages to do, there will be hellfire to pay for it.”

  Cheers ensued.

  Johen inclined his head. He meant every word of it.

  He grew as tired as his sector’s people were of waiting for New Sweden’s Revolution to erupt. Did the rebels not overthrow Toki soon, Johen would swear his allegiance to the New Danish jarl.

  “I would not trade in my Jennifer even if I could,” one man grumbled. “Yet her heart is with another. ’Tis difficult to warm her up to her new life with me.”

  The laws of the Underground did not recognize Outsider matrimony as binding, yet Johen understood the anger these Viking men felt upon learning that their wives were already married. It made wooing them into Viking culture and ensuring their eventual marital happiness a difficult task.

  Once a wench was captured, she could never return to the Outside; ’twould be foolhardy and mayhap cause the collapse of their civilization. ’Twas why bride-hunters were to go to such great lengths to do all they could reasonably do to guarantee a lack of marriage.

  None from the Outside could know of their existence—a point that couldn’t be stressed enough. On the few occasions when the colonies had been stumbled upon by accident, the people in question were either killed or incorporated into their culture by matrimony.

  Johen was the product of one such marriage. His sire, Eemil Stefsson, was a Viking from Hannu. His mother, Amani, was an Outsider who originally heralded from the country of Saudi Arabia.

  His mother had been on vacation with her only living relative, a sister, in what the Outsiders called Alaska, when she and Aunt Affra had accidentally stumbled upon a door that led to the Underground. They had been caught and sold on the marriage auction block.

  Eventually, after much perseverance by their husbands, both women had happily settled into Viking life. It made the transition easier that neither wench had given her heart to another man prior to being captured.

  The bride-hunters had done grievous injustice to the men standing before Johen today. ’Twas not, however, Lord Stefsson’s place to judge the fates of the bride-hunters; that would be the jarl’s decision. If he refused to listen, Lord Stefsson would have no recourse but to rebel.

  “I will speak with the king on the morrow,” Johen said, standing up to take his leave. His silver gaze swept the audience a final time. “You have my vow.”

  Chapter Three

  Terror having deserted her long ago in favor of numbness, Sofia wasn’t certain how much time had ticked by before the taxi pulled up in front of a remote log cabin.

  Icy mountains thrust up all around her. She was in the middle of nowhere, deep in the heart of rural Alaska. She hadn’t seen another cabin since she’d awakened.

  Snow began to fall, soft tranquil puffs looking at odds with their deadly ability to freeze people. What she wouldn’t give to be back home in Florida, the sun beating down on her face.

  As if in a dream, Sofia watched her hijacker alight from the taxi and close the door behind him. The thudding sound caused her to blink; the blink forced reality to come crashing back down on her.

  He was going to murder her, probably rape her first. There was no other explanation for this.

  Sofia’s teeth began to chatter. Watching the taxi driver walk into the log cabin and shut the door behind him, she forced herself to concentrate on how she might overpower him.

  He was short, fat and aging. She stood five-feet-eight-inches tall and had a more athletic physique. She had always been on the voluptuous side, but she was in excellent shape.

  But what could she use as a weapon�
�Of course—her keys! She fumbled through her faux leather purse, relieved when she found the keys to her car. They didn’t make much of a weapon, but they were better than nothing.

  When he opened the backseat door, she would attack him. She took one of the keys off the ring, palmed it, and prepared to strike.

  Driving a taxi didn’t earn Willy the money he needed to support his cocaine and booze habit. Fuck, it barely covered the bills. Luckily, he knew what he had to do and who he had to go to in order to get paid nicely.

  The pair of tall, weird mountain men who lived out here in the middle of no-fucking-where regularly paid him a lot of cash for young, pretty, fuckable bitches. Black, white, Asian, Spanish…they liked it all. But over the years he’d learned what they paid the most for, and the lady in the back of his cab was it.

  The mountain men with the weirdo foreign accents didn’t pay much for the skinny ones. They preferred rounded asses and hips, and big ole titties. An exceptionally beautiful face was always a requirement. Color didn’t matter.

  Willy didn’t know what the mysterious men did with the women after they bought them, nor did he care. It was obvious the ladies were killed after they were fucked good and decent for a few days because the cabin was always devoid of females when he showed up…and he couldn’t kidnap the bitches fast enough to suit the foreigners.

  Willy waited with more patience than he felt as the foreigners stalked outside and inspected the new chattel.

  Sofia clutched the key so tightly her knuckles turned white. Expecting to do battle with the short, out-of-shape taxi driver, she gasped when two huge men draped in polar bear furs emerged from the log cabin instead. They looked straight at her and her heart leapt into her chest.

  They wore their hair in an odd fashion—a braid plaited on either side of their temples to keep their hair out of their line of vision. Obviously, they’d watched Mel Gibson in Braveheart one too many times. The polar bear furs obscured what they wore beneath them and whether or not they were carrying weapons.