Rex turned and walked toward her. “Astrid,” he said, holding out his hand.
“I’m not surrendering my weapons tonight.” She batted her lashes. “Besides, you should know that if I wanted to hurt your boss, I could do so with my bare hands.”
Rex chuckled. “I have no doubt you can, but you can keep your knives tonight.” Instead of frisking her, he took her by the elbow and led her to the bar. “You are always stunning, but you look especially beautiful tonight.”
“Thank you,” Astrid said, wondering why all the flattery.
“Mr. Holden is a little delayed, but he will be down shortly.” Ah, so that was why Rex was laying on the compliments so thickly. He was covering for his boss. “How about a drink while you wait?” Rex asked.
Astrid asked for a gin and tonic and settled on one of the barstools. She was deep in a discussion with the bartender and Rex about soccer when Holden appeared by her side. In the gloom of the club, she hadn’t noticed him walk up.
He kissed her temple. “Sorry I’m late.”
She shrugged, hiding how much the small gesture pleased her. “No problem.” She nodded toward Rex and the bartender. “These guys have kept me entertained with their faulty logic on why they root for the English players in the UEFA Champions League.”
Holden’s smile crinkled his eyes. “Let me guess. You support the Scandinavians.”
She swung the barstool around, freeing her legs from underneath the bar. “But of course. They’re superior players. Why else does every self-respecting professional team recruit at least a few of them?”
Both Rex and the bartender protested loudly, but she was too mesmerized by Holden to pay them any attention. He was wearing a charcoal shirt over indigo denim jeans. The fabric of the shirt looked impossibly expensive and draped his shoulders in a perfect fit, obviously tailored. The dark-gray color perfectly matched his eyes, and it was hard not to lose herself in the heat she saw smoldering in their depths.
Great Freya, she was in trouble and their date hadn’t even started yet. She took a breath to steady herself and slid down from the barstool.
“Shall we?” Holden swept his hand out toward the door.
Not trusting her voice, she waved good-bye to the other two men and walked toward the club exit.
Holden’s hand applied a comforting pressure on the small of her back. “You look great,” he said.
“You’re not so bad yourself, Holden,” she said with a smile.
He returned her smile. “Okay, so I’m going to only say this once: It annoys me that you won’t call me by my first name.”
“I’ll work on that,” Astrid answered.
“On annoying me, or on using my first name?”
She didn’t answer, just gave him a smile. He shook his head.
Once outside, Holden grabbed her hand and strode down the sidewalk. “It’s only a few blocks. I thought we could walk.”
“Good idea.” The night temperature was pleasant but had a little bite. Maybe it would cool down her libido.
Holden asked her about her day. She didn’t want to admit she’d spent most of it primping for their date. Instead she mumbled something about working out, which was true. In the early afternoon, she’d sparred for a few hours with Sten and Per, the two youngest Vikings. Per was working on his strength after barely surviving one of the wolverine’s altered wolfsbane injections. A transfusion of the queen’s genetically modified white blood cells had pulled him back from the brink of death.
Ulf had watched the sparring for a little while but left without saying anything. Astrid had been glad. She was still pissed off about the kiss and pretty sure she would deck him if he tried to speak to her.
She and Holden walked down one of the main streets where closed shops displayed their offerings in well-lit windows. Holden steered them down one of the pedestrians-only streets that connected two main thoroughfares. During the day, it would have been filled with people visiting the lunch places lining both sides of the wide street. This late after closing time, the pavement was cast mostly in darkness, illuminated in spots by decorative streetlights.
Halfway down the street, Astrid’s berserker went on high alert. The otherworldly essence of Asgard rose from behind one of the tall metal sculptures displayed next to some huge flower pots. She tugged on Holden’s hand. “Incoming,” she said. “I hope you’re armed.”
He lifted an eyebrow in a silent question and looked in the direction she nodded.
Four wolverines stepped out from behind the artwork. Their claws were already extended, and their eyes glittered with dark menace.
Holden swore under his breath.
Chapter 14
Luke reached for the Glock he carried in a shoulder holster underneath his jacket, but Astrid put her hand on his arm. “The noise of a gunshot this close to people will attract cops.”
He nodded that he’d understood. Normally, he’d love to have the men and women in blue backing him up, but the wolverines would literally shred his law enforcement comrades. “How do you want to handle this?”
Her eyes widened, as if she was surprised he’d asked. He didn’t understand why. She’d taken these guys down in hand-to-hand combat several times. Other than looking at their ugly faces down the scope of a rifle, he’d only fought one of them up close and personal. She was definitely the expert here. “They’re going to try to separate us,” she said in a low voice. “We should stay back-to-back as much as we can, but that may be hard because they’re fast and very limber.”
“Yeah, I noticed.” He widened his stance and kept his eye on the creatures. They were still just standing by the ugly metal statue. The creatures watched them and they watched back. It was as if they were in a Western movie standoff. The music from the final showdown in The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly played in Luke’s head.
“Watch out for their claws,” Astrid said. “They also use blowguns with poisonous darts, but I don’t see them carrying one tonight.”
Luke squinted toward the wolverines and counted four sets of clawed hands, but it didn’t look like any of them carried a weapon. “They could have a whole arsenal stashed behind that ugly sculpture,” he said. “What is that thing supposed to look like?”
“An abstract representation of the human experience through a lifetime,” Astrid said.
“For real?” Luke shot her a sideways look. The artwork looked like a heap of sheet metal that someone who failed Welding 101 had put together.
She gave a half shrug. “I read it on the Pine Rapids Chamber of Commerce website. They have a self-guided art walk you can print out.”
The lady was full of surprises, but Luke needed to focus on the fight before them. “What else should I know about the wolverines?”
“They’re much faster than your average human.” She paused and half turned toward him. “How did you manage to defeat the one in the parking garage?”
“I probably just got lucky,” Luke hedged. “How did you survive your fight with them?”
Astrid paused for several moments. “I almost didn’t,” she finally muttered.
Luke knew there was a ton of information that she wasn’t sharing in that one small sentence, but now was not the time to press. Eventually he’d get Astrid to share how she’d become such an excellent fighter and why she healed faster than humanly possible. After they’d put down the ugly fuckers glaring at them from across the street. “I don’t think we’ll make our restaurant reservation,” Luke said and smiled when Astrid chuckled.
The wolverines took a few steps closer, fanning out in a semicircle. In unison, Luke and Astrid adjusted their stances so his right shoulder almost touched her left, their bodies positioned like an arrow pointing toward the center of the wolverine crescent.
The four creatures raised their heads and sniffed the air. “Valkyrie,” one of them growled. Slow, evil smiles sp
read across each of their faces. There was that word again. Luke was not dumb enough to believe they called Astrid by the name of the Norse warrior women just because she was tall and blond. Valkyrie was code for something he did not yet understand. But again, a conversation for after they’d declawed these monsters.
The creature who had spoken focused on Luke, and a small shiver of dread slid down his spine when he looked into the freaky eyes. All that black was like looking into two eye sockets filled with pure evil.
The wolverine sniffed the air again. “What are you?” he asked as his three companions also raised their noses to smell. They cocked their heads, watching him with those weird dead eyes.
“Nobody important,” Luke said. “Just on my way to have a lovely date with a beautiful woman.”
The wolverines snickered as if he were a complete moron. Luke was okay with that. Being underestimated meant he’d have the advantage. And he could really use that. Although he was fast, he wasn’t sure he could handle multiple supernatural freaks. Beside him, Astrid muttered under her breath. It sounded like she was counting, but he didn’t dare take his eyes off the monsters.
The creatures took a few steps closer, fanning out further. Luke couldn’t keep all four in his field of vision without turning his head.
“You got eyes on the two closest to you?” he asked Astrid in a low voice.
“Yep,” she answered, also keeping her tone on the quiet side. “Just need them a little closer for a true aim.”
He was about to ask her what she meant when she reached underneath the hem of her sparkly top and pulled out two shiny throwing blades. In one smooth motion, her hands continued their momentum and the knives left her grip in perfect arcs. They tumbled hilt over blade, reflecting the light from the streetlamp closest to them, and buried tip first in the necks of the wolverines closest to Astrid. Both went down with a wet gurgling noise. The whole choreography had taken no more than a few seconds. It was glorious.
Astrid was glorious.
Right then and there, Luke fell just a little bit more in love with her. Fuck, wait no. Where had that thought come from? He couldn’t afford deep feelings for Astrid.
He shook himself mentally and concentrated on the other two monsters. They appeared as shocked as he was and stood staring at their fallen comrades.
Astrid palmed two more blades and threw them, but the wolverines knew what was coming and moved quicker than Luke’s eyes could track. The knives clanked to the ground.
Luke swiveled his head to see where the two fuckers had leaped to, but he didn’t lay eyes on either of them before a swift kick to his head had him down on one knee. Ears ringing, he stayed down.
Astrid stayed near, slashing with yet two more blades in her hands. How many knives could one woman carry? She had definitely earned the nickname Rex gave her. Luke felt inadequately prepared with his lone switchblade tucked into his shoe, but it would have to do. He retrieved the weapon and stood.
Both the remaining wolverines faced Astrid. Instead of making the rookie mistake of standing next to her, Luke remained in a position where he could defend her back. He felt blood trickling down the side of his face, but no immediate pain other than a dull throbbing where the wolverine’s foot had made contact. Of course, the adrenaline rushing through his body kept the pain at bay. But unless he got woozy from blood loss, he’d worry later about how injured he was.
The two creatures attacked again. Just as Astrid had predicted, they flared out in a pattern that would have separated him from her if they had been less experienced fighters.
One of the creatures disappeared in another blur, and Luke received a hard side-kick in his stomach. Shit, he thought he’d covered his upper body. This was like fighting one of the characters from The Matrix. Hunched over and gasping for breath, he stopped trying to track the creatures by sight. Instead, he used sound and tried to predict where his opponent would be, based on the air moving against his skin. Most soldiers and cops knew to act purely on instinct and intuition. Luke’s battalion used to tease him that he had more Spidey sense than others. Tonight he would really need it.
A low flurry to the right made him react instinctively with a side kick. His foot made contact with the shoulder of the wolverine in a low thud. The creature twisted backward from the impact, and Luke immediately delivered a semicircular kick to the head.
The monster ducked at the last minute, and Luke’s foot hit its bicep instead of the intended target. Claws swiped out and ripped Luke’s pants, piercing the skin of his calf. He hissed in pain but planted a front kick in the creature’s face. Luke was rewarded by the sweet sound of crunched cartilage. He buried his switchblade in the creature’s jugular and turned to see if Astrid was okay.
She had shoved a blade underneath the ribs of her opponent and then pulled it out impossibly fast to sink it into the creature’s temple. She turned and caught Luke watching her. “He has some kind of collar protecting his neck. I couldn’t go for the jugular.” Blood splattered her face, and her hair was in complete disarray. Her beauty stunned his senses.
Hopped up on adrenaline, he closed the gap between them and kissed her once. Hard.
Astrid’s nostril’s flared. Her eyes went wild. She reached for him and pulled his head back down to hers. He let her take the lead as her tongue plundered his mouth. All he could think about was having her, right there and then.
She groaned as he pulled her toward him, caressing his head. All of a sudden she stopped and pushed against his shoulders. He reluctantly released her mouth. “What?” he asked.
Her eyes were enormous deep-green pools of desire. “You’re hurt,” she said, showing him her hand. Fresh blood coated her palm.
“I got kicked in the head.”
“We need to bandage that wound.” She took a step away from him.
“Later,” he growled, reaching for her again.
She shook her head, but there was a smile on her face. “Zip it up, lover. Right now we have to get rid of these bodies before someone decides to investigate what all the noise was about.”
Reluctantly, Luke went back to the creature he’d downed with the switchblade. He made sure there was no pulse before he pulled the weapon out and wiped it on the creature’s shirt.
Astrid retrieved her weapons—the sheer number of knives taking a while—and together they dragged the bodies to a nearby alley. An open Dumpster served as a burial site for the creatures.
“They’ll take longer to decompose with limited sunlight,” Astrid said. “But by the time these are emptied, there shouldn’t be any traces left of the wolverines.” She turned to face him. “Let’s get you home so I can take a look at that wound.” She grabbed his hand, and together they walked back to his apartment.
* * *
One of Luke’s favorite amenities in his apartment was the large dual-head shower. As he watched Astrid’s magnificent body under the stream of water, he decided it was now his absolute favorite feature. Most likely, he would never again be able to get clean without busting a hard-on.
His head wound had stopped bleeding by the time they got to his apartment. The parallel furrows on his calf stung a little, but he’d had worse. He’d slap some antibacterial gel on it after the shower, and in the morning he’d be as good as new.
He had better things to think about, like the blond arching her back in front of him. He grabbed the soap, lathered up his hands, and then reached for her.
Astrid moaned as he slid his hands across her slick skin, tracing a path from her flared hips and up the sides before cupping her breasts. He rubbed his thumbs across her nipples, enjoying the feeling of them hardening against his skin. The water rinsed away his lather. Leaning in, he lifted her breasts up and closer together, capturing both her areolas in his mouth.
Alternately sucking and biting, he kept pleasuring her until Astrid pulled his head up to her mouth with a growl.
He met her demanding tongue thrusts, matching them with his own.
“I need you inside me. Now.” Astrid groaned against his lips.
He slid his hands under her ass, squeezing the taut globes and lifting her up. She wrapped her legs around his waist, and he pressed her into the wall. The shower pounded his back as he slid his dick deep inside her, overloading his senses. She clenched tightly and warmly around him, and his balls pulled up. He had to fight hard to not come right then and there. “You feel incredible,” he whispered to her.
“Harder,” she moaned and he obliged by withdrawing and thrusting harder and deeper inside her. Her moans increased in frequency, matching the rhythm of his breathing.
The moment he felt her first tremor, he couldn’t hold back any longer. He thrust into her one final time, his dick pulsing as her strong muscles milked him.
The release was so powerful that Luke had to brace himself against the shower wall to keep standing. Stars glimmered behind his closed eyelids, and he felt like he had soared out of his body. The bathroom disappeared as a peaceful darkness surrounded him. A warm and balmy wind blew against his skin. Across the void, a dark-haired man beckoned to him. An eye patch covered one of his eyes, and he had what looked like two large crows, one sitting on each of his shoulders.
Luke had obviously gone insane from adrenaline and sex overload. The best orgasm of his life would do that to a guy. He opened his mouth to ask the one-eyed dude how to get back to his body, when the sound of a great waterfall rushed toward him and a strong wind blew him backward. He closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he was back with Astrid in the shower.
Her face was pale and her eyes enormous as she watched him with a shocked expression.
“You okay?” he managed to squeeze out as he caught his breath.
She nodded and unhooked her legs from behind his back. When she tried to slip away, he held her in place, resting his forehead against his. She exhaled a long breath, and he hugged her close. “Stay the night,” he whispered against her hair.
Viking Warrior Rebel Page 15
