The queen ignored her. “Think about it. He didn’t have to help you rescue Scott. He could have left you on your own in Denver and then made contact once you were back in Pine Rapids.”
Astrid swallowed. “He wanted information from me and knew he had to get me to trust him. That’s why he helped. It was all part of his game.”
“On some level, you know that’s not true.” Naya’s voice was gentle. “And even if you believe that, why did he help us place the abducted women where they could get counseling? He did that because he knew you cared about Camila and the others, that you related to their situation.”
“Let’s concentrate on tonight’s mission.” Astrid didn’t have enough mental strength to process the Luke situation and prepare for battle with a jittery berserker.
The warriors had had the lab under surveillance ever since she and Ulf first discovered it. Tonight, Torvald and Pekka had been on duty, and they’d called in some unusual activity. The warehouse was crawling with wolverines unloading equipment and stock. Ulf and Naya hadn’t seen any news on the Darknet about more human cargo making its way to Pine Rapids, but the creatures were preparing for something. Unfortunately, the building had some kind of jammer rigged so Leif’s team couldn’t use satellite imaging to monitor the wolverines’ heat signatures.
“I wish we had a little more time before we have to storm the lab,” Naya said. “I’ve tracked the main financial backing of this clinic, lab—whatever it is—to an investment banker in New Mexico. It’s a little too much of a coincidence that the Vikings in New Mexico are having trouble with these new wolverines and that’s also the state to which the money trail leads.”
“You’re worried the finance guys will go underground if we take down the lab tonight?”
“Not exactly. They have a legitimate front, so they’ll probably just get rid of the evidence and continue to operate as if they’re a fully legal business.” She turned and gave Astrid a chilling smile. “But we don’t really need evidence to take them down. It’s not like we’re going to bring them to trial.” An ice-cold tickle trailed down Astrid’s back. The queen sounded downright bloodthirsty. Astrid’s berserker picked up on the mood and paced faster.
Fight, it whispered. Blood.
Naya’s nostrils flared when her berserker felt Astrid’s inner warrior’s restlessness. “You okay?” she asked.
“I’ll be fine once the fighting starts.” Maybe she’d finally be able to sleep tonight if the berserker got exhausted in battle. The problem was that sometimes a good fight riled up the beast even more.
She got her head in the game. “So, we have Torvald and Pekka on-site. Sten and Harald have gone ahead on the Kawasakis to help survey the terrain. Is Per on the rooftop with his rifle?” Per had left the fortress with Irja earlier in the afternoon. Neither had come back before the rest of the warriors headed out. Astrid assumed Leif or Naya had been in contact with them via phone and they were meeting the rest of the team on-site.
Naya turned to look out the window. “Irja and Per are not participating in this mission.”
That was unusual but not unheard of. Usually someone stayed behind at the fortress to prepare for any wounded being brought back. But tonight Scott was taking care of that duty, so Irja and Per could have joined them. “Are they okay?” she asked.
“Yeah,” Naya said, still facing the window. “They’re working on something else.”
Leif glanced over his shoulder at Astrid. “They’re backing up Holden.”
She froze. “Why does Luke need backup?”
Naya faced Astrid again. “He’s meeting with Kraus. We’ve narrowed down the government corruption to three possible candidates. Luke’s going to see if he can trip up Kraus to give us the final clue.” Naya watched her carefully.
Astrid forced her face to remain calm, but her heart raced. If Leif had sent Irja and Per as backup, he believed there was a threat to Luke.
As if he could read her thoughts, Leif shot her a quick look through the rearview mirror. “It’s just a precaution. Luke’s helping us out by meeting with Kraus. That means we have his back.”
“Okay,” Astrid said. “I wasn’t worried.”
“Liar,” Naya said.
Astrid ignored her.
Leif slowed down the car as they got closer to the warehouse and turned off the headlights. They crept down the streets and then turned into an alley a block away from where Ulf and Astrid had first encountered the wolverines. All four of them exited the car and closed the doors with the softest of clicks. Ulf handed them their communication headsets.
Leif looped the set over his ear and waited for the others to do the same. He tapped the mic with his unique signal. After a short delay, a response sounded. Harald, Torvald, Pekka, and then Sten all signaled that they were connected. Naya tapped in her signal, and Astrid added hers before Ulf did the same. Everyone was set and raring to go.
Astrid closed her eyes and connected with her berserker. The beast threw its head back and roared. She sent it a command to calm, with minimal effect, but she was able to reach beyond her own inner warrior and search for the connection her beast had with the others. The invisible web glowed brightly in her mind. It was familiar but also more intense. Ever since the king’s and queen’s wedding, the connection she felt with the other warriors had increased in strength.
She followed the threads and identified each of her battle brothers and sisters. She could even detect Irja and Per, although they were dimmer because of their distance. Both emotionally and geographically.
Being on another mission meant their mental focus was not on a shared goal with Astrid. She startled when she noticed a third presence with Irja and Per. Something wasn’t right about its essence. She tried to analyze why it felt off, but her own inner warrior grew agitated as she extended her senses.
Go, it roared. Go now.
Astrid severed the line with the odd connection, which infuriated her berserker. It howled out its frustration.
Someone grabbing her arm made her snap her eyes open. “Odin’s eye,” Leif said. “Are you okay? It felt like your berserker was on the verge of taking complete control.”
“I’m good,” Astrid said. “Just a little unused to the strong connection between us.” Who was the third berserker with Irja and Per? She looked toward Naya. The queen had been a mortal—might still be a mortal—but she now had an inner warrior. Had Luke developed an inner warrior through the själsfrände bond?
“Astrid,” Leif shook her.
“What?”
“Are you sure you’re okay? You zoned out again, didn’t hear a word I said.” He frowned. “I think you should sit this one out.”
“No,” Astrid hissed. “I need this fight.” Leif dropped his grip but still looked doubtful. The words rushed out of her. “It’s the only thing that will calm the berserker. I’ll take up the rear position and return to the car if I feel I’m about to lose control.”
Leif hesitated, but then gave her a curt nod. “Fine. But any sign of trouble, and you get the hell out of here.”
“Promise.”
They fell into position with Leif and Ulf in the lead, shoulder to shoulder. Naya was just behind the men, and Astrid took the rear as promised. They would go in the back door while Harald and Sten took the front. Torvald and Pekka were positioned by a smaller side door.
They reached the parking lot in the alley and crept along the walls of the building to stay in the shadows. Leif ghosted up the stairs of the loading dock, and the rest of them followed. He and Ulf positioned themselves on either side of the door while Naya and Astrid hung back.
Ulf grabbed the handle and twisted slowly. He made eye contact with the king and nodded once. The door was unlocked.
Leif tapped the ready signal on his mic. It was returned by each of the warriors.
Ulf tore open the door, and the four of the
m jogged down the hallway to the double doors at the end. Leif kicked them open, and the Viking team spilled into the warehouse.
Twenty or so wolverines milled around in the huge space, stocking the cabinets with supplies. They turned around and froze in place.
Harald and Sten entered on the opposite side of the room a few seconds later. The wolverines’ heads swiveled in unison, and Astrid would have laughed if there weren’t so many of the creatures.
Torvald and Pekka appeared behind Harald and Sten.
The whole gang was there, so let the fighting commence. The problem was that even if Irja and Per had joined them, they’d still be dealing with a two-to-one opponent ratio. Whatever had jammed the satellite imaging had also kept their berserkers from getting an exact count of the number of wolverines.
Advantage, wolverines.
“Fuck,” Harald’s voice said in the headset. “What are they waiting for?”
As if his voice had broken their enchantment, the wolverines threw down whatever they had in their hands and rushed the warriors. Astrid’s group had only a few seconds to fan out into fighting formation. The wolverines moved impossibly fast. She tried to keep an eye on the two that seemed to be heading her way, but a third came out of nowhere and grabbed her braid from behind. It pulled back her head, exposing her throat. She jammed her elbow in its side and followed up with a back fist when the creature bowed forward.
It lost the grip on her hair, and she rotated her body just in time to avoid a jab from another creature, only to receive a flying punch to her temple from somewhere else. She’d completely lost perspective of where the suckers were. She dropped to the floor and rolled as her head rang from the impact of the punch. Through her headset, she heard the others’ grunts and exclamations. They sounded like they were having as much trouble as she was.
She crawled under a counter to regroup, but one of the creatures caught her leg and pulled her out. Astrid twisted so she was facing the floor and pushed off with her palms. She twisted again midair and tried to execute a back kick to the creature’s face, but her limited range of motion made the impact too weak to hurt. It was still enough for the wolverine to lose its grip, and she planted both feet on the floor again. Claws swiped along the full length of her back, but luckily her leather jacket held.
The strikes were coming so quickly that all she could do was try to block and evade. There was no time to get in a kick or a punch of her own. She had no idea how many opponents she was fighting. Three, maybe four?
She opened her connection with the berserker wide. The beast roared alive, its essence expanding until it felt as though it physically existed inside her body, filling her limbs. She caught another jab in the shoulder. The impact threw her into the wall.
The berserker roared a battle cry through Astrid’s throat and mouth. She heard answers from the other warriors. She had to dampen the connection with her inner beast to remain in control of her body. The berserker flailed and scratched at its bindings, but she held fast.
A movement out of the corner of her eye had her instinctively throwing a jab. It made solid contact with a creature’s jaw. When the wolverine hit the floor, she stomped its throat and crushed its windpipe. She hadn’t drawn her knives yet—there hadn’t been time—but now she buried a dagger in the wolverine’s carotid artery. The berserker screamed in triumph, and again there were answering cries from her battle brothers and Naya.
Her victory was short. A vicious kick to her back made her fall forward, and all the air rushed out of her lungs. She gasped and had the horrible realization that she was losing this battle.
No! the berserker screamed. Fight.
Claws pierced Astrid’s shoulder through the leather. She swept out with her foot and knocked the creature down, but its claws scraped across her already abused back. The leather jacket was getting shredded. She grabbed the creature as it went down and sliced her knife across its throat. It wasn’t one of her favorite moves, since it meant she’d be sprayed with blood, but at this point, survival was more important than style.
As she turned in search of another opponent, the lights went off. Curses went off in her headset, and her heart rate increased. The berserker, however, seemed eerily calm. Astrid slowly expanded her connection with it. In her mind’s eye, she could “see” where they were in the room, but there was more. She knew where the wolverines were too.
Slowly she expanded her senses. The berserker had always been able to detect if wolverines were near, but not their exact location.
Now Astrid not only sensed the location of each creature, but if she focused on one of them, it was as if they moved in slow motion. She had time to prepare, block, and countermove. She immediately used her advantage to take down another monster and sever its throat.
“Open your senses,” she shouted over the headset. “Let your inner warrior show you where the fuckers are.”
The other warriors quieted down, but then the first exclamation of wonder came through, and then another. “Odin’s ravens,” Leif shouted. “I can work with this.”
Astrid smiled in the darkness and concentrated on the wolverine closest to her. She hit it with a semicircular kick before burying one of her daggers in the nape of its neck. It went down without a sound, and she swiveled to meet the next attack.
All of a sudden, she heard a shot. When did the wolverines start carrying guns? She didn’t feel a bullet’s impact, but she sank to the floor as an excruciating pain bloomed in her chest and spread.
The connection with the other warriors faded away. She could hear her berserker howling, but that too became muted. Her heart pumped slower and slower until it completely stopped. And then everything went blank.
* * *
When she came to, the warehouse had disappeared, and instead she was lying in the grass with a brilliant sun shining from above. She sat up and looked around her. Silver birches surrounded the clearing, their leaves swaying gently in the wind.
This was Freya’s meadow. Astrid had spent plenty of time here, around seven hundred years or so. Time passed differently in Asgard though, so counting in human years was futile. Back then, she’d trained with other Valkyries and the meadow was never empty. Where were Freya’s maidens now? And why was she here? Had she died?
“No, my daughter. You are not yet departed,” a voice said, startling Astrid. Freya sat right beside her in the space that had been empty a moment ago. Her long, straight, silver-blond hair cascaded down her shoulders and ended at her waist. Her white dress sparkled in the bright sunlight.
“Then why am I here?” Astrid stammered.
“To make a choice.”
Astrid frowned. “A choice?”
Freya tilted her head. “Of your trust in me.”
That didn’t even make sense. “I always trust in you.”
The goddess laughed. It sounded like silver bells playing in the wind. The birch trees seemed to answer her laughter. Their leaves rustled in time with the bell-like chimes. As quickly as it had started, the laughter stopped.
Freya slapped Astrid hard across the cheek. Her head whipped to the side, and she saw stars.
That was new.
“Then why do you doubt my choice of your själsfrände?” the goddess barked.
Astrid cradled her cheek and opened her mouth to answer.
“Don’t be so insolent as to attempt a reply.” Freya’s eyes were deep pools of glittering darkness. “You were always an obstinate Valkyrie. I indulged you because you usually made me proud. Lately, you’ve done nothing but disappoint me.”
Astrid swallowed hard and kept quiet.
“Think about your choices and your actions. From now on, I expect better of you.” Freya lifted her hand, and Astrid flinched. Instead of the expected slap, a caress trailed down her cheek. In a blink, the goddess disappeared.
Astrid lay back in the grass and closed her eyes.
Freya had chosen Luke for her.
She didn’t blindly believe in the gods’ will, but a direct order from the goddess was not something to argue with. Although, apparently that’s exactly what she’d tried to do.
She moved her jaw. It was still sore. The Mother of Valkyries packed quite a punch. Astrid closed her eyes. How would she get back to Midgard?
She yawned and then winced when her jaw ached again. Drowsiness fell over her like a heavy blanket. She tried to open her eyes, but lost the struggle and sleep claimed her.
* * *
Someone was shaking her shoulder. “Wake up, honey. You’re safe now.”
She struggled to open her eyes and stared into Irja’s face bending over hers. “What happened?” she croaked.
Irja smiled. “You passed out in the warehouse. The others brought you home.”
She pushed herself up to sit against the headboard. “There was a gunshot.” She rubbed her chest, but the pain was gone. “Are the others okay?”
“All the warriors from the warehouse are back in one piece. We had a few claw marks and wounds, but none too serious. I gave everyone antidotes, but except for a slight fever in Torvald, there are no other signs of poison. Sten hit his head and has to be monitored for concussion, but there have been no signs so far. I expect—”
Astrid interrupted. “You’re rambling. You only do that when you’re nervous or have bad news.”
Irja turned around, her eyes were sad. “It’s Holden. He got shot.”
Astrid rubbed her chest again. “I felt it,” she said. “That’s why I passed out in the warehouse. I felt his heart stop.” She struggled to get up. “I have to go to him.” She had to connect with his berserker, make him stay alive.
Irja pushed her back down. “He’s not here. He lost too much blood, and I wasn’t sure what our immortal blood would do to him. We took him to the hospital so he could get a transfusion using mortal blood.”
Viking Warrior Rebel Page 27
