Luke tore off the tape on her left hand and pushed the ring onto her finger. It fit perfectly. She held out her hand to admire it.
The leaves of the ash trees rustled.
Good choice, Freya’s voice whispered right next to Astrid’s ear. She turned, but the goddess wasn’t there.
“There’s more,” Naya shouted. Leif clamped his hand over her mouth, and whatever she was going to say next was lost in a series of furious mumbles.
Sten held out a roll of papers, which Luke grabbed. He motioned for Astrid to step up to the stone slab with him. She joined him and watched him roll out the papers on the flat surface. They were blueprints.
Astrid peered down on them, trying to make sense of the lines. “What are those?”
“Our new home,” Luke said. “If you want it to be.” He looked worried.
She looked closer at the drawings. “But that’s the fortress.”
“Yes.” Luke put his finger on one area of the drawing. “But this is a part of the fortress that doesn’t exist yet. An extension.” He peeled off the top sheet. The new drawing was a blowup of what he’d pointed to before. “We’ll have our own suite of rooms and a small kitchen.” He grinned. “And a large shower with dual heads.”
Astrid returned his grin. Her head spun. He was giving her a house, right here where her family lived. “Who’s going to build this? Nobody can find this place unless they’re in the car with one of us.”
The king cleared his throat. “When the architect came to do the drawings, Naya convinced him that I’m an eccentric millionaire who only allows my vehicles, driven by my people, to come onto the property. I’d be willing to resume that role for a limited time with the builders.”
Astrid giggled and the king threw her the evil eye, which made her laugh harder.
Luke pulled her in for a hug. “The warriors and I will do most of the work. We’ll only need actual builders for the big jobs.”
“I better help,” Astrid said. “Have you seen how projects planned by only men have worked out around here?”
Luke grinned and gave her a quick kiss. “I know you’re more than capable of building a house.” His face turned serious. “But let me do this for you. Let me give you—give us—a proper home.”
Astrid pressed her lips against his. “You already have,” she whispered.
Luke let go of the drawings and pulled her into his embrace. He leaned her back against the rock slab and deepened the kiss.
“Time for everyone else to leave,” Naya shouted to the others.
Astrid was dimly aware of the group leaving, but then she aimed her full attention on the man kissing her. He was her everything.
He was her home.
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Keep reading for an excerpt from the first in Asa Maria Bradley’s Viking Warriors series
Naya’s hands shook as she clipped the last alligator clamp over the electrical wires, short-circuiting the power and the security alarm.
“Get it together,” she muttered to herself.
As she crouched and peered down the darkened corridor, her infrared goggles helped her see the contours of the barred doors. Her brother was behind one of those. Alone.
She jogged down the hallway to the only cell giving off a heat signature.
“Scott,” she whispered through the bars of the cell door, but the man lying on the cot didn’t move. Her fingers recoiled when she touched the cold metal, remembering how often she’d been trapped in a cell just like this. She had to get her brother out. He’d suffered enough at the hands of Dr. Trousil and the rest of the lab’s scientists. They both had.
The door swung open silently and she entered the cell. She shook her brother’s shoulder, keeping her hand hovering over his mouth in case he woke up screaming. He remained lying limply on his side. When she turned him onto his back, his arm flopped over and dangled down the side of the cot.
Holding her breath, she leaned closer to his mouth. A weak puff of air fluttered against her cheek. Relief flooded her body. She joggled him again. “Scott, you need to wake up.”
He still didn’t react.
Naya hoisted him in a fireman’s carry so that her much smaller frame could transport his six-foot body. Another five minutes and the security guards would return to patrol this end of the building. She’d figure out how to wake him later.
Her brother had weighed almost two hundred pounds when she last saw him. It had taken her eleven months and six days to return. Hanging across her shoulder now, his body barely slowed her down. She headed for the closest exit. The door closed softly behind her and she jogged across the field. When she reached the perimeter fence, Naya carefully lowered her brother to the ground and slid the bolt cutters out of her backpack.
“Hold on, Scott. Just a few snips and I’ll have you out of here.” She glanced down, trying for a hopeful smile, but her lips quivered. She remembered his nervous, yet excited, laugh as they raced toward this same fence that night almost a year ago. They had been so close to getting out together. He’d boosted her up on top of the fence, smacking her behind. “Let’s finally get the hell out of here,” he’d shouted.
She’d just reached down to help up Scott when the first shot rang out. The second pierced her brother’s thigh and he fell screaming to the ground.
She blinked. Can’t think about the past now. She couldn’t fuck this up. There might never be another chance. Her sharp cutters snipped the wires like they were string instead of high-grade reinforced steel. A normal human wouldn’t be able to bend back the serrated wire, but Naya was not normal. Ten years in the lab and weekly serum injections had created a super-soldier out of the twelve-year-old girl she had once been. Now she was the ultimate weapon. The ultimate freak.
She doubled over the folded metal to keep her brother from getting caught on any rough edges. Her baby brother. The only family she had left.
She slid Scott’s unconscious body through the hole, hoisted him over her shoulder again, and then headed to the rental car parked in the woods. The smell of fresh pine permeated the air as her combat boots pounded the needle-covered ground. The crisp forest cleared her mind of things she no longer wanted to remember.
Now that Scott was out, she could build a life and never think about the years in the lab.
Soon, the dark-green Jeep glittered in the moonlight filtering through the trees. Without slowing, she punched a button on the key remote. Behind her, a powerful boom of an explosion drowned out the double beep of the doors unlocking. A kaleidoscope of red and orange illuminated the night sky. She heard shouts and commands carry through the woods from the compound. A bitter smile stretched her lips. That would keep them occupied for a while.
Growing up in the compound, she’d spent countless hours honing her combat skills, but the government-sponsored black ops program had also trained her in electronics, cyber technology, and weaponry—including explosives. “I used everything you taught me,” she whispered at the flames.
She cradled Scott’s head as she slid him into the backseat. His eyelids fluttered. For an instant, indigo-blue eyes so like hers focused on her. A slow smile spread across her brother’s face before his eyelids fluttered closed again. “I knew you’d come for me, Neyney.”
The childhood nickname pierced her heart. “I told you I would,” she whispered. She kissed his forehead and brushed back his ink-black curls—the same color as her own spit-straight hair.
He mumbled something incomprehensible before his body fell limp against the seat. She clicked his seat belt in place and allowed herself to touch his face once more before she slid into the driver’s seat. A glance in the rearview mirror told her the lab security forces were too busy fighting fires to come after her—for now. But they woul
d eventually. And when they did, she’d better be ready for them. No way she’d let them imprison her brother, or her, again.
She threw the Jeep into four-wheel drive, hit the accelerator, and pushed the car as hard as she could down the rutted old logging road. Scott’s head bobbed back and forth in the rearview mirror, but he didn’t wake up. She swallowed the lump in her throat and pressed harder on the gas. Once they reached the main arterial, she eased off the pedal. No reason to attract attention.
She tuned the radio to the classical music station. Getting to Dr. Rosen’s clinic in Colorado was the most important thing now. The doctor and his team had been sampling her blood for the last six months. Hopefully whatever he had learned would help Scott. Dr. Rosen was the best in his field. More importantly, he was her only hope for curing her brother. She settled in for the fifteen-hour drive from North Dakota to the exclusive medical facility.
* * *
Two days later, Naya struggled to keep her expression neutral as Dr. Rosen leaned forward in his chair, concern glimmering in his emerald eyes. He pushed up the rimless glasses perched on his nose and addressed her by the alias she’d given when they first met. “Ms. Driscoll, I’m afraid there has been no improvement in your brother since his intake.”
“Maybe we need to give it a little longer before the drugs will work.” She resented how her voice sounded. Pleading. She hated not being strong.
Dr. Rosen paused, his eyes kind. “I don’t think waiting will help. I’m afraid we’re going to have to try a different approach.”
Naya’s gaze drifted from the doctor’s as she allowed his words to sink in. A bank of windows behind his desk revealed breathtaking views of snowcapped mountains. The clinic’s exclusive clientele included media-shy movie stars and foreign dignitaries. It was the perfect place to hide her brother. She also needed it to be the perfect place to cure him.
“You said the modified formula your team developed based on my blood looked promising.” All that research for nothing, but she refused to give up. There had to be a way to save her brother.
Dr. Rosen pushed up his glasses. “We had some promising nerve reactions after the first doses, but Scott reverted back to his vegetative state—”
“Don’t say that.” Naya burst out of the chair. “He’s not a vegetable. He holds himself up, supports his body without help.” She clenched her fists. “He spoke to me, damn it.”
He held up his hands, palms facing her. “That may have been a temporary reprieve from his condition.”
She slowly sat down again. “Are you saying he’s getting worse?”
“At this point, I don’t have a clear diagnosis. However, unresponsive and bedridden patients run a higher risk of infection, which can lead to respiratory complications, even organ failures. I can remedy that with antibiotics, but I’m not sure I can repair the extensive neurological damage Scott has sustained.”
To avoid the pity in the doctor’s eyes, Naya looked out over the mountains again. “Why are the drugs in Scott’s blood shutting him down when I’m functioning just fine?” Better than fine, but the doctor didn’t need to know that. He lived in the normal human world, blissfully ignorant of monsters and freaks like her.
“What do you propose?” Naya gripped the armrest of the chair and eased up when she heard the wood creaking. She had to rein in her emotions or she’d treat the doctor to a full freak show.
“We can continue to tweak the formula and hope for better results. I’d also like to explore your brother’s vascular system and test how it differs from yours.” He put his hands on the desk. “At this point, I must caution you about the high cost of therapy that may ultimately not produce the outcome you want.”
“Let me worry about the money.” Nothing was too costly if it helped Scott. Besides, she earned enough. As one of the best cybersecurity experts in the world, her services did not come cheap.
She stood. “I’d like to visit with my brother again before I leave.”
The doctor rose as well. “Of course. He’ll be well cared for until you come back.”
“Until then, please keep me updated.”
Dr. Rosen nodded. “I will personally send you a weekly report.”
Naya thanked him before leaving the office.
She didn’t want to leave her brother, but living near Scott in Colorado was too risky. If the handlers found her, they might also find him. Naya harbored no illusions about their outcome if the handlers caught them. They would be neutralized, or worse, returned to the lab for more experiments.
Naya wouldn’t let that happen.
Her heavy boots beat a dull staccato as she strode down the hallway. Smells of antiseptics and disinfectant wafted through the air. Naya shivered. Those same scents had permeated the lab in which she had spent most of her life.
Taking a deep breath, she opened the door to her brother’s room. He sat unmoving in a wheelchair, staring into space with empty eyes. “Scotty, it’s me, Naya.” She crouched before him, taking his limp hands in hers. His skin was dry and warm. He had spent the last two days sitting or lying, depending on which position the nurses put him, and always unnaturally still. He hadn’t spoken to her again.
“I know you can hear me.” She paused, waiting for a response. Naya touched her brother’s cheek and hair, but he didn’t react. She stood and averted her face to hide the tears about to spill. “Shall I read to you a little? How far did we get this morning?” She crossed the room and picked up the astronomy book she’d bought, his favorite subject. At least it had been when he still talked and walked and laughed.
She wouldn’t let her thoughts continue down that depressing path, as if he was already beyond saving. Instead, she began reading to her brother about distant nebulas and galaxies. For another hour, she would pretend they were back in their childhood home, their parents still alive and watching TV while she read her little brother a bedtime story.
Order Asa Maria Bradley’s first book
in the Viking Warriors series
Viking Warrior Rising
On sale now
Acknowledgments
I would need an infinite amount of pages to acknowledge everyone who deserves it, but I want to say thank-you to:
Sarah Elizabeth Younger, for being a friend and the best agent a writer could wish for. And to Nancy Yost and the rest of the NYLA team.
My editor, Cat Clyne, for her endless patience, support, and understanding. She has taught me so much. I love working with her.
The Sourcebooks team, with special shout-outs to Deb Werksman, Amelia Narigon, Beth Sochacki, Heather Hall, and Dawn Adams.
The Dreamweavers and Team Sarah. They help me through the challenges and are the first to celebrate my triumphs.
The Spokane Wild Women, especially Jere’ and Ally, for being my biggest fans.
Cherry Adair, Virna DePaul, Sara Humphreys, Paige Tyler, Susanna Kearsley, Gina Conkle, Rebecca Zanetti, and Ilona Andrews, all authors who generously supported me.
The bloggers who showered the series with love, especially Elizabeth Haney, Jessie Smith, Phoebe Chase, and Sue Brown-Moore.
My readers for loving the Viking Warriors and for writing to tell me about it.
My Swedish, English, and Texan family. Especially my mom and my brother who live far from me but are always near my heart.
My husband for being my anchor, my best friend, and my very own Happily Ever After.
About the Author
A double RITA finalist in 2016, Asa Maria Bradley grew up in Sweden surrounded by archaeology and history steeped in Norse mythology, which inspired the immortal Viking and Valkyries in the Viking Warriors series. She arrived in the United States as a high school exchange student and quickly became addicted to ranch dressing and cop TV shows. Asa holds an MFA in creative writing and an MS in medical physics. She lives on a lake deep in the pine forests of the Pacific Northwe
st with her British husband and a rescue dog of indeterminate breed. Visit her at AsaMariaBradley.com and follow her on Twitter @AsaMariaBradley.
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