Chapter 1

CHAPTER 1

I mmortal Viking Sten Agnarsson watched White Spruce's deserted main street through the diner window. He’d sat at this table for two hours, waiting for a gun dealer who supposedly had a reputation for punctuality and for selling only quality goods. Despite the warm summer evening, none of the town’s five thousand inhabitants of this Montana small town were out and about. Had the Ragnar?k happened without him noticing?

Nah, if it had, there’d be a million of Loki’s evil minions crowding the street. More likely, the fucking weapons guy had stood him up.

He looked around again, but the desolate street outside the diner definitely didn’t show Brick Johnson on his way to their meeting. Sten shifted in the cracked vinyl seat.

He had driven from eastern Washington State for ten hours straight to be on time. If Leif—the king of the Norse warrior tribe Sten belonged to—hadn’t ordered him to buy specifically from this gun dealer, Sten would have walked out an hour ago.

Well, the king’s demand and the tempting things Sten had found in the diner. He forked another bite of the second most tempting thing into his mouth, and the berry pie exploded on his tongue. He rated the woman who brought him the pie as the most delicious thing featured in the diner.

He shoveled another bite of pie into his mouth. Tart and sweet teased his taste buds as he sneaked another look at the server. Leaning over a table, refilling the only other diner customer’s coffee, her loose light-blue t-shirt rode up, revealing a shapely butt encased in plain black leggings.

He’d been to this small town in eastern Montana once before. On the first visit, he’d found the diner by coincidence. This time, he’d come because of the woman.

And the pie.

They served the best pie. He’d ordered their raspberry pie before, but this time, he tried something called huckleberry.

He didn’t know why the woman fascinated him so. She didn’t fit his regular type. He preferred slim, tall, and blonde women like the ones from his native Sweden. This server—Cassie, according to her name tag—had a short and curvy body, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

The older man whose coffee she’d refilled said something that made her smile. It lit up her face and elevated her looks from beautiful to mesmerizing. Her smile had made him notice her the first time they met. That and her shapely behind. He’d thought about her often since then. Thought about what she would feel like, naked, beneath him.

She tucked a strand of her chin-length, wavy, auburn hair behind her ear as she walked back behind the counter that stretched the length of the diner.

His phone buzzed where it lay on the table next to the plate. Sten tore his gaze from pretty Cassie to check the incoming text.

Kung Leif

Status?

Leif didn’t believe in wasting characters.

Sten tapped in his response.

Still waiting. Is Johnson a no-show?

He imagined his king’s impatience and the curse escaping Leif’s lips right now. The phone buzzed again.

Kung Leif

Checking on the holdup.

If the dealer hadn’t been so paranoid, Sten could call him directly. But the guy wouldn’t give his number to anyone but Leif.

Sten sighed, scooped up the last bite of pie, and shoved it into his mouth. He almost choked when he looked up to find the server right by his table. No regular mortal should be able to sneak up on him like that. His berserker spirit—his inner warrior soul—should have alerted him.

“Refill?” she asked, holding up the coffeepot.

He enjoyed the soft smile and the sparkle in her whiskey-colored eyes. “Sure.” Sten held out his cup and tapped into the mental connection he shared with his berserker. The beast held quiet and still but hyper-alert and very focused on Cassie.

That was new. He frowned.

She poured the coffee with a sure hand. “Do you not like the huckleberry pie?”

“It’s my new favorite berry.” He quickly smoothed out the furrow of his forehead and smiled instead.

Her laughter rang loudly through the mostly empty diner, unexpectedly deep and throaty. The sound made his berserker hum and his dick twitch. “A few months ago, you told me raspberries were your favorite.”

“You remember me.” He was ridiculously pleased that she remembered him and hit her with a lazy smile. The one that worked well on mortal women when he wanted to spend the night with them.

She winked. “With that height and that accent, you’re kind of hard to forget.” She leaned back, holding the coffeepot suspended in the air. “Did you know we can’t cultivate huckleberries because they grow only at certain altitudes and under very specific conditions? All the berries have to be picked in the wild by hand. That’s why they’re my favorite berry. I like their refusal to be tamed.”

“Well, I do like wild things.” Sten turned up his smile to full wattage and let his gaze linger on hers. Last time, the diner had been busy, and he hadn’t had time for flirting. He intended to remedy that right away. “I would never try to tame you.”

She froze and then put the coffeepot down on the table a little harder than necessary, as if she’d been about to drop it, knocking his phone off the table. “I’m so sorry,” she said, reaching down to retrieve it and put it back on the table. She brushed her hair out of her face, cocked an eyebrow, and tilted her head. “That line is so cheesy it had me all flustered, but I guess I set myself up for it. Where’s your accent from?”

The question about his pronunciation didn’t surprise him. Even after fifty years in America, his origins colored his speech. “Sweden,” he said, leaning forward so his hair better framed his face and sent that subtle badass Viking vibe that worked so well on mortal women.

Sten kept his hair shoulder-length because it symbolized a warrior’s strength, but also because it highlighted his Nordic heritage. The women of Midgard liked his heritage, so why not highlight it when it worked so well to his advantage? He stroked the trimmed beard that covered his chin.

Despite her joking tone, a faint blush crept across Cassie’s cheeks. “We don’t get many Swedes around here. White Spruce is not exactly a tourist hot spot.” The older man on the other side of the diner gestured for his check, and she looked away to smile at him. “Bringing it right over,” she shouted.

Sten frowned over how easily the other man distracted her. Maybe he was out of practice. It had been a while since he’d cruised the clubs and bars with his battle brothers.

His phone buzzed again, and he reluctantly tore his gaze from Cassie’s delicious behind as she walked away from him. Once again, that irritating, loose t-shirt covered her curves. Although he could still recall its fine shape in his mind. He wondered how they would feel in his hands.

Kung Leif

Change of plans. New meet is at the municipal airport tomorrow. Same time.

He knew better than to ask King Leif why the meeting place and day had changed. The king didn’t expect his warriors to follow orders blindly, but he didn’t want whining or questions just for questions’ sake.

As one of the younger warriors, in terms of how many years he’d spent back in the human realm, Sten still felt he had to earn his place in the band of immortal warriors. So, there was no reason to bug the king with queries about things he didn’t need to know in order to do his job. Whatever the reason for the changed meeting, he’d still have to go.

Plus, recently he’d almost gotten his battle brother killed and still needed to make up for that screw up. When a mission got hot, the two had separated and Per ended up kidnapped and poisoned. He’d almost died before their healer had developed an antidote with the help of the queen’s genetically modified blood.

Besides, weapons deals often changed locations, even when executed by semi-legitimate dealers like Brick Johnson. Although it was a lucrative business, it sometimes brought out shady customers, which made the sellers extra cautious. This was also the reason all communications went through the king and why Johnson wouldn’t give Sten his cell phone number.

Well, it looked like he would have to spend the night. Time to hit the motel at the edge of town. Maybe he’d come back for dinner before the end of the server’s shift and see if she’d be up for some wild things.

He tossed enough money on the table to cover the pie and the coffee, leaving a generous tip. The bell over the door jingled as he exited, but the server only gave him a distracted wave and continued talking with the older man, who still hadn’t paid his bill. Hopefully, she’d be more attentive when he came back later.

Sten opened the door of his black Cadillac Escalade with more force than necessary and shoved the key into the ignition. Why Cassie’s inattentiveness bothered him so much, he didn’t know, but he needed to get his head on straight for the upcoming deal.

Even though he now had to spend an extra night on this mission, he needed to focus on getting the guns and then head back home to Pine Rapids. While Sten was a healthy warrior who definitely liked the company of women, his duty to his king and queen—and the gods—always came first. Odin and Freya had honored him–and his warrior brothers and sisters–by sending them from Valhalla to protect the mortal humans of Midgard from Loki and his minions. With a slightly tarnished reputation in his tribe at the moment, he would not get distracted from this mission. No matter how tempting the woman.

He couldn’t afford another screw up.

His battle brothers and sisters depended on him, and he would not disappoint them again.