“But they don’t do that to us. They’re very loyal.”
“They just hang out here?”
“Yeah. Come for the camaraderie, stay for the never-ending entertainment.”
Kera chuckled at that until the front door was snatched open. Chloe stood there, staring at them.
“And what’s that?” she asked.
“It’s noth—”
Chloe snatched the papers out of Amsel’s hands and quickly looked them over. “Oh, wonderful. They’re back.”
“Maybe you should let Tessa or one of the Raven Elders handle—”
“No, no. I don’t need some scumbag Raven lawyer to handle this when I can.”
“Don’t you have a book due?” Amsel asked as she gripped the papers and tried to pry them from Chloe’s hand.
“The book can wait!” Chloe snarled, yanking the papers away and walking off.
“She says that,” Amsel noted, “until her editor calls, demanding to know where the book is, and then she has a total freak-out and brings us all with her into her hell-spiral.”
“I heard that!” Chloe yelled before slamming a door somewhere inside the giant house.
“So this is nothing new?” Kera asked.
“No,” Annalisa answered. “The rich people around here want us gone. They hate us.”
Maeve slipped off her shoes, leaving them by the front door. “They’re convinced we lower the value of their homes by our mere presence.” She headed off toward the kitchen. “I think they’re bothered by so many brown people living near their multimillion-dollar homes.”
“Not fair,” Amsel called out to her, then said to Kera, “They hate me, too.”
“Maybe they’re not happy because they think a bunch of drug addicts are living near them.”
“Rich drug addicts. It’s not like we have any old riffraff around here.”
“Do you even hear yourself when you speak?”
Amsel laughed. “Yeah. I do.”
She walked away and Kera realized that Annalisa was long gone as well, leaving Kera just standing there alone . . . doing nothing.
And to be honest, it was the nothing to do that bothered her the most. So Kera set out to rectify that.
Katja “Kat” Rundstöm brushed her horse down and did her best to avoid his wings. She adored Alfgeir and had been raising him since he was old enough to stumble away from his mother’s side on his too-long legs. But he could be kind of a shit. And there was nothing he loved more than spreading his wings on an unsuspecting human and knocking him or her to the ground. Then he would throw his head back and whinny-laugh. It was not pretty.
“Hey, Kat!”
A fellow Valkyrie ran up to Kat and Alfgeir.
“Wings,” Kat warned and her Clan sister jumped back in time to avoid being hit.
“Such a bastard.”
Kat smirked. “What’s up?”
“So you know that girl your brother’s been stalking?”
Kat briefly closed her eyes. Her brother was the sweetest guy she knew, but he had one of the worst reputations among the Clans. Unlike some of them, Ludvig Rundstöm had always been able to separate his battle self from his everyday self. Those worlds simply did not cross over for him. Ever. So the man they saw destroying everything in his way on the battlefield, was not the same man who had the biggest crush ever on some little coffee shop girl.
“He has not been stalking her.”
“I thought he hated coffee. Yet he goes into her coffee shop, every day.”
“He tolerates coffee and she gives him bear claws.”
“Do you know why she gives him bear claws?”
Kat turned, frowning a little. “No. Why?”
“Because she thought he was a schizophrenic homeless vet and she was really just being nice to him because it sounds like she’s just kind of a good person. And a former Marine, so, you know, she was being loyal to her own kind, I guess.”
Kat cringed. “Are you sure?”
“Rolf just told me. While laughing.”
“I better go check on him.” She handed her fellow Valkyrie the brush. “Could you finish for me?”
“Is he going to hit me with his wings?”
“If you don’t move fast enough.” Kat kissed the horse on his neck before whispering in his ear, “Be nice.”
Kat walked away from the stables, heading toward the small house her brother had on Raven property, when she heard her Clan sister scream and turned in time to see her friend land ass-first in a puddle of mud. At least she hoped it was mud.
Kat glared at her horse. “What is wrong with you?”
Alfgeir shook his big head, his beautiful black mane flipping around, as he stomped his front left hoof against the ground and whinnied hysterically. He was so clearly laughing . . .
Deciding to focus on her surprisingly sensitive brother, Kat quickly spun away and went to her brother’s house.
It was an adorable little house the Raven Elders had built specifically for Vig because he was, in a word, scary. He freaked out the younger Ravens and disturbed the older ones. But they needed him. He was one of their best warriors. Well, him and Stieg Engstrom. But Stieg was such a consummate complainer about everything that he terrified the rest of the Ravens a little less. Vig, like their father, had never been much of a talker. He was a quiet thinker who was built like a small, angry-looking mountain. But he was just so damn sweet.
She adored her big brother. Always had. And for years, they were each all the other had. Although Kat barely remembered it, they were taken from their parents when she was only five and Vig eight. It wasn’t unusual. Most of the Ravens and Valkyries were taken from their parents at a young age so they could be trained in the Old Way. What was different for the Rundstöm kids was that they weren’t just taken to the Stockholm Ravens and Valkyries for training, they were shipped from Sweden to America. Did they see their parents again? Of course. Several times a year, but it was still traumatic. Yet Kat had Vig. He’d protected her, made sure he held her when she was scared, never let anyone pick on her. And her first boyfriend when she was sixteen . . . ? He still had a limp from what Vig did to him when he found out.
As her big brother, Vig had taken care of everything for Kat, so she’d never really felt alone. But she couldn’t say the same for him. Sure, she was always there for him, but she was also his “baby” sister. In his mind, he was supposed to be protecting her, not the other way around.
In those early years, he tried hard not to appear too lonely, too sad, too out of place. Even now, if you listened, you could still hear that his English was accented. He didn’t have a TV—he thought they were stupid and wasted one’s brain. He didn’t play video games, just chess. He did enjoy card games, but that was because his face was unreadable. It made him a great poker player.
He read a lot, but mostly the darkest books. The darker the better.
He’d dated over the years, of course, but no girl that Kat ever thought would be good enough for her big brother. And a lot of the girls were the goth types who liked the dangerous look of Vig, even though they didn’t understand it. They didn’t understand him and, as far as Kat was concerned, none of them had ever really tried.
Then Kat began to hear rumors that Vig had a crush on a girl at some coffee shop in Los Angeles. A coffee shop that was way out of Vig’s way, but he still went down there every day in the morning to get bear claws and coffee. Just so he could see her. And, knowing her brother, to work up the guts to ask her out. Most girls, those weird, goth ones, asked him out, so Vig never had to try too hard.
But this girl was supposedly different from the others. Kat had hoped so. Her brother deserved the best of everything. The best.
Then, about two days ago, she’d heard that not only had the girl been murdered, which was weird and tragic enough . . . but she’d been brought back as a Crow.
A Crow.
That didn’t happen by accident. And Kat knew without asking that Vig must have had a hand in this
. A move that would make him no friends among the Ravens or other Clans—no one really liked the Crows—but would also get him in trouble with Odin. If Vig needed something, he was to go to Odin. Always. But Kat knew why Vig had gone to Skuld. Because unless this girl’s lineage could be traced back to the shores of Norway, Odin would have no use for her. So her brother must have come up with another plan as this girl was taking her last breath. Skuld was his only choice and he took it.
Kat opened the never-locked door to her brother’s house and walked into the living room. There she found Stieg Engstrom and Siggy Kaspersen sitting on her brother’s couch, playing video games on an enormous TV.
“Where the hell did that come from?” she demanded about the TV.
“We bought it for him.”
“My brother doesn’t want a TV or video games. He reads . . . in nine different languages.”
“Yeah,” Stieg said. “That wasn’t really working for us.”
“Wasn’t working for . . . ?” Kat stopped. She couldn’t get into it with these two idiots.
Vig might not mind his Raven brothers hanging out at his home because, like most men, he could tolerate having other men around sucking him dry. But Kat was a woman and, even more important, a Valkyrie. She had no patience for any of this.
“Out,” she ordered.
“Okay, okay,” Siggy said. “Let us just finish this game. We’re kicking the ass of this ten-year-old in Taiwan. It’s pretty funny.”
Disgusted, Kat leaned over the back of the couch and rubbed her hands together. “So which one of you wants to go to Valhalla first? I’m sure that Odin would be more than happy to have you now rather than later.”
Both idiots bolted off the couch and out the door.
Kat turned off the TV and walked into her brother’s bedroom. He was facedown on the king-size bed, a pillow over the back of his head. His weak attempt to block out everything.
Yeah. Some things just didn’t change.
Kat climbed up onto the bed and sat cross-legged on her brother’s back.
“I don’t want to talk about it,” he told her.
Okay, he was really upset. She could tell because he was speaking to her in Swedish. They only spoke that when their parents came to visit or when they wanted to talk shit about people without them knowing. It was rude, but Kat loved it. She loved that her brother was a Raven and that she was a Valkyrie. She loved that they had direct lines to the gods. She loved her life. And although she still missed her homeland and growing up with her parents, she did not miss the winters of Sweden. Nothing entertained her more than being able to comfortably wear tiny shorts and cutoff T-shirts in the middle of a Los Angeles February.
Best. Thing. Ever.
“Come now, big brother. You know you have to tell me all about it so that I can—”
“Mock me?”
“Yes, but also make you feel better. I don’t like when my big brother is upset.”
“She thinks I’m psychotic.”
“The girl you were stalking?”
“I wasn’t stalking her. I just happen to like her bear claws.”
Kat cringed. That sounded so strange out loud.
“But she did remember you?”
“She hugged me when she saw me and said ‘thank you.’ ”
“Hugging!” She patted his T-shirt–covered back. “That’s good!”
“A hug that said ‘thank you for saving my life.’ Not a hug of ‘I want your winged babies.’ ”
“Awww, sweetie. First off, we both know Odin won’t let you have winged babies with anyone whose ancestors didn’t plunder and rape like they’re supposed to. And second . . . A hug is a hug. It’s a starting point. You’re always so goddamn negative!”
“The woman thought I had brain trauma–related schizophrenia. I’m not even sure that’s the correct term, but that’s what she basically thought I had.”
“If you’d let me and the Valkyries cut that hair and deal with your beard—”
“ No. ”
“You know the girls will be gentle.”
“The Valkyries don’t know the meaning of that word, and I like my beard. And my hair.”
“That’s fine but since this isn’t the eighth century, you will have to expect people to occasionally think you appear crazy.”
“What does that mean?”
“Remember when that casting director tried for months to hire you for that big-budget Viking movie? She chased you all over town, trying to get you to sign, offering you six-figure deals and your own trailer even though you were going to play the guy who did nothing more than just stand behind the lead being a Viking? She was even going to have production help you get in the actors’ union. Simply because you looked exactly like the Viking she needed for their movie.”
“Because I am a Viking.”
“Yes, but—”
“So are you.”
“I know.”
“So’s Mom and Dad.”
Kat counted to five. She needed to count to ten with some of the other Ravens, but for her brother, she was able to calm herself down in five.
“Five. What I mean is if you’re going to go around Southern California, looking like an escapee from the Viking factory, then be prepared to have things assumed about you.”
Vig growled and buried his face deeper into his mattress.
“Look, instead of being depressed about this, you need to see the positive side.”
“What positive side?”
“Now she knows that you’re not mentally ill, which means you need a little fixing up. Women love to fix up shit. Remember that guy I dated for three years? The one you threw an ax at?”
“I hated him.”
“He was a fixer-upper. That’s why I stuck it out so long. I thought to myself, ‘I can fix this guy.’ I couldn’t, because he was an asshole—”
“Which is why I threw the ax at his head.”
“—but I still tried.”
“But there’s nothing wrong with me. I like me.”
“Of course you do.”
“I know what that tone means when Mama uses it on Papa and I know what it means when you use it on me.”
“Mama and I don’t know what you mean. But—”
“No, Katja. I’m not going to go to her like I’m some pathetic male looking for a woman to do his laundry and teach him how not to frighten people. Especially since I like frightening people.”
“Okay. Fair enough. Then how about if you help her out instead?”
The pillow moved a bit and one pitch-black eye peered at her. “What do you mean?”
“Look, we all know how the Crows work. They’re gonna throw that girl in the pit and let her sink or swim on her own. You and me . . . we were raised from birth to be Raven and Valkyrie. She wasn’t. You said she was former military, and the U.S. military spells all that shit out for their people. It’s none of this, ‘Figure it out and good luck because that’s the Viking Way.’ But that’s how the Crows operate. The Crows that do well stay with their Clan and prosper. The ones who don’t . . . I heard they ship them off to somewhere in Arizona to commune with magic stones or something. That will not work for anyone who’s ex-military.”
“Former.”
“What?”
“She was a Marine. And I heard her say that you’re never an ex-Marine. You’re a former Marine. Because once a Marine, always a Marine.”
Kat sighed. “And you don’t think a girl who tells people that while pouring coffee won’t need some help with these Crows? Seriously?”
“I don’t know. Things have been so tense with the Crows since Josef ’s divorce from Chloe was finalized. Although that probably has a lot to do with the protection orders they have against each other.”
“Come on, big brother. You’ve never let a little thing like rules and regulations and U.S. constitutional law stop you from getting what you want. So why would you let the Crows hating us and the Ravens hating them stop you now?”
He pushed the pillow away and rested his cheek on his fist. “She did seem a little lost.”
“Of course she was lost.” Kat patted his back. “Who did the Crows buddy her up with?”
Vig grimaced a bit. “She came here with Erin, Annalisa, and Maeve.”
“That poor girl. Now you have to help her.”
“They’re not that bad.” Kat stared at her brother until he nodded. “All right. All right. I get your point.”
Kat jumped off her brother’s back, grabbed his forearm, and pulled him to his giant feet. “You’ve gotta help this girl now.”
“What if she doesn’t want my help?”
“You gave her a new life, and when she saw you again, she hugged you. Trust me, this is not a girl who forgets a debt. At first, she’ll be hanging around you trying to figure out how to pay that debt off, and that’s when you’ll wheedle your way in.”
“I don’t want to wheedle.”
“There’s no shame in the wheedle.”
“Really? Because I feel like there should be a little shame.”
CHAPTER FIVE
Kera changed into a pair of clean denim shorts she found in the closet of her bedroom and a clean T-shirt. She decided against putting on running shoes since she usually walked around barefoot when she could anyway.
Stepping into the hallway, she whistled and after a few seconds, Brodie charged up the stairs and right over to Kera’s side. Crouching down, Kera scratched Brodie behind the ears and her neck, letting the pit bull lick Kera’s face. It was disgusting, but Brodie loved to lick faces.
“Let’s go explore,” she told the dog. And together, they set off.
The house was . . . stunning.
At first, looking at all the elaborate wood- and metalwork and the size of the place, Kera had just assumed that everything in it would be equally elaborate. She was wrong. The furniture was big, comfortable, and stylish. For about three months after getting out of the military, Kera had worked as a delivery person for a chic Beverly Hills furniture store and she’d taught herself what quality was. And even though nothing was ostentatious here, it was all extremely expensive.