Kiss of Surrender (14 page)

“Yep.”

“You?” He was clearly shocked. “A strong woman such as yourself letting a man push you around?”

“I was different then.”

“And your mother . . . you mentioned speaking with your mother. Where was she when this was happening? And how about your father? Did he not intervene?”

“No help from either quarter.”

“And that’s why you were so sad when talking with your mother? Nothing has changed?”

She nodded.

“Ah.” He comprehended immediately why she was distressed. She never would have thought he had so much sensitivity in him. “In what way were you abused?”

“Beaten. Raped a few times. Lots of bruises and black eyes. Broken bones.”

She felt him stiffen beside her. “In my time . . . I mean, back in Viking times, men were wont to wield a hard hand with women on occasion, but good men did not. There are bad seeds in every barrel.”

“Bad apples,” she corrected him.

“Apples, seeds, same thing. Shall I kill the nithing for you?
Nithing
is a Viking insult for a man who has no value, less than nothing.”

She laughed, or tried to. “Would you?”

“Well, no, not unless he attacked me or some innocent, or he engaged in some demonic act, or if he was a terrorist, of course.”

“He’s demonic, all right.”

His eyes lit up strangely with interest. “Really?”

“Believe me, that time when I sat in an emergency room with him holding my hand, hard, telling the physician that I’d lost my baby due to a fall down the stairs, I could swear he was a beast straight from hell.”

“Nicole!” he said and pulled her into his arms, despite their being out in public where anyone could see.

She struggled to get free, but he just held on tighter. In fact, he lifted her onto his lap, pressed her face into the crook of his neck, and wrapped his arms around her. At the same time, he crooned softly what sounded like a hymn, something about the comfort of an angel’s wings, while his big hands caressed her back from shoulder to waist, over and over. Oddly, she felt the same sense of peace as when that strange man had practically hypnotized her in the chapel yesterday.

Luckily, no one she knew passed by, and soon she had herself under control. Shifting herself off his lap, she stood and said, “I left my husband after that.”

“And none too soon, I warrant.” He stood, too.

“Now I have to decide, after this mission is over, whether to go back to Chicago and try to convince my sister not to make the same mistake I did.”

He nodded. “But you fear a confrontation with your ex-husband?”

“That’s about it.”

“Not to fear. I will go with you.”

Stunned speechless, she stared at him for a long moment, trying to figure him out. A lost cause, she’d already learned.

They both at the same time glanced at their watches and began to walk toward the command center. For a couple of seconds, they just walked in silence.

“Why would you make such an offer? You don’t even like me,” she asked finally.

“I plan on being your guardian angel.” He waggled his eyebrows at her.

“Yeah, right. More like a fallen angel.”

“Some of the best guardian angels fell at one time,” he said. “Besides, I’m disliking you less since the near-sex episode.”

“I want to apologize for practically attacking you.” This was the least she could do in light of the commander’s admonition.

Trond arched his brows at her. “So, you are now convinced that I am gay?”

“Not in a Coronado minute! But it’s none of my business.”

“Got smacked down by the commander, did you?” he guessed.

She felt her cheeks flush, but her shrug was the only reply she gave him.

He grinned at her, and, she couldn’t fail to notice that he had a really nice, kind of lopsided grin. “I’ve been meaning to talk to you about that . . . um, near-sex event,” he said.

Event? Nice way of describing a bone-melting orgasm. On my part, anyway
. On his part, too, except he was fantasizing about someone else, if she believed him. “I’d rather forget about it, if you don’t mind.”

“Oh, let’s not.” He continued to grin. “I was thinking about giving you another chance to try again.”

“Try again?” she gurgled.

“To turn me.” He reached a long hand over and patted her bottom.

She slapped his hand away, but still she laughed. He was teasing her, of course. For now, the man had managed to turn her tears to smiles, which had probably been his intent. For that she could only be thankful.

That was before she glanced toward the command center and saw three men coming out, walking directly toward them. Rather, toward Trond, whose jaw had dropped and whose face had turned a decided shade of green.

The three men approaching them were tall, well-built, about thirty years old, give or take. In full military dress uniforms. She wasn’t sure what country they were from, but they sported enough ribbons and medals to sink a ship.

“What the fuck!” Trond muttered under his breath, coming to a quick stop.

She stopped, too. “Who are they?”

“My lackwit brothers!”

“You have three brothers?”

“I have six brothers.” He didn’t sound too happy about that fact. Some people didn’t like being members of large families. But
six
? Holy cow! She wasn’t sure why that surprised her so much. Maybe because he’d never mentioned them. “Do you have sisters, too?”

“Not anymore.”

She would have expressed her sympathy, except he didn’t seem disturbed by the loss.

“They’ve been gone for many years,” he said, sensing her disapproval. Then looking at his brothers again, he muttered, “I swear, I am going to kill someone. Several someones.”

She glanced sharply at Trond, then at the men who by now had come to a stop a few feet away from them, then back to Trond. “Your brothers are admirals?”

“Huh?” For the first time, he seemed to notice the ranks exemplified by their uniforms and their impressive decorations. “Of all the half-brained things to—”

The three men saluted Trond, then grinned.

Trond saluted them, too. With his middle finger. And he wasn’t grinning.

Thirteen

His brothers needed a keeper . . .

C
ould Trond’s life get any more messed up than this? He didn’t think so.

His three nitwit brothers were dressed up like big-ass Norse military men, parading out in public on the grounds of a seemingly secure special forces compound. Nicole was practically bouncing on her boondockers, anxious to have all her questions answered. And guess who would be expected to answer those questions once the three lackbrains took off for parts unknown?

“Nicole, these are my brothers. Mordr, Harek, and Ivak.” He waved a hand at his three grinning brothers. “And this”—he took Nicole by the elbow and guided her forward—“is Nicole Tasso, a female SEAL, who happens to be my . . . um . . . friend.”

Mordr stretched out a hand to her and shook it vigorously. “It is always good to meet one of Trond’s . . . um, friends.” He clearly thought that Nicole was more than a friend. She was. Sort of.

“I had no idea Trond had brothers,” she remarked, still stunned by the spectacle before her.

Mordr, who didn’t have a single funny bone in his somber body, made a tsking sound at Trond. “Trying to keep us a secret, are you, bro? And us being so close, too.” He reached as if to pull Trond into a big bear hug, one that would nigh crush his ribs if previous experience was any indication. Of course Mordr had been trying to crush him at the time, really crush him, for some offense or other.

Trond ducked and hissed, “Do not dare.”

Mordr chuckled. Another rarity. Mordr rarely engaged in mirth of any kind, being a serious kind of guy. Berserkness did that to a man. Sucked out the sense of humor, as well as most emotions, except rage.

Harek shook her hand then. “A female SEAL? Our sister-by-marriage Alex wrote a magazine story one time about female warriors. Trond, you should invite her home to Transylvania sometime. Alex might even forgive you for what you did at her wedding when you . . . well, never mind.”

“Transylvania?” Nicole squeaked out to Trond. “You live in Romania? I thought you were from Norway.”

Trond speared Harek with a glare. To Nicole, he said, “Transylvania, Pennsylvania. And it is not my home, precisely. More like the family homestead.” Son of a troll! If she ever saw the rundown castle that was the VIK headquarters, she would run for the hills. Even he thought it was kind of spooky on a dark night, though Vikar was doing his best to renovate the monstrosity.

“There’s a Transylvania in Pennsylvania? I had no idea.”

He could tell she would have a million questions for him later.
Joy, joy!

It was Ivak’s turn to shake Nicole’s hand now. And he did. In the most sensuous manner possible, involving his two hands sandwiching her one, with his thumb caressing her wrist. Ivak’s sin had been lust, of course, and he looked at
every
woman as possible prey. Trond had once seen him put the make on Lucrezia Borgia, a move that had nigh cost him his head . . . a head that her politically ruthless family had demanded on a platter. Silver, of course.

Trond made a growling sound that seemed to surprise everyone, including himself. Nicole had to wonder at his sudden possessiveness.

“I thought you were in prison,” Trond remarked, having to actually yank Ivak’s hands away from Nicole’s. He immediately regretted his revealing words, but it was too late to take them back now.

Nicole’s eyes went as big as saucers at the mention of prison.

“I am in solitary for a week. They will not notice I’m missing,” Ivak didn’t skip a beat in declaring those outrageous words as he winked at Nicole.

Nicole appeared shell-shocked.

“Ivak is just teasing,” he told her. “He is a prison . . . chaplain.”

“Really?” Ivak, the halfwit, asked.

“Really?” Nicole parroted, clearly unable to see Ivak in the role as a minister. No one could, as evidenced by the snorts of his brothers.

She arched her brows at Trond then.

He ignored the silent questions that were piling up in her pretty eyes and advised, “Nic, why don’t you go ahead to the meeting? I’ll be there shortly.”

She was about to resist, he could tell, when Mordr said, “Not to worry, my brother. I already spoke to your commander and he has given you leave to speak with us for an hour.” He smiled widely at Trond after making that announcement, which he had to know would be unwelcome to Trond. Interfering in another VIK’s mission was not the way things were done in vangeldom.

“Didst know your commander is married to a Viking woman?” Harek added. “Small world, huh?”

Just how long were my brothers talking to Commander MacLean, and what did they inadvertently reveal?

Nicole left, reluctantly, and Trond led them into a small, empty office in the command center, where he immediately shoved Mordr in the chest. And Mordr shoved him back.

“Have you lost your overaged mind? You can’t be out in public like this. Why didn’t you just sail a longship up to the beach? You couldn’t have created any more of a scene.”

“We didn’t think of that,” Ivak said, as if he liked the idea.

“I thought you all were going to settle into a motel before contacting me,” Trond griped.

“We settled, but they only had one room with two double beds. Try fitting two six-foot-four men in one bed,” Mordr explained.

“Hah! As if anyone would share your bed after you ate those burritos with refried beans last night!” Harek commented, wrinkling his nose with distaste.

“None of us had to share a bed, truth to tell, since Ivak stayed up all night watching X-rated movies on the pay-TV,” Mordr pointed out. “It will be too soon if I ever hear another woman fake-squealing ‘Oh, oh, oh! You are sooo big, Lance! Can you stick it up my arse, too? Pretty please!’ ”

They all gaped at Mordr for a moment, and surprisingly, he blushed. “I could not help but overhear.”

“Didst know you can put that candy called Pop Rocks up a woman’s channel, then stick your cock in, and have little explosions go off all around your staff? Or sometimes, just fizzes.” This from Ivak, the idiot.

Fizzes?

Now it was Ivak’s turn to be gaped at.

“What? A Viking never stops learning about the sex arts.”

Trond shook his head in dismay. He was living in bizarro-land, as Cage was wont to say.

“How did you like the one where the woman could suck her own nipples?” Ivak asked Mordr.

“I have no idea what you’re talking about,” Mordr said, but the heightened color in his cheeks told another story.

“Personally, I’ve always thought it would be great to lick my own dick,” Ivak continued. “A dick is a—”

“We know what a dick is,” the three of them said as one.

“You are unbelievable,” Harek said to Ivak.

“I know,” Ivak agreed, as if he’d been given a compliment.

“In any case, even if we didn’t have to share beds, it was still crowded in that room,” Mordr said, attempting to bring some order back into the midst of their chaos. “We were anxious to get out and about today.”

“And I always wanted to know what it was like to wear a uniform,” Ivak said.

Trond noticed then that they’d also gotten military haircuts. Since Vikings were a vain lot, that surprised him, but he supposed it was necessary to complete the admiral personas.

“I heard that women go apeshit over men in uniform,” Ivak went on. “And, whoo-boy, do they ever! We practically had to beat them off with a battle-axe when we left the mall. Harek still had his battle-axe with him until the mall security guard took it away from him.”

“Apeshit?” Trond said, homing in on the least alarming thing that Ivak had revealed. He did not want to know what they were doing at the mall or why Harek had been walking around with a medieval weapon.

“
Apeshit
is a word I learned in prison. It means—”

“I know what apeshit means,” Trond interrupted with exasperation.

“Anyhow, why are you here on the base? I certainly hope you just vaporized here and didn’t go through actual checkpoints. Jeesh! We’re supposed to be a secret society. Not bleeping Viking vampire angel admirals.”

“Bleeping? That is another good word,” Ivak said. “Does it mean the same as fucking? Holy hummus! Prisoners do love the F word.”

Trond and Mordr exchanged glances, then rolled their eyes simultaneously.

“Mike gave us permission to infiltrate the military base, just this once, to get the lay of the land, so to speak,” Mordr told him. “From now on, we will work outside these fences, searching for Lucipires, whilst you work inside, on the mission, and on saving the two infected SEALs. How is that going, by the by?”

“Slowly. Karl and I intend to sit the two infected SEALs down tonight and give it to them straight. By the way, where’s the blood ceorl I asked you to bring?”

“Vikar is bringing Dagmar tonight. We had a minor emergency back at the castle that required all the blood ceorls.”

Trond didn’t need to know about the “minor emergency.” They would tell him, if he needed to know. But what was this about Vikar? “Vikar is coming here, too? What? Are we planning a lackwit convention?”

Mordr shook his head. “Vikar won’t be staying. He’s setting us up in a suite at the Hotel del Coronado, then he’ll return to the castle.”

“The Del? From Motel 6 to five-star hotel?” Trond remarked. The Del, known for its red-roofed, castle-like appearance and the famous people who had stayed there over the years, was luxurious by anyone’s standards.

“It’s much closer to the base and convenient for you and Karl to come feed on Dagmar. Plus we would need an extra room for Dag anyhow.”

He nodded. “How about you guys? Have you found anything since you arrived?”

“A faint scent, but just in the saloon parking lot that you mentioned. There is no large presence here . . . yet,” Mordr replied. “Harek can tell you what he’s found on the Internet.”

Harek, their computer expert, comparable to the Navy SEAL nicknamed Geek, could do practically anything with computers. He was the one who’d first discovered plans for Jasper’s Sin Cruise last year. Currently, to everyone’s chagrin, Harek was helping Mike set up some kind of angel blog or website, which could prove interesting. A direct line from earth to God via the electronic superhighway. The twenty-first-century version of prayer.

“It’s true, what your SEAL
hird
here has been told,” Harek said. “Jasper is planning a huge international terrorist attack on September 11, and, yes, he is involved in some way with Najid bin Osama. It’s not clear yet whether Najid is an actual Lucipire or a Lucie-in-the-making, a LIM, but I can guarantee you one thing. Najid is evil to the bone.” Harek gave him additional details, some of which the commander didn’t know about yet. Trond would have to be careful how he relayed that information, without disclosing his vangel ties.

“I can’t have you guys hanging around the base, being visible. It will be hard enough to explain three frickin’ admirals in my family to Nicole.” As it was, the room they were in had a wide window over the grinder, and trainees could be seen walking by on the way to one evolution or another.

“We will be like ghosts,” Ivak said. “Frankly, we just wanted to shake you up today.” He waggled his eyebrows in a taunting manner.

The fool!

“The three of us will be in Afghanistan, behind the scenes, in case we are needed,” Mordr said, in a way that brooked no argument, “just in case Jasper sends a large Lucie contingent there. Vikar, Sigurd, and Cnut will be working the other planned terrorist operations . . . the Twin Towers memorial site, and potential bomb sites. There are bound to be Lucies flocking in like flies.”

Trond agreed. “We’ll keep in touch then. I’ll let you know later tonight what I learn in today’s meetings. You can keep me up to date, as well. And, please, no more surprises!”

They were getting ready to leave when Ivak popped the question that had been like an elephant in the room, “So, is she the one?”

He knew who “she” was. He’d mentioned to his brothers a woman who was needling him to death here and they’d just met Nicole. Even so, he asked, “The one what?”

“Your life mate.”

“Whoa! What leap of logic took you from nag to lover? Besides, vangels do not have life mates.”

“Vikar does.”

“He is the exception.”

All three of his brothers were grinning at him, knowingly. Even Mordr, sometimes called Mordr the Dour.

“She is not my life mate.”

And she thinks I’m a homosexual.

“She is a pain-in-the ass busybody who is suspicious of me and constantly nagging me to be more energetic.”

And she thinks I’m a homosexual.

“She even wants me to listen to motivational tapes, for the love of a troll!”

And she thinks I’m a homosexual.

“If I were looking for an eternity mate, which I am not, she would be the last person I would pick.”

He was blathering but could not seem to stop himself. And in the back of his mind, he still had her recent revelations about herself that he needed to assimilate. Nicole the brassy, strong woman, the victim of an abuser? An odd sensation squeezed at his heart when he thought of her being attacked by any man, let alone a man bonded by marriage to protect her. Not that he’d had any great experience with wedlock, and the Vikings he’d known never showed such softer emotions toward their wives. But these were different times, and he was different, apparently.

Aaarrgh! I have no time for this now.

Resuming his conversation with his brothers, he said, “Vikar might be willing to tie himself to one woman for eternity, but not me. No way!”

His lackwit brothers continued to grin at him.

“Just one question.” Harek studied him in a way that made Trond squirm. “Have you near-sexed her yet?”

His silence was their answer, and the three of them were practically busting a gut laughing as they left the room. He heard Ivak remark to Mordr as they walked away, “He’s a goner!”

And then she knew . . .

It was dusk and they were sitting on the ground outside the kill house, waiting for the strategists to reconfigure the walls and doors for the fifth exercise of the day using live ammo. This time a nighttime evolution.