The Unyielding Read online

  Harvold pushed his brother forward, and the young boy scrambled to pick their sister up. He returned quickly to Harvold’s side, their sister tight in his arms.

  After another minute of staring, the men walked around them in two lines before taking to the skies and launching an attack on the remaining slave women.

  “Protectors!” one of the slave women screamed. “Prepare yourselves, sisters!”

  Harvold decided not to watch. He’d seen more than enough this day.

  Pushing his brother ahead of him, their sister still in his arms, they headed toward their grandmother’s hut hidden deep in the woods, where they would hopefully be safe.

  As they walked, his brother finally asked, “Why do you think they killed each other like that, Harvold? Why are they still killing?”

  Harvold shrugged and replied, “Guess they didn’t get on . . .”

  Centuries later . . .

  Hel, goddess of the Underworld, paced back and forth in front of the dark, dank cave her father had been condemned to so long ago.

  It was the one place she could not enter, nor send any of her Carrion warriors. The other Aesir gods knew well that if she could enter, she would release their captive. How could she not? He was the great Loki, trickster god and her father.

  But she’d found the one god who could release him—Gullveig.

  She was not of the Aesir line but Vanir, and there was no binding that would keep her from entering the cave.

  Hel heard footsteps and quickly turned to face the cave opening, her hands clasped tight, her lips pinched together as she waited to once again see the father she loved so very dearly.

  Gullveig walked out first. She was no longer sheathed in that weak human body she’d chosen to reenter the human world. She shone like the gold of the Rhine. Hair, eyes, skin—all of it gold and glistening even in this darkness.

  Gullveig stopped at the cave entrance and leaned against the left side of the stone opening.

  “Well?” Hel pushed when she didn’t see her father.

  “He’s not there.”

  Hel’s entire body became rigid. “What? What do you . . . what?”

  Gullveig shrugged, already bored by the entire conversation. “He’s not there.”

  “That’s . . . that’s not possible.”

  Gullveig turned and walked back inside the cave. When she returned, she held heavy chains, tossing them at Hel’s feet.

  Hel knew those chains. They were made from the intestines of her half-brother Narfi. An additional punishment for Loki because of what he’d done to everyone’s favorite god Baldur. The gods had changed Loki’s son Váli to a wolf, who’d turned and killed his brother Narfi. They then bound Loki in his son’s intestines, which turned into iron.

  Why all this? Because Odin was a sick, vindictive fuck and it had always amazed Hel that so few mortals remembered that about the Allfather.

  “What about Sigyn?” Hel asked desperately.

  “Who?”

  “His wife! Is she in there?”

  “No one is in there. It’s empty except for this gross snake that hissed at me. And when I went to rip its head off, it tried to bite me! Me! Does it know who I am?”

  Hel stepped away from Gullveig’s complaining. For the first time in eons, she felt something. Deep, deep inside her gut. Panic. By all that was Hel herself, she felt panic! And she knew why.

  Hel pointed at one of her Carrion.

  “Lock down everything. And get us back to Eljudnir. Now.”

  “What is going on?” Gullveig demanded, snatching her arm away from the Carrion who’d grabbed her to take her back to Eljudnir, Hel’s hall. “Why are you so afraid?”

  “Loki’s free.”

  “So? You were about to free him yourself.”

  “I was. But that would have been me. He would have owed me. If nothing else, I would have been safe from his wrath. But now . . .”

  “And what does any of this have to do with me and my plans?”

  “It’s not all about you, you know?”

  “No. I don’t know. My plans are already in play. Are you telling me you’re going to change everything because your daddy might get pissy?”

  Hel stepped close to Gullveig, one finger pointing in her face. “You don’t know what you’re talking about.”

  “And you need to balls up and keep your commitment to me!” Gullveig snarled back, slapping Hel’s hand out of her face.

  Hel reached for Gullveig’s throat with both hands, but one of the Carrion quickly pulled Gullveig out of reach and another gently offered to Hel, “My lady, we should get you to safety. At least until we know where your father is.”

  Hel curled her hands into fists and lowered them to her sides. She gritted her teeth together as they briefly turned into fangs.

  She took a moment to get control of her anger. “Fine,” she finally said, keeping her eyes on her loyal soldier. After so much time together, the Carrion knew how to keep their ruler calm.

  The Carrion smiled, his leather wings slowly moving behind him. The sound soothed Hel’s angry, decaying heart.

  Until she heard, “What about me?”

  Her Carrion’s lip curled and his jaw clenched.

  Gullveig continued to forget that the Carrion were loyal to Hel and no one else. Not Odin. Not Thor. Not even the beautiful Freyja who easily swayed the hearts—and cocks—of weak-willed men to her side with no more than a charming glance.

  At only a twitch of her finger, Hel’s men would pounce on Gullveig and tear her apart.

  But, as she had before, Gullveig would only come back, and it was best not to remind the idiot that she was basically indestructible in this universe.

  So, instead of twitching anything that would set her loyal soldiers off, Hel asked, “Where is Önd?” She watched—amused—as what little color was in her soldier’s dead cheeks faded away, his eyes widening a bit.

  “He is . . . he is not here, my lady.”

  “Where is he?”

  “He is in the pits of the Christian hell . . . tormenting the demons.”

  Hel smiled. “Call for him. Tell him he is needed here by me.”

  “But, my lady—”

  “Do it. Now.”

  The soldier briefly bowed his head. “Of course, my lady.”

  Hel leaned around the Carrion to look at Gullveig. “I have someone, dearest friend, who will happily help you with any of your needs. If you want the human world destroyed to pain Odin and the others . . . Önd is your man.”

  “Good,” Gullveig replied, wonderfully oblivious as always. Completely missing the fact that at the mere mention of Önd’s name, the other Carrion appeared . . . uncomfortable. “I look forward to meeting him. I’m so very tired of waiting.”

  CHAPTER ONE

  “Why aren’t you dead?”

  As Erin Amsel slowly woke up, her head, face, and throat throbbing from where she’d been repeatedly hit, she realized she should have gotten much more of a clue when that question had originally been tossed at her earlier in the evening.

  Especially since it was not a common question, definitely not the kind of pickup line one got in a hot LA club. But she’d been busy. Doing something she probably shouldn’t have been doing, too bad it was kind of late for regrets now. Sitting in the second row of seats in a big SUV, with two large men on either side of her. Three men in the row behind. And two in the front.

  She could almost hear her father jokingly reminding her, “You never pay attention!”

  And she hadn’t paid attention. Having some random guy talking to her was kind of par for the course in any club or bar. Hunting around for a piece of ass they could nail was what guys did. So she really hadn’t paid any attention to his actual question. She just knew he’d been in her way. Blocking her from her target.

  Because while everyone else in that overpriced joint had been drinking, getting high, and trying to be seen in the hopes of getting their picture in a tabloid or attracting the attention of a talen
t scout, Erin had had a very specific goal. To prove that the woman she was trying to get a closer look at was the high priestess of a goddess determined to destroy the world. To bring about the Viking end of days—Ragnarok. The goddess Gullveig.

  The first time Erin and her sisters had dealt with Gullveig, they’d thought they’d stopped her from entering this world. They’d been wrong.

  The second time, they’d been forced to shove her into some distant plane of existence just to give them time to come up with a plan to stop her for good.

  This upcoming third time . . . would be the last time.

  No matter how it all came down.

  Yet even now her sisters worked to stop Ragnarok.

  Her sisters. The mighty Crows. The human warrior clan of the goddess Skuld. Since before the days when Vikings terrorized Europe from their longboats, Skuld had chosen from the dying those she felt worthy to fight in her name. She didn’t choose from pure Norse stock the way the other gods did. No. She chose from those who’d been dragged to the northern shores in chains. Always women. Always slaves. And always filled with rage.

  Now, in this day and age, Skuld chose from the descendants of those women. Or from those mistreated in this time.

  She gave them a choice upon dying. Go to the god they were raised to worship or join her. Get a shot at a second life and a chance to use all that rage and need for revenge they had stored in their souls to help prevent Ragnarok.

  There were those who refused to take the offer, but many others did. And those women were now Erin’s sister-Crows.

  Women she lived and died for, who at the moment had no idea Erin was in deep trouble.

  It was her own fault. In the weeks since they’d pushed Gullveig out of their world, Erin had known that somewhere in Los Angeles, there had to be a priestess who worshipped the crazy bitch. There had to be. Gullveig, like all gods, fed on the worship of humans.

  So, while the rest of her Crow sisters and the members of the other Viking Clans—the Nine, as they were called— desperately searched for a way to stop Gullveig, Erin did her own research. She read every trashy gossip rag. Scoured every gossip Web site. Listened to the incessant babble of her sister-Crows who had dreams of being a “star” one day. She listened and she researched and she obsessed until she came down to just one.

  Jourdan Ambrosio.

  The hottest “it” girl on both coasts and in Europe, Jourdan was the quintessential “do nothing megastar.”

  She was attractive—although it was kind of hard to tell with all the makeup she wore no matter the time of day or where she was or what she was doing—single, rich, and had lots of famous friends. Her father was an infamous Italian director whose work got Erin thrown out of a college film class once because she spent most of the initial movie screening mocking it. The man was pretentious—her film professor just needed to deal with that.

  Now his daughter, instead of becoming an actress like her equally famous Belgian mother, or a director like her father and older half brother, did nothing except “set the style” for everyone else and spend lots of money.

  When Erin spotted her, she’d been sitting in the VIP section of the club, surrounded by desperate sycophants, and obscenely covered in gold and diamond jewelry.

  If she wasn’t a priestess for Gullveig—a name that translated into “gold drink” or “gold power” or “gold trance” depending on what you read—she should be. She was everything Gullveig seemed to love. Beauty and tackiness all in one slim, sexy package.

  In the end, Erin was so sure she was right about Ambrosio, so obsessed . . . she hadn’t really noticed the big guy hitting on her.

  Of course, he hadn’t been hitting on her, had he? Hitting on a woman didn’t usually involve asking her why she wasn’t dead.

  Now Erin was trapped here, with her wrists zip-tied together, and her body throbbing from the short beating she’d taken when they’d forced her into the SUV. She had no idea where she was, but they were turning onto a dirt road.

  Yeah, that couldn’t be good.

  Dirt roads and women in zip-ties never ended well.

  The SUV stopped and the men got out, pulling Erin with them. She struggled, trying to pull away, but two of the men kept an easy grip on her.

  So, like she did that first time, all those years ago, she brought her elbow up and back. Only this time, she didn’t just break the man’s nose—she crushed his face, forcing in his nose and cheekbones.

  Blood splattered across Erin’s face and that’s when she remembered. That’s when it hit her. This wasn’t a replay of the last time she’d been killed. It couldn’t be. She wasn’t the same woman who’d been taken before.

  She was no longer the Staten Island loudmouth and tattoo artist who’d found herself on the wrong side of mobsters. Who’d made the oh-so-Erin mistake of talking to federal agents like it was no big deal. Because she’d just been a tattoo artist. A nobody. And Erin had continued to believe that—at least in the back of her mind—until the day those mobsters blew her brains out.

  But now she was a Crow, one of the nine recognized human clans that represented the Nordic gods on this plane of existence.

  She’d fought Vikings, demons, and Helheim’s Carrion. She’d been hit on by Odin and hit at by Thor. One time, Idunn threw an entire basket of her golden apples at her and another time Bragi—the god of poetry and eloquence—called her a “fucked up little twat that I would love to beat the unholy shit out of with my harp!”

  And after all that, the one thing that remained was her. Erin Amsel had survived all of it. So was she going to let some lowlife gangsters actually—

  A bullet slammed into Erin’s forehead and she fell back against the hard ground.

  * * *

  Stieg Engstrom thought his friend and fellow Raven brother Vig Rundstöm was just being an asshole when he’d insisted Stieg “watch Erin Amsel tonight. See where she goes. What she does. Keep her out of trouble.”

  He’d really thought Vig was just being a massive dick. Why else would he make Stieg, of all the people in the universe, follow Erin “I’m a pain in everyone’s ass!” Amsel around Los Angeles?

  When he’d seen her go into an LA club, one of those “latest hotspots in the LA area” as they were called on the local news, he thought the whole Raven brotherhood was just tormenting him.

  They all knew he hated the LA club scene. Hated actors and models and rich people who thought their money alone made them important. Hated Hollywood assholes who thought their ability to get a movie off the ground made them kings of the world and the rest of humanity their bootlickers. He disliked those people so damn much, if he wasn’t so loyal to his brothers, he’d have joined the Colorado Ravens just so he didn’t have to live in Los Angeles anymore.

  But what he disliked most of all was Erin Amsel. The most irritating, frustrating, rude, ridiculous woman the gods had ever placed on earth.

  Following her, it seemed, was a complete waste of time. Because in Stieg’s mind, how much trouble could one small redhead with an ego the size of Norway get into in a boring club?

  Apparently a lot.

  One second, she was obviously stalking that model chick he had seen on the cover of some men’s magazine in the Raven house bathroom—why Erin was doing that, he had no idea—and the next, some big mountain of a guy was dragging her off into a back hallway.

  Normally, Stieg would let Erin handle some pushy guy on her own. It wasn’t like she didn’t have the skill. He’d seen the woman lay waste to a whole line of demons once. Literally, she’d just gone down the line, slitting throats and setting some on fire until there was nothing left but bones and demon blood.

  And yet . . .

  So Stieg, against his better judgment, had followed—through the hallway, out the back door, toward the SUV. That’s when he’d unleashed his wings and followed from above until they’d left the 101 Freeway and ended up going down some dirt road.

  When they parked the black Escalade, Stieg hovered above
them. He didn’t really know what he’d expected. Maybe some tough talk. Maybe some threats.

  People loved to threaten Erin Amsel, he just didn’t know why. Because threatening her was a sure way of getting her to focus on you. Making you part of her life’s work, which was tormenting people beyond all reason.

  That’s what Erin Amsel did well.

  But these men didn’t even bother with tough talk. They dragged her out of the SUV, her hands zip-tied in front of her, stood her up—which was when she’d smashed one guy’s face in with her elbow—stepped away, and a guy pulled a gun and shot her in the head.

  Without a word. They didn’t even seem angry about their buddy bleeding to death at their feet.

  Who the fuck does that?

  Christ, maybe this world needed to burn. Some days he really wondered if Ragnarok would be such a bad thing.

  Yet Stieg didn’t need to go all “Raven destroyer” on these assholes, because these men had no real idea what they were dealing with.

  * * *

  Tommy aimed his gun at Erin Amsel’s chest. He hadn’t checked to make sure she was dead the last time when he’d thought he’d killed her. Two bullets to the back of the head. What else was he to think? But this time he would end it. One to the head and two to the chest. That was always the best way to take a person down and make sure they stayed down.

  But before he could pull the trigger again, the ground beneath his feet shook and he turned, his weapon instinctively raised.

  Surprised, he gawked at the man standing behind them, partially shielded in the dark. The headlights of their vehicle showed only a bit of his face . . . and his size.

  “Who the fuck are you?” Tommy demanded, not sure how stupid this man could be.

  The man didn’t say anything. He just pointed.

  Behind Tommy.

  Tommy looked over his shoulder, his eyes widening. Horror coursed through his bloodstream as he watched Erin Amsel getting to her feet. Digging into her forehead until she pulled the bullet out.

  “I am,” she growled, “so sick of being shot in the head!”