Defending Her Vikings Read online

  Flick. Kiss. Flick. Kiss.

  He was driving me crazy, not quite giving me enough to come but keeping me teetering on the edge, breathless and moaning.

  He grabbed my thighs tighter, then buried himself into me, his entire face pressed against my entrance, his tongue inside of me. When he moved his tongue, swirling it around my core, I could no longer hold back. I came with a scream, rocking against him, willing him to keep touching me.

  Just when I thought it couldn’t get any better, he pushed a finger inside of me while at the same time sucking sharply on my bud. I unravelled, letting go of any self-control I still had.

  This was heaven.

  I STRAIGHTENED MY CLOTHES, trying to make it look as if I didn’t just have a hot encounter with Asger. There was nothing I could do about my flushed skin though. I ran my fingers through my tangled hair. Asger seemed to have a thing about ruffling my hair, which meant that I could really do with a brush. In the end though, none of that mattered.

  Hjalmar was imprisoned somewhere and here I was, making out with his brother. I wondered what Hjalmar would have to say about this frille thing. Somehow, I couldn’t imagine someone like him consent to sharing, but at the same time, he’d grown up in another time. He might like the thought of sharing me with his brother. An image flashed into my mind, me being held by both of them, our naked bodies pressed together. A shiver of excitement ran down my back and heat pooled between my legs. Even though Asger had just made me come in the most amazing way, the thought of being with both brothers at once made me almost ready to come again.

  Maybe it was selfish, greedy, perhaps it was what I should do. There was no way to know until I actually did it. For now, I was going to keep an open mind.

  ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 3

  The sound of the secret passage door opening made me sit up straight and once again smooth down my uniform. Heather was Asger’s mother, after all. It was kind of strange to be in the same room with her after I’d had Asger between my legs.

  The Archivist stormed into our little room, his eyes flicking to my flushed cheeks and his expression turned even darker. Well, excuse me. He’d told me not to touch anything, but there had been no rule about me being touched. Besides, it wasn’t like he should care about what I did in my spare time, even if it was getting up close with Vikings.

  Heather gave me a knowing smile. Thank goodness, she wasn’t reacting in the way my own mother would have. With embarrassment and barely concealed bewilderment. I think my father had been the only man my mother had ever been with, and I couldn’t imagine them doing anything more than vanilla.

  Not that I had any more experience. Despite that dream, despite Hjalmar, despite having Asger pleasure me, I was still a virgin. I didn’t feel like it.

  I pushed away those thoughts and focused on what was important. Hjalmar.

  “Did you find him?” I asked Heather, ignoring the Archivist. I didn’t feel like being glared at.

  She nodded, but she didn’t look happy. “We’ve come just in time. He’s still here at the Academy, but they’re planning to transfer him to the TA prison tomorrow. Headmistress Tape has fought to persuade the TA to let him stay here until the trial, but they’re refusing to listen to her.”

  “Which is a bad sign,” the Archivist mutters. “The TTA headmasters have always had a position of authority, of respect. For the Head of the Time Agency to simply ignore Professor Tape’s request shows just how bad things have become.”

  “I’m going to speak to Sophie Blackhart,” Heather declared. “I met her a couple of times when I was still working as an agent. She might listen to reason.”

  The Archivist laughs. “I don’t think so. If she doesn’t listen to the head of the TTA, the most prestigious academy in the world, then I doubt she’ll listen to a retired time agent who’s not been seen in decades. Sorry, love, but I don’t think you have a chance in hell to change that woman’s mind.”

  Heather frowns but doesn’t argue. She probably knows that he’s right.

  “What do we do then?” I ask. “Can we break him out while he’s still here?”

  “Kill all,” Asger suggests.

  “I don’t think that will work,” Heather says with a sad smile. “It’s not how we do things here, Asger. We need to go through the official channels.”

  “Can’t we just travel back in time to the day they brought him here and arrested him? We might have a chance to free him before they put him in a cell.”

  The Archivist shakes his head. “The agents who arrested him will have TDs. There’s no way to approach without being noticed.”

  “TDs?” I ask.

  He sighs in exasperation. “Don’t you know anything? Time Detectors. They recognise ripples in time, which means they know someone is about to time travel to their location a few seconds before it happens. It would give them enough time to either ready their weapons or hurry Hjalmar into a cell. Either or, it wouldn’t work.”

  “But what if we arrive in a different part of the Academy? Are those TDs sensitive enough to pick up the ripples even if we’re several floors above them?”

  “Yes, they can detect ripples in a radius of about a mile, so there’s no chance to arrive in the Academy without being detected. The only reason you managed to land here unscathed earlier was because you had the bracelet of a TTA student. Without it, you would have ended up somewhere above ground in the official reception centre. Which is swarming with security.”

  “What if I travel back in time on my own and arrive just after Hjalmar and I left?” I ask. “That way, I would never have left, could go to my lessons, pretend to know nothing and figure out a way to get to Hjalmar.”

  This time, the Archivist rolls his eyes. “There’s been a search going on for you. Your plan may have worked if only one or two people noticed your absence, but your disappearance has affected too many people. It would change time too much.”

  I scoff. “Then what do we do? We can’t just sit here and wait. Twiddling our thumbs isn’t going to get Hjalmar back.”

  “The only thing we can do is prove his innocence,” Heather says softly. “But if we do that, we might endanger someone’s life.” She raises an eyebrow at the Archivist.

  I realise that he wouldn’t know about Lucas still being alive. Nobody does except for the three of us and Hjalmar.

  “So, he’s definitely innocent?” the Archivist asks.

  Heather nods. “He never killed anyone.”

  “But he won’t be able to prove it in court?”

  She nods again. “He’ll never tell them the truth. He’d sentence someone to death by doing so, and he’s far too honourable for that. He’d rather go to prison for life.”

  I shudder at the thought. I’d never see him again. They don’t have a reason to admit a student to see her imprisoned teacher. I’m not related to him, not in an official relationship either. There needs to be something we can do. I can’t let this happen to him.

  “What if we remove the reason he can’t tell the truth?” I ask and they all stare at me in confusion.

  “Right now, he can’t because he’d endanger someone’s life. What if we made sure that this someone wouldn’t be danger should he be found alive? That way, Hjalmar’s name would be cleared.”

  It’s a stab in the dark, really. I still don’t know why Lucas might be killed if he returned to the present. It must be something terrible, after all, Lucas sacrificed an arm for it.

  “I doubt that would work,” Heather said. “From what I know, there are too many people who want him dead. Too many to deal with. Besides, what would we do with them? We can’t kill them.”

  Yeah, that was true. Morals. For a moment, I’d forgotten that we couldn’t just go around and kill people who prevented me from being with Hjalmar. When had I turned so infatuated with him? So possessive?

  “If we’re talking about Lucas Demarque, then it might not be as hard as you think,” the Archivist said, and I perked up. “Things have changed since th
e boy disappeared.”

  “What do you mean?” Heather asked.

  “I don’t know the full story, but I always thought it was very convenient for Lucas to die when he did. And that there was no reason for Hjalmar to kill him. Lucas was a bright lad; he spent a lot of time helping me out in the Archive. He behaved very strangely the last time I saw him. Said something about regretting what he’d done. I didn’t think much of it back then, I thought it was something menial, something to do with his studies or maybe that he’d fallen out with his boyfriend. Of course, my view on that changed when he disappeared.”

  He sighed deeply. “I did some investigating after that. He’d been one of my best helpers and I didn’t believe that he had just got lost in time. He was talented, destined to rise quickly through the TA ranks. For him to make a mistake during time travel seemed like a strange excuse. And I wasn’t the only one to think that. The days after his disappearance, the Academy was crawling with agents. Usually, the Academy itself deals with accidents to students. This was different.”

  “That’s why Hjalmar had to prove that Lucas was dead,” Heather explained. “He’d planned to take some blood-drenched clothes back to the present, but then Lucas had the accident and we had a spare arm.”

  Asger chuckled. “Idiot.”

  “Wait, so Hjalmar didn’t cut off Lucas’s arm?” I interjected.

  Heather laughed. “Did he tell you that? No, it was an accident. Lucas tried to impress one of the Vikings in the village by challenging him to a fight. He boasted that he was an excellent fighter, so they used sharp weapons. Sadly for Lucas, he was quite good at attacking but rubbish at keeping his guard up. Modern doctors could have probably saved his arm, but since he refused to be returned to the present, our village healer had to amputate.”

  “Idiot,” Asger repeated. He seemed to be able to follow our conversation even though it was all in English. Seemed like he’d pretended not to understand me back at his house. I was going to find a way to seek revenge for that, just you wait.

  “It was a good move,” the Archivist said. “Things quieted down when Hjalmar returned with the arm. Of course, most people thought that he’d killed the boy because they’d had a public argument a couple of weeks prior, but Professor Tape believed him, trusted him. She even tried to stop the rumour that Hjalmar was a murderer from spreading, but this is TTA after all. This place thrives on gossip.”

  “You said you did some investigating.” I tried to get the conversation back to the important bit. Finding a way to save Hjalmar. “Did you find out who wanted Lucas dead?”

  “His stepmother,” Heather whispered before the Archivist could reply.

  I gaped at her. “Is this a fairy tale? The evil stepmother?”

  “That’s what I thought,” the Archivist confirmed. “Lucas used a fake surname when he was enrolled here, but after a bit of digging I found his real name. No wonder he was scared. His father had just died, and he was the last block in his stepmother’s aim to get her hands on her husband’s business empire.”

  “Definitely a fairy tale,” I muttered. “So, he’s being hunted because he inherited a bit of money?”

  Heather laughed bitterly. “A bit of money doesn’t quite cut it. His father was Richard Priest.”

  “Priest? Like Priest Enterprises?”

  “Exactly, that Richard Priest,” the Archivist said. “Multi-billionaire, serial tax avoider and, if you believe the rumours, involved in far too many shady businesses.”

  “No wonder Lucas used a pseudonym. I once went on a protest march to raise awareness on the monopoly Priest Enterprises had on the electricity supply in New London. Nobody likes the Priests.” I ran a hand through my tousled hair. “So, this woman, his stepmother, is the only person wanting him dead?”

  The Archivist school his head. “Not quite. Back when his father died, Pricilla Priest put a bounty on the lad’s head, which meant that hundreds of people would have been looking for him. Criminals, corrupt agents, you name it. Money can be a fantastic motivator, especially if the bounty is ten million.”

  I couldn’t help but gasp. “Ten million? To kill Lucas?”

  He nodded. “And to make it look like an accident, obviously. In a way, Hjalmar did that woman a favour. Lucas was declared dead and Pricilla got all the money. She didn’t even come to his funeral.”

  “Lucas had a funeral?”

  “We had it here at the Academy. It was a beautiful ceremony.” The Archivist’s expression turned distant. “A lot of people said nice things about him. It was hard to believe that anyone would want him dead.”

  I wondered if Lucas knew about his funeral. It was kind of strange, being alive yet knowing that everyone thought you were dead. Although it had saved his life, and even though he was trapped back in time, he was still alive. And had Vikings to seduce. I smiled at the thought. I hoped he would get the Viking of his dreams. As long as he didn’t take one of mine.

  I leaned back, my mind spinning. It seemed so complicated. To free Hjalmar, we’d have to expose Lucas, which would mean his stepmother would once again put a bounty on his head. Hiding him in the past wouldn’t be a solution this time; I doubted this trick would work a second time. Lucas would soon run out of limbs. Still, I couldn’t let Hjalmar rot in prison.

  “You were right,” I said to the Archivist as an idea slowly began to form in my mind.

  He raised an eyebrow. “I was?”

  “Money is a great motivator. We need to talk to Priscilla Priest. If she wants to keep Lucas’s inheritance, she’ll be interested in keeping it quiet that he’s still alive. If she used her money to somehow create an alibi for Hjalmar, or to bribe people to get him out of jail, he’d never be tempted to tell the court that Lucas is still alive.”

  Heather’s expression brightened a little. “That could work. I bet she’s closely following the trial already. If we managed to get to her, make her worried that her rich days are over, she might act in our favour.”

  “Or kill us all,” the Archivist muttered darkly. “As long as there are people alive who know the truth, she’ll be in danger to lose her empire.”

  “What if we get Lucas to write an official letter stating that he gives up any claim to his inheritance?” I suggested. “And we could also leave some statements of our own with lawyers, to be published if one of us gets killed.” I shuddered at the thought. This moment seemed very important. Dramatic. I kind of wanted to giggle to diffuse the tension building within me.

  “That could work,” Heather said. “It’s risky, but we don’t have another plan. I can travel back and talk to Lucas, while you go and talk to Priscilla Priest. Asger, do you want to return home with me? I don’t think you’ll be able to help with the negotiations.”

  “I stay,” Asger grunted. “I defend.”

  He put an arm on my thigh, making it very clear who he was planning to protect. I smiled at him. Even though Heather was right, it was good to know that Asger was going to be by my side.

  “How are we going to meet her?” I asked. “Can we just turn up at her place?”

  The Archivist laughed. “We’d end up as dog food before we even set foot in her house. No, let me get in touch with some contacts. They’ll be able to set up a meeting.”

  I stared at him in surprise. “Contacts? Like, criminal contacts?”

  He shrugged. “You didn’t think I built the Archive’s collection all by legal means, did you?”

  ᚴᛅᛒᛁᛏᚢᛚᛁ 4

  I closed my eyes, surrendering to the stream of hot water kneading my tired muscles. The Archivist had the most amazing shower, miles better than the ones we had in our communal student bathrooms. I was only slightly jealous.

  Rather than stay with the teachers on the top floor of the Academy, he had his own little studio flat just next door from the Archive. Since I didn't want to be seen, this was perfect for cleaning up and feel human again. I didn't know how Heather had survived for decades without hot showers. Or maybe she'd built her own
, who knew. I'd been too tired last night to ask for anything more than the cloth and the bowl of warm water she’d given me.

  I stretched my arms and arched my back against the wall. The hot water helped soothe the tension in my body, but it didn't quite remove it completely. A voice in the back of my mind kept telling me that I needed to hurry, that Hjalmar was imprisoned, that I shouldn't be enjoying a long hot shower. At the same time, I knew there was nothing I could do but wait for the Archivist to set up the meeting with Priscilla Priest. Heather had returned to the past, using a time bracelet the Archivist had given her, which would allow her to travel right back into the Archive - something normal bracelets couldn't do since this floor of the building was shielded somehow. I'd asked how that worked but all the Archivist had done was glare at me as if it was my fault that nobody has taught us stuff like that.

  I switched off the shower and wrapped myself into a towel that the Archivist had given me. I grimaced. Here I was, in his shower, smelling like him thanks to his masculine shower gel, and I didn't even know his name. Did every Archivist give up their own name, or was this a special quirk of the current one? Maybe his name was so awful, so embarrassing, that he preferred others not to know it.

  Twisting my hair into a messy, wet bun, I wondered whether it was safe to leave the bathroom. The Archivist had said he'd get me some clothes in my size, but I wasn't sure if he'd done that yet. I opened the door an inch wide and peeked outside. Nobody to be seen. Maybe he'd already put the new jumpsuit somewhere for me to find. Barefoot and still a little wet, I traipsed across his living room.

  The kitchenette in the corner looked mostly unused, even though I'd never seen the Archivist in the dining hall. Maybe he had his food delivered down here rather than eat with everyone else. It would certainly fit his antisocial personality.