Page 14 of Savage King

“I see you’ve met our tactical trainer…unless you…erm…know each other.” Obviously, the old Devil Dog had picked up on the tension between them, something he was sure Trouble picked up on as well. He couldn’t hide shit from his VP, not that he wanted to.

Odin chuckled, a deep, dirty sound, then said, “I know she doesn’t enjoy being called Skittles.” Wanting to touch her—needing to touch her, he raised his hand to shake hers. As was polite, of course. This was an actual introduction between him and his future wife. She didn’t know that yet, but she would soon enough.

Reaching out, Skathi slipped her hand into his, not even flinching when he purposefully squeezed, pressing the flesh of his palm against hers. His gaze dropped to where their hands met, but his inspection caught on something on her forearm he’d missed during his earlier perusal—when he thoughtshewas ahe.

There was a tattoo of a curled hunting horn with the word JAEGER written in scrolling letters beneath it.

Furrowing his brow, his memory snagged on that symbol, one he’d seen before….

Shit. Fuck. No fucking way.

“Hellere at vaere, end at synes,” he couldn’t stop from murmuring in Danish, a language he’d picked up as a courtesy to his Norse heritage. He couldn’t miss that his voice was thready, and that disbelief edged his words.

Shock registered on her face, but was quickly replaced with cool disaffectedness. Like it was muscle memory.

“Plus esse, quam simultatur,” she replied in crisp Latin, immediately confirming Odin’s wild suspicion by repeating the same phrase in the responding language.

Rather to be, than to be seen….The motto of the Royal Danish Special Forces.

“Jaegerkorpset,” he said simply, though the meaning behind the word was striking as hell.

She blinked, then nodded. Once. Then a grin that kicked him right in the balls and left him seeing stars spread out over her beautiful face. The sun shined from her smile, and he couldn’t look away, even if he wanted to.

“You’re good, Mr. Vikander,” she said, and he could detect the slightest accent, one he heard whenever he visited the old country for family reunions or made a weekend trip into Aalborg. “I’d heard much about you from Slim, but I hadn’t put two and two together, even after our run in last week. I should have figured it out though….”

Ah, so Slim—who’d seemed to disappear into thin air—had been talking with her about the Savage Raiders and their proposal to buy the gun range. As the manager, it made sense that she’d been in the know about potential business decisions. But how much did she actuallyknowabout the Raiders?

Suddenly, his stomach twisted, unease nipping at him. That night, at the party, she’d been forced to protect her friend and herself. A strike against them. And it probably didn’t look good that he’d appeared on the scene with two club bitches hanging from him.

Shit.

Now’s not the time to worry about that. You can persuade her, show her that there’s more to the club than parties and women.He had to because the club was his life, and it would be hers, too, once she was his old lady.

“Denmark?” he asked, focusing on questions about her. All about her.

“Ja, originally,” she answered, her grin slipping just enough to dim the world. “Otherwise I wouldn’t be Hunter Corps. They are pretty selective of who they let in, and usually they stick close to home.” The humor in her voice did something to his insides, warming them like whiskey never could.

He nodded, unable to stop the smile taking over his own face. “Holy shit,” he muttered, still unable to fathom the woman before him…and just how utterly incredible she was.

“What’s going on over here? I see thatScottieisn’t who we thought,” Trouble interjected, his own grin as wide as his ugly fucking face. Behind him Brady and Preston trundled up to them, their eyes wide as fuck as they took in the woman standing there.

“Sheisactually who we thought, only much prettier,” Odin remarked, hating that Trouble was standing close enough to Skathi to even breathe the same air. “She still the badass under all that tactical gear. Doesn’t matter that she’s a woman.”And what a woman she is.

Mine!He wanted to brand it across her chest with his name beneath it. Let every fucker with eyes know who she belonged to. But she didn’t belong to him. Not yet, anyway.

But she will.

Knowing what he knew now about her, though, meant he couldn’t come at her like he would just anyway woman. This woman was hard as nails…though she would submit to a firm hand of command.A hand like mine.He could tell though, from the way she peered at him with wariness and piercing insight, that she saw something in him that made her defensive. She smiled but she held herself stiffly. Stoic. Impenetrable.

He would just have to soften her up enough to…penetrate. Her body and her heart. He wanted all of her for his own.

“Skathi here is a Jaeger. A Hunter. One of the world’s most elite, deadly, and skilled soldiers. There are only 150 active Jaegers at one time—in the world, and she was one of them.”

Beside him, Trouble cursed then chuckled. “No shit. Skathi, the Norse goddess of hunters…is a Hunter. Ain’t that somethin’?”

Odin had realized that as well, and from the tight grin on Skathi’s face, she hadn’t missed the connection either. He wondered, however, if she was one of those who believed the old tales that the goddess Skathi married the All Father Odin and bore him sons….

Let fiction mirror reality, and he’d be a happy man. He’d get her belly full their first night, and tie her to him forever.

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