Free Viking Warrior Rebel by Asa Maria Bradley

dresser and grabbed a binder. Returning to the chair, he handed it to her as he sat down again. “Room service menu is on page ten.”
    Astrid held the folder in her lap but didn’t open it. “We could just go out for something.” Eating a meal while still in bed—and with him sitting beside her—would be too intimate. And going out would give her more time to figure out what to tell him.
    He shook his head. “Nope, we’ll eat here. You need some food in you now.” He tapped the folder. “Pick what you want.”
    She sighed but did what he asked. While he used the phone on the bedside table to call in her order of a double burger and fries, she studied his profile. He’d shaved while in the bathroom. The smooth skin of his jaw had a small nick just below the earlobe. She wanted to touch the spot to soothe it and had to curl her fingers to stop from reaching out. The berserker stirred again, but Astrid quickly lulled it back into sleep. Her attraction to Holden was freaky.
    When she and Holden had hooked up all those months ago, her inner warrior had been enthusiastic. More so than it usually was when Astrid had sex with someone. She’d thought it was because she’d overindulged a little when she fed off the sexual energy from the people on the dance floor. But could it be that the berserker wanted Holden?
    Nonsense. Astrid didn’t even like the man.
    Unaware of her mental analysis of their sexual history, or more accurately their one night together, Holden added his own food selection to their order and hung up. “Talk,” he demanded and sat back down in the chair.
    She didn’t know where to start. “How about you ask me what you want to know, and I’ll see if I can answer?”
    He quirked an eyebrow. “Okay. What is that creature I saw in the parking garage, and why was it trying to kill you?”
    Astrid’s mind spun. She couldn’t endanger her warrior brothers and sisters, but she could probably spin the truth into something palatable for Holden. “I don’t know exactly what those creatures are, but I call them wolverines.”
    A tic pulsed in his jaws. “You’re using the plural. There are more of these freaks?”
    â€œI’ve seen a few.” As in, she used to see them all the time when she went on patrol outside the fortress. Then they disappeared for a while but came back in smaller numbers. And now they seemed to have remarkable healing ability and new acrobatic skills. Like they were wolverines, version 2.0. She really needed to get in touch with the warriors back home so she could tell them.
    Without somehow revealing that she’d lost Scott.
    She was so screwed.
    Holden sighed, got up, and retrieved another bottle of juice from the minibar. He handed it to her without comment and sat back down. This one was cranberry. “Look, I get that there are loads of information you don’t want to share. But can we cut the crap? Just share what you know.”
    Astrid cracked the juice bottle open. “I am sharing.” She took a swig of the bright-red liquid, hoping she wouldn’t spill any on the nice white sheets. How had Holden kept her from bleeding all over the linens? “Just ask me what you want to know.” That way she could censor each chunk of information more easily, and maybe his questions would show a pattern. Holden definitely had an agenda. His body betrayed him. He was too tense, too probing. This felt more like a debriefing than just him wanting to know about the creature he’d fought. Why would a nightclub owner interrogate her?
    â€œFine.” Holden ran his hand through his hair. “Answer the second part of my question. Why are they trying to kill you?”
    This one would be a little trickier. A long explanation about the power struggles in the Norse gods’ council and Loki’s circumvention of the rule about not taking the gods’ battle