Chapter 2 Viking
CHAPTER 2
VIKING
He knew it the second he saw her months ago: Elena was either going to be his salvation or his downfall. She was a siren, his hazel-eyed girl, sent from above to save him from drowning. Or perhaps, to lure him into the rocks, making him crash and burn.
He watched Elena walk away from him, holding the dog in her arms. Fuck, now he was jealous of a dog. Soon, he reminded himself. Soon, she would be eighteen and this waiting would be over. Then, one day, and it couldn’t come quick enough, she wouldn’t be walking away from him anymore. He intended to be the one she ran to, not the one she ran from.
But first, he had to get rid of the shit stain that had dared to touch her.
He looked down upon Todd, who lay at his feet, his pasty skin pale as a ghost. A surge of energy, a clouded tension, boiled up from underneath his skin, joining below his skull, urging him to end this fucker’s life. It wouldn’t be his first kill. That had been some asshole who had put his hands on his little brother, cornering him in an alley, trying to rape him. It was the way of the world, his world, that was dark and bleak most times, except when a little spitfire had barged through it, catching his attention, dousing it in light.
He grabbed Todd’s foot and dragged him into his shop. Todd cried and whined like the little bitch he was. Viking tossed him inside like the sack of trash he was. The fucker knocked over a few cans of motor oil, then came to a halt against the workbench.
“You weak motherfucker. Can dole it out, but can’t take it, can you?”
It wasn’t the smartest thing to do, stabbing the pussy in broad daylight, but his brain went haywire when he saw the bastard had cornered Elena and tried to fucking rape her.
Rape.
Her.
Another red haze clouded his vision, and he could barely stop himself from going nuclear on Todd’s ass.
Patience, Viking. Keep it cool.
He could hear his friend Kristoff say it, as if he were standing next to him. Nothing ever phased that guy. Then again, the crazy Russian probably had vodka-laced ice water running through his veins. Viking, not so much. His was more a mixture of scotch and lava.
He grinned as Todd tried to crawl away. The way he was bleeding out, a snail could outrace him.
“Do you know why they call me Viking?” he asked as he grabbed a hammer from his toolshed. “No? Let me enlighten you. See, it’s not because of the light hair, or my build.” Like his dad, he was big-boned, muscles cording all over his body. He dropped to his haunches and fisted Todd’s hair, pulling his head up to face him.
“It’s because when I get spitting mad, I like to chop things, as my ancestors did in the old days,” he explained, bringing his hammer down on Todd’s hand.
Todd’s scream echoed through the garage. He could scream all he wanted. Viking’s shop was in the worst part of the bad part of town.
The bastard’s eyes nearly bulged out from horror when he saw his mutilated hand. Fingers were scattered around the floor; one of them rolled underneath the car Todd had been trying to crawl under.
“Stop. Please, just stop!”
He was in no mood to stop. “No one touches her, asshole. She’s mine.”
Snot was running down Todd’s chin when he held up what was left of his hand. “Please stop. I’m sorry, okay. I didn’t know she was yours. I just thought she was a piece of ass, looking for some dick.”
The idiot was talking himself into a grave. Viking closed his eyes for a sec and rolled his neck to lighten the tension. No one knew Elena was his. Yet. But they would. He just had to claim her first.
“Thing is, I don’t like your kind, Todd. You’re a piece of shit who gets off on scaring those weaker than you. Here’s what’s going to happen. You’re going to give me the name of your heroic friends who abandoned you. You do that, and I just might let you live.”
As predicted, Todd sang like a bird.
He knocked Todd out, tied him up with a nice bow, and shoved him in a corner, covering his body. He would dispose of it later. While he got his gear and placed a knife in his boots, he could almost see his dad frowning upon him from heaven.
Eric “Hammer” Skarsgard had been a Marine. A man who lived by a code of honor. After his deployment, he continued living with that honor, working his ass off for a woman who didn’t deserve any.
What good had working for the man done his dad? All it had gotten him was a bad back, a lousy paycheck, and an early grave. Unlike his dad, Viking knew he was unemployable. All he had was the garage his father had left him. He did all right, but nowhere near enough to provide for a woman, or—one day—his own family. He would though. To get there, all he had to do was eliminate each and every threat to Elena. Then, he’d wait some more. Only three more months and she would finally turn eighteen.
But first, it was time to go hunting.