Page 71 of Kiss of Wrath

Are my passions really being ignited by the mere touch of skin on skin?

Yes! Like sparks to long-dead tinder! Like lightning strikes to a desolate tree! Like fire to a death pyre! Like hearth heat to a bone-cold body! Like . . .

Aaarrgh! I am turning into a foppish, poor excuse for a Viking. Next I will be spouting poetry like a drukkinn skald.

He tightened his hold on her hand, alert to impending danger. As the elevator doors opened, they were assaulted by the cacophony of casino noise and color and flashing lights and conversation and smells.

Something had changed betwixt him and the red-haired witch at his side whose changeable green eyes darted this way and that, taking in all the sights. And that change was surrender, pure and simple. His.

At least for now, he was no longer fighting the compelling attraction he felt for this woman who’d come into his life with the suddenness of a North Sea storm. Even knowing that, sure as sin, such an attraction could be perilous to him. Mike would have a bird. Or an angel fit.

He was not sure when that change had come about. Was it when he had kissed her? Or had his long-dead passions begun to rumble back to life the moment he first saw her? Or could it be when her woman scent, that tantalizing mix of lilies and cloves, first swirled about him like a carnal mist?

But then, it did not matter when. It just was.

He was jolted out of his reverie when Miranda muttered, “Good Lord!”

If Mordr were permitted to swear, he would have said the same thing.

Actually, he had experienced similar shock the day he had wandered into this hotel casino. A full-size longship was rocking on the waves of a pool in the hotel lobby. Murals of Norsemen in battle adorned the walls. A wild boar bellowed from a cage on one side. In fact, the menu posted outside one restaurant offered wild boar barbecue. In other words, pig. A miniature Viking village, complete with longhouses and pretty, scantily clad Norsewomen bending over cook fires, ranged along the other side. Over the hotel loudspeakers, haunting music played, presumably played on instruments he’d never witnessed in his time, but some entrepreneur’s idea of ancient Norse melody.

Male waiters in the casinos wandered about, wearing naught but knee-high boots, leggings so tight they must use a crowbar to get into them, and the most ridiculous headgear. Nothing on their oiled, hairless upper bodies. Like no Vikings of his acquaintance!

“Vikings did not wear horned helmets,” he asserted vehemently.

“What?” Miranda, who had been gawking at said men, asked.

“Horned helmets. Where in the name of all the saints did modern folks get the idea that Norse soldiers wore such ridiculous attire? Not only would vain Viking men decline to cover their well-groomed hair with such monstrosities, but enemies in battle could latch on to those horns and bring a man to his knees. Although I suppose, if they lost a weapon in the midst of fighting, they could gore a man to death by head-butting him in the gut.”

Miranda looked at him with amusement.

He supposed he was fixating over minutiae when there were so many other inconsistencies in this fake Viking world.

“I believe it might have started with some opera about Beowulf,” she said.

Just then, a man stepped up to Mordr and asked, “Can you tell me where I can cash in my chips?”

To Mordr’s chagrin, he realized that the man thought he worked here. In his cloak, with his Norse features, he must look like the Viking he was. He stepped around the man and walked away, taking Miranda with him.

“That was rude,” she commented.

Like he cared! “Stop!” he ordered suddenly, dropping their linked hands and tugging her tightly to his side, an arm wrapped protectively around her shoulders. He raised his head and sniffed the air, this way and that, like a hunting dog on point. “Over there,” he whispered in her ear. “Those two are Lucies.”

“Where?”

“The couple standing together at the roulette table. They are interested in the man betting wildly beside them. Probably an addicted gambler, risking his family’s last coin for the thrill of the sport. Afore the night is over, the poor fool will be in Lucie land.”

“Are you saying that gorgeous hunk in green T-shirt and camouflage pants and his blond girlfriend in a tank top and designer jeans are demon vampires?”

“Shh,” he warned. “Yes, they are.”

“But they’re beautiful.”

“Only in their humanoid forms. You would not want to see them when they morph into scales and slime and red eyes and tails.”

She rolled her eyes.

“Let us move on before they notice me. I do not want to fight them here in public.”