Kasta leaned over and growled a few annoyed words to the driver, and she nodded and then pointed at the guard while she spoke. My heart was slamming in my chest, and then I heard Elana clear her throat from the seat behind us. I had no idea what she meant with the sound, but she did it again while the driver talked with the guard, and I turned around to look at her.
Then I saw that a hovercraft filled with ten armored Jotnar warriors had pulled up behind us.
“Shit,” I hissed as I turned back around to look at the driver argue with the guard. The man didn’t seem to care about her words, he just shook his head and then sighed heavily.
Kasta seemed to notice the load of guards behind us, and she frowned before leaning over the driver to yell at the guard. Her words were in the Nordar language, but her tone had changed so that she sounded extra growly and indignant. As she spoke, she gestured back to the guards in the hovercraft behind us, and I turned around again to see the driver of the other vehicle shake his head with annoyance.
Elana’s and Aasne’s hands tightened around the grips of their weapons, and I guessed that the conversation wasn’t going well.
Suddenly, the guard at the gate paused, and his face went slack. He blinked four times in rapid succession, turned away from us, and pressed a button behind his post that raised the gate bar. Our driver seemed surprised by his sudden change of mind, but then she just shrugged and drove through the gate after he motioned for us to continue on into the castle.
I turned my head a bit as we passed, and the guard gestured for the car behind us to keep going inside with a wide motion of his arm, and then the gate lowered behind us. Eve was sitting on the other side of me from Zea, and I saw her full lips curl up into a bit of a smile.
“He’ll wonder why he did what he did soon,” she whispered. “He might decide to raise an alarm, but he might also decide that he doesn’t want his superiors to know that he just let us in, so we might not hear any more of it.”
“Great,” I whispered as I turned back to the castle road. “We just need time.”
The driver glanced over her shoulder and said something to me, but then Kasta slapped her on the arm, pointed at the castle and hissed something out that I guessed was the Nordar equivalent of “shut the fuck up and drive.” The woman nodded her head quickly and then focused on the straight road that led to the castle.
I turned my head slightly to look at Eve and then pulled my eyes over to check on the car full of armored warriors. They were still right behind us, but the group all looked bored, and they were giving us the same amount of attention that anyone would have given to a car driving in front of us.
It was still more attention than I wanted.
The castle on the Odin Geirr was off one of the major roads, and there were buildings clustered around the glass structure. There was just a few hundred feet of grass and sporadic trees between the Jotnar castle and the road that we would have to take to get back to the city. On one hand, the positioning was a bit comforting because I realized that it would take a few minutes for more guards to show up. On the other hand, it was going to be really difficult to escape the castle if things went sideways.
Our driver parked on the cobblestone lot near the entrance to the front courtyard of the castle. The hovercraft filled with soldiers stopped right behind us, and we exited our car just as the other group jumped out of theirs. A few of the armored men and women glanced at us, but they seemed to be in a hurry, and they quickly walked to the sidewalk and into the large doors of the inner gate.
Our driver said something to Kasta, and she shook her head before replying to the women. The Jotnar actually laughed, shook her head, and then her car lifted off the ground. We stepped away a moment before she began to accelerate, and we all watched her zip down the exit street.
“What did you just say?” I whispered as I scanned the light crowd coming and going through the inner courtyard gate.
“She asked if we wanted her to wait, and I said that we were in for an ass reaming from Uffe, so this was probably a one-way trip.” Kasta let out a light laugh and both Aasne and Elana smiled.
“You did great,” Aasne whispered.
“Yes,” Elana agreed. “She actually believed that we had a meeting with Uffe because we lost a battle against Waymund.”
“I’m sure Eve helped,” Kasta laughed. “That’s why I was such a bitch.”
“Actually no,” Eve said. “I did not do anything to the woman. I helped with the guard at the gate, but you convinced the driver to abandon her post and take us here on her own.”
“Well, hot damn,” Kasta said. “I guess a false sense of confidence does help.”
“Let’s see if it will keep helping,” I said as I nodded at the inner courtyard. There were eight armed and armored guards standing at the entrance, and while they weren’t stopping people from walking in and out, they were watching everyone like hawks watching a field of mice.
“Balls deep,” Juliette hissed, but no one replied to her comment. Instead, I adjusted my rifle so that it hung on my back comfortably, and Kasta and I walked toward the entrance while the other women followed us.
I forced my tense legs to relax. I quieted the tiger growling in my stomach. I tried to command my heart to stop racing. We had made it this far, and while I didn’t know exactly how to get where we were going, I did know that if Uffe was in the castle, I was going to kill him soon.
And if he wasn’t in this castle, I’d kill him before the day was over.
I met the eyes of the first guard as I walked in and gave him a nod. The man returned my movement, but then his eyebrow raised a bit when he turned to look at the group of women who followed me. I knew that I didn't look like I was Nordar because of my heritage, but Zea, Paula, Kasta, and Juliette could have easily passed, and Aasne and Elana definitely were. That just left Eve as potentially sticking out a bit because of her red eyes, but none of the guards said anything as we passed. They just stared at my women and then exchanged grateful looks with each other.
I breathed a sigh of relief when we entered the courtyard and saw a wolf shaped fountain, but then I heard a shout behind us, and my heart jumped into my chest.
One of the guards at the end walked toward us with his rifle resting on his shoulder. His eyes were hungry, and they roamed over Elana’s tight fitting uniform as he came to stand next to her.
Kasta spat out a few words, and the man raised an eyebrow as he ran his tongue over his lips and stared at her chest. Then he said something else that I thought was a question about our commanding officer, and the man turned to me. He said something that sounded like mockery, and then he wiggled his eyebrows at me.
I really had no idea what he said, but his leaning stance and haughty smile gave me a good guess. He was questioning why all these beautiful women were hanging around me, and he was trying to belittle me in front of them.
My mind spun through the various options. I didn’t need this shit right now. We had to get into the castle. We had to find Uffe. We had to end him, and I had to find the next person in line so that I could bind them to me. I should just turn and walk away from this asshole, but that might not give me the results I wanted. The Nordar appreciated strength. They were warriors who grew up in a never ending clan battle where they got a better table in Vahalla when they died in a fight. This guy was trying to muscle in on my wives, and there was only one reply that he would probably accept if I wanted him to leave me alone.
The man repeated his question to me again and then started to laugh. It was all the opportunity I needed, and I pulled my silver revolver out of my holster with a quick flick of my arm. The fucker didn’t even have a chance to blink, but he did when he felt the barrel of the massive weapon pressed into his upper lip.
The hammer of my revolver came back with a thunderous click, and it might as well of been an actual gunshot for how quickly everyone in the courtyard stopped walking.