Goddess of Fate

“We’re in the Now, and you’re not dead. But that’s only because you’re in the Now.”

Luke could only stare at her. “Right. Well, I’m getting out, now.” But a wave of dizziness stopped him.

“It’s all right. I’ll take care of you,” Aurora told him as he rested his forehead against her waist and smelled that honey scent …

From the dream …

He jerked his head up. “Wait a minute. I dreamed …”

“It wasn’t a dream, Luke,” she said.

“How do you know my name?”

“I’ve known you forever,” Aurora said, and her eyes were luminous with feeling; Luke felt his breath catch at the longing in them.

ALEXANDRA SOKOLOFF is a California native and the daughter of scientist and educator parents, which drove her into musical theater at an early age. At UC Berkeley (a paranormal experience all on its own) she majored in theater. After college, Alex moved to Los Angeles, where she made an interesting living writing novel adaptations, and original suspense and horror scripts, for numerous Hollywood studios. She now lives in Scotland with her Scottish husband. Alex welcomes questions and comments at her website, alexandrasokoloff.com.

Goddess of Fate

Alexandra Sokoloff

For Leslie Wainger—a true heroine.

Contents

Cover

Excerpt

About the Author

Title Page

Dedication

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Epilogue

Extract

Copyright

Prologue

They stood around Luke Mars’s bed, looking down on him. Three women: one blond as the sun, one with hair blazing golden red as fire, and the last, whose hair and eyes were as dark as night. Luke was half-asleep and very confused. Three women in his bedroom was not unheard of, but not what he’d call an everyday occurrence, either. And it was strange—he couldn’t remember how they’d gotten there or why they were standing when he seemed to be...asleep, almost, and unable to move. They were speaking in low murmurs.

“Mine,” the dark one was saying. “I claim him for Odin.”

Odin? Now why is that familiar?

“No,” the redhead whispered. “Oh, no.”

“Too late,” the dark one said as she preened. “He’s mine.”

The blonde seemed sad, or maybe she was resigned. “A warrior, then. It is done.”

The voluptuous dark one began to chant in a sexy but also somehow eerie voice. “I’ll come for you by midnight steed, my weapon poised to do the deed...”

Luke wasn’t fully conscious, but stunning as the dark one might be, that didn’t sound all that good to him.

Who are these people? What the hell is going on?

And then the middle one, the redhead, bent down to him. He felt the brush of her hair on his cheek, breathed the incredible sweetness of her scent, the warmth of her breath. He felt a surge of pure desire in response to her touch, and through the sudden rush of blood in his head and other parts of his anatomy, he heard her murmur, “I’ll take care of you...”

Chapter 1

A harsh sound vibrated through Luke’s consciousness. It shook him out of whatever spell he was under. Suddenly he could feel the soft pillows and covers of his own bed. He opened his eyes and looked around. Pitch-black—it was the dead of night.

The three women were gone, though he could still feel his own arousal.

That honey smell...heavenly...

Beside him on the night table, his phone was buzzing and vibrating like an angry bee.

He grabbed for it. “Mars,” he growled into it.

“It’s going down,” he heard a familiar voice whisper on the other end. “They’re unloading a shipment. Pier 94, right now.”

“Wait...” Luke started, but the caller had hung up. His confidential informant, a longshoreman at the port. Luke felt adrenaline spike through his body, a thrill of excitement and anticipation. As a detective with the San Francisco Police Department, he was assigned to the special task force on piracy. He’d been working this case for six months and it was the first real break in the case; they’d been waiting for an actual shipment to arrive.

Luke threw back the bedclothes and stood, then grabbed the phone again and speed-dialed his partner while he scrounged for the clothes he’d discarded last night. Dark ones—they had to be dark.

The phone clicked over to a voice-mail message, and he waited impatiently for it to end so he could speak. “Pepper, it’s Mars. Meet me on Cesar Chavez, above Pier 94. Just got tipped off that there’s a shipment coming in.”

He made the same call to his lieutenant and again got voice mail, so he left the same message.

He pulled black jeans and a T-shirt on over his intricate tattoos: the stylized sun on his biceps, the coiled dragons on his back. Viking symbols, which he supposed would have made his grandmother happy if she’d known about them. She loved to see him embracing anything Old World—anything that referenced his Scandinavian blood.