A Modern Viking: Sveyn & Hollis: Part Three (The Hansen Series - Sveyn & Hollis Book 3) Read online

  Also By Kris Tualla:

  Medieval:

  Loving the Norseman

  Loving the Knight

  In the Norseman’s House

  Renaissance:

  A Nordic Knight in Henry’s Court

  A Nordic Knight of the Golden Fleece

  A Nordic Knight and his Spanish Wife

  18th Century:

  A Discreet Gentleman of Discovery

  A Discreet Gentleman of Matrimony

  A Discreet Gentleman of Consequence

  A Discreet Gentleman of Intrigue

  A Discreet Gentleman of Mystery

  and

  Leaving Norway

  Finding Sovereignty

  Regency:

  A Woman of Choice

  A Prince of Norway

  A Matter of Principle

  Contemporary:

  An Unexpected Viking

  A Restored Viking

  A Modern Viking

  *****

  For Aspiring Authors:

  A Primer for Beginning Authors

  Becoming an Authorpreneur

  A Modern

  Viking

  by

  Kris Tualla

  A Modern Viking is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places and incidents are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously and are not to be construed as real. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, organizations, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

  Published in the United States of America.

  © 2015 by Kris Tualla

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any form or by any means without the prior written consent of the Publisher, except for brief quotations used in critical articles or reviews.

  ISBN-13: 978-1517770273

  ISBN-10: 1517770270

  This book is dedicated to

  everyone who loves the Hansens

  as much as I do,

  and who believes in

  heroes who don’t wear kilts.

  Chapter One

  Saturday

  January 9

  Sveyn Hansen inhabited his body for the first time in nine hundred and fifty years and it hurt like hell. His first breath set his lungs on fire. The fabric of his clothing sandpapered his skin. Blood gushed from the gash in his side.

  Shouting and chaos swirled around him and threatened to drown him.

  “Hey! Where’d this guy come from?”

  “I don’t know, but he’s been stabbed and he’s bleeding pretty badly.”

  “Is she stable?”

  She?

  Hollis.

  She did it.

  “She’s getting there. Call for another unit for her and take this guy in now.”

  The pressure on his gut felt like an anvil. A clear cup was strapped over his mouth and nose. Sveyn tried to push it away, afraid he would suffocate.

  “Easy, buddy.” The man’s voice was calm and near his head. “Just breathe.”

  Sveyn gasped. Whatever was in the cup was cool and soothing to his burning chest. He focused on breathing in, then breathing out. Willing his body to remember what to do.

  “What’s your name?”

  Sveyn forced air through vocal chords too-long dormant and managed to create a rough but audible sound.

  “Sveyn.” Breathe. “Hansen.”

  “Sveyn—do you know who stabbed you?”

  How could he answer that? “He’s…” Breathe. “Dead.”

  “Where?” The voice sounded startled.

  Sveyn closed his eyes. He couldn’t explain it so there was no point in wasting what energy he had.

  He could feel his heart beating. The rhythm was crazily erratic at first, and even though it still surged painfully against his ribs, the pace was settling down.

  “He’s shocky. Let’s get a move on.”

  Hands gripped him like vises and Sveyn knew he must be bruised by their excruciating strength. He was lifted and set down again. Then the platform he was laid on popped upward. He moaned with every touch, every jolt, and every movement that caused his shirt or pants to shift.

  This was not what I expected.

  Sveyn turned his head to look for Hollis. She was still on the ground where he last saw her. And though she was awake and talking to the men in dark blue uniforms, her eyes were fixed on him.

  *****

  He’s alive. Sveyn is alive.

  Hollis’s chest felt like it was hit by a hammer—which it had been. A medieval stone hammer, thrown by a Renaissance Faire trainee. A hammer into whose path she stumbled when she was crying hysterically and arguing with Sveyn.

  Arguing about Matt.

  “What’s your name, miss?” a paramedic asked as a grunting and groaning Sveyn was loaded into the ambulance.

  Thank you, God.

  She drew a breath to push her words past the oxygen mask but ended up coughing weakly, her chest in agony. She moved her hand and rested it over her heart.

  “You’re in pain because you were hit in the chest and your heart stopped. We used the defibrillator to start it again.” A kind smile hovered over her face. “Both of those things do hurt, I’m afraid.”

  She moaned her agreement and moved her hand to her head.

  “Does your head hurt?” The paramedic pulled a tiny flashlight from a pocket under the embroidered words Paul Saxon, EMT. “Look at the light for me.”

  Hollis focused on the penlight while the medic flashed it in both of her eyes. “You do have a concussion. Not surprising with the flat fall you took.”

  Tears started to leak from the edges of her eyes.

  “Don’t cry, miss. You’re going to be fine in a few days.” Paul smiled again. “Can you tell us your name?”

  She tried to inhale enough to answer, but couldn’t.

  “Hollis McKenna.”

  Hollis’s gaze moved past the paramedics to where her asshole of a once again ex-boyfriend was answering for her. “Her name is Hollis McKenna and she works at the Arizona History and Cultural Center.”

  “Are you with her?”

  Not in any way imaginable.

  “Yes.”

  Hollis groaned. More tears flowed.

  Paul turned his attention back to Hollis. “What about the man who was stabbed? Do you know him?”

  Hollis nodded weakly.

  “Do you know who stabbed him?”

  “No,” she croaked.

  Matt leaned over her, his expression stern. “You knew him? How?”

  Hollis refused to answer Matt or even look at him. She wanted to wipe the tears from her cheeks but didn’t feel like she had the strength. The faint whine of an approaching ambulance edged into her consciousness.

  She grabbed Paramedic Paul’s arm. “Am I going to the same hospital that man did?”

  “Yes,” he assured her. “We always transport to the closest facility.”

  Hollis tried to relax and concentrate on something other than the pain in her head and chest and the tears that wouldn’t stop coming.

  Sveyn.

  Obviously he had returned to his body in exactly the same condition as it was when he left it, blood-gushing wound and all. Except in the eleventh century a broadsword wound through the gut would be fatal.

  In the twenty-first century, however, he would be immediately taken into surgery and the damage repaired. The Viking was going to be in pain, but he was going to be alive.

  The ambulance siren grew closer.

  “Holli
s!”

  She glared at Matt. The man had no idea what sort of pain she was in, in spite of her snuffling sobs.

  “How did you know that man?” he demanded.

  Hollis would have laughed if it didn’t hurt so much. “You’re such an idiot.”

  Matt recoiled. “What?”

  “That was Sveyn, asshole.” She sniffed. “Now go away.”

  *****

  Sveyn shouted when the needle went into his hand.

  “Sorry. But we have to get you rehydrated from the loss of blood.” The man sitting beside him in the van hung up a clear bag of liquid with a tube leading to the needle, and then started squeezing a bulb as a band tightened around Sveyn’s other arm.

  Sveyn grunted against the painful pressure. At least he was somewhat familiar with these procedures from his manifestation to the soldier during the war with Germany. But they didn’t have so many lights and screens and beeping noises back then.

  “The police will want to talk to you about the stabbing,” the medic said calmly, though Sveyn thought his arm was being cut from his body by the tightening band.

  Just before he reached over to pull it off, the man released something and the pressure eased. “Ninety over fifty-five. We’re getting there.”

  Breathe, he reminded himself. In. And out.

  The medic looked at him. “We’ve radioed ahead. You’ll go straight into surgery. They’ll stop the bleeding and get you put back together. Once you’re out of that, the cops’ll make their visit.”

  What about Hollis?

  “The woman…” he managed.

  “What’s that?” The man leaned closed.

  “The woman…”

  He shook his head. “Are you asking about the woman whose heart stopped?”

  “Yes,” Sveyn grunted.

  “Were you together?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you see what happened to her?”

  “Yes.”

  He nodded. “She’ll be brought to Gateway Medical Center as well. You were just a higher priority.”

  Good.

  Sveyn tried to relax although every single thing in his new existence hurt him. One step at a time.

  First I must survive the surgery.

  *****

  Once she was transported to the hospital’s emergency room, Hollis’s information was taken down and she was shuttled off to x-ray. Her sternum was cracked by the hammer’s impact, but the fact that she fell backwards to the ground absorbed a good deal of the force.

  Of course, that was also how she sustained the concussion.

  Matt had followed the ambulance and brought Hollis her purse, much to the admitting department’s relief. Copies of her healthcare card were made and Hollis signed the necessary releases.

  She told Matt to call Stevie and then go home. At least, she thought she did. By the time she was assigned to a room hours later, her memory was getting fuzzy.

  “Did they bring that man who was stabbed to this hospital?” she asked her nurse.

  Nurse Marla, as she was identified on the whiteboard mounted on Hollis’s hospital room’s wall, stopped writing notes there and turned to look at Hollis. “What’s his name?”

  “Sveyn Hansen.”

  “I’ll check.” Marla went back to writing the time on the board. “I’ll bring you an ice pack for your chest. And we’ll be in every hour to make sure you can be awakened. Concussions are sneaky bastards.”

  The nurse walked back to Hollis’s bedside to check the leads on her heart monitor. “I’m going to turn the sound down, but don’t worry—if your heartrate changes significantly the alarm will go off at the nurses’ station.”

  “Thanks, Marla.”

  Hollis felt like her body was made of lead. At least the anti-inflammatory pain meds had dulled her earlier agony.

  Stevie poked her head into the room. “Can I come in?”

  Marla stepped forward. “Ten minutes. No more.”

  Stevie saluted the nurse. “Yes, ma’am.”

  “I’ll check on that other patient for you,” Marla promised and slipped out of the room.

  Stevie walked to Hollis’s bedside. “Oh my God, Hollis. What happened?”

  Hollis scowled. “I got hit in the chest with a hammer.”

  Stevie rolled her eyes. “I know that. But Matt said you were acting completely crazy—shouting at nothing and running around literally like a headless chicken.”

  Hollis tried to imagine what her argument with Sveyn must have looked like; that description was frighteningly accurate.

  “You ran right into the guy’s training area.” Stevie shook her head. “What were you doing?”

  Hollis felt the damned tears start again. “Benton offered me a permanent position at the museum, so I asked Matt if he would move to Phoenix, or should I move back to Milwaukee, and he said he just wanted things back to how they were.”

  She paused to draw a slow and painful breath before she continued. “So I told him to get lost, and then Sveyn was there, and he was right about Matt, and I was crying so hard, and he wouldn’t let me get past him…”

  Hollis tried not to cry too hard now because it hurt her chest in spite of the medication, but she was failing miserably.

  “Oh, sweetie.” Stevie hoisted herself onto the hospital bed next to Hollis and rubbed her shoulder. She glanced around the room. “Is Sveyn here now?”

  “No—that’s the thing.” Hollis hiccoughed. Ouch.

  “Oh, no!” Stevie looked horrified. “Is he gone gone? Did he manifest forward?”

  Hollis shook her head and immediately regretted it. She reached up and rubbed her aching forehead. “I almost died. I went to that place with the light…”

  The petite blonde’s cheeks paled under widened eyes. “You did?”

  Hollis wiped her tears, though it was a futile effort. “Sveyn was there. He said I had to come back and bring him with me.”

  “Hollis!” Stevie swiveled to her knees on the mattress and faced Hollis straight on. “Did you?”

  “Yes.” Hollis reached for a tissue and Stevie pulled the box onto the bed. “But he came back in the same condition as he left.”

  “Hold on!” Stevie sat back on her heels and lifted her hands so they framed her face. “Sveyn. Came. Back?”

  “Uh huh.” Hollis blew her nose.

  Ouch. That hurt, too.

  “Where? Where is he?”

  Nurse Marla walked into the room as if waiting for that cue and handed Hollis the ice pack. “I found your friend. Sveyn Hansen was brought in by paramedics and went straight into emergency surgery. He’s still in recovery.”

  “Recovery?” Hollis felt a rush of relief. “So he’s going to be okay?”

  Marla gave her a sad smile. “I can’t tell you any more than that, I’m afraid.”

  “Thank you, though.” Hollis wiped her eyes.

  Marla looked disapprovingly at Stevie, still kneeling on the bed. “Five more minutes.”

  Stevie nodded as she slid off the bed. “I’m watching the clock.”

  Marla made her exit and Stevie faced Hollis again. “Oh, my freaking goodness! Surgery?”

  “He was run through by a broadsword,” Hollis repeated Sveyn’s own explanation.

  “So that’s what you meant by the same condition.” Stevie wagged her head. “This whole thing’s absolutely crazy!”

  “Yeah.” There really wasn’t any other term for it.

  Stevie’s eyes jumped to Hollis’s. “Who knows?”

  “You.” Hollis shrugged. “And Sveyn, of course.”

  Her friend’s brow lowered. “How will you explain him?”

  Hollis shook her head—slowly this time. “I have no idea.”

  “He’s got no identity, right?”

  Oh, crap.

  “No driver’s license, no birth certificate,” Stevie continued. “No job—no health insurance.”

  Crapola crapsalot.

  Hollis stared at her friend and cursed the concussion t
hat was making her thoughts so muddy. “What do we do?”

  Stevie pointed at her. “If you weren’t so bashed up, you’d realize the perfect ruse.”

  Hollis wiped her nose with a soggy tissue. “Just tell me.”

  Stevie grinned. “We’ll say he’s a Gypsy.”

  Chapter Two

  The last thing Sveyn remembered was being in a bed with bars on the sides and being rolled into a bright room filled with men and women dressed from head to toe in light blue. They wore caps and their faces were covered with masks.

  Surgery?

  I know this word.

  He steeled himself for the pain, wondering if his body would reach its limit and die. Finally.

  Hollis.

  Please, God. Let me live.

  Then his body dissolved.

  Now his eyes were closed, but he was not asleep. Had he manifested forward? No, that wasn’t possible any longer. People were conversing. Machines were still softly beeping.

  A soft roar startled him and something squeezed his legs from ankle to hip. His eyes flew open with his grunt.

  “There you are.” A smiling woman wearing a pale green version of the light blue uniforms leaned over him. “I’m Nurse Sally. Are you awake?”

  Though he still smelled the cool, soothing gas, Sveyn realized the clear cup wasn’t over his mouth, so he attempted to use his voice. “Yes.”

  Rough and dry, but the word was understandable.

  “Excellent. Your surgery went very well and you are in recovery.” Sally looked at his monitors, then back at him. “The doctor will come in and explain the surgery in a little while and then we’ll get you to your room.”

  The surgery was finished? He felt nothing. He remembered nothing. Was this a miracle?

  Sveyn reached for his legs and met some sort of cushioned brace.

  “Those are for compression, to keep the blood flowing in your legs so you don’t develop a clot. That can happen after surgery.” The nurse flashed an empathetic smile. “It’s only the first twenty-four hours, then we’ll take them off.”