Page 33 of Kiss of Wrath

Actually he did. “Yes, I am carrying.”

“You got a license to carry?” This Darla person was like a bulldog tugging at a rope, never letting up.

At first he was going to tell her it was none of her business, but then he recalled some document Mike had given him a long time ago . . . well, long by human standards. Three years ago. Taking a wallet out of his back pocket, being careful not to open his shirt too wide and expose his weapons, he took out a folded piece of paper and handed it to her.

Meanwhile, Miranda just glared at him, arms folded across her chest. Did she think she could cower him with a dark look? He was the master of dark looks. “Wait. Let me see that,” Miranda said, reaching across the desk for his wallet.

At first, he was going to resist, but then recalled he had nothing incriminating on him. Except for a folding sword, two knives, including a K-Bar used by the SEALs, and a Sig Sauer, all of which had been specially treated to kill Lucies, as well as evil humans when the need arose.

“Mordr Sigurdsson, 777 Colyer Lane, Transylvania, Pennsylvania,” Miranda read aloud from his driver’s license. “Are you joking? Transylvania?’ ”

He shrugged. He got that reaction all the time.

“I thought Transylvania was in Romania,” Miranda remarked.

“This is a different Transylvania.” Totally, incredibly different in a most ridiculous way, truth to tell.

“Mordr,” Darla said, leaning over to scan the license in Miranda’s hand. “What nationality is that?”

What did a twelve-hundred-year-old angel vampire answer to that? “I am Norse by birth.”

“A Viking? Like the kids said?” Miranda laughed.

He saw nothing funny about being a Viking and so he replied with ice in his voice, “Precisely.”

Darla pulled the laptop computer on the desk so that it was turned in front of her and poised her fingers over the keyboard. “You should know, I’m the director of security for a small casino off the Strip. I have access to all kinds of information.”

Was that supposed to intimidate him? “I am in security, too.”

“Really?” both women said.

He nodded hesitantly, already regretting having brought up that sore subject.

He was right to be hesitant because the next question from Miranda was, “Where did you work security most recently?”

He felt his face heat as he revealed, “Director of security for a cruise ship.”

The jaws of both women dropped.

But Darla narrowed her eyes at him. “What’s your social?”

“Social? Even though I worked a cruise ship, I am not a very social person.” More like anti-social, according to his brothers.

“You know very well what I mean. Your social security number,” Darla snarled. “Never mind.” She took a small card from his wallet and began typing on the keys of the laptop.

While she was doing whatever she was doing with the laptop—Mordr didn’t understand the things himself, though his brother Harek was an expert in that field—he gave his attention to Miranda. “What is this danger you are facing here?”

She appeared startled by his question. “How do you know there is danger?”

“I would not have been sent here to protect you if there were no danger.”

She tilted her head to the side, causing some curls to escape from the red pile atop her head. He had to admit it wasn’t a bad shade of red, not that orange-ish red that he hated. Still, it was red. “Who sent you?”

How did he answer that question? Not Michael the Archangel, for a certainty. She was not ready to hear about angels and vampires, or demons, for that matter. “A friend.”

“Of yours?”

Hardly. “Yours.”