Subversion, p.1
Subversion, page 1
SUBVERSION
NEON
BOOK 1
ALLYSON LINDT
ACELETTE PRESS
This book is a work of fiction.
While reference might be made to actual historical events or existing locations, the names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.
Copyright © 2021 by Allyson Lindt
Cover Art: Daqri Bernardo of Covers by Combs
All Rights Reserved
No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, recording or otherwise, without the prior written permission of the author.
Manufactured in the United States of America
Acelette Press
CONTENTS
1. Dahlia
2. Freyr
3. Fenrir
4. Dahlia
5. Fenrir
6. Freyr
7. Dahlia
8. Dahlia
9. Fenrir
10. Freyr
11. Dahlia
12. Fenrir
13. Dahlia
14. Freyr
15. Fenrir
16. Dahlia
17. Freyr
18. Dahlia
19. Dahlia
20. Fenrir
21. Dahlia
22. Freyr
23. Fenrir
24. Dahlia
25. Freyr
26. Dahlia
27. Freyr
28. Dahlia
Epilogue
For my Dahlia
ONE
DAHLIA
There weren’t a lot of places where a geeky goth girl could say this feels like home. Especially one who was raised as an assassin by the gods.
But for me, NEON was one of those spots. After a lifetime of wondering where I belonged, every time I stepped through the deceptively plain doors of the burlesque club, I felt like everything was right in my world.
The tables and bar were wood stained so dark it was black in the dim lighting, neon accentuated the main stage, the curtain, and the bottles on the far wall, and the furnishings were straight out of the 1920’s.
The first time I found this place, a few years ago, I swore it was decorated just for me. The perfect eclectic combination of goth meets old-school meets modern tech.
Fenrir—Fen—stood near the entrance as the most imposing bouncer in the whole of history. It wasn’t just his physical size, though he was muscled and super sexy in a growly kind of way. It was that he radiated the aura of an ancient god who also happened to be a giant wolf when he wasn’t trying to blend in with people.
Seeing him alive was a relief, though. After a series of too-vivid nightmares where I watched him die through a disturbingly first person view, I was grateful to be able to reach out and touch him.
“Hey, handsome,” I greeted him with a smile that didn’t feel as natural as I wanted. Not his fault—I was just wound tight tonight.
He tugged one of the braids I wore on each side of my head. “Hey, Duckie. You hunting?”
More like hiding. “Not tonight.” Not a target. And not a hook-up because I was too high strung to even think about trying to get laid. Habit dictated I turn from him to scan the room a second time and a third, to see what kind of threats waited.
The wolf at my back was the least of my concerns. He was safe. One of the few beings in the world I trusted with my life.
He grabbed my braid again, yanking playfully. “In that case, looking to be hunted? You wore handles and everything.”
A whisper of desire flitted through me, muffling my paranoia. Part of my training was seduction, so there was no romantic attachment in the physical relationship I had with Fen and the other bar’s owner, Frey. I still knew enough to enjoy the hook-ups when they happened, though.
It was tempting to tilt forward. Let him claim my mouth. Fall into the distraction for the night with a god or two.
The basic reminder erased my creeping lust. Immortals were the problem and the reason I was here. I know a lot more of them than most anyone ever would, including the gods, but I wasn’t one of them. I was still a fragile little human.
I shook my head. “I’m just here for the show tonight.”
“You know where to find me if you change your mind.” He nodded toward a table near the stage.
I doubted I would, but the open-ended offer was nice, and if the show got me worked up, he wouldn’t mind distracting me from my problems with a little naked Twister. “Thanks.” I headed toward a darker corner near the wall instead of the middle of the room. I wanted to see, not to be seen.
I’d been raised on a campus run by a group of gods who called themselves The Order of Mistletoe. They claimed their existence was to stop a series of ancient prophecies from bringing on Ragnarök. Which sounded noble until one realized they were quite a bit more concerned about the fact that those prophecies had them dying and replaced with other gods, than they were about the end-of-the-world portion of things.
So they’d built an army. Taking mortals with no family from foster homes and out of the system, when we were old enough to understand things like death, but still young enough to be indoctrinated after being lured in by promises of becoming heroes.
Before most of us hit puberty we’d learned the gods were not only real, but that they punished and rewarded immediately, based on our faith and actions.
“Oh my God, Dahlia.” A frantic voice drew my gaze from the stage, and a woman sat next to me. Her straight black hair was pulled into long pigtails, framing a pixie-like face. “I can’t believe you’re here. I’m so glad you are, though. I need your help.”
I liked Minato, and at the same time felt a twinge of guilt every time I saw her. She was the reason my partner, Magnus, and I originally came to this club. The elite assassins who came out of TOM were Nobles. Magnus and I weren’t their finest—neither of us had top ranks in things like shooting and hand-to-hand combat—but no one was better than us at digital espionage, so we did make the Noble list. Minato was a potential god, and we’d been sent to ferret her out and kill her. Obviously we’d failed, and it was a choice on our part.
“What’s up?” I’d do a lot of things for Minato that I wouldn’t for most people. Not only because of the regret, but that mission helped me walk away from my old life.
“I’m the main show tonight, but my partner called in. I need you to dance with me.”
I liked dancing burlesque almost as much as I liked watching it. I was drawn to most visuals that involved sensuality and people embracing their art—men, women, anywhere along the spectrum. In fact, most Nobles were bisexual. A part of our early evaluations, because we had to be willing to seduce—fuck—anyone at any time. Literally or metaphorically.
I’d never been good at the latter, but this time I had to let her down. “I don’t know your dance.”
“But you do because I learned it from watching you. It’s the mirror.”
The mirror was a routine Magnus and I did when we were trying to infiltrate the club.
We hadn’t realized at the time that we never would’ve even found NEON if Frey didn’t want us to. I still didn’t know how he’d realized before me, before he met me, that I didn’t want to be a part of TOM anymore. Whenever I asked him his answer was I just knew.
“I’ll do it if we can wear something to hide my face.” I didn’t mean to agree, but dancing sounded fun, I got to help Minato, and the whole thing should take my mind off my own woes. “And if you have time to give me a run-down of any changes you’ve made.”
“Yay.” Her grin and enthusiasm were contagious. She grabbed my hand and tugged me toward the dressing room in back.
We found an empty space wide enough for her to give me a quick rundown of the routine, which she hadn’t made any modifications to.
“It’s been a couple of years since you did this. I’m surprised you remember it so well,” Minato said.
I shrugged. “Just lucky, I guess.” Well, it was a little more than luck. At TOM, most Nobles were exceptional fighters of some sort. Marksmen, hand-to-hand combat, etcetera.
I was okay at those things. My skills were in my brain. Digital espionage to me was like most people getting on Instagram, and I had an accuracy level to my memory that scared most people.
“The costumes are a lot the same too. Really, I pretty much stole your show.” She showed me to a rack with clothes hanging from it, and I recognized ours immediately.
Matching black skirts that ruffled out in a flare from the hips to mid-calf, corsets trimmed with violet, long gloves, and top hats. It was steam punk meets goth. “I’m glad someone’s getting some use out of it.”
The clothing looked intricate. The kind of thing that should take an hour, and multiple people, to put on. It was all tear away snaps and Velcro, and went on quickly.
I wanted to chat with Minato. Ask her how she’d been. What she was up to. Share the same. It took a lot of restraint for me to bite my tongue and keep the conversation minimal. I tended to ramble when I was nervous or stressed. I’d learned to use that to my advantage, following tears that were meant to throw whoever I was talking to off balance.
But with people I liked and trusted, I tended to be honest. There was little concern Minato might sell me out, but I never knew who else was listening, even in a place like this.
&nb sp; The finishing touch on my outfit was a black lace mask fitted over the upper half of my face, and Minato wore the same.
Then it was our turn to perform. As the curtains rose, applause greeted us. The sound grew louder when we both were in view, the frame of a mirror between us.
The show started simply enough. Both strolling as if we were walking in front of the mirror, stopping, using each other as a reflection and doing a double take. Mirroring each other’s movements.
I loved classic movies, especially the black and white slapstick, and I’d gotten the idea watching Harpo Marx and Lucille Ball.
Unlike in the movies though, the movement was more sensual and dance-like, and our clothes came off as the routine went on.
The whistles and claps were intoxicating as we showed more and more skin, and the laughs when she would turn away and I would make a face, or we’d interact instead of mimicking, added to the rush in my veins.
I’d forgotten what a turn-on this was. So many eyes on us. Dancing but rarely making contact. Knowing most everyone in the audience was entertained and aroused at the same time. Desire and heat flooded me, growing more potent the longer the show went on. I’d have to take Fen up on his offer after all.
A tiny nagging at the back of my mind said this didn’t solve my problem, but sitting on the benches hadn’t either, and this would distract me for a couple of hours from the fact that there was a shoot-on-sight order attached to my name.
TWO
FREYR
Wonderful thing about being a twin, I shared a bond with my sister that most people couldn’t imagine. On the other hand, it also meant I knew when either of us was full of shit—and right now we were both lying to ourselves. Like so many times in the past when we’d had this discussion.
“I spoke with Nemain yesterday.” Freya—Aya—paced the length of my office, managing to avoid the mahogany coffee table in the middle and the leather couches that lined the walls without ever missing a step. “She’s hearing whispers.”
Everyone was hearing whispers. “And she wants your help.”
Her pale hair was the same color as mine, but where I kept mine short these days, hers hung in dreadlocks around her shoulders. Her loose dress hinted at the strong body beneath. The neon accents on the walls reflected off her pale blue eyes and gave her an eerie appearance. “She wants our help.”
I was unimpressed. Everyone wanted our help. Centuries ago, Aya and several other goddesses of death and war had sealed away their most potent threat—a goddess of chaos who would have destroyed the world if she’d been allowed to roam free.
The act had not only bound Malsumis, but connected her captors to each other. None of them were allowed to act against each other, on penalty of the seal being broken. When one of their own, Hel, was killed, the pact was broken. Now a lot of them were being hunted. Hunting each other.
“I didn’t see her answering your call when you asked for it,” I said. In fact, when this new threat first emerged, everyone else had tucked tail and hidden.
Not that it did them any good. They’d been captured anyway, and nearly offered as sacrifice. It had been our help—our allies—who rescued the entire group, and Aya nearly lost her life in the process.
She stared at me, searching my face, and I practically heard her thoughts daring me to stay on this path of resistance. “We’re past the point where we can say it’s not my problem. We’ve been past that point for decades,” she said.
She was pushing this because she felt guilty. The pact had kept her from helping her followers, but they came for her anyway when she needed it. They saved her life.
“I’m not saying that.” I thought for a moment. “Correction, I am, but only about them. What I’m doing here is protecting people.” I was a god of fertility. Of peace. I wasn’t made to fight, but I could offer sanctuary to those who needed it. The hunted, the infirm, and the refugees of this war of the gods.
Freya shook her head, her disappointment tangible. “I don’t think we’re going to have a choice. Soon we’re all going to have to fight.”
“Spoken like a goddess of war.”
She rolled her eyes. “I’ll tell Nemain you’ll think about it.”
“Think about what? What am I supposed to do?” My question landed in the middle of my empty office because Freya had vanished before I finished speaking.
Damn it.
I sank back in the leather and wood office chair that was more than a century old, and tried to find some semblance of mental balance. NEON helped. The desire and appreciation for sensuality that spilled in soothed the cracks in my mind.
None of it erased the core issue, though. Freya was right—we were past the point where the gods could hide in their silos, but that didn’t mean I would fight.
A distinct familiar thread ran through the ambient worship from the club. Fresh. Intelligent. Fun.
Dahlia.
Amazing how a not-quite-three-decade-old mortal could bring a smile to my face. Better still, she was doing something that caused more lust to spill from the club and from her.
I tucked my longer term issue aside, left my office behind, and headed toward the back of the main stage.
Dahlia was dancing with Minato, glowing with the need that flowed from and to her. Fuck that was alluring.
The show ended, the girls took a bow, and the curtains closed them off from the thunderous applause.
Minato and Dahlia grabbed their clothes and moved out of the way to make room for the next act. When Minato saw me, she gave me a shy hello, and scurried past.
I stepped in Dahlia’s path, and backed her out of the main flow of backstage traffic. She wore a mask, which did nothing to hide her from me. I trailed a finger lightly under the black lace. “I haven’t seen you in here before. Are you new?” Apparently I was in the mood to play.
She caught her bottom lip between her teeth. “It’s my first night.”
“And I thought I knew all the girls.” I skated a hand up her side, barely making contact. She was stripped down to pasties, ruffled panties, and fishnet stockings with garters. The perfect blend of blatant and teasing.
And her shy smile with understanding underneath was the same. “You seem like someone I’d like to get to know.”
“I am.” I cupped her neck so lightly I felt her heat more than her skin.
Her eyelids fluttered and a soft sigh escaped gently parted lips. “You have to do me a favor, though.”
“Anything.”
One corner of her mouth twitched up, and amusement sparked across her face. “Don’t tell the owner about me. I hear he’s a real bear.”
I raised an eyebrow. “Wolf, actually.”
“Not that owner.” She smirked.
I growled. My weak bear impersonation would infuriate most of the berserkers I knew, but her giggle was worth it. I lowered my head to sink my teeth into her bare shoulder. She moaned and her body sagged into mine.
My desire cranked toward maximum, sparking over my skin.
“Oh no, Mr. Deville, not the casting couch again.” Her voice was breathy.
This woman, I swore… “Not that it matters, but do you even know what you’re saying or are you just stringing words together?”
“Frequently both. I thought you liked that about me.” Dahlia straightened.
“I adore that about you. What other kinds of things can I make you say?”
“It’s almost always a mystery until it actually happens.”
So true. And I was up for the challenge. “Let’s take this someplace where we can be loud.” I grasped her fingers loosely and led her toward the apartment I kept above the club.
As we walked, the bright aura of seduction that surrounded her faded, leaving enough room for her stress to peek through. That wouldn’t do.
