Viking Unbound Read Online Free Page A

damn fast and lock it behind you.”
    “Okay.”
    She felt behind her for the passcode panel and trying not to take one eye off the ice block, tapped in her security code. The door unlocked and she whisked herself out of it and slammed it behind her. Her fingers shook as she recoded the door.
    Brown studied her. “You all right, Tecky?”
    “Not really. If this block of ice is melting, we’re going to have a defrosting body on our hands, and FREN is going to freak out big time.”
    “Can you adjust the controls from here?” Slavin asked.
    “Yes, I’ve tried it both ways, but nothing seems to be working.”
    “You’ve contacted FREN?”
    “They contacted me and ordered me to input new codes. That’s when everything started to go wrong. They haven’t gotten back to me yet.”
    Slavin sighed. “Then I don’t know what else we can do. I’ll check in with the captain and see if there are any protocols I can adapt from the ship’s main temperature controls to override or support what’s in here. But this stuff was all introduced by FREN and made to their specific guidelines.”
    “Then let’s hope they get back to me.” Frey muttered.
    He could sense her now, her thoughts jumbled and chaotic, and her fear palpable. That drew him to her and made him want to lick his lips in anticipation. Whatever she was, she was connected to him through his magic, and she would obey him. His eyelids twitched and he fought against the desire to force them open. Being encased in ice had taught him about patience and he would wait…there was no stopping his eventual emergence now; he knew it in his very being.
    Frey couldn’t sleep. She’d been dreaming about the Viking again, his black hair billowing in the breeze and his hand extended toward her. She’d gone to him and when they’d touched lips she’d moaned and unfortunately woken herself up. Her body throbbed a protest. It was the strangest sensation. She felt like she already knew the taste and texture of him intimately. She also had a sense that he needed her and was calling to her…
    The captain had ordered security to guard the ice cell while she wasn’t awake and to alert her to any significant changes, but her sense of need and dread refused to disperse. She didn’t know why her nerves were jangling and her mind open to the slightest sound.
    He needed her.
    She sat up and pushed off the covers. Something was wrong and she was the only one who could fix it. FREN hadn’t responded to her or to the captain so she was on her own.
    If the Viking defrosted…
    She ignored her shoes and went out into the narrow hallway that connected the crew quarters with the mess hall and administrative wing beyond. Above her were the more spacious cabins of the captain and those for official travelers. Below her, engines, cargo holds and the storage units. The subdued roar of the machines made the metal shudder and hum and the floor gently vibrate under her feet.
    Ignoring the lure of the mess hall and the elevator, she climbed the spiral staircase up to her lab, her tension mounting along with her killer headache. She’d neglected to close the window shields. Her lab gleamed with red and yellow light reflecting from the exterior planets and their circling suns and stars.
    A waft of freezing air made her stop and turn slowly toward the storage cell. She blinked hard at shards of broken glass and the slumped figure half-in and half-out of the first security door.
    Grabbing both her weapon and her FREN recorder, she dropped down to her knees and crawled slowly toward the fallen man. It was Prism one of the security guards. She felt for his pulse. His skin was frozen and she could see no other signs of life. Looking up at the security door she bit her lip. The glass looked like it had exploded from the inside…
    Why the heeze weren’t the alarms blaring? Why hadn’t the rest of the security team appeared the instant one of their men went down? It was so damned quiet. Hardly daring