Elemental Reverse Harem Quartet (part 1: Earth)

A Norse warrior captured me at Dalston

Malka Selby

Much later, in the late afternoon, I left my hotel room. It was so much later than I intended for my trip to Stoke Newington, but I didn't want to put it off for another day.

The distance from King's Cross was only about three miles, as the crow flies, but there was some awful rush hour traffic, which meant I could have walked there in less time than traveling by London Transport.

It was dark by the time I got off the bus at Dalston, and I'd still only covered half the distance. I had to walk a couple of hundred yards to the next bus stop. I considered completing my journey by foot from this point, and I was undecided. The fresh air and exercise would be welcome and, therefore, tempting. It would give me more time to mentally prepare as well as enjoy all the Halloween decorations in the windows on the route.

Who was I kidding?

I had no idea how to prepare myself.

I hadn't been back to the house since my mother was arrested. At school holiday times, I'd been one of the few kids who stayed at school, along with the children from overseas, or I had been shipped off to a residential summer camp, or I'd stayed with friends, AKA Betty and Louise.

I didn't even know why I was going to my former home. Uncle Byrne lived there now, but it wasn't as if he was expecting me. He'd shown no interest in me all the years I'd been away. He'd never visited me at school nor invited me to stay with him. He was just my legal guardian: my reluctant, uninterested, distant guardian, that was all.

I stood to gain my independence and access to a hefty trust fund on my twenty-first birthday in just a few days' time, so pitching up unannounced just before then seemed like the right thing to do. I had no idea what I was going to say or what his reaction would be.

Technically, I didn't need to see him at all. Technically, the lawyer told me that I owned the house and could evict my uncle if I wanted to. I didn't. I had no reason to have anything to do with the damned house. I wouldn't need the money, and I intended to place my roots somewhere else.

I had only gone a few hundred yards along Kingsland High Street when my feet left the floor, and I flew backward. I traveled a mere few inches before a plate-glass window halted my momentum.

My brain hardly registered the angry shouting only a few feet away as I slammed against the nearest vertical surface and was held helplessly pinned against the glass by a muscular mountain of maleness.

It was a wonder I hadn't noticed him on the street minutes before he grabbed me. With his wild Viking looks, long golden locks, and great height, he would have stood out from the crowd on the busy London shopping street.

His solid, broad body pressed against me. His crazy-green eyes, flecked with yellow and gold, gazed into mine. I didn't see him before, but now this man had my full attention.

Making a mental note of his striking features in case I should need to give a description or pick him out of a police lineup, I concluded my attacker reminded me of a long-haired and youthful Norse God Thor, particularly a version played by actor Chris Hemsworth. Although this stranger's hair was longer and more golden, strawberry-blond AKA ginger. So the whole Chris Hemsworth connection was more wishful thinking.

If any man had to grab me in the street and press himself against me, I just wanted it to be Chris Hemsworth. Or one of his brothers. That's all I'm saying.

For the briefest fraction of a second, a fantasy about the sexual chemistry between myself and a Thor-look-alike flitted about my brain. It was shooed away by the fact that this man had just assaulted me, and it wasn't over. My feet weren't on the floor. He held me aloft and invaded my personal space.