At the Viking's Command (Warriors Unleashed Book 2) (11 page)

Like next century.

Or…she could let him make it up to her.

His sleeve rode up, exposing her bite mark. She ran a finger over it and he hissed.

“Baby,” she said happily. Her big tough Viking had a soft side.

“Did you turn me into a werewolf?” He rubbed the small bite mark. Right. He’d probably cut the arm off if he believed that.

“Male werewolves are bred, not bitten,” she said smugly. “You can’t become one of us.”

When the Pack males bit, it simply fucking hurt if you were another male. As for the females, well, yeah. She knew exactly how that turned out and there had been plenty of hurt, just of a different kind. She liked seeing her mark on him, although she had no intention of telling
him
that. While she might not have made him into a werewolf, she’d done him one better. By biting him, she’d marked him as her mate.

She’d
taken
him.

Go her.

~~~

The next time he signed up for a rescue mission or a merc job, he needed to insist on decent work conditions.
Hel,
medieval Greenland hadn’t been all that different from the modern day scenery. Vikar had had the keep modernized because, as he’d pointed out, you keep the good things and upgrade the bad. Indoor plumbing was just one perk of modern living. The werewolf packs, on the other hand, apparently lived like shit. Tyra had given them the coordinates to a makeshift camp of tents and huts where her Pack lived.

He really didn’t like to think of her living like that. Since the sun had been setting, however, there hadn’t been any time to debate living conditions with her. She’d shucked her clothes behind a convenient rock and shifted. Her wolf had yipped at him and then bolted off for a run. His brothers pretended they were perfectly okay with a four-legged companion in their camp. He had no idea whether or not they were really onboard with Tyra’s presence, but he appreciated the surface support.

He’d debated himself how he felt about Tyra transforming into a wolf during the night hours, but watching her run all he could think was that she was fucking beautiful in either form. She looked wild and free, which was exactly right. Part of him actually regretted he couldn’t go with her, but no way she wanted a bear lumbering around, spoiling her hunt or her run. He was heavy weapons, but a fun companion? Yeah. He wasn’t that.

So he’d made camp and set up their tent, pretending everything was going according to plan and that he didn’t wish he was out there with her. After he stood watch for two hours, keeping an eye on the empty shadows around their camp, he’d retreated to their tent.

Which was empty.

She hadn’t come back.
Yet.
Because she’d come back, if only because she’d hired him to do a job. She needed his muscle to take down her Pack Alpha before the numbnut tried singlehandedly to kick off the Ragnarök festivities. In truth, he had no idea whether or not the end of the world required a werewolf to get started, but enough paranormals believed the prophecy to convince Calder that plenty of folks were going to be bringing out the big guns against any and all werewolves.

Eventually, he convinced his head to shut down and fell asleep.

~~~

Dream. It was the fucking dream and it was always the same.

Like every night for the last twelve months, he didn’t wake up. Nope. His sub-conscious insisted on making the full trip down memory lane.

The guards had come for him late at night, long after Tyra had shifted. She’d been crouched in the far corner of her cell when they drugged and dragged him out of the cell. Not that he’d bothered putting up too much of a fight anymore. Resisting simply meant he went into the pit sporting fresh injuries. Eventually, the drugs they shot him full of would do the trick anyhow, the rage and adrenaline pumping through his veins, triggering his shift no matter how much he fought against it. So now he let them collar him with the metal-studded leather collar and lead him to the holding cells. If tonight’s script worked like the previous nights, the gate would go up and his only way out would be through the pits.

Kill or be killed.

At least the job description was simple and he knew precisely what was expected of him. The guards wanted a mindless killing machine. The audience wanted blood sport. Nice to know they were all on the same page.

The guard on his left grinned as he shoved Calder forward. “We picked you a pretty one.”

Just a dream. Move on, Calder. Fast forward and skip to the end.

But he couldn’t.

The guard on the right actually elbowed him, apparently certain that the drugs had done their work. Since the guy was a frost giant and topped out at ten-feet tall, Calder saved his energy for the pit. “Nice tits. Great ass. Fights like a feral dog. You’ll have fun tonight.”

“Make her last.” The suggestion was obscene. Did the giants really believe he’d rut with his female opponent right there in the pit for all to see? More than a few of the giants certainly got off on fucking their opponents as they died. Some acts were worse than wrong, however, and there were places he liked to believe he’d never go, no matter how strong the provocation or the drugs.

So he said nothing—
nothing
—and let them shove him into a holding cell. Maybe an hour later, the lights flickered outside. The crowd roared, chanting as the evening’s first match came to its predictably bloody close. Calder hoped to
hel
that the dead fighter wasn’t one of his brothers but, truth was, he was tired of fighting. It would be so easy to slip up, to drop his guard and let the evening’s opponent finish him. He’d thought about it every evening—and, every evening so far, he’d come to the same conclusion. He’d see this to the end. He’d go down fighting—or, better yet, he’d take down the predators responsible for the pit.

The crowd roared again as metal grated and the gate rose on the holding cell on the opposite side of the pit. The only upside to tonight’s fight that he could see was that it was him and not Tyra fighting for life. Right on cue, the feral howl of an animal rose outside his cell in the ring. Being newly turned, Tyra wouldn’t stand a chance of holding her own against a fully trained adult werewolf.

He, on the other hand, wouldn’t have any problem putting down tonight’s opponent.

When the gate to his cell finally rose, he strolled out nonchalantly. No weapons, but he didn’t need them, truth be told, although sometimes the pit guards liked the window dressing. Or the variety. Fuck. For all he knew, they got their rocks off on watching him hack his opponent to death. Anything was possible here where no one’s shit was straight.

The drugs pumping through his veins eroded his self-control and it was a relief to give into the urge to shift and go berserk and loose the reins on his humanity. Calder the man still hung out inside his head, but the guy took a back seat to the bearish berserker and a more primitive set of urges.
Kill.

Spotlights illuminated the pit in a blaze of hundred-watts. Not that there was anything new to see—the arena looked the same as always. Bloody sawdust covered the floor and high rock walls surrounded the fighting space. There were no toeholds, no easy way out. He’d tried scaling the wall his second night and been shot down. Literally. It had taken three days for the bullets to work their way out of his skin. The pain had been a bitch and he’d been no closer to freedom. The eyes of tonight’s spectators bored into him. He estimated tonight’s crowd at several hundred. Each would have paid a small fortune for the rights to watch this year’s matches in the ultimate tournament of the paranormal world.

A growl from the shadows gathered along the sides of the pit drew his attention back to business.

Show time.

A surprisingly small wolf launched itself toward him. He was already defending, meeting the wolf with a hard, forward blow. Ribs cracked audibly as the wolf flew backward. The small, white wolf with familiar hazel eyes.
Tyra’s
eyes.

We got you a pretty one
.

He should have seen it coming. They’d sent him into the pit against Tyra. Calder the Viking had a frantic
oh, shit
moment, but the Berserker saw only the enemy coming for his throat and reacted.
Wake up.
Once had been enough. He didn’t need to a nightly re-do in his head. In the dream, though, the wolf growled, dragging herself to her feet. She was newly turned. She’d fight like a demon, would keep coming and coming at him.

Until he killed her.

He stalled for time, because maybe, even in his berserker form, he wasn’t completely lost to all decency. When he killed her, she’d shift back to her human form. He didn’t want to see her lying there, broken and bloody.

Wrong. Evil.

Danger.

Mine.

She came at him again, driven by instincts she didn’t understand or ask for. In slow motion, he watched his paw-hand swipe at her, knocking her back down again. He’d pulled his punch. She slammed into the sawdust, but bounced back up. The crowd roared in disappointment.

“Tyra.” Her name came out guttural, more raw sound than actual word because of his shift. There would be no reasoning with her now, but he thought she was in there. He saw the flicker of
something
in her eyes. She was fighting, trying to make sense of what was happening to her. Fighting the instincts that told her to kill
him
. Part of him wanted to let her do it.

He danced around her, playing with her because he was too much of a coward to kill her. The crowd loved it. Fucking bunch of sadists, they thought he was playing with her.

Just when he thought it couldn’t get any worse, when he was weighing a mad dash for the gates with her, the sun came up.
Fuck.
Leave it to the guards to come up with a new twist. Like someone had flipped a light switch, Tyra shifted, bones cracking and reforming as her fur retreated. He roared with outrage, but she lay there naked and panting on the bloody sawdust. The whole damn arena stared at her and he wanted to scoop her up, to stand between her and the world, but he was a bear and a berserker. Hardly a man worthy of being a fucking hero.

She rolled over, pushing up onto her hands and knees. He couldn’t stop himself from staring at the smooth expanse of skin that was her back. Faint white marks from a bikini top crisscrossed her shoulders and ribs. And lower, Odin help him, the sweet pale curve of her ass drew his gaze. She hadn’t been a prisoner—or a werewolf—long enough for the tan lines to fade from her skin.

“Got to stop meeting like this,” she muttered to the sawdust and looked up. And up. He knew the minute she recognized him. He was hard to miss, seeing as how he topped out at ten feet, but it was more than that. He’d never shifted. Never gone berserk in his cell. And yet she
knew
him.

“Wow. Talk about a cluster fuck.” She got to her feet and he did nothing. He couldn’t go to her. She wouldn’t want him to and it would tip the guards off as to his vulnerability. Her assessment was dead on, however. They were both really and truly fucked.

“Tyra.” He forced her name out and she sighed, a small huff of air that only he could hear.

“You bet,” she said. She didn’t beg or plead. Just stood there waiting for him to make a decision that was shockingly easy. Slowly, he forced the rage down. He let go of the desire to fight and shifted back into his human form, dropping onto the sand at her feet.

He couldn’t kill her.

He
wouldn’t.

And yet he’d still failed to protect her.

~~~

Calder woke up, teeth bared, heart pumping.
Fuck.
He hated the dreams. Loathing, however, hadn’t stopped them from screwing with his head on an all too regular basis and tonight had been no exception. He looked down. Tyra lay curled up against him like a small heat-seeking missile, one hand twisted in the front of his shirt. It must have been barely dawn because she was human. She didn’t have any problems sleeping but, then again,
she
hadn’t been the one who’d thought about killing him. The wolf’s instincts didn’t count. He stared up at the tent, willing the memories away, but sleep wasn’t happening for him.

Carefully, he untangled her fingers from his shirt and slipped out of their sleeping bag. When she’d argued for separate tents, he’d overruled her. His job. His rules. When they reached her Pack, he’d take input from her. She’d gotten all pissy at that declaration and he might have kissed her, just because he loved doing that and she was hot as hell when she was mad at him.

The smile slipped away. She’d never mentioned that last night in the pit. He didn’t think she was really part of the
forgive and forget
crowd, but he had no idea why she hadn’t brought it up. Rubbed his face in his weakness or used it for leverage.
Hel.
If he’d been her, he’d have gone for the balls and not in a good way. Of course, she wasn’t him. Not only did she lack the equipment and the gene pool, but she was way better. A better person. A better friend. Better all round.

Introspection sucked. He grabbed his parka and shoved his feet into his boots, lacing like a madman. When he stepped outside the tent, it was definitely barely dawn. Northern lights streaked across the sky, the otherworldly green like mist painting the star-studded blackness. They’d pitched domed tents on the rocky edge of a lake filled with jagged chunks of ice. Var had joked that it was like they were running some kind of glamping experiment. Tyra had mentioned a preference for the Four Seasons when they’d been loading the gear before they left the keep and he kind of agreed with her there. There was nothing wrong with a good mattress and running water. He debated going back inside and waking her up to tell her so—and to do other things—but she had to be tired. They’d have to ride hard today to reach her Pack by nightfall.

In the hopes of cooling down, he unzipped his jacket and crunched over the snow to the Viking standing watch on the north side of the camp.