Mated to the Berserkers: A Menage Shifter Romance (15 page)

All but one.

I ran down the mountain.  When I came to the place of the pit, I slowed and called out to Maddox.

He did not answer. I sniffed the air, but couldn’t make out his scent. I leaned over the pit to look for the body.

There was none.

*

Samuel didn’t look surprised when I delivered the news of the empty prison. I wondered if a part of him hoped Maddox had escaped.

“The witch could’ve found a way to consume Maddox and his power,” I reminded him. “She seems more powerful.”

“We are more powerful. Whatever magic Brenna has, it has strengthened us.”

I still worried about the beast taking hold. It responded to Brenna in a way I’d never seen before.

“We will keep taking precautions,” Samuel read my worry. “You will travel with a few of the pack to the gathering with the Red Pack. Listen and learn what you can of Ragnvald’s Berserkers. I will stay here and keep our mate safe.” He smiled, and once again I was struck by how much younger he looked. Like a weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “She is waiting for you in the bathing chamber.”

I spent a long while taking my leave. Brenna was especially feisty, slapping my hands away and asking over and over why I had to leave. I told her I was visiting a market to buy her pretty things, and she called me a liar. I told her I was going to say goodbye to the village whores, and she hit me and called me a rabbit. I couldn’t let that insult slide, so I stripped her, spanked her and fucked her on the stone floor.

Samuel found us like that, our hands running over each other as we spoke silently about our love.

“The pack is waiting,” he finally ordered. “It’s time.”

It wasn’t until the thick woods closed around us, blocking out the sight of our mountain, that my spirits fell.  The dread that started with Yseult grew stronger with every step that took me from my beloved. Wulfgar noticed my serious silence.

“What can you tell us about the Red Pack?” he asked, seeking to divert my thoughts and focus me on the battle at hand.

“They’ve been here since the Romans, maybe before. A few of them ruled as lairds, and though the worship of the White Christ drove them into hiding, they think of themselves as civilized. They’re natural werewolves, and shift into wolves whenever they will.”

“What’s the difference between them and us?” Fergus asked. Samuel ordered the runt of the pack tag along to learn something of diplomacy.

“Most werewolves are natural born, by a female were. Berserkers are created with tainted magic.”

“But you weren’t Changed by a witch,” the young wolf insisted.

“Nay, lad. I was born to one. My mother was a witch, much like Yseult. Less powerful, though, which is why she bore me. Most witches are barren.” I paused for a moment, wondering if Brenna’s magic allowed her to bear children. It would be too much to hope for in this lifetime—a mate who could give us a family. “My mother fell in love with my father, and bore him a son. I can shift, aye, but the magic of my mother adds a taint that leads to the Berserker rage.”

“Witches and wolves don’t mix,” Wulfgar grunted. He’d kept away from Yseult, and made Fergus do the same. “No offense, Beta.”

“None taken. My mother’s first intent on snaring my father was to make him her slave. In the end, love made her his thrall, and caused her death.”

Fergus gulped. “He killed her?”

“No. His pack did.”

I picked up the pace and the warriors followed. We wore clothes made of deerskin and carried weapons. Most werewolves relied on teeth and claws; their human forms were more vulnerable. But we were Berserkers. We had been men once, and changed by tainted magic.

We traveled fast and avoided the places of men.

We arrived at the gathering site, a valley between a fringe of hills. The eerie plain was filled with mist, its center marred only by a circle of stones. As we descended, the air became hard to breathe, as if the veil between the worlds grew thin.

“Is that them?” Fergus asked when men appeared out of the mist. “They’re smaller than we are.”

I glanced down at him. The smallest of our pack was a head taller than most of these shapes slinking out of the mist. “They look like normal men.”

“Normal men, natural wolves,” I agreed. “They live in harmony with the earth, and hate witch’s magic.”

We stood on one side of the hill, waiting for the Red Pack to descend into the place of stones. They wore their clan colors, their hair wild and knives strapped against their boots.

The last time I faced these Highland wolves, they tried to kill me. Samuel had intervened, and fixed the bond between us forever.

“This was your pack, yes?” Wulfgar asked me quietly.

“Aye.” I started forward, and he held out a hand.

“Let me.”

I nodded and held back. Let them think Wulfgar was our leader until the right moment. If I had my way, we wouldn’t meet them as equals at all. As I watched Wulfgar and the others stride to the standing stones, I wished I was leading a sneak attack on the pack that had torn my family apart. 

Samuel and I had discussed it. The Red Pack was weaker than us. We could defeat them and be done with it, but that would risk loosing the beast. 

Wulfgar and the others met the Red Pack at the standing stones. I slunk closer, muting my power so they couldn’t sense me and the energy that would mark me as an Alpha.

Fergus was right. After years living with the Berserkers, the members of the Red Pack seemed shrunken, smaller. I studied the trio of leaders and didn’t bother to repress my cold killer sense. The ruddy wolf in the center was the largest. Tear off his head in an impressive show of strength, and the others would scatter.

It would be so easy, the darkest part of me whispered. Kill them all and take their women for the pack.

Ha. A nice fantasy. Female werewolves wanted nothing to do with Berserkers.

I kept my thoughts on our beloved, waiting for me in the bathing chamber, her body embraced by the steam rising off the water. The image kept my beast occupied until I heard Wulfgar answer one of the Red Pack Alphas.

“Samuel is not here. But there is one who speaks for him, one who Samuel claims as a brother. Their thoughts are one, their words are one.” Wulfgar stepped aside, and let the Red Pack see me stride out of the mists, into the chilling.

My eyes glowed gold; the beast was close to the surface as I faced the pack who killed my mother, drove out my father, and tried to stone me. I’d grown since then, the power of the Alpha making me stronger, faster, prouder. Or maybe it was the acceptance of my warrior brother and the pack that made me stand taller. And now I had a woman worth fighting for. I could face my one time tormentors.

I grew close enough to hear their worried murmurs.

“Half breed,” one of the Red Pack spat.

I growled a warning, echoed in the snarls of the Berserkers. The Red Pack recoiled. There were twice as many of them as us, they’d turned out in full force, trying to deter an attack. My lip curled. A thousand armies couldn’t stand before Berserkers, if we chose to fight.

“I taste yer fear, wolf,” I said. “Speak quickly, before we grow weary of yer posturing, and decide to gut ye.”

One of the Red Pack leaders drew himself up. “There is another pack, a threat to ye.”

“Ye mean they are a threat to you. Nothing threatens a Berserker.”

“A threat to both of us. After all, what’s to stop the Red Pack from allying with these new Berserkers to wipe ye out?”

“Ye like yer head attached to yer shoulders.”

“We have a way to keep the peace.”

I crossed my arms over my chest. I wasn’t going to like this.

“We know ye have a woman.”

I shrugged. “We often take whores for our amusement.”

“But you’ve claimed this one.” The Red Pack chief continued, “Word is she’s more than just a village trollop.”

I reached through the pack bonds, setting every wolf on alert.

How do they know? I asked Wulfgar. The big warrior shook his head, a subtle motion.

None of our warriors talked.

“What does this matter?” I feigned nonchalance.

“If there is a woman who…counteracts the taint…she is a rare commodity.”

“She is rare. Strong, beautiful, submissive. Willing to accept a Berserker cock—unlike your women,” I smiled at one of the female wolves. Her mates closed ranks around her, blocking her from my view. 

“Am I to believe this wild tale? That the woman we keep has special powers? She’s a good fuck, aye, but she doesn’t have a magic cunt. Who told ye all this?”

“I did.”

I knew the voice even before I turned to look. There, on the rise, stood a man. He was leaner than I last saw him. The bones of his ribs protruded under the skin marked with blue tattoos.

Maddox.

He took a few steps down the hill, but didn’t come any closer. A few of his pack appeared behind him. Most were blond and burly, they could be brothers to Samuel or Siebold. Definitely Viking.  

“I visited their mountain, and learned their secret. That is why they condemned me to die.” He smiled mirthlessly. “Good thing it isn’t easy to kill a Berserker.”

“We want to live in peace. If there is a woman who can heal the beast—”

I growled a denial.

“—Then you must share her.”

“Never. We’ve claimed her. She is ours.”

“Is she your true mate?” Maddox asked, cocking his head to the side. His words were an echo of Yseult’s. I wondered if she had something to do with this.

“She’s bonded to us,” I lied. “If she leaves us, she will die.”

“Impossible. No human can bond with a wolf,” said the Red Pack leader.

As he repeated what I had told myself for so long, I realized that it wasn’t true. Brenna was special. She was human, but had abilities we could only guess at. For the first time, I felt possibilities before me like an open road.

“If she has not mated with ye,” the Red Pack leader intoned, “she will survive a separation.”

I focused on the problems at hand. Then I felt the wind shift.

Daegan.
Someone cried out for me. Not Samuel, not one of the pack, but a softer voice, one I didn’t recognize. I glanced at Maddox and his Berserker guards, and felt my dread increase.

“You will never take her from us,” I said, just as I heard the voice cry my name again, in panic.

Daegan!

Maddox smiled and I didn’t understand why. What had he done?

“She is ours. Find another to sate your needs,” I told him.

“It is not yers to decide,” said the Red Pack leader. “We put it to a vote. And yer vote will be outnumbered, Berserker.”

I snarled, and the warriors at my back did the same. I felt the beast grip me, and this time I welcomed it. Something was going on, something I couldn’t understand…yet. “Vote all you want. We’ll back our claim with teeth and claws. Do you really want to vote with your spilled blood?”

Maddox’s Berserkers also growled at us. The Red Pack members looked increasingly uneasy, trapped between two contingents of angry Berserkers. 

“You want a fight? We’ll give you one,” Maddox snapped. “We’ll fight for our prize.”

“You’ll never take her.” I was losing my grip on the beast, sliding into the Berserker bloodlust. My vision blurred red.

Wulgar’s hand closed on my arm.
Beta. Something’s wrong.

I knew he was right. Maddox and the warriors waited for us to attack. They were waiting…

I leaped back and started running, as if in retreat. It all made sense now. The invitation to the Thing, Maddox sniffing around the mountain, his imprisonment and escape. It was all planned, from the first moment. Maddox was a spy, sent to confirm the rumor of our secrets. This meeting was a diversion, meant to draw our strongest forces away from the vulnerable center, the one person we tried to protect and hide.

Back, back.
I ordered.
To the mountain. Samuel is under attack.

Trees blurred as I ran. The beast came over me and I let it, using the superhuman power to speed along. A hint of red fur flashed ahead of me--Fergus, running ahead of the pack. The little wolf was the fastest of us.

Then another figure came close—a flash of blue on my right. Maddox.

“If we all can’t have her, no one will.”

I swiped at him, but didn’t let him slow me down. If he tried to stop me, I’d rip his limbs off and not break a sweat.

Stupid, stupid. I should’ve left the thing at the first sight of Maddox. I prayed I wasn’t too late.

As I grew closer to home, the voices in the pack bonds grew stronger.

A wave of Berserkers, storming the mountain. From the South. Guards taken by surprise. The main path is blocked.

Samuel, I’m here.
I send a message along our private bond.

Daegan, what happened?

Ragnvald planned this. The Thing was a trap. Where are you?

Escaping the mountain by a private tunnel. Brenna’s with me—she’s safe.