The Berserker Saga, Volume 1

Chapter 6

6

I slept between the two men as always. After the change, Daegan struggled to speak, his golden eyes communicating his longing. A few snuffling attempts at speech and I lay my finger against his mouth. I didn’t need words of comfort. Taking both warrior’s hands, I led them to the bed. We curled up together. Daegan was the first to fall asleep, and all the days of him returning from the hunt, smelling of blood and wanting to only eat, sleep or rut made sense.

“So now, Brenna, do you understand?” Samuel asked. I nodded.

When the beast took over, it took their human speech and the effects took some time to shake off. Samuel and Daegan were leaders of the pack, Samuel at the head and Daegan a close second. After centuries of fighting, the beast dominated their human side. They needed a panacea, someone or thing that could bring their beast back under control.

They searched and consulted a witch, and then found me.

I didn’t know why I could calm the wolf, but it didn’t matter. I had saved them.

“You know who we are and you accept us,” Samuel told me. “We need you here with us for all time, Brenna, though sometimes I wish there was another way. I know what it is like to have a witch speak and change your life.”

I slept a little, and when I woke the two berserkers were watching me.

Samuel set a silver torc at my hand, an ornament of old. Warriors sometimes wore arm rings in fealty to their chief or king. This looked like both the jewelry of a princess and the collar of a slave. Perhaps it was both, something in between. A band to honor a savior and mark a thrall.

I touched it.

“We wish ye to accept it,” Daegan said. His voice was still husky and his eyes glowed, but he was fully man.

“This will mark you as ours among the wolves.”

I stared at the torc. They were asking me to make a decision, not to stay or go, but to accept my place. I was ready to accept, but for one thing.

It took some time making hand gestures, but I made them understand.

“You worry for your family,” Samuel interpreted.

I gestured to my hair and curvy body then stretched my hand out indicating a shorter height.

“Yer sisters,” Daegan guessed.

“You want to know they are cared for?”

I hesitated, not knowing how to tell them that I feared my stepfather might be a threat.

Large fingers tipped my head to face Samuel’s. The big blond stared into my eyes. I felt a tingling down my spine, but held still.

After a long moment, Samuel blew out a sigh. “You do not trust your mother’s husband around them.”

I nodded vigorously while Daegan and Samuel exchanged glances.

“Brenna,” Daegan called. “Do ye want us to take care of the threat?” The usually playful dark-haired warrior looked very serious.

I nodded.

“And if we do, you will stay and live among us? Willingly?”

I nodded and reached for the torc, setting it into my lap and staring into one pair of golden eyes, then another.

I’d made my choice. It was up to them.

“Back in a day,” Daegan said. He kissed me and left.

I tucked my legs to my chest and wrapped my arms around them.

Samuel prowled around me, restless. Every so often he lifted his head, scenting the air. I knew he could smell my heat.

We waited.

Shadows crawled in the corners. I must have eaten and slept, for the next thing I knew, the smell of blood filled the chamber.

“Brenna,” Samuel called.

I rose, pulling a pelt around me instead of a dress. I was a berserker’s mate now. I could walk among the wolves naked; my lovers would protect me.

Together the blond leader and I walked down the hall to the ledge outside the cave, where a pack of giant weres waited. Daegan stepped forward in man form, hunched a little and moving with predator silence. The air prickled with the smell of blood. I approached him and he held up a basket dripping red.

I knew before I looked what I would find inside.

“Daegan tells me the kill stank of perversion. When your sister found the body, she laughed.”

I set the basket containing my stepfather’s head on the ground. My sisters Sabine, Muriel, and Fleur were safe now.

Daegan and Samuel followed me back to the chamber. I pointed to the bathing cave, wrinkling my nose, and the dark haired warrior disappeared to bathe.

When Daegan returned, naked and dripping wet, Daegan found me sitting on the dais with the torc in my lap.

Raising my chin, I handed it to Samuel.

Daegan held up my hair while Samuel bent the torc as if it were made of straw and closed it around my neck. I touched the cool metal and felt a strange hum of power, as if the torc was an object of magic. The silver both covered some of my scar, and drew attention to it.

Rising on tiptoe, I drew Samuel’s head down and kissed him, then Daegan, before leading them back to the dais.

We claimed one another while the wolves howled outside.

One moon later, I stood on the edge of the great market, watching my mother set up her stall. My twin sisters played in the grass while Fleur worked beside my mother.

“We found a merchant who will pay good price for their wares,” Samuel had told me. “And every month the eldest sister finds fresh meat on their doorstep. We will watch over them.”

As I watched, I felt a flare of power behind me in the forest, signaling a wolf changing into man form. My sister Fleur’s head jerked sharply in our direction, and she started to move towards my hiding place. I stepped back, but my mother called Fleur, and my sister went to help her, still frowning in puzzled thought.

I turned my back on my family and headed deeper into the forest, where two men waited for me in the thick underbrush. One dark, one blond, huge forms hunched and lurking in the shadows lit with two pairs of golden eyes.

Mated to the Berserkers