Mastered by the Berserkers (Berserker Brides)

by Lee Savino

  Mastered by the Berserkers

  Lee Savino

  Contents

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  Mastered by the Berserkers

  Prologue

  Chapter 1

  Chapter 2

  Chapter 3

  Chapter 4

  Chapter 5

  Chapter 6

  Chapter 7

  Chapter 8

  Chapter 9

  Chapter 10

  Chapter 11

  Chapter 12

  Epilogue

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  Mastered by the Berserkers

  When I became a nun, I vowed to remain chaste and pure. Then the Berserkers raided the abbey and carried me off. Now I’m their captive, at their mercy. And no amount of prayer will stop the two giant, dominant warriors from claiming me as mate...

  They will strip me of my vows and put me on my knees. They will make me burn with unholy desire. They will not stop until they've mastered my pleasure.

  And, Heaven help me, when it's over, I'll beg for more.

  Bless me, Father, for I have sinned. Over and over and over again.

  Prologue

  The moon hung high in the sky, bathing everything in silvery light. I crouched against the outer wall of the lodge, pressing myself into the roughly hewn logs and shivering. It was early spring and there was still snow on the ground, but I wasn’t cold.

  Just the opposite. A bead of sweat rolled down my forehead, tickling my skin and soaking a stray tendril of my hair. With a trembling hand, I wiped it away.

  The fever inside me burned on. A cruel fire, roasting me from the inside.

  How many hours had I been outside this night? How many times this winter had the fever driven me outside? The first few times, I planted my face in the snow to cool it. Now I didn’t bother.

  Pleasepleaseplease, I prayed, as I had many nights before. Kyrie eleison. Lord have mercy.

  But no help came. The moon glared at me in silent witness of my sins.

  A crunch of gravel under a boot was my only warning before a shadow fell across me. The one who cast it was tall and broad and larger than an ordinary man—a giant hewn from rock. A Berserker.

  “Juliet.” The giant shadow spoke. Behind him, to the right, another shadow glided over the frozen ground. A second warrior. Only a Berserker could be so large, yet move so silently.

  “Jarl.” I let my head fall back against the wall, stifling a groan. Of course my prayers wouldn't be answered this night. “And Fenrir.”

  As I named them, the warriors stepped into the light. Both were bearded and broad of shoulder, but Jarl was a bit broader, and Fenrir taller with longer hair.

  “Juliet.” Jarl cocked his head. “You’re not wearing your boots.”

  I tucked my bare feet under my shift. “What do you want?” I croaked. No sense hiding the fact that they were bothering me.

  “You know what we want.” Jarl crouched down beside me. A strong scent, woodsmoke and pine, wound around me. I fought to keep myself from leaning into him. “You still suffer,” he observed.

  I laughed, my breath puffing in the cold air. “Some say suffering is a woman’s lot.”

  “How long?” Jarl asked.

  I licked my cracked lips. “You know how long. You’ve watched me all these months.”

  Jarl swore.

  Fenrir frowned and came closer, but he remained standing. He crossed his arms over his chest and looked out over the silent forest, alert.

  The clenched fist of my heart relaxed. Something about these men standing close, guarding me made me feel safer than I ever had. I didn’t like it, but my body gave me no choice.

  “You’ve suffered all these months. There is no need.” Jarl reached out to brush my brow. “We’ve waited for you to come to us.”

  I had to fight my own instincts and force myself to duck away from his touch. “It’s no use. I took a vow.”

  Jarl clenched his outstretched hand into a fist. “Does this vow require your death? Because we see it and know as well as you—the fever weakens you. You cannot survive it. You must submit to your lust.”

  I bared my teeth at him. “Never.”

  “Little one, you are not a nun anymore.”

  “I will always be a nun.”

  “Is your god so cruel he desires you to act against your own impulses?”

  I closed my eyes to shut him out and whispered, “The wages of sin is death. Blessed are they who are pure in heart, for they shall see God.”

  “It’s no use,” Fenrir said in a voice so deep, it was almost a growl. My eyes flew open.

  Jarl rose. For a moment I was disappointed. I squashed that down. I was glad they were leaving. Truly.

  But Jarl didn’t leave. Neither did Fenrir. They glanced at each other and golden flames lit their eyes.

  “Then you leave us no choice,” Jarl said.

  I scrambled upward. “What do you mean?”

  His arm snapped out, and shackled my wrist before I could react. “You’re coming with us.”

  I tugged, but couldn’t break free from his awesome strength. It didn’t help that his thumb feathered against my pulse and every touch weakened my limbs. “What?”

  “This ends now,” Fenrir said. He crowded me until I was caged between him and his warrior brother.

  Jarl drew me close until my small frame brushed his. “We’re taking you this night.”

  1

  Juliet

  I remember the night the Berserkers sacked the abbey.

  I was slumbering on my pallet, my cold feet peeking out from my thin blanket, when a scream shook me from a dreamless sleep. I was up and on my feet before I knew I was awake. The screams came from all around, echoing from the very walls. Behind me, the nuns stirred on their beds.

  I ran to the narrow window and that's when I saw them: giant, silent shapes thronging the abbey. Warriors. Bearded and hulking, moonlight glinting on their axes, knives, and swords. They were huge and half naked. A few carried torches. The rest were breaking down the doors, hunting their prey down the stone halls, dragging the young women from the orphanage onto the lawn.

  The screams came from a young woman in her white shift, tossed over a warrior’s shoulder. He strode from the abbey and disappeared into the forest.

  My shriek died in my throat. This wasn't happening.

  I raced to the door.

  “Sister Juliet, stop,” the abbess cried when I would unbar it.

  “We must help them!” I shouted, and fought when one of the sisters clawed me, trying to drag me back. The rest of the sisters cowered in a corner.

  “Fool girl,” the abbess snarled. She wore only a night shift and her long grey hair was a pitifully thin rope down her back. “This is an invasion. We must save ourselves.”

  “My sisters are in trouble.” I struggled with the attacking nun. Sister Hilda was large and round, with thick muscles from tilling the fields. She wrestled me to my knees. I gasped as my knees hit the flagstones. It seemed mad that we were fighting while the abbey was under attack.

  “They are only orphans,” the abbess said, looking down her nose at me. “We are your sisters now.”

  All fighting ceased when the barred door shuddered. Sister Hilda released me and we both scurried backwards, away from the splintering wood. The thick door offered not a minute of resistance. A few mo
re seconds and the axes broke through.

  Then large hands tore the door apart. The nuns behind me screamed as the hulking shapes filled the frame. Sister Hilda and the abbess fell back, but my feet would not move.

  I stood between the warriors and their axes and the rest of my sister nuns. The men were even bigger than they looked from the window. They towered over me.

  “Stop,” I shouted. I don’t know what possessed me, but I was seized with madness. “What is the meaning of this?”

  They didn’t answer. One sniffed the air, his head raised like a wolf. “Spaewife.” Beside him stood a huge wolf—taller than me, its head bigger than mine. Another round of frightened cries went up from the nuns as the great creature slunk inside.

  I spread my arms. I was shaking, but I held my ground. “You can’t come in here. We are nuns. We are peaceful. We have given ourselves to God.”

  The warrior and wolf were almost upon me when two warriors pushed to the fore. One was tall and lean with long dark hair spilling down his back. He wore a fur pelt slung over his shoulder, leather breeches and nothing else. The second warrior was stockier but still huge. His arms were covered with dark designs and swirls.

  “We come for the spaewives,” he announced to the room at large. “We are taking them.”

  “Why?” I cried and he settled his disturbing gaze on me.

  “No fear. We mean no harm.”

  “No harm?” I asked.

  The tattooed warrior dipped his head. “You can go with the spaewives, if you wish.”

  “Begone from this place,” the abbess cried. “Take those wicked girls and leave us in peace.”

  The tattooed warrior raised a brow. He exchanged a look with another warrior. The wolf at his side backed out of the room.

  “Wait,” I said. I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Outside, a girl screamed, “Help!” briefly before the sound cut off.

  I flinched and said quickly, “I will go.”

  “As you wish.” The warrior drew close, and raised his head to sniff the wind. “You are a spaewife.”

  “I am Sister Juliet.”

  He said something to me, and I shook my head. I couldn’t hear him over the din and distant screams.

  “Little wife,” he repeated and opened his hand to me.

  I hesitated. Was I really going to do this?

  Before I could back away the tattooed warrior grabbed my arm and wrenched me through the door. The second, long haired warrior followed.

  Then the world tilted, and I screamed. The warrior had caught me up over his shoulder and carried me off.

  “Put me down.” I beat my fists upon his back. He only quickened his pace. We were in the forest, the abbey disappearing, crowded out by the thick canopy of tree branches.

  I bit back a scream and tried to think. Fighting would do no good. Neither would shouting for help. Who would hear?

  I would have to think. But I could not. My thoughts tumbled about. Perhaps I would open my eyes and find this all a dream.

  A burst of cries in the distance had me craning my head to see where the warrior was taking me. There were torches ahead, in a clearing between the trees. There, a circle of warriors surrounded a group of young women in white shifts. I recognized them from the abbey orphanage.

  The warrior who held me swung me down. I tried to stagger away from him, but he held my arm. Steadying me as well as keeping me close.

  The group of girls saw me and turned, sobbing. I jerked toward them, fighting the warrior’s grip. He gripped me harder, but when I reached for the girls, he let me go.

  The orphan girls surrounded me, shaking and crying. A few warriors ranged around us in a loose circle. Others darted to and fro, entering the abbey and carrying out more orphans, adding to our number.

  “There, there,” I murmured. My throat was dry, but I grabbed a young one and cuddled her close. “It will be all right.”

  “What is happening?” one girl named Meadow cried. A monstrous wolf brushed by her and she screamed, lurching away from it. Her cry was echoed amid the rest of the girls.

  “I don’t know.” I swallowed my fear. “Hush now, be calm. Here, now, see to the young ones.”

  Tears tracked down Meadow’s face, but she turned and obeyed, gathering two younger girls to her.

  I shifted the girl I held to my other hip. She buried her face in my neck. “Shhh,” I told her. Clover, that was her name. Another orphan, named by the nuns. She’d come to us as a babe, and I was the only mother she’d known.

  The warrior who’d grabbed me hovered at my back. I turned to glare at him.

  “What will you do to us?”

  He stared at me a moment before speaking. The whorls and swirls of his tattoos went up his neck, and I found myself wondering why a man would mark his skin so. “It’s all right,” he said finally. “You have nothing to fear.”

  “No, of course not,” I practically spit at the warrior. “You attack us in the middle of the night and drag us out of our beds. Why would we be afraid?”

  He blinked. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face. The grin made my pulse quicken, and I backed away, more disconcerted by his amusement and my reaction to it than the whole wild night.

  “You are not afraid of me.”

  I swallowed my retort. I was afraid, wasn’t I?

  The warrior tilted his head to the side, studying me. “You have no boots.”

  I looked down at my bare feet. “Of course I have no boots,” I said, exasperated.

  The warrior opened his mouth to say more but the long-haired warrior nudged him. “We go.”

  “Go?” I asked, my voice sharp. “Go where?”

  But the tattooed warrior only clamped his large hand on my upper arm and pulled me away.

  And then followed days of hell, as the warriors made us march to their mountain. The Berserker warriors were not unkind, but the days-long journey wore me to the bone. Often as not, I walked in the center of a ragged group of the orphan girls. Meadow helped me calm them and wipe away tears. At times the young ones grew so tired of walking, the warriors carried them.

  “Who are they?” Meadow whispered to me one night when we lay down by the fire for a few hours rest. My calves ached and I couldn’t feel my feet. I’d left the abbey in a shift and nothing else. I’d marched mile after mile barefoot.

  “They are warriors. Northmen.” I’d guessed as much from the tales I’d heard of tall, pale men who fought with axes and sailed dragon-headed ships. They were fearless and left slaughter in their wake. I could easily see these warriors as that dreaded horde. “They served as mercenaries and settled in the mountains.”

  “Did they tell you that?” Meadow’s voice held awe.

  “No.” I could’ve asked. Two of the warriors were often at my side. From their conversations with other warriors, I learned the tattooed one’s name—Jarl. The tall one who stalked me like a shadow was Fenrir. Whenever they were near, my skin prickled with awareness. But I ignored them as best I could.

  Meadow chewed her lip, her eyes on the warriors sitting around the fire. Every once in a while, a warrior would leave and a few minutes later, a wolf would stroll from the forest. I shivered at what that might mean.

  “But why do they want us?” Meadow asked finally.

  “I don’t know.” But deep down, I did. But it wasn’t something a nun, especially one young as me, should think about.

  I rolled away from Meadow and fell asleep, and when dawn came, I woke to a new pair of boots and a thick cloak sitting by my head. Both nicer items of clothing than I’d ever owned.

  I put them on and they fit perfectly. When I looked up, Jarl was watching me from across the fire.

  But I turned away. And neither he nor Fenrir said anything to me, though I knew they were responsible for the gifts. For the rest of the trip I refused to speak or even look at them. I would not thank them, or think of them, or acknowledge what their gifts might mean.

  2

  Juliet

&n
bsp; “I heard the warriors talking. Laurel is with child.” Meadow slouched next to my bed, chewing on her lip.

  “Good for her.” I swung down, wincing at the cold. Autumn came early in the mountains. I grabbed my cloak—the one Jarl and Fenrir had given me—and swung it around my shoulders. It was dark blue and lined with rabbit fur. Heavy and warm enough for me to wear through the winter.

  It had been several moons since the Berserkers took us from our home. The orphans and I lived in a lodge nestled high in the peaks. We were surrounded by forest and meadow.

  “I wish to visit her. Perhaps I could stay with her while she carries the babe,” Meadow said, twisting a lock of her hair.

  “Perhaps. I can ask our guards.” There were always several stationed nearby our lodge. To keep others out, as much as to keep us in.

  “They don’t want us roaming far anymore,” Rosalind said from her perch by the hearth. On the floor, her sister Aspen played with the girls her age—Violet, Briar, Juniper, and Clover. “They say it’s too dangerous.” She sniffed. “If these warriors are so strong, why don’t they kill the Corpse King once and for all.”

  In the opposite corner, Fern gasped. I looked to her questioningly, but she’d shrunk into a ball, her red hair curtaining her face.

  “We shouldn’t speak of him,” Meadow cautioned in a whisper.

  “Who? The Corpse King?” Rosalind tossed her long blonde hair. “I’m not afraid.”

  Meadow stiffened.

  “It’s not a sin to be afraid,” I said gently. I put my hand on Meadow’s shoulder and she softened.

  “Is that why you cower outside during the full moon?” Rosalind muttered under her breath.