The Berserker Brides Saga

by Lee Savino

  Knut tensed, pushing me behind him and drawing his axe. We were in a deep ravine, with no way out but to run back.

  Go, a voice sounded in my mind. Knut’s. Impossible. I must be going mad.

  I stepped back, hands twisting on the witch’s staff. There were so many Grey Men and they were armed. They could overwhelm Knut while he was letting me escape.

  “Run, Hazel,” Knut ordered. “I will keep them from you.” Before he finished speaking, the creatures closest to him attacked. Spears swung down and Knut faced them with a challenging roar.

  Whirling, I began to run. A voice murmured in my head. Head west and do not stop until you see mountains. I will call on the pack to come to your rescue, if I fall.

  I stopped. Biting my lip, I looked back. Knut’s blond head bobbed amid the corpse-like creatures, ducking and wheeling as he fought many at once. If I left now, he would die.

  In my hands, the wooden staff crackled with sudden energy.

  A Grey Man had worked past Knut, trapping the Berserker between him and the rest of the horde. It slashed at Knut while he faced ten others.

  My feet were moving before I could give it a thought.

  The Grey Man raised a sword to stab at Knut’s back—and jerked and stiffened when I thrust the staff at its back. Ripples ran through its body while it stood paralyzed. The sword fell from its lifeless fingers a second before it dropped.

  Knut glanced back, incredulous.

  “I told you to run,” he grunted.

  “Look out!” I screamed as two Grey Men leaped from the walls of the ravine, dropping onto the Berserker warrior. With a cry, he tossed one off his back and threw the other into the advancing horde.

  The creature landed near me and, before it could run and attack again, I whacked him with the staff. The Grey Man sizzled and he flew as if lightning had struck him. The smell of charred flesh filled the air and the rest of the Corpse King’s servants hissed.

  Under my fingers, the wood hummed. A second later, Knut’s hand closed over mine and he pulled me along. We raced along the bottom of the ravine. My bare foot caught on a stone and I stumbled. Knut swung me up into his arms. I held onto his shoulders.

  “The Grey Men—they’re not following.”

  “Whatever magic is in that stick, it stunned them. I killed a few, but it did not deter them until you used that thing.” He grimaced at the staff and I tucked it closer to my body, so it wasn’t touching him. “Where did you get it?”

  “A witch gave it to Fleur, before I met her. The friar broke it before the Grey Men took us from the abbey, but it appeared in the cave before I made my escape.”

  Knut grunted and I knew he didn’t trust such magic.

  He didn’t stop running until he’d found the river again and crossed it. As the sun climbed higher, his pace slowed. We left the thick forest and came to a countryside of fields broken by a few copses.

  Finally, he set me down.

  “We’re off course, but I do not want to lead the Grey Men back to the pack. We’ll keep near water, for now.”

  He fed me dried meat and we both took bracing drinks from the river.

  “We’ll go this way,” he said and caught my hand when I started forward. “You disobeyed me, little one.”

  “I saved your life,” I retorted, then bit my lip, hoping he would not lose his temper.

  He pressed his lips together. I heard his thought clearly in my mind.

  First, we find safety. Then there will be a reckoning.

  As the day wore on, the weather grew dark and strange. Grey clouds suffused the sun and a frightening voice carried on the wind, muttering in a language I could not understand.

  “The Corpse King casting spells,” Knut growled. “He seeks what he lost.”

  He lifted me again in his arms and increased our speed.

  “I don’t understand,” I clung to the Viking and studied his features instead of watching the scenery pass by at a dizzying speed. “Why does he want me?”

  “You are a spaewife.”

  “A what?”

  “A woman with a special sort of magic, one that calls to the Corpse King.”

  I balked at this. “I have no magic.”

  “You do,” the warrior said quietly. “For it calls to me, also. It quiets the beast.”

  I rubbed my face, wishing I could lie down and wake up back at the abbey. Even if it was a prison of sorts, it was safe. “I do not understand any of this. I am Hazel, named for a common herb. My own mother gave me up and I was raised as an orphan. I am nothing special.”

  “Your mother was probably a spaewife, also. Your ability comes through her.” He held up a hand when I would protest. “You do have magic, otherwise the witch’s staff would not be a weapon in your hands. Trust me, Hazel, you are no ordinary woman.”

  Too tired to argue further, I slept a little, head throbbing, shivering under the blackened sky.

  I woke as Knut ducked into a low, dark dwelling.

  “Where are we?” I thrashed as shadows covered us.

  “Shhh,” he set me down and kept his hands on my hips to steady me. “A crofter’s farm. I checked and no one’s about. You alright, lass?”

  He waited for my nod to let me go. Numb, body trembling with fear and hunger, I watched him leave and return several times, fetching water, and wood to build a fire.

  “The storm out there is nothing natural. We’ll stay here until it passes,” he told me.

  “What happened to the people who lived here?” I asked. The hut had all the makings of a home lovingly built and then abandoned. There were dead flowers in a vase on the table, amid the cobwebs.

  “This is the first farm we’ve found since leaving the Corpse King’s cave. Nothing grows well in the presence of evil,” Knut said. “As the mage’s power grew, it may have touched this place. The crofters left before they starved.” The wind gusted past the door, moaning with that eerie voice.

  “Or went mad.” I shuddered.

  “No more talk of this.” He stepped back from the blaze, dusting his hands. “Come to me, lass.”

  I scuttled closer to him and he placed me in front of the fire with my back to his bare chest. His large hands skimmed down my arms. “By the moon, you’re freezing. Where is the pelt I gave you?”

  “I lost it…”

  “I will get you another.” He hugged me. Between his large body and the fire, the chill ebbed from my bones.

  I craned my head to look at him. “The wolf…is it one of your forms?”

  “Yes.” He paused for a long while as if reluctant to say more. “There are three. The wolf, the man, and the beast. You have seen the latter two.”

  Once I was warm, he went and found a blanket and shook it out, and laid it in front of the fire. I sat at his direction, setting the witch’s staff aside and curling up with my chin on my knees. The fire crackled happily, a reassuring sound after the past two days filled with horrors. It was almost enough to make me forget what manner of warrior sat next to me.

  Almost.

  Knut crouched close, feeding the fire.

  His hands were a normal man’s, large and rough.

  A witch’s curse, he’d said.

  “You fought well,” I said, “against the Grey Men. Especially when you…turned into the beast.”

  He grunted and checked the pouch at his side for more dried meat, turned out a few strips, and pressed them into my hand. “I’ll go hunting soon,” he muttered.

  I caught his hand and raised my voice so I would not be ignored. “This last time you fought, you were outnumbered. Why did you not turn into the beast?”

  His shoulders rose and fell. At his silence, I knew I’d pushed too hard.

  “Because, Hazel,” he rose and towered over me. “Each time I allow the beast to take over, I lose a little more control. The beast will win out one day. Unless—” he paused, turning his head to gaze at the flickering fire. He had a handsome face. Cupped in the glow of the flames, even the lines on his fore
head and around his eyes added to his rugged beauty.

  “Unless?”

  His eyes turned to me, glowed gold.

  “Unless I find a mate. A woman with special powers, gifted by the goddess, who can cure my tainted soul.”

  I gulped, shrinking a little in his shadow. “How can you find such a woman?”

  The corners of his lips quirked. “I already have.”

  Knut

  The woman shook like a leaf on the breeze. Her drying hair was soft as corn silk, her eyes wide and fawn colored. Her pulse fluttered in her throat and my hand itched to cover it.

  I needed to remember to be gentle, to put her at ease. I was used to barking commands and leading men, not saying sweet things to a woman.

  I sat, keeping distance between us, so as not to tempt the beast. My lungs filled with her lovely scent. My ears picked up the rapid patter of her heart.

  “Tell me of your home at the abbey. Your childhood.” I softened my tone. “I wish to know everything about my mate. One day, we will be able to share thoughts, and you will show me your memories.”

  Her eyes widened.

  “That is the work of the mating bond. It will manifest between us naturally.”

  Hazel wet her lips. Nervousness tinged her scent. No doubt she was afraid of being joined to a warrior suffering under a curse, one she had just met.

  The more I thought about it, the more the beast inside me raged to take her, claim her. Make her my own. I would bind her to me with an unbreakable bond, a link between our very souls.

  I shifted closer and ran my hand down the fall of her hair. With a small sigh, she leaned into my touch. The fear in her scent eased and the beast backed down. “For now, you will tell me about your life.”

  The press of her lips told me she wanted to be stubborn and resist, but she obeyed.

  “I lived all my life in an orphanage attached to an abbey. The nuns take in orphans from the surrounding villages—but only girls. I have many friends—closer than sisters. There are a few my age: Sage and Sorrel, Willow, Fern, Angelica and Rosalind. They will be worried that I disappeared.” She gnawed her lips again. “I wonder what the friar will tell them.”

  “The friar is the one who sold you?”

  “Yes. He oversees the grounds and all of us. The nuns keep us busy with gardening and weaving. The friar sells our cloth, herbs and honey, and sets the money for our dowry, so he can find us good husbands. At least, that’s what he told us.” She frowned, a line appearing on her otherwise smooth forehead. “One of my friends disappeared overnight. Sari was going to run away with her lover, but,” Hazel shook her head, “Later in the village, I saw the lad mourning her. Sari never got free of the abbey. The friar found out she was leaving and gave her to the Corpse King.”

  “How do you know?”

  Hazel looked away. “I saw her body in the cave. It was shrunken and dried, like an old husk. But it was her. Oh, Sari,” She pressed her fist to her mouth as if trying to hold back her tears. They came anyway and I could hold back from touching her no longer.

  I wrapped my arms around her, holding her shaking body as she wept.

  “Hush, sweet one.”

  “It’s my fault,” she wailed. “I knew the friar was taking the money and hoarding it for himself. I saw him counting it one day and the greed on his face. Other girls had disappeared before. The friar told us they went to good husbands. But we never saw them again, even when they promised they would visit. I suspected, but I did not warn the others. Not until it was too late. The friar caught me, locked me in the room with Fleur, and then gave us to the Grey Men. They took us to the Corpse King’s cave and that is where you found me.”

  “How did you escape the cave?”

  “Fleur—she has powers. She somehow called the witch’s staff to her.”

  “The one you now possess?”

  “Yes,” she reached for it, and I allowed her to grasp it and set it between us. “The friar broke it over his knee, but it magically appeared at our time of need.”

  “Fleur was rescued holding a piece,” I told her what I’d learned from the pack bonds, before the storm and distance disrupted them. “She nearly killed the Corpse King with it. He lives,” I cautioned as hope dawned on her face, “but he is weakened. You were meant to be his bride.”

  “What is he?”

  “An ancient evil, a king who committed acts of atrocity I dare not speak of.” I gathered her close, gratified when she pressed against me. Her body responded to me, even if she was still deciding if I could be trusted. “The mage is everything unnatural and his servants belong amongst the dead.”

  “Necromancy?”

  I nodded. “It takes great sacrifice to sustain such awful power. Human sacrifice.”

  “He killed Sari. Who knows how many of my abbey sisters also died to feed him.”

  I did not tell her what my warriors had reported: a pile of bones stacked outside the cave.

  Instead I cupped her chin. “Do not think of it, Hazel. You escaped and when we return to the mountain, we will find a way to protect all of your sisters.”

  “Thank you,” and her small smile lit my heart like sunlight breaking through the grim day.

  Hazel

  Knut’s large hand palmed my head, dropped to my nape and gave it a squeeze. My body had relaxed in the warmth of his regard and the fire, but now my heartbeat picked up. His thumb stroked over the sensitive skin of my neck and tingles spread through my body, focusing on the points of my nipples and the valley between my thighs.

  His eyes, which had dimmed as I’d shared my tale, flared brighter. He took his hand away.

  “If I tell you to stay here, will you obey?”

  “Yes.”

  “Good. You will not like the consequences if you don’t.” He reminded me of the punishment he’d dealt earlier, and the one he’d promised. Fire leaped into my blood at his stern look.

  As soon as he shut the door, I rose and went to the window, wanting to see what form he would take next. A large silver wolf ran across the yard, tail brushing over dead stalks in the ill-tended garden as it trotted away.

  I busied myself exploring the hut. I found a broom in the corner, and poked at the cobwebs, cleaning up. A dank back room held mostly molded blankets, but to my delight, I found a pair of shoes and an overdress, folded in a chest of cedar. They were finely stitched—part of a bride’s dowry.

  I took them, saying a prayer for the missing people who’d left their valuables behind.

  While I waited for Knut, I stripped off my shift and washed it as best I could in the bucket, setting it near the fire to dry. After adding a sprig of dried lavender to the water I’d set aside, I washed myself. My body, strong from hours of abbey chores, had changed with my recent adventure. My limbs and stomach had hardened, toned from running and little food, but my breasts were larger, almost swollen, as were the folds between my legs. I touched them carefully. Once a month, around the full moon, I suffered intense heat, a fever that left me gasping with need. Was it possible that my body was responding to the warrior?

  I poked at my shift, willing it to dry faster so I could cover my traitorous body. Never mind that the fabric was so thin, it barely hid my responses. Never mind that he seemed to be able to scent my arousal and speak into my very thoughts.

  I wanted to ask him why I heard his voice in my head, but didn’t want him to think me mad.

  A thump at the door had me whirling. A shriek died on my lips as the large wolf trotted in, a dead pheasant in its jaws. It stopped dead at the sight of me. It huffed, laid down the game, and trotted back out. The door swung shut.

  I threw on my shift, ignoring the damp patches. Of course, the Berserker was going to return and see me. Shame burned in my cheeks as I realized a part of me wanted him to.

  Once dressed, I hastened to the door and opened it to find Knut standing on the stoop.

  It was my turn to stare. The warrior’s broad, muscled form was bare except for a scrap of lea
ther loincloth slung around his hips.

  He faced west, watching the sunset. The storm had died, but the clouds remained, so the sinking sun was only a few red lines in a grey sky.

  When he turned, he had a large white pelt in his hands. Something in me quivered as he approached and silently set the fur on my shoulders, tucking it snug around me.

  My senses blazed to life. I smelled the lavender from my bath, the heavy rain waiting in the clouds, the earthy pine scent that clung to the pelt.

  His large thumb brushed my cheek, dusting away a tiny flower that’d clung to my cheek. Drawing in a deep breath, he let his forehead sink to mine as his hand settled on my nape.

  “Can you cook the pheasant?”

  “Yes,” I breathed.

  His fingers flexed, squeezing the fragile bone, holding me still as his mouth touched mine. Desire flared in me, unfurling, a weight and a lightness both at my core.

  I gasped and retreated. His eyes burned bright, but he let me go. I stepped back into the hut, and closed the door in his face, leaning against it for support. My hand trembled as I checked my breasts, my midriff, the tops of my thighs. I wasn’t naked but I’d been stripped bare by that golden gaze. Even now heat pooled in my secret places, making me press my legs together against the ache.

  What was happening to me?

  “Hazel,” Knut called after a moment.

  Checking my flushed cheeks one last time, I let the door creak open between us.

  Knut had pulled on his breeches and boots. I’d found a man’s shirt among the crofter’s things, but now I didn’t want to tell him. The expanse of his muscled chest left me breathless.

  “I’m sorry. I don’t know what happened,” my voice shook.

  The corners of his eyes crinkled. “No matter.” He had to stoop under the door frame. I backed away to make room, but it didn’t help. His massive form dominated the space. He took one look at the freshly swept and cobweb free space, and smiled.

  I couldn’t help warming at the sign of his pleasure.