“Come on, then.”
“Where am I to sit?”
He climbed into the ship. “Right here.”
She blushed and shook her head.
“You had no trouble touching me when you thought I was frozen.”
“I…I’m sorry.”
She stood there, trembling. Alone and afraid. There was still part of him that wanted to punish her for her father’s crimes. She had his nose, his jaw… but her eyes were something else altogether.
There were like the sky on his home planet, and they reminded him of days long past.
“Maybe you’re confused about what’s happening here. I’m kidnapping you. I didn’t ask. Get. In.” He nodded to the hall behind her that had just filled with rioting inmates. “Unless you want to stay with them.”
She scrambled up the dock and dumped herself unceremoniously in his lap. The ship closed around them as they prepared for launch.
Mercy was just a bit of a thing, and he leaned his chin over her shoulder to hurry through the pre-flight checks. The sooner the engine ignited, the sooner the ravenous mob would be incinerated if they attempted to impede his progress.
She squirmed again, obviously trying to get comfortable. Her movement did nothing for his comfort level, since she rubbed her ass all over his dick. He knew she wasn’t doing it on purpose, but he couldn’t help but imagine what it would be like if she was.
He gritted his teeth and grasped her hips. “Be still, woman.”
“I can’t. There’s something poking me.” She squirmed again, grinding her sweet ass against him.
He closed his eyes. Poking her. Valhalla help him. He increased the pressure of his grasp and leaned closer to her ear and the scent of some blooming flower filled his senses. “It’s going to keep poking you until you settle down. Get me?”
She froze. “I…uh…”
“Just be still, or we’re going to die here.”
She was so still that for a moment, he was sure she could’ve faked being the statue.
Magnus finished the pre-flight checks and just as the crowd poured over them like scurrying ants. The engines growled to life with a tell-tale roar. Launch was imminent and they scattered like those same, tiny ants when the thrusters ignited. Flames filled the bay and they were catapulted up past the stratosphere where the pretty blue sky merged into an ink black eternity and the stars became tangible.
It was only then that she sagged against him, settled as if that was the place where she belonged.
“Why aren’t you afraid?” Magnus asked her before he could think better of it.
“What purpose would it serve to show you fear? You are called destroyer for a reason. You will do as you see fit, and I will…” she trailed off for a moment. “Deal with it as I must.”
“You didn’t have to come.”
“Didn’t I? I remember you telling me that I was confused because you didn’t ask me. It was an order or no—you’re kidnapping me.” She nodded. “That’s what it was.”
“And I could have forced you to obey me how?” Her hair was soft and silky against his skin. He wanted to touch it.
“In truth, you were the better choice. Is that what you wanted to hear?”
Vulnerability came so easily to her. She didn’t hesitate to show him her weaknesses. He found that idea to be rather terrifying. He’d never show his weaknesses, yet, in her, it didn’t make her seem fragile. It made her strong.
They both knew he hated her father. They both knew he could hurt her. He was bigger, stronger, faster, and they were alone in the far, dark reaches of space. Still, she rested against him, breathing even and relaxed as if she were with some trusted bodyguard.
What startled him the most was that there was a part of him that wished he could be that for her.
Probably because he’d gone fifteen years without plowing any sweet fields.
Or not so sweet fields. It had been a drought—a frozen winter in which all of his body’s needs had been neglected.
For a moment, he feared that it had wasted away and fallen off during his imprisonment.
No, he reassured himself. It was definitely still there, snuggled like a damn puppy up against her delicious, round, apple ass. His fingers fairly itched to spank it and he was sure her cheeks would flame just like they had when she’d felt guilty for running her hands all over him.
There’d been something decadent in that, holding himself so still as she explored.
His cock jerked against her and she gasped, but didn’t move away from him. As if she had anywhere to go.
By Ragnarok, he had to get this woman to an outpost and get rid of her. He’d never achieve anything if all he could do was be led around by his cock.
“No answer for me then?” she prompted.
Magnus realized he’d forgotten what she’d asked him. “I don’t remember what you asked me.”
“Is it the freezing sickness?” She squirmed around in his lap to look at him.
And he wondered for the first time if maybe he was actually dead and this was the real Hel—not some shitty prison planet, but a place where he’d be punished for all the wrong he’d done. To have some sweet miss squirming against his aching cock from now until the wolf swallowed all the suns and shattered the rainbow bridge.
“No, it’s not that, girl. Be still.” Magnus didn’t want to look at her face. If he did, he might do something stupid, like kiss her.
And she’d let him. She’d admitted she’d do whatever he wanted.
But he didn’t want a woman because she was earning her keep. He wanted a woman who wanted him with the same fury, the same need.
“I don’t want to be still. If you’re going to die and leave me alone in this hulk of bolts, I need to know,” she cried.
Her eyes were so wide, and her breasts rose and fell against his bare chest with her impassioned plea.
“No, I’m not going to die. Unless you don’t stop squirming.”
“I don’t understand your problem with my moving around. No other male has had such a reaction to me.”
He arched a brow. “I’m sure they have. But I’m also sure you didn’t touch any of them like you touched me, and I can’t forget it.”
“Why not?” Her fingers dug into his shoulders. It was a cute little burn, her cat scratches. Her question was almost a plea.
“I liked it.”
Her face flamed again, and he decided that he definitely liked making her blush.
“I still like it. So stop being a minx, turn around, and be still.”
He could swear that he could feel her heartbeat thundering against the cage of her ribs. But that wasn’t possible. No human heart could beat so loudly, but that didn’t stop some part of him from fancying that he could.
“I… if you want me,” she began.
“Oh, I want you, but I’d rather have you screaming.”
“You want me to be afraid?” She curled her nose.
He laughed, a deep sort of gut laugh that he hadn’t felt in a long time. “No, little one. I want you to be screaming with need. I want you to be demanding I fuck you because there’s no other way to sate you. Get me?”
She licked her lips. “I thought you’d be… but you’re exactly what I wanted.”
“What?” He had absolutely no idea what to make of that statement.
She turned away from him, faced the controls, and was again stiff as a statue. “You know I fantasized about you. Obviously.” She shook her head. “Goddess, I’m so embarrassed.”
She took a shuddering breath, and he knew that she had more to say.
“I made you into the ideal of a man. But while I was doing it, I knew it couldn’t be real. I knew if you ever woke up, you’d be angry. You’d probably kill me. But you haven’t. You saved my life. You rescued me. You really are just like one of those heroes from the books I’m not supposed to read.”
“Any scenario where I’m the hero has it all wrong, sweetheart.” By Valhalla, she had the balls of a
Berserker, but the naivety of a Saxony princess. There was something both fierce and fragile about her.
“Really? I guess you’ll have to prove that.” Suddenly, the vulnerable girl was gone and in her place was a woman ready to fight tooth and nail for her ideals. He wasn’t sure how she did that.
“I caved a man’s head in. You still have blood on your face. I kidnapped you.” He enumerated his crimes.
Then he wondered if he was trying to convince her or himself. Why did he want her to think he was a bad man? As long as she thought he was some kind of hero, she’d be easy to manage.
The thought sat heavy and dark in his gut like a bad shank of meat.
“He was trying to hurt me. And if you’d left me on Hel, you know how that would’ve ended. Do you think my father would want me after that? No.” She shook her head in a small motion. “Even now, he might try to find me if the news blasters find out what’s happened. But, if not? He’ll figure he’s well-rid of me.”
“Why does your father treat you like one of the Saxony? Your mother was the great Valkyrie Eir. You have her eyes. You must have more that is like her. Yet, you are subservient, second-class. On my planet, you would never be treated thusly.”
“On your planet, I would have two babes clutching my ankles, and one on the teat.”
He considered her for a moment and thought that wouldn’t be a bad thing. Except he knew that wasn’t the right answer. He may have been a knuckle-dragging Berserker, but he did know how to deal with the women. Treat them like men. Like people. Pretty simple, actually. “Only if that’s what you chose.”
She laughed. “So I hear. But if that’s the case, why would my mother have ever chosen Odin Lokison?”
“I wouldn’t know the answer to that. Valkyries marry for many reasons. Probably because she wanted you.”
“Then why would she leave again?”
“To fill her purpose in the ‘verse.”
She laughed, but it was a bitter sound. “Her purpose. Yet, I have none. Only to make alliances for my father.”
“When this is over, I’ll take you wherever you want to go.”
“Really?” She turned to face him again, her sweet ass shimmying against his cock.
“Gods, woman. What did I tell you?”
She bit her lip. “That you like it.”
Valhalla help me, he thought for the second time. Because if Valhalla couldn’t, he was sure Hel would.
He grabbed her hips and dragged her forward so she was perched so intimately atop his erection, that there could be no doubt of what she was doing to him. Her eyes widened and she’d bitten her lip so often that it was swollen, bee-stung, and irresistible.
Her little claws dug into his shoulder like a kneading cat and her tiny little scratches, he couldn’t explain it, but something about it pushed him past whatever limits he thought he could maintain.
In the middle of the far reaches of space, Magnus the Destroyer wasn’t terrorizing the Saxon System or pursuing his revenge. He was giving a pretty virgin her first kiss.
Chapter Three
Magnus the Destroyer indeed earned his namesake, but it wasn’t for ravaging towns, or women. It was for destroying a fantasy.
And when compared to the real thing, it was a pale, strange creature destined to die a cold death and then burn to ash in the glaring intensity of the real thing.
His kiss was both everything she’d imagined, and nothing like it at all.
Mercy couldn’t conceive of a thing like this—the fire of a thousand suns condensed into one man’s lips. It wasn’t possible. Yet here she burned.
In her most heated imaginings, she’d never felt like this. She was the silliest of girls, but she couldn’t bring herself too much recrimination, because she was living a fantasy and it was all the better because it was real.
Magnus the Destroyer wanted her.
She shivered.
“Are you afraid?” he whispered against her lips.
“Very, so don’t stop.” She wound her arms around his thick, corded neck.
Mercy decided that she very much enjoyed kissing, the way his hands fit around her hips, the way they fit together. She was dizzy with sensation and she never wanted it to stop.
Which of course was why the autopilot chose that moment to disengage.
An alarm sounded, ripping her from her oasis of bliss.
“Shit,” he growled. “Here, stay where you are. I can nav better.”
Mercy wasn’t going to argue. She buried her face in his neck, staying in the moment.
He smelled like…cold. She remembered once when she was young, traveling to the outer systems with her mother and she’d had to be bundled in furs. The cold had stung her nose, her eyes, and there’d been a scent to the air that was crisp and hard, and she’d always imagined that cold had a smell.
Maybe it was because he’d been in suspended animation, but Mercy didn’t think so. It was part of him—part of the raiding people that spawned both her mother and Magnus.
He burned like the cold too. Her father told her cold couldn’t burn, but it did. She knew that fire could be so hot it was cold and that something could freeze and burn.
The cadence of Magnus’s heart thudded faster, and that was when she knew something had gone wrong.
“Mercy, something’s wrong with the pod.”
“We’re not going to land on Holle, are we?”
“No, we’re a long way from Holle. The ship engaged wyrmdrive as soon as we exited the atmosphere. We’re on the edges of the Asgard system, not too far from Saxony.”
“Not too far from Saxony? Isn’t there the Great Dark between Saxony and Asgard?” She referred to the dangerous black rift between the galaxies. Once, it had been thought to be a black hole. Early explores found it to be traversable, but there was no light. Something in the black devoured it. Only the greatest navigators could guide through it by instinct alone.
They could go around it, and many did, but that was many more light years. Unless one had a rainbow bridge.
“It is, and we’re headed for it.”
All the heat and desire that burned in her was gone replaced by strangling fear. She had nightmares about the Great Dark. What lived there, what died there… and what the Great Dark was.
“I can get us through.”
“In this?”
“Fuck,” he growled and his body strained, muscles bulging as he fought to straighten the controls.
“What’s happening?’ she whispered, afraid of the answer.
“There’s a planet at the edge of the Great Dark. It’s taking us there.”
“So maybe there’s an outpo—”
“It’s uninhabited. And you know the likelihood of anyone stopping to answer a distress call from a Hel ship? Not anyone we want to stop, that’s for damn sure.”
“Someone must have tampered with the ship.”
“Who else knew about the pod?”
“Only my father’s people.”
“Fenris?”
“No.” She shook her head.
“Damn it. There’s nothing I can do short of knocking out the controls.”
“Then we’ll be left to drift in space. I don’t want to die out here.”
“You’d rather die down there?” he asked quietly.
“At least down there, we have a chance.”
“I wouldn’t be too sure about that. Someone wanted this pod there and most likely, it wasn’t for anything good.”
She clung more tightly to him.
“The re-entry process has started. That’s a good sign that we’re not going to crash.”
“Kiss me again.” Mercy didn’t give him a chance to argue. She’d spent her whole life doing what she was supposed to do. Now everything she’d been taught and believed disappeared like smoke. She wanted to kiss Magnus one more time. So she was going to.
Mercy didn’t think they were going to die, at least not at that moment. But she knew things were going to change irrevocably no ma
tter what waited for them on the surface of the planet.
At least she’d be marooned on a planet with a strong man who knew how to survive rather than a snake like Fenris who could only make his way on the backs of others.
“Don’t be afraid,” he said against her lips.
She didn’t know if he meant of him, or what lay ahead, or both. He didn’t make her any pretty promises, but Mercy realized she didn’t need them. Only people who thought they would fail made promises.
I’ll come back for you, Eir had said. But she hadn’t. She’d died.
No, Mercy didn’t want promises, she wanted action.
Magnus was definitely a man of action.
“Don’t you want to watch re-entry? There’s so much fire. It’s beautiful, the way it streaks past the viewports. I imagine it looks much like your hair.”
“More fire here.” She closed her eyes and surrendered to the kiss, the way his hands felt as they moved up.
When he finally broke the kiss he said, “I think you’re a little adrenaline junky. There’s more Valkyrie in you than you think.”
The ship began to open and she realized they were on solid ground.
Mercy would rather have just stayed in the pod. Then she wouldn’t have to deal with whatever was coming. They could just stay together, in that little cocoon of heat and desire.
Except she knew that wasn’t how the world worked.
So she climbed off his lap and deployed the stairs.
“Woman, will you wait? See, all Valkyrie.” He shook his head.
Mercy wasn’t sure what he meant by that, but she was just trying to get out of the way.
Taking in their surroundings, she saw that the dock had been well-tended, once upon a time. Ice crystals had formed at the edges of the doors, but the electronics were all clean. No evidence of dust, or exposure to the elements.
“We’re not alone.”
“That someone who wanted us here…” She pointed to a far wall where big, bold, black letters read, “I knew you’d save her, Magnus.”
Viking's Fury Page 2
