Taken by the Berserkers: A Menage Shifter Romance

by Lee Savino

“ I am Yseult. Come.” She sat on a boulder and patted the rock beside her. “I wish to speak to you. You seem much more interesting than your sister.”

  I sat. “Which one?”

  “Brenna, of course.”

  “You’ve seen her?”

  “My dear, I’m the one who told the Berserkers about her.”

  I sucked in a breath. “You told the prophecy.”

  “I cast runes. Yes. I told Brenna’s mates about her. I was not the one to first tell Maddox and Ragnvald of your existence, but I may have taken pity on them and told them where to find you.”

  My world narrowed on the lovely woman before me. Here was my true enemy. I should feel angry, and yet everything in me wanted to fawn over her beauty and serve her. I gripped the stem in my hand until the thorns broke my skin. The pain cleared my head.

  Yseult’s glance at my fist told me she didn’t miss the motion. Her smile told me she approved.

  “So I have you to thank for ruining my life,” I said.

  “For ruining your life? No. For finding your destiny, yes. You may thank me.”

  “You don’t know this is my destiny.”

  “Neither do you. Unless you will admit to having power.”

  “The Berserkers think I have some,” I said carefully.

  “A bit more than some. But a lot less than me.”

  Just like that I’d had enough of her preening.

  “My sister and I have the power to heal the Berserkers.”

  “Your sisters are spaewives. Not so rare a race, but few know what they are. You pass for a normal human and have affinity for herbs and healing. It’s a deeper, subtler magic.”

  “We go into heat at the time of the moon.”

  “Oh yes, the estrous. That is a response to the Berserkers, I believe. It grows stronger the longer you deny it, calling to your true mates until they come and claim you.”

  I huffed.

  “You do not believe me?”

  “I know it is true,” I sighed.

  “You wish it wasn’t.”

  I didn’t deny it.

  “I have a theory.” Yseult settled beside me, tucking her feet up under her skirts like we were girls talking of the midsummer market, not a witch and a Berserker consort speaking of magic. “The beast that feeds off the Berserker rage, it enjoys lust. There is the wolf, you see, and that is natural, at peace, as long as it has its pack and place within it. Then there is the man. Men can be ruled by all sorts of passions, but these warriors can control those. What they can’t control is the beast.”

  “What is the beast?”

  “Hunger. Thirst. Pure wanting. Much like you experience during the full of the moon.”

  I stayed silent.

  “Imagine that agony, but every day. Multiply it a thousand times, and stretch it across a century.”

  I fought the urge to hide my face in my skirts. “I cannot comprehend it.”

  “Of course not. Neither can they. That is why they go mad.”

  “But that can’t happen any more, right?”

  “Not if you don’t keep yourself from them. Your moon lust and their moon madness...” She laced her fingers together.

  “We fit. I know.”

  “Then why are you fighting it?”

  “Did they ask you to speak to me?”

  “Your Alphas? No. But only because they are afraid to let you near me.” Her smile was terrifying.

  “Are you such a threat?” I kept my voice light.

  “Of course I am, but not to you. I just told you--I find you interesting. That is why your men wouldn’t want us meeting. I don’t want to harm you. I want to teach you.”

  She left me speechless for a moment. “Why?”

  Her slender fingers toyed with my hair, much like Maddox often did. Both acted as if they owned me, but where his touch was admiring, hers was condescending, like I was a pretty pet who amused her for the moment. “Real women of power are so hard to come by.”

  I rose from the rock, to stop her from touching me. “I do not have so much power.”

  “Not yet. You won’t even embrace your destiny.”

  “This is not my destiny.” I waved at the forest, and the cave.

  “Oh, and what is? Squatting in a human village, waiting for the day a priest realizes your influence upstages his, and decides you must burn? Will you marry some brute for his protection? Bear his children, his beatings until he dies and you’re driven to drink? That was your mother’s life.”

  A fist clenched around my heart. “I make my own path.”

  “Do you? You are not free from the ties that bind each of us to the other...any more than I am. Freedom is an illusion.”

  “My grandmother was free.”

  “Yes, and she died. A vagabond and alone.”

  “You’d have me stay and consort with these men?” I kept my tone level. It wouldn’t be wise to offend a woman of this power, but I wanted to slap her. As much as I wished to air my thoughts and confused feelings, I didn’t want a witch meddling. I’d hoped to speak of this with Brenna, after all, she had been living as a captive of the Berserkers all this time. “You say you want to teach me. Why?”

  “Power begets power.”

  I leveled a stare at the witch, careful to focus on her face and not her eyes in case she could ensnare me that way.

  Yseult sighed, guessing that I would not speak until she gave me a better answer. “There is a war coming only Berserkers can fight, and there is a role I must play in it. I will need all the help I can get.”

  I ignored the prickle down my spine at her words. She spoke the truth, and my instinct confirmed it.

  “If you stay, you will grow your power. Already, you are stronger. Your moon lust will temper theirs.”

  I frowned, thinking it was true.

  “And then there’s the punishment.” Yseult licked her lips. “Your mates’ pretty whips and chains.”

  I stiffened. “What of those?” I felt mortified that she knew of those things.

  “Why, pain makes magic stronger. Have you noticed?”

  I hadn’t, so said nothing.

  “All magic requires sacrifice to satisfy the gods. A witch like myself only needs a little pain. A sparrow, a mouse, a goat here and there.”

  My gut twisted. She was speaking of animal sacrifice, and not a quick clean death. Torture.

  “There’s human sacrifice--but only the darkest arts require that.”

  “My sisters and I would never--”

  “I know, I know,” Yseult waved a hand. “Hedge witches like you and your sister are a different breed. Your pain and sacrifice comes from a different source.”

  “What source?”

  “Yourself. You submit yourself to pain. That is why these Berserkers worship you. Their beast lusts for violence. In times of war they will subdue armies. In times of peace--”

  “They will subdue me,” I finished dryly. We didn’t need to speak of all the ways Maddox and Ragnvald had subdued me in our short time together. Or how I’d enjoyed it--begged for it, even.

  Yseult inclined her head.

  “And my submission brings power?”

  “Your submission is power. But yes. One packet of your herbs would heal a village, now. “

  Her eyes were strange, yellow with a green band. I wondered that I’d ever thought her human.

  “Why are you telling me this?”

  “I wish to help.”

  “I want to go home.”

  “Then ask. These wolves will give you anything.”

  Anything, they’d said in my dream, but that.

  “Don’t you know, Sabine?” Yseult rose and walked to me, a sway in her hips that left my mouth dry. I’d never desired a woman before, but this one stirred forbidden feelings...of many kinds. “They’re more than a little in love with you.”

  “I wish that things could go back to the way they were before.” I hated the tangled mess. The pack politics were even more deadly and dangerous than human on
es.

  There is a war coming only Berserkers can fight, and there is a role I must play in it.

  “Do you?” Yseult wrapped one hand around my shoulder. I didn’t dare pull away.

  “Your power grows stronger...so tasty. No wonder these warrior wolves can’t get enough.”

  Her nails bit into my skin, waking me up as the thorns had.

  I blinked, and the spell was broken. Ordinary eyes stared out of an ordinary face. Yseult and I looked alike, I realized. Blonde hair and hazel eyes, while all my sisters had darker hair.

  I stepped back.

  “I will heal Ragnvald and the pack. That is all they asked for. Then my sisters and I will return to the village and live as we have always done.”

  *

  After the witch left, I sat and stared into the fire for a long time.

  “Sabine?”

  A rustle behind me, but I didn’t move even when Ragnvald’s hand came to my shoulder. I flinched, but there was no pain from Yseult’s original grip. I’d checked for broken skin, and found none.

  “Sabine, are you alright?”

  I nodded and submitted to his perusal.

  “I did not know she had come to you first. She told me before she disappeared.” He finished checking me over and sounded relieved. Lifting me in his arms, he carried me back to the cave.

  He fed the fire, then came to my back, sat and wrapped his arms around me. He didn’t speak until I relaxed against his chest.

  “What did you and Yseult speak of?”

  “Magic. Power.”

  His laugh gusted at my ear. “She loves to speak of those things.”

  “She said my power is growing. That witches like her make sacrifices to the gods, but I am my own sacrifice.”

  “You have sacrificed much for us. We are forever in your debt.”

  Twisting in his lap, I faced him.

  “Are we safe?”

  “From Brenna’s pack? Or from the beast within?” Ragnvald went on before I could find a way to tell him I worried about both. “My beast is all but tamed, little one. And Brenna’s pack--we walk an uneasy path, but it leads to peace.”

  I laid my hand on the perfect plane of his cheek, beautiful and pale as if carved from marble by the gods.

  Yseult spoke of a war only the Berserkers could win, that she would play a part in. If I chose not to accept my place as my Alpha’s mate, did she mean to suggest they would not win?

  Either way, if I left, I had to resign myself to losing these men, one way, or another. It is one thing to lay love aside, and another to lose it forever.

  Unable to look at the Viking’s beauty any longer, I settled back in his arms, and let him simply hold me.

  “Do you think he’s safe?”

  Ragnvald sighed. “He is not comfortable, but he is alive. Can you not feel him?”

  I closed my eyes, and when I focused, a presence stirred in my heart. Like my knowledge that Brenna was alive, but stronger.

  Maddox, I thought, and the presence grew stronger. Yseult says I have powers.

  I could almost see his grin. Told you, little witch.

  A breeze blew over the fire, making the ashes dance. Together Ragnvald and I watched them rise against the moon. We didn’t move. On this night, we both needed comfort.

  “I miss him.”

  *

  It took a day for us to trek to the Thing, and would’ve taken longer, but once I grew tired, Ragnvald swung me up in his arms and ran. As the forest flew by, I caught glimpses of warriors on either side of us, carrying axes and spears and traveling as fast as we were. When Ragnvald stopped, they formed a loose circle around us. Most were barechested and only wearing leather breeches. A few had wolf pelts slung over their shoulders. Some were in wolf form.

  I kept my eyes down and waited for Ragnvald to leash me, but he only took a strip of leather and wound it around my wrist. “These wolves are more civilized,” he told me. “And so is our pack now, thanks to you.”

  He held the end of the leather thong tying my wrist, so I was still leashed, but it wasn’t as humiliating.

  “The other rules still apply,” he warned, and I nodded, eager to prove that I could behave. One act of defiance, one slip, and I might destroy the uneasy peace between packs.

  Ragnvald led me to a clearing with standing stones, much like the one his men had made by the seaside. Each stone was twice as tall as I was, and thrice as thick. Passing under a gate made of three stone slabs, I realized the Berserkers made these formations. The stones would stand for centuries, a testament to the pack’s unworldly strength.

  The other pack waited for us by a bonfire in the center of the stone circle. The flames cast shadows on their faces. The moon also lent her silvery light.

  An oppressive feeling rolled over me as we faced the enemy pack, as if the bad blood between the packs weighed the air.

  I followed behind Ragnvald, in a tight knot of warriors. Three enemy warriors moved out of the mass of grim wolves to greet us.

  In the heavy silence, Ragnvald stopped a few feet from the approaching triangle. They seemed to be waiting for something. No one spoke. My body was so tense one touch would make it snap. If the opposing pack attacked, we would all surely die.

  With a nod to the three leaders, Ragnvald stepped away, revealing me to their pack.

  Immediately the choking gravity lessened, and I could breathe again. I stiffened my spine as every wolf in the clearing studied me. The foremost enemy warrior, pale-skinned and blond much like Ragnvald, though much broader and not as tall, stepped forward, a friendlier look on his bearded face.

  “Well met, Ragnvald of Norway.”

  *

  The first round of discussion at the Gathering ended soon after moonrise. Brenna’s Berserkers didn’t speak directly to me.

  “Out of respect to me,” Ragnvald told me as soon as we’d left the place of stones. “Tomorrow, we will meet in private with the Alphas, and be less formal. They will allow you to see Brenna then. From what I know, she is well, but her mates are very protective.”

  “Mates?”

  “The two Alphas we met.”

  “The blond and the dark haired one?” I guessed. The third leader had been the scar-faced warrior with the shaved head. Wulfgar, they called him. He was a Viking like Ragnvald, like most of the wolves, besides Maddox.

  Wulfgar was the one who led us to the lodging where Ragnvald and I could spend the night. The rest of the pack had their own bonfire. The light flickered through the trees, and as we approached the tent, I heard a happy clamor--a toast of some sort.

  “Your hospitality is well received,” Ragnvald said to Wulfgar.

  The scarred hulk smiled. “We welcome those who come in peace.”

  “Tonight we drink to peace; tomorrow we’ll pledge to it.”

  Wulfgar merely inclined his head.

  A fine woven rug ran between two torches, leading us to the tent door. Before I could enter, Maddox stepped out.

  His face looked leaner, the eyes more shadowed, but his body strong and easily able to catch my weight when I ran and leapt into his arms. As Maddox carried me inside and let the tent flap fall, I heard Ragnvald chuckling behind us.

  Inside Maddox kissed me with such passion, I was sure tomorrow I would have bruises.

  “Please,” I said, already struggling out of my fine gown. It wouldn’t do for it to be ripped on the morrow, but I had to touch him, press my naked flesh against him.

  We came together as soon as Maddox stripped off his breeches.

  Maddox’s fingers bit into my hips as he positioned me where he wanted me.“Sabine, I want... I can’t be gentle--”

  “Don’t be--” I surged up to take his lips, and gasped as his cock speared me. My legs hooked around his back, forcing him in faster, my body stretching around him, welcoming the burn.

  Afterward, I lay in his arms, tracing the pattern of his tattoos, memorizing their shadowed depths.

  “When did you get these?” I asked,
stroking his inked skin. “I thought Berserker’s bodies healed quickly. Did you get them before or after you were...changed?”

  “I fell asleep under the curse, and when I woke, I was marked.”

  He seemed content to lie under me and accept my soothing touch. The bruises under his eyes had grown lighter. I wondered what scars his fast-healing skin hid.

  “Did they hurt you?” We hadn’t yet spoken of the other Berserker pack.

  “Nothing permanent. They took their debt out of my hide but it was not so much that I couldn’t bear it.”

  I remembered Ragnvald’s pained looks around the fire. “Ragnvald took the pain for you, didn’t he?”

  Maddox’s silence gave me my answer.

  Laying my head on his chest, I sucked in a breath against angry tears. “I should’ve never have let them take you.”

  His hand stroked my hair. “I would’ve gone anyway. You couldn’t have stopped me. Truth was, they were gentler than they would’ve been if they hadn’t seen us kiss. Admit it, witch, you care for me.

  “Wolf.” I sharpened my tone but couldn’t quite mean it. “You forget your place.”

  “As do you,” he found the leather strip that Ragnvald had used to leash me, and wound it over his palm until I was tethered tightly to him. “Beneath me, attending to my cock.”

  I rolled my eyes and just like that, my tears were gone.

  “You also helped me,” he continued in a more serious tone.

  “When?”

  “When you reached out to me. I heard you,” he tapped his temple. “Here. That and knowing you were waiting and missing me...I could’ve survived any torture.”

  “You really heard me?”

  He nodded.

  “So we share a bond? Is that even possible between a woman and a wolf?”

  “Not just any woman.” He rolled and now I was underneath him, enjoying the rippling muscles in his arms as they held him over me. “I have learned much from these Berserkers. The moon goddess looked down on the earth and saw her children--the wolves--were breeding too slowly to replenish their packs. She gave the spell of the Change to her priestesses, but the magic was used for ill and became tainted. So she set her magic deep inside the most devoted priestesses, pure of heart. They can mate with wolves, and can tame the beast.”

  “Spaewives,” I said.

  “Yes. They are the most beautiful, most gentle of women. Docile, submissive, obedient.”