A Real Man: Limited Edition

by Jenika Snow

They’d conquer me if I didn’t leave now.

  They’d own me, destroy me.

  Savages. They were beasts, barely human, running on instinct to control, to pillage.

  The scent of fire, of my home burning, slammed into me so hard I couldn’t breathe. Tears tracked down my cheeks, and I was unable to stem them, didn’t even try. I grabbed my pack, which held only the essentials, and picked up the small blade. If I had to fight, to protect myself, I’d do it with every ounce of strength I possessed. I sneaked out the back, hearing grunts and roars from the men intent on taking what wasn’t theirs.

  I’d make my way through the forest, toward the creek, and keep going until I hit the next village. The others, who had escaped in time, would have already warned them, and they would have already moved out. I doubted I’d even be able to catch up with them. I wasn’t a hunter, and definitely not a tracker. I’d be searching for them, but probably dead long before I ever reached them.

  God, such a depressing thought, that my life could end before it even started.

  But they’d escaped. That was all that mattered.

  “Where are you going?” The gruff words came from behind me, and before I could run, someone grabbed my hair and yanked me back. I cried out, my pack dropping to the ground as I reached for the strands, trying to pry his hands off or at least ease the pain. I still held the knife, keeping it close to my side, ready to use it when I was in a better position. Or, I’d try to use it.

  He dragged me back to the center of the village and tossed me to the ground. I was crying hard, my eyes blurry, my heart racing.

  And then they came forward, moving closer, their dirty faces, their huge bodies and horned hats looking frightening, like they were demons sent to rain down on us, to torment us.

  I knew what was to come, but I’d fight them tooth and nail, make sure they hurt before they brought me under. I swung out, the beast in front of me having his head turned and not seeing what I was about to do. The blade sliced right into his gut, but I wasn’t sure how deep it went, seeing the layers he wore. He grunted, and I got a bit of pleasure knowing I’d at least hurt him.

  I expected the blows to come, the pain that would surely be inflicted on me after what I’d done, but I’d still fight to the end.

  The sound of a battle cry wrenched through the air. The men around me took a fighting stance. I searched the village, seeing nothing but flames and smoke. The shadows crept around where the flames didn’t lick.

  A grunt.

  A cry of pain.

  The scent of blood in the air.

  The feeling of the savages life force covering me.

  It all hit me suddenly, and I fell forward, bracing my hands in the dirt, my breathing labored. I could hear fighting all around me, and I expected any second that final blow that would end my life.

  But it never came. And when the silence stretched on, I lifted my head and looked around. The Vikings who’d destroyed my village lay around me, their bodies bloody and broken. My heart thundered, my throat was dry, and I couldn’t breathe. It wasn’t just the thick smoke that surrounded me like a cloak, but my fear of what was out there. Of who had killed my enemy.

  I prayed to the gods it was the former.

  And then I heard heavy footsteps coming closer, but the fire raged on, making it impossible to see anything. I tried to stand, but my legs didn’t want to work. I heard my heart thundering in my ears, felt the pulse at the base of my neck.

  The man who came into view was not a savior, a hero that had saved the day. He might have killed the men who’d hurt me, but he was still a Viking. His horned hat, the leather, fur, and blood from his enemies that he wore making it known he’d seen violence…he’d delivered it himself. But although he was the same as the ones who’d terrorized my village, he’d also killed them, stopped them before they could take from me what wasn’t freely offered.

  And then I saw two more men step up behind him. It was clear they were with him. Their focus was intense, their attention trained right on me. They started speaking in a dialect I wasn’t familiar with. When the Viking in front of me started to speak, this time to me, I could only shake my head. I didn’t know if they meant me harm, or if they were worse than the ones they’d killed.

  “Please, I don’t understand. I don’t know what’s happening.” I lifted my hands, knowing they were shaking, knowing they probably didn’t understand me either.

  “You’re afraid of us.” The one I’d seen first spoke to me, his words clear and his accent thick. He knew my language.

  “Yes,” I whispered. There wasn’t any point in lying. He could see how clear my fear was. It was written along my body, in telltale signs.

  “You have nothing to fear from us.” He held his hand out to me, and although maybe I still should have been afraid, should have tried to outrun them, to escape, the truth was I did feel safe. I didn’t know if they were telling me the truth, but they’d killed the men who had destroyed my home, and had been about to do unspeakable things to me. They could have harmed me ten times over by now, but they didn’t, they hadn’t.

  So I lifted my shaking hand and slipped it into his bigger one, his palm covered in blood, his strength clear.

  He helped me to stand, and I had to crane my neck back to stare into his face. He was huge, his body wide, muscular. I could see his eyes, a bright blue that didn’t look soft. I could see the violence and danger reflected in them, staring right into my very being. I was aware of the destruction around us, of the bodies littering our feet. I could even feel the other two men watching us.

  I knew I should say something, anything, but I was lost in this hazy feeling of … warmth.

  And then he leaned down slightly so we were eye to eye. He lifted his hand, cupped my cheek, and said in a voice so deep, so masculine I couldn’t help but shiver, “You’re mine, female.”

  I didn’t know what my fate was, but at this point I had nothing else to lose.

  2

  Gunnar

  I stared at the female…my female. She was small, her blonde hair in plaits matted with soot and blood. She looked back at me, her wide blue eyes showing confusion but not fear. I’d told her she was mine, and she was. I watched the fighter in her emerge. I knew I had to claim her as my wife.

  I didn’t want her to be afraid of me, of us. Something in me tightened as I looked at her, my heart beating a wild tempo, my body humming. From the first moment I’d seen her kneeling on the ground, her fear written on her face, her strength so monumental and surrounding her like a second skin, something in me had awoken.

  We’d been tracking the raiders for days, always one step behind. But we’d gone through the night, hunting them like the animals they were, and finally found them…destroyed them. We’d been after the Vikings for longer than I wanted to admit. They were brutal bastards, that clan, going from village to village, claiming what didn’t belong to them. When we’d first come up against the savages back in our village, they’d slaughtered many of our people. We might have seemed like them on the outside, brutal and unforgiving, but we were not cold-blooded killers. We did not get pleasure from hearing the screams of victims.

  “What do you plan on doing with her?” Thorsen asked, his voice gruff, the displeasure evident. He spoke in our native tongue, a dialect not familiar in these parts. I knew the female couldn’t understand us, and I wanted her to. I didn’t want her thinking we kept secrets.

  The truth was, despite our mission to end the violence from the Viking clan, I’d wanted a female as my own. I’d wanted to have a wife, a woman to carry my strong daughters and powerful sons. And when I first saw this little warrior, a princess in her own right, a shield maiden waiting to be brought to the light, I knew she was mine.

  “He wants her as his,” Viggo said, the third Viking warrior in my group. He kept his head lowered, but his focus was trained ahead.

  I looked at the female. I didn’t even know her name, but I didn’t need to in order to know she was mine in ever
y conceivable way.

  Ingrid

  I didn’t know where they were taking me, but they hadn’t hurt me, and in fact one of them—the Viking I’d first seen—seemed to be extra gentle with me.

  I tripped over a fallen log, but before I fell forward, strong arms gripped me around the waist, righting me. I turned my head and stared up at the Viking.

  He placed a hand on his chest and said, “Gunnar.” I stood there for a second, his hands still around me, his big body warm, pressed against mine. He tapped his chest with his hand. “I’m Gunnar.”

  I nodded. The feeling of his big, hard body right up against mine, his strength surrounding me, made me feel all female.

  “Ingrid,” I said, my voice soft, my breath increasing. I watched his eyes become heavy-lidded as he looked down at my mouth. I thought he might have kissed me then, and for some inexplicable and insane reason, I didn’t think I would have stopped him. But he stood there for long seconds, not moving, his breathing heavy. He straightened, made sure I was righted, then moved away. “Where are we going?” I managed to say, the only words that could have made an appearance at this moment.

  “Our ship,” one of the other men said. “We need to keep moving.”

  I started walking ahead of Gunnar, with one man in front of me and the other behind my Viking.

  My Viking?

  I needed to get these thoughts out of my head. I needed to focus on what I was going to do. Staying with Gunnar seemed like the best way for me to stay alive, but I also didn’t know if leaving would reunite me with my village.

  Do I want to go back there?

  Truth was I had loved my village, loved my community, but I’d wanted to leave, to explore. I’d wanted to find my place, to make a name for myself. I had no clue if that would ever have happened, but I wanted to find out. At nineteen I was old for not having a husband or children. I wanted those things, but I didn’t want to be expected to do certain things, to be someone I was not.

  We walked again, for hours it seemed. My feet hurt, and when my belly growled, I felt a nudge. Gunnar was by my side, his expression so intense, focused right on me. “Eat and drink.” He handed me the animal horn that he’d had hanging from his belt, and I drank deeply from it. He then handed me a piece of dried, salted pork. I had no doubt he would have picked me up and carried me if I’d complained. He was certainly watching me hard enough to notice any little ache I might show on my face.

  And then I saw the water…saw their frightening, massive ship, saw the Vikings spread out across the beast, about to take us away.

  We made our way through the clearing, the other two Vikings leading the way. Gunnar grabbed my hand and pulled me to a stop.

  “You are not a captive. You’re free to go.”

  I was a little stunned, because I’d assumed he wouldn’t just let me walk away. True, he hadn’t hurt me, had even been caring to me, but seeing as they’d made me go with them…I didn’t know what my future held.

  He pointed to the left. “The villages that way have been destroyed by the raiders.” He pointed to the right. “You might have luck that way, although word probably got out and everyone left, if they were smart.”

  Yes, I assumed everyone had fled. We all might be small villages, but we knew how to survive.

  “Or…”

  I glanced at him again, my heart in my throat, these unexplainable feelings slamming into me.

  “You’re welcome to come with us, to come with me.”

  I swallowed past the lump in my throat, looked both left, then right, but knew what I’d find out there.

  Nothing for me.

  If I went with Gunnar, I’d find adventure, experience. If I went with him, I could try and see what living was really like.

  Seconds moved by, minutes, and I glanced down, knowing what I wanted but still so confused. I was afraid of experiencing life but so thirsty for it. I lifted my head, looking into his blue eyes, and knew that maybe this was fate. Maybe this was the gods giving me a chance to finally know what life really was.

  “I’d like to go with you.”

  3

  Gunnar

  I showed Ingrid where she could sleep—on my pallet by my rowing station. I set up all my furs, made a nice area for her, and hoped she was warm and comfortable enough. I’d rather be cold myself, have the elements batter against me, than to let her suffer. I also set up a hide that draped over her, secured to the sides of the ship, to give her—us—some privacy, and allow her some reprieve from the rains when they started. I wouldn’t take her on this ship, not for the first time, but when I held her, I didn’t want my fellow warriors watching.

  I might had given her the option to leave, but truth was I wouldn’t have let her. I’d claimed her. She would be my wife. I couldn’t let her walk away, not when I’d just found her.

  Thorsen and Viggo were watching me when I stepped away from her, making sure she’d fallen asleep. No doubt they were confused and annoyed by this change of plans.

  “You’re keeping her, as in your woman?” Viggo asked, his voice controlled, his emotions in check.

  “She’s mine,” I said sternly. “I’ll take her as my wife, as my mate.”

  “We’ve just barely conquered the raiders,” Thorsen replied.

  I stopped, looked between the two men, and felt my need for Ingrid so powerfully it rivaled any battle I’d ever been in. “She’s mine. If you want to fight me for her…”

  The men looked at me, but they knew not to press this, that if I said something, it went. They also knew I wouldn’t have been this adamant on anything unless it was what I wanted. “She’s under my protection, and therefore under yours as well.”

  Both men nodded. That was it, the need of it, sealed in fucking stone.

  Now I just had to make Ingrid see that she would be mine.

  My wife.

  My mate.

  The future mother of my children.

  Nothing would take her from me.

  We set sail back to our home. I wanted her to see she’d be welcomed, that no matter what I’d keep her safe. Even though she had a fire inside her that made me hard, made me proud, it was my job to watch over her.

  I let her sleep for a few hours as we kept on course. I’d let her get her strength. She’d certainly need it for what I had planned when we got to the village, for what I’d do to her.

  And she’d want it. She’d beg me for it, and scream out my name as she came unhinged in my arms.

  She’d understand I was the only one that could ever make her feel alive.

  Ingrid

  “Open for me, Ingrid,” Gunnar said softly, his deeply accented voice spearing right into the most intimate, heated parts of me. He had this command to the way he said things, to the way he wanted me to bend. It wasn’t in a controlling way, but more that he wanted to care for me. I’d felt that the moment he’d killed the men trying to hurt me, looked into my eyes, and told me I was his.

  I parted my lips, and Gunnar slipped the piece of meat into my mouth. When I closed my lips, his fingers were still between my lips. The way his body tightened, his pupils dilated, and his breathing increased told me this was affecting him just as strongly as it had me.

  The sound of the wind beating against the hide he had draped over us, a makeshift wall and roof, a bit of privacy and protection, made this fluttering start in my belly. He was taking care of me, wanting me to be happy, comfortable. I’d only been here with him for a short time, but already I felt myself falling for the rugged, strong Viking. He was unlike any male I’d ever come across. Even the best, most revered warrior in my village didn’t hold a flame to Gunnar.

  The sound of the rain pelting on the hide, a gentle rocking from the boat, and the warmth coming from Gunnar could have lulled me back to sleep.

  My tongue touched the tip of one of his fingers as if it had a mind of its own, and I heard a deep groan come from him, like a blade hitting a thick tree trunk. He went for another piece of food to feed me, but
I shook my head.

  “I want you full, content.”

  I felt a rush of heat spread through me. “I am.” In more ways than I’d admit.

  Only after a few seconds of staring at me, maybe seeing if I was being honest, did he nod and push the food back. Although I’d never been on a Viking ship, the pallet I was on was comfortable. It smelled like Gunnar, this woodsy, masculine aroma that surrounded me. I shifted on the pallet of furs, feeling myself become uncomfortable in the best of ways because of the close proximity of Gunnar.

  He handed me a pouch of water, and I took a long drink from it. I didn’t miss how he was focused on my mouth when I dragged my tongue along my bottom lip, collecting a droplet of water on it.

  “Where are we going?” I finally asked. I guess I’d just gone along with it, figuring that was part of the adventure. But I was curious.

  “My home,” Gunnar said, his voice seeming thicker still. “We have another day of travel.”

  I smoothed my hands over my clothes. They were dirty, and I was in desperate need of bathing, if only to feel better about myself.

  “Once we are back at the village, I’ll prepare a warm bath, with oils and dried flowers, only the best for you.” His voice had gone an octave lower, and that tingling started in my belly again, moving through me swiftly.

  My heart was racing, the image of Gunnar bathing himself, running a piece of hide over his muscular body, filling my head in the most erotic of ways. I’d never had a man sleep with me, never felt them between my thighs, bringing me pleasure as they took their own. But from the moment I watched Gunnar slay those men, felt his body heat seep into mine, and heard his declaration that I was his, something in me had shifted toward him. I wanted him more than I’d ever wanted anyone, more than I ever thought I could.

  It had me feeling alive, desired, wanted.

  And that should have scared me more than anything else.

  Gunnar