by Kate Pearce
“Wait. Wait. Just shut the hell up for a minute!” she finally yelled.
Unfortunately she now had the undivided attention of everyone alive and dead in the area. Most of the living had no idea she talked to ghosts though, so they were looking at her like she was a madwoman. Stone and Gypsy closed ranks, however.
“What are they saying?” Stone asked.
She snorted. “Too damned much and most of it petty shit that does you no good. Let me try something.”
Even with petty spirits and old feuds distracting her, the horror of what had happened here made her furious. She sent out a telepathic request for information on the attackers and tuned out everything else. In seconds she had a group of hazy warriors before her. Nothing she did could keep them from talking over each other, unfortunately. She let them talk and absorbed what she heard.
Stone gripped her hip. “Anything useful?”
He looked worried and angry. She couldn’t blame him. If this had happened to her compound she’d be furious. She faced the ghost of the man who’d been in charge in this outpost.
“What should I tell him?” she asked the town’s commander. She brought Stone into her mind so she wouldn’t have to look like an idiot talking to air,
“A trading ship approached and asked to land. We had no indication they weren’t friendly.”
“What happened?” Stone asked.
“They attacked,” the warrior said. “They killed everyone. No reason for it.”
“Who the fuck are they?” Stone asked through his connection to her.
“They said they were from the Faelis Consortium.”
The ghost shared an image with her of an alien. Tall, lean, and with distinctly feline features and a thin pelt of fur covering its body.
“That’s got to be a translation,” she said to Stone. “I mean what are the chances a cat-like alien race is using Latin?”
“We used a translator box. There were likely errors since this is a species we’ve never encountered before. Perhaps you should let your mate attend you or go back to your ship,” he said, changing the subject suddenly.
She smelled the nosebleed before she felt it.
“Shit,” she muttered, holding the side of her thumb under her nose. She didn’t have a tissue with her. It had been a long time since she’d been overloaded so much she got a nosebleed. Was it the situation, which certainly warranted overload, or her ability? She’d never been in a situation like this. No way to know without testing it. Which she totally didn’t want to do. Thankfully, Stone was at her side. He grabbed her hands and pulled her close.
“You’ve had enough, baby. We’re going home.”
It wasn’t that simple or easy now that she’d seen the galaxy outside her world. “You have the description of their ship and people, right? We’re going to find it?”
He nodded. “Yes. We’re going to find it. And I’ve sent the warning to my people and the Delroi.”
“Stone, if these people are invading the galaxy and we’re only two days away from Earth now we have to warn them. And I have to get my friends out.”
“I know, baby. We’re going now.”
He hustled her onto the shuttle and into a seat, rubbing her temples. She did have a headache coming on but his fingers took away the pain.
“You okay?”
“I’m fine. Really. Usually I don’t have any issues talking to ghosts. There were several there and I wasn’t ready for it. I will be next time.”
She didn’t want there to ever be a next time. The pain and horror of what they’d just left was awful. And this was going to spread across the galaxy? To Earth?
“Verity and her little girl. And our friend Charlie. I need to get them out.”
“I sent word as soon as you told me about them, baby. The Delroi have probably already picked them up.”
“Take me home, Stone.”
She was ready for him now. There was a part of her that had always been ready. Waiting. Anticipating. Knowing her life could be so much more. She was taking everything he promised. She walked into their apartment first and went straight to the bedroom. She wasn’t surprised to find he’d followed her.
“I want you naked.”
Smiling, she turned around. “You always want me naked.”
“I’m talking about more than skin,” he teased.
“What are we doing here, Stone? Just lay it all out on the line for me. I feel this thing for you…this massive, powerful thing. I don’t even know what it is. And I need to know you feel the same thing I do before we make it permanent.”
*
It was killing him not completing the mate bond. He’d only held back because he was worried about Jolie being able to shield her mind once the block against her telepathy dropped. But here she was now practically throwing herself at him. Giving herself to him. It took all he had to not take complete advantage. She walked into their bedroom just before him. As soon as the door closed behind them she started stripping. His tongue stuck in his throat. She took off her shirt, her bra, her jeans, and stood before him in just her panties. That was an invitation it was damned hard to pass up.
“Jolie, baby,” he murmured. “You know you can’t come to me like this. I’ll take total advantage. I’ll take control. Take away any choices you might make.”
“Maybe I want you to.”
He couldn’t help reaching for her, running his hands over her. She was soft and beautiful and his. It needed to be real now. The words of the binding prayer were pounding in his head. Jolie thought she’d chosen, but she was still holding part of herself back.
“It’s time to decide, baby. I need you.”
“I’m all yours. I haven’t held back. Not really and yes, you have to finish this.”
“I’m taking you now. All of you,” he whispered in her ear.
He loved the way she shivered. The way she blushed. Hell, he loved everything about her. He loved her. It made no sense. How could you love someone you’ve just met? He just didn’t fucking care. He loved her. She was his. His mate. What else mattered?
“Stone,” she said, her hands on his face, holding him in a grip that told him she’d never let go. “Tell me.”
“You’re mine.”
He got out of his clothes as quickly as possible. Yanked her to him, but she pushed him on to the bed and straddled him. His mate taking control. He’d never allow another woman to do it, but she was his. She had the right. His cock pushed at her entrance but she didn’t take him inside yet. She wrapped her hand around him, stroked him leisurely.
“If I’m yours then you’re mine,” she whispered.
Her gaze was possessive as she took him. That look, her touch, made him soar.
“We’re going to finish this, baby, but I want to be inside you first. Are you ready for me?”
Her thumb brushed over the drop of pre-cum on the head of his cock. Holding his gaze, she lifted it to her mouth and licked it off.
“You’re ready for me,” she teased.
Groaning, he took his cock in his hand. He used the other to grip her hip and guide her into place, pushing in slowly until he filled her. Her head fell back, thrusting her breasts into his waiting palms. He squeezed her nipples and began to move inside her. Her body was his and she felt so damned good. Now, he wanted the rest of her. She laughed.
“I can hear your thoughts, babe. Feel your emotions. You already have all of me.” She looked in his eyes. “I think I started falling in love with you the first time I saw you. Don’t you know?”
He gripped her hips and thrust harder. “I know, darlin’. I love you, too. Are you ready.”
“God, yes. Do it Stone,” she gasped, her pussy beginning those tiny convulsions he knew meant her orgasm was imminent.
He whispered the binding prayer to her while stroking inside her welcoming sheath and holding her gaze. Watched as it went molten and her soul melded into his. It was the most incredible thing he’d ever experienced. They came together in a shower
ing explosion of sparks. Jolie was his. Now. Forever.
“That’s a two way street,” she pant, collapsing over him.
He wrapped his arms around her and held her close, kissed her long and slow.
“I wouldn’t have it any other way, baby. I love you.”
He felt her smile deep inside him. “I love you, too.”
THE END
MORE FROM LORIBELLE HUNT
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Books by Loribelle Hunt
Delroi Connection
Invasion Earth
Leaving Earth
Stolen Earth
Claiming Earth
Delroi Prophecy
Freedom
Irresistible
Redemption
Absolution
The Varangian Chronicles
Viking’s Heart
VIKING’S FURY
by
Saranna DeWylde
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AUTHOR’S NOTE
When inspiration struck for this story, I thought it was a little nuts. I mean, who wants to read about Vikings in space? Me, apparently, because the idea just wouldn’t leave me alone. Magnus the Destroyer is an alpha in all ways. He got into my head and that was that. I hope you enjoy their journey.
The heroine was inspired by Ms. Cristina Todd and The Lost Chronicles we wrote in middle school. You’ve been on my mind and I hope wherever you are, things are beautiful.
~ Saranna
1
Mercy Odinsdottir was the perfect accessory child to the up and coming Governor of Asgard Galaxy. Or soon to be. Odin Lokison was the All-Father to prison planet Hel, and he’d done his time like the rest of the inmates. By governing the planet with an iron fist, he’d cut down on crime in the Hel System, making him the first warden in two-hundred years to do so. He’d been fast tracked for governor by the Interstellar Commission.
On that fast track, their behavior had been governed with the same iron fist he used on the other residents of Hel. It applied to the way Mercy dressed, the way she wore her hair, the way she chewed her food, and the subjects on which she could and should converse.
Mercy took it all in stride. Even her rebellion was conducted in such a way that would further her father’s ambitions—quietly, in her own head.
But if he’d ever gotten a look inside her fantasy world, Mercy was sure her father would fall over dead.
Granted, he’d seen terrors and horrors walking the streets of Hel. It was filled with the scum of the universe: murderers, rapists, cannibals and thieves. Men who’d cut their mother’s throats if it suited them.
But he’d forgotten that Mercy wasn’t an automaton and she had hopes, dreams, and desires just like the next woman. Even though she wasn’t supposed to. She was supposed to want what he wanted, marry where he told her, and be fulfilled with a life of duty that was so buttoned down every individual thought of her own that was born would quickly die—suffocated by propriety.
In her dreams, she was a wild hoyden—a Valkyrie cop like her mother, Eir. Only she didn’t get the unhappy ending where she died on some wretched sewer planet alone. She had adventures, she made a difference in the ‘verse, and she was loved so wholly and completely, the stars were jealous of the burn.
The male that figured in so prominently in these fantasy was one her father had called the worst of the worst.
Magnus, the Destroyer.
She’d heard all the stories about his raiding up and down the Saxon system, taking gold, slaves, and ore. Mercy knew it would be terrifying to live through something like that, she had no doubts or illusions that he was, in fact, a dangerous man. But she admired a man who reached out and took what he wanted, who stood in the face of the endless reaches of space and didn’t give a damn what looked back.
Maybe she’d been on Hel too long, and even though she wasn’t exposed to prison society, maybe it had tinged her thinking anyway. He was strong, powerful, and he’d never become someone or something else to please anyone.
Or maybe it was because Magnus the Destroyer was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen.
Her father kept him in his study, a trophy in a case.
He’d been frozen for fifteen years, his face in a perpetual snarl, lip curled back over perfectly white, sharp teeth that Mercy was sure weren’t implants. Even with the fierce expression, she couldn’t help but notice the hard line of his jaw, the golden streaks in his shoulder length hair, the ripple of muscle, a moment of ferocity captured out of time.
And his eyes, dear Freya, his eyes.
They were like blades, sharp and arctic. So cold, a blue so bright it was like a star.
She liked how they followed her, as if he was actually watching her. Mercy dreamed about his eyes and what it would be like to be the recipient of all of that intensity.
He’d earned his name with those who’d crossed him. Tearing down cities, leaving whole planets nothing but ash. Until her father.
Until Odin Lokison had cornered him and hunted him like an animal. Now here he stood, watching all the ages of man pass—if he could see anything at all.
There was a part of her—that rebellious hellion that lived in her bones hidden away—that wanted to let him out. No wild thing should be so caged. If she couldn’t be free, maybe he could be.
But that was stupid.
She knew, even looking at him now, that he’d just as soon slit her throat as thank her.
Still, on nights like this one when she was feeling bold, sometimes she touched him. Pushed his hair over his shoulder, let her hands wander down the carved stone of his bicep. It wasn’t as if he could feel it, and in truth, frozen was the only way she’d ever have the pleasure of touching such a creature.
Any man her father chose for her would be some politician, someone who could do something for him. Someone who might have had pretty, scientifically engineered muscles, but nothing like this man whose form followed function.
Mercy traced her fingers over the rune tattoos that covered his right side from chest to wrist, somehow needed to know the texture of each one.
Her wildest, most forbidden fantasy was that one day she’d come to her father’s office and Magnus the Destroyer would be hot to the touch, he’d come alive under her hands and throw her over his shoulder and carry her off-world to some pre-historic place where all the veneers were gone and a man’s worth was written on his body in scars.
She sighed aloud.
Such things her mind conjured when left to its own devices for too long.
If he were to really wake up, the ravishing probably wouldn’t happen in any way that was enjoyable. Mercy could see the rage in his eyes so potent, that even frozen, burned through to her marrow. He would hate the man who’d done this to him, and he’d have no love for the man’s daughter either.
It would be nothing like the stories her tutor had smuggled in for her: all alpha male heroes and heroines with a cause. No… it would be violent and awful. Or that’s what she told herself when the thought of all the endless days of propriety, duty, and self-denial wore thin and she dreamed of adventure—a world where she was more than a cog in someone else’s machine.
Knowing it was all a fairy tale didn’t stop her from dressing him up in finery in her head. It was all she had, really. Or undressing him in the real…
Mercy continued tracing the tattoos on his arms, his chest. Then her hand ventured lower, down to those sculpted abs.
Her cheeks heated, and her heart slammed against her ribcage. As if all of the other caresses hadn’t been forbidden, but this, this was something more somehow. She just wanted to trace the line by his hip. T
he one that pointed the way to the promised land, so to speak.
She jerked her hand back, ashamed at her own thoughts. Not for admiring an attractive male, but for touching him. She was no better than many of the men sentenced to Hel. Mercy touched him without his permission and without his awareness—or worse, if he was aware and couldn’t tell her no?
Oh Goddess!
“I’m sorry,” she whispered.
The reframe, thinking of what it would be like if their positions were reversed thoroughly disgusted and terrified her. It was no different because he was a man and she a woman.
She imagined herself on Hel’s moon—Holle—the women’s prison for her trespass. She laughed a loud. “Yeah, that would sure give me some street cred, wouldn’t it? I sexually assaulted Magnus the Destroyer.”
She snorted at herself and it wasn’t the least bit proper or ladylike.
“Show yourself!” A voice demanded.
Mercy bit her lip. It was the heir apparent to the Hel throne, Fenris Peitrson. Damn, she’d been caught. She should’ve known better than to come to her father’s study while he was gone, even though that was prime time for Magnus Watching.
“It’s just me,” she called out.
Fenris stepped through the door and re-holstered his laser gun. “What are you doing in Warden Lokison’s study?” His eyes narrowed.
Fenris looked every inch like the mythological being he was named for. His whole self seemed to have been formed for predation. The too large mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, the big all-seeing eyes that made her feel like she was tender meat rather than her father’s daughter. And the sleek plane of his build…
She tried not to shiver.
