I stiffen. “What are you talking about?”
He touches my face gently. “A lot of the houses actually have graduations that end in them leaving, but I’ve never seen a berserker graduate. They push you until you lose control and then they use that as an excuse to say you’re too dangerous to leave.”
My stomach turns. “Well, I’m not going to give them any excuses.”
I don’t say that I probably have less control over that side of myself than the other berserkers because it’s new to me. I don’t say that I’m not even sure what I’d do if someone pushed me, because none of it matters, I’m going to get home.
“Getting out of here is important to you,” he says, very slowly.
I nod. “My parents, my brothers, my friends, they’re going to be missing me.”
He kisses me lightly the way I kissed him. “Then I’ll help you get out.”
“You could come too,” I say.
He doesn’t meet my eyes. “Maybe.”
“My people don’t care about mutants.” They did, but not like most other people. If I brought Adam to our town, my father would accept him, as long as he never showed himself to be a danger to our people.
“Maybe,” he says again.
We dress slowly. Then Adam leads me out of his little cave a different way than we came in. We end up climbing a ladder and pushing a grate up. Outside, we’re at the edge of the woods.
There, he pauses and strokes his hand down my arm. “I am technically part of the house of Almost Humans, but no one cares what I do. I spend most of my time in the tunnels, or the forest. But for you, I’ll try.”
“Try?” I ask, confused.
“Try to ‘reform.’”
I smile. “You do that, because you’re coming with me when I leave this hell hole.”
He smiles back, a shy smile.
And then I think of something, and my pleasure fades away. “We should be careful…about the way people perceive our relationship. There are some…complications, and I don’t want to bring you down with me if there’s trouble.”
His gaze leaves mine. “It’s okay, Kiera. I didn’t expect you to tell others about me.”
My heart twists. “That’s not what I—“
“We should go to your house, before it’s too late.” He starts to walk back toward my new home, and I hurry after him, trying to figure out what the hell to say to make things better between us.
“I’m not embarrassed about you,” I tell him.
“We should hurry,” he says over his shoulder.
Somehow, the reform school feels a little colder.
Chapter Fifteen
Drake
Anger rolls through me as I emerge from the shower, dry, and toss on my clothes. Kiera, the berserker, was not in any of my other classes. She was not in the dining hall. And the tall berserker, the one I now know is named Emory, wouldn’t tell me anything more.
It was as if she had just disappeared.
Which was annoying as hell.
Two women had come to my door during the night. Both of them I’d sent away. I didn’t need just any woman riding my cock, I needed the blonde-haired berserker.
Did she know that she’d been driving me wild since our first meeting? Did she suspect that she might be my mate? Or was all of this just a game to her?
I didn’t know, but I was going to find out. This morning.
On the bottom floor of the shifter house is a smaller dining room and a kitchen. There’s always food here, because shifters are always hungry. I go to the table and fill a plate with ham, eggs, and bacon. I tear into the food, then wash it all down with milk.
Hunger sated, I ignore the other shifters who scatter out of the way of a bigger predator and head for our training class. I tell myself it’s just so I can see her early, but a nagging voice in the back of my mind remembers the students who have died in this class. Our teacher never stops things when they get bad. Our teacher smiles when the life drains from our eyes.
And Kiera…she had pissed him off.
My dick rises at the memory, and I scold my dragon. The damn beast inside of me loves a feisty woman, a woman who challenges him, but this is not the place for a female like that. She should shut her mouth and survive here.
Even though I doubt she could.
It’s an easy walk from the shifter house to the training ground outside of the berserker house. Just past the House of Phoenixes. Our houses are toward the back of the reform school, giving us a small forest for the shifters to race through, and ending in a jagged cliff near the ocean. If they hadn’t destroyed my wings, this would be the kind of place my dragon would soar over, claiming everything beneath him as our own.
My heart twists at the thought, and the stirring of the air around me reminds me briefly of the feel of flying. But not really. Just a poor man’s pathetic need to live again.
I’m the first one to reach the training grounds, and I circle the large dirt area with irritation. Where is everyone? Where is she? Something in me starts to come undone. Something so powerful that I find it hard to breathe.
And then I hear a group of students approach. I whirl around and watch the berserkers with narrowed eyes. My Kiera is not among them. It’s the same group of males I’ve seen time and time again. Men I care nothing for.
I ignore them. Half a dozen shifters join us. Our people mingle, a strange truce between us until the fighting begins. And yet, still, no Kiera.
My dragon rages within me, and I know soon I might shift. I might turn into the powerful beast that everyone fears so much and prove to the school that I’m too dangerous to continue being here.
But I’m starting not to care.
I fight my instincts. I take deep breaths. And yet, it builds and builds. And then I spot the berserker named Emory. I march up to the damn asshole and grab him by the shirt. “Where the fuck is she?” I hiss.
For the first time, I notice that his eyes are as wild as mine. His body seems to swell before me, and I watch him more carefully when I realize that he seems to be barely holding onto his control too.
“I don’t know,” he growls, and his body seems to swell again.
I freeze, realization dawning on me. “You feel…something for her.”
He stiffens, but doesn’t answer. But he doesn’t need to. I can read it in his face.
I release him. Uncertainty fills me. The female hadn’t told me whether she was taken. What the hell would I do if this man was hers? Would I kill him and claim her as my own? No, she wasn’t a shifter. That was not the berserker way. She would choose me on her own or not at all. The mate bond meant nothing to her.
I might…I might have to win this woman.
Oh, hell, this isn’t going to be as easy as I thought.
The berserker suddenly looks behind my shoulder, and his expression changes. I whirl around and spot Kiera approaching the training yard. Every muscle in my body stiffens. She looks…amazing. Her hair has been swept up, tied somehow in a messy bun on her head. Little white-blonde hairs have escaped, trailing about her face, dusting her shoulders. Her almost bare shoulders. The clothes she wears are no better than the ones from yesterday.
She looks like some kind of badass. Her dark shirt is ripped on the edges and around the top in a way that’s almost on purpose. Her long black leather pants are stuffed into leather boots, and she has some kind of leather and fur belt that hangs low on her hips.
It should look ridiculous, and yet, it doesn’t. It simply…suits her. There’s never been a woman as beautiful as her. The thought enters my mind, and I hate that I believe it.
I approach, and don’t realize the berserker is at my shoulder until her gaze slides from him to me.
“Need something?” she asks, and there’s an edge to her words.
“We have unfinished business,” I say.
“So do we,” the man beside me adds.
She fucking scowls at both of us. “I have nothing more that I need from either of you.”
Th
en she walks the hell away from us to stand near the others. My female…walks away.
A growl slips from my lips, and I whirl to track her with my eyes. If she were a shifter, I’d simply toss her over my shoulder and take her somewhere I could prove my dominance, while she in turn did her best to dominate me. But she was not a shifter, and I had no desire to ruin things further between us, so I curl my hands into fists and refrain from touching her.
But this is far from over, I promise both her and myself.
I needed to seduce her. But how?
Our instructor, a demon with a hard-on for blood, comes before I can address my woman further, and I have to bite back my rage as he explains that today is a special day. I’ve seen these “special” days already. They’ve never mattered today, but with Kiera here, they’ve suddenly changed.
They seem too dangerous.
“Kiera,” the instructor calls, and every muscle in my body tenses.
She steps away from the others, her head held high like the queen she is. Her gaze never falters as she looks at our teacher. Like a dragon lady. My heart glows with the thought.
“You’re up first,” he says.
I’m breathing hard. I won’t allow this. Female berserkers lack the ability to change like the males. She has no shot against any of these warriors.
And I don’t care what it costs me, I’ll keep her safe.
“Chad,” Mr. James calls.
I see red. Chad is the biggest fucking berserker of them all. I’ve watched him tear the heads off of two shifters that outweighed him. He was vicious on the best day, and a monster in his other form.
“Drake,” he calls my name, surprising me.
I move away from the others and toward her, grateful that the teacher is allowing me to fight at her side. Now I won’t have to ‘break the rules’ and jump into a fight I wasn’t asked to be in. Chad was dangerous, but no one was more dangerous than I was. But when I move to stand at her side, Mr. James makes a sound of annoyance.
“No, it’ll be you and Chad versus the girl.”
“That’s not a fight,” slips from my lips. “It’s a slaughter.”
“We’ll see,” the instructor says, with that demonic little smile of his.
My hands curl until my knuckles crack. If he thinks I’m going to hurt her, he has another thing coming. Demon, teacher, I didn’t give a damn, if he made me, I’d kill him. I’d killed before…
Mr. James circles behind her, and I’m shocked when he jams the needle into the back of her neck.
“Shit!” she shouts, but he’s already yanked it free.
I’m surprised when Emory is suddenly at my side. “What the fuck was that?”
His anger matches my own.
Mr. James smiles. “It’s not your turn yet, Emory.”
The berserker opens his mouth to argue, and the instructor lifts a hand. Emory goes flying, smacks the trunk of a tree with a sickening crack, and slides down the tree. He doesn’t move, and I don’t blame him. The fucker probably has a broken spine.
Mr. James stabs Chad with a needle next, but he doesn’t react. This isn’t his first rodeo, after all.
“I feel weird,” Kiera says.
I look between her and the instructor, afraid that if I argue with him again, he’ll simply replace me with another shifter.
“What was that?” Her skin ripples.
I stiffen, heart pounding. “It makes berserkers lose control.”
Those stunning blue eyes of hers meet mine, fear in their depths.
“It won’t do anything to you,” I say, but my words come out unsure.
Her skin ripples again, and I’m shocked when she makes a strange sound. Suddenly, her body begins to grow and expand. She doubles, triples, quadruples her size and keeps going. Beside me, Chad is changing too.
It’s like my brain stops working. I thought I would turn on Chad and protect her. I thought the shot would do nothing to a female. Not that another female berserker had been in the reform school before…
Beside me, Chad roars.
Kiera expands her stance. She looks like herself, except like a monstrous version of herself. When Chad launches at her, she attacks right back. They roll together, using their powerful bodies against each other.
I hear gasps around me.
My brain begins to work again.
Leaping into the flurry of movement, I manage to shove Chad back from her. He snarls at me, but then it’s her fist that connects with the side of my face. I hiss in pain, surprised that the female could hurt me in any form, and surprised that the woman I’m protecting injured me.
“I’m on your side,” I growl.
But either she doesn’t understand, or she doesn’t care. She launches herself at me, but Chad meets her halfway there. They begin to tumble together again. Punching, kicking, losing control.
Seeing my female hurt, being attacked by another male, changes something inside of me. I don’t care that she’s changed forms. I don’t care that she hit me. I just want her safe.
My fist connects with the side of his head, and his gaze jerks to me. When he leaps off of her and onto me, I’m prepared. Berserkers are stronger than shifters in this form, but they aren’t as fast, they aren’t as agile. I land a kick to his gut, then spring out of the way before his larger body can cover mine. We circle each other, his giant fists coming at me over and over again, like he’s a man made of stone, but only one manages to land, and I clamp down on the grunt of pain that slips from my lips.
When I hear Kiera make a sound, my gaze snaps to her, not sure if I should be prepared for her to come after me again, or if something’s wrong. The slight distraction was a mistake. Chad’s fist hits the side of my head, and I tumble to the ground. Before I can leap free, he’s on me, his massive body crushing the air from my lungs. His fists begin to pummel the sides of my head, and for the first time in my life, fear uncurls inside of me.
I reach for my dragon form, even knowing that shifting into my inner beast will seal my fate here…and that the others will see the horror of what was done to me. That the others will see that I’m not a true dragon anymore.
Kiera is suddenly standing behind Chad. She slams him in the nose with her palm, and when he releases me, she smashes him two more times in the head. The giant slides off of me and hits the ground. His eyes go dull, and then his muscles go limp. Slowly, his body begins to shrink and returns to normal.
I half-expect Kiera to do the same. I half-expect her to come after me again.
Instead, she turns toward Mr. James.
I don’t know what she has planned when she picks up the demon and chucks him. He hits the trunk of a tree near Emory and slides to the ground, unmoving. Then the massive Kiera stalks through the crowd as everyone shrinks back. She kneels down beside Emory and touches his face gently. Slowly, oh so slowly, her body grows smaller, and she returns to normal.
She’s dirty. Bruised. Bleeding from several places. One side of her face is swollen. But she leans over Emory, touching his face.
His eyes open, unfocused at first.
I rise to my feet, even though my head pounds and my face feels bruised and swollen. I drag myself toward them, watching the two, my heart in my throat. Emory isn’t the only one that just took a hell of a beating. Hell, the berserker didn’t last against a fucking demon. So why was she checking on him?
“Kiera?” he says, sounding confused.
“Are you okay?” she asks.
He nods, then slowly struggles to his feet.
“Anything broken?”
“No, but—“
“Good,” she says, and then she clocks him.
I don’t know if she’s damn good with her hands, if he wasn’t ready for it, or if he’s just weak, but he falls back over. Then she spins around on her heel. When she spots me, her eyes narrow, and I’m a little thankful when she walks on by.
Over her shoulder, she calls, “Class dismissed.”
A guy beside me says, “Dammmn.”
A female shifter chuckles. “That was awesome.”
“Uh, I’m not sure Mr. James is still alive.”
I turn and spot a shifter male leaning over our teacher, his hand feeling for a pulse. A pit in my stomach forms. If Kiera killed a teacher, it didn’t matter the circumstances, she was done for.
“We have to protect her.”
I jerk and realize Emory has come to stand beside me. Normally, I’d find the berserker addressing me annoying. But for once, I thought I might just need an ally…if I was going to keep Kiera alive.
“You got a plan?”
Chapter Sixteen
Kiera
The Dean of Discipline glares at me over his desk. His fingers are steepled in front of his mouth, his tie askew and sweat beading his shaved head. “Explain it to me again. Explain why your teacher is in our medical ward, having sustained massive injuries from something you did to him.”
I try to keep my voice light. “Again, I’m not really sure—“
“I have a dozen students that saw you go berserk.”
My mouth closes. Should I keep denying it?
He sighs and leans back in his chair. “And yet, a female who can go berserk…that’s unbelievably rare. I did some research. Are you aware that only two women have had that ability, as far as our history books are concerned?”
I’d known it was rare. I hadn’t known it was that rare.
“The House of Berserkers still wants you, Kiera. If you decide to become the wife of the king, we can arrange your departure—“
“No.” I didn’t know a lot of things, but I knew I wasn’t going to become that monster’s bride.
“Kiera—“
“Would you want your daughter to marry him?” I ask, the question a snap of anger.
He flinches and avoids my gaze. “If you remain here, there will be consequences for what you’ve done. Consequences I’m not sure you’ll survive from.”
“Would you choose it over marrying that fucking asshole?”
He sighs again, louder than before, and finally looks at me again. “In the Wicked Reform School, the line between right and wrong is paper thin…and it moves a bit. I do a lot of things I’m not proud of, but I’m not in the business of selling women. If you decide not to go to the king, I won’t protect you here, but I also won’t make you go.”
Untamed- House of Berserkers Page 9