Untamed- House of Berserkers

by Lacey Carter Andersen

  But nothing had surprised me more than the revelation that they’d slept together.

  I couldn’t for the life of me picture Kiera with this man. Yes, over the years I’d imagined her over and over again. In every vision, she was surrounded by doting men. I wasn’t sure if she’d have multiple husbands, or just spend these years having fun, but I knew that she’d be as irresistible as a woman as she had been as a girl. All the boys, myself included, would have followed her off a bridge.

  And yet…she’d chosen this mutant…at least for a night.

  One of the berserkers swears. I hold my breath. The second they broke the lock, we’d attack, killing two birds with one stone. But I didn’t want to do it too early, or too late. This had to be perfectly timed.

  After a second, I hear Mario whisper, “Almost done?”

  “Almost,” someone growls.

  I glance at Adam. His face is an expressionless mask beneath the moonlight. For a minute, jealousy awakens inside of me. The mutant is, I begrudgingly admit to myself, handsome, but not at all like me. With his long, blond hair and startling eyes, he looks like a prince from a fantasy world.

  I look like the beast out of a nightmare.

  Was Adam the kind of man Kiera wanted? I push the thought aside. There could never be anything real between Kiera and I. Not as long as my brother lived. Even if she wasn’t the woman he wanted, all she would ever be is someone he could hurt me through.

  I wasn’t here to chase the fantasy of being with her. I was here to undo the trouble I brought to her doorstep by bringing the vampires to that club. I was here to protect her from a man who would never let her go once he got her.

  The ring of metal breaks through the silence of the night.

  “Be careful,” Mario whispers. “Whether the flesh eaters have finished her off or not, the creatures will be ready to fight.”

  There are some quiet sounds of acknowledgement.

  I reach for the berserker side of me. Many of my kind can’t control that other side of themselves at all. It simply rose up when they lost control, but couldn’t be used as a tool. But for me, if I was careful, I could use the beast inside of me without becoming a slave to my blood-lust.

  As long as I kept my emotions in check.

  My body begins to swell, and I feel my vision growing hazy. When I reach that perfect point between beast and man, I close the connection. Then I approach our enemies. I don’t know what Adam can do. I don’t know if he’ll be of any use at all. But it doesn’t matter; with or without him, I’ll destroy these men.

  Mario and his men disappear inside the door of the small building, and a rumble of anger rolls through my chest. I reach the door, intending to duck down and squeeze inside. Instead, Adam leaps in ahead of me.

  I hear Mario cry out. In the dark, Adam’s eyes glow. Another berserker screams.

  Forcing myself inside, I launch into action. Picking one man up by the legs, I bash him against the side of the building before he has time to change. Another man begins to change. I hit him in the face, hard, then leap on top of him.

  Half changed, he strikes back at me, and we roll together. Suddenly, we’re falling, rolling down stairs. A sound of shock twists past my lips, and I hear the berserker scream. We roll and roll, almost never-ending. There doesn’t seem to be anything to grab onto.

  There doesn’t seem to be anything to stop us from falling for an eternity.

  And then there’s a light in the darkness. We hit the ground on a lower level, and I don’t hesitate, even as I struggle for air. Leaping onto the berserker, I snap his neck.

  I’m about to race back up the stairs to help the mutant, when I hear Kiera speak.

  My thoughts swirl together. Suddenly, I’m racing through a strange half-room slick with blood and covered in pieces of flesh. I didn’t want that damn dragon shifter anywhere near her, but what if he’d failed? What if Kiera was hurt by the flesh eaters?

  I storm around the corner of a massive wall that separates the room in two. And freeze.

  Kiera is sitting up in a bed with the dragon shifter. Her eyes are sleepy. Her hair is messy, and the dragon shifter looks naked.

  “Drake!” I roar his name.

  I’m swelling in size, barreling across the room before I know what I’m doing.

  He’s out of her arms in an instant, barely dressed, and squaring off with me. I half-expect him to shift into his other form. I expect him to do anything but stand there and wait for me to barrel him over.

  But when I draw near, he slides out of my grasp and trips me in a movement almost too fast to follow. I hit the ground, the air whooshing out of my lungs. He’s on me from behind, his arm around my throat, further cutting off my air.

  I hear Kiera shout.

  Suddenly, she’s standing before me and the dragon shifter, but I can’t seem to make out what she says. My ears fill with a ringing, and my vision darkens.

  Death by choking. It isn’t a peaceful way to go, but it beats almost anything I imagined.

  And then Drake is gone.

  I collapse onto the ground, sucking in shaking breaths. When I look up, Kiera is looking at me with the strangest expression. My gaze slides to a strange sound. The mutant has pinned Drake down to the ground as the big dragon shifter roars.

  And then Kiera moves away from me.

  “Adam, enough!” she shouts.

  Adam is beside her in an instant, and Drake looks between her and him with narrowed eyes. “You know this mutant?”

  “His name is Adam,” Kiera’s voice has taken on a cold tone, “and if you can’t speak to him like a person, you won’t speak to me either.”

  Drake looks surprised, but I’m not. Kiera was like this as a girl too. A child with a strong moral compass, with a sure sense of right and wrong. And she didn’t back down from anyone, not even a dragon shifter.

  I rise from my knees, back in my human form.

  Kiera’s gaze snaps back to me. “What are you doing here?”

  I lift my hands in a motion of surrender. “I’m here to help.”

  “I don’t think I can handle any more of your help.”

  Despite everything I’ve been through in my life, her words make me flinch. She was right. From the moment I came back into her life, I’d ruined it. “Once you’re safe, I’m gone. I promise.”

  “Safe? With the ‘king’?” she asks, her voice filled with sarcasm.

  “You might not believe this, but I’m trying to keep you safe from him.”

  “I thought it was your plan to give me to him?”

  I run the backs of my fingers along my beard, trying, unsuccessfully, to calm myself. To find the right words. “I understand if you don’t trust me, but that’s because you don’t understand.”

  Her stunning blue eyes hold mine. “I understand that you disappeared from my life and then reappeared long enough to turn it upside down.”

  “Kiera—“

  “Where did you go?”

  I don’t want to tell her.

  “Did they not have phones?” Her words are like a slap.

  “Fuck.” I pace away from her. “I can’t do this.”

  “You can’t have a conversation? How unexpected!”

  I press my hands against the cold stone, fighting for control. In the many years since she’d seen me last, I thought everything inside of me capable of feeling anything was dead. I’d thought Maxen had killed this side of myself. But now, with Kiera, it was like that other side of me was coming back to life.

  And coming back to life hurt. Too much. Especially knowing that soon she’d be gone and I’d just have to die all over again to survive.

  “Emory says he’s come to save you from Mario,” Adam says, completely unhelpfully.

  “He also told Mario and his men he’d help return me to Maxen.” Every one of her words are thrown at me like barbs. “And he happens to be Maxen’s brother.”

  “Step-brother,” I whisper. Like it matters.

  Then she’s there
beside me, slamming her hand into my shoulder.

  I turn to face her. The anger in those familiar eyes of hers makes my heart ache. I’ve wanted to see Kiera again, every day of my life. But I didn’t want her to see me. I didn’t want her to see who I’d become.

  “You are the brother to a monster. You’re the servant of a cruel piece of garbage.”

  What can I say? “Yes, I am.”

  “And then you come here acting like I should trust you?”

  “Kiera—“

  I’m surprised when tears spring to her eyes. She hits my shoulder again, and I turn to fully face her, overwhelmed by the pain in her eyes.

  “You were my best friend. And you just left!”

  “I didn’t want to!” I find myself saying.

  “Oh, really?”

  “Yes!” And now I’m shouting. “My life was perfect with you! And then my mom’s boyfriend left her, and she didn’t want to have some kid to take care of anymore. I didn’t even know where we were going. I couldn’t comprehend the horror of her leaving me in a strange house, with a strange man she said was my father. It was the first of the many worst moments of my life! But nothing, nothing compares to seeing you that day with the vampires! Nothing!”

  A tear escapes and trails down her cheek. “I don’t believe you.”

  I grab her by the shoulders and drag her against me. “Look at me.”

  When her gaze leaves my face, I snatch her chin and drag her back.

  “Do I look like a man who’s lying?”

  Those eyes of hers weigh me, and I can’t breathe. I can’t speak. All I can do is look into her eyes and wait for her to hurt me again.

  “Oh, Emory.” When she gathers me into her arms, I don’t expect it. And I don’t know what to do. My mind searches for the last time anyone hugged me. For the last time someone cared enough to try to comfort me.

  But…I can’t recall.

  When she draws back from me, I see that more tears have fallen. “What are we going to do?”

  I take a deep breath, pushing down the tightness in my chest. “You have to understand. The prophecy says that whoever you marry will be king. Being the real king is all Maxen has ever wanted.” I take another deep breath to swallow down the image of Kiera anywhere near that monster. “You will be in danger forever. Wherever you go. You’ll need to just keep running and never look back.”

  “Or we kill him.”

  I glance up to see the dragon shifter watching us, and there’s a coldness to his expression that surprises me. Could he really see her as his mate? For some reason, I didn’t believe it until now.

  “He’s too well-protected,” I say. “He’s surrounded himself with the most violent group of thugs you could imagine. I don’t think the three of us could kill him.”

  “Four of us,” the mutant says, softly.

  Kiera draws back from me, and she moves to Adam, pulling him into her arms. When she draws back, she strokes his cheek. “Adam, I told you that you were special to me. But I can’t draw you into this. Any life with me would just be running and hiding and—“

  “There is no life without you,” he says.

  Pain dances on her face. “You barely know me.”

  “I know enough.”

  She looks at all of us. “None of you really know me.”

  “You’re my mate,” Drake says, as if he was mentioning the weather.

  “You’re my family,” Adam adds, and I swear her heart breaks when she hears the words.

  Then they look at me.

  I don’t have any sweet words for her. I don’t have any claims that this is something more than the situation. I only have the truth.

  “All of this is my fault. I couldn’t live with myself if I abandoned you now. And I’m also the only one who knows my brother well enough to keep you safe from him.”

  She looks troubled. “So what’s the plan?”

  “We killed the berserkers who wanted to hurt you,” Adam says.

  “All of them?” I ask, surprised.

  He nods, and I make a mental note to ask him how the hell he managed that.

  “Then she’s safe here…for a little while. Until he hires his next goons to go after her.”

  They all look at me, waiting for a plan.

  “But it won’t be long before someone else tries to hurt her,” Drake says.

  “Yes, but I’m not sure if she’ll be safer in or out of the reform school.”

  And then we look at Kiera.

  She releases a slow breath. “I say, for now, we stay here. We come up with a better plan. And when the right opportunity comes along, we break free.” She looks at us. “If that’s what you want.”

  Drake shrugs. “I was never graduating as a dragon shifter.”

  “Nor was I as a mutant,” Adam says.

  Then all eyes are on me. “I was going to stay here, out of my brother’s grasp forever. But I was stupid to think I was safe here.” My words come out surprisingly bitter. “So, I’ll go wherever you go.”

  Kiera smiles. “Then we have a plan.”

  I don’t tell her it’s not a very good one. That no plan will likely save her from my brother, because something dawns on me. Something she isn’t ready to hear.

  There might be a way to ensure that she stays safe forever.

  We just have to find a berserker lord to marry her.

  It solves all our problems. I’ll have to suggest it. But as she leads us to the water to clean up after our fight, I can’t find the words. Because as much as I want to tell myself this is all about making us even, I can’t imagine Kiera with another man.

  Hell. She truly has made me human again.

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Kiera

  Four days after I was placed in the detention cells, a golem came for my body. When he found me alone in the building, all the flesh eaters dead, my men hidden until they could spring free behind me, he grunted and led me right back out. People gaped at me as I walked back to the House of Berserkers.

  Everyone, it seemed, had thought I’d die with the flesh eaters.

  I wished I could admit to them that I wasn’t the badass they thought I was. That a giant dragon had torn the flesh eaters to shreds without me having to lift a finger. But then, the participation in my punishment by Adam, Emory, and Drake was a secret.

  So, I returned to my room, bathed, and headed to the dining hall for lunch.

  Inside, I spotted Emory and Drake at a table. They paused in their conversation as I approached, and both men tracked my movements as I went through the serving line.

  When I reached the end, I heard murmuring rise up from near the start of the line. My gaze snapped in the direction. Adam stood in the line, looking confused, wearing torn shorts and a worn white shirt. His feet were bare. His gaze uneasy.

  But my heart sang.

  Hurrying to the table with Drake and Emory, I set my tray down and rushed to where Adam stood in line. The angry mumbles about the “mutant” seemed to rise up from all directions. When he picked up a tray, a vampire in front of him smacked it out of his hand, and the plastic tray hit the floor with a sound that silenced the room.

  To my surprise, Adam simply reaches for the next tray. But the second he picks it up, the vampire smacks it out of his hands again.

  Cold fury unravels inside of me.

  A big shifter bumps Adam from behind, and the vampire looms over him. I can feel the bloodlust in the air as the students watch, waiting for Adam to be hurt. Unfortunately for them, my own bloodlust was rising, my vision going red. I have to take several breaths before I can calm myself enough not to attack.

  But then I’m there. “What’s your problem?”

  The vampire glances at me, and his gaze slides down my body. “How about I beat the shit out of this mutant and then we go have a roll?”

  “Have a roll?” Adam frowns in confusion.

  “You’re going to leave him alone,” I say, a warning in my voice, as I continue to think of puppies,
rainbows, and all the shit my mom had always told my brothers to think about when they were losing control.

  The vampire's eyes widen in surprise. “You’re trying to protect…it? The fucking mutant?”

  “His name is Adam.” I feel myself swelling, and realize the puppies and rainbows aren’t cutting it. So, I try to find my goddamn happy place. But the image of my candlelit room and my lucky vibrator feels far away.

  If I ever talk to my brothers again, I’m going to have to apologize. This calming shit is harder than I thought.

  “Why does he want a roll with you?” Adam asks again, looking from me to the man.

  I move closer, squaring off with the vampire. “Go get your food and let him get his food, and no one needs to get hurt.”

  The shifter grins. “Sweetheart, you’re pretty, but dumb. Mutants aren’t people. They don’t have names. They don’t know how to eat in a cafeteria. They’re like animals.” I open my mouth to speak, but he keeps going. “But you don’t need to be smart for me to fuck you.”

  Adam tilts his head and his eyes narrow. “What did you just say to her?”

  I grab the vampire by the shirt and slam him back against the cafeteria line. “I’m going to smack the ignorance right out of you.”

  The shifter behind Adam suddenly grabs him by the shirt. “This isn’t your fight, female. Now, mutant, how about I show you the door?”

  “There a problem?” comes from behind me, the deep, threatening voice rolling down my spine and settling between my thighs.

  The shifter springs back from Adam. “No, sir. No problem.”

  Drake moves closer to the shifter, and the man lowers his head in a show of submission, even though at full height Drake completely dwarfs him. “Anyone bothers the woman or the mutant, then they have a problem with me.”

  The room goes completely silent.

  “Understand?” he barks, and I swear the other shifters jerk.

  The vampire dares to smirk. “I’m just going to find a moment when your big, bad bodyguard isn’t with you to teach you a lesson.”