by Jill Monroe
“The gods grew jealous, so they separated the two. All the strength and power went to bear, while wisdom went to man. Mannen and ber cried to be united. Then grew angry. The berserker rage comes from our need to be as one, and it cannot ever fully be. Feeling pity, the gods gave man the gift of his use of fire and knowledge of the land. Bear received strength, and sacred lands where they are free to roam.”
“You did know a story.”
“Ber and mannen were broken, but they were still clever and discovered a way to defeat the gods and their interference.”
“How?”
“Through death the two spirits merge. Bear and man battle, but only one can win.”
“You fought a bear to become berserker?”
Osborn pointed to the scar crossing his body. Breena gasped, then traced the path of the scar. Leaned down to kiss it.
“I am one with ber, but only through his honorable death. The berserkergang is always there, but it’s the pelt that merges us, makes me what you saw in the alley, and why I couldn’t kill the scout here at the lake.”
“You were naked. And that pelt you wear was the bear’s. That’s so sad.”
Osborn raised a brow. “Are you wishing the bear had won? Often they do.”
She shook her head quickly.
“Man can merge with bear, or bear can join with man. It is our way.” Osborn lifted her hand from his chest. “I love your tender heart.”
Her heart slammed into her ribs. Love. He loved her heart. It was a start.
He kissed each one of her fingers. Sucking on the last.
“Yesterday when you were bathing, I heard you gasp. Were you thinking of me, Breena? Were you touching yourself and thinking of me?”
She swallowed the lump that formed in her throat and willed herself not to blush. Breena could only nod.
A slow satisfied smile spread across his face. “I’d like to watch.”
His request sounded so outrageous, she sputtered.
“Feel how the idea of it gets me.” Osborn took her hand, and placed it on the hard length of his cock.
Moisture gathered between her legs. “You really want to see that?”
“Gods, yes. Here—” he tweaked her nipple “—and here.” His fingers delved into her woman’s heat. “Sit up.”
Breena braced herself off the ground, and Osborn reached for her hips.
“Straddle me.”
Me on top. You on top. You on all fours like the beasts in the woods.
Those words of his had hollowed her. Intrigued her. Made her burn.
Breena lifted herself up onto him, and he grew in length.
“Put me inside.”
There was that weak feeling again. Breena reached for his cock, smooth and hard. She gripped him gently and he groaned. “I wanted you that day as I was bathing,” she told him. “Wanted it to be you touching me.”
“Me, too,” he told her, his body shaking with the need to plunge.
“Watch,” she urged. Now it was her turn to give the orders. Breena positioned the tip of him where their bodies met and sank down his length. Filling her. She shivered with the exquisite perfect sensation of their joined bodies.
Osborn’s eyes closed on a deep moan, his hands lifted to cup her breasts.
Her breasts heated at his touch, her nipples tightened. She lifted herself high, until he almost left her body, then she slammed back down again. His hips bucked, and he gripped her waist, trying to take control.
“Touch yourself. Like that day,” he told her, his voice raspy and tight. His eyes dark.
Her whole body trembled at his request. Bracing herself on Osborn’s broad shoulders, Breena sat back on her heels, her fingers lowering. She circled her nipples, feeling them pucker even more. Slowly, she let her fingers drift down. Osborn’s heated gaze followed the slow, sensuous path she took. Down over her rib cage, past her stomach, until she met the curls that hid where they joined.
She gasped at the first light touch between her legs.
“Yes,” her lover encouraged, and thrust.
She rubbed herself more forcefully, feeling the crest surge. Her inner muscles clamped down hard on his length. Osborn gripped her hips, keeping her in place as he thrust. Breena’s fingers grew more frantic.
Her nipples tightened, every muscle in her body stretched. Reached for him and what he could give her.
“Harder,” she demanded.
He gripped her tighter, his every movement bringing him deeper inside her body. With a gasp, he drove her over the edge. Crest after crest of sensation poured through Breena. His name came from her lips in a moan.
She felt Osborn’s chest strain and his fingers dig into her skin. In one quick movement, he rolled her onto her back. Hooking her legs behind his back she drew him closer to her still. Reveled in the feel of his weight over her, his strength pinning her to the ground.
“Yes. Like that,” she encouraged.
He surged inside her, his thrusts deeper. Harder. Every muscle of his body stiffened as his climax hit, and triggered something deep inside her. Tingles of another peak flared, and she held him to her as hard as she could.
Breena returned to herself slowly. The lapping of the lake, the wind in the trees, the call of a distant bird and the welcome weight of the large, loving man above her. Her heartbeat slowed and she could finally draw in breath without sounding like she’d just sparred with Osborn on the practice field.
Osborn rolled onto his back, taking her with him and tucking her against his side. He kissed the top of her head.
“I love you,” she whispered to him. Then fell asleep.
Osborn squeezed his eyes tight. He hadn’t known how much he needed those words until she’d uttered them so delightfully in her sleep. He hugged her tight. She deserved a better man than he was. Someone more honorable. Someone who could give her the same words.
She deserved more, but that didn’t mean he wouldn’t fight or kill to keep her at his side. Osborn wasn’t an idiot.
ONE DAY MERGED INTO ANOTHER far too quickly. By day Osborn would continue with Breena’s and his brothers’ training. Her magic was growing stronger, and she could control small bursts without needing emotion as her medium. The nights were his and Breena’s. Most evenings he joined her in the tiny sleeping room. Other nights they spent near the lake and under the stars…and he thought about full moons.
Bernt and Torben were growing to be fine, strong men, despite him. He’d introduced the tradition of ending each evening in front of a large fire, as his people had when he was a boy. There he told his brothers of the bermannen and his mate and their angering of the gods.
He shared the traditions of their parents, how they sealed their life together, and how their father had trained and prepared Osborn for his Bärenjagd.
The unsettled anger within Bernt lessened each day.
The three of them had lived on the sacred bear land all these years, with only Osborn’s vow to protect this place. No bear had stalked Bernt to become bermannen. To become berserker. And yet Bernt had to be the age for his Bärenjagd. Well past. And yet he grew powerful.
Had Osborn changed the destinies of both ber and man when he came here to live? Once when sparring, Osborn thought he’d wounded his younger brother with his blade, but there wasn’t even a scratch. Berserkers couldn’t be harmed by steel. Dare he test Bernt with the only substances that could defeat a berserker? Weapons made of tree and fire. Tree, because it grew from the ground, and fire, because it was the gift to man by the gods. Those jealous deities must have found it ironic that their gifts could also bring about death.
Osborn imagined a life for his brothers with no Bärenjagd. Strength and honor without the struggle and blood? But those thoughts would have to wait for another time…after. But after what, he couldn’t say.
LATER THAT EVENING HE followed the sound of his brothers’ laughter. He found them around the fire, laughing with Breena. “What’s so funny?” he asked.
“Breena was j
ust about to make good on her threat of teaching Bernt to dance.”
“That’s not a threat,” she told them with mock sternness. “Dancing is an important life skill.”
“Mother liked to dance,” Osborn said.
Bernt looked up sharply, his expression eager. Right now he was more boy than man, hungry to hear more.
Osborn had cheated them. Took away from them the comfort of their memories and the stories he could tell of them because he was selfish. All because he didn’t want to remember. He didn’t want the pain. It wasn’t his brothers’ guilt. It wasn’t their shame. Torben and Bernt should be able to love a mother and father.
“When did she dance?” Torben asked, his voice quiet, as if he were almost afraid he’d anger Osborn and this moment would vanish.
“During the first night of the full moon, we’d gather in the center of our village. The elders would light a large bonfire, and we’d eat, and sing and dance. You liked to chase each other around the fire, which always made mother worry.”
A smile spread across Bernt’s face. “I remember.”
“Did you dance?” Torben asked Osborn.
He shook his head. He would have been dancing. The year after his Bärenjagd. “I never learned.”
“Breena should teach you.”
“Oh, I doubt your brother would want to learn anything like that,” she said, clearly hoping to discourage any further attempts. For his sake? Or hers?
Now he smiled openly. That seemed very much like a challenge, and he never backed away from a dare. He brushed his palms along his thighs and stood, extending his hand toward her.
“It’s time I learned.”
BREENA FELT THE MUSCLES of her face fall in astonishment. Osborn could have said a lot of things at the moment, but she never would have guessed he’d ask her to dance. Or want a lesson. He’d never stop surprising her.
“Show me how they dance where you come from, Breena.”
His voice was pure invitation, and she couldn’t resist. She placed her hand in his, and allowed him to direct her to a clearing while his younger brothers poked each other in the ribs. He made to gather her in his arms, which finally snapped her to the task at hand. She’d taken his barking instruction, his incessant demands she work harder and performed the maneuvers again and again. Now it was her turn to issue a few commands of her own.
“A gentleman doesn’t just grab a lady and jostle her about.”
“There’s something obvious I could point out here,” he told her.
Was that actually humor lacing his words? She chose to ignore it and flashed him her best imitation of Osborn’s I’m-training-you-so-pay-very-close-attention expression.
“You stand beside me, and only our shoulders touch.” She’d better amend that to side. None of her previous partners had ever towered quite as tall as Osborn. Breena twirled her finger in her hair. “And we face opposite directions.”
Osborn dropped his arms from around her shoulders and rotated so that he aligned himself against her side. She was sure this particular dance was designed so that young men and ladies would remain respectable and refined, and Breena had never thought of it as anything untoward. But his hip brushed against hers in a way that was anything but harmless and breathed in his heat and the earthy scent of him.
“Now what?” he prompted.
She glanced up to see his dark gaze boring into hers. “You raise your arm, and I drape my hand over it.”
He followed her direction and Breena realized that sometime in the last few minutes she’d lost the upper hand. And she didn’t like it. She cleared her throat. “It’s important to remember that once on the dance floor, the woman always leads.”
The biggest lie she’d ever told, but she doubted Osborn would ever know. Besides, it was fun to tell this warrior what to do. “This particular dance has very precise movements timed to the music. First we circle to my right. Then to my left.”
Osborn moved slowly, his gaze never leaving her face.
“Next you drop your hand to my waist, and we circle again.”
His hand slid slowly, intimately down her body. She adored dancing. It was her favorite thing to do at Elden. Not anymore.
“Go to bed, boys,” Osborn ordered.
IF THE DAYS PASSED TOO quickly, the nights flew. Each morning he woke up with a sense of foreboding. Something sinister loomed in the distance. He intensified the level of Breena’s workout. She’d made herself into an excellent swordswoman, but he feared this strong, brave woman would never have the brute strength to defeat soldier after soldier. They had to focus on her defenses.
Osborn raised his weapon. “Distract me,” he ordered.
“Have you ever made love with your pelt on?” she asked.
OSBORN NEARLY DROPPED his sword, and the hilt fumbled in his palm.
Breena couldn’t help but smile, and took the opportunity to advance. But he countered her thrust.
“No,” he told her, his bottom lip growing more sensual.
“Oh.” The idea of it had intrigued her ever since he’d explained it was only in his pelt that he was fully berserker. She’d hoped he might know how the ber spirit inside him reacted in passion.
He was so strong and powerful and solely focused when enraged. How would it feel to have all that strength and force and attention centered on her?
She knew man nor berserker would ever harm her, but would making love add an edge of danger?
Soon she’d have to leave this cottage and face the threat in her realm. Despite Osborn’s training and the growing strength of her magical powers, she had to face the reality that she might not live. She might die the last heir of Elden. Breena had a lifetime’s worth of experience to cram into only a short time. And making love to her man in full berserker frenzy was something she wanted to experience.
“Osborn?” she asked as she parried.
“Yes?”
“Did you notice I’m alone with you?”
He lowered his weapon, and rammed it home in its scabbard. Clearly there’d be no more training this afternoon. “I seem to remember warning you about being alone with me.”
“And here I am, disregarding your warnings. Do you remember what you promised? I mean, threatened?”
He shook his head, but his eyes grew narrow and the air around them chilled.
“You on top. Me on top. You taking me on all fours like a beast.”
“I remember now.” His words turned heavy with desire.
Breena lifted the pack that was never out of reach and tossed it to him. “I’m going to run now.”
She dropped her sword to the ground, and took off, hoping the animal spirit in him would not be able to resist a chase. Breena didn’t stand in the practice clearing long enough to find out. She raced along the path with a laugh, removing her shirt as she ran. Her pants were a little more difficult to take off, but soon she managed to be running only in her light undergarments.
The air around her chilled, despite the sun’s rays over her head. He was berserker. Excitement and the thrill of the danger sent her faster down the path. Behind her the leaves of the trees rustled, announcing he wasn’t too far away.
“Breena,” he called, his voice tight and otherworldly. Not completely human. She’d never heard him speak in full berserker rage.
A thick arm curved around her waist and her feet no longer raced along the path. Osborn shoved her against the trunk of a large tree, the bark pressing into her breasts. His hands sought the tiny bows at her hips and ripped. The cloth hiding her woman’s places fell to the ground and his fingers slipped between her legs.
He bucked up against her when he felt her wetness, and his cock nestled against her backside. He nipped at her shoulder with his teeth. His love play was rougher and tinged with danger. More wet heat flooded between her legs. He gripped her breasts; they were hard and needed his touch. He pinched at her nipples and she shivered all the way down to her toes.
“Are you mine, Breena?” he asked, hi
s voice was ragged and uneven.
“Yes.” Always.
“Lift your leg.”
She raised her knee, the bark rubbing against her inner thigh. He probed her with the tip of his cock, then sank inside her with a groan. “Mine,” he said, squeezing her breast. He thrust and her whole body shook, the length of him so hard and thick with this new angle. His pelt shrouded them both. Osborn rocked inside her, the waves and crests of Breena’s desire building and building. Her moans echoed throughout the trees. She was so close…?.
Osborn pulled out of her heat, his breath harsh behind her.
“On the ground. On your knees,” he bit out, the words difficult to get out over his hunger.
She turned and leaned against the bark and stared at her berserker. His eyes were nearly black. Strain and tension molded his face. His hands fisted at his sides and his muscles were coiled, ready for battle. Osborn was beautiful in his rage, a fearsome yet awesome sight. His cock stretched straight from his body.
Breena lowered to the ground. Osborn dropped to his knees behind her, smoothed his hand along her back and kissed her shoulder. His fingers found the place where her pleasure centered and he caressed it. Her senses blazed. She needed him inside her. “Osborn. Now.”
With an aching groan he gripped her hips and brought her to his body. She felt the heat of his probing erection, and then he thrust inside. Breena began to shiver and quake at the sensation. Osborn moved inside her, in and out, and once more she was moaning in pleasure.
“More,” she urged. She wanted every part of her lover. Needed her warrior.
He pushed his hips more forcefully and finally she slipped over the edge of her desire. Her muscles clamped around his length and she could do nothing but feel. Around her the air swirled, and with a harsh groan, his body was racked by his climax.
Osborn collapsed on the ground, nearly too worn out to tuck her into his side. After a few moments, he kissed the top of her head. “I never lose control like that. I didn’t hur—”
Breena lifted up on her arm and placed a finger across his lips. “You didn’t lose control. I knew you could never hurt me.”