Viking’s Fury
by
Saranna DeWylde
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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,
business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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Published in the United States of America by
Saranna DeWylde 2014
Cover Art by Kim Killion of Hot Damn Designs
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.
A big thank you to Virginia Nelson for the blurb and for editing.
~ Saranna
Chapter One
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’d 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 that was born 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 so prominently in these fantasies 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. He was strong, powerful, and he’d never become someone or something else to please anyone.
Maybe she’d been on Hel too long. Perhaps, even though she wasn’t exposed to prison society, it had tinged her thinking anyway.
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—the 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. She 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, 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 for her. Mercy could see 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 ar
ms, 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. The 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.
“I was looking for my comportment book. I left it in here last time I visited.” She hated that he expected her to answer to him. Anywhere she wanted to go within their quarters should’ve been above reproach and recrimination.
But, as per usual, he asked her to justify herself. Probably just his way of having some control. Perhaps he thought tattling on the warden’s daughter would earn him favor.
His gaze turned to Magnus and then back to her and her cheeks heated. She knew they were stained red with her blush.
“Are you sure?”
“Excuse me?” she squeaked.
“Are you sure you’re here for comportment?” He lifted his chin, almost like a beast scenting for his prey. As if he could smell her lie. “I think you’re here because you’re curious.”
She swallowed and took a step back as he advanced. “About what?”
“About men.”
Mercy shook her head. “I live on a planet full of them. They’re not mysterious.” She refused to acknowledge the thoughts she’d had of Magnus.
“No, you know what I mean.” He started unbuttoning his fatigue jacket.
“What are you doing?” Fear closed around her throat like a fist.
“Giving you an education.”
“My father—”
“—is on Holle.” The look of absolute surety on his face was something she knew she’d see in her nightmares.
Fenris was built well, if slim. But Mercy had no interest in the man before her.
“You’re supposed to protect me,” she reminded him.
And she was proud of herself. That her voice didn’t break and she showed no fear.
“I am.”
“From what?”
“From yourself. What if you woke him up? Do you know what that would mean?” He nodded to Magnus.
“Probably the same thing that you’re about to do.” Even for all of the Destroyer’s fierce reputation, there was a part of her that didn’t believe that. Probably the part of her that had dreamed away too many hours thinking about him.
“Better me than him. I’ll marry you.”
Revulsion twisted her guts. “No you won’t.” She shook her head. “My father would kill me first.”
“I will protect you. Give us both what we want.” He moved toward her.
She took another step back. “Fenris, stop this. Stop now and I won’t tell my father anything.”
He looked as if he almost felt sorry for her. “I think we both know I can’t risk that.”
She quickly considered all of her options. Mercy had a panic alarm that would bring the special forces teams running, but they’d all know—all of the men who worked for her father. They’d know she put herself in a situation where she had to be saved. He’d be humiliated. Fenris didn’t understand Odin Lokison as well as he thought he did. Her father would blame her.
The only route to escape was through Fenris.
And then the world as she knew it changed forever.
A siren echoed like the shrieking of a Valkyrie and when it did, Magnus the Destroyer moved.
It wasn’t the slow creaking movement of stiff joints and frigid muscle, the awkward bend of a newborn fawn—it was all power and heat combined with a predatory grace.
She watched in morbid fascination as the killing machine she’d so admired fulfilled its purpose—the ancient war hammer on the wall a decoration, now the mighty weapon of war in all its reclaimed glory in the hands of Magnus the Destroyer.
It crashed into Fenris’s skull and she squeezed her eyes shut as something warm splattered on her cheek.
The logical part of her brain screamed at her to flee, but something else held her frozen. Maybe it was like the survival instinct of all small, weak things that forced her to make herself smaller. As if somehow he wouldn’t see her standing in front of him if only she could be still.
As if somehow he hadn’t been one-hundred percent aware of her running her fingers over his flesh.
At least she didn’t feel like a sex offender anymore.
No, now she felt like the girl who used to be Mercy Odinsdottir because she was sure that in the next ten minutes, that war hammer would be crashing into her skull and she’d be the sob story that pushed her father ahead in the polls for governor.
She gasped when the heat of his arms closed around her like hot metal shackles.
“And now you’re mine,” a voice growled low and deep.
Mercy imagined if that war hammer could talk, it would have a voice just like Magnus the Destroyer.
Chapter Two
Magnus the Destroyer wasn’t in the habit of taking hostages.
But neither was he in the habit of standing around like a fucking statue for fifteen years. Things change.
This girl was his ticket off this shit planet.
No, he corrected himself. She was no girl, but all sweet, soft, woman. Just the scent of her had him hard as stone. Or perhaps there was more to it than that. All the days spent holding himself still and silent while she traced her fingers over him. Pretending to be frozen while everything under his skin was like imploding stars.
So many times he’d wanted to just tangle his hands in her hair and bend her over that desk and give her a good hard fucking. That yearning had become bittersweet when he realized the pretty sprite with the soft hands and the generous mouth was that bastard fuck’s daughter.
Hurting women wasn’t something he did. He might salt the land so no crops could grow, he might blast an EMP to shut down all of their machinery, but physically, he didn’t hurt those who couldn’t fight back.
And with all he’d seen in the last weeks, that Fenris prick had earned that love tap from his war hammer.
The siren continued to wail in his ears. It was too soon. He should’ve been out of the study by the time the alarm sounded. Something had gone wrong with the plan.
He decided to take her. He could drop her on some outpost for her daddy to come fetch once they were far enough away…or, he could keep her. Wouldn’t that just st
ick in Lokison’s craw? Like a shell stuck between his teeth, it would wear away at the soft places and make him bleed.
With the woman hoisted over his shoulder like a sack of grain, he headed down the hall toward what he thought were the bay doors to the transport.
“You’re going the wrong way,” she said, quiet and timid.
“What?”
“Wrong way. That’s not really the way out.”
“I’ve seen it.” He didn’t know why he stopped to converse with her. She was a hostage. A hostage wouldn’t want to help him get away, she’d be engineering his bloody end. But there was something about the tone of her voice that made him believe her.
She squirmed and he put her down, her small hands still rested on his shoulders. “It’s a trap. There’s a ship, but it’ll explode as soon as we exit the atmosphere. This way.” She nodded down toward the other end of the hall where it seemed to dead end. “That’s my father’s escape pod.”
Or maybe his brain was still scrambled from being frozen because she kept touching him. He should be raging at her, destroying everything in his path—but he felt bound to protect her.
Perhaps it was the look in her eyes when Fenris cornered her. It hadn’t been one of fear, but a sad resignation. That had severed her ties to her father, at least to his way of thinking. A woman who could depend on her caretaker, a woman beloved by her father, wouldn’t have had that reaction.
Maybe that’s why she was helping him. She knew she had no worth aside from being able to help him off the planet.
“How do we get inside?”
She splayed her hand on the access screen, but entry was denied.
Her face was again a mask of sorrowful resignation.
Something about that expression, it made him swing the hammer again. It crashed into the circuitry—sparks flying from the crushed mechanism. The door clicked open.
There was a ship, but it was only meant to carry one person.
“Is there another?” He nodded at the ship.
She shook her head.
Fuck. He never would have left any child of his here on this prison planet, swarmed with his enemies. It would be a bad death, yet her father apparently hadn’t seen it that way. Well, he wasn’t leaving her behind. If things had gone according to his plan, the world outside this building had just caught fire and there would be a planet-wide riot. Death, destruction, and utter mayhem.
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