by Lee Savino
“You should find one of these women, then,” I said tartly, pushing at his shoulders. “She will make you and Ragnvald the most marvelous mate.”
He laughed and didn’t let me get away, but held me down and did...other things. Ragnvald came in from toasting at the bonfire, and added his own drunken revelry to our mix. The sky was grey with dawn before we’d sated ourselves with each other and lay in a tangle, dozing.
“We will not search for any other,” Maddox nuzzled my neck. “We have the one we want, right here.”
*
The three of us went to meet Brenna and her mates holding hands. I felt a little nervous walking up the mountain path, but it could’ve been the scrutiny of all the assembled wolves. The mountain Berserkers had posted guards three deep outside the cavern where we were to meet.
“Last time we came to see Brenna, we were going to steal her,” Maddox murmured. Neither he nor Ragnvald seemed to mind the glares of the other pack. Or if they did, the Alphas didn’t show it.
I gave them a sharp look, and Maddox grimaced. “We were desperate, little witch.”
“Things have changed.” With a hand on my back, Ragnvald guided me into the cavern. Two great warriors--the two foreign Alphas I recognized from the Gathering last night--waited for us. One sat on rock carved to look like a throne. The other stood as a guard, a hand resting on his weapon. There was no one else.
Fear seized me for a moment--could this be an ambush? I felt my two Alphas stiffen beside me, but a woman stepped out from behind the throne--tall, dark haired, with serene features and the scar at her throat. Brenna.
I couldn’t stop from running to her, or she to me. Protocol be damned.
Luckily, the two sets of warriors moved away.
Tears squeezed from my eyes as I hugged her. She smelled of earth and spice, the mountain and her own familiar scent.
“I knew you were alive,” I whispered in her ear and she drew back to kiss my cheek.
I realized I felt her belly between us. We broke apart and I studied her lush form. I’d been so eager to see my sister, I hadn’t noticed it at first.
“Pregnant?” I spoke with my hands, using the private language we’d invented as children, after the wolf attack took her voice.
“Yes.” she signed back. “My mates.” Flushing, she nodded to the two warriors at her back. To my surprise, they both bowed to me.
My own warriors moved close enough I felt their heat.
“How can this be?” Ragnvald asked with naked eagerness in his voice.
“The spaewives can mate with wolves fully,” Daegan said.
“Whether they bear humans or pups remains to be seen,” Samuel said and I detected a tinge of worry in his voice, not that he’d show such weakness to us.
Brenna’s wide smile belied any fear. Her mates came forward and kissed her, one by one, before moving to greet my Alphas.
I swallowed the lump in my throat.
“Are you well?” My voice wobbled on the last word.
More than well. She signed back. I am happy.
*
Brenna’s mates made us as welcome as they could. After greetings, they led us to another cavern carved deep in the mountain, with a long table laid out for a feast. Ragnvald and Samuel claimed the most dominant position at the opposing heads of table, while Maddox and Daegan ranged about the room like guards. Sitting side by side in the middle of the table, Brenna and I ignored them.
What happened when you were taken? I asked in our secret sign language.
Fear at first, but they were kind to me.
The more I studied my sister, the more I realized the glow of her cheeks and sparkle in her eyes wasn’t just from the baby she carried. She’d told me from the first: she was happy. What’s more, she was in love with these men. She thrived here, in their care.
After hearing my story, Brenna asked after the twins. She already knew our mother and stepfather were dead.
My men told me, she said. They shelter me, but do not hide the truth. At least, not for long. She smiled, a secret smile echoed on the faces of her lovers.
Sabine, what’s wrong?
“I’m so glad to know you’re alive. I missed you,” I choked out.
Brenna laid a hand on my leg, and I knew I didn’t have her fooled. Cold silence encased me, though I forced a smile to my face. I hadn’t realized how much I’d hoped for an ally amid the Berserkers.
I waited until the meal ended, and the warriors went to one side of the room to talk, leaving us in a semblance of privacy.
“I don’t understand,” I said at last. “How can you be happy here?”
I am alive for a reason. A purpose. She touched the scar at her throat, and my gut clenched in shock. Brenna never acknowledged the reminder of her wounds, of the attack. I was waiting for my purpose. I was waiting for them.
She looked so content I averted my gaze and stared into the fire.
“They kidnapped me,” I started listing their sins, and Brenna cut me off with a wave.
Our stepfather sold me. Brenna signed. Before that, he abused me. I made sure he would never hurt you the same way.
In that moment I knew she had asked for his death, and the Berserkers had carried it out.
They have given me everything I asked for, and more.” Her movements were graceful and flowing and passionate.
“You could’ve come back, and been with us.”
I made a vow to stay. She paused and shook her head. Even if I could leave, I would not.
“Why?”
I’m in love. She took my hand and squeezed it, forcing me to stay facing her.
Sabine. After all we’ve been through, is it so frightening to fall in love?
*
I stayed quiet on the journey home. The men let me be, after giving me reassurance that all my sisters would be reunited again. They thought I grieved our parting, but I was relieved. I’d expected an ally in my anger, in my war against my feelings. But it was Brenna’s way to accept her lot in life and make it better. It’s what gave her such a deep peace.
My own thoughts were in turmoil.
As we neared the cave, I stopped in my tracks.
“Sabine? Is something wrong?”
“Take it off,” I clawed at the silver at my throat. Brenna wore a similar torc, and her men wore arm rings that pledged themselves to her. “Take if off, please.”
I was a fool, so stupid. I’d thought if I bargained, if I was clear, I could escape one day. But these Berserkers had searched for their mates for over a century. They would want children, and once they bred me, there would be no escape.
“Sabine?”
My fingers tore at the torc. “Take it off. Take it off. I don’t want it anymore.”
Maddox caught my hands and Ragnvald undid it.
My breath rasped painfully through my tight chest.
‘I’m sorry,” I said to both of them, my vision blurred. “I can’t do this.”
“Calm yourself,” they said. “We are not brutes. You can talk to us.”
“You don’t understand. She was supposed to help me hate you,” I raged, and felt them draw back. “I wasn’t supposed to...You want me to be something I’m not. I never agreed to be your mate. To have children...To stay forever…” I scrubbed at my eyes until I could see their somber faces. “I did this to help you. Out of pity. No more.”
“Sabine--”
Ragnvald held up a hand and Maddox subsided. “You truly feel nothing for us?”
“I--I don’t know what I feel. But I don’t want this.” I waved my hand at the cave. “I wanted to chose my own path. I want to live my own life.” The image of Brenna, rounded with child between her two Alphas, rose in my mind and wished I could wrench it from me as easily as the torc.
“You can’t keep me here,” I spoke to the ground.
“We can. But we won’t, if you don’t want to stay,” Ragnvald said.
Maddox might have turned to stone for all the emotion he showed. So
I railed at him.
“You tore me from my life. I was making my own way. I never would’ve known you. I never would’ve wanted you.” My stomach clutched at his hurt expression. “I cannot give in to you without losing myself.”
He turned away, and kept walking even when I called after him.
“I’m sorry, Maddox, please.” I sank to the ground.
Ragnvald carried me back to the cave and laid me on the bed where I let myself weep for the Sabine who always walked a careful path and never left the boundaries drawn in her heart. That girl was dead and gone, and I was alone, without my vows to shield me.
“I want to go back.” I spoke after an afternoon in the cave, tense and silent, waiting for the storm to pass.
Ragnvald sighed. “I gave you my word. I will not keep you.”
“My sisters--”
“They must stay. They will be given to Berserkers as mates.”
“You would give two young girls to the whole pack?” I whispered in shock.
“No, there will be a great competition, games for any warrior to compete for their hand in marriage. To the winners go the spoils.”
“Spoils? You mean my sisters,” I said with the sharp edge of temper.
“It cannot be helped, Sabine. It is part of the pact we made with Brenna’s Alphas, but even if it were our decision alone...the life that Brenna has with her mates gives our pack too much to hope. We never thought we could live as men. We never thought…” Wonder warred with sorrow on the Alpha’s face. I felt his struggle to put these feelings into words. “You have given us reason to come out of the cave.”
I was waiting for my purpose, Brenna had said, an echo of Maddox and Yseult. Your destiny.
Summoning my selfishness, I asked, “What about me? Did you discuss my fate with the entire Thing, or just the Alphas and your pack?”
Ragnvald’s voice was just as sharp as mine. “You belong to us, and to us alone. If we say you may go, you may go.”
Rising, I walked to the edge of the cave and stopped short, as if I still wore a chain.
“It is for you to choose,” Ragnvald finished.
I bit my lip. Could I really leave my sisters behind?
“What do you want, Sabine?” Maddox spoke from the shadows. His harsh voice told me he barely had control of his beast.
“I want my life back. I want to be free.”
He stalked forward, shoulders hunched as if ready to drop into wolf form and hunt me like prey.
“Freedom, little witch? You’d leave us in slavery?”
“I saved you from the beast--”
“And yet we are all still chained. By you. To you. And you to us. Because we love, we will never be free.”
“I will not ever love you,” I spat.
Maddox’s hand collared my throat.
“Maddox, step away,” Ragnvald warned.
The gold in the tattooed warrior’s eyes told me his beast was close. I waited for him to call me on the lie, but he only dropped his hand. “Then leave. There is nothing for you here.”
*
I cried a little as I packed my belongings, but did not waver.
“I’m ready,” I told Ragnvald and he rose from the fire. Maddox had disappeared again.
“I’ll escort you as far as I can. Beyond that, it will be safe for you to walk. The Berserkers are the most feared beasts on this island, and you carry our scent.”
We walked in silence to the edge of Berserker territory. I thought of all the things I could say, but in the end nothing would explain my selfishness. I wondered if I would ever see my sisters again. A part of me didn’t care. Leaving felt like chopping off a limb. My mind and heart ached with a deeper pain.
I perked up when we came to a hill overlooking land that I recognized. Ragnvald stopped.
“There is the road,” He pointed out the well travelled route. “This is as far as I go.”
“Tell Maddox…” I forced words out. “Tell him I said goodbye.”
Ragnvald paused as if waiting for me to say more. When I didn’t, he sighed and rubbed the back of his neck, looking less like the Viking conqueror and more like a boy grown too tall too soon. “He didn't want to take you.”
“What?”
“The pack forced him to do it. He took you for their sake, and for mine. If it were up to him, he would’ve happily died, rather than encroach upon your life and freedom.” He said it without judgement, but I felt the weight of his words all the same.
He drew me into a hard hug.
“Go home, Sabine.” His thumb brushed my lips, and when he stepped back, he wore the cold confidence of a ruler once more.
*
I went home. The hut stank of old smoke and rushes, and was full of dried leaves. I spent the first few days cleaning it out, along with my garden. Most of my herbs were dead, as if it were my presence, not just the earth, sun, and rain, that made them thrive.
I avoided the village, and, though I foraged for food in the woods, I did not return to the grove.
On the third night, I returned from a long day searching for food and found gifts on my front stoop: three dead partridges and wood for the fire. I searched but couldn’t find any trace of a visitor until the next night, when I caught sight of a dark wolf slipping between the trees along the path.
“No,” I snapped and used my walking stick to shake the brush. “Maddox. Come out.”
A wind lifted my hair and sent prickles down my spine. Maddox stepped out, clad only in a loin cloth, his tattoos displayed to their full glory.
My body ached at the sight, before I remembered I couldn’t allow myself to want him.
“What are you doing here?” I made my voice harsh.
He stared at me a moment and I remembered it took a while for speech to return. He’d probably been living as a wolf for days.
“You need to leave,” I said. “I’ve made my choice. I don’t want you.”
When he finally could speak, I could barely understand his rasping voice, “You think you chose freedom. It’s not so simple.”
“Of course it is. You came and ruined my life. Now you leave and let me be.” My hands made a shooing motion and I squawked when he caught them in an iron grip. I fought but he drew me closer until I smelled his wild, perfect scent and stopped struggling.
“And what of the men that look at you? What about the priest that wants your death? He cannot control your power and cannot allow something stronger than his faith to exist.” Maddox shook me. “Who will protect you when they come with rope to bind you and torches for the fire? I will not stand by and see you raped by men who cannot possess you. Not to mention my own pack--” He broke off with a ragged whine.
“Your own pack...what?”
This time he took a step back, his head bowed. “They threatened to bring you back again. Ragnvald can control them, but I will stay with you, and kill any who tries to break our vow to set you free.”
“I’m sorry.” Could I ever say those words enough to atone for my selfishness? “I must be true to myself.”
“I understand.” He dropped my hands. “I renounced the pack and will watch over you for the rest of my life.”
“But you are a wolf. Without the pack...you will die.”
He still stood close to me and I couldn’t stop myself. I touched his jaw, finally noticing the deep shadows, the lines of strain in the cliffs and hollows of his perfect face. Maddox closed his eyes as if my touch both burned and soothed him,at the same time.
“Yes. I give you your freedom.” He jerked backwards, away from me. “It is all you will allow me to give.”
Before he loped into the forest, I ran after him. “Maddox--wait. Ragnvald told me you didn’t want to take me at first. Is it true?”
“It is. I was going to let him die, let us all die. You were innocent. You had done nothing to deserve the cursed life that we live. The pack threatened to come for you. They would've taken you anyway, and my intentions would've been for nothing.”
&
nbsp; I bridged the distance between us and caught his arm. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
His shoulders heaved with strain. “Would it have made a difference? I made the final decision to take you. I did not care that it was against your will. I hardened myself so I would not care.”
Liar. I wanted to say. “Why did you come for me yourself?”
He lost--or won--the battle with his beast and turned fully to me. “Because I couldn't allow another to touch you. Sabine--” He did not kiss me, but everywhere his fingers skimmed left a trail of fire. Desire poured into me, taking over.
“No,” I wrenched myself away. “I cannot do this.” Retreating to my hut, I closed the door before he could follow.
I did not ask for this, I told myself fiercely. I had a right to my freedom.
“Besides,” I muttered to myself, pacing in front of a cold fire. “Love makes a woman weak.”
Night fell, and with it, the rain. I couldn’t forget the image of a midnight wolf standing on the far side of the path, guarding the hut, eyes half closed against the wind.
Love makes a man weak.
When dawn broke I marched out. I hadn’t eaten or slept, and neither had the wolf, for he raised his head immediately when I walked to him, walking stick in one hand, bag of herbs in the other.
“Take me to Ragnvald.”
*
The Alpha sat at the fire at the mouth of the cave, half in and half out of shadow. He looked up as if’d I’d only stepped away for a moment. My whole body ached from my long pilgrimage, but I welcomed the pain.
“I want a house,” I said. “My own dwelling with doors I can shut. Any who wish to enter must knock and I will choose when I will let them in.”
“I suppose we can do all that.” Ragnvald said.
“Thank you.” A slight breeze ruffled his hair and mine, as if the forest sighed.
When I glanced back, Maddox stood there as a man. The magic of the Change left a leather loincloth around his waist, and a pelt across his shoulders. He looked gaunt and hungry, and I felt guilty because I had done this to him.
“He may not be able to speak for a while, but the pack bonds are restored,” Ragnvald said.
I took the blond leader’s hand, and held out my other to the tattooed warrior. Maddox kissed my fingers and a shiver went through me.