by Kate Pearce
And now they seemed to be leading down the path that the nav wanted them to take.
Mercy reached out her hand almost as if she wanted to touch one, but she pulled back.
“It’s strange how they grow among the ice.”
“Where else would Valkyrie lights grow?”
She laughed. “The Great Dark, I suppose.”
They were silent then as they followed the trail. He turned to check on her now and again, but she kept pace behind him.
It seemed as if they walked forever, but in truth, it couldn’t have been very far.
The land in front of them opened out to a wide expanse of a steaming lake. There was a pink sandy beach and the water was filled with those Valkyrie lights, making the water a strange purple.
“It’s so beautiful,” she breathed. Mercy touched her finger to the water. “It’s warm.”
He pulled the mech shelter out of his pack and it deployed, unfolding and setting itself up. He peered inside and saw it had every luxury—including a dry chem toilet. Whoever had wanted them here seemed to think of Mercy’s every comfort.
It sure as hell wasn’t Odin Lokison.
She’d spotted a lagoon and was grinning from ear to ear.
“Wait, wait! Let me check the water for salinity and life forms. The Valkyrie lights may be pretty, but we don’t know if that’s actually what they are and if they’ll chew your face off.”
He readied a test strip and followed her over to the small lagoon that was glowed even more brightly than what seemed to be the sea. But they didn’t look like the Valkyrie lights, it was something all together different.
There were no predators, no life at all, in fact. The water was too hot. There was ice all around them, but for the bodies of water.
“Seems safe enough.” He used the nav to run a sonar test for depth. “No deeper than six feet in the middle. But why don’t we get settled before you go adventuring?”
“Okay.” Mercy ducked and pushed her way into the shelter. “Oh, wow. This is nice. I think my father used to use these when he went hunti—” She stopped as if she’d just realized what impact her words would have. “That was thoughtless.”
“You mean when he was hunting me? It’s okay, you know. That’s not your fault. I’m not angry at you.”
“But I don’t live in a bubble. I should think before I speak.”
“It takes more than a memory to hurt me, Mercy.”
“Does it? Because you could slice me to the bone with one.”
Her words crashed into him and he cocked his head to the side as he considered her. “Why aren’t you afraid of pain?”
“Being afraid of a thing doesn’t make it any less likely to happen.” She shrugged.
“Is that what you’ve been taught, or what you feel as yourself?”
“What?”
“Your tutors. Did they say those words to you?”
“No, my mother did, and they feel true.”
“It’s a very Valkyrie thing to say.” He nodded.
“Have you known many Valkyries?”
“I suppose. I was raised on Acadia. My mother was Boudicea, and when the Saxony came and salted our lands, poisoned the wells, and wiped out our technology, I vowed revenge.”
“And have you had it? Your revenge, I mean?”
“No. I still have to kill Rollo. He was the warlord that took my mother. And when I find him, I will grind his bones for salt,” he growled.
“That’s why my father hunted you. It wasn’t just the thrill of the support. I’ve heard that name before. Rollo. He’s one of my father’s supporters for governor.”
“Your father will never be governor. The Asgardians don’t want another Saxony.”
“I think all the honest thieves are on Hel.” She shook her head. “It was Rollo my father was hoping would ask for me.”
“He’s already married some Saxony princess. He wants to be king.”
“Then I think you should kill him.”
He sat down. “That’s rather bloodthirsty of you, Mercy.”
“Did you know that Eir, my mother’s name, means Mercy?” She looked up at him, eyes wide. “Rollo can’t be king. He’s a bad man. King of Saxony means he’d rule the Saxon system and from there, he’d control the food supply for most of the ‘verse.”
“You speak of killing a man as if it were an easy thing to end a life.”
“No.” She shook her head. “I know it’s no easy thing. And I don’t know if given the chance, if I could do it. But you could.”
“And then what? Then I’d be King of Saxony?”
“Do you want the right answer or the answer I’d rather have in my head?”
“Both.” He chuckled.
She flopped down on the inflated sleeping area with a huff. “I know that the right answer would be that you’d stay until a fair government was installed, but really, I’d want you to run away with me.”
“With you? What would we do?”
“This.”
“Right now? In a mech tent on a no name planet with…”
“I told you it was silly.”
“What do you think is going to happen here?” he asked softly.
“We’re going to fall in love.”
She said this with the utmost surety that it slapped his face harder than a mace ever could. “Why do you say that?” He wasn’t afraid of her conviction, or the idea of loving her. But they’d just met.
“It’s science.” She shrugged. “Proven fact that people who’ve been through a high-stress situation together tend to bond. And we’re stranded on an uninhabited planet. Eventually, I’ll look good. I’m the only one here.” She gave a wry laugh.
“You look plenty good,” he reassured her.
“And don’t forget Stockholm Syndrome. I’m completely reliant on you for my survival.”
“I thought we established back at the hangar that we’re in this together.” He tried not to laugh. She had this way of stating things that was so brash, so honest, but completely unaware of herself.
“Without you, I might last until the rations ran out. Then I’d be screwed. And I know it.”
“You’re stronger than you know.”
“And you keep saying things like that.” She laughed. “You make me feel good about myself. And I think that you like that I’m not afraid of you. You’ll love me. And I’ll love you even if it is just while we’re here.”
He smirked. “And what if we never leave this planet?”
“Then I guess we should try to make the best of it.” She shrugged.
Magnus shook his head. “You are not what I expected, Mercy Odinsdottir.”
“I hope that’s a good thing.”
“Yes, it is.”
He wanted to tell her so many things. He was sorry he took her, but he wasn’t sorry they were together. He was sorry for what it meant for her. But then there was another part of him that wasn’t sorry at all. A man like Odin Lokison didn’t deserve to have Mercy in his life. He treated her like crap.
A child should be protected and loved and she was neither. She was nothing but a means to an end for him. There was a vengeance in that, too, for Magnus. He’d taken her away and now she belonged to him. Odin would never use her again.
He didn’t have to hurt Mercy to make Odin pay. All he had to do was love her better and that would be no harsh task.
Could it really be that easy?
Magnus thought about what she said about Rollo as he lay down next to her and she came into his arms easily.
For fifteen years he’d been frozen. Fifteen years of his life, gone. All the while Rollo had was still walking around breathing. That didn’t sit well in his gut.
But she curled into him, her small hand splayed on his chest and that calmed him, eased him. All things he’d never expected from his enemy’s daughter.
In truth, all things he’d never expected from anyone.
It was almost as if they had the bond like the Valkyries and Berserker
s in the days of yore. He made her stronger, and she gave him peace.
Or as much peace as a man like him was capable of enjoying.
For being mostly marooned on a planet hovering at the edge of the Great Black, it wasn’t too bad a deal.
His fingers closed over hers.
“Will you do something for me?” she asked after a while.
“If I can.”
“We don’t know what’s going to happen tomorrow. We don’t know how long we’ll be here or what’s waiting for us.” She sighed.
“Is this your I don’t want to die a virgin speech?” he teased her.
“No. This is my there are things I want to experience and the best time is now speech. And before you try to talk me out of it—” she hid her face against his chest “—it isn’t like just being here with you made me want you. I’ve wanted you since the first time I touched you. I’ve thought about it. It’s not that I don’t want to die a virgin. It’s that I want to experience you.” She laughed, a nervous titter.
“Maybe you’re right. Maybe there is some Valkyrie in me after all because I never would have said this…or I never thought I could make my mouth move to form those words. I said them and I didn’t die of mortification.”
“You want mortification?” The corner of his mouth curled up in a smirk. “You got some Berserker in you?”
She lifted her head and searched his eyes. “No.”
“Do you want some?”
Her mouth dropped. “Do you mean… that’s dirty. And bad. That’s so bad. Did that ever actually work for you?”
“I think it’s about to.” He grinned, and she laughed. “See, sex is supposed to be fun. You should be able to laugh. It’s serious, but it’s not.”
“So I’m not supposed to be staring at the ceiling thinking about goddess and star system.”
“No. Gods, no. Who told you that?” He was so horrified.
“My comportment teacher.”
“You talked about sex etiquette in comportment?” Magnus couldn’t fathom that discussion or the reason for it. It made his brain hurt, among other things.
“So I didn’t embarrass or shame my family.” Her voice took on a prim and proper affectation.
“Oh, for fuck’s sake.”
“Yes, for fuck’s sake.” She nodded.
“Don’t you want to wait until this love thing happens that you’re so keen on?”
She laughed. “No. I want this. I want you.”
5
Mercy couldn’t believe what she’d just said, but she didn’t want to take it back. It seemed like all the things in the ‘verse had lined up to put her in this particular moment in time, with this man.
And it was exactly where she wanted to be.
He was everything she could have dreamed: fierce and strong when he had to be, intelligent, witty, and kind. He was gentle with her. He treated her like his equal even though he was stronger, faster, and probably smarter. He listened to what she had to say.
Magnus believed in her. She’d never had that before.
Then, of course, there was the part where he was the most beautiful man she’d ever seen.
She wondered for a brief moment if the reason he kept putting her off was that maybe he didn’t want her.
No, no. He wouldn’t have that reaction to kissing her if he didn’t want her.
Maybe she’d been too forward? Too brash?
If he was determined that she was more Valkyrie than the meek Odinsdottir, then maybe she was. Mercy found her voice. “Unless you don’t want to.”
“I don’t want to be a regret.”
That was the last answer she’d ever expected from him. She thought he might have said all manner of things, but it never occurred to him he could think he’d be a regret, or it would register in his world. He was so unlike any male she’d ever known. “You won’t. Having not asked you would’ve been the regret.”
He pulled her on top of him and she squealed. “What are you doing?”
“What you asked.”
“It doesn’t work like this.” But maybe it should. She felt so powerful, like she was the one in control.
He arched a brow. “Oh no? And who here has engaged in said activity and who has not?”
“I… I’m really sure it doesn’t work this way.”
“Do you like how it feels?”
“Yes.”
“Then this is how it works.” A smile curved his hard mouth, and the expression was almost like she was some small mammal that had done something cute.
She pursed her lips.
“You’ll see. Kiss me.”
She definitely wanted to kiss him. She always wanted to kiss him. She wondered briefly is his mouth was like some kind of opiate that once she’d had a taste, she’d always need more.
Mercy liked having him beneath her. She knew he was there by choice, but some of her tutors had made it sound like sex was something ugly and terrifying. That the male of the species morphed into some raging, uncontrollable rutting beast.
Magnus was large, suitably alpha male, and he definitely had the beserker in his blood. So either they were full of interstellar crap, or she just didn’t inspire that kind of reaction in him.
“I don’t know what’s going through your head, fire-hair, but how about you stop thinking and do this. Unless you changed your mind.”
She grinned. “No, I didn’t change my mind.”
Mercy leaned down and pressed her lips to his. She found her body knew what it wanted even if her brain did not. She’d shifted on top of him, rolling her hips against his, grinding her cleft against his hard cock. It sent little shockwaves of pleasure deep into her belly.
With his tongue in the hot cavern of her mouth, she knew their kiss imitated what would happen between them, his cock pushing deep inside of her. She shivered in expectation as the pressure built between her thighs.
When his hands slid up beneath her shirt, she grabbed his wrists and he allowed her to put his hands above his head.
“No. You said this is how it works. I’m on top, so I’m in charge.”
“As the lady wishes.”
She returned the caress, pushing under the tech shirt. Mercy liked the leather armor he’d been wearing before much better. But this was easier to get off. She slid down his body, using her teeth to peel the shirt up over his hard-muscled body.
He helped her to pull it over his head.
She’d always thought taking clothes off another person had to be extremely awkward, but this wasn’t strange at all.
Mercy thought about all the things she’d fantasized doing to him, or having him do to her, and here he was, spread out before her like a buffet. She wondered how far he’d let her go before he made her stop. There was part of her that rather imagined he’d let her do anything that she said turned her on. That was a heady rush, indeed.
She took he time exploring him, trying desperately to ignore the hot need that made her grind against him like the most shameless of creatures.
Mercy touched her lips to his throat and down over the wide expanse of his shoulder, then back to his chest. It was so warm and hard—she didn’t know how his skin could be soft, but the muscle under it like steel.
She ventured further down, down to where his obliques teased her and she dared to pull off the tech trousers. Her cheek brushed against his erection and she pulled them down his body, also with her teeth. His body stiffened at the contact and a small growl rumbled in the back of his throat. She loved that sound and she definitely wanted to make him do it again.
Mercy studied him intently, the way his cock jutted out from his body. It was thick, with a wide-girth and it seemed to be watching her back. When she closed in on it, it jerked with the stimulation of her breath on the head.
She thought about the forbidden books she’d read and the descriptions of what to do with such a beast. Mercy dipped her head and touched her lips to the town, causing him to growl again.
Oh yes, this was exactl
y what she wanted to be doing.
Mercy took him into her mouth; that was when his hand tangled in her hair. She pulled back. “Who said it was your turn to touch?”
“You’re killing me, Valkyrie.”
“And it will be a good death, Berserker.” She dipped her head again, taking him as deeply as she could.
She was rewarded with another growl that resonated deep inside of her.
When his hand tangled in her hair again, she didn’t tell him no. Instead, she allowed him to guide her, learned what he liked as his hips jerked up to meet her caress. She tasted all of him, her tongue lapping at him as she experimented.
Until finally, she found herself on her back, the great beast of a man over her and a kind of madness in his eyes. It was the same look on his face when he’d been frozen. This was what her tutors meant, but she wasn’t afraid.
“I’m going to devour you, Valkyrie.”
Did he mean he was going to do to her…
The first touch of his tongue made her gasp, but his powerful grip anchored her in place. She could squirm neither closer, nor farther away from the decadent torture of his mouth. It was just so much sensation—so intense.
It was too much, but at the same time, not enough. She wanted more and she suddenly understood why his hand had been tangled in her hair. She wanted to push her fingers through his and push him nearer his work, use his hair like nav…
“Be as loud as you like. There’s no one to hear you at the moment.”
She realized she’d been biting her lip to keep back her moans and it seemed so wrong to just—
“I want to hear you. I want to know what feels good.”
“That, do that!” She cried when he laved at her again.
The bristle of his day old scruff scratched against her thigh and she found she liked the contrast of the slight edge of discomfort along with the bliss. She lifted her hips and squirmed to meet him.
Friction warred with the build of something she couldn’t explain, but she knew if she didn’t find the pinnacle soon, she was going to die. It was as if the whole of the ‘verse had been compressed inside of her and was waiting to explode. She’d be nothing but stars and ash, but as she’d told him before, it would be a good death.