STORY EXCERPT

“I smell you, wolf,” the angry voice from before said from the shadows. “I know you are there.”

Ulfr stilled. He should not have been detected. Berserkrs smelled of the forest, of earth and wind and the very trees. Their scent blended with nature, undetectable to human senses—unless he was not dealing with a human.

Considering what he was, that was always a possibility.

Ulfr pushed the door open with his shoulder and stepped inside the building. The room wasn’t huge but it was large enough to have darkened corners. Luckily, Ulfr had great eyesight and was able to immediately pinpoint his opponent.

The man still smelled of hate.

There was another smell floating on the air, one that was sweeter, alluring. It made Ulfr think of days past when his life was simple and he was happy. The sweet fragrance wrapped around him and moved against his skin like the finest fur, sensual and arousing. It messed with Ulfr’s senses, and raised his hackles when he could not immediately pinpoint its source.

“You have me at a disadvantage,” Ulfr replied as he moved further into the room, sniffing at the air. The putrid scent of hate burned his nostrils. “You seem to know who I am but I do not believe we have ever met.”

“No, that is not exactly true.” The man’s silhouette moved as he did, strolling slowly across the room as if he wasn’t facing off against an enemy, but staying to the shadows as though he didn’t want his face in the light.

Why?

“We have met before,” the man continued in a cool voice that grated on Ulfr’s nerves and poked at his memories. He had heard this voice before but where? “It has been more years ago than I care to remember, but we have met.”

Ulfr searched his memory but what he could see of the man’s face didn’t bring anything to mind. He cocked his head, his curiosity about the stranger growing. “If we have met before, why do you not show yourself?”

“I did not wish to bring back old memories, Ulfr.”

Ulfr tensed, his muscles tightening as the man stepped out of the shadows and into the torchlight. He sucked in an anguished breath as the light fell on the stranger’s face and he became a stranger no more.

Ulfr growled as he dove at the man, his rage making his shift fast and deadly. Jarl Alrekr jumped out of the way at the very last second. Ulfr’s claws sliced across the man’s abdomen, ripping his tunic wide open and leaving a trail of deep gouges marring his skin.

“Oh, you are good.” The man laughed as he pressed his hand over his open wounds. “You were big as a child but you have grown since I last saw you.” The man’s eyes roamed over Ulfr’s massive wolf body. “I am impressed.”

Ulfr wasn’t impressed. He was enraged. Jarl Alrekr had killed his family in cold blood, slaughtering them right before his eyes. Ulfr had spent years being eaten alive by rage and anguish. Once he learned to shift, he had stayed in his wolf form longer than most. After meeting Baldr, Ulfr had spent years under his tutelage, learning how to be a great warrior…just for this moment. He peeled back his lips, growling as he showed Alrekr his daggerlike teeth. The wait was over. This was his chance to avenge his family.

They circled one another, the anticipation building within his gut, while he studied his opponent. Alrekr looked exactly the same, the memory forever burned inside his mind. Ulfr lurched forward, testing the other man’s reflexes, and Alrekr jerked back. Ulfr grinned. He’d been waiting for this day to come for decades. He taunted and teased, playing with Alrekr, testing his resolve as he waited to make his move.

Ulfr feigned to the left. When Alrekr jumped to the right, Ulfr was there waiting for him. He latched onto the man’s arm with his razor sharp teeth slicing past skin and bone. The sound of the man’s pain-filled cry satisfied Ulfr’s wolf, but it wasn’t enough. He wanted to hear Alrekr scream and beg for mercy before he died. He wanted the man to suffer, to feel the pain that he’d felt all these years.

He thrashed his head side to side, and Alrekr shrieked.

Ulfr grunted when a meaty fist plowed into the side of his face. His teeth tore flesh from bone as he fell back, sliding against the hard floor. Alrekr’s face had paled but there was a determined press to his lips that said this fight wasn’t over.

Ulfr jump to his feet and couched down, growling deep within his chest. He snapped his jaws at the man, snarling. Alrekr clutched his bloody arm to his chest, cradling it carefully. Ulfr could see large chunks of flesh hanging free as blood poured from the wound, dripping to the ground. He thought he even saw bone.

Alrekr backed up, his eyes intent. “It seems I may have underestimated you, Ulfr. It will not happen again.”

Ulfr roared and jumped back when Alrekr kicked over a brazier. Hot coals and smoldering hot wood crashed to the floor and started burning everything they touched. Within seconds, the room was engulfed, flames licking up the walls and along the floor, the heat singing Ulfr’s fur.

Alrekr’s laughter followed him out of the building as the man ran.

Ulfr started to chase after him until he heard a whimper from the figure in the cage. Ulfr glanced back, his eyes landing on the wooden cage. Already, flames licked up the sides. The figure inside would be burned to death before the cage was destroyed.

Ulfr took another step toward the door. The frightened whimper was accompanied by a cough and a sharp inhale, a desperate attempt for more air. Ulfr’s shoulders slumped. As much as he wanted to leave and go after the man that had destroyed his family, he knew he could not. His honor demanded he save whoever was inside that cage.

His revenge could wait.

Ulfr turned back and ran to the burning cage. By now, all of one side of the wooden cage was in flames. Ulfr shifted back to his human form as soon as he reached the cage. He grabbed the wooden bars on one side and pulled with all of his strength until they snapped.

With the building already in flames, Ulfr didn’t bother unwrapping the person in the furs. The covering would probably keep him or her protected anyway. He just reached in and grabbed the covered bundle and pulled it out of the cage before turning and running from the burning building.

ADULT EXCERPT

Eitri’s head swam with euphoria as he slowly extracted his teeth from the berserkr’s flesh. He had felt the connection with the first draw of blood. It had only strengthened with each swallow.

The cry of the wolf holding him changed from one of pain to a deep groan of pleasure. Eitri felt the wolf move against him, the touch as sensual as it was forceful. When his hair was grabbed and his head yanked back until his neck was exposed, Eitri didn’t fight it. He knew what was coming, and as much as it frightened him, it soothed him as well.

Still, the cry that fell from his lips as the wolf’s razor sharp fangs sank into his throat had to have been heard in the halls of Valhöll. By the time the wolf withdrew his teeth several moments later and lifted his head, the bond was complete.

“Oh, bóndi,” the rough-voiced wolf whispered, “you know not what you have done.”

Eitri buried his face in the man’s chest, his nose brushing against the curled hair smattered across the powerful muscles. He wanted to sink into oblivion and disappear forever. He hadn’t meant to bite the man but something in his gut had taken a hold of him and before he could stop himself, his teeth were buried deep.

And now the man was angry. Eitri could feel it in the tense muscles beneath him. The man’s chest rose and fell rapidly. The hand gripping a fistful of his hair was tightening, pulling his head back. Eitri would be afraid the man was going to snap his neck…if he didn’t feel so safe with the handsome stranger.

Eitri couldn’t remember that last time he had felt safe, if ever. Surrounded as he was by the man’s massive arms, Eitri was able to draw in his first calming breath in forever. But whatever oxygen he had pulled into his lungs whooshed right back out when he was suddenly lifted into the air like a rag doll and flipped around until he straddled the large man’s huge thighs.

Eitri’s hoarse cry filled the air as something long, thick, and slick slid between his ass cheeks. The tip of the finger circled his tight ring of muscles until they fluttered with need, and then it thrust in, pulling another cry from Eitri. Having never had anything in his ass before, the sensation frightened Eitri as much as it intrigued him.

When it pulled out, Eitri almost cried out in protest, but it was back just as fast, thicker this time, two fingers. When they pushed deep, Eitri thought he was going to lose his mind. He felt so full, the burn making him ache, but for what?

Eitri whimpered.

“Bóndi.” The word was whispered, desperate.

Needy.

Eitri thought he was ready when the two fingers pulled back, but a third finger added stretched him beyond what he thought he could stretch. Eitri cried out as he wiggled, to be free or to beg for more he was unsure. He just knew he had to move. The thrusting was driving him toward something but what that something was went beyond Eitri’s scope of knowledge.

“Ohhh!” Eitri’s head fell back when the fingers in his ass brushed against something that sent sparks of fire racing through his body. His cock was so hard and aching. He had an insane urge to rub against the stranger holding him.

Just when he thought he might give in to his need, the fingers in his ass were pulled out, replaced a mere moment later with something hot and hard and so damn big it brought tears to his eyes. Eitri clutched at the man’s shoulders as his ass was split wide open with one deep thrust. He cried out in pain, positive he was being killed.

One thrust turned into two, and then five, ten, more than he could count. A single massive hand spanned across his lower back, holding him in place as he was repeatedly impaled, the man’s body moving against his roughly, hard, almost violently, until Eitri thought he couldn’t take another moment of it.

And then something happened, something changed. The pain that had become his world turned into something that stole his breath. Tears sprang to his eyes and slid down his cheeks as the most unimaginable pleasure Eitri had ever felt moved through his body as though the hands of the gods swept over him. Nothing in his life had ever prepared Eitri for the ecstasy sweeping through him.

Teeth as sharp as a knife blade sank back into the soft skin between his shoulder and neck. The briefest bite of pain turned into his high cry of pleasure as his body seemed to explode from within, splashing his gratification between him and the man. The man’s roar of release that shook the rafters was nothing compared to the roar in his head as the man’s cock expanded in his ass, locking into place as spurt after spurt of hot seed filled his channel.