Mastered by the Berserkers (Berserker Brides #8) - Lee Savino Page 0,29

tangled. My shift was gone, torn away. I was naked, barefoot, cold. The bed was still warm from the warrior’s bodies, but I could not return to it. The beauty of our night together was shattered.

What had I done? I’d broken my vows.

I staggered from the lodge. As soon as I stepped outside, my feet ached from the cold ground, but I welcomed the hurt as punishment for what I’d done. All the lovely glow that had filled me after my punishment was gone, leaving me barren and empty inside. The good was gone, only the ugly was left. Only I was left.

I sank down, my hands over my face. Everything inside me welled up and I sobbed.

Jarl found me there, crouched and crying in the mud. He cursed and dropped the firewood he’d chopped, and rushed to wrap me in his robe before carrying me inside. He bundled me on the bed and left my side to build the fire higher.

I curled onto my side and cried as he paced back and forth. A wave of magic, and I sensed the dark form of the beast, prowling back and forth like a wild animal at the mouth of a cave.

Fenrir returned soon after, melting from the shadows. His shape was normal. He felt the pull of the beast but did not succumb to it. He set a brace of rabbits on a stone by the fire, moving slowly as if not to startle either of us. What happened? he asked as Jarl prowled past him.

She is rejecting us. She believes she has sinned.

“Calm down, brother.”

She cannot leave us! Jarl roared.

“She’s not leaving,” Fenrir said. He moved between me and the fire. After a while, his weight sank into the bed beside me. “Juliet, come.”

I pushed him away, but he lifted me to his lap. He had food and drink and met my resistance with calm patience.

“Now,” he said when I had eaten and drank my fill. “Tell me why you are distraught.”

“I am not Juliet.” I said in a hollow voice. “I am someone else.”

“No.” He kissed my shoulder. “You are still you.”

“I am undone.” I pushed back the mess of my hair, but it fell over my face. Fenrir moved behind me. With patient hands, he bundled my hair back and began to brush the strands.

“The abbess was right.” My voice cracked with sorrow. “I am a wild and unholy creature.”

“You were born wild, but you are not unholy.” Fenrir bent and kissed my shoulder. “We have let loose the ties that bound you. Now you are free.”

“How can you say that?” I rubbed my chest. I did not feel free. I felt a great weight on my chest, stones in my heart.

Why this guilt? Jarl spoke directly into my mind. Your priest would make you someone you were not.

“But I am wicked,” I cried.

“So you say. But I see no wickedness in you. Where is your proof?” He caught my hand when I would scratch furrows into my chest and closed his own huge hand around it.

I sat in his lap, quivering like a rabbit in a trap. “I have lain with two men.”

“We forced you, remember? You had no choice.”

That was not entirely true, and we both knew it. But I couldn’t say that. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Juliet,” Fenrir sighed. “Look at Jarl.”

The tattooed warrior was fully Changed into a beast. The giant monster filled the doorway. The top of its dark furred head almost touched the lintel. It’s back tensed, arching, as if any moment it would point its snout at the sky and howl.

“Tell him to come back to you,” Fenrir ordered.

I parted my lips and Fenrir pushed two fingers into my mouth, silencing me. Not that way, his deep voice echoed in my mind.

Jarl. I thought hard. There was a monster in my mind, a dark and angry shape. Hurt, abandoned. My heart cracked. Come back to me.

As I watched, the beast straightened, the fur disappearing, leaving a clean jaw and Jarl’s sharp nose. Jarl the man emerged from the monstrous form. The final swirls of black fur faded into the dark markings on his smooth-skinned chest. He stretched, naked, and smirked when he caught me staring.

“Do you see?” Fenrir murmured. “In your presence, the beast is calm.”

Jarl picked up the makeshift door and set it against the opening, blocking out the night. He returned to the bed and stretched out beside me, picking up my hand and squeezing it. I grabbed his hand