Mastered by the Berserkers (Berserker Brides #8) - Lee Savino Page 0,4

lodge, the tension broke from my shoulders like I’d doffed a heavy cloak. I’d been up a few times that night with Ivy and Clover, who were restless in sleep. Fern, too, often had nightmares. We were all still settling into our new home.

I took up the buckets and headed for the path leading to the stream. The clearing around the lodge was empty, and the forest was still, but I knew better. The back of my neck prickled with the awareness I had when a certain two warriors were near.

I hadn’t gone five steps before a big shape moved out from a tree. I caught my breath but didn’t let my feet falter as the warrior named Jarl strolled to my side.

“Little wife.” He fell into step beside me.

I stiffened but didn't look at him. My stomach flipped and swished like a minnow in a pool. I would've darted back in the lodge and hid if I could. But I hardened my spine. I had never cowered before the warriors and never would.

A few more steps and a shadow moved out from behind a tree. Fenrir. Of course. Wherever Jarl was, Fenrir was not far behind and vice versa.

“Fine morning for a walk,” Jarl said, as if I wasn’t ignoring him. I shook my head and he winked at me.

I quickened my step, but his long legs barely had to stretch to keep up. “You no longer wear a veil,” Jarl observed.

I touched my hair where once I would’ve worn a veil—a sign of my dedication to God. I’d given up wearing it after a few days on the mountain. I was no longer Sister Juliet.

I didn’t know who I was anymore.

It was a beautiful day, if I ignored the presence of the two warriors who insisted on escorting me. At the abbey, my life had been divided into simple sections, bound by the bells. Prayer, work, meals, and more prayer. Sometimes there was fasting, sometimes feasts, though celebrations were mostly enjoyed by the village and rarely touched the abbey. My life inside the stone walls was simple, safe.

Now I lived on Berserker mountain. There were no bells to signal the passing hours. Only crickets and bird song. No neatly tended gardens. Only wildflowers and rugged pine. No rules, no prayers, no veil to bind my hair. Only a stunning view from the heights, and above, a vast unbroken sky.

But if God made the world, He made this land. Man tried to make the world small. Men built the abbey and bound the hours of the day to the bells. Men told me when I should rise, what I should eat, how I should work and dress.

How many of the rules I followed were not made by God, but made by men?

“You’re upset,” Jarl said.

I smoothed my forehead and shook my head.

When I reached the stream, Jarl didn’t ask, he simply plucked the bucket from my hand and filled it from the stream. Fenrir came and took the other. I stood awkwardly on the bank, unable to ignore them any longer.

They were big as boulders, these warriors. Fenrir’s black hair was unbound. It fell straight down his back, long enough dip into the water. Jarl had bound his hair back with a thong. They both wore leather breeches. Under a fur cape, Fenrir was bare-chested while Jarl had a sleeveless jerkin. Jarl’s arms were covered with pagan symbols.

I reached for the water bucket as he returned to me, but he shook his head. I pivoted, woodenly, and started walking back to the lodge. I would take my time returning if I were alone, but I had no desire to linger with these men.

But I’d promised Meadow I’d ask them if we could visit Laurel. “I heard one of the spaewives is with child,” I used the term the warriors preferred. Spaewife was a woman who could mate with a Berserker. “May we go visit her?”

“Which one?” Jarl responded, and my steps slowed.

“There’s more than one with child?” Laurel, Hazel, Willow, and Sage were all settled with warriors. They’d been stolen from the abbey but seemed happy. All but Hazel were mated to not one, but two warriors. I couldn’t imagine how that was possible.

I shouldn’t imagine how that was possible. But after several moons with Jarl and Fenrir always near, I had imagined it.

God forgive me.

Jarl grinned as if he knew my thoughts. “Yes. Come spring, there’ll be a new crop of babies.”

Fenrir spoke up. “There’s to be a