At the Viking's Command (Warriors Unleashed Book 2) (2 page)

“Oh, God.” The two words barely covered her panic. She needed her memories back.

Her barbarian companion looked about as comforting as a rock bed, but since he was the only part of this nightmare she recognized, she scooted toward him. He heaved a sigh and extended his hand through the bars, like they’d done this before. Whatever. She’d take what she could get. She slapped her hand in his and his fingers curled around hers.

“How do we get out of here?” He had to know more than she did, if only because she knew absolutely zip, nada, zilch about what was going on. One of them had to fix this and it couldn’t be her.

“There’s no
we
, sweetheart.” He didn’t even bother to turn his head. His fingers tightened, though, his callused fingertips rubbing over the backs of hers.

“Fuck you.” She’d had it up to
here
with non-answers.

The corners of his mouth tugged up when she snarled at him. What kind of a man was he? Talk to him politely and he ignored her. Curse him and he paid attention. Fine. She could kick him in the balls too. Whatever it took to make him take charge of their getting-out-of-there plan.

He turned his head and looked at her. “How much do you remember?”

Right. This wasn’t her first day at the rodeo. She’d woken up here…before? She looked down at her body. Her skin looked liked a roadmap that said she’d been to hell and back, with plenty of pit stops along the way. Blood streaked her legs and she scrubbed hard with her free hand. Her breathing suddenly sounded like a vacuum cleaner gone bad, air wheezing in and out of her lungs at a panicked rate.

He growled at her. Actually
growled
at her. “That’s not your blood.”

“How do you know?” Nice to know she wasn’t punctured in some vital spot, but she still couldn’t let that blood stay stuck on her skin. End of story.

“Only one fighter leaves the pits alive. You’re not dead, which means you won.”

Say what?

“I’m not a pit fighter.” Whatever that was. Was she? Because, honestly, right now anything seemed possible. Her companion certainly looked like the kind of guy who could go hand-to-hand and do mixed martial arts.

“You are, because you’re not dead. There are only three kinds of people in the pits. Fighters. Dead fighters. And pit bait. Pit bait dies first.” Shoot. He sounded beyond certain.

Oookay. “You’re not dead either.”

“No.” He closed his eyes and made himself comfortable against the wall. So close. Only four feet, possibly five, separated them. She could poke her hand through the bars and—what?

“What am I?”

“Besides a pit fighter? You’re a werewolf.”

Werewolves didn’t exist. “You’re right about one thing. You’re crazy.”

He made a
why me
noise. “Somebody bit you. A
werewolf
somebody. His bite changed you.”

Automatically, she touched the spot on her breast where her skin burned and throbbed. Since she couldn’t remember anything much—except for the excruciating sensation of pain—his theory suddenly seemed as plausible as any. Yanking her hand out of his, she pulled up her T-shirt and whimpered. There was no other way to describe the embarrassing thread of sound that escaped from her. She
did
have a bite mark on her breast. Four of them. Livid and inflamed, the bites were obscene tears in her skin. Not only did her injuries hurt like hell, but it was just possible that he was
right.

“Overkill,” he growled and, when she looked at him, he was staring at the bite marks and he definitely wasn’t entirely human any more. She didn’t know what he was, but his face grew larger and harsher as his shoulders expanded and his body shot up, taking on a brutal, animalistic cast.

“You’re an animal.” The words flew out of her mouth before she could stop them. Way to go, antagonizing her only friend.

“Only part of the time.” He bared his teeth. “And, unlike you, only when I want to be.”

~~~

“How recent was the bite?” He’d seen her shift. He’d known she was a werewolf—and that meant, since she was female, she’d been bitten. Fenrir’s children bred only male children. The females were converts, forcibly bitten and changed. They shifted at night only, taking on their human shapes during the daylight hours. For the first week or so after the conversion, the newly-turned were feral, savaging anyone they encountered. It explained how she’d survived her first night in the pit. She’d been an instinctive killing machine.

She glared right back at him, her brown eyes indignant as she went on the offensive. “Did you bite me while I was out? That’s
sick
.”

“I don’t bite.” Unless he’d shifted into his bear form when he went berserk. Then, yeah, he’d been known to bite his opponent, although he went more for rending and tearing. Biting was for oatcakes and dogs.

“Right.” She sniffed and gave him her back.

He understood about having a beast living inside you. And,
hel
, his beast liked hers. He blamed it on his imprisonment—it had to have affected his head, since he was a Viking berserker and she was a werewolf. It should have been death on first sight. As a mercenary for hire, he generally only gave a fuck about world politics and domination when caring earned him a paycheck, but even he wouldn’t stand around and let Armageddon happen. But the first week or so after a bite, the newly turned rarely remembered what they did. New wolves rampaged unchecked and that was likely why their captors had brought her here. She was pit fodder even if she likely remembered none of it.

Still, although the keepers had dragged her out into the pit each night, each morning, they also brought her back. She didn’t die. By the third morning, she’d stopped screaming when she woke up and had started inventorying her hands. Yeah. She’d finally figured something was up and maybe she’d started to believe him. She didn’t like her situation and she definitely hadn’t accepted it—but she wasn’t stupid either.

The fourth morning she came back over to his side of the cell, a woman on a mission.

“You’re still here.” She dropped to the floor and crossed her legs, leaning against the wall like some kind of princess. Since werewolves shredded their clothing when they shifted, someone must have given her replacements. Not that the torn black leggings and wedge sneakers were going to do anything to keep her safe and protected. She still wore the same filthy USC T-shirt however and, when she bent forward and did some kind of yoga stretch to work out the kinks in her legs, she flashed him with a hot pink thong.

He didn’t say anything. She still talked enough for both of them.

“Where are we? You never answered that question. I want answers.” She moved closer. Another two feet and he could reach through the bars and snap her neck. Which would be a waste. Sooner or later the pit keepers would pit them against each other and he’d have to kill her then. He’d probably do it, too. He ignored the small pang of
something
that speared his chest. Emotions—like dying—were for the weak.

Instead, he told her the truth. “We’re in the holding cells for an underground fight ring.”

She nodded, like maybe she was finally ready to believe him, and pointed to the shallow gash on his arm. “What happened to you?”

“I was slow. There are four pit matches each night.”

“That’s a lot of fighters.” She craned her neck, like she could see through the walls surrounding them and get a head count. “Where do they keep them all?”

“The fights are to the death.” Long-term housing was not an issue.

“You kill someone each night?” Her face paled as she processed the fact that she was sharing air space with a killer. He itched to remind her she did the same thing.

The first few nights after he’d been imprisoned here, he’d considered deliberately losing or simply refusing to fight but it went against every instinct he had. He was Viking. He fought. The poor bastards in the ring with him had made the same decision and he’d honor it. Kill or be killed. The rules of his world were brutally simple. Princess here, however, clearly had a different set of operating orders.

Popping her happy bubble was easier than he’d expected.

“You must fight better than you look.”

“Excuse me?” She shoved to her feet, pushing up against the bars to get in his face. She was so easy to bait. And…she still smelled good, which was a small miracle given the lack of facilities in their prison. His keepers turned a hose on him after a fight and then sent him to the cell. Soap and hot water were unspeakable luxuries. “I don’t fight.”

“You do.”

She poked him in the chest and he was too surprised to do anything. She hadn’t touched him
there
before. He was nearly naked, clad only in the loincloth and leather gauntlets that amused the pit’s keepers. They both stared down at her errant finger. Fuck it. She was smart. She had to know he was no gentleman. He wrapped his hand around hers, trapping her in place. One hard tug moved her closer to the bars, her mouth kissing distance from his, so close he could feel each breath she took.

“Where do you think you go every night?”

Her pulse picked up, banging out a frantic rhythm against the soft skin of her throat. “I—”

By being ruthless, he was being her friend. She should thank him—although he knew she wouldn’t.

“You shift into your wolf form and they throw you in the pit.”

“I don’t remember what I do.”

“You will.” He ran a thumb over her fingers. She could deny it all she wanted, but the blood underneath her nails spoke volumes.

“And there’s no way out?”

For her, the answer was
no
. She’d fight and she’d die. Eventually, she’d come up against one of his brothers and they wouldn’t hold back. They’d look at her and they’d see only a werewolf who needed exterminating. They wouldn’t see the woman.

“I’m getting out,” he vowed. No cage could hold him forever.

“Take me with you,” she said, her words one hundred percent demand. For a brief nanosecond, his thoughts flashed elsewhere. Would she be that certain in bed? It didn’t matter. He couldn’t free a werewolf. All he could do was make her death a swift one.

So it didn’t count that part of him—and not just the boner he’d been sporting for the last half hour—wanted to give her exactly what she wanted.

He couldn’t give her a fucking happy ending or roses or a goddamned candlelit dinner. Even if they’d been kicking up their heels on the Vegas strip, free to go about their lives, he wasn’t the kind of man who dated or had relationships. He came, he fought, he left. It was in his job description and what the Vikings had been doing for centuries, with a side of pillaging.

“I can’t,” he said, knowing they both heard the regret in his voice. “Let me kiss you, okay?”

He didn’t wait for her answer, because part of him had been waiting for this moment since the pit guards had tossed her into the cell next to his. She didn’t pull back and she didn’t say
no
, so although he wanted her chanting his name and demanding
more, more, more
, he’d take what he could get.

He covered her mouth with his, angling his head to accommodate the bars between them. Threaded his free hand through the tangled hair at her neck, shifting her face until he could kiss her deeper.

Her lips parted beneath his—surprise, indignation, need…he had no idea. Heat hit him hard, a sweet, bright bolt of pleasure he’d never expected from such a simple touch. Her breath shuddered out of her mouth and he drank her in. Swept his tongue lightly over her bottom lip and stroked deeper.

She tasted sweet and desperate. He, on the other hand, was far too fucking old and used up. He tore his mouth away from hers and backed the hell away. Six inches. That was as far as he got, although he’d intended to put the entire cell between them.

“You—” She got the one word out, but then faltered. That made two of them who didn’t know what to say. He ran his thumb over her lower lip roughly where her mouth was wet from his kiss. This was the last time he’d touch her. It had to be.

“Shouldn’t have done that,” he growled.

Who knew they’d finally agree and over a kiss?

1

Twelve months later…

“Worthless bitch.” Ake’s steel-toe dug into Tyra’s ribs, retreated, then slammed hard against the bone. Oh, sweet baby Jesus. Pain radiated through her body until she couldn’t even manage a scream. The sobbing whimper that forced its way through her teeth was almost as humiliating as her position at the werewolf’s feet, facedown in the Arctic snowpack. This new feeling of helplessness was even worse than waking up in a fucking cage and discovering that not only was she a werewolf, but she was someone’s expendable fighting bitch. Too bad her tough girl act these last twelve months had been just that—an
act
. She’d had it with pretending and she’d wanted to be the real thing. Instead, she’d cracked as easily as her ribs.

“Get out.” The rougher voice belonged to Frey, the Pack’s second-in-command because her Alpha, Leif, couldn’t be bothered to evict her himself. He’d collected her from the pits because he’d bitten her and that made her his responsibility—to kill, to breed, or to keep—but apparently he’d tired of her presence. Frey’s face wavered through the tears burning her eyes. She never cried. Or begged, whined or submitted. When his hands gathered her up, fisting the front of her thin T-shirt, air leaked out of her lungs and made short work of her defiance. That last kick had broken something.

Never beg.

Negotiate
.
Demand
.

Big boots pounded closer and Ake’s roar of pain as a bigger, meaner werewolf schooled him was followed by Even’s rough growl. Reinforcements—of a sort—had arrived.

“Since when is
put her out
code for
half kill her
?” Even bellowed the question, but didn’t wait for an answer. Instead, he laid into Ake and Frey, dealing out a punishment of his own.

She’d always liked Even and, if she’d been fucking Santa Claus, she’d have put him down on the
nice
list. He wasn’t precisely savior material, but
he
didn’t want her dead yet. Her instincts said he was going to challenge their Alpha before long. Too bad she wouldn’t be here to see it. She’d have enjoyed watching Leif go down.