Sold to the Berserkers: A Menage Shifter Romance (7 page)

Samuel tugged me to my feet. He sat on the rock, his manhood sticking straight up. I thought he wanted me to lick him again, but he took my hips and lifted me onto his cock. We both sighed as I sank down his shaft. As always, his thickness stretched me to pleasure’s breaking point. His hand slipped between us and his thumb caught my pleasure nub, stroking until shockwaves radiated through me. I convulsed, my hands tearing at his hair. His mouth found my neck, licking and sucking the tender skin. His lips drifted to the thick scar tissue. I tolerated it for a few moments, before tugging his head away. A growl rumbled through his chest, but he moved on to my chest until I arched back, offering my breasts to him as he licked, teased and sucked the tender mounds.

Daegan came to prop me up and I leaned back against him, smiling as his head came down to claim my mouth. His warrior brother finished worshiping my breasts and pulled me against him. Samuel gripped my hips hard and lifted me up and down on his shaft.

Pleasure claimed me again, vibrations starting deep, deep inside me and spreading outwards through my whole body. I gasped and clawed at Samuel’s arms and muscled shoulders. The big warrior roared and lay back, pulling me over him.

“Ride me,” he ordered, his eyes piercing mine.

I struggled to get my limbs together.

I felt Daegan’s hand smooth down my back, squeezing one butt cheek before smacking it. “Up and down, Brenna, there’s a good lass. Give my brother relief.”

Finding purchase on the rock, I straddled the big warrior and pushed myself up and down. My skin grew slick with sweat.

Daegan spanked me for a while to encourage me, then his fingers slipped in the crevice between my buttocks. I jerked up to escape the probing digit, and the dark haired warrior smacked my bottom again.

Samuel’s fingers tugged my nipples, drawing my attention. “Faster,” he grunted, and I obeyed, rocking over him as he pulled my nipples to control the pace. The pain made me clench down on the blond’s giant cock, and he grabbed my hips and pounded me from beneath until he came with a roar.

I’d barely recovered before Daegan gripped my hair and pulled me off Samuel’s cock.

“Lick him clean,” the dark-haired warrior ordered hoarsely, “While I take ye from behind.”

Bent over Samuel’s prone body, I obeyed. In the heat of arousal, Daegan’s usual joking manner disappeared, but  I didn’t mind. They’d primed my body for fucking, and I reveled in the feel of the dark haired warrior’s hard thrusts while I worshiped Samuel’s turgid member.

Daegan pulled out before climaxing and painted my back with his seed. I’d grown used to our coupling ending with me covered in their cum, but this time I was well and truly covered. The warriors seemed so pleased, I was afraid they would not let me bathe.

At last Daegan led me to the heated springs. He left me while I splashed and bathed. I enjoyed getting clean, both using the oil and strigil and rinsing the oil off. I stood in the shallows stroking my skin and admiring my full breasts, narrow waist flaring into wide hips and a rounded bottom. My body felt full of desire and sated at the same time. I almost hummed with the thought of returning to the dais and taking the two warriors again.

Floating in the water, I closed my eyes and let my hands idly play over my body.

A thought struck me and I surged to my feet, languid mood gone. I was in heat.  Again.

I covered my face with my hands.

Surely it could not be. A month had passed and I was still here. I had forgotten myself. I had forgotten my sisters helpless to my stepfather’s lechery. The warriors had chained me with bonds of care and kindness. They’d treated me so well, I’d forgotten my duty.

I’d even forgotten my hideous face.

The water rippled around my body, marring my reflection, mocking me. I had but to look and I could remember it all.

But it was too late--my womb cramped for my warrior lovers to take me. Even my body was my enemy.

I staggered back to the room and pulled a pelt around me. I had no boots or clothes, but I could not delay. For the first time since they’d brought me to the cavern, I entered the hall and moved towards the cold outside air, escape on my mind. Samuel had told me never to venture out by myself and the threat of danger had been enough to keep me. That and their caressing touches, so welcome after a lifetime of being an outcast. In the soft light of love, I was blind to my true ugly self. The witch had indeed chosen well.

Awash in bitter thoughts, I stepped out of the cave and onto the mountain ledge, blinking in the light. The sun hung low in the sky—evening or morning I did not know. A path lead from the lip of the cave down the mountain, and for a second it seemed I could escape.

Movement caught my eye and I startled as the shapes emerged from shadow, the mottled fur a natural camouflage against the stone.

Everywhere I looked, there were wolves.

Just like that, my dream of escape turned into a nightmare.

I backed away from the path off the mountain, one hand clutching the pelt, the other covering my scar. Pitiful protection from these beasts who now surrounded me, a few even cutting off my re-entrance into the cave. I was trapped on a mountain with a pack of wolves, my earliest tormentors.

My mouth opened and worked in a cry no one could hear.

A wolf had taken my voice, and changed my life forever. And now wolves would take my life.

There was one way open to me: the edge of the cliff. Tears now streaming down my face, I inched backwards.

A dark wolf darted out before the rest. He didn’t growl, just stood, alert, watching me.

That’s when I realized all the wolves had golden eyes.

My head started weaving back and forth. No, it could not be.

A golden wolf, larger than all the rest, ran out from the pack and drew abreast with the dark one, and I knew then beyond all doubt, here was Samuel and Daegan. The berserkers were not men given to rage like beasts. They were beasts. Wolves.

Mouth still stretched in a scream, I turned and ran. My feet pounded on the stone. I could not escape them, but the ledge ended a few feet from me. I could throw myself over and die.

A great blast behind me drove me to the ground. My hair blew as if tossed by the wind, but the air was still.

“No,” a snuffling growl came from behind me. “Brenna!”

I scrambled to my feet and whirled. The dark wolf only a foot away, its mouth open and tongue panting. Was there sorrow in its golden eyes?

I put my hands up in a gesture for it to stay away. Samuel crouched a few feet behind the wolf, bent over on hands and knees. He was naked but for a loincloth, as I had seen him many times. “Brenna,” he choked out, and then repeated in a clearer human voice, “Please.”  

In my haste to escape, I misjudged how close I was to the edge. One tiny step backwards and I started falling. The wolf leapt.

Jaws snapped onto the pelt and jerked me forward. I clung to the fur robe as the wolf dragged me back onto the mountain ledge. For a second my feet kicked over the rock, in the empty air, but the thick pelt saved me. That, and the crushing jaws of a wolf.

Samuel leaned over me, worry scribed in every line of his face.

“Brenna.” His hands roved over my body, checking me. Beside the blond warrior, the dark wolf whined.

Samuel lifted and carried me to the room with the pelts. I stared into the golden eyes, piecing it all together. These were the berserkers of old. Over the centuries, they’d fought for kings and different countries, finally settling in the highlands, secluded and alone where no one would know they were wolves. They needed a slave to sate their lusts, and consulted a witch, who told them to find me. For who would miss such a hideous peasant woman, whose flesh already bore the scars of their kind.

I lay on the pelt, pain bubbling through me despite Samuel’s gentle ministrations. He lay beside me stroking my hair from my face and speaking to me in a soothing tone. “Brenna, I am sorry. I wish I could’ve told you another way. I’d do anything to take away your fear.”

His hand brushed my scar and I stiffened. Closing my eyes, I turned my back on him. Samuel settled one great arm around me, pulling me back to his front. His sigh blew through my hair.

“Please, little love. Do not fear us. I do not know what gave you those scars. A wolf or a normal dog, or one such as ourselves. We are witch born. The beast lives inside us, and it can be sated. Somehow you…” He paused to tip his head into my hair and take a deep breath, as the warrior did so often. “…you soothe the wolf.”

I scrunched my face, willing myself not to cry. It wasn’t fair. To have my destiny changed, twice, both times by beasts. It did not matter that I loved my warrior masters. A lifetime of suffering was enough to wipe the tender moments away.

A snuffling sound caught my attention. The dark wolf stood beside the dais, shaking its head this way and that as if it wore an invisible coat it wanted to claw off. I stiffened and started to scramble away, but Samuel held me, facing the wolf.

“That is Daegan. He is trying to change back into a man for you, so he can comfort you.”

The beast stopped and whined, a desperate, pathetic sound, even to my frightened ears.

“I called on pack magic to change quickly, so I might speak to you,” Samuel explained. “Each wolf gave me aid and it will be awhile before they recover. But Daegan is strong. His power is almost equal to mine. Even weakened, he may be able to shift.”

The wolf ducked its head again, and whined. Massive as it was, it did not seem as frightening as before.

“Look at him, Brenna. He suffers, because you are afraid of him. You returned our humanity to us. Please do not hate us, and take it away.”

Samuel and I watched the black beast struggle for a long while. Its body shook as if worried by a thousand tormenting bees. A part of me wanted to comfort it.

The blond warrior spoke again. “For years we have fed the beast with violence. Centuries of fighting and death. The killing rage is sweet, when it is upon us. But it leached us of all goodness, until we were hollow inside.” He rolled me to face him, but I still heard the wolf snuffling and fighting to shift behind me. “I did everything to cling to humanity. Sought out women, carried out good deeds. Even renounced the warrior way, took a vow of piety and changed my name to become a priest. But my prayers were not answered.”

His great hand covered my scars and for once I didn’t flinch away, held in thrall by his story and his eyes. “I became a scholar, and sought a witch. She told us to look for one who’d been marked by a wolf. Daegan passed through your village, saw you bathing in the stream, and knew.” His head bent again, pressing into the curve between my neck and shoulder. “Please, little love. Do not leave us for the darkness. We need you.”

I stared at the dark wolf, then touched my scars another wolf had made.

When I was a child a wolf marred me. Today one wolf saved me, but the wolves had saved me long before then. One moon ago.

They thought themselves monsters, these berserker wolves, but I knew worse monsters. My stepfather was one of them.

Samuel shifted his head from my shoulder and I rose and went to where Daegan lay, exhausted in a failed attempt to change. His ears pricked up but he didn’t move. Large as he was, he seemed as tame as a pet dog.

A few feet away, I knelt and stretched out my hand. My whole body shook with fear, but I embraced the terror. I accepted the wolf; it would accept me or I would die.

The berserker Daegan raised his head.

I felt the loops of power, the pack magic that Samuel described. I did not know how I felt it, but I did. The warmth spread through me, carrying me forward to my dark haired wolf.

Outside, one by one, the wolves began to howl.  An aching melody echoed down the hall. A sad, yet triumphant sound. No wolf was angry, or slavering for my flesh. I felt buoyed by the impromptu chorus, lifted up.

With fluid predator strength, Daegan rose and padded to my side.

I hugged the wolf, burying my face in its dark fur, smelling the scent of woods and wild. I felt Samuel at my back and the first tingles of power before the blond tugged me away. In a brief blast of golden light and magic, Daegan shifted.

Then I embraced the man.

*

I slept between the two men as always. After the change, Daegan struggled to speak, his golden eyes communicating his longing. A few snuffling attempts at speech and I lay my finger against his mouth. I didn’t need words of comfort. Taking both warrior’s hands, I led them to the bed. We curled up together. Daegan was the first to fall asleep, and all the days of him returning from the hunt, smelling of blood and wanting to only eat, sleep or rut made sense.

“So now, Brenna, do you understand?” Samuel asked. I nodded.

When the beast took over, it took their human speech and the effects took some time to shake off. Samuel and Daegan were leaders of the pack, Samuel at the head and Daegan a close second. After centuries of fighting, the beast dominated their human side. They needed a panacea, someone or thing that could bring their beast back under control.

They searched and consulted a witch, and then found me.

I didn’t know why I could calm the wolf, but it didn’t matter. I had saved them.