A Berserker Birth Read online

  A Berserker Birth

  Lee Savino

  Contents

  The Complete Berserker Saga

  A Berserker Birth

  Acknowledgments

  A Note From Lee Savino

  About the Author

  Also by Lee Savino

  Text copyright © 2017 Lee Savino

  All Rights Reserved

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means including information storage and retrieval systems, without permission in writing from the author. The only exception is by a reviewer, who may quote short excerpts in a review.

  * * *

  This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

  The Complete Berserker Saga

  For over a hundred years, the Berserker warriors have fought and killed for kings. There is but one enemy we cannot defeat: the beast within.

  Sold to the Berserkers

  Mated to the Berserkers

  Bred by the Berserkers (FREE novella only available at www.leesavino.com)

  Taken by the Berserkers

  Given to the Berserkers

  Claimed by the Berserkers

  Rescued by the Berserkers (Hazel and Knut’s story) - coming soon

  Kidnapped by the Berserkers- coming soon

  Captured by the Berserkers- coming soon

  ...and more!!!

  A Berserker Birth

  Brenna

  I woke with a rumbling laugh in my ear.

  “Brenna,” Daegan’s burr was thick and sweet enough to eat, “I’m happy to cuddle ye each night, but could ye please keep your cold toes away from my stones?”

  “Freeze them off, Brenna,” came a muffled comment to my left. “If he can’t endure a little cold from his mate, he doesn’t deserve them. Besides,” Samuel rolled to face me, long blond hair falling over his face, “he had his chance to make a child. We both did.” Two large hands, one from each of my men, covered my swollen belly.

  “Aye, and when the babe has dark hair and broad shoulders, and comes out wailing for mutton along with his milk, we shall know the sire.”

  “We will. And it won’t be you, you rabbit-faced son of Alba.”

  Daegan took a fur robe, reached carefully over me, and pretended to try to smother Samuel, who retaliated with a swift punch to his warrior brother’s head. Pelts flew and I cowered between them until a knee came close to hitting my side and I let out a rush of breath in panic.

  Samuel stopped immediately, “Forgive us, my sweet. Daegan--”

  A pillow hit him in the face. Daegan crowed until I gripped his thigh, hard enough for my nails to break skin.

  “Idiot,” Samuel raged as he helped me sit up. “She could’ve been hurt.”

  I waved my hands. Shut up, both of you. I mimed. My back hurts, my feet are freezing and I need the chamber pot. Fight around me again and I’ll leave and move in with my sisters until my child is old enough to challenge you for Alpha. See if I don’t! My hand motions grew wild as I expressed my annoyance.

  “Someone’s grouchy,” Daegan guffawed, but he scissored up out of bed and returned with the chamberpot. Samuel helped me stand while Daegan puffed around the room, adding wood to the braziers and returning with warm bricks for the bed. My men rubbed my back and aching calves until I grew drowsy again.

  Truth was, I was not angry with them. My men were on edge, and why shouldn’t they be? Werewolf births were hard. Samuel had sent emissaries to a local pack who’d inhabited Alba long before the Berserkers were made, but the natural born wolves had rebuffed any attempt to question their women. From what we could tell, fewer females than males were born into a pack, and of the women, many didn’t survive childbirth.

  The strain wore on my men, etched into their skin and revealing itself through short tempers, and shorter, if playful skirmishes.

  I was not worried. I was happy.

  “I’m off for the night watch. I’ll be back at dawn, with the winter berries she likes so much,” Daegan whispered to Samuel, and brushed a bristled kiss on my cheek before he left.

  I drifted in and out of sleep until lying on one side grew too uncomfortable. Samuel woke to help me roll over, and gathered me in his arms. My hands skimmed down his muscled arms, wishing I could relive the tension in his powerful frame, while he stroked my hair.

  As his touch stirred at my temples, I realized the mating bond linking our minds lay wide open. Before I knew it I’d stepped through the door between us, and his thoughts lay unbarred before me. I’d caught him unawares, in a moment of introspection, but before I could retreat and preserve his privacy, an image flooded mine. A blonde woman, her hair piled on her head, and two young boys, toddlers, really, just older than babes, sat at a hearth. Samuel ate with them before someone called--”Sigurd!” and he rose and left the lodge and the memory swirled to grey.

  I raised my head and studied Samuel’s pensive face. He hadn’t noticed me in his mind. I flushed. Our mating bond was still new and untried in many ways. It linked our minds during times of great emotion. My men hoped it would grow stronger so we could speak as often as we liked, but perhaps they did not know that I could venture into their mind unseen.

  Embarrassed as I was for trespassing on his most private thoughts, I wondered what I had seen--picture of his mother and brothers? Or...a wife, and his children?

  The thought struck me just as Daegan stomped in, the tips of his ears and nose tinged red from cold.

  “Did she rest?” he asked Samuel.

  I’m right here. I motioned, scrabbling up on the bed. Both men had to help me move my great girth. You can ask me.

  “You have not been sleeping well.”

  “Stay in bed, lass, you need rest. Besides it’s too cold to go out.”

  It’s cold in here, I fussed.

  “Then we will warm you.” Samuel leaned into kiss me, and an image flashed through my mind of him kissing the blonde woman in the lodge.

  No. I pushed at him. The cave is not right for our child. It is too damp. It is too dark, too cold.

  The two men exchanged pointed looks and I could almost hear them saying, “Don’t argue, she’s in a mood.” They left to get more firewood while I huddled on the bed.

  What if Samuel had a family back in his native country? His sons would be long dead, but Samuel would still have descendents. Perhaps he left so he would not watch his loved ones age and die, but wouldn’t he want to return to see them?

  The men brought stacks of wood inside to be burned, and left again. I waddled around the room, feeding the fires in the braziers, and gritted my teeth at tracks of mud and splinters.

  Daegan caught me down on the ground, trying to scrub the stone floor, and picked me up. He clucked like an old woman at my raw knees.

  “Brenna, please rest. You must rest.”

  I can’t. Look at the dirt. My hands fluttered in frustration.

  He set me on our bed, and finished cleaning the floors himself while I sifted through the fur pelts and selected the softest for our babe’s bed.

  “There now. All clean,” Daegan swiped away the last of the mud and looked up to see me crying.

  I can’t find the one I want. I signed and sobbed on his shoulder.

  “I’ll bring ye all the furs ye wish, if you’ll not be so sad.”

  “What happened?” Samuel walked in carrying an entire hank of roast deer.

  “Get out of here,” Daegan hissed. “Or at least take off your boots. They’re filthy.”

  Samuel gave him an odd look, but kicked them off before bringing me the
platter. Still sniffling, I waved it away.

  “Brenna,” Daegan crooned. “ye must eat.”

  “Are you feeling ill again?” Samuel asked, sitting on the other side of me. “Daegan, stop fussing like an old hen. It’s worse than when Brenna couldn’t keep anything down and you went about clutching your stomach like the pains were in your belly, not hers.”

  “They were,” Daegan started, and I waved my hands at them both.

  Stop, both of you.

  “What’s wrong, my sweet?”

  Everything. All of it. It’s all wrong. And I need to fix it, but I can’t even see my feet.

  Samuel’s hand closed over my foot, stroking the arch. “It’s almost over, little love.”

  Daegan positioned himself behind me, rubbing my shoulders and neck. After a few minutes, despite myself, I relaxed.

  Reaching into my sleeping robe, Daegan palmed my breasts. His thumb brushed over the nipple My eyes fluttered open.

  “I think,” Samuel’s hand started a slow ascent from my knee up my thigh. “our beloved needs some distraction.”

  No, no. Daegan caught my protesting hands. He moved so I lay on my back between his legs. Samuel drew my legs apart as I fought.

  “Be still.” Daegan pinned my hands. “We will not hurt ye.”

  “Calm yourself, Brenna.” Samuel kissed the inside of my thigh, his tongue swirling over the sensitive skin. “We only want to make you feel good.”

  I struggled, but their hands, though gentle, could have been steel bands imprisoning me. Samuels’s tongue reached my folds and I forgot everything.

  Once I grew limp and pliant, Daegan left my hands at my side. He touched my breasts, hefting their glorious weight, plucking at their nipples. “These have grown even larger. Perhaps we will keep you pregnant always. so we may enjoy your lush body as it deserves.”

  In response, I kicked and caught Samuel in the ribs. The blond Alpha reared up over me, eyes glowing hot with his beast. I scowled at him.

  Daegan laughed. “She doesn’t like the sound of that.”

  “No, she doesn’t,“ Samuel rubbed his side where I’d kicked him. “Careful, Brenna. We’re tallying up all the ways you defy us. Once you wean our child, there will be a reckoning.”

  I gave him a rude gesture that I’d learned from one of the Berserker pack, one that suggested his father was a rabbit. Daegan laughed harder.

  Samuel moved with eye-watering speed. In a second I had my legs trussed apart, not straining but still tied so I could not close them to protect my vulnerable flesh. Then men both placed pelts under me, elevating my center a touch higher than the rest of me.

  From my vantage, my belly floated in the air. Once Samuel and Daegan finished tying my wrists and secured them above my head, their attention was on the smooth petals below.

  “There now. Comfortable, but unable to stop us.”

  “No more kicking.” Daegan still grinned as if he’d heard a joke.

  “It wasn’t funny,” Samuel growled.

  “Pregnant, on her back, and she still fights ye.” He gestured to my form, tied and prone. “Is it safe enough for you to approach her now?”

  “Shut up.” Samuel prowled back down between my legs where I couldn’t see him. His tongue returned to its work. A few minutes later I was thrashing against my bonds, desperate to retreat from the shockwaves his long, lazy laps sent through me. Samuel kept stroking me, dragging me close to the edge and pulling back at the last second. My whole body quivered.

  Samuel sat up and wiped his wet beard. “Do you want to cum?”

  I nodded frantically.

  “Too bad. Perhaps we will wait until you’ve weaned the child to bed you again,” he said, but his hands massaged my calves and the sensitive spot behind my knee as he made his threat.

  “See to this first,” Daegan straddled me, careful not to crush my breasts. His cock bobbed in my face. I sucked on the tip, licking it until he gave me more. He fed it to me slowly, and I gobbled it up.

  The second Samuel’s mouth returned to my cunt, I jerked.

  “Keep sucking,” Daegan warned. “Or you’ll get nothing, and we’ll leave you tied like this, and torment you until it’s night.”

  “That’d be one way to get her to sleep.”

  I tossed my head back and forth.

  “Nay, ye will not deny us. We own ye, body and soul.”

  I beat my fists against the bed above my head. Craning my head, I took as much of Daegan down as I could and sucked so hard my cheeks hollowed. The dark-haired warrior cursed above me.

  Between my legs, Samuel’s tongue flicked at my pleasure nub. Two fingers slid into my cunt, but I needed more.

  Fuck me, I begged through the bond. Daegan sped his thrusts, fucking my face.

  Like this, wee one?

  I gurgled happily, and tensed as Samuel added a third finger.

  Fill me...please.

  “One day I will try to get my whole fist in there…” Samuel said thoughtfully, and shoved four meaty fingers into me as far as they would go. My orgasm broke and washed through me, making my hips jerk. Daegan pulled out for me to gasp through the aftershocks of pleasure.

  Samuel came to his knees to look down at me. “You like the thought of that, little love?”

  “She’ll take it anyway we give it to her,” Daegan said, and slapped my cheek with his cock. “Wee slut.” If I had been any less aroused I would’ve snapped my teeth at him, but my tissues were still throbbing.

  Please, I need your cock.

  Samuel’s eyes were hooded as he stroked himself between my legs. I almost cried, wanting him to push inside. I was hot and ready, but my belly was too large for him to penetrate me that way. Unless...

  I sent them both a wicked picture of my hands and knees, swaying between them. They didn’t bother with a knife to cut my bonds. Their beast came forth and cut the ropes with the claw.

  I trembled as they lifted and steadied me between them. No longer men, these were golden eyed monsters, eager and ready to fuck their mate. Desire flooded the bond between us, washing my hesitation away.

  On all fours, I stretched like a cat between them. My heavy breasts swayed as I arched my back and offered my large, round bottom up to them. A growl sounded from behind, so low and deep it vibrated through me like a purr. This time Samuel knelt in front of me, while Daegan teased my folds with his cock from behind. A clawed hand caressed my chin, another my bottom before they moved on some unspoken signal, and impaled me at once.

  I moaned into the bond, pleasure sending me out of my body, straight to the plane of pure feeling. From heaven, I watched my body rock between my men. I lived in the bond, I swam in an ocean of buoyant joy. On earth, I was the bond, the woman stretched between them, taking in everything they gave me and only wanting more.

  Afterwards, Daegan took me to the bathing chamber, where I floated in bliss. The water buoyed my giant form, easing the pressure on my legs. My belly was like a boulder, threatening to crush my aching calves--

  “Aww, you’re not so big as that,” Samuel sloshed to my side.

  Easy for you to say. Your muscles are made of granite, but your legs are thick as tree trunks. I am all belly! I groused. He laughed and gathered me in his great arms, swirling me through the water.

  “Her toes are wrinkled,” Daegan observed.

  Samuel carried me out and set me on a great flat rock where they often shaved me. He took the oil and poured it over my skin, rubbing my sore legs while I laid with my head in Daegan’s lap, luxuriating in the massage. Usually Daegan bathed with me. Samuel was more careful with his touch. I wondered if he’d been the same before the curse, if he’d been simpler, less guarded when he was Sigurd. Maybe he’d been more open with his first family--

  I shut down my thought almost as soon as I had it. I did not want to be bitter, or pry into his secrets.

  “So tense,” Samuel kneaded my thighs.

  I touched his forearm. So are you.

  He gave a tight li
pped smile. “There is something I must tell you. It weighs on my mind.”

  I waited, expecting him to explain the vision I saw.

  “Brenna, I fear for you during the birth.”

  I will be fine. I will have my sisters around me.

  “We could always call Yseult,” Daegan said.

  “I do not trust the witch around the child. Particularly a wolf child.” He paused as if weighing what he would say next. “But if things grow too hard, we will call Yseult. There is magic she can use to save you, Brenna.”

  I searched his face until his meaning dawned on me. You mean kill my child.

  “If necessary.” He took my hand and I wrenched it away, struggling to sit up. “I have sent emissaries to the packs we know, and asked them all if they know of a human woman bearing a werewolf child. None of them have heard of such a thing. I fear the birth will be dangerous for you, Brenna. If it meant your life--”

  That is my choice. Not yours.

  “In the heat of birth, you may not be able to make a decision. I will not hesitate to save you. I will not risk your life, even for a child.”

  Leaning forward, I pressed my hands over his mouth to silence him. My eyes ached with tears.

  “Brenna…” Daegan stroked my back. “What Samuel speaks might be wise. You are more precious to us than any babe.”

  Stop, I motioned savagely to both of them. Or I will leave and live with Sabine. My sister Sabine settled in with the two Alpha’s of the Lowland Pack, and threatened to throw them out of her house at least once a day. She’d do it, too, if I needed a place to get away. Leave these overbearing men who might hurt my child.

  “Birth is hard.”

  “Please,” came a dry voice from the entrance. “Tell a pregnant woman how hard birth is. Explain to us, oh all knowing male, what us silly women experience but do not understand.”

  Sabine sashayed into the bathing chamber, followed by her two Alphas. My younger sister was almost a head shorter than me, and much more petite than the massive warriors who took her to mate, but she acted as if she was strong enough to leash her men and lead them around by their cocks.