Viking's Fury

Viking’s Fury

by

Saranna DeWylde

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This book is a work of fiction. The names, characters, places, and incidents are the products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events,

business establishments, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means (electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise) without the prior written permission of both the copyright owner and the publisher. The only exception is brief quotations in printed reviews.

The scanning, uploading, and distribution of this book via the Internet or via any other means without the permission of the publisher is illegal and punishable by law. Please purchase only authorized electronic editions, and do not participate in or encourage electronic piracy of copyrighted materials. Your support of the author’s rights is appreciated.

Published in the United States of America by

Saranna DeWylde
  2014
 

Cover Art by Kim Killion of Hot Damn Designs

When inspiration struck for this story, I thought it was a little nuts. I mean, who wants to read about Vikings in space? Me, apparently, because the idea just wouldn’t leave me alone. Magnus the Destroyer is an alpha in all ways. He got into my head and that was that. I hope you enjoy their journey.

The heroine was inspired by Ms. Cristina Todd and The Lost Chronicles we wrote in middle school. You’ve been on my mind and I hope wherever you are, things are beautiful.

A big thank you to Virginia Nelson for the blurb and for editing.

~ Saranna
 

Chapter One
 

Mercy Odinsdottir was the perfect accessory child to the up and coming Governor of Asgard Galaxy. Or soon to be. Odin Lokison was the All-Father to prison planet Hel, and he’d done his time like the rest of the inmates. By governing the planet with an iron fist, he’d cut down on crime in the Hel System, making him the first warden in two-hundred years to do so. He’d been fast-tracked for governor by the Interstellar Commission.

On that fast track, their behavior had been governed with the same iron fist he’d used on the other residents of Hel. It applied to the way Mercy dressed, the way she wore her hair, the way she chewed her food, and the subjects on which she could and should converse.

Mercy took it all in stride. Even her rebellion was conducted in such a way that would further her father’s ambitions—quietly, in her own head.

But if he’d ever gotten a look inside her fantasy world, Mercy was sure her father would fall over dead.

Granted, he’d seen terrors and horrors walking the streets of Hel. It was filled with the scum of the universe: murderers, rapists, cannibals and thieves. Men who’d cut their mother’s throats if it suited them.

But he’d forgotten that Mercy wasn’t an automaton and she had hopes, dreams, and desires just like the next woman. Even though she wasn’t supposed to. She was supposed to want what he wanted, marry where he told her, and be fulfilled with a life of duty that was so buttoned down, every individual thought that was born of her own that was born would quickly die—suffocated by propriety.

In her dreams, she was a wild hoyden—a Valkyrie cop like her mother, Eir. Only she didn’t get the unhappy ending where she died on some wretched sewer planet alone. She had adventures, she made a difference in the ‘verse, and she was loved so wholly and completely, the stars were jealous of the burn.

The male that figured so prominently in these fantasies was one her father had called the worst of the worst.

Magnus, the Destroyer.

She’d heard all the stories about his raiding up and down the Saxon system, taking gold, slaves, and ore. Mercy knew it would be terrifying to live through something like that. She had no doubts or illusions that he was, in fact, a dangerous man. But she admired a man who reached out and took what he wanted, who stood in the face of the endless reaches of space and didn’t give a damn what looked back. He was strong, powerful, and he’d never become someone or something else to please anyone.

Maybe she’d been on Hel too long. Perhaps, even though she wasn’t exposed to prison society, it had tinged her thinking anyway.

Or maybe it was because Magnus the Destroyer was the most beautiful creature she’d ever seen.

Her father kept him in his study, a trophy in a case.

He’d been frozen for fifteen years, his face in a perpetual snarl, lip curled back over perfectly white, sharp teeth that Mercy was sure weren’t implants. Even with the fierce expression, she couldn’t help but notice the hard line of his jaw, the golden streaks in his shoulder length hair, the ripple of muscle—a moment of ferocity captured out of time.

And his eyes. Dear Freya, his eyes.

They were like blades, sharp and arctic. So cold, a blue so bright it was like a star.

She liked how they followed her, as if he was actually watching her. Mercy dreamed about his eyes and what it would be like to be the recipient of all of that intensity.

He’d earned his name with those who’d crossed him. Tearing down cities, leaving whole planets nothing but ash. Until her father.

Until Odin Lokison had cornered him and hunted him like an animal. Now here he stood, watching all the ages of man pass—if he could see anything at all.

There was a part of her—the rebellious hellion that lived in her bones, hidden away—that wanted to let him out. No wild thing should be so caged. If she couldn’t be free, maybe he could be.

But that was stupid.

She knew, even looking at him now, that he’d just as soon slit her throat as thank her.

Still, on nights like this one, when she was feeling bold, sometimes she touched him. Pushed his hair over his shoulder, let her hands wander down the carved stone of his bicep. It wasn’t as if he could feel it and, in truth, frozen was the only way she’d ever have the pleasure of touching such a creature.

Any man her father chose for her would be some politician, someone who could do something for him. Someone who might have had pretty, scientifically engineered muscles, but nothing like this man, whose form followed function.

Mercy traced her fingers over the rune tattoos that covered his right side from chest to wrist. She somehow needed to know the texture of each one.

Her wildest, most forbidden fantasy was that one day she’d come to her father’s office and Magnus the Destroyer would be hot to the touch. He’d come alive under her hands, throw her over his shoulder and carry her off-world to some pre-historic place where all the veneers were gone and a man’s worth was written on his body in scars.

She sighed aloud.

Such things her mind conjured when left to its own devices for too long.

If he were to really wake up, the ravishing probably wouldn’t happen in any way that was enjoyable for her. Mercy could see rage in his eyes so potent that, even frozen, burned through to her marrow. He would hate the man who’d done this to him, and he’d have no love for the man’s daughter either.

It would be nothing like the stories her tutor had smuggled in for her: all alpha male heroes and heroines with a cause. No… it would be violent and awful. Or that’s what she told herself when the thought of all the endless days of propriety, duty, and self-denial wore thin and she dreamed of adventure—a world where she was more than a cog in someone else’s machine.

Knowing it was all a fairy tale didn’t stop her from dressing him up in finery in her head. It was all she had, really. Or undressing him in the real…

Mercy continued tracing the tattoos on his arms, his chest. Then her hand ventured lower, down to those sculpted abs.

Her cheeks heated, and her heart slammed against her ribcage. As if all of the other caresses hadn’t been forbidden… But this? This was something more somehow. She just wanted to trace the line by his hip. The one that pointed the way to the promised land, so to speak.

She jerked her hand back, ashamed at her own thoughts. Not for admiring an attractive male, but for touching him. She was no better than many of the men sentenced to Hel. Mercy touched him without his permission and without his awareness—or worse, if he was aware and couldn’t tell her no?

Oh, Goddess!

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

The reframe, thinking of what it would be like if their positions were reversed thoroughly disgusted and terrified her. It was no different because he was a man and she a woman.

She imagined herself on Hel’s moon—Holle—the women’s prison for her trespass. She laughed a loud. “Yeah, that would sure give me some street cred, wouldn’t it? I sexually assaulted Magnus the Destroyer.”

She snorted at herself, and it wasn’t the least bit proper or ladylike.

“Show yourself!” A voice demanded.

Mercy bit her lip. It was the heir apparent to the Hel throne, Fenris Peitrson. Damn, she’d been caught. She should’ve known better than to come to her father’s study while he was gone, even though that was prime time for Magnus Watching.

“It’s just me,” she called out.

Fenris stepped through the door and re-holstered his laser gun. “What are you doing in Warden Lokison’s study?” His eyes narrowed.

Fenris looked every inch like the mythological being he was named for. His whole self seemed to have been formed for predation. The too large mouth filled with razor sharp teeth, the big all-seeing eyes that made her feel like she was tender meat rather than her father’s daughter. And the sleek plane of his build…

She tried not to shiver.

“I was looking for my comportment book. I left it in here last time I visited.” She hated that he expected her to answer to him. Anywhere she wanted to go within their quarters should’ve been above reproach and recrimination.

But, as per usual, he asked her to justify herself. Probably just his way of having some control. Perhaps he thought tattling on the warden’s daughter would earn him favor.

His gaze turned to Magnus and then back to her and her cheeks heated. She knew they were stained red with her blush.

“Are you sure?”

“Excuse me?” she squeaked.

“Are you sure you’re here for comportment?” He lifted his chin, almost like a beast scenting for his prey. As if he could smell her lie. “I think you’re here because you’re curious.”

She swallowed and took a step back as he advanced. “About what?”

“About men.”

Mercy shook her head. “I live on a planet full of them. They’re not mysterious.” She refused to acknowledge the thoughts she’d had of Magnus.

“No, you know what I mean.” He started unbuttoning his fatigue jacket.

“What are you doing?” Fear closed around her throat like a fist.

“Giving you an education.”

“My father—”

“—is on Holle.” The look of absolute surety on his face was something she knew she’d see in her nightmares.

Fenris was built well, if slim. But Mercy had no interest in the man before her.

“You’re supposed to protect me,” she reminded him.

And she was proud of herself. That her voice didn’t break and she showed no fear.

“I am.”

“From what?”

“From yourself. What if you woke him up? Do you know what that would mean?” He nodded to Magnus.

“Probably the same thing that you’re about to do.” Even for all of the Destroyer’s fierce reputation, there was a part of her that didn’t believe that. Probably the part of her that had dreamed away too many hours thinking about him.

“Better me than him. I’ll marry you.”

Revulsion twisted her guts. “No you won’t.” She shook her head. “My father would kill me first.”

“I will protect you. Give us both what we want.” He moved toward her.

She took another step back. “Fenris, stop this. Stop now and I won’t tell my father anything.”

He looked as if he almost felt sorry for her. “I think we both know I can’t risk that.”

She quickly considered all of her options. Mercy had a panic alarm that would bring the special forces teams running, but they’d all know—all of the men who worked for her father. They’d know she put herself in a situation where she had to be saved. He’d be humiliated. Fenris didn’t understand Odin Lokison as well as he thought he did. Her father would blame her.

The only route to escape was
through
Fenris.

And then the world as she knew it changed forever.

A siren echoed like the shrieking of a Valkyrie and when it did, Magnus the Destroyer moved.

It wasn’t the slow creaking movement of stiff joints and frigid muscle, the awkward bend of a newborn fawn—it was all power and heat combined with a predatory grace.

She watched in morbid fascination as the killing machine she’d so admired fulfilled its purpose—the ancient war hammer on the wall a decoration, now the mighty weapon of war in all its reclaimed glory in the hands of Magnus the Destroyer.