Page 13 of Stolen By the Berserker

“I wish I could explain this better to you, but there is no time.” Freya reached into the pond, her hand disappearing completely into the dense, inky darkness. When she pulled it out, it was as dry as before, but now held a small dagger. “Show this to yoursjälsfrändeand explain to him that no daughter of mine would ever betray him.” She winked again. “He’s a little dense at times, but he has a good, honorable heart.”

“Take it to my what?” Cassie asked, but the goddess…woman or whatever had disappeared.

Ripples appeared on the pond, and they soon turned into vast waves.

Cassie turned to run from the water…darkness…whatever that pond contained, but one wave rose and engulfed her. She blacked out and woke up in her old bed next to Sten’s.

He stared at her with worry in his eyes. “You passed out,” he said. “I couldn’t wake you.”

“I don’t know what happened. There was this pond and this woman with long silver hair who knew my grandmother. She said her name was Freya.” Cassie raised her arm, the dagger the woman gave her gripped in her arm. How had that happened?“I’m supposed to give this to someone, but I can’t pronounce their name.”

Sten took the small weapon and turned the blade so that the light set off the carvings on the blade. “They’re Runes,” he said. “It says Daughter of Freya.”

Cassie giggled, the sound laced with hysteria. “I don’t even know where that came from.”

He looked at her with solemn gray eyes. “One of the Valkyries in my tribe talks about meeting Freya at a dark pond when they complete thesjälsfrändebond.”

“That’s it,” Cassie exclaimed. “That’s who I’m supposed to take the dagger to.”

“Yoursjälsfrände?”

“Yeah.”

Sten shot her a peculiar look and bit his bottom lip. He held out his left arm. A beautiful snake tattoo graced his skin. The tip of the tail started just below his wrist and serpentine up his arm, with the head and tongue gracing his shoulder. A series of Runes made up the body. “I think I’m yoursjälsfrände,” he said.

“When did you get a tattoo?” she asked. “The top part was there yesterday, but the rest is new. How long was I passed out?”

“It formed by itself when we fucked,” he said. “It means you are mysjälsfrände, my fated mate.”

Cassie opened her mouth to ask for more details but stopped when a screeching sound from the window made her turn her head. She gasped at the face peering in from the other side of the glass.

CHAPTER 8

Obsidian eyes that were nothing but black, shiny orbs stared into hers. The screeching came from the creature, dragging Freddy Krueger-like claws across the window.

“What the fuck is that?” Cassie was proud of how strong her voice came across because, on the inside, she was shaking from fear. Maybe this wasn’t a stroke or a brain bleed. Maybe he’d drugged her, and she was very, very high right now. She preferred that explanation to a biological short-circuit in her brain. Or worse, that this was her reality right now.

Sten cursed in what most have been Swedish.

Cassie didn’t recognize the words.

He pulled her behind him. “I’ll take care of it.” He bent down and unsnapped a hunting knife from an ankle holster. That, too, was new. As far as she knew, he hadn’t been wearing that when she ripped his clothes off. And that’s when she noticed he now wore all of those clothes while she lay on the bed naked.

Striding to the door, Sten half turned toward Cassie. “Stay in the house.” His grey eyes were dark and forbidding. He disappeared out the door before Cassie could protest.

The creature on the other side of the window grinned at her and tapped his claws on the window. She forced herself not to look away and flipped him her middle finger, but the freak was already gone. Probably attacking Sten as the fool walked straight into danger on his own.

Stay in the house?Who did he think he was talking to? Some damsel in distress?

She quickly found her clothes, pulled them on, and then shoved her feet into the trainers she kept by the door.

Cassie glanced briefly at the dagger she’d somehow acquired in a dream, but then shook her head and opened the closet next to her front door. She retrieved her pump-action shotgun and checked that it was loaded. Being a Montana girl and a single woman living out in the country, she knew how to defend herself.

Cassie herself was not as ready to go as the gun. That freak outside was scary, but Sten was out there by himself. He’d pissed her off with all the talk about betrayal and shit, but she still couldn’t let him fight monsters on his own.

Monsters.

How had this become her life?

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