Page 1 of Stolen By the Berserker

CHAPTER 1

Immortal Viking Sten Agnarsson watched White Spruce's deserted main street through the diner window. He’d sat at this table for two hours, waiting for a gun dealer who supposedly had a reputation for punctuality and for selling only quality goods. Despite the warm summer evening, none of the town’s five thousand inhabitants of this Montana small town were out and about. Had theRagnarökhappened without him noticing?

Nah, if it had, there’d be a million of Loki’s evil minions crowding the street. More likely, the fucking weapons guy had stood him up.

He looked around again, but the desolate street outside the diner definitely didn’t show Brick Johnson on his way to their meeting. Sten shifted in the cracked vinyl seat.

He had driven from eastern Washington State for ten hours straight to be on time. If Leif—the king of the Norse warrior tribe Sten belonged to—hadn’t ordered him to buy specifically from this gun dealer, Sten would have walked out an hour ago.

Well, the king’s demand and the tempting things Sten had found in the diner. He forked another bite of the second most tempting thing into his mouth, and the berry pie exploded on his tongue. He rated the woman who brought him the pie as the most delicious thing featured in the diner.

He shoveled another bite of pie into his mouth. Tart and sweet teased his taste buds as he sneaked another look at the server. Leaning over a table, refilling the only other diner customer’s coffee, her loose light-blue t-shirt rode up, revealing a shapely butt encased in plain black leggings.

He’d been to this small town in eastern Montana once before. On the first visit, he’d found the diner by coincidence. This time, he’d come because of the woman.

And the pie.

They served the best pie. He’d ordered their raspberry pie before, but this time, he tried something called huckleberry.

He didn’t know why the woman fascinated him so. She didn’t fit his regular type. He preferred slim, tall, and blonde women like the ones from his native Sweden. This server—Cassie, according to her name tag—had a short and curvy body, and yet he couldn’t take his eyes off her.

The older man whose coffee she’d refilled said something that made her smile. It lit up her face and elevated her looks from beautiful to mesmerizing. Her smile had made him notice her the first time they met. That and her shapely behind. He’d thought about her often since then. Thought about what she would feel like, naked, beneath him.

She tucked a strand of her chin-length, wavy, auburn hair behind her ear as she walked back behind the counter that stretched the length of the diner.

His phone buzzed where it lay on the table next to the plate. Sten tore his gaze from pretty Cassie to check the incoming text.

Kung Leif

Status?

Leif didn’t believe in wasting characters.

Sten tapped in his response.

Still waiting. Is Johnson a no-show?

He imagined his king’s impatience and the curse escaping Leif’s lips right now. The phone buzzed again.

Kung Leif

Checking on the holdup.

If the dealer hadn’t been so paranoid, Sten could call him directly. But the guy wouldn’t give his number to anyone but Leif.

Sten sighed, scooped up the last bite of pie, and shoved it into his mouth. He almost choked when he looked up to find the server right by his table. No regular mortal should be able to sneak up on him like that. His berserker spirit—his inner warrior soul—should have alerted him.

“Refill?” she asked, holding up the coffeepot.

He enjoyed the soft smile and the sparkle in her whiskey-colored eyes. “Sure.” Sten held out his cup and tapped into the mentalconnection he shared with his berserker. The beast held quiet and still but hyper-alert and very focused on Cassie.

That was new. He frowned.

She poured the coffee with a sure hand. “Do you not like the huckleberry pie?”

“It’s my new favorite berry.” He quickly smoothed out the furrow of his forehead and smiled instead.

Her laughter rang loudly through the mostly empty diner, unexpectedly deep and throaty. The sound made his berserker hum and his dick twitch. “A few months ago, you told me raspberries were your favorite.”

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