Page 10 of Stolen By the Berserker

One of Loki’s wolverine creatures stood by the pickups.

Sten swore under his breath.

“What the fuck is that?” Johnson whispered, not even noticing that his trusted security had fainted and lay on the ground in a crumpled heap.

Sten didn’t blame him for passing out. Scientists sponsored by Loki created the wolverine-human hybrids in covert genetic labs. The creatures walked on two legs and had humanoid bodies, but they looked like clones of each other. Not even twins were that similar in gesture and speech, and they moved faster than a regular mortal.

But their eyes freaked out Sten the most. Their weird, dead eyes showed no irises or whiteness. Just orbs of complete blackness, like one giant pupil.

“Let the mortals go,” Sten demanded, taking a few steps forward.

The creature’s lips stretched into what was probably supposed to be a smile, but looked more like a feral snarl. “Why should I?”

“They have no stake in this fight.”

The wolverine chuckled, an odd grating sound that ended in a hiss. “They have more of a stake than they think. When my master figures out how to triggerRagnarök, all humans will perish.”

PreventingRagnarökcounted as the Norse warriors’ primary mission. They could never allow it to happen.

The prophesied last battle of the gods would destroy all nine worlds of the Norse universe. Loki believed he’d be the only surviving deity and would, therefore, rule the whole universe. “Let’s just concentrate on what will happen now and here,” Sten told the creature. He wasn’t sure how the wolverine had foundhim, but lately, the fuckers had been showing up everywhere and in bigger numbers than before.

“What the fuck is going on?” Johnson’s voice sounded thin and panicky. His head swiveled in all directions and stopped when he noticed his companion. “What the fuck did you do to Ben?” He moved toward the wolverine.

Sten made a snap decision and side-clipped Johnson’s jaw. The man crumpled to the ground. He’d rather have him passed out than distract Sten during the fight. Or worse, getting himself killed by the wolverine.

The creature hissed, and its nails elongated into razor-sharp claws.

Sten shuddered.

It didn’t matter how many times he saw it happen, the nail-growing thing freaked him out every time. He crouched down and retrieved his knife from his ankle holster. As he deepened the mental connection with his berserker, the inner warrior howled.

The Vikings’ berserkers fed on the fever that rose on a battlefield. A hungry berserker was as dangerous as one who couldn’t complete thesjälsfrändebond.If starved for too long, it could take over a warrior’s body and keep them in permanent battle fury. The warriors had almost lost King Leif this way, but their mortal queen had saved him. The two were now asjälsfrändebonded couple.

The wolverine in front of him slowly circled Sten. “I guess it’s true what they say about dumb blonds,” the creature hissed, showing its teeth in what was probably supposed to be a smile. “It was so easy to discover you’d be buying guns at this place andat this time. I didn’t even have to track your car. You basically told me where to find you.”

“How did you find out about this?” Sten asked.

“I had my ways. Technology is not as safe as you think it is.”

Sten ignored the creature’s smack-talk so he could concentrate on the fight. He widened his stance, making sure his boots had a good grip on the asphalt, and turned his body so he could easily keep track of Loki’s creature.

The berserker alerted him a split second before the wolverine charged. Sten ducked out of the arc of its slicing claws, avoiding being skewered by a hair’s breadth. He quickly crouched down and swept out with his foot to take out the wolverine’s legs.

The creature jumped out of reach and countered with an overhand swipe. Sharp claws graced Sten’s ribs before he rolled away and out of harm’s way. He quickly got back on his feet and hooked a knee strike to the side of the wolverine.

The freak leaned away at the last minute, but the impact was enough to knock it off balance.

Sten followed up with a fast uppercut to the creature’s chin and then sank his knife into its neck. Blood squirted in a wide arc as Sten severed the wolverine’s carotid artery. Working the knife back and forth, he kept widening the cut until the creature’s head almost separated from the body. It was gross and overkill, but lately, the fuckers healed unreasonably quickly, and Sten wanted to make sure this freak stayed truly dead.

He went to check on the weapons broker and his pal. Both of the mortals appeared well, with regular heart and breathing rates.Hopefully, they’d wake up later and think the monster was just a bad dream.

Sten locked them both in one truck with the window cracked open and the bag of money at their feet. He then dragged the wolverine carcass to the side of the hangar where the men wouldn’t see it. The creature would disintegrate quickly in the sun. These genetic mutant freaks always did. The Norse gods’ council currently battled some fierce in-fighting. According to their laws, they could not travel to other realms to serve their interests in that conflict. But somehow, Loki circumvented those laws by not traveling to Midgard, but by having humans build these wolverine-human hybrids that did his bidding.

Odin and Freya retaliated by sending the Vikings and Valkyries to protect the mortals of this realm.

As Sten stripped off the t-shirt covered in wolverine blood and gore, he wondered about the creature’s words about technology being unsafe. And why had the creature been alone? Usually, they showed up with at least one buddy. How had it known to find him here at the airport when Johnson changed the location at the last minute?

His berserker paced back and forth, growling out its need for more fighting. Sten used his connection with his inner warrior to scan the area. He noticed no further threats, so he clamped down on the mental barriers with the berserker as he dug around in his bag. He pulled out a clean shirt identical to the one he’d worn before and shrugged into it.

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