Page 55 of The Serpent’s Shadow

I had come close to that same feeling before, so I could relate . . . but it was nothing likethis. My protective bear shifter showed his true colors then—the honest ferociousness of his cursed state.

Sven got too close, thinking him an ally, and was kicked in the side and launched through the air with a wolfish yip.

He landed on his side and melded into his human form, coughing before rising to his knees.

I ran up to him, both of us weaponless.

“He’s fucking lost to us, the damn idiot,” Sven growled, eyes not moving from the berserker.

Two Huscarls sadly fell into the path of Grim’s rage.

One of them attacked, found his hands missing and spraying blood everywhere with his sword on the ground, and the second Huscarl spun away to flee.

In two strides Grim caught up to him, buried the axehead in his back, and sent him to a bloody welcome in Valhalla.

The creek, the hill, the forest—all of it was littered with bodies. The fight was coming to a close for everyone except Grim Kollbjorn, who kept wailing and roaring.

A handful of Lepers Who Leapt had died. Two dozen Huscarls lay in heaps, body parts dismembered and scattered across the green and muddying up the riverwater brown. Dieter was crouched, holding an arm that bled at his hands. Frida stood over him protectively with her hands on his shoulders.

Sven and Arne watched Grim with bemusement as he stormed toward them. With wide eyes they scattered left and right. The bear could hear the shouting on the other side of the ice wall—the Huscarls not understanding they had lost, and would be better off fleeing this mayhem.

In two vicious hacks, Grim cracked through the thick ice and the wall shattered.

Behind it, three Huscarls stood at the feet of a dead soldier with a hole in his mouth and neck. They stared at Grim’s huge, naked, bloody form in a daze, utterly shocked.

Grim slammed his axe into the chest of the first man. The other two watched as their friend spluttered red bubbles.

They turned and fled.

Grim reached back over his head with the axe and tossed the huge weapon overhand.

When it landed in the back of one of the men and sent him sprawling to the ground, the last remaining Huscarl woman started bawling. She kept running.

Part of me hoped she would make it out of Grim’s deathstroke. I clenched my hands in fists, feeling pity deep in my stomach. Bile rose up inside me.

“This is who he is, little menace,” Sven said from my left.

Magnus was on my right, his shirtless torso no longer brightened with angelic rune markings.

“Why are you here?” I asked Sven with a scowl. My body went tense at the sight of the naked wolf shifter and his movie-star good looks. Even post-battle, his slicked hair seemed perfectly in place, with only a single sharp strand hanging over his forehead.

It was deliciously disgusting.

On my other side, Magnus said, “The same reason all of us are here, silvermoon. For you.”

I gulped and looked at him with a much different expression than my bully. “Magnus . . .”

I recoiled when I heard the guttural scream from the last remaining Huscarl.

Grim had caught up with her.

In the distance, down a thin path, the nude bear shifter stomped and strangled and mangled the woman to death with his bare hands. There was no stopping him. No mercy given.

It was utterly gruesome—much like this whole debacle had become—and I had to turn away into Magnus’ arms once I heard the sharp snap of her neck.

“It’s okay,” Magnus said, hugging me tightly. “It’s over.”

I didn’t believe him. Butgodsdid smelling that scent of candlesmoke and leather from his body reignite something lost and torrid inside me.

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