Page 41 of Mated To The Vikens

This was the man we’d been hunting, the man who’d tried to kill the Queen, the man who’d nearly cost me my life.

* * *

Gunnar

I sensed Sophia as she lagged behind, stumbling into my side. Her hand grasped at my shirt with urgency, all softness gone from her. We stood just outside the entry, the cool air refreshing after the cloying scents of fucking from the club. I should have been relaxed, pleased with my mate, but my contentment washed away the second I understood her actions.

My prey stood before me, a man I knew all too well. The Viken who held the door for us.

The couple had yet to go inside as they were staring at us in return where we’d frozen in place. The female wore a cloak identical to Sophia’s, the hood pulled up to hide her features. I could only see the lower half of her face beneath the hood. I assessed her bowed head, the hands folded before her as her companion led her into the club by a long silver chain affixed to a collar around her neck.

No, she was not the threat. The slave female was not who concerned me. It was him.

Dorn.

“Gunnar, it has been a long time. I am surprised to see you here.”

Sophia’s hand moved to the back of my shirt, her fingers curling and digging into my skin.

The man who had wanted my mate dead stood before me, and I couldn’t do a damn thing about it. Not here. Not now.

“Dorn.” I said his name in a flat tone, the best I could manage when the urge to wrap my hands around his neck and strangle the life from his worthless body flooded me.

The man was my height, yet his body was not honed from fighting, from battle. He was thin and lithe, and unchanged in the long years since last I’d seen him. I easily outweighed him by fifty pounds, but I did not doubt his speed, agility or ruthlessness. His black hair and eyes matched his soul, his sneer, his cruel nature. I’d seen him with females inside the club many, many times. Based on the slave collar around his lover’s neck, I guessed not much had changed.

I’d watched him break many, men and women both, watched them writhe and scream, cry and beg him to stop.

He never did, not until he was ready. Not until he’d broken them wide open, pushed them past the point they’d wished to go.

I’d cringed the first few times I’d witnessed his calculated and expert cruelty. But my mentor had instructed me to watch and learn, and so I had. And been shocked to see the people he hurt come back time and again, begging him for more. Begging him to break them.

Pain was never my thing, but I understood it. He excelled at dealing out pain, and many at the club fought to serve him, to experience a taste of his lash or cane. There was no personal connection between Dorn and the women who served him, only pain meted out for his pleasure. He was a Sadist in the truest form. I should have been surprised that I’d spent so much time in years past with the man who would betray

the three Kings, the man who would stoop so low as to murder a beautiful woman and an innocent child.

However, I did not doubt for an instant that Sophia’s identification was accurate. If anyone could plot murder with icy precision, it was Dorn.

We’d both been members of the club for years. I’d gone off to fight the Hive and serve Viken, he working as a civil servant, moving his way up the ranks in government. I didn’t know what his title was now, but he’d always been an arrogant ass. I knew he’d have a mark of rank on his body somewhere. He always wore his status like armor, and wielded his influence like a weapon.

He held out his arm for a warrior’s greeting and we locked forearms the same way we’d done hundreds of times before. I glanced quickly to his hand where it gripped my arm and found exactly what I was looking for, a signet ring.

On his middle finger was a large ring, a black arrow on gold, the symbol of a council member from Sector Two.

Fuck. He wasn’t just ambitious. If he’d made it to the council, he had wealth and influence. Connections. He wasn’t just a sadistic ass, he was dangerous. Fuck.

I’d have to kill him.

When all was said and done, when the interrogations were over, I’d have to make sure he was well and truly ended. He posed too big a threat to my mate if allowed to live. I knew the three Kings would agree, worried for their own mate and child. At the moment, I wasn’t a servant of the Kings, I was a man. And this asshole had ordered someone to kill Sophia.

I lifted my gaze from the ring and met his prideful gaze with carefully banked fury. Sophia was safely behind me, but I had no doubt things would become critical the moment he saw her face.

Sophia was too beautiful, to perfect to escape his notice for long. And he was a predictable bastard in one way at least, he never forgot a beautiful woman.

“I see you climbed the ranks to a seat on the council.”

“And I see that you survived war with the Hive.” The voice grated on my nerves, I wondered how Sophia would react, if she would tremble with remembered fear or panic, if the sound of his voice made her heart race and terror invade her limbs.

His gaze flicked to Sophia. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw that her hood was not up, that if Dorn took one step to his left, he would see her fully. Turning, I flicked the material up and over her, shielding her from the man’s sight even as I reached behind me and moved her to stand completely behind my back, out of his reach.

---