Page 47 of Mated To The Vikens

We didn’t linger since there was no question he was not a danger any longer, only raised our own ion pistols and searched for any others.

And when we found Gunnar and Sophia, my heart finally settled. Shit, I’d never been so scared in my life, and I’d spent years fighting the Hive. Just imagining what had happened to Sophia was enough to put me off a warrior’s life

permanently. I was getting too old for this shit. It was time to settle down to a sedate life as a royal guard and come home to fuck our mate for the rest of our lives. Perhaps fill her with a baby or two. A little girl who looked just like Sophia, but first a boy to protect her. As if three Viken warrior fathers weren’t enough.

I glanced at Rolf, saw the relief in every line of his body, too.

Gunnar had quickly confirmed the dead body was the “voice”, but learning it had been Dorn made me furious. I knew who he was, had met him a time or two, but hadn’t had the connection of the club with him like Gunnar.

And after hearing what had happened, I knew the VSS was more insidious than we ever imagined. We couldn’t bring it down in one day. It was a network of evil, creating an ever-growing web that spread through the government, the communities and even the Sectors. We could slow it, and perhaps with Dorn’s death, we had, but it wasn’t over. Like the Hive, the battle would go on.

As for Sophia, her words rung true. She was safe, at least from the VSS. They wouldn’t draw any further attention to themselves for her. She wasn’t worth it. Not with three royal guards as mates. Not with Dorn dead. While she wasn’t any safer than anyone else on Viken from the VSS’s threats, she wasn’t a target any longer.

It was time to make her ours. She wanted it. I needed it. I hadn’t thought much about her thirty-day decision period. I just assumed if she had been matched to three Vikens, surely there were no more good matches. We were it for her. I knew it and now she did as well. It was time to make her ours.

I’d never imagined I’d have a second family. No, Gunnar and Rolf weren’t brothers by birth, but we were ones nonetheless, bound together by battle, by honor, by Sophia.

Sophia.

She was the one who made our family. Without her, we were three warriors. Yes, brothers. But now we were mates, lovers, protectors. She belonged to us, just as we belonged to her. There would be no separating us now. And as soon as we had her alone, we’d claim her completely. The bond would be permanent.

***

Rolf

Back at our quarters, safe within the royal fortress at Viken United, I’d taken Sophia straight to the medical station, despite her insistence that she was not hurt. I growled every time the doctor put a hand on her, even if it had been a clinical touch. The smirk on the older Viken’s face told me he’d found my possessiveness humorous.

We hadn’t told him about Dorn or the VSS. If we had, the man surely wouldn’t be smiling.

Only when the doctor assured me she was all right had I taken her back to our quarters and straight into the bathing room where I stripped her bare and took her into the tub. I didn’t speak, at least not much more than single-word directions. I couldn’t. I hadn’t settled yet. I was the calm one of her trio of mates, but in this moment, I was unsettled. It had been too close, her demise. Again. In the short time she’d been on Viken, she’d had more danger than many Vikens citizens who lived here their entire lives.

And yet Sophia wasn’t a warrior. She wasn’t even Viken. She was a petite, smart, sassy, willful alien, but she’d taken on the VSS and survived. Twice, and neither time had I been there to defend her. Even Gunnar, the most ruthless of us, had been helpless.

And that was two times too many. And so I tried to ease my fears. It was over. She was safe. The VSS would not come after her, as she’d said. She was just a Viken bride now. Nothing more. And thank fuck for that.

It was now time to remind her of that, of the reason she’d been matched in the first place. She was our bride and tonight we would claim her together.

This time, the bath was more clinical than romantic. It had only been a day since we’d shared one before and yet so much had changed. I cleaned her body of every bit of dirt, of blood, and hopefully, in a way, her mind, of what had happened.

She wanted to be claimed by us, and we needed her fully ready. She’d said she was when we were out on the street, Dorn’s body sprawled behind us, but the adrenaline had worn off for all of us. Yes, the relief was palpable, but so were the memories.

It was my job, while Gunnar and Erik bathed elsewhere, to ease the worries from Sophia.

“I’m fine, Rolf,” she’d said, taking the soap from me. I’d washed her twice and apparently I was the one still upset. She was soothing me.

Using her finger to indicate I turn around, I did so. She washed my back and I groaned. The feel of her small hands was enticing. Knowing she was safe and whole and cleaning my back was like a balm to my fear.

“You had a trauma,” I told her, enjoying the way her fingers played over my shoulders.

“I’ve had a trauma for the past two years,” she replied. “It all started when my mother became sick, when she needed the expensive medicine. But no more. No more pain and suffering. No more bad guys. I’m ready for the future. Not the past. That’s what my mother would want. That’s what I want.”

I turned around and took her hands, looked at her dark eyes. She looked different with her hair slicked back. Simple. Pure. Perfect.

“You aren’t planning on fucking her all by yourself, are you?” Erik asked, naked as the day he was born, arms crossed. He and Gunnar stood beside the tub, grins on their faces.

We glanced up at them and I couldn’t miss the easy smile on Sophia’s face.

“All three of us are her mates. He doesn’t have enough cocks to do it,” Gunnar added. It was good to hear the teasing tone in his voice.

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