Mastered by the Berserkers

Chapter 1-1

1

Juliet

I remember the night the Berserkers sacked the abbey.

I was slumbering on my pallet, my cold feet peeking out from my thin blanket, when a scream shook me from a dreamless sleep. I was up and on my feet before I knew I was awake. The screams came from all around, echoing from the very walls. Behind me, the nuns stirred on their beds.

I ran to the narrow window and that's when I saw them: giant, silent shapes thronging the abbey. Warriors. Bearded and hulking, moonlight glinting on their axes, knives, and swords. They were huge and half naked. A few carried torches. The rest were breaking down the doors, hunting their prey down the stone halls, dragging the young women from the orphanage onto the lawn.

The screams came from a young woman in her white shift, tossed over a warrior’s shoulder. He strode from the abbey and disappeared into the forest.

My shriek died in my throat. This wasn't happening.

I raced to the door.

“Sister Juliet, stop,” the abbess cried when I would unbar it.

“We must help them!” I shouted, and fought when one of the sisters clawed me, trying to drag me back. The rest of the sisters cowered in a corner.

“Fool girl,” the abbess snarled. She wore only a night shift and her long grey hair was a pitifully thin rope down her back. “This is an invasion. We must save ourselves.”

“My sisters are in trouble.” I struggled with the attacking nun. Sister Hilda was large and round, with thick muscles from tilling the fields. She wrestled me to my knees. I gasped as my knees hit the flagstones. It seemed mad that we were fighting while the abbey was under attack.

“They are only orphans,” the abbess said, looking down her nose at me. “We are your sisters now.”

All fighting ceased when the barred door shuddered. Sister Hilda released me and we both scurried backwards, away from the splintering wood. The thick door offered not a minute of resistance. A few more seconds and the axes broke through.

Then large hands tore the door apart. The nuns behind me screamed as the hulking shapes filled the frame. Sister Hilda and the abbess fell back, but my feet would not move.

I stood between the warriors and their axes and the rest of my sister nuns. The men were even bigger than they looked from the window. They towered over me.

“Stop,” I shouted. I don’t know what possessed me, but I was seized with madness. “What is the meaning of this?”

They didn’t answer. One sniffed the air, his head raised like a wolf. “Spaewife.” Beside him stood a huge wolf—taller than me, its head bigger than mine. Another round of frightened cries went up from the nuns as the great creature slunk inside.

I spread my arms. I was shaking, but I held my ground. “You can’t come in here. We are nuns. We are peaceful. We have given ourselves to God.”

The warrior and wolf were almost upon me when two warriors pushed to the fore. One was tall and lean with long dark hair spilling down his back. He wore a fur pelt slung over his shoulder, leather breeches and nothing else. The second warrior was stockier but still huge. His arms were covered with dark designs and swirls.

“We come for the spaewives,” he announced to the room at large. “We are taking them.”

“Why?” I cried and he settled his disturbing gaze on me.

“No fear. We mean no harm.”

“No harm?” I asked.

The tattooed warrior dipped his head. “You can go with the spaewives, if you wish.”

“Begone from this place,” the abbess cried. “Take those wicked girls and leave us in peace.”

The tattooed warrior raised a brow. He exchanged a look with another warrior. The wolf at his side backed out of the room.

“Wait,” I said. I couldn’t believe what I was saying. Outside, a girl screamed, “Help!” briefly before the sound cut off.

I flinched and said quickly, “I will go.”

“As you wish.” The warrior drew close, and raised his head to sniff the wind. “You are a spaewife.”

“I am Sister Juliet.”

He said something to me, and I shook my head. I couldn’t hear him over the din and distant screams.

“Little wife,” he repeated and opened his hand to me.

I hesitated. Was I really going to do this?

Before I could back away the tattooed warrior grabbed my arm and wrenched me through the door. The second, long haired warrior followed.

Then the world tilted, and I screamed. The warrior had caught me up over his shoulder and carried me off.

“Put me down.” I beat my fists upon his back. He only quickened his pace. We were in the forest, the abbey disappearing, crowded out by the thick canopy of tree branches.

I bit back a scream and tried to think. Fighting would do no good. Neither would shouting for help. Who would hear?

I would have to think. But I could not. My thoughts tumbled about. Perhaps I would open my eyes and find this all a dream.

A burst of cries in the distance had me craning my head to see where the warrior was taking me. There were torches ahead, in a clearing between the trees. There, a circle of warriors surrounded a group of young women in white shifts. I recognized them from the abbey orphanage.

The warrior who held me swung me down. I tried to stagger away from him, but he held my arm. Steadying me as well as keeping me close.

The group of girls saw me and turned, sobbing. I jerked toward them, fighting the warrior’s grip. He gripped me harder, but when I reached for the girls, he let me go.

The orphan girls surrounded me, shaking and crying. A few warriors ranged around us in a loose circle. Others darted to and fro, entering the abbey and carrying out more orphans, adding to our number.

“There, there,” I murmured. My throat was dry, but I grabbed a young one and cuddled her close. “It will be all right.”

“What is happening?” one girl named Meadow cried. A monstrous wolf brushed by her and she screamed, lurching away from it. Her cry was echoed amid the rest of the girls.

“I don’t know.” I swallowed my fear. “Hush now, be calm. Here, now, see to the young ones.”

Tears tracked down Meadow’s face, but she turned and obeyed, gathering two younger girls to her.

I shifted the girl I held to my other hip. She buried her face in my neck. “Shhh,” I told her. Clover, that was her name. Another orphan, named by the nuns. She’d come to us as a babe, and I was the only mother she’d known.

The warrior who’d grabbed me hovered at my back. I turned to glare at him.

“What will you do to us?”

He stared at me a moment before speaking. The whorls and swirls of his tattoos went up his neck, and I found myself wondering why a man would mark his skin so. “It’s all right,” he said finally. “You have nothing to fear.”

“No, of course not,” I practically spit at the warrior. “You attack us in the middle of the night and drag us out of our beds. Why would we be afraid?”

He blinked. Then, slowly, a grin spread across his face. The grin made my pulse quicken, and I backed away, more disconcerted by his amusement and my reaction to it than the whole wild night.

“You are not afraid of me.”

I swallowed my retort. I was afraid, wasn’t I?

The warrior tilted his head to the side, studying me. “You have no boots.”

I looked down at my bare feet. “Of course I have no boots,” I said, exasperated.

The warrior opened his mouth to say more but the long-haired warrior nudged him. “We go.”

“Go?” I asked, my voice sharp. “Go where?”

But the tattooed warrior only clamped his large hand on my upper arm and pulled me away.