Mated to the Berserkers: A Menage Shifter Romance Read Online Free PDF Page B

mind’s eye she was already dead and bloodied on the floor.
    And if we eat her, we absorb her power.
    Magic rolled over me, and my knees started to buckle: a natural submissive reaction to my Alpha’s anger. Pain blossomed in my skull: the brother bond opened me up to compulsion, but at least I would buffer it for the rest of the pack.
    Why isn’t she dead yet? The beast raged…no longer a wolf, but a mad thing, tainted by magic.
    “Please,” I choked.
    Beyond Samuel, Brenna now sat upright, her face alert and expression worried.
    As Samuel started to move forward, ready to hurt the witch, or me, or both, Brenna leaned forward and caught his hand.
    “No, Brenna,” I gasped, tearing my body off the floor in a desperate attempt to stand between her and the Alpha on the brink of losing control. Samuel could not hurt her.
    Before I reached him, Samuel whirled towards Brenna, teeth bared His arm already looked shaggier with the impending Change.
    His eyes fell on our beloved, calm and innocent in her cocoon of pelts.
    The beast quieted.
    I wouldn’t have believed it if I hadn’t witnessed it. Part of me wanted to glance at Yseult, to see if her mouth fell open at the sight of the raging Alpha, calmed with one woman’s touch, like a sea storm blown away by a summer breeze.
    Brenna smiled…and the sun came out.
    Samuel smiled back, fully man, his wolf calm and sedate as a pup with its mother.
    Yseult cleared her throat.
    I had almost forgotten she was there.
    The witch also smiled, but she looked uneasy, as if she’d seen something she didn’t quite understand. “You did take my advice. And I see the results were satisfactory.”
    Her gaze flicked between us, and my wolf still felt uneasy, hating the smug look on her face.
    Brenna’s brow furrowed.
    “It’s alright, lass,” I heard myself say. “It’s only the witch—the one that led us to you.”
    Brenna’s face went carefully blank. I felt a twinge of guilt. We’d approached her stepfather, paid him to lure her away from her family, and sell her to us. It wasn’t the way I’d wished to meet the woman who would be our salvation, but it was fast. And Brenna had settled into her role.
    At least, it seemed she had. I studied her guarded expression, wishing we could speak to her. Ask her what she thought of being consort to two Alphas. Whether our care for her would be enough to please her.
    Back at the dais, Samuel helped our beloved rise and hovered over her while she tugged on a gunna. Yseult smirked at the sight of the burly warrior acting as a lady’s maid, but Samuel ignored her, focusing on our beloved, taking care to stay calm after coming so close to losing his hold on the beast.
    I turned my attention to the witch who’d stirred up so much trouble in the few minutes she was here. “What do you want, Yseult?”
    “Merely to check on you. The last I saw you were hanging on, one claw away from descending into Berserker rage forever. The runes I cast gave me a glimpse into your possible future—and it was dark. But for the woman, of course. I’d wondered if you found her.”
    “We did.” Samuel grunted. His tone made it clear that he wanted the woman to leave.
    “Found and mated, I see.” Yseult cocked her head, studying us as if we were particularly ugly insects crawling on her boots.
    “Humans can’t mate with wolves.” I said automatically. It was true. Only a woman with some magic—part witch—could bear a werechild. My mother had been one of them. There were female weres but few and far between, and most would not mate with a Berserker wolf, tainted as we were with dark magic.
    “Perhaps. Perhaps not.”
    “What do you speak of?” Samuel was losing patience. The big man crossed his arms over his chest.
    “Funny, I sensed her heat. How often is she fertile? Every full moon? Have you not noticed how much stronger her scent is at that time? Both her scent and her…hunger.”
    “That is natural,” Samuel bit off. In the few months