Rune
I only truly believed that this was real after I'd claimed Laurel in five different positions. And even so, I kept having to ask her if she was just a dream. Every time, she gave me a sad smile and reaffirmed that she was really here with me.
We now lay on the bed, my cock still embedded within her, her back against my chest. I had my arms slung around her waist, pressing her against me as tightly as I could without damaging her. I never wanted to let go of her again. Not now that she'd returned.
"Are you real?" I whispered.
"I am."
I kissed her blue hair. It was brown near the scalp. I'd have to ask her if that was normal or if she was ill... but not now. Later. Right now, I didn't want to think of anything bad. I just wanted to focus on the moment.
She smelled so good. I inhaled deeply, relishing her scent.
"Are you sniffing me?" she asked with a chuckle.
"Yes." After another long inhale, I added, "Do Peritan males not do that?"
"No. But human... Peritan guys are very different in a lot of ways."
"Tell me."
"Well, for starters, they don't have the same stamina you just showed. They usually need to recover after they climax. And they don't sniff their partners. They also don't bite them or carry them around-"
"Sounds very boring," I remarked.
Laurel laughed again. I could bathe in that sound. "You're right. You're much more interesting."
"How am I more interesting?"
"You're blue. You're strong. You're super sexy - that's what you want to hear, right?"
I moved one hand downwards until it came to rest on her mound. Her skin was hot and sticky. A sign of how well I'd performed during our mating. I'd managed to satisfy her.
"Yes," I whispered and rolled my finger over the sensitive nub above her entrance.
She sucked in a sharp breath in response. I loved how she reacted to my touch. The claimings earlier had been rough, frantic, desperate. Now that the fýst had cleared from my mind and body, I could take the time to get to know her body in a more leisurely manner. I'd explore every part of her, find out what else would make her gasp like that, what would elicit the loudest moans. I'd learn to play her like an instrument until she'd writhe beneath my touch and forget all about those other Peritan males that she'd compared me to.
"How are you feeling?" she muttered sleepily.
"Like the happiest male in the universe. How are you feeling, my mate?"
"Mate. I will have to get used to that word."
"I can call you sæta, if you prefer. Or female. Or whatever word in your language you like the most."
"What does sæta mean? And why doesn't the implant translate it?"
"There are some words too complex to translate literally," I explained. "Words that only make sense if you know the culture in which they evolved. Originally, sæta meant a female waiting for her mate at home while he'd gone raiding. But that's just the literal meaning. Sæta is the longing the two lovers feel for each other. Sæta is the joy at finally seeing each other again. Sæta is the love they bear for each other, no matter how far apart they are."
"That's beautiful," Laurel whispered. "I didn't know you were such a romantic."
"Never tell any of the other Vikingar that," I warned. "I am only romantic when I'm with you. Outside of this room, I'm a fearsome berserkr who punched his way through a thick metal door to get to his mate."
"You did that?"
I would have shown her my bloody hands, except that someone must have fixed me at some point during my fýst delirium. I didn't remember much of what had happened. I'd have to talk to Njal, find out if there was anyone who might challenge me to a fight in future. If I'd badly injured a Vikingr, or dishonoured him somehow, he'd want retribution, no matter whether I'd been sane or not.
I pulled Laurel even tighter against my body. I loved how her curves moulded perfectly against me. We were the perfect fit. The Gods had chosen well.
"What happens now?" my mate muttered. She sounded half-asleep.
"Now, you and I will sleep. Then we will bathe. Then-"
"No, I don't mean that. I mean our future. Are we officially mates now? Is there a ceremony? Do we need to register? What do I tell my parents? Where are we going to live? What-"
I playfully flicked her pleasure bud to cease her questions. "One day at a time. But to answer your first question, yes, we are mates. You may now make me a shirt."
"What?"
"In an old Vikingr tradition, a female may present her mate with a shirt. Before that, he will only ever wear armour or leave his torso bare."
"What if I don't want you to put on a shirt? I tend to like the view." Laurel laughed wickedly.
"Then I will continue to walk around without a shirt. Since Peritan females don't know the tradition, they won't assume that I am unmated."
"Excellent. And if any Vikingar women come along, you can just tell them that you're already spoken for. It's how we do it on Earth."
"Holly has a ring. She married Errik and got a ring. He wears one too. On his axe hand."
"Do you want a ring?"
I nodded fervently. "Yes."
"Then you shall have a ring. I suppose this is new to everyone. We can make our own rules."
My mate was so smart.
Captain Njal and Steff invited us to have a meal with them, but the thought of any male being close to my mate made me unspeakably angry, so we ate in this cabin. It wasn't my room and I missed my huge bed. This one wasn't big enough to ravish Laurel in all the ways I had planned. But it was big enough to let the two of us sit cross-legged across from each other, the food between us.
When we finished - Laurel ate so much less than me, but said that was a normal portion for Peritan standards - she put her plate down and looked at me with a grim expression.
"I feel like we need to talk," she said.
"Whadabohhd?"
"Maybe I should wait until you're done eating."
I swallowed, drank a few sips of mead, nodded. "Now I'm done."
Laurel bit her bottom lip. Her teeth were strangely beige, almost white. Her hair may have been the same colour as mine, but her teeth weren't.
"I think I owe you an explanation. Why I left. Why I almost let you die."
"It was the fýst, not you," I said soothingly, but I was intrigued. I didn't know how much of what I thought to know was real and what was just a fragment taken from my crazed dreams.
"No, it was me. I mean, I didn't know it would be this bad for you. I didn't think you could actually die from it. I assumed Njal was making it sound scary so that I'd stay. But I did know that it wouldn't be nice for you. That you were more affected by this mate bond than I was - back then. Or at least more than I would admit to myself. I ignored the signs. Blamed them on my hormones, on random things, anything but you."
"Why did you leave?" I asked gently.
"Because I was chasing a story. I didn't sign up with the dating agency to find a partner. Do you know what a journalist is?"
I nodded. "If the translator is correct, it's someone who reports on the news."
"Yes. That's me. I mean, that was my job. I specialised in - fuck, it's so hard to use past tense. I was fired last week, so it's still sinking in that I'm no longer a journalist." She frowned, almost to herself, then continued. "Anyway, I'd been told that women had gone missing. The one thing they all had in common was that they'd signed up to the Hot Tatties dating agency. So, I made up a fake identity and pretended to be a banker looking for a hot husband. It's why I wore a wig at first."
It took me a moment to process it all. Fake identity? "Does that mean your name isn't Laurel?"
"Actually, it is. I only changed my last name from Woodstock to Knight. Woodstock is too memorable. For humans, anyways. I guess it doesn't mean anything to you."
"Laurel Woodstock. I like it."
"You better. It's not like you have another choice. Wait, do Vikingar women take on their husband's surname?"
"No, our last name is that of our fathers. I am Rune the Bad-Tempered, Son of Gnutt the Scar-Maker."
"Bad-Tempered?"
I laughed. "It's a joke. When we complete our warrior training, we are each given a title. As the only berserkr in my year, I was seen as more temperamental than the other Vikingar. They always expected me to go full berserkr on them, but my control was superior. I stayed calm, even when they poured itchy sap into my boots."
I smiled at the memory. Those had been good times. My first time in space, learning the ropes on a battleship. My first raid. When my planet had been destroyed, I'd thought it was the end of first times. Now that I had Laurel, that had changed. We'd already had our first kiss and our first mating. Our first meal together. Our first night in the same bed. There were so many firsts still to come.
"Anyway," Laurel continued her story, "I wanted to know what had happened to those missing women. Once I was on board the spaceship, I realised that they weren't actually missing. They were here, with their alien mates. I should have stopped then. But I was smelling a new story, that aliens were real. On Earth, most people don't think you exist. I thought it would advance my career, make me famous. But when I realised that I couldn't prove it, everything fell apart. I was fired from my job. But, most of all, I missed you. I don't know how it's possible to miss someone after only knowing them for such a short time, but I did. I was miserable without you. It just took me a long time to jump over my shadow and admit it to myself. I'm sorry I took so long. I'm sorry I didn't stay. I'm sorry that-"
I lay a finger on her lips, silencing her.
"I understand. Sometimes, in battle, we forget to think. We're so caught up in the bloodlust, in the practised movements of hacking and slashing, that we forget that every battle is different. Sometimes, we have to change our strategy and our mindset."
"Did you just compare journalism with a bloody battle?" Laurel laughed, but she still wasn't quite as happy as she'd been before.
"I am saying that you had other priorities when we met. You didn't intend to meet your mate. But I was. I was fixated on you, too much so. It started the fýst prematurely, before I even met you face to face. I suppose I was too fast, and you were too slow. Now we meet in the middle. What do you want to do now? Do you want to continue working as a journalist? Do you want to learn to raid spaceships? I can teach you to fight."
"I have options? Pam at the agency made it sound like I didn't."
I was going to have some strong words with Pam. "Of course you have options! I wouldn't want my mate to be bored. You can write, you can fight, you can do whatever you want. I'm sure many intergalactic media would love a Peritan correspondent. If you don't want to work, that is also fine. I have enough money for us to live permanently on a resort planet. Although once we have children, we should move somewhere more appropriate. Our own ship, maybe, if you don't want to be around the other Vikingar and their mates. We can travel the galaxy." I stopped to breathe. That was a lot of words. I didn't usually talk this much. "Whatever you want, sæta."
She looked at me with wide eyes. "I have to think. I've been so focused on this one path for so long that I don't want to make decisions without some breathing space."
"You have all the space you need. As long as I'm in it with you."
Laurel laughed. "You take up a lot of space. You're huge, did you know that?"
I flexed my muscles. "Only because you're tiny. I think I will enjoy teaching you how to fight. We will start small, with hand-to-hand-combat only. Axes are for later. Maybe a sword would be more suited to you. And shields. I might even show you the secret ways of the berserkir. And at the end, I will give you your title."
"Laurel the Clumsy?"
"No. Laurel the Invincible. Laurel the Bloodthirsty. Laurel the Magnificent. We will find you a good one."
"I would like that." She smiled at me. That smile warmed my entire being. I could watch her smile all day.
We drank some more mead in silence. I enjoyed that I could be both loud and silent with her. She didn't make me feel like I had to say something just to fill the silence. After emptying my drinking horn, I pulled Laurel onto my lap. She leaned against me, smiling up at me. My cock hardened at the feel of her naked arse against it. She'd not put on any clothes after our mating and I'd been naked already. It didn't seem to bother her. I was glad. She was stunning. I had so much of her body still to explore.
This felt so right. For a moment, I wondered if I was still dreaming.
But no, this was real. Laurel was here with me, forever. And together we'd make our own dreams.
And this is where we leave them to spend some quality alone time together! I very much hope you enjoyed Berserkr. If this was your first encounter with the Starlight Vikings, start the series with Vikingr and find out how Njal and Steff met.
Want to know how the Hot Tatties agency got involved in matching humans to aliens? Read the Starlight Highlanders series to find out, starting with Thorrn.
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