Devotion of a Wolf (Viking Wolves #3)

Chapter 1

Lyall

The flaming arrow arcs through the sky and lands on the pyre, setting the wood aflame. I can’t bring myself to watch as the fire consumes my father’s body.

Alpha Erik, son of Thorin and Freda, is dead.

Tears threaten to spill down my cheeks, but I fear weeping will make me look weak. I’m eighteen, my father is dead, and it’s time for me to be a man. But how can I when our family is torn to pieces?

Yesterday I wed the man I love. I feasted with my family, not knowing it would be our last meal with Father.

Gunnar, next oldest after Anders and me, had cooed over his son, my nephew, sweet baby Bjorn, while his chosen mate Leif had cradled the little lad in his arms. Anders, my twin, had teased Wulfric, our youngest brother, as he always did.

Father had chastised him, but always with patience.

I’d danced until my feet hurt, drank mead until my head swam, and laughed myself hoarse. It had truly been the best day of my life. Before I’d left to claim my mate, Father had taken me aside and cupped the nape of my neck.

He said, “I’m proud of you, son. I wish you nothing but happiness.”

Blushing, I’d pushed him off before my brothers could see and tease me mercilessly.

If I’d known Father would never touch me again, that only hours later he would be killed on the very beach where my brothers and I had run and played and hunted together… I’d have held on to him and never let him go.

When I was a lad, Father had told me that because we were ulfhednar, there would be those who wouldn’t understand the great gift of change bestowed upon us by Fenrir.

He’d told me that humans would hate and fear us.

He’d been very strict about how far we could stray from the village in our wolf forms and told us to never prey upon livestock from the neighboring villages.

We were never to attract attention to ourselves.

As the years passed and trade prospered between us and the human villages, I’d thought we’d succeeded. I had been more wrong than I could have imagined.

Only hours before my wedding, human missionaries had come to our village. The missionaries’ leader, a man named Thorald, had brought chests of gold and a strange offer: if we would abandon our pagan gods and accept their Christian god, we would be rewarded with wealth.

Father had politely refused. Although we worshipped many gods, we were most devout to Fenrir.

We were loyal to him, and he rewarded us with the gift of the change.

Father had feared that by worshipping other gods, we would displease Fenrir and lose his boon.

Thorald had smiled as best he could with that scar on his lip and seemed to respect Father’s answer.

I had wondered at the time how a man of the cloth had gotten such an injury.

Thorald took his missionaries and left… or so we’d thought.

The next time I saw Thorald, he’d donned the armor of a hunter and was holding his blade to my neck. He’d been no man of god, but a hunter in disguise, and we’d unknowingly welcomed him and his men into our village.

Father and Wulfric had beaten the hunters back to the shore, but Father fell in battle.

I know Wulfric must blame himself, but I believe he did the best he could.

Anders had been tortured until he almost lost himself to his berserker’s feral rage.

Baby Bjorn and Leif had been cut down right before Gunnar’s eyes.

What monsters could kill a defenseless child?

What was my sweet nephew’s crime but to be the child of wolves? He’d never harmed anyone.

Wulfric turns to face the crowd. Father’s black wolf furs look too big for his narrow shoulders, too heavy.

Gods, but I ache for my little brother. He inherited the power of the Alpha from our father’s bloodline.

We always knew that someday Wulfric would lead our pack as Father and Mother had.

It wasn’t supposed to be this soon. He’s still just a boy.

He deserved the time to be a child while he still could. Now that’s been robbed from him too.

“I swear to you all,” Wulfric says, hands in fists that tremble at his sides, “I will help lead our pack out of this darkness. We will heal and come back from this terrible loss. I will honor Father’s memory and be the Alpha you all deserve.

” There’s a crack in his voice I can’t miss.

I wonder if he even believes his own words.

Before I can stop myself, I go to him. Gunnar follows and the pair of us put our arms around our little brother. “You won’t be alone, Wulfric,” I promise him. “I swear, we will be with you every step of the way.”

Gunnar doesn’t speak, just bumps his forehead against Wulfric’s shoulder.

The gesture is far too animalistic, and his silence scares me.

Gunnar watched his mate and child be killed before his eyes.

I fear what such trauma will do to his mind, but most of all to his wolf.

Since we found him cradling the bodies of his family, he hasn’t spoken a word. It frightens me.

“Thank you,” Wulfric says, voice thick.

The only one who hasn’t moved is Anders. Hands in fists, he looks at Wulfric with unbridled contempt. An enraged wolf, ready to strike.

My heart is heavy in my chest as I stop outside the basement door. Upstairs my brothers and aunt move through the longhouse. Will I ever stop expecting to see Father moving through our home, to hear his rare but booming laugh and deep voice?

Blinking fast, I unlock the door. I thought my heart had already been broken by the tragedy that struck our family. The sight of Soren, my childhood friend, my mate, chained to the wall like a common thief shatters my heart to pieces.

I have never seen Soren so broken, not since that day all those years ago when Father returned from a voyage at sea with him.

He’d been orphaned after wolves attacked his village, leaving him the sole survivor.

Even so, he overcame his fear and decided to become ulfhednar when he came of age.

For me. The furs he fought so hard to earn have been taken away, leaving him as weak and vulnerable as a human.

A broken whine escapes me when his wet, red-rimmed eyes find mine.

“Lyall,” he croaks, tears flowing, “oh, Lyall…”

I only take a few steps before I am on my knees and my arms are around Soren. Sobs I’ve been fighting back all day rattle my chest.

Trembling lips kiss my neck, my wet cheek. He whispers, “I’m here, my love. Right here. I am so sorry. So, so sorry.”

Gods, but I am a failure. He should not be comforting me.

Wiping my eyes, I pull away. “Has anyone hurt you?” I frame his face in my hands, looking for any injury.

He shakes his head, dark locks clumped together with dirt, blood, and sweat. “No.”

Reaching up, I check the cuffs. They’ve dug into his wrists and brought blood to the surface.

I have seen people lose their hands from how tightly cuffs were fitted to their flesh.

Drawing him close, I kiss his dry lips and try to fight back another wave of anguish.

“I will get you out of here. I swear it.”

My heart sinks when Soren shakes his head. “Wulfric seemed adamant that I was never leaving this basement until the moment of my judgment.”

A growl rips from my throat. “You are my mate. He cannot keep you here!”

“Lyall…” Soren’s voice is soft, pleading. Even when we were boys, I could never deny him anything when he took that tone with me. “You have lost so much. B-because of me.” Tears spill down his cheeks, mixing with blood and sweat. “I will not be the reason you lose the rest of your family.”

I press my forehead to his, swallowing back the rush of tears. “This was not your fault.”

“But it was,” Soren says, face twisted in anguish. “This happened because of me.”

Soren and I had met beneath our favorite elm tree and claimed each other as mates at last. He’d still been inside me when a man had come up behind us and touched his blade to my neck.

All the blood in my body had turned to ice when I’d recognized the man in hunters’ apparel as the leader of the missionaries who’d come to our shores earlier that same day.

Soren had recognized him too, but for very different reasons.

Thorald, the man who’d murdered my father and led the attack on our village, was Soren’s father. Soren hadn’t been the sole survivor of the attack on his childhood village after all. Unbeknownst to us all, his father had survived and spent years training and gathering an army for this very moment.

“You are not responsible for his actions.”

Soren scoffs. “Tell that to your brothers. They have decided my guilt by association with him.”

Shock ripples through me, and I shake my head.

“No. They can’t.” It wouldn’t be fair to blame Soren for his father’s actions.

Yet I could envision Wulfric doing exactly that, lost in his grief and rage and guilt, desperate for someone else, anyone else, to blame.

“I will speak to him, make him see reason!”

My own brother would not part me from the man I love. He couldn’t.

“It’s too late, Lyall.” The finality in Soren’s voice turns my blood to ice.

I stare, unblinking, into his defeated eyes. “Why would you say that?”

A broken laugh escapes Soren. “I already confessed.”

Bile rises in my throat. “To what?”

Soren averts his gaze, lips trembling. “To betraying the pack.”

I rock back on my heels, swallowing hard so I won’t be sick. “What… why would you…”

“While you were recovering from the battle, mistrust spread through the village. The townsfolk thought I had turned you against your own family, that you were somehow in on my father’s plan to attack the village and kill Erik.

I couldn’t let them think so poorly of you.

So I… confessed. Told them I alone knew my father’s plan.

That I used you all for protection until the day I could be rescued.

” He swallows hard, and the bond between us sours with despair.