Mated to the Berserkers: A Menage Shifter Romance by Lee Savino Read Free Book Online Page B

understanding that we kept our mate safe and cared for.
    Not our mate, I reminded it.
    “Did Yseult tell you how many years will it be until we lose control?”
    “Ye know she did not. Damn…” I tried to think of an insult more than ‘witch’, and couldn’t. “…witch.”
    “Perhaps the runes did not reveal that.”
    “Does it matter? The beast takes over quickly, ye know that as well as I. When it does, we must be ready to send Brenna away.” Or she would die. The beast did not recognize past lovers as friends. It did not recognize anything. It knew one thing: destruction. It was the destroyer. The world was mere fodder for its violent hunger.
    “Is it possible—”
    “No.” He cut me off but I finished anyway, “she is our true mate?”
    “Humans cannot mate with werewolves.”
    “Then what exactly have we been doing with her all this time?” I eyed the dais where we’d spent long hours ravaging our beloved. We were as gentle as we could be with her, but in the heat of passion it was easy to slip.
    One day that slip might end her life.
    Shuddering at my dark thoughts, I focused on Samuel’s lecture.
    “A true mate means three things: they can bond with us. Survive a mating bite. And can conceive.”
    “And give birth.” I leapt on the word.
    Samuel glared at me. “None of these things can happen. We won’t allow them to happen.”
    Grasping for an argument, I started, “My mother—”
    “Was a witch with great magic.”
    “Like Yseult. My mother was powerful in her own way. In the end, though, it wasnae enough to save her.” My thoughts were so dark, I was tempted to turn into a wolf and run away. An afternoon chasing rabbits put things in perspective. Especially when followed by an evening with Brenna.
    “The runes only confirm something I suspected. Brenna is not our true mate. She cannot bond with us. She cannot survive a mating bite.”
    “Then why did the runes tells us to find her?”
    Samuel sighed, a sound full of a hundred years of hopelessness. “I do not know.”
    I started pacing again. “If we try to send her away, she may not go. She’s too honorable.”
    “Then we must leave her before we lose control.” Samuel’s face turned to stone, and I knew he was silencing his wolf. My own wanted to howl at the thought of losing our beloved.
    “The longer we wait, the more likely the beast will win.” It would only take one slip, one dark night where the beast ruled, and the unthinkable would happen. The beast was merciless. It could rip through battle-seasoned warriors like a gael through a forest. What would the gael do to a flower?
    Samuel took a deep breath. “We must hang on as long as we can.”
    “Ye cannae take it all onto yerself.”
    “Daegan—”
    “No, Samuel.”
    “I am Alpha,” he growled and my eyes snapped to the floor in automatic response to his stern tone. He didn’t need to show his strength for me, or anyone else, to feel it. “The pack is not stable.”
    “Ye take too much on yerself.”  I didn’t meet the Alpha’s eye, but my tone chastised. Of all the pack, I was the only one who could stand up to the powerful blond warrior. The pack needed me, too. If the Alpha succumbed to the Berserker rage, what chance did the rest of us have? We would follow Samuel’s lead or be torn apart.
    “If ye take on too much of the taint, it will weaken ye.”
    “It’s been so long. I know what it’s like,” he said hoarsely.
    I nodded.
    “They deserve relief.”
    “They will get it. Our true mate will balance us, and the peace will spill into the pack. We will find her. We have to.”
    Even as he said it, my wolf growled in despair. Brenna is our true mate, it insisted.
    No. It cannot be.
    “In the meantime, we will allow Brenna to leave the cave with us. We can’t keep her hidden away forever.”
    “No,” I snapped without thinking. “It’s too dangerous.”
    Samuel raised an eyebrow. I lowered my gaze carefully. “Alpha. I merely point out the