Mated to the Viking Alpha Bundle - Signed Paperbacks

Thor

I’ve always trusted the visions of my brother and when he told me to run, I didn’t hesitate. The Skoll pack, led by the ruthless Alpha who killed our father, is out for blood. But when I shifted and took off into the woods, I never expected to find an injured human with red hair and a pair of green eyes that could seduce me with a glance.

Against my better judgment, I secretly took him back to the hot springs my pack operates. There I made the biggest mistake of my life by kissing him in a moment of weakness. And now I’m not sure I can ever let him go. But I’m still keeping secrets from him.

However, when the Skoll leader sets his sights on my new mate, I fear I might lose him forever.

Flynn

I moved to Fenris to take care of my grandmother and to get away from the uncertainty of the city. But the mountain she lives on holds its own dangers. When I accidentally end up off the path after dark, the last thing I expected was to take a bad step and break my leg. Then, when a hulking wolf with glowing yellow eyes finds me in the dark, I’m not sure I’ll survive the night.

The next morning I wake up in a resort, cared for by a hulking man who speaks little but cares for me day and night. I’m impatient to get home to my grandmother, but he won’t let me leave until I’m healed. When I try to run away, he rescues me again and kisses me, forging a bond between us that I can’t resist.

But, the closer I try to get, the more he pulls away. He’s hiding something and I’m going to find out what it is.

Tropes: M/M, gay awakening, gay for you, fated mates, forbidden love, red riding hood, norse mythology themes, alpha x human, strict roles, and HEA

Chapter One: Thor
If there’s one thing I’ve learned from my brother, it’s that ignoring one of his visions usually ends in disaster. That’s why, when he told me to run, I didn’t hesitate.
“Someone’s coming,” he said, his eyes rolled back in his head so that only the whites showed. “One to kill and one to care. Moonlight guides your fate and blood will not lead you astray. This moon will be the end of what was and the beginning of what could be.” Suddenly, his bright golden irises flipped down, his pupils dilating. “You need to go. Now.”
“Is it the Skoll Alpha?” I growled, sniffing the air. “I’ll tear his throat out for what he did to our father!”
“The entire pack marches this way,” my brother replied, his voice filled with fear. “You need to run. Now!”
I knew he spoke the truth, although I didn’t know how. That was his gift. “What about you, Baldr? Will you be alright?”
“I’ve walked both packs for years without harm,” he nodded, his voice returning to normal at last. “Mother’s promise remains in place.” He gave me a shove. “Now go, Thor! Get the hell out of here!”
I glanced back at him one last time, looked at the full moon, and let the wolf take over me. Within seconds, all my bones cracked and rearranged themselves as fur sprouted from my pores. I hit the forest floor on four paws and took off like a shot, heading due west away from the oncoming pack. The moment I was in wolf form, I could smell them as the wind shifted. Baldr had been right. The entire Skoll Pack was on the march again.
Wandering during the full moon was always asking for trouble, and I knew that. But I’d left our pack territory, anyway. It was reckless, but it seemed like the one way I might ever come face to face with the Skoll Alpha that had killed my father. I’d dreamed about ripping his throat out every night since my father died. But with a pack and a resort to run to keep my people afloat, I didn’t have much time for revenge. Besides, everyone, including my brothers, warned me that taking vengeance would only lead to more suffering.
Still, I couldn’t stop myself from trying. Until that Alpha was dead, my people would never be safe. However, I wasn’t foolish enough to take him on with the might of his entire pack behind him. I wanted him dead, but I wasn’t a fool.
So I ran, knowing Baldr would be just fine. I still didn’t understand how a simple promise to his mother kept him safe, but it had his entire life. There was no reason to think it would stop working now.
My muscles burned as I sprinted across the land. I dove down one mountain to the valley, hopped a river, and began to climb up another. The mountains were tight together in this part of Appalachia and the scent of hot springs drove me westward. Our pack ran a resort there to make sure we could survive in this ever-changing human dominated world. That’s what made us different. The Hati pack didn’t try to push away the outside world. We became part of it to survive. But the Skoll pack… Well, they lived in squalor on the eastern mountain, clinging desperately to the ancient ways and staying completely separate from the humans.
They were stupid and violent, a danger to man and wolf alike. And as far as I was concerned, they needed to be exterminated.
Someday I’d figure out how to take care of that. For now, however, I needed to get to safety. I was already on my own pack’s land, but the resort was over the peak and partway down the other side of the mountain. However, territory markers hadn’t stopped the Skoll Alpha before and I knew I wasn’t safe until I was within the walls of the resort.
I slowed my pace to a trot, weaving my way through the trees with ease. There was a well-travelled path along the backside of the mountain where the locals went for hikes that made my progress much easier. The gravel was hard on my pads, but at least it didn’t require me to force my bulky form through underbrush and bramble. People might think fur stopped the thorns from reaching my skin, but that wasn’t true. Instead, it pulled my fur out and stabbed me. Despite my wolf healing, I didn’t want to deal with the pain or put the stench of blood in the air. Not when I was on the run.
However, as I lifted my nose to the air, I realized it was already filled with the smell of fresh blood.
Human blood.
Now, I wasn’t the kind of wolf to go out of my way to help a human. I tolerated them and welcomed them as guests at the hot springs. But that was the extent of my friendliness. We were still two completely different species after all, and even being friends with a human was heavily looked down upon.
But this scent… there was something about it that drew me in. It was rich and floral, like mountain laurel in full bloom in the heat of July, but masculine. I’d never smelled a human like that before, and my interest was piqued. For some reason, I couldn’t stop myself from turning off the path to follow it. I tried to tell myself I was just worried about a possible guest that had gotten lost and hurt on the way back to the resort and everything was completely normal.
And yet, the wolf side of me was completely on edge. My fur stood on end, and I could feel a tingle running through my skin. Maybe it was just the full moon and the scent of the blood driving me crazy. There was an animalistic urge that rose up inside me that I didn’t quite understand. I tried to convince myself it was nothing as I pushed through the underbrush, my nose practically glued to the ground. But the urge continued to burn in my chest like a hot coal plucked from a fire.
I had to find this person, whoever he was, and save him.
The scent trail turned off the path at a crucial switchback. There was a clearing in the trees with a game trail running through it, so it was easy to see how someone might get lost. But then it started to shift downward as the terrain became steeper and steeper. I followed it all the way to the edge of a rocky cliff before it dropped off.
Lifting my nose to the air, I inhaled deeply. The scent was still there, and I could tell that the guy was still alive. Peering over the edge, I glanced down into the gully formed between the rocks. The clouds shifted and moonlight filled the gap.
There he was, his back leaned against the rocks and his right leg stretched out at an odd angle. His head was up, and I could see him shivering as the cold night air set in. He was wearing nothing more than a pair of shorts and a sleeveless hoodie. In wolf form, I couldn’t see colors right, but the shade of it was the same as the blood smeared across his skin, so I figured it was red.
I stood there for a moment, staring down at him. He didn’t cry out or ooze fear into the air. In fact, he mostly just seemed annoyed. I don’t know why, but it impressed me. Not many humans could deal with that kind of pain and still have the fortitude to keep a level head. Clearly, he wasn’t just some run of the mill human wandering the woods like an idiot.
It took me a minute to find a path down that didn’t require me to break my own legs in the process. I wanted to get a better look at the man before I tried to help him. In wolf form, I couldn’t do much but look scary. However, when I shifted back, I’d be completely naked. My clothes shredded when I shifted the first time. At the moment, I wasn’t sure which was scarier, a giant white wolf or a hulking six foot six naked man with tattoos finding you alone and vulnerable in the woods.
I figured the wolf was at least a bit more explainable, but there hadn't been wolves in these woods for decades. Well, no real wolves at least. Werewolves were a completely different matter. We'd been inhabitants of the mountains since the first settlers came over from Europe. Not that the humans knew that, of course.
Once I was at the bottom of the gulch, I did my best to keep silent as I crept closer to the man. His scent was much thicker down here, the wind kept out by the surrounding rocks. The floral smell seemed to almost sink into my pores, overwhelming my senses. Even fifty feet from him, I felt almost drunk with it. My movements were sloppy, and I felt this undeniable urge to sprint over, tackle him, and lick every inch of his face that I could find. The wolf was fighting to take over completely, a puppy-like bliss threatening to turn me into a complete idiot.
Where was it all coming from? I stared at the man for a long moment, wondering if he could be a witch or maybe even a wolf hunter trying to trick me. Witches, I'd seen before, but wolf hunters were a thing of the past. Or at least, I hoped they were, since one hadn’t been seen in over a hundred years. But hunter or witch, both could spell trouble for me and my pack, especially if I couldn't keep myself under control.
I was the Alpha. The leader. I had to keep my wits about me.
Shoving the wolf side of me as far down as it would go without forcing myself to shift back, I took a deep breath and crept closer. Stones and leaves shifted under my paws, making some noise here and there, but not enough to be heard over the sounds of the cicadas in the trees. Finally, I was within twenty feet of the man, my body hunkered low against the rock to stay out of sight. He seemed calm, but maybe a little out of it. Considering the amount of blood he’d lost and the tibia poking through his right leg, I figured he was probably a bit delirious from the pain.
However, his distress gave me a moment to study him and make sure he was safe. I took another deep whiff of his scent, pushing the floral parts of it aside and focused on his blood. From what I could tell, there was no hint of magic or witch. They had a very distinct smell and one I was intimately familiar with, considering Baldr’s mother had been a witch. That was why he had his visions. We shared a father, of course, but my own mother had been a werewolf, so no special powers for me.
And this injured human was definitely not a witch.
I breathed him in deeper, making certain that I didn’t smell any hint of silver or wolfsbane on him, either. They were the trademark tools of hunters. Or at least they had been in the old days. I could only go by what my father had passed down from his father.
But that left a question unanswered. Why did his scent drive me so crazy? Was it the full moon? My heightened senses thanks to the Skoll Alpha being on the move? Was I just being paranoid for no reason? Or maybe the stress of taking over an entire pack at such a young age without warning had finally gotten to me and I’d snapped at last. My brothers had warned me to take it easy, but I never listened to them.
A cloud shifted past the moon, allowing the moonlight to flood the area. It struck the stranger’s skin, and he looked up, his face practically glowing. In an instant, I felt my heart begin to race. My chest swelled and I found myself getting to my feet.
He… He was… beautiful.
At the same moment that I locked eyes on him, my front paw slipped, knocking a stone out from its mooring. There was a brief instant where I knew I should bolt, but it was as if my paws were glued to the ground. The moon wouldn’t allow me to run, and her power was absolute.
The next moment the rock clunked as it rolled down the gulch and the man suddenly turned in my direction. His gaze fell on me, and I saw his eyes widen with fear. He scrambled back for a moment, dragging his injured leg through the leaves. I cocked my head to the side, trying to look as cute as possible. Like a moth drawn to a flame, I started forward, not wanting him to be any further from me than necessary.
“Nice doggie,” he said, his voice shaking with fear. “Please don’t eat me…”
I wagged my tail, trying to look friendly as I got closer.
“Jesus fucking Christ,” he muttered, his face turning as white as a sheet. He waved a tiny pocketknife in my direction. “Stay back!”
I started to move and instead of holding his ground, he tried to run. I was nearly on top of him before his injured leg caught on a stone and was yanked viciously to the side. He cried out in pain, his voice rattling off the stones. But the next moment it was cut off as I watched his eyes roll back and he slumped to the ground. I ran over to him, sniffing and listening.
His breath was shallow, but his heartbeat was still strong.
I let out a wolfy sigh. Thank the moon goddess, he was alright.
Taking a deep breath, I forced the wolf back, allowing my body to shift into its human form once more. I felt myself grow taller, my fingers extended into the leaf litter, and the fur fell away, disintegrating into nothing but dust around me. I rubbed my hands over my body as I stood up, trying to get rid of the itchy feeling always left behind when I shifted. Then my gaze fell back to the injured man on the ground.
He really was beautiful.
My eyes widened as I crouched down next to him, taking in his wonderfully wiry, lithe form. He was average height for a human with pale skin that glowed in the moonlight. My gaze wandered up his body, taking in every inch of him. I’d been right about his sleeveless hoodie. It was red. I couldn’t help myself as I reached up and pulled the hood away from his head, revealing a spiky tuft of auburn hair.
Except for the bone sticking out of his right leg, he was absolutely gorgeous from head to toe. Even in my human form, his scent was overwhelmingly sweet and made my entire body break out in goosebumps. But as my fingers brushed a lock of red hair from his forehead, our skin made contact and a shudder went through me like lightning.
Mate.
“Oh fuck…” I growled deep in my chest as I felt my eyes shift into their wolven gold. “Oh no. That… That can’t be right.”
However, a quick glance between my legs at my suddenly rock-hard cock told me everything I needed to know. Between that, the full moon, and the sudden need to protect him at all costs, I knew what had happened.
“Really?” I asked in a whiny tone as I glared up at the moon. “You sent me a human mate?” I glanced down at him again. “And a man? I don’t know what to do with that!”
Images flashed through my brain of exactly what I could do with him.
“For fuck’s sake. What did I do to deserve this?”
For a moment, I contemplated the idea of leaving him behind. He probably wouldn’t survive the night, and that would pretty much take care of the entire problem. But as I looked back up at the moon again, I let out a long sigh.
I couldn’t leave him.
“Moonlight guides your fate,” I muttered, repeating Baldr’s words.
I reached out, scooping the human stranger up into my arms.
He had better be wrong about this one. Although, it was only after another sigh that I admitted the truth to myself.
Baldr’s visions were never wrong.