His hand halted.
He swallowed, as if trying to remember how to use his voice.
"Brenna." My name was no more than a soft growl. "We mean you no harm."
I studied him. As big as the warriors were, the blond was one of the largest. He walked lightly, muscles bulging. Long locks of blond hair brushed his broad shoulders. His face was rawboned and half covered in a beard, the defining feature his great gold eyebrows over those amazing eyes.
When his gaze caught mine, his eyes glowed.
His hands touched my face, a thumb stroking my lips. He tilted it to and fro. He pushed my hair away from my neck. I shut my eyes, knowing what he saw, the white weals and gnarled tissue, healed into a disfiguring scar that had taken my voice, and nearly taken my life.
I barely remembered the attack: a large dark shape rushing at me from the shadows, then pain. Lots of pain. My mother told me I lay near death for days. No one thought I would survive, but I did.
Some believed it would be better if I hadn't. Even though I healed from the attack, the scars marked my face and my life. The boys used to chase me down the street, throwing things. I grew up learning to blend into the shadows. To move silently so I wouldn't draw attention to myself. Later, when my mother married my stepfather, I learned to cower and hide.
Her body is pretty enough, my stepfather had said. Just put a bag over her head so you can stand it.
Now my new owner tipped my head this way and that, studying the scar. He nodded, looking satisfied. "The mark of the wolf," he rasped.
A ripple went around the assembled men, and the other warriors pressed closer. The black haired man held me still, hefty arms around my body.
I wished I could ask what the blond warrior meant.
The men surrounded me, staring at my hideous scars.
My blond captor released my jaw and I ducked my head down again in shame. His large, rough hands caught my head again, and raised it, but this time he cupped my face.
I shut my eyes. I couldn't even cry out. This man now owned me. I'd resigned myself to living life with a disfigured face, unwanted and unloved, but I'd never thought I'd become a slave.
"Brenna," The command came in that rasping growl. "Look at me."
Somehow I obeyed and met the leader's steady gaze. Something in that golden glow mesmerized me, and I felt calmer.
"Do not be afraid." His throat worked for a moment, as if he was trying to remember how to speak. "Is it true you cannot speak?"
I nodded.
"Can you read or write?"
I shook my head. This was the strangest conversation I'd had in my nineteen years.
He looked frustrated, exchanging glances with the warrior who held me.
A voice spoke at my ear, still rough and guttural, but a bit more clearly than before. "We would like to find a way to talk to ye." The speaker turned me to face him, and I flinched as he brought his hand up, but he only examined the scars as the blond had.
By the time he was done, all warriors but the blond had melted away. Dark hair touched my cheek and I winced, realizing there was a bruise on my face from when my stepfather struck me.
The blond crowded closer, a sound rumbling in his great chest, not unlike a growl.
"Brenna," he said. "We will not hurt you. I swear it. No one will ever hurt you again."
The dark haired one took a few locks of my hair in his hand, gripping them lightly and raising them to his face. He breathed in my scent, then looked at me with glowing eyes and said in a clear voice.
"Ye belong to us now."
*
Sold to the Berserkers
When Brenna's father sells her to a band of passing warriors, her only thought is to survive. She doesn't expect to be claimed by the two fearsome warriors who lead the Berserker clan. Kept in captivity, she is coddled and cared for, treated more like a savior than a slave. Can captivity lead to love? And when she discovers the truth behind the myth of the fearsome warriors, can she accept her place as the Berserkers' true mate?