Reluctant Berserker: Isaacson Trilogy Book One

Chapter 19

Gunnar pulled back, his heart hammering. His mind, muddled by the constant rumbling of his Berserker, had a difficult time focusing on anything other than her lips and the desperate need to kiss them.

Was she talking about what he thought she was talking about? It would be best to ask before assuming and finding out she had meant something altogether different. "The bear attack?"

She took a steadying breath and shook her head as if to clear it. "While that was quite magnificent to watch, no." Her hand shifted, resting directly over his pounding heart, and caused it to accelerate even further. "After, in the tree."

He swallowed as tingles ran up and down his body. "Yes, what about it?"

"Don't play coy with me, Mr. Tumbleweed. The minute your Berserker kissed me instead of tearing me to shreds, you claimed me."

Air refused to fill his lungs. "H-how long have you known—about claiming?"

"Since I was a little girl."

Blackness crept around the edges of his vision. "You've known this whole time?"

"Yes." She licked her lips, staring into his eyes.

Gunnar looked away, unconsciously nudging Wasp into a slow walk. Shock, followed by a sense of doom, consumed him. There was no way out now—not if she understood what had happened. He couldn't plead ignorance, not now.

Nora continued to stare at him, "Are you concerned I won't accept you?"

"You don't know me. Why should you accept me?"

She shrugged, rubbing her thumb over the label on the bottle. "The same could be said of me."

He moved Wasp off the road, pulling her to a stop. "That doesn't worry you?"

"Should it?"

'Yes,' he wanted to shout. If anything, Nora should be running as far away from him as possible without delay. Putting her on the next train out of Buffalo Gulch was what he should do, but the very idea of her settling down with any man except himself caused him to choke on a roar of fury, aching to be released.

"Tell me then, Gunnar...what kind of man are you?"

He couldn't tear his gaze away, unable to hide the emotions that held him captive when she shivered and wrapped her arms around his waist. Was it the chill in the air or what she saw in him that was the cause? It was almost possible to hear Ulric whispering in his ear, 'If you repulsed her, she wouldn't be pressing closer, you dolt.'

Lifting a hand to her face, he whispered, "You want to know what sort of man I am?" His fingers lightly brushed over the path of her scar, following it from where it began at the corner of her mouth to where it ended at her right temple. "I'm not a good man, Nora..."

Her eyes closed on a sigh. "You must have forgotten I have seen what sort of man you are, and I know you to be good and honorable."

"How can you be so certain?" He wanted to believe her, but he alone knew the darkness within his soul and cried for release daily. Gunnar brushed wisps of hair away from her face, tucking them behind her ear, and then cupped the back of her head.

Several minutes passed by in silence. Twice Gunnar attempted to settle his arms at her waist and resume their travels toward the inn, and twice he failed. She leaned into each caress of his hand against her skin, reminding him of a contented kitten.

"Because, my dear Mr. Tumbleweed, I know what evil looks like—and it's not you."

His stomach flipped, and the world spun crazily around him. How had he forgotten what Nora told him on the train? "You're the daughter of a Berserker."