Warrior Untamed Read Free

hide his grin.
    Bridget locked her jaw to keep from swearing aloud and strode back to the wagon to climb inside.
    Patience, her father had always counseled. She wished to the Seven that she possessed even some small measure of that elusive virtue, but it just wasn’t a part of who she was. Determination was what kept her going.
    For now, her path was to return to Castle MacGahan. Perhaps her brother would be there by the time she arrived.
    Things would be different when Jamesy came home. Together, they could set out to track the sword themselves. They would find it, and they would put an end to both Torquil MacDowylt and whatever creature lived inside him. Revenge for her father’s murder would be hers.
    And as for Halldor O’Donar?
    Turning to look over her shoulder, she cast one last glare in his direction. As she’d promised, she wouldn’t forget this latest slight, his sending her away for a second time as if she were some fragile maid in need of his protection.
    By the Seven, he was the most arrogant creature she’d ever met. But she’d show him. She’d track him and find him, and when she did, she’d give him a piece of her mind.
    “What’s got that silly smile upon yer face?” Eleyne asked, her fingers twitching at the blanket covering her lap.
    “I’m no smiling,” Brie denied, carefully wiping all expression from her face.
    And even if she had been, it was only the thought of getting even with O’Donar that made her smile. Certainly not the prospect of meeting up with him again.

T wo
    F INGERS SPLAYED, THE hand reached out to cover the meat in front of him. With little effort, the fingers closed around the morsel and efficiently brought it to his mouth.
    This body, this vessel that had become Fenrir’s new abode, was becoming his now, responding to his thoughts as if he had been born in this form.
    A pity this casing was so weak and vulnerable.
    Fenrir bit into the hot mutton and shivered, longing for the banquet tables of old in his home world. He longed for raw meat that dripped warm blood, fresh from the kill, rather than this pale, tasteless cooked fare that these creatures insisted on consuming.
    Those days, like his original form, were long gone. But if he had his way, they wouldn’t be gone forever.
    He was Torquil MacDowylt now. Laird of the MacDowylts of the North. And in this guise, he would soon rule all he set his sights upon. Nothing in this world could stop him.
    At least, not once he regained possession of those treasures that were rightfully his.
    What little appetite he had for the tasteless swill in front of him disappeared completely at the thought of his missing treasures, and he tossed the overcooked meat back onto the table.
    With the scrolls gone, it was as if a large chunk of him were gone as well. The most powerful of his ancient spells had been locked inside those pages when Odin had bidden the Elves of Niflheim to imprison him. And now, finally, after more time than he could gauge had passed, now that he once again had hands to hold those scrolls, they were gone!
    The scrolls and the jewels that were the keys to unlocking his Magic from its prison. The scrolls and the jewels that were the means to imprison him again. Gone. Taken by some pathetic, putrid little human.
    And the sword!
    He forced himself to breathe, drawing air into the pitifully small lungs this body afforded him.
    The Sword of the Ancients could not remain adrift. Steel forged in the fires of Asgard, honed on the bones of the warriors filling Valhalla, this was a weapon he must possess. This was a weapon, the only weapon, he feared. It alone had the power to steal his freedom. The power to end his life.
    Not just the life of this pathetic body he inhabited, but his, Fenrir’s, very existence. It had been created for that purpose.
    The legs of his chair scraped loudly across thestone floor as he pushed away from the table to stand, fury beating in his chest. Around him, the insignificant mortals who assumed