Vikingr E-Book

Skye MacKinnon

• Herausgeber: Peryton Press
• Kategorie: Gesellschafts- und Liebesromane
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2024

Beschreibung

He’s an alien Viking. She has no intentions of being his captive.
Njal enjoys the life of a ruthless Vikingr captain: eat, drink and pillage to his heart's content. Then he and his crew of warriors get the worst possible news: their planet is destroyed. If their species is to survive, they must claim females to breed offspring. Luckily, scientists at the Intergalactic University discovered that women on a backwater planet called Earth are compatible. And what does a Vikingr do once he's found his mate? Right, he abducts her.

Steff is terrified of the huge blue alien who's kidnapped her. He's wild, loud, and has never heard of table manners. But is there pain and vulnerability behind his bluster? Perhaps she can help him and his men. Not by becoming his mate, no way. By adding them to the roster of her dating agency. Maybe he won't hold her hostage if she finds him another bride…

If you want hunky alien Vikings, strong women who don't like being told what to do, steamy romance and happily-ever-afters, dive into the world of the Starlight Vikings.

• Vikingr
• Berserkr
• Drengr

Part of the Intergalactic Dating Agency.

Other series in the Starlight Universe:

• Starlight Highlanders Mail Order Brides
• The Intergalactic Guide to Humans
• Starlight Monsters

Leseprobe

VIKINGR

STARLIGHT VIKINGS

BOOK 1

SKYE MACKINNON

Copyright © 2022 by Skye MacKinnon

Peryton Press, Helensburgh.

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Cover by The Book Brander.

Formatting by Peryton Press.

skyemackinnon.com

perytonpress.com

CONTENTS

Glossary

Author’s Note

Prologue

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Epilogue

Afterword

Intergalactic Dating Agency

The Starlight Universe

About the Author

Also By

To Mairibeth, who stopped me from going berserk

GLOSSARY

Albya – planet of the Albyans. Read the Starlight Highlanders series to find out more about these kilt-wearing aliens

Brullaup – wedding

Click – minute (30 Earth minutes are 20 intergalactic clicks)

Fýst – the uncontrollable desire between mates

Goði – the spiritual leader of the Vikingar; non-hereditary position elected by the gods

Hamingja – guardian spirit who decides one’s luck and happiness

Intergalactic Authority – space police/law makers

IGU – Intergalactic University

Jörð – home planet of the Vikingar

Kvenn/kvenna – wife/wives who aren’t soulmates

Quantnet – intergalactic internet

Rotation – one year

Skitr – shit

Valkyr – the spaceship captained by Njal the Bloodthirsty

Vikingar - plural of Vikingr

Vitskertr – idiot

Some of these terms have been ‘borrowed’ from Old Norse. Apologies to my Viking Studies tutors at the UHI - I bet you didn’t expect me to use my new knowledge for this sort of book.

AUTHOR’S NOTE

This book has been written by a Scottish author and therefore uses British English (less Z, more S).

Subscribe to Skye's newsletter and get a free book as a thank you:

skyemackinnon.com/newsletter

PROLOGUE

TWO YEARS AGO

Njal the Bloodthirsty

It had been a day like any other: we'd pillaged a spaceship, ransacked its hold and tied up the crew. Now we just had to wait for their ransom to be paid. They were a group of Kletorians, a weak species that preferred trade over warfare. They'd been idiots not to hire an armed escort in this part of the galaxy. Everyone knew this was our territory. The crew of the Valkyr was feared and admired, and I was proud to be their captain. 

I was in the middle of sorting through a large crate when I felt it. A deep pain, somewhere between my heart and stomach, so sharp it made me gasp. Tears sprang to my eyes as I clutched my chest. Similar gasps and cries echoed through the large cargo hold. My crew felt the same pain. That worried me more than just my own health. Had the Kletorians launched a biological weapon? They weren't affected. But their curious, startled looks told me that they weren't the cause. Hope blossomed on their orange faces. If this mysterious pain crippled us, they might have a chance to escape. 

I rose to my legs, fighting against the agony. My chest felt like it was about to explode. I'd never experienced anything like it. To my right, Rune was pale, his expression contorted. He was a berserkr, trained in the art of ignoring pain and injury. If he suffered as much as the rest of us, it was bad news.

Looking around the cargo hold, seeing my crew in pain, I didn't know what to do. I'd faced wars, pirates, and the Intergalactic Authority, but this was something I didn't know how to deal with. 

"Klav, run a scan," I groaned through locked teeth.

We didn't have a medical officer on the Valkyr, but Klav was the closest thing to it. He'd already pulled out his med scanner and directed it at me. I was about to tell him to scan himself or one of the crew, when another pain of agony crashed over me. My knees buckled. I reached out for something to hold on to, but it was too late. I collapsed to the cold metal floor. Blackness teetered at the edges of my mind. I couldn't lose consciousness. I was the captain; I had to protect them. Lead by example. I couldn't give in.

One of the Kletorians laughed. If I'd had the strength, I'd have pulled out my light axe and embedded it into his skull, but all my energy was focused on staying conscious.

"You're fine," Klav grunted, confusion and surprise warring in his hoarse voice. "The med scanner can't find anything wrong with you."

"Try it on yourself," I commanded. 

I watched as he ran the device over his chest, his abdomen, while his eyes turned wide. 

"Nothing. Not a-"

He yelled out in pain, his eyes clenching shut, his face a mask of agony. Around me, my crew groaned and whimpered; not sounds I'd ever heard them make before. We were Vikingar. We didn't whimper. 

My cheeks were wet. Tears of pain. That had only happened once before, when a Kardarian pirate had given me the scar on my back. The wound had been so deep that it was a miracle my spine hadn't been cut in half. I'd kept the scar as a reminder not to hesitate. I'd tried to show him mercy, he'd stabbed me in the back, literally. Never again. The only people I trusted were my crew. They were closer to me than my family had ever been. Seeing them in pain and unable to do anything about it was worse than the agony tearing me up from the inside.

My pendant vibrated against my chest. I'd turned off all notifications in preparation for the raid. Only an emergency message sent from the Vikingar High Command could breach the settings. 

A cold shiver ran down my back. This was no coincidence. For them to activate an emergency broadcast now, while we were incapacitated, meant it wasn't just us. This was bigger.

I curled my fingers around the pendant, letting it read my biological data to unlock the message. A hologram appeared in front of me. A shiver ran down my back when I recognised the male. The goði, the planet's spiritual chief. His face was covered in blood. A deep gash ran across his forehead, but he didn't seem to care that blood pouring from it.

"...lost...attack...late..."

His garbled message was hard to understand. I rubbed the pendant as if that could improve the strength of the transmission. 

The goði peered behind him and saw something that made him swirl around again, his bloody expression grave and filled with urgency. I knew this was a recording that had taken a while to reach us so far from our home planet, but it seemed as if he was staring right into my eyes.

"I'm sorry. If you can...no help...you..."

Another wave of pain threatened to overwhelm me. Drums pounded in my head, in my ears, drowning out the goði's words. But instinctively, I knew what he was saying. I'd felt it in my heart the moment the pain had started. I just didn't want to believe it. Couldn't believe it. 

"What's going on?" Errik shouted from across the hold, sounding like he was barely holding on. 

The hologram flickered, then turned more solid than it had been. The goði looked at me, blood freely dripping down his face.

"Jörð is lost. Everyone is dead. You're the only chance for our people to survive."

He turned around again, cried out in horror before the hologram dissolved. I stared at the spot on the floor where it had appeared, hoping in vain that the transmission might continue. That this wasn't the end.

It couldn't be true. It couldn't be. Our planet, our home...

But I felt it. Knew it. The pain was proof of it. I didn't know why or how it hurt so much, but this was the pain of a billion people crying out as they died. 

Jörð was gone. 

In time, I'd find out how. I'd discover who was responsible and get my revenge. 

But now, all I could do was weep. For my family. For my friends. For our home.

1

Steff

The agency was busier than usual. Three women were waiting in the lobby to be added to our database. The latest advertising spot featuring two Albyans in their kilts - and no shirt, obviously - had gone down a treat. We almost had too many ladies on our roster now. The Albyans could barely keep up.

Pam, my boss and the owner of the Hot Tatties dating agency, couldn't have been happier. She'd hired two more assistants in the past few months, which meant our premises were getting too small. We were bursting at the seams in our Glasgow office, which was why Pam was now planning on opening offices in Edinburgh and Aberdeen as well. Eventually, I knew she wanted to expand to England, but the Albyans preferred Scottish women and they were our main source of guys. For some reason, we didn't get a lot of human men signing up. They seemed to be content with old-fashioned dating, while women were keen to find the perfect match, even if that meant looking further afield. Of course, we didn't tell them they'd be sent to a different planet until they were on the space shuttle. 

So far, only a handful had opted to return to Earth. And one of them had come to me two weeks later, regretting her decision to leave Albya. 

Albya, the planet of the alien highlanders. I'd only been there once, but it had been the most amazing experience of my life. Jenny, the first woman we'd matched to an alien, had shown me around and introduced me to her new home. She'd been so happy with her mate, her luxurious villa and her baby. It was crazy to think it had all started only three years ago. And it was even crazier that I communicated with aliens every day, while the rest of humanity still thought we were alone in the universe. 

Yet there had been no alien for me. Two years ago, I'd secretly entered my details into our database, just in case there was a hot Albyan waiting for me. But I'd not got a match. By now, I was sure Pam knew, but she'd never mentioned it. And neither did I. 

Technically, I was happy being single. I was free and could do what I wanted. Nobody left the toilet seat up. I could go out and find myself a date whenever I wanted, no commitments, no questions asked. I had needs, like any woman. But after discovering that there was such a thing as soulmates, I couldn't see myself falling for anyone who wasn't my one true mate. Twice, I'd got close enough to a guy who seemed to have potential. Twice, I'd made them take the test under shady pretences, only to be disappointed. 

But my biological clock was ticking. I was turning thirty-three next month and if I wanted a family, I’d have to start soon, whether it was with an alien or a human.

My special phone rang, interrupting my thoughts. A jolt of excitement made me sit up straight. Even after three years, getting phone calls from outer space hadn't lost its novelty. 

"Hot Tatties Dating Agency, Steff speaking, how can I help?"

A crackle was the only response. Not unusual. The Albyans had provided us with top-notch alien technology, but Earth tech frequently interfered with it. We'd realised we couldn't have a microwave within fifty feet of the special phones. And whenever a human-made satellite passed close to one of the secret alien satellites, there'd be unpredictable effects like the phone ringing even though nobody was calling us. I'd got used to all the strange quirks of working with aliens. It was all part of the job description.

"Hello, can you hear me?" I asked loudly, enunciating every syllable. The special phones had an integrated translation function, but it sometimes had troubles with my Glaswegian accent. 

"Peritan dating?" a gravelly voice asked, sounding far away. 

For some strange reason, Earth was known as Peritus and humans were Peritans. It had taken a while for me to get used to the lingo, but now I sometimes caught myself talking about Peritans with people who had no idea that aliens even existed.

"Yes, Peritan dating. How can I help?"