Bride of Grendel 2: Night of the Bear Man: A Viking Lore Erotic Tale (Viking Lore Erotic Tales Book 3) Read Online Free Page A

on avoiding Grendel and making her plans. She bedded down in a small, secure room that was close to the main hall. She wanted quick access to the exit, and she hoped that she would be able to hear when Grendel returned. She kept her sword unsheathed by her side. And then she fell asleep.
     
                  Exhaustion made Sigrun sleep deeply, but at some point in the middle of the night, she was jolted awake. The cobwebs of sleep cleared quickly enough, blasted away by an awful bloodcurdling noise, but she struggled to understand what she was hearing.
                  She finally realized that it was howling. A terrible howling sound coming from the hall, a sound of pure pain and anguish, that made her hair stand on end. Was it Grendel? What had happened to him? She stood up. She hesitated. Grendel was dangerous. Could it be a trick? Or was he hurt? Or was he angry? Was it something else?
                  The howl was growing weaker. What if someone needed her help? She regretted that she had not already changed into her dragonskin attire. It would have afforded her more protection. With her skirts pulled up in one hand and her sword held in the other, she slipped from the room and moved cautiously toward the hall.
                  She stopped in the shadow of the doorframe, afraid to walk into any surprises. The howling had died down into eerie silence. She couldn't see anyone from here. She could see the pool and the puddles of wetness from someone's recent emergence. The wet spots were dark, though. Very dark. And there was a great deal of wetness. It did not look like water. It looked like something else.
                  Sigrun shuddered. It looked like blood. And more of it than Grendel had ever brought back on him before. There was a trail of it leading toward the hearth, but from her vantage she could not see where it ended. Part of her wanted to slink away, to creep quietly back to her room. But this hall was her exit. She would have to come back through here if she wanted to leave. There was nothing to be done about it. She took a deep breath and stepped into the hall, sword raised. 
                  First making sure that Grendel was not lying in wait for her on either side of the doorway, she turned her attention to the hearth. The gruesome sight that met her eyes made her grip fail and sent her sword clattering to the floor.
                  Grendel sat slumped against the wall in a pool of his own blood. She gasped and choked back a sob. Grendel, so impervious to any and all weapons ever used against him, seemed entirely unwounded, not a bruise or a scratch on him, with the sole, ghastly exception that one of his arms was completely gone. It looked like it had been pulled from the socket. Blood continued to seep from the hole, and Sigrun shuddered at the thought of how far Grendel must have come, bleeding so profusely from such an injury. This was not the doing of the sea dragons. No beasts in the woods could have hurt him so. No, this must have happened at Heorot.
                  She must stop the bleeding. She grabbed up her blade and thrust it into the fire. The flames flared up white and green and silver at the touch of the sword, but she barely noticed. She needed to heat the metal to cauterize the wound. Grendel's breath was shallow, rasping. He had not even lifted his head at her approach. She straddled him, pressing her arm against his chest to try to hold him still. It would be excruciating when he felt the burn of the hot steel.
                  "Grendel." She felt tears sliding down her cheeks. "Grendel, my sweet, I must help you, I must stop the bleeding." His flesh hissed when she applied the blade, and the acrid smell of burnt hair and seared skin and blood stung her nostrils and made her stomach turn, but she continued until she had sealed the wound. He howled again with pain, but she did not need