Med Student in Vikingland

The Mara King Blindi advanced, lord of nightmares and death. His sandcloud black skin made of grit and blood swirled like an omen of death.

"Eric Weyland, you are the last Ulfhednar. How does it feel, you weak, impotent thrall?" Blindi – my greatest enemy – growled through gnashing teeth.

My werewolf bones grinded, and I sunk my teeth into the Mara King's neck.

The look on his bastard face? Priceless.

Blindi's blood burned. I sucked his poison in – if I, Jarl Eric Weyland, last of the Weyland Alphas, was to die, then let it be a righteous death for Lord Wotan! Up to Valhalla with me, down to Nastrond the River of Knives with the evil Blindi.

"How do I feel? Good to have killed you," I howled, my talons piercing his heart.

Blindi cried out, reforming obsidian limbs into daggers.

All four limbs pierced me like sickles. I coughed up blood as his poison worked its way into me.

Deathlight flashed – Lady Hela, Goddess Half-Rotted, called to my soul, and in a burst of green Helafire, an Eastern maiden appeared, fair of flesh – it was a Volva sorceress from far beyond the Silk Road.

"What in Helheim?" I growled, the blast of green deathfire leaking from the Eastern maiden's palms. Her almond eyes were like black pearls – but her scent?

A luna.

Through my battle fury and berserker possession, I clawed my way through fields of my slain pack mates and mara alike, death on my tongue, as my mate – miraculously appeared out of thin air – directed her green helafire at the Nightmare King.

"No, you foul witch! You will rue the day you thwarted Blindi of the Iron Woods," Blindi growled, and he withdrew with his forces back to the Iron Woods with a portal, summoning the last of his strength. They poured like black smoke through, then the blasted portal sealed shut.

My luna screamed, crying blood. Tattoos outlining her bones in black and green ink were carved along her limbs, and she was dressed in the strangest clothes I had ever seen – pants, on a woman?

I had to laugh as I coughed up mara poison and wolfbane blood, the blue of my royal Weyland Alpha line.

But fuck, I was horny. A dying man, with this sexy as hell Eastern maiden, having appeared as my guardian Valkyrie.

"Where the hell am I? What the fuck just happened? I was touching a Norse display sword at the Viking Exhibit in the Smithsonian, and… and… I'm in VIKINGLAND?" she cried in an alluring alto, her helafire illuminating her in green ghoulish paint.

"Girl, calm down. And come with me. This battlefield is Vigridr – the End Times. We are not safe here." I grabbed my axe, shifting back into my human form, twenty bones broken, limbs misshapen, but the shifting healed me a bit through the grace of Father Mani, God of the Moon.

The strange, erotic woman had hair like a black waterfall. The nyxen silk cut me to the bone.

I fixed my armor and took my wooden shield, painted with Fenris the Wolf, and hauled ass, grabbing her and throwing her over my shoulders with less grace than I would have wanted for my luna.

"Um, who the fuck do you think you are? Did I pass out and get blasted into a cultivation webnovel?" the strange girl – a Volva for sure – said bitterly. "Wait, I'm speaking Old Norse!"

I chuckled. "You're strange, my future bride."

She gawped. "Bride? Hello? I must have fainted during anatomy class. I can never stand those formaldehyde fumes. That's it, Hana Kim, you're in the loony bin."

I snarled. "Hana Kim. Now that's a pretty name. I hope our children look like you."

She punched me in the gut. I doubled over.

"Whoever the fuck you think you are, Mr Tall Dark and Hairy – why would I even entertain the idea of kissing you? I just gassed some kind of Slenderman thing into another dimension with green energy juice!" She looked down at the bone markings of Hela Half-Rotted on her arm. "This must be some bad dream. I'll wake up, in the med student lounge at Georgetown, and it all will have been bad kimchi mom made. Sometimes, her kimchi is off…"

"I like you. Hana Kim, let's haul it away." I cradled her in my arms this time, noticing her runner's body, like a shieldmaiden, small pert breasts under a cream soft shirt and strange, tight beaten blue fabric pants over her legs. They felt earthy, a strange weave.

"Stop carrying me, doughboy!"

I took my axe Biflindi and carved a Raidho rune, the Riding Rune, into the air with wolf magick. It opened a portal away from the howling snowfield of Iceland, Vigridr, and I shuffled my wounded self through, back to my horse Fenlich and my sorry excuse for a home.

The shock settled in. My luna had magically saved me. And she was from another world.

She smelled like jasmine and roses, with musk and sweat, she was godtouched – and plucked from another timeline entirely.

"What's a doughboy?"

"Rough, eager, handsy new Marines. Fuck you, wolfface. Shit, did I get drugged? Was it soju?"

She groaned as I placed her on a wolfskin blanket in my cabin. She shivered.

"You cold, Helfrieda?"

She shivered, lips blue, her bone markings weaving shadows on her golden skin. Her lips were stained violet, and I wanted to kiss them – my cock stood erect under my trousers and chainmaille – but this was no time for forcing myself upon a godtouched Volva.

"Yes," Hana murmured. She was motivated by spite and incredulity.

She'd do well here.

"I'll explain as much as I can to you, Miss Hana Kim," I sighed, taking my helmet off and placing Biflindi on the wall. Glass buoys hung from the ceiling, plucked from the fjords on one of my hunts, and Skadhinavia shone with fresh white powder. A blessing from Ondurdis Ski Goddess, that's for sure.

"Okay, fuck, does this happen often?" Hana asked as I started a fire with some tinder and matches.

"Norse gods plucking talented maidens from Norse swords? Only if you touch a runestone. Wherever you came from, the dormant magick inside you told Hela you were hers."

Ms. Hana Kim, the damsel of a luna, flexed her sizable biceps – sizable for a lady, that is. "So this is like Skyrim."

"Sure. How does elk for dinner sound?"

She raised an eyebrow, smiling. "You know what, wolfface?" She snapped her fingers, green Helafire showing. "Med school was boring anyways. Let's say you show me the ropes, and make me dinner. You got any beer?"

"Short on beer on the moment. Raspberry mead will do?"

Misery makes strange bedfellows, Wotan always said, quoting his own poet centuries from now.

Hana smiled. "Alright, friend. Let's talk."