Viking Claimed (Hardcover) Book 4

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Prologue

The Triad System

“Aki… you aren’t even trying.”
Aki looked across the room at his twin brother, Einarr. “Trying to what?”
“Learn.”
Aki shoved back his chair and rose to his feet. “Because it doesn’t interest me.” He gazed longingly out of the window into the darkness of the strange planet he now inhabited. “I want to be outside. I want to go home.”
Behind him his brother sighed in a way that had begun to infuriate Aki greatly.
“There is no home, you know that.”
Aki swung around, his braided blond hair catching his cheek. “How do you know? We could be bewitched. The Gods could be lying to us.”
“For what purpose?” Einarr stretched out his long legs and tried to look relaxed, but Aki wasn’t fooled. “You have seen the pictures. The Earth is completely changed beyond our wildest dreams.”
“It could be a lie.”
“Again I ask you why would anyone want to lie to us? We defrosted four thousand years too late. We should be grateful that these people have welcomed us into their world and are trying to help us even when you are being so pigheaded.”
“I am not being pigheaded.” Aki glared at his twin. “But then I am not the fool who thinks he’s found his mate and wants all this to be true.”
Einarr rose slowly to his feet, his blue eyes narrowed. “Are you questioning my honor, brother?”
Aki reached forward and poked Einarr’s broad chest. “You won’t even fight with me anymore. Your female has your cock in a stranglehold.”
Einarr’s gaze went stony. “My female is thousands of miles away on a different planet.”
Aki pushed him again, making him rock back on his heels. “Is that why you are in such a foul mood?”
“At least I have a reason.” Einarr shoved him back. “You, on the other hand, are just contrary. Halfviti!”
“Kukalabbi!” With a growl Aki launched himself at his brother. To his surprise, his challenge was met and accepted, and within seconds they were rolling around on the floor, desks and chairs and equipment falling around them as they tried to choke and punch the other into inglorious surrender.
An alarm blared somewhere, and Aki was pulled off his brother by two of the security team that accompanied them everywhere. Einarr looked up at him, his mouth bloody.
“As I said, you are a fool, a halfwit. The longer you take to complete this task, the longer we have to stay here on this Mitan moon. I want to go to Pavlovan.”
Aki tried to shrug off Brown and Ilker, the two men who held his arms tightly behind his back. “You can get a female here.”
The sound Einarr made was almost inhuman as he struggled against the guards. “I want my female. If you do not care who or what you fuck, Aki, stay here. I swear to the Gods that I will finish the tasks assigned to me and leave you behind.” He glanced up at his guards. “You can let me go now. I will not touch him. I am done with him.”
“Release him,” Brown, the head of security spoke up.
Einarr stood, and after one last glare at Aki, walked out, slamming the door behind him.
Brown sighed as he surveyed the wrecked room. “Ross, keep an eye on Einarr and get someone here to clean up again.” He dropped his hold on Aki’s right arm. “And you’d better get a grip. Did you just call your twin a scumbag?” Brown tapped his earpiece. “That’s the closest translation I could get. What the frak was that all about?”
“My brother is a lovesick fool.”
“Your brother has completed his onworld training and is about to leave you here and go to another planet. Is that what you want?”
Aki shook off the second guard and swiped at his face. His nose appeared to be bleeding and two of his teeth felt loose. Experimentally, he cracked his jaw and winced.
“I want to go home.”
“You won’t be going anywhere if you don’t pass Reintegration 101,” Brown stated. “Our scientists would love that.”
“What do you mean?” Aki turned to survey the chief of security who wasn’t known for his sweetness of tongue or his inability to pull a punch.
“If you don’t get with the program, FREN will be suggesting you aren’t capable of dealing with your new world and need to be closely watched by our scientists. You think you’re in a cage now, mate, you wait until you see what they do to you.”
Aki kicked a chair. “This ‘work’ you expect me to do makes no sense. It does not test me. I already know who and what I am. I am a warrior.”
“You can be a warrior in the bloody Pavlovan army if you want, but you’ve still got to pass the tests.”
“Brown, you bore me.”
“Just trying to get the idea through your four-thousand-year-old thick skull.” Brown headed for the door. “There are always wars to fight, Viking, you will still be needed, but—”
“First I have to pass the stupid tests,” Aki finished for him.
“Do you want to go to the infirmary and get your jaw checked out?”
“It is fine.”
Brown sighed. “Bloody stubborn Viking idiot.”
Aki picked up one of the chairs and set it in front of the table with the white screen on it. He sat down and the screen came to life. The thought of any scientists getting near him and treating him like a worthless dog was enough to help him concentrate.
The voice in the box started speaking and for the first time, Aki sighed and paid attention.