Free Edge of Control: (Viking Dystopian Romance) by Megan Crane Page A

terrible rage. Eiryn thought the whole of the raiding party might have been holding their collective breath.
    She made herself exhale.
    “You can find another bodyguard easily enough,” she replied, ignoring all the alarms going off inside of her, shouting at her to appease him, and now. To ingratiate herself. To do whatever she had to do to gain his favor and trust again, before it was too late.
    Eiryn had been doing that for too long. Much too long. It had occurred to her in the moments before she’d opened her mouth that she’d been doing it her entire life. What if she didn’t want to bend and kneel and reshape herself to suit someone else, for a change? What if she was tired of thinking of her own shit last? What if she didn’t have it in her to serve her king or her father or her clan with quite so much single-minded, breathless devotion any longer?
    But if thinking such things was dangerous, saying them was treason. A repudiation of the vows she’d taken and had inked deep into her skin, and a deep insult to every man around this fire who wore the same sigil stamped over his heart. At the very best, it was disrespectful.
    Unless, of course, she volunteered herself for a job that would give her a little breathing room without directly challenging her king or risking her place in the clan.
    She’d had no choice but to jump in, mouth first, the moment she’d seen the opportunity.
    “I like the bodyguard I have,” Wulf said, sounding almost idle. Though Eiryn knew it was a test. It was always a test. “Most of the time.”
    Eiryn didn’t make the mistake of imagining he was anything like idle, because he never was. He was the most dangerous predator she’d ever encountered. But she shrugged, as if this was a negotiation. She was aware that all the brothers were watching this interchange closely. And if Riordan had felt it was necessary to jump all over her in the woods, it was more than likely that every single one of them was equally aware that she’d been a little less on the mark lately than she should have been. That was impetus enough to take a step back, even if it involved dealing with Riordan in a way that she would likely hate. That couldn’t matter. She couldn’t let it sway her. He was a necessary evil, nothing more.
    What she needed was space. Distance from all of this crap.
    From the way Gunnar scowled at her as if he knew her when he’d spent the better part of her life locked up in the Lodge basement with his machines or his first, crazy mate, and spent more time with his collection of pit wolves than with her. From the condemning way Tyr watched her every move, as if he was waiting for the excuse to take her out, which was regrettably fair enough after she’d spent so many years openly plotting his death. From the dangerous line she’d been walking this whole last month, treating her king like the half-blood brother she was pissed at instead of what he was: the head of her clan who she was lucky to serve.
    This can’t go on,
Wulf had told her up there on that cliff.
You need to choose.
    Oh, I have choices?
she’d asked. Unwisely. Maybe the smoke had gotten into her head. Or maybe she’d truly lost her mind at last.
That’s a shocker.
    Wulf’s stance had changed almost imperceptibly, as if he’d considered knocking her to the ground the way he would have if she’d been anyone else who dared speak to him so disrespectfully. It had sent a bright, hot slice of something a little too close to fear straight through her. A welcome, almost too late reminder that this wasn’t a game.
    Wulf was the raider king, not some bitch she could mouth off to without repercussions. And she’d already spent a month not quite doing her duty, pushing back at every opportunity, and in all ways acting like a stupid little shit who she herself would have wanted to teach a lesson a few months back.
    What the hell was she doing? Where did she think this would end?
    Choose,
Wulf had said again, through his