The Fighter (Men of the North Book 9) Read online

  Books in this series

  DEDICATION

  PROLOGUE

  The Academy

  CHAPTER 1

  Station 7, District 3

  CHAPTER 2

  Best Friends

  CHAPTER 3

  Keeping in Shape

  CHAPTER 4

  Clues

  CHAPTER 5

  Erika’s Puzzle

  Action

  CHAPTER 7

  Treasure Hunting

  CHAPTER 8

  Dina’s Diaries

  CHAPTER 9

  Leo’s Type

  CHAPTER 10

  Confronting Erika

  CHAPTER 11

  The Break-In

  CHAPTER 12

  Fishing

  CHAPTER 13

  Scam

  CHAPTER 14

  Apology

  CHAPTER 15

  Overview

  CHAPTER 16

  Answers

  CHAPTER 17

  One on One

  CHAPTER 18

  Sparring with the Ruler

  CHAPTER 19

  Magni’s Concerns

  CHAPTER 20

  Mortenstown

  CHAPTER 21

  In the Hospital

  CHAPTER 22

  Recovery

  CHAPTER 23

  Unexpected

  CHAPTER 24

  A Pair of Mittens

  CHAPTER 25

  Big Mouth

  CHAPTER 24

  Dina’s Death

  CHAPTER 25

  Reaction

  CHAPTER 26

  Sex in a Drone

  CHAPTER 27

  Family Dinner

  Epilogue

  Winter Wedding

  Copyright © 2019

  By Elin Peer

  All rights reserved.

  No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the author, excepting brief quotations embodied in articles and reviews.

  Asin:B07KHTPMWB

  The Fighter – Men of the North #9

  First Edition

  The characters and events portrayed in this book are fictitious. Any similarity to real persons or organizations is coincidental and not intended by the author. Recommended for mature readers due to adult content.

  Cover Art by Kellie Dennis: bookcoverbydesign.co.uk

  Editing: www.martinohearn.com

  Books in this series

  For the best reading experience and to avoid spoilers this is the recommended order to read The Men of the north in.

  The Protector – Men of the North #1

  The Ruler – Men of the North #2

  The Mentor – Men of the North #3

  The Seducer – Men of the North #4

  The Warrior – Men of the North #5

  The Genius – Men of the North #6

  The Dancer – Men of the North #7

  The Athlete – Men of the North # 8

  The Fighter – Men of the North # 9

  The Pacifist – Men of the North #10

  To be alerted for new book releases, sign up to my list and receive a free e-book as a welcome gift. www.elinpeer.com

  PLEASE NOTE

  This book is intended for mature readers only, as it contains a few graphic scenes and some inappropriate language.

  All characters are fictional and any likeness to a living person or organization is coincidental.

  DEDICATION

  To the ones who go first.

  Pioneers are often considered crazy until they prove that the so-called impossible was in fact, possible.

  Never let yourself be limited by what others failed to do. Maybe they would have succeeded if they were you.

  Elin

  PROLOGUE

  The Academy

  Raven

  My legs were shaking from exhaustion and my jaw was shivering from the ice-cold water. All around me, bigger and stronger recruits were struggling, too.

  Half an hour ago, we had been asleep. Our bodies were burned out from days of endless torturous stress, tests, and severe sleep deprivation. The desperation in the eyes of the men around me reflected how I felt myself. It had been quarter to midnight when we were allowed to go to bed. Fifty-three minutes later, the nightmare had begun again when they woke us up with loud sirens. Ninety-seven of us were left from the original two hundred and fifty recruits that had been given the chance to try out for a spot at the academy. Now we were facing the last test, which was simple in nature. We had to get out of the lake and press through the chain of faceless men standing in front of us. If we didn’t secure one of the fifty red sticks in the box that the masked men were guarding, we would be packing our bags and leaving the academy. Only the fifty strongest recruits got to stay.

  I am getting one of those sticks!

  As the only woman, I wasn’t just fighting for myself but for any woman who dreamed of becoming a police officer. This was my chance to prove that we had what it took. Three times I’d made it onto the shore already. Each time, the chain of masked men had pushed and thrown me back in the water.

  It was October, past midnight, and at least forty of the red sticks had been taken by now. The desperation in me and the other recruits still in the water was tangible. Screams, growls, and roars filled the air as the men getting pushed off the shore landed on other recruits that sunk deeper into the muddy, cold water.

  Come on, Raven, get out of the water, now!

  “What are you weaklings waiting for? No one is forcing you to do this. Just give up and we’ll take you inside to get a warm shower and some sleep. Doesn’t that sound nice? The police force doesn’t need you. We only need the strongest, and that’s clearly not you,” one of the men on the shore shouted in one of his constant attacks on our psyche. “Is this really worth dying for? You know you’ll either drown or die of hypothermia if you don’t make it out of that water fast.”

  The sound of the faceless men laughing triggered me. I was dying after only ten days at the police academy, and they thought it was funny. I wanted to punch them in their faces and make them suffer as much as I was suffering.

  More frozen recruits clawed their way onto the shore only to get into desperate fights with the masked men on the shore.

  When one of the recruits tore off a mask from the man he’d been fighting, I saw the rage on the now un-masked man. He shouted, “You fucking asshole” at the recruit, who triumphantly held up the red stick he had secured.

  “Get him a blanket,” someone else shouted and pointed the victorious recruit to a large tent.

  “Only nine more sticks left and fifty-two of you are still in the water. Why don’t you join the four who gave up? They’re in the warm tent sipping hot cocoa now. There’s no shame in quitting when you’re simply not good enough. You always knew that only twenty percent make it through the initial two hell weeks, and you didn’t really think you would be one of them, did you? Why go through all that trouble and pain when you might as well quit now?”

  I blocked him out. I hadn’t suffered through the other thirteen days of physical and mental torture to give up now. Think, Raven, think!

  “We have to work together,” I called out to the three large recruits closest to me. Like me they were smeared in mud from failed attempts at getting through the chain of men on the shore, and their jaws were shivering. “We have to pick the weakest link and go at him together. It’s the only way.”

  “Stay away from me,” one of them hissed, while another pushed past me muttering, “You shouldn’t be here anyway.”

  “You two, follow me,” the largest of them ordered and the three of them moved to the side, forming an alliance and ta
rgeting the smallest guy on the flank of the shore.

  I couldn’t feel my toes, my teeth were chattering, and seeing them go ahead with my plan without me made me furious.

  Don’t get mad, get even. How many times had my dad told me that? Assess, plan, attack.

  My teeth were chattering even worse as I looked around, searching for an alternate route to the box with sticks, but the instructor had specifically told us the only way was through the defenders. “We have fenced in the area around you. Don’t make the mistake of trying to dig your way under the fence. Trust me, each year we find dead students who ran out of oxygen or got tangled up in the fence and died that way.”

  But what if he had been lying? What if I could find a hole in the fence?

  With the three recruits attracting attention on the shore, I moved backward and out of the light from the projectors that were shining down on us recruits in the water. It was counterintuitive to lower my body further into the ice-cold water when all I wanted was to get out, but after taking three deep inhalations, I dived and swam to get away from the masked men standing guard on the shore.

  My lungs were hurting and every muscle in my body screamed for oxygen. I kept my eyes closed to protect them from the muddy water and counted on my sense of direction to pull this off.

  Every second I was expecting to touch a net of some kind. Where is it? Am I going in the right direction? Come on, just a little longer.

  Feeling like I was about to pass out, I had no choice but to break the surface in a greedy gasp for air. It was hard not to laugh with relief when I saw that the shore was only a few feet away. There was no net to keep us in. It had all been a bunch of bullshit. It felt like a mile to the shore when I forced my tired legs and arms to do a few more swimming strokes to get there.

  Come on, Raven! Hurry or there will be no more red sticks left. Get your ass out of the water. Do it, do it, do it!

  I was pumping myself up while listening to the men shouting and fighting further down the shore.

  As I crawled out of the water, my white t-shirt and pajama pants weighed a ton. Even with the large spots of mud on the fabric, the white color still worked against me and so did the squeaky sound my wet shoes were making. Without hesitating, I stripped down to my black sports bra and panties before running barefoot to where the masked men were protecting the red sticks. My brown skin worked to camouflage me in the darkness.

  I ducked down behind a bush to assess the situation. The wide human chain of what I assumed were all second and third-year cadets were doing to us newcomers what had probably once been done to them. They all had their backs to me, focused on keeping the other recruits in the water and protecting the box with red sticks that stood between them and me.

  Getting to the box would be a short sprint from where I was hiding, but I would have to get past the large man standing close to it. To fight off a man his size would be hard on a good day, and I was wet, cold, and weak. I shifted position as my feet were sinking deeper into the cold mud.

  “What are you fuckers waiting for? There’s only one stick left,” the instructor shouted again. “I knew you didn’t have it in you the moment I saw you losers. I can smell a bunch of failures when I see them.”

  Don’t listen to him. My only failure would be to give up. I'm not giving up! I was just about to make a run for it, but then a fight broke out between some of the masked men closest to me.

  “I fucking told you to keep an eye on her. Where is she?” The man talking pulled his mask off and pushed at two other men with a low growl of aggression. I recognized him as another of our instructors.

  “I swear, she was there a few minutes ago.” Another man my age pulled his mask off, pointing to the water.

  “Just fucking find her!”

  When the two younger men followed the instructor out into the lake, others on the shore began shouting questions.

  “What’s happening?”

  “The woman. She fucking drowned or something…”

  “What?” The rusty voice of the headmaster of the academy had been calm when he welcomed us new recruits two weeks ago; now his tone was furious. “You fools better fucking find her or I’ll drown every one of you myself.”

  More of the men walked into the water and it created holes in the long human barrier, giving wet recruits the chance to push their way through. They were all running for the box with the last red stick in it.

  That stick is mine!

  That thought made me sprint ahead to beat the four other recruits running for the box. But my sprint was no sprint at all. My frozen feet and weak legs made my movements uncoordinated and slow.

  Nooo! My mind was screaming for me to get there first, but two of the male recruits were moving much faster than me and there was no way I would get to that box before they did. Trying to go faster made me slip on the muddy ground and I fell flat on my back.

  It’s over! I knew it and my eyes closed, waiting to hear the howl of victory from the last recruit to pick up a stick.

  But the howl I heard was one of pain and it made me lift my head and look up. The large masked protector of the box was fighting with everything he had.

  As if a puppet master controlled my body, I got up and zoomed in on the box. The ten running steps felt like a trip around the world, but I reached the box at the same time as one of the male recruits and both of us threw ourselves onto it to get the stick. My hands were on it first, but he ripped it from me.

  “Yeees…” he screamed and raised the red stick in the air. And then he sunk to his knees, his face scrunched up in agonizing pain as his hands went to his crotch and the stick fell to the ground.

  “It’s mine!” I picked it up and took a step back, not feeling the least bit bad about kicking him so hard. Raising the stick high above me and giving an ear-splitting whistle, I called out to the headmaster in the water. “Are you looking for me?”

  Everyone turned in my direction

  “Raven.” The headmaster’s immediate expression of relief was quickly gone when he saw the stick in my hand. The way his eyes widened in complete disbelief was almost comical, and then his mouth opened and his fist slammed down in the water as he spewed a long string of profanities.

  No one offered me a blanket or hot cocoa. All I received were hateful glances from the forty-seven recruits who hadn’t made it and would be going home. As the men around me pulled off their masks, their curses matched the headmaster’s as he came out of the water to stand in front of me.

  “Who let you through?”

  “No one did.”

  “Then how did you get that?” He pointed to the stick in my hand.

  Raising an eyebrow, I spoke in a flat tone. “I dug my way under your fence.”

  He was shaking like me, but I couldn’t tell if it was from the cold or from anger. Stepping closer with his jaws tensed up, the headmaster hissed low. “Go home, woman! There’s no fucking way I’m letting you make a joke of this fine academy. You won’t get through the training so you might as well give that stick to someone who is worthy.”

  “You mean someone who is male?”

  His upper lip lifted in an expression of disgust. “Yes, and get some goddamn clothes on. You’re practically naked.”

  My fingers squeezed around the stick like I was expecting him to tear it from my hands. “I earned this stick and I am staying!”

  We stared into each other’s eyes and I saw the moment he concluded we were done for tonight.

  “Pack up and get the recruits warmed up.” His order made all the men around us move into action. “You and I aren’t done. I’m going to make it my personal mission to make sure you don’t succeed in making a mockery out of my police force. I guarantee that you won’t have a mere two weeks in hell like others. You’ll have four years, unless you’re smart enough to give up before then. That is my promise to you.” As he moved past me, he shoved me with his shoulder and because my legs were already so weak it knocked me off balance and made me fall down.
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  No one helped me up.

  Sitting in the cold mud, I clung to the stick in my hand and muttered low under my breath, “And my promise is that I will never let you break me. I will never give up! When I leave here, it will be as the first woman police officer in the Northlands.” Planting my hands in the mud, I pushed myself up from the ground again but there was nothing left in me to give, and I’d only stumbled ten steps toward the school when I collapsed.

  I felt hands on my shoulders, and a voice calling my name, but I couldn’t open my eyes or respond. I was slipping away; the last thing I heard was “Bring her to the medic, she’s going into shock.”

  CHAPTER 1

  Station 7, District 3

  One year later

  Raven

  What if the first person to try something new had waited for someone else to do it first?

  What if no one had dared cross a mountain or sail a sea to see what was on the other side?

  The world needed pioneers and I was proud to be one of them.

  When I was eleven, my favorite teacher, Kya, brought me with her from the Motherlands to the mysterious Northlands, where I became one of twenty students at the first experimental school to mix children from each side of the border.

  For a pioneer like me, living in the Northlands was exciting and from the day I arrived, I wanted to do everything that the Nboys could do. That’s why when they ridiculed me and said that girls couldn’t fight, I would train harder. And when they made jokes about women being weak, I’d push myself to do more push-ups and run faster than any of them.

  What they didn’t understand was that I came from the Motherlands, where only women could rule. I knew what great things women were capable of and if I ever needed proof, Laura Aurelius was there to show me. Unlike me, Laura was born and raised in the Northlands, where women were protected and cared for by their fierce and strong men. But Laura wasn’t content watching the action as a bystander, so she ran away to the Motherlands and learned how to fight.