Valhalla Virus by Nick Harrow (best management books of all time TXT) 📕

A fever chewed its way into his brain and made a nest there, shredding his thoughts with burning claws. He’d curled up in the bathtub and turned the shower on full blast in a vain attempt to force his temperature down with cold water.

Then the screaming had started. Frantic cries for help clawed their way into his suite, followed by animalistic bellows and the shrieks of the mortally wounded. Bogdan had dragged his sorry ass to the window and watched as Vegas burned.

“Beautiful, isn’t it?” the burning woman asked as she appeared from the shadows, her reflection smirking at Bogdan in the mirror.

Smoke swirled around her long, lean frame, but it couldn’t hide the fiery fissures that split her skin or her terrifying, alien beauty. A rack of antlers rose from her brow to gouge furrows in the ceiling, and her feet left charred outlines on the plush carpeting.

“Who the fuck are you?” Bogdan whirled to face her, sure she’d vanish, just one more hallucination from the depths of his fever-addled brain.

“Hyrrokkin,” she answered, licking her lips as if to savor every syllable.

She didn’t stop until she was nearly on top of Bogdan. Her smoky aura enveloped him; the burning tips of her breasts scorched his chest. Her left hand fell on his shoulder and held him fast, while her right traced a line down the center of his naked chest. She cupped his balls, rolling them on her palm, the heat of her skin and her terrifying presence drawing beads of sweat from Bogdan’s body.

“What do you want?” he asked, his voice shaking. His mind insisted she couldn’t be real even as his prick stiffened and jerked to attention.

“You,” she said with a leering smile.

She lowered her face, sniffing at him, her antlers scraping along the glass of the window behind him with an ear-piercing screech. Her tongue lashed out, licking the sweat from his forehead and eyelids. Smoke rolled out from between her teeth to envelop him. She shifted her hand, long, hot fingers curling around his member, squeezing until his breath caught in his throat.

Bogdan shuddered. He was afraid to move, afraid to even breathe. He wanted her to leave. But he also wanted her, no matter how much it would cost him.

“That’s my good boy,” Hyrrokkin purred, her smoky breath choking Bogdan. “You want to bury that little cock in me. You want to suckle the sweet milk of chaos. You can. But you have to do something for me first.”

She seized Bogdan’s jaw and pulled him to her breast, finger and thumb digging into his cheeks, forcing his mouth open. Her nipple, hot as fresh coffee, grazed his lips.

“Be mine, Bogdan,” she moaned. “Give up your useless, pathetic life. Cast off this weak little boy’s form and become a man. Let me change you, Bogdan. Let me make you a monster.”

A drop of something salty and sweet splashed onto Bogdan’s tongue, and he saw two paths open before him. One was hard and long, a difficult journey that could end in pain and death at any time. He saw himself shivering on that road, pink and naked, afraid of the beasts that howled in the shadows.

In the other, though, he was the thing in the darkness. He saw the world cast in the warm red glow of raging fires and knew that he had been the one to set it alight. On that road, Bogdan was no longer afraid.

And that was more than enough for him.

“Yes,” he pleaded, his lips closing around the hot nub of Hyrrokkin’s flesh. He drank from her, sucking down a flood of scorching milk, heedless of the blisters it raised on his tongue, the channels of fire it carved down his throat.

“That’s right, little monster,” Hyrrokkin moaned. She pushed Bogdan down and crouched over him, the slick sleeve of her sex engulfing his dick, squeezing around him like an iron vise. Her hand held his head to her chest, spurting the milk of chaos into his mouth in a burning flood.

The burning woman pounded against Bogdan, her hips breaking his bones, the nails of her free hand tearing his flesh. She molded him in a cauldron of lust and hatred, filled him from one end and drained him from the other. She cursed and cajoled him, terrified and enchanted him. Bogdan was sure he died a dozen times, only to emerge from the fires of Hyrrokkin’s lust stronger and angrier.

Finally, she stood, sizzling milk leaking from her tits, Bogdan’s juices leaking down her thighs in sticky streams. “Sleep, little monster,” she whispered as she stood. “But not too long. You have work to do.”

As she walked away, Bogdan tried to crawl after her. But his unfamiliar new body wouldn’t listen to his mind’s commands. “Wait,” he croaked. “What do I do now?”

Hyrrokkin didn’t even look over her shoulder. “Be a monster, Bogie. Prove yourself to me. Gather the others like you, my jötnar. Take the city for me.”

She vanished, leaving behind a thick, swirling cloud of wood smoke. Bogie wept for her to return until sleep claimed him.

He woke a few hours later to the smell of smoke and the sound of screams. Once that would have terrified him.

But, for the first time in his life, Bogie found he wasn’t afraid. He left the hotel and walked into the madness, reveling in the chaos that swirled around him. The streets were filled with bloody fights that left corpses piled in the gutters.

He embraced the insanity. He gave in to every base impulse and desire, tore through the weaklings who dared to cross his path. Bogie watched in awe as the bodies of the dead split open like rotting fruit. Things emerged from the dead, beasts covered in gore and slime, horns and claws bursting from their blue flesh.

Once Bogie would have run shrieking in terror from those monsters. But he didn’t have any room for fear in his heart. Not anymore.

Because Hyrrokkin had changed him. He was one of the