Page 70 of Fenrir

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Grace knewwhat Fenrir was asking. He wanted to know what she wanted. She stared at him for a moment. Her mate. His enormous eight-foot frame towered over her father and brothers. How had she not realized why Fenrir called himself a monster sooner? Fenrir wasn’t a shifter. He wasn’t a wolf. He was a god. A wolf god. A werewolf. And though his dark black fur covered his enlarged frame, she would have known him in a sea of other werewolves. Her Fenrir. Her mate. Staring at his hardpacked, muscular body, she finally understood why she was meant for him. Why he was her destiny. A destiny that her father and brothers wanted to rob them both of.

Grace looked at her two remaining brothers and her father. What did she want? She wanted them dead. All of them. She wanted their bones to litter the ground of her packlands as a reminder of what happened when people betrayed those they were supposed to love most. As a testament to every shifter everywhere that Fenrir, the god of the wolves, was a god to be feared and respected. That she, his mate, would not tolerate betrayal. But… that wasn’t who she was, and it wasn’t what Fenrir wanted.

She blew out a harsh breath. However, making them live the rest of their lives without the ability to shift was worse than death. Making them live like humans. Not allowing them to live or associate with any pack for the rest of their lives.

On the other hand, if she let them live, her father would never stop trying to get at her and her mother. Her remaining two brothers, however…

Grace’s gaze connected with Fenrir’s. She stood and strode forward. Looking at her father, she outstretched her hand.

“From this day forward, I will not look for you. I will neither dream of you nor think of you in any way. You will die in my memories, and I will move forward to live a long, well-loved life. You, however, will think of me every day. Every hour. Every minute. Because from this day forward, you will never shift again. You will be shunned from every pack and shifter you encounter. You will be branded a traitor to our race. You will be a blight on the shifter world and are hereby condemned to living the rest of your life as a human.”

Her father roared and lunged at Grace, but Fenrir caught him by the throat and lifted him off his feet.

“Do it,” her father growled. “Kill me. Kill me now, or I will find her and kill her with my bare hands.”

Fenrir’s claws squeezed into her father’s throat and yanked his close. “If you come for her, I won’t just kill you I will make you suffer. I will give you to my sister Hel and in her realm, I can spend thousands of years making you pay. Pay in ways you never imagined you could suffer. And I don’t just mean physical pain. I will break your mind in ways you didn’t know were possible. And then I will leave you for a day, a year, ten, you won’t know. All you will know is that little by little, you will begin to heal. And then, just when you start to think it’s over and that I’ve forgotten you, I will come back, and we will begin all over again. Over and over and over forever.”

Grace swallowed hard. She did not doubt that Fenrir meant it. She saw a glimmer of actual fear in her father’s eyes for the first time.

Grace touched Fenrir’s warm arm and nodded to him. Fenrir set her father back on his feet, but instead of letting go of him, Fenrir lengthened one talon and dug into her father’s chest. He sliced easily through her father’s shirt and gouged deep into his skin, flaying it open.

Graced watched as Fenrir carved the letter F into her father’s torso and then tossed him to the ground.

“Just in case you need a reminder of who I am.”

Her father clutched his chest as rivulets of blood streamed down his body.

Grace looked at her brothers. “Go,” she said. “Go and spread the word of what happened here. Be sure to keep your distance from our father because I’m sure you don’t want my mate to have to hunt you down.”

The brothers looked at each other and nodded before turning to leave.

“However,” Grace said, making them turn back. “If you ever find yourselves truly remorseful for what you tried to do, you may come to me, and I will reverse my compulsion.”

Surprise crossed their faces, and then they turned and walked off into the trees.

Loki stepped forward, grabbed her father by the collar, and dragged him the opposite direction.

“I think my son did a pretty good job of telling you what he would do to you if you came for Grace; now it’s my turn to enlighten you as to what I, Loki, god of mischief, will do if you come after my new daughter in law Grace, or my son, Fenrir.”

Grace watched them go until Loki’s words trailed off. “Does your dad always have to have the last word?”

Fenrir snorted. “Always.”

She nodded and looked up into Fenrir’s face. She spotted several small holes in his thigh, and she spread the fur apart to look at them.

Fenrir gripped her wrist. “Don’t.”

“Don’t what?” She didn’t understand.

He turned his head away. “Don’t… look at my beast.”

“Beast?” She turned his chin, forcing him to look at her. Her gut clenched, and she took a deep breath. She stepped away from him and focused on her spirit self. Grace closed her eyes as her transformation took over. Her legs elongated, and her arms. The nails on her hand thickened and curled. Fur sprouted all over her body, and her teeth lengthened past her chin. The entire thing took less than a minute, but she kept her eyes closed nonetheless. One person. Only one person had ever seen her in her spirit form.

Her heart hammered in her chest, and slowly, she opened her eyes and looked at Fenrir.

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