Page 41 of Fenrir

Loki sat his hand on Fenrir’s shoulder. “Okay. Slow down. Take a breath. What happened exactly?”

Fenrir couldn’t believe he was about to discuss the most humiliating moment of his life with his father, which happened to involve the first time he’d ever had sex. His father. King of bedding women.

Fenrir stared at the floor. “We went to her room and started kissing. And she took off her shirt. And I started to kiss her-”

Loki waved his hand. “I get the idea. Get to the part where you hurt her. What did you do exactly? Did you bite her? Did your wolf take over? Were you too rough?”

Fenrir shook his head. “I tried to be gentle. I tried to go slow, but it didn’t work. She’s just so small. So soft. So much more fragile than I had expected. She was beautiful and exquisite, and I…”

“Ok, so when did she start crying? Did she tell you to stop?”

“No. She didn’t want me to stop. She said it would be fine. That the blood was normal. But… it couldn’t have been. I saw her tears. I know I hurt her.”

Loki wrapped an arm around Fenrir’s shoulders. “Ahhhh… got it. Grace was a virgin.”

“We both were.” The words came out before Fenrir realized what he’d said.

“Wait, what?”

Humiliation rained down on him like acid as he looked at Loki and nodded.

“Come on,” said Loki. “Let’s get out of this room and have a drink.”

Loki led him into the kitchen, where they sat at the small table, and Loki produced two shot glasses and a bottle of whiskey. He poured a small drink for himself but poured the glass full for Fenrir. Fenrir drank it, and Loki immediately poured him a second, which Fenrir also downed.

Loki finally sat across from Fenrir. “Okay. Fen. You’re over a thousand years old, and you’re telling me that you’ve never had sex. Not once?”

“There was no one I ever felt like wanting to be with. Besides, it’s kind of hard to be turned on by someone whose very scent betrays the fact that they are, in truth, utterly terrified of you.”

Loki blew out a breath, and his eye clouded with emotion. “Fen, I… I had no idea.” His voice steeled. “I should have. I should have tried to do more. To help you more. I am so very sorry, Son.”

The emotion in Loki’s voice was so strong that it chipped away at the walls of anger and resentment Fenrir had built against his father.

“Okay. Well. You are definitely too old for the birds and the bees talk. And it is obviously too late for it as well. You know about sex. What you may not know is that human women, even demigod women, have a sort of barrier inside them, and when they have sex for the first time, it breaks. Sometimes there is pain. Sometimes there’s blood. Grace wasn’t lying to you. It was natural.”

“I don’t want it to happen again. I don’t want to hurt her. But I want her so badly. She’s my one. My mate. I can feel it. These last two days without her have been an agony I’ve never known. Not even when chained to the rock.” Fenrir looked at his whiskey glass. Damn. The stuff had loosened his tongue more than he’d anticipated.

Loki nodded. “Grace is considerably smaller than you, but there are things you can do to help her relax. There won’t be pain from that stupid barrier anymore. That’s gone. But you are considerably larger than she is, so you’ll need to help her loosen up a bit.”

“Can you tell me what to do?”

Loki smiled and poured Fenrir another drink. “I can do better.” He conjured a book out of thin air and placed it on the table before Fenrir. “I can show you pictures.”

Fenrir staredat the door of Odin’s place and blew out a breath. He could do this. He needed to do this. Maybe going to see Grace at her place of work wasn’t the best idea, but he thought showing up on the doorstep of two vampires and a werewolf might actually be potentially more dangerous to his health than trying to approach her in public.

He pulled open the door and allowed the scents of the bar to wash over him before scanning for Grace. He didn’t see her, and his gut clenched. He headed to the bar, and the bartender walked over.

“What can I get you?”

“Uh… I’m looking for a waitress. Her name is Grace.”

He nodded. “She’s working a private party in the back tonight.”

“Which room?”

“The purple room.”

Fenrir nodded and headed for the back.

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