Page 61 of Fenrir

As the smell of smoke grew stronger, voices met her ears. She was about thirty yards away when the first male realized she was there. He turned and sniffed the air. He rose from where he sat on a log, dropping whatever he ate into the dirt. Quickly others rose as well. A dozen males, maybe more. Finally, the one who had first noticed her lifted his head and howled.

Tension hung thickly between her and the males, but it didn’t stop her from continuing forward. She stopped less than ten feet from them and waved.

“Hello.”

None of them moved a muscle.

Had they never seen a female before?

A minute passed, and Grace scanned the men. All of them looked her age or younger. When she sniffed the air, she caught their scents, and again, they seemed familiar.

The door to the house she’d grown up in opened, and a considerable figure shadowed the doorway. She stepped forward, but when all the males hit the dirt and bowed, she stopped.

The figure stood in the doorway, and a shiver ran up her spine as she felt his eyes on her. Suddenly they glowed golden from within the depth of his face, and she felt the demand of his alpha for her to bend her knee as well, but unlike all the others, his command did little more than sound like a suggestion.

“Father,” she finally said. “I heard you’ve been looking for me. I can’t tell you how happy-”

Within a heartbeat, he stood less than a foot from her, towering over her, his face expressionless, and his gaze looked neither kind nor welcoming.

Something was off. “Father-”

“Don’t call me that,” he commanded.

A chill swept through her.

Aldard had said he’d been looking for her. But suddenly, she wondered why.

“But… you are my father,” she said, confused.

“No. I am the man whose seed spawned you, nothing more. They are my children. My sons.” He motioned to the males around the fire.

Grace swallowed hard. That was it. The familiar scent. The feeling of belonging. They were her brothers. All of them. They all had a sliver of her father’s scent. Damn, he’d been busy when he’d abandoned them.

“Is that why you didn’t want me? Because I wasn’t born a male?” she asked.

His eyes narrowed, and he stared at her for a long minute. “I left because you should never have been born. What your mother did to get me to lay with her was… And Fay. My beautiful Fay. She betrayed me, and for what? For you?” He shook his head.

Grace tried to understand his words, but they didn’t make sense. “What do you mean what my mother did? You had an affair with my Goddess mother, and I was the result.”

Her father roared into the sky, but Grace didn’t flinch. “Had an affair. Is that what Fay told you?” He shook his head. “Fay and the Goddess tricked me. They made me think the Moon Goddess was Fay. She looked like her. Moved like her. Smelled like her. Everything about her was my Fay. But she wasn’t my Fay. She was your mother. Moon Goddess, my ass. The Bitch Goddess of Lies is what she is. And you are no better.”

His words were a slap to the face that had her head whirling. He hadn’t meant to sleep with her mother, the Goddess? Fay and her mother had tricked him? Her gut twisted so hard she felt she might vomit. She had no words. He’d been duped. More than tricked. He’d been violated. Tears rushed to Grace’s eyes.

He snorted. “Don’t waste your tears on me, abomination. Save them for yourself. You’re gonna need them.”

“If you don’t want me, why are you looking for me?” Her words barely came out a whisper.

Before she could move, he grabbed her and plunged a needle into her arm.

She jerked away and looked at where he’d stuck her. Inky blackness spread up her arm and down to her hand. Silver.

He whistled, and two large males grabbed her arms and pinned them behind her.

“What is this? What are you doing?” she demanded.

He moved close enough that their noses touched. “What I’ve waited for since you were dropped into my fated mate's arms, and she chose you over me. I will use you as bait to get your bitch mother to show herself. And then I’m going to kill you both.”

Grace struggled against her brothers. Not hard enough to get away, but just enough to assess their strength.

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