Wregen #3
I crave her, he tells me, his tone sharp. Bleed the weasssssel if you must. I care not.
Useless fucking bastard, I mutter, nudging him again. I’ll be gods-damned if I’m going to do this alone. He dragged me to Helheim to sate his need for sacrifice. He’ll help me satisfy mine. Join me.
I will not, he responds before shutting our connection, pushing me out of his psyche.
“What the fuck is wrong with that prick?” I bark, the rumble in my gut turning into a storm. Stiffening my leg to keep it from bouncing, I drag my hands through my hair and suck in a deep breath, and then another.
This is enough, I insist, my voice so fucking pathetic it sends a cringe down my spine.
We’re going back to Helheim. Our mate will never forgive us when she learns all we’ve done, how much we’ve lied to her.
We’ll never again get what we need from her.
This is all we’ll have. It will sate our hunger in that unholy place. It has to.
But Wrath doesn’t respond, the obstinate fuck. And in that moment—like the flick of a whip—my desperation turns to fury.
I gave up everything for him, and now he demands the one thing we can never have. She won’t submit to us, and we’d hate her if she did. Only a female strong enough to resist our fiendish obsession is worthy of it.
This must be enough.
“Your clothes,” I mutter, flicking a wrist at him. My rage is a living, breathing thing now, and I need the weasel naked. I don’t know yet where I’ll take my due, and I won’t have anything between my blade and his flesh.
“But, master, you promised Finaan…”
“I did not,” I yell as I close the distance between us. “But even if I did, I don’t give one single fuck what I promised her. She refuses me. I can’t get what I need from her. You’re a sad substitute, but you’re here and I intend to take what belongs to me.”
The coward still doesn’t move, his head low to avoid my gaze. “I … please, master. I’m not ready.”
Something inside me snaps, a tree succumbing to a hurricane, and I wrap my hands around his quivering throat. A tremble rolls through me when his throat bobs beneath my thumbs, and I lift him above my head.
“Have I ever cared what you want? What you need?” I murmur, holding his gaze so he can see my fury.
He gives his head a single jerky shake—probably all he can do while I hold him in my grip—and mouths the no I demand.
“Why would you presume that’s changed?”
Again, his head twitches from one side to the other.
So I drop him. He has one more chance. His death is so close, I can almost taste it. Which pisses me off even more, because that lazy bastard sleeping in my gut should be here to enjoy it with me.
The weasel scrambles up as soon he hits the floor, and he’s naked within seconds.
Fucking finally. I don’t have a whip, but that’s never stopped me.
I glance around, letting my gaze dance from one stone to another in search of the perfect weapon.
A grin lifts my lips when I find it. The sharp edge will serve the weasel and me well.
Striding over, I retrieve a jagged rock from the ground and run my thumb along it. A prickle of pain erupts beneath the skin, and my smile grows. I return to the peon and tug open his lips, giving him my blood to suck.
The rush that should accompany his obedience—that burst of pleasure that always fills me when I twist another being to my will—doesn’t come.
My cock is as flaccid in my pants as the day I was born, completely uninterested in the release the weasel’s pain will give us.
A pang of disappointment flickers through me, and my beast’s refusal to participate in our games shoves its way into my thoughts.
This is his. I’ve always done it for him.
But it’s for me too, I remind myself. And I sure as fuck won’t give it up.
“Give me your back,” I mutter, focusing on the anger I felt when I saw the words in Balin’s folder, finally accepting my fate.
And then Wrath rejected me and the weasel challenged me.
Fanning that flame, feeding on it to drive me, I take my weapon, rest it at the bottom of his neck, and drag it oh-so-slowly down his spine.
Blood trickles out, dribbling across and down his back in the most mesmerizing pattern I’ve seen in a very long time.
Transfixed, the evidence of my wrath written across his flesh, I reach out and run two fingers through the canvas his flesh offers.
“What the fuck do you think you’re doing?” Finaan demands, her brittle voice spearing through me.
My beast and erection rise together, drawing a groan from the deepest recesses of my broken soul. Desire shoves aside the rage, a flick of a switch turning one need into the other.
We won’t have her in Helheim, but we’re not there. She doesn’t yet know what we’ve done.
Spinning, I smile at my mate as I reach my bloody hand down, shove it into my pants, and stroke the cock that came alive when she returned to us.
“Foreplay, my skjaldmaer,” I purr, rubbing my thumb along the tip that’s already dripping with my precum. “To prepare me for you. And you are just in time.”