Blaidd
This run wasn’t Fenrir’s usual route.
We normally kept to the countryside—open fields, woodland, places where the earth could absorb us. Tonight, he angled toward the city.
I felt it immediately.
Since it was his time, I didn’t interfere. I never did. But as we tore through back alleys, vaulted low fences, cut across manicured gardens and darkened lanes, I knew exactly where we were headed.
He was following her scent.
What are you doing? I hissed, pressing against him, trying to slow the drive coiling through our muscles.
Fenrir ignored me. He cleared another fence with brutal ease, landing hard enough to rattle the ground beneath us.
In another few weeks, we’ll have her on her knees.
He skidded to a halt, claws biting into soil as he lifted his head and inhaled.
Vetiver. Jasmine.
Then the deeper notes bled through—herbs, resin, something warm and alive beneath it all. Not perfume. Something woven into her skin.
Fenrir growled, low and vibrating through our chest. I felt the tension in him then—the anger he’d kept leashed all week tightening like a wire pulled too far.
Too slow, he snarled, surging forward again. She needs to be taken care of. I won’t be trapped or beaten again.
There it was.
Not hunger.
Not dominance.
Fear.
Ancient and buried—dragged to the surface in violent flashes.
And what are you going to do? I shot back, forcing myself into his mind. Burst through her door? Eat her entire family and then her?
He didn’t answer.
He ran harder.
The city blurred around us—brick, metal, glass—until at last he slowed, crouching low at the edge of a garden wall. Lights glowed softly ahead. Human voices drifted through an open window.
Her territory.
Fenrir didn’t cross it.
He paced instead—restless, furious—circling the boundary like a caged thing.
She is protected, he said at last. Not by walls. By blood.
I drew the air through him, tasting it properly now. The scent wasn’t only biology. It threaded through her blood itself.
We can kill her, I suggested. I couldn’t allow Fenrir to become feral.
He growled, his pacing breaking into jagged, erratic loops.
Not yet. There is something—wrong inside her.
He was curious about her.
Perhaps we both wanted to see her monster.
Fenrir had his past to contend with.
Locked away. Bound in darkness.
Me?
I wanted to see what kind of monster someone like her was hiding.
His paws clawed at the boundary of her property, gouging faint marks into the earth. The fear ebbed as he warmed to my thoughts, excitement replacing it in a slow, electric surge.
Our gaze remained fixed on the soft glow spilling from her bedroom window.
A fissure of anticipation split through us.
Humans were simple. Dull. Predictable.
This anomaly peeled back the boredom—and exposed something hungry beneath it.
?
?
?
In our human form, we could hide in plain sight. We’d observed them at the restaurant on the night of her birthday—watched, waited—but left when her scent turned volatile, unmanageable.
Since then, the rage had festered. She’d made us impotent to human women.
So I released it the only way that made sense—by disrupting her life, the way she’d disrupted mine.
Her company. Her family.
Yet she didn’t crumble. Didn’t break down and weep like grown men often did when pressure closed in. She absorbed every blow, every calculated slight, and continued forward.
She persisted.
She endured.
And that, more than anything else, made me want to own her.
To make her dance to my tune—like the rest.
Are you ready to play, Lielit?
?
?
?
The guard opened the door and I stepped into the restaurant.
Sound hit first—layers of it. Laughter. Murmured conversations. Business conducted over linen and wine. Glasses clinked. Cutlery scraped against porcelain. People eating, drinking, living—utterly unaware.
We moved through the room without slowing. Past the ma?tre d’. Past tables filled with people who didn’t matter.
We stopped at hers.
I glanced at the man seated beside her—the representative from Grant Wessing LLP. His shoulders stiffened the moment he recognised me.
“Mr Prothero,” he said nervously, fingers tightening around his water glass.
“Leave,” I said.
Lielit gasped.
I didn’t look at her.
The man shuffled out of his seat, not sparing Lielit a glance as he hurried from the restaurant.
I waited until the guard cleared his place setting.
“Fetch me my usual,” I drawled, taking a seat.
When I finally looked at the woman sitting opposite me, I relaxed.
She wasn’t frightened.
Oh, no.
She was livid.
Fenrir stretched within me.
Good. Fear was boring.
“Is the IPO launch not going so well, Ms Tolera?” I asked as my man set my drink down.
“Who are you?” she snapped.
That irked me, but I didn’t let it show.
“Blaidd Prothero,” I said—but when she gave me a blank look, my jaw clenched tight.
Today, her curls sat messy and wild around her face—a sharp contradiction to the professional black suit she wore.
Then again, I was a monster in a suit. Her full lips were perfectly formed, possibly the most sensationally curved and pouted I’d ever seen.
The financial records confirmed they were natural.
Those high, proud cheekbones would look better crushed between my foot and the floor.
I almost licked my lips—but caught myself just in time.
Instead, I placed my finger into her plate and dragged it through the food until the white porcelain shone, separating the juices from the beef. I licked my finger, watching as the horror finally settled in.
The spice. The herbs. The lingering taste of meat.
It wasn’t a substitute for her. It was that bow-lipped mouth I wanted to maul.
I held out my hand, and my guard placed a napkin into my palm.
“Delicious,” I rumbled, just as Fenrir hummed his approval.
She watched me wipe my finger, and I felt her heartbeat spike—lips parting, dark brown eyes nearly turning black. Her back straightened, and any vestige of surprise or fear vanished.
Pure, unadulterated deviousness radiated from her. An insolent half-smile curved her lips.
“You seem hungry,” she purred, pushing her leftover food toward me.
This wasn’t a version of her that existed on paper—or anywhere in the data I possessed.
Her gaze slid over my suit, paused at my Rolex, lingered on my cufflinks, then my hand.
That’s right. Recognise my wealth and power, you filthy animal.
“What can I do for you, Mr Plothero?” she asked, glancing down at her nails.
Not nonchalant.
Bored.
Of me.
I commanded goddamn boardrooms with a single glance.
“Prothero,” I bit out, lifting my glass.
Don't let her scent get to you, Fenrir warned—as if I hadn’t been reciting that mantra all morning.
I watched the moment my name landed. Recognition flickered, and her eyes snapped to mine.
The game had only just begun.