Blaidd
In the palm of my hand, I held leaders, members of the monarchy, and various law enforcement bodies—but never had I felt such deep-rooted satisfaction with a new acquisition.
She was a missing person who would never be recovered, no matter how much noise her family made. I owned the police force.
Look at her now. You feared her, I scoffed at Fenrir.
The door was absent, and she hadn’t stepped a foot toward it—not even out of curiosity. I’d waited all morning and knew she must be hungry.
She is contained—for now, he said, watching her on the screen.
I grunted.
She was the one wearing our scent now.
I chuckled and stood up to get her breakfast. I enjoyed her subservient gaze lingering at my feet.
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She sat on my side of the bed, staring into space. No one alive knew what I was. I’d give her time to adapt and get over her shock. All these years, I’d used women on their knees, facing away from me, so they wouldn’t see my knot. I didn’t need to hide a thing from her—not now.
The presence of her scent made my knot swell, which was nothing new—but now, I could anticipate.
Fenrir stirred. He liked the thought. We both did.
She’d seen him, and he’d allowed her to live. I frowned. And for some reason, he’d offered her our prey.
He remained silent.
I cleared my throat, and she jerked, her head snapping around. She quickly looked away again.
I snagged the armchair and dragged it towards her. The slow scrape of wood against wood made her posture rigid by the time I tipped the chair upright. I sat in front of her, but she didn’t look up.
I glanced past her braids to the tangled mass of curls. Her hair was dull, not as I remembered it on the night of her awards. The irony was that I had her products sitting in my bedroom.
Her Glow.
“You’ll bathe twice a day, morning and night,” I murmured. “I’ll leave some toiletries in the hallway.”
She glanced up, raising her eyes—cautious and concerned.
I handed her the plate, and she looked down before taking it from me. I sat there and watched as she finished every last morsel, trying to keep her hand steady.
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I rapidly tapped my fingers against my leg as she rose and stepped towards the door. The moment she froze, I knew she recognised her own packaged produce. She fell to her knees and ripped open the first brown box.
So fucking tragic.
I began to chuckle when she held the bottles in her hands and sobbed like a fucking child.
I timed it, eight minutes of tears before she dragged both boxes from the doorway into the room. She carefully placed the bottles into the open box and lifted them up. She carried them like a hearse to the bed and sat there going through the merchandise.
It took her twenty-three minutes to drag her sorry ass to the bathroom.
I closed the laptop.
Exhilarated.
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I double-checked the handle to ensure it was secure before I strode toward the boathouse. Each day, her body grew stronger, but her fear never wavered. She remained in her room and followed my instructions. Every night, I lay beside her, gradually losing the battle against her scent.
No one dared ask what had happened to the guard. His body was wrapped in a tarp on my boat, ready to be tossed into the sea. I needed to dispose of him before the stench seeped from the cabin.
I nodded to the guard as I climbed aboard. He made to follow, and I raised my hand.
He stopped at the dock and returned the nod.
The corpse was locked away below deck, weighted down. I didn’t know his name, but I was grateful for his sacrifice. I hadn’t realised until now what a burden it was to keep Fenrir anonymous.
The engine hummed to life as I waited for the guard to untie the boat. I hauled up the anchor and pushed the lever until the boat lurched forward. I remained standing, allowing the cool sea mist to coat my face.
Fenrir joined me as we sailed out. He wanted to savour the scent of his kill the same way I did each time I entered her bedroom.
The sea was calm for now, but the farther I sailed, the darker the clouds grew in the distance. We bobbed on the ocean, recalibrating our strategy. Fenrir might not wholly approve of my methods, but he most definitely wanted a taste of Lielit Tolera—the first female he’d ever taken an interest in.
It was laughable that he had once convinced me she could have been a powerful enemy, when she broke at the first glimpse of Fenrir’s true face. Our true nature.
It took mere seconds to dispatch the guard, and as Caer Virel Island came into view, our eyes settled on the estate.
I would bet my entire fortune that she hadn’t stepped a single foot out of her bedroom.
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Our heartbeat pulsed harder as I opened the laptop.
The brisk walk and the journey into open sea hit like a punch to the gut—a reminder of the elements and the raw nature surrounding us.
Away from the noise and pollution of the city.
Away from the games played to ruin others, using them as stepping stones toward greatness.
She paced the length of her room, occasionally going to the bathroom or to the window. The restlessness was delicious to observe. It felt like payback since I caught her scent at the awards ceremony.
Every day I’d leave her my used shirt, and every day she'd wear it. Today, it was white, and it looked fine on her. The contrast of her smooth, bare legs below and the crown of her hair above made Fenrir rumble in our chest.
In all the time we were out at sea, and even though I locked her in the house, she never wandered towards the gaping doorway outside of her cage.
It was time to take what we were owed.
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That night, I sat in the armchair, waiting for her to finish bathing and emerge from the bathroom. I could smell the floral, herbal, and spice notes of Her Glow, but none of them could mask Lielit’s true scent.
That infuriating scent that made every other woman smell like horseshit.
I clenched my jaw until my molars ground together.
It was Friday.
I glanced at the clock. Almost nine p.m.
I waited.
It wasn’t long before the door opened, a billow of steam spilling out ahead of her. She paused when she saw me—the disruption of our routine throwing her off balance. She stood there like a broken doll, head bowed.
Waiting.
“Come over here.”
There was only a brief hesitation before she obeyed.
I dug my fingers into the armrest, anchoring myself, stopping the instinct to reach out and touch that smooth, tempting skin. Instead, I drew in a slow, deliberate breath. For once, I wasn’t fighting her scent—only cataloguing it, noting the layers, the care she took.
“Remove my shirt and bend over the bed,” I said, ignoring the sharp snap of her head lifting.
When she didn’t move, I extended my hand, fingers spread, then slowly clenched and unclenched them. I traced the hem of my shirt with deliberate slowness.
Only then did she step back—turning to obey.
I reached for my gloves and snapped them on, one by one, taking quiet satisfaction in the way she jolted at the sound.
Fenrir hummed in approval at the sight of her—already bent, already still.
She wasn’t a woman I paid.
Not a scent I merely tolerated.
She was the only one who had seen what I was and remained where I put her. The only one who didn’t flee—not because she couldn’t, but because she didn’t dare.
That obedience awakened something I’d never needed before.
Something I had no intention of denying.
A dangerous convergence.
A rare one.
And entirely mine.