Page 17 of The Fanged One

"There are more?" Fenris asked, and she just laughed harder.

She drove on and rambled the rest of the way about the fae returning, then their legendary god uncles, the Greatdrakes, the battles with other gods, Arawan and Imogen, and how Gwyn ap Nudd liked to turn up whenever with the whole of the Wild Hunt. She was hoarse by the time she reached Elise, being so pregnant she could barely walk properly.

Shit, I really need to check how she is, Linnea thought, guilt twisting her stomach. Tor hadn't mentioned anything about Elise, but he was a guy and had been too concerned with the wolf god that had suddenly woken up.

Fenris took it all in with a steady silence, as if he were filing away names so he wouldn't forget.

"You have a great deal of family," he said, somewhere outside of Hamar.

"Too much to keep track of some days," she admitted.

"How many of them will try to fight me?"

Linnea thought about it. "At a minimum, I'd say four. They are all a bit overprotective."

"Only four? An easy day for me," Fenris replied with a nod, making her laugh again. He was an alpha, too, so really, she shouldn't be surprised.

The light was almost gone by the time they came down into Oslo proper. Fenris went tense and alert beside her, not relaxing until they pulled into Tor's underground parking garage.

"This is the building where we are staying. You aren't going to comment on Tor's boring décor because he thinks it's cool, and we have all agreed to let him believe that," she said, turning off the engine. "I stay with him a lot, so I'm going to shower, and we can head out to Ritual."

Fenris didn't like the elevator but didn't complain either. Really, he was taking in the modern world better than she would have in his place. In the hall outside of Tor's door, he inhaled, slowly, the way a wolf scented a new territory. His head turned a quarter inch toward Arne's apartment.

"The elves you're smelling? That's Arne and Alruna. Don't worry."

He nodded. "I see."

She opened the door to the apartment and tossed her keys in a bowl on a small side table. "I'm going to go shower and find something to wear that is club-appropriate. Tor's wardrobe is the second door on the left. He's huge, but you're huge too. See if anything fits."

"I don't need his clothes."

She paused at the hallway door. "You can't go naked. It would cause a riot."

"You misunderstand me." Fenris stood in the middle of the lounge room, and the air around his hands stirred. Pale blue-tinged smoke curled up between his fingers.

Linnea bit down a small gasp as his magic washed over her. She had felt gods use their power before, but this was something primal and raw and unpolished. There was a flicker of something in it that screamed of danger, like sharp fangs lightly scraping down her throat…

Oh, her wolf said.

Fuck, Linnea said, before she could stop herself. Her own magic was burning in her veins, responding like it wanted to reach out and touch his.

The magic rolled up and over Fenris's wide shoulders, and his clothes shifted to black jeans and a black button-up shirt.

He shook out his hands and began to roll up his sleeves. "Better?"

Linnea didn't trust what would come out of her mouth if she opened it. She nodded once, turned on her heel, and walked very quickly down the hall to her room. She shut the door behind her, pressed her forehead against the wood, and swore in three languages.

She had been worried about how Von would react, knowing that Fenris himself was in his club. Now she was more worried about what the entire club would do when he walked in looking like that.

I'll tear out their eyes if they look at him, her wolf declared. I'll rip at their throats and their soft, weak bellies and…

"Oh, shut up," Linnea muttered and headed for her bathroom.

10

Linnea looked at herself in the bathroom mirror and, knowing she had limited options, accepted that this was as good as she was going to look tonight.

Her hair was the problem. There was no time to wash it, blow it out, or do anything stylish with it, so she had brushed it through with dry shampoo, plaited it into thick honey-blonde ropes, and pinned them up in a messy braided crown.