Page 2 of Fenrir
Tears flowed from Grace’s eyes. “Please don’t send me away yet,” Grace whispered. “Please, Mom.”
Tears flooded Fay’s eyes, but the gold in her gaze blazed brighter.
Grace hugged her mom tight, remembering the wonderful times they’d shared. Learning to love reading. Learning to make wild berry jam from scratch. How to raise bees. How to hunt and run with the pack - even though she was never allowed to shift with them. Her love of old western movies. Nights looking up at the stars and talking about the stories of the Moon Goddess. Helping the pack. Playing with the pups. All of it. A beautiful life. A privileged life. And now it was ending. She was being sent away. Fay said it was for her own safety. Her destiny. But what destiny? And who was she being kept safe from?
Fay let go and pulled her hands away. “Go, Moon Child. Live your life. Find happiness. Live well.”
Grace opened her mouth to speak, but no words came out.
The door behind them opened, and Old Robin walked in. Though a good twenty years older than her mother, Robin had always been her mother’s best friend.
“Take her,” Fay said.
Robin strode forward and lifted Grace to her feet. For only being five foot two and no more than a hundred pounds, Robin retained the strength of a wolf in their youth.
“Come,” said Robin. “It’s time.”
“But-” There was so much more Grace wanted to say, but she didn’t get the chance. Instead, Robin ushered her out the door. Grabbed the two packed suitcases and nudged Grace to the back door with them.
Robin plopped the bags in the backseat of an old muscle car and opened the driver’s side door for Grace.
Grace looked back at the log cabin she’d grown up in.
Robin pulled her into a hug and then bent Grace’s head to kiss it. “It has been an honor to know you, Goddess child.”
Grace blinked. No one had ever called her that before besides her mom. She hadn’t even known Fay had told Robin. She’d made Grace swear not to tell anyone.
“Live well.” Robin pulled a piece of paper from her pocket and pushed it into Grace’s hand before helping Grace into the driver’s seat, putting her seatbelt on her, and then closing the door.
“Go,” said Robin. “Love and live.”
Grace stared at Robin wanting nothing more than to run back in the cabin to her mother. But she turned the car on instead. The engine roared to life, and she looked to the dirt drive heading away from the house. The road that would take her out of her woods. Out of her town. Out of her state. And into the unknown. She looked at the piece of paper in her hand, which read three words.
The Raven Weaver.
CHAPTER2
Fenrir satin the dark front room waiting. It was what he’d been doing for the last three hours. Waiting. Just waiting. Minutes ticked by, and he continued to stay in the plush gray seat, staring straight at the front door. The clock on the mantle struck midnight, and he knew it wouldn’t be much longer.
The faint sound of voices and music trickled out of the bedroom down the hallway, and the light barely reached the small foyer just ten yards from where he waited. Wouldn’t have mattered if it was pitch in the apartment; his wolf senses would have been able to see the front door anyway. Not to mention hearing the footsteps as they approached and the scent of anyone within a hundred yards of the door. That’s what came from being the werewolf god, he supposed. Not that he’d ever appreciated his baser instincts and talents. Honestly, they’d never brought him anything but misery and pain, but this was his life, and he was used to it, even if he didn’t enjoy it.
For thousands of years, he’d been treated as little more than a beast. A tool to be used. By his father, by Odin, and by the Guardians. And those who didn’t use him despised him. Only his sister Hel and, more recently, his father Loki, had taken to trying and helping him see there was more to himself than just the beast. Even so, they, too, weren’t exempt from calling on him when they needed dirty work done. Especially his dad. And even they had never looked at him without fear. No one had. No one except his baby sister Freyette, but she didn’t count yet. And it almost broke him knowing that someday he would look at him like that. That there would come a day when she would grow scared of him for one reason or another.
As a child, he’d tried to get people to stop looking at him like he was a monster. But even if they said they didn’t fear him, the stench clung to them. The scent of burnt chocolate. Bitter and wrong. There was no hiding the fear. Never had been. He’d always been able to see it in people’s faces. Hear it in their voices. And smell it on their skin.
Over the years, those things had gotten lighter on those who had known him longest, but it hadn’t gone away completely. But tonight, he was going to enjoy that smell. Revel in that acrid burnt smell.
A car pulled up to the building, and Fenrir’s beast perked up.
Sports car. A BMW, maybe, but more likely a Porsche.
He waited as someone closed the car door softly as if trying not to be heard. He sniffed the air. Finally, his prey had arrived.
Fenrir relaxed back into his seat. A minute passed, and another. The hallway floor creaked as someone approached the door.
Metal scraped metal, and then the front door lock clicked slowly open. Fenrir’s beast paced inside its cage, wanting to be let loose.
Don’t worry. I’ll let you have your fun if he doesn’t behave.