Page 29 of The Fanged One

"You really heard me?" she asked.

"Yes. It was the only thing that came through my dreaming."

Linnea tugged at his hand. "Get up here. You're not sleeping on the floor ever again if I can help it."

She moved over, and Fenris climbed in beside her, his hand still holding onto her. He lay on his side to face her, and she was glad it was too dark for her to see him properly or she would've lost her nerve.

She kept her voice low, and the melody came up out of her chest the same way her magic did. Fenris's thumb stroked against her knuckles, and he sighed softly.

By the time she reached the long-held note in the middle of the song, his breathing had slowed and evened out.

Linnea kept singing, letting it trail down to nothing in her throat so the sudden silence wouldn't wake him. She shifted a little to pull the blanket over him, her other hand still clasped in his.

Linnea traced the scar on his wrist with her thumb all the way down to where she could feel his steady pulse.

The beat of his heart and the rise and fall of his breath eased the remaining adrenaline from the past few days. Her eyes drifted shut, the magic of the melody still humming in her bones, and she finally fell asleep.

15

Fenris slowly emerged from sleep before dawn. Linnea's sweet scent of cloudberries, hot magic, and female musk surrounded him and dug its claws in.

He had wrapped himself protectively around Linnea in the night without meaning to. His mouth was at the nape of her neck, an arm slung over her waist, and his thigh between hers.

His cock was uncomfortably hard against the swell of her ass, and he couldn't remember wanting anything so fucking much. He tried to think of cold things. Icy rivers. The void below Yggdrasil. The frost on his teeth in winter.

It didn't work. She smelled too good.

Mate, his wolf said, and stretched inside him, satisfied as a cat in the sun.

She's sleeping, like we should be, Fenris told him.

Mate, his wolf said again, undeterred. Warm. Ours.

Like he needed the reminder. He hadn't held a woman in his bed in more than a thousand years, and Linnea was shredding what little self-control he had. She stirred with a small sleepy movement, her hips shifting back against him by half an inch, and her body settled deeper into his warmth. His cock twitched against her, and he bit down a whine that was trying to climb up his throat.

"Forgive me," he said low against her ear, voice rough with sleep. "Am I crushing you?"

"No," Linnea whispered, fast enough that he realized she was more awake than he thought. "No, you're—no."

Her scent shifted, hot arousal mixing with her sweetness, hitting him low in the belly and making his dick throb. She moved against him again more deliberately.

Fenris set his teeth against the side of her throat where his mouth already was, very gently, not biting, just a careful warning.

"Is there something you need, little singer?" he asked softly against her skin. He kept his hand on her hip and didn't move his thigh. He pressed a kiss to the shell of her ear, making her whimper. "Whatever you want of me, as much, or as little, you have only to say, Linnea."

She turned her head against the pillow. Just enough to look at him, her cheek pressed to the linen, her eyes wide and hair mussed.

He turned her face the rest of the way to his with the careful crook of one finger under her jaw. The rough pad of his thumb swept over the high curve of her cheekbone, over the constellation of freckles on her nose, each a tiny fleck of gold against her skin.

His thumb drifted lower, ghosting over the soft swell of her bottom lip. A low growl rumbled in his chest, remembering the taste of those lips. It had burned on his tongue since the dance floor.

Linnea's breath moved hot over his thumb. "Will you think less of me if I say yes?"

"Never. You drove me half mad in that dress last night," he replied. "I haven't been able to think of anything else since you walked out wearing it. Now, I've rested, I'm only thinking of it more."

Linnea kissed him, her hand coming up between them and resting against his bare chest. He opened his mouth against hers and teased her tongue.

"Please," she whispered against his lips. "Touch me. Please."