Chapter 2 2

All I needed now was to prompt him to rant and keep asking for explanations until Fenrir awoke.

A bolt of pain lanced through my insides, and my entire body stiffened.

His eyes softened. "Is it the heat? I know what will ease your pain."

My stomach lurched, and I stretched out a palm. "You were telling me about growing up as a Neutral. They don't teach us anything at the academy."

Grog sat on the edge of the daybed and ran his spidery fingers up my bare thigh. Disgust rippled up my throat, making me gag, and I made a mental note to throttle Mum. First, for dosing me with an elixir that brought on a heat. Thanks to this heat, Grog had not only tracked me down but persuaded Marchosias to give him a second chance. Second, I would throttle her for getting rid of my sensible clothing and leaving me with seductive dresses.

Grabbing the shaman's hand, I squeezed it so hard the bones cracked. "Don't touch me."

He pulled his hand away, his features twisting into a smirk. "In a few more minutes, your heat will demand that you take me deep inside you."

My chest rose and fell with rapid breaths, and heat radiated off my skin in waves. His words sank through the roar of blood between my ears, filling me with a terrible realization:

Grog looked so smug because he thought I couldn't resist the heat.

But he was wrong. I had until Fenrir recovered from the poison to hold back any urge to mate. Then I could sit back and watch the scraggly bastard get torn apart.

"That's why you're waiting?" I asked. "You think you can let nature do your work."

"I'm not a rapist," he said with a sniff. "Besides, the enchantment doesn't work without your consent."

Pieces of the puzzle that was my shitty start in life clicked into place. Marchosias had appeared in my dream that night to bargain with me because he had already made another deal with Grog.

Now that I was in love with Fenrir, Marchosias must have known the chances of me agreeing to mate with a shaman were nil. It was why he had tried to offer me a life independent of Fenrir's magic-in exchange for copulating with Grog and birthing his vessel.

My muscles seized with another spasm that made me curl up with an agonized scream. I didn't care how much it hurt. Giving in to this heat would result in a deadly pregnancy I couldn't survive. Even through the pain, one question burned in the back of my mind.

"What happens if I say no?" I asked Grog.

He pushed me onto my back and glowered into my eyes. His nostrils flared, and his thin chest rose and fell with rapid breaths.

"You won't," he growled.

"Fenrir?" I asked, trying to activate his alpha bond.

He didn't answer.

Grog patted the small lump in his loincloth and grinned. "It's only a matter of minutes before you beg for my rod."

"What makes you so sure?" My voice trembled as I said the words. "If I stay here long enough-"

Liquid fire burned through my insides. I threw my head back and screamed.

Grog chuckled. "There's your reason. Eventually, the pain will become so unbearable, it will feel like you're burning from the inside out."

"I'll endure it," I said through rasping breaths.

"Then you will become insane." His laugh became maniacal. "And once the heat has addled your brain, it will be you who attacks me."

My stomach heaved. "That will never happen."

He leaned into where he'd pinned me onto the sofa and sniffed at my neck, making my flesh want to crawl off the bone. "What a pity there'll be nothing left of your sanity to understand me when I say I told you so."

Liquid fire seared my veins, and all the nerves in my body felt like they'd been set aflame. The muscles of my core clenched and spasmed painfully, feeling like I was about to expel my insides.

"There is another way to ease your pain." He ran his fingers up and down my bare arms, making me shudder with disgust.

"Let me guess," I snarled. "You'll tell me only if we have sex?"

Grog shook his head and licked his cracked lips with a thick tongue. "Shift."

"Why?"

"For a female shifter, this process is agony. She-wolves feel a mildly annoying itch." He rubbed his long fingers down his beard, his eyes glittering like polished jewels. "Bring her to the surface, and you can avoid the entire duration of your heat."

My eyes narrowed, and I cringed away from the shaman. This had to be a trick. Not that I would entertain his suggestion. My wolf was still hibernating from her broken wing. She wouldn't want to swap places with me right now. Besides, she was a creature of instinct, and Grog would probably use his demon-begotten ability to shift and take advantage of her urge to mate.

"I refuse."

All the levity in his expression vanished, replaced by a look of pure malice. "Then I will force the shift."

A fist of alarm reached through my ribcage and squeezed my heart. "What do you mean?"

He rose off the daybed, stalked to the glass coffee table where he'd dumped his cloak, and extracted his staff.

The handle consisted of two thin branches twisted around each other like snakes, topped with a human skull. Four sets of curved horns protruded from its head, each of them tied with leather thongs threaded with metallic runes.

My skin tightened into goosebumps. He had used something similar the night he slit my throat.

"What are you doing?" I tried to stop my voice from trembling, but cold sweat mingled with the heat burning through my insides.

Grog raised his staff high. "You doubt my ability to make you shift? Don't be stupid, girl. Who brought down the moon during the mixer and triggered everyone's change? Did you think that was Alpha Gundahar?"

Panic clawed at my heart. It had been him and his magic. I pushed myself up from the cushions, my lungs breathing hard, my stomach clenching with a mix of terror and dread.