Page 19 of The Fanged One

"Linnea, girl, where have you been? Tor's been..." Johan began.

"Furious. I know. He's coming tonight, and I'm bound to get bitched out. This is a friend of mine." She passed Johan her coat and Fenris's. "Is Von in yet?"

"Running late."

Linnea sighed. "Of course he is."

"You know how he likes to get dressed up. I'll tell him you're here the moment he arrives." Johan's eyes flicked back to Fenris, very briefly. "You good, brother?"

"Yes," Fenris said.

Johan stepped aside. "Right then. Go and enjoy yourselves. Maybe get him a drink, Linnea. He's looking a bit dour."

"I'm definitely going to need a strong one," Fenris said, his gaze flicking over Linnea's dress again.

Linnea took Fenris's hand because the alternative was to walk down the staircase ahead of him and let him follow her ass for the entire descent. His fingers folded around hers, strong and rough, and the steady warmth of his palm went straight up her arm and into her chest.

It's nothing, you're just holding hands. Stop acting like a blushing teenager already.

The staircase down into Ritual was Von's masterpiece. It curved in a long sweep around a central well, and the walls were carved end to end in the old style, with bind runes and serpent knots, an eight-legged horse, and a roaring dragon. Wrought-iron sconces held real flame. Reindeer antlers crowned the lintel over every doorway. The whole place was a goth-Viking long hall fever dream, and it was Von's heart as a building.

Linnea watched Fenris's face as they descended. His head tilted back, eyes moving across the carvings, and his mouth softened. He stopped halfway down the stairs in front of a panel that showed a howling wolf and looked at it for a long moment without speaking. When he started walking again, he was almost smiling.

"This," he said, gesturing to the decor and the people dancing. "I understand this."

"I hoped you would," she replied, with a grin as the main floor opened out before them.

Ritual was a great oval hall, the bar along one curving wall, the band's stage at the head of the room under a hanging banner of Yggdrasil worked in iron and copper. The dance floor was black, lit from below in a slow, shifting pulse of red and gold runes. The crowd was a thrum of leather, eyeliner, tattoo ink, and chaos.

Fenris watched the band as the drummer counted in. The bass dropped in a slow, heavy line, the kind that vibrated under the breastbone.

His eyes flicked to her. "Dance with me."

Linnea couldn't form words in time to object, so she let him lead her out into the slow pulse of red and gold. Her mouth went dry as his hand moved to her waist and the other to the back of her bare neck.

Linnea, whom Gudrun had called a 'passable' dancer for a wolf, found she didn't have to do a thing. His body knew how to move with hers. He led, and she followed, and the music carried them into its rhythm.

She could smell him over the close warmth of the dance floor. Iron and magic, and something underneath both of those that was just him. It was the scent that had filled the cave where he had been held, and that had lived in her dreams. She didn't know if it was her or the wolf that wanted to bury her nose in the skin just under his ear, where it would be strongest.

Fenris turned her under his arm and brought her back in against him with her shoulder blades flush to his chest, her back to his front, and the feel of all of him pressed up against her made her whimper.

His mouth found the column of her throat, lips just barely brushing the place where her pulse came up under the thin skin. A soft rumble vibrated in his chest, and Linnea's head tilted of its own accord and gave him more of the line of her neck. She shivered as he took what she offered, and everything became sensation.

Soft lips. The faint scrape of his beard. His warm breath.

His mouth went to her jaw, his hand tilting toward him. Linnea turned in his arms, and his lips brushed against the corner of her mouth. Her hands went to his chest, his heart pounding hard beneath her palms.

Fenris's hand slid from the small of her back to the curve of her ass, and pulled her in against the long, warm line of his body as they swayed to the beat.

When his lips went to hers again, they weren't careful or awkward like most first kisses. They were hot and hungry and full of a year of dreams and songs and dark fur and silver ribbons.

Linnea groaned in his mouth as she pulled him closer and deepened it. His tongue brushed against hers, sending desire pounding through her core, and she was lost.

She didn't care that he was a wolf god and someone she really shouldn't be grinding up against. All she could think was more, more, more. His teeth scraped against her lower lip, and wet heat flooded her panties. Her hands dropped to his hips, needing to drag him closer…

Behind her, a voice full of pure unholy joy said, "Well, well, well. If it isn't my favorite witchy wolf, making out with the tallest, darkest stranger I have ever seen in my entire fucking life."

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