Vindicated by Bella Klaus
Chapter One
Iwas trapped.
Trapped within a body in the throes of its first heat. Trapped in an underground room with a crazed shaman. Trapped by a surge of magic that kept me rooted to the spot.
The bachelor pad’s stone walls closed in on me, making the space too hot, too crowded, too stifling for me to breathe. All the moisture in my throat evaporated, yet sweat poured down my brow, into my eyes, and down my bottom lip.
Behind me was the massive daybed, and in front of me was a glass coffee table and beyond that, a four-seater leather sofa. Light flooded my vision from the left of the room, where Fenrir had staggered, his body leaching magic through the crossbow lodged in his heart. I longed to reach out for him, but the sight of Grog advancing across the room was like a fist to the throat.
Without his cloak, the Norse shaman looked even more menacing, and as he swaggered toward me, the scent of motor oil filled my nostrils. When he stepped into a shaft of light, what I’d originally thought of as dirt encrusting his skin glistened.
My throat thickened with a surge of nausea that made me clutch at my neck. “What are you doing here?”
“Your heat.” Grog enunciated each syllable. “It drew me here like a siren’s song.”
Runes glowed from beneath the thick layer of black goo. Runes that I recognized from the headboard in my room that occasionally showed me carvings of the flying wolf. I sent a burst of magic into my legs, trying to dislodge them where Grog had stuck them to the floor, but it only held me tighter.
Fenrir slumped against the wall, his skin turning a horrific shade of green. His labored breaths rasped across my eardrums, making my stomach plummet. He slid down to the wall, looking like he was about to die.
“I wouldn’t glance his way at a time like this,” Grog said with a sneer.
My throat spasmed, and a ripple of pain seized my core. Clutching my belly, I doubled over and groaned, wishing I could break free of the enchantment entrapping my legs.
“Why are you doing this?” I asked.
Grog placed a thin hand on my shoulder, spreading the sensation of centipedes crawling across my skin. “Doing what, my dear?”
“You infiltrated the alpha’s grounds disguised as Frida, appeared across the grounds so only I could see you—”
“Isn’t the answer obvious?” He wrapped a hand around my forearm and yanked me to my feet.
“No,” I said through clenched teeth.
He shook his head. “What are they teaching you people in the Logris Academy?”
Another pain stabbed through my insides, making my knees buckle. I swung at Grog’s face but only managed to graze his beard on the way down. The wretched shaman pulled me upright again, only to shove me to the daybed. I sank into its soft cushions, my body seizing with the symptoms of my heat.
Fenrir’s pained groan made Grog’s head snap to the side, and he exhaled a hiss through his teeth.
“That bolt was supposed to keep him unconscious for at least an hour,” he muttered.
“Get out of here before he wakes up and tears off your head,” I snarled.
He slammed the butt of his staff on the floor, making it tremble. I tried to rise off the daybed, but a force of magic pulled me back to the cushions.
“There.” He stalked toward me, his indigo eyes glistening with lust. “No matter how much he huffs and puffs, he will never get through my ward.”
I bared my teeth. “If you touch me, he’ll make sure you die painfully—”
“Then Marchosias will enable me to rise from the dead, just as I did when I was shot.”
Bile rose to the back of my throat, accompanied by a bout of nausea so severe that it outshone my pain.
“What do you want?” I asked, already knowing the answer.
A shudder ran through my spine, but I held my muscles still, trying not to look overly disgusted. Grog seemed the type who enjoyed attention—perhaps I could keep him talking for long enough for Fenrir to rise, break through the ward, and tear his scrawny body into little pieces.
“It’s as I said.” He ran his long fingers down his matted beard. “The moment Beowulf told Alpha Gundahar and me about the deal he had made with Marchosias, I jumped at the opportunity to make a bargain with such an impressive demon.”
I shuffled back on the sofa, trying hard to keep my gaze on the shaman and not let it drift to where Fenrir lay with a crossbow through the heart.
“But what could an accomplished shaman like you possibly need from a demon?”
Grog grinned, baring a mouthful of teeth so broken, I wondered how he could eat. “An excellent question, my dear. You see, I’ve always wanted a wolf.”
“That’s it?” I asked.
His face fell, and his eyes hardened with malice. “Do you know what it’s like to grow up as a Neutral, knowing there is only one aspect to your soul? Shifters like you take your wolves for granted.”
I gulped, my breaths turning shallow. As an outcast, I had a good idea of what life as a Neutral could be like. Mum and I had spent my entire life being shunned by the other wolves and treated less than even those who couldn’t shift. But there was no point in telling any of this to Grog.
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.
“Don’t do this,” I rasped.
“Why not?” His eyes twinkled. “As soon as you shift, so will I, and your wolf won’t be able to resist such a compatible male.”
I shook my head, still not quite understanding why a Neutral would go to such desperate lengths to gain the ability to shift. Plucking up my courage and hoping to delay him for a little longer until Fenrir rose, I asked, “That time I chased you through the town wasn’t a vision?”
“It may have been incorporeal but Marchosias gifted me with a wolf. It’s the counterpart to yours.”
He pointed the antlers at me, and the magic pinning my body to the daybed was released.
My hand flew to my chest, and shallow breaths grazed the tops of my lungs. Grog had only set me free to give me the space to shift. If I didn’t act now, before he started that enchantment, my wolf and I were finished.
Deep in my soul, my wolf stirred from hibernation, her front leg twitching with the first sign of movement. Dread plummeted through my insides. What if Marchosias had created another bond to trick her into believing Grog was her mate?
If she was awake, then it meant I could draw on her power. If I could draw on her power, then it meant I could fight. It was my wolf who had given me the strength to brawl against a crowd of bullies. Without her, I would never be able to shift body parts, such as turning my fingernails into vicious claws.
“Wait.” I staggered to my feet and groaned at a cramp.
“What for?” He curled his lip. “So you can keep me talking until your wolf god recovers from his poisoning?”
I shook my head from side to side. Out of the corner of my eye, Fenrir sat slumped against the wall. The light he’d been leaking dimmed to the barest glow. I didn’t dare check on him for fear of confirming that I was trying to stall.
“Answer me.” He slammed the butt of his staff onto the stone floor.
“That’s not what I’m doing,” I lied. “Please, come here. The heat is killing me, and I need you.”
All the malice in his features melted into a look of wide-eyed hope. “You’re bluffing.”
“No.” I slipped my hands between my thighs and moaned. “It aches so much.”
Grog’s staff slipped from his fingers. He lurched forward and caught it, all the while staring at me through wide eyes. The hairy bastard was finally paying attention.
“Really?” he asked, his voice breathy.
I didn’t even have to fake my moan because at that moment, the sensation of a hot knife pierced my belly.
Grog jogged to my side but stood on the other edge of the daybed, beyond grabbing range. “You’ve changed your mind about mating?”
“Let’s see how you turn me on.” I closed my left eye and opened it in an expression I hoped he would interpret as a saucy wink.
He hesitated, his non-existent lips trembling beneath his beard.
“What’s wrong?” I pressed the heel of my hand into my belly.
“It’s my…” He cleared his throat. “It’s my first time.”
If Fenrir wasn’t still twitching under the influence of that enchanted crossbow, and I wasn’t in the throes of such agony, I might have rolled my eyes, but this moment of vulnerability was an opportunity.
My wolf raised her head and sniffed the air. I clenched my teeth, silently urging her to go back to sleep.
Grog stood at my side, wringing his hands. He bowed his head and stared at me from beneath his lashes, his Adam’s apple bobbing up and down with each harried breath.
I cleared my throat and tried to think of something encouraging, and pushed as much magic as I could into the fingers of my right hand. As my wolf’s thick claws clicked against each other, my heart soared with triumph.
“Sit next to me.” I took a seat on the daybed, and stifled an agonized groan. Tilting my head to the side, I forced a smile, but it felt like a pained grimace.
Grog paused a few moments before wiping his palms on his loincloth and walking around the huge couch. He lowered himself onto the seat at the end farthest away from me and sat as stiffly as a corpse.
My lips tightened. What happened to all that bravado about bending me over? It looked like he was just planning to shift and let his wolf take mine. I shoved that thought aside. His skittishness worked in my favor.
He stared straight ahead, not daring to turn in my direction, and inhaled several deep breaths before saying, “I’m here.”
A rope of pain snaked around my middle and yanked. I jerked forward and moaned. How was I supposed to be the deadly seductress while being plagued by this infernal heat?
“This isn’t working.” Grog shot to his feet and pointed the antlers of his staff in my direction.
A bolt of alarm shot through my heart, and I raised both hands. “Give me a minute!”
“Why?”
“I’m so bloody horny it hurts.”
“Oh.” He flopped down onto the daybed.
I ground my teeth hard enough to trigger a migraine, and hatred sizzled through my veins, adding to the agony of my heat. My wolf stretched and yawned, sending me waves of curiosity. From her point of view, it looked like I was oscillating between lust and loathing. Grog’s presence and his attack on Fenrir had suppressed any urge to mate.
With a deep breath, I continued the plan and patted the cushion next to mine. “Come closer.”
Grog finally turned his head in my direction. “For a kiss?”
“Will this be your first time, too?”
He gave me an eager nod.
Flexing the claws of my right hand and readying them to strike, I asked, “Didn’t you have Neutral girls in your pack?”
Grog bowed his head and sighed. “Alpha Gundahar kept them for himself. He said the chances of them conceiving shifters were higher if they mated with the strongest wolf.”
I swallowed back a bellyful of bitterness, wishing the former alpha was alive so I could kill him with my bare claws. “Come over here, Grog,” I said, trying to make my voice coaxing. “I won’t bite.”
His nervous laugh raked across my nerves. “Not until you shift, and then you will be mine.”
My nostrils flared. “In the meantime, let me teach you to kiss.”
“I’m ready.” Grog shuffled toward me with his lips puckered, the filthy bristles of his beard picking up the light.
Flinching, I raised my left hand. “Not like that.”
He reared back. “What are you talking about?”
“Men close their eyes to kiss.” I gulped, trying not to hurl. “That way, it’s more romantic.”
Grog grabbed my left wrist, pulled me into his chest, and closed his eyes. Outrage burst across my gut, but I clenched my jaws. As he brought his lips to mine, I raised my right hand and swiped at his jugular with my claws. Warm blood spurted from his neck wound and splattered over my face.
“Bitch.” His pained roar rang through my ears.
I flinched and scrambled back.
Grog released his grip from my wrist, clutched at his neck, and launched himself off the daybed. Blood flowed through his fingers and down his shoulders and chest, and to the floor.
“A flesh wound like this means nothing,” he said, breathing hard.
“Maybe not, but you’re less likely to be in the mood for mating with no blood flow to that scrawny maggot between your legs.” I bared my teeth and edged around the daybed toward where Fenrir lay.
Grog’s eyes bulged, and the cords of his neck expanded like a cobra’s. “Marchosias warned me about you,” he ground out. “He said you were slippery and I should force you to shift.”
Pain swept through my belly like a tidal wave, and my entire body trembled with need. Need for Fenrir, since he was the only male I wanted as my mate.
But as my blood boiled, and the edges of my vision turned red, my stomach sank with the weight of dread. It was only a matter of time before my body cried out for any male.
Even Grog.
“Fenrir,” I screamed into our bond. “If you don’t get up this instant, I’m going to walk through that ward and shake you awake.”
I winced at the empty threat. The pain rippling through my body was so intense, I doubted that I could even hold up my own weight.
My wolf twitched, and my heart twisted with guilt. She was still injured from the battle and needed her rest. The last thing I wanted was for her to take control and get us both mated to Grog.
“Go back to sleep,” I said to her. “Everything’s all right.”
She raised her head, turning it from side to side, and sniffed.
Grog knelt on the floor, still clutching at his neck. “You think I don’t know what’s happening in your body?” he said. “I’ve peeped at hundreds of mating couples, and I know when a female is about to present.”
My mind was in no condition to picture myself on all fours with my tail in the air, my head twisted around to plead to be mounted. Right now, I needed to subdue my wolf before she tried anything insane.
She shook off the last vestiges of sleep and released a long yowl.
“Lie down,”I murmured into our bond.
She trotted forward.
“What are you doing?” I hissed.
Part of me already knew. If Marchosias had gifted Grog with a wolf that was anything like mine, then my wolf knew she was in his presence. I clutched at my insides. This was worse than when she’d go crazy in the presence of Beowulf. Worse, because I knew that behind her reactions were the machinations of a demon who wanted to use us to birth his vessel.
Fenrir rolled to his side and pushed himself off the floor, his limbs shaking with the effort.
My heart soared with triumph.
With Grog injured and Fenrir recovering from the poison, I was finally safe.
