Of Gods and Wolves Read Online Free PDF Page A

recognizing the sweet voice that flowed over my lips. “You rule with strength, Wolf God but what do you know of tenderness? What do you know of love?”
    I heard Trevor's sharp intake of breath but I ignored him as I walked forward, rolling my hips smoothly so I could mask my limp. I held Fenrir's gaze intently. The power filled me and I let it rush out to him. I felt it when it hit, heard his startled gasp, and a contented sigh left my lips. Between us ran an invisible line and I poured Love down the cord. I set the butterflies free into it until it flapped wildly with life. His eyes widened and his hands began to shake.
    “Stop,” he breathed as I approached.
    I connected to his heart then and it opened to me like sunken treasure, heavy with the weight of time and fathoms of anguish. There was gold there but it was covered in silt, caked with an ocean's worth of cynicism and sunk deep beneath the shipwreck of his soul.
    I saw his life clearly, felt his loneliness. The rejection of his mother upon seeing she’d birthed a monster. The long search for a home and family of his own. Hunted by the other gods until he grew too powerful to kill, he’d been the first to leave Atlantis, years before its downfall, and he'd wandered for years alone.
    He’d found comfort in women occasionally, women drawn to his power, but most had left after birthing his children. Showing the same distaste for them that his mother had for him and driving deeper the ugly word that had been branded on his soul from birth: Monster.
    By the time I stood before him, tears were pouring down my face and my gloves were lying on the ground behind me. Fenrir had dropped to his knees and still he towered over me but I felt no fear of him. Only tenderness, empathy, and overwhelming love. I knew what it felt like to be alone but his loneliness had been so much worse, peppered with the sting of rejection from those he loved the most. From those who should have loved him the most. Love had failed him horribly, over and over, and I felt responsible for it now that Love belonged to me. I needed to right this wrong.
    My power whispered to me seductively: Heal him. Free the wolf. Show him what love really is.
    “ I see no monster,” I whispered so only he could hear me. His pain was private and I refused to share it. “Only a god.”
    I slid my hands up the sides of his face, pushing back his unkempt hair and revealing the striking features beneath. I let my love and admiration shine through my eyes. I let it bathe him in healing radiance and concentrated all my will on filling him with my magic. I felt him take a shuddering breath as it poured through him and chased away the shadows of lies.
    “The blessing of Love be upon you,” the words spilled off my lips unbidden. My magic was talking, not I. “Freely given, richly deserved, and long overdue. We failed you once, Wolf King but never again. You shall have your Queen.”
    I kissed him chastely on the mouth and something passed through me and into him with that light touch. When I pulled back, I knew I'd taken his pain and replaced it with hope. There had been the flash of a face, a beautiful woman with patient hazel eyes. My magic had found her, shown Fenrir that he would find her too.
    “She loved me for the dangers I had passed,” he whispered, his voice shaking, his eyes overflowing, “and I loved her that she did pity them.”
    He gave a great shuddering sigh and sank his face into my hair. Beneath my hands, his shoulders shook and I felt his tears soak into me but he cried silently, safely hidden within my arms. I pulled the remnants of his pain from him, drew it out bit by bit with those butterflies and then sent them flying away, so he could never draw it back. I stroked his hair, combing the heavy locks with my fingers and soothing his back until his cries subsided. It felt strangely holy, like an ancient rite or Communion.
    He dried his tears in my hair and sat back to look at me. “You’ve