Ascension - Book Eight - Man x Man

Chapter 144

I had to tread carefully, I had seen what Fenrir on the loose could do. My mind flashes back to the terror he had brought onto the farmhouse. How long it took for Xavier to finally come out of his shell, I can't help but think of Caspian's murder, and the pain he brought with each attempt he made at freedom. 

The lengths that my husband went to to keep him in. 

"You are on borrowed time, Fenrir. What do you want? You must have had a reason to drag your way to the surface?" I demand, standing as he does, keeping my distance from him. 

Fenrir watches me, before taking my fork and stabbing a slice of pancake, popping it into his mouth thoughtfully. "You know, the food of this time is quite a bit better than when I was loose and roaming the earth. It almost compares to humans, almost but not quite." Swiping a finger full of syrup, he sucks it off his finger with a smirk. 

"If you're going to be useless then you can go back-" I touch my necklace, a fatal flaw. 

"What's that?" His hand extends before I can stop him only to retract with a snarl, examining the darkened fingertips. "You bewitched it?"

I honestly hadn't, racking my brain, I can't think of Anubis saying that Death couldn't touch his own heart but it would make sense. Why else would one take it?

"Absolutely." I snap, "Which means I command this vessel and I'll send you back under if you don't come out with it. What do you want, Fenrir?"

Running his tongue over his teeth, those black eyes lock on me, even without pupils I know exactly where he was looking. Scanning me, up and down, sizing me up and yet curious all the same. "Hel won't help you. She's banished just as I am, and she serves her own purposes. Hel has her bounty with the gods, searching for her will only cause more issues for me and things are finally starting to go my way."

"Why am I not surprised your family hates you?"

Fenrir bares his teeth, reaching for my throat, only to fall short inches away from my skin. I can see the force with which he leans in, he roars in frustration and punches a hole through the table instead. His whole body trembles, those same hands shoot up to grip the chain around his neck and fight against it as he slams his back against the wall. "God damn it!" he roars, fighting against the urge to ascend to his wolf form, while the chain holds its own and threatens to choke him if he does. 

"You won't get out without Alpha's permission. Crush Verando down all you want, you have another god in there and Alpha won't let you hurt me." I snapped, I couldn't let on that I was shaking on the inside, that my wolf was begging for me to run and protect our child. 

The man before me was the embodiment of Death. A vessel on the edge of berserker rage, but I had to test this theory that I could operate safely under these rules. 

This goes on for what feels like an eternity, fighting against the chain, trying to yank it off his neck until his skin is bloody and his fingers raw, while he'd broken nearly every piece of furniture available to him save for the chair I was sitting in. He could not harm me, he could not even throw an object in my direction, and for that I had Alpha or my husband to thank. 

When he seemed to tire, panting, leaned against the wall as if it were I who trapped him here, once more he met my gaze. "You had to suck every last drop of fun out of my time on this planet, didn't you? You know who I'll consume first when I get out of here? Your children. Then you-"

I hold up the pendant. "Stop," I command shortly. 

Fenrir grips his throat, coughing back his own words. 

"Not used to be on this side of the argument, are you?" I retorted, crossing my arms over my chest defiantly. "This is your last chance to cooperate. I don't need you wrecking Verando's body, or causing a scene. You wanted out, now is that all you have to tell me before I send you back?"