Curse Of Blood: Gods & Monsters

Chapter LVI⎮Brenna

How did one go about seducing a creature like Renic. 

You do not seduce him at all, came the voice of intuition. Like an untamed beast prowling at the periphery of the homestead, starved and leery, one had only to tempt it closer with patience and sustenance. But was that not, in its own way, a seduction also?

Only, Renic's appetency was of a different nature, as was the man himself. He had never tasted the flesh; knew nothing of that which she could offer him, and so he was nescient of what it was to truly hunger.

As Brenna drifted towards the back of the hazy mead hall, the press of lustful eyes followed her thence. She felt them even as she disregarded them, for none here belonged to Renic, and his were the only eyes she cared for or sought out. But he was not feasting with his men tonight.

Sustenance she could offer, she thought humorlessly, knowing full well that her curves fed many a prurient gaze this night. Patience too she had aplenty. But time was what she lacked most, and it was dwindling faster than she could bear.

Halting in the shadows, Brenna leant back against the wall to watch the Blackmane jarl and his pregnant wife. Two of the Greybacks were engaged in wrestling sport, cheered on by the others, but it was not they she was interested in studying.

Roth and Heida were laughing together by the fireside, she in his lap, and his hands splayed lovingly at her abdomen. Heida's condition was clearly no secret to her lover. Accordingly, they would likely marry come summer, of that Brenna was certain. She wondered what the babe would look like. Would she have a small pate covered with silver down, like her mother, or would her hair be as sooty as her father's?

The sound of Heida's throaty laughter incited Brenna's own lips to curl. That Roth made her friend happy was at least something in his favor. Renic's brother leaned down and nuzzled her ear, and whatever words he'd poured therein had made Heida flush with happiness.

Suddenly, Brenna tensed as the hairs on her flesh strained in warning. There was a strange and unexpected coldness biting at her own ear, and the coalescence of a powerful presence beside her. Without having to look whence the pressure came, she knew, with certainty, who it was that stood beside her. "What do you want?" she muttered.

"I want what you want," came the sibilant voice of Renic's cryptic father.

"Well, I want you to leave me alone." She compressed her mouth in chary annoyance, lest someone see her talking to herself. She knew that he was cloaked in obscurity.

"Then I shall," he replied, congenially. "But first, a word of advice..."

"I have no interest in whatever you—"

"Ah but I think you do," he purred. "As it pertains to Renic himself. You want him, do you not?"

She turned to glower at Loki then, arms akimbo. However, she held her tongue and listened, as he no doubt knew she would.

He smirked, seemingly enjoying her discomfort. "You know what happens when the sun sets tomorrow?"

He made to walk behind her and she tensed all the more, moving further away from Loki and the wall at her back.

"I do," she said. The full moon was always a wolf moon.

"Then go to him tonight, little witch."

"What? Why?" she whirled on him then, but he was gone. Vanished. Only smoke and shadows remained where he'd been.

But quietly, almost imperceptibly, she heard his voice soft and faraway as though the shadows themselves had whispered to her. "The moon withholds restraint."