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ALICE

I put my hands to my abused throat as Fenrother glares at the spot where the queen was.

“What did she mean?”

“Nothing,” he mutters.

“She didn’t mean anything.”

“Fuck’s sake, Fenrother, she tried to drop me off the roof!” I fire at him.

“No one turns up, issues threats, and leaves if it doesn’t mean anything. ” I imitate his growl.

Fenrother huffs and turns his back on me, his leathery wings, filled with iridescence, sweeping the floor.

The tip of his tail twitches like a cat’s.

“It is the curse of the Lambton Wyrm. We have no females, and we must mate with a human,” he says.

“But the mating must bear fruit within the first moon month.”

“I can assure you, Fenrother,” I half scoff because my heart is shoving its way out of my throat in a bid to leave my body and this place.

“It doesn’t work like that. Gestating a baby takes a lot longer than a month.”

He rounds on me with a half snarl.

“You are already with young. Her threats mean nothing.”

I open my mouth to disabuse him of the statement, but he has already stomped off back into the castle by way of the wooden door.

I watch him for a few seconds, still trying to process everything which has happened.

And the fact the flipping queen of the Faerie tried to kill me.

The Faerie never said they came in peace, only to stop the human race from dying out completely.

They need our life force or something to continue.

We were saved and we paid the price—learning there was another force sharing our earth, one which had more power than any politician had ever dreamed of.

Except for those who were not saved.

I chase after Fenrother, catching him as he reaches the floor below the ramparts.

“Wait, why is she doing this to you and me?” I demand.

Fenrother stops so suddenly I virtually run into the back of him.

“And I can assure you I am not pregnant.” I add as an afterthought.

“The last time I had sex was at least a year ago and it was thoroughly disappointing.”

Fenrother blinks at me, slowly as if he doesn’t quite understand what I’m saying.

“I refused to fight in the Night Lands anymore. I returned to my home without her consent, and as a result I incurred her wrath.” He shakes his head a little.

“I should have expected her to meddle in my mating.” The head shaking stops and he glares at me.

“What is this sex you speak of?” Hands curl around my shoulders, gripping me tight.

“And we have spent the night together, in the same bed, which means you are with young.”

I open and close my mouth like a carp.

There is so much which is wrong, I don’t know where to start.

“Just sharing a bed won’t get me pregnant.” I furrow my brow.

“We have to do other things. Sex for a start.”

Fenrother grips me harder.

“That is not true. And why do you keep saying sex?” He makes a sour face.

“I dislike this word.”

“Sex is what you do to make a baby.” I genuinely can’t believe I’m saying this to a monster who, in his unshifted form, is a veritable god on legs with his chiselled good looks and abs for days.

Fenrother lets me go.

“No,” he says firmly.

“I know you are not like me. You have no pizzle, and you have those”—he points to my boobs—“but even so, the texts are clear. A male and a female share a bed and a home and then they have young.”

“I have no… pizzle ?” I’m absolutely struggling as none of this makes any sense at all.

“Fenrother, you said you had no mother or father. Did you have anyone at all, anyone to tell you about becoming a parent?”

“A Wyrm doesn’t need anyone,” he says haughtily.

“And anyway, I had my texts.”

“So, no one has explained about, um—” I hesitate, wondering how to explain.

“The birds and the bees?”

“Why would anyone need to explain those to me?” Fenrother snorts.

“I eat the birds, and the bees make honey from the heather.”

“Okay.” I consider an alternative explanation.

“Do you know how you came to be here? How you were born?”

His furrowed brow tells me everything I need to know.

Or rather everything Fenrother doesn’t know.

He is a virgin, a complete innocent in the ways of the flesh in more than one, having never seen female anatomy before and entirely ignorant of how anything works.

And I have to decide what my next move is.