Her Viking Wolves: 50 Loving States, Michigan (12 page)

“Okay,” I answer. I get that Olafr prefers to let FJ do all the talking, but this Viking has some strange notions about his wolf-bound brother’s mind. He reminds me of those humans who pretend to talk for their dogs, narrating their feelings like they’re actually capable of sophisticated thought.

I decide to change the subject.

“So, Sarah mentioned lessons?” I ask as we begin our trek across the large snowy backyard toward the main road leading into town.

This is so much better
, I think. FJ and I are now next to each other which means I can look at my high-tops instead of him.

“My mother has taught me well her tongue, but Aunt Alisha’s blood niece teaches me now to read your written words.”

I’m so surprised by his answer, I actually look up. “You mean she’s teaching you to read?”

“Yea,
Varra
,” he answers with a smile. And I have to look away, because he really is too good looking. Almost impossible to look at directly, for fear of being burned alive by his fineness.

“Ok, but why?” I ask. “I mean, you’re not going to be here long, especially now that you know what you’re up against.”

“True, I will not. But my mother worked hard to read and write my father’s tongue when she came to his land, and will I do the same now that I am in yours. Teaching me to read her language was something my mother much lamented not being able to do for her children, given her lack of materials. However, I wish for you not to be embarrassed by my ignorance when I meet with the Detroit fenrir after the next full moon. So do I learn now.”

Now I really do blink because it’s an incredibly sweet and thoughtful thing for him to say but… “You seriously don’t have to worry about that. Because you’re not meeting with my father. Like ever.”

Just the thought of my dad meeting FJ constricts my chest with panic. I can almost hear Dad racking his sawed-off shotgun right before he blows a hole through FJ’s head for even daring to approach him with this fated mate bullshit.

Beside me, FJ inhales loudly, obviously scenting my fear.

“So this is your reason for denying our claim. You fear your Detroit fenrir. It is as the wolf who shares your scent has said.”

“The wolf who shares my scent? Wait, are you talking about Uncle Ford? Did you and him talk?”

“Yes, he came the day before this one to pay me visit,” FJ answers. “And he explained to me that the Detroit fenrir would not release your hand to ‘a no-man’ who appeared out of the ‘fucking blue.’”

I stop, momentarily perplexed at what FJ is trying to say. “Do you mean ‘a nobody?’ Did Uncle Ford call you a nobody?’”

“Yes,” FJ answers, his voice tight with the memory of what had clearly not been a pleasant conversation. “However, I have a body, and your father will accept me as your fenrir. This I promise you,
Varra
.”

Um, no he wouldn’t. In fact, FJ has no idea how much my crazy father would
not
accept him. But that’s beside the point, because even if my dad was totally on Team FJ, there’s no way I’m signing up for
Viking Shifters 2:
Enter the Dragons
.

“Listen,” I say, keeping my eyes on the snow. “I’m sorry Uncle Ford insulted you, but you really need to understand that this isn’t going to happen. It can’t happen. It just…can’t for so many reasons.”

I can sense him stiffen beside me, and then he quietly says, “Yea, the wolf who shares your scent spoke of another who would claim you as his mate. But have no worry,
Varra
, we will do our duty so our claim might be accepted with honor.”

And his voice takes on a certain edge as he says, “Your fated mates will do anything and kill anyone who stands in the path of us being as one.”

Oh, my God,
I think. Now he’s talking about killing my ex-fiancé? After knowing me for, what, three whole days?

“Okay, I get we’re from different places,” I say, stopping in my tracks. “But I seriously need you to understand this whole fated mate thing you’re proposing isn’t happening. I mean, it’s NOT going to happen.”

He stops, too. Then turns to face me, standing so close I don’t have a lot of options for where to rest my eyes. He’s so close now, his feet are invading my snow stare.

So close, I’m pretty much forced to lock my gaze on his left shoulder. I mean, he’s all up in my personal space. And that combined with his answering silence makes it hard for me to breathe all that fresh air I’m supposed to be enjoying right now. Why does it feel like it’s me and not him who’s in the wrong here? Like I’m the crazy person?

It doesn’t help that when he finally speaks, his voice is perfectly calm. “You must wonder why I wanted to speak with you. I will answer your unspoken question now.”

“Okay,” I mumble, feeling like I’m back in Detroit. Standing in my rooms, waiting for my dad to get done berating me for being nothing close to the perfect biker princess, so I can get back to my videogames.

“There are two things I need to speak with you about,” he tells the top of my head. “The first being your livelihood…your work, as it is called. I worry about the time you dedicate to it. Though I understand you have a strong attachment to the moving picture games you have created for children, I would have you give me your word you shall limit your work activities to the daylight hours from this day forward.”

My eyes widen on his shoulder. Is this dude serious? Did he just call my video game empire “moving picture games?” For children?!

So many Detroit answers flash through my head.
So many
.

But proving I’m still not that much better at standing up for myself than I was when I ran away from home to get out of marrying the Prince of North Dakota, I only manage to say, “Ah, no. I don’t think so.”

“I make this request for your own well-being,
Varra
.”

And I just stand there, not quite knowing what to do with all the Detroit answers raging around in my head. Brilliant cuss outs that would be delivered perfectly if I were sassy like Tu, or well-spoken like Janelle, or academic like Alisha. But I’m not any of those things, so I stand there, squirming in my inability to deal with real life interactions—especially where time-traveling Viking werewolves with mortal dragon shifter enemies are involved.

So there we are. FJ waiting for me to say something other than awkward silence until he finally ends our stand off with a heavy sigh. “I will tell you this story,
Varra
. Many winters ago did my mother say something similar to my father during preparations for our great harvest festival. He did ask her to cease her female’s work and come back to their bed to rest. She insisted she could not.”

His voice shadows with the memory. “Naught half a moon tide later did her second heat come upon her. Her lack of sleep made their heating…very difficult. And though my brother and I share true bond, I would not have it be the same for you.”

Okay, well…I feel my Detroit wolf backing down a little, leaving my nerdy human to deal with the strange and conflicting emotions warring inside me.

On the one hand, it’s still none of his damn business how I choose to run my life, especially with the
Ninja Shifters
release date less than a year away.

On the other hand, this conversation just entered Lifetime movie of the week territory. Because it sure as hell sounds like FJ is telling me his mother ended up with a wolf-bound son because she didn’t get enough sleep. It’s dubious deductive reasoning at best, given how little we actually know about Wolf-Bound Syndrome. Nonetheless, there’s no denying having a wolf-bound child is one of the most traumatizing things that can happen to a wolf family.

Which is why I try to use my best facsimile of a sympathetic tone when I say, “FJ, you seriously don’t have to worry about that with me.”

Then before FJ can argue any further with me on a subject, I ask him, “Okay, what’s the other thing you wanted to talk about?”

More silence as if he’s trying to decide whether to let me get away with this subject change. But eventually he answers, “Janelle’s visit to your room. I believe you are planning to leave this place with her when she and her family return home.”

If I weren’t already standing still, I would have tripped over my feet, because that’s exactly what I’m planning. Janelle offered and I accepted, falling all over her in grateful relief. But how…?

He must see the confusion written plainly on my face because he says, “My brother has been Ever the Wolf and I have been Ever the Man for a very long time. We have ways of talking that do not require speaking aloud.”

“
Okay,
” I say, more than a little creeped out that not only was Olafr eavesdropping, but he somehow found a way to relay my private conversation back to his brother through their magical mind link. Or whatever.

Then FJ crosses his hands behind his back and informs me, “I respect Janelle’s fenrir and would not wish to kill him so we may fulfill our mate claim. But understand this,
Varra
, if you accept Janelle’s invitation, this will we be forced to do.”

My mouth falls open, my enraged mind nearly unable to process the words that just came out of his mouth. And the next thing I know, I’m looking at him. Actually looking straight at him as I ask, “Now you’re threatening my cousin’s husband?!”

“Not threatening,” FJ answers, his voice as cold as mine is hot. “I tell you simply what will come to pass if you try to leave this place with Janelle.”

I drop my gaze again and blink hard at his shoulder. Stop. Blink again. Then ask, quite seriously, “Are you out of your damn mind or just completely incapable of understanding the words coming out of my mouth?”

Then I do something I’ve never done in my entire life. I actually stand up for myself, yelling at him, “I’m…not…mating…you…or…your…brother! It…will…
never...ever
…happen! Let…it…go. This is
my
life.
My
body. And I’m telling you, there is no way I’m ever going to share either of those with you.”

He flinches again. But this time he doesn’t look confused. Something dark flashes across his face, something angry and dangerous and…very sexual.

My heart seizes up with fear and something less definable, causing me to take a step back, afraid for the first time of the brother who’s not bound by his wolf.

T
heir she-wolf is beautiful
. Even more so today in the soft-looking breeches that hug her lovely thighs and the sweater whose neckline gifts him with a tantalizing of peek of the prizes he will hold in his mouth come her first heat.

Their she-wolf is intelligent. Respected by her family and lauded for her achievements, according to Alisha’s three sons.

However, their she-wolf is also an idiot.

For several moments FJ can do little more than stare at the she-wolf standing across from him, insisting she will never share her body or life with her fated mates, the rules of the time gates be damned.

By Odin, it is all he can do to restrain himself from throwing her down into this snowy meadow and showing her exactly how his claim will be met at the time of their heat night—

She takes a sudden step back from him. Once again looking the rabbit, prepared to flee.

And he curses inwardly. He must have let his wolf surface. Must have let her see the effect her words have on him. And this after his brother agreed it should be FJ who handles her—she obviously being in need of a more delicate touch after what passed between her and Olafr outside the village’s place of healing.

Feeling little better than his brother, FJ forces his wolf back down and wills his voice once again steady as he explains to her, “The gods—the many and the One—have worked together to bring us to you,
Varra
. So we may save our people from the serpents. So we might enjoy a fruitful union and ensure the next Fenris. But you would deny this. Why?”

Having seen how little she cared to hear his answers to her questions, now does he reply in the same manner to her before she can speak.

“Because, like my mother and Aunt Alisha, you do not understand truly the meaning of fated mate. You think me a wolf, and you think I do not understand the ways of my mother’s people. You accuse me as my mother accused my father of not understanding her mind.

“But you are wrong. I am the child of such a union. I understand your mind. Perhaps even more than my father even now understands my mother. Because I know their story. My father did come for my mother. She did deny him, as you do now deny us. Aunt Alisha’s fenrir, Rafe, did come to our land to claim her. She, too, did deny him, as you do deny us. They did deny their fate as you now deny yours…because all of you have little understanding of how powerful the mate bond is…and that a fated mate cannot be denied.”

She opens her mouth to speak, but FJ plows on. “She-wolves are sheltered until they go into first heat so they might be protected from the ways of males. But males roam free, laying with as many human women as they wish.”

FJ thinks of how, just a few days earlier, he had treasured this freedom, denying his right to a wife well past the time of most fenrirs so he might continue to be with many females of his own choosing. But now he sees the truth of why he never took a wife.

He knew this she-wolf, who was also well past her mating years, did wait for him and his brother. Thus he feels compelled to explain his newfound understanding to her.

“The many gods and the one God did make it this way so the male wolf understands the difference between the human women he has lain with, and the she-wolf who will hold his heart until the day he dies. I understand that now. However, I understand also that you, having grown up under your father’s roof knowing no other wolf, do not.”

He finishes his explanation with a respectful bow of his head.

“Now may you talk,
Varra
.”

She does not answer him right away. In fact, she simply continues to stare at his shoulder. But her rabbit fear scent is gone now, replaced by anger, wafting off her in great waves.

“Let me get this straight,” she finally says, her jaw clenching and unclenching as she speaks. “You come here out of nowhere—”

He quickly corrects her, “From the land of the North Wolves. You know exactly from whence I’ve come.”

“From out of
nowhere
,” she repeats as if FJ has said nothing. “With your epic dragon battle story. And your wolf-bound brother trying to hump me before he tackles me in the snow. And you’re MFM fantasy scenario, which I guess I’m just supposed to help you carry out sometime before or after you drag me back to a place and time that doesn’t have video games…or flushing toilets. And when I say, ‘nah, ain’t going to happen,’ your answer to that is, ‘That’s because you’re a dumb female, just like my mom and Alisha, and don’t know any better.’ Are you shitting me?!”

They agreed to handle her gingerly, FJ reminds himself. He gave his brother his word. But her disrespect for her fated mates seemingly knows no bounds.

FJ fists his hands in order to remain calm. “You do twist my words.”

Only to have her whisper back fiercely, “No, I don’t think I do.”

He clenches his fists again. “You purposefully spin a terrible tale of what life in my land is like. My mother attends to her duties without complaint and has done so for so long as I can remember. And she does not mind our circumstances anymore.”

As the words spill from his mouth, he recognizes them for the partial truths they are. His mother only just tolerates the lack of what she calls “modern conveniences” with the occasional lament about “indoor plumbing” during the dark winters when the lake freezes and they are forced to walk to the hot springs for their weekly baths.

Yet FJ presses on. “And I am sure you will soon learn to live without your video
games
.”

Her brows lower then, and a new expression comes over her face, as if she has been suddenly met with a foul stench.

“Okay, well, the only reason you can say that is because you don’t know me. Not one bit. Video games are my
life
. They’re what I
do
, my best talent. What I’ve literally dedicated the majority of my waking hours to. And the thought of going somewhere where the thing I do best isn’t around in any way, shape, or form—that doesn’t appeal to me. At all.”

He struggles to understand her defense of her work, because the story she’s telling about how she spends her life sounds to FJ even more terrible than the one she has conceived about their mateship in his land.

Also… “By their very name, I can assume these video
games
of which you speak are not as important as my parents lives. Or the lives of all the packs in my land if our serpent enemy begins to massacre other villages.”

This finally garners the reaction FJ has been looking for. Her shoulders slump and her eyes soften in the manner of one who realizes her words bear less merit than previously thought.

“I’m sorry about your parents. I read both the fictional and real accounts of their lives, and I know not being there to protect them must be killing you.”

However, her soft eyes harden upon his shoulder. “But since you were nice enough to explain to me about the ways of the wolf, let me tell you a little something about being a princess.”

A shadow falls over the she-wolf’s face. “Princess is supposedly a title of privilege. One a lot of she-wolves say they would kill for. But what it really means is you’re a pawn. You’re told your entire life that what you want doesn’t matter, because you’re only there to serve your king and your pack. Listen, I went along with it. Rah-rah, wolf pride. I got my brand, I went to all the parties—even though I really, really
hate
parties. I even agreed to marry the wolf my father handpicked for me behind my back. And you know what? It all blew up in my face. It was a total humiliation shit storm. And I’m still trying to figure out if it was their fault for conspiring to deceive me, or my fault for being so damn weak in the first place.”

FJ’s gray eyes narrow, understanding little of what she has told him except, ‘I even agreed to marry the wolf my father handpicked for me.’

It is as Olafr suspected
, he thinks to himself.
She is here in the land called Alaska, not merely for the winter festivities, but because she would hide from the Detroit fenrir who would have her wed another
.

FJ knows not whether to be relieved or perturbed by the news that she does not wish to mate with the wolf her father has chosen for her.

But then the she-wolf shakes her head as if coming to some great conclusion.

“You caught me at the worst time, man, because I’m all the way done playing the redshirt in some king’s story. I’m sorry if you don’t consider having my own damn life to live, doing what I’ve always wanted to do, a good enough reason not to get with you. But no, I’m not going to let you show up out of the blue and start telling me how to live my life.”

Despite his earlier irritation with her and her dedication to her silly sounding work, FJ does now find his heart softening. Having grown up under the shadow of a title he knew would come to him, possibly only through the gruesome blood wall of his parents’ death, he understands well the feeling of being forced to take oar on someone else’s ship.

“
Varra
…”

With a sigh, he takes her by the arm guides her to a nearby bench.

“Wait, I thought we were going into town,” she says, giving her arm great tug so she might claim it from him.

FJ releases her. But only so he can scrape the layer of snow off the bench with his arm before laying his jacket upon it. “I would have you sit.”

“I don’t want to sit,” she answers his shoulder.

Now does he take her by the arm, pulling her down to sit on the bench beside him before she can give protest again. He cannot abide this. Her refusal to engage with him beyond strange words he never quite fully understands.

“I would have you look at me,
Varra
.”

That request merely serves to bring her eyes down to the snow at their feet, like an invisible string has given them great pull.

But this time, FJ does not let her gaze take refuge in the ground. This time FJ takes her by the chin. “Look at me,
Varra
,” he says again, letting just a little bit of his wolf into his voice. “You may cast your eyes away from others, but you will give your fated mate his due.”

For a moment her eyes bounce around wildly, like an animal trapped. But then they meet his…and stay there.

His heart stops. Her eyes…they’re even more beautiful in the daylight. Brown and wide and full of cleverness.

“Perhaps you are right to give no one your eyes,” he admits to her then. “They do take away my breath.”

“Don’t say that,” she says just as quietly.

But her eyes stay with him.

Which gives FJ’s heart great light. “Yea, this is good,
Varra
. You will this day come to be as comfortable with me as you are with my brother.”

“That’s different,” she says. “He’s a wolf. He’s easy to be…ah, comfortable with.”

“Yea, is he Ever the Wolf as I am Ever the Man. And say I, you shall be as comfortable with my man as you be with his wolf.”

Now her eyes crinkle. “That’s not how it works with nerds like me. You just can’t command somebody to stop being super awkward.”

But still does she hold his gaze, and into this gaze does FJ confess. “I give you apology for our hasty arrival here. Of the demands we have made upon your mateship without paying you proper court.” He shakes his head with regretful sadness. “Under different circumstances would I have sent my father with many sheep and much gold and gemstones to your Detroit fenrir. But we have not time for such things. For this am I sorry,
Varra
.”

At the mention of the Detroit fenrir, fear once again flashes through her eyes. “No, it’s not that…”

But then she breaks off, her eyes going soft as she says, “Look, I’m sorry, too. About your parents and your village. If I had any real world skills that could help you solve your problems, believe me, I’d be helping you out right along with Alisha. But I don’t. And the fact is, you don’t need me to get any of that dragon stuff done.”

“It is not a question of need,
Varra
.”

Her face takes on a pained expression. “Please stop calling me that. I’m not your
Varra
, okay? I don’t even know what that means, but I know it isn’t me. Because this isn’t some romance novel where it’s totally cool for two people—no, make that three—who barely know each other to instantly fall in love. I don’t even read romances, just cyber thrillers and sci-fi—that’s how far away I am from being the sort of girl who falls in instalove with a dude. So you really need to let go of this fated mate stuff and believe me when I say it is not ever going to happen. Period.”

Another denial. FJ’s wolf howls inside him and he can feel his beast trying to punch through, demanding to silence this defiant she-wolf in the way of the wolf.

“I would have you hold your tongue now,” FJ tells their she-wolf, on the complete edge of losing himself to his beast. “Do not talk any further.”