Her Viking Wolves: 50 Loving States, Michigan (20 page)

“They’ll come after me,” I warn Uncle Ford, “You and me get it, but they don’t know my father. And they’re very…”
protective, loyal, devoted
. A thousand words for how hardcore awesome they are run through my mind before I finally settle on, “determined. They won’t give up until—”

Uncle Ford cuts me off.

“I’ll take care of your boys. Put tranqs in them and keep them locked up downstairs until Alisha gets them whatever they need to get the hell up out of here. Meanwhile, I had the pilot come back after he got done dropping my nieces and their families off at the airport this morning. We got a plane fueled up and ready to go.”

Uncle Ford trails off, once again looking away from me. “Anyway, if you’ve got anything you want to bring back with you, better go get it now. You probably won’t be coming back here for a while.”

Knowing this is his incredibly awkward version of a kindness, I nod and head toward the kitchen door. The truth is, once I return to my father’s house pregnant, it won’t just be a while before I come back to Alaska. It’ll probably be never.

“Yours always.”

I stop in my tracks. The promise I made to Olafr and FJ—it paralyzes my heart, ringing in my head, echoing in my bones.

“You know it’s the right thing to do,” Uncle Ford tells my back.

He’s right. I have to let all of this go. FJ and Olafr, as well as any dreamed of future we might have had together.

I’d been right about one thing. FJ and Olafr aren’t boys and I’m no longer the ridiculously innocent girl of a few days ago, before I’d ever been kissed.

There would be no official wedding, and I would probably never return to Alaska. But if it keeps FJ and Olafr alive, my going back to Detroit will be worth it.

I continue out the kitchen door and upstairs to my room. I can’t find my laptop, but I pack my phone and everything else I need. Then I go back down to meet Uncle Ford at the pier.

And this time when I leave, I don’t look back.

T
he sleep
that falls upon FJ after they give their she-wolf true claim is filled with many dreams: longhouse fires, laughing with his parents, promising his sister he will see her again before the fated mate spell grabs her away from their time and their land. But at the end of all of these dream-memories, does he find himself seated beside his father in the thatch-roof kingdom house of a Gotar fenrir. One of many. For these lands are not like the ones lived upon by his father’s North Wolves. The Gotar wolves are not a single pack united under a single king.

No, in these lands, each village has a wolf who calls himself fenrir, and mostly did they gain their titles through fight, almost never through inheritance. However, this particular Gotar village sits below a gate. So though his father has rarely met twice with the same fenrir, did he travel every three winters to pay visit to whosoever occupied this particular village’s kingdom house.

When FJ was five-and-twenty, his father did take him along on his travels to the Gotar land. Supposedly so he could impress upon him the diplomatic lessons he would need for when he became king of the North Wolves. However, FJ had much suspicion his father’s true purpose was to find him a mate.

His own father had married for love and had thus proclaimed his children could do so as well. However, there was much fortune to be had by a marriage to the right she-wolf, and this particular Gotar fenrir was rumored to have a comely daughter.

The rumor proved true. He did have a pretty enough yellow-haired daughter. However, the Gotar fenrir proved little to either of their liking. He seemed to have no care for his family. Barely making introductions, before making great show of a sword he’d taken from a “sickly human” the last time he and his wolves had made their way East along the river to raid. It was a fine sword to be sure, bearing a distinctive pattern upon its surface that put FJ in mind of flowing water. It also had beautiful wooden hilt and a well-rendered wolf pommel—a later addition to the sword by the Gotar fenrir, FJ guessed. Unless his father’s old gods really did wish that this Gotar fenrir would take a sword whose pommel told the tale of his true nature from a man who could not himself defend.

In any case, the Gotar informed them that he, like the Fenris’s own father, had decided to dub his new pride:
The King Maker
.

“Unlike you, my kingdom was not handed down,” he told FJ’s father, the current possessor of the original
King Maker
sword. “And if I am to unite the Gotar wolves as your father united his North ones, so must I follow in the example of a great sword.”

Insult or compliment? The Gotar fenrir seemed to excel at speaking lines that walked the dangerous territory betwixt both. And soon was FJ ready to leave this conceited male’s longhouse almost immediately after he stepped into it.

“My grandfather named his sword
after
uniting the North Wolves under one fenrir,” FJ informed the Gotar king. “A great fortune to his ancestors indeed, that he did live his destiny rather than boasting about it before it had even begun. And you are correct about the boon of a well-named sword. Did my father find this out when he used
The King Maker
time and time again to defend his title against all who did come to take it when he was only fourteen winters old.”

Having giving up his own weapon soon after entering the Gotar king’s house as custom dictated, FJ let his words serve as his sword in the case of this overprideful southern fenrir.

“Well-spoken, Fenrisson,
Ever the Man
,” the Gotar king answered with a tight smile. “May we all hope your skill with words will serve where your wolf cannot.”

The Gotar fenrir was, FJ did realize in that moment, what his mother termed when speaking of she-wolves who did slyly question his sister’s refusal of all grooms: “passive aggressive.” And did FJ wish mightily in that moment that he shared a mind bond with his father as he did with his brother, so he might relay the words,
“Let us leave this place, Father. Now.”

However, his father could not hear his son’s mind. And even if he could, they were bound by custom and grace to take the night meal with the Gotar fenrir, his extended family, and his poorly named sword, which he tactlessly wore to the table. During the tense silence, FJ did think much of his mother’s stories about the horseless carriages in her land, and men who did drive prettier ones to make up for the assets they did lack.

The night meal, though lavish, was a truly uncomfortable affair, with none but the Gotar fenrir and his male family members doing the talking. For the she-wolves in the dark kingdom house spoke only when spoken to, and did seem to know much fear.

The reason for their fear soon became clear. At one point during dinner did the Gotar fenrir take issue with a young serving woman who splashed mead upon his table.

Though she did offer up great apology, the Gotar fenrir did not hesitate to push her over the table and take her in a manner most foul. With his queen, daughter, and family all looking on, listening to the screams of the unheated she-wolf beneath him.

FJ was disgusted and enraged at this turn of events, and did his eyes go to his sword where it stood propped up against the door with all the other weapons.

“No, my son,” his father said in a low voice before FJ could rise. “This would only make matters worse. You must never take action in anger.”

It was the first time FJ came to understand why his father was known as Fenris the Serious. In their land did his father appear a most congenial and well-satisfied wolf to all he did meet—especially when at his mate’s longhouse table. But in foreign lands, his father’s wolf changed its fur. He became one who kept his own counsel, spoke little, and betrayed nary a feeling behind his gray eyes.

At his father’s command, FJ let himself settle back into his seat and forced the anger to drain from his face. But the appalling scene did disturb him greatly. So much so that when the Gotar fenrir asked FJ which of the servant she-wolves he might wish for to draw his nightly bath, he was able to produce little more than a terse, “None, thank you.”

The drawing of baths was typically performed by a naked she-wolf who would not only heat and pour the water, but also clean the wolf’s body and then offer herself for whatever additional amusements he might have in mind.

Normally, FJ was more than happy to accept such an offer, especially after many moons at sea. But every she-wolf serving at the Gotar’s table was unheated—almost as if the Gotar fenrir had purposefully deigned it such. And FJ had no desire to be with a frightened girl who knew little of her own body and was with him by force.

“We leave early in the morn,” FJ’s father explained, seemingly for both of them. “And so must we take good sleep upon our ship. I give you thanks for your hospitality.”

They both stood to give their good-byes. But the Gotar fenrir remained seated. His small eyes narrowed on them both, clearly trying to decide whether or not to take insult at their denial of his hospitality.

And again did FJ find his eyes creeping toward the sword, only to be quelled with another look from his father.

But in the end did the Gotar fenrir stand, coming down to where they were at the other end of the table, with his arms spread.

“I understand,” the Gotar fenrir said. “Mayhap my wenches be too pale for you. I have heard tale of the dark meat you prefer. Your queen, a she-wolf from another land with skin the color of dirt, who did give you sand-colored pups.”

Then did the Gotar slap the King of the North Wolves on his arm with a great booming laugh. “Mayhap we should take human slaves when next we sail to the
blammen
lands, and then would we send them to you as a gift, so your sand Viking here might finally claim a bride!”

As if on cue, the rest of the males at the table joined him in his laughter—only to silence when FJ’s father did pull the Gotar fenrir’s hand from his shoulder and break it, the cracking sound of bones reverberating louder than the forced mirth. Then before the Gotar fenrir could complete his answering scream, did the King of the North Wolves pull the sword from the southern fenrir’s own scabbard and shove its shining length through the Gotar’s gut.

For many winters afterwards, FJ could still hear the gurgling sound the Gotar fenrir made as his father thrust the fine sword upwards, all the way to the Gotar’s backbone. Also would he remember the way his father’s eyes glowed as he lifted his boot and shoved the now dead king’s body from his own sword. Along with the loud thump of the wolf’s body falling upon the longhouse floor as if it were naught more than a large clump of sheep shit.

Later his father presented him with the bloody sword as they made a hasty departure from the dead Gotar king’s village. The sounds of fighting could still be heard well behind him. For as soon as did king did fall, the males in his household turned not on them, but upon each other. Yelling and running for their weapons at the door to brutally decide the question of who would become the kingdom’s next fenrir.

“But Father, you told me earlier to never take action in anger. How would you explain your actions in the dead Gotar king’s house?”

“That be not anger,” his father replied simply. “That be promise. The night I married your mother under the full moon, did I promise to protect and defend her always. And always will I keep this promise to her. I will let no wolf harm her, and I will allow no wolf to give her insult, even if she knows of it not. This is my promise to her, and this is the promise you will some day make to your own mate.”

His father then pressed the hilt of the sword, which FJ would later name
The Death Maker
, into his son’s hand. And truly did his gray eyes glow as he said, “Now is the time to finally unleash your wolf, FJ.”

FJ squinted with confusion, because only his mother and sister called him by this name, never his father.

This is a dream,
he suddenly realizes, as dreaming men oft do. And with that realization, the sounds of the fighting suddenly cease. With the same suddenness does the Gotar village and ocean disappear, leaving nothing behind but his father’s eyes glowing bright in the terrible silence.

“You have my permission,” his father tells him in the wake of the dream. “For her must you finally let your beast go free. Now rise, FJ. Rise!”

F
J jerks awake
with his dream father’s words still ringing in his ears. And nearly overcome with confusion, does he immediately reach for his mate…

Only to find the bed empty. And cold.

FJ sits fully now, his heart giving great alarm. Both his she-wolf and brother are long since gone from this room. And an ocean of dread fills his stomach as he grabs his sword and rushes out of his now empty room.

At the top of the stairs, he stops to inhale deeply through his nose…

He can smell several wolves below, including his brother. But their she-wolf’s scent is nowhere to be found.

FJ bolts down the stairs. He knows something is terribly wrong. Because even in human form, his brother would never let their she-wolf leave this house alone with FJ still sleeping above. And what he sees when he reaches the bottom of the stairs stops his heart dead in his chest.

His brother’s naked form is upon the ground. The small Alaska fenrir on one side, and his dark-skinned beta on the other. There is a small gun in the beta’s hand, of the same sort Fenrir Rafe did raise to him when he came through the Alaska gate.

And now does FJ’s wolf finally rise violently within his chest. “Where is our she-wolf?” he demands of the two men.

The Alaska fenrir and his beta are in deep discussion over his brother’s body and did not scent his arrival. They start at his words and his mate’s uncle raises his gun.

The Alaska fenrir says, “Now FJ, calm down. Just calm down, son…”

He is not the Alaska fenrir’s son, and he does not wish to calm down—would not be able to do so even if it were his wish. His brother is on the floor. Their
pregnant
she-wolf cannot be scented.
FJ’s wolf knows no thought. No words can be formed upon his tongue.

And with an inhuman growl does he raise his sword. “Tell me where she is. Tell me where she is NOW!” he roars.