Wolf and Prejudice (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2) (17 page)

Fenris looked at Alisha as he said this next thing, and it seemed he was talking to her directly, although it was Chloe who translated his words: “If Rafe’s mate declares she does not wish any further fight, if she says she will remain with her mate, and if she vows to obey him in all things and marry him with ceremony before the next full moon, then Rafe has to step back. But if you don’t declare your desire to marry your mate, then the challengers to your claim either have to fight Rafe or he’s entitled to all of their lands and possessions.”

“Are you kidding me?” Alisha asked. She knew Fenris had never approved of her leaving Rafe in the first place, going so far as to tell her a few times in his stunted English that she should seek Rafe out when she got back to her time and attempt to communicate with him for the sake of their family, but this addendum to the rules of fighting seemed egregious, even by his standards. “He’s obviously making that up.”

Chloe shook her head. “No, that’s actually a real one. These rules were designed to prevent young she-wolves from cheating on their mates before they’re properly married—keep in mind Viking wolves only get married in the harvest months, so if the timing is off, a she-wolf could have her child before she’s joined in marriage to her mate. Lots of time for regrets and doubts to set in. So they came up with these rules for when another tries to claim an unmarried she-wolf: either that wolf has to kill her mate, so she’s free to be claimed, or she has to agree to return to her original mate, more dutiful than before.”

On the right side of the ring, one challenger climbed over the fence and Alisha’s heart sank. It was Erli, the youngest son of one of the town’s woodsmen. He was maybe sixteen years old, if that, and he really had no business putting in a challenge for her hand in the first place.

“So if I don’t do something, then Fenris is just going to let Rafe kill twenty of his wolves?”

Fenris chose that moment to exchange a look with Chloe.

“Is he talking to you?” Alisha asked, hoping maybe there was another rule on the books that could get them all out of this mess.

But Chloe shook her head. “No, he’s not saying anything to me, but I’m pretty sure he’s hoping you step in, because it doesn’t look like Rafe’s going to back down.”

Erli was now edging toward a crazy-eyed Rafe, his clawed hands in front of him, his mouth clamped shut as if to protect his tongue.

Alisha cursed. Then apologized to the puppy in her arms for cursing. Then she stepped into the fighting space. “Fine,” she called out in her terrible Norse accent. “I am the mate of Rafe. I want him above all wolves and will obey him from now on.”

Fenris smiled and called something back to her. She only caught a few words of it, but guessed correctly that she needed to promise one more thing: “And I vow to marry him before the next full moon.”

Erli looked truly relieved and he quickly made his way out of the fighting space. But when Rafe turned to her, his eyes were just as feral and angry as they’d been before she’d given in.

The only people left in the fighting space, she now realized, were her, him, and a wolf puppy he’d never to met before.

ALISHA NEVER COWERED. That had long been the cornerstone of her personality, and, in her opinion, her most saving grace. But Rafe was looming over her now, shirtless and covered in blood and way more ripped than he’d been when they mated. It was cold, yes, but somehow it seemed like the wind biting into her face and blowing through her hair was coming off of him and not from the polar night.

She could practically feel her wolf curling into a protective ball inside of her. And her son whimpered in her arms, even while looking up at his father with blanket curiosity.

“You give in?” he asked her in English.

“Yes,” she answered, her voice tight with tears. “No more killing.”

If he had any remorse about what he’d just done, it didn’t show on his face. “You’ll come back with me.”

“Yes,” she said, working hard to keep her gaze locked in to his. “We’ll come back with you.”

He nodded, his eyes colder than she’d ever seen them. “Fine, I accept your surrender.”

He reached for the puppy in her arms, and before she could think about it, she yanked him back from Rafe, holding on to him with a mother’s fierce hug of protection.

Not her best move, as it more than anything else she’d done or said today set Rafe off. He took a menacing step forward, roaring. “He’s my son, Alisha, the one you kept from me for five years!”

Suddenly, the two other non-red puppies, one black and tan, one just black, broke from the cub pack. They got between Rafe and Alisha, barking their angry yips at him. One even nipped at Rafe’s ankles, causing him to rear back.

“Oh, my God, no don’t!” Alisha cried to the pups, then to Rafe, she said, “Please don’t hurt them, they’re just trying to protect me. They don’t know any better.”

Rafe gave her a contemptuous look. “I wouldn’t hurt a child—”

But he cut off with a loud yell when the black and tan pup sank his teeth into Rafe’s ankle and wouldn’t let go.

The other black puppy ran to stand in the space between Rafe and Alisha before crouching down with a menacing growl, as if to warn Rafe that there would be another puppy he’d have to go through if he shook off the one on his ankle. Meanwhile the black and tan puppy in Alisha’s arms was also going crazy, yipping loudly, while trying to squirm out of her hold.

“What the…?” Rafe said, trying to shake the puppy off his leg, but to Alisha’s relief, not too hard.

“Rafesson, stop,” she said to the puppy at his ankle. “He’s not going to hurt me. Please let him go.”

Their son gave Rafe’s ankle one last shake before he went to join the black puppy, growling with teeth-baring menace, and of course that made the puppy in her arms stop and growl right along with them.

Rafe’s eyes narrowed, the irritant of having a wolf cub’s teeth lodged into his ankle obviously disappearing under the new mystery of why she was referring to the dog that had just bitten him as Rafesson. “If this is Rafesson,” he asked. “Who’s that in your arms?”

And this was when Alisha actually felt a little sorry for Rafe, because after traveling back in time, and fighting not one but two Viking warriors who wished to claim her as their own, he’d probably thought there were no more surprises to be had.

However…

She winced. “Ah, this is Nago. Short for Nagojut, but we all call him Nago.” She nodded at the growling puppy standing between them. “And that’s Knud.”

Rafe went very still then. “You mated with another wolf?” His voice held all kinds of censure, which wasn’t surprising given that going into heat with another wolf while still paired with your original heat mate was considered a heinous crime amongst their kind. In some cultures, it was even punishable by death.

But Alisha shook her head. “No, that’s illegal here, too. And even if I’d mated with another wolf, then I would have been compelled to also name the first born after the father.”

Now his face went from angry to confused, obviously unable to process what she was trying to gently tell him. So she just came right out and said it to him straight. “Nago’s your son, too. Your youngest. And Knud is your second born.”

Then she shrugged big and wry like an eighties sitcom character and said, “Congrats, Rafe. We had triplets.”

17

T
he plan had been for Grady to wait no more than three weeks. And if Rafe didn’t return within that time, Grady was under strict instructions to go back down the mountain and tell Dale what had happened to his only son. Rafe knew Grady had been uneasy with the plan, not only because of the possibility of Rafe not coming back, but also the prospect of having to tell the retired king he would need to come out of retirement and bury his son without a body, because Rafe had taken such a stupid risk going back in time for Alisha.

But as it was, Grady was still setting up their campsite when Alisha, Rafe, and (he was still having a hard time wrapping his mind around this), all three of their sons, came flying out of the portal.

It was a rough landing with both Alisha and Rafe hitting the ground with a hard thud while his sons, who were still in wolf form, tumbled out of Alisha’s arms and rolled across the soft blanket of mountain snow. The snow was a sharp, painful shock against his naked torso. But at least the sun was shining above and he could see his surroundings without having to depend on his night vision.

Rafe quickly climbed to his feet, brushing off snow as he did so.

Grady stared at them all, the tent pole dropping out of his hands. Then his eyes went from Rafe to the three wolf pups, shaking snow off their furry bodies. It would have been adorable if the whole situation wasn’t so batshit crazy.

Rafe didn’t bother with an explanation. “Plan’s still the same. Take her to Chloe’s.”

Grady nodded, no questions asked, and Alisha, who was just getting to her feet, gasped when his beta grabbed her by the arm and began pulling her away, “Wait, what’s going on? Where are you taking me?”

Their three puppies started barking as soon as Grady started hauling their mother away. This time, however, Alisha didn’t let them get far enough to bite his sheriff.

She ripped her arm from Grady’s grip and bent down to address them. “It’s okay, this man is what we call a sheriff, and he’s the village’s beta. He won’t hurt me,” she promised them, though she couldn’t have possibly known that for sure. She threw Rafe an angry, judging look over their heads as she said this next thing. “Go with your father. He’s the Fenris of this place, and I’m sure he will treat you well.”

The puppies whimpered, but they all sat back on their haunches, heads dipped with sorrow, the very picture of reluctant obedience.

Grady bent down to take her arm again, but Alisha stopped him with a quick shake of her head. “Don’t drag me off. You’ll upset them.” She gave Rafe a scathing look. “But I’ll come with you, since I know you have your orders.”

The puppies continued to whimper as their mother walked away, but they stayed where they were, obeying her order, even as they looked after her with forlorn eyes.

ALISHA HADN’T BEEN EXPECTING a bouquet of roses when she came back to the future, but she also hadn’t expected to get tossed inside Chloe’s floor to ceiling turning cage. The historian in her couldn’t help but appreciate finally seeing the place where her friend’s amazing time traveling story had begun with a full moon heat mating. It was just as Chloe had described, down to the rubber mat floor, so anyone could have a comfortable sleep there, human or wolf.

But the self-preservationist in her noticed—with a chill—that a few things had been added that weren’t part of Chloe’s original story: a narrow cot, a microwave, a small electric freezer containing frozen meals, a small chest of drawers filled with clothing, and even more disturbing, a tall closet-like structure she suspected held a toilet inside of it.

She opened the door. Her suspicions were right. What looked and smelled like a brand new flushable toilet sat inside the wooden box. Much better than the toilet pit she’d been forced to use in Viking Age Norway, but it didn’t bode well that Rafe had actually run pipes down to the basement, in order to install a flushable. This place was obviously no longer meant to serve as a custom turning cage. It was now a prison. One set up especially for her.

Alisha’s heart beat erratically inside her chest as she wondered how long Rafe planned to keep her here and if she’d ever get to see her boys again. How about… her stomach filled up with dread. How about if Rafe was planning to keep her here while he petitioned the Lupine Council for sole custody of the boys? Considering his clout with the powers that be, and that she’d blatantly kept the boys from him all this time, and also that she wouldn’t be able to contest his request from inside her jail cell… her heart sank. It was one bastard of a dick move, but that was probably exactly what he was planning to do.

Don’t panic
, she told herself.
You’ll think of something. You always do. You’re smart, you’re smart, you’re smart.

It was a familiar mantra, one she’d been chanting since the age of sixteen, when her mother had tried to keep her from going away to college. She’d gotten her education, she reminded herself, and she would find a way to see her sons again. There was no doubt in her mind.

But as the hours passed, boredom began to set in, and then something else. Being alone was a nice change of pace, but being alone without a book to read or without even a pen and paper with which to write was a recipe for misery—a misery even the pleasure of not having to kill, harvest, or prepare her lunch and dinner from scratch couldn’t stave off.

And when the sun set, beyond the basement window, covering the room in darkness, Alisha thought of the fierce way Chloe had hugged her good-bye in Norway.

“It’s all right,” her friend had assured her. “I know you’ll be all right. Try to forgive him, and try to get him to forgive you, and you two will be just fine.”

Chloe had said this with such conviction, Alisha had almost believed her, but sitting in her now completely dark jail cell, she knew her friend had lied. Rafe had killed two Vikings with his bare hands, he was not going to forgive her. And this was not all right. It was definitely not all right.

Helpless tears fell down her face and the sound of her pitiful sobs began to fill the basement.

But then as quickly as she gave into her tears, she stopped crying, and sniffed the air. There was a new scent…

Rafe, she realized, without having to turn around. The lights flicked on overhead with an electric buzz, flooding the room so brightly, it took a moment for her eyes to adjust. Then she heard the cage door open.

“You were crying,” Rafe said, and even though he wasn’t touching her, she could
feel
him standing directly behind her.

“Yes, I miss the boys.” She still didn’t turn around—couldn’t—and she kept her eyes on the window, despite the fact that it had been rendered opaque by the sudden flood of interior light.