Her Viking Wolves: 50 Loving States, Michigan (3 page)

S
o that happened
.
I jerk my controller to the left and right, watching my humongous, red-headed Viking avatar fight a dragon horde on the full wall LED screen in the main room of my suite. This is the game’s Boss Level. The level
before
the level that gets you all the prizes. The somewhat hidden truth is Iggle programmed in at least two different ways to blast through this level without swinging your sword even once. But today I have my Viking slashing and stabbing anything scaly with a sword.

I’m in that kind of mood, and I take all sorts of pleasure in watching a shitload of dragons fall beneath my virtual sword as I violently thumb the controls.

“Tiara, what the hell you doing in here?”

My Dad and Evelyn are at my door. I can see them standing there out the corner of my eye. But I ignore them, taking out two more dragons in lieu of answering.

I might—
might
—have been able to get away with this if it were just Evelyn at the door. But I soon hear the sound of Dad’s motorcycle boots stomping across my cork floor—its muting effect is no match for the huge biker alpha.

He comes to a stop, looming over where I’m sitting on the floor, my back resting against my bed as I play my game. Like I’m still a teenager and don’t have nearly $100,000 worth of state-of-the-art game chairs waiting just a few feet way. Or a fiancé who, as it turns out, is way more into my twin brother than me.

“I don’t even believe you’re in here playing when you should be downstairs at your engagement party,” Dad growls above me.

“Engagement’s off,” I answer without taking my eyes from the grisly wall-to-wall dragon carnage going down on the LED screen.

“What?!?!” I hear Evelyn screech from the doorway.

But Dad just says, “Give me a minute with her, Ev.”

“But she’s trying to call off the engagement! And she’s sitting on the floor
in Valentino!!”

She’s right about the inappropriateness of me sitting on the floor. When I rushed in here, I’d snatched up the controller and dropped to a seated position. Going immediately into the game like a kid on a mission instead of the founding CEO of a game company. But at this moment, I wish I was still a kid. Playing my video games and dreaming of the day I’d become a successful grown-up video game designer.

Technically, that dream came true. I’m very successful now with my own company and the game I’m currently playing has broken all sorts of sales records. But the grown-up part…

The image of my brother Clyde pounding my fiancé’s ass flashes into my mind.

…yeah, the grown-up stuff isn’t going so well.

“I said give me a minute with her,” Dad repeats to Evelyn.

No more protests, and the next non-videogame thing I hear is the muffled click of Evelyn’s heels walking across the cork floors. Dad isn’t the kind of wolf whose orders you question more than once. Even if you’re his mate.

Even if you’re his daughter.

Case in point: “Turn off the game.”

My thumbs keep going as I try to remain the child, ignoring the call to come down to dinner.

“You heard what I said, girl. You don’t want to see what happens if I have to ask you twice.”

No, I suppose I don’t. The mark on my back feels like it’s sizzling. A permanent reminder of who I belong to, even when I’m holed up in my own wing of the house.

I pause the game.

“Stand up. Look at me.”

One order I obey immediately. The other—well, I do the best I can. My eyes go to Dad’s Italian leather vest, which is covered in patches, meant to tell a tale of his many feats as the Dark Wolf Alpha of Detroit. I keep my gaze pinned to the red and black “President” patch just below his left shoulder and paste an “I’m listening” look on my face.

“What’s this all about?” he asks into my waiting silence.

“The engagement is off—”

“Yeah, I heard that part,” Dad drawls, his inherited Arkansas accent becoming more pronounced with his anger. “What I’m looking to find out is how the hell you think I’m going to let you just call off this engagement?”

“It’s not a matter of let. It’s done, Dad. We broke up, because…” I stop, my jaw setting.

This is where I’m supposed to throw Clyde under the bus. But he’s my twin. I’ve never known a moment in life when I didn’t love him. Plus, our pack is basically a motorcycle gang. They wouldn’t just refuse to let him be king if they ever found out about this. They’d kill him.

So I settle for, “Kyle and I figured out we weren’t a match. So we broke it off.”

That sounded more than a little plausible, and I’m sure no one in our pack will find it hard to believe the handsome blond prince broke up with my awkward ass.

That will probably be even easier for them to believe than him proposing to me in the first place.

“Stop being so dramatic, Tee,” Dad says. He shifts his tall body, planting two fists into his sides. “Nothing’s broken off yet.”

“Dad, yes it is,” I answer, rubbing my temple. “Believe me. We’re not getting back together again.”

“Why? Because your brother bottom-bitched him?”

I freeze.

And Dad says, “Yeah, Clyde told me all about it. Your brother was stupid to do what he did. Especially here at your party.” He lets out an irritated sigh. “But come back downstairs. We can still save this deal with the Prince of Dakota.”

I shake my head, not understanding. “But how? Kyle’s obviously not into me—or any other she-wolf, for that matter. And Clyde—”

“Clyde will be fine. He’ll take over the Detroit kingdom when he comes of age this spring, and then hand it down to your future son. I’ve already discussed this with him.”

“What do you mean you…?”

I trail off, the other shoe finally dropping.

He knew
. He knew all along my brother was gay, and moreover, that my fiancé was his…what did he call it? Bottom bitch. It’s quite possible Aunt Evelyn also knew. And maybe even Dad’s beta, Yancey, since there seems to be very little my dad and his enforcer don’t share.

Holy shit
, I think, my heart sinking with the realization. No wonder Kyle’s parents had been so eager to approve this marriage even though they’d never met me. They probably knew, too. In fact it looks like everyone knew except me. The idiot they’d planned to saddle with a closeted gay alpha prince.

“Wow,” I say on a short breath. Then because I can’t think of anything else to say, I say it again, blinking hard. “
Wow
…”

“There are ways to get around this sort of thing,” Dad explains in the wake of my shocked-as-hell blinking. “They got science and shit…the North Dakota royals told me all about it. And their kingdom doc says it wouldn’t be any problem to put a baby in you, just like the humans do with their IVF. We can even make sure it’s a boy! Get a future king for Detroit and North Dakota, since that faggot prince of theirs is an only child.”

My stomach turns like there’s a meat grinder inside it at the thought of being used as an incubator for not one, but possibly two kingdoms.

“And what about when I go into heat?” I ask him, morbidly curious. “What would you do then?”

“Evelyn and me think there’s a good chance you ain’t ever going to go into heat. I mean you past thirty, Tee. You spend all your time in this damn room with them video games. And if you ain’t doing that, you hanging out with that pothead, Iggle. For all we know, you just like your brother—”

“Don’t you dare,” I hiss. “Don’t you
dare
reduce everything Iggle and I have achieved to some kind of sexual relationship. I’ve never lied to you about her. A: she’s way too young for me. And B: she’s my friend and lead programmer. That’s all. And C: why didn’t you tell me?”

“Tell you what?” Dad asks, not looking as sure in his “I’m the fucking Alpha here” stance as he did a few moments ago.

I fold my arms across my large chest and almost manage to speak clearly and look him in the eye as I ask, “If you were so sure I had something going with Iggle, why didn’t just you tell me about this plan of yours to get an heir for your throne through the magic of modern medicine?”

My father’s silence tells me everything I already suspected.

Of course he hadn’t planned on telling me. If I was a lesbian, he didn’t want to know. And if I wasn’t, he just wanted me to shut up and go along with the program anyway. In any case, they hadn’t wanted to risk me finding out.

“Wow, Dad,” I say. “I always thought you didn’t like me because I was too much like my mother. But now I see it’s because I just wasn’t a good enough pawn in your kingdom games. I’m glad I finally know how little you think of me.”

“Tiara…” Dad starts.

“No. Don’t Tiara me!” I answer angrily. “I might be a terrible princess, but I’ve been a good daughter. For years, I’ve squashed every anti-social instinct I have in order to attend pack parties and act like I’m remotely interested in being the Dark Wolf princess. I got the Dark Wolf mark. I even got engaged just like you wanted me to. But this…this thing you arranged behind my back with Clyde and Kyle and God knows who else? That isn’t something I can forgive. Like ever, Dad.”

“Tee,” he says, like I’m a child blowing everything out of proportion. “Don’t be so—”

“Don’t call me dramatic!” I nearly scream.

Because Dad’s right about a lot of things: my weirdness, my undateability, a lot of things. But he is dead wrong about this.

And maybe he gets that a little, because he says, “Look, I’ll go downstairs and tell everybody you got a headache or something. I’ll let you sleep on it. Kyle’s a good prince. And he’s willing to put up with…” Dad seems to struggle for the right word and settles for, “…you. You’ll see that in the morning.”

It feels like a command. My Alpha King telling me to go to sleep and get my head right with marrying a gay wolf, just like he told me to make sure my face stayed fixed when I got the Dark Wolf brand burned into my back.

My mother hadn’t cried. Evelyn hadn’t cried. Neither his sister nor his brother cried. Clyde hadn’t cried. Dad expected the same of me. To be a good Greenwolf. To put my feelings aside and fall in line. Even for a gay fiancé.

Then, as if to prove how far he’s got me shoved under his thumb, he doesn’t bother to wait for my answer. Just leaves out my rooms. Sure as shit that I’ll do exactly what he wants just like I always have. From getting the Dark Wolf brand to accepting Kyle’s proposal.

In fact, I remember how that proposal went down with new eyes as I watch Dad walk out of my rooms. Dad drawing me aside at Thanksgiving and informing me that Kyle asked him for my hand in marriage. Me saying “For real?” because Kyle and I had had fun on our dates, and we’d enjoyed playing my video games together, but our relationship had not felt like much more than that.

“Yeah, for real,” he’d answered. “And I expect you to say yes.”

So I had with a mixture of bafflement and “okay, I guess this is happening.”

What an idiot I’d been. What. A. Freaking. Idiot.

The door closes behind my father with a final click.

And for a moment, everything in my life feels as dark as a Game Over screen, lit only by the larger than life image of the red-haired Viking surrounded by dragons on my LED screen.

But then…something in me reboots. A hard reset unlike anything I’ve ever known, with three simple words flashing inside my mind:
“Not this time.”

S
oooo
…my Alaska cousins probably weren’t expecting to see me for their annual Christmas party. For one thing, none of the Detroit royals have ever attended any of their annual Christmas parties. Or even gone to Alaska, as long as we’re on that subject. We always make them come to us in Detroit where, “Ain’t nobody gonna get ate up by a bear,” as Dad puts it.

But three planes and a half-mile trek on ice skates after being ordered to suck it up and marry my gay fiancé, I arrive at their front door like, SURPRISE!

Okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. It’s actually impossible to show up for a surprise visit to the royal Alaska family. In fact Aunt Wilma, my father’s sister, not only sends a small plane to fetch me when I call her from the Fairbanks airport, but she and her entire clan, including her husband, the Alpha King of Alaska, their three daughters, their husbands, and their small children, are all waiting for me on the pier.

Still, Aunt Wilma looks real alarmed when I skate up.

“What’s going on?” she demands, pushing her way to the front of the small crowd of Alaska relatives. “Are you okay? Is my brother okay?”

“Should I get Ford?” her much shorter Inuit husband, King Tikaani, asks.

Ford is Wilford, Aunt Wilma’s other brother—my uncle—who according to family legend, came to the wilds of Alaska to serve as Uncle Tikaani’s beta over three decades ago. I wouldn’t know for sure, since I’ve never met the dude or the son he had out here with his Inuit mate.

“Everyone’s fine,” I assure her quickly.

Cue the crickets as the Alaska king and queen stare at me, along with the gaggle of cousins, spouses, and offspring.

“Then why are you here?” she finally asks. “I don’t understand. Wasn’t your engagement party yesterday? Your father said—”