Her Viking Wolves: 50 Loving States, Michigan (8 page)

F
enrisson is not surprised
to be met by a group of male wolves, all pointing weapons at him when he emerges from the dark forest between the time gate and the mountain’s manmade trail. In fact, he feels rather oddly prepared for the moment…thanks to his foreign-born mother.

He immediately drops his Gotar king sword and raises his hands into the air saying, “Don’t tranq me, bro,” just as she taught him he must if ever he should encounter this very situation.

The thinnest of the three male wolves before him lowers his weapon with a perplexed and slightly amused expression on his face. “Let me guess, you must be FJ.”

Yes, FJ, as only his mother and sister call him in private. Two letters in his mother’s native tongue. Short for Fenris Junior. Which brings him to realize two things forthwith: he must be in his mother’s time and he probably needs to get used to the idea of being called FJ, at least for now.

Also, he recognizes the wolf who has called him by his
barn nafn.
“And you are Rafe, Fenrir of Colorado, father of Rafesson, mate of Aunt Alisha, and the slaughterer who did vanquish two of our finest warriors for the sole purpose of claiming your mate.”

The other two males turn to Fenrir Rafe.

“You did
what
?” asks the one with the shaved head and tattoos upon his face. “And what the hell is a fenrir?”

Fenrir Rafe rolls his eyes in much the same manner as FJ’s mother.

“Yeah, that’s me,” he says to FJ, then looks to the tattooed male. “A fenrir is what they call a shifter king, in order to distinguish them from regular Viking kings. It’s got something to do with how they thought, uh…think wolves were created by the Norse wolf god, Fenrir. But Fenris is also his name and his father’s name, not just a title. Did I get that right?” He shifts his gaze back to FJ.

“I see you remember well the custom of our land, Fenrir Rafe.” FJ answers with a bow of his head.

“Well, it’s not too hard to do. Your play aunt, Alisha, wrote a whole book about it a few years ago, and I read it from front to back.” His eyes narrow. “But I’m getting the feeling it’s been more than a few years for you. The last time I saw you, you were a skinny teenager.”

“Teenager,” FJ repeats, feeling the strange word upon his tongue. “This is not a word my mother has taught me.”

“Not a child, but not yet a man. Like an older boy. In-between.”

FJ nods but he still does not completely understand. In his land, there are only boys and men. No in-between. Nevertheless, “I was six-and-ten winters when I witnessed your great feats,” FJ answers. “I am a man now, five-and-thirty winters.”

At those words, he recalls his Aunt Bera’s dire predictions about what would come to pass this winter and feels his heart grow heavy.

“Well, you grew up, dude,” Fenrir Rafe answers. “But it’s only been a few years for us. The boys are seven now. They might even still remember you.”

FJ’s heart lightens at the thought of finally seeing again his young “play cousins”—as his mother and Aunt Alisha did call them. And so little changed from when he last set eyes upon them. However…

“My deepest apologies, Fenrir Rafe. Though I greatly wish to see your sons, I fear my time here is short. Like my father before me, I have come to seek refuge from a great enemy.”

He covers his heart and bows his head solemnly. “I must ask the advice of your learned queen, my play aunt, Alisha. I must also find my own fated mate, so I might return with her to my time and vanquish the enemy who brought bloodshed to our village.”

In truth, FJ is not nearly as interested in finding his fated mate as he is in gaining the advice of Aunt Alisha. She might be the only one who can gather enough information to help him defeat their seemingly invincible foe. And though he can already feel a connection to his mate tugging him down the mountain, he is most concerned for his village…and his parents who will eventually be returning to it. Possibly to an ambush if Randulfr, the beta who led the village wolves retreat, cannot warn them first.

Of all of the things he must accomplish in this short period, fulfilling the fated mate spell “falls low on his list,” as his mother would say.

But everyone in the small group, including Fenrir Rafe, now stares at him with wide eyes, as if addled with confusion by his words. Then the large yellow-haired man standing beside Fenrir Rafe makes many gestures with his hands.

“Yes,” Fenrir Rafe agrees aloud, as he, too, makes a series of hand movements in return. “He speaks way better than his brother.”

FJ starts. “My brother?” he repeats.

F
J’s father
has raised him to be honorable in all things. For this reason does he make little mention of his fated mate to Fenrir Rafe or the other two fenrirs with him. FJ wishes them not to think him as the love-besotted girls who did come oft to their longhouse to ask his mother for the spell that fated her to his father.

In truth, FJ has much enjoyed himself as the future fenrir of the North Wolves. The wenches and the mead, both offered aplenty wherever he and his father, the Prince and King of the North Wolves respectively, do travel.

His father is well mated to his mother and unlike many of the mated Vikings they traveled with, his father only has eyes for his mate. But FJ has enjoyed availing himself of human and wolf females alike, and never has he lamented his lack of a mate—though his parents did and quite loudly, too, once he passed seven-and-twenty winters, the age his father was when he crossed paths with FJs mother.

“Look at all this cooking I do,” said his mother to him not long ago. “I deserve some grandbabies. Myrna’s too damn stubborn to marry anybody and Olafr’s sticking with his wolf, so you’re my only hope.”

Seeing the distress his continued unwed status brought his mother, his father the Fenrir had even offered him the fated mate spell, on the condition that he bring his she-wolf back to their lands after she was found. “Make her your queen here while your mother and I take to our cabin in the woods.”

But FJ was not a romantic like his father, and much doubted one she-wolf would ever bring him great satisfaction. Also, did he already possess full knowledge of the spell. A secret he’d been keeping from his father for most of his life. For nearly as long as he could remember, FJ had known he might very well die on the battlefield during his five-and-thirtieth winter.

And for this reason, from the time his manhood first gave rise, he has been much more eager to spend time with other females than in seeking out a she-wolf to widow. So no, a wife, much less a fated mate, did not interest him in the least. And even now, walking down the mountain in this strange new land, he saw acquiring his fated mate as more of a necessary evil that would allow him to return to his own lands, after he crafted a plan to vanquish their serpent enemy.

So when two comely she-wolves meet the small party at the bottom of the mountain, both bearing the same slightly tilted eyes as Aunt Alisha, he allows himself to appreciate their beauty. From their smells, FJ can tell they are sisters, but the smaller one carries the mating scent of the yellow-haired king, while the taller one with the face as lovely as a field of spring flowers, smells of the king with the tattooed face. The taller sister hands him clothes, a strange sort of smooth wool shirt and blue pants that smell of her mate.

“These were originally intended for your brother,” she tells him. “But then we saw the flash and thought maybe you’d arrived without clothes, too. Though apparently that wasn’t the case.”

The smaller one with the huge bushy hair looks his leather jerkin and brown pants over with disappointed eye before saying, “Too bad.”

The taller sister keeps her smile, but admonishes the other woman between clenched teeth, “Tu…”

“What?” the one called Tu answers. “Like you weren’t wondering after his brother came through the gate! Like POW! WASSUP, ladies! Magic-Magic Mike ya’ll!”

Understanding little of her language, FJ merely bows his head in thanks. “You do honor me with this gift of clothing.”

“Wow, look at you with the fancy language. That thank you was so nice, it almost made up for you showing up here all covered up in baggy leather.”

“Tu!” the taller sister once again admonishes.

“What? We’re all supposed to act like he doesn’t have it going on?” Tu asks her sister incredulously. “We’re just going to pretend Chloe’s Viking sons didn’t turn out crazy hot?”

“Yes,” the older sister answers, sounding much aggravated. “When welcoming new people to our kingdom, it is important to remain courteous and respectful.”

Tu rolls her eyes in the manner of his mother and answers, “Well, I’m just saying whoever he came here for is not going to be upset. She’s lucky—I mean not as lucky as me...”

The large yellow-haired wolf makes several hand gestures to Tu, which she answers out loud accompanied by a glare.

“I
am
lucky, Wolf. Like, the luckiest she-wolf ever. I don’t know why I have to keep on telling you this.”

Fenrir Grady merely grins, but he must add something over their mate bond because not long after, she has inserted herself beneath her mate’s broad arm, and nuzzles her face into his chest. It is just as his mother often does after his father says something sweet with his mind.

The wolves of this time seem more affectionate outside the sleep bench than the wolves of his village, FJ notes as they head toward what Rafe calls “the clinic.” Grady keeps his arm around Tu’s shoulders and Fenrir Mag holds his queen’s hand as they walk.

And when they come upon Aunt Alisha outside a large wooden building with clear windows, Fenrir Rafe rushes to take his queen into his arms.

“Everything okay, babe?” he asks.

For good reason. She and the two smaller males she is standing with outside the clinic all look fatigued in the way of his mother after preparing a great feast.

The one talking urgently into a black rectangle looks up at FJ to ask, “This the new one? Any injuries?”

Fenrir Rafe gives shake of his head before turning worried eyes back to his queen.

“Everything’s fine,” she answers at his concerned look. “The townspeople had a lot of questions about the second flash. We barely convinced them to go home before you showed up.”

But then she pulls out of their hug, her eyes going to FJ.

“Oh my gosh! FJ! I can’t believe it’s really you. Rafe told me over our mind link, but I thought maybe he was wrong. What were the chances you and Olafr would both show up here, in the same place?”

Truth be told, he thought the same. That Fenrir Rafe must be mistaken about his brother’s arrival. But now his play-aunt has confirmed it.

“So it is true? My brother has come to this place as well?”

Every one, save the male talking into the small rectangle nods.

“Yes, your brother is inside,” says the rounder of the two small males. He wears strange pants that must be made of some kind of shiny and smooth animal not known in FJ’s own land. Also, his skin is a much lighter and a different kind of brown than Aunt Alisha’s. But he smells like her and the queens who brought him clothing, so FJ assumes this must be her father, the Alaska fenrir.

“The doctor says he got the arrow out, but he still hasn’t shifted back to wolf.”

The fenrir nods to the man speaking into the rectangle. “Dr. Leesma is trying to figure out what to do now. If we should bandage up his human or figure out how to trigger him back into a wolf—”

“Get off of me! Get the hell off me!” a woman’s voice yells out. Then, “Help! Somebody help!”

Her. It is
her
. His fated mate. FJ knows this in an instant. It is her and she is calling for help.

Without thinking, he bursts through the clinic’s doors, his nose easily tracking her to a room in the back…

And that is when he knows, despite his attempts to speak with honor, that he has lied. Not to Fenrir Rafe, but to himself. For when he sees her, he recognizes her as the one. The one he did not know he was waiting for. The she-wolf written in the stars for him, by his father’s many gods and his mother’s one god.

She is
his
. He knows this from the moment his eyes lock with her frightened ones. Her face pressed into the strange bed…as his brother attempts to rut her.

O
ne minute
I’m yelling for the big wolf to get off me. The next…

He does exactly that. But not because he’s obeying my command. Something pulls him off. No, not something. Someone.

Surgical instruments and medical equipment fly in a huge cacophony of clatter as the wolf-bound Viking fights with…

Well, I’m not exactly sure. Another Viking? He’s dressed in what looks like a long leather shirt and leather bellbottoms, but he smells almost exactly like Olafr. I inhale deeply through my nose, catching their deeper scent in the mayhem. Like woods and snow and ash. And this other wolf also has red hair. Maybe they’re brothers?

The new wolf is taller and more trim than his maybe-brother. And unlike Olafr with his Tarzan dreads, he has red curly hair tied back in a mountainous top-knot on top of his head. And the new Viking’s red beard is tame compared to the unkempt mess on Olafr’s face, well-combed and neat, and even braided neatly at the bottom.

Also unlike Olafr, he doesn’t seem at all confused about what is going on.

He throws the larger Viking into the hallway with what looks like deadly intent. Then he elbows the hell out of Olafr’s face, sending him flying backwards with a spray of blood coming out his nose. Beyond Olafr’s fallen body, I see Alisha, Uncle Tikaani, the other kings, and Dr. Leesma at the end of the hallway, all watching the fight with their mouths open.

It should have been over in one blow, considering Olafr just had a silver arrow pulled out of his back.

But with the strength of an angry shifter, he rises to his feet with a low, threatening growl. After that, the two throw themselves at each other in a style of fighting I can only describe as a mix between wrestling and the no-holds-barred cage shit you see in post-apocalypse movies.

I am so confused. They look and smell like brothers. But they’re fighting like mortal enemies, scattering the wolves in the hallway as their fight moves into the clinic’s tiny waiting room.

“Stop!” I shout, following after them.

They don’t stop. In fact, my voice only seems to make them go at it harder with louder growling and even more Mad Max-like moves. In less than a minute, they’ve destroyed at least a few thousand dollars worth of medical equipment and pretty much everything that’s not nailed down in the waiting room.

I’m half afraid they’re going to send each other flying through the plate glass windows, when Grady, Rafe, and Mag finally manage to get between them and break it up.

Grady, with his tank of a body, subdues the one who attacked Olafr. But it takes both Mag and Rafe to hold poor wolf-bound Olafr back.

“What the hell, man?!” Rafe shouts at the new Viking wolf. “I thought you two were brothers!”

Instead of answering, the wolf starts spitting words at Olafr in what I can only assume to be Old Norse. He’s glowering at him, even as he tries to break Grady’s hold.

Olafr shakes his head back and forth, his eyes glittering with anger beneath the clinic’s fluorescent lights.

Meanwhile, I move next to Alisha who’s hovering nervously near the clinic door. My heart is pounding: with confusion, anxiety, and most all, dread.

So much dread.

Because I don’t know what’s going on, but I know it can’t be good.