His uncles had never found out what had happened to their sister after all three siblings spoke the fated mate spell hundreds of years ago. That was the story. Sad, for sure, but certainly not unexpected, considering that every wolf knows that if you speak a fated mate spell, it can send you anywhere in time. However, his mother and the other anti-Boxers had deftly warped that sad story into a full-on tragedy, and over the past two years, Myrna had been made the poster-child for the anti-Black Box movement.
“Good question,” his mother said on his ell screen, smiling with such approval at the blonde who’d asked about Myrna, Rafes had to wonder if she didn’t plant the question herself. “Unfortunately, despite over twenty years of research on my part and on the parts of many diligent grad students, we’ve never been able to find mention of Myrna in any wolf text. Perhaps she found her fated mate and chose to live out her life quietly with him or her. But more likely this means she went forward in time, much further than her brothers.”
Only now did his mother acknowledge the main camera’s presence. And though this speech was recorded the day before, her angry eyes seemed to bore into Rafes as she said, “Sadly for Myrna and any other wolf who tries to use a fated mate spell, the construction of these black boxes will mean any wolf who tries to come through them from now on will be trapped. Hopefully in their own time, but we know for almost certain that Myrna never returned to her Viking village. There’s a chance this poor she-wolf could be stuck somewhere in the time stream. In a kind of purgatory, never able to leave. All because my son and his cronies on the Lupine Council have decided in their great wisdom to condemn an innocent she-wolf to that horrible fate.”
The crowd let out a collective gasp, even as Rafes rolled his eyes again at his mother’s antics.
“But that’s cruel!” the blonde said.
Yep, definitely a plant. She had that wide eye fervent look of one of his mother’s many time portal acolytes, and her reaction was just too perfect.
Instead of listening to his mother’s response, he wiped the ell screen and said, “Face Ola.”
His red-haired cousin’s broad, nut-brown face appeared between his elled fingers a moment later.
“I assume you’re calling about that wonderful speech your mom gave yesterday at my portal,” she said with a smug smile.
“The portal’s not yours yet,” Rafes reminded her. “You still have a few years until you take over as the North Dakota queen.”
Not that her lack of alpha status had kept the twenty-five-year-old Michigan princess from interfering with his objective. He knew she had to be the one who’d tipped his mother off about his plan to install the first black box at the North Dakota portal. She’d probably even used Michigan kingdom funds to jet all those protesters to his project site. Hell, she had more than enough money to do it. Thanks to the numerous ground-breaking programs funded by their state queens, Michigan and Oklahoma—which were both considered mange states when Rafes was a kid—now boasted two of the largest kingdom treasuries on the planet.
“Yeah, and that’s exactly why you pushed North Dakota to first in line for the Black Box Initiative, wasn’t it?” Ola asked, her smug smile turning upside down with indignant anger. “You wanted to make sure I wouldn’t have a vote in what happened at my own portal.”
“Yes, you’re right,” he answered, his tone civil but frank. “I didn’t particularly care to leave a project over a decade in the making to the whim of someone who can’t see past her parents’ mateship to the bigger picture. I knew Kyle would side with me, so yes, I decided to make North Dakota our pilot project.”
“Seriously, cuz, how are you planning to get through the next Thanksgiving?” Ola asked, shaking her head. “My dads never gave up hope of finding Aunt Myrna, but now they’re going to have to—because of you!”
Rafes rubbed a hand over his eyes. God, he didn’t need this. The same empty sensation he’d experienced last night during dinner with Camille hollowed out his chest, making him feel like a speck of sand in a hostile desert. He was about twenty minutes away from cutting the ribbon on the North Dakota black box installation, and not one member of his immediate family would be there to support him.
Both his younger twin sisters, Lis and Nauja, were firmly Team Mom—obviously, they’d been front and center in the video. His youngest brother, Nago had designed the Black Box for his oldest triplet brother. But then, proving himself the world’s most irresponsible Lead Engineer, he hadn’t shown up for the official installation, because he was too preoccupied with that Mississippi she-wolf ex of his. Again. Knud—well, who knew where Knud was these days. After his last botched black-ops job, he’d gone completely off the radar. And though Rafes occasionally left him messages at his old bio number, he couldn’t be sure Knud was actually getting them. According to The Wolf House tech team, Knud hadn’t accessed or so much as turned on his bioware system in years.
And as for his usually supportive father, Rafes Sr., he’d officially declared himself Switzerland after his mother and sisters turned last year’s Thanksgiving dinner into a political debate.
“I don’t know, Ola,” Rafes answered his younger cousin testily, beyond sick of the circular Myrna argument. “I guess I’ll tell them they’re welcome for the nearly three decades they got to wait for her. For all we know—”
“Don’t say it!” Ola said, a vicious warning in her tone. “Don’t you dare!”
Right, Rafes thought, because no one was ever supposed to say out loud what had most likely happened. That the portal probably sent Myrna backward in time or somewhere so far away from Scandinavia, she hadn’t been able to make it back to her family in Viking Age Norway. No, it would be way too crazy to counter Ola’s emotional argument with that highly logical scenario while she and his mom tried to make it look like Rafes and the rest of the Lupine Council were literally killing this famously lost she-wolf with the Black Box Initiative.
Rafes opened his mouth to say exactly what he thought about Ola and his mom using a most likely long dead Viking shield maiden as the poster child for their protests against the Black Box Initiative…only to come to a dead stop when he saw the kerfuffle in the distance.
“What?” Ola demanded on the screen. “What’s going on?”
The question sounded innocent enough, but Rafes could tell from his cousin’s shit-eating grin, that she already knew.
His mother. That was what was going on. She’d somehow managed to chain herself around a big pile of black box construction materials and was now yelling at the advance crew of construction workers about every wolf’s “right” to time travel.
Crap on a cracker, as his maternal grandfather used to say. His mother must have snuck in and set up her latest demonstration first thing this morning. Maybe even just a few minutes before the construction team arrived.
Guess he should’ve taken Craig up on his offer.
Inwardly cursing, Rafes closed his finger screen without bothering to say goodbye to his traitorous cousin. Then for the first time in his entire presidency, he actually waved his security detail forward. “Do a bio-vid deletion sweep, then jam the advance crew’s bioware,” he ordered.
Craig nodded, his usual resigned expression, lit with enthusiasm.
And as for Arik, his other guard, Rafes could tell he was actively controlling his glee at finally being assigned a duty beyond the usual background checks, as he asked, “And your mother, sir?”
“I’ll handle her,” Rafes answered, voice grim.
“Mom…” he growled a few seconds later, as he approached the spot where she’d chained herself up.
“Don’t worry,” she answered in a breezy tone as if he were merely fussing at her for a history lecture that had gone on too long. “I’ll leave just as soon as my T.A. is done getting my side of the story.”
Rafes looked over his shoulder, and sure enough, the cute blonde who’d asked all those convenient questions during his mother’s earlier protest speech stood further up the mountain, rollin
g tape on her fingers.
“Mom,” he said, lowering his voice. He also turned his back so that her grad student wouldn’t be able to catch anything she could run a lip reader over later. “I can’t touch you, but I’m more than willing to bring the power of the Lupine Council down on that acolyte of yours if you don’t tell her to close her fingers.”
Alisha glared at him. But eventually, she sucked her teeth and called out, “Okay, Maddie, I think we’ve got enough. Head on back to the hotel now. I’ll meet you there before we leave for Norway tonight.”
Rafes waited until his mother’s sycophant was fully out of hearing range before asking, “Why are you going to Norway this time, Mom?”
Her lips curved in a defiant smirk. “Wouldn’t you like to know, little boy.”
Little boy. At 6’4, he towered over his mother now. He was the president of all the goddamn North American Lupine Territories for God’s sake. One of the five most powerful wolves in the world. Back before he went AWOL, Rafes literally had Knud kill wolves for less than what his mother was doing right now. Without blinking an eye. Only she would call him a little boy.
And only she could get away with it. Once again, his head throbbed with resentment, but he locked his jaw, knowing how savage and unpredictable his wolf could get if Rafes let his emotions get away from him. The haunting past of hurting another was a daily reminder he should always remain in control of the animal within. “Mom, I know we’re on two different sides of this portal issue—”
“With you being on the side that not only designed these monstrosities but is also overseeing their installation,” she reminded him, folding her arms over the steel chains.
“But I’m not your enemy,” Rafes continued, refusing to take his mother’s bait or point out that it was her favorite triplet, Nago, who’d actually designed the gate.
She lifted her chin, narrowing her eyes. “You’re not my enemy? Then why did I get a call from Ola telling me you finally managed to push these damn things through, starting with North Dakota. And before she inherited Kyle’s throne!”
Rafes inwardly cursed. He knew going over Ola’s head to her lame duck uncle-in-law would piss her off, but did she really have to go crying to his mom about it?
“Mom,” he said, changing tact. “You know I love you, but I also love my people, and I’m trying to protect them from the dragon threat.”
“A threat you don’t even know exists,” she pointed out, her lovely dark- brown face tightening with annoyance.
“A threat you can’t prove doesn’t exist. From what FJ and Olafr told me, the dragons hit all of Scandinavia’s portal towns hard. And according to the docs you and Matt found, they might have made moves on kingdom towns in the British Isles and Asia, too. Do you realize…”
He cut off, then checked to make sure his security team was still dealing with the advance crew, before informing one of the few wolves on the planet who knew about the possibility of a continued dragon threat. “Damianos Drákon’s made secret deals for gates all over the world, and that’s just according to the intel we have—who knows how many gates he’s managed to procure at this point? Why would he have done that if he wasn’t after our time portals? North America is the last front.”
“Okay, other than his last name—which by the way a lot of humans have, too—you have no proof that the Greek billionaire is a dragon shifter. And let’s say he is. Why does it matter? The Idaho Amendment means he won’t be able to purchase any other gates. So there, North America’s solved. No need to black box all our time portals.”
Rafes closed his eyes, because seriously, how could his mother be this dense? A few decades ago, the Lupine Council had pushed through the measure forbidding wolves from selling or renting their property to non-wolves after a human managed to get his hands on the Idaho kingdom town. Rafes had never met the former king of that state’s pack, but he must have been beyond stupid because he’d somehow managed to lose his entire town to a human in a game of high stakes poker. And that human had then gone on to sell the town to guess who…that’s right, Damianos Drákon.
Yes, the Idaho Amendment provided some protection against outside forces and had kept the billionaire from purchasing any more North American portals. But if the Idaho Amendment was the best argument his mother had against why North Americans shouldn’t fear the machinations of Damianos Drákon, then she truly did not understand how deep this threat went.
“Drákon is a trillionaire now, mom. And Lowell will overturn the Idaho Amendment if he wins—that’s one of the platforms he’s running on, even though you and your cronies have managed to distract everyone from that point with all this anti-Black Box rhetoric. And if he does what he promises—which I guarantee he will, because his campaign has Damianos Drákon’s Manchurian candidate written all over it—just how many of the southern mange states do you think will turn down the billionaire’s offer on land they can’t build on? Trust me, there is a need and there is a threat.”
But Alisha just kept shaking her head, her intelligent, almond shaped eyes flashing with annoyance. “It doesn’t matter. Drákon doesn’t matter. He’s only one person, and we’ve already won this war. The dragons were beaten on every front. In Scandinavia and in Britain—probably Asia, too.”
Rafes rubbed at his temple, his human fully in charge now, because even his feral wolf hated dealing with Alisha, when she got like this. “Yes, but Mom, seriously…they would’ve had Scandinavia if not for intervention from the future. We might not have access to that kind Deus Ex Machina the next time the dragons decide to come after our portals. And we have no way of knowing for sure that’s not exactly what they’re planning to do.”
“You really think that?” Alisha asked, her voice incredulous. “The then North American President barely took your so-called dragon threat seriously when FJ and Olafr came through the Alaska portal the first time. The Lupine Council wasn’t even willing to fund those swords they bought. You know why? Because no one has heard of or seen dragons in centuries. You say there’s no way of knowing they’re not a threat. We honestly thought they were made up! I say there’s no way of knowing they weren’t completely decimated, thanks to the Detroit-Norway wedding contract.”
This was the problem with his historian mom. She’d read all the books, was privy to all the secret history, but had bent everything she’d learn to her own belief bias. “You forget, Mom, I’ve actually read all of your academic work. According to your own research, dragons were said to live a very long time. A few, like the Loch Ness monster, were said to have lifespans measured in centuries. So what’s to say they haven’t been lying low all these years? Biding their time until they have enough weapons to decimate us and take our portals? The Black Box Initiative will make sure that doesn’t happen. That it will never happen.”
“And meanwhile, while you’re chasing down a phantom enemy, no wolf will be able to connect with his or her North American fated mate ever again,” his mother insisted with yet another stubborn shake of her head.
“Or run away from her fated mate,” Rafes reminded her viciously.
Low blow, yes. But as venerated in the wolf community as Alisha was now, it was often left to him and only him to remind her that their years in Viking Age Norway weren’t a fever dream. It was a terrible decision with near family destroying repercussions. One she had made. A decision she wouldn’t have been able to make had the black boxes been in place. And that’s why her running away from his father to Norway with their unborn pups in her womb hadn’t been included in her campaign to turn the general populace against the boxing of gates.
But, of course, his mother didn’t see it that way.
“Wow,” she said, her face blinking from self-righteous to incredibly hurt. “Your father’s forgiven me for that, but it looks like you’re not ever going to.”
Rafes responded with an irritated grunt. Yeah, well for all the practical business sense Rafe Sr. passed down to his eldest triplet, the former King of Colorado was nothing l
ess than a besotted fool when it came to his queen. Not only had he forgiven her for running away to the Viking age, he continued to let his wife use the Nightwolf Foundation’s billions of dollars to follow whatever whim she wanted—even if that whim included fighting his own successor tooth and nail over the Black Box Initiative.
However, Rafes was not his father. Not bothering to hide his disdain, he asked his mother, “Are you going to tell me why you’re going to Norway or do I have to call in the North Dakota beta to have you forcibly removed from these chains and jailed until you start talking?”
Alisha’s eyes flashed defiantly. “I think you’re going to have to call in your Uncle Clyde. I want to know just how far you’ll go to advance the Lupine Council’s rollback agenda to keep me and every other she-wolf in North America under their thumbs because they’re afraid of all the sexual freedom we have now. It’s not like the good old days, right? Not like thirty years ago, when all the brilliant young she-wolves who came out to my protest yesterday would have been at home raising pups because they couldn’t control their own heats.”
Rafes clenched his jaw. “Mom. If you accuse me of being anti-she-wolf one more time—” He stopped and pinched the bridge of his nose, forcing his wolf down, as he explained, “I’m not anti-she-wolf. I’m actually trying to protect you and every other she-wolf in North America. And if I have to deny a few wolves their dramatic love stories to do that, so be it.”
Alisha sucked her teeth again. “Yeah, right. Do you know how many human and wolf rollback initiatives have been pushed through on the premise of ‘protecting women?” Alisha lifted her arms below the chains to make air quotes around those last two words. “Nah, I’ll take our portals and leave the protecting up to the individual females themselves.”
The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy Page 42