Rafes truly respected his father, more than any other wolf on earth, in fact. But he seriously couldn’t understand how he’d put up with this she-wolf for over three decades.
He threw up his hands. “Okay, Mom, I don’t care. Go to Norway. Try to convince them to turn down my black box request. But you’ll be wasting your time because nothing you can do or say will keep these boxes from going up. First here, then around every other portal in the world.”
“We’ll see about that,” she answered with a huffy shake of her of long black curly hair.
“Yeah, you will,” Rafes vowed, standing his ground.
Total silence, only relieved by birdsong and the faint hum of the small craft the Black Box workers had used to hover into the construction site. Which reminded Rafes…
He had work to do here. And no time for bleeding hearts—even if this particular one belonged to his mother. He walked away from her dramatic chain show toward the portal that would be contained within the black box by the end of the day, no matter how his mother protested.
“Face Clyde,” he says, elling his fingers open.
“What’s up, little cuz,” Clyde said, his face filling up the finger screen an instant later.
Ignoring the glare of his mother’s disappointed eyes on his back, Rafes said, “Clyde we’ve got a problem. I need you to—”
The portal erupted right in front of him, emitting a sound like a contained sonic boom. Then came a sharp burst of light illuminating everything and everyone at the construction site before it contracted back inside the portal like a nuclear mushroom cloud.
But not before leaving something behind.
Rafes’s eyes widened as a woman with thick, curly red hair and brown skin raised up on her arms from where she’s been unceremoniously dumped on the time gate’s grassy meadow. Obviously disoriented, she climbed to her feet, legs shaky, like a newly born foal.
Rafes’s heart stopped. She was naked. Utterly naked save for her mouth which was covered in blood.
At the sight of her, Rafes went completely still. But his wolf…
It howled primal and crazed as it took in her full breasts with their dark- brown aureolas and the wide hips that created a tantalizing canvas for the feminine triangle housed within. Not caring a fig about the blood on her mouth.
And Rafes’s human didn’t seem to care either. He hadn’t had an improper thought toward Camille in the entire six months they’d been dating. But staring at this unexpected vision…
He hardened painfully inside his slacks, not just his wolf, but his entire being growling one word: “Mine.”
And somewhere in the distance, his mother cried, “Myrna? Myrna is that you?”
5
Myrna
Myrna wouldn’t say she floated through a dark sky full of stars, so much as flew. But not like a bird. More like an arrow. Her body propelled through space by some unseen force. Yet, it happened so fast, she could feel neither wind upon her face, or any real sense of movement. The journey felt more like blinking. Blink…she was diving into the starry tunnel. Blink…she was in the starry black space.
And then…
And then…
Blink…she was suddenly spat out, landing hard upon a floor of packed earth. The impact rattled her bones, and it took her a moment before she could make her way to her feet, standing on legs as shaky as a newborn calf’s.
However, she stood up straight at the sight before her. She blinked. Once. Twice. And once more, thinking that surely, her eyes deceived her. For there stood…her entire body lit up warm with the knowledge…her fated mate.
In all her winters, Myrna had never felt anything like this. Her stomach danced, as if a flock of cranes had just taken flight. For never had her soul so quaked as it did now, looking upon this wolf. Her mind filled with wind and crashing waves, so that she was unable to answer the faraway voice that called out in her mother’s language, “Myrna? Myrna? Is that you?”
Was that her? She no longer knew.
The sight of her fated mate before her commanded her entire awareness. For he was truly wondrous.
Troubadours had sung song of the Jelling Prince before he did arrive in their lands. But the wolf standing before her made that male look like the backside of her father’s steed. In truth, Myrna had never sighted such beauty upon a man or woman. The Jelling Prince’s appearance had been lauded throughout his father’s South Wolves lands and those of Myrna’s own father’s. Indeed, when he’d step foot off the boat upon his arrival in her village for the engagement announcement, did two unheated she-wolves faint upon the sight of him with his fine beard and his long yellow hair whipping in the wind.
However, Myrna suspected that if the wolf standing before her had come upon their village, they would not merely have fainted, but expired, their breath taken completely away.
His face was noble and sharp, as if it had been carved special by Freya, the goddess of beauty herself. And unlike many of the mead-soaked males in her village, his eyes glittered with intelligence. He wore neither a beard nor quality furs, yet there was something fierce in the way he held himself. Still and alert, like the males in her village who could not only hunt well, but also raise sword.
Yes, this was most definitely him. Her happy wolf gave the air a great sniff wanting to know him better. Wanting to breathe him in while her eyes continued to devour him.
She was a woman of thirty-two winters, who had never been stirred by a male, not even the Jelling prince. But now a strange hunger growled inside her chest, and she moved toward her fated mate, as if compelled by a pulling rope.
Thus, was she verily shocked when she discovered his smell to be familiar.
Her nose had not met with this scent for a very many winters, but it was one she remembered still. She’d never forgotten the truly strange pregnant woman who had arrived in her village one night when she was only ten winters old. Her name had been Alisha, and she had hailed from the same land and time as Myrna’s mother. Though not related by blood, she’d been adopted into their kingdom longhouse, the same as family. And eight moons later did she give blessed birth to not one, but three male pups.
This man…Myrna’s fated mate…was one of those pups. Not sweet Nago. Or that terror, Knud. This was the oldest of born-same-night three. Rafesson. The one who had so rarely smiled and stood guard next to his mother whenever Skeggi, their village’s largest warrior, came to give her his unwanted court.
However, Rafesson was no longer a pup of only four winters, but a male full grown. Even larger than Skeggi, she discovered when she stopped in front of him.
“Rafesson…” his name fell from her lips with the sigh of something finally found.
She reached up and touched his cheek, unable to believe he was real. Perhaps this was all a strange dream born of eating too much roasted lamb and drinking too much mead at her mother’s feast table? But his beardless cheek felt warm and alive underneath her fingertips, soft and somehow hard to the touch at the same time. Real. He was real.
In a helpless thrall, she curved a hand around his neck and claimed his mouth, smoky blood smearing hot as she moved her lips over his. She cared not about the mess, only that he was still clothed. Frustrated, she climbed his body and wrapped her legs around his waist, as she pulled at his unfamiliar clothing. Trying to get closer and tear the fabric off his body at the same time. Wanting…no needing his scent on her and hers all over him.
At first, he returned the kiss, his lips moving just as passionately over hers. He growled into her mouth, sounding more animal than man.
Her fated mate…her fated mate…her heart sang with the strange taste of his kiss, his underlying human smell like none other she’d ever sniffed. Completely without nature and composed of many scents she could not even begin to identify. Her fated mate’s kiss was an intriguing mystery; that made her want to know more and more….
Without warning, he broke off their first kiss with a coarse growl.
“Myrna,” he said,
breathing hard. As if, he and not she had just escaped from a fire-screaming serpent. “No. This isn’t appropriate.”
Then he peeled her from his body and set her away from him like a pot of poison covered in silver.
“Appropriate?” Myrna repeated as her heart sank, a sense of rejection souring her stomach, just as it had with the Jelling Prince. “I know not the meaning of this word. Did I do something wrong?”
“Ah… no. Not exactly,” he answered, his voice now stiff and polite. “But you’re …very naked. We should cover you up.”
With the avid interest of a bird, she watched him pull the strangely made jacket from his body and lay it over hers. The jacket had only fallen a little past his waist on him, but it fell all the way to her knees. And she noticed the way Rafesson held his body tight and rigid, his touch precise and economical as he pulled the jacket tight around her and closed its strangely smooth buttons.
“My mother and…a lot of other people are here,” he informed her when he was done. And then he took a step back from her.
She had been in such a daze. Only when he pointed it out, did she finally see not just her fated mate.
Several men stood in the distance. Their mouths hung agape, and they were dressed in odd bright yellow vests made of a material she had never before sighted.
However, whatever embarrassment she might have felt, gave way to anger, when she saw her Aunt. Many winters older and chained to what looked like several slices of gleaming black metal pieces, that stood even higher than the serpent she had just escaped.
“Aunt Alisha!”
And though she had neither hatchet nor shield, she advanced on the men in yellow vests, calling out, “I am Myrna, daughter of Fenris, and I command you let this she-wolf free!”
However, none of the men gave answer. Just continued to gape at her.
“Myrna, what are you doing?” her fated mate demanded, grabbing her arm and getting in front of her, so that she could neither see nor advance further on their terrible enemy.
“Have you any weapon? I will aid you in this fight!”
“What?” Rafesson asked, shaking his head.
“Oh…ah…I think she thinks I need rescuing,” Aunt Alisha called out. “It’s—it’s okay, Myrna. I’m fine. I chained myself to these construction materials.”
Myrna’s face scrunched much the same as her mother’s when confused by the actions of another. But before she could ask Alisha why she would do such a thing, her dear aunt said, “I just can’t believe you’re here. And Rafes’s fated mate. Your brothers are going to freak out.”
Myrna shook her head in astonishment. “My brothers? They are here?”
6
Rafes
What. The. Hell. No, seriously. What the hell was he going to do?
“You’re fated mate is…interesting,” Rafe Sr observed.
His father had arrived at the Michigan pack’s Detroit kingdom house about twenty minutes ago, apparently having gotten a call from his wife. However, by time he got here, Alisha was already deeply entrenched with Myrna and her two brothers in the large galley kitchen. Not wanting to interrupt, he’d settled in next to Rafes in the breakfast nook right off the kitchen, watching as Alisha, Olafr, and FJ attempted to update Myrna on several centuries of family Christmas letters.
But try as he might to give Myrna and her brothers some space, he found himself compelled to glance up every few minutes. And whenever he did, there was Myrna staring back at him from under dark red lashes. Her brown eyes, burning into the face he was doing his damnedest to keep neutral.
And reminding him with just a look of that kiss.
That erotic and primal kiss, the opposite of the cold and deliberate ones he usually gave women while holding back his enraged wolf. But that kiss had made him forget himself for a moment, forget everything but her. Until his wolf had furred his back, coming so close to getting out, Rafes had pushed her away for fear of what the animal would do.
“Probably a wise idea to hang back and let your mother and Myrna’s brothers handle the transition into this time period,” his father said with a thoughtful expression. “Especially with everything you’ve got going on right now.”
Rafes could tell his father was fishing. Trying to figure out where his recently engaged son stood on the issue of having a naked Viking woman show up unexpectedly, claiming to be his fated mate. Would Rafes acknowledge her claim or tell her, “Sorry, babe, I’m already taken”?
Rafes didn’t have an answer to those questions himself.
His wolf…it was growling inside of him, but not in the way it did with Camille. Or had with Jillian before finally striking out at her one terrible night that still haunted Rafes’s human to this very day.
But not his wolf. And tonight, the beast growled differently. Low and with a sensation that felt a lot like hunger.
Myrna was fully covered now, thanks to the extra wrap dress, his mother kept in her private drone. But Rafes’s wolf paced back and forth inside of him. Not liking that she was so far away. Or sitting upright at a table, instead of kneeling naked on the floor while it took her from behind.
Rafes’s wolf didn’t recoil from this female as it had with every other. Instead, it watched her, dangerous and intent.
Wanting her.
Wanting out.
No, Rafes couldn’t reply to any of his father’s unspoken questions. Wouldn’t even know how to begin answering his father. Especially with so much going on inside his head. Both literally and figuratively.
Currently his avatar stood in a bio VR war room, designed to look exactly like the physical one in The Wolf House. Listening quietly as his campaign team members collectively lost their shit.
“Maybe we can suppress the story,” Stacey, his media strategist suggested. “Continue on with the engagement plans.”
“Yeah, maybe,” Georgina, his Defense Secretary answered. Technically she wasn’t on his campaign team but had been called into consult on this particular disaster since the time portal was involved. “But that two-man security detail of yours wasn’t nearly enough coverage for an event of this magnitude. They didn’t have enough time to completely wipe the footage before the crew left. With all due respect, Mr. President, that’s why I keep saying you need to—”
Cutting her off, Rafes bio-commanded his avatar, so that inside the VR simulation it said, "Mehmet can you run some kind of take down program to keep any stray footage off WolfNet?”
“Yeah, no can do, Bro,” answered Mehmet, the Chief Technology Officer, who insisted on calling everybody bro, no matter their station or gender. “I’m already seeing footage of the mom tied to the tree on four different WolfNet boards. Here I’ll mirror my biofeed to the VR screen…”
A few seconds later, the CTO’s biofeed replaced the Presidential Wolf Crest on the VR’s war room screen. And grim silence fell over the room, as the gathered crisis team watched Alisha yelling anti-Black Box slogans at the advance crew until Rafes appeared on the scene with his two security guards. Craig, probably seeing the construction workers lit up recording eye, approached him before any of the others. And soon after, the video abruptly blipped out.
Probably because the construction worker, anticipating Craig’s next move, uploaded it straight to WolfNet, before his footage could be taken out by a deletion wipe.
The video had already amassed several hundred comments and a few more appeared while the video played on a loop. Including, “Wow even his own mom thinks he’s an asshole” and “This fake news Lowell’s behind this 200% percent bet” and “I heard a fated mate showed up later. Is that true? Anybody got any footage?”
“For God’s sake, if you’re already seeing footage, take it down,” Stacey said to Mehmet. “Take it down right now before too many people see it.”
“Yeah, I could, bro, but that’d mean using my backdoor admin creds, which might expose me to the real administrators who don’t know one of the president’s men is monitoring their groups.”
&n
bsp; “It’s a risk we’ll have to take,” Baylor, his gender fluid campaign manager, insisted. They must have been in a vacation simulation when they got called into this emergency meeting, because their avatar was dressed in a Thai Beer tee and beach shorts. “Lowell is in a steady relationship with a wife and kids and parents who support his run for president. If this footage spreads too far, it will make President Nightwolf look like even more of a rogue element to the voters, than he did when he was running as a single male.”
Yes, the Single Male Problem, Rafes thought resentfully. Both wolves and humans had trouble voting for single male candidates. On a subconscious level, not being married struck voters as untrustworthy and a sign that a leader was disloyal. Not true at all when it came to Rafes who’d put his country and fellow wolves first since joining the Marines. And after what happened with Jillian, he’d gone into politics, knowing that it would be dangerous for someone with his secret to seek out a mate. But his lack of mateship had become a real problem. Especially now that he was running against a charming family man, who loved to insinuate that the current president couldn’t possibly understand the real needs of mated wolves with kids.
“No…we definitely don’t want that footage getting out,” he told his team, backing Baylor up.
“Alright, I’ll do it. But keep in mind, these are only four of the boards I monitor,” Mehmet said. “Who knows if it’s already made it to the ones that aren’t on my list.”
“We’ll have to hunt down Leaker Zero,” Baylor said decisively.
“We’re on it, but it’s going to take time,” Georgina answered. “Especially if it’s Leaker Zeroes.”
Mehmet’s avatar shook his head. “And this just in. ‘Nightwolf’s Fated Mate’ is now the number three trending topic on WolfNet—actually no. Feed refresh. Make that Number One now. They’ve got specific details about it being Myrna the lost Viking princess, too. There must be some more footage floating around out there. Let me see if I can root it out…”
The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy Page 43