The woman might have been very beautiful back in her earlier winters, but now she looked out with dull, unseeing eyes as she ate. And her sad expression, rendered her breakfast taking more a necessary task than the joyful experience Myrna’s mother made nearly every meal eaten at her table.
“Old woman, how fare thee here?” Myrna asked worriedly, wondering who she was and why she did seem so very sad. She could smell she was related to Rafesson somehow but could not completely identify the relationship.
The woman’s head snapped up, her eyes narrowing into slits. “Heifer, did you just call me old woman?”
Myrna inwardly groaned. Apparently, she had said the wrong thing. Once again. “Forgive me for any offense I have caused you. I am new to this land and time and I do not yet know the way of it.”
Now it was the woman’s turn to groan. But unlike Myrna, she did so quite audibly. “Tell me you ain’t another one of them damn time-traveling Vikings.”
Myrna, hesitated, not sure how to respond. “If I did as you commanded, it would not be truth.”
The old woman threw her spoon down, rolling not just her eyes but indeed, her entire head. “Y’all bitches harder to get rid of than flies!”
“I am sorry for any distress my arrival in your time and land has caused,” Myrna said, swinging between true confusion and her mother’s insistence that she treat her elders both kindly and politely. “I am Myrna, intended of…” she trailed off, deeply unsure of where she stood with her fated mate at the moment. “…Daughter of Fenris,” she finished. “May I ask how you are called?”
The old woman’s eyes flatten with annoyance. “Girl stop with the formal business. I’m just Rafes’s grandma, Wilma.”
Having only occasionally heard her mother use that particular word, it took Myrna a moment to understand. But when she did, did she quickly place her hand upon her chest to give Wilma her solemn vow.
“Grandmother of Rafesson. You do honor me. To thee do I swear my allegiance, and to thee do I vow to treat the same as I would my own grandmothers if either of them had been known to me.”
Expression completely unchanged, Wilma picked up her spoon again. “Okay, well I’m just up in here, waiting for the Lord to come on and get me already and take me home to my husband, so I won’t be needing no allegiance or whatever nonsense you’re trying to talk.”
Myrna opened her mouth to insist that there was a need for allegiance and vow, especially if she was experiencing the widow’s sadness—as did some elder she-wolves who did long lament their mates still even after their mating scents had worn off. However, the computer spirit of Rafesson blinked into the room just as she was about to make her declaration true.
No, not a computer spirit, she reminded herself, recalling Astrid’s words. A hologram.
“Fenrir,” she said with a start. “Why do you appear so to us in this manner?”
Wilma sucked her teeth. “Because he’s somewhere damn else again. He’s supposed to eat breakfast with me every morning, but half the time this is what I get!”
“Good morning, Grandma,” Rafesson answered with more patience than Myrna suspected he felt at the moment. “Given any more thought to getting a biosystem installed, so that we can meet up in VR and I don’t have to hologram in?”
“She don’t have a biosystem,” Wilma answered, indicating Myrna with her shiny spoon. This, too, looked like silver, but could not be if she was eating with it.
“She just got here, Grandma. What’s your excuse?”
“Not wanting to give in to my hard-headed grandson, that’s my excuse,” Wilma answered before making a grumpy return to her porridge. “Now can you get out of here? Leave me to waiting to die with this evil-ass nature shit you make me eat in peace.”
Myrna wished then that she had made better study of her mother’s kitchen arts. She would have offered right then to make her new grandmother something more satisfying to her tongue than porridge. However, Rafesson did not seem nearly as distressed by his grandmother’s words as Myrna.
Indeed, little did his expression change as he turned to Myrna and said, “I see the house has replicated clothing for you. Good. Did you get lost on the way to my office?”
“More that I did stop to speak with our honorable grandmother,” Myrna started to answer, only to stop when she saw the grimace that did cross Rafesson’s face. As if every word out of her mouth pained him somehow.
“I am sorry,” she said quietly. “I have said the wrong thing again.”
Rafesson sighed. “Myrna, when I ask for you to come to me, I expect you to do so, without delay. Now, you should join me in my office where we can talk.” He shot his grandmother a look. “Privately. It’s just past this room and down the hall to the right.”
Upon saying that, he blinked out, without bothering to wait for her agreement. Myrna stared at the empty space, a slight panicky feeling giving rise within her stomach. She was this wolf’s fated mate, but everything she did seemed to vex him so.
“Better go,” her new grandmother advised. “That boy will give you a lecture like you heard about from the college kids if he thinks you ain’t yelling how high when he says jump.”
Myrna had little idea of what the woman’s words meant, but with little more than a parting nod to her new grandmother, she followed Rafesson’s directions to a room that had what looked like actual walls. Not the computer kind all over the rest of the house. In fact, one entire wall was covered with something she’d only heard tale of from her mother. Books! Rows and rows of books sat upon shelving, that seemed especially designed for these bindings of precious paper.
But instead of going over to the bookshelf to finally see what her mother’s language did look like in one of these books, she’d spoken so fondly of, her eyes found Rafesson’s hologram, which now stood on the other side of an incredibly smooth wood work table.
“Where are you exactly?” she asked as she closed the door behind her and walked further into the room. Hopefully, not inside the walls….
“In a place called Colorado,” he said. “It’s what we call a state, a kingdom in the middle of this land. Technically, I’m also the fenrir of this kingdom by birthright. But when I was voted in as president my father took over the job in my stead.”
“Colorado. Is that very far from where I stand in the now?” she asked.
He folded his arms, like a wolf who no longer wished to receive questions, but nonetheless he answered. “Yes, it is. About 35 days away on horseback, though we have quicker ways of getting around in this time—like the drone.”
“Why?” she asked, the words coming out a whisper. “Why have you gone so far from me?”
Rafes unfolded his arms, but his expression became that much more grave. “I’m afraid what happened with Camille yesterday has gone viral. She went to several news outlets, and the story of how you attacked her along from accompanying footage is already all over WolfNet.”
“WolfNet,” she repeated, confused.
“It’s like a herald told every wolf in the world exactly what happened here at the same time. And now everyone in the world is talking non-stop about it.”
Oh…. “That is bad,” she surmised out loud.
“No, actually that’s terrible,” Rafes answered. “I want people to be voting for me in November, not still laughing at you.”
“I have caused you great disgrace and for this am I truly sorry,” she said quietly, feeling weak and stupid, because that was all she could say in the wake of the fallout from what she had wrought.
“I know you didn’t mean to cause a scene. Honestly, I’m not even sure if you’re aware of what a scene is after growing up the way you did,” Rafesson said, his face becoming slightly conciliatory. “But this is absolutely not the first image of you that I wanted to present to my voters. And after consulting with my team, we’ve decided that it would be better for all parties if we remained apart.”
Apart.
The word hit her like a horse’s kick to the ch
est. Oh Fenrir Wolf, it was happening again. Her engagement was falling apart. But this wasn’t some princeling whose father wished an alliance with hers. This was her fated mate. The wolf who was supposed to treasure her as her father did her mother.
Somehow in less than a day’s time, she’d created a mess where there only should have been love.
But instead of running away in tears, she swallowed and asked, “Camille…is she the manner of she-wolf that your people expect to be presented as their queen?”
“First She-Wolf,” Rafes answered, his tone stiff with the correction. “But yes…her fashion sense, her intelligence and savvy, her formerly impeccable manners. That’s what people expect of a First She-Wolf. Sophistication, glamour, a way with words…”
“I see,” Myrna said, letting out a shaky breath, because these were all qualities she lacked—so thoroughly, he might have very well said, “The opposite of you, Myrna,” and it would have meant the exact same thing.
“I am truly sorry,” she told him again quietly. “I never meant to cause you disgrace or bring disaster upon your house. I wish nothing more than to be a good mate to you.”
His cold expression softened, but only a very little. “Myrna, I understand, but I’m afraid—”
“No, listen to me, Rafesson, please,” she said before he could finish whatever damning thing was about to come out of his mouth. “I am your fated mate. And if your people will not accept me as I am, I will become who they want me to be. The mate you need to serve as your she-wolf. I will do whatever is needed to please you. Just please do not bring our boat ashore before we’ve even had the chance to leave the bay. For I will do whatever it takes to be a good mate to you. Whatever it takes.”
She finished her declaration, out of breath and out of words to say. Then she raised her eyes to meet his, fearing his response.
However, to her surprise, instead of dismissing her as he did last night, he looked back at her thoughtfully. “Whatever it takes?” he asked, his eyes sharp and calculating.
And she nodded, her own eyes hopeful and wide.
Whatever it takes turned out to be quite a lot. Less than an hour after Rafesson blinked out of his office, a small village of people descended upon The Wolf House. Their chieftain was a male called The Joshua Tree. All three words he insisted at their first meeting, “Never Joshua or Tree, or…” he visibly shuddered…” Josh. It’s The Joshua Tree.”
Myrna readily agreed to this condition, confused but more than eager for his assistance with this matter. With her agreement, he immediately started issuing orders about everything from the straightening of her hair to how she would dress.
“THREE MONTHS,” The Joshua Tree yelled out to the people standing before him in a beautiful space, she’d heard called the receiving room. He addressed his gathered forces, who for some reason, were all dressed in black, in the same manner her father did use to inspirit his warriors before they left the village to viking hostile lands. “We’ve got THREE MONTHS to turn this wild Viking princess into a North American First Lady. Can we do it? Can we pull off Project Fair Lady?”
The Joshua Tree’s warriors cheered ever so loudly at his rallying call. But Myrna’s stomach twisted with the certainty that her mother would not like these words. And not just because it was inaccurate to call her a Viking, as she’d never raided in her life.
“I don’t care what your father says, you do you,” Chloe had told Myrna during the time her father refused to speak to her and all the other women in the village did give her such looks. “Never sell your soul for a man.”
Indeed, Myrna had never quite understood what that phrase meant, but now she feared she was beginning to….
But no…she could not pay those thoughts any heed, she told herself after a moment of deep pause. And did she push the thought of her disapproving mother down into the stomach as she smiled big and bright, exactly as Rafes had instructed her to the day before.
Her mother was thousands of seasons away in a past she could no longer reach. This was her life now. And Rafes was her fated mate. Her only future.
So, if this was the one way for his people to accept her…for him to come home to her from the Colorado land, then so be it.
She had been doing and saying the wrong thing all of her life. This time….
This time she would get it right.
12
Damianos
Draykonis, Greece
Wonderful, wonderful… Nightwolf’s demise was all unfolding even better than Damianos had planned.
The President of the North American Wolves candidacy was sliding into disaster. And instead of disavowing the little wolf who had escaped Damianos's rage so many centuries ago, he’d double down on the mistake of claiming her as his fated mate, by announcing that they would be making their first appearance at The Wolf House’s Annual End of Summer Gala in three months’ time.
Damianos could not have asked for a better ground to seed his revenge. His candidate, Dean Lowell, was up in the polls, almost certain to win. And after he did, Damianos would be able to acquire the remaining gates he needed to complete his ultimate plan. Then would he kill not only the three Viking dogs who had escaped to this time period right before he—
“Fensa! Please! Please, do not hate me! I love you so!”
His prisoner’s desperate cries cut off Damianos in the middle of his triumphant thought. Usually he paid little attention to the prisoner’s nightly lament, but tonight it grated on him, as if the prisoner had been trapped in the room above his office for mere days, not centuries upon centuries.
Damianos was quite happy to let his prisoner rot upstairs for an eternity in payment for how he sabotaged his drakkon brothers’ efforts during the Lupin-Drakkon war. But he could not say that he loved the mystery that now crept back into his mind, whenever his prisoner screamed out for this “Fensa.”
A couple of centuries ago when his prisoner had first come down with what looked and sounded an awful lot like The Widower’s Madness, Damianos had believed that perhaps he’d left behind a secret mate who had died in the destruction of their home planet many eons before Damianos took him prisoner. Since obviously he could not have mated here where no drakki, as they called the female of their species, existed.
But then twenty-five years ago, two of the Viking dogs, the one who had killed his father and the one who did so attempt to do the same to Damianos, had appeared in this time period and impregnated an inconsequential she-wolf. That might have ended their story prior to the slow and excruciating death Damianos still planned to give the both of them. However, their she-wolf had given birth to twin girls…one of which was named Fensa.
A coincidence surely, but…
How many women in this world carried such a name? And there was still that time unaccounted for. The nearly one hundred rotations when his prisoner had disappeared, only to show up in the land that would eventually become Russia to take his then rightful place as the king of the remaining drakkon.
Damianos was the Drakkon king now, with no chance of the prisoner ever reclaiming his throne, but—
“Fensa! Please forgive me! I’ll do anything! FENSA!” the prisoner screamed in their language.
And strangely, that itch once again throbbed inside his belly.
Another mystery. Around the same time that his spies had reported the birth of the twin daughters of his enemies, the itch had started inside his belly. And no matter how much he rubbed at it, it continued to bother him. Especially at night, when he sat alone in his office with nothing but a glass of tsipouro for company.
Tonight, the itch felt worse than ever. His entire torso ached with the need for relief, but the itch was so deep inside his shelled body he could not reach it. It was almost like…
Suddenly a memory popped up of one of the tales his father used to tell him when Damianos was very young, only fifty years old, still in the building embers of his life. This particular story was about his mother who had died in childbirth, but it began t
wo-thousand years before his parents met at their fating portal. One festival day his father had suddenly felt what he described as a wound in his belly, uncomfortable and prickling but completely unresponsive to everything his father did to relieve it. The wound had only grown worst with time and in the days leading up to his fating. His father had described it as almost unbearable and had said fating was all he could do not to cut open his belly to get to the deep wound inside of him.
Which was why it had been all that more surprising when on his fating day, Damianos’s mother had appeared and just as suddenly as it had begun, the wound had stopped throbbing, the same as if it had been slathered in salve.
Only later when his father was recording his mother’s details for her death record, did Damiano’s father notice…her birthing day was the exact same festival day when the itch had begun.
It was a ridiculously romantic story by drakkon terms, almost as swooning and over-the-top as the tales the walking apes told. Damianos being a warrior born had little use for it, even when he was young. And would often ask for a war story to make up for the time that was wasted with the telling of this one.
But now…
Now an itch throbbed deep inside of him. One he could not scratch, no matter how much he tried. Could that mean…?
No, that was impossible. His home planet was gone, blown up in a fit of zealotry by the same Royal Geneticist who had created the blasted so-called “werewolves” he plotted against today.
Also, there were simply no drakki left to mate with—and even if there were, the drakki would only be in her twenties. Not quite a child in drakkon years, but also still far away from her minimum mating age of two thousand.
Which meant this itch, which had already seemed to reach a fever pitch, especially this night, would only get worst.
The thought so flared his flame that instead of rejoicing over President Nightwolf’s imminent demise, Damianos found himself heading up to his room. There he took out the colored contacts that rendered his golden eyes brown along with the round prosthetic that capped his forked tongue. Then he stripped naked, leaving his suit in a heap upon the floor as he walked out to the balcony and without a pause in step, jumped off.
The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy Page 51