Most men from his generation gagged at the thought of committing themselves to another so early, to taking themselves off the market even a minute before their sperm motility started to go down. A few of Max’s mates claimed they wouldn’t even get married then.
But as Max pulled Dy underneath him that afternoon in their hotel room to consummate the marriage promise they’d made to each other, he couldn’t understand the thinking of his mates. He could only assume they didn’t understand how wonderful real love could be. Didn’t know how amazing it felt to laugh at yourself with someone else or to lose yourself in the body of a girl who you knew without a doubt you’d love big or small, young or old.
The thing was, he understood exactly what Dyana had meant, because he’d felt the same way, too. That he shouldn’t put off a relationship with her, even if his MBA course load had been overwhelming. That if he wanted this with her, it should be now. Because there was no better time than now when it came to loving Dyana.
And that late afternoon he fell asleep with Dyana in his arms, thinking, No, they just didn’t get it. His own voice in his head, not the accusing one of his mother’s.
However, when he woke up that night, there was a voice speaking to him. And to Max’s horror, it was neither his nor his mother’s.
“Come meet your father,” the dark and sonorous voice told him. “It is time.”
35
Damianos
Everything was falling apart.
Thanks to the Viking girl going into unexpected heat, President Nightwolf was now ahead of Damianos's stooge. Not by a lot. A well-planted scandal could erase the whole thing. And the last thing Craig had managed to relay to Damianos before going dark was that the Viking Girl had gotten herself involved in some sort of scandal that had Rafes calling an emergency meeting.
Damianos liked scandal. He could infect scandal, then manipulate the wound to his own end.
But, was he in the States now, making plans and god-speaking more wolves to serve him now that Craig had been lost?
No. No he wasn’t.
In fact, instead of seeing his ultimate plan through to the end, with only days to go before the election, he found himself in his rooms, holding the much smaller hand of the human who’d collapsed shortly after the “visit” from Ola and her sister.
The human lay not in the third-floor room Damianos had yet to step foot in, but on Damianos own bed, his breathing labored and wretched, despite the doctor’s claim that he’d made him as comfortable as possible.
“It is truly a miracle he was able to go on this long,” the Greek doctor had said after informing Damianos that there was little to be done for someone with Colby’s heart condition. Especially since, as it turned out, his servant had untreated Stage 5 lung cancer on top of the congestive heart failure. “He should count himself lucky to have lived such a long—”
The doctor didn’t get a chance to finish his proclamation. Damianos had snapped his neck for daring to utter such a useless condolence after having provided so little help to his ailing servant.
But now, as Damianos watched the old servant struggle to get each breath in and out, he wondered if he shouldn’t have kept the doctor alive. If only to administer more…of whatever these fragile humans had to take in order to anesthetize themselves against pain, since unlike dragons and wolves, mere mortals didn’t have the ability to heal themselves while in shift.
Letting go of the servant’s hand, Damianos decided to go get the black medical bag the doctor had dropped when he fell dead to the floor. Damianos knew little of human medicine, but perhaps he could look up the names of the narcotics in the bag and figure out which one was meant for comfort.
However, when he moved to stand, Colby’s eyes suddenly shot open, gripping his hand with more strength than he would have thought the weakened man capable of.
“My son! Did you call him?” he croaked.
Damianos's lips pursed at the thought of the next Colby, who yes, he’d called shortly after the doctor’s announcement of certain death. New meant more training would need to done—really the old servant’s death couldn’t have come at a worst time.
“Of course, I did,” he answered, tersely.
“Don’t…don’t let him see me like that…dead…and eaten through by…by the maggots…don’t make him bury me.”
Damianos stared at the old servant, wondering if he’d gone mad. “If he does not bury you, then who will?” he asked, genuinely confused. “Also, there is the matter of the dead doctor in the hallway.”
Yet Colby continued to hold on to his hand, struggling to talk, even though each word seemed a battle. “I was…a good…servant to you…never complained.”
“Of course, you did not,” Damianos answered with a lift of his brow. “You are god spoken. You were unable.”
“If…you…ever…cared for me…at all…even a little…you won’t make him bury me…please…it is…my last request…my only request.”
Damianos heaved a sigh. Because he didn’t care for the servant. That wasn’t the way it worked. Colbys came and Colbys went and never did a dragon lament.
Yet…
He sat back down.
And a few hours later, after the old servant passed his last breath, he found himself in the Colby graveyard, using what he believed was called a shovel to dig a hole in the soft ground. While the body of his old servant, lie waiting, shrouded in the high thread count sheet Damianos had wrapped him in before bringing him down the stairs in the bright of day.
This was all her fault, he found himself thinking as he dug the death hole with furious strokes.
Not the Viking girl. Or that Fensa character who’d helped his cousin escape centuries of imprisonment on the third floor.
But her sister…Ola.
His mind spat out the name like foul venom. Yet his belly. It itched at the thought of her. Even worse now than before.
The itch was constant now. It had only stopped once. And that was when he walked down the grand stairs of his house and found the daughters of this father’s killer waiting for him in the front foyer.
He could still make no sense of it. The sudden cessation of all ache replaced by a firing in his belly unlike none he’d ever known. Ola had in some ways been more of a shock to him than the discovery of the half-dragon/half-wolf hybrid standing beside her. The son of his prisoner.
His existence alone, should have captured all of Damianos attention. Yet, it did not.
From the moment he laid his eyes on her, she had his entire attention. Ola, the daughter he’d given only passing thought to in his plans to murder everyone her drakkon killer fathers held dear. But in those moments, he could not look away.
And as he gazed upon her, his male works had dropped, the itching replaced with a primal need that burned even brighter than his desire for revenge.
Such a sweet, aching. Unlike anything he’d ever felt. And when she’d touched him there, grabbing him more boldly than any female, human, wolf, or drakkoni had ever dared, he thought he might lose himself completely in her brown gaze….
But then had come the crash from upstairs as her sister freed the prisoner.
A trick. It had only been a trick.
And she and the hybrid boy had been gone when he returned downstairs. Standing in the shattered glass of their departure, Damianos had vowed revenge.
And he’d meant it.
That duplicitous bitch would come to regret crossing this dragon as soon as he re-fixed the North American dog election. He’d make sure of it.
Yet, here he was. Digging a grave instead of seeing to his ultimate plan, the memory of the audacious she-wolf as constant as the damn unscratchable itch, even though his male works had receded back into his belly.
“Ah, pardon me.”
The refined British accent brought Damianos's head around.
At the edge of the cemetery stood the new Colby, so similar in looks to his father that it put Damianos in mind of Dr. Generation, a science fiction
program in which the eponymous character was replaced with a younger clone every time he died in an accident, by murder, or of old age.
“Colby,” he said.
“Maxwell, actually. Maxwell Kreft. But everyone calls me Max,” he answered.
Oh yes, the Colbys did that occasionally, Damianos vaguely recalled. Named their sons something else, as if that would somehow protect them. Or matter.
“I’m not quite sure why I’m here? Something about my father?” The boy’s eyes fell to the shroud. “Is that…is that him?”
Belatedly, Damianos realized he hadn’t yet taken the usual precautions. Hadn’t used his superior brain to manipulate this new Colby so that he didn’t feel negative emotion, ask questions, or that most annoying human trait of all, leaking fluids out of his eyes due to extreme emotion.
He should do that immediately. End this melodrama before the boy started to cry.
Yet, instead of doing that, he said, “Take a few moments with your father. No more than an hour. Then finish burying him. After that I’d like a glass of tsipouro in my study, Colby.”
In the end, he didn’t honor his old manservant’s dying wish. But he’d wanted to, and that fact bothered him as he walked away without waiting for the boy to respond. He also found himself annoyed at the strange and heavy feeling inside his chest. He’d only ever felt it once before, when he thought about how he left his father vulnerable and undefended on that Viking field, thinking none of the dogs capable of hurting him, much less…
Another new emotion rose inside of him. Not itching. Or anger. But…could it be…grief.
Damianos steeled his emotions as he strode through Colby’s useless, completely unnecessary garden, treading flowers underneath his feet.
Today, he’d let the boy have his hour with his father and some rest. But tomorrow…Damianos would be himself again, he promised. Tomorrow, he’d instruct the new Colby to hire a plane for them.
And their first stop would be North America.
Rafesson Nightwolf.
The Viking Girl.
Fensa and his Prisoner.
His father’s killers.
And Ola.
They should all be scared. Because Damianos was coming. And there was nothing they could do to stop him.
Part V
“NIGHTWOLF! NIGHTWOLF! NIGHTWOLF!”
36
Wilma
Three Days Before Myrna Left
She had lost her damn mind.
That was the only way Wilma could explain it. Her presence here in the outer office of Bohdan Last Name She Still Couldn’t Pronounce—though it had flowed right off his young assistant’s tongue when she’d told Wilma to take a seat.
That had been…. Wilma re-checked the Rolex Datejust Pearlmaster Tikaani had given to her as a gift for a birthday or anniversary or something other back near the turn of the millennium. And yep, it had been over an hour since she got here.
She hated herself for no longer remembering the reason her beloved husband had given her the watch almost as much as she hated herself for coming here.
She fidgeted in her seat, wanting to leave more than she’d wanted anything in a very long time.
But she had to do this, she reminded herself for the thousandth time. For the Viking girl.
More than most, Wilma understood finding something you loved, something you were good at, and then having that thing ripped away because of some male who thought he owned all your life and decisions. And Wilma guessed her grandson had somehow discovered Myrna’s extracurricular activities as soon as that Arik guard escorted Wilma out of the house and checked her into the closest five-star hotel.
She imagined all the ultimatums Rafes threw at his fated mate last night. Anything to get his way and win that election of his. And it wasn’t fair that now, because of Wilma, Myrna wouldn’t be able to walk away from her grandson to a job she must have loved as much as Wilma had back in the day.
No, I’ve gotta do this. Wilma eyed Bohdan’s assistant, a glamorous young thing with a curtain of sleek pink hair, wearing a baggy white jumpsuit and red glass slippers. No matter how humiliating it feels.
Wilma got up to confront the assistant, and as she approached the desk, she wondered, not for the first time, why these young girls had to dress so comfortable these days. This one reminded her of her middle daughter Alisha, who’d made a habit of covering her curves in boring professor get ups during her prime man-catching years. Her eyes were averted sideways, an indicator that she was in some kind of bioworld and couldn’t see Wilma standing right in front of her.
“Hello,” she said, waving her hands in front of the little girl’s face to get her attention like she often had to do with her grandchildren.
But unlike her grandchildren, who’d been raised to come out of their bioworlds when somebody was talking to them in real life, this one kept her eyes averted as she asked, “Yes, can I help you?”
Resisting the urge to tell the assistant about herself, Wilma codeswitched to her politest Queen of Alaska voice to answer, “I’ve been waiting for over an hour. Any chance Bohdan can see me now?”
The girl’s eyes fluttered. Wilma couldn’t tell if she was checking in with Bohdan or rolling her eyes at the question. Maybe both?
In any case the girl’s answer came back pretty dang quick. “He’s not ready to see you yet. Please return to your seat. I’ll let you know when you can go in.”
Pursing her lips, Wilma did as instructed but only until she was completely out of the assistant’s line of view. Then she beelined her behind straight toward Bohdan’s office door. She was too old and too ornery to be taking orders from anybody other than herself.
Wilma touched the door tentatively, hoping it wasn’t one of those that only unlocked with the right biosignature, like the sliding ones upstairs at The Wolf House. Thank Jesus, it wasn’t, and she inwardly cheered when it slid open with just a whisper of sound.
Then she peeked over her shoulder…and yep, just as she suspected the secretary was still in her bio-trance. Wilma walked right on into Bohdan’s office without even a squeak of protest coming at her from behind.
However, she found Bohdan, not sitting behind his desk with his eyes averted in a VR meeting, but standing in front of it, with his arms folded, his eyes lasered directly on her.
Wilma faltered, struck, just as she had been at Myrna’s dressing room door by how he’d both changed and still looked the same. His head was shaved now, and he had more than fine lines around his eyes and creases in his forehead that gave away his advanced age along with a thick white beard. But he still sported his burly Ukrainian wrestler build, even if his large muscles were now contained underneath a tailored three-piece suit instead of the All-American gym sweats.
And he remained sexy as all get out. Somehow radiating strength and vitality, even though, he was closing in on eighty. And standing still.
Those shark eyes hadn’t gone anywhere either. They stared down at her, deep sunk and glittering with rage.
Suddenly Wilma felt self-conscious. She’d ditched her usual kaftan this morning and pulled out a red nanite dress. It clung and lifted in all the right places, and in the mirror, she’d thought it made her look like the curvy and bodacious queen she used to be as opposed to the ghost of a grandma she’d become.
But Bohdan’s expression, anger mixed with disgust as his eyes raked up and down her body, made her want to go out to the lobby and offer to swap out her designer dress for his assistant’s baggy jumpsuit.
Not about you, she reminded herself.
Putting her focus on Myrna, she stood up straight and lifted her chin assuming queen mood, as she did many times before Tikaani’s death. “Hello, Bohdan, I’m here to talk about Myrna,” she said getting right on down to the business at hand. “I’ve come to ask you not to fire her. I mean, I saw her myself on the monitors while I was waiting for her to come down to the dressing room. She was really good. And no matter how you feel about me, you’ve got to admit her
sell was one-of-a-kind—she could play a face or a heel, and people would love her either way. Also, you should know, she’s only partially associated with me. And quite frankly, I don’t know how long that’s going to last, given the way things are going between her and my grandson. So, you see, there’s no reason to fire her. That’s all I came here to say to you.”
She made herself stop then, raising her eyes up to his in the hope of seeing a little less shark in his expression.
But if anything, his face had become even more vicious.
“That is all you came here to say?” His English was way more grammatically correct now, but his accent was still as thick as an Alaska blizzard.
She clamped her lips. And unclamped them, but in the end, decided not to pretend she didn’t understand what he was referring to, even if it was ancient history. “And I should also say I’m sorry for not showing up in Detroit fifty years ago. I know you probably spent a few hours waiting for me. And I wish, I’d had a way to get in contact with you to say I was sorry, explain that I couldn’t go to Baltimore with you after all. That was real rude. So yeah, I’m sorry about all of that. And how long it took to get you this apology.”
She stopped, her chest aching with true regret. But then she pointed out, “But I think we can both say everything worked out for the best. I mean, look at you. You went from All-American to owning the IWF.”
A beat. Then he said, “I am the majority shareholder. I do not own the IWF.”
Wilma took the correction with a nod but kept pressing on. “And your widow. I read online that she was a model with a degree! I’m sorry she passed, but your daughter looks just like her in the face, and she’s a real good fighter, too. I mean, I’m so impressed by what you made of yourself, Bohdan…” She shook her head, still unable to believe he climbed so far from his shitty little apartment in Detroit.
The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy Page 68