“Listen, I know this feels crazy to you, but trust me, I’m getting through to him,” I tell them as Clyde pulls me towards the kitchen’s open doorway. “I just need a little more…”
The “time” fades away when the smell hits my nose.
Or should I say smells? Lots and lots of smells.
It’s not just Kyle and Clyde who want to talk to me.
I realize that as soon as I see who is waiting for me in the receiving room on the other side of the foyer. My mom and two dads are sitting on a couch together.
And they all stand up when we come through the kitchen door.
Chapter Eight
All three of my parents come running toward the kitchen’s open doorway as soon as they see me. Mom, Papa Olafr, and the FJ, the Alpha King Fensa and I call Dad.
Mom’s usually neon-colored dreadlocks have been thrown into a haphazard bun with a bunch of grey new growth at the base. Months’ worth, I’d guess. She probably hasn’t re-dyed her hair since I disappeared. That and the fact that she’s wearing a plain sweatshirt with no anime or videogame characters on the front tells me just how worried she’s been.
Dad doesn’t look any better. He loves his suits. His idea of dressing down is wearing a leather jacket with a tie. But today both he and Papa Olafr are both dressed in gym clothes. Like they all dropped everything and came running as soon as they found out I was here.
Well, everything except The Death Maker, the sword FJ carries across his back on a scabbard. Even when he’s working out.
A few more weeks won’t matter, I’d assured Uncle Clyde. But yeah, I can see just how much those extra days mattered now as they approach with tears in their eyes. And I feel some kind of terrible about it.
“Thank the Fenrir wolf, you have returned to us!” Papa O says.
“You must tell us the tale of how you escaped the serpent who took you,” Dad says at the same time, only to cut off when he sees the baby.
“Oh my God, we were so worried!” Mom starts to say… only to stop as well when her tear-filled eyes shift from my face to follow the direction of FJ’s gaze...to the baby in my arms.
“Wait, what? Why do you have a baby?” she asks. “Why does she have a baby?”
She looks to Clyde, who looks more sheep than beta as he rubs the back of his neck and says, “Yeah, I kinda left some stuff out when I told you Ola was back...”
I’d wrapped the baby in a blanket before coming downstairs, so his wings, scaled stomach, and Ken Doll pelvis are all hidden. But I can tell by the way my parents are all sniffing the air that they’re putting together the story of what happened.
Fast.
“Yeah, I kinda left a lot of stuff out,” Clyde amends when they all stop, then turn as one to glare at him.
So that happened.
And did I say only three of my family members were waiting for me in the receiving room?
Make that five. My dads had told Aunt Myrna I was back as soon as they heard, and she’d decided to pop in for the reunion in hologram form…along with her husband Rafes. And huge shock—my president cousin was not happy about me showing back up here with the baby of a dragon he considers the number one enemy of the wolf state.
I know this because Rafes is yelling at me louder than anyone else.
“How could you keep it from us that you’ve given birth to the baby of the number one enemy of the wolf state,” he demands.
“Number one?” I repeat. “It’s only our family he doesn’t like. I think all the other wolves are safe.”
“I can understand your sister lying with the great Odin who not only refrained from participating in the great serpent battle but also gave us invaluable guidance so that we might win,” FJ says. “But this male. This male slaughtered half my village.”
“Yes, I know what happened hundreds of years ago,” I answer. “It’s a lot to forgive someone for…just like it would be a lot for him to forgive you for killing his father.”
Dad’s eyes narrow. “The serpent I felled was his father?”
“Yes!” I answer. A shimmer of hope rises inside my chest. Maybe knowing exactly who they killed will actually convince my dads to stop hating my mate.
But that shimmer of hope dies hard when Papa says, “It matters not who the serpent was. Only what he did. The father he mourns only died because their serpent horde chose to attack our village!”
I stick the last of the bottles into Bazzi’s mouth. “You know I love the two of you, and Mom told me a long time ago I wasn’t allowed to point out the obvious to the both of you because you were too traumatized or whatever to handle the truth.”
“Ola, don’t,” Mom warns, scrunching her face like she does whenever I start popping off truth bullets. “You told me you wouldn’t.”
But I didn’t promise, I mentally note. I always keep my promises, but maybe I knew something like this day would come, so I’d made sure to stop short of promising her to hold my tongue after putting a few disturbing things together about my dads’ backstory.
I shake my head at her, “I’m sorry, Mom, but I’ve gotta point it out.” I turn back to my dads. “It wasn’t like the dragons attacked a village filled with pious saints. You were Viking werewolves, with an emphasis on viking.”
I look toward Dad especially, since Papa and Myrna always stayed behind. “Those special trips you and Grandpa Fenris took all over the known world? They weren’t exactly like our family vacations to Disneyworld, right? If I’m not mistaken viking is still Norwegian for raiding the shit out of places. And now you want to act forever tragic because my mate attacked your village out of the blue? You know, just like you and Grandpa Fenris did to countless human settlements, including churches and monasteries, right?”
“That is different,” Aunt Myrna says, gritting her low-res jaw in defense of her father and brother.
“Really?” I answer, tilting my head at her. “I’m so curious to hear how.”
“You are and have always been a disrespectful daughter,” Dad roars, pointing a finger at me. “That you would defend that serpent in this manner. That you would take his side over ours.”
He’s right. I am being disrespectful. But I don’t see any other way to get through to them. If I let them stubbornly cling to the sanitized version of their back story, how are we all going to move forward?
Still, I gentle my tone to let FJ know, “It’s not about sides, Dad. It’s about ending this feud. There’s a baby now. My son, your grandchild. If you want to see us on the regular, if you want Fensa and her family to be able to come back, we’ve got to figure out how to squash this beef with Damianos. Who is now my mate.”
Silence. Dead silence, with so many triple eye exchanges, it’s easy to tell my mom and dads are having a whole conversation about how to respond.
“You know what, I don’t care about any of this family drama,” Rafes says, rudely stepping between my parents and me. “Damianos infiltrated my personal guard and cabinet with his mind control tricks!”
“Yea, for all we know he’s brainwashed you into defending him,” Aunt Myrna points out, coming to stand beside Rafes.
I bug my eyes at Myrna. “Seriously, I present a logical argument, and all you two can come up with is mind control?”
“What else are we supposed to think?” Aunt Myrna yells back, her particularly fierce version of the Old Norse accent becoming even thicker. “While you were mating with our family’s mortal enemy, your parents were sick with worry.”
“Yes, we all spent sleepless nights imagining the worst. Innumerable resources were employed to find you. Thousands of credits in both taxpayer and private dollars,” Rafes adds, taking his wife’s low-res hand. “Nago, Knud, and me almost got fire sprayed when we tried to ask Xenon for help. That’s how scared Fensa’s mate is of this dude. And now you’re here acting like we should all be peachy cool. Defending the guy that brainwashed more wolves than I can count and is making serious moves on our gates for reasons we still don’t understand?”
“Xenon…Xenon tried to hurt you?” I’m feeling dazed from all those reveal grenades he just threw at me. And what the hell was up with Xenon? They’re assuming he did what he did because he’s afraid of Damianos, but my many confusing conversations with the Other Damianos tickles my mind. “I don’t understand why he would do that.”
“Yes, obviously there’s a lot you don’t understand. Most likely because you’ve been brainwashed,” Rafes counters.
“But I haven’t been—” I start to answer.
Rafes cuts me off with a harsh sigh. “Can we at least expect some intel from this latest inadvisable mating between a wolf and a dragon? Like why he had designs on the time gates?”
I falter, torn between my state and my mate. “I’m not sure exactly what he wanted with all those gates,” I admit in the end. “He mentioned having some ultimate revenge plan against my dads and Xenon. But I’m sure I can convince him to change his mind.”
Everybody groans. And Mom says, “I think it’s obvious she’s been brainwashed,” her eyes brimming with tears.
Papa draws her to him, comforting her, even as his own eyes tear up. “Yes, why else would she defend him so?”
I feel heartbroken and attacked and like the shittiest daughter on earth.
And man, do I miss Fensa.
My twin never made me explain myself and I never made her. Questioning each other’s sanity? Never. Not us. We were ride or die. But this attack disguised as a conversation tells me she was the only one I could rely on like that.
Her and Other Damianos.
“I’ll never truly let you go. Until my dying day, you will remain in my heart. But I do not want our hatchling born to an imprisoned mother. I want what I envisioned for us, a wedding in front of your wolves and my drakkon. What you talked about during our last round of heat sex…the matching yellow flame you call love. I want that for him. And I want that for you. And therefore, I cannot make the same mistakes as before. This is a second chance, and this time I must do right by you.”
My heart aches with the memory of the dragon who made that vow to me as I say to my parents. “Mom, Dads, I haven’t been brainwashed. I’m just trying to fix this. Make it so we can get Fensa back, and then we can all be a family again.”
But Dad goes on like I haven’t said anything at all. “I fear there is no great tale to be told,” he says with a grave nod. “In fact, it is obvious he purposefully let her escape. Perhaps as part of this ultimate revenge she believes she can convince him to abandon. He wants to rub our faces in how thoroughly he has entranced our daughter.”
“Don’t blame her,” Mom says to Dad. “She needs help. Rafes is there any way to help her?”
“I can try, Aunt Tee,” Rafes answers, “But even after months of therapy, we’re still not sure if we were able to break his mind hold over the people he got to on my staff.”
“Oh, God.” Mom whispers. She looks up at both my fathers. “But we’ve got to try, right? We’ve got to…”
“I haven’t been brainwashed!” I scream, clinging to the baby who somehow managed to fall back asleep after finishing his fifth bottle of formula. “Will you listen to me?”
To my surprise, my uncles who have been sheepish and silent ever since the dragon baby bomb drop suddenly decide to come to my defense.
“You should know, he didn’t let her escape,” Uncle Clyde says to Papa. “She had him tied up in the basement, bruised and battered when we got her call.”
“Uncle Clyde, don’t…” I warn, already seeing exactly how they’ll translate that part of the story.
He shuts up, but unfortunately Uncle Kyle keeps on going. “If anything he’s the one trying to escape. She’s got him chained up in our bedroom and you should hear the way those chains of his have been rattling when the two of them—”
“Uncle Kyle!” I shout.
He finally breaks off when he sees my murderous look. “I’m sorry, Ola. I’m with Clyde. I don’t think you’ve been brainwashed. But you’ve got to admit keeping him here and not telling your parents or anybody else that you’re back with a baby is all sorts of cray.”
“Plus, we want our bedroom back,” Clyde whines. “The bed in the guest room is murder on my back.”
The rest of my family listens to our conversation, their heads swiveling back and forth.
Then comes a collective, “What?”
Then FJ says, “Tell me this is not true, daughter. Tell me that serpent is not presently in this house!”
Chapter Nine
DAMIANOS
“Call me an idiot if you want, but one day, you’re going to look up and find this idiot standing over you with a sword. I promise you that, and I always keep my promises.”
The recollection of that passionate vow echoes through my mind when I awaken that morn to find Ola standing above me….
With a sword.
I tense, preparing to fight. But then I see what she’s carrying in her other arm.
A baby.
It sleeps, but I know who it is without having to be told.
“My hatchling,” I say, my voice husky with disbelief. “You have finally brought him to me.”
“Yeah, something like that.” She glances over her shoulder, then back at me. “Do you know how to operate him?”
“Operate him?” I repeat, not understanding her meaning.
“You know, like make him turn into a dragon and make fire. The tw—I mean Fensa said Eos could do that when he was a baby. Torch stuff if you aimed him at it.”
I parse through her words. “Yes, it is true our young can easily make small fires.”
“Great, show me how to get him to shift.”
“I wouldn’t know,” I answer. “Drakkon are not like you. We don’t shift. Drakkon is what we are. What you see before you is merely a shell.”
She raises her eyes to the ceiling and lets out an exasperated growl as if I am purposefully seeking to frustrate her. “Okay, we don’t have time for this. They’ll be here as soon as they find the code to the door. I’m just going to have to try it with the sword.”
For the first time, I register her appearance. She has on a robe, the same as our previous encounters. But this one is composed of terry cloth, not the silky material that caressed my body so unbearably when she lay down beside me. Also, instead of one of the nightgowns I provided her, she sports an overlarge T-shirt underneath with the words KING POPPA emblazoned across it. And her feet are shod in what appear to be fuzzy narwhals.
Most alarming, the sly seductive gaze has vanished, replaced by wide scared eyes as she gently sets our baby down on the floor. Then raises the sword.
I sit up in bed, chains rattling. “What are you doing?” I find myself asking yet again, my fire crackling with alarm.
“Don’t move!” With both hands, she raises the sword over her head and chops it down at the chain leading to my right wrist shackle.
“Fuuuckkk!!!” she yells out when it doesn’t work. Then she heaves the sword at the chain again and again.
In this moment she reminds me much of the she-wolf who continued swinging the chair at the unbreakable window. But in this case, she is not trying to escape me…she is trying to free me.
“Ola! Cease!” I shout over her efforts. “What you are doing is not working. So cease and explain to me why you have decided to set me free.”
For once, Ola does as I say. She lets the sword fall to the floor and picks back up our hatchling as she explains, “My uncles blew the whistle on us, and my douchebag cousin has decided to abuse his powers again because everyone thinks I’m brainwashed. Things escalated. And I stole my dad’s sword. And now there are a bunch of drones on the way to storm our kingdom house. And we’ve got to figure out how to free you from those chains because they are not going to be happy when they find out the door code I gave them was totally fake.”
Many of her words are confusing. But my flame chills when I realize… the sword in her hands. It is the same one that killed my f
ather. How perfect, how right would it be then, to have FJ use it to slay everyone he loves? Save Ola, who of course, would keep for myself.
“Can you not use a key to simply release me?” I ask her, careful to keep my voice calm, even though her answer matters not.
“No, my uncles have the key to your shackles. That was one of the conditions of me getting to keep you here. That plus giving them the code to this door lock, which I did—but the numbers are totally fake. I had a bad feeling my uncles would break.”
The sound of buttons being pushed suddenly interrupts her explanation.
The door lets out a sour buzz of denial.
More buttons are pushed. Another sour buzz and the next thing we hear are heavy fists pounding against the door.
“Ola, do not do this!” a heavily accented male voice calls out to her on the other side of the impenetrable alloy.
Then another voice adds, “Do not betray your family and pack! You must remember who you are, no matter what spell that serpent has cast upon your mind.”
My flame ices over at the sound of the second voice. Hundreds of years have passed since I heard it commanding his fellow warriors to take on wolf form, so as to better fight us, but I will never forget the voice of the male who killed my father.
“Let us in,” the well-remembered voice commands his daughter as he did his soldiers so long ago upon that field. “Let us in so that we can seize the serpent and extract you from his thrall.”
“Dads…” Ola’s formerly resolute expression wobbles as she looks at the door. I can feel her indecision radiating over our mate bond.
More pounding. “Let us in,” her murderer father commands. Then in a softer voice he says, “We are your family, Ola. Your Papa and I swore to love and protect you forever the day we returned from our time after missing the first five winters of your life. Do not do this. Do not let that serpent rip you from us again.”
Her Dragon King (Her Dragon King Duet Book 2): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 2 Page 7