He shook his head, even as Myrna and her brothers erupted into laughter. Neither she nor his shocked team would ever know just how close the wolf came to taking over.
Rafes dug deep willing the wolf down, just as Baylor informed the room, “Okay, we’re in official crisis mode. I need ideas and spins as fast as you can give them to me.”
“Does this mean you’re going to abandon the Black Box project?” Rafe Sr. asked, tiring of the indirect approach to trying to get a word out of his oldest triplet son.
Rafes sliced his eyes at his father. The older wolf looked more distinguished than ever with his patrician Spanish features, inherited from his Latina mother, and his long nose, inherited from his Cheyenne father. Often, he came across as even colder than his "robot" son, especially in the boardroom, for his conglomerate of mixed shifter/human travel resorts located throughout the country. However, now his brown eyes shown with hope.
Rafes doubted his father would ever admit it, but he could tell all this Switzerland business had taken a toll on his well-being, if not his marriage.
Nonetheless, Rafes answered his father with a cold, “No, it doesn’t mean that at all.”
“But how will you—” his father started to ask.
Rafes cut off the question by turning away. Not because he no longer wanted to participate in this conversation—though to be clear, he did not, especially with his crisis team still arguing about how to spin all of this inside his VR war room. But no, he turned away because inside the kitchen the conversation had switched to English.
“I know this is a lot to take in,” his mother was saying to Myrna. “How about if we call it a day and let her get some rest. If you have any more questions, we can answer them for you tomorrow.”
“Yes, of course. Forgive us,” FJ said, also switching to English. Like Rafes’s father, FJ and his brother, Olafr attended to their health, even in their fifties. Both men still sported heavy muscles, though FJ hid his underneath a white linen shirt and suit jacket while Olafr put his on full display in a muscle T with an ironic grey wolf in front of a full moon graphic.
But despite the little change to their muscle tone, Rafes could see the differences between the two brothers and their no longer lost sister clearly. The now decades age difference hung over their conversation. Making FJ seem like more of a father than a brother, when he said, “We will show you to your room and you will rest there without worry. We are reunited, Sister, and you can trust us to take care of everything from now on.”
At these words, Rafes stood up.
“Okay, guess we’re going in…” he heard his father say behind him as he headed toward the main kitchen.
Less than a second later, Rafes came to a stop directly behind the empty seat at the head of the kitchen table, his wolf growling low at just the mention of his mate being escorted somewhere outside of its sight.
Everybody but Myrna looked taken aback by his sudden appearance in the kitchen.
“My Rafesson,” she said, her soft brown eyes lighting up as she came to a stand. “I shall remember always the relief I do feel now, knowing that my village and parents are safe from the winged serpents. You have honored me with your escort here in your flying carriage. Truly do I thank you.”
“You’re welcome,” Rafes answered tightly, ignoring her brothers’ hostile stares.
“Be this your father then?”
Before Rafes could answer, Myrna rushed over to the wolf standing beside him. “Father of Rafesson, I am so very honored to meet you, the male who after being so soundly defeated by my father for my mother’s hand and left behind by Aunt Alisha, did give such good fight for your own fated mate.”
Rafe Sr. squinted back at Myrna. “I wasn’t…I wasn’t defeated,” he sputtered after a moment of shocked indignation. “It was more like your father snuck in behind my back and stole my fiancée while I was in wolf form.”
Myrna nodded with a completely sympathetic look. “I can see this grave defeat, of which we have long told tale around the night fire does vex you still. But now that my village is safe from the serpent horde, shall I endeavor to become the daughter to you that you could have never have hoped to have with my mother, the destined mate of our Fenris. I could not be more honored or happy to be fated to your son.”
Camille had charmed Rafe Sr. from the start, and he had told his oldest triplet he believed she’d make him a fine wife. However, he didn’t look nearly as enthused about Myrna. “Okay, I don’t know exactly what kind of tales your father made up around that fire of yours, or why you guys were still talking about it, like, decades later,” he said glaring down Olafr, FJ, and his own wife, who were all very obviously struggling not to laugh. “But for the record, it wasn’t a defeat!”
His facilitation skills finally coming back on line, Rafes stepped between his agitated father and the small Viking woman. “My father and I are both happy to see you reunited with your family, Myrna,” he said diplomatically.
“No thanks to you, President Nightwolf,” FJ shot back, between gritted teeth.
Myrna looked from Rafes to her older brother confused. “Whatever do you mean by such words, FJ?”
“Only that if it had been up to Rafes, all time gates would be boxed, so that you would have been trapped in the time space between our age and this one,” Olafr answered.
“What? I do not understand these claims that do fall from your mouths,” Myrna said.
Now it was Alisha’s turn to regard her with a sympathetic look. “I’m afraid it’s true, Myrna. Rafes has been actively campaigning against your safe return for nearly two years now.”
Myrna’s brow crinkled. “You believe my fated mate did truly wish me trapped between the fated gates?”
Alisha blinked, visually surprised by Myrna’s push back. “No…well, not exactly. But you see after becoming president, he decided to betray his people in his legacy by instituting a so-called Black Box program that would prevent wolves from using the portals to find their fated mates. Meaning that relationships like mine, your mother’s, and now yours, won’t be possible for anyone else.”
“Mom…” Rafes warned, his human’s blood pressure rising as his wolf growled.
Myrna tilted her head sideways. “What could possibly move him to require such boxes?”
Alisha shook her own head in bitter agreement. “Don’t ask me. At this point, I’m barely able to believe this is a son I raised.”
“But I am asking you, Aunt Alisha,” Myrna said sincerely, her gaze unwavering. “Why would he do such a thing? Fated mates who come through the gates make up a very, very small number of wolf couplings. I cannot see my own father bothering with such an endeavor, so surely the fenrir from your time must have a reason to prevent wolves from using the portal.”
Again Alisha, blinked. And Rafes couldn’t help but notice the way his mother’s arms dropped to her sides, not looking quite so indignant now. “Well, he says it’s because he’s afraid that dragons will somehow steal the portals, but—”
“Why does he believe this?” Myrna asked.
From anyone else in Alisha’s sphere, this would have been a rhetorical question, an invitation for Alisha to rant against her son, that mean-ass president. But Alisha must have understood Myrna was completely serious, because she folded her hands, refusing to answer.
“He claims this is because he fears the dragon horde,” FJ answered in Aunt Alisha’s silence. “However, no dragons save for one have been seen or identified in centuries—”
Myrna raised both hands. “As our mother would say, hold up! The dragons? This is how you do call the serpents. Are you telling me that one of these serpents is still breathing? Still posing threat to the people of your new land?”
“One, maybe,” Alisha answered, piping up again. “And he’s not exactly a threat. He bought a couple of kingdom mountains, and Rafes is totally using him as a bogeyman—”
“There is a serpent claiming kingdom mountains?” Myrna asked, shaking her head at Alish
a. She then turned on her brothers. “And instead of helping your fenrir stand against the serpents who did kill so many of our fellow villagers you would protest and berate him for his plan?”
Rafes jolted, surprised by the naked outrage in her expression. Usually it was him against his entire family, with his father, sitting the argument out. But now, Myrna stood beside him, her dark eyes blazing as she waited for her brothers’ answer.
Both FJ and Olafr seemed to have caught a big old case of folded arm nothing to say.
And eventually it was left to Myrna to break the awkward silence. “This is not how we were raised by our Fenris,” she said to them, sounding even more disappointed in them than Alisha had sounded in Rafes last Thanksgiving.
Eventually Rafe Sr. said, “Okay, everybody’s tired and a lot has happened today. Alisha, I liked your idea of letting Rafes’s…ah…friend get some rest.”
“Yea, with this I agree,” Olafr said, as if suddenly tossed a lifeline. “Sister, you will take our daughter Fensa’s room. She is away at what is called grad school and has just told us she will not return home this summer.” Olafr made a sour face. “But when our daughter Ola visits this week’s end, she will be happy to explain to you just how harmful Rafes’s box project is…”
His wolf slammed against the cage of his chest, tingling his spine. Wanting out at the thought of any other taking his fated mate away.
Rafes clutched the back of the chair he was standing in front of, his knuckles near white with the urge to hold back his wolf as it fought to takeover.
Meanwhile in the VR situation room, Stacey was saying, “I’ve got it. How about if we say this woman didn’t come through the gate. How about if we say she’s some crazy, obsessed President groupie and somehow got past President Nightwolf’s security detail and jumped on him.”
Georgina nodded enthusiastically. “We could spin in as a reason to increase his personal security budget…”
“And maybe tie it back into all the anti-sexual-harassment laws he’s passed since the beginning of his term. Get people talking about something other than the Black Box Initiative,” Baylor added.
A chorus of agreements and further suggestions for a plan to paint Myrna as a crazed pro-sexual harassment zealot met with Georgina’s proposal, even as Rafes’s wolf bucked inside his chest.
Control…control…control…he chanted as he squeezed his eyes against the infuriating sight of Olafr, taking Myrna by the arm. Once again, he felt the fur rise on his back, his spine tingling, as his wolf pressed, dangerously close to the surface.
But then Myrna’s voice said, “Your fenrir.”
The room as a whole paused, and Rafes opened his eyes to a new sight. Myrna now stood quite a few inches away from her brother, her eyes blazing with righteous fury. Apparently, she’d torn her arm away from her brother.
“Excuse me?” FJ asked, his eyes little more than a squint as he stared down at his sister.
But despite her much smaller size, she stood her ground, glaring right back up at him as she said, “From what I understand, my fated mate is currently the fenrir of all the North American wolves. He won the alpha match that these people do call an election. Is that not so?”
“Yes,” FJ admitted carefully, his brow furrowing. “But…”
“Then ‘tis not Rafes’s plan. ‘Tis the plan of your fenrir. Our fenrir now. For that reason, of course I shall stay with him. Leave with him if he so wishes. For you, dear brother, are no longer my fenrir, or even my fenrir next. My fated mate is, and where he goes, so shall I.”
Alisha, Olafr, FJ, and Rafe Sr. all gaped at Myrna. And so did Rafes.
As had been well-documented, Myrna’s mother, Chloe had fought going anywhere with her own fated mate when he came much earlier in the millennium to claim her. Alisha, Rafes’s own mother had jumped several centuries back in time to escape her destiny with her fated mate. And there were several chapters of Tiara’s biography dedicated to how much she’d freaked out when not one but two Viking Wolves showed up to claim her as their fated mate.
Yet, here stood small Myrna, staring down both of her brothers, two of the largest and most intimidating wolves Rafes had ever met, her eyes burning bright as she declared fidelity to the wolf whose plans nearly everyone in his family was actively working to derail.
“Okay, I wasn’t expecting this. I’m not even sure what to…how to…I mean, wow, just wow,” Alisha said.
Wow, indeed. Rafes had never seen his mother stricken speechless. And in that moment, a new sensation, shocking and warm, filled his chest, washing over both his human and his wolf.
Then he found himself back in the VR war room where everyone had pretty much agreed that Stacey’s “she’s a crazy-ass groupie” plan was the way to go.
“No,” his presidential avatar told the room, leaning over the table as he made the declaration.
“No?” Georgina repeated, her avatar registering shock as she and the rest of the crisis team turned to face him.
“No,” Rafes repeated. His avatar’s voice resolute as stone, because it had suddenly become crystal clear to him…
Myrna was his fated mate.
His wolf was unwilling to let her go.
And now…so was his human.
Seven
Colby
Fishing Village, Northern England, the early 1990s
“Rodney. Calm down. Please. It’s his first day of break….” his mother pleaded on the other side of the door.
“Yeah, it’s only ‘is first day back and ‘e’s already got to actin’ like he’s better than me.”
Lying on his thin cot in his old bedroom, Colby gritted his teeth. According to the papers, the cockney accent was dying out, but his stepfather’s working-class accent was so thick, you’d think he’d come straight from a performance of playing Cockney Arsehole #6 in My Fair Lady.
“If you’d taken him out of that posh boarding school like I’d told ye to, he wouldn’t be poncing around with all his airs. Like he’s the king of bleeding England. Christ, how do you expect me to put up with the likes of ‘im all summer then?”
Eyeing the cracked plaster walls in his dingy childhood bedroom, Colby had to agree with the man. He did think he was better than the man who had held forth on Indians being the worst thing to ever happened to Britain all through a tea, consisting of sausages, fried eggs, and tinned baked beans. He himself could hardly believe he’d only been home for twelve hours. Or that this would be his home now that he was eighteen and the boarding school education his mysterious father had paid for was done.
Here he was stuck in a fishing village after twelve years at a boarding school that served afternoon teas. These teas had been actual teas, not early working-class dinners, and they’d cost more than his mother’s entire grocery bill for the month. Colby could almost taste the scones he’d eaten at his last Abernathy tea. His house’s cook had made them by hand from a near century old recipe. They’d been decadent and buttery and served with clotted cream and fresh strawberry jam. That very opposite of the store-bought Artic Roll his mother had offered him after tonight’s boiled and fried affair.
He shouldn’t have turned it down, though. Shouldn’t have lied about not being all that hungry, especially since he’d barely touched his dinner.
“Not all that hungry,” his stepfather had mocked. “More like your mother’s food ain’t posh enough for you, iddn’t that right?”
Guilt had flashed across Colby’s soul in that moment, because it was right. That was exactly why he’d turned his mother’s offer of Arctic Roll down.
He knew that, and his mother most likely knew it, too. Yet she had defended him as she always did. Fervently, as if he’d spoken ill of an angel who’d somehow alighted inside their little wattle and daub cottage.
The problem lay in that she’d genuinely loved Colby’s father. Had thought him kind and a laugh and right handsome until he left her with only a note, saying that he’d arranged for Colby’s schooling at the prestigious Ab
ernathy School in London, starting the very next autumn.
He had not warned her before he left or been in contact afterwards. But the five years they’d spent together had been wine and roses, as far as his mother was concerned. Colby’s studied way of speaking seemed to grate on her second husband’s every nerve, but his mother had encouraged him not to let it go during the holidays when he returned home. His father also had a posh accent, she’d told him, and Colby reminded her of the dear man. Even more so now that Colby was nearly full-grown.
“Do you think he’s dead?” Colby had once asked her when his stepfather was out on the boat, and she’d had a few too many warm cups of Pims and apple juice in front of Top of the Pops.
She’d sighed and turned her eyes away from the old console floor television, where Mike Flowers was singing his kitschy, easy-listening version of “Wonderwall.”
“I’d think he have to be then,” she answered quietly. “Otherwise I can’t think of why else he would have left and never returned. I know it’s hard to believe seeing as how we finished, but we were happy. We really were….”
He suspected his mother was telling the truth, but his birth father was gone now. And starting the very next day he would no longer be slathering clotted cream on scones but going out on the fishing boat with his stepfather, and “makin’ a use of himself.”
He’d come home to a beige hand-knitted fisherman’s sweater, a startling contrast to the only other item his mother had ever knit for him, a scarf of blue and yellow, his school's colors.
Colby’s heart darkened at the thought of spending more than a tea hour with the man. Last summer’s “learning” holiday had been bad enough. Miserable and mostly silent. Colby could barely comprehend doing this for the rest of his life.
It might be his stepfather was right. Perhaps his mother never should have followed his father’s instructions to send Colby to boarding school from the age of six.
“Better to have loved and loss than never to have loved at all,” so said the great Bard. But perhaps it was better to have never learned to quote Shakespeare at all.
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