Yet, her face…it was 100% hers. As was her mind.
Well, at least partially. Ola was no longer a delusion, and Fensa seemed to have gained a second inner voice. One that wasn’t her wolf…
Are you real…? she asked it. Once again thinking of Xenon’s test.
A small silence. Then…I used to be. But now I’m you.
And you’re okay with that?
It doesn’t matter because soon we’ll be me. The universe is processing us. It won’t be long now…
Fensa had no idea what that meant, but she had a couple of newborns to visit, so she began the laborious process of getting out of bed. A catheter was removed by a dark-haired nurse who all but stared poison daggers at her as she did her job. So much fun. Thank goodness Knud dismissed her as soon as it was done with a, “We’ve got it from here, Gina.”
Painful didn’t even half describe what came next. More like face set to permanent wince as Ola and Knud helped her out of the hospital bed.
She’d done nothing but lie unconscious in a bed for three days, after Knud cut her open to get the babies out. Not one, but two babies.
“Two beautiful babies,” Ola said in a bright, careful tone that, according to Fensa’s delusional memory and the voice inside her head, didn’t remotely match her personality.
“Yeah, as beautiful as two lead weights can get,” Knud said with a lot more candor, as he tugged her arm into a robe. “Nearly dropped the first one when I went to pull it out. Turns out they each weighed over twenty pounds! You’re lucky you’re tall and strong and “Detroit-thick,” or you probably wouldn’t have survived the birth.”
“Strong? Fensa?” Ola said with a confused wrinkle of her nose. Then: “Oh, my gosh, Fenny! Did you finally start a strength training plan like I’ve been telling you to?” Ola asked.
No! Never! the voice inside her head answered.
“Sort of,” Fensa said out loud.
Tall and thick and strong…
But she’d only been two of those things back in prehistoric times. She’d become muscular with very little body fat thanks to her 100% paleo diet of the past four years.
The universe is processing us…
Apparently. Because shortly after getting put in the robe, she discovered she now had not only plenty of body fat, but enough core and glute strength to hold herself upright after a C-section.
“Wow,” Knud said, when she informed them she was sure she could walk to the en-suite bathroom by herself without assistance.
“Seriously, what workout plan have you been doing?” Ola demanded. “Cuz, girl, I’m about to get on it!”
The closer Fensa got to seeing her newborn babies, the more things fell into place both literally and figuratively. In the bathroom, the headache began to slowly recede as if whatever had melded her to the Fensa from this timeline was done syncing.
And shockingly, the new confusion of having two different timelines in her brain was what gave her the answers she was looking for. In this life, in this timeline, she was a theoretical physics grad student. In fact, she was just starting her doctorate paper about the Arizona time gate, partly based on her cousin Koko’s doctorate, which argued that the wolf tribe that had formed the original Arizona kingdom town in prehistoric times, might have also been the first native shifters to enter North America. Koko was not just her roommate in this timeline, but also an associate professor at the Arizona Mountains University. And even though Fensa hadn’t earned her Ph.D. yet, she was considered one of the foremost authorities on time gates, and had done a college thesis arguing that the gates might be an advanced fertility system, and not simply a magical portal, as had been surmised in a few romance novels set in the larger shifter community.
With both timelines now implanted in her brain, Fensa could see why the other Fensa wasn’t all that broken up at having her life suddenly turned upside down. A bright but lonely woman, Other Fensa had dedicated the past ten years of her life to satisfying her curiosity with the understanding she had limited time in which to do so. In only a few more years, she’d be expected to take over the Kingdom of Michigan per her birthright.
Which was a total “whoa” of a thing to find out for Original Fensa. A single woman taking over an alpha throne hadn’t ever been done in her timeline. But apparently, in this timeline, it was, if not commonplace, no longer unusual. And much of the credit could be given to Fensa and Ola’s mother, who—brace yourself—had not only not divorced Fensa’s papa, but was mated and married to him and his brother—the uncle Fenris she’d been named after. The uncle who had not, as it turns out, been killed by dragons. It made a weird kind of sense, Other Fensa assured her. Their parents’ wildly different personalities balanced each other out. And after getting off to a gnarly start, which included a five-year break while the two brothers went back in time to fight in what was now called the Viking-Dragon War, the threesome reconnected to make a parenting trio for Ola and Fensa.
Also in this timeline, not only had Olafr’s entire family and village not been slaughtered by three dragons, but both Fensa’s fathers and her grandfather led the Vikings to defeat what they still referred to in bedtime stories as the Serpent Horde.
And five years after that, her parents, all three of them, lived happily ever after with their very real twin daughters, Fensa and Ola.
Ola had been born into the role of queen and relished that she’d soon be taking over the throne of North Dakota where—yet another whoa—her Uncle Clyde, the King of Michigan in Fensa’s timeline, ruled with his husband, the King of North Dakota, in this one. Which probably explained a lot about the incredibly butch, but perpetually single king Original-Fensa remembered from her timeline.
This timeline’s Fensa also loved video games and theoretical physics, but she’d be leaving the Arizona grad program at the end of the year to take over the Michigan throne—mostly out of duty. Unlike Ola, she had little interest in the role that would stop her from seeking out the answers to her most burning questions.
For this reason, getting blended with a Fensa from another timeline was like a dream come true. The lonely grad student now had the answers to all the questions her thesis and doctorate investigation had put forth, with twin babies to boot!
I’ll take it, the voice told her as they smiled at each other in the bathroom mirror. In this timeline, this room and ensuite bathroom still belonged to the Arizona kingdom town’s clinic—not the hastily rebranded Wulfkonig Facility of Mental Health.
Yeah, I’ll take it, too, Original-Fensa replied to the voice inside her head.
Less than an hour after waking, Knud and Ola escorted Fensa through a door flanked by two large wolves in sunglasses and suits.
They offered no identification, but Other Fensa recognized them as the bodyguards the council had forced Rafes—oh sorry, President Nightwolf—to take after he’d announced his plan to seal off all the time gates with black boxes on the wolfnet. There’d been so many protests, many of them spearheaded by his outraged historian mother, Alisha Ataneq-Nightwolf, that the council had forced the guards on Rafes, ignoring his protests that he could take care of himself.
Apparently, he still felt that way. Rafes was nowhere to be seen after Knud pulled rank and kicked him out of the town clinic altogether. And he’d left his guards behind. To protect the babies? Or to keep them hidden?
Fensa guessed the latter, as she shuffled into the room with both Ola and Knud’s hands under her elbows. As not fun as her first vaginal birth had been, shuffling around after a C-section and a freshly removed catheter wasn’t a barrel of laughs either.
“Knew we shouldn’t have let you go to the bathroom alone,” Knud said. “You totally overdid it.”
“Yeah, maybe we should wait until tomorrow to see the twins...” Ola suggested.
As if. Fensa shook their hands off and surged forward when she spotted the two clear plastic bassinets. And all thoughts of overstepping presidents and residual C-section pain disappeared when she set eyes on her two babies, sleeping on
their stomachs inside.
Twins, she vaguely recalled from Other Fensa’s memories of her and Ola, were often placed in the same bassinet. But these golden-brown babies each had a tub of their own.
Most likely because of the large pair of dragon wings that lay folded on top of their backs. The wings were golden and almost ten times bigger than the babies themselves. It would take at least six months until the twins would be able to fold them into their scaled backs as their father and Eos often did.
“See, I told you they were beautiful,” Ola breathed beside her as if giving voice to her own thoughts. She wrapped an arm around her sister’s shoulders, pulling her in close, and placing her head on hers. A familiar affection Other Fensa remembered well. Ola was technically younger, but she’d gotten those couple of minutes back with a couple of inches. They’d stood this way many times before. At funerals, weddings, and everything in-between.
They were sisters. Real sisters. On one another’s sides. No matter what. And apparently, not even a separate timeline in which Ola had never been born could break that bond. But Fensa could feel their bond stronger than ever now as they stood looking at the little hybrid miracles her union with Xenon had produced.
“I know everyone else is upset about them,” Ola whispered into the awed silence. “But seriously, I’ve never seen anything so beautiful as these babies in my life.”
“Me neither,” Fensa said out loud. Me neither, Other Fensa agreed inside her head.
“They’re in perfect health. Thriving even,” Knud informed her, coming to stand on the other side of the bassinets. “But ah…when will they start shifting into wolves like the rest of us?”
“They don’t shift until they can retract their wings,” Fensa answered.
“And how long does that take?” Knud asked, typing the new information into his notes.
“Around six months,” Fensa answered, her tone carefully neutral.
But as if picking up on her vibe, her twin demanded, “Why are you asking her this?”
“Because with those scaled stomachs of theirs, I’m having a hell of a time figuring out if they’re boys or girls,” Knud replied, still frank as hell despite being a lot less bat-shit crazy in this timeline.
And that’s when Fensa burst out laughing.
Because when she thought about it, really thought about it, this whole situation was ridiculous. Utterly ridiculous. Here she was, over 15,000 years from where she’d been three days ago. She’d combined consciousness and bodies with an alternate version of herself. She had two living fathers, instead of one dead one. And her parents were still married. Oh, and she’d just given birth to two babies, who, due to their dragon-wolf hybrid nature, they wouldn’t be able to sex for at least another six months.
Fensa was no longer crazy. At least not in this timeline. But this situation…it was…
“This is insane!” she said, laughing hysterically. “Yesterday, I was climbing a prehistoric mountain and today…I’m the single mother of three wolf-dragons—two of which are still gender undetermined!”
She laughed and laughed, but Ola and Knud didn’t laugh with her.
“What?” she asked, her laughter ending abruptly when she noticed their stricken looks.
“Um, what do you mean by three wolf-dragons, Fenny?” Ola asked.
“My son,” Fensa answered. “He came through the gate with me? He’s about five-feet tall. Has a huge pair of dragon wings. And is probably freaking out—”
She stopped abruptly when she saw the looks Ola and Knud exchanged across the bassinets.
“Oh, my God, where is my son? Tell me! Tell me right now!”
40
“What the hell are you doing, Dads?” Fensa demanded after Ola and her mother reluctantly guided her to the pens behind the Arizona kingdom house.
The structure would have looked like it housed a row of jail cells to any human who happened upon it. Or maybe a well-appointed doggie day care, with its large indestructible satin pillows scattered about, and titanium water and food bowls. But the primary purpose of these pens was to provide visitors with a place to shift in private on full moon nights.
Fensa had lost three days, but there was still over a week to go until the next full moon.
So why was her son, in dragon form, locked inside a changing cage with her two dads standing on the other side?
FJ, the taller of the two, wore a suit and wingtips with a sword in a scabbard slung across his back. But her stockier, more muscular father, Olafr, was leathered up from head to toe and, according to Other Fensa, was packing iron of another kind underneath his DETROIT WOLVES MC motorcycle jacket.
This should have been the best reunion ever. The last time she’d seen her papa, Olafr, was four years ago. And he’d been in a casket. Even before that, her sweet but alcoholic father hadn’t looked remotely like the hale and hearty man who stood before her.
But as it was, Eos roared at the first sight of her, which caused her father to draw his sword and her papa to reach into his jacket for a gun—which he trained right on Eos!
“No! Stop!” Apparently, a recent C-section was nothing in the face of a mom in fear for her child’s safety. With a strength she didn’t know she had, Fensa ran over to the cage and threw herself in front of the ten-foot dragon with her arms spread wide.
“Put that thing away!” she screamed at her very much alive Papa.
“Fensa, Daughter. Move away,” FJ commanded, his voice harder than the steel of his sword. “We will deal with this serpent. Ensure he never hurts you again.”
“Never hurts me again? What in the hell is wrong with you? He’s only a child!”
Olafr, whose face had been set to resolute stone just a moment ago, faltered. “A child,” he repeated in his Schwarzenegger-esque way. “I don’t understand what she is saying. Varra…?”
Varra was their fathers’ cutesy nickname for their mom, Other Fensa informed her. The mom who was currently looking from her mates to the ten-foot dragon inside the changing cage.
“Yeah, about that. Apparently the dragon the King of Arizona tranqed and took prisoner is a boy.”
“A four-year-old boy!” Fensa added. “Who also happens to be your grandson!!”
Now Olafr immediately lowered his gun. Other Fensa remembered him as being the more reasonable of the two men: more patient, and less quick to violence, even if he didn’t look it.
As if to prove Other Fensa correct, FJ’s eyes remained sharp on the dragon, only slightly lowering his sword to say, “I find this claim hard to believe, Daughter. For I smell nothing of the wolf on him.”
“That’s because the burning smell overwhelms everything else big time,” Fensa answered with more patience than she felt.
“If he be partly our kind, why did he not shift as soon as he smelled us?” FJ shot back. “Does he not have the nose to know we are related?”
“He didn’t make that super logical leap because he’s only four and scared to death! His natural instincts are to take the form of his biggest predator whenever there’s trouble. And as for knowing you’re related, I’m assuming he does, or he would have turned the both of you into Viking kabobs as soon as you pulled weapons on him. Now open the damn door!”
Both men hesitated, their eyes shifting to the ten-foot dragon.
“I said open this goddamn door before I take that gun and use it on you myself!”
“Guys, just open it. She wouldn’t be talking like that if she wasn’t its mother, trust me,” Fensa’s mother, Tiara Greenwolf, said to her two mates.
Still glaring at the dragon, FJ put his sword back in its scabbard… and opened the door.
“Okay, baby,” Fensa said, squeezing into the cage with Eos. “I know you’ve got to be crazy scared right now, but I need you to shift to human so we can all go home. Can you do that? For me? Please?”
The ten-foot dragon let out a huge snort of steam, which caused FJ to once again bring his hand to the hilt of the sword he’d used in the Viking-Dr
agon War.
But before he could slide it all the way out, a five-foot-tall boy appeared in the cage with Fensa. “Mama!” he cried throwing his long arms around her. “I wassss sssssooo afraid for you. Are you alright? The babiessss, too?”
“Yes, I’m fine. I’m okay. So are the babies, thanks to you,” she assured him, hugging him tight.
“Thank the motherssss. I misssss Blue Father,” he said. Then he began to sob.
She understood exactly how he felt. All too well. And before she could stop the incoming tide of grief, she was sobbing, too. Huge irrational tears. For the life she’d lost. For the dragon she missed like a vital organ.
“Oh, honey,” she heard Ola say.
In the next moment, her sister was in the changing cage with them, pulling them both into her arms. Giving the kind of comfort she never could when she’d only been a specter living inside Original Fensa’s mind.
Strange. In this life, she had everything Original Fensa would have ever wanted. But it wasn’t enough. Would never be enough.
Not without her dragon.
He’s not dead, she whispered to Other Fensa inside their now combined mind. I know he’s not.
She knew her words didn’t make sense. Even to Other Fensa, who now technically knew her better than anyone. But that didn’t matter. They made sense to her.
If he was dead. If he hadn’t survived until now, she would know. Her body would feel hollow. Just the way her great aunt described after her husband, King Tikaani, died. If he were really gone, she’d just miss him. Not ache for him like a held breath.
She’d believed in Ola, even when she had no evidence she existed anywhere but in her head. And even though her parting from Xenon had contained no promises like those of her grandparents, she hadn’t been lying to him at the hot spring. She trusted him. Then, now, and forever.
“I’ll find him,” she promised her sobbing dragon-wolf child. “I’ll find him.”
While Ola soothed, “It’s okay, little buddy. We’ll figure this out. Everything’s going to be okay. You’re okay. It’s all going to be okay.”
NAGO, His Mississippi Queen: 50 Loving States, Mississippi (The Brothers Nightwolf Trilogy, Book 1) Page 42