Wolf and Soul (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 3)

by Taylor, Theodora

  “Because you’re his king and you deserve his respect,” Tu answered. “If Daddy was deaf, he’d never put up with a pack leader not accommodating him. Also, sorry about my signing ahead of time. I’m just going to wing it and skip over all the words I don’t know.”

  John was facing him now, but he kept readjusting himself in his squeaky office seat, like he didn’t quite know how to handle being in the deaf king’s presence. Grady wasn’t surprised. Handicaps weren’t common in the wolf community, and he knew he made most other wolves uncomfortable, even polite ones like John.

  That’s why he didn’t like putting himself in these kinds of situations, ones where he had to have a whole conversation with someone who couldn’t sign. But here he was, because Tu had wanted him to come here, and so far he hadn’t been able to find a way to say no to Tu.

  “Is this about those kidnappers again?” John asked Tu. “Cuz like I told Grady, I didn’t know nothing about any of that. I’d never—”

  “No, no, no, that’s totally in the past and we’re here to talk about the future,” Tu said, like she hadn’t just had an episode in their hotel room because of the wolves who’d kidnapped her and beat her up.

  Then she winked at Grady as she began talking and signing at the same time, even though again, she didn’t have to.

  “You know, Grady and I were having a little argument about the Oklahoma state pack on our way here.”

  “Oh, were you?” John said, and Grady had to give him credit for at least keeping his face turned to him as he said this.

  “Well, Grady said a few of the Oklahoma pack towns might not be ready for a black queen. And I think that’s silly, because look at me. I’m fabulous. Who wouldn’t want me as their queen?”

  John looked between both of them, as if trying to figure out if he’d somehow stumbled into some sort of hidden camera show.

  “Well, there is some history. You and the original king-to-be, Luke… that didn’t exactly turn out too well.”

  Tu lowered her eyes with appropriate remorse. “No, it didn’t. But that was five years ago. And a lot has happened in five years. For example, five years ago I ran away from being queen of Oklahoma. Today, I’m embracing my new state. In fact, I’m so happy to be married to your kick-ass king, I decided to let Grady do some crazy things with the dowry he’s getting for marrying me.”

  She went quiet and lowered her hands.

  And both Grady and John stared at her, waiting.

  “What?” Grady pushed into her mind. “What crazy things?”

  “Wait for him to ask…” she answered, her voice husky and sure.

  “Crazy things like what?” John asked, right on cue.

  Tu raised her hands to sign, hesitantly, as if she were trying to decide how much to share with him. “Here’s the thing, John, not a lot of princesses tell it like it is. I mean, at least I was taught not to, because you know, not every state’s as rich as Alaska, and my parents didn’t want it to seem like we were bragging. But if I tell you something, John, do you promise to keep it just between us? Like ‘wolf promise’ promise.”

  “Yeah, sure, I wolf promise,” John answered quickly. Even though Grady had never seen the term “wolf promise” in his life, and he doubted John had either.

  Tu paused for a few dramatic beats before signing and saying, “Okay, I’m just going to come out and say it. I love being rich. I mean, I just really, really love it. It’s so cool being able to wear pretty clothes and throw awesome parties and drive really sexy cars—you know, just being able to buy whatever you want without having to think about it—I can’t tell you how crazy awesome that is. And when I married Grady, I was like, wouldn’t it be cool if we could make Oklahoma rich, just like Alaska? I mean, I thought everybody would love having lots and lots of money like me. But then we went to Wolf Hole and offered them a car dealership—you see my brother-in-law in Wyoming owns a whole fleet of them, because he used to play in the NFL—maybe you’ve heard of him? Mag Lonewolf?”

  John nodded. “Yeah, I heard of Mag Lonewolf. Best linebacker L.A. Suns ever had. Shame he got taken out by that knee injury at the top of his career.”

  “Oh, that’s just a story his PR people made up. Really, the Lupine Council made him quit after he won his challenge fight for the Wyoming crown. Anyway he inherited this chain of dealerships with the Wyoming crown, and they were just doing okay, but when he slapped his name on them, they started doing really well—because duh, if you’re going to buy a truck, why not buy one from a guy who tackles like one, right?”

  She laughed and John laughed right along with her.

  “Right,” he said.

  “Anyway Mag’s been talking about expanding his chain, and I thought Wolf Hole would be a perfect fit, since from what I hear, humans and wolves have to drive all the way to McAlester if they want to buy a car.”

  John’s face clouded over with bitter memory. “When I got my new truck few years back, I had to go to McAlester, too. Damn inconvenient. Especially when it comes time for getting it serviced.”

  “I know, right? That’s what I figured,” Tu said. Then her shoulders slumped. “But Wolf Hole pretty much ran us off because I’m black, even though I kept on yelling at them that we would be giving them a town-owned dealership if they just let us.”

  So that was what she’d been yelling, Grady thought. He could now see why they’d gone from angry to really confused.

  Tu continued on with a sad shake of her head. “I guess I should have listened to Grady. He told me a few pack towns would be total dicks about me being black, but in my experience, growing up in Alaska, nobody really cares about that stuff if you’re giving them a chance to make money.” She put exaggerated emphasis on her next sets of signs. “A lot of money.”

  Tu let out a dramatic sigh. “So we came here, but I don’t know if you’ll be open to our offer either.”

  “You want to offer us a dealership?” John asked, looking between her and Grady.

  “No, silly, we were going to offer to buy this factory, then transfer ownership over to the River Wolf pack, putting you guys in charge of the whole operation in exchange for a twenty percent stake in your profits from here on out. But I’m not sure you’ll want to do business with us either. I mean I am still black…”

  “Wait a minute,” Grady said into Tu’s head. “Did you just offer to buy this factory? Do you know how much that would cost?”

  “Now wait a minute,” John said outside Tu’s head. “I don’t know what Grady’s been telling you. But Wolf Hole don’t represent all the Oklahoma pack towns. I mean, I don’t know any black she-wolves myself, but I ain’t never had any problems with them. And if you’re serious about this...”

  “You can’t be serious,” Grady said inside her head.

  “I’m totally serious,” Tu answered out loud, seemingly to both John and Grady. “You know, my daddy gave every single one of his subjects a stake in his oil company after he married my mama. He says a good king can’t be happy if his subjects aren’t happy—and money makes him happy, so he made sure all of his subjects could experience some of that happiness, too.”

  “Tu, this is insane. We can’t afford to buy this place,” Grady nearly yelled inside her head, though he kept his face totally impassive, remembering his earlier promise.

  However, John was leaned all the way forward now, not even trying to play it cool.

  “You could seriously afford to buy this place? The whole factory?”

  “Sure we can,” she answered. “I mean, it will be a huge chunk of my dowry, but it will be worth it if owning this factory yourselves will make our River Wolf subjects happy. And really, it’s a win-win for all of us since Grady is going to be spearheading so many construction projects across the state over the next few years.”

  “What projects?” Grady asked inside her head.

  “Really?” John asked her. “Ya’ll got projects?”

  “What projects?!?!” Grady demanded.

  “Oh, ye
s, our king has lots of plans to make this state great under his reign, provided the other pack towns don’t treat his proposals like Wolf Hole did,” Tu assured John even while steadfastly ignoring the king’s questions about those plans. “Our projects alone would probably keep a factory in rebar orders for at least the next year.”

  John shook his head, impressed. “You don’t say.”

  “I do say, John, and we’d be happy to give all those orders to you, keep it in the state pack. Though of course—sorry to be so boring and weird about this John—our king would have to insist on shutting down all the drug business going through here, effective immediately. Of course, we’d gift the town with a sheriff and deputy to make sure the place stayed clean, one trained by Grady himself.” Her eyes lit up as if the best idea had suddenly come to her. And she said to Grady. “Hey Grady, how about if we make it a state-wide law. From now on, the only place people are allowed to sell or use meth is in Wolf Hole—I’m sure they’ll appreciate all the extra new blood.”

  Yeah, sure. Bobby Joe Jr. and the rest of the town would just love getting flooded with dealers and addicts from all over the state, the dealers competing for his town’s business, the addicts doing what addicts do when they have more demand than money. But Grady nodded anyway, backing his wife up like he promised, even though he had no idea why she was doing any of this.

  Tu’s expression went from breezy to shark-like as she turned her gaze back to John.

  “So how about it, John? Do you think making a lot more money than you guys do now will make you happy?”

  A huge smile spread across John’s hangdog face.

  THERE WERE SEVEN PACK TOWNS other than Wolf Haven in Oklahoma, and over the course of the next week, Grady and Tu visited all of them. On Monday, Tu announced to a group of cheering workers in River Wolf that they would own the factory they worked in within a few month’s time.

  On Tuesday, Tu told the Seminoles in Obahoshe Town that the state pack would be putting in a bid on their behalf to open a casino with the help of Tu’s brother-in-law, Rafe—a bid that would definitely go through. She also told them the kingdom would be funding the building of said casino—in exchange for a fixed percentage of their future profits, of course—and that within a few years time they would all be rich.

  On Wednesday, they had breakfast with the pack leader of Wolfingham, and Tu let him know to expect a call from a certain wolf-owned big box store. Then they had dinner with the pack leader of Big Wolf, a wolf town four hours over, and told him to do the same and that the state pack would soon be calling upon him to run for a seat in the human’s state senate.

  On Thursday morning, they were guests of honor at the Mountain Wolf council meeting, where they announced that Rafe and Grady would be developing a dude ranch on their unoccupied plains land, along with one of Rafe’s human associates, Andrew Sinclair. Then on Friday night, they were welcomed to a town hall meeting in Little Wolf where Tu announced that, unlike “those mean dudes in Wolf Hole,” they would be getting a dealership to call their own.

  By the time they woke up in yet another Holiday Inn on Saturday morning, Grady had given up questioning Tu about where all the money to fund her many promises would be coming from. Her answers were either extremely vague, alluding to her dowry, which even if had been increased to three-hundred thousand dollars, couldn’t possibly fund the level of development Tu was promising left and right, or byzantine, a labyrinth of who knew who and how easily they’d be able to make something happen, “especially when we get some wolves in your state’s human government.”

  It was all completely insane.

  Yet, it wasn’t. Tu, despite her wide-eyed, silly-girl-next-door delivery, seemed to know exactly what she was doing. She asked him several questions the night before hitting each new pack town, and kept on asking them all the way through their morning fighting lessons. Then she’d correctly gauge how to approach the town’s pack leader. Behind closed doors, she struck sweet deals that would cost them a lot of money upfront but yield them a lot more on the back end. And she made sure the Oklahoma crown got at least twenty percent of every deal, even when their own financial stake was small or non-existent. Then she’d get the pack leader to agree to kick all the town’s drug business down to Wolf Hole, before going out to make big, showy announcements to the rest of the pack town, standing up on stages in brightly colored wrap dresses, while she said some version of, “Hey guys, your king freaking loves you! Let’s make lots of money!”

  It was funny because both Mag and Rafe had mentioned what a cut-throat negotiator Tu’s dad, the short and jolly King of Alaska, was. Grady had found it hard to believe the man with the twinkling brown eyes, merry laugh, and a demeanor that put you in mind of Santa Claus, was a force to be reckoned with at the negotiation table. But Grady now understood what Mag and Rafe had meant. Wolf Hole notwithstanding, Tu got exactly what she wanted everywhere she went by coming in like everyone’s loveable bestie. And that made him think of another reality show.

  “Maybe we should call your show ‘Wolf Tank,’” he said, as they drove back to the kingdom town across the Oklahoma panhandle. “Like Shark Tank, except you’re playing all the parts. Offering up deals and funding them.”

  Tu laughed at that. “Good one. I’ll put it on the list…”

  Then she pulled his phone—which she’d started outright holding onto a few days ago—out of her purse and added it to a list she’d begun keeping on his underused note-taking app. He hadn’t had any need of it all week, what with her doing all the talking and not telling him beforehand what she had up her sleeve until it was out of her mouth.

  But he didn’t mind. The truth was he’d learned a lot from Tu just by watching and playing along when necessary. Six days ago, he hadn’t even known where to begin digging the Oklahoma crown out of its hole, but now he had projects to oversee and a pack town sheriff program to head up. Tu, believe it or not, had managed to give his kingship purpose, and he felt like he’d crammed decades worth of business training into his brain in just a few, short days.

  Tu laughed at something that came up on his screen.

  “Bob again?” he asked.

  She’d been texting back and forth, pretending to be Grady, with the council vice president ever since Tuesday when the news of “a couple of newlyweds from Wolf Haven” putting in an offer for the River Wolf Rebar Factory officially broke on several major Oklahoma news sites. Bob had never been anything more than polite to Grady when he came to the council meetings, but now that Tu was texting as Grady? He and Bob were on their way to becoming BFFs.

  “Yeah, it’s Bob again,” Tu confirmed. “He’s dying to find out what we’ve got planned for Wolf Haven.” She thumbed back a reply. “I’m telling him he’ll find out when we get there just like everybody else.”

  Grady gripped and ungripped the wheel. Then he gripped it again before asking, “Do we have something planned?”

  “Of course,” answered Tu, still typing. “That’s one of King Tikaani’s top three rules. Whatever you do for other pack towns, you’ve got to do for your kingdom town ten times over.” She tossed a grin at him and said in an overly earnest and lyrical tone that Grady realized was an impression of her father’s Eskimo accent, “Your state pack is your body, but your kingdom town is its beating heart.”

  It was obvious Tu had found her calling in all this wheeling and dealing. And Grady liked her newly returned confidence. It was a hell of a lot better than the goth chick who’d been moping around the Colorado kingdom house when he arrived on Thanksgiving.

  But…

  “Tu, I’m going to need you to give it to me straight. Can we deliver on even half of the promises you made?” he asked. “These people. They have issues and, yeah, a lot of them are on meth, but most of them are good, hardworking people. I don’t want to let them down.”

  She regarded him seriously.

  “I’m my father’s daughter. I get what moves people—it’s not just money, but the feeling that they’
ve won something, that they’re finally getting a reward for all the hard work they’ve put into their lives. I get that and I know how to manipulate it to my advantage, how to sell people, get them to go with me, do what I want. I’ve always been able to look people in the eye and get them to believe exactly what I want them to believe. Even if it’s complete bullshit. You should have seen me back in the day, spraying on perfume and complaining about headaches that were really hangovers and everybody, even my mom, going along with me because I was so good at the sell.”

  She shook her head at him then. “They’re going to be surprised when they find out,” she said, her voice somber inside his head.

  “Find out what?” he asked, his heart filling up with dread. Was Tu about to pull the rug out from under his feet? Confess she’d been misleading everyone all this time?

  “What a good king you are,” she answered. “You’re going to be the best king this state has ever had because you’ll never let humans put a factory on your land just to make a rental profit. You’ll never let someone like me come in and bamboozle everyone with a bunch of promises they can’t keep. But when it comes to the promises I’ve made and plan to make, you don’t have to worry.”

  She laid her hand on top of his. “You were right about me being a little crazy,” she admitted with a wry smile. “But I’m still all in when it comes to keeping my promises. And I promise you, by this time next year, nobody’s going to be calling Oklahoma a mange state anymore.”

  He believed her. He still had no idea how she planned to pull off all this magic with just $300,000, but he believed her. About her keeping the promises she’d made to his people and about her truly believing he’d be a good king, despite the fact that he was defective in so many ways. He believed all of it.

  She startled him out of his newfound belief with a big cheer.

  “Now that’s what I’m talkin’ about! Yeah, Wolf Haven for the win!”

  He looked out the front window and saw what was making her crow. A banner strewn across the kingdom town’s main road from lamp post to lamp post. It read, “A BIG WOLF HAVEN WELCOME TO OUR KING AND NEW QUEEN!”