Her Viking Wolves: 50 Loving States, Michigan (22 page)

G
randdad watches
with a sour frown on his face, as we all file in: me, Dad, Yancey, with Clyde bringing up the rear. I see the reason for his expression as soon as I get all the way into the house’s huge living room. Two reasons, actually, standing side by side in front of the large fireplace, the flames within casting their stony faces in shadow and light.

My breath catches. FJ and Olafr. Olafr and FJ.

But not the Olafr I left behind in Alaska. That wolf had a crazy bush of a beard and long, messy red dreads. I’d never seen that wolf clothed in anything more than a small towel.

However, this new Olafr looks like he could be a member of the Dark Wolf gang. He’s dressed much like my grandfather, in leather pants, a heavy motorcycle jacket, and a t-shirt with a howling wolf on the front. The dreads have vanished, only a sheen of red hair where they used to be, and his gnarly beard is gone.

You’d think a clean-shaven Olafr would look a lot less dangerous, but you’d be wrong. His new look only highlights his gray wolf eyes, glowing savagely as he watches us come in. As he watches
me
come in.

I quickly look away, my eyes seeking a respite in his brother, who’s always proven himself to be the more reasonable of the two. It helps that his human, not his wolf, is in charge nearly all the time. And I’m somewhat relieved to see unlike Olafr, he hasn’t undergone a complete makeover. Same long hair, tied up in a curly top knot, same fancy beard.

Yet somehow, FJ also fits in with the Detroit crowd. In fact, dressed in a dark suit, with a large black fur coat draped over his shoulders, he looks even more Detroit than the four Detroit royals in the room. If not for the hilt of his huge Viking sword peeking out from behind the flap of his coat, his light brown skin, and his red hair, he could easily be mistaken for the heir apparent to the Detroit throne.

But clearly it’s a mistake for my eyes to seek refuge with him. He looks a hell of a lot calmer than his brother, true. But that doesn’t put me at ease, because when our eyes meet, his are colder than the snow I just walked through. I quickly have to look away, chilled to the bone.

I become even more confused when my gaze falls on the coffee table. On it are three cups of coffee along with a half-eaten plate of bagels and a lit-up smartphone. My eyebrows shoot up, because for all the tension filling up the room now, it sure as hell looks like the Viking brothers and my grandfather were having a cozy chat before we arrived.

In fact, my grandfather goes to the coffee table, picks up the phone and says, “Tiara, Wilton, and them just came in. We better go, but thanks for your help, son. I’ll let you know how it all turns out.”

“Hey, Wilt,” comes Uncle Tikaani’s friendly voice on the other side of the line.

“Are you sure you don’t want me to stay on and consult, Granddad?” Alisha asks. My grandfather must have conferenced her in, too.
What the hell is going on?

“No, no I got it,” Granddad answers. “Talk to you soon, Granddaughter.”

Then he hangs up, facing the room with two Vikings, seven wolves, one sword, and three raised guns.

“Put down them damn guns,” Granddad says to the wolves on my side of the room. “We got a lot of shit to talk about and them Mosses ain’t helping.”

Yancey, who grew up under my grandfather’s rule, immediately lowers his gun. Once an alpha, always an alpha.

Clyde also lowers his gun, but more out of confusion than compliance.

“One of you claimed Tee?” he asks. He’d probably been expecting to find a short little Inuit like Uncle Tikaani, not two huge Vikings.

Dad, however, keeps his gun raised, pointing the sawed off straight at FJ as if he already knows this is the wolf who will serve as my official mate.

“What’s going on here?” he demands. “Better tell me now before I start shooting.”

My heart is near frozen with fear, but FJ shifts his cold gaze to my father. And says nothing.

Which is why I’m surprised when Olafr suddenly springs into action. Out of nowhere, he moves forward like a bull and tackles Yancey.

The twelve-gauge goes flying out of the older wolf’s hand, sliding across the floor and stopping right in front of my feet. With reflexes I wasn’t even aware I possessed, I quickly bend down to grab the weapon and before I know it, I’m pointing it at my dad and brother.

“What are you doing?” my brother demands when he sees my gun trained on them.

“Tiara…” my father intones, sounding so much like my grandfather, it would be funny if I wasn’t holding him at gun point, with Olafr and Yancey furiously wrestling beside me. So yeah, I guess it’s not funny at all.

“Drop the guns!” I say in my very best impression of a woman who means business. I can only hope I sound like a real threat rather than someone who’s only real hands-on experience with guns involves coding them to look and shoot like the real thing in video games.

“Are you insane?” Clyde asks, his expression one of total bafflement. And I can tell it’s not a rhetorical question. He is, in fact, really wondering if I’ve completely gone off the deep end. No one crosses our father like this. At least no one who’s ever lived to tell about it.

“Maybe,” I admit. “But I know you two won’t risk shooting me because I’m carrying the future of our kingdom. So drop the damn guns.”

“I can’t believe this shit…” Clyde says, placing his gun on the ground. “We’re your family, Tee! That’s
our
mark on your back.”

His voice is filled with outrage. But he cuts his eyes towards our father several times before using a foot to kick the gun across the hardwood floor in my general direction.

At first I’m confused…and then I realize he’s just saved my bacon. If he’d left the gun at his own feet, I probably would have gone over to get it and Dad would have used it as an opportunity to disarm me.

Clyde’s on my side
! I realize with a start. I guess our twin bond really is stronger than my father’s dark side.

Then I remember I’m supposed to be Pam Griering the hell out this situation. “You too, Dad. Kick over the gun…”

Beside him, my brother covertly taps two fingers against his thigh.

“Your
guns
. Both of them!” I correct. “Kick them over here.”

A long, menacing second passes…but in the end Dad puts his twelve-gauge on the floor. Then he pulls a glock out from the chest halter inside his leather jacket and places it on the ground, too.

But unlike my brother, he only kicks the guns halfway between us.

I falter, not sure what to do now.

I don’t want to invite my dad to halve the distance between us in order to kick over his guns. But I also don’t want to make the trip myself. Both options seem like an invitation to get jumped and disarmed—

FJ’s back suddenly appears in front of me.

“Honored Fenrir Past, I would have you take away all these weapons now.”

I can’t see Dad beyond FJ, but I have no problem imagining the outraged expression on his face whens he says, “Bitch, is you for real? You don’t be giving my dad orders. This is my territory!”

“And it’s
my
house!” Granddad stomps over to the pile of guns on the floor. “I told you to put these damn things away. Now I got to confiscate them and shit, like we rivals.”

Still grumbling, Granddad picks up all the guns.

I use the opportunity to push my voice into FJ’s mind, now that we’re well within range.

“Okay,”
I say to him.
“They’re disarmed. No more guns. You and Olafr can get out of here.”

No answer. Nothing. And I wonder if he can even hear me.

“Granddaughter, what the hell you think you doing? You even know how to use that sawed-off?” Granddad asks, interrupting before I can try to get through to FJ again.

My grimace must be answer enough, because he harrumphs and snatches it out of my hand, like I’m a baby who somehow got hold of a steak knife.

Then he goes over to Yancey and Olafr and kicks at them. “Stop that shit now, boys! You hear me? Right now!”

To my surprise, the wrestling match comes to an immediate stop. Yancey, who’s probably getting a little old for hand-to-hand combat, comes to his feet with a grunt. Olafr also stands. And they both wear the guilty looks of chastised school boys, as we all watch Granddad leave out the room with the gathered guns.

“I see you too chicken shit to come here without a beta,” Dad says to FJ, as soon as Granddad’s out of ear shot.

“He is not my beta,” FJ answers.

Nonetheless, Olafr abruptly comes to stand in front of me, beside FJ. That’s when I realize, with a pang, that FJ and Olafr are still in communication. FJ must be purposely keeping our mate bond closed.

And now my view of the room is double blocked, so it feels like I’m listening to one of those old timey radio shows as Dad and FJ continue their tense conversation beyond the wall o’ Vikings.

“Who is he then?” I hear my dad ask FJ.

“My brother,” FJ answers.

“Yeah, no shit, Sherlock,” my dad says. “I got that. But I figured most wolves ain’t going to drag their brother through a time gate unless he’s some kind of soft-ass king who needs a beta to do all his dirty work for him.”

A long beat of silence. Then FJ says, “My brother is called Olafr. He is the second son of Fenris the Serious. I am called Fenrisson and I am the first son of Fenris the Serious. If you wish, you may call me FJ. We have come to your land in search of weapons to vanquish our serpent enemy. And we come also for your princess, who is our fated mate.”

“Say
what
now?” my grandfather asks, coming back into the room empty-handed.

He frowns at me, like an older mirror of my father. “Is he trying to say you got heated with
both
of them?”

“Granddad, let me explain,” I start to say, though I really, really,
really
don’t want to spell any of this out to my family. Nonetheless, I open my mouth—

Only to get cut off by FJ. “Female, we have already explained,” he says, back still turned to me.

My eyes narrow. Okay, did he just call me
female
?

And then, because I guess saying it to my father wasn’t enough, he says to my grandfather. “Honored Fenrir Past, both my brother and I have claimed your granddaughter as our own.”

For once, my grandfather looks like he doesn’t have a clue what’s going on.

“But I thought me and Tikaani was negotiating a marriage for you,” he says to FJ. “You didn’t say nothing about your brother.”

“Pop,” my father says on the other side of my Viking wall, his voice low with threat. “What do you mean you was negotiating a marriage?” He sounds about ready to make Granddad’s retirement super permanent.

But my grandfather just shrugs. “This guy came out the woods talking about he was Tiara’s fated mate and he was here to negotiate for her hand. So I was like, ‘Okay, let’s talk.’”

Past alphas—especially past alphas who were also MC presidents—are owed a certain amount of respect. You are never, ever to raise your voice to them, much less question them in front of strangers. Those are among our state’s most sacred pack rules.

Still, I can hear Dad’s barely contained outrage as he says, “I’m Tiara’s father! I do all the negotiating. And she’s already engaged.”

“Yeah, I done heard about that business,” Granddad says, his lips setting into a disapproving line. “You going to have to call that off. Cuz, she with this light-skinned brother now.”

F
J watches
the Detroit fenrir closely. His face reminds him much of their mate in this moment. The way his eyes slit, his mouth opening and closing in outrage. He can see well where she learned this expression.

“No, Pop, that’s not how this works,” the Detroit fenrir says, voice strangled with anger. “
With respect
, you are the
former
king. It is
my
time now.
She’s
my
daughter. I decide. And she already agreed to marry the Dakota Prince before these jokers showed up.”

Beside FJ, Olafr growls out loud, sending silent words into FJ’s mind.
“Brother, I cannot this man’s words abide.”

“Yes, it is the same for me,”
FJ answers silently.
“The only person who gives me more anger is the female who did make such agreement.”

“But she stands with us now.”

“Behind us, Brother. And after not only breaking her full moon vows, but also agreeing to marry another less than a moontide later,”
FJ reminds Olafr.
“We cannot know her true mind.”

FJ can scent their female’s fear, sharper than before and sticky in the tense air. But whether it be for him or the man she calls father, he does not know. And never will he assume to know her true heart again after her betrayal.

What would have happened if Aunt Alisha had not told Tikaani about the Norway call before she departed for her own kingdom land? If the Alaska beta’s plan had worked and they had been forced to sleep in the cages below? What if—?

FJ stops himself and deliberately buries his emotions under a layer of ice. He must not follow these thoughts. He must remain calm in the way of his father. There are things he must do if all are to make it out of these dealings alive.

Cloaking his fury in a courteous tone, he asks the she-wolf behind them, “Does your coat give you enough heat, Female?”

A beat of confusion, then comes her small, “Uh… yeah?”

“Then go with my brother from this house while I speak with your Detroit fenrir and your grandfather.”

More of her mind probing, like a knock on his longhouse door. But when FJ once again refuses to let her in, she is forced to speak her question out loud, “You want me to leave?”

“Yes,” he answers back. “I have much to speak of with your kin. You will wait outside.”

Another long pause, then her voice breaks through his mind barriers and speaks into his head.
“FJ, I don’t understand. What’s going on? Please, I’m sorry for leaving the way I did, but I was only trying to—”

He cuts her off, saying aloud to his brother. “Brother, take her outside and wait for me there.”

Inside their brother bond he says,
“You must take her away, Brother. Now. My wolf cannot bear to look at her or to have her voice inside my head after the way in which she did leave. You are the only one I trust.”

Olafr grabs their female by the arm and escorts her out of the house without another word.

“FJ, no! No!”
she yells inside his head.
“Please, you’ve got to listen to me. My dad, he—”

FJ squeezes his mind shut, effectively closing her out.

No, the time for mind talk is over. She is their she-wolf. He is her fenrir. This he will make all understand.

Starting with her father.

When he can no longer smell the she-wolf, he turns his eyes back to the Detroit fenrir.

“If you do not wish to dishonor your promise to the Dakota prince, I understand this. I shall do the honorable thing and kill this prince who would claim what is ours.”

At this declaration, their female’s brother becomes most distressed. “No, that’s not going to happen. I—” he begins to say.

But the Detroit fenrir cuts him off.

“Let me handle this, Clyde,” he says, before casting his eyes upon the honored past fenrir who gave them place to sleep the night before, and with whom they have been negotiating for their female’s hand. “
With respect
, Pop, there are things at stake you don’t understand.”

An insult to be sure. One FJ would never speak to his own father. But the old father simply says, “Don’t tell me what I don’t understand, Son,” he says, giving his son a great up and down look. “I think I’m more than getting all the reasons behind your plan.”

“Then why you going behind my back and making side deals with these out of nowhere fuckers?” the Detroit fenrir asks, his voice filled with ire.

“Because these
out of nowhere fuckers
are your only daughter’s fated mates,” the old man replies. “I mean, at least one of them is. I don’t know about all this foolishness they talking about both of them and I don’t
want
to know.” He gives FJ a hard look before continuing on. “But a fated mate is a fated mate. Either you do this deal or FJ here is gonna fight it out with Clyde’s
friend
.”

From the way the Detroit’s fenrir’s eyes do narrow, FJ knows more is being spoken of than the promised engagement. And the Detroit fenrir seems near to panic when he proclaims, “Pop, you don’t understand…”

“No,
you
don’t fuckin’ understand, Son. You ain’t capable of understanding because you ain’t from Arkansas. You young guns ain’t been raised to respect fated mates the way I do, the way my father taught me. But I know more than a little about this. People always say the way it went down with me and your ma, we must have been fated mates. So you going to have to let me handle this, because once fated mates come into the picture, it ain’t your jurisdiction no more!”

Much of this, FJ does not understand. But the Detroit fenrir must, because a torrent of words issue from his mouth in the way a snake spits venom. “So you want to fuck our kingdom. Throw away everything I’ve worked for—everything
you
took from that last soft-ass Michigan king fair and square. For some fated mate bullshit? Cuz you think this shit is romantic or something?” He points to FJ, derision written clearly across his face. “I mean do these bitches even have a dowry?”

The Detroit fenrir gives neither FJ nor his father the chance to answer this question before proclaiming to his father, “If you care anything at all about the future of our kingdom, you will give me back my gun and let me give this overstepping motherfucker the hole in his chest he deserves.”

FJ has a hard time following much of the fenrir’s words, but the anger radiating off the larger man makes his meaning perfectly clear. The Detroit fenrir does not think he and his brother are worthy of the Detroit princess. And moreover, he’d rather kill FJ than give his daughter to him. FJ has had enough.

“Sit down,” he says to their female’s fenrir.

The Detroit fenrir gives great start, as if he has received a grievous insult. “What did you say to me, boy?” His voice all but growls from his mouth.

FJ looks upon him calmly. “I am not a boy. I be a man of five-and-thirty winters.” He nods toward the soft bench once more. “I have explained many things to your father already. Now will I do the same for you and your son.”

“Things like what?” the Detroit fenrir demands, not bothering to take a seat.

FJ is beginning to understand from where his female learned her defiance, despite her claim of having kept company with so few.

“Things like why you will give to me your Detroit princess in marriage.” He then turns his cool gaze to the one called Clyde. “As well as your son’s throne.”