Wolf and Prejudice (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2) (14 page)

Alisha’s mouth dropped open. “So he told the whole village he plans to claim me and mate with me all over the place as soon as my five years are up?”

“And I told him that was really fucking rude,” Chloe assured her.

“And what did he say?” Alisha asked.

Chloe looked away again.

“What did he say, Chloe?”

Chloe fretted her lip. “That he meant no insult, only truth. He said no weak cub can stop him, and that he plans to challenge any other wolf who dares speak to have you for your claim.”

Alisha stomach tightened into a knot of dread. “He couldn’t do that, could he? Wait, don’t answer that. I already know.”

Though Fenris had declared rape of a she-wolf a crime in Norway, she-wolves had very little say in who they married. She’d seen a family give a daughter away to an unseen suitor in a neighboring village in exchange for a cow, and she had no doubt that if a warrior wolf want to fight his way to claiming a she-wolf, there were laws allowing him to do so.

“Let’s talk about you choosing a new mate again,” Chloe said.

Alisha dropped Chloe’s arm and walked faster. “No. Nope. Nuh-uh. I don’t think so.”

“If you pick a mate, Fenris could do things to make sure Skeggi can’t challenge him,” Chloe said, running to keep up with Alisha’s much longer stride. “He can draw up a contract, saying this is for the good of the village, especially if you choose a trader or a merchant or any of the pack chieftains around Norway. But those things take time to arrange. You’d have to pick your wolf now, not wait until your mating scent wears off.”

Right now, Alisha was considered a married wolf. But unfortunately, wolf annulments worked both ways. In a little over three weeks, she’d officially be an unmated wolf… in a village that didn’t adhere to Lupine Council law… in a time that didn’t respect a woman’s right to choose her own mate.

Chloe took Alisha by the arm again and stopped her. “You’re a mom now, you’ve got to start thinking about ways to protect you and your family.”

Alisha’s wolf recoiled at the thought of pledging herself to a male other than Rafe. It was an unpleasant side effect of the mating bond she’d unwittingly created with him before she discovered what a lying piece of shit he was—like the werewolf version of James J. Hill and she was his railroad.

She shook her head at Chloe. “I don’t have to pick anyone because my family and I will be leaving here before the next full moon, as soon as it’s safe to use the return spell.”

But Chloe shook her head right back at her. “That’s not what Aunt Bera said.”

Alisha let out an arghh of frustration. For all Chloe’s efforts to convert the North Wolves to a one-god religion, the Christian queen treated her aunt-in-law, the former village sorceress, like an unimpeachable deity.

Shortly before her death, the old silver-haired woman had thrown runes on Alisha’s destiny in front of everyone gathered around the kingdom longhouse’s fire and declared, “The other black she-wolf will not leave this village with the spell she has brought from her lands.”

Both Fenris and Chloe had interpreted this pronouncement as “Alisha’s spell won’t work,” and irony of ironies, they’d been worse than her own parents about trying to set her up with a suitable Viking.

“My sister is a very responsible person. The return spell will work,” Alisha said to Chloe, the same as she’d been saying ever since Aunt Bera cast those stupid runes. She didn’t like to speak ill of the dead, but man, had that little old she-wolf made her years here way more irritating than they’d needed to be. And that was saying something on top of the lack of central heating, running water, TV, and packaged foods.

“But if it doesn’t work—” Chloe said. She cut herself off and threw Chloe a grave look. “Fenris has gotten a lot of requests to claim you from his warriors. A disturbing amount of requests.”

Alisha rolled her eyes. “That’s ridiculous.”

“It’s not ridiculous, Alisha. You’re extremely exotic to this culture, plus, look at you.”

She indicated Alisha’s tall, still plus-sized frame, which, in their own time, wasn’t necessarily considered a beauty trait. But in this time… well, a lot of the Old Norse Alisha had managed to learn were pick-up lines, because so many of the village wolves had stepped up to her saying things like, “You’re visage does please my eyes,” and “The gods have been generous in their blessing upon thy frame” and much lewder ones, which Chloe refused to translate, and which had more than once caused Rafesson to palm the hilt of his children’s sword.

Alisha huffed with annoyance. “So I’m not scrawny. So I’ve got tits and an ass that apparently even five years of living organically won’t take away. What the hell is wrong with these guys asking Fenris to mate with me? I can barely speak the language!”

Chloe’s mouth twisted into a teasing smile. “I don’t think they’re interested in the language you speak while upright.”

“Exactly!” Alisha said. “None of them are interested in anything going on above my neck. Why should I be interested in them? Plus, I’m almost thirty now. That’s ancient in this time period.” Most she-wolves started breeding at fifteen and even Chloe, with her three back-to-back children, hadn’t gone into heat again past the age of thirty.

“Most of the village doesn’t believe you’re actually as old as you say you are, given the state of your skin. And pretty much the entire village believes you have magic within you, which would allow you to breed, even at your advanced age.”

“That’s absolutely not true. Why would they believe that?”

Chloe gave her a frank look. “I think you know why. Your childbirth story is still being told around the camp fire and probably will be for years and years to come.”

“Yeah, but…” Alisha shifted her basket of soap from one hand to the other. “That kind of stuff happens all the time in our era. It’s almost common with the advancement of modern medicine.”

Chloe shook her head, her eyes adamant. “It’s not common, even in our original time, especially among wolves. And in this time, you might as well have flown in on a horse like a real Valkyrie, because that’s what these guys believe you are: some kind of magical being with a really hot body, sent from the heavens, who will make all their hopes and dreams come true if you mate with them.”

Chloe then winced as if bracing herself for Alisha’s response before she said in one rush of breath, “Also, Fenris says if you don’t pick within the next few days, then he’ll have to arrange a tournament and that would open it up to wolves from other villages.”

“Are you freaking kidding me?”
Alisha nearly yelled.

“He doesn’t really kid about stuff like that. I mean his old nickname
is
Fenris the Serious. Anyway, he says it will be good entertainment for the wolf lands.”

Alisha still couldn’t believe what Chloe was telling her. “You of all people would let some wolf take me away against my will?”

Chloe’s face gentled as it had with Rafesson. “No, I’d try to make sure you weren’t pledged to a wolf you didn’t want, but it’s not as simple as letting you stay here once you’re officially unmated. We’d have to hide you guys, somewhere deep in the mountains, and we don’t have phones, so if anyone ever found you, we wouldn’t be able to prevent him from claiming you. Plus, you wouldn’t have the help of our longhouse or the village for childcare. You’d have to hunt and make all your meals from scratch by yourself—Alisha, there’s a reason wolves didn’t start mating for love until the modern age. We’re pack animals, and it is extremely hard to live in this age as a single parent family unit.”

Alisha was sure Janelle wouldn’t let her down and that the spell would work. She’d given her sister explicit instructions about what to do in five years time, so she could return with her progeny. But the thought of what would happen to her if she was forced to stay in this time period…

She pushed those thoughts away and seized upon the hot spring, which she could now see in the distance with her sharpened wolf night vision. “Look, as much as I’ve enjoyed this talk, do you mind if I bathe alone?”

Alisha tried to keep her mind still and quiet as she made this request. Wolves could smell all sorts of emotions, including fear, anger, and, most problematic... Alisha cut herself off before she could even think about that other scent, and she cringed at the thought of Chloe or anyone else finding out why she really insisted on going to the hot spring every day by herself.

“Of course I don’t mind,” Chloe answered. “I’ll just wait here for you.”

“No, go back to the longhouse. I’ll be fine, and you still need to get breakfast on the table.”

“They can make breakfast without me,” Chloe said.

But Alisha knew they wouldn’t want to. Chloe was well beloved for her talent in the kitchen—or in this case, her talent with a cauldron, a spit, and other tenth century cooking apparatuses.

“Yes, but even if they could figure out how to replicate what you do for winter stores with spices and dried fruits, they’d be missing the main ingredient.” Alisha crossed her arms over her ample chest and batted her eyes. “Love!”

Chloe laughed and pointed at her. “See, this is why you should pick a mate from our village. I’d miss that sense of humor of yours!”

The blast of a Viking cow horn suddenly pierced the dark morning sky.

“What the…” Alisha had heard this sound before, when a merchant boat from another land was approaching for trade, but usually they had at least a few days notice of an incoming ship, with news of its arrival traveling up the coast before it pulled up to their somewhat hidden bayside town, either to be sent away if human or happily invited into the village if wolf. Also, “The bay’s frozen over, how could a ship get here?”

Two more short blasts of the Viking horn sounded, as if in code. A code Alisha had never heard before. She turned to Chloe for an explanation, but her friend was just standing there, her eyes wide with shock.

“That’s not a ship,” Chloe mumbled, and to Alisha’s surprise, she took off walking at a fast clip back toward the village. Olafr followed, their previous need to provide Alisha with protection obviously forgotten.

“Chloe what is it?” Alisha asked, running to catch up with her. This abrupt change of mood on Chloe’s part worried her enough to forget about her trip to the hot spring.

“I’m not sure. I’m too far out of range to communicate with Fenris.” Chloe answered.

But when they got to the edge of the village, Chloe still hadn’t received word from Fenris. She stopped and tapped at her temple as if the telepathic connection to her husband was on the fritz. “I’m still not getting anything, which means he must have left the village.” She said this as if some conclusion had been confirmed in her mind.

Alisha studied the scene unfolding in front of her with wary eyes. People were spilling out of their longhouses, talking to each other in excited voices, and pointing toward the mountain that lie on the other side of the lake.

“Chloe,” she said carefully. “What’s going on?”

Chloe clamped her lips together, hesitating at first, but then she just came out and said it: “I’ve heard a horn signature like that two other times… when Fenris and I came through the time portal.”

14

I
t wasn’t him. It couldn’t be him
, Alisha told herself as she threw items into the duffle bag she’d traveled to this time with: her woman’s dagger, several furs, her notebooks, shifts, two long wool tunics, six boy-sized tunic and legging sets, three pairs of child-sized fur-trimmed lace up boots, two children’s swords, a small children’s axe—hopefully that would be enough to get them through the winter along with the portion of the winter provisions she’d nabbed earlier. While Chloe had gone toward the mountain to see if they indeed had a time traveling visitor, the rest of Fenris’s family and their servants had gone outside to await their return. That meant she’d been able to pack without having to answer a bunch of questions about what she was doing and where she was going.

Not that the provisions and clothes she’d loaded up would be necessary, she assured herself as she hurried toward the longhouse door. She’d go around the tree-lined eastern side of town, taking the most hidden route to the forest where Rafesson and all the other town children were currently cavorting in wolf form. She’d get herself and her progeny hidden away in some makeshift mountain structure. After a few days, Fenris and the rest of the wolves would find them, camping out, and they’d all have a good laugh at her expense. Seriously, she’d thought Rafe had figured out how to travel eleven centuries into the past in order to drag her back to her original time period? Of course not! It was just a Viking she-wolf from Iceland who’d gotten her hands on a fated mate spell and had been transported here to Norway to find her true love.

Yes, that had to be it, Alisha told herself as she yanked open the longhouse’s small door…

Only to find the crowd of family members that had been thick outside the door when she’d scurried into the longhouse parting like the red sea. And at the other end of the Nordic Soul Train line, flanked on either side by Fenris and Chloe, stood a Native American warrior.

She squinted. No, this was no Native American warrior… this was Rafe, but not the clean-cut alpha king Alisha had known. He had long hair black hair, gathered in two thick braids underneath an authentic buffalo war bonnet with long, black horns. Black horns that gleamed in the light of the torch carried by a small man Alisha vaguely recognized as the portal keeper. The torchlight also illuminated Rafe’s face, his eyes framed by black war paint, with a thick slash of red paint across his nose. She took in the rest of his outfit: a breech cloth with leather leggings, and a fur vest that looked like it had been removed from some animal a very long time ago for very authentic reasons.

The academic in her couldn’t help but be impressed. Yes, this was Rafe, but a version of him that had been ripped from American history and plopped down here in the Viking Age. And even from as far away as she was standing, she could see his hazel eyes, shining with bright, cold, centuries spanning hate.