“Is there nothing at which you do not excel, beauty?” he had asked her.
And her heart had zinged a little, because Rafe had found all the little things she made and had taught herself to do more odd than endearing. But the Viking had looked at her like he was the luckiest man in the world to have her as his fated mate.
And then less than a few hours later, he had threatened to kill her ex-fiancé and make her do his bidding after they returned to his time.
The memory of that terrible argument and the fact that she was no longer in heat was enough to clear away any goodwill his compliments had engendered within her. And when she gazed upon him again, he looked exactly like what he was. A very dangerous man who would stop at nothing to get his way.
It suddenly became very clear what she had to do now.
Run. As fast as she could and as far away as she could as soon as possible.
CHAPTER TWELVE
CHLOE
didn’t even get half a mile out of town before she saw the flashing lights of a police car in her rearview mirror. And less than an hour after sneaking out of her own house with nothing but a laptop and one hastily packed overnight bag, she found herself locked up in the clinic’s basement cage.
And less than fifteen minutes after that, the Colorado alpha king showed up.
It took all the manners Myrna had drummed into her not to groan upon the sight of Dale Nightwolf coming down the steps, his long, lean body a twin of his son’s, even if his face was longer with more wrinkles.
She stood, which was the respectful thing to do in the presence of your alpha, and mumbled a small, “Hi.”
“So let me get this straight,” he said, ignoring her greeting. “First you lead my son on for seven years, then you go into heat with another wolf, and then to top it all off, you decide to run away, leaving us to deal with the out-of-time Viking currently residing in the house my son bought for you to live in. Do I have that about right?”
Chloe’s cheeks heated. “In all fairness, I did offer to pay Rafe rent. But he wouldn’t let me.”
He sniffed the air. “And you’re pregnant. Well, doesn’t that just about beat all?”
“Rafe asked me to leave. He told me not to be here when he got back from Alaska.”
“He didn’t mean run away and leave your Viking behind. He wanted both of you gone.” He gave her a disappointed look. “You know that, Chloe. You shouldn’t have tried to run away. You made an already bad situation even worse.”
Having her king be angry with her, she could take, understand even. Rafe was his son, after all. But having him look at her with such disappointment in his eyes was almost more than she could bear.
If not for her need to get out of this cage and fast, she would have begged him for his forgiveness as opposed to saying, “You realize that me running away isn’t a crime though, right? You don’t actually have any grounds to hold me here, under arrest.” Chloe had to swallow in a deep breath of bravery to say this next thing: “And just because you’re the alpha doesn’t mean I have to explain myself to you or that you can treat me however you want. There’s no law that says I can’t go anywhere I want any time I choose. But the time the Viking is trying to force me to go to doesn’t have protections like that. That’s why I ran away.”
Dale’s face went from disappointed to angry again as he took a step closer to the cage. “Forgive me if after watching my son moon over you and let better prospects mate with other wolves for
seven
years, I don’t feel all that sorry for you.”
“And forgive me if I don’t think your anger is a good enough reason to travel a thousand years back in the past with someone I barely even know.”
“He’s your mate,” he said, shaking his head. “I know you modern she-wolves are all about your rights this and your rights that. But back in my day, a good she-wolf knew how follow.”
She folded her arms and sat down on the bench, not caring how insulting an action like this was to her alpha king. She was so sick of alpha kings from both the past and present trying to tell her what to do. Also, he had lost any right to her deference when he had the sheriff haul her into this cage like a common criminal.
“Well, I guess I’m not a good she-wolf then,” she said. “Now either charge me with something or risk me suing you, Dale, and this entire town for wrongful imprisonment in the human courts. You know how the North American Lupine Council hates to see us in the human news. They’d probably make you settle out of court and send the Viking back through the portal yourself.”
The way Dale’s face twisted with annoyance let Chloe know she was right, and though it was agonizing for her to talk this way to the man she had hoped would one day become her father-in-law, she pressed on. “Release me,” she demanded. “Release me now, or I’ll make you pay.”
He sighed. “You know, I like you, Clo, I always have, from the moment we opened our home to you. But when my boy started talking about proposing to you, I had a bad feeling about it. Not just because you were odd with all that alternative stuff you’re into, but also because I looked at you two and I didn’t see lovers like Lacey and me, but two four-year-olds who didn’t want to stop being friends. I tried to tell Rafe that you weren’t a match, and Lacey also had her doubts but she loved you too much to back me up with Rafe. Now look what’s happened. You’ve wasted seven years of our boy’s life and you’re sitting here demanding that we all bend over backwards to accommodate you.”
He all but spat the words at her, and Chloe couldn’t mask the hurt they caused her. She had been so looking forward to joining their happy family, and thought Rafe’s parents felt the same. But apparently Dale had never wanted her to be with Rafe in the first place. And if what he was saying ways true, his wife, Lacey, who she’d loved like a second mother, had also had her doubts from the start.
But she couldn’t let her hurt feelings take her off course. She had to get out of this cage and out of town before the Viking woke up.
“I’m sorry,” she said to Dale. “I know you don’t believe me, but I’m truly sorry for all the hurt I’ve caused. And I’d give anything for things to have worked out differently. But I can’t go back in time to Norway. That’s insane. I have got to get out of here and you’ve got to help me—”
From upstairs came the sound of a door opening and closing and the king gave her a sad smile. “You know, my people still believe in the fated mates spell. We don’t question it or try to fight like you’re doing right now. So I know you’re not going to believe me either, but I am trying to help you.”
Just a few moments later, down the stairs came Professor Henley, who had apparently decided to stay on in town after the full moon... and right behind him, dressed in the leather pants she had washed for him, the Wolf Springs T-shirt she had bought him, and a pair of hiking boots he’d gotten from God knew where, was the Viking wolf.
“Oh, crap,” she said. It was too late.
IT TOOK EVERYTHING WITHIN FENRIS to keep his face schooled to neutral when he came down the stairs and found his mate, as the tutor had heralded she would be, jailed in the cage he had occupied just a few moons ago.
She visibly trembled upon laying eyes on him, but that small salve was erased when she jutted her chin into the air and said something to her king in their tongue.
The king merely looked toward Fenris as if awaiting his words.
And Fenris asked through the tutor-translator that he and his fated mate be left alone. He kept his words simple enough, so the thin wolf would have no need to look within the pages of his bound manuscript to relay his words.
But the king shook his head, and the tutor-translator relayed the Colorado king’s concern about the sword in his hand.
“I give you my king’s word that I will do her no violence, and if you allow this, when you are returned to this place, all will be resolved.”
After the tutor-translator gave him this message, the king pondered his request for many moments. Fenris understood his dilemma. The “king’s word” was ever-binding, as good as a spoken contract and meant to be accepted without reservation especially by a fellow king. However, Fenris’s mate was also this king’s subject, and it was a king’s sworn duty to protect even the mated she-wolves in his village from any harm.
But in the end, the Colorado king conceded and said through the translator that he would give Fenris a short while with Chloe, with the further warning that they were both in the room up the stairs.
“You may talk to me now,” he said to her mind, once the king and tutor were gone.
She clasped her hands at her stomach and stared down at her feet for a rather long and awkward time before answering. “I don’t know what to say.”
“It appears you would bid me farewell,” he said, putting as much softness into his voice as he possibly could, given their circumstances.
Then did she look up at him with what might have been sincere regret in her eyes. For her betrayal or her failure to hie away without his knowing, he could not be sure.
“I know in your time fated mates are supposed to be this big deal, iron-clad thing. And I can’t say I don’t feel connected to you, especially after what we did, and as... ah... many times as we did it. But culturally we’re just too different. I couldn’t possibly go back to your time. And you don’t seem to want to stay here. And also, you kept on insisting on killing my ex-fiancé , which is pretty psycho, even by werewolf standards. I just can’t see me living like that or raising children with someone who wants me to defer to his every whim.”
“You would rather have the man you chose before fate mated us,” he said.
She shook her head. “You’re trying to take this some kind of insult, but that’s not what I’m saying. I’m trying to tell you we’re just not culturally compatible. In your time, marriages are mostly about male wolves claiming she-wolves or getting fated. In my time, you rarely hear about fated mates.
Rarely
. Seriously, I had kind of thought it was a myth before you came back for me. And wolves can’t just go around claiming any she-wolf they want anymore. We get to choose. And I chose Rafe for a reason.”
Again, he kept his face as neutral and his tone as even as he could when he said, “I understand.”
She raised her eyes to him, real hope in them for the first time. “You do?”
“I do,” he said. “And mayhap there be some manner of things you do not understand about the wolves of our time. Mates are allowed to bid fare thee well. We have only to say these special words: I to thee which I am bound do seek to go back.”
“I to thee which I’m bound do seek to go back.” She repeated the words, as if tasting them as she spoke.
“But for the purposes of two wolves parting, we must say the words together while holding our hands fast, and in my tongue.”
“So all I have to do is say these words with you in Old Norse, and we’re over?” she asked, with such hope in her eyes, he found himself in need of a many moments to tamp down his rage.
“If you say these words with me now, I will go back to my time,” he eventually answered. He took his medallion from around his neck and once again used it to open her cage. “Will we then join our hands around my sword?” He held up
The King Maker
with his own hands clasped around its grip.
This of all things seemed to give her pause. And he realized why when she hesitantly placed her hands over his own. He, too, felt the immediate tug between them, like a tether, connecting his soul to hers, commanding they be together as fate intended. In this moment, it became hard for him to ignore these feelings fate had placed between them, and he realized it must be hard for her to and mayhap the reason for her first hesitation.
“Okay,” she said. “Give me the words.”
He gave them to her once, then once again, repeating them slowly, so she might grasp all of the syllables.
“Okay, I’ve got them,” she said in his mind. “Now tell me how to say ‘one, two, three’ in Old Norse.”
He did, and could not help but admire her cleverness when she then said to him in his mind, “Let’s do it on Norse three then, so we say it together. Do you want to count down or should I?”
“This I will do,” he answered.
“Okay,” she said. “But before you do, I just... I just want to thank you for understanding why I can’t go back in time with you. And I want you to know I admire how loyal you are to your people. And since this is really the last time we’re ever going to see each other, I also want to say even if the circumstances around us coming together were completely messed up, I don’t regret these last few days. I’ve always wanted to be a mother, and you made me feel...” she paused, seeming to root around inside her head for the right words. “You made me feel beautiful.”
A part of him felt tempted to say she was beautiful, the most beautiful woman he had ever beheld, and that he had but only put name to it. However, he had already vowed to never again compliment her in the fashion of the besotted wolf he had allowed himself to become over the past three days.
That morntide he had awoken in the manner of a man who had drunk to much honey wine the eve before. At that time, he had regretted his words from the preceding night, and he had resolved to give his fated mate the days she would need to feel more at ease in returning to his land with him.
But that had been before he had stood up from the bed and found her disappeared. Before the tutor had knocked on her door and informed him his “beauty” had been caught by one of their wheeled steeds, attempting to leave her village, and him, behind. And before she confessed she loved another more than he, not seeming to care at all that she was his mate and carried his pup.
No, he vowed, now moving his hands so they covered hers around the sword. He would never again call her “beauty.” The only name he would put to her henceforth was “mine.”
“At three,” he said, as if her last few sentences had not been spoken.
He counted aloud to three and they did speak the words together.
In truth, they may not have needed to hold hands for the incantation to work, but Fenris did not have trust or complete knowledge of the spell’s wind, and he did not wish to lose her, the pup, or
The King Maker
to another time and place in the spell’s black tunnel.