“My brother’s son,” his aunt cried out. “You have failed to gift your wife a woman’s dagger. She is forced to share my bread, so any passerby would think I am the queen and she the old witch.”
Since human women were not allowed to carry weapons of any kind by human Norse laws, she-wolves took great pride in their women’s daggers, which they used for eating and cutting. The only reason he had yet to gift his mate with one was because she’d yet to have need of it, spending the majority of her time in their bed closet as she did.
“Nay, have not a worry of that, old woman,” his uncle called down the table. “Anyone with eyes can see who be the witch and who be the king’s fated mate.”
The entire table burst out laughing, including his aunt, and to Fenris’s great surprise, Chloe herself. Though she seemed to laugh more with confusion than any real understanding of what had been said.
He took his place at the head of the table, but kept his eyes fast on his mate at the other end. She should be sitting at his side, but he had not become king of the wolves by not cultivating patience within himself.
“I shall see to the her dagger, Aunt. In the meanwhile, you will start teaching her our language, so she may better understand your jests.”
Her aunt’s eyes lit up. “That, my handsome nephew, is a very good notion. Mayhap with time, she might grow to love our land as we do.”
Our land and our king
, her twinkling eyes said.
But Fenris did not acknowledge the knowing in her veiled words. He still cared not for the notion of love, especially after what had passed in the dark beauty’s village. But if getting Chloe to eat at his table and partake of his bread meant he would not be aggrieved to sleep next to her lifeless body this eve, then so be it.
CHLOE IGNORED THE SMUG LOOK on the Viking’s face as he dug into the bowl of porridge, which one of the blond servants had set in front of him. He probably thought he’d told her what was what with that command of his and she’d be fully coming around any day now.
Little did he know, it hadn’t been his command that got her out of the bed closet and back into over clothes “on the morntide.”
No, his threat hadn’t moved her at all. Only his last six words had:
my family is now your own.”
Could it be true, she wondered, rubbing her still flat stomach as they walked back to the longhouse. Would his family really accept her as one of their own, even though she looked so different from them and was from another place and time?
When she woke up, she found the members of his household hustling and bustling around the longhouse, the women putting layers on over their smocks, and the men doing the same over what looked like linen long johns. But maybe thinking she was just going to the toilet pit again, they didn’t acknowledge her presence. She lifted the bench beside the bed closet and pulled out the long wool tunic and silk apron-like dress they had given her on the first day. After she put them on, she went to sit at the long table, where she’d seen them taking their meals. That got their attention, and they all turned to stare at her.
There was a long moment of confused silence, during which Chloe wondered if she she’d made a terrible mistake. But then his family members cheered as if they’d been waiting for her to join them for breakfast all this time before bursting into excited chatter. One of Fenris’s cousins came to sit on one side of her squeezing her around the shoulders in the still-universal sign of welcome. The old lady, who Chloe had now guessed to be Fenris’s sorceress aunt, came to sit on the other side of her and started talking excitedly in Old Norse, using gestures to indicate that Chloe should eat from the same bowl as she and indicating the jug of goat’s milk in the middle of the table.
Chloe did as she was told, and her depression began to ebb away as she watched the family laugh and talk while they ate breakfast as if it were nothing at all to absorb a foreigner into their fold. That is they laughed and talked until Fenris came crashing out of the bed closet with a roar. Then the room once again went silent until his aunt said something to him. Then an older man, who Chloe thought might be his other aunt’s husband said something that must have been a joke, because everyone but Fenris fell out laughing. The Viking regarded her with cool eyes as he said something to his aunt, who nodded happily. Then he settled into his seat, his eyes all but burning a smug hole through her.
But she wondered how smug he’d feel later on when he discovered while she had accepted his family, she would never, ever accept him. She’d happily learn the language and help her new family out in any way she could. But she’d never give herself to him the way she had back in Colorado and she’d never forgive him for taking her planned life away.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
THREE
full moons after his fated mate came to his village, she had learned his tongue well enough to speak simple conversations with his family and slightly more complex ones with his aunt, who was patient and would keep her language simple with her student. His entire family had moved back into the longhouse, spending their sleeping hours in human form on the benches that lined his walls as humans and not in the snow as wolves.
And soon did he have a notion his own family liked his queen more than the Fenris himself. He had this notion because they told him as much around the table, full of belly as they were with the flavorful meals she oversaw. After her first day in the cooking area, directing the servants to where the herbs and spices she could distinguish by smell might go, and speaking as best she could what should go in the cooking pot, the servants set forth a stew so pleasurable to their mouths, his family gave his mate great cheer. She was well-thanked by all, and henceforth, they all endeavored to also help her with their tongue because the more herbs and spice and food stuffs his queen was able to identify, the better their own meals became. It would seem her talent for cooking made her as popular with his family as it had in her own land. And she gave glad smiles and words best she could to everyone who thanked her for the privilege of her food. To his surprise, she had come to hold his family dear in a very short time.
But his fated mate had yet to say more than three words to him, and those three words were always the same: No, thank you.
“No, thank you,” when he offered her a jeweled women’s dagger, more splendid than any he had ever seen.
“No, thank you,” she said, when he presented her with a silk dress more befitting a queen. She continued to wash and clean his mother’s simple tunic and silk hangerok every wash day herself, wearing them over the dress she had brought with her from Colorado.
“No, thank you,” she said when he brought up the matter of her sitting in her rightful place at the dinner table.
Yea, it was better than the ghost of a she-wolf into which she had turned for those three moons before she began her Norse study, but in some ways it had become harder. Harder of both mind and body. Lying in bed next to a corpse had not excited his manhood in the least. Lying in bed next to a vibrant beauty such as his queen, without having leave to touch her was akin to torture. And he again found himself heavy of foot, because though he willed his prick to go flaccid in her presence, it rose like a battering ram at the mere sight of her removing her tunic dress and hangerok in the eve, before settling into their bed. And in this manner he was kept awake by his desire for her, while she slept on, uncaring of the state he was in.
Thus, did he find himself back in the meadow with his aunt soon after the time of the year when the sun grew lazy and chose to stay rested in the sky.
“Your remedy has not met with success,” he informed her.
“She has come to love your family and she does talk and eat again,” his aunt answered without question of his subject. “Verily, your pup shall at least be happy with her progress if not yourself.”
“Yea, but she refuses to mind-talk with me still, save for when she wishes to say nay to one of my gifts.”
“Mayhap you do not come to her bearing the right gifts. Not every woman can be happily claimed with objects that be pleasing to the eye. But they can oft be brought around if the gift be of right sort.”
“She is a queen. She can avail herself of the riches in my coffers and will never want for food or clothing. What more would a she-wolf hold dear?”
“Ah, ‘tis oft the short thinking of males which have brought about the most tragic endings in the love stories told around our fires.”
“I tire of your riddles, aunt,” he said, his voice growing hard. “Tell me plainly what I should do to resolve this matter.”
“I have already told you this plainly. You should put your mind toward giving her the right gifts,” his aunt said. “Once you do, all shall be well between you two.”
And thus did his aunt end this conversation, picking up her basket with the claim that she must search for a certain spell plant that could only be found during the time of the resting sun. “If I do not find it before the sun does travel across the sky again, it will be buried under snow, making for a long winter indeed for any wolf who should have need of it.”
Somehow he knew this to be a statement about the urgency of his own travails with Chloe. If he did not find a way to mend what was torn between them before their pup came, it would be a very long marriage indeed.
OTHER THAN BEING MATED WITH a pompous asshole, Chloe found herself really liking the Viking Age. Communal living took getting used to, but as someone who had been sadly solo for most of her life, the intimacy of always having people around almost made up for the complete lack of privacy. She also loved that everything here was made from scratch and mostly do-it-yourself. It was like living in an amusement park made up entirely of things that interested her.
The only drawback was Old Norse was super-hard to learn without the benefit of a textbook, dictionary, or a teacher who also spoke the same language as you did. Fenris’s aunt was doing a great job of teaching her under the circumstances, but the questions were piling up in Chloe’s mind, and even when she could figure out how to ask them, she still didn’t always have the vocabulary to understand the answer. This was more than frustrating.
For example, cooking with spices was easy enough, but hadn’t been able to incorporate many herbs because she didn’t know the names for the ones not made obvious by the way they smelled. And she wanted so badly to learn how to make the unleavened bread they ate with dinner, but there was only so much that could be taught with gestures.
And she didn’t even want to talk about all the questions she had about their lifestyle in general. She’d managed to figure out that the longhouse had no windows in order to keep out the cold in the winter and, at this time of the year, the light of the sun, which didn’t fully set. She’d also gleaned that the wolves in this place were opposite the ones in Colorado. While they definitely weren’t as civilized as Rafe and his crew in their human forms, they could almost be called fully domesticated in their wolf forms. They had full control of themselves when they shifted and they didn’t go on animal killing rampages or attack humans after changing. Back in Colorado, pregnant wolves had been giving strict warnings never to risk leaving their house on full moon nights. Here, she could freely walk around the village without fear and in fact, she had done just that the last two moons, missing the presence of her new family at night. During the last full moon she had even fallen asleep in their wolf pile, warmed by the ever-present sun and their sleeping bodies. She would have stayed out there all night if Fenris hadn’t come to get her.
But she didn’t understand how they trained themselves to be this way in animal form or how they dealt with childbirth. There didn’t seem to be any place set up for human medicine in the village, and the few times she had seen a wolf get hurt, they had immediately shifted into wolf form, not coming out until they were fully healed.
She did, however, manage to finally string enough words together to figure out how to ask Aunt Bera about the carving on the bed closet’s ceiling.
“Tis the story of the mother and father, from whence Fenris did come,” his aunt answered. “They were as you and Fenris are. Fated mates.”
She wanted to ask what the fighting wolves meant, but couldn’t because she didn’t know any words that meant fight. Then she wanted to ask if the carving of his parents with wolves circled round them was from their wedding, but realized she didn’t have the word for wedding.
Finally she settled for, “Where are his mother and father now?”
Aunt Bera cackled in that teasing way of hers. “Mayhap, you should ask Fenris.”
Chloe let out a frustrated breath. “I cannot ask him.”
“You
will
not ask him. These words, you turn around.” His aunt made a gesture with her fingers for turn around, so Chloe could understand her meaning.
Instead of answering this accusation, she used a feather dipped in charcoal from the nearby fire pit to write down the words for “turn around” in her notebook that she’d sewn together from sheets of leftover fabric. The discovery that she knew how to write her own language was met with great awe by the others in the longhouse, and questions about her father’s wealth soon followed. Apparently, most women and men were illiterate in this time period with only the wealthy knowing how to read and write. From what she could see, Fenris and his aunt were two of the only people in the village who could fully understand the runic alphabet. Eventually Chloe would learn to read and write runic letters herself, but that was also slow-going at this point.
“My queen, your language would grow faster if you did but mind-talk with your mate,” Aunt Bera said now. “That is how foreign wolves who come to our land do learn.”
Chloe shook her head. “You do not understand, and I do not have the words to give you knowledge of what is between us.”
Aunt Bera covered her hand. “If you mind-talk with him, you could then have the words you need to make me understand. Then mayhap—“
Aunt Bera broke off when Fenris appeared in the doorway of the longhouse, as if summoned by their conversation about him. His eyes soon found her sitting with Aunt Bera, and he came over to them. But he held out his hand to Chloe alone, pushing a thought into her head. “You will come with me, now.”