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.”