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.
She didn’t see the gate open behind them, and confusion crossed her face when she attempted to pull her hands from the sword. Yet he held her fast. “What—?”
The gate sucked them in and sent them through its black tunnel before spitting them out through his village’s own mountain gate, one that had not seen use in all the years of his rule. His aunt rarely gave the fated mates spell, and when she did, it was to she-wolves who had not returned from wherever it took them to meet with their fated mates.
This time when he saw the ground coming up, he tossed the sword aside and drew Chloe tight against him. They rolled into the crash, with him letting his own back take the majority of the hit. And then they rolled over each other four or five times, before coming to a rest outside the door of the gatekeeper’s cabin.
Considering the wolf assigned to the cabin was in the position of guarding a gate that saw rare use and therefore did not require true diligence, Fenris was rather proud when a burly wolf showed himself at the door of the cabin with his battle axe raised.
“Lower your weapon,” he said, coming to his feet. “’Tis your Fenris.”
The gatekeeper, in truth, had only ever seen the Fenris on the occasion when every wolf was invited into the Fenris’s great hall to celebrate and be merry. This was always at eve, and truth be told, not very often, as unlike his father, Fenris had seen no reason to spend the kingdom’s coffers for such dubious reasons as the return of one of their long boats from sea, or a feast to pay tribute to the god for their harvest, or one to mark the passing of late winter—the Norse wolves could come up with all manner of reasons for these types of festivities.
The gatekeeper squinted now and said, “King Fenris, ‘tis truly you?”
“Yea, and I bid thee lower your axe.”
The wolf did as he was told, “My Fenris, I did not recognize you without your beard. I bid thee great apology.”
“None needed,” he answered, “You have well-served your Fenris here today and shall be given reward the next time you come down the mountain.”
“How come you to travel through the gate?” he asked. He now turned his squint to the shirt Fenris wore. “And what manner of clothing is this upon your form?”
That question reminded Fenris of the traitorous she-wolf he had left lying on the ground. But before his eyes could find her, a thick boot kicked him in his groin area and he saw stars. The pain was so great it brought him to his knees.
And when his vision cleared, he found his fated mate on her feet and breathing hard with the exertion it must have taken to kick him in such a fashion.
It would seem she had recovered from their trip through the time gate and put together what had been done. And was she angry with him in the extreme.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
ONE moment Chloe was standing there with Fenris, having just agreed to go their separate ways and the next, she was getting sucked through some kind of pitch-black vacuum, which dumped her back on the snow-covered plateau outside the Wolf Mountain portal. At least she thought it was her portal, until she and Fenris rolled to a stop in front of a small house. Jeb’s cabin didn’t sit right next to the portal. And furthermore, his cabin was an actual log cabin, made out of pine logs, with insulated windows and a roof also constructed from logs.
The house that sat before them seemed to be made of stones and dirt with a roof made out of what looked like packed in dirt and bright green turf. And then there was the cold. Shivers ran up and down her body. Werewolves tended to live in places like Colorado and Alaska, places with cold weather where their higher body temperatures wouldn’t cause them undue discomfort during the summer. But this place—she had never known a cold like this. It couldn’t have been more than ten degrees. The harsh mountain wind cut right through her sweater and prairie dress, covering her in what felt like needle pricks and making it hard for her to breathe for a few minutes.
However, all thoughts of her own discomfort flew out of her head, when a stocky, bearded man dressed in loose, rough-hewn trousers and a brown tunic opened the door with some kind of axe raised in the air. It only took Chloe witnessing a few back and forth exchanges between the Viking and this man for her to figure out what had happened, everything that had happened.
Which is how she came to find herself kicking the Viking squarely in his crotch and not regretting it at all when he sank to ground, momentarily undone by the pain she had caused him.
That is, she didn’t feel any regret until the short guy started toward her, axe once again raised, hollering in Old Norse.
Chloe’s eyes widened and she started to turn tail and run, but Fenris yelled something that stopped the man in his tracks. Fenris said a few more words, and to her surprise, the short man laughed and lowered the axe again before disappearing back inside the windowless stone cabin.
As soon as he was gone, Fenris came staggering to his feet, the look on his face almost murderous with rage. “You will never do that again,” he said. “It is considered the gravest of insults for a she-wolf to strike her mate, especially in front of another as you did. ‘Tis fortunate I was able to convince him you made a show only because your mind is so addled by the cold.”