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.”
She ignored his hand, but again rose to follow him out of the house as she had the night he had shown her his family’s wolf pile. She wondered what he would show her this time. Maybe two bunnies copulating, followed by a command to resume having sex with him again at the evening tide.
That seemed to be his M.O., and she knew he’d been suffering. She had woken up a few times in the middle of the night, somehow enfolded inside his arms, with a rather obvious erection pressed into her backside. And maybe she had lingered there for a moment or two, enjoying the warmth of his arms around her before moving out of them—but only because she hadn’t had much affection growing up. At least that was what she told herself. Obviously, she was hard up for hugs and didn’t care where she got them or who she got them from.
But if he planned to command her to resume having sex with him again, that’s where she drew the line. And even better, she now had enough Norse under her belt to tell him “No, thank you” but good.
However, she didn’t have long to ruminate on these thoughts, because this time he actually talked with her while they walked, unlike the other trips they’d taken together.
“This row of longhouses belongs to our traders. They shall return nigh harvest time with the spoils of our trades and stories of lands from afar. Then will we have a large celebration and feast to which all the alpha chieftains in the wolf lands will be invited.”