This he vowed.
However, something extraordinary happened soon after the North Wolves princess appeared in this time.
The Drakkon Murderers’ daughters showed up at his estate.
As it turned out, the Betrayer King had a reason for allying with his father’s murderers after all.
These males would eventually become the fathers of the Betrayer King’s fated mate.
And that mate had born him a son.
An actual living, breathing son named Eos who spoke the old language, just as his father did. Eos seemed to Damianos, who had not seen a drakkon young in millennia, nothing short of miraculous.
Only one thing eclipsed that discovery of a hybrid wolf-drakkon… the twin sister of the Betrayer King’s mate.
One look. A single look had been enough to change….not everything—he was still intent on making the twins’ fathers pay for what they’d done. But in an instant, one name was removed from his list of those who would be slaughtered on his father’s behalf.
Ola.
Her name was Ola.
And though she did not know it yet, she would soon be his.
With a snap of his secretly clawed fingers.
As one of the human cattle’s ever-bleating musicians once declared…
Don’t believe me. Just watch.
Chapter One
OLA
This is the best night of my entire life.
Everything I’ve been groomed for. Everything I worked for. It’s all happening right now. And that’s why nobody’s clapping louder than me when my uncles take the stage in the kingdom house’s main ballroom.
The King and Beta of North Dakota are both in their sixties now with nearly three decades of marriage behind them, but they’re holding hands like they’re newlyweds. And they don’t look much different from the photograph, they took after Uncle Kyle received the crown from his father.
Uncle Clyde’s rocking all black denim and leather, just like he did back then. Paying homage to his old Detroit pack which used to be just a few steps up from a motorcycle gang before my mom took over as the first alpha queen ever in the history of North America. He’s also carrying the sawed-off Mossberg 500 twelve-gauge shotgun like a sword at his hip. That gun’s made many a close-minded bitch think twice before crossing him or his husband. And everybody knows the ones who dared to say anything to their face about their previously unheard of royal gay union are currently buried six feet deep. It doesn’t matter how old he gets or how sweet and kind he is when the kingdom’s not watching, my uncle stays mean-muggin’ and straight-thuggin’. Just like in his and Kyle’s coronation photograph, which now hangs over the kingdom house’s mantle.
Which is kind of funny, because my uncle-in-law, Kyle, the alpha king of North Dakota is the total opposite of him. Still boyishly handsome with his carefully colored light blond hair and lanky physique, wearing the official pack crown, he reminds me of one of those early Disney princes—just with a few extra eye crinkles.
Nobody would have put them together, but everybody in North America knows what a great couple they are. And I don’t think my Uncle Clyde has ever regretted, not even for one day, ceding his own crown to my mother and fathers, so that he could marry his then-secret boyfriend. And especially not now that they’ve made it to early retirement.
Watching my uncles take the stage together, I squeeze Akwasi’s hand, secretly hoping we’ll end up that happy one day. But, you know, without all the drama that kicked off my uncles’ happy marriage…and my parents’ happy marriage…and my sister’s happy marriage to a dragon of all dudes…and okay, all of my triplet cousins’ recent happy marriages—maybe they thought we were running out of crazy stories to tell around the fire at the Greenwolf-Ataneq-Nightwolf Thanksgiving table?
My stomach drops. Oh God, is it even possible for a member of my family to simply date and get married like normal wolves? My nerdy mom tried her best to make a go of it in a human career as a video game designer and even got engaged to her brother’s BFF, the then Prince of North Dakota—totally practical move for a werewolf princess. But what did she get for all those level-headed decisions? An ex-fiancé who’d ended up marrying her brother, and not one, but two time-traveling Viking wolves claiming to be her fated mates. I mean, lucky for me, or my twin sister and I never would have been born but it seriously feels like the odds are completely stacked against me.
Stop, Ola. Best night of your life. Remember?
Okay, calm face emoji…that’s totally right. I push thoughts of my family’s notoriously bad, super dramatic, time-traveling often included relationship history out of my head and remind myself that doesn’t have to be me.
I’m in a terrific relationship with the starting center for the North Dakota Elks, after all, and it’s been 100% drama free so far. That’s pretty amazing considering my background and, you know, general personality, which is made up of one-part co-dependent twin, two parts descended from motorcycle gangsters and Vikings, and a whole lot of telling it like it is.
But somehow that didn’t scare away my down-to-earth and no drama boyfriend. He appreciates my straight talk. “Your directness is refreshing. Honesty is important in a relationship, yes?” he’d told me on our third date. He finds my background, “very historical and fun.” And as for my sister, he likes that I care about my family and he assures me he cares just as much about his, even though they’re far away in Ghana. In fact, he wants us to take a trip there to meet his people in a couple more months. A trip I’m pretty sure will culminate in a biomedia post with the title, “He put a ring on it!!!”
That is if I don’t fuck it up.
“Are you okay, my baby?” Akwasi asks. He has to lean in close to be heard over all the hooting and hollering.
Geez, he smells good. That expensive cologne on top of rich and famous kind of good that regular wolves just can’t replicate. Plus, he laughs at all my jokes—even the really inappropriate ones, and he hasn’t so much as flirted with another woman since our first date. I know, because I dosed him with a spy drone on our second one.
What?
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I know spy drones are super illegal, and some might argue a pretty large invasion of privacy, but whatever. I’m a distrustful bitch—everybody knows that.
Besides, Akwasi passed all my tests with flying colors. Isn’t that what counts? My famous and super talented boyfriend is tall, dark, and handsome as hell. Plus, he’s really into me. He calls me “my baby” with a seriously sexy African accent, but unlike the string of guys I dated before him, he’s been respecting my decision not to have sex until I go into heat.
I should also throw some extra points at him for actually showing up to the most important night of my life.
Other than my parents, it’s not exactly a family reunion up in here.
You see, my cousins, the Nightwolf triplets decided to schedule their totally unnecessary triple vow renewal on the same weekend as my coronation.
I’m sure, the oldest triplet, Rafes had a lot to do with that date choice. He’s the President of the North American Lupine, and he hates my guts, which is totally unfair because I’m fucking awesome and he’s a stuck up prick. But unfortunately, he made it a choice between the three of them and the one of me, and all my favorite aunts and cousins opted to spend the weekend in Mississippi instead of North Dakota.
And as for that twin sister I used to be so co-dependent on—well, she’s currently in hiding from our family’s mortal dragon enemy.
A mortal enemy who I sort of grabbed by the dick last year. Or by the dicks, maybe? Still not exactly sure what was going on down there. But whatever I touched was large and pulsing. And nearly a year later, I can still remember the sensation of it or them moving around beneath my hand.
Look, I don’t normally go around grabbing guys by the dick. That’s all sorts of bad hashtags, which I’m supposed to be avoiding now that I’m officially representing for a state pack. I was just trying to distract him, while my sister a
nd her mate escaped from his supervillain fortress located on a remote Greek isle. You know, hero stuff!
But I’ve kind of been having a hard time scrubbing that memory from my head. And sometimes when I let myself think about it too long, I get a little scared. Because it wasn’t pure horror I felt when I touched him. I mean there was a lot of that. But there was also a weird feeling in my stomach.
My wolf stood up.
So many of my relatives have used that phrase to describe how they felt the first time they laid eyes on their mate. I’d never been able to envision what that felt like. My wolf had always been pretty background, like, “I’m just going to let you do you, Ola. You’re bitch enough for the both of us and I truly believe you got this, girl.”
Normally, she and me are totally copacetic and on the same page. But when I touched our family’s mortal enemy, that strange sensation…was that what it was? No, it couldn’t be.
Could it?
“Ola? Are you okay?”
Akwasi again. Bringing me back to reality. Back to the room where wolves from both the Michigan and North Dakota packs are cheering loudly.
I look up at my perfect boyfriend and mentally slap myself. Why the hell am I thinking about that dragon supervillain when I have this total package standing right next to me?
“I’m fucking fantastic,” I assure him with a big grin as I join back in with all the clapping and shouting out for my Uncle, the best king North Dakota has ever had.
“Alright, alright, calm down,” Uncle Kyle says on stage, motioning with both hands for everyone to stop clapping already.
But they don’t stop. If anything, the hoots, hollers, and whistles grow even louder. I totally get why the crowd can’t stop cheering. Under Uncle Kyle, the state pack has flourished, moving from a steady mid-level treasury to become one of the top ten richest territories in North America. Real talk 100, he’s leaving me a state that pretty much runs itself. And now that he’s retiring early, everyone in the ballroom wants him to know how much they adore him, including me. Especially me. I pump my fist and jump up and down, encouraging the crowd to keep it going.
As the applause goes on and on, Kyle shakes his head at his subjects, his expression indulgent and exasperated.
My Uncle Clyde isn’t having it, though. His man told the crowd to calm down, so they better do what he says. He holds up a hand. And his eyes slit with what my mom calls a “Leroy Greenwolf” look after my great-grandfather, who fought and shot his way into becoming Michigan’s first black state pack alpha king.
The look itself is hard to describe. It’s kind of like the biggest baddest muthafucka in a 70s prison movie, and everybody who’s ever tried to fight Rocky Balboa got together to make a glare baby.
It works. The enthusiastic audience stops clapping like a switch has been flipped, allowing Uncle Kyle to finally get some words in.
“When I took over as North America’s first openly gay king, many said I’d upend our state’s legacy. They claimed I would turn the kingdom house into a spectacle and earn our pack a reputation as a bunch of wild and hedonistic wolves. They said if I were allowed to take over, I’d hashtag our pack in irrevocable ways. And do you know what my mate Clyde and I would like to say to those haters now, on the night of my niece’s coronation?”
This is where Clyde steps in, the Leroy Greenwolf glare morphing into a crazy face emoji grin as he calls out, “Y'all bitches was TOTALLY RIGHT!”
Just when I thought the crowd couldn’t possibly get any louder, they take it to the next decibel level.
Kyle’s laughing by the time the applause and shouts of approval finally die down. “I could not think of a better person than Ola to keep our non-traditional reputation going. She’s loyal, intelligent, courageous, and fierce with and without hair and makeup. So please join me in welcoming our new queen, the princess of Michigan, and one hell of a she-wolf, Ola Greenwolf!”
My heart leaps in my chest. This is it!
I walk up the stairs, in a glittering gown made entirely of gold-plated nanite sequins and specially customized to squeeze every curve. It feels like I’m floating on air. No role seemed to fit my outsized personality until I started training under my uncles to take over as queen of North Dakota. And now I’ve finally made it to the night of my coronation.
I cross the stage and my uncle, who’s a few inches shorter than me, lifts the heavy gold crown from his head. He pauses long enough for me to get a glimpse of the North Dakota pack’s raised wolf symbol on its front. Then he places the crown on top of my hair, which I had straightened, just so it could fit underneath the ornamental headdress.
“All yours, honey,” he says his eyes brimming with tears.
“Thanks, Uncle Kyle,” I whisper back.
Listen, I’m no crying-ass bitch. Leroy Greenwolf did half-raise me until the age of five, and a few of the older members of the Michigan pack swear I’m carrying around his reincarnated soul. But the tears shining in Uncle Kyle’s eyes make me all that more determined to be a great queen.
Queen Ola.
That’s my official title now. I turn to face the audience’s slightly less enthusiastic applause.
Most of the North Dakota pack clap just enough to be polite—which is fine. I’m new, from out-of-state, and even if I’m dating a famous basketball player, I haven’t proven myself yet. I’ve got time to work myself up to thunderous applause.
However, the male wolves standing toward the back of the room worry me. They’ve all taken the same stance, arms folded tight and jaws clenched with impotent frustration.
Yellow Mountain Wolves. It’s easy to tell because they’re wearing t-shirts, covered in silhouettes of guns underneath camo jackets—which is dressed up for them. They also look totally pissed that the gay king they didn’t approve of is now being replaced by a black she-wolf from another state’s pack. I’m basically their worst nightmare, and I have the feeling that the only thing keeping them from out-and-out booing is all the strapped up Michigan wolves standing between them and the stage.
If great granddaddy Leroy were here, he’d be calling all these sour-faced YMWs punk bitches to their face. And my throat itches to honor that legacy. Too bad Uncle Kyle made me promise I wouldn’t say anything to them tonight. Their small pack is in charge of the North Dakota time gate, so I’m supposed to be nice. You know, politics. The total opposite of hero stuff.
But whatever. I look them directly in the eyes, as I brush their hate off my shoulder. This is my night. And I’m not going to let any enemies, old or new, ruin it.
Besides, my parents are here, cheering and smiling up at me from the front of the crowd. Best distraction from the haters ever. My mom’s eyes are shining with total pride that her daughter’s also an alpha queen now. And my dads are waving their Viking swords in the air. They’re all so proud of me, it almost makes up for Fensa not being here.
Plus, half the audience is made up of visiting subjects from my former Michigan pack. And thanks to the heavy motorcycle boots many of them still wear in homage to our twentieth century motorcycle gang roots, their hooting and hollering game echoes way louder than the North Dakota pack’s anemic clapping and the Yellow Mountain Wolves anger emoji impressions.
In any case, I don’t bother to motion for them to stop applauding. As anyone who knows me would attest, I’m a loud ass. And as short as Uncle Kyle’s speech was, mine is even shorter:
“I’ve been waiting my entire life for this moment,” I shout out to my new pack, keeping it Real Emotion 100.
Then I raise a bottle of champagne in the air, and yell “Let’s light this shit up!”
Chapter Two
DAMIANOS
I’m sitting in the back seat of an early twenty-first town car parked far beyond the North Dakota kingdom house’s front gates. Yet, the applause is so loud inside the North Dakota kingdom mansion, I can hear it clearly. It creates a strange stereo effect as I watch Ola Greenwolf take the stage at her coronation through one of my thrall’s eyes.<
br />
An odd wish suddenly floats through my mind. A desire for an invisible cloak of the sort often described in the upright primate’s fantasy novels and comic books. And though I’ve never been the fanciful sort, for a moment I indulge myself in imagining that I am in the ballroom with the rest of her new subjects. Watching her accept her crown with my own eyes, not those of a dog thrall.
She addresses the crowd with a speech, short and utterly inappropriate.
Of course, it is. My time with her was also short, and significantly inappropriate. Even before receiving the reams of background information on her life, I had the sense that Ola Greenwolf and the word “dignified” had never and would never be used in the same sentence.
But despite her crude nature and her lineage, she has become my sole obsession.
Before our first meeting, there had been what I could only describe as an itch within me. An uncomfortable sensation located so deep inside my belly that no matter how much I rubbed upon my stomach I could gain no relief.
Eventually, I began referring to it as my night pain, for it often plagued me on the eves when I found myself alone in my study sipping on tsipouro. In the months leading up to my first interaction with Ola, my night pain had become quite vexing, but it had been manageable.
That is until I walked down the front steps of my estate one night and found Ola standing there with her fraternal twin sister. Her beauty…it was almost impossible to describe, especially for a drakkon who’d only gained the ability to see as the anthros do less than a century ago. But I found her brown color combination of creamy beige skin, dark umber eyes, and russet hair pleasing, along with her larger than average body proportions.
She stood taller than most females of her species and possessed wide hips and immense teats, which she pushed out proudly when she talked with her hands on her hips.
I would soon find out that she had an over prideful stance and an obstinate mouth, but it would change nothing about my response to her.
Her Dragon Captor (Her Dragon King Duet Book 1): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 1 Page 2
