Answering that question would require him to lie. And he could not do that. At least not in this form. It was not impossible for him to lie to his mate, but the Reverence imperative…well, his need to honor her in all things made lying very difficult.
The one and only time he’d punished her back when they lived in the Ice Age, he was forced to unshell. Technically having to deal exclusively with the drakkon she so abhorred was part of her punishment. But in truth, he doubted he would have been able to act so irreverently and maintain his shell.
But could Damianos?
That was the bet he had wagered when he sent the Nightwolf Triplets away. They believed Ola’s kidnapping to be a move in his cousin’s ultimate plan for revenge.
What they didn’t understand was that Damianos claiming a mate, especially one as impudent as the twin sister of his Treasured Mate, was more dangerous for himself than them. If she’d gone into heat…if they’d mated and produced a son…then he’d be just as overcome by Reverence as he had been after Treasured Mate gave birth to Golden Son.
If that happened, then their exile could soon be over. For if he was in the throes of Reverence, he’d find it as impossible as Xenon had to deny his fated mate her beloved sister. Everything would turn out fine and the twins would be allowed to return to the land of America in Zone 8.
However, if it didn’t…
His flame flickered a terrible blue at the thought. Damianos was stronger than most drakkon. And tenacious. And if his cousin wasn’t swayed by the twin sister of Treasured Mate, then all would come to ruin.
Xenon had been researching Damianos of late on one of this planet’s rustic computational devices. What he’d found out about his cousin had not reassured him.
Damianos had used the solar rotations wisely. And from what Xenon had assessed, he’d god spoken his way into becoming one of the richest and most powerful beings on the planet.
Xenon and his family had managed to hide out from Damianos, but Ola had visited them here. Only once. But once was enough.
If he’d been watching Ola, then Damianos knew where they were. And if he knew where they were, then Damianos was playing with them. He’d let them have their illusion of peace and safety; however, it was only that. An illusion.
If his relationship with Ola did not turn reverent, then it was only a matter of time before he came for them.
At first, when months of morning, noon, and night perimeter rotations had passed without so much as a glimpse of his enemy cousin, Xenon had believed the best.
Ola must have gone into heat. Borne the baby. If not, Damianos would have come for them by now.
But then when three months became four, Xenon began to worry. From what he had gleaned in his studies of the lupinhominids, a she-wolf’s heat came on almost immediately once fated mates were placed in the vicinity of one another. Under those conditions, Ola would have surely laid her hatchling by now.
So then why hadn’t she come to collect her sister?
However, if Ola were dead, the Nightwolf Brothers would have felt honor bound to come tell Treasured Mate of her sister’s death.
But that hadn’t happened either.
He wanted to continue to believe it was only a matter of time before Ola reached out to them. He wished to enjoy these last few days with his family upon the hidden island with the knowledge that they might soon be returning to the land where the twins were both conceived and born thousands of years apart.
But there was another possibility. Dreadful and sickening.
What if Ola were dead?
And what if there was no one left to relay the news of her demise because Damianos had killed her entire family, just as he’d always planned?
What if Xenon and his family were the last targets to be eradicated on his cousin’s list.
“Aw, another perimeter search?” Treasured Mate whined when instead of coming straight to bed, Xenon headed toward their room’s large open balcony. “Eos already did one earlier and I was hoping you might be into searching something else tonight.”
After centuries of giving study to human inflection through the television Damianos had placed in his room to drown out the screeches of his Widower’s Madness, Xenon could easily translate his mate’s words as an invitation to copulate.
His Reverence instinct reared. Demanding that Xenon worship the mother of his progeny in the way she deserved.
But Xenon’s uneasy flame would not let him give in.
“Please, wait for me, Reverence,” he requested over their mate bond. “This perimeter sweep will not take long.”
Xenon did not wait for her answer before stepping from the balcony and unshelling in mid-air. He feared he would not be able to resist her if he stayed and talked.
As it turned out, he was not lying. The perimeter sweep did not take long. Less than a minute into his flight, he saw a sight that extinguished his flame.
Another drakkon upon the beach. Not golden like his son, but the darkest of blues, the same as Xenon. The water still sloshing off his scales told Xenon he was newly arrived. It also revealed how he was able to make it all the way to their beach without detection.
The King of Drakkon had swum up to their hidden world and was now here on this island looking up at the house where Xenon’s two girls were sleeping peacefully.
Rage exploded with Xenon’s flame at the sight to the cousin who had tortured him. The dragon king who had not only taken his crown but forced and his family into hiding.
Well, that all ended now.
No…
Xenon might no longer have been the King of Drakkon, but he would not let his cousin do this. He would not allow that treacherous beast to so much as lay eyes upon the family he held so dear.
Damianos had found Xenon and his family, but he would pay for this discovery with his death.
That resolved, Xenon charged toward his cousin with a blood-thirsty screech.
Chapter Thirty-One
FENRIS
Chloe returned to herself in the days after he came back to their cabin without the pup. She tended to the small collection of goats and chickens they’d acquired for the cabin and she hummed songs he had never heard her give voice to before, most likely from her future land. She also helped him prepare for his delayed hunt by giving him a list of animals she would like to have before the long winter.
“If you happen to see a walrus or something like that when you head north, I could use the fat to make that fried chicken you like so much and we’d have enough left over for oil and stuff like that. But that might be too heavy to drag back here.”
“Do not worry yourself, beloved,” he answered. “For you, I can carry any load.”
“Aw, Sweetie…” she said, pressing a kiss into his clean-shaven cheek in that still girlish way of hers.
And that made Fenris all the more determined to succeed in his mission to bring her animal fat.
She was still not the woman he knew before they lost their children. She didn’t chatter endlessly as she used to when they lived in a longhouse filled with family members. But she also hadn’t cried since the eve he returned to the cabin. Nor had she screamed at him again for not understanding her pain.
However, the pain was still there. It continued to flow over their mate bond, sometimes in slight trickles but occasionally in great rushes.
Fenris did not blame his mate for her sadness. Nay, he appreciated how hard she worked to act as if she were unaffected by the loss of their offspring. And he went along with her play acting. Perhaps if they both pretended in this manner long enough, they would one day find their way back to their old selves.
On the morning of his hunt, he woke his mate with soft kisses to the back of her neck. She did not giggle as she used to when they shared a bed closet, but when she rolled over toward him, her sleepy smile reminded him of the she-wolf he had once known.
He claimed her lips, deeply aware that many morns would pass before he was able to have her in this manner again.
Then he rolled her onto her back and covered her body with his, telling her not with words, but with a deep plunge into her sea how much he would miss her while he was away.
Perhaps she was in a past times mood as well. After eating a fortifying breakfast of porridge and eggs, she escorted him from their cabin.
This was something she used to do when he went viking. Usually for only a few seasons, but once for nearly two springs when the seas froze earlier than expected. This morn she walked with him out of the cabin as she used to walk with him to their bay’s shore, with both arms wrapped around his forearm, and her hands clasped over his.
Then she stood on the top of her toes to press a sweet kiss into his lips.
“You’ll stay safe out there alone, right?” He could feel her fear rippling over their mate bond. Much greater than when they parted the last time for his winter’s hunt.
“Yes, my Chloe. I will return to you. I swear this on my life,” he assured her.
Then he kissed her hard, letting all the love he had built up over their many winters together flow over their mate bond.
It was a silly bit of business. This was merely a winter hunt, not a viking voyage.
But he looked back at her as he left and remembered a time when their entire family had come to see him off. Not just her, but Myrna, a girl of ten winters, Olafr, ever the wolf at her feet, and FJ, sullen because he thought twelve winters old enough to be allowed to come with his father on raids.
Their children were long departed, but their ghosts remained, shimmering like the morning sun.
Fenris turned away from his mate with tears pricking his eyes. And he did not look back again as he disappeared into the woods. As he’d said, it was but a little hunt, and he did not want Chloe to see him cry for the past they had lost.
Two mornings after his departure, he came across an unexpected sight. An ice bear. The kind he used to travel to the most northern fjords to hunt before meeting his strangely sentimental mate. She did not ask that he stop wearing his ice bear coat, but when she first came to his land, she refused to cook, eat, or condone the hunting of an assortment of various animals, including horses and bears.
Not wanting her disapproval, he had ceased seeking such animals out. But her sentiments had relaxed much over the winters, and here this ice bear. He’d heard tales of such bears losing the sea ice too soon to return to their ice caves and being forced to find a hibernation spot in the caves at the edge of their woods. But this was the only time he’d seen one with his own eyes south of the fjords.
The sight of the ice bear stopped him in his tracks. The beast was digging into a carcass. A reindeer perhaps, or an elk. Something it had killed for survival, and now fed upon, blood covering its white snout.
Fenris stared at the bear who had not yet sighted him, calculations running through his head. He only had one arrow left, and he hadn’t brought his sword along because it was too heavy to carry on hunts such as these. But the fat from this bear would allow Chloe to make his favorite fried chicken, its meat would feed them well, and its hide would make for a fine rug or coat. Surely, Chloe would relax her objections for such a prize.
He raised his lone arrow, deciding to take the risk.
But then the wind shifted and a new scent hit his nose. Fenris froze.
For the scent was one he had smelled before. Fire and ash behind a wall of scaled skin. The same as the serpent enemy they vanquished on those fields so long ago.
At least, he thought they had vanquished them. When he turned around, he found a serpent standing before him. Tall as a tree, the darkest of blue, with golden eyes shining above its steaming nostrils.
Fenris instantly rued not bringing his trusted but much too heavy sword along on a hunt he believed would only require his bow and arrows.
Too few arrows. For now, he stood before this monstrous blue serpent hopelessly outmatched.
He would die here this day. He knew this even as he raised his bow.
But before he aimed his sole arrow, he closed his eyes, to deliver an apology to his mate, though he knew she was too far away to hear it, “Chloe…I am sorry. I am sorry I could not keep my promise.”
Escaping his mortal enemy was how he’d first come to his fated mate, but all his spells were spent. And there was no escape to be had from this serpent.
Chloe…
His mate’s name was the great fenrir’s very last thought before he let go of his final arrow.
Part III
“Only a fated mate can save our Fenris and his queen. Otherwise will they perish at the hand of this brimstone enemy, if you and your brother cannot this challenge meet.”
—Sorceress Bera, Her Viking Wolves
Chapter Thirty-Two
OLA
Reconciliation is not possible as we stand. It is best for you and Basileios to return to North Dakota.
The words from the note Damianos left me swirl in my head as I sit in the North Dakota kingdom house with Bazzi perched in my lap.
So that happened.
So that happened.
So that really, really happened.
I’m back in North Dakota, once again being yelled at. This time, in real life, no holo. Myrna and Rafes are here, along with my dads and mom. And both of the other two Nightwolf Triplets for some reason. I guess Rafes was like, “Hey, I’m going to North Dakota with a squad of wolf soldiers to read Ola for filth. Wanna meet up?” And Nago and Knud were like, “Bros’ Trip!”
Anyway, Damianos was right about one thing in the short note he left me. Reconciliation is definitely not possible.
“I’m going to officially recommend a federal trial to strip her of her title,” Rafes announces over the rest of the people yelling at me. “She can’t leave the way she did and then show up here a week later, expecting to finally take over as Queen of North Dakota. No, I won’t allow it.”
“Rafes, please, I know she has to be sanctioned, but a federal trial is too much,” Mom says, shaking her head at my president cousin.
“Is it?” Papa Olafr asks his mate, his voice tight with anger. Usually, he’s our family’s peace facilitator, but he hasn’t looked at me since he and my parents came through the door.
Neither has FJ, who points out to mom, “She forsook us to be with that serpent. She forsook her throne. She is obviously not fit to be queen.”
I cuddle Bazzi, happy now for his fur.
Breaking News, he shifted into wolf form for the first time soon after everybody started arriving, letting us all know with certainty that he was definitely a boy. When that happened with Fensa’s twins, my dads just about threw them a parade.
Not so much this time. Everybody’s too busy yelling to acknowledge the cute wolf pup with the dragon wings extending from his back. And unfortunately, Bazzi’s not sleeping through this fight. His furry head swings back and forth between all the yelling people, and I wouldn’t be surprised if he decided to take flight any moment now.
I mean, I would if it meant getting away from all the people who were currently pissed off at me. Though, no one’s more pissed off with me than me. I’d gambled everything on love and ended up losing just that. Everything…my supposed forever mate…the respect of my family…and now possibly my North Dakota crown.
My heart feels like a ruined punching bag inside my chest. Deflated and no longer strong after taking so many hits.
“We’ve got to take this mind control thing into consideration,” Mom says, doing her best to calm down Rafes and my dads. Since I’m the only one sitting down, it feels like she’s my lawyer, defending me at a trial.
And apparently Uncle Clyde is mom’s co-counsel. “Yeah, that mind control power is a son of a bitch,” her brother says.
“And, the fact is, she is the queen I chose to replace me,” Kyle points out, his voice also full of righteous defense…until he adds, “Also Clyde and I are scheduled to go on an around-the-world wolf cruise in a couple of months, so we’ll no longer be available to govern in h
er place.”
“You’ll have to make yourself available,” FJ answers his brother-in-law, tone scathing. “Just as our mate and I have had to make ourselves available to rule since our successor, Fensa, was forced to go into hiding from the same mind-altering male Ola forsook her throne for.”
“See, it was mind control! We totally forgive her,” Clyde shoots back, seeming to miss all of FJ’s points accept the one that would allow him and his mate to go on their cruise.
“Obviously!” Kyle adds, co-signing that check.
Still not a crying-ass bitch. I know that for sure now after reading that stone-cold note Damianos left with dry eyes. But watching my uncles band together it cuts me somewhere deep. My uncles are everything I wanted for Damianos and me. Loving, bad-ass, and loyal as fuck to each other.
But now I’m here getting yelled at and Damianos is out there. Most likely planning something awful, now that he knows I know about the real power of Reverence. Shame rushes through me. How could I have been so stupid? I deserve nothing less than this verbal smackdown.
“How do we know she’s not still under his mind control?” Rafes asks my uncles. “Is it even safe to let her rule?”
“I guess we’ll find out when Kyle and me are on our cruise, won’t we, little boy?” Clyde answers, folding his beefy arms. You can retire the beta, I guess, but the beta’s always going to flash teeth when he’s crossed.
Rafes glares at him. “I am not a little boy,” he informs Clyde. “And if necessary, I will issue a travel restriction that will ban you, Ola, or any of your North Dakota subjects from leaving this landlocked state, much less going on a cruise.”
Myrna comes to stand next to Rafes, her eyes blazing. “Also, you should apologize,” she chastises Clyde with an extra dose of Viking in her heavily-accented English. “You owe your fenrir a more respectful tone than that.”
Clyde dips his head, probably sensing he’s gone too far. No, we don’t bother with titles as much as we used to, but there’s still a firm hierarchy. “Sorry, President Nightwolf,” he mutters.
Her Dragon King (Her Dragon King Duet Book 2): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 2 Page 19
