Her Dragon King (Her Dragon King Duet Book 2): 50 Loving States, North Dakota Pt. 2

by Theodora Taylor

  The healers had offered several cures, including the complete replacement of certain parts of his body. But most of those cures would require a biosystem and Fenris had refused to take such unnatural medicine into his body, much to his children’s dismay.

  But his wife understood. “This time period has been a huge adjustment for me. I can only imagine what it’s been like for you,” she told him after FJ yelled at Fenris for being “stubborn as a boar.”

  FJ had been upset with his father’s decision to cease all medical check-ups. Why waste his remaining time with such fuss? FJ had argued the many reasons why before storming out of their humble home.

  But in his wake, Chloe had patted her mate’s arm and told him, “I can understand why you only want to deal with things you can fully understand. I feel the same way.”

  Chloe and he were mostly happy to be reunited with their family. But they were different from the children who had spent most of their adult lives in Chloe’s future land. These differences were why they’d agreed to live with their sons and daughter-in-law on a peninsula in Michigan but refused to move into the main kingdom house. Instead, they’d made a good home in the small cottage that had been built for the great-grandfather of their sons’ mate. For unlike the kingdom house, this abode was not filled with so-called smart walls which constantly monitored their health conditions and urged them to see a doctor.

  His sons often teased their parents about refusing to step foot into their too intelligent house. They wondered why he and Chloe continued to live from the yields of the little farm they’d set up in their backyard when anything they could ever want could easily be delivered. But both Chloe and Fenris preferred the peace that came with living as they always had.

  Where was he?

  Oh yes, Wiltonia, the bride was coming over the covered bridge now in a red gown embroidered with gold. Their great-granddaughter looked so splendid in red, and her tawny brown face glowed with happiness as she walked toward her groom on Odin’s arm.

  Fenris continued to call her father Odin, even though he’d confessed soon after their arrival in this future land that he was actually not a god, but an alien who could manipulate their minds.

  It was too much witchcraft for Fenris to fully comprehend, so he’d continued to call his grandson-in-law by his god name. And after a few feeble attempts to correct him again, he gave up.

  So you see, Odin was a wise god after all.

  Where was he?

  Oh, yea, FJ was still complaining about the twins not choosing one of their beloved grandfathers to walk them down the aisle.

  “That serpent is her father, and you know, that’s who’s supposed be walking my great-grandbaby down the aisle,” Chloe pointed out, raising a hand to pat their son’s still broad shoulder. Her hair was snowy white now, as was his own. Unlike their sons and daughter who kept their hair a brilliant and lustrous red and their skin perfectly smooth thanks to nanotech anti-aging magic, Fenris and Chloe cared not if they looked their age.

  “Is it?” Olafr asked his mother with the same nasty look upon his face as his brother. “We may not have such an opportunity again. There is still Adoni’s wedding next month, true. But many brides don’t bother with handoffs these days. Remember how Koko claimed it was an outdated and insulting tradition when I asked her why Mag did not give her escort down the aisle at her wedding to that serpent Amaru?”

  “You two need to stop calling the dragons serpents,” Chloe chided them.

  “Yes, you really do,” a dark resonant voice said in front of them.

  “Yeah, Dads.”

  They all looked up to find Damianos and Ola, glaring at FJ and Olafr from the row in front of them. “Grow up and get with the times, already,” Ola said, jiggling Adoni’s newborn on her hip.

  In truth, Fenris thought his sons very modern. They both had biosystems and had developed the rather odd modern preference for mostly indoor living. They had accepted the strange ways of this time period where females could be males and make use of strange pronouns. And they had cheered as loud as the former King and Queen of Oklahoma at the wedding of their son Qim Wulfkonig when he’d kissed his new bride…Leo “Spidey” Nakamura, the male human cousin of Knud’s wife, Layla Rustanov-Nightwolf.

  However, his sons refused to accept that so far none of their progeny had mated with beings who weren’t descended from dragons. Even Eos, the newly appointed King of Michigan had heated and married Perla Deslobo, an Arizona alpha princess who turned out to be partly dragon. Or as their plainspoken Ola had referred to her, “That desert princess who just didn’t think our family chronicles were dramatic enough.”

  Most recently, Adoni, Ola’s daughter had announced her engagement to a Russian dragon no one had heard from in hundreds of winters—one whom her father had at one time tortured into madness. But somehow Adoni’s and Chudu’s love managed to heal that rift.

  “After a whole, whole lot of drama, of course,” Ola had said while toasting the birth of her first granddaughter at the family’s annual winter holiday gathering. “But you know that’s just Tuesday in our family,” she’d said, aiming a wink at Chloe and Fenris. Then she’d raised her glass and said. “Here’s to that good ol’ Viking Wolf romance curse.”

  Fenris and Chloe had laughed heartily and joined their family in giving great cheer. But after they lowered their glasses, Chloe chided her granddaughter, “All us she-wolves think it’s a curse until we realize what a blessing it is to find such love.”

  Fenris couldn’t help but believe their brash granddaughter was in full agreement with Chloe now. Ola and Damianos presented a formidable united front, holding hands as they both glared at FJ and Olafr.

  However, if either of their sons felt any remorse for their slur, it did not show upon their faces.

  Olafr merely held out his arms out to say, “You promised we could hold the baby during the ceremony, Daughter.”

  Ola shook her head at him. “You’re really expecting me to give you a hit of great-grandbaby crack after I caught you talking out the side of your mouth about dragons? Again?”

  “Yes, we’ve only a few weeks before she becomes a toddler” FJ whined. “Also, you promised.”

  “No, I didn’t! I purposefully didn’t promise that just in case you two decided to act a fool.”

  Ola remained the stubborn queen still, Fenris noted, even though her daughter Adoni now oversaw North Dakota and her son, Basileios sat upon the serpent—ah, dragon throne.

  But Chloe was also a former queen. And in the end, she proved herself a master of diplomacy by convincing them all to let their sons’ wife, Grandma Tee, hold the baby, just as the bride reached her groom from the Orient.

  What was his name again? Oh yea, Ao Quong.

  Fenris remembered how Willie had quietly confessed their story to him after Ola’s mocking toast.

  “I’d had this recurring dream for as long as I could remember. I’d be walking on a bridge with my husband and my son. So when Ao Quong came to consult with me and Eos about a problem with the fating portals, I recognized him immediately. And as it turned out, he’d been having the same dream, so he recognized me! We just knew. No drama whatsoever, so I guess I’m breaking with tradition. But I can’t wait to marry him at the Lunar New Year. I’ve literally been waiting for him most of my life.”

  Fenris had laughed and patted her hand, before confiding. “Oh, we all ‘just knew’ as soon as we gazed upon each other. You and your mate are only the first ones to be not too stubborn to admit it. Mayhap you are proof that we are…what is that word your father Odin is always going on about? It starts with an e…?”

  “Evolution?”

  “Yes! You and your mate prove we are evolving.”

  And now here his quiet granddaughter was, getting married in the middle of a Chinese garden covered in snow. Why was it not cold inside the pagoda which had no walls separating it from the outside? Fenris could never be quite sure how things worked in this future land, but he imagined it was
due to the magic the people of this time call climate control.

  Whatever the reason, it was a lovely setting for the wedding that had finally broken the Viking Wolf curse.

  Where was he?

  Oh, yea, time to sit down.

  That was even harder than standing up, though this time, he did not wait for Olafr to assist him. Mayhap that was a mistake. He was sweating by the time he plopped himself down.

  “Are you alright, baby?” Chloe asked him, a worried look passing over her beauteous face.

  No, he was not certain he was all right. He felt weak in a way he never had before.

  The church blurred, and suddenly Chloe, young and stunning, stands in front of him, speaking a strange language he cannot comprehend.

  He has never seen the like of her dark beauty in his land or while traveling. But this she-wolf…she is his fated mate. Of that he is sure…

  Suddenly his fated mate is locked inside a cage, writhing on the floor and smelling of heat. She tells him to stay back in her strange tongue, but he uses the pendant on his necklace to unlock her cage. This she-wolf…she is his destiny…

  “No! No! You can’t send me back!!” his dark beauty screams at him while lying in the dirt outside their longhouse. She is covered in the blood of his vengeful cousin, who attacked her while Fenris was out with the other North Wolves on a traditional wedding hunt. She is also in the early stages of labor. Too early labor. Their bairn will be arriving too soon.

  Despite her crying protests, Fenris answers, “I must, beauty. Your wound is deep and your waters have already broken. You cannot shift to heal, and we have no human medicine in the village. There is no other way.”

  “No, I don’t want to leave you!” she sobs. “And you said you wouldn’t abandon me.”

  Oh, how his heart shatters at the sight of her tears.

  “And I will hold fast my promise. I will find a way back to you, beauty.”

  “How?” she asks, knowing as he does that what he is saying is impossible.

  Yet Fenris is certain he speaks truth when he answers, “I do not yet know. But I will. I promise you this on my life. I will be your mate and a father to our pup, and we will be as one again.”

  He vows this, then he kisses her sweet lips before saying the words to send her back to her own time.

  His extended family is all around him now, talking about how he has most certainly gone mad. He has done nothing but sit outside the longhouse chanting a spell to return to his mate for the last several seasons. His kin implore him to take another mate and warn him that if others outside their village hear of this, he will surely be overthrown as fenrir of the North Wolves. Only Aunt Bera, the sorceress who communes regularly with Odin and acquired this spell for Fenris, does not try to convince him to stray from my efforts.

  Fenris does not answer the naysayers. The only words he speaks out loud are those of the spell that will reunite him with his mate—

  Without warning, a tunnel opens up in front of him and sucks him in. Fenris is shot once more like an arrow through time. And when he opens his eyes, there is his Chloe, standing over him in a place of healing. They are reunited once more….

  Their second child arrives inside the longhouse while Fenris waits outside. Afterward, his sorceress aunt carries the squalling baby to him and tells him, “Your mate wishes for her to be named Myrna.”

  “Yea,” Fenris answers, taking the bairn in his arms. “Myrna is a good name for a strong girl.”

  He almost loses his Chloe again with Olafr’s birth. She lays in bed bleeding for days afterward, her skin sticky and hot with fever. In her delirium, she gives him final instructions for the children. “Tell them I’ll miss them in heaven. Tell them I loved them. Tell them I loved you, so they should listen when you tell them stuff.”

  Fenris never tells their children any of those things, including that she said them. Chloe survives, though she is weak for months after their final child’s birth.

  Her ex-fiancé shows up in their village to fight for the hand of the she-wolf, Alisha, who has crossed time to escape him. An ocean of fear roils his stomach as Fenris watches Chloe and his boys run to meet her ex-intended, the Futureland male called Rafe. Will Chloe still love him after setting her eyes upon the wolf to whom she was originally sworn to mate?

  But there is no need to worry.

  Before day’s end, Fenris watches Chloe wave a gloomy-faced Alisha and her sons off cheerily. And she barely glances at her former intended, Rafe, before he says the spell to return them to his timeline. She is a bit sad after her dear friend’s departure but concludes… “I think Alisha and Rafe are exactly what each other need. She had plenty of opportunity to take another husband, but she remained faithful to him even though they were hundreds of years apart. Plus, they’re fated, and fated mates always work it out, right?”

  Right.

  So many memories flashed through his mind, faster and faster.

  Until suddenly his white-haired dark beauty was back in front of him, her face creased with lines that have little to do with her age. “Fenris? Fenris? Talk to me, baby.”

  Fenris spoke as she bid, though it took all his strength. “Chloe…it was so pleasing…this life…with you.”

  Then he closed his eyes and the life he loved so…

  It faded away.

  “Fenris…Fenris…”

  Fenris blinked awake. It was Chloe again, but not the version he faded away from. She was much, much younger. The same beauty who kept him from killing her fiancé with strange words he could not comprehend.

  “Chloe?” he tried to sit up, only to find he had no body to command.

  “What is happening?” he asked the beauty, smiling so serenely at him. “Why can’t I move?”

  “I can’t move either. Does it look like I am?”

  “No,” Fenris realized squinting at the vision. “You are here but you are like a memory. The picture I kept in my head when I chanted over my sword for your return.”

  “Same,” she said. “It’s like I can see you so clearly, but you’re not here at all. And neither am I.”

  “Heya Chloe and Fenris!” A voice suddenly boomed out. Coming at them from seemingly every direction. “Sorry for any upset you might be experiencing, kids, but we find it best to process you fated mates at the same time, no matter your passing dates. Or else we’d have to listen to a whole bunch of “Where’s my fated mate?” while we’re trying to fill ya in on what’s what. I don’t want to say you guys are the worst, but you kind of are, so yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”

  “Are you…are you hearing this?” Chloe asked Fenris.

  “I hear a strange voice, yea,” Fenris answered. “Do you hear it too?”

  “Yes, I hear it too. A voice with a 70s-era New York accent.”

  “Hey, I like Robert DeNiro’s voice in Taxi, so I took it. Sue me. Oh wait, you can’t because I live on a plane of existence you 3Ders can’t even begin to understand. So haha, joke’s on you.”

  “Fenris?” Chloe said again. She sounded scared, though her image remained placidly smiling.

  “Aw, calm down. I’m just Clarence, your friendly neighborhood processor here to give ya your options. Because you’re both dead now.”

  “I’m dead too?” Chloe asked. “I mean I saw Fenris go, though he’s young again now. I was so sad.”

  “Yeah, so sad your own ticker gave out. You died of a broken heart less than two months later. You fated mates do that every time. Literally can’t live for long without each other. We even had a few of ya drop dead a few minutes after. Processing nightmare. Have I mentioned you fated mates are the worst?”

  “Show yourself!” Fenris demanded. He did not understand much of anything this voice was telling them, and his frustration made him wish for his sword.

  “No can do. Tried that a few times and it immediately turned your feeble brains to mush. Couldn’t even process the consciousness after that. So new rule—that’s not really new because space and time is
n’t really a thing on this dimensional level—no showing ourselves to the 3Ders when we’re processing you. Sorry about that.”

  “So what is this processing stuff?” Chloe asked. Fenris noted that she sounded much calmer than him. “Are you deciding whether we deserve to get into heaven?”

  “Well, you know it’s a system, uniquely designed to the individual—save for Fated Mates because you’re always going on like, ‘No, Higher Being Clarence, we couldn’t possibly do anything individual. We can’t be without each other. Boohoohoo! But that’s just me assuming. Maybe you two do want to take separate trips to Valhalla and heaven? Whaddya say? It’d make my life a whole lot easier.”

  “No! I don’t want to be without him,” Chloe cried out at the same time Fenris declared, “I will never be parted from my mate!”

  “Like I said, the worst. But fine, for Fated Mates, we got a coupla special offers. First offer: you can enter our reincarnation program. We put Fen-Fen in Modern Norway and Chlo-Chlo back in Modern USA—as humans this time. You both do this life thing all over again. Maybe you find each other, but most likely you find other spouses who ain’t ya fated mates and make my job a whole lot easier the next time you come through for processing.”

  “What is the second offer?” Fenris immediately asked, not liking his chances of finding Chloe again on what had turned out to be not a flat land of thousands but a large ocean-covered ball with more people than he could ever hope to count.

  “You go to the story multiverse.”

  “The story multiverse?” Chloe repeated. She sounded just as confused as Fenris.

  “Yeah, we’ve got this one Earth in the multiverse. It’s a lot like yours, but not quite as advanced. They’re still pretty far away from nanotechnology and nowhere near the quantum leap. No Go Rodriguez, so no biosystems. And no Alexei Rustanov, so his wife never became president. No werewolves or dragons either—they’re just a myth.