“You've made a good argument for why Alisha would make a good wife. Now, how about you? Why should I be happy that I’m pledged to you?”
JANELLE FELT LIKE AN ENTIRE SEASON OF STAR TREK, she was fighting so hard to keep her deflector shields up as Mag threw loaded question after loaded question at her. And she had no doubt her princess mask was beginning to wobble a bit as she struggled to answer.
“Well, I’m told I throw great parties. And I’m good at organizing big events. For example, I’ve been in charge of our annual Christmas party and the Arctic Wolf Games for the last four years. If you like, I could throw a party here to celebrate your challenge win. It would be a wonderful way to—”
“So you’re good at throwing parties. Anything else?”
No, actually there wasn’t anything else. She’d also gotten pretty good at understanding pledge agreements, but other than that...
Janelle had never felt so terrible about herself in her life. She wasn’t smart and motivated like Alisha or a social dynamo like Tu. The truth was, she’d been raised to be a trophy wife who threw great parties and kept her looks as long as possible, and… well not much else.
She lowered her eyes, too ashamed to continue holding the gaze of the man who’d managed to see right through her in the space of a single conversation.
“I’m gathering you don’t actually need anything from me at this time, so hopefully you won’t mind that I’ll be returning to Alaska tomorrow. My mother is having trouble planning the annual Christmas party on her own and she’s asked that I come home for a bit.”
She chanced a peek up at him after she said this and found he’d gone completely still. “How long will you gone?”
“I’m not sure,” she answered. “But if you’d like me to plan a Christmas party for the Wyoming House, too, I could…”
She trailed off. His eyes were so cold now, it felt like she was staring at two actual moons—lifeless rocks floating in the unreadable sky of his face.
“Mag? Are you okay?” she asked.
He blinked once, twice, then said, “You don’t have to plan a Christmas party for me. Go back to Alaska, Janelle. I’ll get along just fine without you here.”
It felt like a dismissal and she opened her mouth to offer to plan a special celebration in his honor, a Halloween bash maybe, some kind of salve so they wouldn’t leave things on an awkward note. But the vibration of a phone going off interrupted her.
She looked down and saw his smart phone had lit up with the word “Sofia” and a number that included a California area code. So it was Sofia with an f!
He glanced down at it. “I need to take this,” he said.
She sat there, frozen in place. Was he really going to take a call from another woman while she was in the room?
He picked up the phone. “Hey Sofia,” he said, an easy smile spread over his face. “Hold on…”
His expression wasn’t nearly as easy going when he said to her. “You can go.”
She stood, her movements as stiff as a wooden puppet. Then she walked out of the room as commanded, leaving her fiancé to talk to another woman in private.
19
JANELLE woke up on a gasp in her dimly lit Alaska bedroom. The temperature had started descending, but the last dregs of summer were still holding on outside the window with a sun that rose early in the morning and late at night. Normally she loved waking up to the sun, but today was different.
Today she woke to a strange sound. Like a motorcycle engine revving on idle. Inside her room.
She slowly turned over.
In the middle of the room, staring at her with malevolent glowing moon eyes, stood Mag’s arctic wolf. And that engine sound—it was him, she realized. Growling low in the back of his throat.
“Mag?” she whispered.
The arctic wolf sprang at her, flying through the air with its jaws wide open—
Janelle sat up in bed, clasping her throat, which she was sure was about to get ripped out. But… it was just a dream. Her ragged gasps slowed as reality sank in. It had only been a dream. Neither Mag nor his wolf was in her room. She was alone.
A loud knock sounded at her door, and she nearly jumped out of her skin.
“Honey, it’s me. May I come in?” her mother called.
Janelle’s shoulders sagged with relief. What was this? Scare Janelle day?
“Sure, Mom,” she said, quickly redoing the bun she’d slept in so she’d look as presentable as possible, given that she hadn’t had the chance to put on make-up or change out of the silk nightgown she’d worn to bed. She got up, pulled on the lovely kimono robe that went with her nightgown, and said, “Come in.”
Her mother entered carrying a plastic dress bag with the name of an expensive Fairbanks boutique emblazoned across it. “Vince just brought these on the plane. Dresses for tonight’s dinner party.”
Janelle watched her mother hang the dress on the back of her closet door. “Wow, Vince’s up early.”
“He’s doing all his deliveries now since he’ll have to go pick up Alisha soon.” Her mother took off the plastic to reveal a body-hugging strapless cocktail dress in a rich, dark green with a low sweetheart neckline and a high hemline. The only thing that kept it out of prostitute territory was the intricate lace work and side flounce, which fell in elegant ruffles from the bodice to the skirt.
“Isn’t it fabulous?” her mother asked, clapping her hands together. “I got your sister one in purple and Tu’s is yellow.”
Janelle frowned. “Aren’t we a little old to be dressing alike, Mom? I mean, I have plenty of dresses, and we’re still not sure Alisha’s even coming.”
Her mother hit her with a sharp look. “Alisha is definitely coming and when you’re out representing your husband’s crown, you can pick your own dresses.”
“I’m pledged to Mag, so technically I am already supposed to be representing his crown, not ours.”
Her mother’s gaze narrowed, as if Janelle had suddenly morphed into an alien right before her eyes. “Have you been talking to Alisha?”
“No. Well, not since I came home.”
“Then where is all of this coming from?” she demanded. “You never questioned my wardrobe decisions before. Is it that thug king of yours? Has he been putting ideas into your head?”
Her deeply ingrained sense of respect was the only thing that kept Janelle from rolling her eyes. Her mother had been like this ever since Rafe had taken up residence in the largest of the third floor guestrooms. Before Rafe had asked for Alisha’s pledge, Mag had been the family’s savior, the only way to keep the Alaska crown in the family. But now that Rafe was on the scene, Wilma had come down with a case of selective amnesia, referring to Mag as a thug (though never in front of Rafe) and insinuating anything Janelle did or said that displeased her was due to Mag’s bad influence.
“No, Mom, he hasn’t been putting ideas in my head. I truly doubt he cares either way. I’m just saying—”
“Then where is all of this coming from? You haven’t been yourself since you got back from Wyoming. Questioning my decisions, trying to impose a new agenda on the Arctic Wolf Games…”
Janelle folded her arms across her chest to hold her tongue and stop herself from pulling an Alisha. She didn’t want to escalate their low-grade argument any further, but she was really beginning to wonder why her mother had insisted she come back to Alaska. She and the rest of the Arctic Wolf Games board members had acted like Janelle was crazy when she suggested inviting the Freedom Town pack—which, as it turned out, might actually be a pack of Arctic wolves if Mag was any indication—to take part in the games this year. Afterwards, her mother had suggested she should dedicate her energy exclusively to the Christmas party, and she was fairly sure the board was having meetings without her now, even though she was in back in town and would no longer have to be Skyped in.
“…and now that thug king of yours is coming to Rafe’s dinner, even though he specifically wasn’t invited. What am I supposed
to think except that he’s somehow gotten his crude claws into you? Is it drugs, Janelle? I know they have a lot of that mess in Bad Wolf.”
“We’re supposed to call it Freedom Town now, and of course I’m not on drugs,” Janelle almost snapped, wondering why her mother would be so quick to suspect her of using, yet believe her darling angel, Tu, was just staying up too late, and that was why she slept in nearly every morning these days. “But wait, did you just say Mag is coming to Rafe’s dinner tonight?”
Her mother sucked on her teeth. “Yes, he called yesterday and said to expect him late this morning. And when I told him Vince wouldn’t be able to meet him, he said that was all right, he’d just rent a floater plane. Then I told him we didn’t like humans coming to this place, and he said I could either send a plane or deal with a human flying him out. So I told him he could come by bush plane, but only if he landed on the other side of the lake and rowed into the village, and he said, ‘no problem’ like he was doing us a favor by getting himself here when he wasn’t invited in the first place! And let’s not even talk about how he gave me less than twenty-four hours notice that he was coming. He might be a king now, but he’s not much more than a straight gangster if you ask me.”
Janelle’s eyes bugged. All she’d heard of her mother’s rant was Mag was coming here. To her kingdom town. Today.
“And you’re just now telling me this? Mom!”
DESPITE HER MOTHER’S tardy announcement and how little time she was given to prepare for his arrival, Janelle managed to get out to the dock, which sat in front of their kingdom house, in full hair and make up just as Mag’s umiak appeared on the lake’s horizon. As he got closer, she smoothed her hands over the two braids she’d plaited into her hair with leather strips weaved through them (even though she’d already checked them about a thousand times in the mirror before she’d left the kingdom house). And although she’d ironed her dress herself, she did one more sight check to make sure the modified version of a traditional Eskimo summer dress didn’t have any wrinkles. But no, she was perfect. This dress, like most Eskimo summer dresses, was a cross between a Hawaiian muumuu and the parkas Eskimo women used to wear, with a hood to carry a baby if necessary. However, this one had been tailored (on her mother’s orders, of course) to hug her body like an African peplum dress. She wore it whenever she represented the crown at a traditional event, and she knew the dress, along with her braids, made her look like an updated fashion-forward version of the quintessential Eskimo princess who happened to be half black.
Still, her heart beat an anxious rhythm inside her chest. After their last conversation, Mag had pretty much made it clear the only thing she had going for her was her looks. She’d hate to fail at that, too, even though she could already hear Alisha, who didn’t even “believe in makeup,” calling bullshit on her wanting to look her best for her fiancé.
But all thoughts of her sister’s disapproval left her and her breath caught when Mag came into full sight. He hadn’t put nearly as much thought into his appearance as she had, but then again, he didn’t have to. He cut quite a picture in his jeans and t-shirt as he rowed toward the dock in one of the kingdom’s courtesy umiaks left near the landing strip on the other side of the lake so wolves could row into the village. She’d never had to canoe herself across the lake, but according to Vince, who used to come out to get her before he got his pilot’s license, it was hard work, especially if you needed to get somewhere fast.
However, it didn’t look like Mag was working hard at all. His arms, which were heavily corded with muscle, knifed the paddle in and out of the water with seemingly little effort. The only sign of hard work on his part was how fast his boat advanced through the water.
She smiled when he got to the dock and was surprised to find she didn’t have to fake it. She was genuinely happy to see him. However, she could tell by the look on his face as he docked the canoe that he didn’t feel the same. Was it possible for his face to be even colder than when they had last spoke? Yes. Yes, it was, she realized, as she watched him step onto the dock from the canoe.
Which made what she did next that much more awkward.
Tradition was tradition, she reminded herself before launching into her welcome song with full dance moves. She hadn’t done this for Jeffrey, because—well, ostensibly because she’d been afraid Alisha would ruin the moment with one o her snarky comments, but really because she’d doubted he would appreciate it.
However, Mag’s current reaction to her dance wasn’t any better than she’d imagined Jeffrey’s would be. He stood there, expressionless, while she sang and danced for him, his fist wrapped around the strap of the leather duffle bag he’d brought with him. And unlike the last time she had done this dance for him, he didn’t look amused in the slightest. Which made it feel like every word that came out of her mouth was curdling up and dying as soon as it hit the air, and that her guts would do the same if he didn’t stop with his stony face routine.
She ended the song in a rush, wondering if it was even humanly possible to gather the courage it would take to attempt to Eskimo kiss him again. But as it turned out, she never got the chance.
He stopped her. Not with a physical movement or a look, but with words.
“Your father plans to make Rafe his second instead of me. He went behind my back and offered Rafe a two-state kingship.”
Janelle’s heart clogged inside her throat as all the implications of her father’s actions ran through her mind. Their pledge agreement, she knew from having read it over several times, had been worded in the king’s favor. Mag would be called upon as her father’s second, if needed, in which case the Wyoming crown would receive ten percent of the Alaska crown’s oil revenue and the Freedom Town pack would start receiving an oil stipend just like the rest of the wolves in Alaska.
However, in the new scenario, if Mag wasn’t ever named her father’s second, then Freedom Town would still come under Lupine law with no financial reward for doing so, unless Rafe, as the interim state king, took them in. The new situation was complicated yet simple. Her father would prefer to deal with Rafe, a fellow inherited king, and he’d fucked over both Wyoming and Freedom Town in order to get his way.
This also meant Janelle's pledge would be worth nothing to the Wyoming crown since Mag would receive zero remuneration upon marrying her. In this case, she really did have nothing to offer him but her looks and party planning skills. Janelle swallowed down the lump in her throat.
“You're here to formally withdraw your marriage pledge. I understand and I believe my parents will be amenable to that. I don't think they'll fight you on your decision.”
Mag closed the space between them. “No, I’m not here to withdraw my pledge so your father’s free to pledge you to some big business wolf. You and him don’t get off that easy.”
Janelle was actually impressed by his shrewd prediction. Pledging her to a wolf with enough capital and connections to make up for his lack of title was probably exactly her father’s endgame once Mag dropped the pledge agreement in anger. But if he wasn’t here to break off their engagement, why was he here?
As if reading her mind, he said, “Last time I checked, most wolves outside Freedom Town want to be their she-wolf’s first. Especially when they make the kind of bank your dad’s going to be looking for.”
Janelle’s heart froze as her mind went to the one line in her latest pledge agreement that had given her some amount of pause. It was boilerplate in these kinds of contracts, a clause simply stating that the pledged groom had the right to verify his fiancée’s virginity. And it was rarely enforced in the new millennium except in Southern states with rabidly Christian royals. However, when the clause was enforced and a pledge withdrawn, they had a word for the she-wolf who had not fulfilled her contractual obligations. A very old one that still clung into these modern times: ruined.
He wouldn’t… oh God, he wouldn’t.
But the dark look in his eyes said he absolutely would.
20
“DON’T do this, Mag. Please don’t do this,” Janelle whispered, her eyes set to beg. She put her hand on his arm, her face looking like it was about to go into a full crumple. “I know you’re angry, and I’ll do anything you want to address that. But if you enforce that clause, it will ruin…” She let out a harsh breath. “Everything. Please, I’m begging you.”
He could tell she was truly on the verge of tears. But Mag fought to keep his heart hard. She didn’t want him. The only reason she had accepted his pledge was to save her father, and when Rafe had come back to Alaska so had she, because at the end of the day, she’d do anything her parents told her to.
No, enforcing the clause wasn’t exactly fair, since he knew damn well who had taken her virginity. But she deserved this, he reminded himself. Plus, it wasn’t his fault she came from a society with fucked up rules—rules easily manipulated by somebody like him. Somebody who wanted revenge.
Yes, his original revenge plan to expose her for the hypocrite she was, that she’d continued to be all these years, was all the way back on now. He couldn’t believe he’d almost let himself fall into her trap again, that he’d actually been putting plans in place to try and make their marriage work. He’d even been thinking of letting Sofia go lately.
But it was now more than obvious Janelle had been using him all along—with her homey redecorations to the Wyoming house and her welcome back dance—making him believe she might actually give two fucks about him, when she’d been playing him all along. He sneered down at her, resolving himself against the tears shining in her eyes. Only reason she was crying and begging him now, he reminded himself, was because he wasn’t going to let her get away with using him until somebody better came along.
“I’m done with you, Janelle, and tomorrow I’m asking your town doctor to pay you a visit.” Mag shook her hand off his arm and headed to the house. He didn’t want to give her the satisfaction of seeing how deeply she’d hurt him. Again.
Wolf and Punishment (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 1) Page 15
