by Jane Godman
Once inside their hotel room, Wilder placed Jenny on the bed, removing her clothes and the dressing on her leg. Angling the light from the bedside table so that he could examine the wound on her leg, Wilder winced. Vigo was right. Her whole thigh was a mess. The delicate flesh was swollen and bright red, the gash itself horribly deep. The edges of the cut were puffed up and inflamed and showed no signs of knitting together to heal. Wilder fetched wet towels from the bathroom and gently cleaned her leg. Jenny shivered and murmured, but remained oblivious to her surroundings and unaware of what was going on.
He thought back to when Jenny had taught him the best way to heal an Arctic werewolf. Now Wilder’s instincts were telling him she needed the same treatment. Lowering his head, he tentatively licked the outer edges of her wound. Jenny’s whole body jerked in shock. Holding her hips still, Wilder turned her knee out to the side so he could get better access to her thigh. Some primal instinct deep inside him urged him on, showing him the right way to do this. Not slow and timid, it had to be rhythmic and fast. Wilder felt a trancelike state claiming him, driving him, connecting him to Jenny, to his Arctic werewolf, to their shared heritage. He didn’t know how long he spent tending to his mate the way his body told him she needed, but when he finally raised his head, he gave a soft growl of satisfaction. His Jenny was sleeping soundly.
Throughout the night, Wilder watched over her. Every few hours, he managed to get her to take a few sips of water. Twice more, he bent his head and licked away the poison from her injury, marveling at the way the inflammation was already fading and her flesh was beginning to knit itself together. He called room service and ordered a rare steak. When it arrived, he cut it into tiny pieces. Just as he’d hoped, the smell of blood made Jenny’s nostrils quiver. Holding her in a sitting position against his shoulder, he fed her a few pieces of the meat and felt a fierce sense of triumph when she swallowed them.
Finally, he dressed her and carried her outside, ignoring the stares of the desk clerk who had also looked at them curiously when, supporting Jenny against his side, Wilder had checked in. The little park they had gone to on their first night together was deserted. Laying Jenny down in the deepest snowdrift he could find, Wilder wrapped his arms around her and held her close. By the light of a nearby streetlamp, he saw a soft smile curve her lips. Her shivering stopped and she snuggled closer to him with a contented sigh.
* * *
Jenny opened her eyes slowly. She was cocooned in snow and wrapped in Wilder’s arms, with no idea where she was and no memory of how she got there. It didn’t matter. There was no place else she would rather be. Her injured leg ached, but the searing agony she had been feeling was gone. Although her body was tired, she felt whole again as though the blood was flowing normally in her veins, whereas, just hours before, she might almost have believed her life was slipping slowly away.
“What did you do?” She tilted her head back so she could look Wilder in the face.
“I cleaned your wounds, Jenny. Wolf healing. I licked your flesh, just like you did when Santin attacked me.”
“Oh.” She remembered how she had felt when she licked his damaged flesh. It was such an intimate act, forging her to him in an unspoken bond. Had Wilder felt the same affinity she had through that act? Had he enjoyed it the same way? She felt a blush heat her cheeks as she recalled the orgasmic sensation of her tongue healing his flesh. “Where are the others?”
“They went on without us.”
She sat up abruptly, shaking snow out of her hair. “Wilder, tell me you didn’t break the brotherhood code? You know it was your duty to go on without me.”
His smile did something funny to her insides, making her stomach flip over and her heart beat faster. It was good to know she could still feel that way after what she had been through. “Ah, but I discovered there’s an exception to the code.”
“What is it?”
“I’ll tell you back at the hotel. People on their way to work are starting to give us strange looks for sitting in the middle of a snowdrift chatting.” He helped her to her feet. “Do you want me to carry you?”
“I think I can walk if you let me lean on you.”
“Jenny”—there was that look in his eyes again—“I’ll always let you lean on me.”
It was a slow walk and they got some more strange looks because of their wet clothes, but the cold air on her skin was another reminder that she was alive. More than alive, she felt reinvigorated. When they reached their room, Wilder took her face between his hands. She felt suddenly shy and couldn’t quite meet his eyes. This was Wilder, the man who had shared every secret of her body. What was going on?
“You wanted to know what the exception was? It turns out you can’t leave someone behind if that person is your mate.”
Jenny felt her lips form into a round “O” of surprise. Wilder ruthlessly took advantage of the situation by kissing her. He kissed her as though he was never going to let her go. When her knees started to give way, he lifted her up and deposited her on one of the beds.
“I’m all wet.” Somehow, she found enough breath to protest.
“I don’t care.”
Jenny decided she didn’t either. A huge grin was threatening to split her face in two. “So you couldn’t leave me behind because I’m your mate?”
“You are.” His arms tightened protectively around her. “I love you, Jenny. I’ve loved you from the first minute I saw you, but I was too blind to realize it at first.” Wilder raised his head so he could look into her eyes. “I thought I didn’t want forever, but I do and I want it at your side . . . if you’ll have me?”
She started to laugh. “Of course I’ll have you. I knew we were meant to be together right from the start, I just didn’t know if I could convince you.”
He groaned. “When I thought I’d lost you, it nearly destroyed me. But I knew even before then that I loved you.”
“As long as you got there in the end, Wilder, that’s all that matters.” She shivered and Wilder studied her with concern.
“Let’s get you out of those wet clothes.”
Gently, he stripped her clothes off and carried her over to the other bed. He disappeared for a few minutes and reappeared wearing nothing except a towel slung around his waist. “I need to take another look at that leg.”
Jenny moved into a half-sitting position, propped against a pile of pillows. Remembering the last time she had seen her injured leg, she was almost scared to take a look. When she did peek at it, she was pleasantly surprised. Although the wound on her leg was still deep and red, it appeared to be mending well. The jagged edges of flesh had meshed together. She would have a nasty scar, but there was no sign of infection or swelling.
She looked up at Wilder. “You did that?” Her voice was husky.
“You did the healing. I just helped.”
He bent his head, pressing his lips to the inside of her knee. Then he licked his way along her damaged flesh. The initial stinging sensation was swiftly replaced by a tingling that spread across her flesh, warming and comforting. Jenny lay back, enjoying the unusual feeling that quickly spiraled and became arousal. Wilder was marking her, just as she had marked him when they first met. She moaned, giving herself up to the combination of healing and stimulation.
Wilder’s fingers moved up to the apex of her thighs and she pressed herself eagerly against him. Holding her open with his fingers, he circled her clit gently with his thumb. It was a sweet counterpoint to the magical sensations of his tongue and Jenny sighed, enchantment claiming her. Within minutes, waves of pleasure were crashing over her. The sensation seemed to continue endlessly.
She tangled her hands in Wilder’s hair and he lifted his head, gold eyes gleaming. “I need you inside me.”
“I’m scared of hurting you.”
“You can’t.” A new bond had been forged between them, one that went beyond even what they had before. They had become one with nature, leaving their humans behind when they mated as beasts. Ther
e was no turning back from that moment. Jenny knew she would never again need anything other than Wilder. The look in the golden depths of his eyes as he moved over her and she arched up to him told her he felt the same.
Slowly, gently, he rubbed the head of his cock along her folds, sliding it over her sensitized clit again and again until she hummed with renewed pleasure. His own raging need thrilled through the air between them like an electric current and she felt him holding back because of his concern for her.
“I won’t break.” She reached down between them and gripped his shaft, bringing him to her entrance. He groaned as he felt her welcoming warmth, before pushing slowly into her.
Jenny’s heightened senses allowed her to feel him with a new intensity. Every ridge of his shaft. The silken bulge of his head, the powerful thrust as he drove in hilt deep. Pausing to study her face, he began to rock his hips, sliding all the way in. Then out. Over and over. Maddeningly slow.
“You can go faster.”
Wilder grinned. “I don’t want to.”
Jenny gasped. “Are you trying to torture me?”
His eyes darkened as she lifted her hips, clenching her muscles and drawing him in as deep as she could. “Maybe not.”
He picked up the pace, driving into her hard and fast. Heat rushed through every part of Jenny’s body, radiating out from the point where their bodies connected. She tipped her head back and climaxed on a cry as Wilder claimed her throat, finding his own release and calling out her name. He collapsed onto her, but quickly rolled over so she lay next to him, with her head resting on his chest.
They were silent for some time, before Jenny finally raised her head. “Will you do something for me?”
“Anything.” He pressed a kiss onto her collarbone.
“Take me to Jotunheim. I want to be sure that bastard really has been locked away for good.” She frowned as she grasped at an elusive memory. “And I need to see Gunnar.”
* * *
When they arrived at the compound, they found that the other members of the brotherhood were only a few hours ahead of them. The Arctic werewolf guides who had stayed behind told them that the cage holding Fenrir was too large to be transported in a helicopter, so the brotherhood had been forced to make the final stage of their journey by boat.
“If we could find someone to fly the helicopter, we might get there at the same time as them,” Jenny said. “Even ahead of them.”
“I can help you out there.” Wilder grinned.
“Since when did your college classes include helicopter flying, Professor?”
“I have done many things in my life, not all of them scholarly.”
“That’s right,” she sighed. “I was forgetting I’d found myself an older man.”
“Older and more experienced.” Wilder waggled his eyebrows suggestively at her, before helping her into the helicopter. He was still amazed at the speed with which she had healed. Although she was limping badly and was clearly still experiencing some residual pain in her injured leg, she was able to walk long distances and her strength was returning rapidly. On the short flight from Helsinki, he had noticed the color returning to her cheeks and she seemed to be restored to her usual spirits.
They flew low over the ice floes and snowy landmasses of the archipelago, with Jenny pointing out the occasional polar bear. When they approached the White Island, the most distant island with its distinctive ice cap, there was a vessel anchored in the deep water just off the rocky quadrant. Wilder landed the helicopter and they waited while a smaller boat came ashore.
“How the fuck did you get here before us?” Samson leaped onto the rocks and, without waiting for an answer, swept Jenny up and swung her round and round. Vigo waited until Samson had set her back on her feet before giving her a gentler hug.
“We were worried about you.” Vigo’s grin told her he was equally delighted to see her. Just slightly more restrained.
“How are you getting the cage from the boat onto the island?” Wilder asked.
Samson shook his head. “Can’t be done. The others are removing Fenrir from his cage and bringing him across in another boat. There wasn’t enough room for all of us in one boat, so we came ahead in this one with a sled to transport him from here to Jotunheim.”
A few minutes later, another boat skimmed across the icy water from the larger vessel. Gunnar, Madden, Lowell, and Sebastian alighted, their faces registering incredulity and pleasure when they saw Wilder and Jenny.
“You mean we could have spent the night in a Helsinki hotel and still got here at the same time?” Madden groaned as he stretched aching limbs.
“You could, but how you’d have explained one of your roommates to the hotel staff would have been interesting,” Wilder said, pointing to Fenrir, as Samson, Vigo, and Sebastian lifted the trussed body of the mighty werewolf onto the waiting sled and secured it in place with ropes.
This time, the walk across the rocky landscape felt much different. They weren’t walking into the unknown. Santin was dead and Fenrir was vanquished. Wilder was more concerned about making sure Jenny could manage the uneven terrain. She was slow, but steady, and the determination on her face told him she was going to see this through. Her feelings toward Fenrir were similar to those he had felt toward Santin. From the occasional glance she cast at the figure on the sled, he could tell that Jenny was resolved to see him back in his underground prison.
When they reached the enchanted forest, he was struck again by its beauty and serenity. There were always conflicts between werewolves, but it was never meant to be that way. Angrboda’s wish was that the different packs should live their separate lives, but do so in peace. Every now and then a Santin figure would come along and upset the natural wolf order by trying to take over other territories. Wilder had no idea how long ago the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun had been formed, but the intention had always been to maintain the peace, even if the methods they used sometimes had to be less than peaceful.
Just as they were about to enter the palace, Jenny placed her hand on his arm. “When Fenrir bit off Tyr’s hand, which hand was it?”
Wilder looked at her in surprise. For a moment, he wondered if she might be delirious again, but she seemed perfectly lucid. “At first, the gods asked Fenrir to allow Tyr to use his left hand. Fenrir refused and would only agree to the challenge if Tyr would place his right hand in his mouth. The great warrior god Tyr lost his precious sword hand.”
She nodded her head, the gesture one of satisfaction. “That’s what I thought.”
Chapter Fifteen
It could hardly be said that Angrboda greeted them with pleasure, but it was obvious she was relieved the job was done. Her green eyes darkened with pain as the chained figure of Fenrir was carried past her. The dungeons below the place were a rabbit warren of catacombs penetrating deep into the rocks below the mountain. The goddess led them to the farthest of a series of cells carved into the stone. It was a small square room with iron bars across the front.
“This was the place where Fenrir was imprisoned by the gods.”
Wilder viewed the cell. “This should hold him now that he is chained, but it is the quality of those guarding him that we need to consider. That was the problem last time.”
“The goddess and I need to finalize arrangements for Fenrir’s supervision.” Wilder was surprised to see a look of sadness on Gunnar’s face similar to that on Angrboda’s.
Angrboda drew herself up to her full imposing height. “This is no longer your problem.”
Gunnar sighed. “You know that isn’t true. He has always been my problem.”
Wilder looked from one to the other, bewildered by undercurrents he didn’t understand. “What the hell is going on here?”
Jenny drew him to one side. “I think we should give them a minute.” She beckoned to the other members of the brotherhood to accompany them.
They moved along the rocky corridor, to a point where they were out of hearing of Gunnar and the goddess. Wilder
eyed Jenny thoughtfully. “You obviously know something we don’t.”
She shook her head. “I suspect something. That’s all. When Van Marsh had me locked up in that basement, he asked me if the one who calls himself Gunnar these days was with us.”
“And that made you suspicious because . . . ?”
“Gunnar doesn’t have a right hand.” She said it triumphantly. Wilder was conscious that he was not the only one regarding her as though she were talking gibberish. The other five members of the team appeared equally dumbfounded. Jenny gave an impatient sigh. “Don’t you see? Before he was imprisoned, Fenrir must have known Gunnar by a different name. Maybe that name was Tyr.”
Wilder was about to refute the suggestion when an embarrassed cough made him swing around to face the man who had been his mentor for all this time. “I think I owe you an explanation.”
Leaving Angrboda’s werewolf guards to watch over Fenrir, they made their way back to the main palace and into the reception room the goddess had brought them to on their last visit. Gunnar sat next to Angrboda and took her hand, a fact that made Wilder’s eyes widen. Jenny, noticing the expression, gave him a told-you-so grin.
“Jenny is right. Many centuries ago, my name was Tyr. As the god of law and justice, I was given the task of taming Fenrir. I took the young werewolf and raised him as my son, attempting to tame his wild passions and teach him love and honor. Fenrir is a wolf. He has all the traits of wolfhood. He can be loyal and fearless, show love for his pack, and protect them against all who would harm them. But he grew beyond all expectations and his capacity for destruction raged out of control. When the time came to chain him”—Gunnar raised his false right hand—“I was the only one he trusted. I was forced to betray him and he has never forgiven me.”
“But you lost your hand in the fight against Santin,” Wilder insisted. “I saw it happen.”
“At first, I supervised Fenrir’s imprisonment. Then, when Angrboda became concerned about Santin’s raids on Arctic territory, we decided a powerful force would be needed to curb his ambition. That was when the Brotherhood of the Midnight Sun was formed. In order to lead it, I had to take the form of a werewolf. I couldn’t become an Arctic warrior if I wasn’t whole. Using Angrboda’s magic, I became the person you have known for all these years. My body was complete. But when Santin attacked me with that silver knife, it somehow found the weakness that existed in my original being and I lost my hand.” Gunnar smiled sadly at Wilder. “I know you have always blamed yourself for that, my friend. But my right hand was a part of me that was lost long before you and I ever met.”
