“Please don’t cry, Mama, I’m so sorry,” she said over and over again until the queen came to a hiccupping stop.
The Alaska queen wiped her eyes with as much aplomb as she could, considering she’d just been a sobbing mess. Then she said with a watery laugh, “But, girl, when you came back, you came back big. Triple grandbabies! I can’t even believe it. And your daddy’s on Cloud 9 you named Nago after his father—though would it have killed you to name one of them Leroy?”
“Well, it’s Eskimo tradition to name your kids after deceased relatives, and Grandpa’s still alive,” Alisha reminded her.
The queen pursed her lips. “You don’t know that. He could have died while you were running around with that Chloe girl and her damn Vikings.”
“He’s still alive,” Alisha answered. “If he wasn’t, you would have led with that, because it would have been the perfect guilt trip. Plus, he’s nearly as ornery as you. He’s never going to die.”
The queen harrumphed, which meant Alisha was right and her grandfather continued to enjoy the best of health.
“But tell me about him and Janelle and Tu and you and Dad. I want to know everything.”
“Well, you're right, your grandfather is still going strong. Acting like he's still the king even though he hasn't lived in the kingdom house for over twenty years. Drives my big brother crazy. Janelle is good, too. Her and that thug king of hers seem happy, I guess. And Mag's doing an all right job as your daddy's proxy-at least nobody's put forth a challenge for the Alaska crown yet, so we've been feeling pretty secure.” The queen threw her a sly look. “Especially now that you're back here with, count 'em, three possible alphas.”
“And how about Tu?” Alisha asked before her mother could start assigning the boys state crowns. “What’s she been up to? Has she gone into heat yet?”
The sly look fell off the queen’s face. “Tu ran into a few problems after you left. Started messing with the wrong crowd.” The queen’s mouth tightened around her next word. “Drugs, too. She, um, fell in with the Alpha Prince of Oklahoma.”
Alisha gasped. She'd never met anyone from the Oklahoma kingdom family. Oklahoma was a mange state. The kingdom pack was poor with few resources, and the little she knew of them was from the punch lines of trailer trash and meth addict jokes. The only thing a mange state's alpha prince would have coming to him was his title. And after all the effort her mange state-born mother had put into “bettering herself” after she was unexpectedly mated by a rich king, Alisha knew Wilma would rather Tu marry a rich and powerful common wolf with no royal pedigree than a mange state alpha.
“So Tu’s in Oklahoma now?” she asked.
Her mother shook her head. “No, we got her out of that mess. She lives with Janelle now.”
“And how about her cub—”
Her mother cut her off with a negative wave of her hand. “We don’t talk about that.”
“What happened?” Alisha asked, honestly worried.
“The cub didn’t make it, and we don’t talk about it,” her mother answered. “Ever, so drop it right now.”
Her mother’s voice was so harsh, Alisha did drop the subject, sensing a story so terrible, she might need to shore herself up for a few more days before hearing it.
Queen Wilma changed the subject with a saucy smile. “Now, let’s talk about getting Rafe to let you out of this cage. He’s mad, but judging by the smell of him all over you, I can see he’s still a wolf when it comes to you.” Wilma let loose her trademark cackle and rubbed her hands together, a plan obviously already forming inside her forever-scheming brain. “You sure you don’t have anything sexier than that to wear?”
20
Rafe spent pretty much all of Thursday arguing with Alisha’s parents, reasserting his authority as alpha of the state they were visiting, and reminding them (along with himself) of what she’d done. Then he had to defend his actions yet again against his own parents.
The same people who had cursed Alisha right along with him after she’d pulled her disappearing act, were now acting like she deserved a state’s welcome and every luxury because she bore him three sons in one heat session. They were giddy with excitement over the possibilities. And they’d spent most of the day talking about who would be given what state crowns, with Alaska, Colorado, and Wyoming all in play, since Mag and Janelle had only had daughters so far.
Rafe begrudgingly admitted to himself that Alisha might have a point about their parents and the Game of Wolves. It was obvious they all cared far more about the results than the deeds when it came to Alisha, and all seemed to be forgiven now that they’d gotten the results they wanted.
It also didn’t help his case for caging Alisha that his three sons spent the day following the Alaska queen around like—well, like three lost puppies, whimpering and rubbing up against the legs of her leopard-print jumpsuit all through dinner.
“Oh, poor little things,” she said, bending down to scratch behind their ears. Seemingly on cue, this caused them all to dissolve into a pleading whine that grated on Rafe’s ears. “They want their mama. Boys need their mamas.” She gave Rafe a pointed look.
Rafe set his napkin down and pushed back from the table. “If you’ll excuse me, I have some work to do. I’m still catching up after traveling more than a thousand years back in time to retrieve your daughter and the three grandsons you never would have known about if she’d her way.”
“She says she had a plan,” her mother answered, pulling Knud into her lap and feeding him bites of steak directly from her own plate. “In three weeks, Janelle would have written down a special sentence they’d pre-arranged, and Alisha would have used the written word spell to come back here.”
“And did she say anything about who outside Janelle she would have let know she was back?”
The Alaska queen clamped her lips, but still she defended her daughter. “Those years weren’t a vacation for her. She’s learned a lot, and I’m sure she would have found a way to let us know about these grandbabies.”
“Feel free to keep on believing that,” Rafe answered, standing up. “Meanwhile, I’m going to go consult with Grady about putting in security cameras at the house, just to make sure no one thinks about rushing my decision along.”
Wilma’s eyes narrowed and she opened her mouth to answer, but King Tikaani laid a hand on her shoulder. “Wilma, he’s the alpha here. We need to be respectful.”
Wilma screwed up her face like she had several lemon slices inside her mouth, but she stayed quiet as Rafe walked out of the room. However, as soon as he was out of the dining room he heard Wilma declare to his three sons, “You’d probably turn back human if your mama was here, right?”
He tore out of the kingdom house, but he ended up walking right past Grady’s trailer and soon, he was ripping open the door to Chloe’s house. He didn’t even make a pretense of checking over the property. He beelined it toward the basement.
He found Alisha sitting on top of her cot, with a laptop on her lap. Her wild curls were now pulled up into a bun on top of her head, and she looked less like a professor and more like a student, she was so focused on whatever she was typing into the computer. But she stopped, her fingers freezing in place over the keys, as soon as she saw him standing outside the cell. Then she quickly put aside the laptop and jumped out of the bed, like an Army corporal caught lazing around in her bunk.
However her newfound respect for his command didn't bring Rafe any joy, because if he'd thought a few days in jail would make her any less attractive, he'd been wrong. She was now dressed in a neon pink razor back tank and yoga pants, an outfit someone else must have given her because, unlike the bulky sweats and sweaters he'd left for her, these clothes hugged her curves perfectly. Rafe couldn't keep his hungry eyes from checking her out and he wondered why it felt like Alisha was the one holding all the power, even though she was the one locked behind bars.
“Hi,” she said softly, her voice shaking a little.
And to his su
rprise, he actually felt nervous, too, even though he had no reason to be with her in there and him out here and a whole lot of heavy, steel-reinforced bars between them.
“How are the boys?” she asked.
“Fine,” he answered. But then he admitted. “They’re refusing to turn back into humans and it’s become an issue. They keep hunting down small animals and my mother’s afraid they’re going to eat somebody’s cat.”
To his surprise, she laughed. “Well, they wouldn’t realize the difference between a cat and small vermin. Back then, cats were primarily a means to get rid of mice, and that’s what Viking werewolves used the cubs for.”
“They used cubs to kill mice?” he asked, curious despite himself.
She nodded. “That’s what made their culture so fascinating. Everyone had their place, with duties bestowed upon them from the time they could walk in human form. It was the children’s job to keep the mouse population down and they took it very seriously.” She came over to stand directly on the other side of the bars. “Did you try telling them to turn back into humans and stop killing small animals?”
“Why would they listen to me and not my mother?”
She shrugged. “Because they’ve been raised by Vikings. Even though they never knew you, they’ve been trained from puppyhood to obey their father and their alpha in all things. And you’re both to them.”
Her acknowledgement of his status struck him silent for a moment. It wasn’t an acquiescence on her part, or even an apology, but Rafe could feel its significance down to his bones.
His eyes shifted to the bed. It wasn’t nearly big enough to hold both her and him. If they tried anything, they’d break it. But… suddenly an image of her touching herself while thinking of him came into his mind. He could see her pinching her own nipple, pretending the fingers doing the pinching were his and working four fingers in her pussy—all bunched together, so that she could more easily imagine they were a cock, Rafe’s cock pounding into her until she… she turned her face into the pillow and came with a muffled whimper.
It was a fantasy. Had to be one, even if the scene had played out as graphically as a movie inside his head. But that didn’t stop his body from responding. His sex became heavy inside his jeans, as hard as the cinderblocks that composed the basement walls.
With deliberate purpose he shifted his eyes from the bed to the laptop she’d left on top of it.
“What were you working on?” he asked.
“Nothing,” she answered quickly. Then she shifted, seeming to make a decision. “Actually, that’s a lie. I’m typing up some notes from my trip, about a year’s worth.”
The confession rose into the ether, joining the nebulous cloud of anticipation, anger, and lust that neither of them seemed to know what to do with.
“Where did you get the laptop?” Rafe asked.
“Your mother brought it to me in exchange for me choosing the wedding dress she wanted me to wear instead of the one my mom wanted me to wear.”
He crinkled his eyes, a measure of his old affection for the Alaska princess running through his chest like a warm breeze. “Letting someone else pick out your wedding gown in exchange for a laptop to work on. I see you haven’t changed much. Work still comes first.”
“Well, it didn’t take much to convince me, really. Aunt Erylace’s choice was a modern take on a traditional Mexican wedding dress, while Mom’s choice would have made me look like an 80s hooker whose pimp had finally decided to marry her. So yes, I value my work, but I’m also bored down here with nothing to do, so that was part of it, too… Rafe, please believe me when I say I have changed over the last few years.”
She regarded him through the bars for a moment with soft eyes. And then she kissed him. Soft but firm, like a punctuation mark.
“I’m sorry,” she whispered. She kissed him again, this time letting her tongue flicker across his lips. She tasted like tangerines, one of their mothers must have brought a few of them to her before dinner. “I’m sorry. Just tell me what you want and I’ll give it to you. Anything…”
Rafe groaned. “Anything,” he repeated, capturing her lips with his. He pressed against the bars, cursing himself for putting them between him and his queen.
“Anything,” she promised, kissing him as furtively as he was kissing her. “Just let me out. Please.”
And the spell was broken. Rafe pulled back and he could see what this scene was missing. Arousal on her part. She held his gaze in a way that should have made her seem trustworthy, but instead he could almost feel the calculation going on in her head. “You’re playing me.”
“No,” she said. But she balled her knuckles against her temples, the same way she always did when she was trying to come up with a new plan. “I just… I’m a mom, Rafe, and I need to see the boys. I will apologize however you want me to apologize and do whatever you want me to do and act however you want me to act, and I promise I will marry you and toe the line from now on. But please let me see them.” She fell to her knees. “Please, Rafe. Anything you want. Just let me see them.”
So apparently the new plan was begging. He pushed away from the cage, his heart icing over.
“PLEASE, RAFE,” she screamed behind him as he walked up the stairs. “You can’t keep me down here! You can’t…!”
Then her voice dissolved into tears.
The sound of her crying followed him all the way out of the house, making it harder than he would have liked to stay angry with her. As he walked down the main road back to the kingdom house, he found himself swiping at his own tears, ones he couldn’t stop despite the newly refreshed anger beating inside of chest. She had tried to use sex to get him to let her out of the cell. And it would have worked, too, if he hadn’t had the good sense not to trust himself with the cage’s key earlier in the week. If he’d still had it when she initiated a kiss with him, for the first time ever, he would have had her on that bed before he could even stop to think about it.
He would have taken her so hard, and in so many ways that little cot would have broken under the weight of his passion, and he wouldn’t have had any choice but to let her out of the cage.
He swiped at more tears. It felt like his chest was breaking apart, the sadness was so overwhelming. What the hell was wrong with him?
“Hey, man, stop crying,” a voice called out in front of him. “That’s not a good look for an alpha.”
Rafe wiped more tears out of his eyes to unblur the image of the man walking toward him.
It was Mag. His former friend. Here in the flesh, smiling at him despite the animosity of their last face-to-face, which would have ended in punches if Rafe hadn’t decided at the last second to call off the friendship rather than lower himself to Mag’s level.
“What are you doing here?” he asked. The surprise of Mag’s unexpected appearance momentarily eclipsed the sadness he’d been battling to suppress.
Mag shrugged. “Time travelling sister-in-law finally reappears five years later with triplets. You know the aunties are going to want to get in on that action. The only reason it took us this long to fly out here is because we only found out yesterday through the gossip grapevine, and Janelle’s pissed your mom didn’t tell her. They’re in there having it out right now, which is why I’m out here.”
Rafe shook his head. The Janelle he used to know never would have argued with her mother and had been docile to a fault. But he guessed the Janelle who had refused to tell him where Alisha had gone, despite his many threats, had decided to stick around.
“That bad, huh?”
“Like Wolf War III. I would not go in there if I were you.”
“How about the boys? You didn’t leave them in there with Janelle and her mom, did you?” A sliver of guilt went through Rafe as he realized he hadn’t exactly been doing his part as far as they were concerned.
A good father would have done what he could to ease his sons’ transition into their new world. His instincts told him that was what Alisha would have done, reass
ured the boys and shielded them from the worse of the drama going down in the kingdom house. Their refusal to come out of wolf form had thrown him, but his latest blowup with Alisha had not so gently reminded him if he wasn’t going to let them see her, then he had to start being both a father and a mother to them.
“Don’t worry, Tu took them out of there as soon as Janelle and her mom started going at it. They’re all playing in the side yard with my girls.” He smiled. “The girls are loving their wolf cousins, by the way. Closest they’ll ever get to having a dog, I guess.”
“Yeah, I bet,” Rafe said. Unlike humans, most werewolves didn’t keep dogs as pets. They considered it weird, demeaning, and unnatural in the same way most humans wouldn’t ever keep an ape as a pet. But children were children in both species, and most werewolves had memories of begging their parents for a pet like the ones humans had on TV and then having it explained to them why they would never, ever get a dog.
“So they’re not wolf-trained yet?” Mag asked. He seemed determined to keep the conversation going, as if they were still the best of friends and their multi-year estrangement after Janelle had helped Alisha go back in time had never happened.
And maybe Rafe was sick of only having his disapproving beta sheriff to talk to, because he let Mag keep the pretense going. "I guess they did things different in Old Norway. All the village children were in wolf form when I came to pick up Alisha, including the boys. From what I could tell, they were actually encouraged to walk around as wolves. But they’re in our time now, so…”
Mag nodded. Keeping children from morphing into wolf form whenever they pleased was one of the first milestones of raising wolf children, like potty training. And it was rare to see boys in wolf form on non-full moon nights after the age of three.
“Tu might be able to help you with that,” Mag said. “She had both girls trained by the time they turned two. She could work with the boys.”
Wolf and Prejudice (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2) Page 16
