“Rafe?” she said, her voice little more than a whisper. “Can we talk about that?”
He averted his eyes and shook his head.
“What happened?” she asked.
His face went blank as a television that had been decisively turned off. “I’m not ready to let you come to the house. Not yet. I need…”
He lifted her off of him and turned his body, so he was hunched over next to her, his forehead on his fist. It made Alisha think of Rafesson, the way he would go inside himself when he was upset, instead of seeking his mother out for comfort as his two brothers did.
So she sat up and rubbed Rafe’s back, as she would have their oldest son. “You need time,” she finished for him. “You want me to feel like you felt all these years unable to see your children. You’re not done punishing me, and you don’t trust me not to leave again.”
He didn’t deny it.
“Oh, Rafe…” she said. “You know I could run, right? Now that you let me out of that turning cage, I can go wherever I want and have Janelle file a custody claim with the Lupine Council-she says they'd definitely give me joint custody, might even give me full, considering there are three cubs involved and I raised them by myself this long. According to her, I didn't break any law by time traveling back to the future-mainly because there aren't any laws in regards to time travel. And you can't sue me for kidnapping since the boys weren't born when I left. Janelle says the parenting laws aren't clear cut on this, especially with triplets, but as with human courts, the judge usually errs on the side of the mother.”
A flare of anger broke past all the emotional white noise Rafe was throwing out as he turned to her and said, “Alisha, understand that even the Lupine Council won’t be able to regulate what I’ll do if you try to take my sons away from me again. If you disobey my order to stay here, I will hunt you down, I will—”
She held her hands. “Before you start threatening me again, because that worked so well the first time around, let me finish: I’m saying that’s what I could do, not what I’m going to do, or even what I want to do. What I want to do is marry you. I want us to try to be happy together, not just for the boys’ sake, but because we’re mated. I want us to communicate and act like two people who don’t hate each other. Most of all I want you, Rafesson, Knud, Nago, and me—I want us all to be a family. But I can’t do that if I can’t talk to you, if I can’t trust we’re both going to try our best to make this work, if I don’t know for sure we both want the same thing. So let’s cut the bull and speak plainly. Is that something you want, too? Are you on board with us making a real go of it as mates, with us trying to be a real family?”
The only indication she had that any of her words were getting through to him was his manhood thickening between his legs, swelling to full proportions despite his epic release just a few moments before.
But his voice remained a cold, dead thing. “You want us to be a real family, to be real mates, but what happens the next time we disagree?”
“Then we talk it out. We both act like adults and we talk about whatever it is. But I won’t disappear. We’re in this for life, and I’m promising you right now, I will never leave you again.”
He studied her face with sharp eyes. “That’s exactly what I want to hear.”
She let out a sad breath. She knew Rafe well enough by now to understand what those words meant, especially coming as they did without the restoration of their emotional link. “You’re scared I’m trying to manipulate you.”
Again he didn’t deny it, just studied her with those judgmental eyes.
There was a lot Alisha could have said then. She could have given her word, offered to sign a pre-nup, tried getting him to open up with sex again—he was obviously ready for a second round. But in the end, she knew none of it would work. Rafe had already announced his decision not to let her come back to the kingdom house with him tonight, and this whole “discussion”—it was dressing on the side, an option he’d let get set on the table, but that he had no intention of putting on his plate.
She stood. “Listen, Rafe, I just spent a lot of years scared out of my mind that my return spell wouldn’t work and I’d end up mated to someone who only wanted me for my body and the fact that I’m apparently really fucking fertile. I like you. You’re smart and you’re sexy and you’re the father of my children. I don’t mind working for your forgiveness and trust. But I do mind that you have no intention of giving either to me unless I’m tamed. I mind that you don’t want me as I am, but as some completely docile version of me. Hashtag taming of the shrew. Because I’m more than just a body, or a princess, or a chess piece, or some bitch who ran out on you—”
“Here’s what you’re still not getting,” Rafe bit out, rising to a stand next to her. A fireball of his rage hit her as he pointed at her, then slammed his hand against his own chest. “You destroyed me, Alisha. Do you understand that? You didn’t just run out on me, you destroyed me. For years, I fucked myself with my own hand, wondering if you were still alive, if I’d ever see you again—”
He stopped and his face went carefully blank again, like the heated words had escaped his mouth without his permission.
But this time, she didn’t let him retreat. She thought of their heat mating, the way he had insisted her human stay for the duration. “Stay with me, Rafe,” she said, cupping his face in her hands. “Don’t go back behind that wall.”
He shook his head, and his nostrils flared, “I’ve got to get out of here,” he said.
He pushed her hands away and went into the kitchen. Alisha watched, her heart in her throat, as he yanked his clothes back on, recovering his chiseled body.
But when he tried to beeline it for the door, she got in front of him, not caring that she was naked and therefore fully exposed to him without clothes or fur to protect her.
“I’m sorry, ” she said. “I’m sorry I hurt you like that, and I’m sorry I ran away scared as opposed to trying to reason with you. But I’m here now, and I’m telling you I won’t leave you again. Ever.”
Rafe shook his head like she was physically hurting him with her words. “Don’t…”
He tried to get around her, but she dodged in front of him. She didn’t touch him, but she managed to pin him to the spot with her eyes, blasting him with her emotion. Feeling what she felt as truly as she could feel it, willing him to believe in her, to believe in them.
“Let me pass,” he said. An edict not a request.
An edict she ignored. “I want you, Rafe. I wasn’t ready for you back then, but I am now. All of you. I’m ready for you. That’s the truth, and I’ll keep on saying sorry and promising never to leave you again until you believe me. This I promise you.”
She held his gaze for a few moments to make sure her message had sunk in. And only then did she step aside. “Now you can pass,” she said.
And he did. Slamming out of the house without another word.
Leaving her behind, naked and shivering, as she wondered if their relationship, like the dishes now lying in broken pieces on the floor, was entirely unsalvageable.
25
“Father, you be the Fenris here, right?” Nago asked as they walked back to the kingdom house from the Wolf Springs general store. Each of his boys carried a bag with a coloring book and a box of crayons, and they were eager to get home and discover for themselves the joys of coloring that their Wyoming cousins had been going on and on about. Apparently paper had been a precious commodity in Old Norway and it would have never been given to children to color on, much less with delightful lined pictures that had Rafesson, Nago, and Knud oohing and aahing and throwing around words like “wondrous indeed.” Rafe doubted the three boys would stop attracting stares in public any time soon.
But on their way back home, Nago had taken Rafe by the hand to get his attention and ask him this question.
Rafe frowned. “Do you mean am I the alpha?”
Nago nodded. “Yes, the alpha. Everyone has to do what you say i
n this place, right?”
“Yes, that’s right, though not everyone understands that.” Rafe thought of their mother last night, blocking his exit with her big and beautiful naked body, refusing to let him pass until she’d had the last word.
“Then can you make Mama come home? Please?” Nago leaned on the “please,” clasping Rafe’s hand inside his much smaller one in such an adorable way, Rafe could tell the gesture was well-practiced.
Rafe didn’t know whether to be annoyed or impressed. Over the past couple of days, he’d discovered what he’d thought was an age-based deference to Rafesson, was actually a rather smart proxy system. Rafesson handled all of the complex questions, while Knud was in charge of suggesting anything that might be fun. But if there was something they all wanted, something big, then they sent in the big guns: Nago with his chipmunk-sized cheeks and huge brown eyes.
He’d been the one to ask Erylace for cookies before dinner last night and if they could each have their own tablet the day when they’d all gone to the bookstore, ostensibly to only buy books. And now Nago was the one asking if Rafe could defy the tradition Alisha had made up on the spot, and get their mother back. The fact that neither of his brothers chastised him when he asked the question was enough to tell Rafe a discussion had been held between the three of them before Nago put in his request.
Rafe got them their smart tablets, and now he felt the same tug to indulge them again. And, it wasn’t just because of Nago’s soulful, puppy dog eyes—though those weren’t helping. It was also the image of Alisha, sitting naked on that couch, just about begging him to trust her again, to let her in, to let her play the part of wife and mother that she’d run from so many years ago.
He hated her for what she’d done. Hate was an ugly word, but he couldn’t think of another one to encapsulate how he felt about her rejecting him and taking his sons away. His plan had been to punish her. Forever. To rip their child away from her the way she’d ripped that same child away from him. It had been a good, solid plan worthy of an alpha who spent years of long, lonely nights putting it together.
But he hadn’t counted on not one, but three children—the youngest of which was particularly skilled at getting adults to do things they didn’t necessarily want to do. And he hadn’t counted on the change in Alisha’s attitude. The stubborn she-wolf who had given him hell was still there for sure, but she had mellowed with age and unlike him, she’d obviously spent a lot of time regretting her actions.
He also hadn’t calculated on his response to reading Alisha’s journals. It was true, after spotting them in the duffle bag she’d brought back from Old Norway, he’d started to read the first one in the same way he read the annual report of a rival casino resort. With an eye toward what he could use to suit his interests.
But her journals had sucked him in. They were good. Better than good. Well-written and compelling—Rafe hadn’t been prepared for that. He’d stayed up into the wee hours of the morning reading her chronicle of Chloe’s life in Norway, and it had been unlike anything he’d ever read in his wolf studies class, a full accounting of what it had been like for Chloe, a foster wolf, who’d wanted desperately to marry Rafe, her alpha prince, but had been forced into another life in another time.
Rafe had grown up with tales of wolf warriors and kings who claimed the prettiest she-wolves and defended her against all would-be suitors in the same way he defended his weapons against jealous enemies and his crown against all challengers. Rafe himself had always dreamed of being such a wolf, and had been prepared to get and keep Alisha at any cost. However, reading her handwritten biography, which bore no resemblance to the tales he’d grown up with, allowed him to finally understand Alisha’s frustration. Why she’d had the burning need to tell history’s story from a she-wolf’s perspective, one that was missing from most wolf studies classes, even at the college level.
It made his feelings about what Alisha had done… complicated. He didn’t like that. So the night before had been about finally getting some answers from her. He’d wanted to force her into the realization that traveling back in time had been stupid, that she never should have left him to go chase after her book. He’d fully expected to get the argument he’d been spoiling for when he asked her if it had been worth it.
But her “no” had ruined everything, turned his punishment into a game between lovers as opposed to the penance he’d meant it to be. And hours later, he still couldn’t conclusively say who had won that fight, but he knew it hadn’t been him. He thought about the way he had released everything he had into her the night before, his entire body and soul. No, he definitely hadn’t come out the winner in that battle.
And now he was stuck here with his sons, trying to come up with a decent excuse for why he couldn’t let their mother come home. “I can’t control myself around her. I can’t trust myself to keep on hating her,” didn’t seem like answers they’d understand.
“You smell of Mama this morn,” Rafesson informed him, coming to walk on the other side of him. “Our Fenris and Aunt Chloe don’t sleep in a different beds. They go together to their bed closet and many nights, our Fenris did make our queen scream.”
“Please, not another Fenris and Chloe sex story,” Rafe nearly begged. While he understood his sons had grown up in a different time and place, he didn’t think he’d ever get used to four-year-olds who proudly repeated the tale of his killing two Vikings who dared try to claim their mama to anyone who would listen, and who spoke freely and practically about sex.
“Maybe you can try to make Mama scream the next time you do lay with her—” Knud suggested, falling in beside Rafesson.
Rafe cut him off right there. “Little dudes, I don’t care where you were raised. In this time, men don’t discuss what’s going on in their bedroom with their four year old sons.”
“Does Mama have pens?” Nago asked.
“What?” Rafe asked, confused by the sudden change of topic.
“Last winter, Mama’s only pen stopped writing. She was very sad, said she can’t do her work,” Rafesson explained.
“She cry and cry for many days. Without stop. And she did not wash her body.” Nago said. “Aunt Chloe made us sleep with Fenris Junior and Olafr. She made Mama go to the cabin by herself for two full moons. We missed her very much. But it’s okay. She stopped crying and came back to us. She said she was sorry for scaring us. She said she would not leave again, but…”
“We came here,” Knud said, his voice dark and glum. “And she’s gone… again.”
A clear story began to form in Rafe’s head. Alisha had used her last pen and had a nervous breakdown. After reading her journals, he could well imagine. She was living in a place without heat or any kind of entertainment other than simple songs and stories she couldn’t understand told around the fire. Before her work had gotten her through, but then her last modern pen had run out, in the middle of the winter, in a land where one had to sail several nautical miles to find a simple bottle of ink.
Alisha, he realized then, hadn’t gotten away with anything. She may not have suffered much recrimination from her family or the community at large, but she had suffered for what she had done. And just like he had given himself over to craziness before finally bringing himself back from the ledge in order to go after his mate, she had let the madness consume her before bringing herself back from the ledge in order to take care of her children.
“She has plenty of pens at Chloe’s house,” he assured his sons. “More pens than she’d ever know what to do with. And Grandma Erylace got her a laptop, so don’t worry, she has everything she needs to do her work.” He thought of her typing on her laptop in her basement cell, and what she’d said the night before about having a year’s worth of events to add to her recording, and it all fell into place. “And she’s probably writing as we speak.”
Knud blinked up at him. “Cousin Sarah said Mama lied to us. She said brides don’t have to stay in another place here. But Mama said you didn’t put her in jail.
And she’s got pens…”
“Knud…” Rafe scrambled to think of a valid excuse for Alisha’s staying at another house.
But Knud kept going. “I think she don’t want to live with you because you don’t want to make her happy like our Fenris makes Aunt Chloe happy.”
Nago’s bottom lip wobbled. “Or maybe she don’t want to live with us because she hates you.” He tugged on Rafe’s pants. “Make her stop hating you, please.”
“She doesn’t hate me,” Rafe said. The scene from last night replayed in his head: I want you, Rafe. I wasn’t ready for you back then, but I am now. I want you now, Rafe. All of you. I’m ready for you.
“Then why is she not living with us?” Nago asked him, with tears in his voice. “I miss her!”
“I know, but—” He stopped.
Seriously, why was he keeping Alisha at Chloe’s house? She was going to be his wife, had claimed she wanted to be with him the night before. Why not let her live at the house with the boys and him and make her prove she was serious about wanting them all to be a family?
At the thought of Alisha coming to his home, of her sharing his bed, his heart constricted. Maybe… he thought, very carefully letting a sliver of hope steal inside his chest, they could make it work this time. Maybe they could reclaim the years they lost. Starting now.
“You know what, your mom doesn’t hate me and I’m going to prove it,” he said to the boys. “How about instead of going back to the kingdom house, we go help your mom pack her things, so she can come live with us?”
The boys cheered even louder than when he’d announced they’d each be getting their own smart tablet and it warmed his heart, because it meant they had their priorities in the right place. As a matter of fact, now that he had decided to forgive their mother, it felt like they all had their priorities in the right place.
Wolf and Prejudice (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2) Page 20
