Her Viking Wolves: 50 Loving States, Michigan (30 page)

“
T
iara
, stop this nonsense. You’ve got to eat!”

Evelyn’s in my room again, insisting I eat the dirt she’s trying to get into my mouth. The fork she’s holding smells like lamb. But it might as well be dirt, as appetizing as it is to me right now.

I turn my face away, just like I have with all the other dirt: pork chops, hamburgers, fish, even beef jerky, which I used to love. It doesn’t matter because I can’t stomach the thought of eating any of it.

I just want FJ and Olafr. I don’t need food. I don’t need air. Only them.

But they’re not here.

“Well at least eat some of this soup.”

I shake my head. Then slap the bowl out of her hand when she keeps insisting.

Evelyn curses. She goes and I hear her talking to someone outside the door. About how I’m not eating. About how I can’t go on like this...

Minutes, possibly hours later—I lost the ability to keep track of time shortly after my phone call with Alisha—Evelyn returns with another bowl of soup.

And Yancey.

In seemingly perfect agreement, Yancey holds me down by the shoulders while Aunt Evelyn sits on top of my chest and pours soup through a funnel into my mouth.

It works, but it’s messy. And ugly.

By the time they’re done, Evelyn, who I’ve never seen so much as sniffle, has tears rolling down her cheeks. And Yancey’s in super grim mode.

“We can’t do that every time,” he says to my aunt as he lets go of me.

The pack doctor, who I haven’t seen in any official capacity since he tended to my branding wound on my seventeenth birthday, comes soon after. A needle gets pushed into my arm and blood is drawn. Then my night shirt lifts, followed by the smear of cold goop on my belly and the rub of a transducer.

“Can I talk to you outside?” the doctor asks Evelyn who’s hovering on the other side of the bed. “You might want to call her father up, too...”

They leave.

But only for a little while. Eventually they come back. This time with Dad and Yancey.

“I sometimes see this in she-wolves who have lost their mates to a violent death,” the doctor says to the wolves gathered around my bed, while shining a small pin light in my eyes. “But I’ve never seen a case this severe just for a trip, especially this early on in the relationship. Where did you say the new pack alpha was again?”

“Norway,” Dad answers. “Family business.”

Much like a company whose stock prices depend on public perception, it is never a good idea to announce that your pack’s new alpha is in any way incapacitated. So I guess this is the official family lie until next month, when Dad makes the announcement that FJ won’t be coming back any time soon, and that Clyde will be taking over in his absence.

“Can he come back?” the doctor asks. “I can put her on an IV drip, but obviously that’s not the best solution. And given the delicate nature of her pregnancy, I’d rather have her on a healthy diet that includes solids.”

The “delicate nature of her pregnancy” brings my head up. In my wild grief, I’d very nearly forgotten I was pregnant, that the baby inside me hadn’t up and disappeared along with my mates.

My sudden movement makes everyone gathered around the bed jump as if they’ve just seen a corpse reanimate. Which I guess they kind of have.

“Hello, Tiara—” the doctor starts to say.

“Queen Tiara,” Evelyn reminds him with a stern press of her lips. Never mind how even more ridiculous my name sounds with a royal title attached to it, she never lets anyone outside our family circle call us by our first names.

“Yes, of course. Queen Tiara. I apologize,” the doctor says with a bow of his head.

“You can call me Tee,” I answer. Then before Evelyn can open her mouth again, I ask, “What’s going on with my baby?”

The doctor and my dad exchange a look, and then Dad says, “Well, first of all, you need to start eating right, girl. This starving yourself business ain’t no good.”

He’s right, I realize with a guilty start. The truth is, I think I’ve been blaming this baby for what happened. For FJ and Olafr leaving without me. But now I can see my refusal to eat might have grave consequences for our baby.

“I’ll eat. I promise,” I say to all of them. “Just please tell me the baby’s okay.”

There’s a long pause.

And I cover my now much rounder belly. I won’t be able to go on if anything’s wrong with the only piece of FJ and Olafr I have left. If I lose this pup, I’ll lose my whole damn mind right along with it.

But then the doctor says, “It’s a little more than okay, Queen Tiara. Also, we’re not talking ‘baby,’ we’re talking ‘babies.’ You’re having twins.”

T
wins
. I’m having twins.

I think of my mother, who would probably still be alive if the pack doctor had access to the tools we now have for assisting females with multiple childbirths. And a blanket of forgiveness settles over my soul.

As angry as I was at FJ and Olafr, as much as I’ve been hating them for leaving me and then dying on top of that, I can’t hold what they did against them any longer. Because they were right. I might have survived the birth of one child without modern medicine. But twins? Not likely. Not with my family history combined with their big-ass genes.

Food doesn’t stop tasting like dirt, but I do eat the next meal brought to me. And every meal after that. I’m still sad. I can’t remember ever being more sad in my life, but I’m having twins. And, more importantly, these two babies are all I have left of my mates.

So yes, I’ll never be the same. But I know I have to be strong. For them. For our babies.

Eventually I have enough energy to crawl out of bed and put on something that doesn’t tie in the front.

It only takes a few hours and a Skype call with Iggle to get everything sorted with She-Wolf. To my surprise, she’s done a great job keeping things on track and up to date and it looks like
Ninja Shifters
will be coming out next Thanksgiving, right on schedule.

“I’m sorry I’ve been so out of pocket,” I tell her. “And I’m sorry I won’t be back for a while.”

“Sure. Take your time,” she answers with a sympathetic look. “I’ll keep She-Wolf running until you get back.”

It’s hard to believe, but Iggle, who I wouldn’t have trusted with my lunch order a few months ago, is turning out to be the most dependable resource I have right now. After logging off, I’m not at all worried about the future of She-Wolf while I’m doing what I know I have to do. For the two babies growing inside me.

I look at my bedroom door and sigh. I have a feeling this next interaction won’t go nearly as easy as my phone call with Iggle. But it’s time…

It’s time to leave my rooms and start living. It’s time… It’s time…

For a very long moment, I hover in front of the door. Not wanting to walk out. Because if I go out there, it means I’ve got to face the reality of my pack for the first time in—well, ever. And sometimes it feels like I’ve been safe havening it up in my room since I was born.

But the time for hiding is over. FJ and Olafr are gone. And the pack is still here. I’ve got to look all of that in the eye. Because I owe the babies inside me better than a lifetime of confinement inside my rooms, pretending nothing exists but the realities I make up for video games.

So with a deep breath, I walk through my bedroom door for the first time in months…

Only to stop short when I see the large male sitting just outside.

“Uncle Ford! What are you doing here?” I ask.

In the wing-backed chair, he looks like a wolf on sentry duty. Like he’s been sitting guard outside my room. But that’s not possible. He’s the Alaska beta, not ours.

Uncle Ford comes to his feet and does that weird “looking all around but in your eyes” move of his.

“Where you headed?” he asks. Like we just happened to run into each other on the street or something.

I glance at the deep seat indention he’s left in the chair. “How long have you been sitting out here?”

“Um…I guess a week or two now. Alisha called. Said you was in a bad way.”

I blink. “You’ve been sitting out here in that chair this whole time? Ever since Alisha told me FJ and Olafr weren’t coming back?”

“Nah, not the whole time,” he answers. “I’ve been taking showers, eating, you know.”

I incline my head at him, my brain piling up with new questions, most of which begin with why?

But before I can ask any of them, he again asks, “Where you headed?”

“Downstairs,” I answer carefully.

“To eat some more?” he asks, sounding hopeful.

I shake my head, still wondering exactly why he’s here.

“No, I’m calling a family meeting with Dad and Clyde to talk about the future of the Detroit pack.”

Uncle Ford nods and squares his shoulders. “Okay, let’s go.”

“You don’t have to come with me,” I tell him. “It’s probably going to get a little ugly. You know Dad.”

“Yeah, I do.” Uncle Ford’s lips thin. “That’s why I’m coming with you.”

“
W
HAT
?!?!” Dad yells when I’m done telling him about my plans.

He, Clyde, Uncle Ford, Evelyn, Yancey, and I are gathered around the oval table in the informal dining room where I’ve decided to hold this meeting. An assortment of fruit and other breakfast foods sit on the table, pretty as one of the still life paintings hanging on the surrounding walls. We’d almost look like a normal family enjoying breakfast together…if not for my dad glowering at me from the other end of the table…

…and the fact that Uncle Ford and I are the only ones not currently dressed in leather.

…and if Dad’s elbow wasn’t crooked over his sawed off, like he’s planning to whip it out any minute now.

See, this right here is why I don’t come down to breakfast like a normal person. Why I’ve spent most of my life upstairs. I glance at the table in front of me and think about how easy it would be to forget this whole mess and go work on making our Gamer Challenge feature tablet-ready.

But I don’t do that. I don’t cower in the face of my father’s anger. Or slink back to my bedroom, hoping he’ll forget I’m up there.

Instead, I hold his gaze from where I sit and say, “You heard me, Dad.”

Keeping my voice just as steady as I imagine FJ would if he were in my position, I repeat myself.

“I’m taking over as the Detroit pack’s alpha in FJ’s stead. That means no more wedding rituals of any kind without the bride’s consent. And no more brandings,
period.
From now on, if someone wants to show they belong to our pack, they can get a tattoo just like me. And as long as we’re on the subject of things that will be changing around here…”

I turn my eyes away from my father and address the other four wolves at the table. “I’ve decided our pack will also be co-sponsoring an initiative with the Kingdom of Oklahoma.”

I think about the long call I had with my cousin Tu, the outrageous queen of Oklahoma. As outspoken as she is now, she suffered for a very long time because her first son didn’t survive childbirth.

“Tu and I have both lost people we love because the doctors in our communities are so behind the times when it comes to childbirth. So we’ve decided to put more she-wolves through medical school so eventually every state pack can have an on-call OB/GYN. It’s time we started investing more into making sure our she-wolves and their young survive childbirth.”

Uncle Ford, who lost both his Inuit wife and mother to childbirth, nods in support of this idea.

But Dad comes all the way out of his seat.

“Nobody’s going to support that!” he sneers with a rough shake of his head. “Every Dark Wolf in this pack is going to turn on you if you try to do any of this shit you’re talking about.”

My eyes flicker up to the angry wolf at the other end of the table. And I take a deep breath.

“Luckily, I don’t need their support. I’m the Detroit Alpha now and FJ left me with a multi-billion dollar endowment. That means this pack is no longer dependent on the Dark Wolves or their shady businesses.”

I come to my own feet at my end of the table as I inform him, “I don’t need anybody’s approval for anything I do, Dad. Yours or your fucked up crew. In fact, you can keep the Dark Wolf gang. Stay on as its president if you want, because I don’t want the title. From now on, I’m the alpha of Michigan and that title is going to stay totally separate from what Dark Wolf has going on.”

“But you’re a female!” Dad practically spits back at me. “A female can’t be an alpha.”

“Funny you should say that,” I answer, tipping my head to the side. “Because I had a seriously illuminating conference call with Janelle and Alisha a couple days ago. And according to them, nowhere in our laws does it say a female can’t be an alpha. Everyone just assumes it’s against the law because a she-wolf has never taken over a pack for fear of being challenged for the throne.”

“And what do you think is going to happen when you start making all these changes?” Dad asks. “Wolves going to be coming from all over to challenge you and get they hands on that multi-billion dollar throne you so proud of now. Unless you manage to get the best beta on earth, you going to lose our pack before you even have a chance to do anything with it.”

I frown as if I’m seriously considering his words.

“That’s true, I’ll lose the pack as soon as anyone beats me in a challenge fight,” I say in a sorrowful tone.

“That’s what I been trying to say. That’s why we gotta—”

I cut off Dad’s smug reply with, “But if anyone’s good enough to beat me at
Viking Shifters
, then I think I actually deserve to lose my throne.”

Dad falters, his angry scowl loosening as he asks, “What’s that stupid game got to do with it?”

I pull up the documents Alisha sent me on my tablet. “Here’s the exact wording of our state Alpha Law: ‘When Challenge is given to the State Alpha, the alpha is allowed to pick the weapon by which the match will be fought. The match must be fought to the death. The winner of said match will then be considered State Alpha going forward.’”

Dad frowns, looking even more confused. But Clyde, who’s sitting to my left, immediately puts it together. “You’re going to use a game controller as your weapon. And technically every game of
Viking Shifters
is a fight to the death.”

“Exactly,” I answer, beaming at him.

He smiles back at me, only to break off with a frown. “What happens when the North American Territories change the laws, so every pack king doesn’t try to use a videogame to get around having to fight?”

I shrug. “That will be unfortunate for any other she-wolf who wants to rule like I will. But according to Janelle, I’ll be grandmothered in, so I’ll be alright.”

My father slams his hand down on the table, drawing everyone’s eyes back to him. “I can’t believe this! As much work as I put into this pack, and this is how you going to repay me?” he yells. “By making us a laughingstock?”

“I’d rather be laughed at than let the cruelty we’ve become known for continue one minute longer,” I answer with a glare.

“How about your brother?” Dad asks. “FJ and I made a deal. Plus, I pretty much already told everybody it would be him taking over until your man got back.”

“First of all, you shouldn’t have made promises you can’t keep since you no longer have the authority to do so. As queen of the pack, I’m the only one allowed to speak for my husband. That’s a very old law even you can’t get around,” I tell him. “Second of all, you are no longer in charge of what Clyde does. Neither of us are.”

I turn to Clyde. The brother who inadvertently saved me from my father’s plans by fucking my ex-fiancé at our engagement party. And you know what? I feel nothing but love for him as I say, “You’re really good at
Viking Shifters
, so if you want to stay on as my beta, you can do that. But if you want to be with Kyle, you can do that, too. Whatever you want, I’ll support you. I just wish I’d told you that sooner. And I wish you’d trusted that I’d accept you no matter what. Because I’m your sister and I’m always going to have your back.”

Clyde’s face softens but Dad gets all up in our warm fuzzies. “How about if he wants to take his rightful place as the Alpha of Michigan—the position he’d be holding right damn now if them Viking wolves of yours hadn’t come along?” he demands. “How about that, huh?”

I look at my brother. “Is that what you want, Clyde? What you really want? Because if it is, I’ll support you, even in that, as long as you back my initiatives.”

My father screws his face up. “What? No, he ain’t backin’ none of that damn mess!”

“I don’t want it,” Clyde says and he comes to his feet, too. “I don’t want to be king. I never have. Especially not here in Detroit.”

“What!?” our dad all but screeches. Then he resets, going back to his Dark Wolf Prez voice. “Listen here, boy…”

But Clyde doesn’t seem to hear him. For the first time ever, he seems to be having his own thoughts and his whole face lights up with happiness as he speaks his own mind. “I want to be with Kyle. I don’t know how or where, but I love him, and I want to be with him.”

I give him a gentle smile. Loving him more than I ever have in my life because it now feels like I truly know him.

“I’ll help in whatever way I can. Just let me know.”

“Thanks, Tee,” he says with a wide smile.

“Nah! Nah! This ain’t how it’s going to go down,” Dad yells.

“Calm down, Wilt,” Evelyn says, standing and trying to grab his arm.

But Dad jerks away from her, his hand still on his gun. “Nah! You think I’m going to let her destroy everything I built? Everything we worked for? Over my dead body—”

I hear the sound of a gun cocking beside me. “Over your dead body? That can be arranged.”

Uncle Ford is now standing, too. With his gun pointed straight at Dad. It’s a relatively small glock in comparison to Dad’s dramatic sawed off, but it does the job of making Uncle Ford’s words ring true.

“Uncle Ford!” I say, completely shocked. “What the…?”

But my dad stands tall, his eyes blazing. “You wouldn’t. I’m your brother!”

“And I’m
her
father. I left her with you because I thought that was the way it had to be.” Uncle Ford shakes his head with an ugly frown. “But that girl there has taught me more about choice and freedom in the last few minutes than you or Dad ever did in all my life. I didn’t think I had a choice when Dad made me go to Alaska, but I know I have a choice now.”

He nods sideways toward Clyde. “Thanks to my daughter, this boy of yours don’t have to hide who he is no more. And I don’t have to live the rest of my life with her calling me uncle, like I’m a goddamn distant relative. She’s my daughter, and if she lets me, I can finally step up and be the father she deserves.”

I lower my tablet, not even beginning to understand. “Uncle Ford—?”

“Don’t call me that!” he bites out. “Don’t ever call me that again.”

“But…I’m not your daughter. I mean, I can’t be…”

But even as I say it, the words feel false in my mouth, like I’ve just told a lie without realizing it. I look at him.
Really
look at him.

His deep-set eyes, so much like mine. His awkwardness and his inability to meet other people’s gazes. And most of all, his determination to help me. In Alaska, and here. And suddenly I know exactly why he came to Detroit. He came for me. Because I’m his daughter.

“You were right,” he tells me over the gun he still has pointed at the man I thought was my father. “My brother didn’t love the she-wolf he was engaged, too. But I did. And then she went into heat while I was home, visiting for Christmas.” His eyes go dark with the memory, and eventually he says, “Anyway, you wasn’t the first she-wolf in this family to be mated by two brothers. But our dad wouldn’t let it be. He made me go back to Alaska, convinced me the best thing I could do for the pack was leave and let everyone believe
both
babies she was carrying were Wilton’s.”

The Alaska beta’s face sours with memory. “He was always suspicious about how close me and Wilton was growing up. That’s part of the reason he didn’t let me stay here and be his beta.”

How close they were
…

“The Brother Bond,” I whisper, putting more and more of it together. “Can you and Dad—I mean—can you and your brother hear each other’s thoughts?”

Despite the stand off, the two brothers exchange a look, the kind I’ve come to recognize after my time spent with FJ and Olafr.

“Used to,” Ford—my father—answers. “But not after your mother died. After that, I went a little…crazy. But our dad still wouldn’t let me come home, even though Tikaani’s five-year challenge term was over. He said if too many people smelled you and me in the same place, they’d put two and two together. That’s why I never came to visit here with Wilma and her daughters. Pop pretty much banished my ass to Alaska. After your mama died, he told me to stay there and mate with another she-wolf. So eventually I did. I listened to him like a damn fool, instead of coming back here for you.”

Wow.
Lupine Council law, which I was scary familiar with now, stated that a state king could only be challenged during the first and last five years of his reign. Clyde and I were born five years after Aunt Wilma and Uncle Tikaani got married, which means if my father—my real father—wanted to resign from his beta job and come back to raise me as his own, that would have been the time to do it.

And that was exactly what he’d tried to do after mating with my mother, I realize with a start. But those were different times then. Wolves were even less understanding of those who were different than they are now. And I know for a fact my granddad ruled over his sons with absolute authority back then.

My real father looks away from his brother to throw me a sorrowful look. “I didn’t want to abandon you. But my head—I wasn’t in no kind of place to raise you, and your mama and me...we was never officially, you know, mated. Officially, your mama married Wilton, took his brand, and I didn’t have nothing to do with it. Nobody knew what actually happened when she went into heat, that both of us…”

“I understand,” I say. In more ways than one. About why he hadn’t been fit to raise me. I think of my reaction to the news of FJ and Olafr not coming back from the Dragon Battle. And I feel so sorry for Ford, because it would have been even worse for him with no marriage certificate or official brand or any acknowledgement whatsoever to back up his claim to the she-wolf he’d lost. Just me. A squalling baby who’d just lost her mother and could easily be claimed along with my twin by my uncle, the Detroit alpha.

I am nothing like your father.

I finally understand why FJ took so much offense at that.

“FJ knew, didn’t he?”

Dad—I mean my uncle, Wilton, nods once, his jaw tight.

“That brother of his has a good nose. He smelled your connection to Ford right off the bat. But I made it a condition of your marriage contract that they couldn’t tell you.”

Do you think I wish to keep secrets from you? So many things I promised. For you. Only for you.

Of course he’d made FJ promise to keep me in the dark. I stare at the man I thought was my father. So much like his own father it feels like I’m staring at a carbon copy of the wolf who so callously decided his younger son’s fate thirty years ago.