Wolf and Prejudice (The Alaska Princesses Trilogy, Book 2) (16 page)

“After the Danish anthropologist,” Rafe said.

She blinked, surprised he would know about the first European to cross the Northwest Passage via dog sled, the anthropologist who had been dubbed “the father of Eskimology.” Despite being a white man, he remained an important figure in Eskimo history, because of his research into the culture, folklore, and origins of the Canadian Inuit.

“You’ve heard of Knud Rasmussen?” Then before he could answer, she remembered this wasn’t the time for a casual chat. “Seriously, Rafe, run! This doesn’t have to end badly for you.”

“Five years,” Rafe said. Then he gave her a look so filled with anger, Alisha actually took a step back. It was like his rage was a living thing, something she could feel inside of her, like it was her own. Rafe, she realized then, had no plans to run, because that would mean letting her go. And he’d literally die before he let her go.

“Alisha?” Chloe’s soft voice said behind her.

She turned around to see Chloe and Fenris standing there. Chloe must have heard most of the conversation she’d just had with Rafe, if not all of it, because she handed Alisha the duffle bag she’d dropped again and said, “Let us talk to Rafe. Maybe we can get through to him.”

In a daze, Alisha took the bag from Chloe, and went to wait at the side of the ring. Anticipation for the fight had reached a fever pitch among her fellow wolves. They stomped their feet and chanted for Rafe’s blood. A few of them had even converted to wolf form, howling with bloodthirsty delight for what was about to come.

Alisha frantically tried to come up with another solution that would keep Rafe alive, but nothing came to mind. She watched Chloe talking to Rafe, a gentle hand on his forearm. Fenris’s head was bent down over both of them, and it looked like he was taking part in the conversation, too, even though his lips didn’t move. Chloe was probably translating his thoughts for Rafe. Fenris was a wise and good leader, maybe he could talk some sense into Rafe…

A collective howl resounded behind her, and Alisha’s heart sank, knowing what it meant. But she turned around anyway, having to see for herself.

And there they were: Fenris Jr in wolf form, leading the cub pack toward the fight, along with a stocky red wolf she recognized as Randulfr, Fenris’s beta. She could also see Rafesson’s little black and tan wolf close behind the older wolves, leading the pack of cubs like an alpha born.

“Oh, shit,” she whispered.

She doubted anyone would be giving her a Mom of the Year award today, because her alpha son was about to lay eyes on his father for the first time.

And then watch him die.

16

“Y
ou
do understand
dying here today won’t make Alisha respect you any more, right.”

Chloe’s soft voice somehow easily cut through the din of the fight crowd.

“Don’t you think you’ve already done enough?” Rafe asked his ex. But it was hard to really snap at Chloe, considering this version of her, while still very pretty, was also, judging by the grey streak in her hair and the many running through Fenris’s mane of red, at least a few years older than him. “I don’t want to talk about this with you.”

“Well, I’m the only one here other than Alisha who speaks modern English, and no matter what happened between us, I will always consider you my best friend. So maybe you should talk to me.”

He shook his head, fighting the nostalgic pull that had made them such constant companions until the day the Viking showed up. Chloe had always been so easy to talk to, about the pressures of growing up an alpha, about wolf culture, about everything, save Alisha.

“What’s there to talk about? She took our baby and tried to get our mateship annulled without so much as leaving a note. She’s selfish, and she’s—”

“She was also young and scared.” Chloe peered up at him. “It’s hard for she-wolves, you know. Especially intelligent ones like Alisha. It’s hard to spend years making your own decisions, then have someone come along and turn your world upside down.”

“Maybe for you, but she was raised to this purpose. All of her life she knew she would be mated for the good of her kingdom.”

“Being raised to something isn’t the same as being okay with it.”

“So you’re saying being mated to me is the worst thing that could happen to a wolf like Alisha?”

“No, of course not,” Chloe answered. “You know, if I hadn’t been fated for Fenris, I would have happily married you. You’re a really great guy, caring and smart, and loyal. But Alisha hasn’t had much of a chance to see that side of you.”

Her mate, Fenris, came to stand beside her. This had been another surprise for Rafe. When he and the portal keeper had made their way down the mountain after an awkward, mostly pantomimed conversation about who Rafe was and why he was here, they’d come upon Fenris headed up the mountain toward them. The last time Rafe had spoken directly to Fenris, the alpha king had been handcuffed to a hospital bed and threatening to kill him for daring to kiss Chloe, the Viking wolf’s fated mate.

But this Fenris had to be at least ten years older than the Fenris he’d met. And this Fenris actually seemed happy to see him, greeting him with great cheer and saying in halting English. “I thought you come. I say to Chloe you will come here. She do not believe.”

Now, while waiting for the fight to begin, Fenris gave Rafe an up and down look of appraisal and then he must have telepathically communicated something to Chloe, because she said, “He’s asking if you’ve tried communicating with Alisha. Like really putting your feelings out there and talking to her.”

“Wait,” Rafe said. “The Viking’s trying to give me relationship advice now?”

Chloe gave him a sheepish grin. “He’s really into communication. The truth is he makes wolves from our day look bad, he’s so into it. But he also has a point. Maybe if you showed her how much you truly care about her, that would make up for you manipulating her into mating with you—”

“You want me to woo her now? Act like I’m not angry as hell she took my son away from me? Who does that? There’s literally not a case of any she-wolf doing that in recorded history.”

“Well, according to Alisha, there’s not much recorded history about she-wolves in general, so we can’t know that for sure.” Chloe gave him a little smile.

But Rafe didn’t smile back. “If I make it out of this hellhole alive, I’m going to take her and my cub back to the future and I will spend the rest of my life making her pay for this.”

Chloe grimaced at this statement. “You know, it’s not a hellhole. It’s really quite pastoral most days. You shouldn’t take this as a true representation of our time or our culture.”

“Chloe,” he said. “I don’t care if this place is fucking Disneyland when there’s not twenty Vikings lined up to kill me. I’m never going to forgive her for bringing Rafesson here.”

Chloe looked at her husband and frowned. Fenris must have been saying something to her inside her head. “Really?” she said in English and out loud.

Fenris nodded.

And Chloe turned back to Rafe. “Rafe?” she asked carefully. “How exactly did you get to our time?”

Rafe immediately knew what she was really asking and said, “It doesn’t matter. And, even if it did, it won’t ever change how I feel about her now.”

“But—”

Whatever she was about to say was drowned out by the cheering crowd. And in the distance, a gang of wolf pups came running through the town and toward the fighting place.

One of those pups was his son, he thought, awe duking it out with fury inside his chest. But his inner-battle was soon interrupted by Fenris’s grim clap on his shoulder. He said something to Rafe in Old Norse.

Chloe translated, her face just as grave as her husband’s. “He says after you fall to Skeggi, you will not be forgotten. We will tell your story around the campfire and hope it is repeated over time so your ancestors may know you, so you may know you, even if you do not know it is of you we speak.”

Rafe looked at Fenris and answered the Viking’s dramatic last lines with a terse, “Thanks, man” in English.

Meanwhile, the huge-ass warrior he would fight first stood in the middle of the ring, proclaiming something in a grand voice. Again Chloe reluctantly translated for Rafe: “He says he will win this fight today. And if any other wolf stands against him, he says he will slay him, too, until the dark widow’s hand he has won.”

Rafe’s eyes went to Alisha, who was standing at the front of the crowd with a pack of cubs gathered around her skirt. Her expression was angry and frustrated, and her eyes stayed on Rafe, even as the Viking giant said his next words directly to her.

Chloe didn’t translate this time, forcing Rafe to ask her, “What did he say?”

“Ah, I don’t think you want to know.”

But Alisha must have understood. She picked up one of the pups at her feet, one of only three that didn’t have red hair, and held him close, as if to protect him from the Viking’s ugly promise.

“Tell me what he said, Chloe,” Rafe said, unable to take his eyes off Alisha and the pup.

Chloe shifted and mumbled, “Something about how after her mate is slain, he will then have her many times this very night and every night, until she spills her heat upon him and take his cubs. He said her sons,
all of her sons
, will call him father.”

And that was when Rafe’s vision turned to red, his wolf taking over with a click of a switch.

“Rafe, no!” he heard Alisha scream in the distance.

ONE MINUTE, Skeggi was spouting words at her—ones she didn’t understand, but they made her blood run cold, and the next, Rafe was tearing off his fur vest and running toward the giant.

“Rafe, no!” she screamed, her heart plunging at the same time he launched himself into the air. But it was already too late. Rafe was upon Skeggi, at the point of no return.

Skeggi opened his arms with a big laugh, a move that said, “Here, have one on the house.”

She’d seen Skeggi use a similar tactic during tournaments. He’d let his opponent get in good punch, and then shake it off quickly before beating the poor man within an inch of his life. It was a showy move, but very affective. He wasn’t challenged much after that and always left the fighting circle the sooner-than-expected victor.

However, Rafe didn’t swing on him as most opponents would have at that point. Instead he planted his foot square in Skeggi’s chest and shoved his hand into the giant’s laughing mouth… before yanking it back hard at the same time he pushed his booted foot further into Skeggi’s chest.

The crowd gasped as blood spewed forth from Skeggi’s mouth. It waterfalled onto Rafe’s chest as he threw the Viking’s tongue down in the snow like so much rubbish. The giant himself screamed and screamed, a terrible stunted sound as he stumbled around with his hands covering his now tongueless mouth.

Alisha stood watching, mute as she quickly covered the eyes of the four-year-old puppy in her arms. She wished she had enough hands to cover all of the wolf pups’ eyes, this fight had taken such a gruesome turn. But her son shook her hand off, ducking his muzzle under her hand, so he could see.

At that point, Skeggi couldn’t have conceded even if he’d had a mind to. In any case, Rafe didn’t give the Viking much time to regroup. He launched himself into the air again, strung his arm around the Viking’s neck, and then used all of his weight to turn his entire body toward the earth with a vicious twist.

There was a sickening crack and Skeggi crumpled inside Rafe’s neck hold like a pile of bricks.

Less than thirty seconds after the fight had begun it was over, with Skeggi dead before he even hit the ground, displacing the blood-speckled snow with an enormous thud, his tongueless mouth wide-open in a death rictus of horror.

The now completely subdued crowd looked as one at Rafe whose face and upper torso were covered in their best Viking warrior’s blood spatter.

A moment of stunned silence. Then Bukkr, one of Skeggi’s cousins, came rushing forth with a great battle cry, avenging his dead relative, even though he ostensibly would have fought Skeggi to the death for her claim if the fight had gone the other way. Or maybe he assumed Rafe had been lucky to win his fight with Skeggi, using the element of surprise and Skeggi’s own hubris to his advantage.

He wouldn’t have the benefit of either this time. Bukkr ran toward Rafe, leaping into the air, so he could bring his ham-sized fist down on the smaller man’s head with as much force as possible.

But once again, Rafe was both quick and vicious. He used a martial arts move to slice his hand into the Viking’s Adam’s apple. Bukkr stumbled backwards, choking on Rafe’s blow, and Rafe followed him, grabbing the disoriented man by the front of his tunic and plunging his index and middle fingers into the Viking’s eyes so fast, and with such precision, that the crowd let out a collective gasp.

It soon became evident Rafe had hit something nerve-related inside the Viking’s eye sockets, when Bukkr began convulsing on the Colorado king’s embedded hand. Then Rafe pulled his hand out of the poor man’s eye cavities and slapped his hands over the Viking’s ears in a forceful clapping motion. Almost like a
Three Stooges
cartoon, except this move was fatal. Bukkr fell on the ground next to his cousin, his face now an eyeless mess.

Rafe looked to the group of challenge Vikings, now shrunk by two in less than five minutes.

“Who’s next?” he growled, his voice more animal than man. It was a wonder he was able to maintain his human form, his hazel eyes were glittering with such murderous intent.

The crowd waited. But no one stepped forward, their eyes were all glued to the two fallen wolves at Rafe’s feet.

On the opposite side of the ring, Fenris yelled something at the group of challengers, a few of whom now seemed to be trembling with fear.

“What’s he saying?” Alisha whispered to Chloe, who had come around the circle to watch beside her after Rafe went after Skeggi.

“Challenging a wolf for his mate is a grievous insult, indeed,” Chloe translated directly, as she’d often done for Alisha over the years. “And once a challenge has been set, it cannot be withdrawn. Unless…”