This time she yanked on her hands so hard, they slipped out of the maybe-Viking’s grip, and even then she only just managed to get in front of Rafe before he leaped toward the hospital bed, looking like he was set to tear its occupant apart with his bare hands.
“Rafe, no,” she said, pushing him backwards before he could.
“You were kissing him,” Rafe said, the words thick and feral in his throat.
“No, he kissed me, and it took me by surprise. I didn’t kiss him back.”
“All the more reason for me to kill him,” Rafe said.
“Rafe, please. It was nothing. You have to calm down.” He was pushing so hard to get past her, Chloe was half afraid he’d take her out just to get at the other wolf. And if that wasn’t enough, she could hear the bed rattling behind them, which meant the maybe-Viking was once again trying to free himself to get to Rafe.
Luckily, just when her arms were about to give, Doc Fischer and a stringy man in a tweed blazer walked in. They quickly assessed the situation and took over restraining Rafe, each grabbing him by one of his long arms.
“Now calm down, son,” Doc Fischer said, his voice quiet but firm. “If you’re going to try to take him out every time my back is turned, then I’m going to have to make you wait outside.”
The maybe-Viking chose that moment to start spitting words of challenge and insult at Rafe, which needed no translation. And Rafe jerked forward, all but frothing at the mouth in his effort to get to him.
In the end, Doc Fischer and the professor had to drag Rafe out and lock the clinic door so he couldn’t get back in.
It was all Chloe could do to hold back tears of frustration as she watched them toss Rafe out like some derelict. And even after they locked the door, she could hear her fiancé, who normally tried so hard to hold himself in a manner befitting an alpha prince, yelling like a mad man outside the building.
“Well, so much for keeping this situation a secret,” Doc Fischer said. “As loud as that got, the whole town probably knows what’s going on now.”
“I should go to him,” Chloe said, heading toward the door.
But Doc Fischer stopped her with a shake of his head. “No, young lady, you should sit down. Whatever your fated mate has to say, you should hear it, too.”
“Rafe is my mate,” she said, “You admitted it yourself. I’m not aroused, so the attraction must be one-sided.”
“No, I said in rare cases, a fated mate catches the scent of someone who doesn’t return his feelings. I didn’t talk about what happens when she-wolves mate with other wolves only to have a fated mate come along and try to claim her. But I’m telling you now, it rarely ends well. Half the time the she-wolf runs away with her fated mate, sometimes even leaving her pups behind. The other half of the time her current mate has to kill the fated one in order to make him leave her alone. For your sake, I also didn’t mention in front of your fiancé that I suspect the only reason you’re able to resist this wolf is because you haven’t gone into heat yet, and who knows how much longer that will last?”
“I would never—”
Doc Fischer interrupted her with a snort and a roll of his eyes. “I hate when young wolves try to tell me what they’d ‘never’ do. The truth is you have no idea what you’d do until you actually go into heat like a regular she-wolf would have years ago. And God help you if your fated mate is here when you finally do.” He pointed at the guest chair. “Now if you’re serious about telling this guy you don’t want him and sending him back through the portal, sit down so we can get this over with.”
She crossed her arms over her chest and sat. She didn’t like Doc Fischer insinuating she would leave the man she loved the most in this world for some stranger she’d only met the day before, but he was right about one thing. It was better to just get this over with. The sooner they did, the sooner she could go to Rafe. He’d quieted down, but she could still sense his presence outside the clinic, furious, hurt, and brooding.
The professor tentatively stepped into the angry silence of her acquiescence. He looked to be around the same age as Doc Fischer, but had the nebbish quality male wolves who never claimed mates tended to get. He was tall and skinny, and though he didn’t wear glasses, since all werewolves had better than twenty/twenty vision, it looked like he ought to be.
“Hi, I’m Professor Henley,” he said with a small wave. “I teach Viking Studies at the university. Normally I wouldn’t risk travel on a full moon night, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.”
He turned to the Viking, who had calmed after they ejected Rafe and now sat watching all of them, his eyes glittering with what looked like a combination of anger, frustration, and curiosity.
“The sword I saw out in the lobby and the fact that he was yelling at your... ah, friend in Old Norse tells me he’s a Viking,” the professor said, running his eyes over the large man as if he were a majestic sight indeed. “Also, his hair is red. It’s rumored the Norwegian Viking wolves all had ‘hair like fire.’ And quite a few of my fellow werewolf history professors believe Erik the Red to have been a werewolf.’” He reached out, as if to touch the Viking’s hair, but pulled back at the last moment, probably sensing correctly that this wasn’t the type of man who would appreciate being petted.
“Thanks for the history lesson,” Doc Fischer said. “Can you talk to him or what?”
The professor held up an Old Norse-English dictionary. “Well, I’ve only used Old Norse in the context of translating or reciting poems and certain texts from that age, but I’ll do my best.”
The professor cleared his throat before hawking up a few words of Old Norse.
The Viking’s eyes widened in surprise, and he answered with a few words of his own, which caused the professor’s own eyes to widen.
He turned back to her and Doc Fischer. “He says he’s called Fenris. Do you know what that means?”
They both shook their heads. “Fenris is the Norse wolf god, the one all Norwegian werewolves believed themselves to be descended from. Only wolves in the alpha line are given this name.”
“Wait, wait, wait,” Chloe said, holding up her hands. “Are you’re trying to tell me this guy is also an alpha prince like Rafe?”
The professor asked the Viking another question in the harsh language.
And this time the Viking looked at her when he answered.