And before Chloe could ask why he was looking for his dead wife’s pelt, the gatekeeper settled what looked like a red fox with its head still attached around her shoulders.
If not for the insane amount of much-needed warmth it provided, Chloe would have flung the animal skin from her shoulders and made a donation to the World Wild Life Fund just for coming into visual contact with the thing.
As it was, she closed her eyes and let her poor body revel in its warmth before mind-asking Fenris, “How do you say thank you in Old Norse?”
“’Tis current Norse to us,” he said inside her mind before saying out loud, “Pakka fyrir.”
“Pakka fyrir,” she said.
The gatekeeper nodded before turning to Fenris and presenting him with what looked like a cloak made of various animal’s fur scraps—but at least there weren’t any heads still attached.
“Upon our return to the village you will be given clothing and a fur befitting your station,” Fenris said a few minutes later as they walked away from the gatekeeper’s house.
“So is that guy going to bury those bodies all by himself?” she asked, struggling to keep up with him, but soon falling behind. He had a much longer stride, and didn’t seem all that interested in slowing down so she could walk beside as opposed to behind him.
“Nay, they are in a pile. So he would burn them.”
“Were those the guys who were trying to kill you before you used the spell for your quick getaway?”
“Yea.”
“You’re a pretty good fighter.” That was an understatement, but Chloe wasn’t in a compliment-giving mood. “I’m not getting why you didn’t just take them out like you did at the gatekeeper’s place as opposed to coming back in time for a fated mate you didn’t even want.”
“I had little choice. There were five wolves who would have my head, and unlike now, I was then weakened from an arduous hunt. Even I could not have taken five wolves on by myself. Also, then I did not have the pup inside your belly to protect. For the next Fenris would I be victor this day as I was not three moons ago.”
Chloe was finding it hard to believe only three days had passed since Fenris came crashing into her life, like a human tornado, dead set on destroying everything she held dear. “Well, congratulations on the big vanquish. That means you can send me home now, right?”
“My enemies were not vanquished in full this day. Their leader, my cousin. who I also did smell, ran as a rabbit would when he did see his first three followers fall under my sword.” He adjusted the animal cloak at his shoulders. “Also, though I am not pleased with you this day, I would not be without a mate or my pup in the winters to follow, so you will stay.”
She shook her head. Though the fox fur was now protecting her against the cold, she could feel her heart icing over. “Fine, misery it is then.”
If he got that this was a reference back to the quote about keeping his she-wolf happy if he wanted to be happy, he didn’t acknowledge it. And they walked the rest of way down the mountain in a silence even colder than the harsh winter air.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
WHEN they descended from the mountain into his small village, his people spilled out of their pit houses, longhouses, and shops to watch them make their way down the village’s main thoroughfare to Fenris’s own longhouse.
It was much the way he had envisioned it when he had still been well pleased with Chloe. Men and women alike beheld her with great awe, and a few of the children came forward to touch her skin, as if to check if it were covered in paint that might come off. North people were traders by their very nature, and thus, the man who returned from abroad with the most exotic treasure, was the one they talked about when it came time to tell stories around the fire.
He could tell just by seeing the looks on the faces of his villagers that many stories would be told around many fires this night about the new queen.
Many called out to them, and a few even followed behind them, not wishing their story of beholding the Fenris enter the village with his new queen to end just yet. But only his fastest friend and beta wolf, Randulfr, fell into step beside them.
Even though Randulfr was a head shorter than Fenris, his old friend looked more the king than he at the moment, with his red hair freshly combed and dressed as he was in a cloak made of a brown bear they felled two winters ago, as opposed to the gatekeeper’s scraps which Fenris now wore on his own back.
“So ‘twas true you did avail yourself of the fated mates spell as your aunt did say when we wondered after your disappearance. I will confess I did not believe the sorceress’s words to be true and was set to organize a search if you were not returned within two moons.”
“You would not have found me, as I had been taken away to a land very far from this one.” Fenris had already decided on the trip down the mountain not to talk of his adventures through time, lest his followers would seek the spell for themselves, if only to see, too, the wonders of which he spoke.
“However, treachery was involved in my invoking the spell. While preparing to wash in the lake, I was set upon by Vidar and four followers, three of which I had banished from this place previously. I did use the spell to escape their planned beheading. However, when I did return through the gate, they once again would attack me. This time I felled four of them with my sword and the help of a battle axe well-thrown from the gatekeeper’s hand, but my cousin did escape.”
“I shall gather a group to scour the mountain now.”
“You are well-thanked. Now will I introduce you to my queen.”
Chloe received his beta’s formal greeting with a distant smile. It was one Fenris would come to know well over the course of the day. She gave it to everyone who greeted her directly, including his family members outside his longhouse.
His aunt was especially happy to meet with his new mate, drawing her into her arms as if they were friends of long past, before directing Fenris to pick her up and carry her over the threshold.
“I must carry you through the door way so you would not trip and bring misfortune upon our house,” he told her, all of sudden feeling awkward with the vacantly smiling Chloe. “’Tis our custom.”
Her answer to this was to lift her arms in the air so he could easily pick her up. But still, she did not speak to him in his mind or with her tongue. And despite his still simmering anger, to suddenly lose her voice in his head felt unnatural and wrong.
But silent she remained, giving but the briefest of glances to the interior of his longhouse, which was not only the largest of its kind in the wolf territories of Norway, but also well-adorned with bright tapestries along its walls and many bearskins on the floor, so that it was soft nearly every place a wolf might set his foot.