Her Viking Wolves(120)

Looks good. Anything else? I type to Iggle.

Yeah, your boy just sent me that stupid security clearance form of his again. He says I can’t come up next Christmas if I don’t fill it out—like I’m some associate. Can you just tell him to go fuck himself?

Him being Grif, my beta of four years now, who takes his job way too seriously for Iggle’s liking.

“Don’t think I don’t know you being sarcastic,” Granddad grouses behind me. “I know when you being sarcastic.”

“I know you do,” I answer. “Just like I know there’s plenty of empty cabins for you to move into. You and Grif could be neighbors.”

I type to Iggle, We’ve been over this, Ig. I can’t fire him for doing his job.

So feeling me up is part of his job?

I snicker. Iggle still hasn’t forgiven him for patting her down the last time she came to visit.

I’ll talk to him again, but I don’t think he’s going to say everybody but Iggle has to get patted down before they get through to me. That’s been the protocol for years now.

Ever since the first gunman tried to shoot his way around having to play me at Viking Shifters to get to the throne. One more year until the first five years of FJ’s reign is up, and I can just be the queen of our pack without having to accept challenge fights.

And one more year until I no longer smell like them. It takes five years for a mating scent to fade, which is why when mated wolves remain separate for more than five years without getting married, they call it a “wolf annulment.”

But FJ, Olafr, and I said our vows under a full moon, so this is more like a wolf divorce. At least I’d rather call it that than the alternative: widowed. Either way, I’m not sure what I’m going to do when the smell of our mating bond completely disappears.

Cry probably. Just like I do every January on the full moon anniversary of what I still consider to be our real wedding. Cry, then pull myself together. And keep going. For my daughters, for my family, for my pack—

“You know I ain’t ever moving out of here,” my grandfather promises in a way that feels exactly like a threat.

And I guess I’m surviving with this shattered heart for my grandfather, too. He keeps me from getting too sad. Mostly by driving me completely batshit crazy with his loud opinions and his refusal to get a place of his own.

“You the one who moved in here!” he reminds me. “This was my house before you got here.”

“Technically—”

“Plus, I’m the only thing standing between these girls and the soft life,” he says before I can remind him for the umpteenth time that the house belongs to the kingdom, and therefore to me, the alpha queen. “Somebody got to teach them!”

“Yeah and that’s why I keep on having to have conversations with you about sneaking them candy,” I answer dryly. “Because Skittles will totally make them hard.”

Granddad falters as he always does when the subject of him being way too overindulgent with Ola and Fensa comes up. And I do mean way too overindulgent. I ask you, why do three year olds need a 12V mini-Range Rover—each—with a full sound system and a push start? It’s like my granddad has been waiting all his ridiculously violent life for two little girls to spoil.

“A little candy never hurt nobody!” he grouses now.

“Whatever, you know you’re wrong for that. And if Ola falls out of that Range Rover ghost-riding the whip one more time, I’m taking both those cars to Goodwill.”

“No!” both twins scream. “Big Grandpa don’t let her!”#p#分页标题#e#

At the same time Granddad asks me with a look that would put Mother Teresa to shame, “Why you got to be so mean to my little grandbabies?”

Zoh. My. God. I am seriously going to have to start making Grif stay for dinner just so I’m not so thoroughly outnumbered—

A flash suddenly appears beyond the window, right above the mountain trail that leads to the portal. A white light bursting across the night sky and then seeming to reverse back into the black. Completely here and then completely gone. Just like…

I drop the phone.

“Mama?” Ola and Fensa say together behind me.

While at the same time Granddad asks, “Did I just see something I never thought I’d see in my lifetime? For the second time?”

I’m moving before I even realize I’m up out of the chair. Then I’m outside, running up the mountain in my house slippers.

It can’t be them! It can’t be them! They’re dead, I think. It’s probably someone else from somewhere else, someone who’s come to find a fated mate. Whoever it is—they can’t belong to me.