Her Viking Wolves(49)

However his mother told FJ her ways were unusual, even in her own land, which did have many foods that require very little heat or, even more extraordinarily, no heat at all.

FJ hardly believed her at the time. But then the young shopkeeper shows him to a row filled with all manner of food in clear packaging: breads that are already sliced, and small colorful tins bearing realistic images of what look unpleasantly like worms but, he knows from his mother’s descriptions, are noodles.

There is so much from which to choose that for a moment, FJ feels trapped and uncertain of where to start. But then he remembers something their she-wolf said the first night they met.

“Excuse me,” he says to the young shopkeeper. “Have you the foodstuffs to make sandwiches?”

“Sure, the cold cuts are right over here…” the young shopkeeper answers, beckoning him over to a row of very narrow, cold floor-to-ceiling structures with glass doors.#p#分页标题#e#

“Aren’t you one of the wolves who came through the time gate?” he asks as FJ peruses the collection of what seems, from their faint smell, to be an assortment of strangely salted meats.

FJ turns his gaze to the younger wolf beside him. He, like many in this land, including Fenrir Tikaani, is of smaller stature and round of face, with the thin, tilted eyes FJ has only previously seen on wolves from the lands far to the east.

“Yes, I am of the North Wolves—” he starts to respond, then remembers how Aunt Alisha referred to his pack and corrects himself. “I am of the Norway Pack.”

“Oh, yeah?” the young wolf says. “Never met a Norwegian wolf before.”

He eyes FJ, probably suspecting quite correctly that there is more to this story.

But he is friendly enough. He even explains to FJ how to make one of these sandwiches for their sleeping she-wolf, and helps him also find a (to FJ who still remembers long childhood days spent grinding grain over millstones with the other children in their longhouse) truly unbelievable package of already sliced bread.

On his way back to the house, he congratulates himself on a job well done. This sustenance will fare their she-wolf better than the many honey cakes Olafr smelled inside her room. And though much of what he’d been discussing with Aunt Alisha the previous day after her call with the Norwegian pack still weighs heavily upon his mind, he is well satisfied with himself.

That is, until he sees the children spilling out the kingdom house’s back doors. Fenrir Tikaani, his queen, and their maid-servant follow close behind, all carrying babes in arms and hastily ushering the younger wolves away from the house.

It is a familiar tableau. As someone who grew up in a longhouse, FJ recognizes it immediately. He can still remember being wrangled by his older relatives in such a fashion when he was but a pup. Someone is in heat.

And now his idea to travel to the village’s store twists inside his mind to become the worst decision he has ever made. Dropping his prized packages, FJ runs towards the house. He can already smell her heat and his wolf becomes wild inside him, whipping him into a frenzy and urging him to run ever more faster.

So desperate is he to claim their she-wolf in her time of heat, he cannot slow, not even for the group now fleeing the kingdom house.

However the small Alaska fenrir is wise enough to know not to get in a male wolf’s way when his she-wolf is in heat. Fenrir Tikaani moves with great speed to stand protectively in front of his queen and their servant, carefully corralling them and the pups out of FJ’s way as he barrels past their group.

FJ charges into a house already filled with the sounds of vigorous lovemaking. She-wolves moaning as both they and their mates couple with abandon. Their she-wolf’s heat cloud must have come on strong and quick, for it has caught every wolf of mating age within its clutches. But those sounds are coming from below, and all FJ cares about is the female above. The one who has been driving him near insane for the three days they have spent under the same roof.

He rushes up to her room…

…only to find the door broken and her bed empty, even though her heat smell covers the chamber like a thick woolen blanket.

Nose flaring, FJ looks around wildly, his cock painfully swollen with the need to claim her.

But all he sees is his brother, standing outside the small, closed alcove in which the wolves of this time hang their clothes. His face is ravaged with regret, and his fingers claw at the room’s slatted doors as he says, “Varra, please come out. I am sorry, Varra,” his words slow and thick in their father’s tongue.

Then FJ hears another sound beyond his brother’s pleas: their she-wolf weeping. And in that moment, his mind knows nothing but red.#p#分页标题#e#