Judging from the terrible look that comes over Uncle Ford’s face, he doesn’t think that’s a great idea.
“I know it sounds crazy,” I tell him. “But they’re my mates. And this wouldn’t make much sense to you or anyone else, but we have a connection. The three of us. And I don’t want to be without them.”
Ford frowns ugly for a long, quiet while, and then says, “So you three are leaving today? Like right now? Because Wilt called before I came over here, and he said if I didn’t put your ass on a plane today, he’s sending Yancey and Grif, that beta they’ve been training up for Clyde, out here on a private plane. That what you want?”
“No, of course that’s not what I—”
Uncle Ford cuts me off. “Alisha told me those boys came here to get some help with their dragon problem,” he says. “From what I understand, she’s trying to negotiate with that Norwegian pack of theirs over the phone to gear them up with the weapons they need to win this fight. But if Yancey and Grif come by private plane, it’s going to take them less than a day to get here.”
Uncle Ford jabs an index finger into the blond wood table, his Detroit accent coming out in full effect. “You from Detroit, girl. You ever heard of any of your father’s weapons deals going down in less than a day? And somehow I don’t think we talking about a couple of sawed-offs here.”
Shit, he was right. He was totally right. “But there has to be a way—” I start, only to get cut off again.
“You in far up Alaska, Tee, and all your cousins left out this morning,” Uncle Ford says like I’m not just desperate but completely stupid. “I’m the only wolf in this town who even carry a gun, and half the time I forget and leave it at home. And what you think Yancey’s going to do when he finds you up in here? Straight mated to these two yellow Vikings? How you think that’s going work with all them unicorns and rainbows you trying to pull out your ass? With this, ‘I’m just going to go back in time and fight dragons’ bullshit you trying to sell me?”
I collapse my face into my hands, not wanting to hear more. Unable to take what he’s saying. Not just because his words are so repellant, but because they are totally true.#p#分页标题#e#
As soon as Yancey and Grif smell those two on me, they’ll shoot first and ask questions later. All the food I ate roils in my stomach, just thinking about how ugly it would get. And hot tears come to my eyes as I begin to realize how futile my situation truly is.
On the other side of the table, Uncle Ford sighs, and to my surprise, his voice gentles as he says, “I don’t know much about this fated mates business. I had a simple marriage with a simple girl until she…”
He doesn’t finish, but he doesn’t have to. His mate died in childbirth, just like my mother and his mother—the grandmother I’d never met because she’d died soon after pushing out Aunt Wilma. It’s the tragic thing we have in common, along with poor interpersonal skills and the inability to say a hard thing soft.
“But I do know this,” he continues, his voice almost sorrowful. “It don’t matter what any of them old stories say about fated mates. Wilton ain’t going to let you keep them boys. You know that.”
They’re not boys. They’re grown men. Two kind and amazing men who have shown me more consideration over the last three days than my father has showed me over the course of an entire lifetime.
But I don’t tell Uncle Ford that. Because this conversation, one sided as it is, isn’t about the words he’s using to make his point, but the point itself. And the fact that he’s right.
My father is the most ruthless person I know. He would have no problem killing my two mates and forcing me into marriage with the prince he’s chosen. He’d happily have Yancey and Grif take care of this entire situation with their Mossberg friends before he let two time-traveling Viking wolves claim me and whisk me back with them to Viking Age Norway.
Try as I might, I can’t figure a way out of this. Even if I somehow convince FJ and Olafr to take me back to the past before they get the weapons they need to battle their dragons, I can’t risk the chance that I was sending them back to certain slaughter.
I think of what Olafr told me last night about his sacrifice: And would I do the same again to keep the ones I have love for safe.
“You know what you’ve got to do, right?” Uncle Ford says on the other side of the table.
It’s like the final Boss level of Viking Shifters, where players are unexpectedly swarmed by dragons. Nobody wins that level on the first try. Even the best players typically go through no less than ten gameovers before they make it through. And then there are those who have figured out how to bypass that level altogether using one of the many cheat codes floating around in cyberspace.