With a sudden need to be beside him, I jog to catch up. But his body stiffens when I take his much larger hand in mine.
“Is something amiss?” he asks, looking toward the house. “Something I cannot sense?”
“No. I just wanted to hold your hand,” I answer, dipping my head away from his wary look. “It’s something people from this time do to…I don’t know. Feel closer, I guess.”
After a few seconds, his hand squeezes mine. “My mother does not do this with my father. But I like it.”
I like it, too, and we walk hand-in-hand back to the house. That means we get a whole five minutes of almost feeling at peace before we arrive just in time to see the old kingdom house door fly open. Olafr goes rigid beside me, and my body feels just as tight when my father comes charging out.
But he doesn’t spare either of us a second glance. Just heads down the hill, back toward the Cadillac. And still without his twelve-gauge, which tells me as much as anything that he didn’t win whatever argument took place inside.
Yancey and Clyde follow but at a slower pace. Yancey’s face is set into its usual hard-to-read expression. But Clyde looks completely dazed. Shell-shocked, like he just witnessed a drive-by.
“Be at ease, Varra,” Olafr says inside my mind. “FJ has come to an agreement with your pack. And now will we return to your kingdom’s other house together.”
Okay, serious alarm bells go off inside my head. “They came to an agreement? Are you trying to tell me he actually got my father to agree to let him marry me?”
A pause. Then: “Yea.”
“And does anyone plan to explain how this happened?”#p#分页标题#e#
“I do not have the words for this in my tongue or yours, Varra. It is better that FJ explains.”
I actually turn to look up at him as I think back, “You mean FJ who isn’t currently talking to me?”
Big pause, then he squeezes my hand. “There is much to forgive and my brother did not suffer your disappearance as well as I. It will not be as easy to move him from his anger.”
My eyes widen since it hadn’t been all that “easy” to move Olafr from his anger. I mean, there was the extreme tree-fucking, then a whole lot of emotional blackmail, followed by me once again speaking a promise I had no business making.
“Olafr…” I take him by both hands and look him in the eye. “You’ve got to listen to me. I know you think FJ has got this, but he doesn’t. I don’t think I’ve ever seen my dad this angry. And even if he and FJ came to an agreement, that doesn’t mean he’s going to keep his part of the bargain. We need to run and hide. Not forever. Just until you figure out what you need to fight the dragons.”
Olafr drops both my hands, his expression now hard as stone. “No, Varra. We do not run from this.”
But before I can open my mind to argue with him, he reaches up to run a large hand over my yarn locs. “You will return with us to your kingdom’s house. You have married me already under the full moon. But you must marry FJ in front of your people who do not know or follow the Brother Bond. And then will we be together, until it is time to return to our own land.”
Olafr shakes his head, his grave tone letting me know his next words are the final say. “We will not run. Never will we run again. This is the only way it can be. In us you must believe.”
“But—”
“You must believe.”
Rumbles of deep male laughter interrupt my next protest.
“I like you, boy,” my grandfather booms as he walks out of the house behind FJ.
“I have like for you, as well,” FJ answers, bowing his head with a warm grin. One I remember well from our time in Alaska together.
But then they both see me with Olafr’s hand cupping my head. And the smiles drops right off both their faces.
After an awkward beat, FJ turns to Granddad. “We will go to the other kingdom house with the female now,” he says, like I’m some kind of package Granddad’s handing over. “And there will we give your people the news of our mating.”
“Sorry I can’t be there,” Granddad says. “Them seven hour drives ain’t doing it for me no more.”
He shoots Olafr and me a disapproving look, and then says to FJ, “But I’ll make sure to send the two of you a nice wedding gift.”
“Your help is gift enough,” FJ answers smoothly.
And Granddad throws FJ a half-amused look. “Okay yella Viking, I’m just waiting to see what them Dark Wolves do when they get a hold of that crazy accent of yours. Don’t get killed before next Thanksgiving, alright?”