Her Viking Wolves(93)
Ugly story, right? It’s totally not cool to kill somebody’s fiancé because you want to fuck her yourself. But the Detroit pack doesn’t agree. In fact, they’ve decided to take that story one step further. In the form of a ritual called the Speak Now—as in Speak Now or Forever Hold Your Piece—pun totally intended.
Except there isn’t much speaking, just killing, with whoever is left alive claiming the bride.
Some she-wolves think this is an awesome idea. I’d even heard of girls purposefully stringing along a wolf they had no intention of marrying so others wouldn’t say they were too ugly to be desired by any other wolf.
But if a she-wolf wanted, she could ask that the ritual not be included in her ceremony, and I had asked through Clyde. So why was this happening?
My thoughts stop short when I realize what’s happened. My father agreed there wouldn’t be a Speak Now ritual for my wedding to Kyle. But he and my twin proxy never discussed my wedding to FJ. And now it’s too late.
Grinning, my father tells the story of the Detroit pack’s founding king. But his smile hardens as he finishes the story with, “My father believed any wolf should be able to marry whatever mamma jamma he wants so long as he’s a bad enough muthafucker to claim her. Which this wolf right here thinks he is. Only thing is…”
My father scans the crowd, seemingly connecting eyes with every unmarried male in the ballroom. “This red wolf ain’t just trying to claim my daughter, he says he want the whole damn pack! This red wolf thinks he’s so bad, he wants me to give him the Detroit title, same as if he was my son!”
There’s no mistaking how the crowd feels about that. A deafening chorus of boos rises up as I turn to FJ, shocked the hell out.#p#分页标题#e#
“You asked for WHAT?” I shriek inside his mind.
But I’m once again met with a whole bunch of silence, and FJ’s eyes merely flicker up to the ceiling, as if he’s wondering where all that booing’s coming from.
“Know what I told him?” my father yells out to the crowd. “I said sure, you can marry my daughter. Have the title of my pack. You can have whatever you want…as soon as you get through the ceremony.”
And just like that, it’s all made clear. Why my father didn’t kill FJ and Olafr on the trip down here. Why he allowed it to get this far.
This was his plan all along. To officially kill FJ. Then whichever patsy won this fight would end up meeting an early death, easily pinned on a rival gang. Leaving me mate-free so Dad could make me do exactly as he’d planned all along. Marry the gay prince of North Dakota, with the child now growing inside me serving as an heir for Detroit if it’s a boy.
It was brilliant when you think about it. Because if I’d just married Kyle, there was always a chance what really went down in Alaska between me and the Viking brothers would get back to the pack and cause problems. This new plan allows my father to put it all out there…then get rid of it with the Speak Now ritual.
“FJ, do you consider yourself a bad enough muthafucker to marry this mamma jamma?” my father asks the man he’s turned into a pawn.
I have no idea if FJ even knows what that means, but he inclines his head and answers, “I do,” his deep authoritative voice ringing out over the crowd.
Another round of boos and my heart seizes because FJ has played straight into my father’s hands and now he’s totally fucked.
Dad turns to the crowd, raising his hands like a prophet as he yells, “My wolves, knowing this foreign-ass shifter will become your next king if he marries my daughter, I ask you now: does anyone here have a reason why this wolf should not marry my daughter?”
“Dad, no please,” I start, begging him not to do this.
But he rolls right over my protest, his eyes glittering with ferocious triumph as he yells out, “Speak now or forever hold your piece!”
Four Dark Wolves instantly step forward. Two of them I recognize as Trouble Fuckers, the brutal street soldiers who accompany Dad on big drop offs and trades, ensuring his safety as sometimes six figures worth of goods change hands. So far my dad’s never come back from a drop off with so much as a scratch on him. The other two, I’m assuming, are muscle-bound nobodies who want to fast track themselves into becoming somebody. But it doesn’t really matter who any of them are, only who they want to be.
They all have their hands on the butts of their holstered sawed-offs. And mind you, I’m not even sure FJ knows guns don’t just put you to sleep, much less how to actually use one. Yet what does this fool do? He goes right down the steps to face off against them.