FJ
FJ watches the Detroit fenrir closely. His face reminds him much of their mate in this moment. The way his eyes slit, his mouth opening and closing in outrage. He can see well where she learned this expression.
“No, Pop, that’s not how this works,” the Detroit fenrir says, voice strangled with anger. “With respect, you are the former king. It is my time now. She’s my daughter. I decide. And she already agreed to marry the Dakota Prince before these jokers showed up.”
Beside FJ, Olafr growls out loud, sending silent words into FJ’s mind. “Brother, I cannot this man’s words abide.”
“Yes, it is the same for me,” FJ answers silently. “The only person who gives me more anger is the female who did make such agreement.”
“But she stands with us now.”
“Behind us, Brother. And after not only breaking her full moon vows, but also agreeing to marry another less than a moontide later,” FJ reminds Olafr. “We cannot know her true mind.”
FJ can scent their female’s fear, sharper than before and sticky in the tense air. But whether it be for him or the man she calls father, he does not know. And never will he assume to know her true heart again after her betrayal.
What would have happened if Aunt Alisha had not told Tikaani about the Norway call before she departed for her own kingdom land? If the Alaska beta’s plan had worked and they had been forced to sleep in the cages below? What if—?
FJ stops himself and deliberately buries his emotions under a layer of ice. He must not follow these thoughts. He must remain calm in the way of his father. There are things he must do if all are to make it out of these dealings alive.
Cloaking his fury in a courteous tone, he asks the she-wolf behind them, “Does your coat give you enough heat, Female?”
A beat of confusion, then comes her small, “Uh… yeah?”
“Then go with my brother from this house while I speak with your Detroit fenrir and your grandfather.”
More of her mind probing, like a knock on his longhouse door. But when FJ once again refuses to let her in, she is forced to speak her question out loud, “You want me to leave?”
“Yes,” he answers back. “I have much to speak of with your kin. You will wait outside.”
Another long pause, then her voice breaks through his mind barriers and speaks into his head. “FJ, I don’t understand. What’s going on? Please, I’m sorry for leaving the way I did, but I was only trying to—”
He cuts her off, saying aloud to his brother. “Brother, take her outside and wait for me there.”
Inside their brother bond he says, “You must take her away, Brother. Now. My wolf cannot bear to look at her or to have her voice inside my head after the way in which she did leave. You are the only one I trust.”
Olafr grabs their female by the arm and escorts her out of the house without another word.
“FJ, no! No!” she yells inside his head. “Please, you’ve got to listen to me. My dad, he—”
FJ squeezes his mind shut, effectively closing her out.
No, the time for mind talk is over. She is their she-wolf. He is her fenrir. This he will make all understand.
Starting with her father.
When he can no longer smell the she-wolf, he turns his eyes back to the Detroit fenrir.
“If you do not wish to dishonor your promise to the Dakota prince, I understand this. I shall do the honorable thing and kill this prince who would claim what is ours.”
At this declaration, their female’s brother becomes most distressed. “No, that’s not going to happen. I—” he begins to say.
But the Detroit fenrir cuts him off.
“Let me handle this, Clyde,” he says, before casting his eyes upon the honored past fenrir who gave them place to sleep the night before, and with whom they have been negotiating for their female’s hand. “With respect, Pop, there are things at stake you don’t understand.”
An insult to be sure. One FJ would never speak to his own father. But the old father simply says, “Don’t tell me what I don’t understand, Son,” he says, giving his son a great up and down look. “I think I’m more than getting all the reasons behind your plan.”
“Then why you going behind my back and making side deals with these out of nowhere fuckers?” the Detroit fenrir asks, his voice filled with ire.
“Because these out of nowhere fuckers are your only daughter’s fated mates,” the old man replies. “I mean, at least one of them is. I don’t know about all this foolishness they talking about both of them and I don’t want to know.” He gives FJ a hard look before continuing on. “But a fated mate is a fated mate. Either you do this deal or FJ here is gonna fight it out with Clyde’s friend.”
From the way the Detroit’s fenrir’s eyes do narrow, FJ knows more is being spoken of than the promised engagement. And the Detroit fenrir seems near to panic when he proclaims, “Pop, you don’t understand…”
“No, you don’t fuckin’ understand, Son. You ain’t capable of understanding because you ain’t from Arkansas. You young guns ain’t been raised to respect fated mates the way I do, the way my father taught me. But I know more than a little about this. People always say the way it went down with me and your ma, we must have been fated mates. So you going to have to let me handle this, because once fated mates come into the picture, it ain’t your jurisdiction no more!”
Much of this, FJ does not understand. But the Detroit fenrir must, because a torrent of words issue from his mouth in the way a snake spits venom. “So you want to fuck our kingdom. Throw away everything I’ve worked for—everything you took from that last soft-ass Michigan king fair and square. For some fated mate bullshit? Cuz you think this shit is romantic or something?” He points to FJ, derision written clearly across his face. “I mean do these bitches even have a dowry?”
The Detroit fenrir gives neither FJ nor his father the chance to answer this question before proclaiming to his father, “If you care anything at all about the future of our kingdom, you will give me back my gun and let me give this overstepping motherfucker the hole in his chest he deserves.”
FJ has a hard time following much of the fenrir’s words, but the anger radiating off the larger man makes his meaning perfectly clear. The Detroit fenrir does not think he and his brother are worthy of the Detroit princess. And moreover, he’d rather kill FJ than give his daughter to him. FJ has had enough.
“Sit down,” he says to their female’s fenrir.
The Detroit fenrir gives great start, as if he has received a grievous insult. “What did you say to me, boy?” His voice all but growls from his mouth.
FJ looks upon him calmly. “I am not a boy. I be a man of five-and-thirty winters.” He nods toward the soft bench once more. “I have explained many things to your father already. Now will I do the same for you and your son.”
“Things like what?” the Detroit fenrir demands, not bothering to take a seat.
FJ is beginning to understand from where his female learned her defiance, despite her claim of having kept company with so few.
“Things like why you will give to me your Detroit princess in marriage.” He then turns his cool gaze to the one called Clyde. “As well as your son’s throne.”