I stare at Max like he’s crazy. My fathers stare at Max like he’s crazy. I can’t see any of the wolves hidden in the trees behind us, but I’m pretty sure they’re all looking at Max, like, “Bitch, is you crazy?”
“You think we’d ever allow that serpent our daughter’s hand after all he has done to dishonor this family?” FJ asks Max.
“No, he did not believe you would grant him this honor,” Max answers with a frank shake of his head. “This is why he’s brought you a dowry present. One he hopes will change your mind.”
Again, we all stare at him. What kind of present does he think could ever squash this beef?
As if in answer to my question, Max looks over his shoulders and says, “If you would please come out now…”
Behind me I hear Rafes curse, before whispering to his men, “Sounds like he’s got hostages. Take aim and wait for my order. If they’re under his mind control, they might try to shoot at us. Or worst…”
I turn my head in the direction of my cousin’s voice, which is why I don’t immediately see the person who calls out, “FJ, Olafr, is that you?”
The woman’s lilting voice brings my head back around.
And my eyes widen as Nago says over the biocomm, “By the Fenrir Wolf, is that…”
Chapter Thirty-Four
We all stare at the couple coming down the stairs. A large white man and a much smaller black woman.
The man looks to be at least as old as my dads. He’s nearly as tall as FJ and almost as broad as Papa Olafr. He also has red hair with grey streaks, but in his case, I’m pretty sure the grey is natural. They run in a wiry unruly pattern that can’t be replicated by the machines that keep my fathers’ red hair only slightly grey at the temples. Usually going real grey is a sign that you’re poor. But the man is wearing real leather pants, a brown tunic, and a fur coat with what looks like a real bear head as it’s hood. Despite his age, I clock him immediately for what he is. An alpha king born and raised.
He holds the black woman slightly behind him. Not scared, I sense, but vigilantly protective. And she kind of looks like she needs it. She’s much smaller, and a testament to “black don’t crack.” If not for her mostly grey hair, I wouldn’t have been able to tell she was probably around the same age as the man. But she’s not dressed nearly as tough. She wears what appears to be a fur coat made of foxtails over a dress that looks like it came straight out of a Laura Ingalls Wilder novel. If this was a movie, a costume designer would be screaming right now about how her outfit is all over the place historically speaking.
They’re one of the strangest sights I’ve ever seen.
Yet, somehow, I know in an instant exactly who they are.
Even before another woman’s voice yells out behind me, “Mama! Papa!”
Myrna bursts out of the woods, and forgets holding the second line, she runs to her parents and flings herself at them.
Again, Rafes curses over the biocomm, but this time his tirade is followed by a command to, “Hold your fire! Don’t shoot under any circumstance!”
“Oh, Myrna, I’m so happy to see you, baby!” the black woman cries. “I did not think I was ever going to see you again, and I was sorry about how I left it.”
“Do you think that matters at all, Mama?” Myrna cries back. “You’re here! That’s all that matters. I can’t believe you’re here!”
Myrna weeps and hugs the couple, but my dads remain beside me, their eyes wide and their swords still raised.
“Is that…is that your parents?” I ask them. “Like Viking Age Grandma and Grandpa?”
“Yea, I believe it is,” Papa Olafr answers in Old Norse, his voice barely a whisper.
“It most definitely is,” FJ adds in English.
Yet neither of them move. Warrior training has taken over I can tell and won’t let them abandon their post, no matter what miracle is taking place before their eyes.
But then the man…Grandpa Fenris…looks up and says in Old Norse, “FJ, Olafr, come to us.”
They say Damianos is a mind control whiz, but he has nothing on the power of this guy.
Both my dads immediately drop their swords. And though they’re both in their sixties, I can see the spirits of the little boys they used to be as they run and bound into his arms.
“So it’s true. All three of you landed in the same time period,” the woman I can now say for sure is Grandma Chloe says after they hug her too. “What a miracle! Isn’t the Lord good? And I hear all three of you have fated mates and grandbabies for me to meet!”