Fenris never tells their children any of those things, including that she said them. Chloe survives, though she is weak for months after their final child’s birth.
Her ex-fiancé shows up in their village to fight for the hand of the she-wolf, Alisha, who has crossed time to escape him. An ocean of fear roils his stomach as Fenris watches Chloe and his boys run to meet her ex-intended, the Futureland male called Rafe. Will Chloe still love him after setting her eyes upon the wolf to whom she was originally sworn to mate?
But there is no need to worry.
Before day’s end, Fenris watches Chloe wave a gloomy-faced Alisha and her sons off cheerily. And she barely glances at her former intended, Rafe, before he says the spell to return them to his timeline. She is a bit sad after her dear friend’s departure but concludes… “I think Alisha and Rafe are exactly what each other need. She had plenty of opportunity to take another husband, but she remained faithful to him even though they were hundreds of years apart. Plus, they’re fated, and fated mates always work it out, right?”
Right.
So many memories flashed through his mind, faster and faster.
Until suddenly his white-haired dark beauty was back in front of him, her face creased with lines that have little to do with her age. “Fenris? Fenris? Talk to me, baby.”
Fenris spoke as she bid, though it took all his strength. “Chloe…it was so pleasing…this life…with you.”
Then he closed his eyes and the life he loved so…
It faded away.
“Fenris…Fenris…”
Fenris blinked awake. It was Chloe again, but not the version he faded away from. She was much, much younger. The same beauty who kept him from killing her fiancé with strange words he could not comprehend.
“Chloe?” he tried to sit up, only to find he had no body to command.
“What is happening?” he asked the beauty, smiling so serenely at him. “Why can’t I move?”
“I can’t move either. Does it look like I am?”
“No,” Fenris realized squinting at the vision. “You are here but you are like a memory. The picture I kept in my head when I chanted over my sword for your return.”
“Same,” she said. “It’s like I can see you so clearly, but you’re not here at all. And neither am I.”
“Heya Chloe and Fenris!” A voice suddenly boomed out. Coming at them from seemingly every direction. “Sorry for any upset you might be experiencing, kids, but we find it best to process you fated mates at the same time, no matter your passing dates. Or else we’d have to listen to a whole bunch of “Where’s my fated mate?” while we’re trying to fill ya in on what’s what. I don’t want to say you guys are the worst, but you kind of are, so yeah, that’s what I’m saying.”
“Are you…are you hearing this?” Chloe asked Fenris.
“I hear a strange voice, yea,” Fenris answered. “Do you hear it too?”
“Yes, I hear it too. A voice with a 70s-era New York accent.”
“Hey, I like Robert DeNiro’s voice in Taxi, so I took it. Sue me. Oh wait, you can’t because I live on a plane of existence you 3Ders can’t even begin to understand. So haha, joke’s on you.”
“Fenris?” Chloe said again. She sounded scared, though her image remained placidly smiling.
“Aw, calm down. I’m just Clarence, your friendly neighborhood processor here to give ya your options. Because you’re both dead now.”
“I’m dead too?” Chloe asked. “I mean I saw Fenris go, though he’s young again now. I was so sad.”
“Yeah, so sad your own ticker gave out. You died of a broken heart less than two months later. You fated mates do that every time. Literally can’t live for long without each other. We even had a few of ya drop dead a few minutes after. Processing nightmare. Have I mentioned you fated mates are the worst?”
“Show yourself!” Fenris demanded. He did not understand much of anything this voice was telling them, and his frustration made him wish for his sword.
“No can do. Tried that a few times and it immediately turned your feeble brains to mush. Couldn’t even process the consciousness after that. So new rule—that’s not really new because space and time isn’t really a thing on this dimensional level—no showing ourselves to the 3Ders when we’re processing you. Sorry about that.”
“So what is this processing stuff?” Chloe asked. Fenris noted that she sounded much calmer than him. “Are you deciding whether we deserve to get into heaven?”
“Well, you know it’s a system, uniquely designed to the individual—save for Fated Mates because you’re always going on like, ‘No, Higher Being Clarence, we couldn’t possibly do anything individual. We can’t be without each other. Boohoohoo! But that’s just me assuming. Maybe you two do want to take separate trips to Valhalla and heaven? Whaddya say? It’d make my life a whole lot easier.”