Honestly? Given what he had already seen of her wardrobe, Bard thought his mate would have packed far more than what she had apparently brought with her. Yes, it was probably sexist, but Bard loved that his mate was unabashed in who she was and what she enjoyed.

After ignoring the missed calls and messages clogging up his notifications, he made a quick call to the minions back at his motorcycle shop. He had two assistants that came in during the week to man the front of the shop and answer any questions.

They had opened the store without any problems, and he told them to take any messages and schedule out any repairs that may come in, but otherwise, he would be taking the next few days off. Thankfully, while Mark was a member of the Ulvfang pack, he was an easy-going gearhead, and most days seemed to completely he was even a wolf. And Jackie wasn’t a wolf at all, so never involved herself in that side of his life.

Business matters dealt with, he was able to focus on proving his manliness by carrying Harper’s trunks and bags back to her shoppe and up to the studio.

Hmm, we’re going to have to figure out this living situation. Bard thought to himself with amusement, completely ignoring his wolf’s mental suggestions of a huge cave. Somehow, he doubted his pretty little mate would want to live underground, even if there was an entire underground town buried beneath the Estates.

The shoppe is too small for the both of us, and Hank’s using the Forge during the weekends. I should show her my place, but don’t know if she’d want to live over my workshop, and either way, when we have pups, we’d have to find some place bigger.

 Happy thoughts of his mate and pups provided a welcome distraction, until he felt Harper’s sudden, chilling terror. Shoving the chest back into the trailer, he kicked it shut and sprinted towards her, calling on his wolf’s speed as he ran towards her shoppe.

He took a rather direct route, leaping over anything that got in his way, dodging down back paths known only to the regulars, and somehow managing to avoid making roadkill of anyone that got into his path.

When he felt her terror ease into a cold determination, Bard almost completed the transformation into full wolf, but he could feel the tendrils of the Sanctuary’s Glamour wrap around him.

The world disappeared into vertigo.

Up became down. Left turned right. The earth spun beneath his feet, while the sky stood still overhead.

Every step took an hour to take. Every muscle spasmed, refusing to listen to man or beast as they strained forward.

Nothing, nothing would stop him from reaching his mate.

Even as he felt the twisting strands of glamour wrapping around him, sinking into his body, razoring into his mind, Bard clung to the one solid surety in his existence, that impossibly delicate, impossibly strong bond forming between he and his mate.

A lifeline in the tempest.

Blind, deaf, dumb, it drew him onward and Bard’s faith in it was unwavering. Absolute.

The fugue snapped.

Bard released a piercing howl of triumph and rage, surging forward with every ounce of strength in his powerful, supernatural body.

He ran face first into a brick wall and went flew back, landing on his ass with a snarl.

Glaring up, he met the smirking face of Reggie, who stood planted in his path with legs braced and arms spread.

“Sorry, mate,” Reggie dipped his head, “Just needed to slow you down a bit so we could have a little talk before you went all mad dog.”

“I’m not your mate,” Bard growled, his voice raspy and inhuman, “Bro. You’re in my way. Move.”

“Aw, you wound me, you do,” Reggie joked, briefly pouting before he crouched down to eye-level. “But, I can’t do that quite yet, pal. There’s some things you need to hear first. Then, you can go see your lovely lass and we can get this all cleaned up nice and neat.”

Surging to his feet, Bard glared down at the smirking gargoyle, who seemed completely unbothered by the werewolf’s rage. “Speak fast, or I’ll go through you Reggie, pal or no.”

With a regretful sigh, Reggie likewise rose back to his full height, a good few inches taller yet than Bard and a good bit wider.

“Your mate is safe, Bard,” Reggie said, his expression going serious. “She’s got a pack of puppies protecting her, and she’s claimed Sanctuary, so she’s safe for now. Your parents pulled some strings, so Sinclair had to step in and formally deliver the news. He’s scheduled a mediation for tonight, midnight, so you and your mate need to be there, so we can nip this shite in the bud before it becomes a fucking shitstorm.”

Bard eyed Reggie closely. “There’s something else going on, isn’t there?”

“Yes,” Reggie said simply, with a shrug of those huge shoulders. “We’re trying to deal with it, before it becomes a problem. But shit like this is a pointless distraction and to be fucking blunt? A waste of fucking time. You said you didn’t want to be involved, pal, so you worry about your shit and we’ll deal with saving the world.”

Fucking melodramatic Fae, Bard mentally rolled his eyes, yet his wolf was alert, on guard.

Giving a faint dip of his head, Bard said simply, “I’ll deal with my problems, you go and save the world. We’ll go have a few beers afterwards, but right now, please get the fuck out of my way.”

“You always were so fucking polite,” Reggie laughed, though he made a show of stepping to one side and turning his body to wave a hand down the path ahead. “The Iron-forged Werewolf and the Glassy Lady. Can’t wait to meet your pups.”

Bard proved he wasn’t always fucking polite by giving Reggie a rude gesture as he raced past.

Reaching the shoppe and forge, Bard felt a crushing sense of relief to see Harper standing there, surrounded by the pups. She brightened when she saw him, and in less than a heartbeat, he was clinging to her with barely leashed ferocity.

“Erik, boys,” Bard’s roughly growled, nuzzling his cheek against Harper’s head, cradling her against his chest as he sought to calm his pounding heart. “Run back to camp, let Ace know what’s going on. Ask him if he’ll stand for us tonight. Please. I’m going to take Harper inside for a bit.”

“Yes, sir!” Erik herded the protesting pups away, but a few sharply hissed words soon had them running full tilt towards the Traveler’s camp.

Leaning back, Bard tilted Harper’s face up towards his, and was a little surprised to see she was seething with near-shifter levels of rage.

“Baby,” she growled, well enough Bard briefly worried she might actually be undergoing a Change, “We are going to have a nice long talk with your parents and straighten out a few things.”

“In-laws, eh?” Bard teased and was rewarded by the crinkling of her nose.

“Okay, that’s fair,” Harper huffed, rolling her eyes and visibly relaxing. “I was really hoping that coming out here would be a vacation, but I’m barely here forty-eight hours and I’m already having to stand in front of a judge, jury, and possibly an executioner.”

“It won’t come to that,” Bard promised, pressing his lips against her forehead. “Just the usual relationship drama that comes up, we’re just getting it all taken care of up front instead of letting it fester for years. Wolves respect strength. Just be yourself, then once it’s all settled, we’ll be able to milk the guilt for centuries!”

Shoulders shaking with her muffled laughter, Harper buried her face in his chest and just leaned into him. He was more than happy to provide her the support.

“Come on, darling,” Bard murmured against the top of her head, “Let’s go, get you some tea, and look through those documents your grandparents sent. Might as well get everything out in the open so we can prioritize. Then, we can take a nap and get in some serious cuddle time.”

“Cuddle time?” Her voice was muffled against his chest as she wrapped her arms around his trim waist.

“Yep,” he said simply, hiding his grin, “Wolves love to cuddle. We’re just overgrown puppies. If we could, we’d just spend all our time cuddling, or playing.” He paused, then admitted, “Or sleeping.” Okay, honesty, “Or eating.”

“What about…” she paused, lowering her voice to a whisper even he had to strain to hear, “Fucking?”

Hearing his sweet, sassy Southern darling say the word fucking? Priceless! And fucking arousing as fuck.

Shifting his hips as the warm tingle of arousal hummed through his veins, Bard leaned down and nuzzled pointedly at the side of her neck, over the place he had marked her; making her go weak-kneed and cling to him for support as he growled huskily against her flesh, “Oh, that too, my darling. Now, let me take you inside, and you can talk dirty to me while we cuddle.”

Before she had even finished nodding, Bard had swept her up against his chest. Planting a fierce, swift, hungry kiss against her lips he carried her inside, up the stairs, and into her studio, kicking doors closed behind him as his mate giggled like a crazy woman.

“You are mating a Viking,” he said with a dignified sniff and casual shrug. “You’re going to have to get used to being Vikinged!”

“Vikinged?” Harper laughed, a glorious ring of rich peels that had his inner wolf lolling like he’d won the lottery. “Is that even a word?”

“Ah, the beauty of the English language, my sweet,” Bard leered down at her before he tossed her unto the bed and struck a heroic pose. “Is that it’s a living language, so it evolves constantly. And, we have free reign to make up whatever words we want!”

“Oh, we do, do we?” Harper eyed him, then up went the brow. The left one, the teasing one. Uh oh. “Like what?”

Put on the spot, Bard’s mind went blank. Especially when his pretty mate began pulling off her sweatshirt, tugging it off over her head.

“Um.”

Her breasts, barely constrained within the plain cotton sports bra, emerged from the hem of the sweatshirt.

“Um.”

What was he supposed to be thinking about again?

Oh. Words. Words good.

Fuck words, fuck mate! Okay, leave it to his wolf to leap straight passed the foreplay to go for the throat of the matter.

“You were saying?” Harper said with a deceptively sweet smile as she tossed the sweatshirt aside and leaned back on her hands.

“Marry me?” Bard breathed reverently as he tore his shirt off.

There went the last few buttons that had been hanging on. Oops.

Her mouth opened soundlessly, then closed. She blinked. She tried again. Still nothing. He had managed to render her speechless this time. Score!

Crawling onto the bed, Bard went nose-to-nose with her. Grinning, he kissed her lips. “Marry me? Yes, I want you to mate me, to be mine. You are mine. But you, my gloriously clever mate, are a lawyer by choice, so, I want to make it legal in the human world.” His grin widened as he went back on his haunches, “And as we have to update our lives, change our names, do all that pretend stuff to get by in the Mortal World; you can marry me again. And again. And again. That way, our honeymoon period will never end.”

HOLY SHIT! SHE’S CRYING! ABORT! ABORT!

“Darling? Darling! What’s wrong? What hurts? Who do I kill? Do you need an emergency room? We need to go!”

Scrambling out of the bed, terror fueling his actions, he tried to figure out what he needed to do first.

Phone! 911!

In Bard’s defense, Harper rarely cried, and this was his first time seeing his mate with tears falling down her face. Yes, he had younger sisters, and yes, he was close to his mother, but like the rest of the family, they tended to be screamers instead of criers.

Before he completely lost his marbles, Harper’s bubbly laughter and her hooking her hand in the back of his jeans, prevented him from having a total meltdown.

“You’re such a guy,” she teased, tugging him back towards her as she scooted to the edge of the bed.

“Are you okay? Seriously?” Bard asked suspiciously.

“I’m fine, just…happy. And apparently, even Bitch Queens can cry. But they’re good tears. I promise!”

Placing firm hands on her shoulders, Bard squinted down at her, his eyes scanning her face to make sure she was telling the truth. “Really?”

Burying her face in his stomach to muffle her giggles, she nodded. “Really, really!”

Her breath was warm against his lower abs, her hands slowly sliding over his ass, and he may have totally lost the track of the conversation once again.

“Um.”

“Just relax, baby,” she husked softly. “Let me help you relax, then we can cuddle for a bit.”

“Um…”