WHAT she missed the most was the anger, Chloe thought to herself. She hadn’t realized it had been fueling her ability to deal with being thrust over a thousand years into the past until it slowly ebbed away, leaving only a heavy sadness in it’s place.

And she had been seriously furious at first, determined to punish the Viking for ripping her from everyone and everything she’d known and loved. But three days into it, she unexpectedly lost her biggest supporter while walking to the toilet pit—which was exactly what it sounded like, by the way, with only a waist-high structure made of sticks to give its user any privacy. As she was coming out the longhouse’s only door, she saw Fenris for the first time outside since the day she arrived.

Unlike that day, he was now dressed in a silk tunic top and wool leggings that framed his tree trunk legs even tighter than the pants he’d shown up in Colorado wearing. Around his shoulders he wore a cloak and hood, much like the one his friend, Randulfr, had been wearing when they entered the town, except apparently he had taken out a polar bear to get his coat, because it was white. And just in case there was any danger of someone not getting what animal it was made of, the polar bear’s head sat on top of the Viking’s own, complete with shiny black eyes and a vicious set of polar bear fangs hanging over his forehead.

Being from a time when polar bears were on the endangered species list and the subject of numerous nature specials, Chloe should have been appalled. But the truth was, with his loose red hair falling in shiny waves around his shoulders and shimmering against the white of the fur, the Viking looked like nothing less than a rock star.

At the moment, he stood with his hands clasped in front of him while two men, standing before him, spoke forcefully, each pointing at a goat tied to a nearby pole.

After they were done, Fenris asked them a couple of questions, which they answered at the same time, each trying to shout over the other until Fenris raised his hand and said a few words. After that, one of the men whooped and went to grab the goat’s rope.

To the other man, who had now folded his arms with a sour look on his face, Fenris said a few more words, to which the man nodded before walking away.

She was dead curious about what had just gone down, but realized she had lingered too long at the scene, when Fenris caught her eye.

“You have finally decided to leave our bed?” The thought appeared inside her head,

And that was when the anger started to fade. Because she realized then that while Fenris’s people needed him to be their alpha, to lead them, and serve as the judge and jury for small arguments, there was no one offline awaiting her return back in her own time.

Rafe hated her. The entire town of Wolf Springs had pretty much turned against her before she left. Her online fans would miss the Black Mountain Woman show, and her sponsors would wonder what happened to her. But Rafe’s father wasn’t dumb. If too many people started asking questions, they’d just log on to her blog and leave a goodbye note. Her fans would be sad, but no one would truly miss her. No one needed her back in her time like Fenris’s people needed him. She had no family, she had no friends, and she had no community, which meant despite everything she had tried to build and do, since getting left on the side of the road by her parents, she was essentially back where she started. A lone wolf in a place she did not know.

And suddenly she became tired, too tired to stand even a moment longer.

She looked away from the Viking and used the ridiculous toilet before trudging back to the bed closet and closing herself in. She fell asleep and dreamed of nothing. And when she awoke, she needed to use the toilet pit again. So she did, and then she came back to bed and stared at the ceiling until sleep overtook her again. And when she woke, it was time for the toilet pit again.

This continued on for how long, she didn’t know. On a few trips the rest of the people who lived in the longhouse would be gathered around the table eating, and the same woman who had hugged her like she knew her on that first day, the one with a face full of wrinkles, crisp gray eyes like the Viking’s, and a head full of silver hair that fell all the way down her back, would grab her by the arm. She’d press a piece of bread covered with one meat or another into Chloe’s hand and wouldn’t let her go until she finished eating it and had drunk at least a horn of goat’s milk, which always seemed to be within her reach. And that was how she came to learn the Old Norse words for eat and drink, the only two words she knew besides thank you and the spell words that had thrown her back in time.

The woman no longer looked as happy as she had on the day they entered the village. And she regarded Chloe with a mix of sadness and pity when she finally let go of her hand.

Chloe’s world became the beige of the bed closet, with her days consisting of sleeping, using the toilet pit, occasionally being forced to eat by a little old lady, and staring at the carving on the bed’s closet’s ceiling for hours on end. It was a rather intricate scene of two wolves engaged in battle, while above it, a woman with a rounded belly and a man stood facing each other, she with a garland of flowers around her head, he with a crown. The couple was encircled by wolves, all of which seemed to be howling at the moon.

Chloe couldn’t help but wonder at its origins. But that would mean asking Fenris, and she still wasn’t talking to him, even though he had become the only other spot of color, besides the old lady who made sure she ate, in her days. Occasionally, she’d still be awake when he joined her in bed and the Viking would push a couple of sentences into her mind, usually surly ones, that she was able to take a little pleasure in not answering. But not much.

When he joined her in bed that night, he said, “You will attract bedsores if you continue in this manner.”

She didn’t answer.

“Did you at least take meals with my family this day? I would not have our pup starved because of you.”

She didn’t answer, though that did bring her a tiny pin prick of guilt, because she’d need to get her act together if she wanted to deliver a healthy baby, especially in a time period without prenatal care. The guilt actually made her feel a little better. She was beginning to feel grateful for the ability to feel anything at all.

Eventually the Viking came to lie down beside her, his body stiff beside hers, and even though she couldn’t see his face, she could feel the anger radiating off of him as she drifted off to sleep again... only to be shaken awake what felt like just a few hours later.

She opened her eyes to see the Viking standing above the bed.

He held out the fox pelt the gatekeeper had given her. “You will come with me now.”

She just looked back at him, letting her lack of action serve as her denial of his command.

“Do not force me to throw you over my shoulder,” he said, beckoning her with his hand. “Come now.”

She got out of bed and took the fox fur from him. Partly because she didn’t doubt the asshole would throw her over his shoulder, but mostly out of curiosity. What could he want her to see so badly that he’d wake her in the middle of the night?

When they emerged from the longhouse, a half-moon was still high in the sky, which along with the stars, was all the light they needed to guide their way through the village, toward the small forest that stood just beyond the lake.

They walked together in silence, just like they had when they came down the mountain. This time, however, he slowed his steps so she could walk beside him as opposed to behind him.

They stopped just outside the forest, where a pack of what looked like fifteen to twenty large wolves all lie together in a pile of mostly red, but some yellow, bodies.

He let her observe them for a few moments before saying, “The yellow wolves are our servants and their children, who have all come here from another land. The wolves do take thralls as the humans do as wolves will serve no other, even by force. But if a family has great debt, they may offer themselves at our secret market to serve in the house of another so as to pay it back along with receiving a place to live and food to eat. So have these wolves come to live with us.”

He pointed to the red wolves. “These red wolves be my family, my two cousins, their mates, their children, my mother’s sister, and her mate and children.”

He then pointed to a smaller silver wolf, sleeping near the edge of the pack. “And that is my aunt, my father’s sister. She is an accomplished sorceress. In fact, it was she who did give me the fated mates spell. She is also the one who will start teaching you our language on the morrow. You will come out of our bed closet every morn as I do and not return to it until the eve as I do. From this moment on, you are no longer the dark beauty from a foreign land. You are our queen and my family is now your own.”

* * *

Fenris had half-expected the dark beauty to start talking, just so she might balk at his command as she had done when he attempted to lie in the way of man and woman with her. But he received no answer after making his speech, which made him clench his teeth and greatly lean on his patience so as not to demand acknowledgement of his decree.

And when he woke on the morn, her side of the bed lay empty.

He growled in frustration. If she had run away yet again... he didn’t finish that thought, fearing the dark place his mind went.

He burst out of the bed closet with an angry yell, only to find the she-wolf and his entire family staring at him from the communal table where they all sat. She was now fully clothed in his mother’s over tunic and hangerok, though she had used simple clothes pins as opposed to the bronze wolf brooches she had been given to the keep the straps in place at her chest. He also spied that she was sharing a bowl of porridge and a loaf of bread with his aunt as if the two were old friends.

“My brother’s son,” his aunt cried out. “You have failed to gift your wife a woman’s dagger. She is forced to share my bread, so any passerby would think I am the queen and she the old witch.”

Since human women were not allowed to carry weapons of any kind by human Norse laws, she-wolves took great pride in their women’s daggers, which they used for eating and cutting. The only reason he had yet to gift his mate with one was because she’d yet to have need of it, spending the majority of her time in their bed closet as she did.

“Nay, have not a worry of that, old woman,” his uncle called down the table. “Anyone with eyes can see who be the witch and who be the king’s fated mate.”

The entire table burst out laughing, including his aunt, and to Fenris’s great surprise, Chloe herself. Though she seemed to laugh more with confusion than any real understanding of what had been said.

He took his place at the head of the table, but kept his eyes fast on his mate at the other end. She should be sitting at his side, but he had not become king of the wolves by not cultivating patience within himself.

“I shall see to the her dagger, Aunt. In the meanwhile, you will start teaching her our language, so she may better understand your jests.”

Her aunt’s eyes lit up. “That, my handsome nephew, is a very good notion. Mayhap with time, she might grow to love our land as we do.”

Our land and our king, her twinkling eyes said.

But Fenris did not acknowledge the knowing in her veiled words. He still cared not for the notion of love, especially after what had passed in the dark beauty’s village. But if getting Chloe to eat at his table and partake of his bread meant he would not be aggrieved to sleep next to her lifeless body this eve, then so be it.

* * *

Chloe ignored the smug look on the Viking’s face as he dug into the bowl of porridge, which one of the blond servants had set in front of him. He probably thought he’d told her what was what with that command of his and she’d be fully coming around any day now.

Little did he know, it hadn’t been his command that got her out of the bed closet and back into over clothes “on the morntide.”

No, his threat hadn’t moved her at all. Only his last six words had: my family is now your own.” Could it be true, she wondered, rubbing her still flat stomach as they walked back to the longhouse. Would his family really accept her as one of their own, even though she looked so different from them and was from another place and time?

When she woke up, she found the members of his household hustling and bustling around the longhouse, the women putting layers on over their smocks, and the men doing the same over what looked like linen long johns. But maybe thinking she was just going to the toilet pit again, they didn’t acknowledge her presence. She lifted the bench beside the bed closet and pulled out the long wool tunic and silk apron-like dress they had given her on the first day. After she put them on, she went to sit at the long table, where she’d seen them taking their meals. That got their attention, and they all turned to stare at her.

There was a long moment of confused silence, during which Chloe wondered if she she’d made a terrible mistake. But then his family members cheered as if they’d been waiting for her to join them for breakfast all this time before bursting into excited chatter. One of Fenris’s cousins came to sit on one side of her squeezing her around the shoulders in the still-universal sign of welcome. The old lady, who Chloe had now guessed to be Fenris’s sorceress aunt, came to sit on the other side of her and started talking excitedly in Old Norse, using gestures to indicate that Chloe should eat from the same bowl as she and indicating the jug of goat’s milk in the middle of the table.

Chloe did as she was told, and her depression began to ebb away as she watched the family laugh and talk while they ate breakfast as if it were nothing at all to absorb a foreigner into their fold. That is they laughed and talked until Fenris came crashing out of the bed closet with a roar. Then the room once again went silent until his aunt said something to him. Then an older man, who Chloe thought might be his other aunt’s husband said something that must have been a joke, because everyone but Fenris fell out laughing. The Viking regarded her with cool eyes as he said something to his aunt, who nodded happily. Then he settled into his seat, his eyes all but burning a smug hole through her.

But she wondered how smug he’d feel later on when he discovered while she had accepted his family, she would never, ever accept him. She’d happily learn the language and help her new family out in any way she could. But she’d never give herself to him the way she had back in Colorado and she’d never forgive him for taking her planned life away.