Chapter 12
"So," Ace drew the word out in amusement, taking perverse glee in watching one of his best friends—outside of his fellow Travelers—squirming uncomfortably. Bard was usually the cool, unflappable one of the brothers, taking life just as it came. It was rather unusual to see him visibly stressing. "What's the plan, man?"
Bard huffed, casting a quick glance over towards the still empty shoppe across the path from his smithy. "Well, going Viking would obviously be the wrong tact to take, especially after pappa Hulked out, so I should probably avoid throwing her over my shoulder and storming off."
"Yeah, probably not a great idea," Ace concurred. "And wolfing out, gnawing on her shoulder to mark your claim, would probably be just as bad."
"You could always try asking her out on a date," another voice offered in a slow, lazy tone. "You know? Flowers, wine, dinner, charming conversation..."
Bard turned his attention towards the big, beefy fellow currently lugging a heavy load of quilted gambesons. Though not quite as tall as Bard, the guy was a bit thicker throughout, with a wild mop of wavy, dark brown hair at odds with his rather elegantly groomed full goatee. Like a lot of others, he was dressed simply, if a little inappropriately for the weather, in just jeans and a t-shirt. At odds with his deceptively casual, rumpled appearance, however, were the sharp golden eyes that flicked between Bard and Ace.
"Heya Hank," Bard greeted the newcomer with a broad grin. Henry "Hank" Zanna was another blacksmith, but where Bard focused on weaponry, Hank tended to focus on armors. During the Faire, the two shared the smithy and attached shoppe, swapping out to give live demonstrations, while Bard's sisters worked the crowds and did the actual sales. Their relationship hadn't always been so buddy-buddy, though. Originally, they had been competitors, but after a certain incident best left unspoken of, they had come to an accord.
Hank also had the bloody enhanced hearing shared by many shifter breeds, and just as much of an opinion as anyone else.
"Oh shit," Bard's eyes widened in horror. "The sisters! Where are my sisters?"
Both caught off guard by the rather rapid change in topic, Ace and Hank stared at Bard for a few moments. Then they looked at each other while Bard frantically dug out his mobile phone.
"Um, I think they're both over at the Camp," Ace offered. Something in the tone of his voice, however, must have given him away.
"And why are they at your Camp?" Bard stared pointedly at the deceptively innocent-looking smaller man. "I thought they were going to be helping around here today. Pappa said... wait, where's my father? Fuck!"
"Do I want to know?" Hank asked Ace in a quiet aside, both men watching a frantically pacing Bard who was attempting desperately to reach someone on his phone.
"Well, let's see, it all began..." Ace muttered, trying to keep from laughing, as he quickly brought Hank up to speed on the morning's events.
Finally, seeing Bard's complete frustration at being unable to get anyone on the phone, Ace tossed the poor wolf a bone.
"Bard...your sisters are flirting with some of the young pups," Ace offered, but quickly hurried on at seeing the panic of Bard's face, "But they're safe, I promise! The pups are all part of a small pack, and all of them are one-hundred percent gaybies. I swear! The Traveler's adopted them a couple of weeks back, but they're all good kids, just from bad packs."
Bard cooled a little bit. Just a little. That still left...
"And I saw your dad earlier," Hank offered in his quiet, deep, and molasses slow drawl, "He was muttering something about needing to talk to your mama, and was heading back towards the parking lot. Don't think you have to worry about him right now."
Hank's expression turned thoughtful as he tilted his head to one side. "At least, not now, now. Later, yeah. And your mom. And your brothers. And your pack. I mean, you found your mate, yeah? So, yep. Not now, but you'll definitely have to worry about them later. But that's then. Now, now though, you need to worry about charming and claiming your mate, you know?"
There really was no reason why Ace should be rolling on the ground cackling like a stoned hyena. No reason at all!
It's the Alfar blood. Makes them crazy. Bard's wolf concluded with a huff, though to be fair, the wolf wasn't any less nervous than Bard.
One had to keep a close eye on free-roaming Ulvfangs, otherwise they tended to get up to shenanigans. While it may technically be Aksel's job to keep the pack in line—yes, even their parents—it was a responsibility all three brothers shouldered, just in different ways.
With a frustrated groan, Bard ran both hands through his hair, freeing it from the restraining band and just letting his long bangs swing forward to hide his eyes as he took slow, calming breaths.
"Right. One thing at a time." Bard glared over at the still chuckling Ace, who had at least drug himself back upright, though the loopy-fucking-faerou was still smirking. "First, Ace, if you would be ever so kind, could you please and go get my sisters? I trust that your little pack of adopted gayrou are all good kids, but I think it's safer for the world if my sisters did not have access to a group of impressionable young guys to aid and abet them in their mischief."
Hopping to his feet, Ace gave a smart-ass salute and click of his heels. "Aye, aye, sir!" Still chuckling, the smaller man darted off, theoretically to go round up the twins, though Bard had his doubts about just how Ace would accomplish that.
Turning to Hank, whose placid, bored expression did nothing to hide the twinkle in those damned eyes of his, Bard huffed, "Laugh it up, pugmug. Let’s get all our stuff sorted and stowed, then if you don’t mind, I’ve got a mate to figure out how to woo.”
Hank curled a lip, a hint of white fang flashing almost as bright as the glint in his golden eyes, “I hate when you call me that.”
"Yeah, I know," Bard said smugly as they set to work.
Despite the anachronistic outward appearance of the Village, and although both Bard and Hank did things the old-fashioned way while at the Faire, the Leon clan was intent that didn't mean technology and progress couldn't be worked in, as long as it wasn't a distraction. Hence the cleverly concealed cell towers, WiFi hotspots scattered throughout the Village, and an underlaying infrastructure that provided electricity, sewage, and water throughout the grounds.
Theoretically, the entire Village could be self-sufficient, and with some of the plans Bard had heard rumored were in the works, soon would be entirely off grid.
None of this really mattered to Bard at the moment, except that it just meant there was that much left to do in order to be prepared for inspections and walk-throughs coming throughout the week, and that it all kept him from tracking down and wooing his mate!
After their third trip back to the vehicles, which took a more circuitous route than normal as Bard kept getting distracted and wandering off trying to follow hints of that scent that beckoned him, Hank had finally had enough.
"You're getting on my last damned nerve, longmuzz," he drawled, "You're worse than a puppy that's slipped his leash."
Bard sighed and cracked his neck, pointlessly trying to get rid of some of the tension thrumming through is body. "Yeah, I know. Sorry, man. My wolf is driving me crazy. He's impatient to track her down, now that he's scented her in the waking world."
"I get that man, I really do," Hank replied, "But can you at least muzzle him long enough so we can get all this stuff taken care of first?"
Carefully setting down the double-horn anvil he had been carrying, which even with his shifter strength and conditioning was still a strain on the back muscles, Hank stretched his back with a muffled groan of relief as he turned to face Bard.
Noticing he had already lost Bard's attention, however, Hank leveled a flat-eyed stare only felines could really pull off. "Like a damned dog with a damned bone."
"Cat. String. Kettle. Black." Bard returned automatically, though a grin played about his lips as he set down his own burden, a heavy crate carefully packed with bricks of the specialty coal both he and Hank preferred to use for their "natural" blacksmithing work.
Tearing his attention away from the still damned empty glassmaker's shoppe, Bard caught the stare Hank was pointedly still giving. With a laugh, Bard held up his hands in surrender. "Sorry! Sorry!"
Tilting his head, Bard's face turned into a rueful grimace. "Besides, sounds like the twins are almost here, and I think they wanted to get some social media stuff taken care of today."
"Oh, time to gear up then, eh?" Hank said with a decisive nod. Then smirked. "You know that means they're going to want you to kilt up, right? Although if you start oiling up, I'm out of here."
Pausing in the process of pulling his t-shirt up and over his head, Bard snorted a laugh. "There's no shame in being attracted to me, Hank, but I’ll admit, I prefer them a little less furry than you are."
Hank just blinked. "Dude, you shaved your chest? What happened to you, man? Are you pretending to be Donar now?"
Bard's response was to throw his sweaty shirt with enough force it rocked Hank's head back a bit, tearing both a groan of disgust and a burst of laughter from the typically stoic man.
Turning to confront his sisters, hearing their tittering giggles as they approached, Bard was about to say something, when once more his breath left in an explosive burst.
She was there. There she was. Is. Approaching. Towards him!
Completely unaware he had sucked in his gut, instinctively highlighting every clearly defined ridge of his abdomen, or that he had flared out his chest so that his pectoral muscles swelled and biceps curled, Bard crossed his arms over his chest and buried his hands in his pits, resisting the wolf's insistence he snatch her up and run. Not only to claim her, but to get her away from the two little she-wolves who had no doubt been filling her head.
Oh shit, she's been talking to the terrors!
Bard's eyes widened, and the expression on his face must have been something truly to witness. Her steps faltered as his mate warily met his gaze, but with one sister holding each of her hands and insistently tugging her forward, even she couldn't resist the inevitable.
"Come on, Harper, you've got to actually meet our brother! Well, one of them at least. The other two are probably roaming around here somewhere, but you don't want to meet them anyways," Tanja was going on at a mile-a-minute, par-for-the-course, of course, which explained her ability to do so without tripping over her own words.
"And don't worry about our dad," Sanja said, her own voice calm and cool, in contrast to her twin's bubbly tones, "He's just old and grumpy. Mom uses a spray bottle or a rolled-up newspaper when he gets too bad."
Great, now they're giving her ideas. Bard thought. Oddly, though, he couldn't get words to pass his lips. His thoughts, however, were spinning quicker than even Tanja's nattering.
When his mate... his Harper... drew close, when her scent fully enveloped him, Bard went lightheaded, drunk on her sweet essence as much as by her presence.
"Um," she finally said, drawing herself up to her rather impressive height as she adopted that cool, distant mien he had witnessed earlier. If not for the intensity in her eyes, however, and the heat spicing her scent, Bard may have had to go hunt his pappa down and tried to beat him raw for putting that hesitancy in her.
"Hello, again. I'm afraid, we may have gotten off on the wrong foot," she said in that honey-smooth Southern accent of hers as she offered her right hand as she boldly met his gaze. "I'm Harper Llewellyn, and I think you might just be my annwyl..."
Bard's wolf heard the catch in her voice, the nervous echo of her heartbeat. Both man and beast saw the hesitancy, the mix of hope and fear glinting in those turquoise eyes of hers. They didn't know her yet, not really, but in that moment as she boldly met him eye-to-eye, offering her hand and her words, she carved out a little more room for herself in their heart.