To this day, the king still made them carry tranquilizer guns when they made these trips, even though a banished wolf hadn’t come through the gate in almost three decades. No, these days, most of their visitors were using the gate for its second intended purpose: to find one’s fated mate.
Fated mates spells had fallen out of fashion in modern times, and most had been lost to the winds of history. But about once a year a she-wolf from another place and/or time, came through the portal. These she-wolves were usually at two ends of a rather extreme spectrum: silly romantics, who hadn’t fully considered the repercussions of a spell that could literally rip them out of their current space and time, or women who were well-ahead of their time or couldn’t fit in with their own societies. They’d had a pre-Civil War southern debutante come through the gate the year before, but prior to that, they’d gotten one suffragette and one modern she-wolf from a middle-eastern country that put serious restrictions on women’s rights.
She glanced at the tranquilizer gun, which she kept hidden in a vintage leather holster at her hip, and wished she could just get rid of it altogether. Holsters and prairie dresses didn’t really go together.
“Who do you think it will be?” she asked, when they were about five minutes away from the gate. She was once again changing the subject, but she hoped he wouldn’t call her on it this time.
Rafe shrugged. “You never know.”
That was when they heard a groan.
“Did you hear that?” Chloe asked, dropping her voice and wishing she’d brought a first aid kit. “Do you think she was hurt? The portal spits people out so hard.”
“No,” Rafe pulled out his tranq gun. “It sounded male.”
They carefully approached the portal, an invisible rift in space and time that a lycanthrope could feel but couldn’t quite see, unless it was sucking a wolf in or spitting one out. And indeed, they soon spotted a large figure passed out in the snow and facing away from them.
Definitely male, Chloe thought. The top half of his torso was uncovered, revealing a back that was hard with muscle, even in repose. A pair of leather pants covered his legs, which were as thick as tree trunks, and probably just as hard if they matched his back. No, even though long, red hair fell to his shoulders in thick, tangled waves, Chloe could sense his maleness from his smell alone, an intense mix of wood, animal blood, and testosterone.
“Stay behind me,” Rafe told her. He edged closer to the semi-unconscious shifter and used one booted foot to turn him over.
Chloe did as she was told but even from behind Rafe, she could see the man had a hard and serious face, half of which was covered with a thick, red beard. His hand was clutched tightly around a sword, which featured an ivory grip, a large iron wolf at the top of its hilt, and a double-edged steel blade. It was coated in blood, and looked wickedly sharp. Luckily the werewolf, who had been on the verge of unconsciousness when he groaned earlier, seemed to be completely unconscious now.
She spotted a large rock near where his head now lie. “He must have hit his head on that rock when he came out of the portal. Maybe we should move it. I’d hate for the next person who came through to get hurt, especially if it’s a she-wolf.”
“Check the gnarly beard on this guy,” Rafe said, lowering his gun. “He looks like a Viking, right?”
Chloe stepped from behind Rafe to fully observe the unconscious man. “He’s either a Viking or a very strange rock star, and I’ve never seen a rock star with—”
Suddenly the maybe-Viking’s eyes popped open. And that was all the warning they got before he yanked on Rafe’s leg, pulling him to the ground and jumping to his own feet. As Rafe’s tranq gun went flying across the snow, the red-haired man pinned Rafe with a large bare foot planted squarely in the middle of his chest. And his eyes blazed with a warrior’s fury as he raised his vicious-looking sword above his head with the blade pointed downward. Chloe didn’t know a lot about sword fighting, but even she could tell this was the preparation for a killing blow.
“No!” she screamed, raising her own tranq gun and pointing it at the mad wolf.
He paused and looked toward her, pinning her with a piercing gray gaze that looked like it had been fashioned from the same material as his steel sword.
Chloe just hoped to the heavens above that whatever time period this wolf was from, he understood what a gun was—even if hers technically wasn’t a real one.
“Put the sword down or I’ll shoot,” she said, hating that she couldn’t keep her voice from trembling as she issued this command.
She half-expected him to kill Rafe then come after her. He’d pinned Rafe so quickly, he’d probably be able to do away with them both before she managed to squeeze the trigger. But he didn’t kill Rafe or her. He just stood there staring, his eyes flinty under the midday sun.
Several seconds ticked by, but he did not look away.
And eventually he said something to her in a thick, coarse language that sounded a little like German, but she couldn’t be sure. Oh God, he probably really was a Viking, she realized.
“Um,” she said, wishing now that she hadn’t chosen to take three years of high school Spanish as opposed to a language that might actually be useful when dealing with a possible Viking werewolf. Her mind fumbled around for any German she knew, and started spewing every single word and phrase, in the hopes something would stick. “Dankeshein? Um…neinn…sprechen sie Englisch? Um…um, oh my God, Auf Wiendersehn?”
He squinted at her. Then to her great alarm, he lowered the sword and came stalking straight toward her.
“Um, stop. Stop, please! Stay right where you are!” How did you say “stop” in German? She had no idea.
In the end, she squeaked, squeezing the trigger, and her eyes shut at the same time.
She heard a hard thump and when she opened her eyes, the maybe-Viking was lying crumpled on the ground with a dart lodged in his shoulder, already rendered unconscious by the fast-acting sleep agent it administered.
Beyond him, she could see Rafe, now sitting up and shaking his head. “Chloe…”
She re-harnessed her tranquilizer gun. “I know, I know, tranq the wolf first, ask questions later.”
“Especially when he has a sword pointed at my freaking neck.” Her normally indulgent fiancé didn’t look too happy with the Viking or her at that moment. “And do I really need to tell you not to close your eyes when you shoot?”