The Alpha King and His Virgin Bride novel · Chapter 2 of 32

Chapter 2: The Price of Leaving

Tove turns into a wolf to prove it, Vidar orders Linnea to forget his house, Torvald offers her half a million dollars to leave the state and she tears it up in front of her crew, and at midnight Tove calls: he's dying again.

I laughed then, because the alternative was taking her seriously.

"Ma'am, your son had a cardiac event," I said. "He needs a cardiologist, not a priest."

"He needs you," she said. "God help you both."

"Mom." The girl with the cropped hair came up behind me. "She thinks we're a cult."

"Aren't you?" I said.

The girl grinned at me through her tears.

She had a nose ring, ripped jeans and a flannel shirt three sizes too big.

"I'm Tove," she said. "His sister. You want proof, or you want to keep being polite?"

"Tove," her mother said sharply.

"She saved his life. She gets proof."

Tove pulled the flannel over her head and dropped it on the flagstones.

Arne made a strangled sound and looked at the ceiling.

Then she folded down toward the floor, and she kept folding.

Her spine bowed.

Her shoulders rolled forward with a wet crack.

Black and white fur poured out over her skin.

It took maybe three seconds.

Where Tove had been stood a wolf the size of a pony, black with a white chest and white socks.

She shook herself.

Then she trotted over to Arne and licked his hand.

Arne sat down on the floor.

Not on purpose.

His knees just quit.

"Okay," I said. My voice came out very calm. "Okay."

"She does that," said a deep voice behind me.

Vidar Rask was on his feet.

Somebody had given him a blanket and he'd thrown it off.

His bare chest was still marked where my palms had been, two red handprints over his heart.

He looked gray around the mouth.

He also looked like he could tear the door off its hinges.

"Tove, change back," he said. "And put a shirt on."

The wolf sneezed at him.

"Ms. Odegaard."

"Linnea."

"Ms. Odegaard." He stopped a careful six feet from me. "Forget this house. Forget the road up here. If anyone at your station asks, it was a false alarm."

"I'm not lying on a run report."

"Then write what you like. Nobody will believe it."

He was right, and it made me angry.

"I'll be back Tuesday to take your blood pressure," I said. "That's not optional either."

His eyes flickered.

For half a second, I saw gold at the edges.

"Try," he said.

I looked at the thirty people who'd stood around him while he died.

I looked at the man in the gray coat, who was watching me.

Then I picked up the monitor bag.

"Arne. We're leaving."

Arne got up off the floor with great dignity and a lot of grunting.

I walked out on my own feet, with the signed refusal folded in my breast pocket.

Nobody stopped me.

I didn't look back.

I could feel Vidar Rask watching me all the way to the door.

The next afternoon I was restocking the rig when the man in the gray coat walked into our bay.

It was a two-bay garage behind the fire hall.

He looked wrong in it.

Half our volunteer crew was in there, washing the engine and drinking coffee out of paper cups.

The chief looked up from his clipboard.

"Help you?"

"I'm here for Ms. Odegaard."

He came straight to me and held out his hand.

"Torvald Rask," he said. "Vidar's uncle. We weren't introduced."

I didn't shake it.

He smiled.

"I'll be brief. My family is grateful. My nephew is grateful."

"He didn't seem grateful."

"He's proud. You understand." He reached into his coat and pulled out an envelope. "This is for your trouble."

I opened it.

It was a cashier's check made out to me.

Five hundred thousand dollars.

I read the zeroes twice.

Arne whistled from the back of the rig.

"There's a condition," Torvald said. "A small one. You leave the state tonight. Arizona's lovely in October."

The whole bay had gone quiet.

The chief set down his clipboard.

"For his sake," Torvald said gently. "You saw what happens to him when you're near. Every time he catches your scent, his heart stops."

"It started again when I touched him."

"This time."

I looked down at the check.

Half a million dollars.

My mother's house had a leaking roof and a second mortgage from her last two years.

The roofer had quoted me eleven thousand dollars in August.

"You stood there with your hands in your pockets while he was blue," I said.

"Funny," I said. "Last night you wanted him dead and gone. Now you want me gone."

His smile didn't move, but his eyes did.

I tore the check in half.

The sound was loud in the bay.

The chief said, "Well, hell."

I tore it again, crosswise, and held out the pieces.

Torvald didn't take them.

"I treat whoever calls nine-one-one," I said. "If your nephew's heart stops again, somebody can call me. I'll come."

"You're making a mistake you won't live to regret."

"Then I'll make it."

He looked at me for a long moment.

Then he walked out, and the bay let out its breath all at once.

I put the torn pieces in the glovebox of my truck.

I didn't know why.

That night my phone rang at twelve-oh-nine.

Unknown number.

"It's Tove," she said. Her voice was shaking. "He's having another one."

Behind her I heard something crash.

"Call nine-one-one."

"I can't. He's forbidden anyone to call you."

"Tove..."

"I'm calling you," she said. "He's stopped breathing, Linnea. Please."

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