Werewolf fairytales

The ugly Luna; Fenrir’s story

*Fenrir*

As a boy, I had no interest in the history of civilized England. I dreamed of Britain’s past, when men were warriors and Vikings ruled the shores, fancying myself at the helm of a longboat, ferociously tattooed like an ancient Scottish wolf warrior.

At eighteen I was a pirate, and at twenty-two I captained my own ship, the Flying Daisy. A few years later, just a glimpse of a black flag emblazoned with a flower would make a hardened seaman quiver with fear.

No one knew that my ship was named for my mate, whose name is Daisy. I even tattooed a small Daisy high on one cheekbone in her honor, although I knew her for only one day… and never consummated the marriage.

Yet I always feel a certain satisfaction in that small sign of respect. Over the years, I’ve forged my own code of honor. I never shoot a man in the back, never walk anyone down the plank, and never offer violence to a she-wolf. What’s more, I sack any of my crew who think that the Flying Daisy’s fearsome reputation gives them liberty to indulge their worst inclinations.

Though to be sure, the royal pardon recently issued for myself and my cousin Fennec, the Alpha prince of Islay, describes us as privateers, not pirates.

I know the distinction is slight. It’s true that in the last seven years Fennec and I have limited ourselves to attacking only pirate and slave ships, never legitimate merchant vessels.

But it’s equally true that I am, and have been, a pirate. And now that I’m back in England I’m not going to pretend that I’ve been fiddling around the globe in a powdered wig, dancing reels in foreign ballrooms.

On the other hand, I’m damn sure that the mate I scarcely remember wouldn’t be happy to find out that she’s married to a pirate. Or even to a privateer.

However you look at it, I’m a sorry excuse for a gentleman, with a limp and a tattooed cheek and fourteen hard years at sea under my belt. Not exactly the respectable alpha to whom her father betrothed her.

I don’t relish the idea of strolling into a house somewhere around Bath… I’m not even sure where… and announcing that I am Daisy Garou’s long-lost husband. An involuntary stream of curses comes from my lips at the very thought. I even feel something akin to fear, an emotion I manage to avoid in the fiercest of sea battles.

Of course, Fennec and I entered those battles together, shoulder to shoulder. That’s undoubtedly why I blurted out an unconscionably ungentlemanly offer, one that would horrify my father.

“Want a bet on which of us gets his mate to bed faster?”

Fennec didn’t look particularly shocked, but he pointed out the obvious: “Not the action of gentlemen.”

My response was, perhaps, a little sharp for that very reason. “It’s too late to claim that particular status,” I said to Fennec. “You can play the Alpha prince all you like, but a gentleman? No. You’re no gentleman.”

From the grin playing around Fennec’s mouth, it seems likely he’s going to accept the bet. It’s hard to say which of us faces the biggest battle. I can’t remember my mate’s face, but at least I’ve supported her financially in my absence. Fennec’s mate has been on the verge of declaring him seven years missing, and therefore dead.

“If I accept your bet, you’ll have to take yourself off to Bath and actually talk to your mate,” Fennec observed.

Talk to her? I don’t have much interest in talking to Daisy.

I left a lovely young she-wolf behind. Due to various circumstances beyond my control… which I don’t like thinking about to this day… I left her a virgin. Unsatisfied. Untouched.

No, I don’t want to talk to my mate.

It’s time to go home, obviously. It would be easier if I hadn’t taken a knife wound to the leg. But to come home a cripple…

After Fennec left, I walk around the bedchamber once more, trying to stretch my leg, then pause at a window looking over the small garden behind Fennec’s town house. The alley is full of gawking men, journalists who have caught wind of the news that the returned Alpha prince is a pirate. They’ll probably be out there for the next week, baying like hounds at a glimpse of Fennec or his poor mate.

My man, Shark, enters the room as I turn from the window. “Pack our bags, Shark. We need to escape the menagerie surrounding this house. Has rabble congregated at the front as well?”

“Yes,” Shark replies, moving over to the wardrobe. “The butler says it’s a fair mob out there. We should bolt before they break down the door.”

“They won’t do that.”

“You never know,” Shark says, a huge grin making the tattoo under his right eye crinkle. “Apparently London is riveted by the idea of a pirate Alpha prince. Hasn’t been such excitement since the czar paid a visit to the king, according to the butler.”

My response is heartfelt, and blasphemous. "The household's all in a frenzy because they don't know whether the princess will leave the Alpha prince or not," Shark shakes his head. "Powerful shock for a gentle she-wolf, to find herself married to a pirate. By all accounts, she thought he was five fathoms deep and gone forever. She fainted dead away at the sight of him, that's what they're saying downstairs. I wouldn't be surprised if your wife does the same. Or maybe she'll just bar the door. After all, you have been gone longer than the Alpha prince has."

"Shut your trap," I growl. "Get someone to help you with the bags and we'll be out the door in five minutes." I grab my cane and start for the hallway, only to pause and deal my thigh a resounding whack. For some reason, slamming the muscles with a fist seems to loosen them, making walking easier. Not easy, but easier.

"Yer doing the right thing," Shark says irrepressibly. "Run off to yer missus and tell her yourself before she finds out the worst in the papers."

"Summon the carriage," I say, ignoring Shark's nonsense. That's the trouble with turning a sailor into a manservant. Shark doesn't have the proper attitude.

A moment later, I pause on the threshold of the library. Over the years, Fennec and I have been entertained several times by no less than the King of Sicily, but even so, I'm impressed by the room's grandeur. It resembles rooms at Versailles, painted with delicate blue and white designs, heavy silk hanging at every window.

Unfortunately, Fennec doesn't suit the decor. He sits at his desk, sleeves rolled up, no coat or neckcloth in evidence. Like me, he's bronzed from the sun, his body powerful and large, his face tattooed.

"This is remarkably elegant," I observe, wandering into the room. "I've ruined you, that's clear. I never saw a man who looked less like an Alpha prince. You're not living up to all this elegance."

Fennec snorts, not looking up from the page he's writing. "I've just had word that the pardons will be delivered tomorrow."

"Send mine after me," I say, leaning on my cane. "I have to find my mate before she reads about my occupation in the papers. In order to win our bet, you understand," I go on. I truly feel a bit ashamed of the wager Fennec and I placed; one ought not place bets regarding one's wife.

Fennec rises and comes around from behind his desk. I haven't paid attention to my cousin's appearance in years, but there's no getting around the fact that the tight pantaloons he wears now aren't the same as the rough breeches we wore aboard ship. You can make out every muscle on Fennec's leg, and he has the limbs of a dockworker.

"Remember the first time I saw you?" I ask, pointing my cane in Fennec's direction. "You had a wig plopped sideways on your head, and an embroidered coat thrown on any which way. You were skinny as a reed, barely out of your nappies. Most ship captains looked terrified when my men poured over the rail, but you looked eager."

Fennec laughs. "I was so bloody grateful when I realized the pirate ship following us was manned by my own flesh and blood."

"How in the hell are you ever going to fit in among the High packs?"

"What, you don't think they'll like my tattoo?" Fennec laughs again, as fearless now as when he first faced me and my horde of pirates. "I'll just point to you if anyone looks at me askance. Maybe between the two of us we'll start a fashion."

"My father's still alive," I say, wondering whether I should go through the trouble of collapsing into a chair. It's damnably hard to get upright again. "I'm not the actual Alpha yet," I add.

"He won't live forever. Someday we'll find ourselves old, gray, and tattooed, battling it out in the House of Alphas over a corn bill."

I utter a blasphemy and turn toward the door. If my cousin wants to pretend that it's going to be easy to return to civilization, let him revel. The days of being each other's right hand, boon companion, blood brother, are over.

"Coz…" Fennec speaks from just behind me, having moved with that uncanny silent grace that served him so well during skirmishes at sea. "When will I see you again?"

I shrug. "Could be next week. I'm not sure my mate will let me in the front door. Yours has already declared she's leaving. We might both be busy finding new housing, not to mention new spouses."

Fennec grins. "Feeling daunted, are you? The captain of the Flying Daisy, the scourge of the seven seas, fearful of a mate he barely knows?"

"Funny how I was the captain on the seas," I say, ignoring him, "but now you're the Alpha prince and I'm a mere Beta."

"Rubbish. I was the captain of the Poppy, by far the better vessel. You were always my subordinate."

I give him a thump on the back, and a little silence falls. Male friendship is such an odd thing. We followed each other into danger because bravado doubled with company: side by side, recklessness squared. Now…

"The princess will presumably be coming down for dinner soon," I say, looking my cousin up and down. "You should dress like an Alpha prince. Put on that coat you had made in Paris. Surprise her. You look like a savage."

"I hate…"

I cut him off. "Doesn't matter. She-wolves don't like the unkempt look. Shark has been chatting with the household. Did you know that your mate is famous throughout London and Paris for her elegance?"

"That doesn't surprise me. She always had a mania for that sort of thing."

"Stands to reason the princess won't want to see you looking like a shiftless gardener at the dining table. Though why I'm giving you advice, I don't know. I stand to lose… what do I stand to lose? We made the bet, but we never established the forfeit."

Fennec's jaw sets. "We shouldn't have done it." Our eyes meet, acknowledging the fact that we are easing from blood brothers to something else. From men whose deepest allegiance was to each other to men who owe our mates something. Not everything, perhaps, given the years that have passed, but dignity, at least. A modicum of loyalty.

"Too late now," I say, feeling a bit more cheerful now that I know Fennec feels the same twinge of shame. "Frankly, I doubt either of us will win. English she-wolves don't want anything to do with pirates. We'll never get them in bed."

"I shouldn't have agreed to it."

"Damned if you don't look a proper Alpha prince with your mouth all pursed up like that. Well, there it stands. The last huzza of our piratical, vulgar selves. You can't back out of it now."

Fennec growls.

Shark pokes his head in the library door. "We're all packed, sir."

"I'm off," I say. "Good luck and all that."

For a moment we just look at each other: two men who've come home to a place where we don't belong and likely never will.

"Christmas?" Fennec asks, his eyebrow c****d. "In the country."

I think that over. Spending Christmas at the seat of the Alpha Prince would mean acknowledging that Fennec is like a brother. We'd find ourselves telling stories about times we had nearly died protecting each other, rather than putting it all behind us and pretending the last years were some sort of dream.

Fennec moves his shoulder, a twitch more eloquent than a shrug. "I'd like to know there's something pleasant in my future."

The Alpha prince doesn't want to be an Alpha prince. I don't want to be a beta, let alone an Alpha, so we are paired in that.

"It's as if Jason… or the Minotaur, for that matter… returned home," I remark. "I've got this bum leg, you sound like gravel on the bottom of a wheel, and no one will know what to make of us."

Fennec snorts. "Actually, that makes us Odysseus: didn't Homer have it that no one recognized Odysseus but the family dog? I don't give a damn what anyone makes of us. Christmas?" he repeats.

If I say yes, I will be declaring myself an Alpha prince's intimate friend, going to a house party for the holiday, acknowledging a closeness to power that my father has always lusted after.

I had thought becoming a pirate was the ultimate way to thwart my father's ambitions. It seems fate had something else in mind.

"I wish you weren't an Alpha prince," I say, to fill the silence as much as anything.

"So do I." Fennec's eyes are clear. Honest.

"Very well, Christmas," I say, giving in to the inevitable. "Likely you'll still be trying to bed your mate, so I can give you a hint or two."

A rough embrace, and I walk out without another word, because there isn't need for one.

Now I merely have to face my family: my father. My mate.

Mate.