Her Irish Wolves

A knotty why choose shifter romantasy

Theodora Taylor

Copyright © 2024 by Theodora Taylor

All rights reserved.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.

Editing by Ronnie from Authors Designs.

Proofreading by Jeanne Olynik

Cover by Artscandare Book Cover Design

Created with Vellum

Part One

Sea

We came by land, sea, and car. All three Irish Kings converged from the North, South, and East for our agreed-upon meeting inside the ancient structure we called Clocha na Cinniúna — the fating stones.

But I, the Sea King, arrived first. After tying up my boat at the dock of the nearest town to this particular set of fating stones, I hiked up a bendy road in pouring rain past several signs the clueless humans had hung, inviting tourists to visit one of the structures they insisted on calling "prehistoric stone circles."

“Welcome to the Ballymactyre Stone Circle!”

An elderly and round human male wearing a flat cap underneath a bright green poncho sprang out of the entry booth before I reached the stone steps leading up to the fating gates. 

“I’ll just need a payment of ten from you then.”

My wolf thrashed inside of me, demanding I let him rip out the elderly man’s throat for daring to charge any sum of money for the privilege of visiting the stone monument the Wild King’s ancestors had built back in the Bronze Age.

But I clenched my jaw against the constant, gnawing need that my wolf pushed on me — the need to destroy and do even the most minor of enemies harm because in twenty-nine years, I had yet to claim a mate.

I did not give the audacious male ten euros. I gave him one thousand in a thick wad held together with a bit of twine. We didn’t have much use for currency in the secret kingdom. But my uncle had made sure to tuck a few wads of the stuff inside my leather belt pouch before handing it to me with an old Gaelic proverb that roughly translated to, “Money is the only oil that will light every type of lamp.”

In short, money would make it easier for me to remain the king wherever I traveled in the human world.

“Shut down the gates for a while,” I instructed the rotund human as if he were one of my subjects. “I’ve a meeting set here with two others, but if ever someone comes through with an inquiry about whether you’ve seen us — especially a Scottish someone…”

“I never did. Understood.” The delighted booth minder nabbed the wad from my hand and tucked it into a pocket beneath his poncho. “Will the three of you be wanting a tour, then?”

“No.” I shifted my gaze to the car park across the two-lane road just as a vehicle pulled in — a sleek Nakamura Velocity EV. Not so flashy that humans would take notice but posh enough to spoil its driver and signal virtuosity.  

I guessed the Dublin King was behind the wheel even before he stepped out and popped an umbrella to protect his fine, tailored suit and swept back copper-colored hair from the pelting rain. 

“That your mate?”

The booth minder squinted at the newcomer who'd crossed the road and was now squelching through the mud toward us in polished wingtips.

“What’s the craic here, then? Some sort of Top Boy nonsense?”

Irritation spiked within me. Now the greedy human was asking questions? I should've given him less dosh to keep others out during our meeting. The hefty sum had piqued his curiosity, and although we weren't in the drug trade like the Irish lads on that English series, I could certainly see why he might think so.

My wolf thrashed inside of me again. Begging for a kill. 

The Diplomatic King was one of my many non-official titles among our kind. However, my inner beast had been bad, verging on terrible before the Tríbéirríthe's call. Now that it knew my long wait for a true mate might end, every little nuisance made it prowl on edge inside me — especially the clueless human ones.

“You’ll want to go back inside your hut and remain there until we’re done,” I told the booth minder. 

The old man was nosy but not daft. He shuffled back into his little entry booth without any further questions. 

“Sea,” the Dublin King greeted me with a nod.

His silver-grey gaze flicked briefly over the jeans and t-shirt I wore beneath a rain parka from some brand called Jack Murphy. This was the first time he’d ever seen me attempt to blend in with the humans. I’d even let the hair grow back over the shaved side of my head, which still bore the near-useless runic protection tattoos meant to keep my beast in check.

Not that it mattered. Protection tattoos be damned, my beast continued to hover dangerously close to my surface. And anyhow, when I stepped off the boat I’d taken from Ailte Faoilmar to keep the Dublin King from knowing the true location of the secret kingdom, I’d pulled my hood over my long red hair.

“Dublin,” I answered with a nod of my own.

“That sorted?” The Dublin King tilted his city pompadour toward the human in the booth.

“Paid him well enough to keep his gob shut about us ever meeting here if that’s what you’re asking." Now, it was my turn to eye him up and down. "But then you decided to flah up looking like an entire episode of Dragon's Den for what's s'posed to be a secret get-together.”

“I don’t have much time for this, do I?" Dublin lowered his brows and blew out a breath. "Had to fit you in between meetings with a few of our County Kerry distributors.” 

He glanced around — then sniffed in the way of wolves who spent far too much time hiding what they were from humans: covertly with barely a flare of his nostrils. “Where’s the Feral King?”

“Do not call him that.” My voice came out rougher than I intended. Though, the reason had less to do with respect for a fellow king and more with my ongoing battle with the mutinous wolf fighting me for control of my body.

“Is Wild still alright to call him?” The Dublin King's tone was a tad — but only a tad — more respectful. “Or is there an Irish pagan title he prefers these days?”

“Wild is fine.”

“Alright then, where’s the Wild King?” he asked.

"Not sure," I admitted, scanning the road for the king who I’d only ever seen travel by foot. But there was no sign of him coming from any direction. “We’ll wait inside the fating stones for him then.”

However, we soon discovered that a wait wasn’t required. As it turned out, I wasn’t the first to arrive.

Upon walking up the stone-covered hill, we found the Wild King crouched in front of one of the standing stones with one arm slightly in front of the other in the wet grass as if he fully intended to pounce on any prey that dared to cross his path — the hunter position, as my Viking ancestors used to call it back when they were still in the habit of running down their meat. 

Upon our entry into the circle of standing stones, he rose to his feet — shorter than either of his fellow kings, yet somehow as imposing as one of his druid ancestors.

“Welcome to Clocha na Cinniúna.” His eyes glowed bright blue in Ireland’s relentless gray, and he gave us a deep bow that was one part tradition and two parts mocking. “It’s been too long.”

Nearly two decades, actually. The last time we were all together, we’d been confused boys, standing by as Dublin’s father negotiated the peace treaty that merged the Belfast and Dublin wolves into a two-city kingdom and introduced the new Heat Laws. After the Terrible Belfast Mess.

However, Dublin barely nodded at Wild’s mocking formalities before turning his sharp gaze back to me. "Why did you call this meeting? If this is about the pitiful population numbers after our latest zero birth year, I've already got feelers out. I’m in contact with other kingdoms across the world, trying to work out a discreet exchange program."

"According to the Tríbéirríthe, the Scottish Wolves have beaten you to the punch," I said, sweeping my gaze over them. "They’ve already worked out an exchange with a Canadian pack with the opposite problem. Too many she-wolves."

I paused, letting that sink in — the idea of a pack actually having too many she-wolves. Then I dropped the rest of it on them. "And those surplus females arrived in the Scottish kingdom town not long ago." Once again, my heart jerked at the possibilities.

Switching to the auld language, I added, “They came from across the sea.”

The Dublin King stilled, like a wolf that had caught the scent of something bigger and deadlier than himself. True, Dublin didn’t speak the auld language — like his father and every Norman king before him. His line, descended from conquerors, had refused to learn it from the start. At this point, it was more than ignorance; it was tradition, a deliberate signal that the Norman Wolves — as they were originally called before a major city grew up around them — were superior to the likes of us.

But this particular bit of Gaelic was different. We had all been made to memorize the prophecy as princes, and forced to recite it before we could claim our thrones, each one of us inheriting the additional title: Keeper of the Prophecy.

Wild, who had tipped his face to the sky, said, "It’s exactly as the Draganclocha Prophecy foretold."

His voice was a mere breath above the wind, and when he slashed his gaze at us, the usual mocking gleam was gone. "No wonder our numbers have fallen so low. Yer father was right, Sea. It’s time —"

"No." Dublin shook his head, cutting Wild off. "We can’t."

"We must," Wild insisted. "The Second Reaping must happen as prophesied."

My wolf thrashed in agreement, ready to claim our queen. However, I kept an eye on Dublin, the king who ruled over the largest population of shifters in Ireland. We were all wolf walkers, but the City Wolves didn’t hold the same cultural beliefs as the shifters who belonged to the Wild and Sea packs — especially when it came to sharing. Also, his family had a spotty history when it came to respecting my family’s long held title of The True King.

“No,” the Dublin King said again. “We cannot engage in a Second Reaping. Our relationship with the Scottish Wolves is still completely banjaxed after the first one. And that was over five hundred years ago!”

"You should know," I said, "that the Tríbéirríthe has also put in an extraction request for a specific female. They believe she’s a potential match. This will take resources — far more than the First Reaping. But they’re willing to fund the whole thing if we deliver her."

"Then it’s settled." Wild pounded a fist to his chest, his electric blue eyes blazing even brighter. "Ye’ve only to say the word, True King, and the Wild Contingent will be ready."

"Right, I’ve a dead serious question for you that’s in desperate need of an answer before we go any further.” Instead of pounding his chest in fidelity, Dublin raised both hands, a sneer curving his mouth. “Are the two of you actually mental?”

Wild let out a frustrated huff and my wolf slammed into my chest in its effort to tear out of my body and rip the voice box from the City King’s sarcastic throat.

Somehow I managed to keep the beast down, and calmly reply, “Dublin, listen, mate…”

“No, you listen. It’s not the 1500s anymore. This ‘Second Reaping’ — as you two so poetically call your kidnapping scheme — will land us in deep shite with the Scots and the North Americans this time."

"Only the Scottish Wolves will have reason to complain," I replied as patiently as I could with the beast snarling inside of me. My skin prickled, the urge to shift pulsing through me as my wolf clawed at my control. "These she-wolves belong to a special, mostly Canadian sect. They don’t even acknowledge the North American Lupine Federation, let alone vote in their elections."

"A special sect?" Dublin took a sharp sniff, like he’d caught the scent of bullshite coming from the pasture. "Are you telling me they’re religiously exempt from being counted as part of the North American Territories?"

I gritted my jaw, too annoyed that he guessed that bit right to answer.

But my lack of response was all the Dublin King needed to press on with his counter argument.

His gaze narrowed. "So, let me get this straight. You — the Viking Sea King — and your not-so-wise pagan ally here plan to kidnap a bunch of fundamentalist she-wolves because it was written on some stone eons ago?"

"It’s more than that," Wild growled, eyes blazing. "She’s meant to be our banríon, you disrespectful cunt."

"Oh, lovely. I’m sure this highly circumspect Wölfennite she-wolf you want all three of us to wed will be absolutely charmed by that pious mouth of yours, Wild."

Wild smirked, his grin feral. "She won’t mind when she sees how well I eat pie. Besides the prophecy —"

Dublin cut him off with a roll of his eyes. "Please stop quoting some ancient rock your ancestors scribbled on centuries ago."

Wild’s grin twisted into something darker. "The prophecy is real."

“Says you,” the Dublin King shot back. “For all we know, that text was just some druid playing a prank with his chisel. There wasn’t much for you lot to be doing back then. Or now, it would seem.”

“We Wild Walkers have got plenty to do, ye jackeen gobshite,” Wild growled through clenched teeth. “And every other word of the prophecy has come true. We are all the Sons of Mairi, are we not? Fighting a Second Reaping that’s already been written into the stone of fate is a waste of time.”

I nodded. “He’s right, Dublin. We would’ve died out in the 1500s if it weren’t for the first reaping. And if we want to save our kingdoms, we need to be united on this. I get why you're reluctant, and I understand why you might hesitate to pledge your wolves to this cause. They are a bit…”

“Soft,” the Wild King finished in a tone usually reserved for spitting.

“Untrained in the ways of stealth,” I corrected, throwing Wild a sharp look. “But you can still be involved. Help us coordinate, and your City Wolves will have fair access.”

Dublin, though shorter than me by a couple of inches, somehow managed to look down his nose as he replied, “While I appreciate your diplomatic attempt to persuade me into committing a heinous crime, my answer is still no.”

My chest clenched at the finality in his voice and my wolf threatened to explode out of me.

“You’re aware you’re part of the prophecy.” Unable to keep the desperation out of my voice, I lowered my head slightly, leveling my eyes with his. “We can’t fulfill it without you.”

Wild sneered. “And what do ye reckon the Tríbéirríthe will do when they realize ye’re the only king standing between them and what they’ve been waiting for?”

Dublin shrugged. “I imagine they’ll do what they should’ve done from the start. Hire mercenaries to extract this one female rather than involve our three kingdoms in a mad plan that could get us banned from North America. Or better yet, maybe they should just talk to their potential like modern-day shifters.”

“And how’s that working out for yer City Walkers then?” Wild shot back. “Last I checked, yer population’s just as barren as ours. Now stop yer bleating and get on board before all ye’ve left to rule over is a pack of city willy.”

“Don’t you dare command me,” Dublin bared his teeth at Wild in a way that showed exactly what he was underneath that posh accent and smooth shave. “I’m not one of your ferals.”

Then the City King turned to me, his voice cool again. “And yes, I know you can’t complete the prophecy without me. Which is why I’m walking away.”

“Dublin…” I began.

But Dublin wasn’t one to posture. Without a word, he turned, leaving nothing but the sight of his black umbrella fading into the rain as he disappeared around the standing stones.

Fuck.

As we watched him go, my wolf howled despondently inside of me. We’d been so close…

“Ye can’t let him leave it this way.” Wild came up to stand beside me, his voice a somber echo of the same thoughts I’d been having. “It’s as yer father said. We are the ones who must do this. The prophecy must be fulfilled. Or else what did it all mean?”

Keep your noses in the air, Sons of Ireland! For the time of Mairinua will soon come!

My wolf thrashed even harder at the memory of the last words my father ever said to me — along with Wild and Dublin — after being stripped of his titles.

“Besides, yer nine and twenty, Sea King,” Wild pointed out without a gram of softness in his tone. “Are ye not sick of yer own hand yet?”

The answer to that question was yes. But abject shame rendered me unable to reply out loud.

Perhaps Wild sensed the truth underneath my carefully neutral expression. His voice gentled to say, “I imagine yer wait has not been easy on ye. Or yer wolf?”

No, it hadn’t. A cold wind blew through my chest, howling along with my lonely, too-long unmated wolf.

But…

“Dublin’s right,” I reminded Wild with a sunken stomach. “We can’t complete the prophecy without him.”

“He’s right about that bit, sure,” Wild conceded, though it looked like it pained him to say so. “But he’s wrong about one thing. We don’t need him for the Second Reaping. And unlike the two of ye, I have faith.”

His eyes burned with a fervor that matched his name.

“I believe in the prophecy. And I believe that if we find our queen and bring her to Eire, everything will fall into place. I’m with ye, Sea. But the question is, are ye truly ready to do yer part to fulfill the prophecy?”

Wild stepped in front of me, blocking the sight of Dublin’s retreating form.

“What say ye, True King?”

Wild extended a hand, his glowing eyes daring me to make a choice. “Will ye lead us in the Second Reaping?”

Wild

The True King eyed the hand I held out, but in the end, did not take it.

“We cannot — we should not do this without Dublin.” Sea shook his head while speaking in the auld language. “My father must have been wrong. The Second Reaping will have to wait for another generation.”

My stomach soured, twisting with disappointment. There is no word for "no" in the auld language. Yet, the Sea King managed to deny me just the same.

S’pose I should’ve seen it coming. The way that Terrible Belfast Mess played out, it made sense that he’d want his father to be wrong. Probably in the same way I used to want my mother to change her mind about leaving me and Da behind.

Calling the whole thing off probably seemed like the most logical conclusion to the True King, especially after that useless City King gave the Second Reaping less than five minutes of consideration before kipping away.

I wasn’t Sea, though. Believing in the prophecy didn’t even feel like a choice that could be made. It was the only hope I had left. Without it, what was I? A king both haunted and cursed, with nothing to show for all the pain that came from the fallout from the Terrible Belfast Mess.

"We’re not children anymore, Sea, and the prophecy won’t wait on wolf or king.” I sneered at the dithering ruler I was nonetheless blood and curse bound to obey in all things. “Besides, way we're going with zero births all around, doubt we'll be spawning a new generation to go a'reaping.”

I scraped a hand over my closely shorn hair, memories of the Terrible Belfast Mess clashing with the very modern issue of not having had a single live birth from my pack in years. “Ye know and I know this is our only chance — our last chance before the Irish Wolves decay into ruin."

Sea's expression tightened, but he didn't give me the courtesy of further argument. Just walked off in the same direction as Dublin. 

However, I stood sturdy and sure inside the gates my ancestors built for our gods. 

“We’re headed to the Cairn of Shadow for Samhain this turn,” I shouted after Sea. “Send a merlin when ye change yer mind.”

Sea didn’t acknowledge my offer. Didn't even bother to look over his shoulder and give me a respectful parting as he continued to wherever he tied up his boat.

But that was fine.

The Sea King traced his blood back a good thousand years beyond our unification under Mairi to the Viking wolves who settled on the Eire coast in the 800s. But my roots ran thousands of years beyond that, to a time before vellum — before iron and bronze — when we carved our tales in symbols upon stone. 

The Sea King’s nose was full of salt and wind, as we say of the coastal wolves who still could not navigate the land as well as us. He could not smell the inevitable truth the way I did. He thought just because he could (barely) control his wolf enough to keep its glow out of his eyes that he actually had choices in these matters. 

But my nose was ancient. I’d sniffed out the truth about him the moment he stepped inside the fating gate. 

The Sea King's wolf was close to the surface. Hungry. Desperate. Nearly as feral as those City Walkers claim the Wild ones to be. 

Hell, I was four years younger, and being the Cursed King, I hadn’t bothered saving myself for our queen. Yet I still felt the primal call to knot inside our fated mate. No amount of hand shandies could satisfy that need.

Patience wasn’t my strongest virtue, but my hunting instincts warned me that waiting for the meal Sea’s father had predicted would be my best move.

Pushing down my hunger — for now — I returned to my pack, who were waiting for their Wild King just a few kilometers away at the next set of fating stones. They’d temporarily settled for a dry midday meal in what we called “the below.”

“What did the Sea King want with ye, then?” Lorcan, my second in command and the Wild Wolves’ largest hunter, asked when I arrived.

“I’ll tell ye later,” I promised before howling in wolf voice to the rest of the pack to continue our yearly trek to the fating stones at Carn na Scáthanna — the barren moor where we would perform three days’ worth of rituals to honor our dead and ask the three gods to bless us during the hardship of winter. Truth was, I didn’t like thinking of my father, much less honoring him. That was why Samhain was my least favorite of the pagan holy days.

But I led my pack south toward the land the humans called County Clare with the certainty that I would not be leading the ritual this year.

So, no, as they say in the new language, it didn’t surprise me that the Sea King refused my suggestion to reap those she-wolves without that cladhartha, Dublin.

Nor was I shocked when a small falcon found us a few days later.

Lorcan plucked her from the air without bothering to fetch a leather armband. 

“If you bite me, I’ll bloody end you, merlin,” he growled in wolf voice before loosening the piece of vellum from her sharp claw. 

"Just says, Meet us at the westernmost fating stones after the next full moon." Lorcan flipped the note this way and that before handing it over, confused. "Whoever sent this didn’t even bother to sign it. What's it mean?"

It was happening.

After seventeen years, the Cursed King’s wait was over. A surge of emotion tightened my chest, and a slow grin crept across my face as I answered Lorcan, "The time for the Second Reaping has finally come."

I let out a howl that reverberated into the distance, raw and unrestrained.

That evening, I rallied my hunters with a short command. "To hell with the Dublin King, then! We ride to the Cliffs of Aillte come the break of the next full moon!"

We were under strict instructions not to bother the Tríbéirríthe's Scottish wolf source. But whoever it was gave us explicit mission details on a single sheet of paper entitled BURN AFTER READING. 

For this reason, the day of the Scottish King’s and New Queen’s wedding found us Sea and Wild wolves lying upon the snow-covered ground in the Highland forest that fronted the Prince of Scotland’s cottage.

“He never uses the house anymore,” the source had written down for us. “He prefers to stay at the castle with his brother and the heavily pregnant new queen, who also happens to be best mates with the Prince’s American wife, who gave birth to the first baby she-wolf our kingdom has seen in years and years.” 

While reading over the details in the Sea King’s secret castle office, I’d paused at the mention of the wives. 

The First Reaping spared no one. Our ancestors took every female we sighted to replenish our desperately low numbers, from the babes in the cribs to the then Scottish King’s bride, Mairi — who went on to become the mother of our three kingdoms. 

“As I said before when I gave you my conditions, we will only take the unmarried she-wolves of mating age,” the Sea King had said when I stopped reading the single-spaced typed-out instructions.

“What if —” I started to ask.

“Then we extract the Tríbéirríthe's potential and let ours go with her already mated life,” he’d said. “Dublin was right about this being a different time. I will not reap a young mother or a pregnant bride no matter what that piece of stone says.”

We didn’t need the City Wolves to pull off the Second Reaping, but at this point, the Sea King was the Wilds' only point of contact with the Tríbéirríthe. We needed him to lead this mission. I had no choice but to agree to his conditions and trust the prophecy to provide the right she-wolf to fulfill it. 

So, as instructed, we gathered outside the Scottish Prince’s cabin, lying in wait on the dark forest floor. And when the bells started ringing to announce the call to the wedding, we watched the town empty out from our partially blocked view. 

Heaps of wolves dressed in kilts and plaids, along with a flock of Wölfennite lasses wearing long, plain blue dresses, passed by the bridge on the other side of the house.

It seemed that every single kingdom town wolf would be attending the King’s wedding to his Canadian bride.

Well, almost every wolf. The large, redheaded shifter installing solar panels on the castle roof all morning, did not pause when the church bells rang. 

“What’s he all about then?” one of the Sea Wolves asked behind us. “Why isn’t he joining the rest for their King and Queen’s wedding?”

“Who cares?” One of my rougher wolves answered. “While staring at that potato, I can smell all the fresh she-cunt walking by even under all them layers. Ripe and juicy for the mating.”

“Remember the ground rules,” Sea bit out. “You are not to touch them.”

“Before we reach Eire,” Lorcan clarified.

“Before they go into heat,” the Sea King insisted. “The Heat Laws apply here the same as at home, and if this scheme works, you’ll be wanting your hands and micks later on.”

My wolves quieted down after that gentle reminder that their kings wouldn’t hesitate to cut off both their hands and private parts if they so much as pressed up against a she-wolf who hadn’t gone into mating heat. 

We all waited in the dark of the forest. Too excited to be bored, even though there was still a bit of time until the no-weapons reception started, and we’d be free to make our move with minimum violence. 

I silently hummed a war song of auld as we bided our time until we could fulfill the Second Reaping. 

However, that song came to an abrupt halt when the door to the Prince’s house opened without warning. A head covered by the strange Wölfennite bonnet poked out, and I could hear its wearer audibly sniff as she turned her head both ways before carefully stepping out of the cabin when she saw no one.

My heart gave a violent thud inside my chest at the sight of her, then froze like something suspended in space and time.

She pulled an object out of her pocket. Black and shiny and covered in a protective case.

“Hold on, is that a phone?” One of the wolves whispered behind me. I couldn’t distinguish if he was on of the Sea or Wild Wolves. Couldn’t even form the words to tell him to shut his gob.

Because everything inside me had stilled.

By the three gods. 

My wolf. My breath. Every single nerve. Hell, I don’t think even my heart dared to pump blood in the presence of this female.

Time and everything else stopped as I watched the she-wolf check a phone she shouldn’t have had, according to the intel about this Wölfennite lot eschewing all technology, including motorized cars.

Something wretched twisted inside me as I watched her. I had somehow already missed and never wanted to introduce myself to somebody more.

Prophecy.

An image of the soft flowers, growing wild and free beside the road suddenly appeared in my mind. Yes, that was what she was. A flower bloomed to life. Like foxglove, sea thrift, meadow buttercups, and that tough roadside gorse rolled into one she-wolf with silky light brown skin covered in freckles.

A few strands of her sun-flecked brown curls hung from her strange bonnet. My hand opened and closed reflexively with the need to touch that hair, wrap it around my fist, and make her hold still while I knotted her from behind. My gut clenched, and ripples of heat coasted over my cock.

She was the prophesied queen. I knew that in an instant. 

Ours…

Despite my curse, the word blew across my mind fiercer than the wind upon the Cliffs of Aillte.

“Is that…?” the Sea King began to choke out beside me, his tone low, almost warped.  

“Shhh!” one of the wolves hissed behind us. 

The hissing wolf was right. I wanted nothing more than to grab ahold of her and never let go. But… “Reaping her early will lead to disaster,” I warned the Sea King in as low a voice as I could manage. 

The Sea King nodded, his face tight with resolve — until he suddenly jerked forward, and his nose and mouth snouted with fur. 

Holy fuck, his wolf was trying to tear out of him!

I barely managed to get on top of him and slapped a hand over his snout as I held him down with all my weight. That was enough to force his wolf back down into his human body.  

But I didn’t get to him soon enough for our presence to go unnoticed. 

“Hello,” the voice of our Flower said in the distance. “Who’s there?”

Fuckin' hell.

Naomi

“Hello?”

Sure I'd heard something, I stepped further onto the gravel outside the front door of Iain Scotswolf’s cottage, searching the woods on the other side of his circular driveway. "Who's there?" 

Someone was watching. I could feel their eyes on me.

My normally dormant wolf crouched inside me at full alert as I sniffed, trying to catch a scent. But I could only pick up what must have been an entire burrow filled with rabbits. 

“Who's there?” I demanded again. This time, though, I inserted a hard note into my voice to sound a little braver than I actually felt in a foreign land with some unknown set of eyes crawling over my skin like spiders. "Show yourself!"

“Hiya, it's just us!”

I jumped when a voice sounded not from the woods but directly behind me. 

I turned to find two Scottish male wolves shuffling around the side of Iain’s house. One sported shaggy blond hair and wore a sheepish expression. The other stood slightly taller and held up his hands with an ingratiating smile.  

“Didn’t mean to scare you there, lass," he said. His chin-length brown hair gleamed underneath the setting sun like it was auditioning for a shampoo commercial.

“Then why are you…?” I stopped and quickly shoved the phone — which a good Wölfennite female most definitely shouldn’t have in her possession — back into the large pocket of my modest dress before finishing my question. “Then why are you skulking around, watching me like some kind of creepers?”

They exchanged glances like two boys silently agreeing on their cover story after they knocked a baseball through someone's window. 

“Saw you walking over this way earlier while we were watching that bat and ball game you Wölfennite lassies enjoy playing so much,” the shaggy blond answered. “Not you, though. Never see you playing.”

I controlled the impulse to roll my eyes. 

I loved a good pick-up game of baseball as much as anyone who’d been raised with one sport — and one sport only — as their sole option for physical gameplay. But ever since we’d arrived at this place the Scottish Wolves called their "kingdom village" for the Bridal Exchange program, our fun matches had become more like scouting pageants. 

The hopeful Scottish grooms had made a habit of gathering at the fence around the diamond the kingdom built for us as a welcome gift, gawking and loudly ranking us to the point that I’d noped out of playing any more games.

Unlike the other Wölfennites, I refused to let mating a devout-enough male be the main point of my life. My plans were bigger than the Bridal Exchange, and the last thing I wanted was to actually enter into any kind of relationship with the would-be Scottish grooms. Which was why my tone came out one-hundred percent skeptical and zero percent pleased when I asked the two Scots standing in front of me, “And how exactly does that connect to you following me over here?”

The walking shampoo ad stepped forward with a slight bow of his gleaming head. “We were waiting for you to come out so we could escort you to the church.” 

I stared at them blankly.

"For your sister's wedding?" the shaggy blond reminded me.

Oh…

That's when I noticed they were both freshly shaven and wearing wool tweed vests and jackets over the kilts the Scottish male wolves preferred exclusively to pants. 

"Did you not hear the gathering bells ringing, then?”

A bit of shame poked into my balloon of annoyance. “No, I didn’t.”

I’d spent all morning constructing a sternly worded email to the Registrar’s office at the Ontario Institute of Technology after getting a schedule filled with basic science and math 101 courses for my first in-person semester in January. They didn’t seem to care that I’d already taught myself Calculus, Linear Algebra, Physics, and Chemistry in secret, using old textbooks and the laptop Barbara, the woman who owned the bookstore next door to my parents’ furniture shop, had gifted me for my sixteenth birthday — even though us Wölfennites technically weren’t supposed to celebrate birthdays with outsiders offering us forbidden technology.

I’d taken that gift, though, and spent the next six years, using it to secretly give myself the kind of education that was denied to me after my Wölfennite education was “finished” at the age of fourteen. However, the folks at OIT didn’t care about my equivalency diploma or the hours I’d spent in the dead of night taking free online courses, or the fact that I’d already passed the AP Calculus and Physics exams that should have placed me in higher-level courses.

I’d been so busy arguing my case that I hadn’t registered the loud clanging of the church bells for my sister’s wedding.

“What were you doing in Iain’s cottage, then?” Shampoo Ad asked. “Having a gawk at all that tech he’s got in there? Must've been like looking at an alien spaceship for one of you Wölfennite lassies. Probably had no idea what any of that stuff was.”

“Um…” Instead of admitting I knew every gadget in Iain Scotswolf's basic smart house, I asked, “Why did you want to walk me to the church?”

“Because we’re interested in courting you,” the shorter one answered, his expression becoming confused. “I know you didn’t post anything for the letter-writing part of the exchange, but isn’t that why all of you came here?”

“Hmm.” I made a noncommittal sound since my sister, Tara, had already warned me against telling everyone the truth. I’d only signed up for the Wölfennite exchange program as a free ticket to her wedding.

Wölfennite she-wolves didn’t have much money to their name in the first place. Every penny I’d managed to secure, working odd jobs at the bookstore next door, had gone to furthering my education to achieve my dream of attending university in the human world.

I’d loved the idea of going someplace to lay low until the start of the winter semester — just in case Leader Daniel got any ideas about wolf-mating me before I could escape St. Ailbe. Also, there was the wedding of the middle sister I hadn’t seen in years before she popped up out of the blue at our village offering a Bridal Exchange. But no way would I have been able to afford a ticket to Scotland if I hadn’t signed up for a program I had absolutely no interest in actually completing.

The awkwardness of the shorter one’s question lingered in the air, but I wasn’t about to launch into my real reasons for being here — ones that had nothing to do with finding a mate.

“So, you both want to court me?” I waggled a finger between the two Scots, turning the question back around on them. “Together?”

“No! No!”

If I’d been interested in seeing a Highlander turn beet red, I got my wish in stereo.

“Of course not the both of us,” the shampoo ad blustered. 

“We’re not weird sexual deviants like them Irish Wolves,” the shaggy blond insisted. 

“The Irish Wolves?” I repeated, my pesky curiosity feature rearing its head. “Who are they, and why are they considered…?”  

“The point is we’re both after a chance to mate with you, lass,” the shampoo ad interrupted before I could finish asking about the courting practices of these Irish Wolves. “You don’t have to say who you want right now. But maybe you can give us an answer at the reception.”

“You want an answer from me at the reception,” I repeated. “After having just met you two minutes ago.”

The shaggy blond’s face fell. “We’ve met! Twice already. I’m Gavin. This is my best mate, Malcolm. Remember? This is the third time we’ve introduced ourselves to you.”

I could only wince back at the one called Gavin with no memory of ever having met him. I’d been so preoccupied with getting OIT to let me take more advanced classes that sneaking into the only places with WiFi in the kingdom village — Iain’s house and the library at the castle — had taken priority over memorizing the names of any of the Scottish Wolves who kept shoving themselves in my face.

“Anyway, the point is you’re the bonniest she-wolf in the lot Canada sent over, and we’re the most handsome in the kingdom village.” Malcolm pointed one thumb at himself and the other at his friend. “So, it’s your choice. Pick me — or Gavin, I reckon, if you can stand him being a rocket on the subject of horses.”

Malcolm spun a finger around his head, letting me know that "rocket" was most likely Scottish slang for a crazy person.

“If I weren’t a proud member of the king’s guard, I’d be even prouder to work at the stables in service of the most majestic creatures in the known universe!” Gavin declared, seeming not the least bit insulted by his best mate’s derisive comments. 

“So when you pick me, Gavin will keep on looking for a lass who doesnae mind him going on and on with that horse nonsense,” Malcolm continued. “Though maybe you’ll be wanting to point him in the direction of one of your mates. That way, we can all go on courting dates together.”

“Not that odd-smelling giant who was walking beside you the last time we met, though.” Gavin visibly recoiled. “We’re courting — not running a charity business.”

"Hold up." I raised a hand and jutted my chin. “I’ll admit I’m not the best at understanding your Scottish brogue. But are you seriously trying to insult Sadie? Sadie, the most beautiful and interesting she-wolf I know?”

“Beautiful she-wolf. Yeah, right!” Gavin and Malcolm let out loud, scoffing snorts. 

Malcolm realized his error when I continued to glare at them. His eyes widened. “Oh, you’re not having a go, then?” 

I tensed my jaw and tilted my head. “No, I’m not having a go.”

He winced. “Well, I suppose Gavin could take her out for a wee time if that’d make you happy.”

“Why'd I do that?” Gavin asked Malcolm with a look so confused it would be comical if he were talking about someone other than my wonderful best friend. 

“For me!” Malcolm threw him an irritated glance before extending both of his hands toward me. “If it will make you happy, Naomi, then have no worry. I’ll force him to — hey, where are you going?”

I didn’t bother to answer since, as I told Sadie about an hour later, “I’ve reached my upper limit of putting up with courting offers from guys who only want to mate me because my facial features are symmetrically aligned.”

The wedding between my heavily pregnant sister and the King of Scotland was done, and we were walking to the castle underneath a sky full of stars and a waning gibbous moon as I explained to my best friend why I’d volunteered to babysit the Scottish Prince's daughter instead of attending the reception in the castle’s throne/ballroom.

“It's not just your looks. You're also really smart,” Sadie insisted as we entered through the castle entrance's flung-open doors.

“Yes, I am super smart,” I agreed, wiping dirt off both shoulders, even though I knew it was a prideful gesture that Sadie couldn’t possibly understand. Unlike me, she'd actually stuck to the strict no-tech rules of the St. Ailbe Ordnung all these years. 

Not that her compliance had gotten her anywhere. My soft-hearted friend wanted nothing more than to marry. She'd risked everything and pretty much destroyed her relationship with her over-controlling mother to fly to Faoltiarn for the Bridal Exchange program. But here she was, facing down the same prejudices from the males in the Scottish kingdom village as she had from the ones back in our hometown of St. Ailbe.

Anyway, I told her, “My keen mind isn't why any of these Scottish dudes want to date me.”

“Dudes!” Sadie raised a hand to her mouth to smother a little giggle. “I’ve never heard this word before, but it somehow sounds like the perfect way to describe them. Oh, Naomi, where do you come up with these turns of phrases?”

Speaking of people, I couldn’t tell the full truth about my intentions. Sadie had no idea that I’d been secretly using forbidden technology to plot my escape from St. Ailbe for years now — or that I’d be leaving her here in Scotland before the new year.

Avoiding her admiring gaze, I made another noncommittal sound as we joined the group of Wölfennites waiting in the wide hallway outside the throne room.

The piercing rhythm of yet another bagpipe song spilled from the open doors, along with the sounds of feet stomping and hands clapping in unison. I tapped my booted foot a little but resisted the urge to bop along since I was still pretending to be a halfway decent Wölfennite and worldly activities like dancing were against St. Ailbe's Ordnung.

“What’s going on? Why aren’t we going inside?” Sadie asked Orpah, a hopeful Wölfennite Bride with an upturned nose and mousy brown hair. 

Sadie towered over her, too, and I tried not to be jealous. 

Sometimes, it felt like we'd been born into the wrong bodies for our personalities.

People always expected me to be way more demure than I was because of my slender frame and the way my dark father’s and light mother’s features had combined in almost perfectly balanced symmetry to create delicate features that did not at all match my straightforward personality. 

Oh, how I would have loved to occupy Sadie’s big, bodacious body with her radiant dark skin. I could only imagine how much less nonsense I’d have to put up with if I took up more space and stood taller than most other people I met. And, unlike those two fools from earlier, I adored the way she smelled. Like a fresh winter breeze flowing through a space of same old-same old. 

Not that Sadie ever appreciated her good fortune. She kept her huge afro hidden in thin cornrowed braids underneath her bonnet, and even though she was nothing but lovely and gentle, she walked through the world like a female-shaped apology. 

Even now, she hunched her shoulders down, making herself as small as possible as she waited for Orpah’s answer.

“Tara and Magnus are performing some kind of wedding entrance dance called the Grand March,” Orpah answered. “And Amanda says we must wait here until the Scottish Wolves finish their worldly activity.”

“Because Amanda’s the boss of all of us now that Leader Daniel isn’t here to tell us what to do,” I muttered. 

Sadie threw me a warning look, and Orpah wrinkled her brow to ask, “What?” 

“Nothing!” It wasn't Orpah’s fault that Amanda had lodged herself into the power vacuum created when we left our faith-based and completely male-led community of St. Ailbe behind. 

“Do you see Iain and Milly anywhere?” I asked Sadie. I hopped up on my tiptoes, wishing I, too, could see over most of the heads in the throne room’s hallway. “They said they’d meet me out here with the baby so I wouldn’t have to go to this stupid thing.”

“You’re not going to your own sister’s wedding reception!” 

I turned to find Amanda Smucker, the self-appointed spiritual guide for the Bridal Exchange program, staring down at me, like a yellow-haired, blue-eyed, modestly dressed Judgement Day angel. 

Her voice vibrated with outrage as she asked, “Naomi Hamilton, did you truly come all this way without any intention of finding a suitable husband among the Scottish Wolves?”

Naomi

First, the MacDoofus Twins. Now Amanda Smucker. For the second time that day, I felt completely caught out. “Um…”

“C’mon, Duncan, you know the rules!” A nearby voice thundered before I could think up a good lie.

Phew, saved by the commotion! I turned along with Amanda, Sadie, and all the other Wölfennites toward the throne room doors, where a castle guard holding a clipboard appeared to be arguing with an older male.

“If you want into the great hall this eve, you’ll have to hand over your dagger!” 

“I already gave you all my chibbery!” The man the guard had called Duncan angrily stroked his beard, which was snow white with flecks of red. “C’mon, the Grand March is near over. You’re going to make me miss it with this foolishness.” 

That insisted, Duncan started to charge into the festivities — only to be shoved back by the guard who used his clipboard to keep the old male from gaining entry. 

"Alright, let's do this the hard way, then."

The guard whipped out a metal detector wand — the same kind airport security used to scan us back in Canada when Amanda insisted that we use our exemption to avoid going through the Ontario airport's X-ray machine.  

The castle guard ran the device down the front of the old male’s body — then pursed his lips when the wand beeped loudly over Duncan’s calf-high black socks. 

“Oh, that’s just a sgian dubh, y’ken — a blade so wee, I forgot it was even in there! Ye won’t be needing me to toss that tiny toothpick on the pile now, will ye!” Duncan waved a dismissive hand. “Besides, I’m not even one of the eligibles, am I? Just a Da, hoping to down a hauf n’ hauf while me son fishes himself a bride from this braw flock our banrigh brought over for our lads.”

I had no idea what a hauf n’ hauf was, but he pointed a hand toward us, letting me (and the guard) know we were the braw flock Duncan wanted his son to fish from. 

Sadie bent down to whisper, “Colorful, but I’m not sure that metaphor quite works.”

I grimaced in agreement. “On any level.” 

The castle guard also didn’t find Duncan’s argument convincing. He pointed to the small mountain of weapons piled beside the throne room door and repeated, “No weapons allowed.” 

“Aw, feck it, then, I just won’t go!” Duncan bent down to pick up three leather-bladed knives and — I kid you not — a huge sword from the pile. 

“Remember the Irish Wolves!” he yelled straight in the castle guard’s face before storming away with his small arsenal.

I frowned at the second mention of the Irish Wolves as the old man stomped past us and asked Sadie. “What was that all about?” 

“Ooh, I know!” Amanda answered. “It’s such a terrible story. But apparently, back in the 1500s, an entire army of Irish Wolves attacked a royal wedding while everyone was drunk and kidnapped all the Scottish she-wolves! And I do mean all of them. Babies, girls, teens, anyone they could get their grubby Irish claws on — even the bride who was already pregnant with the Scottish King’s baby!”

Amanda paused to nod along with all the shocked gasps from her fellow Wölfennites. “I know. I know. And, of course, the Scottish males ran after them, but it was of no use. Most of their females were spirited away to Ireland and never heard from again. And there’s been a centuries-long riff between the Irish and the Scottish Wolves ever since.”

“That’s ghastly!” Priscilla, Amanda’s best friend and lifetime sycophant, clasped her chest like she had just heard the worst horror story ever. “Is that why I keep seeing groups of boys playing a game they call Irish with wooden swords?” 

“Yes!” Amanda confirmed Priscilla’s guess with an authoritative nod. “Even though that Irish incident happened only once nearly five hundred years ago, the Scottish Wolves have developed all these terrible rituals around it. Do you know they teach every boy hand-to-hand combat from age five? And it’s become a tradition for them to show up at weddings armed to their teeth. I mean, just look at that pile!”

As much as I tended to dislike the holier-than-thou know-it-all who’d somehow appointed herself the leader of the Bride Exchange group, I had to agree, “It is alarmingly high.”

I had to ask, “How do you know all this history about their beef with the Irish?”

“Beef?” Amanda wrinkled her nose. 

And I kicked myself for once again forgetting not to use slang I’d read on the internet in my day-to-day conversations with other Wölfennites. “I mean, how did you know about their ongoing feud.”

“Oh, Malcolm told me all about it yesterday.” Amanda dipped her head and pushed a non-existent stray lock behind her bonnet. “On our courting date.”

Orpah audibly gasped, then lowered her voice to say, “Malcolm asked you on a courting date after you already went on one with his best friend?” 

Miriam, a Wölfennite whose glossy, strawberry blonde hair and sharp features always made me think of a fox, cast her a jealous look. “So, not one but two of the most handsome males in this kingdom village want you to become their mate!”

I squinted to the side, remembering my earlier encounter with the MacDoofus Twins. It sounded to me like Gavin and Malcolm were wooing Amanda and who knew how many other Wölfennite females so that they could have their choice of the biggest fish from our braw flock.

Ugh. The Wölfennites had traveled halfway around the world just to get hit with the same bullhockey and games that the choosy males back in St. Ailbe played. Yet another reason to absolutely not acquire a husband on this Bridal Exchange trip

“Do you think they’ll fight over you, Amanda?” Priscilla whispered breathlessly.

“Oh, I hope not!” Amanda flared her eyes to make herself the very picture of distress. Then she turned to Miriam to urgently inform her, “And I did not give their looks a single thought when I granted their separate request for a small walk around the village. That would be prideful. I only took their spiritual beauty under consideration.”

“Of course you did!” Orpah said with an emphatic nod while Priscilla rushed to assure Amanda. “We all know you are a good-hearted soul who only wants to help your future husband find his one true path as the head of your family.”

“Not only me. We are all good-hearted acolytes of modesty and faith,” Amanda insisted with the performative humility Wölfennites were taught from birth. 

Back home, I would have bowed my head and nodded along, pretending to agree. But here, I was less than two months away from flying back to Canada. I had to lock my facial muscles in place to keep my eyes from rolling while Sadie, Priscilla and Orpah nodded in fervent agreement. 

Amanda splayed a hand across the chest of her modest blue dress. “And thank goodness we’re here now to serve as examples of piety and peace. Which is why we will wait until this worldly Grand March wedding dance they’re insisting on performing is done before we enter the throne room.”

More murmurs of agreement rose in the air from Orpah, Priscilla, and a few of the other Wölfennites who seemed not to mind that Amanda had appointed herself the leader of our all-female pack.

Meanwhile, I stood on my tiptoes to whisper to Sadie, “Thank goodness I get to skip all that nonsense and hang out with Ellie.”

“Well, maybe if you gave the Scottish grooms even half a chance at the reception instead of hiding away with Milly’s baby, you’d actually have a good time,” Sadie whispered. "I honestly don't understand why you, of all people, would pass up this opportunity and risk going back to St. Ailbe. Aren't you the one always calling wolf-mating a fate worse than death?"

I understood my best friend's confusion. She had no idea. By this time next year, I’d be in the human world, working toward my degree — not changing diapers and raising pups like her and the rest of the Wölfennites.

Wolf mating was compulsory in St. Ailbe. Once our pack leader found what he decreed to be a match, she-wolves were ambushed on full moon nights and thrown into cages with the male wolf of his choosing. It didn't matter if she hadn't known him long or even if they'd met.

My oldest sister had been wolf-mated and carried off to her new mate's village the next day. Tara had fought it, though, and that incident — along with my prickly personality — had bought me more time than most St. Ailbe she-wolves got. Our former pack leader, Abel Flosswulf, hadn't wanted to risk another disastrous failed wolf-mating. So, I'd been left mostly to my own devices (literally and figuratively) until the age of twenty-three.

But then, he'd handed the pack leader title to his new son-in-law, Daniel. And the asymmetrical "gifts" I'd been born with started causing me new problems.

"I do not wish to fill your head with pride," Daniel told me before church, shortly after officially taking over as our pack and faith leader. "But I have already fielded a couple of inquiries from males wishing to honor you with a mating match."

I'd long suspected that the outwardly devout Wölfennite males were inwardly idiots who didn't truly think about spiritual compatibility when presented with a pretty face. And Daniel's words confirmed it.

I probably shouldn't have answered with the truth. That I'd rather die in a fire than become any St. Ailbe wolf's submissive farm wife.

No lies were told, but Daniel had probably assumed I'd be grateful to be chosen just because our pack had way more she-wolves than males of mating age.

"Perhaps you should come to my office," Daniel answered with a tight smile. "So that we can have a talk about your attitude."

When I caught him glowering at me several times during his main sermon, which just so happened to revolve around Necessary Gratitude that day, a bad feeling turned my stomach. I suspected the secret life I'd been living for years would soon come to an end if I didn't do something.

I'd been scheming and plotting ever since that day, and now, I was super close to escaping the fate waiting for me back in St. Ailbe. So the exchange wasn’t just about survival for me — it was the final step toward leaving behind everything St. Ailbe stood for, and I was closer than ever to being free.”

"The exchange has barely started!" Sadie's voice brought me back to the present day. "If you just open your mind a little, maybe we could find suitable mates. Then, we could stay here in Scotland and raise our wolf pups. Together."

Sadie clasped my hands in hers. "We could truly be best friends forever. Wouldn’t that be lovely?”

My heart constricted with guilt. Sadie had no idea about the plans I’d been making for my life after I made sure she was settled down with someone who made her happy. Plans that couldn’t include her. 

“What’s that face?” Sadie’s expression tightened with suspicion. “What aren’t you telling me?”

Darnit! Sadie always had been able to read me like the banned books I’d been gobbling up for years behind my parents’ backs. 

Luckily, Milly and Iain, the Scottish Prince, chose that moment to come over to me with their precious baby, Princess Elspeth “Ellie” Scotswolf — and lots and lots of instructions for what they called a wind-down routine. 

Which I followed to the letter. 

Less than an hour later, I put Ellie down to sleep in her parents' bedroom with a tender feeling in my chest. 

I was supposed to dart out of the room as soon as I placed her in the metal crib that apparently every member of the Scottish royal family had slept in since the Victorian age. But I couldn't help lingering for a few moments longer to stare at her adorable little face. 

So, this was what a baby conceived during a heat mating looked like. My middle sister Tara and I were the result of heats after our parents were wolf mated to make our oldest sister, Leora. But there hadn't been a heat mating in over a decade in St. Ailbe.

Every baby I knew of in St. Ailbe had been born from wolf matings. But me, personally? I had no interest in having some rando Wölfennite dude forced on me during a full moon when we were both in wolf form. And I really couldn’t even begin to imagine conceiving a baby in human form through heat sex. Ick.

That was how this one had been created, though. And I couldn’t be disgusted at all with the result of the heat sex her parents had to get her. She was gorgeous with big, round, kissable cheeks and a cloud of ink-black curls.

My plans to pursue a graduate degree in the human world didn’t include a family. But looking at Ellie made my ovaries twitch — and my wolf whine inside me for the pups I’d never have. Holding Ellie, I couldn’t deny that small, primal ache. Still, that was a life for someone else — not for me.

Ah well, maybe next lifetime, I mused as I planted a kiss on Ellie's smooth forehead. Then, I made my way back to the front room of the suite designated for royal family members.

I had never seen a hotel room outside of the internet, or even an apartment, for that matter. But this suite struck me as what one of those living spaces must look like in real life.

The front room boasted a small kitchen and a spacious living area, complete with a television. I knew I could only use it for a few hours before carefully returning the remote to its original spot, ensuring Milly and Iain wouldn't suspect I’d only been pretending to be a halfway decent Wölfennite for years.

Yet another secret to throw on the pile I’d been building behind the scenes for years. No one knew who I really was. Not Sadie, not my sisters, and especially not my parents.

But, oh well, what could you do?

Grab a spoon and one of those yummy premade yogurts, I guess.

I happily pulled open the suite’s custom Scottish flag refrigerator to do just that. And how cool was it that I could just grab a tub of yogurt without having to trek all the way to the ice house we’d built soon after our arrival in this Scottish village without knowing whether or not the tub we made every Saturday had run out? 

Who needed a bunch of overeager Scottish males when you had yogurt and TV to keep you good company?

“I am definitely going to have fun eating you with an episode of Rap Star Wives,” I told my new boyfriend, Yogurt, as I closed the fridge. 

Only to stop short when I heard a rustling sound. 

“Hello?” I said again, sniffing at the air, just like I had a few hours ago when I thought I heard something stirring in the woods. 

This time, though, a strange mix of incongruous scents drifted into my nose. 

And a gravel-filled voice answered behind me, “Hiya.” 

Same greeting, but my wolf stilled. Somehow, knowing it wasn’t the same male.

Even before I turned around to find two imposing male wolves towering over me.

My eyes registered them but could barely process their details. 

One looked like some kind of pirate. He wore leather pants, a leather vest, and a thick diagonal chest strap holding at least ten knives. His long, rust-colored hair fell in several thick braids over the right side of his face, adorned with pieces of metal and bird feathers. The left side of his scalp was completely shaven, though, displaying a collection of tattoos that extended down to his neck and both of his arms all the way to the back of his hands.

The other wolf sported a kilt — but not like the plaid ones the Scottish Wolves pulled on instead of pants. His kilt was also made of leather, and large dusky gold earrings winked from his ears, and instead of a shirt, he wore a pelt over his otherwise naked torso. A pelt made from a bear. 

I had never smelled a bear before. Had only ever seen them on the forbidden internet. But I knew that was what the second male's caped coat was made of because the dead creature's face, fangs and all, sat on top of his head. Casting a shadow over the living wolf's feral smile. Goosebumps raised across my skin, and my belly tightened.

“You were asking those overstepping omadhaun about the Irish Wolves earlier,” the one wearing a dead bear's skin said. His voice was more growl than breath.

He bowed his head like a guest who’d just popped by for a cup of tea. “I thought you might like to meet them.”

No… No… my heart thundered in my throat as everything I’d heard about the Irish Wolves echoed through my brain.

Sexual deviants…

… kidnapped all the Scottish she-wolves… Babies, girls, teens — even the bride who was already pregnant with the Scottish King’s baby.

Oh my gosh, Tara. Ellie!

Ellie, who was right on the other side of the bedroom door… which was now standing open behind them. 

As it turned out, I was an even worse Wölfennite than I suspected. 

The St. Ailbe Ordnung had several rules against any violence whatsoever. Males were not allowed to join any manner of fighting force, and she-wolves were not supposed to even raise so much as their voices in anger.

Turning outside the cage during our monthly shifts was strictly forbidden. Right before the last full moon, I overheard Milly telling my sister how Iain had tried to teach her to shift before her first official full moon. She admitted she couldn’t 'find her wolf,' and I was embarrassed to realize I hadn’t even known a voluntary shift was possible.

Seriously, the only thing Wölfennites were aggressive about was pacifism.

Yet, without hesitation, I reached for the butcher block sitting on the counter closest to me…

And pulled out the biggest knife I could find.

Naomi

I raised the knife, jabbing it at them like they do in those violent forbidden movies.

But instead of raising his hands like people were always doing when threatened in the movies I’d watched, the one in the bear hood grinned as if we were playing some sort of game.

“Aw, ye’ve got some fight in ye, Flower, unlike the others in your sect. I like it!”

The moon was waning, yet his eyes glowed electric blue. Letting me know his wolf was close to the surface. Maybe on purpose? He struck me as truly feral. Fear tightened my throat.

I darted right past them toward the baby’s room. Not because of any great skill on my part, as it turned out.

When I attempted to slam the door behind me, I discovered they had been playing with me the same as one of the St. Ailbe barn cats toying with the mice they found. Letting the smaller creatures run, just to see how far they’d get before they slammed a paw down on their tail. 

In my case, the male in the bear hood slapped a palm against the door, which prevented me from slamming it in his face.

“Was planning on taking ye outta here, nice and easy," he said through the door crack.

I immediately regretted watching The Shining on my forbidden laptop. The only thing scarier than Jack Nicholson eyeing his wife through the large splinter he’d made in the door was now knowing how Shelly Duvall’s character must have felt when he called out, “Here’s Johnny!”

Or in Bear Hood’s case: "But if ye want to play, Flower, sure, we can do that.”

Flower. Why did he keep calling me that?

He pushed the door the rest of the way open before I could give that question any further thought, and I went flying back on my butt. 

Oof! Pain rattled up my spine when I landed on the bedroom’s hardwood floors. 

But Ellie! I had to protect her. I scrambled back to my feet as quickly as my skirts would allow me and ran over to the crib to grab the sleeping baby.

Thank goodness, she remained blissfully unaware of the transfer into my protective hold, even as I held my knife out in front of me to fend off the two invaders who had entered her parents' bedroom.

“Oh, the fire in this one." Bear Hood grinned at his companion.

I noticed then that he'd smeared both his face and chest with black paint — like some kind of ancient warrior who wanted to blend in with the night. "How much fun are we going to have with her, C?”

The male Bear Hood called by a single letter didn't appear to find this situation as much fun as his counterpart. He just stood there, still as a statue, staring down at me with a tightly clenched jaw and narrowed eyes the color of amber. 

Was something wrong with him? He’d followed me in here along with his companion, but his face was tight. He wore the same expression my father did last spring when one of the community's cows had a calf turned around inside her, and he had to hold her down while Abel Flosswulf repositioned the babe inside poor Bessie’s womb. 

The heavily tattooed pirate appeared to be struggling with some animal that I couldn’t see. 

“C’mon, Flower, don’t be cruel. C's barely holding on to his wolf," Bear Hood said, confirming my suspicion. Unlike the Scots, he spoke with a sonorous growl that might have fascinated me under different circumstances. "Put the knife down and come without a fuss. We don't want to see either you or the babe hurt, now do we?”

Before I could answer that the best way to avoid Ellie or me getting hurt was for him and his she-wolf-snatching companion to leave, a voice called from beyond the door, “Naomi? Are you in here?”

My heart skittered at the familiar soft tones of my best friend.  “Sadie, don’t…”

But too late.

Just when I thought the situation couldn’t possibly get worse, Sadie came padding through the bedroom door. 

Bear Hood and Pirate froze. They looked more shocked to see her than she did to see them.

“What’s…?” Sadie started to ask.

“It’s her!” the Pirate said, his voice full of something akin to awe.

“What’s she doing up here?” Bear Hood asked, his expression almost comically confused.

Instead of answering, the Pirate began advancing on my best friend.

“Sadie, run!” I screamed.

I should’ve been paying attention to getting Ellie and myself out of harm’s way, though. Bear Hood used my moment of distraction to lunge forward and grab the knife out of my hand.

“What is happening?” Sadie asked me in Wölfennite as the Pirate grabbed her by the arm. “Why are these mossy wolves attacking us?”

“I think they’re Irish,” I answered, holding up a blocking hand between me and Ellie and the feral-looking wolf who now held the weapon I’d hoped to protect us with just a few moments ago. “They are once again here to kidnap all the unmated she-wolves.”

“Oh, heavens!” Sadie exclaimed.

“No idea what the two of ye are saying, but if ye come with us nice and easy, no will get hurt — aw, fuckin’ hell. Ye can’t be serious with this.”

Bear Hood went from reassuring us, to suddenly grabbing me and holding the knife to my neck. I discovered why when he turned me to face the doorway where the king's brawny red-haired cousin now stood with a fire poker in his large paw of a hand.

“Alban!” Sadie and I both cried out.

I only knew his name because there’d been much noisy lamenting from the Faoltiarn townfolk about how he’d chosen to stay up on the castle roof, installing solar panels, rather than attend the king’s and queen’s wedding before the ceremony. 

“Too bad,” Sadie had whispered beside me in the church pew. “He’s so handsome and just the right size for me.”

“Maybe he’ll come to the reception,” I’d said, trying to encourage Sadie after weeks filled with males who covered their noses and all but ran in the other direction when they saw her coming.

But now my heart sank at the sight of the large, red-haired Scot.

Apparently, he had gone to the reception. And thanks to the weapon-free event the Wölfennites had insisted on, the fire poker was the only weapon he had to fight with while the two Irish Wolves were armed to the teeth.

“Remember the Irish!”

The old Scottish male's voice echoed in my head as I yelled out to the Kingdom’s Enforcer from inside Bear Hood’s chokehold, “Save the baby! Don’t worry about me. Just get her away from them!”

Alban, who’d most likely been sent up here to protect the only infant who’d been born to the Scottish kingdom in years, started toward me — only to stop when Bear Hood growled,

“Stay where ye are, Defender.”

His voice was a black curl of smoke next to my ear. “If ye make me cut her, I’ll gut ye and feed yer entrails to the forest boar for their supper.”

“So, you ken my title,” Alban asked with what could have been mistaken for a bored expression if not for the way his eyes were flashing with violence. “Then you also ken that I can’t let you take any of these females out of here without a fight.”

Bear Hood stilled and I sensed he was about to take Alban up on his offer of a fight.

But then, the Pirate holding Sadie’s arm, said, “Don’t. We discussed this.”

His voice held a quiet authority, and I noticed that he didn’t even wait for Bear Hood’s response before addressing Alban. “Kingdom Defender, this situation isn’t the same as in the 1500s.”

“So, you’re not looking to steal all our females?” Alban asked, his voice dryly furious. “Again.”

“Not all of them, no,” the Pirate answered in a surprisingly diplomatic tone. “We will leave behind the mated ones this time. The ones we do take will be brought back to our kingdom to give our males their consideration for mate hood. But in the spring, they will be given a choice about staying, and the ones who are not heat mated, and no longer wish to stay with us will be delivered back here to Faoiltiarn. Tell your king he has my vow on that.”

“Tell him yerself,” Alban sneered. “After I deliver you to the dungeon cells underneath the castle.”

The Pirate merely smirked. “There are two of us. And one of you. We can do this the easy way, where you step aside and let us leave. Or…” The Pirate’s diplomatic tone turned as cold as the ice house the Wölfennites built as soon as we arrived in Scotland. “We can do this the hard way and risk the life of the precious first baby born to the Faoiltiarn royal family in over thirty years.”

“Either way, she is ours!” Bear Hood proclaimed next to my ear. “We will not be leaving Dùn Faoiltiarn without her.”

The feral hunter pressed his nose into my hair, sniffing at me like an animal — before licking his tongue up the side of my neck!

Oh mein Gott! Oh mein Gott! Oh mein Gott!

I shuddered, my stomach turning into a swirl of an emotion I’d never felt before. And had no desire to label.

“Leave her alone!” Sadie screamed at him.

And Alban gripped the fire poker tighter, taking a step forward toward us.

“Stop!” I called out before a dangerous fight could break out. “I agree to go with them. Just take the baby. Take the baby so she doesn’t get hurt.”

Everyone other than Bear Hood stared at me. Including Alban, who hesitated before declaring, “I cannae let you make that sacrifice.”

“It’s not up to you,” I insisted. And I couldn’t believe I was having to do this, but I reminded him. “I made sure the rule was included when we put together the New St. Ailbe Ordnung. She-wolves can come and go as they like — without restraint or repercussion.”

Yeah, I’d added that rule to ensure I’d be able to leave when it was time for me to fly back to Ontario at the beginning of next year. But if it meant saving Ellie, I was more than willing to wield it for her greater good. Especially now that I no longer had a physical weapon to defend her with.

“I volunteer to go too,” Sadie cried.

“No, Sadie, you can’t!” I strained to look at my best friend over the butcher knife at my neck. “This is my sacrifice alone.”

“Actually…” The Pirate regarded me with a faintly bemused look. “Going with us isn’t a choice. You’re both coming with us for this special opportunity either way.”

“See Nay, it’s already all decided,” Sadie told me with a shaky but brave voice. “I’m going with you.”

Had I thought I felt guilty earlier? My heart clenched with so much regret. If only Sadie had hidden and never come up here.

“Okay, then, we’ll be on our way.” The somewhat reasonable Pirate turned to Alban. “If you’ll put down the pokey stick and step aside, Defender.”

The stormy look on Alban’s face let me know he wasn’t on board with this plan. Like, at all.

“Please, just put down the fire poker and take the baby,” I begged before he could start another back and forth with the maniac holding a knife up to my neck. “We volunteered to go. The only thing left for you to do is save the innocent child who never asked to be here.”

“So what will it be, Defender?” the Pirate asked Alban. “The she-wolves who have already volunteered to go with us? Or the baby?”

Alban spent several seconds looking completely torn. But in the end, he lowered the poker and said, “Aye, give her to me, then.”

There came the relief of handing the sleeping baby over to a much worthier protector.

Then the terror of knowing Sadie and me most definitely weren't…

“Alright, enough of this drama,” the Pirate said, bringing Sadie to stand next to me as Alban backed out of the room with Ellie. “We’ve a mission to carry out.”

“Ye’re going to need both our jabbers for sure to know the potential is out,” Bear Hood said. “Here take mine. I’ve got some other stuff to give to our banríon.”

Banreen. I both wondered and was afraid to know what that meant as I felt Bear Hood’s free hand fumbling behind me.

Sadie whimpered when he handed the Pirate a huge needle filled to its highest point with some clear liquid.

Oh God, she was so afraid, and unlike, the Scottish Wolves, neither of us had any inkling about how to “find our wolves” outside of a full moon.

But Sadie’s terror helped me regulate my own fear.

“It’ll be alright. Everything will be alright,” I vowed to her. “No matter what happens, we’ll be all right, and I’ll figure out how to get us out of this.”

Then a hand covered my mouth with a cloth that filled my nose with a terrible chemical smell and turned my world to black.

Naomi

I was put to sleep, and then… I jerked awake in a sea of cornflower blue.

"What's happening?" a voice asked in the distance. It sounded like Amanda's. "Where are we?" 

Good question.

I sniffed, my nose leading the investigation while my eyes adjusted to the low light. Salt… brine… living fish… oil… metal… and… Wölfennites — so many, I could tell we must all be packed into a tight space.

My hand immediately went to the large pocket in my dress. It was empty. No forbidden phone to be found, even if I could find a WiFi signal… wherever we were.

I suddenly noticed a strange swaying sensation that didn't appear to originate from my head. Were we…?

Yes, yes, we were. My pulse quickened, hammering at my temples, when I sat up to find myself in the belly of a boat, surrounded by unconscious she-wolves. Most of them wore the same modest blue dress as me. But there were also a few Scottish she-wolves sporting long, plaid dresses over footwear such as cowboy boots, flats, and even low heels. We all appeared to lie like tossed dolls on the keel's aluminum floor.

I, myself, had never been in anything bigger than a canoe. But the latent memory of some media I must have consumed over the years combined with deductive reasoning to let me know that the circle windows on one wall of the dark space were portholes, and the slight swaying motion indicated that we were headed somewhere. Somewhere that wasn't Scotland. 

What in the world?

A faint, familiar smell wafted into my nostrils, slightly above all the rest of the wolves on the floor. Sadie!

“Sadie?” I unsteadily rose and followed my nose to her distinct smell of snow and pine needles. “Where are you?”

I froze and clapped both hands over my mouth when I found her lying on top of a nearby table. Inside a clear, glass coffin with her arms crossed over her stomach. 

"Sadie! Oh, Sadie!" Wretched tears filled my eyes. "What did they do to you?"

My knees weakened, threatening to give out under the weight of bitterness and regret. But then, I saw the gentle up-and-down movement of her chest.

Oh, thank goodness! She was still breathing. That meant she was still alive. Just sleeping like some terrible cosplay of that Snow White movie I’d watched exactly once on the forbidden internet before deciding in an instant that it was my least favorite Disney film of all time. 

My chest filled with relief — especially when I saw a set of circles near the box’s top. Breathing holes that would allow her to stay in this strange container without suffocating to death. 

Still, I had to get her out of there. I went to the container's bottom and banged on it with all my wolf strength. But the side of my fist bounced off the surface with a totally unbothered thud. So, not glass, then. Whatever the material was, it was tempered with no discernable locks or cracks for me to exploit. 

What in the world? In a near-half a lifetime of being obsessed with worldly tech, I'd never encountered a material like this. It was clear as glass but tempered and seamless — like something that had been 3-D printed or fused together on a molecular level through some process I knew almost for certain only lived in the minds of theoretical physicists and sci-fi writers.

But Sadie was strong. Much stronger than me. Just a few weeks ago, she’d cut and hauled the most ice from the Faoltiarn lake the Wölfennites had sourced to build our New St. Ailbe icehouse without any help from the Scottish males. 

Maybe she could break herself out of the container. 

“Sadie! Sadie! Wake up!” Stuck for anything else to do, I banged on the “definitely not glass” above Sadie's head. “C’mon! You have to try to get out.”

But Sadie just slept on, looking downright peaceful as I slammed my fists against the glass and called her name.

Frustration and guilt knitted in my chest.

I had lied to Sadie.

About my true reasons for agreeing to the Bridal Exchange program with her.

About my plans to leave our community and go to university in the human world.

And most of all, about everything being alright and me figuring out how to get us out of this.

Everything wasn’t alright, and I could only stare at my friend, powerless to break her out of the glass coffin.

My gut twisted with the memory of Bear Hood’s and Pirate’s conversation before we were put out. I’d gotten the chemical-covered cloth, but the Pirate had plunged something into Sadie’s arm. Two needles filled with something much stronger than whatever they gave me.

“What is the meaning of this!”

Or Amanda, whose voice drifted over to me from another part of the boat's underbelly.

"I demand to know the meaning of all of this!" she was saying to someone. “Whatever ongoing quarrel you have with the Scottish Wolves, it's none of our concern.” 

I waded through the sea of passed-out she-wolves to where Amanda was shaking her finger at a group of male wolves.

They were all slightly hunched over, thanks to the boat's low ceiling. But half of them were dressed in leather pants and tough leather vests, like the heavily tattooed Pirate who'd appeared out of nowhere with his friend Bear Hood to kidnap me. The other half wore leather kilts despite the boat's cold temperature, and though none were dressed in dead bear coats, they sported the same kind of earrings as Bear Hood, made of some metal slightly less burnished than gold. 

They all looked beyond dangerous as if they could — how did Bear Hood put his colorful threat to Alban? Oh yes, "gut you and feed your entrails to the forest boar for their supper."

These were the horrible males who’d kidnapped us. The ones who were probably taking us somewhere far away from Scotland to keep us locked up in cages until the next full moon when they could wolf mate us.

Fear snaked through me. I pushed it down to confront them anyway.

“We are a non-violent community who have exempted ourselves from all matters of outside violence and politics," Amanda said as I came up to stand behind her. "So, on behalf of my Wölfennite sisters, I demand you bring this vessel to a stop right now and release us from your hold — why are you laughing? Don’t laugh at me! I’m serious!”

“Serious about what?” One of the Earring Crew — by far the largest and bulkiest male in the group — paused laughing just long enough to wheeze out, “Exempting yerself from the Second Reaping?”

He slapped his knee as all the male wolves gathered around him practically doubled over for laughing.

I bristled, and Amanda yelled, “That’s not funny. You’re not funny!"

Tears filled her voice. "We’re far from home, and you have no right to treat us this way!”

The burly Earring Wolf trailed off laughing and tilted his head towards Amanda with a look that wasn’t entirely unsympathetic. “Aw, sweetling, I’m not trying to upset ye. Just having some fun. This situation is difficult for us lot too, ye'know."

He stepped closer to her, keeping his head carefully bent to avoid the ceiling. "Have ye any idea how long Ronan and I have been made to wait for a feek mate like ye? But I’ll say right now, ye were certainly worth the time we spent yearning for ye. Isn't she, Ronan?”

“I agree, Lorcan.” A much shorter Earring Wolf with darker hair stepped forward, “Never imagined she’d be so pretty. Like a wild yellow rose with this hair, aren’t ye?”

The one who’d been called Ronan reached a hand up to touch one of the many locks of blond hair that had fallen out from underneath Amanda’s bonnet.

“Don’t touch me, you filthy beast!” Amanda screeched, pushing his hand away. “Only my mate is allowed to touch me, and you are the opposite of the male who will one day secure my heart and hand in marriage.”

If Ronan was offended by her rejection, it didn’t show. He continued to beam at her like she was a holiday gift he hadn’t been expecting while the one called Lorcan said, “For now.”

Amanda shook her head at him. “What do you mean for now?”

“We’re the opposite of the lucky male or males you will mate. For now.”

We’re not sexual deviants like the Irish…

A shiver ran down my back as Gavin’s words echoed inside my head. 

Amanda’s voice sounded like it was giving out as she asked. “What… what do you mean by that?”

"What do I mean by that?" Lorcan tucked his thumbs into the waist of his kilt. His expression remained sympathetic, but his voice was more confident than steel as he answered, “Ye will certainly find out, won't ye?”

The back of Amanda’s neck flushed, and she swayed dangerously. 

I barely jumped forward fast enough to catch her when she fell into a near faint. 

She was no longer the self-appointed leader of our group. More like a scared child on the verge of passing out from all the new concepts she was being made to process. 

“Naomi, what do they mean?” she asked me, her voice weak with confusion. 

My belly tightened with the knowledge of certain things I’d read and heard about on the forbidden internet. Things Amanda’s cloistered brain wouldn’t be able to handle.

“Leave her alone,” I said, glaring at the two barnyard cats who’d decided to play with her. “Amanda can’t take your teasing. Have some compassion!”

I said this, knowing that my defensive words would probably earn me another derisive round of belly guffaws. But instead of laughing in my face, all the wolves who’d been doubled over less than a minute ago straightened up at once. One even hit his head on the ceiling in his rush to stand like a soldier in one of the war movies I’d watched to familiarize myself with human history. What was it called? Attention — yes, they appeared to be standing at attention.

“We’re sorry, Amanda!” the big one who’d goaded Amanda so meanly bowed his head toward her, hunching his shoulders. “I did not mean to upset you with my actions.”

“You didn’t mean to upset her,” I repeated as I helped Amanda stand back up on her own two feet. “What exactly did you think would happen when you kidnapped us and threw us underneath a boat? Which, by the way, is never an ideal way not to upset somebody — especially Black somebodies!”

The wolf soldiers stood in sullen silence, looking even more contrite.

But Amanda shook her head at me. “Why would you and Sadie being Black make this situation any more upsetting for you?”

I paused, recalling how our village school's limited history lessons mainly focused on the persecution of a prophet from Nazareth. In the Wölfennite timeline, the death of that prophet was followed by a steady devolvement of the human race into worldly evil until a few hundred years later when our founding ancestors established the first Wölfennite colonies after getting expelled from their ultra-conservative Amish and Mennonite communities for transforming into wolves during full moon nights.

I knew the scope of Black history because I'd made it a point to hunt it down on the forbidden internet.

But to Amanda, I might as well have been referring to people landing on the moon — which she also didn’t know about. 

Lorcan raised his head from its contrite position just enough to squint at Amanda. “You’ve never heard about slavery, then?” 

“Like Paul's letter to Philemon concerning the return of the runaway servant who stole from him?” Amanda asked.

Lorcan and Ronan exchanged a look. 

“They truly are as sheltered as the Tríbéirríthe source said," Ronan said.

“We will have much to teach them of the world, then,” one of the Pirate Wolves said. “Maybe we'll court our pretty captives with some history lessons, then.”

“Court us?” I glared at them, my tone turning to derisive ice. “How exactly do you expect to woo she-wolves you’ve kidnapped?” And plan to wolf mate against our will? I added silently, so as not to upset Amanda.

All the wolves who'd been openly discussing further education for their captors suddenly averted their eyes like Wölfennite children who’d just been asked to volunteer to cite a difficult verse from that Epistle to Philemon Amanda had mentioned earlier.

A new confusion melted away some of my derision. Why were these dangerous males all going out of their way not to talk to me? Or even so much as look at me?

“But if you do not know about the history of North American Black people, how does your Wölfennite sister?”

Lorcan addressed his question only to Amanda.

“Actually, I’m not sure.” Amanda stood up a little straighter and regarded me with a suspicious frown. “How do you know about this slavery matter they’re referring to, Naomi?”

“Whatever!” I lifted my chin to glare at Lorcan. “The point is you kidnapped us and put my best friend in a box! You need to let her out of there.”

Once again, none of the wolves answered me. Just stood there with their heads bowed like goshawks trying to blend into the snow so as not to be seen.

“I know you hear me,” I shouted at them impatiently. “I said let her out!”

More uncomfortable silence. Then Lorcan said to Amanda. 

“Could you explain to your ah… Wölfennite sister that we are not allowed to address her or even look at her?”

“Why not?” Amanda and I asked at the same time. 

The boat suddenly jerked, and Amanda and I stumbled forward.

Lorcan and Ronan raised their hands to steady Amanda, but the wolves standing in front of me actually raised theirs in the air. As if I were an electrified fence, they were afraid of touching. 

More confusion bubbled in me. “What is going on here?”

Again, there came no immediate answer until Lorcan, still holding Amanda around the waist, said, “Could you please tell your sister that if she has any more questions, they’d best be put to her kings?”

“Her kings?” I repeated. My stomach roiled with the sudden memory of something Bear Hood said to Alban.

Either way, she is ours! We will not be leaving Dùn Faoiltiarn without her.

“Well, for your information…” Amanda wriggled from the wolf’s clasp and took a firm step back to stand beside me. “Our community does not acknowledge royals.”

“That’s ironic,” someone muttered near the back of the crowd. 

“Why is that ironic?” Amanda and I asked at the same time.

“Perhaps your sister will soon find out?”

Once again, only Amanda received an answer. Before I could ask another of my many questions, he clapped his hands together and addressed the rest of the wolves. 

“Step back. Form a path!”

With that one command, the males parted in front of me, opening a clear path to a set of stairs directly behind them.

I gingerly stepped forward. And a few wolves moved back, giving me a wide berth as I passed them. But they also nodded in a slow, deliberate way. Were they… I couldn't even fathom it. But it almost looked like they were bowing. To me.

"I'll go with you," Amanda said behind me. "Maybe I can make these so-called Irish Kings see sense."

"Sorry, sweetling. You'll be staying here with us." I heard rather than saw Lorcan step in front of Amanda before she could follow me up the stairs. "Only your sister's allowed to pass."

Again, I had so many questions. However, something told me I’d get no answers from the male wolves, who tipped their heads down when I looked their way but kept their eyes cast to the floor. 

My stomach churned with every step up the stairs, a creeping dread crawling up my spine.

The kings.

My mind churned with dark possibilities about how this boat ride would end, and all of them involved cages, locked doors, and the wolf mating I never wanted — for myself or any other Wölfennite.

In the case of the deviant Irish Wolves, possibly matings.

But I swallowed hard, forcing the fear back. Then I bowed my own head to keep from hitting it as I climbed out of the ship’s bottom. 

To confront these ruthless Irish Kings.

Sea

“I tell ye, we should've stopped in Dublin like I suggested earlier.”

I couldn’t disagree with Wild. At least not physically. 

The rest of my Sea Wolves had anchored the boat to the dock closest to the small cargo plane we'd be using to complete the final transport of the Second Reaping. But instead of commanding the effort, I sat on one of the trawler's side benches with my head hanging between my knees. Not because I suffered from seasickness. My Viking wolf ancestry would never have abided that particular human weakness.

Regardless, my wolf was thrashing furry inside my throat. I feared if I didn’t keep my head with my eyes squeezed closed — if I so much as glanced in the direction of the hold where the stolen brides were being watched over by a small contingent of our most trusted warriors — if I dared to do anything but press my chin to my chest while sending up prayers to the three gods, it was certain that my wolf would eject from my body like fur-covered vomit. 

The beast inside me didn’t like that she was out of sight. Didn’t trust even our most dedicated warriors not to touch her. Ever since we'd sailed away from the Scottish kingdom town, my wolf had been inundating me with images of tearing out their throats and swallowing down their eyeballs merely for glancing at her while she slept. 

Yet, I couldn't go down to the hold to grab her. I had zero faith that my beast could be trusted if left in a room alone with her.

My wolf jumped forward again at that mere thought, eager to shift and claim the banríon as his own. Jayzuz! If he was this bad on the trip, what would life become once I got her back to the secret kingdom?

"Want me to tie yer pretty hair back so that ye don't get sick all over it?" Wild asked somewhere above me.

"I'm fine," I insisted.

"Ye’re not fine."

"If you're in need of somebody to fuss over, consider directing your energies to securing the Tríbéirríthe potential for transfer."

“If we’d stopped in Dublin, we could have kidnapped the City King, too."

Wild’s voice was closer now, letting me know he’d sunk into his preferred crouch to lecture me further instead of taking my suggestion. "Or we could've brought her to him. Let Lorcan and Thorin handle the transfer to the secret castle.” 

“Don’t!” I choked out. To Wild and myself. “We must stick to the original scheme.”

Save for that confrontation with the Scottish Enforcer, the Second Reaping had gone seamlessly. While one contingent of our warriors confronted the Scots in their great hall, another, much larger group lay low at the entrance to the hidden tunnel the Scottish Wolves didn’t think we knew about. Just as the Tríbéirríthe’s source had promised, while the males in the hall fought off the smaller group as best they could with only their fists as weapons, the unmated she-wolves had been diverted to the escape tunnel.

There, the larger force plucked them up like lambs herded into the wooling barn before jabbing all the unheated she-wolves with the knockout needles my sister Astrid had provided us with before we set out on our mission.

So far, nearly everything had gone exactly to scheme. But if I let myself draw a mental picture of the female Wild had chloroformed back at Faoltiarn, I’d lose my wolf for sure.

Wild thought I’d insisted on sticking to the original plan because I was too rigid. But the reality was I'd been white-knuckling our first scheme because I was too weak. It was a miracle I hadn’t lost my head after spotting our long-prophesied queen from afar. I certainly could not imagine hanging on to my wolf for the duration of a dubious side quest. 

“Dublin isn’t like me,” I reminded Wild as best I could with my wolf straining to burst out. “He has plenty of access to human women. He’s not mate-starved. Who knows if even the sight of her will sway him? And besides, he’s the most exposed of all the kings in a proper city filled with CCTV. Where do you think the Scottish Defender will go looking first when he fails to track us across the Irish Sea?"

My wolf thrashed with renewed force at the mention of the Scottish Defender. He wanted to kill that maggot, too. Spray the world red with the blood of any who even thought to take our banríon from me. 

Mine! Mine! Mine! It chanted while I struggled to keep it down. 

“That’s another reason to collect him. If the Scottish Defender comes looking, best that the male who knows about but refused to undertake this mission isn’t there if ye ask…”

Wild suddenly trailed off and the air shifted in front of me as he jerked to his feet and said, “Hello, there. Didn’t expect to see ye up here.”

The stilling of my wolf told me who “ye” was even though she was standing down wind, too far away for me to smell. I raised my head to find our queen, also the most beautiful she-wolf I had ever sighted, regarding me with sharp brown eyes. 

“What’s wrong with you?” she demanded.

There came a sudden shrinking sensation within me, like all the air had been sucked out of my lungs.

I didn’t — couldn’t answer. Not because I was struggling with my wolf. But because it had abruptly cowered down into the deepest recesses of my body. The overwhelming presence I'd fought to contain all this time collapsed in on itself, leaving me hollow, like an empty vessel.

Meanwhile, I could sense our banríon's wolf staring at us. More angry than scared.

Was my wolf…? I struggled to find the word; my inner beast had folded in on itself, small and silent as it could manage, like a pup avoiding a scolding.

Intimidated. Yes, that was it. Was my ultraviolent wolf — who’d wanted but had never actually encountered our fated mate — actually intimidated by the she-wolf standing in front of us?

I stood up carefully, not quite trusting him to stay down.

But if anything, he scooted even further down into my stomach. I could sense him covering his eyes with his paws, embarrassed to have been caught acting the fool by the ethereal she-wolf.

It seemed he had been rendered into a nervous school pup, and I straightened up with the wholly unfamiliar feeling of being completely and effortlessly in control of my own body.

“So, are you not talking to me either?” The freckled brown beauty snapped. “Like the ones down below?”

“The ones down below are not allowed to speak or look at ye directly,” Wild explained.

“But you are?” She looked between Wild and me, her expression a mix of irritation, confusion, and impatience.

“Of course,” Wild answered with a mocking bow of his head. “We are yer kings.”

She glanced around at all the other wolves on the deck preparing the trawler for offloading while doggedly avoiding looking her way, and her sharp gaze flickered with confusion. But then she reset.

“Good, I guess you’re who I was sent to find.” She took a step back and cleared her throat, her eyes widening with fear — before narrowing with determination. “Why have you kidnapped us? I don’t know what beef you have with the Scottish Wolves, but we’re not part of it. The Wölfennites are a gentle community, and I suggest you let us go before the North American Lupine Association finds out about this.”

"Is that so?" Free of my thrashing wolf, I found myself letting out a hum of amusement. “According to our intel, your community, as you called it, operates outside the umbrella of the North American Lupine’s Association’s protection. And as for the Scottish Wolves, yes, they’ll look, but they’ll never find you. Just as they never found the she-wolves from the First Reaping back in the 1500s.”

Her eyes flared with outrage. “So, you're just going to haul us off to wherever you're taking this boat without giving us any say in the matter?”

Wild grinned in a way that was more fang than smile. “Sorry, we didn’t engage in a polite letter-writing campaign like that Scottish lot did. Not our way."

Wild stepped to her, leaving only a sliver of space between them as he ran his nose along her neck — as close as he could get without touching her. "This will have to serve as yer invitation to live with the Irish Wolves for a spell.”

To her credit, the brown beauty stood her ground. Her jaw locked, but she refused to shrink away from Wild or let on that she was intimidated by his closeness.

“So, it’s true. We’ve escaped our fates in Canada just to fall into something even worse.” Doing her physical best to ignore Wild, she addressed her grievance to me. “What’s your plan then? To throw us in cages and impregnate us against our will at the next full moon?”

Underneath her withering gaze, my once-defiant wolf shriveled even further inside me, this time with shame.

In my albeit limited experience, unheated females could be tricky.

The gods designed them to experience very little desire until the conditions were right for them to go into their first heat. However, male wolves were designed for ultimate imprinting when they sensed their one true mate. This meant that while males often fell for their mates at first sight, she-wolves often either didn’t realize on a completely conscious level they’d met their lifelong partner — or worse, simply didn’t feel the same way. Before the Heat Laws took effect, this incongruence of deeper feelings before heat was often resolved with a wolf mating.

But the Terrible Belfast Mess had taught us how bad an idea that was, when it nearly started a civil war among three of our then four kingdoms. The fallout had left me to reason with our prophesied — but still unheated — queen as best I could, given her ignorance of both our ways and her role in the Prophecy.

“It is true we have stolen you from the Scottish Wolves, yes,” I conceded. “But we will not mate you against your will.”

My royal face reddened. It felt ridiculous to say this out loud with Wild snorting down her scent, his eyes glowing like the predator he was underneath his human overlay. But still, I felt duty-bound to tell her, “We’ve a set of guiding rules in Ireland referred simply to as the Heat Laws.”

She scrunched her pretty face. “What does that mean?”

Wild raised his head from his aggressive scent work to answer into her ear. “It means ye’re safe from us. At least until yer wolf tells us otherwise.”

She tightened her jaw and turned to address Wild directly for the first time. “I promise you, my wolf will never tell you otherwise.”

Wild tipped his head and got directly in her face. “If ye’re trying to make me even more excited about claiming that sweet cunt of yers, keep talking, Flower.”

According to the Tríbéirríthe source’s report, the Wölfennite she-wolves had grown up so cloistered that they didn’t know much modern slang. But our Mairinua must have understood every word of Wild’s vulgar reply.

She finally shoved him from her, shouting, “You’re disgusting!”

Or at least she tried to shove him away. Wild barely budged under her tremendous push. Just replied, “I’m also yer king.”

Instead of further engaging in their argument, she took another hugely deliberate step away from him.

“Wild,” I said before he could close the space between them again. “Let her have her room. She is not used to us yet.”

At his True King’s command, Wild remained where he was. But his gaze stayed on her, feral and glowing, like a beast tracking prey.

She glanced at him warily before turning to face me again. 

"You should know," she explained, her gaze studiously affixed on mine, "we do not believe in or adhere to a wolf hierarchy. Moreover, our community hasn't had a non-mated she-wolf go into heat in nearly three decades. First pregnancies occur exclusively with wolf matings. Even my sister, the Scottish Queen, was wolf-mated — accidentally wolf-mated. But still…"

“Are you trying to convince us to change our Heat Laws to allow for wolf matings, then?” Wild asked with a considering look.

“What? No! I’m explaining to you why this plan of yours will not work." She threw Wild an irritated glance before turning back to reason with me. "If you’re serious about not forcing us into cages on the full moon, you should just let us go.”

“Just the Wölfennites?” I said more out of curiosity than consideration. “Should we keep the Scottish she-wolves we nabbed, then?”

“No, you should let all of us go," she answered without hesitation. "I don’t know what kind of mental gymnastics you did to justify pulling this kidnapping business a second time on that poor Scottish community. But they are still indelibly scarred by what happened back in the 1500s. And it's the Wölfennites' fault that they weren’t able to defend themselves against your attack. The Scottish she-wolves deserve to go home even more than we do. And if you turn this boat around and drop us back off, you can end this here. We’ll be shaken, but no one will be hurt.”

No, my wolf was no longer thrashing inside of me, but my human was struck speechless, nonetheless. 

“Did ye hear that final argument to serve as our banríon, Sea?” Wild’s mouth spread into his first sincere smile of the conversation as he gave echo to my own thoughts. “Upset as she was, she calmed herself and got right to gabbin' sharp on behalf of her subjects, she did. Effortless bit of queenin’ if ye ask me. And when ye add that bit in about her being best mates with the Tríbéirríthe potential, I don’t see how Dublin would find it any different.”

She glanced between Wild and me. “I don’t understand.” 

Despite the fierce wind whipping my warrior braids to the side, a gentle breeze flowed through my chest as I told her, “We like the way you advocate for your people — all your people.”

Her expression became hopeful. "Oh! Does that mean that you’ll let us go?”

Until Wild informed her, “It means he’s never letting ye go, Flower. Ye've convinced him not to, surer than sure.”

He spoke no lies, but I cursed Wild for the way her beautiful face crumbled. 

“No, no! You have to let Sadie out of that box!" she insisted. "And you must take us home.”

She looked at me, her eyes pleading for mercy and reassurance that I would be more reasonable than the feral wolf who had to be commanded not to overwhelm her. 

But even with my wolf now cowering inside of me, I felt compelled to insist back, “We are taking you home, Mairinua. And Wild spoke true, we will never let you go. Especially after having met you properly face-to-face. 

Panic flared in her eyes. 

And as much as I would have liked to have erased it, I let it sink in. 

The sooner she understood the situation, the sooner she would come to accept it. 

However, full acceptance was not exactly what happened in the next moment. 

Her gaze cut to the side. To the large mansion standing beside the small airfield we were planning to head to after our wolves brought up all of the passed-out she-wolves in the hold below.

“No, Flower, don’t —” Wild began to say, following the direction of her gaze. And I jumped forward, willing my cowering wolf to lend me its speed.

But too late.

She sprinted toward the railing, and before either Wild or I could grab her, she slapped her palms together and arced her body over the trawler's side. 

The next thing I heard was a huge splash. 

And the sound of Wild saying, "Well, fuck," behind me.

Naomi

There were so many things that I didn’t know, thanks to my upbringing. 

I'd spent thousands of hours on the forbidden internet and watched countless videos and reels depicting life outside of my hidden community. But there was stuff I had to experience for myself to fully comprehend — stuff even my secret love, the World Wide Web, never could have prepared me for.

Like the constant sway of boats, even when they’ve come to a stop. 

And kings who kidnap… and lick… and make dark promises that you feel in your stomach. 

And the difference between jumping fully clothed into a summer lake and jumping fully clothed into a freezing cold ocean. 

The water hit me with an icy blast. If not for my wolf, no doubt I would have been introduced to another concept I only knew about because of the forbidden internet: hypothermia.

Right before I drowned because I didn’t have the physical strength to fight some unseen force that seemed intent on crashing me back into the boat. 

No, the sea was not a lake. The freezing water was a living thing, somehow both shoving and clinging to me as I navigated toward the shore as best I could with a combination of freestyle and breaststrokes. 

Thank goodness I'd taught myself to swim just in case I was invited to a pool party in the new life I'd been planning before the Irish Wolves crashed my sister's wedding. And thank goodness the shore was close.

I staggered onto a beach covered in rocks and pebbles instead of marsh and sand. A first, and it sent my body into a rare conflict with the wolf inside of me. 

An array of intriguing new scents hit my nose, but the modest blue dress clung in a freezing, wet hug.

So, while my wolf hankered to investigate all the new smells, my human swayed dangerously, wanting nothing more than to collapse on top of the smooth rocks. 

But then I spotted the boat, half-hidden by the jut of the low cliff that stood between the beach and the dock where they'd dropped anchor. No one in the ocean, though. So that meant those kidnapping kings hadn’t been crazy enough to jump in after me.

But something told me that didn’t mean they wouldn’t give chase. The Pirate’s vow whispered through my head.

We will never let you go.

I had to get to the house I'd spied from the deck of the boat. 

That goal and the thought of Sadie in that glass box clarified my next steps. 

Teeth chattering, I shoved one foot in front of the other toward a set of steps carved into the low cliff's rock wall.

Several minutes later, I stumbled across more rocks — this time in the form of gravel in front of the residence's back door. 

The house was much, much larger than it had appeared from the coastline — almost as big as the Scottish kingdom castle. Another forbidden internet word poked into my mind. Is this what a mansion looks like in real life? I wondered.

Then, my stomach cramped with another thought. Or maybe this is the Irish Wolves' version of a castle?

Instead of knocking, I tried the door's handle to see if it was locked. Wolves never locked their doors. From what I understood, that was a human compulsion, most likely born out of a fear of not being able to either smell or easily out-muscle any threat that could come your way. 

With a single push, the handle yielded, clicking the door open with an ominous creak. Oh no! I recoiled and snatched my hand away like someone scalded.

Was this why none of the wolves had followed me into the ocean? Had I run straight to their kingdom's keep? What had that one wolf called it? Their secret castle?

I turned tail to run towards the road I could hear off in the distance.

"What in the…? You're drenched to the bone! Did you fall out of a boat or something?"

A giant male stood in the doorway. He looked to be in his early thirties. Maybe younger. It was hard to tell with the thick beard. He was covered in some man-made scent. A perfume, maybe? Like the kind Barbara, my patron forbidden technology and book saint, often wore. However, instead of flowers, his perfume put me in mind of burning wood and crushed pine needles. 

Most of all, the man had kind eyes behind a set of metal-rimmed glasses — glasses that wolves didn't ever have to wear, thanks to their perfect vision.

"Oh, thank goodness!" My shoulders caved, and my heart just about exploded with relief when I saw that the large guy who'd opened the door wasn't a wolf.

"Are you alright there, love?" The kind-eyed giant eyed me nervously, then called over his shoulder, "Keeann, be a good lad and bring some towels! We’ve got a woman at our door in need of help. I think she might have tumbled into the ocean.”

The "woman" let me know he most definitely wasn’t a wolf. Shifters never referred to themselves by human monikers. We didn't consider ourselves men or women, but males and females or wolves and she-wolves. Kind of like how I referred to myself as Black despite having a White mother.

“Here, here, come inside.” Despite my wet dress, he beckoned me into what turned out to be a toasty kitchen with what looked like a full tea service, complete with tiny sandwiches, cakes, and even a couple of glasses of bubbly champagne. 

My stomach rumbled at the sight of the food. 

"Sorry, don't stop there," the kind giant instructed. "I'll fetch you something after we get you situated. We've an armchair right next to a warm fire with your name on it. Come! Come!"

He opened a swinging door to reveal a high-ceilinged sitting room, large and cozy with, just as he promised, an armchair situated right next to a roaring fire.

For some reason, my teeth started chattering at the sight of it. As if my body didn't remember it was encased in an icy, wet dress until it sighted something that was the opposite of that.

“You poor woman. Sit here.” He waved me toward a cushy armchair that carried the faint scent of a sheep shorn and hided centuries ago before accepting a stack of towels from someone outside of my periphery with a quick. "Obliged, Keeann. Maybe pour her a cup of tea from that pot I was brewing up when I heard her at the door? And you…”

The giant turned back to thrust the stack of towels at me. “Get these wrapped around you quick, won’t you? Your teeth are chattering like castanets.

I did as instructed but had to warn him. “L-lock the door! B-bad m-males are af-after me. T-took m-my fr-friends. M-must h-help th-th-them.”

“What’s she on about, then?”

A voice suddenly asked behind me. It was nowhere near as warm as the guy who'd welcomed me inside. 

"Not sure," the large one I could see answered. "But I can tell she's distressed. So, don't start."

They didn't understand. I had to make them understand. I locked my teeth to stop them from chattering. 

“There's a boat parked at the closest dock to this house. It has a bunch of females in it. We’re being…” I scraped my mind for the right internet word that would make humans take me seriously. “Trafficked! We’re being trafficked. You’ve got to call the authorities. You have to help us!”

Silence.

Then, the kind giant's face lit up, and footsteps sounded behind me. "Perfect, Keeann! Yes, a nice cuppa. That’s exactly what she needs."

He thrust a saucer with a delicate tea cup, a little sandwich, and a delicious-looking cakey biscuit into my face. “This tea'll warm you right up, won’t it?”

Both my human and my wolf heartily agreed, but I couldn't take his offering. "I'm not going to sit here sipping tea while nearly everyone I know is trapped on that boat outside! You've got to help me. You've got to help us."

The giant's expression melted. 

"Listen —" he started to say, only to freeze at the sound of a doorbell trilling in the distance. 

“Keeann, go get that, will you?” the cold voice said behind me. "That will be our package."

“No! Don’t answer it!” Panic shredded my chest, and I rose from the seat to stop this Keeann guy from answering the door.

Only to be gently pushed back down into it. By the kind giant. 

“Relax," he said, pinning me to the chair with just a hand on my shoulder. "Everything will be okay.”

“No, it won’t be. You don’t understand.” I struggled to get back up but to no avail. 

The man with the kind eyes kept me pinned in the seat even though I was a wolf and supposed to be stronger than any human male. Even one that was twice my size. 

What was happening? Had the ocean sapped my strength? Or…

“What are you?” I demanded, realizing that while he wasn’t a wolf, he definitely wasn’t human either. 

He pushed his glasses up on his nose. “Everything will be all right. I promise you that.”

“Don’t go making their she-wolf promises you can’t keep,” the much darker voice behind the chair warned. 

Their she-wolf.

My heart dropped into my stomach, and dread curled around me. These males weren't wolves, but they somehow knew I was one.

“Get yer hands off her!" Wild's voice suddenly growled out from behind the no-longer-friendly giant. "Ye shouldn’t be touching her!”

The large male lifted his hands as if he’d been caught stealing more than his share of meat from the icehouse. The most repugnant crime back in St. Ailbe. 

“Sorry about that, Wild King. Was afraid she’d pull another runner before you could secure her.”

The giant moved out of the way, and Wild appeared in front of me, his eyes nearly frantic with worry. “Ye crazy girl! What were ye thinking, jumping into the sea like that? Should I hug ye or strangle ye?”

Despite his harsh tone, he cupped my face with a tender smile. "Have ye any idea what ye did to my wolf when ye pulled that trick?

He sounded so worried about me, and I was so confused and cold. My eyes fluttered closed, and I leaned into his warm hand, almost forgetting he was the enemy. But no…

“Where am I?" I asked him, jerking away from his touch. "Who are these people?”

“None of yer concern." Wild lowered his hand, and his expression became hard as stone. "This is just a stopover to pay our debt before we take the rest of you on home.”

… the rest of you.

His words tugged at some suspicion I couldn’t quite name. “What do you mean?”

Wild looked away and stood up to his full height. “C’mon then, ye psycho. Let’s get ye to a washroom. I’m a fan of cozy fireside tea myself, but C’s got some clothes for ye to change into before we push on.”

He helped me up from the chair and started escorting me back toward a foyer located beyond an arch on the other side of the sitting room.

Cold and defeated, I let him pull me along. 

Until I saw the other Irish king standing with the giant who'd given me the towels. Along with two other extremely tall and wide males. They were all looking down at something on the floor. 

No, not something. Someone, I realized when a glint of the clear casing caught the light. 

Sadie! They were all looking down at Sadie in her clear Snow White coffin.

“Sadie,” I screamed. “Oh, my wolf! Sadie!” I leaped forward. “What are you doing with her? Let her out of that box!”

The three giants didn't even look up as I charged toward them. 

Only the other Irish king, who simply said, "Wild."

“Already on it,” Wild answered. Right before he stopped me mid-charge with a hand banded around my waist. 

No! No!

“Sadie!” I screamed. “Sadie! Let her go! Let her — mmmph!”

I cut off when Wild's cloth-covered hand once again clapped over my mouth. 

And the world turned to black.

Wild

“Sadie!”

Our Flower woke up still screaming the Tríbéirríthe potential’s name.

So you can just imagine how well she reacted when she found me crouched over her like a fucking Gollum.

“Get away from me!” She scooted back on her hands and feet, putting space between us. Again. 

Space that I closed in a crouched instant again. 

“This business would go a lot easier if ye stopped asking for space I ain’t capable of giving.”

Her chest lifted with a harsh gasp.

“You’re scaring her, Wild." 

I swung my eyes over to the Sea King, who, after nearly wolfing out at the first sight of our banríon, was now somehow managing to sit unbothered several feet away in a chair he made look like a throne. 

"Give her some room," he commanded.

Sea was The True King, so I had no choice but to back away a wee bit. Just enough to see the genuine fear in her gaze. As if I could ever hurt her.

Truth be told, I was beginning to resent her innocence. Not the bit where no one else touched her before her kings, but the bit where every male she’d encountered was either a too-eager mouth-panter like those Scots or completely defanged by the heavenly god my ancestors had rejected when St. Patrick came round. I'd known in an instant that she was our fated mate, no fating stone rituals required. But she regarded me like an animal she was afraid would eat her alive as she climbed to her feet.

She looked down at herself, then all around before demanding, “What did you do?”

I rose to a stand, wondering which situation might be upsetting her the most.

Me clapping another hit of knock-out chemicals over her mouth back at the Tríbéirríthe's residence?

Waking up in the homey front room of our Kept She-Wolves Habitat?

The heavy knitted sweater and long skirt she was now wearing instead of that shapeless lookalike Wölfennite dress?

Or maybe it was the sight of her fellow reaped she-wolves passed out all around her on the stone floor. 

“Where are we? Why am I in new clothes? What did you do to these she-wolves? Where is Sadie?”

Ah, so it was all three, then, with a bonus question attached. 

Before either Sea or I could answer, the sound of someone's loud moan turned all of our heads. 

On the other side of the habitat's large front room, a she-wolf with a lopsided bonnet and yellow hair rose into a seated position amongst all the unconscious females.

“What happened?" she asked, her voice cracking with confusion. "Where am I?” 

Like our Flower, she looked all around. But her search stopped when she found Lorcan standing in front of the habitat's four-story-high observation windows with Ronan and the rest of the wolves who'd carried out the Second Reaping. 

We'd been nearly twenty-four hours at this mission, transporting these she-wolves across land, sea, and air to arrive at the secret kingdom. But when given the option to let another group take their place until the she-wolves woke up, our warriors had done the same as Sea and me. Refused to leave. 

These she-wolves — they were our treasure, weren't they? And like jealous dragons, a primal compulsion to stand guard over them burned inside us.

"Where am I?" the yellow-haired female asked Lorcan directly this time. "Why do I feel so weird?"

"Thought none of them was supposed to wake for another hour or so," one of the Sea Wolves muttered, throwing Lorcan a baleful look. Probably still sore that Lorcan had declared the yellow-haired one his under the old Wild laws.

That had been shortly after we’d loaded his future mate and the other unconscious she-wolves into the real lorry. The other two were dummy trucks driven by unwitting humans to a private airfield and the closest port to the Scottish kingdom village. A neat diversion to send the Scots on a wild goose chase, while the real truck headed to a southern port farther from the Highlands, yet much closer to Ireland. From there, we’d taken an unmarked cargo ship across the Irish Sea to Wicklow to drop off the potential with the Tríbéirríthe.

Then we sent the Tríbéirríthe’s private plane on another dummy trip — this time to Ulfrford, an old Viking wolf village near Waterford, where the original Viking wolves who’d emigrated to Scotland had settled before the Wild Wolves handed over the residence to the secret kingdom. Meanwhile, we loaded the she-wolves into another lorry, and a few hours later, they were all installed in the secret kingdom’s enclosed habitat.

Anyhow, the True King had declared that no one else could call dibs on their future mate after Lorcan used the chaos of the heist to claim his yellow-haired she-wolf — the yellow-haired she-wolf he was meant to have fully knocked out again.

I, too, glared at Lorcan. “Did you not give her the needle this time?” 

We’d only chloroformed our Flower, so it was natural that she’d be awake a shorter time later, but I’d given Lorcan explicit instructions to inject his complaining female with something strong enough to keep her knocked out for hours as we transferred over fifty she-wolves to the secret kingdom. Of all of them, she should have been the last to wake. 

“I promise you, I gave her the needle.” Lorcan gritted his jaw and threw the yellow-haired she-wolf an apologetic glance.

"You lying toerag!" the disgruntled Sea Wolf said. "It's obvious you didn't, or else why would she be awake?"

“Where is Sadie? Why isn't she here!” Our Flower fired off more questions at us before Lorcan could answer the Sea Wolf calling him out. 

She scanned the room, and her voice became even more panicked when she didn't find her friend's delivery box. “Tell me where you put Sadie right now!”

I exchanged a look with Sea, who stood up from his throne chair to let her know. “She’s not here. Not anywhere near here, so it’s no use looking for her.”

"No use looking for her?" Our Flower reacted as if Sea had punched her straight in the face. 

Her whole body jerked back, and her expression crumpled. “Oh no! Tell me you didn’t…” She grabbed at the front of her new hand-knitted sweater. “Tell me you didn’t leave my best friend alone with those three guys!”

Another exchanged look between Sea and myself let her know that was exactly what we did without either of us having to say so out loud.

"Why would you do that?" she practically shrieked. "We have to go get her. You have to go back and get her right now."

Look at her, already throwing around commands like a queen. Under different circumstances, I'd be plain delighted with her. But under these, I had to pull rank. 

I held both hands up to let her know, "Aw, Flower, we cannot do that."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Because they're long gone by now," Sea answered. He stepped forward to present a united front with me as he told her, “You have to understand, she was the only purpose for them — the reason why they funded this entire venture.”

“What do you mean? I don’t understand anything you’re saying!" Flower regarded him with an expression filled with so much hatred and disgust, that it put the one she'd given me earlier to shame. "Why didn’t you bring her along with the rest of us? Why would you strand my innocent best friend all alone with three men she doesn’t know?”

“Didn't you see for yourself why we did it?” Sea shook his head at her. “I mean, what were we to do with a female like that? It was clear she belonged with them!”

“Clear, how so?" Flower practically shrieked back. "Because she’s a little taller than average, you thought she deserved to be sold off to fund your criminal activities?"

“No, because she’s…” Sea turned to me for help explaining. 

But I was just as confused as him by her reaction. “Could ye not see," I asked our Flower, "not smell that she belongs with them?” 

“What are you talking about? I don’t care if she smells odd or if she’s bigger than average. She’s an innocent she-wolf, and she doesn’t deserve to be left alone with some rando giants. Oh my gosh, when she wakes up, she's going to be so scared…”

Tears pooled in her eyes, and Sea and me stepped forward to comfort her. 

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed before we could, her voice laced with venom. “You sold her! You sold my best friend to fund your evil kidnapping scheme. I don't know what kind of plan you had for me with wolf mating off the table, but I will never call you my kings. And I will never ever forgive you for this.”

Sea, soft soul that he was, flinched. 

And I’ll admit her impassioned words grated over my coarsened hide as well. Hadn’t anticipated our banríon being so close to the Tríbéirríthe’s potential. I had some doubts for the first time since I was told of the Tríbéirríthe's price for funding the Second Reaping.  

Still, I shrugged in the face of her current abject hatred, knowing that it wouldn’t matter in the end.

“Ye Wölfennites’ll forgive us everything we’ve done to ensure the continuation of the Eire Wolves. By the prophecy or by the body."   

“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

Her eyes narrowed in a way that let me know she was once again stuck between confusion and outrage. And, the considerate future mate that I was, I gladly clarified the situation for her. “Ye’ll either step into the role destiny has already set for ye, or ye’ll go into heat.”

She glared at me. “How many times do I have to tell you we are a pure, wolf-mated-only community? The chances of me or anyone else you're holding captive in this weird dome room going into heat are zero to —”

“Ahh! What is happening to me?”

Our Flower cut off when the yellow-haired Wölfennite cried out on the other side of the room.

Not in pain, though.

Discovered that fact the extremely hard way when a surge of scent crashed through the room stronger than the full moon tide. 

It had been a long time, years and years, since I last encountered such a smell. Dark and spicy. Quiet as death. Yet louder in my ears than the ocean underneath a thunderstorm. 

The flesh below my waist thickened into a bar of lead, letting me know that both me and that irritable Sea Wolf owed Lorcan an apology.

It hadn’t been his failure to jab her properly that had woken the yellow-haired she-wolf up from her forced slumber early but biological necessity. 

Heat.

The yellow-haired she-wolf was in heat. 

In a room full of males who had been eunuched by the Heat Laws for their entire adult lives. 

In a room full of males who weren't allowed to touch a she-wolf unless she was in her time of need — which for the she-wolf stumbling like a newborn doe to her feet was now. 

"Why do I feel so strange?" she asked Lorcan, her voice husky with confusion. And ache.

"Well, fuck," I said, once again forgetting to watch my mouth as Dublin had warned me.

Then, Sea and I sprang into action to keep all hell from breaking out.

Naomi

"Why do I feel so strange?" Amanda asked.

Then, without warning, the strangest scent filled the room. Sharp and primal, cutting through the air like something untethered. And untamed. Sweet, but somehow filthy at the same time. And even though it was just a smell, every nerve in my body went on alert — like the hunters who used dog whistles near St. Ailbe, oblivious to the shifters living nearby.

"Well, fuck," Wild cursed before he and C, the Pirate King, burst into action. 

"Get out! Get out!" he yelled at the male wolves gathered in front of the domed glass window. "Everybody but Lorcan and Ronan, get the hell out of here. Now!"

By some invisible decree, a large door-shaped panel of glass slid open, and Wild began shoving his comrades through the newly revealed entrance with an urgency that reminded me of the forbidden TV shows featuring rescue workers. 

Most of the males turned tail and ran out like fearful sheep whenever a fox got into their pen. But the disgruntled Pirate Wolf, who'd accused Lorcan of lying earlier, growled and tried to move forward. Toward Amanda. 

"Don't even entertain it, lad." C pulled two vicious-looking daggers from his knife sash before the snarling Pirate Wolf could take another step. Rivulets of lean muscle rippled down his tattooed arms as he twirled the unsheathed weapons. "I'm your King. But if you go after her, I'll slice your throat proper."

Go after her? That was when I realized I needed to protect Amanda from… whatever this melee was.

As confused as I was by what was happening, I started making my way toward Amanda's side of the room, instinct telling me that she was the reason for the two kings' sudden need to eject all the males from the strangely domed space. 

I blocked out the commotion and focused on getting to my Wölfennite sister. 

"What's happening?" Amanda raked a ragged hand down the side of her face, pulling off the hair covering. Perhaps unconsciously. We were never supposed to let ourselves be seen without our Wölfennite bonnets, but Amanda appeared oddly flushed.

"Why do I feel so, so…?" She panted as if she couldn't access the breath it took to finish that sentence.

"I'm coming, Amanda!" I called out, making my way to her as quickly as I could without stepping on any of the unconscious she-wolves stretched out like a river between us.

"Just hold on until the kings deal with the rest of the males, sweetling." Lorcan crouched down beside Amanda, his tone reassuring. "Then Ronan and I will get ye sorted. I vow it."

"Vow it…" Amanda's voice was barely a whisper. I doubt I could have heard her if not for my keen wolf ears. 

She stared at Lorcan, her head swaying listlessly. 

Which was why I was completely unprepared when she suddenly surged forward.

One moment, Lorcan was crouched beside her, his face filled with concern. And the next, he and Amanda were fighting. 

No, not fighting…

“Get out! Get out the lot of ye now. Before ye catch the fever, and the True King has to slice somebody else like he did that other one!”

I dimly registered Wild's voice in my periphery, issuing orders I didn’t understand. 

Just as I didn’t understand the heavy smell in the air or why Amanda was tangled up with Lorcan in some strange wrestling match that ended with her straddled on top of him.

She appeared to be… I tilted my head to the side. Yes, she appeared to be grinding herself against Lorcan. Her visible side profile had gone utterly slack. But her body moved on top of the large Earring Wolf. With dark intent.

“Amanda?" I stopped wading through the river of passed-out Wölfennites just a few meters away from her. "What are you doing?” 

“I don’t know!” she cried out. “There’s something wrong with me. It hurts! It hurts!”

“It’s alright, love,” Lorcan assured her, his voice choked but level. “Me and Ronan will make it better in a flash. But before we do, we'll be needing your promise. Stop. Please, ye got to stop."

But Amanda didn't stop. Just kept mindlessly rocking her hips on top of him. "Can't stop! Can't!"

What was she doing to him? Lorcan was nearly twice her size and so much stronger than her, but he knocked his head back against the stone floor, baring his teeth in a grimace that looked a lot like pain. 

"Aw, sweetling. Can't take it. Cease." Lorcan grabbed ahold of Amanda's hips to still them. "Cease now, I tell ye, so ye can give us yer pledge.”

Amanda cried out again. This time, like a wounded animal. “Please. I need… I need…”

“I understand! But I cannot give ye relief.”

Tears pooled in Lorcan’s eyes, too, but I sensed they had less to do with frustration and more to do with restraint.

Through gritted teeth, he said, “Not before you give Ronan and me the words we need. Please, sweetling. Repeat after me.”

A nonsensical collection of words fell out of his mouth. The language he used sounded like a more lyrical version of the Gaelic the Scottish Wolves spoke.

Yet Amanda didn’t hesitate to repeat them word for word, with tears streaming down her face.

“Now, please help me. Please!" she begged the male beneath her when she was through.

“Not yet, sweetling.” Lorcan choked out. “You must say the words to Ronan, too!” 

Amanda looked toward the only other male wolf now left in the room. Ronan. The shorter, dark-haired Earring Wolf had crouched less than a meter away from Lorcan and Amanda with both his hands braced against the floor like an animal about to pounce.

Nonetheless, Amanda repeated the words she couldn't possibly understand to Ronan this time.

Everything happened so fast after that.

Ronan leaped forward, and Lorcan reached up.

Ripping sounds filled the air, and in a flash, Amanda was naked as the day she was born. 

What…? My heart slammed into my throat. What in the world?

Before I could even begin to come up with an answer to that question, Lorcan had lifted his leather kilt and pulled out something I had only ever seen on farm animals. 

I blinked. And in that blink, Lorcan hefted Amanda’s entire body into the air above him before slamming her down in a way that made his straining staff disappear from sight — and Amanda screamed.

Had he…?

My mind reeled, trying to make sense of what I was seeing. Was he…?

As I tried to figure out what I was looking at, Lorcan rocked Amanda’s hips into his.

“Ár ngrá!” he roared, his tight expression releasing into one filled with a strange mix of wonder and ecstasy. 

“Ja! Ja!” Amanda sobbed. But then began to babble in Wölfennite about how good it felt. 

And that was when I finally understood what had happened. Amanda had gone into heat. The Lupine estrous cycle I'd only heard rumor of prior to this. And now she was mating with the wolf she'd argued with earlier. Lorcan was claiming her on his staff of flesh. Sex. They were having sex!

A new feeling filled my belly, tingling and strange. Was it disgust? It had to be disgust…

But as happy as Lorcan had appeared to be to claim Amanda as his own, he suddenly stopped jerking his hips underneath her. 

“Ronan, come to us,” Lorcan commanded, his hands traveling from her hips to the pink cheeks of her exposed backside.

He spread her bottom in a way that made me fully understand the definition of the word “lewd.” In an instant.

Then he growled, "Make her ready for our claim!"

To my horror, Ronan dropped down behind Amanda and put his mouth between the cheeks Lorcan held open. He appeared to be licking the hole between her… but why…? My brain tried and failed to comprehend the scene in front of me. Why would Ronan do that?

Suddenly, memories of how they'd spoken to her flashed through my head, rewriting themselves with new clarity before two particular words that Lorcan had said echoed through my mind. Our claim.

No, it couldn’t be. My brain refused to consider the possible reason for Ronan licking Amanda’s back hole.

He wasn’t going to… surely, they wouldn’t…

I found out the "forever seared into my memory" way that they would. When Ronan rose to his knees, lifted his kilt, and entered Amanda's back hole from behind with one huge thrust of his hips. 

Oh.

My.

Wolf.

I was a bad Wölfennite — a terrible one, in fact. I had zero desire to live under the ultra-conservative rules of the Ordnung. I secretly listened to music, laughed at social media posts, and enjoyed all the offerings of the forbidden internet. Before coming to Scotland, I’d even debated bringing along the secret laptop I’d tucked underneath a floorboard hidey-hole, which I’d learned to make from a woodworking YouTuber. 

However, as an unheated she-wolf, I’d never bothered with the more prurient side of the forbidden internet. I knew the ins and outs of normal sex and the many colorful-verging-on-vulgar labels that were used to describe the private parts necessary to perform such acts — like the c-word Wild had used earlier. But I’d been much more interested in learning about the real world through a mix of documentaries, and over-the-top reality shows while I executed my plot to get out of St. Ailbe before I was forced into a wolf-mating, than the ins and outs of sexual alternatives to the missionary position.

This is all to say I was not ready. 

I was so, so not ready to watch Amanda not only go into heat but also get claimed by not one but two male wolves.

For several moments, I could only stand there, paralyzed with shock as my brain struggled to catch up to the horror unfolding before my eyes. 

Then I remembered myself. Remembered who Amanda was. 

Not a terrible Wölfennite like me, but an innocent. An innocent being roughly claimed by not one, but two of the wolves who had kidnapped us.

“Let her go! Leave her alone! Get away from her, you terrible beasts!”

I lunged forward, intending to do whatever it took to get the two horrible males off Amanda — only to be yanked back before I could reach them. 

Two hands clamped around the top of my arms like vices. “Do not interfere, Mairinua. This is our way.”  

Apparently, not every wolf had left. The Irish Pirate King pulled me into his chest and whispered, "Welcome to the world of the Irish Wolves."

Naomi

I tried to wrench free of the Pirate King's iron grip, but he held me fast. 

“If you try to get between two wolves in heat thrall and their mate, I promise you, they’ll forget your title,” he warned me. "Lorcan and Ronan'll try to tear you apart, and I'll have no choice but to slaughter them both for daring to touch you."

My heart trilled strangely at his words. 

I'd spent all of my adult life knowing that if the St. Ailbe pack leader showed up to take me before the rise of a full moon, no one would protect me. Not my sister, Tara, who'd run off after her attempted wolf mating. Not my mother, who'd grown up in this community. Not my foreign-born father who considered passively standing by while his daughters got snatched from their home the price of his conversion to Wölfennite. Not even Sadie. It probably wouldn't even occur to her to use her superior strength and size to fight my wolf mating.

No one had ever vowed to protect me. 

For a moment, I stopped struggling against his hold, I was so surprised by his violent offer.

But then I remembered who I was failing to protect.

Amanda. Poor Amanda being claimed by two wolves right in front of us. “You can’t let them do this! She’s innocent.”

“She’s in heat," the Pirate King's tone took on a rigid, insistent note. "Furthermore, she gave them her binding pledge, which means she is theirs. Theirs to claim.”

“But…”

I trailed off when I noticed something pressed into the small of my back. A hard length, long and thick. 

What was that? Some kind of weapon? Maybe the hilt of some dagger I hadn't registered when I got my first scary look at him?

"I'm sorry," he said, as if in response to all my questions. "I have no wish to make you uncomfortable. But the scent hanging over us and the sight of the Wild Wolves taking their new mate. I cannot help my arousal.”

Arousal. Even I understood what that word meant. I stilled. Swallowed. Would this pirate try to do the same thing to me that those two animals were doing to poor Amanda on the floor?

My lower stomach twisted with that strange tingling sensation again at the thought. Disgust. Yes, it most definitely had to be disgust at the thought of the Pirate King entering either of my holes.

“You’ve no need to worry about me, Mairinua," he assured me, his voice husky in my ear. "The Heat Laws state that I must have your pledge before I take you. Also, my wolf is too afraid to move on you.”

"Afraid." As crazy as this situation was, I let out a scoffing laugh. "I find that hard to believe."

"Notice your Wild king is not here. He had to depart, same as the others for fear of not being able to control himself with a female's heat in his nose. I, alone, was able to stay behind with you because my wolf is crouched low. So, believe me when I tell you that you make him nervous."

The Pirate's breath whispered over the skin of my neck as he spoke, and I shivered, my stomach tingling with even more disgust.

"My human, however, can’t help but have a response to watching this with you. Look at them, mo banríon.”

As if against my own will, my gaze snapped to the writhing bodies. Lorcan and Ronan were two separate wolves, but they moved in throbbing sync around Amanda, their eyes glowing brightly under the dim lights. Lorcan thrust up into her from below with his hands on her hips. Meanwhile, Ronan pulled at her shoulders, arching her back so that her bottom stayed high in the air as he thrust into her from behind. Amanda's sounds were ones I'd never heard before.

“I’m imagining how it will be when you beg your kings to claim you," the Pirate murmured against my ear as I watched.

“I would never,” I whispered, scandalized. Even as the weird tingling sensation pooled lower, accompanied by a strange tightening in my lower belly.

Disgust. So much disgust. But for some reason, I didn't feel like throwing up, and had a strange urge to rub my legs together. 

"Something's happening! Something's happening!"

Amanda's cries pulled me out of my confused thoughts about the odd feelings happening inside of me.

“Can’t stop it! Can’t stop it! It’s coming. I’m —

She abruptly cut off with a choked whimper, and her entire body flushed red as she let out a long moan.

"Jayzus Christ, you're killing me," Lorcan said below her. 

"Me as well," Ronan grunted. "She's so tight around my —" He, too, suddenly stopped talking. 

But he roared, tightening his hands around Amanda's shoulders as his entire body began to quake behind her.

I had seen just enough animal husbandry to know what was happening. Ronan was releasing. Releasing his seed inside Amanda's back hole!

And for reasons I couldn't begin to understand, his release made Amanda moan even louder, her entire face lighting up with what appeared to be unadulterated — but in no way pure — pleasure.

Eventually, they quieted down, and Ronan pulled out of her back hole with a wet pop. "There, my first part is done. Now it's down to you and Lorcan."

Amanda collapsed onto Lorcan’s wide chest like something deflating after having a plug pulled out. But Lorcan kept on going, switching from thrusting up to moving her hips back and forth over his staff.

Until.

“What’s that?” Amanda’s eyes suddenly popped wide open, and her body went rigid. “What’s happening? Oh, my wolf, what’s happening?! Ah! Ahh!”

“Ssh, ár ngrá, all is well,” Ronan, who'd repositioned himself into a crouch beside Amanda and Lorcan, assured her. He stroked her back, and his gentle voice was a surprising contrast to his rough taking just a moment ago. “Your other mate is knotting inside of you in the way of the wolf. Then it will be my turn to do the same.”

Do the same?

Amanda looked just as horrified as me. But she couldn’t answer Ronan. Her face had become a complete rictus, with her mouth pulled back so wide, I’d think she was smiling if her eyes weren’t flashing so wild and crazed.

And then she started screaming. "What is that? What is that?"

Once again, I tried to lunge forward. 

And once again, the Pirate King's hands tightened around my arms, keeping me right where I was.  

“Hold.” His soft command filled my ear as I struggled to get free.

“But he’s hurting her!”

“I promise you, he is not.” The heavy thing against my back pulsed as he addressed my fear with a calm tone. 

But I could clearly see that wasn’t true. Amanda pressed both palms into Lorcan's chest and jerked her hips in a frantic up motion that should have unseated her. 

But it didn't.

"It won't let me get off," she cried out as she kept trying and failing to lift her hips. "What is it?"

On the floor, Lorcan's eyes rolled. “By the wolf, Ronan, it’s like nothing I’ve ever felt before. She’s gripping so tight. It’s the sweetest pain I’ve ever known.”

“Tell me what’s happening?” I demanded since the Pirate King wouldn’t let me help her. “Why can’t she break free of him? What’s he doing to her?”

“Did they truly teach you nothing in your community, then? Even the very basics of wolf biology? Of course, he's knotting inside of her.”

My chest tightened. “Knotting? What does that mean?”

Lorcan yelled out before the Pirate King could answer.

"Agrhh!" he half-barked, half-yelled. "By the prophecy!”

His body began to quake and jerk in the same way Ronan's had before.

“It feels so… it feels so…” Amanda sobbed before letting out a blood-curdling scream. Her body went ramrod straight as if she’d been hit by an invisible bolt of lightning. Then she keeled over, crashing onto Lorcan's chest in a complete slump.

Only then did the hands holding me back finally loosen.

“Amanda?”

I rushed to her side to finally give her aid. But she didn’t respond.

And the strange smell she'd been emitting earlier began to fade.

“Amanda,” I whispered, reaching for her neck.

Relief nearly crumpled my knees when I found her pulse still pounding despite her unconscious state. This time, she hadn’t just collapsed against Lorcan’s chest, she appeared to have passed out. 

They both had. Lorcan lay beneath her, his mouth hanging open as if his mind had given out mid-yell.

But my relief soon gave way to a darker rage. She was alive, but that didn't erase the horror of what I'd just witnessed.

“You animals,” I shrieked at the two males who’d rutted her like mindless beasts. I didn't care that only one of them was awake.

Ronan shook his head like someone coming out of a daze. Now that the smell had dissipated, the glow had disappeared from his eyes. 

He opened his mouth to answer. Then quickly averted his gaze as he had on the boat. 

Which gave me a sudden idea.

Using all my wolf strength, I pulled Amanda’s unconscious body from the horrible male who’d claimed her so ruthlessly. 

To my great relief, Lorcan remained passed out below her, but Ronan surged forward after me when I dragged her toward a huge display case of dishes. The dark wood piece of furniture was even bigger than the wardrobes my father made — just large enough to hide Amanda from the view of all the wolves on the other side of the glassed-in space.

"C King, tell your queen to give her back to me," Ronan shouted, following in my wake. “She is ours!”

“You can’t touch me,” I reminded Ronan. I propped Amanda's limp body against the wall beside the large case and used my entire body to block him from grabbing her again. “She doesn’t want you. She doesn't want this!”

Ronan let out another angry roar behind me. And I squeezed my eyes closed and braced myself to be torn apart like poor Amanda’s dress.

“Don’t.”

The single word brought my head up, and I peeked over my shoulder to find C behind me. Providing a barrier between us and the wolf trying to get through me to get to Amanda.

The Pirate had held me back before but now was helping me. Protecting me. 

The two words dropped into my head, along with three more. Like he promised.

“But, she is ours.” I heard but couldn’t see Ronan past the back of the male he’d call the C King. “You heard her give us her pledge. You all did.”

“She didn’t understand what she was agreeing to because she was in so much pain,” I pointed out between clenched teeth. "This is the exact opposite of everything Amanda wanted. She wanted to mate with one nice Scottish wolf and bring him back to Canada. You ruined everything!"

The thought of Amanda's wrecked plans, combined with my dashed hopes and that last glimpse of Sadie in the glass box, brought tears to my eyes. "You ruined all of her dreams. Do you really think I’ll let you hurt her again? You’ll have to kill me first.”

“C King, you must let me complete my claim!” Ronan’s voice broke as if he were on the verge of crying, too. She gave us her pledge. You know, and I know, that Lorcan and I were within our rights.”

“And, you know Wild will not hesitate to gut you and tear out your throat before the babe is born if he finds out you so much as touched her,” C answered, his voice as cold and hard as Ronan’s was angry and desperate.

“But, she is ours.” Ronan whined like a child denied his piece of dessert.

“I’m aware.” The Pirate King hunched down, and his tone became a little less hard as he assured the truly despicable Wild Wolf. “We will sort this out. You have my vow.”

“What has happened?”

“Where are we?”

“What is that strange smell?”

The small lake of passed-out she-wolves wriggled and came alive with the sounds of the other prisoners waking up. 

“Ach, did one of you lot go into heat?” One of the few non-Wölfennite she-wolves asked.

Her thick Scottish accent made the word “heat” sound more like "hate," which was exactly what I felt as a fresh wave of anger surged within me.

The Pirate King tried to reason with the Earring Wolf, who was trying to claim Amanda as if he'd been wronged. But they were the reason we were trapped in this weird half-dome prison.

“Get out,” I hissed at the Pirate King, doing my best to keep Amanda shielded from the curious stares of our Wölfennite sisters. “Take your terrible friend and get out of here now!”

C turned to me, irritation etched into his face. “You are not in command of me, and this is a delicate situation.”

“Get out now,” I repeated. "Or I will encourage everyone in this room to turn into a wolf and rip you and your friend to pieces. There’s two of you and at least two scores of us.”

I held his gaze, praying that he didn’t call my bluff and find out none of us were capable of turning outside a full moon.

The Pirate King regarded me for a long, hard second. 

Then he said to Ronan. “Help me with Lorcan.”

“What’s going on?” Priscilla asked, climbing to her feet. “Oh my wolf, is that Amanda? Why is she naked? Why does she smell like that?”

I pulled off my sweater, which turned out to have a shirt underneath it — a Sasha x Kasha concert tee, of all things. I briefly wondered exactly who had redressed me while I'd been passed out. 

But whatever, that mystery was far down the list of questions roiling in my mind as I pulled my sweater over Amanda’s head and grabbed a blanket from the back of the chair C had been sitting on when I woke up… wherever we were.

It looked like we were in a cave of some kind, but with a straight up and down granite back wall with stairs and four landings worth of doors on each level. 

The entire first floor was a front room with five couches, several armchairs, and not one but two fireplaces, and a dining area with five long, communal tables. 

The place would almost look like a cozy cavern commune if not for the huge slab of glass domed over the entire space. And all the male wolves standing on the other side of us, all but mouth-breathing on the glass. Seriously, where in the world were we? 

Another question I’d have to figure out later. 

For now, I wrapped the blanket around Amanda like I was preparing one of the waakye burritos I made to my Ghanaian father's delight on the rare occasions my mom hadn't been able to get home in time to cook supper. 

Supper… that life back in Canada seemed like a million years ago now, and I needed to stay grounded in the present.

“One of those doors must lead to a bedroom.” I nodded toward the stairs leading up to the first landing. “Run up ahead of me and figure out which one. Amanda is sick and needs to lie down.”

Priscilla gave the air another suspicious sniff but nodded and hitched the skirt of her blue dress to run up the steps. 

Meanwhile, I bent down and threw Amanda over my shoulder like she was a large portion of beef I had to haul out to the ice house. But Amanda was way heavier than a piece of cow. 

I grunted under her weight. I could ask the other she-wolves to help me. But I knew there was no way Amanda would want the other Wölfennites to smell the two new males on her, and the blanket could only do so much work to mask their claiming scent. 

Besides, the difficulty of carrying her up a set of stairs gave me something to focus on as I blinked the tears of frustration from my eyes. 

We'd been taken from Scotland. Sadie had been given to some rando giants. And now this. 

Welcome to the world of the Irish Wolves.

The Irish Wolves had surprised me a third time, but never again. I would protect Amanda like I failed to protect Sadie. I would protect all of these she-wolves from our Irish captors.

I'd fight them, yes, I would. And I wouldn't stop until I got us all out of this nightmare of a world we'd woken up in.

Part Two

Dublin

From: Lars Ulvsson, Assistant to The Norway King

To: The Dublin King

Subject: Mate Exchange

After much consideration, The Norway King has decided he cannot accommodate your request. According to our geneticist, because our ancestors seeded much of your colony in the British Isles, the chances of a minor-scale program working less than a generation after our own necessary exchange program with the North American Lupine Association are not optimum.

Have you considered contacting the North American Lupine Association about an exchange as we did?

Wishing you luck in your endeavors,

Lars

As I read the message from the Norwegian King’s assistant in the elevator on my way up to the corporate offices of Norwolf Stout, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. I hovered my thumb over the reply button, sorely tempted to type back:  Didn’t think to inquire with the world’s largest and most diverse wolf population first. With me being an eejit and all that, I decided to start with you because you’re so special.

But, in the end, I pushed the phone's side button to darken the screen. Irish sarcasm didn’t always translate, especially over highly encrypted emails. 

Also, I hadn’t drunk my first cup of coffee yet. When I was feeling less churlish, I’d probably be able to admit that I was just jealous. Norway had special ties to a few of the most powerful wolf families in North America, thanks to some business with their fating gates that I still didn’t quite understand.

Anyhow, Norway's Bridal Exchange requests had probably gone to the top of their list. Meanwhile, I’d gotten a form reply warning that it would be a while to hear back from them due to the high volume of requests for diplomatic mate exchanges. Four long months later, some algorithm had written back to tell me that, unfortunately, the North American exchange programs were so backlogged that they were freezing them altogether due to a lack of interest from their state kingdoms.

Same went for the much more robust Eastern European and Asian Programs.

As a werefolk often (only partially) joked, wolves didn’t like to travel. And popular as we were with the humans, our kind especially had no interest in settling forever in smaller countries with endangered wolf populations like mine. 

Norway hadn’t been my Plan A. They were my Plan C, and I had no idea what I'd do if none of the countries I’d contacted agreed to an exchange. 

I silently cursed and slipped the phone back into the inside pocket of my blazer just as the elevator doors opened on the top floor of Norwolf Stout's headquarters. 

As usual, my assistant, Lambert, awaited my arrival with my coffee already in hand. Hellos from my subjects/employees in the cubicle farm rose all around us as we made our way through the offices above our world-famous brewery. 

"Hiya, Dublin!"

"Hello there, Dublin! Hope you're well then."

"Morning, Dublin!"

Meanwhile, Lambert immediately launched into his usual morning rundown.

“We’ve got a busy day ahead of us. All the tours are booked out for the entire week, and the lads on the main floor want to have another talk about over-capacity before we open the calendar for the summer. Also, we might need to have a chat with Scrubber Steve about standards and practices. He didn't fill out the weekend check-off list again, and the canteen was a right mess when I went in to make your morning coffee. Other than that, this afternoon, you have meetings with…”

I mostly zoned out while Lambert rattled off the usual crowd of bigwigs who refused to accept an email in lieu of a face-to-face meeting: distributors, retail chain bosses, and those glossy marketing execs who just had to spin your ear as they walked you through their new packaging ideas.

"They’ve already worked out an exchange with a Canadian pack with a surplus of she-wolves.” 

The Sea King's words echoed through my mind. But then my father’s voice reminded me, “We are not like those backwards savages. City Wolf kings do not share.”

Yes, even with our prospects of finding a sustainable population of compatible she-wolves being so dim, I'd been right to nip that criminal scheme of theirs in the bud.

Hadn't I?

“Also, have you given any more thought to the special request I made last week?” Lambert's inquiry pulled me away from the question that refused to cease cycling through my mind since I walked away from that stone circle.

Jayzus, not this again. I stopped walking just before we reached my corner office door and lowered my voice to inform him. “We’re not going to cancel the Heat Laws just so you can get married, Lambert.”

“How about a special dispensation then?” A desperate note crept into my assistant's voice. “We could call it an experiment. Like when the brewers tried out that new fermentation process on the hops.”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “And how’d that turn out for us?”

“Alright, the general public didn’t exactly appreciate it.”

“Rancid Ruin, I believe the Dublin Times Food Editor called it. Millions of euros wasted on R & D just to go back to our tried and faithful stout formula.”

“Alright, alright, that was probably not the best point of comparison, I'll give you that." Lambert huffed. "But Rhonda sincerely believes that our marrying will make her go into heat.”

This time, I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes. “Did you tell Rhonda that’s not how it works?”

“Well, that’s the thing, isn’t it?" Lambert shook his head. "None of us know how it works. Do you even?”

I answered that question with a withering look.

And Lambert winced. “I’m sorry! I shouldn’t have ever said that to you, of all people. Of course, you know more about these things than Rhonda.”

A wee pang of guilt niggled in my belly. Ah, sure, I was the Dublin King, but did I truly know much more than him about how wolf babies were made? Like Lambert and his mot, Rhonda, I'd been born an only child here in Dublin before the Heat Laws went into effect, so I’d never actually seen anyone go into heat. 

That was the trouble with living scattered throughout a city filled with humans, wasn't it? We Dublin wolf walkers had to keep our true natures hidden, so the only close community we enjoyed was at all-wolf workplaces like the company my several greats ago grandfather established back in the 18th century. 

Beyond that, we didn't live close enough to one another to see the intimate details of each other's lives. In my experience, all heats had been office canteen stories. As in, “Did ya hear about Sean? Missed work 'cause his mot went into heat. Maybe we should sort out a card and some cakes for when he gets back from his two weeks off, eh.”

Though, as of late, no one had filed for the two weeks of heat moon leave that we gave our employees in addition to the floating three days they got off for every full moon. After years of mostly male births that I could count on one hand with fingers left over, last year, we’d had our first zero-birth twelve-month cycle across all kingdoms. 

Dire times, indeed, with no relief coming from any of the countries I'd contacted.

“The thing is, if I don’t marry her, I reckon Rhonda's going to leave me," Lambert said, pulling my attention back to him. And the no he was refusing to take.

“As she should've done ages ago,” I pointed out. Maybe a bit too harshly. Truth be told, Lambert had picked the wrong bleeding morning to pursue this with me, what with me getting broken up with myself this weekend — just before receiving that hope killer of an email from Norway at the top of the day. 

I hit him with a bespoke version of the break-up spiel Tess, the British she-wolf I'd been seeing up until that past Friday, gave me — minus all the stuff about me having zero emotional availability.

“Four years together and not a whiff of a heat to show for it? You’re clearly not a genetic match. Best for the both of you to cut your losses and try with somebody else.”

“Easy for her, but what am I to do, then?" Lambert whined. "Join all the other lonely knobs hoping to catch the eye of the few she-wolves available to us here in Dublin? Go west and double up like the Sea and Wild Wolves? See if that increases my odds?”

"Not that any of them would have you as a second!" one of the lads in Accounts called out.

Like many of his fellow office workers, with their heads poked above their cubicle walls like meerkats, he made no attempt at all to act as if he wasn't using his superior wolf ears to eavesdrop on my and Lambert's conversation. "Can't farm, engineer, or boat, and you wouldn't last a week of West Coast winter in the elements. Who would agree to go in on a mate with some skinny malink City Wolf whose number one skill is slipping discs into the Tassimo coffee machine anyway?"

As the rest of the office laughed, the memory of Wild's sneer, talking about how soft we Dublin wolves were, floated through my mind. I could barely imagine being a second to him or Sea, much less a third as was supposedly prophesized on those stone tablets the Wild Wolves carried about like the Ten Commandments. 

I'd been right not to entertain the idea of a Second Reaping, and I informed Lambert, “There will be no revocation of the Heat Laws. It's a pity your relationship won't work out, but I’m not calling a meeting of the three kings so that you can hang on to it.”

“That’s because you’re a hard-hearted wolf who doesn’t understand the meaning of connection!” To my surprise, tears rose in Lambert's eyes. “What kind of king doesn’t care about his subject’s suffering?”

No more snickering. The entire floor of mostly unmated male wolves went deathly silent. As if they wished to hear the answer to those questions themselves.

Did any of them have a clue? Did anyone understand how much this weighed on me? The state of my pack was a constant worry, keeping me awake at night. Literally. I couldn't remember the last time I had a full six hours of sleep since I made the call on that Second Reaping. None of them, not even Lambert, staring me down for his answer, knew what it meant to lead a dying pack.

And they never would. I wasn't as emotionally distant as Tess accused me of being yesterday, but I wasn't about to let my subjects see how truly worried I was about our future.

I kept my expression cool as I told my assistant, "You're upset. Take the rest of the day off and gather yourself."

Lambert's face twisted into a stubborn scowl. "But I'm not done —"

I placed a firm hand on his shoulder before he could finish his protest. "Take the rest of the day off, or you'll find yourself without a job."

That threat finally got through to him.

"Sorry." Lambert lowered his head. Glanced toward all the openly staring office workers.  "Yeah, yeah. I’ll take the day. Tell Rhonda one of us will have to move out.”

He left then. Exactly as I wanted. But not as I wanted. 

Only bonded mates could read each other's thoughts, but I swear I could hear the resentment brewing in the heads of the other office males who hadn't been sent home for speaking their minds.

Less than five minutes into the official work day, and it'd already turned to shite. Plus, my office was a right tip. I could smell that Scrubber Steve, as we called our dedicated office cleaner, had been in here recently. But my waste bin was still full, and my desk was covered in the crumbs from the biscuit I'd eaten before meeting up with Tess Friday night for what was supposed to be a concert date before dinner and a rideshare back to her flat in Ballsbridge. 

Also, the office had an overpowering, outdoorsy smell on top of Scrubber Steve's. Like woods and open fires. Was Scrubber Steve using a new cleaning product in here, I wondered as I closed the door behind me. 

If so, I'd have to assign someone other than Lambert the task of talking to him about going back to the old stuff, or at least something that didn't smell so…

My thoughts trailed off on strong when I saw Scrubber Steve's crumpled form behind the door I just closed… and the large, male wolf with shaggy red hair and a thick beard to match who stood above him.

I realized in an instant that this fellow, not some overly scented cleaning product, was the source of the aggressive outdoorsy scent. Dressed in a full-on argyle kilt and a black tee that stretched across his broad chest, he looked like the Scottish version of the fellow on the front of my favorite Viking Shifters video game. 

I might have even commented on the uncanny resemblance. 

If not for the massive knife tucked into his large fist.

I glanced back down at Scrubber Steve. Had he…?

"Dunnae worry, he's passed out, is all," the Scottish intruder assured me. "But you…"

He pointed the knife at me. "I fully plan to slit your throat if you dunnae give me the answers I need."

Naomi

“Aw, feck, this shite again!”

Fiona, the baker's daughter I'd put in charge of kitchen duty, cursed in her particularly Scottish way when a new tidal wave of scent heat swept through the habitat, overpowering even the smell of the Irish sausages she'd just finished frying up on the electric range it had taken us eons to learn how to use.

"The last one was less than an hour ago!" Orpah wailed as she ladled porridge from the large pot we'd made on the range's other front circle into my bowl. "I swear I truly can't take another day of this."

Bearing all crosses without complaint was one of the top tenets of self-conduct in the St. Ailbe Ordnung, but I couldn’t blame Orpah for despairing.

I had to tamp down the urge to whine myself, considering we'd all just spent the last day and a half being woken up in increasingly shorter intervals by the scent equivalent of a tornado siren.

Somehow managing to contain a weary sigh, I set aside the white porcelain bowl of porridge I'd been so looking forward to eating before Amanda's latest heat spell hit our noses. “I’ll go tend to her.”

"But what about…?" Orpah started to ask.

"And I'll send someone else to help you finish filling up the bowls," I called over my shoulder as I walked through the kitchen’s sliding metal doors.

The automatic doors inside the half-dome habitat were another surprising detail in a space full of them. The wolves who had kidnapped us wore hand-stitched clothes that reeked of animals, and they hadn’t seemed that advanced in the technology department. Yet, this strange rock wall residence appeared to be carved into the side of something — a mountain, maybe.

The walls were made of stone, and the ceiling was a sloped piece of glass, giving the impression of being inside a half-dome. It was as if someone had taken one of those destination globes I'd seen at the airport and bisected it with a sedimentary stone wall. But instead of snow or glitter, there was conditioned air and intuitive lights that dimmed and brightened with the sun. 

I could tell from the glass door that had opened for the Irish Kings, but not for us, that this place was meant to be some kind of habitat. Whoever created this space had done so with its inhabitants' comfort in mind. The domed-in cavern featured cozy double-occupancy bedrooms with bathroom facilities behind every sliding door of its four landings.

On the main floor, a set of double sliding doors led into what I could only describe as a cave kitchen filled with electric appliances and plenty of dishware.

The cave kitchen had a huge metal fridge, a walk-in freezer, and a pantry stocked with enough food for the fifty-plus she-wolves the Irish Wolves had kidnapped from Scotland. Everything gleamed like new, including a wooden island with a granite countertop, but there was no smell of cleaning products.

None of the appliances had visible energy sources — no plugs or dials — just strange symbols glowing red on touch screens that didn’t leave fingerprints. 

There were also windows in the kitchen that well… weren't quite windows. Last night, they looked out onto a starry sky over a snowy field; this morning, a sunrise over mountains and a narrow body of water. The picture-perfect view literally kept changing.

Most eerie of all, most of the seemingly inanimate objects in the cave kitchen vibrated with a strange force as if powered by an invisible energy field. Was that strange vibration also keeping the appliances, like photo-shoot-level clean?

I’d hoped to explore more of the habitat, but sadly, with Amanda’s heats coming in increasingly short intervals, I hadn’t had enough time or focus to investigate further.

I swear I’d never been so tired in my life. Even calving and lambing seasons were easier than this, I groused to myself as I trudged through the double doors into a front room filled with agitated she-wolves.

“Is breakfast ready yet?” Miriam, the foxy Wölfennite, demanded when I passed by her and the rest of the wolves waiting at the hodgepodge of quilts, couches, chairs, and various kinds of tables that we’d gathered into an eating area during one of the breaks from Amanda’s heat episodes.

“It's almost ready," I answered. "Could one of you help Orpah dish it out in the kitchen?"

Suddenly, Miriam wasn't quite as eager to get my attention. She averted her eyes.

Leah, a Wölfennite with a broad waist and shoulders, jumped up from one of the couches to volunteer. "I'll do it!" 

She headed toward the kitchen, grumbling, “Maybe the smell won’t be so bad in there.”

I didn’t have the heart to warn her that the heat smell cut through everything. Even metal doors.

I glanced at the curved observation window which had remained free of panting wolves with their faces pinned to the glass since I took Amanda upstairs. By order of the Pirate King, I suspected, even though I’d kicked him and both of Amanda’s would-be mates out. 

If all of this wasn't his fault in the first place, I might have even been grateful.

“I'm ravenous," one of the Scottish she-wolves complained, pulling my attention back to the room full of she-wolves waiting for breakfast. "Not that it matters. The food will most likely taste off with our noses all a jumble like this.” 

I couldn’t disagree. I’d been hungry when I went to help Fiona in the kitchen, but it was hard to think about eating — or anything else, really — with Amanda’s heat lingering in the air like a thick cloud of smoke. 

The heat scent appeared to also be an appetite suppressant, I noted as I made my way up the stairs. All thoughts of hunger disappeared as I approached Amanda's room, and that tingling disgust flared up in my lower belly again.

“How long will this last, Naomi?” Miriam called after me as if I hadn’t received the same amount of wolf sex education as she had. Which was basically none at all.

A Scottish she-wolf ended up answering in my stead.

“Till she gets seeded with a bairn or she dies from the wanting. Whichever comes first.”

The dire prediction sent a shiver up my back.

I would never have wished this kidnapping on my older sister, but not for the first time since this ordeal began, I found myself aching for her advice on how to handle… all of this.

Oh God, Tara.

The panic I’d been keeping at bay with fits of sleep and the determination to keep the other kidnapped she-wolves calm and fed began to claw its way back as I thought of my heavily pregnant sister. She must be terrified and frantic back in Scotland.

Would I ever see her again? What if I couldn’t figure out a way to get us out of this strange prison?

Another wave of Amanda’s heat pulled me away from those despondent thoughts, and somewhere I found the energy to speed up the stairs to see what I could do to help Amanda.

At least she wasn't screaming like last night when her downright vulgar pleas for relief had echoed through the domed cavern.

As my mother often said in Wölfennite: Gott sei Dank für kleine Gnaden. Thank goodness for small mercies.”

“Hi, Aman —”

To say I was unprepared for the scene I walked in on after palming open the sliding doors would have been a complete understatement.

Amanda lay naked with each of her appendages tied to a bedpost, pitifully moaning, “It’s not enough! It’s not enough!” 

The sight of Amanda tied up wasn’t what shocked me. After her second heat cycle, Amanda begged Leah and me to tie her to the bed so that she could keep herself from the unholy sin of frantically rubbing the wet triangle between her legs. 

Over the past twelve hours, I’d come in here plenty of times to find her all tied up, moaning with her back arched off the bed like someone possessed by one of the demons our community had warned us about growing up.   

However, this time, when I walked in, I found Amanda's best friend, Priscilla, between her legs, frantically lapping at her sex. 

That was new.

Thanks to the many seasons of Degrassi High I'd watched in secret, I managed to recover from my shock by the time the door slid closed behind me.

Still, I had to ask, “Priscilla! What are you doing?”

“I’m sorry!” Priscilla lifted her head to reveal a chin covered in the viscous heat fluid that seeped from Amanda’s private regions whenever she had an episode. “I just came up here to check on her. But she was begging for relief, and some instinct told me this was the only way to help her. I know it is unholy. But she’s my best friend. I had to try to help her.”

“Please keep going,” Amanda cried out. She lifted her hips as far off the bed as she could, trying to push it into Priscilla’s repentant face. “It’s not enough, but it’s something. Please, Prissy! Please, don’t stop!”

Priscilla’s eyes darkened with some emotion I faintly recognized but couldn’t quite label. She licked her lips like someone starving, and her head began to dip back down. But at the last moment, she restrained herself. 

“Should I give her more relief?” she asked me.

As if I should know what to do in this situation. 

I rubbed at the headache that always began to form when I stayed in Amanda's room for more than the minute or two it took me to retighten her makeshift restraints. I needed to think, but I couldn’t do that with Amanda’s heat smell filling up the air like the version of white noise favored by horror films. 

It felt like I would be torturing Amanda if I said no. But what kind of psychological toll would giving Priscilla permission to provide Amanda with relief have later when she and Amanda regained their senses?

If Amanda regained her senses.

The Scottish she-wolf's ominous words rang through my ears. 

God, I needed to think — to reason. But I was so tired…

“Ah! Can’t take it anymore!” The sound of ripping fabric let me know that the makeshift restraints weren’t any match against the strength of a she-wolf in heat. 

Amanda pulled her best friend’s head back to her glistening sex, and in an instant, the question went from whether to give spoken permission to whether or not I should cover my eyes.

"Cover my eyes" was winning out when the door whispered open behind me. 

Oh no!

Deeply aware that neither Amanda nor Priscilla would appreciate being seen in this position, I spun around to tell the new arrival. “Get out, please. I have this fully under…” 

The lie about me having things even slightly — much less fully under control died in my mouth when I saw two she-wolves standing there.

I couldn’t smell anything beyond Amanda’s heat, but I immediately sensed they weren’t Scottish but Irish.

One was tall and thin with ash-blonde hair pulled back in a tight bun. The other Irish she-wolf also had her hair pulled back in a bun. But that was where all similarities ended. She was much shorter and stockier than the ash-blonde, and her muscular arms bulged underneath a Teagan & Sara t-shirt. She had thick blond hair, pulled back into a stubby ponytail. If not for her soft jawline and the swells of breasts underneath her t-shirt, I might have mistaken her for a male. 

Or maybe she was a male. All the cultural study I’d done to prepare myself for life at a human institute of learning jumbled through my overwhelmed head. Could this be a real-life example of the people who referred to themselves as non-binary? 

The tall, thin one spoke before I could form the words to ask after the shorter one’s pronouns. “Howya there. The doctor's here to sort you all out. What's the craic, then?”

That non-sensical greeting was all the warning I got before the she-wolf pulled out a needle and jabbed it into the side of Amanda’s bare arm.

Amanda immediately went limp on the bed, her mad eyes falling closed. 

But to my horror, Priscilla continued between her legs, audibly licking at her friend’s heat like some kind of animal.

The tall woman made a slight tsking sound behind her teeth.

“Frey darling, could you help this one give up her feast?”

Like a soldier commanded, the short and stout possible they-wolf plucked Priscilla from between Amanda’s legs, physically lifting her from the bed.

“Sorry, luv, I understand the compulsion. Believe me. But once she’s passed out, you no longer have consent.”

As grateful as I was for their medical and physical intervention, I had to lift both eyebrows. 

“Now you Irish Wolves care about consent?” I asked my two saviors — but also total abettors if their completely non-bothered expressions were any indication.

“So, you come with sass on top of these loads of good looks!" The tall doctor snickered. "Oh, my brothers are going to have a time with you, aren’t they? But I like you already, mo banríon.”

“Your brothers?” I asked, shaking my head.

“Aw, forgot to introduce myself.” She transferred the needle she’d used to sedate Amanda into a pack she wore around her waist and stuck out her hand. “Howya, I’m Astrid, the Wild and Sea Kings’ little sister.”

Sea

“I’m telling ye, we should’ve gone in ourselves!" 

Wild wasn’t currently imprisoned inside the Kept Brides Habitat. In fact, we waited for Astrid and her mate Frey beyond the point where anyone inside the domed space could see us, behind the tape I'd laid down when I forbade the other males from gawking at our “guests."

Yet, the Wild King paced back and forth like an impatient predator in captivity waiting for his meal. "How does this look, then? Sending in a princess to do a king’s job? Also, what happened to sticking to the plan, True King?”

My wolf growled inside me in full agreement.

According to the plan I’d laid out to Sea and Wild Wolves, this was supposed to be the day we all rocked up to the habitat, like suitors of auld with a gallant offer to show them around the secret kingdom.

It had worked before — alright, nearly 500 years before, sure. But the point was that a couple of weeks of courting with good food, magical scenery, and absolutely nothing else to do outside of enjoying our unmated male’s company still felt like a winning formula.

We were meant to show them that we were more than the bride-thirsty wolves who’d shown up in the middle of a wedding reception to steal them away.

Instead, I’d been forced to make a new plan when our Mairinua came to the unexpected physical defense of the she-wolf meant for Lorcan and Ronan.

In truth, the last thirty-six hours had been excruciating, even though my castle sat far beyond where the heat smell could reach.

My wolf had stayed quiet while in our mate's vicinity. But as soon as we were out of it, he pitched a fit, demanding I return to her. Touch her. Smell her. Claim her into submission.

The memory of standing behind her with my hands around her shoulders had been assaulting me ever since we parted. And though I had technically "calmed down," the physical pain of being so hard it hurt continued to linger.

Still, I managed to maintain a stoic expression as I answered the Wild King. “This new tactic is the best way to help her learn.”

“Learn what?” Wild spat out the two words like bullets from a gun. “How to command us? Is she the True Queen, then? And ye and I the dogs she can order around?”

“Wild, you are being dramatic —”

“Ruff! Ruff!” Wild cut me off with his approximation of a bark. “Shall we pant and beg until our owner allows us back inside the prison we put her in?”

Alright, then, it is a truth foresworn through blooded and bound handshake by the mates of Mairi that Sea is the True King. That means that by right, mine was the Last Word in any and all disagreements between Ireland's rulers.

But the electric glow of Wild’s eyes made me suspect he was even closer to the edge than I was. Unlike myself, he was used to living in peace with the beast inside him. Going against his animal instinct to stay away as I'd commanded — well, that was probably a lifetime first. Furthermore, I was used to living in the secret kingdom twenty-four seven, but this was likely the longest the Wild King had been without access to the great outdoors since the original Cursed King was forced to give up his residence rights. Was it any wonder he paced back and forth like something caged?

I gave explaining my logic another go. “She’s banned us from the habitat, Wild —”

“Which she’s not bloody allowed to do!” Wild snarled. "We are her kings! The ones prophesied to claim her."

My wolf thrashed inside of me in full agreement.

“You're right. She’s not technically allowed to defy us,” I conceded to both Wild and my inner beast, tilting my head to the side. “But she threw herself over that Amanda she-wolf like some science fiction force field. I suspect she knew she'd be protected. And she was right. Then she threatened to convince all of the Brides to wolf-out if we didn’t leave. If that was the plan she came up with in only a few minutes, how do you think a clever mastermind like her will respond if we barge in there against her wishes because we’re ‘her kings’?”

I air-quoted our possessive titles as the memories of her defiant words crashed through my mind, like waves that capsize boats.

"I don't know what kind of plan you had for me with wolf mating off the table, but I will never call you my kings. And I will never, ever forgive you for this!"

“Prison invasions aren’t exactly conducive to wooing, are they?” I pointed out to Wild. “And we're already in the toilet as far as her opinion of us goes.”

Wild stopped pacing to declare, "We shouldn’t let her use our claim rules against us. Makes us look like bloody fools."

It amused me that he kept using words like "let" and "allow," as if he couldn't clearly see the power she already wielded over us.

“I could lift the ban on unmated male wolves touching or talking to her," I suggested, ignoring the snapping protest of my own wolf to make my point. "Is that what you want?”

“No!” Wild rolled the word with a deep growl, balling his hands into fists. But then, he released them, and his shoulders sank. “Lorcan and Ronan — you should see the state of them.”

Wild ran a hand over his weary face. “They can’t eat. Can’t sleep. Forget dark circles. They’ve got caves under their eyes.”

I laid a hand on his shoulder to address him king-to-king. “I understand it cannot be easy to watch one of your males suffer like this. Much less two.”

“Good, you understand.” Wild knocked my hand off his shoulder and wiped the vulnerable expression from his face with a snarl. “Then let’s stop mickeying around out here and go in there like Irish fucking wolves. We’ll hold our Flower back while Lorcan and Ronan fish their mate out of there and take her to the Wild camp for their rightful claim.”

“Then what?” I raised my eyebrow. “Do we tie her up to tell her our plan to let our males come to the habitat to court the Reaped she-wolves over suppers? Then, when she says no to that because she’s truly come to hate our guts, will we send our males in anyway? Take turns sitting on top of her every time she tries to stop one of them from being claimed?”

Wild scoffed. “You sound like Dublin.”

Dublin who’d been right about a Reaping not being so easy in these modern times.

And what if Wild was right about nothing working with her but a full invasion of forced proximity, so that their wolves would send them into heat, even if their humans despised us?

Doubt about both my Plan A and Plan B began to creep in. What if everything I did only made her hate me more? Shy schoolboy phases were just that — a phase. How long would the beast stay down if she kept rejecting us?

My wolf thrashed around inside me as if to answer: Not long.

Outwardly, though, I held my ground with Wild. “I might sound like Dublin, but you sound like an amadán who can’t think long-term.”

“Long term? Who's the amadán now?” He shook his head at me. “What the fuck does long-term matter to the Cursed King?”

I winced. Alright, poor choice of words. Still, I had to press my point. "Surely, you can see why we’ve no choice but to let her learn for herself what a true heat looks like. It’s the only way to secure her cooperation. Then we can talk about returning to the original plan of giving the Wölfennites a proper wooing."

Wild didn't argue. But he cut his barely glowing gaze toward the Eastern Hills, behind which the unmated Wild Wolves had set up their camp. He was still fretting over Lorcan's and Ronan's demise. I wouldn't ask, but I could imagine what he'd had to do to keep them away.

"Understand, Amanda’s the one in heat," I told him. "Which means her suffering is ten times more wretched than anything Lorcan and Ronan are going through now. Trust me when I tell you this plan will work, and their ordeal will end soon.”

“And what if it doesn’t?” Wild’s glowing eyes dimmed, his wolf receding a bit. “What if she hates us forever? Like she vowed?”

His questions sank into my chest like a dagger from the baldric I’d stored away, so as to seem less kidnappy and violent.

So those words were still echoing through Wild’s mind, too.

I opened my mouth to offer him reassurance I didn’t necessarily feel myself, but the whisper of the glass habitat door sliding open lifted both our heads.

“Neither of you melters thought to tell our new banríon about your favorite sibling?” Astrid demanded.

First things first, as if she hadn’t been sent into the Kept Brides Habitat on an important mission.

Wild growled low in his throat.

And I rolled my eyes before answering, “Apologies, Astrid. Didn't occur to us while we were kidnapping enough she-wolves to jumpstart our population numbers from a clan of hostile Scots to tell the banrión who’s already decided she despises us about our messy family tree.”

“Yeah, she did go on for paragraphs and paragraphs about how much she hated you.” Astrid grimaced. “Which sort of sucks for the two of you, doesn’t it, considering you’re supposed to be…”

“Astrid…” Wild said with another warning growl.

I'll admit I had some trouble keeping my voice unexasperated as I commanded, “Give us your report, then.”

“Well, first of all, she might hate you, but she loves me!”

Astrid was a Trinity scholar with an advanced degree in medicine. But she stuck her tongue out at Wild and me, proving herself the annoying little sister she truly was underneath all that prestige — before adding, “Second of all, you basically sent me into a lesbian porno.”

Both Wild and I stilled.

“Are you attempting to tell us that our banrión…?” Wild began to growl.

“No, you jealous eejits. Not her. Some other nameless blue dresser was gobbling on Amanda’s muff, and your banrión was having a right time sorting them out when I cruised in with my needle. She was upset, but I do believe it’s unlocked a new role-play scenario for Frey and me.”

“Fuckin’ hell,” Wild cursed, covering his ears with both hands. “Sea, have you any acid lying around your castle? That might be the only thing to scrub that picture out of my mind's eye."

This time, I couldn’t accuse Wild of being dramatic.

“Please stop making me reconsider my decision to lift the ban on gay mateships,” I begged Astrid. "Do you have any idea how hard that was to get passed, considering the state of our population?"

"Oh, I feel so terrible for putting you in that position. I mean, it's not as if you're the absolute monarch of Ireland or anything like that." Astrid rolled her eyes without even a speck of gratitude. "It must have been sooo hard to use your dictator-level of power to catch the Irish Wolves up to the current century."

I glowered at her for an annoyed second before asking, "Is she going to let Lorcan and Ronan have their mate?"

"Oh, yeah, that." Astrid's snarky expression morphed into a grimace. "Well, brothers of mine, I’ve got good news, and I've got bad news. Which would you like to hear first?”

Naomi

"Oh, my wolf," Priscilla wailed. "I'm going to hell for what I did, aren't I?"

I somehow resisted the urge to roll my eyes. Funny how our teachers had managed to instill in Priscilla that same-sex intimacy was a one-way ticket to Hell but hadn't managed to get around to teaching her about the evils of slavery during the entire eight years of education we were allotted within the one-house St. Ailbe school system.

Rather than pointing that out, I suggested, "Maybe you should stay in my room until we get everything figured out with Amanda."

Wrong tact.

"I am going to Hell, then!' Priscilla's face paled, and she asked me directly in Wölfennite. "Naomi, am I going to Hell?" 

I bit my tongue, knowing it would only upset and confuse her more if I told her the truth — that I'd stopped believing in Hell as anything more than a convenient tool that the St. Ailbe elders used to manipulate us and control our actions a long time ago. 

Luckily, Frey had a kinder response at the ready. 

"There, there now. No need to fret on about it." She pulled Priscilla off the couch and directed her toward the door with a guiding arm around her shoulders. "The heat's a right powerful beast, isn't it? Certainly more powerful than us. The rule here in Ireland is that no one can be blamed for what they do when they've got it in their nose …"

"My room's two doors down," I called after Frey as she escorted Priscilla out. "And bring back the quilt from my bed, will you?"

Leaving Frey to the task of comforting a weeping Priscilla, I untied Amanda's ankles from the bedposts — and considered whether or not to wrap the poor she-wolf up waakye burrito style before the sedation wore off, which, according to Astrid's dire warning previous to her departure, would be “sooner than you think it will.”

I still hadn't decided for sure when Astrid re-entered the room, saying, "I have good news and bad news. Which would you rather first?"

I scraped a hand over my face. “Good, then bad.” 

“Oh, I wasn’t expecting that!" Astrid came over to stand on the other side of Amanda's bed. “C chose it the other way around.”

Frey returned with the quilt before I could remind her that her brother, C, and I had nothing in common.

The good news was that “The C King” had mostly accepted my counter-proposal. The bad news was that he refused to let Frey and Astrid help me get Amanda the help she needed without him.

“Considering how protective male wolves can be, this is the best you could hope for, given that you’re his —”

“Nothing,” I insisted before Astrid could finish that sentence. “I’m his nothing. I don’t belong to him in any way, shape, or form.”

But I agreed to C’s one condition, nonetheless.

Astrid had gone over all the consequences of a she-wolf not completing her heat cycle with me before she left to present my counter to the kings. It started with permanent brain damage and ended with multiple organ failure, followed by an excruciatingly painful and confused death — thanks to the aforementioned brain damage. 

With that list of outcomes rattling through my head, what else could I choose?

“What does C stand for anyway?” I asked Astrid as she, Frey, and I prepared to move the sleeping Amanda from the room.

Astrid blinked at me, confused. But Frey said, “I think she’s asking after your brother.”

“Oh!” Astrid chuckled as we all lifted Amanda onto the heavy quilt Frey had brought back. “His name isn’t the letter C. It’s Sea, like the ocean.”

“As in the King of all the Sea that touches the Emerald Isle,” Frey declared in a dramatic tone before breaking off with a laugh. “And Wild is King of the Wild — or Nature — or the Land. Whatever you wish to call it. We Irish Wolves are never afraid to add another title. But long story short, we call all the kings by their realms.”

“So, both of Wild and ah… Sea were named from birth after their realms?" I frowned as I covered Amanda's nakedness with the original blanket I had wrapped her in when I brought her up to the room. "They don’t have normal names like you and Astrid.”

“Oh, they have proper Irish names,” Astrid assured me. “That’s only what we call them.”

“And, what are those names?” I carefully asked when neither Irish she-wolf volunteered them.

Astrid shook her head. “No idea."

I squinted. “You don’t know your own brothers’ names?”

“Only their parents know," Frey answered. "By tradition, it’s kept a secret from everyone until they mate.”

I held up a hand. “Wait, are you trying to tell me that no one is allowed to know their real name until they officially mate?”

“S’pose you could call it a Ritualized Superstition,” Frey shrugged. “In any case, I wouldn’t bother introducing yourself to any of the Irish Wolves. None of us are going to call you by your proper name until you’re seeded and wed.”

Oh, was that why both Sea and Wild called me by other names while never asking for my real one? I began to wonder — before the full implication of what they were saying about my future role in their kingdom set in. 

“Wait, but I'm n…” I began to protest.

“You’re Sea’s Nothing. Sure, sure.” Astrid cut me off with a disbelieving chuckle.

Meanwhile, Frey moved to the foot of the bed and asked, “Do me a favor, will you, my Nothing Queen? Grab that flap closest to you so we can get this she-wolf her cure. Figure I can handle this foot end if you and Astrid each take a corner at the head.”

Okay, I didn't like that Astrid and Frey were just assuming I would be the next queen of Ireland or the sea or whatever title they wanted to call it. But getting Amanda the help she needed before she woke up in another heat cycle was more important than disabusing them of that notion. 

We all concentrated on carrying Amanda out of the room I had chosen for her — had that only been thirty-six hours ago? It felt like thirty-six years as we ferried Amanda down the stairs on her makeshift quilt cot.

“Oh my wolf, it’s Amanda!” Orpah cried out from below. “They’ve got Amanda!”

She and the other she-wolves abandoned their breakfast and ran over to gather around us as soon as we descended the stairs, with Astrid and me each holding a front flap and Frey holding both of the quilt-cot’s back flaps.

“Is she going to be all right?” Leah demanded.

“Where are you taking her?” Fiona, the Scottish baker's daughter I put in charge of the kitchen, asked. “Should I fetch her something to eat before you go?”

“Oh, she looks terrible,” Miriam eyed Amanda’s unconscious form with a disgusted look. “Is she dying?”

I answered the first three questions with, “I hope so,” and “We’re trying to get her help before she wakes up, so she won’t have time to eat. Thanks for offering.”

But my reply to Miriam’s question about her imminent death faded in my throat when the portion of the dome glass that I’d seen slide away when the Kidnapping Wolves ran away from Amanda’s heat did so again.

The Sea King entered the habitat for the first time since I shrieked at him to get out, looking more royal than I remembered. 

Instead of a leather vest and a sash of knives, he wore a tunic today, finely embroidered around the deep V of its neck, which dipped unnecessarily low. All the way to below the midpoint of his chest, which bore a diamond-shaped tattoo with a vertical line bisecting it. 

Over the thin tunic, he sported a deep blue fur-lined cape fastened at his shoulders with ornate metal brooches, each shaped like wolves made with the same patterned knot formations that I’d seen on many of the dishes in the cave kitchen. His braids were gone, replaced by unbound, gleaming waves of rust-colored hair that flowed beneath a dark metal crown adorned with intricate wolf designs and studded with purple gemstones.

The Sea King looked ridiculous in his royal attire. 

I mean, he should have looked ridiculous to me. But my wolf went strangely quiet at the sight of him, and a new noise appeared inside my ears. It almost sounded like panting. 

The rest of the room had gone silent, and the she-wolves who’d been so eager to pelt me with questions fell away as he walked straight toward me.

“Hello, there…” He stopped in front of me and regarded me with a look that made me feel like I was sitting in a summer meadow filled with flowers and breeze.

Still, I refused to return the greeting. 

Instead, I shifted my gaze toward the door and led the way, walking forward as if he was a king-shaped obstacle I had to get around.

“Here, Astrid,” he said, moving out of my line of sight. “You can join Frey in the back.”

I refused to look over at him, but the sudden lightening of my weight load let me know he’d taken Astrid’s corner of the blanket.

“Are you not talking to me, then?” His voice was a resonant purr, rippling with amusement.

I let my silence answer that question as we walked out of the open portion of the glass. He left Sadie with strangers, and he was the reason Amanda was in this state.

I didn’t even believe in hell, but it would be a cold day there before I ever spoke to him aga…

That thought, and all others, vanished when I saw what lay beyond the dome of glass. My mouth fell open, and I instantly broke my vow to never speak to him again.

“What is this?!" I demanded on a gasp.

“It’s where we Sea Wolves live, Mairinua,” the Sea King answered in a tone laced with pride. “Welcome to our Secret Kingdom.”

Naomi

Welcome to our Secret Kingdom.

I had never in my life seen anything like what lay beyond the archway located just beyond the sightlines of the habitat — which turned out to be exactly what I’d suspected. A five-story slope of glass curved into a wall that stretched at least five hundred feet above us.

That, I had been expecting.

The rock wall disappearing into what appeared to be a horizon of clouds, I had not.

I say "appeared to be" because I knew what I saw couldn’t be right.

If my eyes were to be believed, then our half-dome habitat sat nestled inside a kingdom of rolling hills as far as I could see. There were pastures that looked like something dreamed up by a Photoshop whiz who wanted to depict where the Elves and Hobbits might have lived in Tolkien’s tales.

There was even a castle, sitting in the distance, just beyond a small village of thatched houses overlooking a turquoise bay. If the wooden boats bobbing against the bay's white sand shores were any indication, it could be reached by foot or water.

There was water in this place. And even more oddly, despite the fact that it was November, I felt completely comfortable in nothing but a t-shirt. The air had the same climate-controlled feel as inside the habitat, set to an ideal, temperate level.

But how?

As I took it all in, I kept asking myself… How could any of this be?

We were underground in some kind of cavern. I was sure of it. My wolf senses told me the earthy smell was coming from above — not beneath my feet. And rock — a mix of limestone and granite. I could smell it everywhere.

But I could not see it.

All I saw was the gleaming kingdom. So bucolic. If I still had my phone, I could have taken a picture and sold it as a wallpaper image labeled “fantasy kingdom.”

No one would ask where it was. Because no one would believe it was real.

Was it real?

“We’re taking her right over here…" 

I didn’t realize I’d stopped dead in my tracks until the Sea King tugged on the blanket and got me moving again. "Wild and I figured it’d be easier to put them up in one of the cottages.”

He led us out through the archway in the direction of the postcard-like village lying just a few yards away, down a gently sloped hill.

The cottages, like the sky, the grass, and the castle, gleamed under the sun. Impossibly vibrant and clean. Unlike the white community buildings in St. Ailbe, which looked beaten and weathered within a couple of seasons of their construction, the secret kingdom cottages had a uniform and perfect beauty. They looked as if they had been freshly constructed and painted just a few days ago by the village's inhabitants.

Or maybe by some kind of artificial intelligence? The suspicion sprouted in my head like a weed among a confusion of plants.

“Got any more questions you’d like to put to me?” Sea asked as we walked toward the impossible village with Amanda laid on the blanket. His voice sounded smug as if he had guessed I’d have this reaction to my first sight of the place he called the secret kingdom.

He guessed right. I had so, so many questions, all dying to get out.

But I gritted my jaw and turned to address them to Astrid instead of him. “How is this possible? We’re underground, right? I can smell it. And I feel it in my wolf bones.”

“You’re not wrong exactly,” Astrid answered with a sympathetic look. “We’re in what the Wild Wolves call “the below.”

“In a world constructed by the old gods,” Frey added. “Even most of the Irish Wolves don’t know about it. No way I’d ever have gotten to come here if I hadn’t married into the family secret.”

She regarded Astrid with a fond look, but her explanation confused me even more.

“The old gods?” I repeated. “How old? And how did they manage to…?”

I trailed off because I had no idea how to qualify the sight before me. I could feel and hear the swish of the grass underneath my feet, so it wasn’t a hologram. But something told me it also wasn’t real. In the end, I settled for “…make all of this?”

Astrid shrugged. “No idea. Truth is, I’m pretty much a tourist here, too. I grew up in Belfast, and that’s where Frey and I live when I’m not being called in to help with births and whatnot.”

“But you know, there is one person you could possibly ask,” Frey pointed out with a smirk. “He’s standing right beside you, my Nothing Queen.”

“What did you call her?” The faintly amused tone disappeared, and Sea whipped his head to squint at Frey.

“Oh, relax, Brother mine. It’s an inside joke your sister-in-law was calling back to, is all,” Astrid answered in the same tone of voice I used to needle Tara.

"What sort of inside joke?” Sea demanded to know.

“The type that stays between the three of us,” Astrid began to answer — only to break off and squint at a point beyond Sea in the far distance. “What’s that other brother of mine up to, then?”

I followed her gaze to a hill overlooking the town where Wild appeared to be…

Now it was my turn to squint. Was he chasing after a large black wolf? With something glinting in his hand?

"Appears Ronan didn't take the news well," Sea said, looking in the same direction. "Looks like he probably tried to sedate the lad, and Ronan shifted to get away."

Oh, God. My heart dropped. “Ronan was so upset that he’d rather become a mindless beast who could easily do irrevocable harm to one of his pack members than give up his claim?”

Astrid frowned. "Something like that. Should I go help…?"

“What’s happening?" Astrid was cut off by Amanda's confused voice. "Where am I? Where are you taking me?”

That was all the warning we got before the smell of the newly awakened she-wolf's heat blasted into our noses.

“Fucking hell!" Frey cursed behind me, and the tingling disgust immediately refilled my stomach.

But I ignored it as best I could to answer the innocent she-wolf lying prone on the quilt cot. "Listen, I’m so sorry, Amanda. But I couldn’t let you continue to suffer, and according to the doctor, there will be dire consequences if you don't complete your heat cycle. So we're taking you somewhere to allow Lorcan to, ah… finish what he started.”

Amanda stared up at me, her expression stricken.

I felt like the living embodiment of the poop emoji as I explained, “But it’s only Lorcan. I negotiated that only he would be allowed to mate you. And after that’s done, you don’t have to marry him. I promise you, we’ll figure out how to get you out of this situation.”

“Why would you make a promise to one of your subjects that you cannot possibly keep?” Sea asked. The dry note of amusement had returned to his voice.

I swiveled my head to glare at him. “Do not underestimate me?!”

“Lorcan?" Amanda asked, drawing my attention back to her before he could answer.

“Yes, Lorcan." My defiance wilted into shame. Had I really let the Sea King distract me from explaining the deal I'd had to make to save Amanda's life? "I’m so sorry, but your body can’t take much more of this. Giving you over to Lorcan is the only way to save —”

“Lorcan? Lorcan?" Amanda cut me off before I could finish explaining my decision. "Why are you inside my head?”

I blinked, then realized that Amanda wasn’t talking to me but to the male who had mated her earlier.

Further adding to her confusion, she was the only child of non-heat-mated wolves, so she didn’t know that those who went through a heat like my parents had for their second and third daughters could talk to each other through the wolf equivalent of ESP — as long as it wasn't over too far a distance. The habitat must have blocked out Lorcan’s ability to communicate with her this way until now.

“Where are you?” Amanda asked the voice, her eyes welling up with tears. “Oh, my wolf. It hurts, and nothing helps. I need… I need… what do you mean?”

Amanda cut off crying and scrunched her forehead at whatever Lorcan said. “Where? Tell me!"

She then glanced around and shouted, “I have to go to him!”

“We’re taking you to him, luv,” Frey said to Amanda. “If you stop squirming, we’ll get you there even sooner.”

“She can’t help it,” Astrid said through clenched teeth. “Hell, I’m a doctor, and I’m barely holding on to the urge to push you behind some bushes and shove your face between my legs — and the heat's only in my nose. Can't imagine what she's going through.”

But if Amanda heard Frey’s reassurance, she didn’t act like it.

“I have to go to him!” She threw off the blanket I'd covered with and somehow scrambled off the quilt cot, tumbling onto the emerald grass. “I have to go to him!”

“Amanda, we are taking you to him,” I repeated in Wölfennite in case she couldn’t understand Frey’s thick accent. “You must get back on the —”

Amanda rolled to her feet and, naked as the day she was born, took off running before I could stop her.

But not toward the cottages.

Toward the hill where we’d seen Wild trying to sedate the big black wolf.

“Amanda!” I screamed, running after her.

Dublin

Humans believed me to be the CEO of Norwolf, a centuries-old stout that originated in the brewery of Winston Normanwolf just a few months after that competing Irish brand, which we will not name — though if we do have to mention it, we refer to it as "that St. James Yeast Infection."

No matter the competition, Norwolf has been passed down from Normanwolf to Normanwolf throughout the centuries, and unlike St. James Yeast Infection and seemingly every other beer brand on the planet these days, we remained a privately owned company. Winston's grandson even managed to snag a baronetcy from King George the III. 

However, Sir Normanwolf, CEO, was merely the disguise my forefathers and I wore to move about in the world of humans. My fellow wolves knew my real title. 

I was the King of Dublin. 

So when I found a large Scottish wolf in my office with a massive hunting knife, threatening to kill me, I did what every Dublin King before would've done under the circumstances.

Cooly offered him a drink. 

“What’ll you be having, then?” I asked, turning my back on him to approach my office side table bar. “I've whisky, red wine, water, and of course… it’s always the right time for Norwolf.”

I pointed to a vintage tin sign on my wall that featured a 1940s cartoon version of Norrie Norwolf, our mascot wolf. In this depiction, he wore a factory uniform and pointed to a clock that read 11:45 a.m. with one hand while extending a pint of Norwolf stout toward us with the other. Our long-time slogan, “IT’S ALWAYS THE RIGHT TIME FOR NORWOLF,” took up the rest of the frame. 

Ah, yes, those were simpler times when everyone thought drinking on a factory job was a right good idea.

The huge Scot just squinted at me. Then growled. “You've already got a coffee.”

“You’re right.” I dumped half my coffee into the waste can that Scrubber Steve hadn't got the chance to empty and uncorked a bottle of Midleton Very Rare. “This conversation most certainly requires whisky. Want one?”

I interpreted the male’s low growl as a no thank you. But after I filled my coffee cup with "the water of life," as we called it in Ireland, I poured a couple of fingers of Midleton into a crystal tumbler anyway. 

“Just in case you change your mind,” I said, setting it down on my desk in front of the guest seat before I sat down in my office chair. “Alright then…”

I took a sip of my whisky and coffee before asking, “Might as well tell me why you’ve really come.”

The Scot regarded me with a heavy scowl. “Is that your plan, then? To pretend as if you have no idea why I’m here?”

Jayzus Christ, this morning was off the rails. I took a larger swig of my no-longer hot coffee. “Seems like the best course of action considering…"

"Considering what?"

"I truly have no idea why you’re here," I answered honestly. "Or what you want that's worth putting a tranquilizer dart in an innocent janitor.”

"Innocent." The Scot gritted his teeth. “Not as innocent as the fifty-plus she-wolves you lot stole from our king’s wedding reception!”

I stilled. Then set my paper cup down to rub at the instant headache that formed when I found out what those two fools pulled off without me. “Fucking hell. I told them not to do that.”

“You told who?" The Scot shook his head. "Aren't you the Irish King?”

“Oh, I forgot. We’ve been enemies so long, you’ve no real idea how Ireland works anymore.” 

I dropped my hand and heaved a weary sigh. “Listen, we don’t have one king like you and England and pretty much every other country in Europe. Guess you could say we’re more like the states — except not as regional. We’ve three kings these days. I guess you could say we’re divided by land, sea, and city. I’m the City King. And I told the other Land and Sea Kings it was a bad idea when they tried to float the idea of a Second Reaping past me.”

“Reaping. That’s what you call it?" The Scot sneered down at me. "As if you’re harvesting our she-wolves?”

“From what I understand, they weren’t strictly yours," I pointed out. "I'm fairly certain that’s why the other two kings could justify kidnapping your exchange brides to themselves, even if I could not. They said something about you hosting a group of Canadian fundamentalists.”

The Scottish Oak Tree stared down at me in a way that made me suspect that he still might try to slice my throat with that hunting knife.

Ah, Jayzus. I leaned forward, muscles coiled tight, ready for a fight I’d trained for but never thought I’d actually have to take on — not as the latest in a long line of beloved Dublin Kings, who just so happened to also be the biggest employer of wolf walkers in all of Ireland.

But then, the Scottish Oak sank down into the guest chair with a heavy plunk. “They’re called the Wölfennites. And they’re anti-everything. No tech. No electricity. Won't even ride in a car without religious clearance. Our king thought that would make them a good match for us in our remote highland kingdom village. But obviously, your other two Irish Kings thought the same."

His face hardened with the memory. "They waited until we were defenseless, then stole those she-wolves away from us with a particularly specious promise to return any of them that dunnae want to stay here with them next spring. We’ve been searching for days now without a single sign. We tracked them all the way to a plane in Wicklow, but then it was like they disappeared into the ether.”

A weary look passed over the Scottish Oak’s face. But then he reset it to demand, “Tell me how to find them.”

“No idea," I answered, truthfully. "Our kingdoms have been kept fairly separate due to… well, some events that happened a couple of decades back.” 

"Events" was one hell of an understatement. But this wasn’t a reality series, and this fellow wasn’t here for a recap of the Terrible Belfast Mess.

"You just said you met with them before they carried through their plan," the Scot said as if he'd caught me in a lie.

“That meeting wasn't exactly scheduled with a calendar alert," I told him. "The Sea King sent a merlin — like, an actual falcon to my office window with a note attached to its foot and a time and place to meet. Had to write a note back on printer paper, poke a hole through it, and attach it to the thing's leg with a rubber band. You should have seen the time I had of it.”

I chuckled. The Scot did not.

“Where exactly did this meeting you were invited to take place?”

I didn’t hesitate with my answer, considering it was those idiots who put my wolves and me in the position of having to explain their actions in the first place. “At the Ballymactyre Stone Circle.”

His frown deepened. “Already searched that town and every other one with some Gaelic form of wolf in the name.”

I nodded. “I could see why you'd go with that plan. But all of your lot was founded exclusively by Vikings, whereas some of our lot's been here from the Bronze Age — maybe before. We’ve forgotten how long we’ve been here. That’s how old we are."

The Scot glowered at me. "Your point being?"

"My point being, the Irish Wolves have abandoned more towns than you’ve founded at this point," I answered. "And with wolves technically being extinct here in Ireland, we’re most certainly out of the habit of letting any and all know about our whereabouts."

"Hmm, s'pose that's true." Apparently, changing his mind about the whisky, the Scot set down the hunting knife and picked up the glass instead. “Though, I had a gut feeling about Ailte Faoilmar.”

I scrunched my forehead. “Those cliffs south of Galway? No one’s allowed there. They’re a protected site, on the verge of crumbling down.”

“Aye, that’s what the human guards blocking the place from both the land and the water told me. But the thing is, the rock face looked just about flawless to my eyes. Almost like a picture postcard. No signs of deterioration whatsoever. We have one-hundred-year-old mountains in less better shape than those supposedly thousands of years old cliffs.”

I shook my head. “What are you trying to say?”

The Scot looked at me for a long, hard moment. Then, instead of answering my question, he asked. "If they’re only using merlins to communicate, explain this!”

He slapped a phone with a shattered screen down on my desk. “We found this in one of the empty lorries they used to throw us off their trail. But no one in our village has a phone this nice — not even the Scottish Prince. And it wasn’t one of the accounts we were given by the kidnapped Scottish she-wolves parents to trace.”

"Somebody just tossed this in an empty truck?" Now, it was my turn to frown. “This is the latest GoNoTo Phone. My ex-girlfriend was upset because she wanted one for Christmas, but it won't be available in the British Isles until next year. They're only being sold in the U.S., China, Japan, and Canada right now. So this is basically thousands of euros chucked out of a window.”

The Scot picked the phone up again. “Why would an Irish Wolf have an expensive GoNoTo phone that you can't yet get or use here?”

“The obvious answer is they wouldn’t.” I drummed my fingers against the desk, also pondering the mystery. “But you had a village full of Canadian guests, didn't you? And you only need a WiFi connection to get the internet to work.”

The Scot shook his head. “Like I said, our Canadian guests don’t believe in technology.”

“Unless one of them did.” I reached for my desk phone. “Want me to ring one of my IT fellows? We could break into it — see who’s right about who it belongs to.”

“Nae. That won't be necessary." The Scot stuffed the phone back into his kilt bag. "We’ve got a tech genius back home I can consult about this. Nae way, I’m letting some Irish bawbags have a crack at an important piece of evidence.”

Well then. Apparently, our friendly conversation was over. 

But I felt compelled to tell him, “The Land King is…"

Feral. An old gods zealot. Technically a sociopath. I settled for "… what he is. But the Sea King is not without honor. If he was the one who made you that promise, then the unwilling brides will be returned in the spring unharmed, just as he said.”

Another hard look. Then, the Scot abruptly stood up.

“I won’t slit your throat," he appeared to decide and announce at the same time.

As if I would have allowed that. He snatched a pen from the cup I kept beside my desktop in one hammy hand and began writing numbers on a sticky note. “Here’s the number to reach us at if those other two kings of yours send you any more merlins. Name's Alban Scotswolf.”

I stood up and stoically extended my hand for a shake. "If you’re ever in the market for a Scottish distributor for Norwolf beer, you know I’m the king to ask.”

Alban scoffed at my offer of a handshake. But in the end, he left me there in the office without making me employ any of the boxing or martial arts skills I’d acquired over the years. 

So that was exactly one thing that had gone well in the last few days. Startled exclamations began flaring up outside the office door Alban had left open.

"Where did you come from?"

"Holy hell, check the size of him."

"He looks Scottish. But I thought we were supposed to be mortal enemies. Hey, lad, are you Scottish?"

Alban didn't answer. And I barely breathed until I heard the ding of the elevator arriving to take him away. 

But as soon as our medic revived the downed custodian with smelling salts and another guard confirmed that the wolf who’d somehow snuck into our offices had left the building, I locked the door and unlocked the office safe hidden behind the tin of a stout-loving Norrie.

Another trick my ancestors, who'd been successfully dodging and/or secretly reforming various tax codes for centuries, taught me. If you want someone to believe your story about being an innocent and blameless brewer, make your story as close to the truth as possible.

Everything I’d told the large wolf I suspected to be the Scottish King’s enforcer was true down to the merlin sent to my windowsill.

But I left out the part about how unnecessarily dramatic I thought the Sea King's communication methods, considering we kept burner phones for emergencies. Well, at least Sea and I did. I couldn't say how Wild communicated while he and the rest of his hunter-gatherer subjects were walking all over Ireland on some ancient stone circle ritual path from eons ago.

I pushed the call button on the one number stored in the flip phone. However, to my surprise, it wasn't the Sea King who answered. 

“Little busy now,” Wild’s growl of a voice came down the line as opposed to the reasonable baritone of the Sea King.

In the background, I heard unmistakable feminine cries. Someone was having sex. No, not having sex. Being claimed.

My heart stopped.

Was Wild…?

Had he and Sea…?

“What did you do?” I demanded with a sick feeling in my chest.

“Ye know exactly what we did.”

I couldn’t see Wild, but I could hear the feral smile in his voice. 

“We saved our kingdoms from ruin and found our queen. Now the only question is, when will ye get yer head out of yer ass and join us as the prophecy intended?”

Wild

A few minutes earlier…

I’ll tell ye, I had a hell of a time catching the wolf Ronan shifted into after I made the eejit mistake of trying to explain to him that he wouldn't be getting his chance to lay second claim to the yellow-haired she-wolf who'd pledged him. Should've gone with my first instinct: stabbed him through the neck with the needle Astrid handed me 'in case of emergency,' and explained the why of it when he woke up.

All my consideration earned me was a workout up and down the rolling hills of the secret kingdom’s back pastures when Ronan made me chase him nearly all the way to the first god tower.   

Then, just when I’d finally gotten an arm ‘round his furry neck…

"Ronan! Ronan!" a voice shrieked. "Where are you?" 

We looked up to see none other than Ronan's Denied Mate tearing toward us, her privates screaming with heat. 

The unexpected, bare, naked sight of her slackened my grip. Just a wee bit, but a wee bit was all Ronan’s wolf needed.

The furry beast surged forward and ran straight for his naked she-wolf, shifting back to his human form right before he reached the mate we’d tried to deny him — wrongly, if you asked me.

That wrong was immediately rectified when they collided into each other, though. By the time I climbed to my feet, Ronan had the yellow-haired she-wolf on her hands and knees, and he was claiming her from behind like — well, exactly like what he was. A wolf who’d been denied his mate for too many hours during her heat cycle. 

They were both in human form, but they rutted like animals, with only primal grunts and high-pitched whimpers coming out of either of them as Ronan took her with rough, desperate strokes.

It all happened so fast, you couldn’t blame me for just standing there as the scene played out before my eyes.

Well, most wouldn’t blame me.

“How could you let this happen?” Flower practically screeched when she came over the hill herself and found her Wölfennite and my Wild Wolf completing his too-long denied second claim. 

“How could ye?”  

I moved to block her path before she could attempt that daft move of lunging forward to grab the yellow-haired she-wolf again.

To my great disappointment, she stopped just short of running into me, which gave me no reason to use holding her back as an excuse to touch her. And, with the other she-wolf's heat in my nose, I most certainly wouldn't have minded that. But I had to settle for, “Surely, ye didn’t think yer hare-brained scheme to deny my Wild Wolf his rightful second claim would actually work?”

“It wasn’t a hare-brained scheme,” she insisted, just as Sea came jogging over the hill after her in that ridiculous blue king cape. She looked to him as she always did when the choice was between the two of us. “You gave me his promise that she could have her heat cycle completed by just Lorcan.”

“Could is the main word there, Flower,” I pointed out, drawing her angry brown eyes back to me. “Yer Wölfennite gave my Wild Wolf her pledge. And from the looks of it, she'd decided for herself to do the right honorable thing as opposed to fighting her mates and running scared.”

I punctuated that last bit with a pointed look so that she’d know that I wasn’t just talking about the yellow-haired she-wolf she kept trying to protect. “What business have ye got trying to stop her from behaving with honor.”

“Behaving with honor?” Our Flower screwed her head back as if she were winding up to truly let me have it. 

But then a new scent drifted into the air. Faint enough that I might have missed it if I hadn’t been standing so close to her.

“What do you know about —” she began to ask. Only to be cut off by my audible sniff. 

“What…? What are you doing?” she demanded when I dropped into a crouch and snuffed my way down her body. 

The answer to that question was making sure I wasn’t hallucinating. But I wasn’t! The scent was coming not from the she-wolf being claimed on all fours by Ronan behind me but from our Flower herself. 

“Ye’re fucking aroused, aren't ye?” A new kind of outrage took over my tone. “How dare ye come at me acting so self-righteous when ye’re just as turned on by this situation as yer two kings?”

“What?” Her eyes widened with shock, and she glanced between Sea and me. “No, I’m not aroused or turned on by any of this! That’s disgust you’re smelling. I’m so disgusted right now.”

“Disgust?” I barked out a laugh at her blatant lie… only to cut off when her expression remained insulted. 

By the old gods, she actually believed every word she was saying. 

I exchanged a look with Sea. 

We didn’t have the power to communicate with the mind tongue yet like Ronan and Lorcan would after Ronan threw his long-delayed knot into the yellow-haired she-wolf. But I was fairly certain the Sea King understood every word written across my face

And, in case he didn’t, I let him know my thoughts out loud. “This is the naive she-wolf ye thought we had to tiptoe around lest she outwit us?”

"Are you calling me dumb?" Flower asked, placing her hands on her hips.

"Well, I'm not calling ye clever!” Unlike Sea, I wasn't afraid to tell her the truth. "And I'm most certainly not mistaking ye for any kind of worldly mastermind if ye truly believe that's disgust leaking from your cunt."

Flower gasped.

Sea rubbed at his temple as if I were an incoming headache he was trying to fend off. “Wild…”

Before he could finish that thought, the phone ring went off somewhere underneath that king cape he’d decided to wear for what was supposed to be a short escort into the bayside village where all the non-farming Sea Wolves made their home.

Surprise flitted across Flower’s face at the sound, and she turned to ask him, “You have reception in here?”

“Ye know what reception is?” I inquired with a snide tone, bringing her attention right back to me. “Care to tell us about that phone we found in the pocket of yer hand-sewn dress?”

Yeah, I knew I was needling her, but she’d turned me into a schoolboy with all this ‘denying her kings’ business. I’d do anything to get her attention — even if it was bad.

Sea must have caught on to what I was up to because he held the phone toward me. “It’s Dublin. Why don't you talk to him while I negotiate things with her.”

This turned out not to be a suggestion. Sea slapped the flip phone into my hand and took her by the arm to lead her away before either of us could protest.

“Little busy now,” I answered the call with a surly growl while Ronan and his yellow-haired she-wolf continued to grunt and moan in the background. 

“What did you do?” demanded Dublin in his posh city wolf accent.

“Ye know exactly what we did,” I answered while watching Sea try to gently guide our Flower in the opposite direction of the stone tower.

Proving what I said about needing to use a firmer hand with her, she snatched her arm away and stopped right where she was with a faint, “Don’t touch me…”

As if Sea were some beggar who dared to grope her on the street and not her king.

Still, I told Dublin, “We saved our kingdoms from ruin and found our queen. Now the only question is, when will ye get yer head out of yer ass and join us as the prophecy intended?”

There came several ticks of silence down the line.

Then, unfortunately, Dublin decided to prove himself the weak City Wolf he still was by answering, “No. Norman Kings don’t share, and I’m still not willing to abet you in your kidnapping crime.”

“Aw, fer the gods’ sake…”

“Also, you should know that I was just paid a visit from an incredibly put-out Scottish oak tree,” Dublin informed me, his voice tight with the kind of dry irritation only posh nobility wankers could pull off. “A fellow by the name of Alban…”

"Scotswolf," I finished for him. "Fuck. That was fast that he found ye."

I knew that the Scottish kingdom’s enforcer would be a problem for us. Even with a plane trip to throw him off, he and his clan had gotten closer to the secret kingdom than any Scottish Wolves before him.

Sea and I had spent much of the night watching his contingent of wolves sniff around overhead, and even when they'd given up searching, I'd had a feeling their hunt wasn't over yet. Apparently, Alban'd figured out that Dublin was the King of the City Wolves and had decided to pay him a visit.

"Hold on, you knew a violently angry Scot would be tracking me down at my place of work, and you didn't think to warn me?"

I shrugged. "If you had joined us for the Second Reaping, you would be here with us, claiming our queen as the old gods intended it.”

In the distance, our beautiful Flower appeared to have calmed down. She was nodding along with whatever Sea was saying, her expression filled with understanding. Alright, maybe Sea hadn’t been wrong about reasoning with her.

"Jayzus Christ, you fucking nutter," Dublin brought my attention back to our conversation before giving in with a "Fine, give me the secret kingdom coordinates. We need to put together a plan for how to deal with the Scottish Wolves.”

I began to open my mouth to tell him exactly how to get to us. But then it occurred to me to ask, “How do I know you won’t pass this information onto that Scot? For all I know, he’s standing right there with a dagger at your neck.”

A charged silence greeted my accusation. Then Dublin’s voice came back, coarse and quiet. “You truly believe I would betray you and Sea like that?”

I answered him honestly, “You didn’t stand with us when it was time to make a move, City King. If I’m being honest, I don’t know what to —”

Another betrayal happened before I could finish my sentence.

One moment, Sea was gallantly taking his cape off to hand it to our Flower, who must have told him she was cold — and the next, she was tossing the voluminous piece of puffery over his head.

“She’s more clever than you think…” Sea had insisted before he gave in to our Flower's one-mate-only condition.

And I found myself finally coming around to agree with him as I watched her race toward the tower.

She must have sorted out what the structure was about without letting on to Sea. She disappeared through its arched door before Sea could disentangle himself from the cape she’d tossed back in his face.

“I’ll call you back,” I told Dublin. “Maybe.”

“Hold on, you still haven’t given me —”

I hung up before the City King could finish.

Sea and I had both been right, as it turned out.

The she-wolf was cleverer than I’d bargained for but too naive to understand what any female who’d grown up in Eire would have in her place.

We all know in this land that you do not run from a Wild Wolf.

Especially if he’s a male.

Lest you wish to awaken his hunting instinct.

And awaken it did.

My chest swelled as something deep and feral stirred to life inside me, uncoiling like a beast from sleep. Every nerve tingled with electric anticipation, and my senses sharpened — her scent, her every movement, were now the only things I could focus on.

A low growl rumbled from my throat, giving voice to the hunger to chase, to capture, to claim.

A feral grin split my face as I left Ronan to the rut of his she-wolf as I broke into a running lope toward the door.

I had a she-wolf of my own to run down.

Naomi

The thing about me is I’m a planner. 

That was my first thought when the new, possibly dangerous, idea of running for the tower popped into my head as Sea tried to lead me away from the carnage of my Amanda-Will-Only-Have-to-Mate-One-Wolf plan. 

I'd hatched so many plans after my second oldest sister showed up in our village with her Bride Exchange proposal. 

I’d spent the months she'd given us to prepare for our new lives in Scotland plotting to do the opposite of settling into an old-fashioned marriage with one of her tech-hating subjects. Scotland, I'd realized from the start, was the perfect safe place for me to wait out the interminable months until I could move to Ontario to begin my new life as a seeming human pursuing a degree. 

But what amount of planning could have prepared me for being kidnapped by two Irish werewolf kings whose eyes had burned with the plans they’d already made for me from the moment we met? Maybe before?

Questions? I'd had so many of them since Sea and Wild appeared in my life, upending it like two plan-destroying tornadoes.

But there was never enough time to get answers before a new thing popped up. 

Sadie being delivered to three random strangers in a glass box…

Amanda going into heat…

An impossible secret kingdom…

A tower that could potentially be a hidden escape hatch in disguise. 

My getaway from St. Alibe was the culmination of years of covert studying, online testing, and complicated document acquisitions. 

But I only had moments to come up with something once I realized where the tower could possibly lead.

"Don't touch me! I'm not letting you drag me back to that glass prison!" I told Sea before he could drag me too far from the tower. I came to a hard, stubborn stop and crossed my arms over my chest, acting the rebel while I stalled for time to think.

Sea sighed and, unfortunately, placed himself directly between me and the tower. 

“I understand you're upset over the Second Reaping and how this all turned out.” Sea waved a vague hand toward the part of the perfectly hued field where Amanda and Ronan were going at it like farm animals. “With little time to prepare for any of this, you advocated well for your she-wolf, and it can’t be easy seeing that plan blow up in your face. Believe me, this wasn’t how I wished our time together would play out.”

I bit my tongue to keep from asking the obvious question: How did you think kidnapping a bunch of innocent she-wolves would play out?

Instead, I nodded along while my brain raced in the background, trying to figure out how to clear this human-sized obstacle standing in front of me. It was all I could do not to let my eyes wander to the tower standing just a few yards behind him. 

“That is why you must give my wolves the leeway to properly court yours,” Sea said with a reasonable diplomatic tone that did not match the scene of Amanda and Ronan crying out in ecstasy a few meters from where we stood while Wild spoke on the phone to whoever this Dublin person was. 

Another possibility clattered into my mind: Grabbing the phone from Wild and calling my sister before he could catch me.

But there were too many likely bad outcomes to that play. 

The element of surprise might not be enough. Wild might not only keep the phone. But easily overpower me. 

And what would he do in retaliation if my attack failed?

I remembered the way he’d grabbed the knife from me back at the Scottish kingdom castle, then licked my neck while he held it at my throat.

“Are you cold?” Sea asked, mistaking the reason for my full body shiver. “Here, take my cloak.”

And that was how I came to find myself making an extremely unplanned run for the tower. 

Dad genes, don't fail me now!

“Bragging is against the St. Ailbe Ordnung, yeah, yeah, yeah. But you should know your father was the reigning winner of the Accra Championship Youth Run three years in a row," my Ghanaian father once told me after I won one of the foot races he often challenged me to when no one else could see us breaking the St. Ailbe Ordnung's forbearance against competitive one-on-one sports. "It could have been four, but my parents sent me to Canada for university, and I was happily saved from my dismal lifelong fate before I could go back. Just know, you get your gift of speed from me.”

Being "saved" from his "dismal lifelong fate" was the quaint way my father described getting bitten by a werewolf on a Bible club camping trip and eventually converting to Wölfennite after meeting my born-werewolf mother at a fair where she was selling Amish butter.

He thought his Wölfennite origin story was cute. But as I grew older in a community that didn't provide girls' schooling past the eighth grade, I became increasingly horrified that he’d never finished his university education as planned.

All because of some random wolf.

My whirling thoughts crashed. Speaking of random wolves…

In my peripheral distance, I could see Wild drop his phone and immediately give chase, charging toward me like a hunter born.

Crap! Crap! Crap!

I bore down to run through what looked like an old wooden door but slid open with sleek mechanical ease to reveal a dark, empty space just as I reached it. 

Oh no!

I jerked to a hard stop to avoid crashing into the other side of the stone tower's wall when I entered…

Nothing.

I ran into the black space beyond the door and found nothing. There was just a slight rising sensation as if I had stepped onto the elevator we rode in the Scottish airport again.

And then suddenly, I was standing inside a circle of stones.

What in the…?

I looked all around and saw that the stones appeared to be sitting on top of a cliff overlooking the sea."

I had no idea where I was, but it smelled…I sniffed the air several times to be sure…and yes, this place smelled like the real world.

The ground scent was where it was supposed to be, underneath my feet, as opposed to somewhere faint above my head. And it no longer smelled like a cave while looking like a fantasy world.

The grey sky overhead threw uneven shadows on the non-uniform green and brown ground beneath my black shoes, and the air felt like the sky looked — not temperate but dank and chilly.

I stepped out onto the non-sea facing side of the circle and discovered, in a shockingly cold way, that the stones had been protecting me from a fierce, gusting wind. It bit into the bare skin on my arms, neck, and face — the polar opposite of the warm, fan-like breezes in the secret kingdom.

No, I hadn’t been cold when Sea offered me his royal blue cloak, but the whipping wind made me wonder if I should have taken it.

However, that regret slipped out of my head when I saw the structure in the distance. Just a few kilometers away.

Not another tower, but a two-story brick house. And maybe a few more kilometers beyond that lay a small town on the other side of a mountain.

Civilization!

If the town was filled with unknowing humans, I could find help for me and all the other she-wolves trapped beneath that stone circle. And if they were in league with our kidnappers like those guys who took Sadie, I could hide out until I managed to steal or find a phone or a computer I could use to contact my sister.

Either way, all I had to do was…

Run!

I felt Wild’s arrival in the stone circle before I scented him behind me. All the hairs on the back of my neck stood up as I glanced over my shoulder…

… to find him emerging from the standing stones in wolf form. Ash blond and grey fur and his unmistakable electric blue gaze. My stomach dropped at the size of him, as large as his human — just dropped down on all fours, with his teeth fully bared.

Run! My feet launched me forward before my brain could fully process the sight of him.

Wölfennites were naive. He hadn’t been wrong about that. But there was one hard fact we’d all been taught.

A shifted wolf was not the same as a human with a werewolf inside of them. Any wolf — even a beloved family member — was likely to tear you apart in lupine form.

The one thing — the most horrible thing — you could ever be in our hidden shifter community was caught somewhere in your human form with a werewolf who'd furred out.

Just in case I wasn't fully aware of how much danger I was in, Wild bared his teeth and snarled. Like the feral beast I'd suspected him of being this entire time.

Again, I had no time to plan.

I sped toward the hill as fast as my feet could carry me. But was it fast enough to get —

The wolf hit me with full force, tackling me from behind before I could finish that thought.

Naomi

One moment, I was running for my life, and the next, I was falling forward underneath the weight of the beast who'd chased and (easily) caught me.

And would probably tear out my throat as soon as I hit the ground. 

Even worse, the fast-rising earth beneath me wasn’t a uniform soft mat of green like in the secret kingdom but a patched-together crazy quilt of rocks with just a few tufts of grass to cushion my fall.

I uttered one more ‘crap’ and braced myself for what would surely be a bone-breaking crash landing before I met my grisly end between the beast's teeth…

… only to gasp when a pair of strong arms suddenly wrapped around me and twisted me away from the rocky patch of ground.

“Oof!”

Instead of sharp, jagged rocks, I landed on top of Wild in his human form.

His completely naked human form, which he managed to aim toward a rock-free bank of grass.

Had he shifted in mid-air? Did he truly have that much control of his wolf that he could…?

Wild rolled me beneath him before I could finish asking myself that question.

“Was this what ye were desiring, Flower? A wee game of chase through Ireland proper to get yer heat engine started?” 

I didn’t realize the skirt I’d been given had flipped up during my fall, arc, and tumble. Not until something hard pressed into the space between my legs. 

That was when I remembered the task I'd started last night but hadn't finished. I'd been washing the strangely tight cotton briefs I’d been given to wear in place of my usual bloomers in the sink when Amanda had gone into yet another heat cycle. It was an understandable reason for not completing the small task, but it meant I wasn’t wearing anything underneath my skirts.

At all.

And Wild had shifted out of his clothes.

There were no barriers between our most private parts. Nothing to keep me from feeling the thing between his legs pressing into my most intimate space. Lodging against my folds. Pulsing…

Just like that, the tingling returned, a pool of molten disgust pooling in my belly. My breath caught, and my heartbeat moved up to my ears, drowning out all other noise so that I could barely hear myself answer Wild's insulting accusation. “It wasn’t a game. I was obviously trying to get away.”

"Trying to get away."

Wild was no longer a beast, but his mouth felt like a maw of hot breath and sharp teeth against my neck.

“Then consider this yer first and last proper warning, Flower.” 

I could barely hear myself speak, but somehow, Wild’s voice cut through the noise in my head like a blade through butter.

“There's no getting away from a Wild Wolf. If ye run, we give chase and put e beneath us. Like this…”

He shifted his hips again, and my stomach didn't just pool with disgust this time, it flipped, turning all the way over. My vision swam with the terrible feeling, and I had to close my eyes with a gasp as my body involuntarily shuddered, clenching and unclenching around the thing wedged against my folds. I'd never in my life felt disgust like this. 

“It’s not disgust,” Wild answered my thoughts as if I'd spoken out loud. His voice was no longer at my neck but somewhere above me. “Let me show ye, Flower…”

The pressure between my legs eased.

Thank the wolf… I began to think — right before the hard thing was replaced by another kind of insistent pressure. Hot. And wet.

My eyes popped back open.

Wild's head was between my legs, his shoulders pressing into the soft flesh of my inner thighs, holding them apart as he flexed his tongue inside my folds, kissing me in the same lewd way my sister's mate did after they were pronounced wolf and wife.

But down below!

Wild was… I panted out the realization. Wild was doing to me what Priscilla had done to Amanda. To give her relief.

That was the only coherent thought I managed to have before my entire world exploded into the kind of stars that couldn't be blocked by closing your eyes. 

And one central truth emerged from the brain-melting chaos. 

Wild was right.

It wasn’t disgust.

Thick, languorous bolts of pleasure, unlike anything I’d ever known, coursed through me as if they’d been waiting inside of me all this time for someone to come along and unleash them.

Someone like Wild.

He continued to kiss me down below, circling the tip of his tongue around one distinct point inside my folds. A point so piercing that an unintended cry of pleasure ripped out of me, broken and confused.

No, Wild hadn't torn out my throat, but he was killing me. I was dying. This wasn't… I was certain of it… this wasn't something I could survive. 

I moved my hands down to Wild’s hair to make him stop whatever special thing he was doing before he unalived me.

But instead of pushing him away, I somehow ended up tugging on his hair, pulling his mouth even deeper into my most intimate space.

All my thoughts about my imminent death scattered as Wild devoured me. Tried to reform — only to collapse underneath another crest of soaring pleasure. 

"Oh, oh!" My eyes closed again, and my head fell back against the patchy grass as the intense sensations thrashed through me. 

“Alright, that’s enough!” a harsh voice growled above us.

Suddenly, the space between my legs emptied, and I opened my eyes to find Sea standing above Wild, who now lay sprawled on his back several meters away from me as if he'd fallen. Or been flung.

“What do you think you’re doing?” Sea snarled down at Wild.

“I thought ye said she had to learn?” Wild sat up with a feral grin and something glistening around his bearded mouth.

My essence, I realized with an icy gut punch of shame.

He wiped it off with the back of his hand before bragging to Sea, “I’d say our Flower has been thoroughly educated about the difference between disgust and arousal, wouldn’t ye?”

Sea’s furious gaze snapped to me. Then lowered.

That was when I realized my most intimate part was fully exposed, on wet, naked display.

I quickly pushed the skirt down, and a scum-covered pond of dirty, grey ice replaced the hot pleasure that had boiled inside my stomach when Wild kissed me below.

“I was… I was just trying to get away,” I insisted lamely. “Save myself and all the other she-wolves you have trapped in that glass dome.”

“Save them from what?” Wild asked with a cracking laugh. “The good time we could give the lot of ye if ye just stopped fighting us at every turn?”

Hot shame crawled up my neck. But still, I vowed, “I will never stop fighting you.”

As was becoming usual, when Wild became too much to bear, I looked to Sea.

But the kind, diplomatic gaze he regarded me with when he tried to validate and reason with me in the secret kingdom field was gone. 

Replaced by a glowing, angry, gold gaze.

Part Three

Dublin

"Is this the King of Dublin, then?" an older voice with a thick Belfast accent asked when I picked up the flip phone, just a couple of days after Wild hung up on me — and then failed to answer my many calls and texts.

"Who else would it be?" I replied. "I'm the one who gave you this number — assuming I'm speaking to the Belfast Priest."

The truth was, I hadn't been in contact with the older man since the fallout from what the Irish Wolves called "that Terrible Belfast Mess" — back when I was still wearing private school knee socks. I’d just sent a quick email warning that a certain Scottish Wolf might be paying him a visit.

"That's me!" the Belfast Priest answered with a jovial chuckle. "And sorry, lad, you're on speakerphone." 

I closed the laptop I’d been using to review the quarterly numbers and rose from the leather sectional to walk over to the floor-to-ceiling windows interlaced by brick beams. 

Outside my penthouse, the sun was setting over the River Liffey, casting the Dublin skyline in a warm rose glow after crying buckets of rain for most of the day.

It was a beautiful view, but I had no one to share it with. I pressed my hand to the cool glass, and sudden loneliness tightened my chest, reminding me how far I was from the life I'd imagined when my father decided to retire early and pass down his CEO position and crown.

Having never taken the prophecy seriously, I'd thought I'd be mated by now with at least one pup. But my last relationship had ended like all the others, without a whiff of heat — emotional or biological.

Not for the first time, I thought about the queen Wild and Sea had kidnapped from Scotland. But I quickly pushed down that thought along with my rare instant of self-pity.  

"I'm assuming you're calling to let me know Alban Scotswolf dropped by Belfast, too," I said, returning to the conversation.

"Don't think I've ever encountered a wolf that hefty. Almost mistook him for one of the Tríbéirríthe — except none of those lads would ever threaten to gut an elder."

"I wouldn't put that past the Tríbéirríthe." I scowled at the mention of the trio of billionaires who not only funded Wild's and Sea's shady kidnapping scheme but most likely planted the idea in their heads, too. Rubbing a hand over my face, I muttered, "Christ, what a mess — oh, sorry for…"

I started to apologize for taking the Lord's name in vain but stopped myself, remembering that the Belfast Priest wasn’t really a priest — at least not since he was stripped of his titles along with the old Sea King. Speaking of which… “Did he get to the…?”

“Hid meself away as soon as the scouts we placed at the perimeter of our village saw them coming,” the old Sea King answered before I could finish. Despite no longer holding any titles, his voice still carried the same resonant authority as Sea's. “If not for your warning, we might have fallen prey to a surprise attack. I had my doubts when your father decided to retire early. But I have to say, even if you never put in the effort you should’ve to learn the old language, you’ve done a fair job of protecting both of your kingdoms, Dublin.”

“No reason to start congratulating me yet." I made a disgruntled sound in the back of my throat. "Don’t think for a second the Scottish Wolves are just going to give up. It's the 21st century, and they've got a billionaire to fund a recovery mission to get back the brides the Wild and Sea Wolves stole. I doubt their next conversation with us will be nearly as polite."

I paused, letting the weight of my warning sink in, then added, "Anyway, I’ve been working out of my penthouse since Alban’s visit, and since Belfast is harboring the only person who knows how to get to the secret kingdom, you might want to find someplace to lay low, too.”

“Agreed!” both men said enthusiastically on the other side of the line.

“We’ve already booked a trip to Italy,” the Belfast Priest informed me.

“Una and me are mighty excited. Never been outside Ireland, you know,” the old Sea King added. “It’s just…”

He fell quiet.

Prompting me to ask, “It’s just what?”

“Don’t you think you should be taking a trip, too?” The Belfast Priest’s voice took on a wheedling tone.

“If you hop in the car now, I can show you the way to the secret kingdom before we head off tomorrow,” the old Sea King added. “You got any hiking gear?”

“No, I don’t have any hiking gear. Why would I need —” I cut myself off, realizing I probably didn’t want to know the answer to that question. “Anyway, Wild refused to give me directions himself. That tells me he doesn't want me hiding out in the secret kingdom.”

“Oh, Wild’s just being cross,” the Belfast Priest assured me. “Astrid and her mate are there as we speak. And you know, the prophecy says…”

“Yes, I know what the prophecy says, and I don’t care.” Much.

The moans I heard in the background of my last call to Wild echoed in my head. Had they truly found her? The fated queen?

"It doesn't matter," I told the two former rulers — and myself. “If they found their queen like they claimed, she’s probably already pregnant.”

“Probably,” he agreed. “Sea and Wild have been waiting a long time for her, but it's possible she can't and won't go into heat until all three kings are in place…”

Was that true?

Something weird and hopeful flickered in my chest. Until I extinguished it with a ruthless dose of reality.

"I'm not like Sea and Wild," I reminded them — and myself. "I've got morals. Modern morals and values. And no offense to you two, but I’m not keen on sharing a kidnapped mate. It wouldn't be right. No matter what’s carved into some old stone.”

Another long silence followed. But instead of trying to convince me, the Belfast Priest said, “Then, at least let us help you hide from this Alban person, just in case he comes back. Somewhere off the record where that Scottish oak tree won't be able to find you.”

I shook my head. “I don’t want to leave the country. I’ve a company to run.”

“We’re aware," the Belfast Priest answered with a hearty laugh. "I believe it's always a good time for Norwolf.”

"Do they have Norwolf in Italy?" The old Sea King's voice took on a worried note. "Can't do without my daily pint. It's good for you, you know!"

"It is not," I assured him, rubbing at my temple. "The UK Advertising Standards Authority made us stop claiming that back in the 1960s. But don't worry yourself. Norwolf is sold everywhere on the European continent — well, everywhere but Scotland."

“Which brings us back to your new hideout," said the Belfast Priest. "And don't you worry yourself cos' I know just the place."

Naomi

Sooo…

That was an interesting way to find out Sea’s eyes glowed bright gold.

“Get up!”

If he cared at all about what happened to a naked Wild after commanding me to stand, it didn’t show. Without waiting for me to obey, he grabbed my arm and hauled me to my feet. Then came the half-haul, half-stumble back to the stone circle. Once inside, he pressed one of the wolf knots, and the next thing I knew, we were standing in a cold, dark place that turned out to be the inside of the tower when the door slid open, revealing the now-empty secret kingdom field of gorgeous wildflowers — even though it was supposed to be November.

I had so many questions. Like, all the questions that had ever questioned. The part of me that had studied day and night to fulfill my dream of becoming a theoretical physicist — hey, when I Bad Wölfennite, I Bad Wölfennite hard — wanted to ask Sea everything. About the secret kingdom. About the tower. About how any of this was even possible.

Also, indulging my love of science was a great way to not think about what had just happened with Wild outside the stone circle as we made our way toward the habitat.

Well, I tried to walk. Sea was doing this long-legged stomp, making me practically jog to keep up with him.

“So, these gods of yours — are they quantum computers? Aliens with superior tech?”

“No.” One word growled from deep within his chest.

“No, they’re not —”

“No, you can’t talk to me right now,” he corrected. “You smell like him now, and my wolf is going crazy to claim you, too… Heat Laws be damned. Your presence kept him in check. But then you ran, and now I’m back to struggling to contain him. Stay quiet, and don’t talk to me unless you want me to lose my head.”

Well… okay, that didn’t sound like something I wanted to happen. But for some reason, that tingling sensation returned. And now, I knew it wasn’t disgust.

“I can smell your want,” he said through gritted teeth.

Warmth flushed over my face. It was a long, awkward, and very silent walk back to the gently sloped hill outside the habitat, where Astrid and Frey were still waiting with the quilt Amanda had abandoned when she ran to Ronan instead of Lorcan.

Amanda… I could only wonder where she’d gotten off to at this point.

Irritation began to replace the "not disgust" I’d been feeling ever since Wild… did what he did.

Anyway…

“It’s not my fault you’re struggling with your wolf,” I pointed out as we neared the hill. “I was trying to protect —”

"It wasn’t your fault," Sea cut me off with a sharp correction.

I shook my head at him. "What does that even mean?"

He stopped walking just before we reached Astrid and Frey. "It means diplomacy is over. From now on, you will follow my commands without question."

Defiance flared inside me. "Or what?"

Sea stepped closer, the beast inside him vibrating with menace as he growled, "Or I lose my head, and the beast takes over."

He grabbed my arm and handed me over to Astrid and Frey like a child being sent home for misbehaving.

I was surprised when Astrid returned the next morning while we were eating breakfast, bringing news of Amanda — apparently at Sea’s request.

“My brother wants you all to know that Amanda is still in heat but is being well and happily attended to by her mates.”

“Mates?” Priscilla, who’d finally had her first full night of sleep since Amanda left, still had dark circles under her eyes.

“So, it’s true? She’s been ruthlessly claimed by not one, but two of those beasts?” she asked Astrid as if she thought the story I’d told the other kidnapped she-wolves last night was just a spooky tale.

“If by ruthlessly, you mean happily over and over again, then yes,” Astrid replied without a trace of shame or outrage. “Ooh, what kind of bread is this? It smells delicious!”

That’s how Astrid ended up taking a couple of the soft, floury morning rolls — or “baps,” as Fiona called them — with her before asking, “Hey, Banríon, want to walk me to the habitat door?”

I took her up on her invitation, mostly because I had nothing else to do now that I’d so utterly lost both the battle to save Amanda and to escape our prison.

Also, I wanted to collect some intel on how she got in here. I noticed she wore the same blouse and jeans combo as the day before, along with a delicate analog watch that couldn’t be used for anything but to tell time.

“How did you get in here?” I asked her right before we reached the place in the glass where the door always opened.

She narrowed her eyes at me. “I was warned not to answer any more of your questions. According to Wild, you’ve too clever of a head to be trusted.”

He said that about me?

I preened — before flashing back to the sight of his head between my legs outside of the stone circle. My belly tightened.

“Anyhow, this is for you.”

Astrid’s voice tore me out of the memory that, despite Amanda’s heat smell having dissipated, I couldn’t stop having for some reason. Over and over again.

I looked down to find her holding out a cream-colored envelope, elegant as a prop in a Bridgerton episode and sealed in ocean-blue wax.

I took the letter from her hand. It was way heavier than the ones we occasionally received from my oldest sister, Leora, who’d been wolf-mated when I was still a kid — and she was only sixteen. And Mairinua was written across the front in the kind of elegant cursive that could also feature in an episode of Bridgerton.

“What’s this?”

Astrid shrugged. “Remember that bit about me not answering any of your questions?”

With that, she knocked on the glass, and the door opened inside of it.

Maybe, maybe I could’ve pushed past her and tried to escape again, but if my suspicion was correct, there was a wolf — either Wild or Sea with an opener somewhere I couldn’t see outside the door.

And, I for sure did not want another confrontation with Wild.

The memory of his tongue inside my folds attempted to flash again. But I tamped it down again in favor of opening the letter.

Naomi

Dearest Mairinua,

Circumstances prevent me from visiting you in person, but perhaps this letter can be a small bridge between us — a way to get to know one another despite the distance.

My mother hailed from Belfast, you know. Da visited her kingdom when he was a young king of twenty-two, the usual age when many Sea Kings gained our thrones. The number holds a special meaning for us, as it’s also when males choose their seconds for taking a she-wolf to trimate. It wasn't quite like that for me, but that’s a story for another letter.

Today, I'll tell you about my parents' romance. My father first laid eyes on my mother during a diplomatic visit to the Belfast Kingdom in honor of his recent coronation. He’d already been celebrating all day, as Irishmen are wont to do. He spotted her and asked if he could take her picture with a disposable camera he happened to have on hand. When my mother asked him why, he said it was important his brother know what she looked like when he returned to our kingdom and told him he’d found their future wife.

My mother, of course, didn’t take him seriously. But Da wrote her every week after that, sending a Wild Wolf back and forth between our kingdoms with the letters. Lucky for him, the Wild Wolves happened to be near Belfast at the Giant's Ring for Imbolc that year. The Wild Wolf would deliver his letter and bring one back from my mother to my father.

However, my mother only received five of the six letters Da wrote her. When the fellow returned for the sixth letter, he brought her with him instead. Less than three days later, she went into heat. By all accounts, she, my father, and my uncle lived happily together here in the castle until she died giving birth to me. After her death, my uncle moved onto a new trimateship. Then my father left when I was twelve, leaving me to rule over the secret kingdom with my uncle serving as my King Regent until I reached the age of eighteen.

I’m sorry this story doesn’t have a happy ending, Mairinua. Irish tales often take such turns. But enough about my parents. Tell me, what is it you dreamed of before finding yourself here?

Astrid has brought some paper and a pen for you. Perhaps you’ll write me back, as my mother did my father? I know now how Da must have felt, longing to know everything about the she-wolf he knew for certain would become his queen.

Until then, Your Sea King

I read the letter. Scoffed. Then read it again, despite myself. A pang of sadness for the motherless king lingered, but I pushed it into the farthest corner of my mind.

He co-led the contingent that had kidnapped me.

Of course, I did not write back to the male who had stolen me from the life I intended.

However, the next day, when Astrid handed me another letter from Sea, I tried to play it off. But my fingers moved faster than my doubts, reaching eagerly for the thick white envelope sealed in wax.

“Do you have anything you’d like me to deliver back to the castle?” Astrid asked, one eyebrow raised in silent judgement.

It was the same look Sea had given me when he asked why I made promises I couldn't keep — a look that saw too much.

“No,” I answered. “And if that changes whether he wants to write me, I’m okay with that.”

Another raised eyebrow, but Astrid left without comment after knocking on the glass for whoever was there to let her out.

Most likely Wild. I recalled Sea tapping on the wolf knot fasteners that appeared to do everything from opening doors in glass to transporting us from the stone circle back into the secret kingdom.

That probably wasn’t the kind of power one gave just anybody to wield.

A tap on my shoulder drew me out of my thoughts, and I turned to find Priscilla standing right behind me, her hands primly clasped.

“We’re gathering for prayer time now as Amanda would have wanted.”

Somehow, I managed not to roll my eyes. Priscilla had become the most dedicated Wölfennite ever in the wake of losing her best friend to “those horrible heathen beasts.”

“Sure,” I said, to keep the peace.

As soon as we were done, I found myself rushing upstairs, weirdly excited to read Sea's letter — even though I knew I shouldn’t be.

Coincidentally, it turned out to be about power.

Dearest Mairinua,

While I await your letter, hopefully full of details about how and where you grew up, I thought I might tell you more about the wolves over whom you’ll reign after we are joined as mates.

The Irish Wolves' power structure isn’t quite arranged in the same way as the North American Lupine Association, where every state and province has a king. Or even England and Scotland.

The Scottish Wolves are purely descended from the Norwegian Viking wolves who, like their counterparts, raided and eventually settled in the British Isles.

The Sea Wolves are also the descendants of those Viking wolves, and our settlements were founded around the same time in the late 8th and early 9th centuries.

The Irish Wolves, however, are sourced from three different groups. According to our lore, the Wild Wolves were the first wolf walkers, made and placed here by the three gods sometime between the early to middle Stone Age.

However, the Wild Wolves were split into two factions in the early 5th century (over 300 years before the Viking Wolves' arrival in Ireland) by what the Wild Wolves still call "That Patrick Nonsense."

We can't be sure if the 5th-century wolves actually encountered St. Patrick, the (human?) missionary who is widely credited with bringing Christianity to Ireland. But after the now-venerated man's arrival, the Wild Wolves remained nomadic and continued to worship the old gods.

Meanwhile, the converted wolves settled near one of the henges — or stone fating gates, as we call them — to the north near the area that would eventually come to be known as Belfast. Interestingly, these other wolves chose to forego having a king, instead uniting under a figure they called The Belfast Priest until recently when the last Belfast Priest lost his position, and his wolves were merged with the kingdom of Dublin.

Anyhow, this was not an inherited appointment but one that was intuited, like the Dalai Lama or the Avatar from The Last Airbender — not sure if you know either of those references though. So, I’ll stop there.

I am eagerly awaiting a letter from you, Mairinua. Please, tell me more.

I hope it’s not too forward of me to say, but I haven't been able to sleep since your arrival. I lie awake, staring at the ceiling, thoughts of you running through my mind like the tides that shape our shores.

What dreams did you hold close when you agreed to the Bridal Exchange? What kind of mate did you envision before your queen fate took you by the hand and led you here? You’re a clever bird, aren’t you? Not at all what I expected, and yet more than I could have imagined.

When you write me back, share your stories with me — every detail, every moment. I long to know everything about the Wölfennite who hides a phone in her dress pocket.

Since I was twelve, I have been alone, tasked with ruling a kingdom after my father was stripped of his titles and exiled. And even in those long years of solitude, I dreamed of you. I imagined holding hands with my queen as we oversaw important rites like holidays and weddings.

But by the three gods, in person, you are even better than my faceless vision.

You are a queen born and cleverer than a den of foxes. Even as I recover from what happened in my castle, I find myself wondering how a parentless wolf like me got so lucky. The Irish Wolves are beyond fortunate to have gained you as a ruler.

You, my Mairinua, are the happy ending I have longed for — the answer to years of waiting.

In the modified words of the British boy band, The Wanted: I am so very glad you came.

Yours,

Sea

My chest ached in a way I did not want to acknowledge. This letter was much longer than the first one, but somehow still too short. I lowered my gaze to that line again.

You, my Mairinua, are the happy ending I have longed for — the answer to years of waiting.

So it wasn’t just about want to breed me because I was the most aesthetic she-wolf in the lot he’d kidnapped. For the first time ever with a male who’d showed interest in me, I didn’t feel like some she-wolf shaped trophy some dude was trying claim to show off to his pack.

A wholly unfamiliar feeling bloomed inside of me… to tell the truth… to explain everything… to open myself to Sea bloomed.

Also, I had so many questions.

What happened to the Belfast Priest, and why were the Belfast wolves merged with the Dublin ones? Why was Sea’s father stripped of his titles and exiled? Who took care of and nurtured Sea after he was named king at the super young age of twelve? What did this song by the British boy band I’d never heard of sound like?

I eyed the letter paper, sitting on top of the room’s built-in desk, but…

No, no, I wouldn’t write to him. In fact, it was a good and wise thing that I hadn’t sent a letter back with Astrid that morning because I refused to encourage him any further. Sea was a monster — a contradictory, heavily tattooed monster who wrote letters in gorgeous cursive that made my heart pound — but a monster first and foremost.

If I never heard from him again, it would be a good thing, I insisted to myself…

… until I found myself eagerly snatching his third letter out of Astrid’s hand the next morning.

"Naomi, will you join us for morning prayer —" Priscilla started to ask as I rushed by her.

"Sorry! I’ve got to clean my toilet!" I threw the poor excuse over my shoulder while running up the stairs and disappeared into my room before she could argue with me.

My hands trembled slightly as I unsealed the letter and pulled out several sheets of speckled cloth-like paper. My heart raced, a mix of excitement and dread bubbling in my chest.

Dearest Mairinua,

It saddens me, though it comes as no surprise, that you did not write back, my Mairinua. After the way we met, I understand that it will take time for you to disassociate your Sea King from the male who took you from Scotland.

Let me share with you the truth of your friend's fate, and why, in the grand design, she is destined to be with the Tríbéirríthe who saw her picture and knew, in that instant, she was meant for them.

My eyes widened as I read Sea’s shocking — yet not completely unbelievable explanation for why my best friend had been chosen as “the potential” of a mega-rich triad of Irish tech titans he called the Tríbéirríthe.

I know this doesn’t erase your pain over losing your best friend. But I hope you can take some solace in knowing that your deep friendship with her will keep Ireland united in ways that go beyond the prophecy.

The prophecy. I frowned at yet another mention of this so-called destiny, which both he and Wild kept referencing as if it were a scientific fact.

Technically, I didn't care. I wanted no part of any prophecy that told them that they needed to kidnap innocent she-wolves in order to satisfy it.

Still, I hoped he might explain that next like he explained about Sadie, but sadly no…

What followed were several pages about the challenges of ruling the secret kingdom at such a young age, his favorite music (*my playlists are 10% hardcore rap, 10% The Script’s greatest hits, and 80% traditional Irish folk music*), his favorite TV shows, and a bunch of other random personal details that somehow made me feel like I actually knew him by the time I got to the last page, where he got somewhat reflective.

I wonder, does any of this reach your heart, or do my words fall away like waves upon the shore, unable to touch the depths of you?

I won’t lie. There have been many she-wolves who offered themselves to me in hopes of becoming the Sea Queen. Even so, I saved myself for you and only you, knowing that the time of our Mairinua was coming. My wolf has starved while waiting for you and the true connection we will share outside of all titles.

And now you are here.

Never has my longing been so fierce, nor my hope so bright. You are the light I have waited for, the solace in my hunger.

I understand why you have refused to write back, but this will be the last letter.

The next time you see me, it will be in person.

Yours,

Sea

I would never have guessed that under all those tats and reserve, the king who kidnapped me had such a dramatic, poetic side. That stupid ache in my chest increased. It was strange, almost disarming, to receive words like this… to be complimented… to be asked about in ways it would never occur to any of the Scottish or Wölfennite males to court me. An overwhelming urge to write back rocked my chest.

Because you have absolutely nothing to do but oversee the Wölfennites, I viciously reminded myself.

In the end, I clenched my right hand into a fist and made myself drop it back down to my side.

No, I wouldn’t write back. Writing back would mean handing a piece of myself over to my kidnapper — one I wouldn’t be able to get back.

I was fine, I told myself, completely fine with Sea not writing me again.

However, my heart leaped when Astrid showed up the next morning with a huge announcement.

“I’ve got mail from our Sea King!!” she trilled, waving a white envelope in the air as she came to stand in the middle of our communal space where we were just finishing breakfast. 

The Wölfennites gasped, exchanging a mix of confused and concerned glances. Some whispered excitedly, others seemed wary, but all eyes eventually turned to me, waiting for my reaction. 

I'd kept my letters from Sea secret, but for some reason, they all expected me to take the lead on this unexpected turn of events. 

Then, instead of pulling me aside, she handed me the letter in front of everyone. My face burned as I took it. But then curiosity set in when I noticed this sealed envelope felt much lighter than all the others.

As it turned out, this letter wasn’t for me — at least not just for me. 

I pulled out a single notecard announcing that we were all cordially invited to celebrate the wedding of Lorcan and Ronan of the Wild Wolves to Amanda of the Wölfennites on the night of the new moon.

“Despite that terrible delay, Amanda has successfully completed her heat cycle,” Astrid explained to the rest of the group as I silently read over the invitation. “And guess what! You’re all invited to her wedding!”

I pushed away the piercing disappointment of not getting another personal letter from Sea again to protest, “But —”

That was when Astrid pulled me aside. But not to secretly hand me another letter.

She lowered her voice to inform me: “Sea’s commanding you all to come, and he’s saying that his and Wild's wolves will escort you — basically a group date.”

Of course, I opened my mouth to argue, but before I could, Astrid added, “Oh! And Wild told me to tell you ‘no arguments unless you want further education’ — not sure what that means.”

Heat flushed over my body, and my heart quickened. She wasn't sure, but I knew exactly what he meant.

His ominous warning clamped my mouth shut. It looked like me and the other she-wolves were going on a group date.

Sea

“Well, she didn’t argue about your compulsory group date,” Astrid said when she and Wild returned to the castle’s breakfast room after dropping off the invitation for our first new moon trimate wedding in years. “But she didn’t look happy either. And before you start growling at me, still no answer to your other letters.”

“That’s why writing letters is for suckers. I tried to tell ye, only in-person would do.” Wild plopped down at the other end of the six-person table where Frey and I had already started a silent and awkward breakfast.

As they lectured me yet again, he began his plate high from the full Irish breakfast spread the castle chef had set out of rashers, sausages, eggs, grilled tomatoes, baked beans, toast, and black pudding. “If ye hadn’t lost yer head so thoroughly, I tell ye, half them Wölfennites would already be heat mooning like Lorcan and Ronan with their yellow-haired whatshername.”

“Amanda. Her name is Amanda.” Astrid took a very ginger seat in the empty chair next to him.

Across from her mate, but also conveniently as far as she could get from me.

“Whatever.” Wild speared several black pudding patties onto his fork before settling back in his seat. “In any case, this wedding’s a great excuse to call on old Seamus to teach our unmated lads The Bridal Appeal. Figure this group date might be our best chance to get those kept she-wolves on board before the Solstice Trek.”

“The Bridal Appeal? Are you serious?” Astrid scoffed. And her wife snorted around the mouthful of rashers she’d just stuffed in her gob. 

“You honestly think a ritual from the 1500s is going to make those she-wolves dislike you any less?” Frey asked with her mouth full.

Wild stabbed his fork into the black pudding, spearing three patties through its tines. “Worked for the First Reaping, 'cording to the tale and legend.”

“This Second Reaping, not First,” I growled in the wolf tongue with a shake of my head. “No dance in prophecy!”

Astrid and Frey stared at me blankly, then turned to look at Wild at the other end of the table.

“Ye got any better ideas, then?” Wild pointed his fork full of black pudding patties at me. “Other than flat-out ordering them to go on group dates with us? That tactic'll work once because we caught her off guard. But I promise you, Flower will make ye negotiate tooth and nail for every bit of face time after. And, seriously, mate, how much more of this one-sided letter writing do ye think yer wolf can take anyway?”

“Maybe he has a point, Sea. I mean, look at you.” Astrid glanced at me — at least, she tried to look at me. Her attempt ended in a miserable fail of averted eyes and a clasp of her hands to cover up her reaction to my strange appearance.

I couldn't blame her for not being able to look directly at me. After what I'd witnessed between Wild and Mairinua in the meadow, I'd barely managed to shove our still unheated queen at Astrid and Frey before I ran back to the castle to lose my head in a place where the servants had known and kept my secret for years.

I’d been hiding away in my room since then, writing letters that Mairinua had yet to answer. So this thank you breakfast for my sister who’d dutifully delivered all the courting missives I’d slipped under my door, was the first time she was seeing me since I told her to escort our queen the rest of the way back to the habitat.

Wild surely warned her before she entered the castle's breakfast room, but I doubt anything could have prepared her to share a breakfast table with someone who now appeared to be a wolf from the neck up. 

Letting the wolf out for a wee dander — that was what my uncle called it when my long pent-up sexual needs made me surrender to the primal beast within. I just called it losing my head. 

But it was nearly a week later, and I still hadn't managed to fully shift back to human.

The breathing exercises my uncle had taught me to control the wolf shortly after I hit puberty hadn’t worked. Neither had the many hand shandies I’d given myself in the castle structures we called “light showers.” No amount of seed spilling was enough relief to satisfy my wolf.

Hence the breakfast where I cut into an egg with my human hands while fighting off the temptation to bury my furry snout in the pint of Normanwolf stout that our castle chef always had poured for me whenever I lost my head. 

Astrid's wife had started out as one of the guards at the Belfast wolf compound where Astrid grew up, so she hid her emotions well — while also stuffing her mouth with the criminal amount of rashers she'd piled onto her plate. But I could tell Astrid was unsettled to be sharing breakfast with the hybrid version of her brother, the supposedly all-powerful True King.

Who'd turned out to be powerless regarding one particular she-wolf.

Want mate! Want mate! Want mate! My wolf howled inside me, but I pretended not to hear him as I rushed to reassure Astrid. 

“Man by wedding,” I growled, unable to access my human vocal cords.

Astrid, having grown up in Belfast, didn’t understand the wolf tongue. “What did he say?” she asked Wild.

“That he’ll be fine by the wedding," Wild answered our sister with a disbelieving grunt. Then he turned back to me to ask, “But what about the next time she gets yer willy up without bothering to go into heat? And the time after that? The Bridal Appeal is our best chance short of calling in the Dublin King and risking him showing up here with the Scottish Wolves at his back.”

Wild had a point, and I was desperate. Even after having surrendered my head, the wolf within me snarled and surged, eager to tear through my human form and claim dominance. My skin prickled as if thousands of tiny needles were piercing through, and the bones in my arms and legs ached with the effort it took not to fully shift under the pressure of the wolf clawing at my insides.

A now-familiar panic rose in my chest, cold and sharp, as I imagined our queen — who was already incredibly resistant to wolf-mating — witness me lose control. I could already see the disgust in her eyes, the scorn she would feel if she ever found out that I was not only a kidnapper but also incapable of restraining the near-feral beast inside of me. I couldn’t let that happen.

She had to go into heat. It was the only way to keep my wolf under control now that my future mate was living less than a kilometer away from the castle.

“Yes,” I growled, nodding my furry head at Wild. “Try your idea.”

Wild let out a whooping howl.

And once again, our sister asked, “What did he say?”

Naomi

“Any more questions before we leave?” I asked the other she-wolves gathered in the mini-classroom of chairs, couches, and floor blankets I’d set up in the habitat’s common space.

Since Astrid had dropped off the wedding invitation disguised as a mandatory group date, I’d done my best to…

1. Explain the underground world and ah… alternative customs of the Irish Wolve's secret kingdom.

2. Fill in the considerable gaps in our basic sex education. The Scottish she-wolves helped me as best they could, but it was still a huge undertaking, considering we were all unheated. The old saying, the blind leading the blind, had come to mind several times while I…

3. Prepared them as best I could for the “group date” to the Kingdom Castle.

Knowledge is power — I'd read and heard that often on the forbidden internet and had even made it the screen saver on my contraband laptop.

So, I'd spent the days before the new moon educating the Wölfennites as best I could. Which apparently wasn't good enough. I knew I had utterly failed my mission when several hands shot into the air in response to my question about whether they had any more questions. 

And the first query out of Orpah's mouth was, "Exactly what is a group date?”

“Um…”

The truth was I wasn't sure myself. Astrid hadn’t returned to the habitat since serving us with wedding invitation. Not that she’d been great at answering any of my questions before that. Or even allowed to.

Fiona stepped in to answer Orpah's group date question. “It’s basically when a bunch of people get together, have a few pints and a chin wag. The hope is by the end of the night, a few new couples will be made."

“Pints?" Priscilla, who also had her hand raised in the air, fretted her lips. "Do you mean alcohol? Amanda wouldn’t like that. It's against the Ordnung.”

"Seriously? This Ordnung shite again?" Kirsty, one of the Scottish she-wolves, rolled her eyes."We're going to her wedding to two feral wolves. I think we're a wee bit past these rules you've been hanging on to from Canada."

"Wild wolves." I felt compelled to correct Kirsty. "You can also call them the Nature Wolves since their pack dates back from before the Bronze Age."

Miriam squinted at me, her shrewd, foxy gaze narrowing with suspicion. "You learned all that in less than an hour outside this habitat?"

“Um…” My face heated. I hadn’t told anyone about the letters Sea had sent me, just passed on the knowledge I’d gained from them. Well, everything except for the Sadie explanation. That was just too strange and shocking to fully convey to ultra-cloistered she-wolves who were already taking in a ton of new information.

"Amanda is very devout!" Priscilla insisted to Kirsty, saving me from having to answer Miriam's question. "Now that she has completed her heat cycle, I'm sure she’ll return to the rules of the Ordnung.”

Kirsty just shook her head. "Alright, what part of marrying not one but two Irish lads are you not comprehending here, Prissy?"

“Yes, Leah, I see you have a question,” I said, pointing at the Wölfennite in the front row before Priscilla could get in yet another squabble. 

To say she hadn't taken the news of Amanda's pending double-husband marriage well was an understatement. She'd been painting an unnecessarily saintly picture of her best friend ever since and doggedly arguing in her defense if anyone tried to disagree.

“Yes, I have a question.” Leah scrunched her brow. “Will slavery come up on this group date?”

Worried looks all around as the Wölfennites, who'd been kept mostly ignorant of history outside the bible until I’d set up my impromptu classroom, shifted uncomfortably in their seats.

“No, no, nothing like that,” I assured them.

“Then why did you teach us about it?” Orpah asked, her expression truly flummoxed. "That particular subject was upsetting — I mean, incredibly disturbing!"

I pinched the bridge of my nose and mumbled under my breath, "Not nearly as disturbing as having to live with your ignorant…"

"What are you saying?" Hannah, one of the Wölfennites, sitting on the front row of blankets, asked. "I can't quite hear you."

I clenched my teeth into a cheery smile to remind them. "Knowledge is power. And we need all the power we can get so that all of us make it through this wedding without going into heat. So please, follow my instructions to the letter so that no one else ends up like Amanda.”

Even more hands went up into the air. 

“What if we do go into heat on our group date?” Esther, the Wölfennite sitting next to Priscilla on the couch, asked with a fearful squeak. "How will it work, being mated by two wolves at once?"

“Oh, I’m sure they take turns,” Fiona assured Esther in that jolly way of hers — and with way more authority than she should've had, considering the circumstances. “From what I can work out, Amanda was claimed by one of her mates while we were sedated and the other one quite a while later. For all we know, they might not even do the claiming in the same room!”

For all we know…

My stomach twisted, remembering the scene no one but me had been awake to witness. I just didn’t have the heart to correct Fiona and tell them that Amanda had been taken by two wolves at the same time while all the other kidnapped she-wolves lay unconscious.

“Main point: if the worst happens and you go into heat, just remember to keep your wits about you so that you only have to mate one wolf. One," I reminded them. "It's very important that you only give your pledge, as they call it, to the sole wolf of your choosing. Don't let them use your heat confusion against you like they did with Amanda.”

Nods of solemn agreement met my emphatic words, but I could see the dread in their eyes.

It matched the bloom of anxiety in my chest.

“In fact…" I took a deep breath and pushed my fear of getting further educated by Wild to offer. "If any of you want to abstain from tonight's event, I will support you. Do not worry; I will fight for your right not to participate in this ridiculous group date. Just raise your hand.”

I was completely serious, but instead of jumping on my offer, the she-wolves, with their hands in the air, snatched them down. An awkward silence stole over the room until Fiona declared, “Well, I, for one, could use some fresh air. Any excuse will do.” 

Murmurs of agreement filled the air as quickly as the hands had come down.

“It’s not truly fresh air,” I reminded them. “It’s more like some kind of tech that I can’t really explain air.”

“Well, maybe if one of us Scots took a look at it, we’d be able to explain it to the lot of you," Kirsty said, her voice taking on a helpful tone it did not have when she was needling Priscilla. "I studied for half a year at university in Glasgow before deciding to move back to Faoltiarn, you know.” She nodded around the room with a look of great authority before adding. “Computers.”

“Did you actually study computer science, or are you just bragging about knowing it exists?” I started to ask, then waved my hands in front of my face before she could answer. “You know what, never mind. It doesn’t even matter. Whatever’s going on here isn’t just computers. This secret kingdom runs on something way beyond that — like alien tech or some kind of advanced quantum science that doesn’t yet exist.”

Kirsty regarded me with a deeply pitying look. “I’m sure it would seem that way to you, having never encountered the kind of superior technology I did during my half year of uni."

I glared at Kirsty, but ironically, Priscilla cut me off before I could fully out myself as someone who’d taken several advanced courses in actual physics while she’d been on her way to dropping out of university.

"We really should check on Amanda, make sure this is what she really wants,” Priscilla insisted. “She is our sister no matter what fate has befallen her."

I couldn't disagree with her there. I nodded along with all the other worried Wölfennites.

“Nae, we wouldn’t want to abandon Amanda,” Fiona agreed with her own sober nod before adding, “And I, for one, am looking forward to a meal made by someone other than myself. I bet they have right nice desserts at the castle proper!” 

The murmurs of assent grew even louder, and Miriam had to raise her voice to ask her next question. “Do they all come in pairs like the ones who took Amanda? Or can we mix and match? For example, if I went into heat and wanted to pair that handsome Sea King who came in here with one of those Wild Wolves you mentioned.”

I did not anticipate her hypothetical. Or the strange, angry feeling that pinched my gut when she spoke about going into heat with Sea.

“Ah, I do believe the Sea King is already spoken for,” Kirsty told Miriam with a grimace. “Did you not see the way he looked at our de facto leader when he helped with Amanda?”

“No, I didn’t,” Miriam said to Kirsty before turning back to me with a hard, aggressive blink. “Is that true, Naomi? Do you want to call dibs on the Sea King?”

Suddenly, everyone’s eyes swung to me.

“N — I… n — yes, I mean, no, no, most definitely not!” I insisted after a couple of false starts. 

And weird… I wasn’t even a true believer. So, why did I feel like Judas denying Jesus? 

Anyway, I cleared my throat. “Like everyone else here, my only goal is to get through this so-called group date without accidentally going into heat. The Sea King has promised to deliver anyone who remains unheated back to Scotland in the spring, and I am most definitely going to be taking that trip."

Why would you make a promise you cannot possibly keep? Sea's voice dropped into my head. Dark and unbidden.

Shoving his voice from my mind, I gritted my teeth to remind the she-wolves around me, "If you remember what I taught you, we can all make it back to Scotland unharmed.”

But not unscarred.

Flashes of Wild’s head between my legs pulsed again like an erratic heartbeat.

“What’s that smell?” Hannah, the she-wolf closest to me, audibly sniffed. “It’s like a lighter version of when Amanda —”

"They’re here! They’re here!” one of the Wölfennites called out before she could finish.

My heart sped up at the announcement. No more questions. Everyone rose from their seats to run over to the windows, where a pack of wolves dressed in gold-trimmed white tunics and fur mantles stood on the other side of the glass.

It was time.

And as hard as I’d worked to prepare the habitat she-wolves and myself for this group date, I didn’t feel remotely ready.

Especially when I found Sea staring at me on the other side of the glass.

My breath caught at the first sight of the male who’d written me all those intimate letters. Was it possible he’d grown even more devastatingly handsome in the days since I’d last seen him?

He looked every bit the Viking King, and his intent to claim me shone clear in his amber eyes.

Oh God, Naomi… don’t go into heat. Don’t go into heat. Don’t.

My pulse quickened, but I couldn’t look away from his golden gaze as I wondered what tonight would have in store for me.

Naomi

Beyond the window, Sea raised a heavily inked arm to touch one of the knotted wolves on either side of the brooch chain that held together the flaps of his royal blue cloak. Without taking his eyes off me.

A tall and wide door, which I hadn't been able to discern a few moments ago — or during my bewildering investigations of the clear material that domed the habitat — suddenly defined itself, like an etched rectangle being drawn on glass before sliding open with barely a whisper of sound.

As Sea stepped through the newly formed door alone, all sorts of questions about energy displacement and molecular phase shifting filled my head.

Until he stopped directly in front of me and looked me up and down.

An awkward self-consciousness replaced all of my questions when I realized just how underdressed I was in comparison to the other she-wolves surrounding me. 

We'd all found casual clothes of various sizes hanging in the closets of our rooms, along with beautifully knit sweaters and cardigans.

Wölfennites didn’t believe in dressing up for weddings — that would be prideful, which was a whole section in the Ordnung. At Priscilla's urging on behalf of the absent Amanda, they’d even been washing their plain dresses every night before bed.

But for the group date, Priscilla had deigned to let them pick a pretty cardigan to wear over their plain outfits, and she hadn't said anything about many of them choosing to sport intricate braids underneath their prayer coverings. The Scottish she-wolves had been opting for casual clothes all week, but they'd also decided to dress up, bringing back out the formal ensembles they'd been wearing when they'd been kidnapped.

So now, I was the odd she-wolf out.

I might have been wearing a cardigan like the other Wölfennites, but it was over a pair of slightly too big jeans and that Sasha x Kasha concert tee I'd thrown on without much thought this morning. I wish I could say I'd done it as some act of rebellion. But the truth was, I'd been so busy investigating every inch of the habitat and trying to put together my last-minute instructions before the group date I'd been told would start "directly before sunset" that it hadn't occurred to me to put in any effort.

Unlike Sea.

He was resplendent in his white and gold tunic, his wolf crown, and that regal cloak I'd thrown in his face. Other than the crown and cape, he was technically dressed the same as all the other males standing behind the glass. But he somehow shone much, much brighter.

“Yes, he’s definitely the one I want if I go into heat,” Miriam murmured somewhere behind me.

That ugly feeling I couldn't quite name once again pinched me in the gut, and my wolf growled inside of me, baring its teeth at Miriam.

“You look wonderful.” Sea's resonant voice lifted my eyes and my attention back up to him.

Did I? I tucked a stray curl behind my ear, wishing that I'd done more than throw it into a couple of haphazard braids — wait, what was I thinking?

I tamped down my uncharacteristic burst of self-consciousness and put extra snark in my voice to answer, "Thanks. I spent all day hoping and praying that I'd gain the looks-based approval of the guy who’d kidnapped and imprisoned me."

Sea just lifted his gaze to address the rest of the group. “You all look beautiful beyond words. The Sea and Wild Wolves are fortunate and honored to give you an escort to the first proper Irish wedding held in the secret kingdom in many years. Thank you for joining us.”

"It wasn't like we were given a choice," I started to answer, only to have the rest of my response drowned out by the giggles and "thank yous" of the rest of the group.

Sea glanced my way to give me another smirk, then said, “A few things before we commence with our group date…”

He went on to explain what the group date would entail. “First, we’ll join up with the Wild Wolves, and we’ll all walk under the new moon to the wedding ceremony, which will take place at the Wild Wolves' encampment. That will be followed by a reception, and then we’ll end the night with a special performance from your Irish Wolves. If the festivities end without anyone, ah…”

He appeared to search for a term more delicate than “going into heat” and came back with, “matching with her mates, then we’ll escort you back. And I will discuss with your banríon other opportunities for my wolves to court you. Any questions?”

Was he kidding?

I smugly folded my arms and waited for several hands to shoot up in the air like they did with me. 

But everyone else just stared at him with dopey, awestruck smiles on their faces. It was as if Sea had enchanted them into reverent submission with a couple of compliments and an agenda rundown.

Sea didn't seem nearly as surprised by their lack of response as I was. He turned to lead us out of the habitat with a slight wave of his hand, expecting us to follow without question. And worse, that's exactly what we did. I felt like an irritated lemming, compelled by the crowd to move forward in his wake.

The other wolves, dressed in white and gold tunics, stepped back as a unit, giving us space to walk ahead of them. It appeared to be a thoughtful and courtly gesture. But I reminded myself it was likely a calculated move. I could just see their king giving them instructions before he walked into the habitat about how to handle us so we would start to see them as gentle wolves rather than the thugs who kidnapped us.

Unfortunately, Sea's staging of his fellow wolves was working. The Wölfennites tittered, sneaking sideways glances at the grinning males as we moved past them. Kirsty murmured, "They cut a right braw picture, don't they? Reckon it might not be so bad to take on two of them."

"Sure, until you realize that taking on two of the guys who kidnapped you from your home means you'll never see Scotland again," I replied. 

Or live out the life you had planned, I silently added, lest I forget all the reasons I couldn't let myself be swayed into accepting this situation myself.

"Meine Güte. was ist das?!" 

The astonished exclamations of the Wölfennites at the first glimpse of the secret kingdom interrupted whatever response Kirsty might have had.

I felt somewhat vindicated when Kirsty's mouth dropped open at the view beyond the archway. Apparently, her half a year of uni hadn't prepared her for this.

“Is this real?” she asked me, without any irony whatsoever. “I mean, how could they have…?”

“No idea,” I admitted. I could have rubbed her face in her assumption that I was just some Canadian know-nothing who hadn't understood what I'd seen.

But, as it turned out, forgiving came pretty darn easy when the Scottish she-wolf you needed to absolve was the only one in our group with enough context to even talk about how impossible this place was. “They claim the secret kingdom was created by their old gods, but it’s obviously some kind of extremely futuristic and advanced tech. And that's not all…”

I lowered my voice. “There's this tower I found. It leads to the outside world. We just have to figure out how to —”

"Holy shite!" Kirsty cut me off, grabbing onto my arm again. and cries went up all around us when the Wild Wolves decided to introduce themselves.

Naomi

The Wild Wolves came to stand beneath the archway leading into the secret kingdom — not as courtly males dressed in finely embroidered tunics, but as a pack of grey and black wolves — one of which I recognized. Wild's wolf stood tall at the front, the group's obvious king, even if he wasn't wearing a crown and royal cloak like Sea.

My heart stopped at the sight of the beast who'd chased me down in that field. Shock, trepidation, and something else I refused to name surged through me.

Frozen under the wolf's electric blue stare, I could hear the frantic shuffling of feet, sharp gasps, and panicked whispers as the she-wolves' excited chatter turned to cries of fear.

"Did they bring us out here just to kill us, then?" Kirsty shrieked beside me. "Is this what happened to the original Scottish she-wolves they took?"

Many of the Wölfennites were asking similar questions in the bastardized German we spoke at home. Some even turned to flee to the habitat, eyes rounded wide with the human instinct to run from vicious predators.

But the Sea Wolves chose that moment to reveal the true nature of their earlier considerate gesture. Now that we had walked past them, they were perfectly positioned to block the fleeing she-wolves' access to the habitat's open doorway.

“Don’t run!” Sea’s command echoed across the arched tunnel. “I tell you, don't run! That will only trigger the Wild Wolves' primal instinct to chase after you!”

The point soon became moot when he touched the knotted wolf brooch on his cape's fastening chain, making the slice of door in the glass disappear, and trapping us all outside its safe confines.

"You've nothing to fear," he called over the alarmed cries of the she-wolves while making a calming gesture with both hands. “The Wild Wolves are trained from puphood to stay in control of themselves. They take their shifted forms daily, and it is their way to give themselves over to their wolves before rites like weddings. Even if that were not the case…”

His expression hardened with sincerity. "We Sea Wolves would die ourselves before we let any Wild Wolf hurt you. Believe me when I tell you, you could not be safer.”

As he spoke, a strange warmth spread through my chest, making my shoulders relax slightly. The other she-wolves seemed to believe him, too. They stopped backing away, and the cries of fear died down to a few uneasy murmurs.

As if to reinforce Sea’s point, Wild’s large wolf loped forward toward me and nudged his furry head into my hanging hand. I stiffened, feeling the eyes of all the she-wolves on me. Shifters didn’t believe in keeping dogs as pets, but I’d seen enough human-fur baby interactions on the forbidden internet to recognize this as the domesticated lupine sign for wanting an affectionate touch.

I hesitated, then slowly lowered my hand to pat his head. Gingerly.

The she-wolves watched us warily, but their fear shifted to curiosity when Wild remained calm, his tail wagging slightly as I petted the space between his furry ears.

Just as Sea promised, Wild didn’t bite me. Instead, he dropped to the ground and rolled over, baring his belly.

Which I think meant he wanted me to rub his stomach?

I bent further down, giving his belly a tentative pat, and Wild whimpered with a comedic amount of delight, his furry face forming an expression I could only describe as a doggy smile. The tension in the air eased further, and a few of the she-wolves even laughed softly around me. Then, Wild flipped without warning and opened his fanged maw.

A collective gasp went up… until he began licking my face. I flinched at first, then giggled, and the group's sharp fear dissolved into coos of, “Aw, he’s stinkin' cute, isn't he!” and “Was für ein süßer Wolf!” What a sweet wolf.

With that all proven, my fellow she-wolves moved forward to pet the pack of apparently not-so-wild wolves waiting beneath the archway. Their laughter grew more genuine with each interaction.

However, Wild stayed behind with me, nuzzling his muzzle into my hand and melting my heart with his super uncharacteristic “good doggie” energy. Was this truly the same snarling beast I'd been so scared of when he emerged from the stone circle?

“Didn’t expect your Wild King to be this friendly in wolf form, hey?” I looked up to find Sea standing above me with a knowing smile.

“No,” I admitted, rising to my feet. “I’m seriously beginning to understand why dogs are so popular on social media.”

“Watched a lot of social media on that phone we pulled out of your pocket, did you?” Sea asked with a lifted brow. And a suspicious tone.

Instead of answering, I started walking again, following in the wake of the "group date" that had gotten ahead of us and veered toward the right of the archway.

I only took a few steps before both Sea and Wild's wolf fell in beside me, flanking me on either side as the sun set behind us. Sea stayed silent, and Wild remained in wolf form, but I could almost hear both of them intoning, We are your kings.

Whatever. I had more important things to think about than the Irish Kings who insisted on staying close, even though I wanted zero part in this group date. I turned my mind to the calculations I'd need for my next escape attempt.

If the simulation that the secret kingdom called the sun was setting behind us, that meant the tower, which we were walking in the opposite direction of, lay to the west. And if my hypothesis about the secret kingdom lying underneath Ireland was true, and it had popped me up inside a stone circle overlooking the sea, then we were probably somewhere along the west coast of the country.

That might mean something in terms of an actual escape plan — if we weren't walking away from the tower. Several forbidden curse words popped off in my head. I'd hoped there'd be another chance to reach the tower — maybe even bring Kirsty and a few of the other she-wolves with me.

But, at the moment, most of the Wölfennites seemed way more interested in chatting with the much taller male wolves surrounding them than trying to get the hell out of here.

Towards the back of the crowd, Fiona had a Sea Wolf on each side of her. One was tall and rail thin, the other slightly shorter and much broader. They both had their heads tilted down to hear the short and plump she-wolf better, and their melodic, amiable accents floated back to me as the three talked about scones, of all things.

Meanwhile, Kirsty giggled and bent down to stroke the backs of the two wolves walking beside her like protective pets. Frustration bubbled up inside me. Seriously, was I the only one here even mildly interested in forming an escape plan?

"Don't you worry. I've given our males strict instructions about letting the she-wolf choose if she goes into heat," Sea said beside me, mistaking the reason for my disconcerted look. "They're allowed to introduce themselves and make their hopeful pitch, but there won't be a repeat of what happened with Amanda. I know the way that played out upset you."

A thousand criticisms about his version of diplomacy sprang into my mind. But in the end, I found myself asking, "So, you're back to being Mr. Nice King? The wolf isn't in control?"

Instead of looking offended, Sea just threw me a crooked half-smile. "It's much easier for my human to run things when I can't smell your arousal, Mairinua."

A fresh wave of embarrassment flushed my cheeks as we came to the top of a rolling hill. But then I reset to insist, "Those were insane circumstances."

I gave him the excuse I'd been telling myself all week. "I'm pretty sure it had more to do with the effects of Amanda's heat smell than anything else."

Sea angled his head, his long rust-colored hair shifting under his crown as he arched an eyebrow at me. "Pretty sure?"

I cleared my throat — then abruptly decided to change the subject. “Are the Sea Wolves in control of their beasts, too? Like if you shifted, would I still be safe?”

“No, you would not be safe with my wolf.” Sea’s tone darkened. “I was not raised by the same parents as Wild. My wolf is… extremely unstable. I only voluntarily let him out for the full moon.”

I sensed there was more to that story than he was saying. But first, I had to ask, “Wait, aren’t you and Wild brothers?”

Sea shook his head. “No, save for the queen from the First Reaping, we have no ancestors in common.”

“Then why does Astrid call both of you her broth…?”

Once again, I trailed off before I could finish my thought.

Below us, in a grassy knoll, lay another village. Unlike the darling cottages, this one had large, sturdy round huts made from wooden poles driven into the ground in a circular pattern. The frames were interwoven with branches and topped with thatched roofs. This must be the wolf encampment Sea mentioned.

Whoa.

Outsiders who visited St. Ailbe often said it felt like going back in time. But as I took in the hut village with its communal fire pit surrounded by stone, it truly seemed like getting zapped into the far past. Back to a time before agriculture, when nomadic tribes either hunted or gathered their food.

This place was real. Something told me the huts were recent constructions, built by the Wild Wolves off an ancient blueprint without any help from the possibly artificial intelligence they called gods.

But it wasn't the seriously authentic village that had made me stop talking. It was the structure behind the Wild Wolf encampment.

Another tower stood in the distance beyond the collection of primitive huts.

Another tower.

My heart raced with renewed hope.

That meant another chance at escape.

Naomi

There was another tower standing a couple of kilometers east of the first escape tower! 

Were these structures some sort of guidance system? Kilometer markers like the ones the province had staked into the road outside our village? Or perhaps an easy access system for the nomadic hunter-gatherer tribe of Wild Wolves?

If it was, and my sun calculations were correct, that meant this tower was much closer to the town I’d seen than the other one. Maybe just couple of kilometers away, judging by the distance we’d walked to get to the Wild Wolves encampment.

My heart raced with all the possibilities this might mean for my escape plans.

"You will not leave my side for the duration of these festivities."

That was all the warning I got before Sea clasped my hand, his fingers fitting into the spaces between mine. Like a warm, intimate vice.

Dammit. I silently muttered a string of forbidden internet words. But then I remembered the opening to his first letter.

…in those long years of solitude, I dreamed of you. I imagined holding hands with my queen as we oversaw important rites like holidays and weddings.

This was a moment he had been waiting for, I realized. Ever since he had been left alone in his castle, ruling over the secret kingdom with only a visiting uncle serving as regent.

Part of me wanted not to care and snatch my hand back.

However, the other part — the part that had stayed up well into the night reading and re-reading Sea’s long letters couldn’t bring myself to make him let me go.

Let him have this, I decided as we walked down the hill to the Wild Wolves encampment. Together. It probably wouldn’t hurt to give him a false sense of comfort as I continued to mentally plot my escape.

Also, pretending felt… not horrible. I’d never held hands with a male before, and that sort of thing was discouraged amongst the mated wolves in St. Ailbe — something about PDA being akin to vulgar bragging.

The hand-holding act made a warm, happy emotion flutter in my chest, though. Like putting on mittens to build a snowman in the winter.

We stopped a few meters away from a communal fire pit surrounded by stones. Among those gathered, I noticed not only the other captured she-wolves and their hopeful male suitors but also something I hadn't seen in the week or so since we arrived: older males and a smaller group of she-wolves in their forties.

The she-wolves eyed my jeans and t-shirt with open disapproval, and I guess I couldn’t blame them.

Unlike me, they were dressed for the occasion in long shifts adorned with dusky gold jewelry that glinted under the simulated sun's waning light. Each woman was flanked by two older male wolves wearing green tunics with embroidered edges. For some reason, many of the males held instruments: a mix of harps, wooden flutes, something that looked like a miniature guitar, and large frame drums.

“These are the elders from both the Sea and Wild packs," Sea explained beside me, unprompted.

“Oh!” I said, noticing that the number of wolves had almost doubled. I then asked, “Which ones are Wild’s parents?”

Wild, in his wolf form, went still beside me.

“If his parents were here, he would not be your Irish King,” Sea answered for him.

What did that mean?

Sea began speaking to the assembled audience in the Irish version of Gaelic before I could ask.

It was hard to label the mood of the wolves waiting outside the hut as they listened to Sea speak, but it was solemn. As if the most important thing ever was about to happen, and it made me wonder how long it had been since this village hosted a wedding.

Sea, who still hadn't let go of my hand, seemed to be reciting some kind of poem. None of the words rhymed, but his tone held a cadence that reminded me of a spoken song. Even though I didn't understand a word he was saying, his resonant voice held me riveted as the sky darkened to reveal the secret kingdom's approximation of a new moon.

As soon as the sliver of light appeared above us, Wild lifted his muzzle to the sky and led his shifted pack in a strange howl of a wolf song to accompany Sea's spoken verse.

On cue, the males holding the instruments began playing a tune so wild and intense that my heart sped up with anticipation, even though I hadn't wanted to attend this wedding in the first place.

Then, without warning, Sea stopped speaking, and the wolves' synchronous bay and the males playing music came to a dramatic halt. A crackling fire silence fell over the gathering as almost everyone turned to face the large hut directly behind the fire pit.

For a moment, all was still, and then Lorcan and Ronan emerged from the hut with Amanda between them, each male holding fast to one of their mate's hands. Lorcan and Ronan were dressed similarly to the unmated Sea Wolves in white tunics with gold-embroidered edges.

However, my breath caught at the sight of Amanda in a gown made of rich, blood-red fabric with intricate embroidery along the edges. The dress featured long bell sleeves with detailed patterns at the cuffs and a wide black belt cinched at her waist. She also wore a fur stole draped over one shoulder, and her long blond hair was styled with delicate braids interwoven among loose strands, with two medium-sized plaits keeping the rest of her locks out of her face.

But her non-Ordnung-approved hairstyle and dress weren’t what made me catch my breath.

To my shock, Amanda didn't look defeated or even sad as Lorcan and Ronan guided her to stand on the other side of the communal pit. She smiled up at her mates, her blue eyes sparkling in the firelight — not with her wolf’s night vision but with genuine happiness. The kind of happiness that comes from within and cannot be faked.

She looked… radiant.

I had been planning to intercede before the ceremony began to remind Amanda that she still had choices. But the formerly prudish know-it-all vibrated with a joy I’d never seen her express before — not even during a rousing game of baseball. This wasn't resignation — but a visible excitement that made my planned intervention suddenly feel unnecessary.

My determination to save Amanda from what I'd believed to be a terrible fate faltered. Could I have been wrong about everything? Was she truly happy with them? But how could that be when —

“Amanda! Amanda!” A voice suddenly called out in Wölfennite, “Do not do this!”

Everyone turned to look at Priscilla, who pushed through the wolves gathered to the right of the pit, her expression desperate in the moonlight. “You must listen to me now! You do not have to do this. You do not have to marry two males you have only just met! I cannot stop thinking about what the she-wolf called Frey told me before about females being allowed to marry in this society. I am your best friend, and I…”

Priscilla's eyes shined with the sincerity of what she said next. “I love you. I have loved you in secret for so long. Do not marry these strangers this evening. I am asking you to marry the best friend who loves you. Marry me!”

A gasp went up from everyone who understood Wölfennite. Including me.

As they often say on the forbidden internet, WTF??? This was not how I expected our possible wedding intervention to go.

"What did she say?" Sea demanded to know beside me.

And somewhere in the crowd, I heard Frey's voice ask, "Why are all the Wölfennites suddenly looking at me?"

Naomi

The Wölfennites collectively gasped.

Then they glared accusingly at Frey, who was standing further back in the crowd with Astrid.

Then, Ronan growled in English, “Did you just dare to ask our mate to marry you instead of us?”

Well, new knowledge unlocked about the ESP bonds that mates shared:

Evidently, the mate bond could be shared with more than one partner.

And it must act as a translator.

Lorcan and Ronan appeared to have understood exactly what Priscilla said, and they both took a menacing step toward the Wölfennite who had just proposed to their bride.

For some reason, every Wölfennite in the crowd turned to look at me as if to ask how I was going to resolve this situation. Including Priscilla.

I wasn’t their queen. Non-hierarchical societal structure was about the only belief system I shared with the Wölfennites. Even so, something compelled me to intervene.

I turned to Sea to explain as quickly as I could why he needed to let me go. But he was already one step ahead of me. He released my hand with a firm, “Go tend to your subject,” like one of the commanders on my forbidden internet shows sending in special forces.

I rushed forward toward where Priscilla stood, facing down the grooms and bride. Did I have any idea what I was going to say? Absolutely not.

But I had to do something.

No, I didn’t believe in any of this ridiculous queen stuff, but at least I didn’t have to fight my way through the crowd.

They moved back, making a path on the right side of the fire pit as I hurried toward Priscilla and Amanda.

But I wasn’t fast enough.

Amanda pushed her way past her grooms and said in Wölfennite, “Priscilla, stop this nonsense now! You are ruining the happiest night of my life!”

“But how can you be happy with two males?” Priscilla asked helplessly. “You hardly know them, and I am your best friend. I have loved you in secret for years —”

“Do you think I did not know that?” Amanda asked. “Or that it matters? I do not love you back. Now return to the audience and disrupt this wedding no further!”

Priscilla looked crushed. “But I love you —“

“Arghh!” Amanda stepped even closer, practically standing toe-to-toe with Priscilla as she declared in English, “You are no better than the St. Ailbe elders. Not listening to me. Having no care whatsoever for what I want. Yes, you love me, but I have chosen Lorcan and Ronan. You must accept my decision and cease this interruption of my wedding at once!”

“I do not understand!” Priscilla continued to speak in Wölfennite. “Everything about this wedding to two non-believers goes against our Ordnung.”

Amanda answered her in English. “The Ordnung is cow dung, and our Wölfennite queen was right all along about not wishing to accept a St. Ailbe or Scottish husband!”

Our Wölfennite queen? At first I was confused, then my mouth dropped open with the realization that Amanda — who had apparently, as they say on the forbidden internet, drunk all the kool-aid — was talking about me.

I’d come to intervene, but I ended up staring at Amanda in complete shock. Meanwhile, another gasp went up from the Wölfennites.

“Yes, you heard me correctly!” Amanda continued defiantly, turning to address the Wölfennites instead of Priscilla. “We have all been brainwashed by the rules of our Wölfennite Ordnung, which were written by males so that we females would do whatever they wanted. My father, our Deacon, held such a respected position within our community. But do you know that he became a terrible tyrant behind closed doors? I cannot recall even one day that he did not belittle my mother in front of me — for the absolute smallest infractions — when all he did for either of us was sit around dispensing unnecessary orders. I also cannot count the times he brought her to tears simply because he was bored at night with nothing else to do. And I very much doubt that I'm the only Wölfennite here whose father treated her mother like that.”

Well, my beloved father gave up his entire culture and country of origin to be with my mother and vocally considered it the best decision he’d ever made. But the shifting feet of Priscilla and many of the other Wölfennites let me know that Dad may have been the exception. 

"Sometimes our brothers, too," Leah called out from the crowd on the other side of the fire.

"I believe you!" Amanda declared, pointing at Leah. "We are told our community has no hierarchy, but that is only because all the males have been given thrones!"

I was in complete agreement but could hardly believe these sentiments were coming from Amanda's mouth. In the dramatic flickering shadows of the firelight, she looked like nothing less than an avenging angel. Meanwhile, Priscilla stood there, looking completely stricken, unable to find words.

Orpah appeared to be speaking for her and the rest of the shocked Wölfennites when she called out from the crowd, "But you were our truest believer, Amanda! Less than two weeks ago after the full moon, you were saying that you would only marry a male who would agree to accompany you back to our community in Canada and live a pious life. How could you have changed your view so radically and fallen in love with two males you’ve known for less than half a moon cycle?"

"I did say that, didn't I?" Amanda shook her head as if she were talking about her teenage self, not the sanctimonious she-wolf she was only half a month ago. “I cannot believe that I was so brainwashed that I'd actually hoped to bring one of the Scottish Wolves to accompany me back to St. Ailbe so that I could live under the same oppressive system as my mother. But then I met my husbands."

Amanda's gaze softened, and she looked over her shoulder to behold her grooms. “Lorcan and Ronan have shown me care and consideration like none I have ever known or witnessed. Orpah, you asked me how I could love two strangers I only met such a short time ago. The answer is, how could I not? These two Irish Wolves have shown me a new way and given me a chance to escape that terrible destiny. I am so very fortunate."

She held out her hand to Lorcan and Ronan, and both males clasped it as they regarded her with equally — if not more — tender gazes.

Amanda's face then grew serious as she turned to address the rest of the Wölfennites, this time in our community language. “Hear me now in this. We have all been brainwashed into believing that following the paths of our mothers is the only choice for us. These two Irish Wolves have given me a chance to escape that terrible destiny, and I could not be more grateful. My advice to you is to use this wedding to get to know these kind and good males. Then pray that you go into heat so that two of them can take you to wife.”

The Wölfennites stared back at her in open-mouthed confusion.

Priscilla finally found her voice. “Amanda, I do not know what devil has stolen your mind, but you must —”

I sighed and stepped between the best friends to intervene as I had originally meant to.

“She has given you her answer, Priscilla,” I said to the slightly taller she-wolf in Wölfennite. “And she is right about at least one thing. This is her choice, and she told you no.”

Priscilla’s face turned red, and she glanced side to side, suddenly seeming to remember that she was surrounded by a crowd of other wedding guests.

“Look at me,” I told her, placing both hands on her shoulders. “Do not be embarrassed over this. What you did was brave. And from me, you have no judgement. But you must stand back and let your best friend have her wedding.”

Priscilla sniffed, her lip trembling as she visibly held back tears, but in the end, she stepped away and returned to the audience as I instructed.

I let out a breath of relief — until I saw the way the other Wölfennites shuffled away from her as if she’d become infected with some unknown disease.

Bitches. Remembering all the reasons I’d been planning to leave St. Ailbe behind, I started forward to tend to Amanda.

But Wild’s wolf got in front of me before I could. I hadn’t even realized he’d followed me when I’d left Sea’s side, but here he was, blocking my way with an expression on his furry face that was no longer playful.

Wild and I didn’t have ESP like Amanda and her husbands, but somehow, I knew he expected me to return to where Sea stood.

Luckily, Frey chose that moment to emerge from the crowd of freaked-out Wölfennites and place a comforting arm around Amanda’s shoulders.

Meanwhile, Wild did his best impression of a sheepdog, all but herding me back to Sea’s side.

"Good job," Sea whispered when I got there. "You were truly the queen they needed."

Wild's wolf nuzzled my legs as if to say, "I agree!"

My chest swelled in response to their double compliment, and maybe it was the adrenaline pumping through me, but I just couldn’t dredge up the defiance to feel bad about it.

You are a queen born and cleverer than a den of foxes. Even as I recover from what happened in my castle, I find myself wondering how a parentless wolf like me got so lucky. The Irish Wolves are beyond fortunate to have gained you as a ruler.

Sea’s written words floated through my head as he clasped my hand tightly again and smoothly transitioned back into the ceremony as if no interruption had taken place.

“We will conduct the rest of the wedding ceremony in English to honor the bride and her guests,” Sea announced to the gathered audience.

Then he turned to the two grooms and asked, “Lorcan and Ronan of the Wild Wolves, do you agree to always light the way for your bride?”

Lorcan and Ronan lowered two torches I hadn't noticed they were carrying, lit them in the fire, then raised them above their heads. In unison, they declared to Amanda, “We will always light your way!”

“Amanda of the Wölfennites, do you agree to let these grooms honor you as your mates and protectors as they light the way for your path in marriage?” Sea asked in his resonant way.

“Oh, yes, yes, I do!” Amanda agreed without a second of hesitation.

“Good, then you three are well met,” Sea declared with a wide smile. “Your Wild King and I both pronounce you husbands and wife.”

With that, the crowd cheered, and the musicians began playing a light, happy tune.

Wait, that was it? It occurred to me that what I’d just witnessed was the opposite of a St. Ailbe wedding.

Our ceremonies were brief, too, so as not to fall into pompous display, which was strictly forbidden by the Ordnung. But they were still much longer than this. Apparently, Abel Flosswulf had needed way more time to instruct the bride in her many servile duties to her new husband.

Amanda’s words floated through my mind as I watched her kiss Lorcan, then Ronan, who further thrilled the Irish Wolves in the audience by bending Amanda back dramatically.

You asked me how I could love two strangers I only met a week ago. The answer is, how could I not?

As I watched Amanda with her new husbands while standing between the two males who wanted me to become their queen, a new feeling sprouted in my chest.

“One day that will be us.” Sea’s Irish brogue was a song in my ear.

One I knew I had no business liking. I will allow myself to like to for a few minutes. Only a few minutes I assured my unexpectedly aching heart and the low purr of my wolf.

I stilled at that low hum from my wolf. Even a second would be too dangerous.

Not if I wanted to stay out of heat.

One I refused to acknowledge or name before ruthlessly squashing it down.

Get the rest of the Wölfennites through this wedding without anyone going into heat, and figure out an escape route to the tower. That was the plan. 

It didn't matter what Amanda had said. I couldn't let myself stray from it. 

I had a whole life to live, and it didn't include the two Irish kings who had kidnapped me.

Naomi

Frey had remarked on my preference to hear the good news before the bad.

I supposed some people liked to hear the bad first and then use the good news as a balm to deal with it.

But in my experience, the good news was just something to get out of the way. The bad news was the actual situation you had to deal with in the end — the ‘y’ you had to solve for ‘x.’

The good news was that after years of hard work, my secret plan to get into the school of my dreams, the Ontario Institute of Technology, had worked.

The bad news was that I had to wait until January to be able to join classes and take a bunch of intro courses I could do in my sleep.

The good news was that I’d gotten one of the two older sisters I’d never thought I’d see again back a year ago.

The bad news was that in order to attend her wedding, I had to sign up for an absurd Bridal Exchange and take a side trip to Scotland — where I and a bunch of my fellow unmated Wölfennites were subsequently kidnapped by the Irish Wolves.

The good news was that the Irish Kings had sworn to return any captured she-wolf who did not go into heat to Scotland so that we could proceed with our lives as originally planned by spring.

The bad news was that all the imprisoned, unheated she-wolves were having a dangerous amount of fun at Amanda's wedding reception. Including me.

You asked how I could love two strangers I only met a week ago. The answer is, how could I not?

What Amanda had suggested about us choosing the Irish Wolves who had kidnapped us over returning to Scotland had been crazy.

But her words seemed to drift through the nighttime wedding along with rollicking Irish music as woven plates of roasted meats, cheeses, and delicious bread rolls were passed around by the milling guests.

The Wölfennites did not dance, and unlike Amanda and the Scottish she-wolves, they refused to disobey that part of the Ordnung to do anything resembling gyrating to the lively music.

But that somehow didn’t stop them from fully enjoying the festivities and all the attention they were getting from Irish Wolves in male and beast form. I spotted Orpah setting a plate of meat in front of the two wolves and Miriam having a lively conversation with a Sea Wolf who appeared delighted to be in her company. His side-shaven locks only reached his shoulders and he sported no tattoos. But he had the same rust-colored hair as Sea and a similarly long nose and wide mouth.

“Is that a relative of yours?” I asked Sea, since he still hadn’t let go of my hand — just like Wild had refused to leave my side.

“My younger cousin, Thorin.” Sea sounded pleasantly surprised that I made the connection. “He’s the product of the trimate relationship my uncle moved on to after my mother died, but he oversaw my care when he became King Regent. Of course, he had his own family to attend to, but he made sure to visit me every day until I reached adulthood and could rule on my own.”

A pang of sympathy pierced the heart I was trying to keep hard. I hated thinking about a young Sea living mostly alone in his castle, with only daily visits from an uncle who’d moved on to another relationship that didn’t include his nephew. “Why didn’t he bring his new family to live with you in the castle?”

“I had… a few issues… after my father’s departure, especially during my teenage years.” Sea looked at the ground. “It wouldn’t have been a good idea to expose Thorin, who was still a young boy at the time to my struggles to adapt to my new role as a too young ruler.”

“It’s hard to imagine you ever having a hard time ruling,” I told him. “You seem so at home in your role.”

“You can put that down to all the extra years of practice,” he answered with a careless grin. But I noticed his smile didn’t quite reach his amber eyes.

“Sea…” I started to reach out to touch his arm with my free hand.

But then a sharp trill of laughter made me pull back my hand.

I looked over to find that Miriam had thrown back her head, laughing overly hard at something Thorin said.

Actually, this party was at peak glee, I noticed, glancing around. Laughter washed across the outdoor gathering like waves as the Wölfennites talked with, petted, and in some cases, scratched the Irish Wolves, behind the ears.

“Come,” Sea said in that authoritative “I’ve been kinging forever” way of his. “We’ve a few people we’d like you to meet.”

Wild led the way as Sea escorted me around the wedding, introducing me to various elders in Gaelic I couldn’t understand.

Apparently, his and Wild's insane rule about males not being allowed to talk to me didn’t count if they were already mated. One of the first things Lorcan and Ronan did after kissing their bride was run up to Sea, Wild, and me, place their fists upon their chests and make a somber declaration in unison — also in Gaelic.

Sea let me know it was the “lifelong vow that every warrior owed their banreen” before saying something back to them that I also didn’t understand.

So, I had just enough information to feel like a big old fraud as older warrior after warrior made the same vow as soon as Sea introduced me to their triad.

To be clear, I tried telling them they didn’t have to swear me any kind of fealty — especially since I’d be gone in the spring.

But I gave up protesting after the first three warriors pretended not to hear me say that.

Luckily, after the formal introductions, all the elders answered in English and appeared delighted to meet me. 

Even when I responded to their friendly questions like “Howya farin’ then?” and “What did you think of our secret kingdom?” with “About as well as anyone who was ruthlessly kidnapped and is currently being held captive” and “It’s the prettiest, most insane prison I’ve ever laid eyes on.”

In fact, my honest answers were often met with eruptions of laughter and odd compliments like, “Oh, you’re pure clever, aren't you?” and to Sea and Wild, “The gods have truly blessed you with a banreen of worth.”

Their responses were… well, not what I was used to.

The decision to speak my sharp-tongued mind had come at fifteen as a defense mechanism against getting mated with any of the misogynistic males in St. Ailbe.

And between the otherness of me being half-Black and what the elders often referred to as “my prickly temperament,” my vocal defense system had worked.

But to hear the Irish Wolves' elders' responses to my sharp answers, you’d think I was the brightest, wittiest, most charming person they’d ever met.

And the feeling that gave me inside my chest wasn’t… well, it wasn’t exactly unpleasant.

After growing up in St. Ailbe, I wasn’t used to such community acceptance.

Or males who didn’t mind that I wasn’t even remotely the subservient, docile mate that nearly every guy in St. Ailbe had been conditioned to want.

Wild happily loped along beside me, occasionally nudging my hand for another scratch behind his ears. And though Sea barely knew me, his voice rang with pride when he introduced me to his only family members outside of Astrid at the party who were actually allowed to converse with me: Darragh — the uncle who’d acted as his King Regent until he turned sixteen, his aunt-in-law, Aoife, and a short, wiry male named Finneas who Sea called his third-in-law.

A strange defensiveness lingered over the fact that they hadn’t pulled Sea into their happy family unit. Still, it was nice to finally put faces to the names from Sea’s long letters about his life before he decided to steal a bunch of innocent Wölfennites from Scotland.

“So then, the True King tells us you’ve a right keen mind and might have quite a few questions for me,” said Finneas, after Uncle Darragh — who also served as Sea's warrior beta — was done with his whole fealty spiel.

“True King?” I asked.

Aoife chuckled. “You’ll find after you’re officially mated that all Irish royals have at minimum three titles. Our Sea can be addressed as the Sea King, the True King, and the Viking King — especially if we’re doing up one of those pyre funerals.”

“And those are just the official ones!” Darragh added with a laugh of his own. “I’m sure once you exchange your birth names, you’ll also come up with pet ones of your own if ye haven't already.”

I blinked, slightly startled. Was that why Wild kept calling me Flower? Was it his pet name for me until he received my real one? An unexpected warmth filled my chest at the thought.

“Anyhow,” Finneas said, bringing the conversation back around to his original point. “If you’ve any questions about the design of the secret kingdom — or want to have a go at using the god tech to create new annexed villages like the one I heard you lot had built back in Scotland, perhaps the Sea King can escort you over to my office in the castle for a chin wag.”

“Wait.” My heart sped up. “Are you trying to tell me you have access to the tech that made this place? And you can manipulate it to create other structures?”

The answer to that question turned out to be yes… sort of. Finneas and I spent the next few minutes in an exciting but frustrating conversation about his role in using the “god tech.”

Apparently, he was what the Irish Wolves called a Master Builder, a position that had been passed down in his family from generation to generation ever since the Sea Wolves took over the secret kingdom that had been left to the Wild Wolves after the “gods went to sleep.”

That meant Finneas had what sounded like a SIMS level of creation power over the look of the secret kingdom and could actually program certain 3-D structures into its simulated reality — that was the good news.

The bad news was he didn’t actually know how the god tech worked — like, at all.

When I pressed him too hard, he shrugged and said, “S’pose it’s like asking a software lad what makes a computer tick. All I was taught, all I’ve ever known, is how to code the thing and make it work. The god tech is beyond my frame of reference. No wires or understandable hardware I can see. Just a glass console loaded with glowing words in the god language.”

“The god language?” I thought of all the codes and symbols in the cave kitchen. “Is that the same as —”

“Enough of this tech speak, now. It is a wedding,” Sea commanded. But then his gaze softened on me, and he said, “If you like, Mairinua, I can take you to the control room at the castle tomorrow.”

Mairinua? Was that another pet name or one of the titles I would inherit if I were to actually agree to be his queen?

My heart fluttered with curiosity — along with something else I still refused to name as I answered, “I'd like that very much.”

There were more guests to meet after that, including the Master Farmer, who managed the secret kingdom's vast fields, and the Master Shepherd, who offered to give me a walking tour of what he referred to as "donkey acres of pastures filled with sheep — a few donkeys, too, actually — but mostly sheep."

All this wedding nonsense must have really softened me up. Instead of giving him a sharp-tongued, "No effing thanks," I made a non-compliant sound and waited until he was gone to confess to Sea, "Seriously, after growing up in St. Ailbe, I'd be totally alright with never seeing a farm animal again."

Sea chuckled in response, and it felt weirdly intimate. Like we were some kind of real couple sharing a secret laugh. Even though we weren't. We most definitely weren't.

"It's getting late," I cleared my throat and chose that moment to point out, "And no one's gone into heat. I guess your group date plan was a bust."

"We'll see." Sea's mouth hitched up into a self-assured half smile. That was beginning to become familiar. Then, he unexpectedly let go of my hand. "Wait here for me while I go fetch us some cake."

Another command. But instead of feeling resentful after he left, I found myself staring off into the distance as I imagined what the control room for this secret kingdom might look like. Were there truly no wires? Then perhaps I’d find some solar panels. Seriously, it could be anything. Would I even be able to figure out what I was looking at?

Maybe I should ask Sea for something to take notes with before tomorrow's field trip — even paper would do. I mean, I hated writing by hand, but I did want to be a non-self-taught physicist someday. And what physicist, amateur or real, would pass up the chance to figure out how a sustained simulation with actual 3-D structures worked just because she didn't have access to a tablet when —

“I know what ye’re thinking about," a rough voice said beside me out of the blue. "And I'm here to tell ye, it ain't going to work."

I didn't realize I was staring in the direction of the tower until I jerked my head around to see Wild, now in human form, glaring down at me.

Naomi

I hadn’t even noticed that Wild's wolf had slipped away from my side, where he’d been all night, and my breath caught at his transformation.

He now wore an ivory and gold tunic, just like Sea and the other guys who’d decided to attend the wedding in human form. But he had a fur stole draped over his shoulders. It wasn’t as long as Sea’s cape, but it was fastened with the same intricate knotted wolf clasps, giving him that same regal vibe.

Most surprising of all, he now wore a crown on top of his closely cropped hair. But unlike Sea’s black and silver crown with amethysts, Wild’s crown was made from dusky gold, the same material as his earrings, and painted with green details that reminded me of Ireland's endless emerald fields.

As it turned out, Wild's wolf cleaned up into a surprisingly dashing king. I might have even complimented him on his royal glow-up — if not for the way he was glaring down at me.

“What, did ye think I’d stay on all fours for the entire wedding?” Wild's lip curled with a decidedly less friendly sneer than his wolf. “Figured ye’d throw me a piece of cake like a doggie treat, shove Sea into the fire, then use the distraction to take off for the tower again?”

That actually wasn’t a terrible plan. Especially with so many of the males having drunk plentifully from the bronze chalices of alcohol also being passed around with the food.

But the truth was, I hadn’t been thinking about the tower. Like, at all. 

With a sinking heart, I realized that a new escape plan hadn’t even crossed my mind since seeing the second tower with the red door; it hadn’t entered my mind since the start of the reception. Not even once. Because the night felt enjoyable.

I found that truth way more disturbing than Wild’s false accusations.

Wild mistook my upset look for the answer he’d already assumed.

“Ye can certainly try it, but ye’re aware Sea could have stopped me a week ago before I got my head between yer legs? Did he tell ye that in all them ‘please like me’ letters he was writing ye?”

My belly fluttered at the thought of Sea watching me — watching us like that.

“It’s true. He watched me take my first taste of ye, and he had a right hell of a time controlling his wolf after he dropped ye back at the habitat,” Wild informed me with a dark smirk before leaning forward to ask, “So imagine what he’ll let me do — what we'll do to ye together if you try that shite again? No, don’t look for him, Flower. Keep yer eyes right here on me. Come now…”

I jolted. I didn’t even realize on a conscious level that I’d tried to look away to seek out Sea in the crowd until I found myself locked back on to Wild’s electric blue stare.

“I need ye to understand that if ye run again, there will be no further obeisance to the Heat Laws.” The smirk was gone now, replaced by a steely expression. “I will track ye down like prey, and Sea and I will take the turns we’ve been miserably waiting for since we first laid eyes on ye back in Scotland. Imagine how devastated that self-righteous ego of yers’ll be when ye beg us to keep going?”

A cold shiver ran down my spine, and my body tensed.

Actually, I did have titles. The One with the Prickly Temper. Not Nice Naomi. That Hamilton Sister with the Sharp-Tongue. That was what they used to call me behind my back in St. Ailbe.

But where was that she-wolf now? My heart thundered in my ears, and my brain jumbled with no idea what to do with Wild’s threat — his extremely carnal threat that sounded more like a promise.

“Wild, I didn’t know you’d decided to shift back or else I would have fetched a piece of this for you, too.”

Sea chose that moment to return with two pieces of cake on woven plates, reminding me why he had left. Just as Wild had reminded me why I had no business making future plans to further discover this kingdom.

“Obviously, I wanted to make sure I was in human form for the big show,” Wild answered Sea while grinning at me. “Besides, cake tastes better in human form. Wouldn’t ye agree, Flower?”

Okay, I was more naive than most twenty-three-year-olds when it came to sex, but even I could hear the double entendre in his answer. Suddenly, Wild’s pet name no longer struck me as sweet.

I snatched the plate from Sea without a thank you and asked, “How much longer are we required to stay on this group date?”

Sea cocked his head, his eyes widening slightly at my abrupt question. “There’s just the performance to go. It’ll be starting any moment now.”

“Then we can go home?” The perma-harsh note I’d let slip out of my voice during the reception returned with full vengeance. "Or, in our case, back to the prison where you're keeping us locked up?"

Sea stared at me for a long beat, then turned to Wild. “Alright, then, what did you say to her?”

Wild shrugged with the impudence of a lion who could do whatever he wanted. “Caught her eyeing the tower with the red door like it was fresh meat and gave her a warning, is all.”

“The tower with the red door!” Sea’s face fell. Then, his voice took on a much harder note. “Tell me you’re not even thinking of attempting that.”

“Don’t worry, I made it clear just how bad an idea that would be for her,” Wild answered for me while taking Sea’s piece of cake for himself.

"Alright, I get your point." Sea sighed. "But you clearly could have been nicer explaining things to her."

"Could I have, though?" Wild took a bite of the cake and added with a full mouth, “Wouldn't want her missing tomorrow's little field trip to the secret kingdom's control room after ye and yer third-in-law did such a tip-top job pitching it to her.”

The sweet cake turned to ash in my mouth.

“So, this has all been a setup?” I asked Sea. “Including luring me in with the control room details?”

Sea’s guilty look in another direction was all the answer I needed to those questions.

How could I have been so naive? I kicked myself for being lulled into a false sense of camaraderie by Sea's offer to show me the control room. 

“Five minutes.” Sea turned on Wild, his expression thunderous. “I left you alone with her for five minutes, and you just decided to undo all the work we’ve done?”

“She was back to eye-fucking the tower as soon as you stepped away,” Wild pointed out on a growl. “And the thing is, my friendly eejit of a wolf might have given her the wrong impression. Needed to disabuse her of any notion about me being kind."

Wild bared his cake-filled teeth at me. "Especially when it comes to she-wolves who run from me."

“You’re right.” A bitter fury surged through me. “Your wolf gave me way too favorable an impression of you. But don’t worry,” I assured him, “that’s all done now, and I’m back to loathing you.”

Wild just grinned in the face of my abject loathing. “Ah, well then. We'll see how ye feel about things after the Irish Wolves perform." He grinned over to Sea. "That's another reason I shifted back along with the lads taking part in the show.”

What did he even mean by that? I frowned, hating that I'd gone from finally getting some questions answered to being confused again.

“Eyes on us, Friends, Family, and Future Brides!” Lorcan’s suddenly amplified voice called out. “Eyes on us now!”

The murmur of the crowd immediately died down, and we all turned to face the communal fire pit, where what looked to be most — if not all — the unmated males outside of Sea and Wild had gathered behind the grooms and beaming bride.

Lorcan, who held a mike, announced, “Obviously, Ronan and I could not be happier with how this new moon has set. But our Amanda has told us that the only thing that would make her happier than becoming our wife is if at least a few of her Wölfennite sisters joined her in her new life as part of the Wild Wolves pack. Hopefully, she’ll get her wish tonight. So ladies, without any further chin-wagging from me, here are your unmated Irish Wolves!” 

With that, Ronan and Lorcan cleared the way, and a weird but catchy German song started playing from a sound source I couldn't see.

“Amadeus by Falco,” Sea explained in one ear. “It was the only German song we could get to work for our traditional Bride Appeal routine.”

Bride Appeal?

Before I could ask the next obvious question, the unmated males started tap dancing in perfect sync.

I mean, I suppose you could call it tap dancing. Only their legs moved from the waist down as their shoes clicked against two large pieces of flooring that definitely weren’t there when the wedding started. They must have been dragged out just for this performance. 

Okay… I frowned, trying to figure out why Sea and Wild thought a tap-dancing performance would sway the she-wolves who hadn’t yet gone into —

A cry of pain suddenly broke out over the catchy German song, interrupting my thoughts.

Was someone hurt?

I started to move forward, but Sea caught me by the arm. “Not a good idea, Mairinua. You need to stay right here between us.”

“But —”

Another cry of pain cut off my protest. Then another and another.

Then came the scent — the disturbingly familiar scent. Except, this time, it was ten times worse. At least. And that was when I realized…

It wasn't pain the she-wolves who'd cried out were in…

Heat.

Someone — more than one someones — had gone into heat.

That was the last coherent thought I got to have before Fiona suddenly appeared out of nowhere on the stage and took the tall, skinny castle cook she’d been talking to earlier down in a full-body tackle.

After that, several Wölfennites leaped onto the stage to do the same. A disturbing number of them had already stripped naked.

It was like watching a nightmare unfold in not-at-all slow motion. But instead of zombies or any other of the monsters I'd seen on the forbidden internet, it was captive she-wolves who'd sworn they wouldn't go into heat before next spring.

I was still standing, fully clothed, between Sea and Wild.

But before the German hybrid rap-pop song was even done, what appeared to be nearly all of the other captured she-wolves were on the stage, moaning and writhing like an oil painting of an ancient bacchanal.

Wait, not all.

A naked Miriam appeared out of nowhere, her eyes crazed with intent and the space between her legs dripping with heat.

"Miriam —" I began to say.

Only to break off when she leaped forward and tackled Sea to the ground.

Sea

I was completely unprepared for the running dive that knocked me to the ground. The impact was jarring, and the breath rushed out of my lungs as a desperate heat scent filled my nose.

But it was the wrong scent.

I blinked as the spinning world came back into focus, and I found myself staring at the sharp-featured, red-haired Wölfennite I'd noticed my cousin talking to earlier — the one who reminded me of a fox.

She yanked my tunic down the middle, breaking the fastening chain that held my cloak together and exposing my bare chest.

“You need a queen," she declared, pressing her naked breasts into my naked chest. "And I am more than ready to serve.” 

The foxy Wölfennite lowered her face to mine for a kiss. The first one I’d ever received after years of saving myself for my fated mate.

Tear off her face!

Without the scent of our Mairinua foremost in my nose, my wolf surged forward. Primal rage burned through my veins, my face muzzled with fur, and my slipping control clawed at my shifting vocal cords as my worst fears started to come true. 

Keep your nose in the air. For the time of Mairinua will soon come.

I never saw my father again after that fateful meeting. But his last instructions echoed in my chest as I fought to keep my head.

Twenty-nine years. My entire adult life, I’d waited for our Mairinua. Saved myself for her.

And now, another she-wolf was trying to claim my first kiss. 

"Do not–grrrr!" My vocal cords shifted before I could warn off the she-wolf who'd jumped on top of me, giving way to a low growl.

Harming a female went against everything I believed, but the vicious beast inside me wouldn’t hesitate to kill her before letting her steal this long-held milestone. It wasn’t just about causing harm — this unwanted she-wolf who had thrown herself at me would die by my hands if my wolf had its way.

And then Mairinua, the only captive who hadn’t gone into heat, would discover my ugly truth: the calm and charming king who’d wooed her through letters, who she’d spent a delightful eve with was nothing but a façade, hiding the vicious, out-of-control wolf lurking beneath.

I tried to clamp down on the incoming head shift, but my fangs sharpened with the instinct to tear out the cheeky she-wolf's throat. Everything. This would ruin every —

One moment, the unwanted she-wolf was there, and the next, she was… gone.

Relief hit me like a train as my face unmuzzled. Thank the three gods. I sat up on my forearms, thinking Wild must have intervened before it was too late.

It wasn't Wild who’d saved me from involuntarily slaughtering the unwanted she-wolf, though.

“Not today, Satan!” Mairinua cried.

Shock rolled back the incoming head shift, and my fangs receded as I watched our reluctant queen pull the naked she-wolf off of me — then grab her by the wrist and ankle and toss her across the encampment dirt like someone throwing a bale of hay. 

Or like a she-wolf queen refusing to let another claim her Sea King.

“Argh! You said you didn’t want him!” the unwanted she-wolf shrieked from the ground. "What changed?"

I wondered the same thing.

Mairinua didn't answer the indignant she-wolf she'd thrown. But as my uncle often said when trying to teach me during my formative years that my actions would always speak louder than whatever words I spoke, "Is fearr tobar ná mar a deirtear." Loosely translated: a well done is better than a well said.

My heart raced with the realization that despite Mairinua's initial vow to hate me forever, she was defending me from being taken by another she-wolf — a she-wolf who immediately scrambled to her feet and tried to come at me again.

But she only managed a couple of steps before our queen stepped in front of her, blocking her path to me with a growl. “Don’t even try it, bitch.” 

Granted, I hadn't bothered to read this Ordnung the Wölfennites kept going on and on about, but I was fairly sure that particular word was probably forbidden. 

Suddenly, instead of battling my wolf, I was fighting to keep a smug grin off my face as I climbed to my feet with zero effort required to stay in my human form.

The red-haired Wölfennite backed down with another frustrated shriek. But then she looked around desperately. And set her sights on Wild.

It seemed the heated she-wolf had just enough reasoning left to realize that if she couldn’t have me, there was another Irish King at her avail. The she-wolf veered toward where Wild stood — like a fox who’d just found another chicken to eat. 

My heart dropped into my stomach. 

Obviously, our Mairinua had gone back on her vow to despise me forever. But I remembered the scathing tone she'd used to tell Wild that she'd returned to hating him. Just a few minutes ago. 

I tensed, expecting to have to intervene, even if it meant risking my wolf coming out again. 

But before the covetous female could even make it a few steps, Mairinua planted her boot on the she-wolf’s chest and kicked her back, like something straight out of a martial arts movie. 

My heart once again rushed with delight while Wild cackled and cheered like someone whose team had just scored. “That’s right, Flower! Show her who yer kings belong to!”

This time, the fox didn’t scramble back to her feet. She coughed several times before making a weak, shaky climb into a standing position. Getting the wind knocked out of her must have been enough to convince her not to try again.

Instead, she looked around and shuffled toward my cousin, clutching her chest.

Which I'll admit left me feeling triumphant for more reasons than one. 

But, alas, there was no time to gloat.

For the most part, Wild's scheme had worked. The heat scent, multiplied several times over, had risen like a cloud above the gathering. And, as we'd discussed before the wedding festivities, the Sea elders had mobilized to ensure that the matings proceeded fairly, with the she-wolves' choices being respected — whether they opted for one mate or two.

However, even with a mostly two-to-one ratio, the numbers of she-wolves to eligible wolves still didn’t add up.  

Our queen had fought for us, but she still hadn’t gone into heat like the rest of the captives, and I didn’t want her here when the rest of the unmated males realized they wouldn’t be gaining a bride like many of their compatriots this eve.

"We've got to get her back to the habitat," I said to Wild, bending down to pick up the cloak that had come unfastened when Miriam tore my tunic down the front.

No surprise there — the fastening chain was ancient. The story was that it was made for the first True King shortly after the original Cursed King ceded the secret kingdom to the Sea Wolves. But where had my wolf knots gone? I searched the ground underneath the cloak I'd picked up but failed to find either of the brooches that would "door" the habitat's glass.

"Here, take mine." Wild yanked off the chain, fastening his fur stole, and handed it to me. “We can look for your openers later. Get her back to the habitat before the unmated lads have too much heat in their noses to obey orders.”

I nodded at my fellow king, and thank the three gods, Mairinua didn’t fight me when I took her by the hand and hauled her off in the direction of the habitat.

It was a long, silent, and awkward walk back. I suspected she was processing what she’d just done, coming to terms with having feelings other than antipathy for Wild and me.

Brilliant. I wanted her to think long and hard about her actions this eve.

Still, as I doored the glass to the empty habitat where she’d be forced to live alone until we got the heated she-wolves sorted, her words from earlier haunted me.

Prison, sweet prison.

"Mairinua…" I caught her hand before she could walk inside. “I don’t… I don’t want this to be your prison.”

Our formerly reluctant queen didn’t speak, but she lifted her eyes to meet mine, making my heart catch. 

I'd thought her pure feek from the first moment I spotted her. But now that I'd gotten to know her, her beauty came even more into focus. The intelligence in her sharp, brown eyes, the full mouth more than willing to drip acid when she thought I was full of shite. 

“I have to get back and help Wild and the elders manage. There will be a lot of domicile assigning and sorting when this is all done — especially for the triads with males from two different kingdoms," I explained, resisting the urge to run a thumb over her pillowy bottom lip. "But after I’m done with all that, I’ll come here straight away, and you know, Mairinua…"

My shy wolf tucked his head down under his paws, trembling in fear of the rejection my proposal might bring forth. But I made myself push out the next words, "I could bring you to the castle. Give you free rein even. But you'd have to promise not to use any of the tech you find to contact your sister or any of the Scottish Wolves.”

"Free rein?" She cast her eyes to the side, her expression thoughtful. Then to my shock, she looked right back up at me to say, “Okay, I agree not to use any of the tech in the castle to contact anyone outside the secret kingdom. You have my word.”

I didn’t realize I was holding my breath until my chest just about caved in with relief. And joy.

It was technically still night, but it felt like a brand new day.

“I’ll be back by tomorrow morning,” I reluctantly released her hand but let her know, “You won’t be in here too long. I promise you."

She nodded. "Okay."

I grinned. "Alright."

For once, we were in full agreement, but when I tried to step back to let her go inside, she caught my arm. “Sea, wait…”

I didn’t have time for further conversation. As the True King, I should be back at the encampment overseeing the next steps now that so many of the captive she-wolves had gone into heat, and I'd already spent considerable time dealing with this side quest.

But I learned in an instant how impossible it was for me to deny her when I answered, “Yes?” Without a moment of hesitation.

"Sea, I…" That was all the warning she gave me before curling her hand around the back of my neck and pulling me down to her lesser height. 

Her mouth touched mine.

And suddenly, after twenty-nine long years, it was happening…

My first kiss.

Wild

Truth was, I'd never had a formal education. My mother taught me and the rest of the young Wild Wolves our letters and necessary numbers before she left us after the Terrible Belfast Mess.

But to my eye, Sea had the look of a schoolboy about him when he tracked me down in the encampment right after dropping our queen back at the habitat.

"She kissed me before I left!"

I was in the midst of dragging yet another Wild Wolf who'd had to be forcibly sedated toward the cart Sea's uncle, Darragh, had parked at the edge of the encampment. I paused, scrunching my brow. "Who? Flower?"

"Yes, Mairinua," Sea answered, picking up the wolf's legs to help me with my haul. "She kissed me before I left her in the habitat."

"Another trick to distract ye?" I asked after a cynical beat.

"No, I think she was thanking me…"

Sea filled me in on his new plan to bring her to the castle.

But I remained skeptical. "Ye truly trust her to keep her promise about not calling in the Scottish Wolves as soon as ye let her loose in the castle?"

"She looked me straight in the eyes when she gave me her word." Sea sounded more boyish than any man carrying a passed-out wolf should. "And she's many things, but she's not a liar."

I didn’t think she’d lie either — at least not straight to Sea’s face.

A few emotions twisted in my chest as I grudgingly allowed myself to ask, "What was it like? The kiss?"

I suppose Sea wasn't the only one who turned into a schoolboy when our Flower was involved.

"It was electricity surging through my veins," he answered immediately as if he'd been waiting to describe it. "The same as when I finally allow myself to surrender to my wolf on full moon nights. But there was no pain, no struggle. Just pleasurable moments stretching into eternity. Then she pulled back from me and said, 'Bye, Sea,' with this shy, soft smile. Like a peek of sun on a rainy day."

"Alright, alright, I get it, Yeats. Ireland don't need no more poets," I groused. Annoyed. And plenty jealous.

He'd made kissing our Flower sound even better than compelling her to come hard with my face between her legs. What would it feel like to have her pull me in with a soft look instead of hate and annoyance in her eyes?

Sea continued, "I’ve never been so reluctant to leave a place as I was the habitat after she kissed me. Just about ripped apart my chest to enclose her back in the glass."

The True King sighed — with unnecessary drama if you asked me.

However, his expression soon darkened with a cloud of worry. “She didn’t go into heat, though.”

“No.” I wished I could say I was surprised, but… “The prophecy said she would reunite all three kingdoms.

Sea nodded, clearly ahead of me. “And one of us is still living his least polyamorous life in a city over three-hundred kilometers away.”

“Honestly don’t feel I can say this enough. Fuck Dublin.”

I darkly thought back to the night of the Terrible Belfast Mess. What had Dublin’s snobby father called before leaving?

Savages.

“The prophecy would probably be fulfilled by now if he’d been raised to respect our ways.”

“This is not good.” Sea shook his head. “Figure I have maybe until dawn to act the king before I either go fetch her or risk losing my head to my wolf again. And then, it’s only a matter of time before he refuses to wait any longer. It’s mate-starved to the point of near-insanity."

Sea was right. This wasn’t good.

I knew Sea had been ignoring Dublin’s text about entering peace negotiations with the Scottish Wolves. No way we were giving any of the Kept Brides back before the spring.

But a new plan formed in my head.

"As soon as a few of these lads wake up, I going to put together a contingent to head bag Dublin and bring him back here, whether he's ready to accept the prophecy or not."

"Let's get this business done, then." No more Mr. Noble King. Sea agreed to my new plan without a second of hesitation just as we reached the cart, already loaded with passed-out males. "On three!"

We swung the unconscious wolf a couple of times before flinging him into the back of the cart.

Then we parted.

Sea went to help a few of the elder males lift a hut to place over the triads and couples writhing and moaning atop the dance boards laid down for the Bridal Appeal.

And I continued escorting the other still-unmated Sea and Wild Wolves back to the cottages where they’d be staying until this group heat was finished.

The lads who hadn't been favored by fortune had two choices for how to get to the secret kingdom's main town, where Sea had decided they'd stay until the heat was done: on foot or on their backs, after I jabbed them with one of the many doses of quick sedation I had to administer that night, then threw them in the hay cart manned by Sea's uncle, Darragh.

"You're not bad at this king business, are you?" Darragh said after I tossed the last male wolf who'd "chosen" the needle into the cart. "I'd wondered how you'd get on after your father…"

He trailed off, and I didn’t help him along any. On the list of Shite the Wild King Doesn't Talk About, my father was number two, right underneath my mother.

"Anyway, I'll be getting this lot over to the cottages." Darragh picked up the reins for the horse. "If you see my nephew, tell him to return home as soon as possible. Now that the chef and the maor ti are out of commission with their new Scottish she-wolf mate, his aunt and the other elder she-wolves are in a nasty donnybrook about who should be doing what at the castle."

I had no idea what a maor ti was, but I let Sea know after he got the last mating triads and couples hidden away in one of the huts just as the secret kingdom's version of dawn was cracking the sky.

"A maor ti is a house steward — the head of the castle staff. And I'm happy for him and the chef, but my uncle's right. We're going to have a hell of a time assigning duties without him. Not to mention sorting out meals."

Thing was, I didn't make a habit of giving helpful advice. I was one of those kings who preferred to solve all our traveling kingdom's problems with harsh language and my fists — often both. Still, I found myself pointing out, "Managing the elder she-wolves could be a job ye assigned to Flower. While walking around in wolf form, I heard the other Wölfennites talking about how she had the habitat running tighter than a ship."

Sea grinned. "So you're saying we should most certainly fetch her before heading on to the castle?"

I considered taking the piss about how eager he was acting about seeing Flower again. One kiss had been all it took to completely wrap him around her finger.

But somehow, I ended up just grinning back and saying, "Yeah, let's go get her."

My mood strangely lifted as we left the Wild Wolves camp and its overhanging cloud of heat scent behind.

"Did ye get a hold of the way she drop-kicked that she-wolf who tried to have a go at me?" I asked Sea after we cleared the first rolling hill. "Figure she can't no longer claim she’s completely impartial to me. Or us. Threw that she-wolf off ye like she was qualifying for the discus throw at the Olympics."

Sea smiled as if he was remembering it, too, even as he warned me in his most kingly tone, “You will not bring that up when we collect her.”

“Got it," I answered with a wry chuckle. "I won’t point out her claiming to hate us then going all Bruce Lee when another she-wolf tried for us."

Sea laughed even more heartily than me. But then he sobered to say, “You realize making her hate you every time you open your mouth won't help us any when it comes to completing the prophecy.”

"I do, but…" I glowered at the fake grass beneath our feet. "Ye understand why I…"

“Of course, I do — more than anyone else on Earth," Sea answered before I could finish making my miserable excuses for acting like a pure arse every time I got around our Flower. "But she doesn’t, and we can't let what happened in Belfast get in the way of what we're trying to achieve here. You, of all people, should get that."

He was right. The prophecy came before anything else. But the past, combined with all the new emotions, clogged my throat. Choking me. Not letting me agree with the True King as I knew I should.

"All we need is Dublin," I insisted. "That will get the prophecy done whether or not I play nice."

"You can bring Dublin back here by force, sure," Sea agreed with a hedging tone. "But you understand I'm not equipped to see this through, so you’ll be the one in charge when she goes into heat. We can’t have it go sideways, or worse — not happen at all because she’s that determined not to let you ride her. What will you do if she refuses to give you her pledge along with Dublin and me?”

Die. Like my father.

The answer dropped into my head with a speed that disturbed me.

"I get it," I bit out. Walking even faster. We were nearing the habitat's archway, and I wanted to be done with this conversation.

"Wild…" Sea started behind me with a warning tone.

“I said I get it already." I waved him off as I passed under the arch. "Be a nice doggie like my eejit wolf — what the hell, Sea. You left the habitat wide open for her?”

My reluctant concession turned into anger as we stopped in front of the door-shaped hole in the habitat’s glass.

Several shocked beats.

Then Sea asked, “Did you ever find my wolf knot fastener?"

“No,” I answered, my tone flat because I was beginning to understand exactly what had happened here.

Everything Sea told me about their kiss rewrote itself in my head.

Including her promise beforehand not to use the god tech to escape us.

And the sweet, sad smile he'd said she'd given him before saying, “Bye, Sea…”

As it turned out, the True King had been right to trust that she meant what she said about not using anything in the castle to get in contact with the Scottish Wolves.

But he'd been wrong — too wrong about what it meant when she kissed him goodbye.

“She’s escaped," Sea said beside me, obviously coming to the same conclusion. But he bit back the panic in his voice to say, "We can track her, though. The closest house is a good few kilometers of mountain terrain away. It'll be no problem to catch up with her even though she has several hours' head start. It's just lucky for us that you warned her about going through the tower with the red door… why are you looking at me like that?”

Did I? Did I warn her? I reviewed my memory tape and did not like what I found… sexual innuendo and threat… but no specific warning.

Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck. Oh, fuck.

An ocean of regret filled up my ears. Somewhere in the distance, Sea said, "Wild? Wild? You did tell her why she couldn’t go into the tower with the red door, right? Right?"

Part Four

Dublin

Hiding out in the Belfast House — as the Belfast Priest still called it, from when he used to preside over annual meetings — wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

The red brick two-story sat halfway between the crumbling Cliffs of Ailte and the old Viking wolf town of Aillte Faoilmar. I'll admit, I had my doubts when I opened the place up for the first time in nearly twenty years and found it completely untouched. And not in a good way.

Someone had the sense to throw drop cloths over the furniture, but the rest of the house had been left to fend for itself. A thick layer of dust blanketed every surface, so dense it muffled my footsteps. Cobwebs clung to most of the corners, with the husks of unlucky insects hanging like Samhain decorations. When I dared to open the kitchen cabinets, I found that rats had chewed through the back, leaving behind droppings that had crumbled to dust, along with a smell that put me right off eating dinner despite the long drive in from Dublin.

The windows were so caked with grime that I could barely make out the lake just a few meters from the house. And the late 1900s-era wallpaper wasn’t just faded, it was peeling off the wood paneling in damp, sad strips.

Not going to lie; I took one look around and said, "Right, I’m out." Drove into town — the one the humans took over after those Viking Wolves buggered off to… well, wherever the secret kingdom is. Plopped down my credit card at the first guest house the GPS led me to and ended up spending the night in a much more charming residence overlooking the sea.

But the next morning, I found myself back, and in the daylight, the house didn’t seem quite so hopeless. Despite the lack of visible power lines, it still had electricity and, to my surprise, a strong 5G signal. At least I could set up a hotspot for online meetings.

I decided the dust and cobwebs could be sorted with a bit of elbow grease. After a quick supply run into town, I got to work, wiping away years of neglect. By the time I crawled into bed that night in the upstairs primary bedroom, the place felt less like a tomb and more like — well, if not quite home, at least somewhere I could comfortably hide out until Sea returned the unheated she-wolves next spring.

On Day 3, I tackled the kitchen. Cleaning out those rank cupboards was the opposite of craic, but at least whatever had nested and eaten the leftover food was long gone. On Day 4, the grimy windows scrubbed up clean enough, and on Days 5 and 6, I stripped the rest of the damp wallpaper off the paneling and slapped on a few coats of fresh paint.

And on Day 7, I rested.

Only messing — I took on the disgusting upstairs and downstairs bathrooms. It made me feel like one of those Japanese business titans who clean their own toilets every day to stay humble.

Can’t say it knocked my ego down any, but I did feel proper accomplished when I got them sparkling, thanks to a fair bit of hard graft and loads of descaling cleaner.

But by the end of the first week, I reckoned I could’ve hosted a meeting of the rulers myself — if we still did things like that. 

The quarterlies came to an abrupt halt after that Terrible Belfast Mess. First, because Sea was too young to be anything but a king in name only. Then, because of what happened with Wild’s father. By the time we all got our acts together, none of us three kings were interested in doing more than posting a dismal population report to WolfNet at the end of each year. Truth be told, I'd seen the American country star Colin Fairgood play at the 3Arena more often than I’d seen Sea and Wild since the Heat Laws meeting.

Yet, the prophecy expected us to share a queen?

Yeah, I’d definitely made the right call when I told Sea I wanted no part of his and Wild’s kidnapping scheme. Even if it meant I had to hide out until next spring.

Truth be told, this coastal country living wasn’t half bad.

I found I liked my job a lot better when I didn’t have to share an office with a bunch of disappointed, unmated lads. Don’t even get me started on dodging their questions about the Scottish werewolf who’d turned up out of the blue in my office and knocked our overnight cleaner unconscious.

It wasn’t that I didn’t want to be straight with them — it’s more that I knew they wouldn’t be too chuffed with the decision I’d made on behalf of my city kingdoms not to join Sea and Wild’s gang on kidnapping a bunch of brides who weren’t too genetically close to us to actually go into heat.

Anyway, ruling and CEO-ing over Zoom was a lot easier than doing it in person. And with plenty of space to walk outside, I didn’t feel trapped like I did when I was stuck in my penthouse in Dublin.

By the end of the first week, I’d even gotten into the habit of hiking the few kilometers into Ailte Faoilmar instead of driving. Sure, sometimes I got caught in the rain, and the coastal winds could be an even bigger beast than the one I carried inside me. But strangely enough, this part of Ireland had started to feel like home, and I wasn’t in any hurry to get back to Dublin.

In fact, I was in the middle of composing a company-wide email giving the rest of the office the go-ahead to work from home when I got a call from an unknown number with an American dialing code.

"Hello?" I answered the phone with a frown.

"Hi! Is this the King of Ireland?" came a cheery American voice on the other end.

"One of them," I replied cautiously.

"Oh, right…" She made a considering sound. "You mentioned that Ireland has three kings in your application. But I'm seeing that you specifically were looking for marriage-minded women to move to Ireland?"

At first, I was confused. Then it clicked. "Hold on, is this about the application I sent to the North American Lupine Association for a possible Bridal Exchange?"

Naomi

A few hours earlier…

After Sea left me enclosed in the habitat, I forced myself to count backward from 1,000 while gathering everything I might need for my escape. I pulled on an extra-large fisherman sweater from Leah's closet over my t-shirt and cardigan, hoping it would protect me from the fierce wind I remembered from my last trip to the above real world. Leftover chicken from the cave kitchen’s fridge and a few remaining bread rolls from our pre-group date dinner were stuffed into an old-timey, leather crossbody tote that I'd found in the front room's closet.

Had that only been a few hours ago? It felt like centuries. I’d been so sure we’d all be returning here after that ridiculous exercise.

But I couldn’t have been more wrong. The night had turned so quickly, and the memory only made me more determined to escape the secret kingdom.

If tonight taught me anything, staying here would mean going into heat. It was no longer a matter of if but when. This might be my only chance to live out my previously planned life in Canada.

Even if it meant I’d never find out what powered the secret kingdom.

I thought of the trip I wouldn’t be taking to the castle control room tomorrow with a pang in my chest.

But then I reminded myself that the freedom to choose my own previously planned path in life outweighed my curiosity about the god tech.

“100… 99… 98…”

I whispered the last numbers of the countdown as I went to stand in the dimly lit front room, my chest pounding with determination. 

"1!"

Holding my breath, I pressed a hand to the wolf knot I stole, praying that my plan would work…

The glass door opened with a quiet whoosh, and with my running speed, I made it back to the Wild Wolves' huts just a few minutes later. Fortunately, Sea and Wild were so preoccupied with tending to their pack’s needs during the heat that they didn’t notice as I slipped past, moving lightly and carefully around the far side of the encampment until…

I reached my destination. Breath catching, I stopped about a meter away from the tower’s red door. After a week of plotting my escape from the Secret Kingdom, it was hard to believe that with only a little patience and effort, I’d finally found a way out.

All that remained was to step through that red door and claim my freedom.

But as I stood at the doorstep of destiny, guilt twisted my stomach, making me hesitate.

Yes, all I had to do was walk through the red door, but…

My eyes drifted toward where Sea stood near the fire on the other side of the encampment, directing a group of elders placing a hut over the many wolves fornicating on the dance floor.

He was a good king.

And an even better kisser.

The kiss… my first ever… was supposed to be a peck. I didn’t know if I’d ever get to experience this particular milestone as a hidden werewolf in the human world, so I’d thought, why not make this my formal goodbye.

But instead of leaning back and giving me another one of those happy grins that crinkled the sides of his eyes, Sea had wrapped one strong arm around my waist and the other around the back of my neck. He held me still, tilting his head to claim my mouth in a deep, bold way that felt even more intimate than having Wild’s mouth between my legs.

No, I’d never been kissed before, but something told me kisses weren’t supposed to feel this way. They shouldn’t tug at your stomach or make your heart race like you’d just run a marathon — even though you were standing still. Should they?

I’d made myself pull back before answering that question. “Bye, Sea.”

No… I blinked, dragging myself back to the present.

I shouldn’t have kissed Sea one last goodbye, just like I shouldn’t have physically fought Miriam to keep her away from Wild. My impulsive actions made it crystal clear why I couldn’t stay here…

Don’t think about the way Sea’s mouth moved over yours, rocking you to your core.

Don’t think about all the Wölfennites you’ll be leaving behind.

Don’t think about Wild’s whispered threats.

Or what it would mean if he caught you.

Would he and Sea really take turns with me? What would that even feel like…?

But I clamped down on that thought, too.

It was madness to hesitate now when I was finally standing on the brink of my only chance to escape.

My chest tightened with memories of my adult life avoiding getting mated in St. Ailbe. No, I couldn't stay here. I had to save myself from getting stuck in this foreign land, find the Scottish Wolves, and get them to help me rescue Sadie.

Sadie. An image of my best friend inside that glass coffin reappeared just in time to erase all hesitation. Wherever she was, she was probably scared out of her mind. How could I even think about not rescuing her?

Tearing my eyes away from Sea, I turned back to the red door and took the few steps necessary for it to slide open.

And as soon as I walked through it, all my guilt disappeared.

Because it was replaced by water.

Lots and lots of freezing cold water.

I had no idea what happened. One moment, I was escaping, and the next, I was completely submerged. Panic ripped through me as dank liquid invaded my nostrils and the mouth I didn't even realize I'd opened to scream.

I looked all around, trying to get my bearings. But there was only pitch black, a void so complete that even my wolf vision couldn’t pierce it.

Pressure like a vice gripped my chest and lungs, squeezing tighter every passing second. My eardrums clicked dangerously, a sharp pain radiating through my head and sinuses, which felt like they were on the verge of bursting. 

The water was in charge now, not me. It rocked my body in its depths, slamming me into something hard and unyielding with a jagged edge. The impact jolted through me with a sharp burst of pain.

But the pain turned out to be a good thing. It snapped me out of my daze. All at once, I understood… what had happened… why this tower's door had been painted red.

I’d been transported to another stone circle — one closer to the village up above, just as I’d figured. But this one was at the bottom of the lake I’d spotted from the other stone circle on top of the cliff.

Breathe! I had to breathe!

The biological urge to release the pent-up air in my lungs burned inside my chest.

But some dimly remembered physics factoid about human buoyancy warned me not to exhale yet. I needed to hold on to every bit of air if I hoped to reach the top of this incredibly cold body of water.

I wanted to breathe, but I needed to kick.

With a thrashing flip, I started pushing through the freezing water in a direction I could only hope was up.

The urge to breathe out hit me again, hard. But just as I was about to give in, my wolf vision kicked in, revealing a faint light above. I was getting closer to the surface.

But then I blinked at what I saw carved into the lake’s wall.

Three humongous statues stared back at me.

Like gods…

By the gods… Thank the three gods…

Suddenly, Sea’s and Wild’s quaint exclamations struck me in a new light, and I forgot to kick.

Were these the gods they’d spoken of? The ones who’d provided their people with the highly futuristic tech to make the secret kingdom?

I twisted in the water, my lungs threatening to explode as the cold seeped into my bones. But I couldn’t tear my gaze from the statues.

They didn’t look like wolves. Were they…? Could the gods be…?

Breathe! You have to breathe.

Some primitive survival instinct yanked me out of my curiosity trance, and I kicked the rest of the way upward until I finally broke the surface with a huge “Aah!”

The air screamed out of my chest, only to be sucked right back in by my desperate lungs. For a while, all I could do was tread water, gulping down the oxygen I’d been starved of for minutes on end.

Thank goodness this lake hadn’t frozen over with a thick sheet of ice like the one in St. Ailbe this time of year.

But soon, the relief of being able to breathe gave way to chattering teeth and a weird numbness that couldn't be good.

Got to breathe!  Got to get out of this lake!

After a thankfully short swim, I heaved myself onto the lake’s bank, my muscles trembling with exhaustion.

And I did mean heave. This lake turned out to be more like an extremely large swimming hole. It was as if someone (or maybe some ancient entities?) had cut out a deep circle in the earth and filled it with water. There was no shore. Just a super steep, zero-notice drop.

My fingers slipped on the grass of the frost-covered bank as I dragged myself onto it, then crawled away from the freezing cold water. Eventually, I found myself lying on my back, breathing hard underneath a sign warning that this was a dangerous and protected lake — NO SWIMMING ALLOWED.

Now you tell me, I thought with a sarcastic, watery chuff.

Cold wind stung my face as I lay there in a grateful but weary heap. After that ordeal, I only wanted to let the solid earth hold me for a while.

But… safety… original life plan… find Sadie and make sure she’s alright.

Also, I really needed to change out of these cold, wet clothes.

I sat up on my forearms and looked around. The town, which should have been positioned behind me, was blocked from sight by a huge hulking shape, a mountain that hovered over the lake like a giant who'd nodded off beside it. But I could see faint lights in the distance on the other side of the hole the gods had filled with water. Maybe it was the house I'd seen from the cliffside stone circle?

There was only one way to find out.

With a coughing sigh, I forced my shivering, aching body into a standing position. I'd wanted to make it to the town, but the house I'd seen sat like a beacon of hope on the other side of the lake.

If I could make it there, maybe I’d find warmth — and a phone I could use to call for help. With that hope burning inside my chest, I hauled myself forward, every muscle protesting as I began stumbling around the mountainside of the lake toward the lights in the short distance.

Dublin

"I thought the Bridal Exchange program was on hold." I set aside my laptop and walked over to the office window, which looked out onto the vast expanse of what the cashier at the local SuperValu had called Three Gods Lake.

"It is. The North American Lupine Association has been swamped with applications," she assured me with a wry chuckle. "But I'm calling you about a possible exception. See, we're getting a lot of interest, but you're the only king who oversees a tech hub, and I think that makes your situation especially appealing to those of us she-wolves who prefer cities and modern industry. So when the NASL decided to deny your application, I decided to take matters into my own hands and give you a call."

"Sorry, who am I speaking with?" 

"Oh…" She let out a nervous laugh. "I can't believe I forgot to introduce myself!"

Her name was Lis Nightwolf. The USA divided their kingdoms by state, and she was one of the twin princesses of Colorado, which explained how she’d managed to pull my application from the NASL's discard pile.

Her idea was to pitch her parents and several relatives who ruled other states on forming a special contingent of she-wolves in the tech industry willing to move to Dublin for at least a year as part of what she called a "Lunar Partnership Initiative."

It wasn’t a bad idea, and I mentioned that I had plenty of human friends in the tech sector who could help American she-wolves secure jobs and internships. But before I got too hopeful, I had to warn her, "We have male wolves who work in tech, sure. But most of them work under me at Norwolf."

"That's totally fine," she assured me. "Probably even better. That way, we won't have to navigate any messy co-working situations if things don't pan out. I just got out of one of those myself."

Her voice took on a self-deprecating note. "That's why I'm calling an Irish King out of the blue to spearhead a program that would allow me to move to Dublin."

I stilled. "Wait, you'd be moving to Ireland, too?"

"Well, my father's determined to marry at least one of his daughters off to another royal, so I guess this would be my way of killing two birds with one stone?" Her voice lifted in that American way again.

"Oh, you want to marry a king?" I sounded like an eejit, but my mind was struggling to catch up with all this new information.

"I mean, I'd be open to marrying a king," she replied, her voice turning awkward. "But one step at a time. We should probably meet first, right?"

"Right…" I agreed, trailing off. So, the Colorado princess’s idea wouldn’t just give Dublin wolves a chance to find mates — it would give me a chance, too.

Silence gathered on my side of the line. I knew I should say something, anything. But for some reason, I was struggling to form words.

"Are you not available?" Lis asked, breaking the silence.

"Yes, I’m…" My voice trailed off again before I could finish the sentence. "I'm just surprised, is all. I wasn't expecting this call."

"Well, I hope it's a pleasant surprise."

It was. Or it should have been.

This Colorado princess was open to marrying another royal, and I was, in fact, eligible and available for mateship.

I should have been over the moon — pun fully intended.

But instead of howling for joy, a strange guilt twisted in my stomach as Wild's words echoed in my head.

We saved our kingdoms from ruin and found our queen. Now the only question is, when will ye get yer head out of yer arse and join us as the prophecy intended?

"So, do we have a deal?" Lis asked on the other side of the line.

I didn’t believe in the prophecy. It was nonsense made up hundreds of years ago to justify kidnapping foreign she-wolves if you asked me.

But instead of leaping at Lis Nightwolf's idea, I hesitated. "Can I, um… call you back? It's late here, and I should probably think about this before I give you a firm yes or no."

"Oh… okay." Some of the cheer had gone out of the princess's voice.

"I'll let you know in a few days," I promised, gripping the phone.

"Sure. Take your time," Lis said after a slight hesitation. "It's a big decision."

It wasn't. The right choice was obvious.

But I didn't say yes. I couldn’t say yes.

And instead of hashing out the details, I ended the call.

What the hell is wrong with me?

That question plagued me as I tore out of the house with the vintage lantern I'd found under the kitchen sink and set off around the lake to clear my head. Because obviously, I wasn't thinking straight if I was even considering not taking the Colorado princess up on every aspect of her offer.

It was a new moon night. Having grown up in the city, the only moon I tracked was the full one, which made it necessary to drive out to the country or hide away in specially made rooms and cells for our incoming shifts. But from what little I knew of the Wild Wolves, they traveled from stone circle to stone circle in an ancient pattern, and I vaguely remembered my father telling me they only got married on new moon nights.

Had Sea and Wild married their queen tonight, then? The one that had supposedly been prophesied for all three of us eons a…

A fierce wind slapped me in the face, and I stopped in my tracks. Not because I realized how ridiculous it was to dwell on whatever poor she-wolf Sea and Wild had kidnapped into submission — though it was.

No, what froze me in place was the new scent the wind carried to my nose.

I wasn’t out here alone on this dark and near-moonless night, it turned out.

There was someone else.

It felt as if my normally reserved wolf was suddenly standing up inside of me, at complete primal alert as I sniffed deeper, just to make sure my admittedly citified nose wasn’t mistaken. But the scent hit me even more powerfully, telling me it was a she-wolf.

One who smelled strongly of the lake but also of those trees that produce sap. What were they called again? Maples — yes, whoever was out there had an unbelievable scent — like syrup and crisp leaves.

“MINE!!!!”

My wolf roared to life inside of me, telling me this wasn’t just any she-wolf but the she-wolf.

“Mate! Mate! Mate!” It growled inside my chest, even though I didn’t believe in things like fated mates.

However, this part of Western Ireland was littered with what the Wild Wolves called “the fating stones.”

I thought of all those ancient Celtic wolf walker tales about fated mates using special spells to travel through space and time to find the wolf they were meant to be with. But those were just fantastical legends.

Weren’t they?

I shook off the notion. There was most likely a scientific reason for this reaction from my wolf. Pheromones alerting me to a compatible foreign she-wolf who might make for a good match. Something like that.

“Hello!” I called out, raising the vintage lantern to peer down the road. “Is someone there?”

No answer. But the wind picked up again, confirming the unidentified she-wolf was still out there. Close enough to smell.

Maybe she was afraid. I’d seen enough rhetoric online to know many, if not most, females wouldn’t necessarily volunteer that they were out in the dark alone when some random male called out to them.

So, I braced myself for what I’d find when I followed my nose to reach her.

Naomi

Yet, what felt like eons later, I was still stumbling, one foot plodding in front of the other — way slower than when I first started out, despite the harsh wind battering me from behind.

Dammit… my lack of experience with the region, along with zero clear reference points other than a flat, open view across the water, had made the house appear closer than it was.

Even worse, a warm, druggy feeling was beginning to replace the cold shivers from before. That couldn't be good, considering I was walking through a real-world November night in sopping wet clothes.

The house in the distance was getting closer, and maybe whoever lived there could help.

But a bone-deep exhaustion began to overtake me. My steps became slower and slower, even as the freezing wind grew stronger and stronger at my back.

A delirium overtook my mind, blurring and multiplying the lights up ahead.

"Hello! Is somebody…?"

I stopped when I thought I heard a voice in the distance.

But then… nothing.

Just me cursing. I was beginning to hallucinate voices and lights. That meant even my wolf body heat wasn't enough to keep hypothermia at bay. 

Tears welled in my eyes. But I was too tired to cry. What was I going to do? 

Wait, what is that?

A new scent whipped my head to the side… moss, damp limestone, and a faint whiff of the secret kingdom's overall cavern smell. I sniffed with what felt like the last of my strength and squinted, trying to make my night vision work extra hard. Was there a cave nearby?

No, I discovered after stumbling toward the direction of the new scent. 

My "cave" turned out to be a shallow hole in the mountain wall.

Just big enough to fit one exhausted she-wolf if she decided to curl up inside it.

There was no "if" about it, though. Before I could even make a conscious choice, I was already shrugging off the crossbody bag and crawling into the unexpected mountain bastion in my soggy, freezing clothes.

I had never in my life been less comfortable. Every inch of me was soaked and chilled to the bone. But as soon as I tucked myself into the hole, my limbs turned to noodles, and a hot flush stole over me, dragging me down into sleep.

Not a good idea. Some vague survival factoid sparked in my tired mind, warning me of what could happen if I fell asleep in ice-cold, wet clothes. Hypothermia… frostbite… death…

A heavy, black sleep pulled me under before I could finish that ominous thought.

I slept like the dead. Cold, numb, and completely oblivious… until suddenly, warmth jolted me awake.

I blinked, disoriented, as I realized I was no longer in the freezing hole but lying by a warm, toasty fire. 

A soft blanket was wrapped around me, and the air was filled with the most wonderful smell — another wolf, I realized with a start. But not like Sea and Wild. His scent was somehow both rich and cool, like freshly baked bread mingled with the crisp, clean aroma of stone and rain.

“Good, you’re awake," said a voice.

Warm, lilting, and Irish, it washed over me like a thrilling piece of music, making my heart flutter as if I’d just heard my favorite song for the very first time.

"I was going to take my chances with a human doctor from the local town if you didn’t come to soon.”

I sat up to see who was talking, and more of that amazing scent filled my nose. I followed the stronger trail with my eyes to find a shadowy figure standing in the arched entrance of what I could barely make out as a front room, just outside the light's reach.

I'd been saved… by a wolf. A male wolf, like Sea or Wild. But he smelled nothing like Sea or Wild. I squinted into the dimmer room, trying to make him out in the fire's flickering light.

"Thank you for saving my life," I said, my voice thick with gratitude. But then I had to ask, "Who are you?”

“Who am I?” my savior asked from the shadows. “Who are you? Last thing I expected to find on my night walk was a foreign she-wolf tucked into the mountain. What happened, then? Did you miss all those warning signs posted around the lake and fall in?”

His question made my cheeks burn with embarrassment, and I opened my mouth to defend myself with the truth.

But then I thought better of it. Yes, this unmated male was actually talking directly to me, and he'd saved me from dying of hypothermia in that mountain hidey hole. But he just happened to be living right above the secret kingdom?

What if he was some kind of real-world guard or yet another one of Sea's and Wild's minions who hadn't gotten the memo about me being the supposed destined queen to the two Kings of Ireland?

“Could you step into the light?" Suddenly, seeing him clearly became a matter of life and — well, if not death, certainly recapture. But I tried to keep the suspicion out of my voice when I told him, "It's kind of hard to have this conversation with someone I can't see."

"Sorry, I didn't mean to come off like a creeper." The male wolf stepped out of the shadows into the light of the fire and crouched down so that he could be at eye level with me, even though I was sitting on the floor. "How's this?"

The entire world stopped.

He was clean-cut with strong but approachable features and rich brown hair, slightly tousled and long — but long like he'd just missed a haircut, not long like he was living out some kind of historical cosplay like Sea.

No, he was the complete opposite of the wolves who'd kidnapped us. In fact, if not for his lupine scent, I'd think he was a regular, modern human dressed in a simple pair of jeans and a long-sleeved t-shirt.

A faint smile tugged at the corner of his lips — not devastating like Sea's or mocking like Wild's. It felt like he was trying not to laugh, and for some reason, I had to tamp down the urge to laugh along. At an untold joke only the two of us could hear.

He was a stranger, yet my gut filled with a knowing sensation, like finding an old friend in a crowd. Or in a foreign country.

I'd grown up cloistered, but for some reason, I wanted to ask him, “Have we…?”

“Met before?” he finished. “Now that we're talking face to face, you feel so…”

He trailed off, but I picked up his thought. Easily. "Familiar."

He expelled an audible breath. "That's exactly the word I'm looking for. Are you famous or something? Once, I had a conversation similar to this at our Brit Awards after-party with someone who turned out to be one of the twins from Sasha and Kasha."

"I'm not famous. At all." I almost told him I'd never even had my picture taken before. But then it occurred to me to ask. "Wait, are you a celebrity? What were you doing at a party with a famous singer?"

"Oh, Norwolf beat Guinness out for the major sponsorship spot at the Brit Awards," he explained, his voice taking on a proud note. "And I'm Norwolf's CEO."

CEO — that was a modern real-world title I recognized and another promising sign that he had nothing to do with the Sea or Wild Wolves. But… "Norwolf? Guinness?" I shook my head. "What kind of companies are those?"

"You don't know Norwolf or Guinness?" His expression became slightly alarmed. "How long have you been in Ireland, then?"

A shrill alarm from another room saved me from having to answer his question.

“Sorry, that would be the porridge letting me know it’s done.” My savior rose back into a standing position. “You're starving, right? I should bring back two bowls for us to eat together.”

Together. For some reason, his correct assumption about me being hungry sent a delicious thrill up my spine.

“Yes, please,” I barely managed to choke out.

“Back in a sec," he said, jogging out of the room.

It was an odd parting. His scent lingered, even though he'd gone, and a hollow feeling caved in my stomach — one so weird, it took me a few moments to pin a label on it. Bereft. I felt strangely bereft. My wolf whimpered inside me, lonely and sad, even though I'd only just met this stranger.

What in the world?

And why hadn’t I asked him right away to use his phone? What was wrong with me?

I threw off the blanket and stood, determined to squelch…these strange, familiar feelings fluttering inside my chest and ask him for a phone.

But that was when I realized why his scent lingered even after he left the room.

I wasn’t wearing any pants. Or underwear, for that matter. Just a shirt with the words IT’S ALWAYS A GOOD TIME FOR NORWOLF written out in green block letters. He'd stripped me out of my wet clothes and redressed me in his clothing. His shirt. And nothing else.

“Do you want to eat at the dining room table then?”

I looked up, my face flushing hot. The stranger was now standing in a different archway leading directly into a dining room. He held two bowls, which he set on the long table without waiting for my answer.

I tentatively followed him into the dining room, an alcove with a huge bay window. Outside, the first whispers of morning light filtered through, cold and gray.

If he was half as embarrassed about my state of undress as I was, it didn’t show.

He said, “Sorry, I’ve got a puzzle going."

He threw me an apologetic wince over his shoulder as he set two large spoons beside the bowls, a short distance from a nearly completed puzzle — four different views of the same Norwolf gate, one hand-drawn. "Don’t tell anybody, or they’ll accuse me of being a pensioner. But there’s some room here at the end.”

"No problem," I answered, suddenly feeling comfortable again.

Was making random she-wolves relax and feel completely at home a special talent of his? I wondered as he pulled out one of the chairs for me.

The dining room was much draftier than my seat by the cozy fire, and I shivered, realizing that I was no longer in the perfectly conditioned world of the secret kingdom.

“I can fetch the blanket if you like,” he offered. “Or hold on…”

He dipped out of the dining room’s other entrance and returned a few seconds later with a large, thick, cable-knit sweater that opened at the front.

“Here you go,” he said, wrapping it around my shoulders like a blanket. “Figure that will do you until your clothes are dry.”

His kind gesture tugged at something in my chest, warm and intimate. But I had to remind myself that I didn’t know this male. He could be one of Sea's or Wild's allies, charming me into a false sense of security.

If so, I had to admit, it was kind of working. The sweater carried his particularly amazing scent, and I found myself on the edge of a swoon as I looked up into a pair of soft gray eyes in the morning light.

"I'm sure you're wondering about your clothes."

He moved past me to take a seat at the end of the table, and my cheeks heated once again because I hadn't been thinking about my clothes at all. But I managed to sit down too and answer, "Um, yes, I'd love to get my clothes back so I can be on my way."

"On your way to where exactly?" he asked, picking up his spoon. "I didn't see a vehicle parked by the lake. Did you hike in?"

"Something like that," I answered vaguely, grabbing my spoon. If this wolf was somehow associated with Sea and Wild, I didn't want him to know about my runaway status. And if he wasn't, I didn't know if I'd be able to convince him that there was an entire secret kingdom underneath his house.

“Sorry, but this place is ancient, without a dryer to be had," he said with an apologetic shake of his head over his bowl of porridge. "Found a YouTuber who says you can throw them in the oven as long as they’re not soaking wet — but after your night swim, that’s not exactly an option, is it? I'm doing the best I can with a bit of line in the kitchen and the oven set as high as possible.”

He regarded me with an expectant look, and I got the feeling this was his way of asking why I had decided to take a night swim in an off-limits lake.

“Not a bad solution,” I said after racking my brain for anything better.

“If you’re dying to get out of here, I can loan you a pair of my workout trainers, and you can roll them up before you get on your way to…”

Another expectant look.

Which I pretended not to see as I tucked into the porridge. But I could feel his eyes on me, patiently waiting for his answers as I avoided talking with a huge mouthful of what turned out to be… wow… truly terrible porridge. Bland and dry. Like eating paste with texture.

My reaction must have shown on my face because he said, "Sorry, I rarely cook for anyone but myself. I mostly consider breakfast for the calories, not any taste."

"Oh, do you have someone who cooks for you back home?" The question slipped out before I could stop it — jealous and nosy.

His mouth hitched. "No. I usually have lunch at the work canteen, and then it's a few clicks on Deliveroo for dinner. What? You've never heard of Deliveroo either? Did you come from the airport to take a kip into the lake, then?"

Instead of answering his question, I pointed out, "You still haven't told me your name."

He stared at me for a long beat, his expression completely unreadable. But then he answered, "Aidan. My name is Aidan Normanwolf — or Norwolf. The press has been shortening it since the 1800s."

Aidan. For some reason, his first name rippled through me, and with a jolt, I realized I recognized his alternative last name, too.

"Norwolf!" I repeated. "Like whatever this is you're selling on my shirt."

"Exactly," he answered. "I'll tell you what a Norwolf is if you tell me your name, too."

He raised his eyes from his porridge to meet mine again, and a fluttering sensation appeared in my stomach. Not arousal. Something else. A nervous dance of self-conscious butterflies that made me duck my head. Before confessing, “I’m Naomi. Naomi Hamilton."

Silence. And a frisson of fear broke through the butterflies. Did he know who I was, after all? Had he heard about Sea's and Wild's supposed claim on me?

“No wolf-based last name, then?” he asked, clearing away my moment of doubt.

“No, my father was turned,” I explained, letting out a breath of relief. “It’s kind of a long story, but he wasn’t born a wolf. He’s from Ghana, actually, and that’s why I have a regular last name.”

“Why do I get the feeling that everything about you is a long story?” he asked with a wry smile that made his gray eyes crinkle at the sides.

“I’m sorry.” I dipped my head. “I know I must sound completely crazy.”

“I’ve heard crazier,” Aidan assured me, pushing his bowl away. “Besides, have you ever met an Irishman who didn't enjoy a completely crazy and long story?"

"I…" had to swallow into my suddenly dry throat before answering somewhat truthfully, "I wouldn't know."

Then, before he could follow that up with more questions, I asked, “Is that town on the other side of the mountain a wolf one?”

“No." The wry smile disappeared. "At least not as far as I can tell. How do you not know this? I assumed that was where you hiked to the lake from.”

“Then what are you doing out here in the middle of nowhere?” I asked instead of answering his question.

“I’m on… vacation — actually more like a working sabbatical. This house is a loaner from… ah, I guess you could call him a distant acquaintance of mine.”

I'd only formally met this guy a few minutes ago, but I frowned the way I did with Sadie when I sensed my lifelong friend wasn't giving me the full truth. “What aren’t you telling me?”

“What aren’t you telling me?” he countered, raising both eyebrows. “You’re the stranger that mysteriously fell into the lake with about a thousand signs warning you against going anywhere near it.”

“I didn’t fall!” I snapped before I could think better of it. I was having a hard time thinking.

This male… his scent. He made it hard for me to think clearly about anything.

“You didn’t…” His face fell. “I’m sorry. I should’ve guessed that you were going through something.”

He took a guilty step back. “After we eat, can I drive you somewhere? Maybe Galway?”

“Galway,” I repeated. “Like the Ed Sheeran song?”

“Yes, like the Ed Sheeran song."

What I was beginning to suspect was a semi-permanent wry smile came back. But then he quickly got serious again.

"Also, it’s the closest big city. They’ll have therapists and people who can help you sort out whatever emotions were making you want to take your life.”

“Take my life?” My mouth dropped open when I realized, “Oh, you think I was trying to… no, no, that wasn’t it. Just the opposite, in fact.”

“Then what were you up to out there? And how did a North American she-wolf end up in an Irish lake?”

“I was… I was actually running away.” I exhaled, then decided to just tell him everything — the best I could without sounding like a crazy person. "You see, I have this whole life planned in Canada."

For the first time, I found myself admitting out loud, "I grew up in this extremely strict community where I didn't remotely fit in, and I've spent most of my adult life trying to figure out how to get out of this situation. So I trained myself in physics, passed a general education exam, and applied and got into one of Canada's top institutes of technology. I also signed up for this trip to go to Scotland for my sister's wedding. It's another long story, but the plan was to hide out there until it was time to start university in Canada this winter. Only thing is we — like me and a bunch of other she-wolves from my community — were kidnapped by a gang of…"

I trailed off before I could finish the story. Aidan had gone completely pale.

I had a bad feeling even before he asked, "Are you…? Are you a Wölfennite?"

My stomach dropped. "Oh, God, you're one of the Irish Wolves! You're going to hand me back over to them!"

I leaped up from the table. I had to get out of there. Aidan got in front of me before I could figure out which direction to run. "I'm an Irish Wolf, but I am most certainly not in league with — or anything like — the ones who kidnapped you."

"I don't believe you!" A panicked flush washed over me, like a sudden fever, and I tried to cut in the opposite direction.

Aidan was faster than I was in this manic state, though. He got in front of me again, this time with both hands raised. "I’ll take you wherever you want. No more questions asked. I only want to help you escape and get back to the life you had planned. Please, trust me. Naomi…"

His eyes became gravely sincere. "I would never, ever hurt you. Whatever you need from me, I'll do it.”

Whatever I need. I let out a breath. Little did he know that offer was the exact right answer to a final test I didn’t realize I was administering.

“I just… I just need to use your phone to call my family,” I answered.

“Sure, it’s still in my coat. I’ll just go get it. Call whoever you want. Then I’ll drive you into town. Was that where you were trying to get to?”

“Sort of,” I confirmed. I opened my mouth to explain the whole story. My escape. The lake. All of it.

But another hot flush rolled over my body, stealing the words. And all my air. Even though my panic had subsided.

What in the world…?

In an instant, it felt like I was drowning again. But not in water this time. A fever stole over me. And it had nothing to do with the embarrassment of finding myself half-naked in an extremely handsome stranger’s vacation house.

In fact, suddenly, the few clothes I wore were one t-shirt and a single sweater too many. The fabric tore at my skin like the barbed wire we twisted around the community chicken coop to keep foxes out.

I tore the sweater off and then the t-shirt. But it still wasn’t enough.

I stood there completely naked, but it felt like I was drowning in a swamp of heat.

Oh, God… the realization hit me in another wave of fever. And the stricken look on Aidan’s face confirmed what I was going through.

Heat. I was in heat.

Wild

“She’s not dead,” Sea insisted after we popped into the cliffside stone circle and found… nothing. Just a cold, dark morning with no sign of our Flower. “We’d feel it if she was gone.”

I wished I could be so sure.

Usually, my faith in the prophecy kept me steady as a rock when it came to knowing how things would turn out with the queen the three gods had delivered upon us.

But I hadn’t warned her.

I’d forbidden her. I’d threatened her. But I hadn’t warned her.

My chest squeezed tight, and regret cut up my guts like a knife swallowed.

Instead of answering Sea, I scanned the valley stretched out before us, squinting under the dim light of the new moon. Hoping but not daring to pray to the three gods after what I’d done.

Sea had told me that one of the advantages of placing the castle tower under this stone circle was the clear sightlines it provided — nothing could sneak up on the secret kingdom, whether by land, sea, or air.

But even with my wolf vision, I couldn’t see our Flower. North, south, or east… there was no sign…

My heart dropped to my boots as the ocean crashed behind me. No sign of her at all.

“She’s not out here,” I told Sea.

“We should go into town.” Sea’s voice sounded rough, and I doubted it was due to the coastal wind scratching his throat. “You saw how fast she ran last time. With that speed and her wolf vision, she might’ve made it to Aillte Faoilmar before dawn.”

“Possible.” I scanned the human town on the far side of Loch Chlocha na nDéithe, the Gods' Stones Lake. Ten kilometers at least from where we stood. “But not likely.”

“Come on,” Sea said, grinding his jaw like he does when he’s trying to keep his head. “We’ll check the town. Then, if we need to, we’ll dive into the lake.”

I hesitated. But Sea didn’t wait for my answer.

“Neither of us will rest until we know for sure anyway,” he called over his shoulder.

It was a long trek down the cliff into the valley, where Aillte Faoilmar sat nestled on the other side of the mountain. Took us a couple of hours just to reach the road leading up to the lake.

My mood darkened with the breaking dawn. Did Sea really think she’d made it all the way to town in the few hours she’d had after her escape?

For reasons beyond me, the True King chose that moment to start talking in hypotheticals. “What’ll you do if we find her in Aillte Faoilmar, holed up in some hotel? Clever thing probably already figured out how to call Scotland. We’ll have to come up with a plan to avoid an all-out war when we bring her back.”

Her having kicked off a war with the Scots would be the best-case scenario, actually. The worst? Finding her body at the bottom of the Gods' Stones Lake.

“This is all my fault,” I choked out. “If she’s dead, then that’s on me.”

Sea stopped walking. “Wild…”

“No, don’t try to cheer me up. I don’t deserve it.” Guilt chewed away at my insides. “Why didn’t I explain things to her? Not just the tower with the red door. All of it?”

“Wild, shut up and look. Do you see what I’m seeing?”

Sea’s urgent question made me raise my eyes, and I tilted my head when I saw where the other king was pointing — toward a lone brick house on the south side of the lake, sitting in the middle of nowhere, with no farm in sight.

We Wild Wolves rarely ventured into this part of Ireland anymore, whether trekking above or below.

Both stone circles near these “protected cliffs” had been removed from our never-ending ritual trek.

Because of the two-story residence we stood in front of now.

The Belfast House…

It loomed before me. Like a curse.

Why had Sea stopped us here?

Made me look at the place where my entire life had fallen apart when our queen was missing and possibly drowned at the bottom of a lake.

“What does this place have to do with finding our…” I started to ask.

Only to trail off when I, too, noticed what had likely made Sea stop walking in front of the place I only ever saw in nightmares.

“If the house doesn’t belong to the Belfast Priest anymore, why’s there smoke wisping out of the chimney?” 

“And a car parked in the driveway?” Sea added.

We both stared at the residence, putting two and two together.

Then Sea asked, “Do you think she might have…”

I tore off, running toward the house before he could finish the sentence.

Only to slow when I reached the driveway, where one of those sleek, electric cars that only city folk drive was parked in the gravel out front.

It wasn’t hesitation that slowed my steps, though. It was the smell.

Unmistakable and potent.

Heat. There was no doubt about it.

My heart squeezed as if a fist had wrapped around it.

Our Flower had finally gone into heat.

Inside a house with another male!

Suddenly, the ocean’s roar was no longer behind me but inside my ears.

“Wild, wait…” I heard Sea order.

Sea. The True King, my father, and every other Cursed King since the time of Mairinua had sworn a blood vow to obey. But I couldn’t bring myself to heed him.

The world had turned red.

Knowing she was in there. In full heat with another.

The next thing I knew, instead of holding back as commanded, I was at the entrance of the meeting house, grabbing the handle. The door was locked.

It didn’t matter. One wolf-backed kick and that barrier was done.

“Wild!” Sea called out again. “Wild, stop. Hold on!”

The True King was the one who couldn’t control his wolf. But in this case, I couldn’t control my human.

I tore toward the stairs, planning to take them two at a time and rip our Flower away from whatever male had been nearby when she went into the heat meant for her three kings.

But a voice stopped me cold before I could reach the first step.

“Is leatsa mise, agus is liomsa tú. Go deo. Geallaim duit mo bhrón. Go deo… Please…” the soft voice begged. “Is leatsa mise, agus is liomsa tú. Go deo. Geallaim duit mo bhrón. Go deo… oh God, please… Is leatsa mise, agus is liomsa tú. Go deo. Geallaim duit mo bhrón. Go deo…”

That was when I realized the heat smell wasn’t coming from the bedroom.

The mating pledge of troth and treasure. Someone was saying it — more like begging it. Over and over again.

Not just someone. Our Flower.

I found her outside a closed door, and my heart turned to stone at the sight of her.

Completely naked. One hand desperately rubbing at her sex. The other was bloody, likely from scratching at the door, which now had grooves in it.

Is leatsa mise, agus is liomsa tú. Go deo. Geallaim duit mo bhrón. Go deo… please come out.” Flower’s voice was little more than a croak as she begged whoever was on the other side of the door to open it. But she said the pledge again, like some kind of chant. “Is leatsa mise, agus is liomsa tú. Go deo. Geallaim duit mo bhrón. Go deo.”

How long had she been here? Been like this?

“Wild,” Sea’s voice called out somewhere behind me. “I think that might be Dublin’s car — by the gods…”

I heard, rather than saw, Sea stumble in behind me.

But even finding out that the male behind the door was likely the one I’d been planning to head-bag just a few hours ago couldn’t tear my eyes away from our Flower.

All remorse had vanished. Punishment was now the only thing on my mind.

Punishment for denying us.

Punishment for running.

Punishment for making me wait several century-long days to finally put this question to her.

Will you have me, Flower? Will you give me your pledge?

Naomi

I was no longer in the lake, but drowning. And the male on the other side of the door refused to save me.

Please come out… please…

I try the pledge again.

Foreign words I hadn’t even known I’d memorized slurred from my mouth. But still, no answer.

Was I saying it wrong? The fever had overtaken my entire body, refusing to let me think clearly. 

Everything throbbed — my brain, my breasts, my skin. The private space between my legs was drenched at that point, heat spilling out in pulsing waves. A strange piece of flesh had suddenly made its existence known inside my folds, swollen and angry — yet sensitive to the touch. 

I tried…I tried to soothe it. I frantically rubbed my hand over it as I croaked another plea to Aidan, who'd locked himself away on the other side of the door.

“Please…” I murmured the pledge again, pressing my forehead into the grooves I’d made in the door with my other hand.

Some dulled sense registered the metallic scent of blood and the dull pain under my fingernails. I could see I’d damaged the beautiful wood, but it didn’t matter. I didn’t care that I’d hurt the door — or myself.

I kept scratching at it. “Please…” I begged again, following it with another recitation of the Gaelic pledge.

No answer. Aidan had stopped replying some time ago when I refused to accept his excuses about why he couldn’t come out and mate me. Something about how it wouldn’t be fair. Or right. Or moral.

But who cared about fairness? There was no moral anymore! No right or wrong.

Just the heat pulsing between my legs. There was only a primal desire that couldn’t be sated — at least not by me. No matter how hard I rubbed, it only sparked pitiful flares of pleasure.

Please… please… please!

I mindlessly repeated the Gaelic vow and began scratching at the wood again. If I worked at it long enough, eventually, I’d get through to the other side.

“Flower,” a rough voice said out of the blue.

I stopped rubbing at myself, certain what I saw couldn’t be the truth.

Wild stood before me now — had just blinked into view after I’d been scratching at the wooden barrier for… how long had it been?

Time had stopped meaning anything after Aidan shut me out on the other side of this door. A part of me wondered if I wasn’t still in that mountain hidey-hole, freezing to death while my mind soothed me with increasingly hard-to-believe hallucinations.

“Wild?” I croaked.

He bent down into that crouch of his — the one that made him look like a wolf even when he was in human form. And then, I couldn’t just see him. I could smell his outdoorsy scent of wind and rain.

It really was Wild! My heart banged around inside my chest, unsure how to process his sudden presence.

“What’s going on here, then?” he asked in the same casual tone I would have used to inquire with the village St. Ailbe postmaster about whether my family had received any mail.

“It hurts,” I whined. “But Aidan won't mate me…”

“Aidan.” Wild's eyes abruptly stopped glowing. “He told ye his name?”

“Of course he did.” I gave my head a mournful shake. “He’s not like you. That’s why he… he… won’t open the door.”

My hand involuntarily scratched at the wood again.

“Come, Flower. Enough of that now.” Wild pulled my hand away from the ruined wood and put it in his mouth, sucking at my fingers and cleaning the blood off with a few long, deliberate swipes of his tongue.

The sight of him tending to my self-inflicted wounds this way tugged at my belly.

Not disgust…

More heat flowed from me in pulsing waves, making my core squeeze with want.

He removed my hand from his mouth with a wet pop and laid it over his bearded cheek. “I could smell ye from outside, ye know.”

He ran his mouth along the inside of my wrist but didn’t quite touch it.

So, I could only feel his breath as he whispered the Gaelic pledge I’d been mindlessly slurring out before he appeared. But his husky voice shivered through my soul.

“Will ye have me, then?” he asked when he was done making his vow. “Will ye pledge me yer —?”

Before he could even finish, I said the words I’d unconsciously memorized back to him in one long, exhaled breath.

My answer pulsed between us. Thicker than my heat.

Once.

Twice.

Then, suddenly, I was no longer on the floor. Wild scooped me into his arms, cradling me against his chest as we ascended a set of stairs, and he issued what sounded like clipped commands in Gaelic — not to me.

The heat smell blocked out anything that wasn’t right under my nose. But I still had some deductive reasoning left, and I could sense Sea in the periphery of what would happen next.

In what felt like only seconds, Wild was ferrying me through an open door. And soon, my back hit a bed that smelled like the wolf who’d refused to come out of the downstairs bathroom. 

This was where Aidan slept? I dimly wondered at the huge expanses of white on either side of where Wild had dropped me. Not for comfort, I sensed, but for capacity. Aidan had denied me, but had this bed been designed for exactly this? 

The old curiosity attempted to peek through the haze of need, but a soft command from Wild brought my eyes back to him before I could follow the question too far. “Eyes on me, Flower.” 

My wolf was so close to the surface that I could feel her need, feral and frenzied. No doubt my eyes were glowing.

But Wild's expression remained calm and unlit. My mind reeled, trying to remember everything the Scottish she-wolves had told me about heat. Wasn’t the smell supposed to turn males frantic and crazed? Why was he so calm when I felt so desperate?

“Did he hurt ye, Flower?” Wild wrapped one of my bare legs around his fully clothed waist. “Deny ye in your time of need?”

He wasn't naked like that morning when he showed me the difference between disgust and desire outside the circle. In fact, he was still wearing the same tunic I'd seen him in last. But the heavy sex behind his pants split my folds, pressing into the newly discovered nub of sensitive flesh.

I ground my hips against his length. So damn grateful to have him here on top of me, ready and willing to give me what I need.

“Ye haven’t answered my questions.” Wild cupped my face again and ran his rough thumb over an unexpectedly sensitive spot on my neck.

“Yes! Yes!” An erotic shudder rippled through me as I answered him, unable to catch my breath.

“It hurts,” I gasped.

“It hurts?” Wild lifted up to smile down at me ever so tenderly. Before saying, “Good.”

Naomi

Good?

Confusion began to replace my gratitude. “What…?”

“That’s right, Flower. What?” Wild began moving his mouth down my neck with soft kisses, but his voice became hard as he asked, “What did I tell ye would happen if ye ran?” 

I froze, a crack of icy dread splintering through my heart. 

“That you’d catch me,” I answered nonetheless. On a whisper. “That Sea wouldn’t protect me. That the two of you would take turns.” 

“Good, good, Flower,” he said as if I’d answered a trivia question right. 

But instead of rewarding me, he hitched his hips back, cruelly removing his heavy length from my mound.

His lip grazed but didn’t quite kiss my swollen breasts or the dark brown nipples that were rock hard and distended with need. “What else did I say?”

I wished I had no idea what he was talking about. But the answer to this question also came out on a shaky breath, “That in the end, I’d beg you to take me.”

“So, you understand.” Wild was at my lower tummy now, just above my mound. “Ye fully know why I must punish ye for what you did.”

I did. And I didn’t.

“Please, Wild,” I pleaded without him having to ask me to — pride was a distant value I could no longer access.  “I’m begging you. Please.”

But if Wild heard me, he didn’t show it.

Instead of removing his clothes and taking me like Lorcan, and then Ronan took Amanda, he kissed the inside of my thighs, sending another shudder of desire through my body. Without sating it. At all.

“Wild, please…” I begged some more, squirming on the bed.

“Tell ye what, I’ll give ye my fingers.” A new pressure invaded the drenched space between my legs. Rough and blunt. “How does that feel, then?”

Better than my own hand. My sex greedily clenched around his fingers as new sensations began to crackle through my body. But still…

“Not enough!” I cried out. “I’m sorry! I’m sorry!” 

An overwhelming urge to apologize seized me. To Amanda for not understanding what had come over her. To Sea for misleading him with that kiss. To Wild for running despite his explicit warnings. My voice cracked as I repeated, over and over again, “I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I’m so sorry.”

“Aw, that’s a sweet apology, ain’t it?” Wild answered with a cruel smile in his voice. “But I’m afraid yer torture’s only just begun, Flower.”

Unfortunately — for me — his use of the word “torture” wasn't a case of Wild being overdramatic.

Instead of taking me, he placed light kisses on every single bit of my exposed skin. 

Instead of sucking either of my breasts into his mouth, he held me down, pinning my hands above my head as he blew hot, useless air against my distended nipples.

Instead of saving me from being denied by Aidan, the ruthless male made me beg even harder until tears burned in my eyes. “Wild, please…”

“Please, what?” Wild whispered in my ear instead, without letting any part of him settle against my desperate, clenching mound. 

I choked on panic. Then it occurred to me to call, “Sea! Sea, please. Make him stop torturing me!” 

I cried out for help, even though I couldn’t see the other Irish King.

Only hear the clomp of his feet pacing back and forth in the vicinity of the bed. 

The clomping stopped abruptly. But then, Wild looked over his shoulder and said something that sounded downright vicious in Gaelic.

And no answer to my plea came from Sea.

Wild had been right. The Diplomatic King wouldn’t save me. 

The Wild King was in charge now. 

“Ye beg so sweet, Flower.” Wild finally, finally, settled his length against my mound. “Let me give ye a little bit of relief.”

My heart soared with hope when Wild released my hands from above my head and rocked against me a few times, giving the swollen nub the attention it craved. 

The tight rope of need inside my belly loosened… only to release a few sad sparks.

“It isn’t enough!” I sobbed as the pitiful embers of the insufficient climax got swallowed back into my ocean of need. “You know it isn’t!” 

The tears weren't just burning at this point. They streamed down my face. “Wild, please. I’m begging you! I’m begging you.”

Wild’s hard expression softened at my tears. For a moment, the eager wolf glow returned to his eyes.

But then it flickered back out.

Like something ruthlessly extinguished.

“What are ye begging me for?” he asked in a hard, mean croon. “I want to hear the words out of yer pretty little runaway mouth.”

“Please claim me,” I gasped.

“I’ve already done that,” he pointed out in an infuriatingly reasonable tone. “Every wolf in both the Sea and Wild kingdoms knows who ye belong to, don’t they?”

“Please mate me,” I clarified.

“I gave you my pledge. Did you not hear it?” he answered in a sandpaper-dry tone that made me want to rip his non-glowing eyes out. 

Oh, God. “Please fuck me.” I debased myself for the cruel wolf on top of me. “Fuck me, Wild. Please.”

“I will give ye the fuck ye’re desiring. I promise ye,” Wild crooned, filling my chest with relief. But then he said, “After I’m done punishing ye.”

I had never known such anguish as I did in that moment. 

“Wild?” I cried out brokenly. 

“Yes, Flower?” he answered.

As if my misery was something delicious he was eating for breakfast.

“Please,” I breathed out.

“Please, what?” he asked.

“Please…” This time, I cupped his face in both my hands and begged, “Please, don’t make me hate you.”

I kissed him on the mouth, as he’d refused to kiss me below. Tangling my tongue with his. 

Then I pulled back to look him in his eyes and whispered the pledge I’d made him as clearly as possible. Considering that I didn’t know Gaelic, and I was a weak, emotional wreck.

“Fuck!” Wild yelled out before I was even halfway through.

He pushed my hands away from his face and lifted off of me, but somehow, I managed to keep on going, whispering the words to the ceiling. 

Like a prayer. With the feeling that something was breaking inside of…

Wild suddenly fell on top of me. Naked, his hips already pistoning.

He wrapped my leg back around his waist and entered me with one heavy shove.

My mouth fell open on a choke, and just like that, my virginity was gone in a blaze of hard invasion.

“Wild…” I breathed out, my mind grasping to understand…

Being filled like this…

The physics of it…

The sweet stretch of my slippery sex around his thick invasion.

I immediately began coming. 

There wasn’t any build-up of fire this time. Only the release — me clenching around his shaft while Wild rutted like an animal on top of me. 

As calm as Wild had acted before, it turned out he was on the razor edge, too. His hips suddenly hitched, and he roared as a jet of seed rushed into my womb. 

Strangely, this sent me into another orgasm just as I was coming down from my first.

And maybe that would have been okay. I liked the liquid pleasure, cresting over me the same as an ocean wave.

But suddenly, Wild began to swell, his shaft becoming impossibly large inside my most intimate space.

My heart stuttered.

What in the… what in the…?

Have you really never heard of knotting?

The memory of Sea's question slammed into my mind, answering the one I couldn’t fully form in my thoughts.

He was stretching me to my limit. Hurting me. I screamed and writhed beneath him, trying to escape the new discomfort.

Until suddenly something else replaced uncomfortable feelings. Something thunderous and crazed.

A building pleasure that started in my toes.

Tingling… tingling everywhere…

Then…

Lightning.

STARS!

My muscles seized, unable to fully conduct the exploding suns of pleasure, as every color in the known universe burst inside of me, and my body became an electrified field of pleasure.

“Thank you,” I whispered to the wolf who’d knotted inside of me.

“Ye’re welcome,” he answered. Not out loud. But inside my head.

I gasped, my head woozy with awe.

We were mated. Wild and I. 

“We’re mated!” I exclaimed to him over our newly formed mental bond, my inner voice filled with awe. “You’re officially inside my head.”

Those were the last thoughts or words I was able to form before darkness sucked me under.

Only to wake up alone on the bed to the strange sensation of my core once again clenching air as the smell of my heat hung thick as a cloud above me.

Someone was growling low in the distance.

No, not someone. Something.

My stomach squeezed, and my wolf whimpered when I raised my head to find a creature straight out of a fantastical myth standing at the far end of the bed. 

It had the head of a red wolf but its naked body was human. Tall and thin, yet heavily defined with wiry muscle.

It had one hand braced against the bedpost, and the other hand was running a vicious fist up and down its long and thick human length. A pearl of some kind of viscous liquid had gathered at the tip, but despite the creature’s violent efforts, it wouldn’t drop, causing the beast to let out a high-pitched, keening cry of frustration.

What in the world?

It took me several blinking moments to realize who was underneath the wolf head.

“Sea?”

The creature stopped jerking his hand abruptly. 

And started snarling at me.

Sea

I had hoped what happened at the cliffside stone circle was a one-off.

Every time before that, my wolf had stayed docile and shy in the presence of our Mairinua — even when Lorcan’s and Ronan’s mate had gone into heat.

But something about seeing Wild with his head between her legs had sent my wolf into a frenzy that morning outside the gods’ stones.

And now, just over a week later, the animal inside of me was rearing again when my human staying in control counted the most. 

I’d somehow lost every stitch of clothing, save for my boots, since Wild had laid our queen out on the bed. And as the supposedly Feral King took his time claiming our Mairinua, I was the one pacing back and forth. Trying to calm myself down. Trying to hold back the beast.

“Sea! Sea, please,” our Mairinua called from the bed. “Make him stop torturing me!”

I froze, the human part of me, who could deny her nothing, struggling to surface.

“Ye are the reason for her torture!”  Wild snarled in the old language before I could respond. “Ye are not in control of yer wolf, and I cannot make my claim until I know ye can make yers soon after without hurting her. For if ye hurt her, I'll gut ye like a pig. Fuck my True King Vow.”

My fault.

Wild was right to chastise me. Right to threaten me with death if I harmed her.

I could barely hold on to my wolf, let alone help her convince Wild to release her from his sweet torture.

Shame and regret stormed in my chest as the wolf threw itself against the cage of my skin.

A thought crossed my mind to leave. Maybe, with some distance, I could regain control.

But I couldn’t take a step out of the room. I couldn’t even look away.

Especially not when our Mairinua managed to break through to Wild, and he finally lost his iron grip on his control.

“My turn!” My wolf growled, thrashing and surging inside me as I watched Wild claim her with sloppy strokes.

The other king would knot and unknot soon. I wanted nothing more than to take his place. But it was taking every ounce of willpower I possessed to keep myself from muzzling.

It wasn’t safe. I couldn’t hurt her. It wasn’t safe.

Relief washed over me when she passed out almost immediately after Wild threw his knot. Her heat cut off abruptly, and I collapsed forward from the waist like a puppet cut from its strings. For the first time since arriving at the old Belfast House, I could breathe.

But…

“Ye’re still not ready.”

I heard, rather than saw, Wild get off the bed — then cursed when he saw the state of me.

His proximity caused my wolf to take another violent lunge inside me.

The scent of her need was no longer screaming in the air above us, but I could smell her on him. I could…

I squeezed my eyes shut. Answer Wild or lose my head — the world had narrowed down to that single choice.

“Shite, ye’re too far gone.” Wild cursed again.

“I’m going downstairs to get Dublin for her next turn. She’ll wake up again soon. Ten, fifteen minutes, tops. Keep your wolf down until I get back.”

He moved away, giving my nose some relief.

Keep your wolf down. Keep your wolf down. I breathed those words like a silent mantra as Wild, and the scent of his first claim receded from the room.

Keep your wolf down. Keep your wolf down. I could do this…

The beast inside me began to settle, sinking back into the pit of my gut. My heart rate slowed, and the skin on my face stopped prickling with the urge to sprout hair.

I was doing it. I had control.

Until suddenly, I didn’t.

Wild had been wrong about how long we had until her next cycle. The scent of her heat filled the room before I could shove my wolf back down.

It hadn’t even been five minutes.

This time, there was no breathing. No mantras.

Just the loss of my head as the scent of her heat tore through me.

Before I could stop it, the monster took over again.

I couldn’t… I couldn’t hurt her… couldn’t take her — not like this.

In a desperate bid to regain control, I did the only thing that had worked when the date of the new moon wedding was barreling down on me.

I took my still human length in my still human hand and ferociously jacked it, praying to the three gods for a release that would return me to human. I couldn’t hurt her… I couldn’t… I couldn’t…

… get more than a dribble of seed to fall from my cock. 

A desperate animal sound formed in my throat when I saw the pitiful result of all that effort. 

“Sea?”

My head snapped up at the sound of her voice. She was awake now, sitting up in the bed, staring at me with wide-eyed shock.

Oh, shite. Oh, shite. Shame and lust battled inside my chest.

“Go!” I snarled at her. “Run from me. Go find Wild or Dublin!”

But, of course, she didn’t understand me. Like nearly everyone outside the Wild Wolves in Ireland, she didn’t speak the language of the beasts we were supposed to keep buried inside. Especially when your mate was in heat.

“Sea, is that you?” To my horror, instead of running, she raised up on her knees and moved toward me. Her voice confused, her cunt dripping.

My wolf surged, and I gripped the bedpost with both hands, fighting to keep myself from lunging at her.

“Go! Run!” I snarled again. “Me danger. Me not know how long me can control me!”

But she didn't run. In fact, she got closer, her gaze sharp and curious. “So it really is you hiding inside of there…”

She tilted her head, eyes running over my furred face like someone solving a puzzle. “Okay, well you didn’t mention this in any of your lengthy letters.”

Was she seriously taking the piss at a time like this? My mate-starved wolf thrashed inside of me. Demanding to dominate her.

“You no understand!” I tried to explain to her. “No stay. I hurt you if. You must —”

“How long?” she asked suddenly, cupping my wolf face in her hands. “How long have you been hiding this?”

To my great relief, I didn't completely wolf out at her touch. But my beast didn’t back down either. I let out a low chuff and nuzzled my black nose against her soft skin, almost involuntarily.

“Since boy king,” I admitted, the words coming out in a whimper.

She studied me, her expression softening. "So, I'm guessing a long time?”

Humiliation washed over me, and I closed my eyes for a moment, then nodded.

“I’ve been hiding, too,” she confessed, her voice quiet. “When I was sixteen, the bookstore owner next door gave me an old laptop and her WiFi password. I’ve been pretending ever since. I love my parents, but I’m…”

She lowered her eyes. “I’m not a good Wölfennite. I was planning to go to university, to leave my family and my best friend behind forever when you and Wild kidnapped me. They had no idea. I felt like such a fraud.”

Her gaze came back up to meet mine. “Is that how you felt, hiding this? Is that why you didn’t talk about it in any of your letters?”

I nodded again. Another chuff.

Her eyes softened further, reflecting my own sadness. “That must have been so hard for you.”

The heart still beating in my human chest quivered. I’d feared showing her this side of me, terrified she’d turn away. But instead, I felt something I hadn’t expected.

Understanding.

She laid her forehead against mine, and we both sighed. Together.

Then she leaned back to say, “But you know we can’t do anything in this state, right? Either we’re both wolves or both human.” 

Her lips twisted into a sympathetic smile. “And I’m pretty sure you can’t give me your pledge like this.”

She still wanted my pledge?

Without hesitation, I gave it to her, the Gaelic words rolling up from my wolf throat.

“Hey, there you are!” she said when I was done.

I hadn’t even realized I’d unmuzzled — turned back to human and given her my pledge out loud with my full sapien throat until a huge smile split her face.

“Welcome back!”

“Thanks,” Wild’s voice answered before I could respond. “Brought ye a present.”

We both turned to see Wild wheeling what looked like a gaming chair into the room.

But why would Wild gift our Mairinua a gaming…?

That question trailed off when he spun it around to show us its contents.

A naked Dublin. Both his wrists and his ankles bound to the chair with rope.

And that was how my first spoken words after unwolving became, “Wild, what have you done?”

Dublin

It had felt like an act of rebellion, buying that gaming chair for the office I set up at the Belfast house.

A small, silent victory after years of sitting in my father’s old leather executive chair back in my Norwolf office. I hadn’t kept it out of affection but because I knew the old Dublin King would throw a right fit if I ever replaced it. He still grumbled about me switching the C-suite to business casual when I took over as CEO. Imagine the row if he popped by and found his prized chair was gone.

So, I stopped short when I walked into my office that morning and saw my father sitting in the gaming chair I’d had delivered from Galway at great expense.

“Dad?" I asked, coming a little further into the room to stand in front of the desk I’d sanded and stained myself after watching a tutorial. "What are you doing here?”

Despite the vintage brown Savile Row suit tailored to his trim frame, Dad somehow looked perfectly at home in the faux leather, modern chair. His hands were even steepled over an ashtray, where one of his favored Spanish cigars burned, thin tendrils of smoke curling into the air.

The cigar smell hit my nose harder than it should have. Something about it set my nerves alight, though I couldn’t quite figure out why.

“What did I warn you when I retired early?” My father's voice cut through the haze of smoke and unease

Confusion and alarm tangled in my brain, but I managed to say, “That we’re not like…”

“We are not like those Sea and Wild Wolves,” he interrupted, his tone sharp. “Not like the ones who treat prophecy like gospel and tie themselves to superstition. You know better than that. We don’t share wives. We don’t follow stones or tales from centuries ago. We’re Noble wolves. One mate. One family. That’s the way it’s always been, save for one ill-advised time in the 1500s.”

Shame twisted deep in my gut. This wasn't the first time we'd had this conversation. More like the hundredth. 

His reminders had started up when I was still a boy, right after Sea’s father predicted we’d be the ones to fulfill the prophecy. And they’d become increasingly more stringent as my father aged. 

“That Mairi business is a black mark on our family,” he told me yet again. “Not something to be celebrated. Or revisited.”

“I understand,” I said, my voice low. “I’m not meant to share a wife with the other kings. I know that.”

“You understand, do you?” He arched both copper eyebrows. “Then why haven’t you mated?”

“The Heat Laws…” I began.

“The Heat Laws,” he scoffed, waving away the excuse.

“That American princess is exactly the kind of mate I’d deem fit to continue the Normanwolf line,” Dad suddenly pointed out. “Why didn’t you bring her to Ireland straightaway?”

“Because…” I floundered, searching for a reply to the same question I’d been asking myself — and still hadn’t answered.

“Because you’ve let those savage wolves and their nonsense get in your head,” he spat, leaning forward over the cloud of odd-smelling cigar smoke. “That ridiculous prophecy! You truly think you’re fated to be bound to that she-wolf? To share her with two other kings?”

“No!” I denied, squeezing my eyes shut as memories of “that she-wolf” thundered through my skull on a drumbeat of headache.

The smell of her…

Unexpectedly finding the most beautiful female — human or wolf — I’d ever seen in a hole in the mountain wall…

The way she’d made me feel over breakfast. Like we’d known each other forever…

Telling her my name. My real name…

“What were you thinking?” my father’s voice cut through the fog. “Only your claimed mate is to know your true name.”

“I don’t know,” I whispered, the words barely a defense. The air thickened around me, the cigar smoke clawing at my throat as emotions I didn’t want to feel churned in my chest.

Her telling me she was one of the Wölfennites…

One who’d been taken…

Me promising I’d help her escape, help her flee the wolves who’d stolen her and get back to the life she’d planned…

Even as my heart sank with the knowledge that I couldn’t ethically lay claim to her…

Right before she went into heat…

“I didn’t claim her,” I managed, my voice hoarse, as I opened my eyes to meet my father’s cold stare. “I locked myself away. I told her to leave, to go to the human town, to get sedated until her people could take her home.”

“And then what?” His lip curled into a sneer. “That's your grand plan? To hide from her?”

“Yes,” I bit out, the pain in my head throbbing harder, the smoke thickening. “That’s my plan.”

“Then why are you still here?” His words twisted like a blade in my gut. “And why, for the love of God, are you bollocks naked?”

“What…?”

I looked down —

And woke with a start. My head was pounding, and I was moving — being dragged by some force I couldn’t see, couldn’t stop. Panic shot through me until my nose caught the scent in the air.

Heat.

Her heat.

And it all came rushing back to me.

My heart wrenching in my chest as I did my best to ignore the moans coming from the primary bedroom.

I knew.

As soon as I exited the toilet I’d locked myself up in, I knew I had to escape the heat-filled house. But I’d left my work laptop in the office upstairs without backing it up to the office servers. 

I thought I could slip and out — that the hardest part would be trying to ignore the sounds coming from the room next door. The squeaking of the four-post bed I’d restored and the bangs of its headboard against the wall as Wild claimed Naomi. Hard.

“Where ye going, City King?”

Wild — that feral fucker had appeared out of nowhere just as I was about to leave. Naked and reeking of what he’d done with Naomi. 

My heart screamed at the sight of him, and the laptop fell out of my hands as my wolf charged him without warning.

The last thing I remembered was Wild grabbing the standing lamp I’d unboxed but hadn’t plugged in and swinging it… 

He must have knocked me out cold. That would explain my pounding head. I tried to lift my hand to rub at it, but I couldn’t move my arms. 

Or my legs! What the hell?

“Brought you a present,” Wild’s voice announced above me.

A spinning sensation.

Then Sea’s voice demanding, “Wild, what have you done?”

I blinked and raised my throbbing head. The world was a blur. 

Suddenly, it wasn’t. I instantly regretted not leaving my work laptop behind. Sure, I hadn’t uploaded the past week’s work to the office servers, but losing days of progress would’ve been better than witnessing this scene before me — one I’d never be able to unsee, not in a thousand lifetimes.

Naomi kneeling on the bed in front of Sea with her hands cupped around his face. Her sex glistening with heat. Sea with one hand curled around her wrist. They looked exactly like what they were. Two werewolves on the verge of consummating her heat. 

“Caught him attempting to pull a runner,” Wild explained in the same casual tone one would use to talk about inclement weather. “Thought I’d invite him to reconsider.”

“You can’t…” Naomi glanced at me and then up to Wild standing behind me, her face stricken with horror.  “You can’t do that! You can’t make him — ughhh!!!”

Naomi suddenly doubled over, letting out a pained cry as the scent of her heat intensified.

“Flower!” Wild appeared on the other side of the bed in the blink of an eye. “Ye’re in need. Let’s get ye sorted, first of all.”

He rubbed her back but threw me a scathing look. “Dublin’s not even worth talking about.”

If Naomi wanted to argue in my defense, she no longer had the strength for it.

She moaned, then panted. “Need… need…”

“I know exactly what ye need, love,” Wild crooned, pulling her back to her knees.

He somehow positioned her limp body so that she was braced against his back but facing me, her slender body, naked, dripping, and glorious.

“But —” Wild spoke in her ear while looking straight at me. “Let’s also make sure we give the wolf refusing to mate ye a show.”

Us

Wild

“Sea, lie horizontal in the bed, will ye?” I instructed the True King while massaging our Flower’s breasts. They were pure perfect. Just enough to fill both hands.

And I could sense how much she appreciated my attention over our mate bond. Fuck. Just like that, I was hard again. 

But this wasn’t about me —

“We’ll want to make sure Dublin has a perfect view of your claiming.” Resentment burned inside of me, feral as my unsanctioned King title. But I kept my voice pleasant. “Can’t send him home without a good show, now can we?”

Sea

A show. That was what Wild called it. 

Naomi

But it was a punishment.

Dublin

And everyone in the room knew it.

Sea got into position as instructed, his heavily veined cock straining in anticipation. I noticed that it was both longer and thicker than mine or Wild’s. Maybe the largest I’d ever seen outside of a paid actor in a human porn. 

It had been hard enough to hear Wild claim her earlier. I couldn’t — I couldn’t watch Sea do the same. 

I strained against the ropes, using all of my wolf strength this time to break the two lengths of extension cords binding my wrists to the gaming chair’s armrests.

Naomi

“He’s really upset,” I told Wild over our newly formed mate bond.

“Good,”  Wild answered, kissing his way up my neck. “Serves that amadán right for making this harder than it need be, even though he’ll be the one who wins in the end.”

Amadán — idiot. The mate bond translated that word for me. It also let me feel Wild’s anger toward Aidan — seething and oddly resentful. 

“Why do you —” I started to ask.

But Wild’s fingers found my sex before I could finish the question.

Dublin

It was no use fighting. I was bound in a way that made it impossible to break free, even with shifter strength. Probably some Wild Wolf specialty hitch. Feck my life.

I had no choice but to watch as one of Wild’s hands moved from Naomi’s breast to the space between her legs. Her head fell back against Wild’s shoulder, her mouth falling open into a long moan as he rubbed circles over her mound. She was so drenched I could hear the wet sound of his hand movements.

Naomi

It felt so good, but… “Not enough,” I whimpered through the bond, my voice raw and broken. “Please, Wild, don’t torture me again. I can’t bear it. I can’t…”

I wasn’t being dramatic. The composure I’d somehow mustered to convince Sea to return to his human form had crumbled. The world had shrunk, everything — time, space, existence itself — dissolving into the singular, burning agony of my heat. It wasn’t just a need. It was life or death. I would die if I wasn’t mated. “Now. Wild. Please!”

“Ssh! I’m not torturing ye, Flower. Not this time, I swear,” Wild murmured, his voice gentle and soothing. In stark contrast to the dark hunger swirling inside me — and the knowing hand rubbing at my core. “I’m only giving you a small orgasm — just enough relief to help you regain your head and give Sea your pledge the same as me and Dublin.”

Dublin… I dimly realized that must be Aidan's name… that he was the one who had called in the middle of my fight outside the tower with Wild. 

But that new realization disappeared when I came with a hitched breath, courtesy of Wild’s fingers.

The orgasm was tiny. Nothing compared to the ones Wild had given me when he finally came inside of me. But as promised, it was just enough to clear my head.

“Look at Sea,” Wild instructed out loud, with a baiting tone I suspected was directed toward the wolf he’d called Dublin. “Give him yer pledge. Tell him that ye’re his. Forever.”

Dublin

Eyes glazed with lust, Naomi turned her head to spout the same Gaelic she had outside the door of the downstairs toilet.

Was that what she had been saying? Doing? Pledging herself to me? My heart stopped with emotions I didn’t dare to name.

Sea

Each word of her pledge shot through me like lightning. My standing cock pulsed with need, and I fisted my hands in the bed sheets to keep my wolf from springing forth. It wanted nothing more than to rip her out of Wild’s arms and mount her.

“Good, good, Flower,” Wild crooned in the distance when she was done. “See how happy ye’ve made him?”

“Really?” I heard our Mairinua answer. She sounded worried, “It feels like I’m torturing him now.”

“No, he’s only just fighting to control his mate-starved wolf,” Wild assured her. “He saved himself for ye. All these years. Just like ye saved yerself for us, yer kings.”

“He did?” Mairinua’s voice softened with wonder.

And just like that, it was all worth it — the years of wrestling with my wolf every time I’d lost my head due to pent-up sexual frustration.

A quiet pride swelled in my chest, knowing every struggle had led me here.

The beast inside me stilled, and I was finally able to lift my hand from the sheet, holding it out to her. “Mairinua, come. Let’s finish the claim. This is what I’ve waited for. My entire life.”

Naomi

This is what I’d run from my entire life, being claimed by any wolf — much less the two who had kidnapped me.

But my heart melted at Sea’s words. 

Until Wild informed me out loud, “Afraid ye’re going to have to be in control of this first time with Sea barely hanging on to his wolf.”

Dublin

My blood ran cold, agony slicing through me.

This was torture. Pure torture.

Maybe Wild truly was genuinely concerned about Sea losing control, but his words cut like a blade, aimed straight at me. Another level to my punishment.

It wasn’t enough that I had to overhear Naomi and Wild mating. Now, I’d have to sit by as Naomi willingly claimed a second male who wasn’t me.

She would climb onto his visibly pulsing cock, and I’d be forced to witness every single moment of her fucking him.

“I’m not sure if I can.” 

A doubtful look crossed Naomi’s face, and for one desperate second, I hoped.

But then Wild coaxed, “Ye can; I assure ye. Here, let me talk ye through it, beauty.”

Wild took her by the hand, helping her balance as she walked on her knees toward Sea’s straining cock.

If not for their destination and state of undress, Wild would have looked like a gentleman, helping his lady maintain her balance. 

“There ye go…” Wild climbed up on the bed with her and moved his hold down to her hips, keeping her steady as he lowered her toward Sea’s pulsing cock. 

“Unhhh, he’s so big.”

Naomi’s voice strained as Sea’s thick cock parted her folds.

“So tight!” Sea fisted the sheets as Wild slowly impaled Naomi on his raging erection.

Fucking hell… my stomach twisted with jealous rage.

And I tried to shut my eyes against seeing them coming together. 

But I couldn’t. For some reason, my wolf wouldn’t let me.

Wild

It was a Sophie’s choice for me then, wasn’t it? 

I had to choose between keeping an eye on our Flower as I helped her swallow Sea’s massive cock in her watering cunt and seeing that city amadán Dublin suffer.

In the end, I chose my audience participation award of watching Sea fulfill his part of the prophecy. 

The two made all sorts of noises, hesitant and scared. But they both cried out with what sounded to me like relief when I got our Flower fully seated.

Dublin

Wild removed his hands and climbed back off the bed. A torturer/teacher whose job was done.

But Sea just lay there, doing nothing.

Wild

I no longer had to choose between watching Sea mate our Flower while Dublin sat by in what could be nothing less than pure sexual torture.

But I began to fear the True King’s mind had been blown out. He just lay there. Staring up at his queen with the dopiest smile.

Sea

Wild was right.

He was right about hand shandies not being enough.

The wet, tight grip of her around my large shaft… Nothing had ever felt better.

Nothing could ever replace this sensation again now that I knew it.

Suddenly my wolf went quiet. No shame. No embarrassment. Just calm in a way I’d never felt.

I’d been sick, mate-starved to the point of delirium.

But this was it.

The medicine my wolf had been begging me for.

Then she began to move.

Dublin

His new standing position meant that the merciless Feral King could gleefully switch between watching me and enjoying a full frontal view of the newly joined couple. Meanwhile, I stayed wretchedly transfixed by a back view of Naomi as she began moving on top of Sea. 

At first, tentatively, then with bolder and bolder thrusts of her hips. 

I couldn’t view Sea past Naomi, but I could tell he was beginning to lose it when his hands went from fisting to white-knuckling the sheets as she bounced on his rod. 

“Steady,” Wild warned with a laughing glance toward me. “Steady.”

Sea

Wild was laughing, and I was losing my mind. The way our Mairinua rode me, her cunt flexing as her breasts bounced. My wolf stayed down, its tongue lolling to the side as she undulated on top of me. But the sight of her! I was burning alive, struggling not to bust before she found her release.

“Don’t come until she does,” Wild warned somewhere in the distance. “Else, ye’ll have a massive problem throwing yer knot.”

Some primal part of me sensed the truth of his warning. Knew that there was a certain natural shifter order to these things. But…

“I can’t… I can’t hang on…” I clenched my teeth, my head thrashing from side to side.

“Stay with me, Sea,” Mairinua begged on top of me. “Please.”

I could deny her nothing. I would deny her nothing. 

A new determination rose inside of me.

Dublin

Sea suddenly surged into a seated position, wrapping his arms around Naomi.

I could have called it a hug, but it struck me more as a desperate gripping. A male anchoring himself to a buoy in a crashing sea of lust. He dug his face into her neck as Naomi undulated her hips — the only part of herself she could still move in his mental institution straight jacket version of a hold.

Sea

But I held on. 

Dublin

The True King held on until Naomi suddenly came with a broken “Sea!”

Her body quaked, and her head fell back as she found her release in his lap.

Wild

No further instruction was needed from me after that point.

Naomi

Before I even had the chance to come down, Sea surged forward again, this time flipping the both of us into a horizontal position with me on my back.

“Look at ye, Flower. Painting such a pretty picture for the Dublin King,” Wild's voice slithered over our mate bond like a snake. “Show him. Show him the prophecy.”

Dublin King? Prophecy? Deductive thought tried to surface, only to get dragged back down as a new tidal wave of pleasure crashed over me — like a runaway carriage.

Control vanished after that. No more wondering about Wild’s strange words.

Some dark switch flipped in both Sea’s mind and mine.

Dublin

Wild hadn’t said anything aloud. But, like actors in an adult film, Sea and Naomi got into another position to give me an even more excruciating view of their mating. 

But then, Naomi began to come again, and suddenly, they morphed from two humans on a mission to fulfill the prophecy into two animals on the bed, fucking each other stupid. 

There was no more strategic display. No more showing me what I missed. 

I watched them wrestle and crawl over each other until Sea trapped her writhing body underneath his, pinning her to the bed to make his final claim. 

This wasn’t the kind of sex one had for pleasure, more like a primal taking over. Sea rocked her entire body as he shoved into her with heavy grunts, his eyes frantic and unseeing. Meanwhile, Naomi submitted to his claim with needy whimpers as he rutted her like a wild animal.

Naomi…

The only she-wolf I’d ever told my name…

Another was taking her. 

Right in front of me.

The scene should have filled me with disgust and even more sadness for what I’d lost — I mean, what Naomi had lost when she refused to follow my instructions to go to the town and ask to be sedated.

Yet, watching the scene did something to me. The flesh between my legs came alive, and bolts of lust shot up my shaft, swelling it to the point of pain.

I knew that if I glanced down at it, I’d find it standing like Sea’s had earlier, straining and pulsing with base need. 

But I couldn’t look down. 

Couldn’t look away from the scene on the bed, even though it felt like I would explode.

“Aaaahhh!” With a great yell, Sea shoved his hips into Naomi’s one last time, and his entire body locked as he released inside her.

Naomi

Jets upon jets of seed flooded into me. Sea’s release seemed to go on forever.

WILD

So long that his seed began to spill out of the places where their hips were locked.

Dublin

So long that Naomi’s body began to quake again as he emptied into her, letting me know that she’d been overcome by yet another orgasm. 

The look on her face was blissful as if she’d gone to another plane of existence.

Naomi

I’d gone to another plane of existence. 

A heaven that enfolded me in pleasure and melted all of my cares away. 

Until a sudden swelling abruptly knocked me off my cloud.

Dublin

Naomi’s eyes bulged, and suddenly, she gasped, “Sea! Sea! Too big. Too big…”

The blood iced over inside my body. He was hurting her.

“I’m sorry!” Sea said. “Once I started knotting, I can’t unlock from you.”

“Too big! I won’t…” She slapped at his chest, pushing against him, the heels of her feet, knocking into his buttocks. “I won’t survive this! Please!”

Sea

“I’m sorry!” I could feel her distress as if it were my own as I knotted inside of her. And I never wanted to hurt her, but when I pulled back on my hips, we remained locked together as shifter nature designed it. “I’m so sorry.” 

There suddenly came an odd banging sound.

Dublin

The plastic wheels of the gaming chair banged into the wood as I tried to break free of my restraints. 

She wasn’t mine. I knew that. But I couldn’t bear to see her in pain. 

“So you do have some fidelity after all.” On the other side of the bed, Wild shot me a disparaging look before stepping back into his coaching role. 

“Relax, Flower. Yeah, Sea’s got a wanker to match his True King title. But I promise ye can handle it.”

He reached out and gently pulled on one of her bent knees. “Open your legs wider to receive your king’s knot.”

Naomi

“Trust that yer body was made for this, Flower.” Wild’s dark voice washed over me, calming my mind. Then he teased, “There’s no need to pass out on us this time.”

With hitched breaths, I followed his instructions. Widening my legs in lewd sacrifice to accommodate Sea’s insanely huge knot.

And to my shock, it soon began to feel better. Much, much better. He was locked into my core, touching something impossibly deep inside me.

Dublin

I stopped trying to break free when Naomi went from pushing Sea away to moving underneath him.

“Yes, take his knot, beauty,” Wild encouraged while throwing me an evil smirk. “Take his knot and fulfill the prophecy.” 

“Mmm… mmm… mmm.” She made plaintive noises, her legs mindlessly thrashing on either side of her second king’s waist. Until… 

Sea shifted his hips with a deep arch of his back, burying himself so deep inside her that her legs shot out straight. 

“Unh!” Naomi made a strange, grunting sound and then froze, her face going completely slack. Like someone hit by lightning.

Her head lolled to the side, and she stared straight at me. Unseeing.

That was when I realized she was coming so hard that her body had seized up, and her mind had temporarily collapsed. 

It wasn’t me on that bed.  

I hadn’t touched her or myself since Wild rolled me into this room. But without warning, my cock kicked with the shooting sensation of my own release, and what felt like a rope of semen rushed up my shaft. 

Only to suddenly fizzle out with a painful jerk. 

This time I did look down… to find nothing but a sad little pearl of cum eject from my willy. 

Meanwhile, on the bed, Sea collapsed onto Naomi.

Sea

“Well, that was completely mind-blowing.” A snarky voice said out of nowhere. “If not for Wild coaching me, I probably would have passed out on you, too.”

My head shot up to look down at the she-wolf I had just claimed. “Mairinua, is that you?”

Dublin

Sea’s head shot up, and the happiest grin spread across his face.

Naomi stared up at him, her eyes soft and smiling. 

They were talking… I realized. Talking for the first time over their mate bond. 

My parents had been wolf-mated, and after my eighteenth birthday, Mother moved to a small town in England while my father stayed in Dublin to continue overseeing the business. After a few monthly visits that eventually turned into yearly lunches if my mother was up to it, I realized they’d undergone a genteel divorce without the bother of paperwork.

However, before his retirement, my father had deigned to mutter a couple of paragraphs about the differences between heat mating and wolf matings, which included a completely immersive form of telepathy. “Sounds like a bloody nightmare if you ask me,” he’d quipped.

It didn't look like a bloody nightmare, though. 

On the bed, Sea and Naomi stared at each other in mutual awe. 

I’d never seen my proper parents smile at each other like that. Or share a look that relayed how happy they were without them having to utter a single word.

Then Wild leaned in and silently said something that made Sea and Naomi break out into laughter as Naomi continued to milk Sea below. 

They looked like the happiest of threesomes as they silently chatted, using their newfound gifts.

Jealousy like none I’d ever known crashed over me in waves, threatening to dismantle my mind. 

But at least the punishment — the torture was over, I told myself, scrabbling to get a grip. 

Little did I know, it had only just begun.

Naomi

“I can’t believe we’re mated. Truly mated,” Sea murmured, gazing down at me, his eyes tender and soft, even as my sex clenched fiercely around his huge, hard knot. “I feared this day would never come. Tell me — promise me I’m not dreaming.”

“I don’t see how even our subconscious minds could imagine something like this,” I replied over our new mate bond with a wry grin. “I mean, I’m milking you like a cow — but with my down below. Pretty sure you’re not making that up.”

“It’s real,” Wild assured us, his voice threading through our bond, revealing that it now connected all three of us. “We’re bonded just as the gods intended it.”

He leaned forward, bracing both hands against the bed’s surface, looking every bit the grave, commanding boss — who happened to be completely naked.

But then his mouth hitched into a half-smile, and he said, “Thanks for not making the two of us have to do a jig first, Flower.”

We all burst out laughing, and the emotional impact was… unexpected. It wasn’t just my own laughter I was feeling. There was Wild’s amusement — his pleasure that I was finally responding to his humor — and Sea’s relief, his joy that we were all getting along. The waves of shared emotion washed over me, binding us even tighter.

Honestly?

Outside of mating them, laughing with Wild and Sea over our new bond was the best feeling I’d ever had. For a moment, the world around us was nothing but sweet bliss.

“Alright, Wild, you’ve had your fun,” another voice said, cutting through the moment. “Time to untie me and let me go home.”

We all turned to look at Aidan, still bound to the chair.

But there were a few differences from the last time I beheld him. 

His hands were balled into fists. 

And the flesh between his legs was no longer flaccid. It was standing up straight and pulsing like Sea’s had before Wild made it disappear inside me. 

My breath caught at the sight of the male who wouldn’t even open the bathroom door downstairs, so obviously aroused. 

“Ye don’t look ready to leave just yet,” Wild said.

His voice sounded dry and unbothered. But the strange rage spiked again, and I could feel him seething over our mate bond.

“It doesn’t mean anything,” Aidan spat through clenched teeth, shaking his head in disgust over his straining arousal. “It’s just a biological response to being forced to watch your pathetic little piece of amateur porn.”

I’d never seen amateur porn, but the scathing look in his eyes made it clear it wasn’t something the kind of she-wolf Aidan would truly want would take part in. His words hit me like daggers thrown, flooding me with shame.

“Let him go,” I said to Wild, saying the words and pushing them over our mate bond.

“No,” he answered.

It was just a single word, but Wild growled it with even more ferocity than he used to threaten me about trying to run again.

Then Sea abruptly unknotted inside of me. 

“Looks like you got everything I had to give,” Sea said, rolling off of me with a happy groan.

“Good girl,” Wild murmured.

His mood lightened over our mate bond, and he sat down on the other side of the bed to stroke errant curls out of my face. I vaguely remembered throwing my hair in a couple of braids before I left for the wedding — what felt like eons ago. 

I could only imagine the state of it after my unexpected lake swim and two rounds of heat sex. 

Yet, Wild looked down at me with an expression of total pride and approval as he asked, “Have ye had anything to eat yet?”

“No, we were about to eat when… wait, don’t try to change the subject!”

I glanced toward Aidan, still glowering and bound in the chair. “I know I gave him my pledge, but he obviously doesn’t want me. Want this. You have to let him go.”

“Let’s get ye something to eat, then,” Wild answered as if he hadn’t heard my plea to let Aidan go. 

Sea swung his legs off over the other side of the bed and jogged past Aidan to the still-open door. “And while he does that, I’ll clean up and get a hot bath going for you so that you can have a nice soak before you cycle again.”

That sounded utterly delightful. Every muscle in my body was beginning to ache from two intense rounds of heat sex. But did Wild and Sea, who had already disappeared out the door, really think I could just sit there, eating breakfast and enjoying a bubble bath, knowing Aidan was still tied up?

I thought of how kindly he’d treated me after rescuing me from that cave, even though he didn’t know me from Adam. And my heart twisted with a guilt that way overshadowed any feelings of rejection. 

“Untie him first,” I insisted to Wild. “As much as I want food and a bath, I’m not going to go along with anything until you — oh!”

I cut off when another sexual cramp rocked through me. Stronger and more painful than any of the ones that had come before it. 

And just like that, my sex gushed, and the smell of a new heat cycle filled the room like a mushroom cloud.

“Wild…” I fell back on the bed, cupping my hands over my sore sex, which was clenching the air so hard, it felt like I was still milking Sea’s knot.

“Already?” I heard Sea say, re-entering the room. “Aren’t we supposed to have time between…”

Wild just muttered, “Fuck.”

Before falling on top of me and doing just that. 

There were no games this time. No teasing or instructing me to put on a show for the bound wolf Wild kept calling Dublin.

In fact, Wild’s side of our mate bond went silent, like something put on mute, as his hips pistoned between my legs with a grim, staccato rhythm. 

It didn’t take long for both of us to come. Me with a cry of utter relief. And Wild with a determined grunt soon after. 

It felt so good, and this time, I was completely prepared for him to knot inside of me.

Except he didn’t.

Wild stilled in a way that made my stomach tighten with an ominous emotion.

He didn’t comment on not knotting, though. Out loud or over our mate bond. Just pulled out, completely spent.

Which left me to ask him, “Why didn’t you… um…?” 

My cheeks burned. As much sex as we’d had, I still felt shy when it came to talking about it. 

It’s okay,” Wild muttered, making me wonder if he was talking to me or himself.

His bond remained stubbornly mute, but somewhere in the room, I could sense Sea’s emotions loud and clear — agitated and tense.

“Ye’re satiated for now.” Wild gave me another one of those tender looks I never would have expected from this rough-talking Irish King and stroked more curls off my forehead. “Close yer eyes, beauty, try to get some rest.”

Rest.

He was right. A sudden wave of exhaustion came over me, dragging me down into darkness. 

At least for a little while. 

I woke up a short time later to the sensation of a washcloth moving over my body.

And the smell of a new heat cycle filled the room. 

I was once again clenching air down below, and I reached down to soothe the pain, even though I was too tired to open my eyes. 

“Bloody Christ, it’s only been a couple of minutes,” Sea said somewhere above me. 

Strangely, his side of the mate bond had gone mute, too. 

“Try claiming her in the way of the wolf this time,” Wild said on the other side of me. “Maybe that will…”

He didn’t finish, but apparently, Sea knew exactly what to do. 

I found out what “the way of the wolf” meant without having to ask when Sea flipped me over and pulled my hips back.

The brush of his hand against my butt cheek as the thick head of his rod lined up with the back of my slick space. One shove of his hips, and he was inside of me, somehow even deeper than before. How was that even possible?

I groaned and collapsed to my forearms, rubbing my face in the cool sheets, and Sea followed me down, his chest blanketing my back. 

This position, I recognized after a lifetime in an agricultural community. He was a ram, suddenly taking charge and mounting his ewe during her breeding season.

Next spring, there would be lambs.

My moans and the sound of his hips slapping into mine filled up the room, and soon, another new orgasm crested over me.

I’d only submitted to his claim, but we were both panting by the time he was done. 

But…

No knot.

A burst of alarm and worry came down the mate bond. 

From Wild or Sea? I couldn’t tell before some biological mute button was pushed again, cutting me off from their emotions. 

What was going on? Why were they worried? I needed to ask some questions, but I collapsed on the bed in a boneless heap and instantly fell into a dreamless sleep. 

Until I woke again. To a new heat cycle. 

“Mmm… it hurts!” I moaned. I writhed. The aching burn of my need made it feel like my skin was on fire.

“I’m here, beauty,” Wild murmured behind me. I didn’t register that I was lying on my side until he lifted one of my legs and slid into me from behind. 

For a few languorous minutes, he became my doctor, taking me with rolling strokes that felt like medicine. 

Except I don’t think a doctor would ever say, “Your willy’s going off again. How’s your fuckin’ pride serving ye now, Dublin?”

I opened my tired eyes and realized I’d accidentally created another amateur porn with Wild when I saw that we were directly facing Aidan. My drenched sex pumped out heat as Wild held my top leg over his thigh — presumedly for even easier access as he took me from behind.

Maybe Aidan had been watching us before, but now his eyes were squeezed closed. And this time, the flesh between his legs wasn’t just pulsing. It spasmed, angry and red, before sputtering out a few liquid pearls of seed. Aiden made a harsh animal sound in the back of his throat, the kind that signaled abject pain.

But Wild’s voice held no pity as he continued to taunt him with, “How many times do ye have to watch us fuck her before ye give in to the prophecy?”

I didn’t need Aidan. And I didn’t want him. Not like this. 

Was Wild aware that he sounded like a complete maniac? Why wouldn’t he just let Aidan go?

I came again before I could ask him either of those questions, my body seizing up as intense bolts of pleasure thundered through me.

But again, no knot. 

Wild pulled out of me with another rough curse. 

“What are we going to do?” Sea asked in another part of the room. Though his side of the mating bond stayed mute, his voice was laced with worry. “This isn’t working, and she’s exhausted. I’m not sure how much more she can take.”

They were talking about me.

Some dim part of my brain knew I should probably weigh in, but my eyes fluttered closed, and another sleep overtook me before I could. 

Black but not deep. Another round of heat. But I was too exhausted to open my eyes.

Someone climbed on top of my prone body to claim me anyway. So long and thick, it could only be Sea.

More restless sleep.

I woke up again in what felt like an instant. This time, I was zero percent surprised to feel myself clenching desperately below as the smell of a new heat cycle filled my nose. 

I waited for one of my mates to take me again. Whose turn was it? Wild’s or Sea’s? I’d lost track. 

But no one came. 

“Wild? Sea?” I croaked out, my voice rasping and tired as I rubbed my needy body all over the sheets. “I need you. Please… please come fuck me!”

I’d gotten used to begging, I realized then. Somewhere over the last few hours, it had gone from something I’d never do to instinct. 

But no one came. No matter how many times I called out.

An abandoned feeling began to set in on top of the wanton, all-consuming heat of my need.

Maybe they couldn’t hear me from wherever they’d gone. Maybe I needed to stand up and shout louder.

My brain cleared a little at that thought, and I dragged open my eyes to do the hard work of standing up and walking over to the door of the room they’d let me alone in. 

Only to freeze at the sight directly in front of me.

Sea and Wild hadn’t left me alone, as it turned out. 

Aidan still sat in his chair, but his arms were no longer attached to the handles. They were behind his back. 

The armrests had been pulled off and tossed to the floor. 

Giving easy access to Aidan, whose rod was straining and pulsing like something with a heartbeat.

A piece of what looked like ancient, yellow-stained printer paper was taped to his chest with messy block letters written on it. It simply read: FUCK HIM. IT’S THE ONLY WAY. 

My blood ran cold, even as my core gushed with a new wave of near-crippling heat. 

That was when I understood. Sea and Wild weren’t coming. Not until I had sex with the wolf they called Dublin.

Oh God… oh, God. I stood up in the few feet of space they’d left between his chair and the bed. 

What I needed…

What I wanted…

It was right there. Right there. Straining and pulsing between Aiden’s legs.

“Don’t,” Aidan whispered.

But my pride wasn’t the only thing I’d lost. The upstanding, reasonable person who’d argued for his release had disappeared. 

He said something else, his tone a strange mix of angry frustration and desperate pleading. 

But I lunged toward his chair. Too far gone to hear him.

Wild

“Wild? Sea? Where are you? Please come fuck me!” We’d closed the door to the bedroom when we left, but our Flower’s cries came through loud and clear, along with the scent of her heat. “I need you. Please come fuck me!”

“What are we going to do if this doesn’t work?” Sea whispered from his side of our post at the bottom of the stairs.

We’d both shut down our mate bonds, not wanting to burden Flower with our worry. But I felt Sea asked that question more to distract himself from the smell of her heat. And the sound of her moaning for us upstairs.

Out of what Sea called “an abundance of caution,” we’d fully dressed in some of the clothes we found in Dublin’s suitcase to create one more barrier against giving in to her cries. But it only made things worse. Every second, it took all I had not to rip off these city clothes and charge back into the bedroom cock first.

Her desperate pleas clawed at my chest. It went against everything in a wolf to deny his mate, especially when she was in heat.

But I knew another knotless balling wouldn’t fix anything.

Just like I knew Sea didn’t want the harsh truth to his question about what we — and by “we,” I meant what I alone would do — if this last throw of the mating dice didn’t pan out.

“It has to work,” I growled instead of telling him the truth: that I’d sedate her with the last of Astrid’s tranquilizer, snap that fucking eejit king’s neck, and drive his car to Dublin to grab whatever poor beta was next in line to take his place.

I didn’t say that, but Sea must have felt my mood shift. “I don’t know if it’s safe to use the tranquilizer Astrid gave you on her. It’s meant for wolves who aren’t pregnant. We might need to call or fetch Astrid to get whatever she used on that Amanda one.”

Fuck, he had a point.

“I’m going to call my uncle. Tell him to start bringing her toward the tower just in case,” Sea said, slipping back into True King mode as he pulled out his phone to enact his latest orders.

“Better if you go fetch her yourself,” I told him before he could make the call.

I thought grimly of how much easier it would be to finish off Dublin if I didn’t have to wrestle with Sea’s sense of morality, then added, “Getting away from this blasted heat cloud will clear your head.”

“Good point.” Sea stashed his phone away. “But seriously, do you think sedating her will be eno —”

“No! No! Don’t! I said no! I don’t want this!” Dublin’s frantic cries cut Sea off mid-sentence.

Our Flower must’ve spotted the note I left on him. I could feel her deep sense of guilt, and I cursed myself under my breath for not gagging that withholding City King when I had the chance.

“Don’t do this! Listen to me! Don’t make me —”

Dublin’s voice stopped short with a strangled noise, and I felt relief wash over me. 

Our mate must’ve claimed what was hers by prophecy.

“Should we… go watch?” Sea asked, looking toward the stairs. “Feels like a ritual now.”

I shot him a sideways glare. “No.”

I had reasons for staying put. Ugly, green, dark ones.

But those reasons faded away when I heard the door creak open above us. Then, footsteps.

A chill ran up my spine. If Flower had followed my instructions, there was no way Dublin should be walking out of that room. No chance in hell.

“Son of the bitch!” I swore.

I bolted for the stairs, Sea hot on my heels. If I had to drag her back to Dublin myself and push her down on his cock, too, I would. This wasn’t going to fall apart now. I couldn't let it!

“No, stop!” Flower’s voice rang out, and she stumbled down the short set of top steps before we could reach the half-landing. 

Then, she turned to us, raising her hand, looking like some kind of angel sent from above, only naked and dripping heat from her cunt. “Stop!”

“Where’s Dublin?” Sea asked behind me.

“Why isn’t he knotted balls deep inside ye?” I demanded, my frustration near to boiling over.

“Because I let him go!” she snapped. Her eyes blazed with defiance. “It was the right thing to do.”

The right thing? I clenched my fists so hard I thought I’d draw blood.

She didn’t get it.

Her life, everything, depended on her mating with the last king. “The right thing is to mate with Dublin,” I growled. “Otherwise, yer heat won’t break.”

“Wild, we need to check the back of the house,” Sea cut in, urgency crackling in his voice. “There’s probably a set of servant stairs — he’s making a run for it.”

Flower shouted down at us. “No! You need to let him go!”

“Flower…” I started, but she was having none of it.

“What are you gonna say?” she snapped, swinging her fierce gaze from Sea to me. “That now that I’m mated to you, I should start acting like a toxic monster, too?”

I’d muted my bond, but her disgust came through all the same — sharp and bitter as bile rising in the throat. “I won’t take away someone else’s choices the way you took away mine, Wild.”

Her words cut deeper than any blade. And in that moment, I realized I didn’t have to wait for her to come out of her heat thrall to know the truth about her feelings toward me.

She hated my fucking guts. Still.

But it didn’t matter.

“Get to his car before he does. He’ll need it to make his escape,” I barked at Sea, my teeth grinding. “I’ll handle our mate.”

Sea darted for the door, but Flower cried after him, “No, Sea, don’t! This isn’t what he wants —”

She was so busy defending the City King that she didn’t even see him coming.

Dublin crashed into her like a fuckin’ freight train, pinning her to the wall with a kiss so fierce it rattled every last antique plate on the landing.

No words were exchanged. No explanations.

Dublin just dropped the pants he’d pulled on after she untied him, hitched her onto his waist, and drove into her with a hard bang against the wall.

Then he roared into her mouth like some manner of beast and immediately emptied inside her.

I knew for a fact Dublin hadn’t saved himself for her like Sea had, but his load was just as intense. Soon, his seed was dripping from where he had her pinned to the wall.

Then, Flower screamed, her light-brown thighs clenching tight around his waist as she released, too.

The sight of them tangled together stirred a witch’s cauldron of emotions inside me — rage and jealousy clashed with the primal relief of an ancient prophecy finally being fulfilled.

“Thank you!” she cried out in a broken sob.

“I’m sorry,” Dublin whispered, his voice rough and hoarse. “I tried… I tried to leave… to stop myself.”

“I know. It’s okay.” She peppered his face with kisses, her voice soft and sweet. “Thank you. Thank you.”

“I’m sorry,” he repeated, kissing his way down her neck.

“Thank you!” she sobbed again.

“Sorry, sorry, sorry!” Dublin slammed his hand against the wall as he continued to release inside of her.

“Oh, God, thank you,” she gasped, her body trembling around his cock. “Thank you. Thank —”

She cut off with a scream, and the sheer ecstasy I felt come down her side of the bond let me know that Dublin had thrown his knot.

I’d joked before about staying with us when Sea knotted, but this time, I wasn’t given the chance.

She passed out mid-knotgasm, collapsing against Dublin like a rag doll, limp and lifeless.

Dublin sagged against her, too, and for a moment, they looked like a couple of fighters barely standing after the final bell.

Dublin shot me a baleful glare over her shoulder, then hoisted her up and disappeared back up the stairs, still locked inside of her.

Guess he knew he wasn’t going anywhere anytime soon.

By the time I made it back to the bedroom, they were already asleep.

Dublin lay sprawled on his back, still half-dressed, with our Flower draped over him in something resembling the Kama Sutra’s take on the sleeping baby pose.

“Think it worked?” Sea’s voice slipped into my mind, startling me.

I hadn’t even noticed he’d rejoined me in the room.

“We’ll know when she wakes up,” I replied, keeping my side of the now four-way mate bond muted.

The prophecy was fulfilled. Finally. But…

A gloomy fog settled in my chest, even though I’d gotten what I wanted. Exhaustion, thick and all-consuming, washed over me.

With a sense of duty, I rounded the bed and climbed in on the other side of the sleeping pair.

Sea had taken her the last time before she could even wake, hoping that it would allow her to rest longer.

We’d barely gotten dressed and left the room before her next heat cycle.

If my notion about us not being able to knot inside her because she was already pregnant with our pups turned out not to be true, that meant when she woke up, it would be my turn next.

If she’d even have me after the row we’d had on the stairs.

Either way, I’d be here for her when she awoke, I vowed as I drifted off in the fading light of the setting sun…

… only to wake up in the bright light of morning.

The scent of her heat had faded.

Probably thanks to the window that had been cracked open while I slept. Maybe by Sea, who was still snoozing, slouched over in an armchair with his head on his chest.

Morning light had flooded the room — and she hadn’t cycled again. That meant she must be pregnant!

My heart surged with joy.

Until I glanced over at the other side of the bed and found it empty.

The heat wasn’t the only thing gone. Dublin’s and Flower’s scent had vanished, too.

No… no…

I bolted down the stairs to the front window.

My heart plummeted when I saw the spot where Dublin’s car had been, now empty.

That jammy bastard…

He’d taken her.

He’d taken her from us without a word of warning and vanished like a thief in the night.

Part Five

Naomi

“Do you think Wild and Sea will be upset?” I asked Aidan, worry churning in my gut. “Maybe we should have talked to them about how they wanted to handle all of this before we left.”

Aidan glanced over at me from the driver’s seat of his sleek Nakamura EV, a gentle smile tugging at his lips as if my concern amused him. His gaze lingered, and I threw him a stern look.

“You’re staring again.”

“Sorry, it’s becoming a bit of an addiction,” he admitted, turning his eyes back to the road. “These are supposed to be the most scenic views in Ireland, but I swear you’re prettier than anything else in nature. I honestly can’t believe you’re mine now.”

His words made something twist inside me. Yesterday, Wild had to tie him to a chair to make him reconsider his resolution not to mate me. And now, after breakfast and a little grocery shopping in Galway, he was just totally fine? His sudden ease felt disconcerting, like I was the only one still grappling with being mated to each other a little over twenty-four hours after we met.

As much as I’d enjoyed doing normal things like a normal, non-cloistered she-wolf, the old irritation about only being valued for my looks began to creep in.

Aidan must have felt my annoyance through our mate bond. He frowned over at me, once again taking his eyes off the road, which was flanked by the ocean on one side and rolling hills on the other. “What? You don’t like me admiring you?”

“Not when you value my aesthetics over the words actually coming out of my mouth,” I shot back. “Did you even hear my question?”

“Yes, I did.” This time irritation spiked over his side of the bond.

If I thought prickly Naomi had disappeared under a mountain of confusion and emotional exhaustion, I was wrong. She sprang right back up to ask, “What? You don’t like me calling you out on your questionable values?”

“Stop. You are my queen, but you can’t speak to me this way.” Aidan’s voice took on a new, steelier edge that I’d only heard when he was deriding Wild or commanding the other king to cooperate. “I value everything — every single thing about you. Your strength, selflessness, and tenacity. You were hurting so damn much, but you chose to let me go, to endure that pain because you wanted to save me from something I’d been brought up not to want. You’ve no idea how much I respect and admire you for that alone. I don’t know that I’ve ever met a she-wolf as honorable as you.”

Aidan gritted his teeth. “Do I love that you’re also the most beautiful person I’ve ever laid eyes on as well? Of course I do. Honestly, though, it makes all of this hard to believe — that someone I instantly connected with and liked even before she went into heat could also be wrapped up in such a gorgeous package. I’m half-expecting to wake up from what turned out to be an extremely erotic dream any second.”

My cheeks flamed, and I helplessly stared at him. “You liked me on a personal level before I went into heat?”

During our breakfast in Galway, we’d danced around anything serious — talking about the weather, his phone versus mine, and random tidbits of history that he’d recited with a surprising amount of enthusiasm. We’d filled the time conversing about anything but the huge thing that had happened between him, Sea, Wild, and me yesterday.

But now, with just the two of us and the quiet of the car, it felt like there was no escaping all the topics we’d been avoiding.

“Of course I did,” he answered as if I’d asked whether it had been raining off and on all day. “But I’m not Wild and Sea, and to answer your question, that’s why their feelings are the least of my concern. I wanted to give you a choice, and I’m sorry the heat robbed you of being able to truly choose me as I would have truly chosen you in an instant if we’d met under different circumstances.”

I wasn’t all that into superhero films, but I was beginning to understand people’s fascination with the multiverse. Maybe somewhere else, in another lifetime, Aidan and I were driving along this road happily mated with no confusion about whether or not it had been a choice.

“I felt our connection, too.” I offered him a small smile. “Before the heat.”

“Good.” He glanced over at me with a small smile of his own. “Good. I’m glad it wasn’t just me. That certainly would’ve made this conversation even more awkward than it is.”

I laughed. We both did. Together.

“I’m sorry for snapping,” I told him. “Everything just feels like a lot right now.”

My mind drifted back to yesterday — carnal images flashing through my head of me doing and begging for things I never would have imagined just thirty-six hours ago. It all felt overwhelming, like I was drowning in emotions I didn’t know how to process.

"Yesterday was crazy… and wonderful — but mostly crazy."

Aidan let out a dry chuckle. “Massive understatement, babes.”

We both went silent then, and I stared out the window as the car hummed along a road marked with a blue N67.

My mind was too full, thoughts tumbling over each other, tangled with emotions I didn’t know how to handle. I’d grown up in a sheltered world, hidden away with only my secret books and an old laptop as a portal to the outside world. Going to university in the human world was supposed to be my ultimate escape. Two weeks ago, I was planning to abandon the wolf community altogether.

But now here I was, mated to three kings, bonded to them in ways I barely understood. It felt surreal — like a dream I hadn’t fully woken up from.

“How are you feeling… doing with all of this?” I asked Aidan after a long silence.

“Better than I thought, to be honest,” he said, his voice thoughtful. “I hate to give Wild credit for… well, anything. But I’m feeling grand. Having trouble remembering all the reasons I held out this long, actually. How about you? You’re the one whose plan to study physics in Ontario has been severely compromised. How are you doing with having your entire life upended to be queen of all the Irish Wolves?”

I hesitated, trying to gather my thoughts. “Well, the life I thought I wanted is over, but…” I realized my next words as I said them: “I’m not as upset as I thought I would be. Maybe I’m still in shock? I guess the answer to your questions is ‘I’m still trying to figure it out.’ But getting out of there was a good idea. I’m glad we did this.”

Aidan reached over, resting his hand on my knee, his touch warm and grounding. “Me, too.”

I looked at his hand for a moment before covering it with my own. His touch was reassuring, and despite everything, I felt… comforted.

A strange sort of peace settled between us, and I leaned back into my seat, letting the silence stretch. It was odd, how natural this felt — sitting next to him, sharing the quiet.

So, this was what it felt like to have a mate, I thought with a contented sigh. Maybe my life wasn’t completely ruined after all.

“Five more minutes until we get there,” Aidan said, several minutes later, breaking the silence as he nodded toward a sign for our destination.

“Aidan?” I asked, curiosity piquing. It suddenly felt crucial that I understand the dynamic between two of the kings I’d pledged myself to yesterday. There were too many unknowns, and I needed clarity, even if it meant asking more difficult questions. 

“Hmm.”

“Why does Wild hate you so much?”

Aidan’s grip on the steering wheel tightened, and suddenly his side of the mate bond went completely silent.

My belly knotted. “And now I’m wondering why you’ve muted your side of the mate bond.”

“Ah… I hadn’t even realized I did that.” Aidan reopened his side of the bond with a weak chuckle. “Guess it’s the generational Normanwolf curse of being too emotionally closed off coming back to haunt me.”

Now that his side of the bond was back open, I could tell he hoped I’d ask him about his vulnerability issues, but I stayed silent, waiting for the real answer.

He let out another sigh, and his words came out haltingly as if he were auditioning for one of those old-timey Hugh Grant films. “I don't hate him, per se. It’s not… easy to explain, is it? There’s history — like donkey years of bad history between our two kingdoms. And, you know, that Terrible Belfast Mess didn’t help, did it? That was proper drama the feud didn’t need. However, keep in mind that, technically, the kingdom of Dublin had nothing to do with it. We just ended up being the beneficiary of it — I suppose you’d call us the winners. But don’t. That would be in bad taste. Anyway, it’s not about that. I suppose Wild’s got feelings of his own. Bad ones around the prophecy — though I’m aware it didn’t seem like it yesterday. But — this is Wild’s question to answer, not mine. Oh, look, we’re here.”

I frowned. His answer left me with more questions than before.

But before I could ask them, Aidan announced, “We’re here.”

I looked out the car window as we pulled up back in front of the brick house we’d left when Aidan said, “Hey, what about a breakfast date?” after we finished showering.

It had seemed like a great idea. A chance to put some distance between us and the thing we’d both given into the day before.

But now we’d returned. My cozy morning with Aidan was over.

Which meant it was time to face the other two kings. And find out what came next.

Dublin

Saved by Belfast House.

Even if I’d dared to mute my side of the bond again, I doubt I would’ve been able to mask my relief at reaching our destination.

“Let’s just put a pin in this until after we’ve had breakfast," I suggested, bringing the car to an ultra-quiet stop.

“We already had breakfast,” she pointed out with a hitched smile.

“Let’s put a pin in this until after we’ve had second breakfast,” I corrected.

She grinned. “Like the hobbits?”

“Smart, beautiful, and a Tolkien fan.” I leaned across the armrest to kiss her on the cheek. “How did I get so lucky?”

“I’m not really,” she admitted with an apologetic grimace. “I saw it on a list of ‘Books Science Nerds Love,’ and I’m a nerd, but it was so boring. I couldn’t get through it. And I fell asleep, like, halfway through the first movie — wait, are you a science nerd?”

“Suppose I’m somewhat guilty as charged.” I slung an arm around her neck and led her toward the door. “Double majored in hospitality and food science at University College Dublin. My top contributions during my time as the CEO of Norwolf Stout have been establishing our factory tour — which doubled our domestic merch sales — and the stout chocolate quote-unquote secret family recipe, which I developed with a team when I was a couple of years out of uni.”

She scrunched her nose. “You have a degree in food science, but you don’t know how to season porridge?”

“Correction. I don’t need to season porridge — it’s all just calories in and out to me. Honestly, I’m more interested in the chemistry and economics of making food than the taste of it.”

On that point, I climbed out of the car to grab the Dunnes Grocery Store tote from the boot.

But instead of more ripples of amusement, I felt a wave of sadness crest over her.

“What’s wrong?”

“Nothing,” she answered, quickly averting her eyes.

“Don’t tell me nothing. I can literally feel it now when you’re lying to me.” I tilted my head at her. “Is this about no longer being able to go to university yourself because of what happened yesterday?”

Her spike of surprise told me I’d hit the nail on the head. Still, she insisted, “I’m okay. Let’s just go inside. It’s cold.”

She was right. It was dead cold, not to mention blowing an icy pellet-like sideways rain.

But her sadness tugged at my heart.

“This — becoming a mother doesn’t have to be the end of your life, you know,” I told her, closing the boot. “I’ve got the resources — a company with a proper paternity leave policy and more family wealth than I know what to do with. We can figure it all out when we get back to —“

I cut off when Wild suddenly came storming out of the Belfast House, his side of the four-way mate bond completely muted and his face a wrathful storm.

“Wild, what are you —”

I didn’t get to finish that sentence either. Wild swung at me, a vicious body uppercut that slammed my stomach into my ribs.

What the hell? I wheezed, doubling over. Jayzus, he hit like a goddamn freight train.

Then he came at me again, fist raised.

“Wild! Don’t!” My view of him was blocked by Naomi, arms outspread as she stepped between us. Her outrage on my behalf rippled down the mate bond. “What are you doing?”

“So that’s how it’s going to be?” Wild called out, ignoring her. “You’re just going to let a pregnant she-wolf protect you from the punch you deserve?"

If I could talk, I would’ve explained I was still working on the breathing part. Next would come standing up — both literally and for myself. Until then, I made do with what I had: flipping him a two-finger salute while I coughed.

“Wild, c’mon, don’t!”

Apparently, Wild had a better view of me than I did of him. Naomi had to shift to block him again when he tried to get around her with his fist raised.

“Get out of me way, Flower,” he growled.

“No! I’m not letting you hit him because… why, exactly?” She shook her head. “Why are you so angry?”

“Why did you take her, Dublin?” he spat, eyes blazing. “Were you trying to make me lose my fuckin’ mind?”

“My mate… our mate was hungry, and the town doesn’t even think about waking up before ten,” I answered on a pained wheeze. “So I drove her to Galway, bought her breakfast, groceries, and clothes that actually fit. Figured she’d had enough of my joggers and oversized tees.”

“You couldn’t have fed her here? There’s plenty in the kitchen, and it’s a mate’s duty to —”

“Fuckin’ hell, the way I won’t miss your sanctimonious bullshit.” I finally managed to straighten up, though pain still shot through my gut. “She doesn’t like my cooking. Thought it’d be nicer to take her somewhere proper where she could order what she wanted. Jayzus, don’t you ever tire of being a complete nutter?”

Wild stared at me with unhinged anime villain eyes. “So, this morning you woke up and thought, ‘Yeah, today’s a grand day to get murdered.’”

I snorted. “Aren’t you a wee dote? Acting as if you were capable of doing anything that went against the prophecy. You do not tell me how to act with our mate. She is mine, too."

The Feral King raised his fist even higher. “Why ye fuckin’ city —”

“Wild, please stop.” Naomi scrambled back between us. “I’m sore, I’m tired, and I don’t understand why you’re reacting — why you’re overreacting like this.”

Wild’s feral gaze darted from her to me. His side of our bond stayed blocked, but I didn’t need it to feel the rage rolling off him.

He pointed at me and snarled, “Fuck you, Dublin. And your entire snooty good-for-bollocks city line.”

“Wild!” Naomi said again. “You can’t just…”

He didn’t give her a chance to finish. He stormed off, disappearing around the side of the house.

Leaving Naomi to stare after him, confusion radiating over her side of the mate bond.

“We thought you’d kipped off back to Dublin.”

Naomi and I looked up to see Sea leaning against the open doorway of the Belfast House like he’d come to see the show but didn’t want to get wet. Or involved.

“Jayzus Christ, Sea. Were you there the entire time, man? Why the hell didn’t you say anything — or at least intervene before he…?”

Sea shrugged. “Next time, leave a note to tell us where you’re going, City King.”

“That doesn’t make sense!” Naomi said before I could answer. “If Wild was so angry about us leaving, why was he so upset when we came back?”

Sea and I exchanged a look over her head.

Naomi’s eyes narrowed as she glanced between the two of us. “I’m guessing from the way both your bond lines have gone mute that this is yet another question I need to ask Wild.”

“Or you could give him some time to cool off,” Sea suggested with a diplomatic tilt of his head. “Come in out of the rain. Then we can —”

Sea didn’t get to finish either.

“Where are you going?” he called after Naomi when she flipped the hood of her new parka up and blasted past him instead of taking him up on his suggestion.

“To finally get some answers!” she yelled over her shoulder before disappearing around the corner in the same direction as Wild.

Wild

A Wild Wolf would rather be caught dead than caught out complaining about the weather. But this shitey cold rain was taking the absolute piss out of me as I tore off toward the lake side of the house, full-on mocking me for losing it on Dublin.

It wasn’t just the cold rain biting at my skin. Shame clawed at my gut, gnawing at me with every step. Seriously, Wild? Couldn’t even manage a few minutes of pretend civility for her sake? Are you truly no fuckin’ better than your father?

Clearly, I wasn’t.

I thought fulfilling my part in the prophecy would free me from the ticking bomb of history rattling around inside my DNA. But all it did was unlock the door to memories I’d buried deep, dragging them to the surface like drowned corpses.

Nearly twenty years had passed since that day, but the images hit me like fresh punches as I stormed off along the lake path.

Sea and me walking into the residence beside my father, our catch of foxes and rabbits swinging from our hands…

“Wild!”

The smell of the place as we entered. Like my mother, but twisted. Mixed with something foreign. City stone, cliff dirt, and sea.

“Wild!”

My father’s face, hard as a gravestone, before he ordered Sea and me, “Stay here.”

The crushing weight in my chest as I watched him disappear up the stairs.

The thunder of violence breaking loose above.

“Wild!”

Suddenly, Flower was in front of me again, blocking my path in one of those puffy coats only the City Wolves and tourists wore. Dublin had probably bought it for her.

My human side sneered at the City King’s gift, but my wolf, the primal protector, growled that it wasn’t enough to keep her warm in the cold November rain — no Guns N’ Roses intended.

“Go back inside.” My voice was broken rubble inside my chest. Alright, maybe some Guns N’ Roses intended. “Tell Dublin to get a fire going for ye.”

“No, not until we talk about what happened back there!” 

I could feel her words pressing against the wall I’d built in our mate bond, testing the cracks, trying to break through.

“Ye don’t understand,” I bit out. “Ye couldn’t comprehend in yer pacifist cult mind how close I came to doing Dublin true violence. Ye don’t want to be out here with me right now.” I pointed back to the house, now barely visible through the rain. “Again, I’m telling ye —”

“And I’m telling you no!” she shouted, her voice rising above the howling wind.

Then she was back inside my mind, quietly insisting, “We need to talk about whatever triggered you into acting like that when we returned to the house.”

A mean laugh slipped out before I could stop it. “Dublin didn’t tell you about it on your little breakfast date?”

“He said I needed to ask you.” Frustration rippled through her side of the mate bond, and she folded her arms. “So that’s what I’m doing. I’m asking you.”

She squared her shoulders, her eyes locking on mine for battle.

One I refused to fight.

“I can’t do this with ye.”

I tried to move past her, but she wasn’t having it. She got back in front of me and shoved at my chest.

“Why can’t you do this with me?” she demanded over our mate bond, shoving again. “What’s the Terrible Belfast Mess?”

Another shove.

“Why did you guide me through the most intense experience of my life only to turn into a snarling asshole the next morning when my heat was over? Like reverse Beauty and the Beast!”

Another hard hit. From her hands and her words.

“Why are you keeping your side of the bond muted?”

She tried to shove me again, but this time, I grabbed her hands and roared, “What do ye want from me?”

A flicker of fear flared through our bond. But she didn’t retreat. She stood her ground, drew herself up, and jutted her chin. “I’m not going back in that house. Not until you answer my questions.”

Bitterness twisted in my throat, so thick I could hardly swallow it. “So, ye want me to tell ye my tragic little backstory, then?”

I dropped her hands to point back at Belfast House. “Ye won’t go back inside until I tell ye this was where everything fell apart? The last time I ever saw my parents together before my mother left me and me da to start another family?”

“Wait, what?” The stubborn anger fizzled into confusion. “Are you saying that your mom left you to start another family, even though she was already married and mated?”

“Wolf mated,” I corrected. “Una was wolf-mated to my father and just my father. She was the prize my grandfather allowed him to choose for himself alone after he took over as the Wild King. But only my father was happy about his choice.”

Yer father chose me. Pointed at me like I was a piece of jewelry at the traveling market. I would never, ever have chosen him.

My mother’s acid-laced answer to the one question I’d asked her about their unhappy marriage echoed in my head as I told my new prophesied mate, “He loved her — that’s why he chose her to mother the next king of the Wild Wolves. But she hated him.”

Even worse than Flower hated me. I didn’t say that bit out loud, but now that I was no longer so singularly focused on the prophecy, the parallels to my mother’s story began seeping through like moonlight in a thick forest of memories.

“Anyhow, it was one of those marriages that corroded like iron left out in the rain with every year that passed. Then, one year, my father decided it would be a good idea to bring my mother along with us to the quarterly meeting. I can still remember the fight they had about it. Her telling him she wouldn’t even know what to do or say at a meeting like that. Him insisting that it was time she took her role as queen of the Wild Wolves seriously. He didn’t know…”

A cold wind blew through me that had nothing to do with the actual elements. “He didn’t know he was setting in place the destruction of his marriage.”

Wild

“What did ye mean ye’ve never had rabbit?” my father asked the Dublin Prince, who, at the time, had two more years than my eight on what my people called Inis Alta in the auld language. The Wild Island.

I’d not set foot in a proper city at that point. But over the course of the spring quarterly, spent refilling ancient chalices and fetching for the four rulers, it had become more than clear that the Dublin Prince’s version of growing up didn’t look a damn thing like mine.

My father turned to the Dublin King to demand, “What were you hunting for, then, that made us have to push the quarterly back to Monday and fuck up all of our weeks?”

The top of the City King’s forehead reddened, but his voice remained haughty as ever when he answered, “As I’ve already explained, the Noble Masters of Foxhound Association had their annual charitable hunt last weekend. Thanks to the UK ban, we’ve had more international interest than usual from the English nobility, so as the Hunt Chairman, I couldn’t have possibly —”

“Put us lowly wolf kings above those ridiculous horse-riding city humans playing dress-up in their red coats,” Da finished for him.

“Conall, will you stop?” my mother scolded. She only ever used my father’s true name when she was truly fed up. “This is meant to be a lovely last breakfast before we depart. I got up at the crack of dawn to make it for you lot.”

We were all sitting around the dining room table on the last day of the quarterly at Belfast House.

“Cos ye’re so damn in love with that bloody stove top,” Da grumbled.

The Belfast Priest, sworn to Christ, and the City King, who spoke with an accent so posh you might’ve mistaken him for English, both visibly winced at my father’s rough language.

“And what if I am?” my mother shot back, her tone sharp. “When’s the next time I’ll get to use a proper one, travelin’ as I must with the Wild Wolves?”

“As you get to travel as queen of the Wild Wolves,” my father corrected, his teeth gritted. “If the job’s too hard for ye, maybe we ought to try for a daughter at the next full moon.”

My mother went quiet, as she always did when he brought up trying for a daughter — at least in front of others.

At home, though, she’d have had plenty to say. Not unless yer father rises from the grave to force me into another cage with ye. Or: Why, so you can marry her off to whatever prince points at her, same as you did me? And when she’d had too much to drink, she’d scream: As if I’d ever pass this miserable fate on to another innocent girl. I thank the gods every moon you got your heir on the first try, so I’ll never have to let you near me again.

Loud enough for the entire encampment to hear.

Lucky for me da, she’d had nothing to drink during the quarterly he’d dragged her to, even though the Sea King was widowed, and the Dublin King always left his mate at home. Just picked at the remains of the tinned baked beans on her plate.

“The breakfast is much appreciated,” the Belfast Priest said into the tense silence.

“I mean, proper delicious,” the Sea King added with a shy glance at my mother — before remembering himself and clearing his throat. He turned to me instead. “Please tell your mother the breakfast is not only tasty but truly appreciated.”

“Thank you,” my mother answered before I could relay the message. She barely looked up, her voice small, defeated. “It feels nice to be appreciated.”

“Isn’t it, though?” my father replied, his voice tight with mockery. “Isn’t it nice to be acknowledged for all you do? Even once in a while?”

Another thick silence. I didn’t fully understand it back then, but I felt it. The anger that clung to every word, the bitterness that hung between them. Even at eight, I knew something was wrong, even if I didn’t have the words to explain it.

“I’ll teach ye how to hunt proper,” Da suddenly announced, turning back to the Dublin Prince. “Least I can do before you and yer da set off to the city.”

And that was the decision that marked the end of their marriage.

If Da heard the Dublin King’s warning about wanting to get back to the East Coast before dark as we set off with his son and the Sea Prince, he didn’t act like it.

As soon as we reached the farmlands on the other side of the old Sea Kingdom town, he told Sea and Dublin, “It’s my duty and honor to show you two princes how to catch foxes and rabbits — real rabbits.”

He shot a disapproving look at the Sea Prince, the oldest of us three at twelve. “Not those plump special breeds you lot farm in the down below. Can barely waddle, much less escape an arrow.”

“What’s the down below?” Dublin asked, plucking the favorite bow my da had made me give him like it was some kind of harp.

Da just sighed before announcing, “Here’s how it’ll go. I’ll wait for ye here, and the three of you can come back when you’ve caught a fox and a rabbit each.”

“Each?” Dublin scrunched his brow. “But I don’t even know how to shoot an arrow.”

“Believe me, you’ll figure it out once the hunger sets in,” Da answered. His voice held about as much sympathy as a stone. “Now go. The longer ye ask questions, the longer it’ll take.”

We set off in three different directions. 

But of course, I returned less than an hour later with a fox whose neck I’d broken and a rabbit I’d had to throw a knife at since I’d given my favorite bow to a city eejit who didn’t even know how to use it.

Sea took longer, about three clicks of the sun. And it was dark by the time Dublin came back, his face streaked with dirt, sweat, and the salty trails of frustration tears.

Neither Da nor I wore watches, but we didn’t need to. The first thing Dublin yelled was, “Nine hours! Jayzuz Christ, it took me nine bloody hours to complete your goddamn mission!”

Da and me swapped smug looks. The Dublin Prince wasn’t so posh now, was he?

“Feelin’ proper accomplished, then, ain’t ye?” Da asked, a knowing smile tugging at his lips.

Dublin kicked at the dirt before admitting, “Yeah. Yeah, I am. And I’m a right shot now.”

We all laughed.

Sea handed him one of the sandwiches he’d fetched from the human town when the sun started to drop, and we realized Dublin wouldn’t return anytime soon. I clapped him on the back and told him he could keep my favorite bow.

Us being Irish, we turned the walk back to Belfast House into a recounting of our kills, each story more embellished than the last. Even Dublin laughed at my dead-on impression of him yelling, “Nine hours!” when he emerged from the hunt. And Da laughed hardest of all.

None of us knew that would be his last laugh. His last smile. His last enjoyment of any good times with his son.

That “nine hours” would have a different meaning as soon as we walked back into Belfast House.

To no one’s surprise, the Dublin King awaited us at the lake path. We’d missed his deadline to get back by a good three or four hours.

“Why the bloody hell do you choose to live your life without a phone?” The Dublin King's expression was both furious and uneasy in the moonlight as he confronted my father.

I sniggered. Posh gobshite must have been in a right state, thinking something bad had happened to his son.

Da began to shrug. I suspected he had a right bastard-like line all prepared to further piss the Dublin King off.

But then his eyes flicked up to the Belfast House, and he stilled.

“If you only had a phone, all of this could have been prevented!” The Dublin King’s voice had taken on a note of defensive panic.

And my amusement faded as I followed Da’s gaze.

There was only one light on. The one for the room we’d been given at Belfast House — the one with the extra-large bed my mother pointed out was meant for lucky queens with two mates.

“You’ve never even managed to satisfy one husband,” my father had sneered at her. “And now you wish for two?”

They’d slept on opposite sides of me every night of the quarterly, using their son as a physical barrier.

But now, something about that lone light in the window filled me with dread, though I couldn’t explain why. Not yet.

“What happened here?” My father’s voice lost its jovial edge, tightening into something darker.

“I would’ve called you,” the Dublin King answered. “I could’ve come to get you if you hadn’t run off for hours on end without any way to reach you.”

“What. Happened?” My father roared, making all of us princes flinch.

“Come, son.” The Dublin King grabbed the City Prince’s arm, making him drop my bow in the dirt. “This is a mess brought on by their nature. We can do nothing to help these savages.”

He dragged his son away, leaving Sea and me standing outside the house with my father.

I’d never forgive the former Dublin King for that. For removing his precious heir and leaving the other two boy princes to deal with the fallout.

Sea and I followed Da into the house but stayed at the bottom of the stairs as we were told. My stomach churned, every sound from upstairs twisting it tighter.

Then came my mother’s voice, sharp and furious, cutting through the stillness. “Are you truly surprised? Surprised I’d go into heat the first time I was shown even a measure of kindness and respect?”

The sounds of a fight followed — thuds, crashes, and muffled grunts. My father’s voice growled with fury, but it was two against one. And the Belfast Priest and the Sea King had their newly aroused protective wolf strength on their side.

It didn’t take them long to overpower my da and tie him up.

Nine hours…

I thought about defying my father's order and going upstairs to intervene.

But Sea grabbed my arm as soon as I headed for the steps and solemnly shook his head.

Nine hours…

Eventually, the three of them came down the stairs, fully dressed. The Belfast Priest, the Sea King, and my mother. Watching her come down the steps with the two of them flanking her sides became an instant core memory. They already looked like the happy trimates I’d seen in our village. 

The smell of two males who were not my father on her was so overwhelming I immediately broke down in tears.

“Oh, don’t cry, my boy, don’t cry.” My mother had never been as hard as my father. She stopped in front of me and bent down to gently wipe away my tears. “None of this is your fault,” she said. “But this is my first — my only chance at happiness. I must go with my true mates to Belfast. And who knows?"

She gave me a sad little smile as tears began to roll down her own face. "Maybe I’ll be able to give you a little sister after all.”

Nine hours…

My mother was leaving us? And defying everything the Wild Wolves held dear to move to a city?

Sea stood by, having a stoic conversation with the father, who also wouldn’t be raising him. But my boyish tears turned into wails, and I clung to her, refusing to let go.

“Oh, none of that,” she insisted, pushing at my arms. “Your father will point at another she-wolf mate, and raise you in his image to become king of the Wild Wolves. You’ll be fine.”

In the end, the Sea Prince came over and physically separated me from my mother, then held me back when I tried to lunge for her again.

“It’s already done, and we’re only boys,” Sea said as I strained against his hold. “There’s nothing we can do.”

She promised me I’d be fine. But in the end, that hadn’t been true.

My mother going into heat had been enough to make the Belfast Priest forsake all his vows, even after Da and Dublin’s father stripped him and Sea’s father of their titles.

That, and establishing the Heat Laws, was the last thing my father ever did. Sea got to see his father one final time, but my mother did not dare to come with her mates to that final meeting. 

When we got back to the encampment, he sent me ahead to our family hut. The next morning, I woke alone, cold inside. I found him hanging from a tree — his only escape from the love he still held for my mother, his last word in their final argument.

The Cursed King…

“Ye asked why I was so mean to ye. Why I’d go to any lengths to see the prophecy through. Well, that’s why.” The creak of Da's body swayin’ from the tree branch echoed in my head as I returned to the present.

By the time I finished the story, the rain had stopped, and a puddle had formed between where Flower and I stood.

I kept my eyes on it. “Ye were raised in your religion, Flower. After me da's death, the prophecy was all I had. The only thing that would make the story of City, Sea, and Wild uniting under one queen worth all the pain. So, believe me when I tell ye, I understand being hated. I understood it from the start with ye. And I tried…”

I clenched my fists. “Ye have no idea how hard I’ve been fighting not to fall in love with ye. But ye’re too fucking wonderful, aren’t ye?”

I shook my head. “Not just beautiful, not just our fated queen, but ye’re smart, pure funny, interesting as hell — I mean, truly fucking layered. And don’t even get me started on how ye refuse to take any of my shite. How could I not love ye like my father loved my mother? Uselessly. Endlessly. Even if you hate me back.”

That was it. That was the story. When I finally met her eyes, Flower’s side of the mate bond was frozen with horror.

“Wild… Wild, I can’t do this with you,” she said, her head shaking at the ground. She couldn’t even look at me. “You’re going to have to let me…”

“Of course,” I said, quickly stepping aside so she could return to the house without having to walk through the puddle. “I understand why ye wouldn’t want to —”

Her body slammed into mine, and she wrapped her arms around me tighter than I’d clung to my mother when she left.

“I’m so sorry that happened to you,” she whispered into my chest. “But I don’t hate you…”

She sighed, all the warmth of her feelings flowing over our bond. “I don’t hate you.”

My chest collapsed under those four words: I don’t hate you.

“Don’t say that,” I warned, even as I grabbed onto her, holding her fierce as a luchorpán would his treasure. “Don’t say that, or I won’t be able to…”

Too late. The tenuous grip I had on my mate bond snapped.

Sea

“Wild should take back what he said about you City Wolves being useless. You did a bang-up job with the shopping. It’s been donkey’s years since I’ve had a Curly Wurly.”

I pulled the 5-pack of chocolate-coated caramel bars out of the Dunne's tote and set them next to the box of Barry's Gold I'd already cracked open for a mid-morning tea. “No grocery stores in the secret kingdom, and our castle chef only knows how to bake fancy pastries.”

“Sorry, are you saying you’d take processed Cadbury over freshly baked pastries?” Dublin turned to look at me from the kitchen's only window, which was positioned kitty corner to the stove’s alcove. Thanks to our four-way mate bond, I could both feel and hear the skepticism in his voice — along with his worry about the row happening outside on the lake path.

“What’s that saying?” I moved over to the vintage cast iron stove built into the kitchen’s alcove to put on a kettle. “Is glas iad na cnoic i bhfad uainn. The faraway hills are greener.”

“So, no grocery stores, but you’ve got a castle? An actual stone and turret job?”

“Sure, and a couple of dragons to guard it.”

“Dragons?” Dublin dipped his chin down to ask, “Are you serious?”

“No, of course, I’m not completely serious.” I turned the knob on the stove’s burner, then returned to fishing through the Dunne’s tote of goodies. “Haven’t seen a dragon about in years and years — hey now, Tayto’s cheese and onion crisps! You’re a legend, Dublin.”

“Wait, Sea, are you tryin’ to tell me dragons are real?”

A jolt of horror sank both our stomachs before I could answer. Mairinua.

I abandoned the tote and rushed to join Dublin at the window. She and Wild were standing only a few meters from the house, and neither of them was shouting anymore. In fact, Mairinua stood there, listening to what Wild was telling her, with a look on her face that matched the horror thrumming through our bond.

Apparently, we could still feel what she was feeling over our mate bond, even through a thick brick wall. If the emotion was strong enough.

"He must be telling her the whole story now," I said.

"Yes, that’s precisely what Wild’s on about," Dublin agreed, his agitation rising in tune with our mate’s. "Do you think we ought to go out there and, I don’t know, offer some support?"

“You mean, instead of scarpering off and leaving two children to deal with the fallout from their parents' affairs?”

Dublin’s face reddened, his eyes flicking to the floor as he shifted awkwardly. “I’m sorry, Sea. Truly. I can’t imagine what it was like for you and Wild to go through that alone.”

“No, you can't,” I agreed, thinking of all the sleepless nights after I was abruptly thrust into the role of boy king. The struggles with my wolf started soon after.

But the beast inside of me was calm now. It had retreated and stayed where it belonged the moment I’d knotted inside our mate. I couldn’t remember the last time I’d felt such peace.

“And you were only ten,” I found myself saying, my voice softening with a new sense of benevolence. “It wasn’t your fault what your father did. None of what our fathers did was our fault, and that's the truth of it."

“No, but I still wish…” Dublin turned back to the window, watching as Wild pressed on, telling our Mairinua about the Terrible Belfast Mess despite her horror. “I wish things had gone differently. That’s all.”

“My uncle says regrets are like stones at the bottom of the ocean," I answered with a sideways glance. "You’ll drown before you reach them.”

“Yes, I understand, and he’s not wrong. It’s best to let it go and move on, but…” Dublin stared out beyond the window, his gaze unfocused, no longer on Wild and Mairinua. “My father spent nearly my entire life trying to turn me against the prophecy. It’s still hard to believe I’m here with the two of you… and her.”

“Your father was wrong. Mine was right. This was always how things were meant to go.” I clasped my hands behind me, falling back into my usual True King stance. “Do you regret giving in?”

Confusion and shame rippled through his bond, but he answered, “No. She was suffering. If anything, I feel guilty for holding out as long as I did. Guilty and foolish. I mean, like you said, it all worked out. And it’s over now. We won’t have to worry about going through that again.”

This time, I didn’t just glance — I turned to look at him properly. “Do you City Wolves not have heat moons, then?”

“Oh, we do. Norwolf even gives our workers an extra week of PTO — bloody tax nightmare for the lads in accounting,” he muttered. “Not that anyone’s needed it this year.”

“You will need it,” I reminded him, unclasping my hands. “Here, with us, before I return to the secret kingdom.”

Terror spiked through his side of the bond, but he quickly squashed it, pointing out, “Her heat’s over, and with what Wild just confessed, do you really think she’ll be in the mood for…” He hesitated, obviously searching for the right words to describe our new sexual dynamic. “… any of that?”

I paused, a sharp, thorny thought prickling at me. “City King, have you still not accepted that you’re meant to share your queen?”

“No, of course, I understand,” he insisted, though his caught-out look directly contradicted his words. “I’m only saying it’s doubtful we’ll have a heat moon under the circumstances.”

“The circumstances.” I folded my arms. “So, what do you think the next steps are for the four of us?”

Dublin hesitated again, but then his answer came out like something prepared for a test. “You and Wild should probably plan to return to the secret kingdom sooner rather than later, and I’ll stay here in Belfast House with her until it’s safe for us to move back to Dublin.”

“Are we sharing custody, then?" My voice grew colder than the wind outside. "Will you deign to let me have her for the summers and the occasional weekend, City King?”

“Sea.” Dublin exhaled a weary breath. “I’m not trying to insult you, and yes, maybe we can work out an arrangement for the summer if she’s amenable to that. Between her juggling three newborns and most likely enrolling at University College Dublin, it’s doubtful she’ll have time to…”

He trailed off under the thunder of my icy glare, and gave up pretending this was about her busy schedule.

“Look, Sea, I’m not like you and Wild.” He ran a hand through that city flop he called hair and huffed. “Culturally. I wasn’t raised to share.”

“Sure, sure.” I nodded and walked back over to Dunne’s tote. “I understand that you were raised to believe differently from us.”

Relief started to flow over his side of the bond.

But then I pulled the last item out of the grocery tote he’d set down on the counter. “I’m only wondering about this purchase, then.”

“Oh, that’s…” The blood drained from Dublin’s face as he stumbled over an explanation for the 100ml cylindrical bottle of Durex Feel Play Lube in my hand. “Just in case…”

I arched an eyebrow at him. “Just in case you get the chance to claim the only hole Wild and I haven’t already been inside for yourself when you get her alone? Or just in case I offer you the opportunity the next time I’m inside her?”

Another jolt of terror. Then Dublin’s side of the bond abruptly clicked off, like something on a switch. “Her heat’s over,” he answered, drawing up to his full height. “Whatever that was upstairs is over.”

“Is it?” It was my turn to send a hefty parcel of skepticism down the bond. “That proper panicked feeling you just muted? Are you afraid to share with your fellow kings? Or scared you’ll like it?”

Dublin opened his mouth to answer — only to cut off with a “Fucking hell!”

Fucking hell was right. I nearly cursed out loud myself when a sudden, overwhelming wave of lust hit me. Along with deeper feelings.

Ravenous hunger. Fear so jagged, it made Dublin’s terror seem like a wee heart blip. This was obsession — bone deep and manic. Hoping to have sex with our Mairinua again suddenly wasn’t enough.

I became rock hard in an instant, and a desperate, ill feeling gnawed at my gut. I was sick… sick with the need to ride her, to have her until there was nothing left of me. Until every dark thing inside of me was healed. Until I stopped breathing.

Not yours. The small bit of my brain still capable of reason realized these feelings weren't mine. They belonged to someone else. 

Wild…

This was every intense emotion he was feeling, every unhinged thought, let loose over the four-way bond. All at once.

As if to confirm it, Wild and Mairinua came crashing through the kitchen’s back door. Already kissing and tearing off clothes.

Despite the chaos of three other sets of thoughts in my head — one of them blaring louder than a city pub at Christmas — I smiled.

Looked like Dublin was wrong.

The four of us would be having a heat moon after all.

Us

Dublin

Pushing off Naomi’s coat, Wild devoured her mouth, then flipped her around toward the closest surface — the kitchen table where I’d set out a rare set of bone china Irish tea cups and saucers, crafted by Belleek and dating back to the 1700s.

But in one fell swoop of Wild’s arm, those antique dishes were sent crashing to the floor, shattering as the Wild King folded Naomi over the table.

My stomach dropped.

It was happening again. Naomi was being taken right in front of me.

I stood there, frozen, as this new scene unfolded.

Naomi

Wild yanked down the leggings Dublin had bought. Just far enough to give himself access.

I couldn’t see it, but through our now open mate bond, I felt how hard he became at the sight of me, lying there on full display with my palms flattened on the table. I could smell my arousal in his nose.

Wild

My wolf was a simple creature: easy to please, happy just to have his ears scratched. The truth was, my human was far more dangerous.

I’d tried to spare our Flower from the storm raging inside of me. It wasn’t her fault that mating her had turned me into a stark raving nutter. Yet it was all her fault.

I could no longer hold on, hold back.

“I’m sorry, Flower.” I fell over her back, pushing words into her mind for the first time since my last claim of her. Pulling my painfully hard cock out of the fleece trackies I’d “borrowed” from Dublin, I apologized from the bottom of my pitiful soul. “Too far gone to be gentle.”

Sea

Wild’s emotions were so loud I could barely sense our Mairinua. 

But I felt her cry out when her Wild King drove into her from behind with one hard shove, pushing her entire body forward on the table.

Naomi

It was an invasion, sudden and deep. But it didn’t hurt. Wild’s feral lust was an infection that had somehow spread to me, too.

I was no longer in heat, but my core was slick, allowing Wild to start moving without any friction on my part.

Sea

Holy… I could feel the pull of her cunt as Wild rutted her. Desperate and needy as she mewled underneath him.

“DON’T YE DARE TOUCH YERSELVES!”

I didn’t realize my hand had moved toward the bulge between my legs until Wild’s voice boomed into my mind. Beside me, Dublin also pulled his hand back.

Apparently, the City King wasn’t as over watching others claim his queen as he thought —

“Too soon! Too soon! Fuck, too soon!”

Wild’s inner protest was all the warning I got before a sharp electric feeling shot through my cock.

Him releasing.

I was still hard as steel, but Wild’s relief washed over me like a tide.

Wild

… followed immediately by shame.

I was spent, but our Flower hadn’t found her release yet. Her drenched cunt was still quivering around me, grasping at my deflating length.

I pulled out. Fuck.

Naomi

I didn’t understand why he pulled out so soon. Or the ugly emotions now flowing from his side of our bond.

“Wild, are you…” My eyes pooled with tears as my core clenched air. “Are you punishing me again?”

“No, no, I’m sorry, Flower,” he crooned into my head, even as he pulled out of me. “I’m so very sorry.”

His regret washed over me, along with his sincere apology. But then, a new steely resolve suddenly replaced his guilt. “But I promise ye this…”

Sea

Wild flipped our mate onto her back and began removing her boots, underwear, and leggings as he made her a vow. “It won’t happen again this heat moon. You will always come first. Your three kings are going to make sure of it, over and over again. We won’t stop until you beg us to.”

My length dripped at the idea, and I slid Dublin a sideways look. But he’d muted his side of the bond, and the expression on his face was unreadable. I couldn’t tell how he felt about Wild making four-way promises on his behalf.

Perhaps that indecision was why Wild called Dublin forward instead of me. “Come, City King,” he commanded, beckoning him over to the table.

Naomi

I shivered when Wild ran a hand over the seam of my pulsing sex, now wet with his spend and my unmet need.

But my heart stopped when Wild commanded, “Clean her up. And don’t stop until she comes all over yer face.”

I broke free from my lust daze to say out loud, “No, Wild, not again. Don’t make him.”

Sea

I answered in full voice before Wild could. “There will be no making him, Mairinua.”

I turned my gaze to Dublin, my chest hardening with the same resolve as Wild’s. “Either he’s in this with us, or he can spend our heat moon locked away in another closet.”

Dublin

It had been a loo, but Sea's meaning wasn’t lost on me.

This was the final question on their test — whether I could fully accept sharing her with two others.

Wild moved aside as if to confirm my conclusion, and I came to stand over where she lay on the table.

I’d almost gotten used to her new scent during our trip to Galway. Pregnancy hormones and the marking scents of two other wolves on top.

But now her scent was unbalanced. Wild had marked her loudest of all when he unloaded inside her.

Her sex was glossy, leaking cream.

I could both smell and feel her reaction to my silent study.

Naomi

An eddy of shame and guilt that somehow fueled even more arousal.

DUBLIN

I couldn’t see it, but I felt the throb of her clit beneath the hood of her sex.

“You don’t have to,” she pushed into my head, reminding me I was unbound.

Free to do as I choose.

I could carry her to the bath and clean her like I did this morning while Wild and Sea slept.

I could grab her and run.

I didn’t have to share her.

I didn’t have to…

I stood there, my hands clenched at my side, the weight of my father’s words echoing in my head. Dublin Kings are not savages. We do not share. 

And then, I made my choice.

Us

Naomi

I gasped at the crackle of helpless hunger that sizzled through me right before Aidan fell to his knees.

His muted mate bond had given way, and now I could feel everything he felt when his mouth found my sex.

There was no longer any hesitation…

Dublin

… just ravenous hunger. The strings of propriety that had bound me for so long dissolved into thin air as I lapped at her, cleaning away the smell that had replaced mine as the last wolf inside her.

Naomi

Acceptance… Hunger… Utter Possession…

I’d never felt anything like this, even at the stone circle when Wild showed me the difference between desire and disgust. My skin was on fire. My breasts were swollen to the point of pain underneath the long-sleeved shirt Dublin had bought me.

My body unconsciously scooted back, fearing the out-of-control blaze building inside might burn me alive.

But Aidan hooked his hands over the top of my thighs, holding me in place, his mouth and tongue digging even deeper into my core.

“Oh! Oh!”

Dublin

“No, beauty, none of that.” Wild chastised Naomi over the mate bond. “Not when ye have two more kings to attend to ye.”

I couldn’t see her crime, but I could sense it through his eyes.

Wild

Our silly banríon had pushed up her shirt and soft cotton bra and tried to use her own hands to massage her breasts and stimulate their hard, distended nubs.

Naomi

But Sea and Wild each caught one of my wrists, and by seemingly mutual agreement, grabbed hold of the front of my shirt. There came a ripping sound, and both my new bra and shirt fell away, exposing my breasts.

Sea

Her gorgeous full breasts. My mouth watered at seeing them, perfectly rounded with large cinnamon-colored aureoles.

Naomi

Sea and Wild pressed my arms into the table with one hand, holding me down as they each found a breast with the other.

I felt everything. Not just the massage of their palms over what they both considered perfect, beautiful breasts but also the sweep of their tongues around my straining nipples as they each took a globe into their mouth.

Sea

I drew on her aching nipple, gently sucking the pain away.

WILD

And I clamped my mouth over the hard nub in mine, squeezing it with my front teeth and letting my canine fangs sink into the soft part of her breast until she cried out.

Naomi

Oh, God! Oh, God! Why did that feel so good? Pain mixed with pleasure, combining into something electric that lit up my entire body.

Every nerve buzzed dangerously. It was too much. Too much!

Dublin

And then I sucked the hard nub between her legs into my mouth.

NAOMI

I whimpered.

And then I screamed.

The release Wild had denied me earlier tore through me. Killing me in a single explosion.

But none of the males with their mouths on my separate nubs cared that I was dying.

Aidan continued to suck, mercilessly drawing out the orgasm as he held my legs pinned to his shoulders.

And Sea and Wild kept working the nipples on my breasts, sending electric bolts of pleasure straight down to my womb.

They didn’t stop. They refused to stop. Until I finally stopped moving, melting into the table, limp with pleasure.

Dublin

Naomi was no longer in heat. I was unbound. But I’d never been so hard in my life.

My length had its own pulse now, a steel pipe leaking pre-cum from its tip.

When she finally stopped orgasming, I stood up and began to unbuckle, cursing the belt and jeans I’d worn to breakfast. That unwise decision meant I couldn’t pull myself out like Wild had earlier. No, I had to fumble with clasps and zips before falling on top of her.

But just when I managed to pull the zipper down over my painful bulge, Wild pushed into my head. “And what do ye think yer doing? Who said the clean up was for ye, City King? Sea’s next.”

Everything inside me curdled with disappointment. Fucking hell.

Sea

Thank the three gods! My cock was dripping with pre-cum. Sucking on our Mairinua’s perfect breast had been a glorious distraction. But I doubted I could’ve held against Wild’s command not to touch myself much longer.

Naomi

In a daze, I watched Sea push down the black fleece pants that carried Aidan’s amazing stone and wheat smell. Yes! My body swelled, and my core clenched with a new desire to be taken, penetrated again.

But then the thing that sprang out of his pants cleared my mind. With fear.

How had I forgotten how large and thick he was?

My self-taught physics and anatomy lessons collided, very much doubting he’d fit without the intense lubricant of my heat.

Wild

“Oh, he’ll fit,” I assured her with a dark chuckle. “Show her ye can take it slow, Sea.”

SEA

Yes, I’d show her…

Naomi

Sea joined me on the table, kiss first. His tongue tangled with mine as he took me by the hips and positioned me above him in a way that placed my seam directly on top of his thick shaft, splitting my nether lips open without actually penetrating me.

I could feel the throb of his hard-on, how very much he wanted to drive it inside of me.

But he gripped my hips, gently rocking me along his shaft while kissing me with a patient, placid calm.

As if we had all the time in the world.

Until I began to feel a new quickening inside me. Warm and slick.

Dublin

Holy shite… watching and feeling Naomi’s desire reignite as Sea slid her against his shaft…

WILD

Just like that, I was hard again, tenting Dublin’s trackies.

But somehow, I managed to offer the two of them some guidance.

Naomi

“That’s right, Flower,” Wild encouraged over our mate bond. “Work that little button on his shaft until you’re ready to have him inside ye. Take as long as ye need.”

As it turned out, I didn’t need all that long.

Breaking the kiss, I surprised myself when I scooted up and took his thick length in my hand, guiding it toward the place he truly wanted.

Physics and instinct. I worked the head of it into my tight, wet hole, biting my lip and whimpering as he stretched me wider and wider.

It felt like a total invasion, and it burned. But it didn’t hurt. At all.

Maybe because I could feel Sea’s pleasure at having me impale myself on his long, thick length as if every emotion he was feeling was my own.

Sea

I’d managed to stay calm before. My wish not to hurt her superseded even my desire to be inside her. But the sensation of her folds stretching over my thick shaft was too much.

I couldn’t take it. I had to…

Dublin

Suddenly, we were all standing in an emerald green meadow, counting sheep to keep from coming too soon.

Wild

I could only chuckle.

“Good trick, Sea King. Wish I’d thought of it earlier.” It also cleared my mind enough to remember — Dublin’s test wasn’t over yet.

“Sea,” I said out loud.

Just one word. But it was all he needed to remember his part in Dublin’s final exam.

Naomi

Sea’s hands moved from my waist to my butt, kneading it in a way that sent shivers up my spine.

DUBLIN

I felt her shivers as Sea’s long fingers kneaded her bottom.

Combined with watching her take his large cock in slow motion, it was an impossibly hot sight.

My own length was already twitching. I didn’t think I was going to make it through another clean up before it was my turn.

But then, Sea abruptly stopped kneading and pulled her bottom cheeks apart.

Offering to share in another sense of the word.

Offering me the last hole.

Naomi

At first, I was confused when the kneading stopped. What… what was Sea doing?

But then I felt Aidan’s mouth again. Kissing me in a new, forbidden place, swirling his tongue around in a way that felt vulgar and immoral.

And oh so right.

I moaned into Sea’s mouth, scratching at his chest as I received Aidan’s indecent kiss from behind.

A new orgasm rose inside of me before I knew it was coming.

Wild

Even though Sea had yet to move, she began quaking. I could feel the way her vagina strangled his stout can of a cock, and though I was no first-timer, my own sprinkler kicked. Threatening to shoot.

Dublin

This time, I didn’t chase her orgasm until she was completely done.

No, I grabbed the lube Sea had conveniently left on a nearby chair when he decided to lick her breast.

Naomi

I came down from my second orgasm to an unbelievable sensation. Aidan’s finger found the forbidden hole and rimmed — not with his tongue this time, but with some slick liquid.

“Sea was your first kiss.” One finger worked its way into the tight, forbidden hole. “And Wild was your first ride…”

Another finger pushed in, making my breath catch as I clenched around Sea’s pulsing shaft.

I sensed all the sheep Sea was counting to hold on as Aidan announced, “This last hole belongs to me, babes.” Then asked, “May I take it?”

Dublin

This wasn’t just a test for me, I realized in the hesitant silence that followed my question.

Now, it was time for Naomi to accept her position as our shared queen.

Wild. Sea. Me. All three Irish Kings waited on the same held breath for her answer.

Us

Naomi

I could feel how much Aidan — all three kings really — wanted me to say yes. Their combined desire thrummed in my chest.

Strangely, that — and my general curiosity — was enough to make the answer clear.

“Okay,” I said, breathless.

Proving once and for all that I was a very bad, naughty, naughty Wölfennite.

There came a flood of relief from all sides of the mate bond. Then, the two fingers receded, replaced by a firm head.

“Mmm.” It felt so strange as he pushed in. I squirmed as my body tried to figure out whether to accept or reject this second invasion when my core was already so full of Sea’s thick length.

“It’s alright, beauty.” Wild was back inside my head, soothing me. “Ye’re fine. Breathe in, then breathe out to accept yer king.”

Then he said to Aidan much harder, “Grab her hair, Dublin. Give her something else to think about as she takes her City King’s cock in her final hole.”

There was no resistance inside Aidan this time.

His hand found the braid I plaited my hair into as we drove to Galway. He pulled just hard enough to lift my head, and weirdly, it worked.

By the time I finished gasping out, he was in.

I was suddenly filled from both sides. I couldn’t believe it and didn’t know what to do.

Dublin

I could feel her uncertainty, and I couldn’t blame her. I wasn’t sure what to do myself.

Wild, that shitehawk, had gone silent. Another test.

One I was determined to pass.

Her last hole felt so right around me. So incredibly tight. I rocked into her backside, keeping her hips pinned into Sea’s erection.

Something told me that just having her clench around his thick cock as I thrust into her from behind was enough to keep Sea counting sheep to prevent himself from bursting too soon.

Sea

I also liked the way her nails scratched at my chest as the sound of Dublin’s hips slapping against her round arse filled up the room.

Naomi

I went from not knowing what to do to moaning as I relaxed around Dublin’s length. It felt so good. I could stay here forever.

Dublin

She felt so good around my cock, but she couldn’t stay here forever. If she didn’t orgasm soon, I was most certainly going to violate Wild’s rule about her always coming before we did on my first pass inside her tightest hole.

Naomi

I could sense how close he was… and his worry over Wild’s outrageous promise.

“Technically, you’ve already made me come. Twice,” I pushed into his head. “You don’t have to hold back because of me.”

Dublin

Our sweet queen…

Maybe if she hadn’t said that, I would have lost my battle not to come before she had another orgasm.

But her kind offer gave me the incentive I needed.

I drew her up as far as she could go while still impaled on Sea’s cock, massaging her breasts with one hand and finding her sensitive clit with the other.

Time for some payback that would also serve to get her to the finishing point that much sooner.

Wild

Fuck! Fuck! Fuck!

That Dublin fucker paid me back for teasing him while he was tied up.

The sight of her impaled on two cocks, her gash dripping through Dublin’s fingers, making her cunt squish as he thrust in from behind her.

Fuck, I was the one who’d made the new rule, but I couldn’t… I couldn’t hold on…

Naomi

Wild was overcome by seeing me between the other two kings while Aidan worked my core. I could feel the throb of his penis as he dropped to the table and pulled himself back out of his track pants.

He fell against the table, bracing himself with one hand while the other jerked up and down his rigid length, much like Sea had — yesterday? Had it really only been a day ago when I’d awoken to that erotic sight?

This one was even more so, somehow. And stuffed as I was, with Dublin rubbing circles over my most not-so-secret button, I didn’t stand a chance.

I exploded between them, my core and my back hole contracting at the same time as the orgasm completely shattered me.

Apparently, that was all Aidan and Sea needed.

Aidan’s hands moved to my hips, and I collapsed onto Sea’s chest just before they both unloaded inside me.

Wild

I could feel them all coming, releasing into bliss.

Meanwhile, ropes of semen shot out of me like I hadn’t just unloaded a few minutes before.

Sea

Perhaps because of our tangled bond, Dublin’s and my cums went on forever. Our cocks kicked until I could feel our combined release start leaking out of her from both holes.

But I could also sense that Dublin didn’t care about the mess of it all.

Dublin

I could not have cared less about the mess — these insane, combined sensations… I suddenly understood why the Sea and Wild Wolves had made a tradition of sharing their mates.

An orgasm was an orgasm — but this… I’d never felt anything like it.

She was ours, not mine. And I was better for it. Four times better for it.

Wild

She was ours.

And suddenly, I could no longer hate Dublin. Sharing his joy at taking our mate’s last unclaimed hole, feeling her clench around me in not one, but two ways… I’d never felt anything like it.

Sea

I’d never felt anything like it.

And I couldn’t help but picture another set-up: her between Wild and Dublin, with me in her mouth for the first time. Cum dripping out of her from every hole.

Big mistake.

Naomi

Just when I thought they were done, they both erupted inside me again with the image Sea had put into all of our heads.

And the next thing I knew, yet another orgasm was cresting over me as Wild bent back over, his body shaking with the completely unexpected second release.

I slapped at Sea’s chest as Wild and Dublin both yelled, “Fuckin’ hell, Sea!”

And then, eventually, after what might have been a few seconds or many hours, we all floated back to Earth.

Wild

I stood up on shaky feet.

DUBLIN

I pulled out of her but only had enough strength left to collapse into the closest chair, my cock glistening with our combined juices.

Sea

I lifted her off of me and set her down gently next to me on the table. That was about all I could manage. I swear she’d melted every single bone in my body.

Naomi

And I lay in a stomach-down puddle on the table — somewhat concerned about staining the old wood with everything leaking out of me, but unable to do anything about it as puddles couldn’t move on their own. Only evaporate.

“Okay,” I admitted out loud with a sigh. “It wasn’t disgust.”

Sea and Wild laughed out loud at that.

And so did Dublin — before stopping to ask, “Hold on, what does that mean?”

Which made us all laugh even harder.

Three kings and their queen.

Dublin

We… all of us, had accepted that.

Sea

Finally.

Wild

For a few blissful moments, it was almost enough to make me forget the rest of the prophecy.

And what would come after the heat moon?

Naomi

So that was how Day 1 of our heat moon started.

No, it wasn’t disgust.

And it wasn’t heat.

I had no idea what label to put on what came next.

We managed to recover after ruining the kitchen table, and Wild threw a delicious-smelling stew together while I was in the shower.

“Right on time for this stovetop version of campfire stew I made,” he said as soon as I entered the room, even though I was too far away to scent, and he had his back to me as he ladled out the first bowl of thick brown soup. I assumed our mate bond must have a doorbell effect — letting him know whenever I was in the vicinity.

“That smells amazing! What’s in it?”

Wild ladled out a second bowl while explaining that he’d used the vegetables, meat, and flour I’d picked up when we stopped at the grocery store.

Interestingly, it also included a can from the Norwolf six-pack Aidan had added after showing me what a stout beer was — or maybe that had just been a distraction so I wouldn’t notice him slip that bottle of lube into the basket.

With that new thought in my head, I eyed the City King suspiciously as he grabbed bowls of soup from the counter to set down on the kitchen table. The table now carried the strong antiseptic odor of cleaning products and had a lovely kelly green, linen cloth with lace borders placed over it.

“Made enough to last us a few meals,” Wild told me as I went to the sink to wash my hands. “After we eat, I’ll get some bread going in the oven, and that should be enough to keep us sustained over the next couple of days…”

He trailed off when he turned from the stove to see me wearing Aidan’s boxer shorts and another of his Norwolf t-shirts. A spike of territorial anger replaced his good mood.

“All my clothes are either still drying, ripped, or dirty,” I quickly reminded him. “This was the only option I had —”

One moment, I was explaining myself, and the next, I was being pushed into the counter. Wild’s heavy chest hit my back, and his strong hands tugged Aidan’s t-shirt off over my head. With no bra to be had, my breasts were exposed, and my nipples immediately tightened into pebbles in the cool air.

Another ripping sound. This time from below. Wild yanking apart the boxer’s front flap so hard that the entire bottom seam opened, exposing my core and releasing the smell of my instant arousal.

A distant crackle of outrage appeared somewhere beyond Wild’s sudden intense need to reclaim me. Then Aidan’s voice: “Jayzus Christ, man, at least let her eat first!”

But Wild was already inside of me, feeding me his length with one hand while the other braced against the sink, keeping him steady as he carefully entered me from behind. 

He wanted — needed to reclaim me. But he didn’t wish to hurt me. 

“Give me yer mouth, beauty,” He leaned in over my shoulder, his lips capturing mine as he eased his way back into my intimate space with an achingly slow thrust.

He didn’t have to bother with the slow, careful entry. His desire was once again my desire, surging through me like a flash flood, and my core easily slipped down his throbbing length, taking him to the hilt. 

Had Aidan offered up a protest?

We both groaned into the kiss, and Wild banded his guiding arm around my waist as he began driving into me with deep, claiming strokes. Slow at first, then a little faster when his tip found a special spot inside the walls of my sex. 

He could feel and match my growing desire with his speed and angle. 

Soon, I found myself moaning into his mouth and shuddering around his length as he pumped into me at just the right everything. 

That was all Wild needed to tumble over the edge himself. He fell out of our kiss and pulled my hips tight into his. He released with a shout, but his emotions were even louder.

His love and utter obsession crackled so fierce over our bond that another orgasm triggered at my core, arching my spine. My head fell back on his shoulder as I came again with all of Wild’s emotions coursing through me.

And that made his softening rod swell again. He returned in an instant to full, pulsing mast.

“By the gods, Wild. Put yourself on mute!” Sea’s voice pushed into our heads, irritated and tight. “Or the lot of us will starve to death before this heat moon is done.”

Funny, just a few hours ago, I’d begged Wild to let me in, but now as I helplessly kept coming on the re-hardened length pinning me to the sink, I could feel all of it — Wild’s insatiable hunger, Sea’s and Aidan’s reawakened arousals — painful and throbbing. 

Wild’s unhinged feelings were infecting and being magnified by each of us, like a radio signal amplified so loudly that no other station other than WILD FM could be heard.

And I couldn’t stop coming. The orgasm was an endless earthquake, racking my body as Wild released again inside of me with so much ejaculation I could feel our combined release streaming down my thighs.

“Turn it off,” I pleaded. “Everyone, turn it off!”

Abruptly, my head became quiet, allowing my body to seize one last time before I fell forward into the sink, where the water was still running.

I didn’t realize how dehydrated I’d become with all this “seismic activity” until I found myself greedily gulping from the tap as Wild released one last time, gripping my hips tight as he howled into the air.

Finally, he deflated.

“I’m sorry, Flower,” he said out loud. One hand softly grazed my back as he pulled out of me. “You drive me crazy. Literally.”

“That’s not the correct usage of ‘literally,’” Aidan grumbled somewhere behind us.

Still, we all understood his meaning.

Luckily, the stew easily reheated.

But after my third shower of the day, I gave up on wearing clothes, and over lunch, we established a new rule about muting all our bonds during daytime hours. Wild, however, volunteered to just plain keep his off.

“Believe me when I tell ye, the inside of my head is getting worse by the moment. Ye’ve no idea how bad I’ll be by the time this heat moon is over. Best to cede control back to the True King.”

I believed Wild after that bonkers sink sex, but I had to ask Sea, “Why do they call you the True King?”

And that was how I ended up getting a long history lesson — aka the Irish version of what they called the “First Reaping” — aka an explanation for why Sea kept calling me by a name that turned out to mean New Mairi.

Apparently, the First Reaping wasn’t prophesied like the second one, and since it took place in the 1500s, it was way less ethical.

Underaged girls and she-wolf babies were kidnapped and raised by various families across the four kingdoms until they reached heating age. Also, the newly minted Scottish Queen, Mairi — already wolf-mated and pregnant — was also taken when the Sea, Wild, and Dublin kings realized she was their fated mate at first sight.

What happened from there bore a striking resemblance to what happened to me.

The 1500s Irish Wolves were way more brutal, but apparently, they had just enough honor and care to let their kidnapped she-wolves “choose” their mates when they went into heat.

The original kidnappees actually held out way longer than the Wölfennites. It took a couple of what they called St. Patrick weeks — apparently, the calendar system was also introduced and credited to that patron saint.

But a couple of she-wolves went into heat. Then the rest of them, including Mairi, the queen of the Scottish Wolves, submitted to their fates after a performance from the rest of the unmated wolves.

However, that was where things diverged.

“The Wild King lost all sense of himself at the smell of Mairi’s heat,” Wild told me, his voice lowering with confession. “In his lust to have her first, he killed the Sea King before the other could reach her. The Dublin King was allowed to share her after he unknotted, but it is said the Wild King’s thrall was so great — he did not realize the magnitude of what he’d done until Mairi was impregnated with two more babes and her heat was cleared from his nose.”

I gasped at that unexpected turn in the story.

“You are right to gasp in horror. It remains a black mark upon my line to this day.” Even though it took place hundreds of years ago, Wild’s expression became miserable and somber. “Some say our line is cursed and that the Terrible Belfast Mess happened because of our ancestor’s actions at that Bloody Wedding.”

“No, Wild.” I reached across the table to place my hand on top of his. “None of that was your line's fault. Or yours.”

Wild just averted his gaze from me to Sea. “You can tell her the rest.”

Sea did so, his expression less miserable but just as somber. “For that reason, after the heat moon, it was agreed that the original Scottish babe would continue the line of Sea and serve as the True King of Ireland. The secret kingdom, originally gifted to the Wild Wolves by the old gods, was ceded to the Sea Wolves.”

Wild withdrew his hand from underneath mine as Sea finished the tragic story. "After the new Sea King was born with the features of his father, both the Dublin and Wild Kings swore their fealty to the baby king in a blood oath. Mairi ruled over the Sea Kingdom until he came of age. Of course, the Belfast Priest at the time gave no such oath, and the Dublin King’s track record for respecting the old ways has been spotty at best."

Sea threw a pointed look at Aidan, who was sitting next to me, across from him and Wild.

“Sure, don’t blame my line for shedding outdated customs and keeping up with the times, as opposed to playing by a rulebook from nearly five hundred years ago.”

Sea and Wild glowered at him in a way that I suspected would have led to an argument if I hadn’t asked, “Was that all? The First Reaping’s Wild King killed the First Reaping’s Sea King, and all he had to do was give up the secret kingdom and swear fealty to a baby to make up for it?”

A tense silence greeted my question.

Eventually, Sea, the apparent True King, answered, “No, that wasn’t all he had to do. But that is a story for another time.”

“Speaking of stories,” Aidan said before I could ask any more questions. “I could use some help figuring out how to handle this offer I received a couple of days ago from one of the Colorado princesses…”

Naomi

Sea was the True King, but for some reason, that night, it was decided that Wild would get to sleep beside me in the big bed while Aidan and Sea would switch out on a rotating basis, starting with Sea. 

However, Aidan gave me a goodbye kiss that went on for hours as each king took their turn, in Sea’s words, “ensuring that you’re well tired for a good night of sleep.”

By Day 3 of our heat moon, I became used to falling asleep “dirty” in the bed I shared with Wild and either Aidan or Sea.  

Wild maintained his promise to keep the mute button on his side of the bond pressed.  But in the wee hours of Day 4, I discovered he couldn’t control his dreams.

His extremely erotic dreams.

I immediately regretted being a stomach sleeper when I woke up from a dead sleep with a wet spot of desire pooling beneath my drenched sex.

But that regret faded away when Wild’s body covered mine. Folding an arm underneath my neck for leverage, he lazily rocked into me in a way that rubbed my magic button into the slick, wet spot until I came in a blaze of fire, biting into his arm to keep from screaming. 

I shouldn’t have bothered. Doing my best to stay quiet didn’t keep Sea from waking up. 

As soon as Wild rolled off of me, the True King pulled me on top of him like a queen blanket.

“I woke up to your mind screaming over the mate bond.” He answered my unspoken question… before using Wild’s cum load to slide me down his hardened sex. 

His bond was open too, so we each got to mind moan together as he slid me up and down his rigid length until we both came — him for the first time and me for a glorious second…

… that turned into a glorious third when I woke up to Aidan between my legs, holding me open for his feasting tongue while he stroked his rock-hard erection with the other. 

Yes, Aidan had definitely grown accustomed to sharing. 

When Wild’s dreams woke us again in the wee hours of Day 5, I didn’t bother keeping it down and could feel Aidan’s hooded stare as Wild rutted me with one leg folded under mine like a tree lizard.

But Aidan wasn’t Sea.

Instead of quietly taking his turn, he shifted me on my side to face Wild and hooked one of my legs over his arm. Presenting his fellow king with a lewd picture as he stroked into me without even having to line up.

“Payback,” he informed the both of us over the bond as he smeared Wild’s spend all over my greedy little clit while moving inside of me.

Needless to say, watching me orgasm with my body full open on another king’s dick woke Wild up.

“Get the lube. It’s my turn,” Wild growled, though Aidan still hadn’t come.

I didn’t grasp the meaning, but Aidan did. He withdrew and rolled over to fetch the bottle of lube, which he’d apparently stashed in the nightstand drawer.

With a lazy flip of his hand, he tossed it to Wild, then turned me over to gather me close so that my breasts were fully smushed into his chest as he slid back inside of me. 

When he hooked my leg over his body this time, it was for a completely different reason.

Wild was bigger than Aidan, and I whimpered when he entered me from behind. 

His turn.

But, I quickly got used to the sensation of being filled by the two kings who used to full-out hate each other.

“Mmm!” It felt like being fed the most decadent midnight snack, and I turned my head back and forth to sleepily kiss both of them while they moved inside of me in perfect synchronization. 

Sadly, my mind couldn’t keep up with my lustful body. I passed out with both of them still hard inside of me…

… and woke up to Sea carrying me to the shower to make things “fair.”

And by fair, he meant reclaiming me from behind while he held the new detachable showerhead Aidan had installed directly over my sex.

“Let me clean this dirty gash,” he offered without any judgement at all in his teasing voice.

Joke was on him, a new orgasm rumbled through me, which, oops, only made it dirtier. 

By Day 6, I learned that the only way to truly get clean was to soak my aching body in a bath. Alone.

“But how will we handle everything after it’s time to leave this house?” I asked over another late breakfast.

A flicker of anxiety stirred in the pit of my stomach. This extremely intimate connection was amazing now, but what about when we were out in the real world? Could we truly return to normal life after this?

“Even with Wild’s side of the bond turned off, this is completely crazy, and we can’t keep these kinds of hours when the heat moon is done, right?”

An exchanged look between the three Irish Kings.

Over the course of our heat moon, we’d had many more important mealtime conversations, including how to handle the Scottish Wolves and my sister.

But “the story for another time” and most everything else was pushed to after the heat moon.

The other brides and I would send letters to the Scottish kingdom and our families in Canada with assurances that we were better than okay after the heat moon.

We would consult with Astrid and discuss living arrangements for what could possibly become our family of seven after the heat moon.

How did same-sex she-wolf relationships work in terms of heat?

“Ah, well, you’ll have to ask Astrid and Frey about that after the heat moon,” Sea answered.

My duties as queen of all three kingdoms of the Irish Wolves? We’d go over that after the heat moon.

“I’ve plenty of resources to fund your physics degree,” Aidan assured me on Day 7.

It was just after dinner, and Sea was washing the dishes while Wild took his nightly long run around the lake.

The Nature King was one of Wild’s many alternate titles for a reason. He was used to spending most of his time outside — often in wolf form.

But wolf biology was set up so that neither she-wolves nor their mates could shift until she gave birth — the fact that he couldn’t was yet another sign that we probably had triplets on the way.

Wild never once complained about this to me. But according to Sea, a three-hour naked run around the entire lake was the Nature King’s only way to deal with the frustration of not being able to access his wolf until I gave birth.

And Sea often used the break to catch up with his uncle in the secret kingdom and deal with any issues there.

This left ample time for Aidan and me to get to know each other. By Day 7, we’d fallen into the habit of cuddling on the couch, either talking about city life in Dublin or watching random shows on a large, bulbous standing television that Aidan assured me “had to be made before either of us were born.”

That night, the subject of my physics degree came up while we were cozily settled on the couch, with me reclining against his chest, resting comfortably between his legs.

With three babies on the way, I figured that dream was dead. Strangely, I wasn’t as upset as I thought I’d be about it. How was I already so ready to leave that part of my life behind? I fretted my lip. Was this just the heat moon fogging up my sense of reality?

“We can absolutely make your dream of further education work,” Aidan insisted, mistaking the reason for my sudden spike of worry over the mate bond.

Could I really juggle being a queen, raising triplets, and going back to school? It sounded impossible. But with Aidan’s confidence — and the promise of help — I asked, “Do you seriously think a degree is still within my reach?”

“I promise you, it is,” he answered, turning me over in his arms to face him. “It would just be different from what you had planned. And in Ireland. With loads of hired help. But we’ll get into that…”

“After the heat moon,” I finished for him with a laughing roll of my eyes.

That soon turned into kissing of a nature that brought Sea into the room.

“A bit early,” he noted, even as he gamely pulled off his borrowed t-shirt with one hand.

Then, lo and behold, Wild returned early from his run because “I could feel what ye three were getting up to even from kilometers away.”

But instead of removing his clothes, he just leaned back against the fireplace and observed the three of us making out with hooded eyes, "Feels like just as grand an eve as any for a long overdue spit roast lesson. Might as well get started on Sea, beauty — eat the frog and all that.”

My years of having not a clue what spit roast meant outside of the actual cooking of animals ended that evening.

Wild’s version of a “grand” spit roast involved including actually spitting and lots of licking, along with darkly patient lessons about how to control my gag reflex as Aidan moved into me from behind while I ran both hands up and down Sea’s length and stretched my lips over his giant length while sucking him into my throat as far as he could go.

“Good, good,” Wild said when my eyes watered. “As pretty as this look is on her, release yer load so that ye can teach her how to swallow.”

The first lesson was hard — all puns intended — and a bit of a choking hazard.

“I do believe she’ll need more practice to take on all three of us and make my vision come true,” Sea said after the three of us had collapsed on the couch. “Shall we extend the heat moon another week to the full moon?”

The vote was unanimous.

And the three kings made sure I got plenty of practice as another week passed in a blissful thrall of sex, food, two extra naps a day for me, funny, intimate conversations that made me forget that I hadn’t known these three males all my life, and most importantly for my poor, overworked body, long soaks in the bath.

I’d even gotten used to the 24/7 nudity — at least on my part. None of what we were doing would be sanctioned by the Wölfennite version of the Big Book, but I couldn’t help but feel that I had somehow stumbled into the Garden of Eden.

I was shocked, coming down to dinner on Day 13, to find all three males waiting for me fully dressed at the bottom of the stairs. They wore long robes adorned with strange symbols and belted at the waist with golden braids. Each robe was a different color: Wild’s was green, Aidan's was gold, and Sea’s was the same off-white as the shorter tunics they’d worn at Amanda’s wedding. In their hands, they held lit candles.

“What’s going on?” I asked, slowing on the steps.

“We’ve an outfit for you, too,” Sea answered, falling into his usual role of speaking for all three kings.

He handed his candle to Aidan and held up a long tunic that I hadn’t noticed slung over his arm. Unlike theirs, though, it was plain and the same kind of natural blue that we used to make the fabric for our Wölfennite dresses.

Unlike those hand-sewn dresses, this one struck me as ancient. It vibrated with a history I hadn’t heard yet but somehow knew.

Especially when Sea said, “Mairinua, it is the full moon. Will you come with us?”

Naomi

That evening, we all walked out to the lake. Sea beside me, with Wild and Aidan following behind.

They’d told me nothing and had muted their mate bonds.

But I could feel the solemnity of the moment crackling in the air.

“Is this the place?” Sea asked Aidan when we reached the mountain after about thirty minutes of walking.

Aidan nodded, his face just as grave as Sea’s and Wild’s, despite his many claims that he was a proud City Wolf who didn’t believe in any of that prophecy and scroll bullshite. “This is where I found her, right over there.”

Wild glanced around with an approving nod. “And this is a good place for it. We can all see the moon overhead.”

Sea turned to Aidan. “You may go first since this is technically your territory as the predecessor of Belfast.”

Aidan nodded and took a deep breath before turning to me.

“Okay, hopefully, I’m not messing this up. I’m not a great memorizer of things, I’ll admit. Couldn’t even be taught to sight-read music. Ah, my heart is beating so fast, but here goes…”

Tears pooled in my eyes when he began the Irish Gaelic vow he’d refused to say to me two weeks ago, right after I went into heat. As Aidan spoke, I couldn’t help but think back to when I met him. So much had changed since then — my understanding of intimacy, loyalty, and what it truly meant to be bound to someone. By the time he was done stuttering his way through it, tears flowed down my cheeks.

“I wish I had declared that to you two weeks ago. I will always regret not saying yes to you from the moment we met. These two weeks have been…” He took another deep, audible breath. “They’ve been everything to me — even if I’ve had a hell of a time remembering not to call you by your true name. Speaking of which, my true name is Aidan. Aidan, King of the Norman Wolves and Ruler over the kingdoms of Belfast and Dublin. Will you take this light and blow it out, trusting that I will always lead you through the darkness?”

He extended the candle to me, and I took it. But before I blew it out, I had to tell him something, “I resisted and resisted, but I think the moment I met you, I knew everything Wild and Sea had told me was correct. It was love at first sight. I couldn’t say it — couldn’t admit it then. But I loved you from the start. I hope that’s okay to tell you.”

Now, Aidan’s eyes were glistening with tears. “More than okay, babes. And I love you, too, Dublin Queen.”

The moment ticked between us until he grimaced to remind me, “But you still have to blow the candle out. You know, for ritual’s sake.”

“Oh!” With a little laugh, I blew it out without reservation. Then I asked with a hesitant tone, “Am I supposed to tell you my name, too?”

“Not yet,” Sea answered for him. “Wild, you’re up next.”

Aidan took back the candle, and Wild stepped forward, though with a far less eager look on his face. “I’m shite at this sort of stuff, to be honest.” He scraped a hand over the back of his head. “I’m a devout bastard, but usually, I’m in wolf form for all the rituals, ye know.”

I dipped my head, fully understanding. “I’m excited to know your name, though.”

His shoulders slumped. “Ye already know it. Conall, King of the Wild Wolves and Ruler of all the natural kingdom. Same as me da. But don’t call me that, please. Ever.”

He looked everywhere but at me. “And if our babe’s a boy, name him something else, alright? Even one of those boring Canadian names’ll do.”

“Okay,” I agreed softly, my eyes once again pooling with tears, my heart twisting for him. “And Wild?”

“Yeah?” he asked, glancing at me with a mix of sorrow and uncertainty over the candle.

“I love you, too,” I whispered. “More and more every day, I get to know the real you.”

Wild swallowed hard, and a surge of emotion crashed over his side of the mate bond — only to be yanked back before it fully reached me. But my skin prickled with the intensity of what he’d almost let me feel.

“All right, enough of that,” he muttered, looking away as he held out the candle. “Blow it out, will ye, so we can get on to Sea’s turn?”

No “I love ye back.” But his white-knuckle grip on the candle and the near collapse of his muted bond told me everything I needed to know.

I bit back a smile and blew out his candle.

Wild all but snatched his candle back and shuffled away without being told.

Then came Sea.

I expected another big speech, but he just said, “My name is Owen, True King of the Irish Wolves and Ruler of the Secret Kingdom.”

“Owen,” I repeated. Later, I’d find out that his version of the name was actually spelled Eoin. But that night, I told him, “That’s the perfect name for you.”

He grinned and began to hold up his candle — only to suddenly stop and say, “It was always you missing from my life. Always you meant to tame my mate-starved wolf. I’ve known you — I’ve loved you from the moment I saw you. Thank you for having me.”

“Thank you for being patient with me,” I answered, my voice shaking with emotion. Then I leaned in to confess, “You know, I only ran because I knew I wouldn’t be able to hold on until the spring. Even then, I was falling in love with you.”

“I'm aware,” he assured me with a gentle smile.

With those heartfelt statements out of the way, he held up his candle. “Will you blow out this light and trust me to guide your way?”

I blew out the candle before he was even done.

And somehow, I knew exactly what to say next. “My name is Naomi Hamilton of the Canadian Wölfennites. Will you three kings have me as your queen?”

“Absolutely yes,” Aidan assured me while Wild and Eoin said something in Gaelic that my mate bond with Sea translated as “Most certainly on my life yes.”

I was beginning to understand why my mother always comprehended what my Ghanaian father said, even when he spoke to her in his native Ga language.

Standing there under the full moon, I realized I wasn’t an outsider anymore. The rituals, the vows, the names — all of it had drawn me deeper into their world. Into our world. And I knew that I was ready to take my place as their queen.

We walked back to the house in full moonlit silence, and Sea took my hand to lead me up the stairs.

I thought Wild had been joking when he said I needed a week more of practice before I’d be able to take all three of them, but that night, I came to understand that there had been a plan in place all along.

Wild shed his tunic first and beckoned me forward.

But when I tried to disrobe, Eoin said, “No, Naomi, leave it on. This is a replication of the bridal dress of Mairi. What the every Irish Wolf queen has worn on the night of the true name ritual since her sons took over the three Irish sire lines.”

Okay… I soon learned why my dress hadn’t been belted with a golden braid like their three outfits when I lifted the loose fabric to settle myself down on Wild’s already straining length.

His side of the mate bond was still turned off, but Aidan’s and Eoin’s desire was enough to ensure I was fully wet when I sank down, my sex easily swallowing his length.

“Good job, beauty.” Wild cupped a hand behind my neck and pulled me forward for a passionate kiss as Aidan lubed me up from behind. 

I moaned against Wild’s lips as the Dublin King pushed into my tightest space, and soon he was inside of me, too. 

Last came Eoin. He pulled me out of my kiss with Wild, about as lovingly as one could, while putting a huge dong in your face. 

But I opened my jaw as wide as possible to take him in my mouth. Then, Aidan and Wild began to move on both sides of me.

It was like nothing — nothing in life I’d ever experienced before. Giving Eoin pleasure while Aidan and Wild stroked into me with singular intent. 

Soon, I discovered an easier way to open your mouth even further when dealing with what Aidan insisted on referring to as “Sea’s proper monster cock.” 

A new, dangerous orgasm began to build inside of me.

Threatening…

Threatening…

Until everything inside of me imploded: my nerves, my hearing, my entire mind.

My jaw unhinged further, and I drew Eoin even deeper into my throat as I screamed into my climax.

They had only been waiting for me, I found out in the next moment when all three kings came at the same time. Filling all three holes with even more spend than Eoin had imagined the first day of our heat moon. 

Wrong thought.

Another orgasm began contracting everything inside of me. And both holes strangled around Wild and Aidan’s erections, sending them into another round of shooting spurts while Sea unloaded again into my mouth. 

I couldn’t… I couldn’t swallow fast enough.

Another wrong thought.

“Holy Christ,” Aidan, the least religious of us all, cursed behind me as a third orgasm rocked over our mate bond. 

I couldn’t answer. Couldn’t apologize.

I shot into the stars, then floated down on a glowing cloud…

… to discover both Eoin and Aidan had pulled out before I could have any more wrong thoughts to further trigger them.

My kings weren’t just ridiculously attractive; they were also wise.

“Three Wise Kings. Ha!” Sea said, picking up on my thoughts. “Good one.”

I collapsed next to Wild on the bed, laughing and leaking from all my holes.

Talk about going to bed dirty. A druggy black pulled my eyes closed as I wondered if I’d ever know the sensation of feeling clean before bedtime again.

I fell asleep between Wild and Aidan.

But woke up between Eoin and Aidan, with a terrible, hollow feeling in my chest.

There was something wrong…

The house was too quiet. The kind of silence that sank into your bones and made you feel cold from the inside out.

Where is Wild?

The question appeared in my head, and I scrambled out of bed.

As usual, all sorts of aches and pains greeted my morning movements.

Where is Wild?

But I didn’t care. I searched the other room. The bed was empty.

Where is Wild?

I ran from place to place in the house: the front room, both bathrooms, the kitchen…

But they were all empty like the feeling in my chest.

Where is Wild? Where is Wild? Where is Wild?

I ran back to the stairs with a plan to return to our shared bedroom and ask Eoin and Aidan the same thing.

But stopped when I found them waiting on the landing with grave looks on their faces.

“Where is Wild?” I asked, this time out loud, my voice breaking.

Already knowing I wouldn’t like the answer.

Wild

“So ye just left without explaining the Wild King Curse?” Lorcan asked as we approached the fating stones near Ballygally Forest for the Winter Solstice. We’d be setting up camp there until it was time to journey to the fating stones in Beltany for Imbolc in early February.

Yule was usually my favorite ritual of the year, but a dark cloud hung over my head less than three days into the journey through the below, as we called the expanse of the secret kingdom that stretched out beneath Ireland.

Maybe that was why Lorcan, Ronan, and their yellow-haired mate had decided to risk their lives, falling in beside me to ask many pesky questions.

“It’s better this way,” I explained to them and myself. “It took her weeks and a heat cycle to accept the prophecy. How d’ye think she’d respond to hearing that I couldn’t be with her because my ancestor killed the Sea King nearly five hundred years ago? The Wölfennites aren’t like us,” I added, glancing at Lorcan and Ronan. “They cry easily.”

“Sure, they do,” Ronan agreed with a cheeky side glance at his mate. “Especially when ye take an extra serving of their pie.”

“Ronan!” Their mate flushed red before scolding him. “This isn’t the time. Can’t you see how upset your king is?”

She leaned past her shorter mate to say, “In fact, if you need a few more days, we could take back over commanding the Wild Wolves until you’re ready to —”

“I’m fine,” I insisted through gritted teeth. They meant well, but they didn’t understand. They couldn’t. There was no helping me with this.

“But if ye’re looking to be the boss of someone, go tell those Wölfennites still sobbing over being parted from their Sea Wolf mates to quiet down. Bad enough, we had to leave so many worthy males behind in the secret kingdom. Don’t need to hear about it from them, too.”

There was a tense silence. I could almost sense the furious conversation between the three of them before the yellow-haired Wölfennite finally said, “Fine, I will go talk to the heartbroken, pregnant she-wolves who were ripped out of their tents this morning and told they had to leave their Sea-born males behind with zero notice that they needed to get over it.”

Now she sounded miserable and angry, too.

Grand.

To borrow a word Naomi had used to scold me the couple of times I pulled her off the Dublin King before he was done. I was feeling mighty petty when it came to the happiness of anyone who wasn’t bound by a centuries-old vow not to be able to stay with a shared queen beyond our heat moon.

In my case, it was even embedded in the prophecy.

She will unite the three kingdoms, and then the Wild King will leave.

The yellow-haired she-wolf, who had gotten a bit too comfortable serving as the Queen of the Wild Wolves while Lorcan and Ronan ruled in my stead, stomped off.

And, of course, her mates followed behind her.

“This is why I chose an unshared wolf-mating,” my father once spat while we sat by the campfire, watching two heated males trailing apologies after their upset she-wolf because she’d taken offense to a joke they’d made to the Wild King about her poor cooking skills. “Imagine me sniveling after your mother that way! Pathetic.”

He didn’t understand pathetic, though.

Pathetic was knowing you could only have someone for a short time but losing your heart to them anyway.

Pathetic was having to shut down your side of the mate bond lest she heard the way your soul howled at every smile, every whimpering moan, every word out of her mouth about a future that wouldn’t include you.

My chest tightened, the pain of the memories near unbearable. It hurt to even think on an entire lifetime without Naomi. But I had to stay strong. For her. For me. For the child I’d never meet.

I looked to the sky and sent up another prayer to the three gods. Please make the babe growing in her womb a girl. One who looked like all of her and none of me.

The clouds chose that moment to move in front of the sun, a sure sign that the gods had heard my plea.

That omen should have made me feel better. But instead, my chest welled up with an anger and sadness like none I’d ever known.

What would it have been like, I wondered bitterly, to watch my son or daughter take their first steps? To see them stumble over their first words? Call me Da? Would they have her laugh? Her smile?

As it turned out, it didn’t matter whether it was a girl or a boy like the one Wild King who was raised in the secret kingdom away from his sire as punishment for the Killing King’s crime.

I’d never get to meet them.

I’d never…

“Naomi! What are you doing here?” the yellow-haired she-wolf’s voice asked behind me.

That was all the warning I got before I was suddenly tackled from behind.

But that was all the warning I needed. On instinct, my wolf turned me around, reversing our hold and pushing up so that the maximum impact would reverberate through me as we landed on the ground with her above me.

This explained why my anger and sadness suddenly felt so amplified. I had unknowingly been feeling her emotions, too.

“Naomi!” the yellow-haired she-wolf shrieked somewhere above us. “What are you doing?”

“Are ye crazy, then?” I asked, my voice pitched just as high. “Ye could have hurt yerself. Where’s —”

“Right behind you in a golf cart,” Sea pushed into my head. “Remember that bit about her being fast? Apparently, a wee bit of triple pregnancy hasn’t slowed her down any. We’re still puttering to catch up.”

“She told us she needed to hear your explanation for breaking up with her before she could move on,” Dublin explained further. “But she jumped out of the cart as soon as she felt you ahead.”

Of course, they’d brought her here. I could already feel the explanation forming over our shared bond: two days of her tearfully insisting she had to hear it from me before Sea finally gave in and brought out the golf cart to catch up with the Wild Wolves pack.

“Did you really think you were going to get away with running away?” she asked with a merciless smile that put mine to shame. “I guess I should have told you what would happen if you ran. I will hunt you down. And then you, Eoin, and Aidan will take turns fucking me. Imagine how devastated your self-righteous ego will be when you beg me to let you go next.”

“Naomi!” the yellow-haired she-wolf shrieked again, her tone even more aghast.

Meanwhile, my cock stood up like a fating stone at the mental picture she’d put in my head.

But…

“They shouldn’t have brought ye here,” I growled between clenched teeth.

“Like I would’ve let them rest until they did,” she growled back.

“Did Sea and Dublin tell ye about the prophecy, then?” I asked. “The part where…”

“Yes, awesome, you left.” She waved a dismissive hand. “Prophecy fulfilled. Now come back.”

Her logic wasn’t exactly unsound. But…

“That’s… that’s not how it works.”

“Wild, do you know how sick I am of the three of you telling me what I have to do? Listen, I had a life all planned out, and you took that away from me because of some ancient prophecy. Then you let me fall in love with you without telling me you’d disappear because of this Cursed King stuff right after our heat moon.”

When she put it that way, even more shame and guilt coursed through me. “Naomi, I’m sorry.”

“No, sorry isn’t good enough!” She glared down at me. “I’m done putting up with your bullhockey — and I’m especially, especially done with you deciding how my life’s going to play out.”

“I was only trying to leave without hurting ye any more than I already had,” I began to explain.

But Naomi kept going as if she hadn’t heard my miserable excuse for leaving. “So here’s our new deal. I’m designing one of my own, and it’s your turn to get cursed. By me.”

She bared her teeth at me and let me feel the brunt of her rage over our bond as she declared, “I will not go to Dublin and split myself between the city and the secret kingdom like Eoin and Aidan planned.”

“Naomi, hold on,” I tried to sit up, but she grabbed my wrists and slammed them back into the cushiony stuff the secret kingdom called grass.

“New plan. I’m going to stay here in the secret kingdom and study all this sci-fi-level tech you’ve somehow acquired. You and Aidan are going to stay here with me and Eoin. Aidan can rule his company and kingdom remotely, and you can use his car to catch up with your pack whenever you need to oversee a ritual.”

Her body was warm and solid as she pressed me down, her grip on my wrists firm. The grass beneath me felt cool and soft, a strange contrast to the fire in her eyes as she spoke.

“Your new curse is that you have to live happily ever after with Aidan, Eoin, and me. Your new curse is that you will have to forsake everything you’ve been raised to believe. You ended my life as I knew it, so now I’m ending yours as you knew it. That’s my first freaking proclamation as queen of the Irish Wolves.”

I stared at her. Eyes blazing with tears. Completely dismissive of our ways and the nearly five hundred years of history that preceded her.

And the one answer — the only answer to her insane proclamation — became clear.

“Alright,” I said.

I both felt and saw her surprise. “Alright? You’ll come back to the secret kingdom with us?”

The question hung in the air between us, heavy and final. And in that moment, I realized there was no fight left in me. Just love. Just her.

“Yeah… yeah… alright,” I repeated, tears welling up in my own eyes.

Guess the Wild Wolves weren’t as hard as I thought.

After all, their king ended up crying like a babe in front of the lot of them.

Even harder when his Wild Queen leaned down to seal her curse with a kiss.

Epilogue

Naomi

The four of us got married underneath the next new moon, along with the trimates, as the Sea and Wild Wolves called a mateship between two males and a she-wolf.

Although, we’d have to expand that definition.

Astrid, Frey, and Priscilla were among the new moon wedding participants. And Priscilla couldn’t have looked happier when she traveled back to Belfast a few months later.

A decision that Eoin hoped would turn out all right.

Aidan was fairly sure that the Scottish Wolves wouldn’t even think to bother Eoin’s and Wild’s sister being that “They couldn’t possibly have any idea she’s related to two of the Irish Kings. The one thing we have going for us is that they have no idea where to look.”

“But how about this source of the Tríbéirríthe’s?” I asked while we helped Sea make his decision. “Is it possible…?”

“No, their source is Scottish,” Eoin assured me. “Only got in contact with them due to Sadie. If you hadn’t brought your friend with you, the lot of ye might still be in Scotland, making plans to bounce to Ontario after all was said and done.”

I was worried about Sadie, who we still hadn’t managed to get in touch with.

Apparently, she and the Tríbéirríthe were in what Aidan called “the kind of wind only billionaires with access to god tech could afford.”

Speaking of god tech, Aidan was nearly as fascinated by it as me.

Back in November, he took one step inside the secret kingdom’s castle and immediately announced he was quitting his job.

The castle wasn’t guarded by a dragon, but it housed tech beyond our wildest dreams, including programmable walls that bent dimensional space to such an extent that he’d taken to calling it the “castle Tardis.”

And if that wasn’t enough to keep our curious minds occupied for days, the “control room” contained ancient yet somehow highly advanced tech that appeared to run on some manner of quantum fusion.

Aidan and I — much to Wild’s eye-rolling annoyance — agreed on pretty much everything. But we super-duper agreed that there was nothing we’d rather do with the rest of our lifetime than figure out and possibly reverse-engineer the secret kingdom’s god tech.

So, the thought of never having been kidnapped by Eoin and Wild sent a chill down my spine.

Even if it wasn’t quite safe to send anything but the vaguest of letters from an ever-rotating set of rural human mailboxes assuring my sister and parents that we were safe and happy.

And only the fates knew what they’d do in the spring when they discovered that every single one of the kidnapped she-wolves had chosen to stay in Ireland rather than return to Scotland.

Though Fiona had asked me about trying for a wee visit after her twins were born.

I’d love to believe that a huge number of multiples would solve any rift.

Dublin and I were in talks with the Colorado Princess about possibly getting another contingent of she-wolves sent to Scotland.

The pretty, light brown she-wolf with crescent-shaped eyes seemed interested in the idea at first but then asked, “Am I going to be king-blocked there, too?”

She was understanding but not necessarily happy about some random nobody Canadian somehow snagging all three of Ireland’s kings. And she’d been even less enthusiastic about arranging potential brides for Scottish Wolves when I had to let her know that, yes, their king was already married. To my older sister.

In the end, Eoin, with our advisement, let Astrid and Frey return to Belfast and then take a side trip to Spain to visit Astrid’s three parents.

If there was anything that let me know how lucky I was to have been fated to Eoin and Wild, it was watching how much they both cared about their little sister’s long-term happiness despite all the pain her parents had caused them.

However, lifting the ban on their two exiled parents was still a no-go subject.

The one time I’d brought it up, they’d both closed down their mate bonds, and even my ever-diplomatic True King had informed me out loud, “This subject is never up for discussion.”

“Just promise to come back before all these secret kingdom babies are born,” I said after hugging Astrid goodbye.

“Oh, I promise,” Astrid answered. “Maybe being around a bunch of crying multiples will cure Frey of her baby hunger. She and our new wife have been talking rather seriously about getting Priscilla wolf-mated in Italy, she’s so desperate for one of our own.”

Well, that was a discussion I’m sure would be coming up again.

Other than Astrid’s departure, the only other sad event of the new year was Wild having to leave for two entire weeks to oversee the Imbolc ritual — a sex-laden spring fertility festival that took place at the very beginning of February, for reasons probably lost to the annals of climate change and time.

Wild invited me along, as it would be especially important this year with so many pregnant she-wolves. “I promise to ensure my Wild Queen enjoys every single second of the festivities,” he promised with a heated look when he told us he’d have to depart fairly soon over breakfast in late January.

“Oh, I wouldn’t want to take the spotlight from Amanda,” I answered, rubbing a hand over my rounded belly.

And pretending that Aidan and Eoin hadn’t shut down their links to Wild to warn me against going. I was only three months pregnant, but with triplets — I was already heavily swollen with the royals who would arrive before the summer solstice — which Wild had already told his wolves he’d have to skip.

Because of his Irish Queen’s curse, of course.

Speaking of… “Come right back. Don’t make me come tackle you again,” I said, kissing Wild goodbye the morning after we spent the night in the tent he’d set up just outside the castle. 

Aidan and Eoin hated that we’d made a new tradition of spending the night outside without them whenever Wild had to leave to oversee a fating stones ritual or festival as the Wild King.

But they loved having nearly two weeks of what Eoin called “nice, standard trimate copulation.”

“Without your unhinged third husband in our heads,” Aidan added with a grumble.

The Dublin King had never been happier. But it would probably take us all years to get used to the insane sex thralls Wild still occasionally threw us into — like when he returned to the secret kingdom right before Valentine’s Day, and we lost an entire week and a couple of kilos to the celebration that followed.

We might still be there if the castle hadn’t suddenly alerted us while my most unhinged King was patiently talking me through taking Sea’s giant, thick, and heavily lube length up my —

“Incoming communication! Incoming communication! From…” The near-sentient computer — of which the castle itself seemed to be made — piped in a familiar voice. “Naomi’s friend Sadie.”

On the insanely large hexagon bed Eoin had built as a Christmas present, I let Dublin’s erection fall out of my mouth to say, “Sadie?”

“Yes,” the castle answered. “Would you like me to reroute the call to your bedroom?”

“No!” Wild, who was beneath me, and Sea, who was partially lodged in my back hole, shouted at the same time.

But we got dressed in record time and rushed to Eoin’s office to take the call on a wall that wouldn’t give my best friend a view of our… ah, fun bedroom, which featured a swing, a saddle, and a few other toys we weren’t ready to share with the world.

I was afraid a mistake had been made. But sure enough, my sweet friend’s face filled the screen.

“Nay! Is that you?”

“Oh my God, Sadie. We’ve been trying to get in touch with you. Did you finally get our messages?”

“No,” she answered, her face falling. “We’ve been — like, a lot has happened.”

“Who you telling!” I answered with a laugh. “Are you alright? Is it true what my husbands told me about —”

“I wish I could talk, but you all don’t have much time.”

My heart stopped. Something in her eyes and the way she said “you all” sent a shiver through me. I suddenly realized this wasn’t a catch-up call.

“What do you mean?” Eoin asked, speaking for all of us.

“I mean, the Scottish Wolves found us,” she answered. “And I’m pretty sure they’ve found you, too. They’re planning to attack you!”

“What?” Wild, Dublin and I said at the same time while Eoin, the True King, iced over his mate bond to ask, “When?”

Sadie opened her mouth to answer, but the castle wall suddenly blinked out, cutting her off.

“What the…?” Aidan asked beside me.

As if in answer, a screeching alarm — which I hadn’t even known the castle had — went off above us.

The sudden cacophony sent a jolt of fear down my spine. Eoin stiffened beside me, his jaw clenched, while Wild’s face darkened with realization. The air in the room suddenly felt too thick to breathe.

And five words, written in three languages, replaced Sadie’s face on the wall screen.

The first was written in the gods’ tongue, which I was studying but still couldn’t read.

The second was written in Gaelic, which I couldn’t read.

And the third dropped my heart down to my feet.

PERIMETER BREACHED BY THE ENEMY.

Our True King had asked my best friend, “When?”

At the same time, we all realized the answer to the True King’s question.

Now.

Oh my gosh, thank you so much for reading

HER IRISH WOLVES.

I can’t wait for you to read Sadies story.

Click here for the next book in the Irish Shifters series.

And sign up for my mailing list to get a sneak peek

(Plus a free copy of HER VIKING WOLF)!

Meanwhile, please make sure

to read all the books in the

Scottish Wolves Trilogy!

Her Scottish Wolf

Her Scottish King

Her Scottish Hero

Keep scrolling to…

wolf Meet Iain, the Scottish Bosshole with a huge secret.

wolf Get a big, red, hot introduction to your fated mate—a time-traveling Viking Werewolf (who you can meet for free when you sign up for my newsletter).

Worst Bosshole Ever.

--5 Star Review

My Scottish billionaire boss is arrogant, secretive, demanding, and far too insanely hot for me, his meek assistant, to actually look in the eye. But somehow, I manage to put up with the boss from hell...until I get a terminal cancer diagnosis. 

Totally valid reason to quit, right? 

Not for my cruel devil of a boss. 

You will not believe his response to my resignation...or the secret he's been hiding all along!

This book features:

• knots and kilts hot pepperhot pepperhot pepper

• a secret work crush

• a meek and mousy assistant makeover

• lots of Scottish brogue, and….

• an unfairly hot bosshole who will not allow you to quit. Ever.

WARNING: do not buy this book if you're not ready for a REAL Scottish alpha wolf who will have you cursing him one moment and saying, "Aye, Iain!" the next. 

This hot romance has so much heart, it just might inspire you to hop on the next flight to Scotland and start searching for your very own "wolf in a kilt." 

One

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL as it was known when I’d started undergoing treatment for it at the age of 19, is one of the meanest members of the cancer family.

It killed my mother at the young age of 24, and I’d spent the most formative years of my young adult life fighting the disease.

So yeah, ALL is a terrible uninvited guest who nobody wants to hear from again if and when you manage to kick it out of your body. But apparently, there was something way worse than getting the cancer that killed your mother and almost killed you.

The cure.

Four years ago, thanks to extensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow match from a good Samaritan of a similar racial background, I went into remission. I’ll always be grateful for that. Unfortunately, the cure that saved my life also turned off my body’s immune system, effectively leaving the door open for an even scarier monster: acute myeloid leukemia.

AML … those were the three letters now hanging over my head a few hours later as I walked back into the ultra-modern AlgoFortune office building in a daze.

It hadn’t taken my Scottish doctor nearly as long to explain AML to me as it did the doctor back in Albany, New York where I’d grown up to explain ALL. And that turned out not to be a good thing.

The disease typically showed up in eight to ten percent of cancer patients within an average of five years. And for patients with a history and genetic profile like mine, AML had an average life expectancy of eight months. Give or take.

Eight months. The roar of an ocean started between my ears as Dr. Keller explained why chemotherapy and radiation were no longer options for me. Then he gently suggested we schedule another appointment to discuss “palliative options.”

TL; CP—Too long/couldn’t process version: “Your cancer is back, you’re dying, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

For once, I was happy the office Iain had given me outside of his suite was made entirely of glass. Sitting inside a rectangular fishbowl that put me on view for anyone who happened to be walking by was the only reason I didn’t immediately burst into tears as soon as I sat down at my desk.

Instead, I flipped through the brochures the doctor’s nurse had pressed into my hand.

They had much less hopeful titles than the ones I’d received as a sick 19-year-old. Less “rah-rah, you can beat this!” and more “oh well, better deal.”

The “Coping with Loss and Grief” booklet listed all the mental and physical therapy resources in Edinburgh Cancer Care Centre’s network. There was also a practical pamphlet entitled, “Talking with Loved Ones about Advanced Care Planning.” And rounding out the world’s most depressing collection of medical brochures ever was, “Transitions: Taking Charge at the End of Life” which consisted of three brief commiserative paragraphs followed by a list of local hospices and in-home hospice care providers.

Wow, I’m really going to die.

At the age of twenty-five.

That’s a thing that’s going to happen to me in less than a year, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Even though I skipped breakfast and lunch, my stomach pitched and rolled, and I set the brochures aside for fear of what my body would expel if I continued to dwell on them … or my fatal diagnosis.

Okay, time to stop wallowing. “Stiff upper lip” as they were known to say around these parts. I pushed my glasses up my nose and typed in my computer passcode.

I’d been gone less than an hour. But in that time, Iain had sent me over thirty messages—four of which were marked urgent.

I glanced toward his office. His door was firmly closed. Which meant he was probably scrambling to get the code for the latest algorithm completed before taking off for his retreat.

Good. That meant I could work in peace. Without him hovering over me, complaining I’d missed two serial commas in my daily market report (as he’d done yesterday). Or repeatedly ordering me to draft emails from him to workers that typically began with “Dear [insert one of the numerous Scottish terms for idiot here].”

Yes, that was what I would do. Throw myself into my work. Try to forget about the new set of letters hovering over my head—at least for a little while.

I started re-typing Iain’s notes to the GUI team from this morning’s update so they’d sound like they’d been written by a semi-decent human being and not a pit viper in a kilt. I managed to focus on that and only that for five whole minutes. But then a restless feeling overcame me.

A restless feeling that made me open a new tab in my internet browser and type in the URL for the Royal Scottish Bank. A password, a security question, and a few clicks later, my savings account popped up on my screen.

I stared at the four-figure number. It wasn’t a lot. But it was something. Enough to go somewhere else—somewhere I’d never been before and survive for a month or two. I could maybe even stretch it out to four or six months if I didn’t come back to live in crazy expensive Edinburgh.

I opened another new tab on my computer. This time, I typed “Milford Track New Zealand” into the empty search bar at the top of the window.

It was where I’d originally planned to travel at the end of my summer internship in Scotland. But then the position at AlgoFortune had become available …

I clicked on the Images tab, and my screen filled with pictures of a gorgeous fjord, flanked by lush green mountains and majestic waterfalls, the likes of which I’d never seen in real life. And might never get the chance to see again—not if I didn’t go there before it was too late.

My heart thundered, and I knew—knew what I had to do. Right now, before I could chicken out and stop myself.

I stood abruptly and charged into Iain’s office without knocking. Totally against his standards. I was actually supposed to send a text first and get formal permission before even daring to knock. But I no longer cared about his infamous list of protocols.

I mean, what did I have to lose?

I marched right up to his stupid standing desk and cranked my head back to look him straight in the eye—only to have my newfound courage peter out as soon as my gaze met his annoyed one.

Ugh. Why did he have to be so ridiculously gorgeous? My heart skipped all the beats, as usual, and my stomach dropped like I’d gotten on a roller coaster, not simply tried to look at my boss straight on for once.

I ended up quickly redirecting my eyes to my feet.

“Well?” Iain demanded, his voice even testier than usual. “Out with it. Why did you barge into my office without the required permission to enter text.”

“Um … I just found out I have cancer,” I said, dropping my eyes to my feet. “Actually. I had cancer before. Leukemia. It’s been in remission since before I came to Scotland. But now I have a new type of leukemia. And I guess it’s too aggressive for them to treat, so it looks like I don’t have much longer …”

I trailed off, expecting a barrage of questions. What kind of cancer? What do you mean untreatable? Why am I just now hearing about this?

But he didn’t say anything. And I was too afraid to look up to see how he was taking this. With my eyes still glued to my feet, I told him, “I’m sorry. I really am, but I need to quit. Effective in two weeks.”

This time I did look up. Not because I felt particularly brave. I just needed to get a sense of where he was at before I said anything else.

Iain thought he had an answer for everything, and he hated change of any kind. I got a “not up to my standards” reprimand the other day just for modifying a report’s font from Avenir to Avenir Next—that was how opposed he was to even the tiniest minutia of deviation from his standard.

So, I had no idea how he’d react to the news that for reasons completely out of his control, he’d be losing his assistant in two weeks.

However, Iain’s face remained its usual hard mask, his jaw tightly clenched with irritation.

“I’m sorry.” I dropped my gaze again. To my hands this time. They’d somehow folded into a tight prayer-like clasp against my chest. “I … I know it’s going to be inconvenient to replace me, especially as we go into stage two of the new product launch. I’ll start looking for my replacement today⁠—”

“Both your parents are no longer in your life, correct?”

I started, majorly surprised by that question coming out of Iain Scotswolf’s mouth. I mean, I knew almost everything there was to know about Iain. I made sure his one-night stands went as smoothly as possible, fielded calls from his brother, sent in monthly five-figure donations to his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, on his behalf.

Last month, I’d refused yet again to put through a call from Iain’s Italian mother, Valentina, who’d moved back to the Italian countryside after splitting up with his father, Lachlan. And next month I’d make sure Lachlan received a new set of golf clubs for Scottish Father’s Day. When I went back to my desk earlier that morning, I’d set up the requested date with Lisette because that was how involved I was in Iain’s life outside of work.

But I figured Iain knew next to nothing about me. He’d never asked me a single question about my background or life outside the office—not until this morning when my doctor’s appointment came up. And now here he was asking about my parents. What was going on here?

“Um … no, they’re not,” I answered carefully. Knowing how impatient he could be, I left out all the details about how my dad left pretty much right before I was born, and how my mother had died soon after.

“So, you have no close family to speak of?”

“No,” I answered again. A painful memory from four years ago surfaced … of being the only person at the funeral of the grandmother who’d raised me after my mother had died. And of the sudden realization that I was entirely on my own now that she was gone.

“Right then, you’ve nowhere to go. So why would someone in your condition quit a well-paid job with private benefits? That’s just daft!”

The harsh truth of Iain’s words hit me with a sharp pang.

He was right; I didn’t have anyone.

No home to return to. No loving arms to comfort me in my last few months. My roommate and best friend, Tara, would do her best, but she was the same age as me. Only twenty-five, and still in the prime of her life. It wouldn’t be fair to burden her with the responsibility of caring for a dying friend.

A wave of self-pity washed over me. Iain was right. The wisest course of action would be to work until I couldn’t work anymore. Then use the money in my savings account to make sure I’d have everything I needed when I checked myself into one of those hospices in the brochure.

But the only thing more depressing than dying in eight months was the thought of working for Iain until my body tapped out and I had to go to hospice.

Which is why I found myself answering, “Why would someone in my condition quit a well-paid job with private benefits? I guess because I’m a 25-year-old virgin who’s never been anywhere further away from my childhood home than Scotland. I guess because I know exactly where my father came from in New Zealand, but I’ve never been there.”

Hot tears spilled down my face as I both said and realized this aloud. The truth of how little I’d lived horrified me. But it also spurred me on to do better by myself.

“I have a little money in the bank—not a lot, but enough to go a few places. Like New Zealand,” I told both Iain and myself through the tears. “So that’s what I want to do. I want to go somewhere else that’s not here … maybe have a fling or two … see things while I still can.”

“Don’t cry, Millicent.” Iain took a tissue from the box on his desk and stiffly handed it to me. “I can’t bear it.”

Of course, he couldn’t bear the sight of me crying. Iain hated drama. And tears. Me crying was another thing that wasn’t up to his standards. And he looked away as if he was embarrassed for both me and himself.

“I’m sorry,” I said, taking the tissue and hastily wiping away the offending tears. “I’ll go type up my two-week notice, okay? I can email it to you, so I don’t have to come in here again. I just wanted to tell you in person before I sent it.”

He gave me a long, measured look before saying, “HR tells me most of the people we hire don’t bother to read their contracts before signing them. I’m surprised to find out you’re one of those lackadaisical employees, Millicent.”

I lowered the tissue. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, if you’d bothered to read your contract in full, you’d know AlgoFortune requires a minimum of thirty days’ notice if you wish to quit. Not fourteen, but thirty. Exactly.”

He leveled me with a cool look. “So, write your letter if you want, Millicent. But if you leave this job in anything less than thirty days, you’ll be doing yourself a great disservice. After our lawyers have finished with you, you won’t even have that little bit of savings you need to go flitting about on your quest to …”

He pauses and gives me another derisive look before finishing with, “See things, and have sex with strangers you just met.”

“What?” My heart withered inside my chest. “I don’t understand. Why would you⁠—”

“You don’t understand.” Iain’s face remained a hard mask. “Well then, let me make it very clear for you then, Millicent. Employees who quit in the middle of a project do not meet my standards. And that is why I had that clause put in every hiring contract. You will stay on until your thirty days are up, and not a day less, or I will sue you for everything you have. Now, do you understand?”

I stared at him in mute shock. Seriously … how could anybody be this cruel?

“I’m waiting for your verbal response, Millicent,” he said, his voice cold as Scottish winter. “Do you understand that you’ll need to stay on in my employ for thirty more days, or I’ll be forced to sue you for breach of contract?”

For heaven’s sake, I was only an assistant! The pitiful woman everyone in the office called Milly Mouse. Why on earth would he sue me just to make sure I served out a ridiculous thirty-day quitting clause? I opened my mouth to ask that very question.

But then a bolt of clarity struck me, and I suddenly understood something I’d only suspected before.

Iain, for all his various recurring five-figure donations to numerous charities, cared little for anyone or anything outside of his precious algorithms.

My cancer was an inconvenience. And if there was one thing that wasn’t up to Iain’s standards, it was being inconvenienced.

Most people wouldn’t be this cruel. Most people would have at the very least, expressed sympathy. But Iain wasn’t most people. And he had no problem showing his true colors … at least where I was concerned.

“Yes, I understand,” I answered in the end, my tone dull and flat. Because what else was there to say?

“Good,” he said, voice clipped as if he were the aggrieved party in this conversation. “Now, it appears I won’t be finished with this code before my retreat. But I promised to have it to GUI by tomorrow. I’ll take it with me to finish, and then you’ll have to come up to my place in Faoltairn tomorrow morning to pick it up. 4:00 A.M. sharp.”

“Are you serious?” I crooked my head, dull acceptance giving way to surprise.

While I’d arranged for countless deliveries to Iain’s million-dollar flat in New Town, I wouldn’t even know Faoltairn was a small Highlands mountain village if not for having to arrange for a special courier to drop off Lachlan’s Father’s Day gifts.

“You want me to come to your home in the Highlands?” I asked. “Like, the house where you grew up?”

Iain gave an impatient jerk of his head. “Nay, not there. My brother’s taken over that place. I have another residence I keep for myself. As I said, I’ll expect you there at 4:00 A.M. on the dot. I won’t be there to meet you in person, of course, as I’ll be camping. But I’ll leave the algorithms on a thumb drive in my home office. All you’ll need to do is go inside and fetch it off my desk.”

Fetch it. Like a dog …

“You can go now,” he said, dismissing me before I could say anything further. Then he went back to his computer, furiously typing as if he was angry with me for wasting even this much of his time with my dying stuff.

Love at first sight.

“Hello there, Millicent.” I once again recalled how Iain had smiled down at me when I offered him my hand at the start of the interview.

That smile had hit me like a freight train. My heart had sped up, and my stomach had suddenly dropped with the sensation of falling.

Love at first sight. Those four words had floated into my head, rocking me down to my very soul.

And I’d actually thought Iain felt the same way too. He’d held my slender hand in his much larger one for way longer than was professional. And he’d gazed down at me with a look so soft, I’d felt for sure that this was the first meeting of soulmates.

But then his nose had flared, sniffing at the air like he’d smelled something rank. And just like that, his smile was replaced by the hard mask I’d come to know well in the years I’d worked for him.

One glimpse. It had been just one glimpse of a man I’d thought maybe I could spend the rest of my life with, but that small peek had haunted me ever since. And, despite all evidence to the contrary over the years I’d worked for Iain, I’d found myself wondering too many times to count if maybe—just maybe that guy who’d warmly said, “Hello, Millicent” was still lurking beneath my boss’s hard and unfeeling exterior.

Well, now I knew the answer.

Iain Scotswolf was a 100% bastard. He didn’t have an ounce of consideration for me, much less love.

The man obviously didn’t even give two craps about me, and I’d been a fool to spend over three years of my life secretly hoping it might be otherwise.

Two

“What. A. Dick. You told him you were dying and that’s how he responds?” Tara squawked from my phone’s speaker. “I just CAN’T with this douchebag. Ugh, my rage levels are spiking so high right now!”

I immediately regretted telling my roommate about the whole Iain refusing to let me leave thing. But she’d called to check in on me on her way to her boyfriend’s place in Liverpool, and the whole story had come out in a huge gush before I remembered why I usually kept stories of how bad things were at work to myself.

“Tara …” I said, as I popped a Sainsburys’ Chicken Tikka Masala ready meal into the microwave, sitting on top of the very little counter space in our tiny flat’s narrow kitchen.

“No, Milly. Don’t Tara me!” she commanded from my phone’s speaker. “Give me one reason—just one reason why I shouldn’t hunt him down and tear out his throat!”

“It’s okay, Tara. It’s fine …” I insisted—not because it was, but because Tara sounded violently upset, and I didn’t want her to do anything rash.

I didn’t have many girlfriends before Tara—those were surprisingly hard to make and keep when you’d spent large swaths of your prime bestie-making years in various medical centers battling leukemia.

By the time I’d finally made it to Scotland for a summer-long business and technology internship at the Royal Scottish Bank, my social skills were so underdeveloped I didn’t even begin to hope I’d make any friends there.

But my friendless days were over from the moment I met Canadian Tara Hamilton at the RSB orientation. Tara was a self-professed anti-Canadian.

Rude, bold, and strong—in both body and personality. Plus, she was ultra-fashionable. I swear, if they were casting Sex in the City: Edinburgh, she’d easily get the role of the Canadian glamour girl.

The only thing we had in common other than our internship was being biracial. But we even were at opposite ends of the spectrum on that. While I had a split-up Black mother and White Jewish father, Tara had a black Ghanaian father and a White German-Canadian mother who were still together.

They did cutesy things like wait with each other by their landline phone when Tara was expected to make her weekly scheduled call home. And they all spoke in excited German together when they talked.

I could barely mumble in English. I still have no idea why she picked me, the shy nerd with zero confidence, and the least dazzling of our program mates to befriend, but she did.

And when we both landed jobs in Edinburgh right before the end of our internships—Tara at the Royal Scottish Bank and me at AlgoFortune—we decided to move in together, and we’d been best friends ever since.

However, as much as I treasured my best friend, I had to admit, she had a nasty temper, one that could quickly get out of hand. I’d literally had to pull my bestie out of bar fights on Trivia Pub Quiz nights when she got too heated. And don’t even get me started on what she did to the drunken I-Banker bro who slapped her on the butt during the after-work drinks thing she’d invited me to last spring.

I’ll just say, he no longer works at the main branch of the Royal Scottish Bank Edinburgh. And avoiding sexual harassment charges wasn’t the only reason he put in his notice.

So, while I might feel the same way as Tara, I had no doubt my extremely loyal friend was more than capable of hunting my boss down and setting herself up for some serious assault charges if I didn’t act like Iain’s behavior wasn’t a big deal.

“Tara, it’s okay. Seriously,” I tell both her and myself. “Four instead of two more weeks working for the boss from hell won’t matter in the scheme of things.”

“No, it’s not okay! It’s totally messed up,” Tara grumbled. “That asshole’s lucky I’m visiting Brian tonight, or I’d find out where he lives, and shove his stupid hiring contract right up his ass.”

I let out a sigh of relief, almost, but not quite grateful for her horrible boyfriend.

Just a few weeks after moving to Edinburgh, Tara had met a sketchy English musician at a pub. And though I had yet to meet him, from what I could tell, he was the worst. Like, completely-undeserving-of-my-amazing-best-friend the worst.

He always made Tara visit him in Liverpool, never once deigning to make the journey to Edinburgh to hang out with Tara and her friends. Nearly three years into our relationship and I had yet to meet the guy, let alone see a photo of him. In fact, I wouldn’t even call what Tara and he had a relationship. More like a long-distance booty call made worse by Tara’s slavish devotion.

As strong and loyal a friend as she could be, Tara was a complete doormat when it came to her boyfriend.

And I had learned early on that my otherwise smart friend would not budge on the topic of Brian. Tara visited him whenever he called, and once there, nothing would bring her back until Brian let her go.

Case in point: I’d called my best friend to tell her I …

1) only had eight months left to live, and

2) could not quit my job without getting sued for the last bit of money I had.

But Tara, rather predictably, threatened to do physical damage to Iain but didn’t so much as offer to come back to Edinburgh to commiserate with her dying roommate.

More self-pity washed over me as I pulled my sad microwave dinner out of the small electric oven.

But that wasn’t fair.

Tara had mostly been the best friend a meek little assistant like me could ask for in the world. It wasn’t her job to comfort me or drop all her plans to help me drown my diagnosis sorrows in several bottles of wine.

“I just wish my Brian thing wasn’t tonight. Otherwise, you know, I’d be right there with you, right?” Tara asked, her voice softening.

“I know,” I said, pushing down the self-pity. “You’re a good friend.”

“And you’re my best friend ever. I love you, Mils. And I’ll do whatever it takes to help you through thi—” Tara suddenly cut off. “Sorry, Milly, Brian just got here. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you at work first thing tomorrow, okay?”

I opened my mouth to tell her I probably wouldn’t be at work first thing tomorrow since I had to drive all the way to the Highlands to pick up the thumb drive with Iain’s rough code on it.

But she hung up before I could get the words out.

I hated driving in Scotland. Despite having lived there for nearly three years, I just couldn’t shake the feeling I was driving on the wrong side of the road every time I got behind the wheel—a wheel that was, from my perspective, located on the passenger side of the car.

And it wasn’t like I got many opportunities to drive all that often. The only reason I’d even bothered to get my international license and learn to drive a stick was because Iain had told me an assistant who couldn’t drive a car when needed wasn’t up to his standards.

My job occasionally called for me to use one of the company cars to pick up and drop off items at different tech outfits located all around the city. And now it called for me to drive into the Highlands to pick up a thumb drive so the software development team could get as much work done as possible on it before the bank holiday weekend.

Funny, I hadn’t thought I could feel any worse than I had walking out of the doctor’s office. But driving to Iain’s childhood village in the earliest hours of the morning to pick up a thumb drive? Wow. My life, what was left of it, was hitting new lows all over the place.

However, my depression began to lift after I negotiated the Vauxhall Astra up a narrow mountain road. As it turned out, Faoltairn, the Highland village where Iain grew up, was a charming postcard of a town with a large mountain on one side and a shimmering loch on the other.

It was still very dark out, but the full moon hung heavy as a spotlight overhead, working in conjunction with the smattering of streetlights to illuminate the collection of darling stone shops on either side of the main street. Even though it was almost June, the small village reminded me of something out of a Christmas card, with its dark green detailing and multiple windows sporting the same red plaid found on Iain’s kilts.

The main street soon gave way to a wider graveled road that wound lazily around the eastern side of a glittering loch. Little white stone cottages with thatched roofs dotted the side of the lake closest to me. And on the other side of the loch sat … no, that couldn’t be right.

But yes … there, nestled among the tall pines, stood a castle. A small castle to be sure, but it was way more grand than the ruins I occasionally saw on the side of the road when driving around Scotland with Tara in her car (she wasn’t nearly as scared as me about the wrong side of the road thing). The castle stood three stories tall and even had a low perimeter wall.

Whoa! I thought, just as the GPS informed me that my destination was ahead on the right.

I pulled the car to a stop in front of yet another cottage. It was slightly larger than the ones I had passed. But other than that, it looked just like all the rest—whitewashed stone walls, thatched roof, and super old.

As I got out of the car, a funny feeling came over me. Like maybe I’d somehow stepped out of my own time into a highland village from the distant past.

To add to the eerie ambiance, something that sounded an awful lot like the far-off howling of wolves punctuated the otherwise silent night.

No, not wolves, I assured myself. It had to be dogs.

I’d read wolves had been hunted to extinction in Scotland back in the 1700s. And while there were a lot of discussions happening across Scotland about possibly reintroducing the European wolf, no decisions had been made yet. I mean, At least, I don’t think they had …

Still, those dogs sounded an awful lot like wolves—at least to someone who’d grown up in upstate New York. And they served as the perfect soundtrack to the “ancient Scotland” BBC documentary I’d apparently stumbled into as I walked toward the cottage’s dimly lit front door.

The door was unlocked, just as Iain said it would be. And walking through it gave me the feeling of having exited a time machine with the dial set firmly to “the future.”

So much for the old-timey vibe I’d sensed during my drive through the village. While Iain’s cottage appeared to be a few hundred years old on the outside, it was modern as all get out on the inside.

I tapped the light switch closest to the door, illuminating an open plan living room with stylish, upscale furniture in every direction I looked. A large flat-screen TV hung above the fireplace, and three different video game consoles sat on its mantle along with several framed pictures of Iain with his brother and father. None of him with his mother, though, I noted.

What had she done to get cut out of his life so thoroughly? I wondered about Iain’s relationship with the Italian-accented woman whose calls he never returned as I made my way down the narrow hall off the main living area. Only one door stood open, and voila, it turned out to be the one that led into my boss’s home office. Inside, I found another standing desk, but this one was made of dark oak without technology to raise it up or down. He’d attached a white sticky note to the desk’s right-corner front edge. THUMB DRIVE was written across it in bold, black Sharpie.

I furrowed my brow. The note—written in Iain’s distinctive all-caps handwriting—was very clear. But the space above the note was empty.

And even more alarmingly, there was a large cage sitting just under the desk’s right edge. It resembled an oversized dog kennel, like the ones they’d set up in the hospital for the therapy dogs when they weren’t “on duty” and visiting patients.

There on the cage’s metal floor, I could see the thumb drive, its USB port gleaming in the low light. It must have fallen in there from the desk.

But unfortunately, the thumb drive wasn’t the only thing in the cage.

A huge, silent wolf stared back at me with silver eyes that seemed to glow in the room’s low light, and the thumb drive was lying halfway underneath its front paw.

“Okay, what the hell,” I said out loud.

I started to reach for my phone to call Iain, but then I remembered …he was camping. Which meant I was on my own. In his cottage. With … his wolf.

Crap!

I crouched down in front of the cage, a wave of fatigue crashing over me for reasons that had nothing to do with the overproduction of white blood cells currently killing me before I got the chance to live a solid twenty-five years on this Earth.

I tell you, I used to not believe in reincarnation. But now I really had to wonder if I hadn’t seriously effed up in a past life. I mean what other executive assistant on Earth had ever found herself in a situation like this?

I stared at the creature, and he stared back at me.

And man, I must have been some kind of brainwashed by my billionaire boss. Dutiful-to-a-fault me actually began to reach out for the thumb drive—before I came to my senses and yanked my hand back at the last moment.

“I’m not doing this. I’m not doing this. I refuse to stick my hand in a cage with a freaking wild animal,” I told both the creature and myself. “I mean, what’s your dad going to do? Fire me for refusing to retrieve the thumb drive from underneath the paw of his pet wolf? I mean, who keeps a wolf as a pet anyway, then just conveniently forgets to tell his assistant about it? If anything, this thumb drive mess is all his fault. So, nope, nope, I’m out!”

I start to stand up out of my crouch, but then the wolf does the strangest thing.

He whimpers and pushes the thumb drive toward me. Then he bows his head, and gazes up at me in a way that I immediately recognized as the universal canine language for “pet me, pretty please.”

Aww! Maybe this big guy wasn’t a wolf after all. There was a chance, I’d been so startled that I overreacted, and assumed “wolf” when really, he was just one of those dogs that only looked like a wolf. Like a malamute or a husky.

A really, really huge husky. But just in case, I’ve gotten this situation all wrong, I insert the tips of two fingers through the cage bars and gingerly patted the maybe-not-a-wolf on top of its huge head.

In response, Mr. Trust Me I’m Not A Wolf affectionately pushed his head into my fingers, as if to say, “See? I don’t bite. You should pet me some more!”

I laughed, and with a little maneuvering, I pushed my whole hand in just past my wrist between the thick wires of the cage to carefully give him a full-handed pet.

A noisy metallic clang suddenly rose into the air. It was his tail, I realized. He was wagging it so hard, it created a drumming sound against the cage’s back wall.

“Oh, my gosh, you like pets, don’t you?” I said with another laugh. “I bet your dad doesn’t give you any love at all. Poor thing.”

Honestly, the wolf-dog didn’t seem scary at all, anymore. But I was here on a mission, I soon remembered.

I stuck my other hand through the cage to retrieve the thumb drive. “Okay, just a few more pets, but then I have to⁠—”

With lightning speed, the happy wolf-dog dropped all pretense of tameness and launched itself at my other outstretched arm, clamping its sharp teeth down on the fleshy part below my forearm.

It happened so fast, I didn’t feel a thing for the first few seconds other than crushing disappointment in the wolf-dog for turning on me.

But my disappointment was soon followed by a much less metaphorical pain. I screamed as I desperately tried to shake the creature’s mouth from my arm. But the wolf-dog held on for several more seconds, its silver eyes bright and resolute. And despite the huge adrenaline spike, I simply wasn’t strong enough to pull my arm from the wolf-dog’s firm bite.

But just as I was beginning to wonder if I would be forced to watch the creature tear off my arm and eat it in front of me like something out of a particularly graphic horror movie, it just let me go. So suddenly, I fell back on my butt.

I cut off screaming to stare at the unblinking animal. I had no idea why it had bit me and then just let me go. But I was done pretending it wasn’t a wolf, and I wasn’t about to look this unexpected gift-of-freedom horse in the mouth.

Scrambling clumsily to my feet, I clutched my injured arm to my chest and ran like a bat out of hell back to the relative safety of my car.

Without the thumb drive.

Three

“Oh, my God, Milly! Are you okay?!”

Tara jumped out of a hard plastic seat and ran over to me as soon as I entered the front lobby of the remote hospital’s A&E department.

“I’m fine. It was just a few stitches and a rabies shot.” I held out my gauze-wrapped arm. “See, all fixed. You didn’t have to come all the way out here. I only left that message because I didn’t want you to worry about me when you got home and saw I wasn’t there.”

“Oh honey, don’t say that! Of course, I came! First that awful cancer diagnosis and now this. Oh, mein Gott, this is all so messed up …” Tara looked stricken for a second, but then she grabbed me by the shoulders and demanded, “Why the hell were you in Faoltairn?! That’s the middle of nowhere! What if you hadn’t been able to make it to the closest hospital? Anything could have happened to you!”

“Well, it’s not exactly in the middle of nowhere. And I thought it was kind of charming …” I stopped when I saw the way my bestie was glaring at me. “Anyway, I only went because that’s where Iain’s cottage is located—he goes for these, like, weird monthly camping trips. And he needed me to drive over and pick up a thumb drive for the development team.”

Tara’s bunched her brow. “Wait, your tech-savant boss has a home in Faoltairn?”

“I know, right?” I reply, nodding in agreement with her shocked tone. “I don’t get remote mountain retreat vibe off him either. But I guess he grew up there … and, you know, keeps a wolf in his home office. Crazy, right? But the nurse who bandaged my arm said their clinic gets what appear to be wolf bites at least once or twice a year.”

“Wolf bite?” Tara frowned ugly at me. “Okay, so you went to your boss’s house and got bitten by a wolf?”

She sounded confused, and I didn’t blame her. I was still having a hard time processing what happened myself, and I’d had three hours to go over what had happened multiple times while waiting to be seen.

“Sorry for the wait, dearie,” the nurse practitioner who’d stitched me up had said when I finally made it to her station. “Full moon nights can be absolute madness ‘round here.”

“How do you feel now?” Tara asked.

“Fine,” I assured her. “It barely hurts anymore. And the nurse said I was lucky. It was a pretty clean bite, so it might not even leave a scar.”

“Okay, okay, good …” But Tara continued to eye my bandaged arm with sharp worry in her brown eyes. “But you could have been hurt. Really, really hurt. Have there been any … side effects?”

“Side effects?” I repeated not understanding the question. “Like what? They only gave me Ibuprofen. And the shot should have taken care of everything else⁠—”

I cut off when Tara suddenly engulfed me in a bear hug. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter. I’m just so relieved you’re all right. So relieved …”

The hug kind of hurt my bandaged arm, but I didn’t try to disengage. And suddenly, I found myself working hard not to cry.

I didn’t realize how much I’d needed a hug until I was wrapped in my much taller friend’s comforting embrace. And no, Tara hadn’t come up from Liverpool to make me a cup of tea last night. But showing up here this morning? Let’s just say all was forgiven.

Despite my diagnosis, I counted myself blessed to have such a wonderful friend.

We stood like that for a while before finally agreeing it was time to leave. There was some debate about whether I was ok to drive myself all the way back to Edinburgh, or if I should go with Tara in her car.

But Tara was already running nearly an hour late for work, and I didn’t want to make her any later.

Plus, I couldn’t just leave the company car parked at this rural hospital. Iain aside, most of the people who worked at AlgoFortune were friendly and easy to get along with most of the time. I didn’t harbor any ill will against them, and I didn’t want to inconvenience at least two unlucky co-workers by leaving it an hour outside Edinburgh. Plus, there was the real possibility it could get clamped—which was kind of like a triangular form of booting—before anyone could pick it up.

The good news was that Tara had no need to worry. I made good time back to Edinburgh, and my arm only twinged a little during the drive. The bad news … it was raining by the time I got back to the city.

Not that this was unusual weather for Scotland. But since I’d only taken my wallet and phone for what was supposed to be a quick pick-up at Iain’s cottage, I didn’t have an umbrella.

I was seated in the parked car, contemplating the fastest route into my flat, when a loud rap sounded on the driver’s side window. I jumped and nearly screamed.

Then the driver’s side door yanked open, revealing … Iain! Seriously. I squinted up at him in disbelief through my glasses.

My boss stood on the curb outside my apartment building holding a big black umbrella—like a giant. He could have probably fit an entire family under that thing.

And as for Iain, he looked ... well, not up to his usual standards. His familiar red plaid kilt was gone, replaced by a pair of dark gray sweatpants and a green t-shirt I would never have guessed he owned, much less wore out and about where people could actually see him.

Not only that, his usual neatly styled hair was mussed and disheveled as if he’d rolled right out of bed and driven straight here. No, he was definitely not up to his usual standard.

And though Iain’s hair was drying, the rain must have caught him off guard as he was getting out of his Jaguar XJ. Because his green tee was just about plastered to his body; highlighting rippling muscles I’d guessed laid underneath all those button-up shirts but didn’t know were there for sure.

He had them though. Oh man, did he have them. So clearly, his wet t-shirt display made me wonder what it would be like to feel them with my bare hands or pressing up against my skin …

“Come on then, Millicent! Stop gawking at me and get out of the bloody car!”

Okay, I hadn’t realized how openly I was ogling him until he snapped at me.

My cheeks heated, and I quickly scrambled through the open door, scooting as far beneath the umbrella as I could without touching him. And, oh wow … he smelled good. I mean really, really good.

The scent was much too subtle to be cologne. It was a heady combination of pine trees, moss, and crisp lake air that made me think of castle ruins and bagpipes. A mountain. He smelled like a mountain. To be specific. He smelled like the Highlands. Like Faoltairn.

Why hadn’t I ever noticed how good he smelled before?

The sound of sniffing brought my head up. Iain’s nose was flared as if he, too, was taking in a scent. But unlike me, he didn’t appear to like what he was smelling.

“Was someone …” he sniffed again, his eyebrows pulling down so hard that a crease appeared above his nose. “… holding you?”

I had no idea what he was talking about until I remembered his super-sensitive nose. “Ah … yes. My roommate came to see me at the hospital.”

“Your roommate,” he repeated, voice flat. “You never mentioned you lived with someone.”

“You never asked,” I gently pointed out. “Now, might I ask why you’re here?”

Iain stiffened. He was clearly not used to being interrogated by me. It was always the other way around with us.

“When I came down from the mountain this morning, I found the thumb drive in my home office,” he answered stiffly. “It was covered in blood. I washed it off, drove it into the office myself, and when I saw you weren’t there, I came here to check on you. See if you were all right.”

He finished his explanation with a huge expulsion of air through his still-flared nostrils.

“Are you?” he asked. “Are you all right, Millicent?”

I tilted my head up at him. Okay, let me get this straight …

Iain, Iain Scotswolf … one of the most self-absorbed individuals I’d ever met, had driven all the way to my flat in Holyrood? Just to check to make sure I was okay?

Why hadn’t he just called? Or texted⁠—

The still-American side of my logic cut me off, answering all my silent questions before I could voice them.

“You didn’t have to come here, Iain. I’m fine,” I thinned my lips. “And I’m not planning to spend the short amount of time I have left suing you.”

Iain’s expression remained static, registering neither guilt nor denial. But after a beat, he said, “I’ll tell Linda in HR to include a generous bonus in your next paycheck. For your … inconvenience.”

It wasn’t quite an apology, but it was more than I would have expected from my cold boss even a few hours ago.

“Thanks,” I said. Honestly, I’d rather he gave me those two extra weeks he was making me work. But a bonus was nice, too. Especially if it meant I could travel a little longer before figuring out all the hospice end-of-life stuff.

That should have been the end of the conversation. But instead, we both continued to stand there, rain pitter-pattering against the top of his ridiculously large umbrella. And after a few more seconds, I cleared my throat and said, “Iain?”

“Aye, Millicent?” His brogue whispered over my skin. Like an aural caress.

And I had to clear my throat before pressing ahead with, “I know you aren’t a fan of hearing other people’s opinions. Especially mine. But I really think you should reconsider having a wolf as a pet.”

I took a brave breath, and informed him, “They’re magnificent creatures, and no matter what you may have seen on shows like Game of Thrones, they’re not meant to be cooped up like that. I mean, is that even legal? Anyway, I’m not surprised it bit me. Poor thing is probably going crazy in that cage.”

Iain regarded me for a long second, and I braced myself to get chewed out. But to my surprise, his serious gray eyes took on a distinct cast of amusement. “Let’s see if I’m clear on this. My wolf bit you badly enough to send you to the hospital, and you’re worried about his well-being? Really, Milly Mouse, this is too self-effacing. Even for you.”

“Don’t call me that!” I snapped before I could stop myself.

Iain stilled. Probably shocked at the harsh reaction he’d elicited from his generally meek assistant.

Another wave of fatigue passed over me. He was probably right to be shocked. Sometimes it felt like that was all I was: a self-effacing little mouse who came into this world with barely a squeak and would go out the same way.

“I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.” I scrubbed a hand down the side of my face. “I should go inside and get cleaned up for work. And you should probably get back to your camping … and your pet wolf.”

“Alright,” he answered.

“Alright,” I echoed softly, waiting for him to make the first move and go.

But then he said, “I promise never to call you Milly Mouse again. Come on, let me walk you to your door …”

Iain took me by the elbow and escorted me down the short walkway and then up the steps toward the covered entrance outside the front door of my terrace house flat.

“Um … thanks,” I said, not quite knowing how else to respond to this unprecedented act of gentlemanly behavior.

Or how to feel about the way my elbow tingled as we walked together up the steps.

Or what to think when he lowered his umbrella but not his hand once we reached the top of the stairs.

“Thanks,” I said for the third time, even though I was finding it increasingly difficult to squeeze any words out at all through my suddenly bone-dry throat.

“Millicent …” Iain said, looking down at me. His steely gray gaze became as soft as it had been the first time we’d met during my interview. His hand felt like a pulse against my elbow.

“Yes?” I asked, my heart thundering in my chest.

Iain opened his mouth … but then the softness faded from his eyes, and his face hardened into its usual cold mask. “You can work from home today, but I’ll expect you in at four tomorrow morning.”

With that, he finally released my arm. Then he jogged down the steps without waiting for my reply.

By the time I spotted him opening the door to his Jaguar, the thundering of my heart had come to a full stop.

And as I watched him drive away without so much as a backward glance in my direction, it occurred to me that his gentlemanly display was probably more about me not suing him than anything else.

I let myself into the flat with Tara’s words echoing in my ears. What. A. Dick.

***

If you think he’s a bosshole now, wait until Milly goes into heat.

Find out what happens next in

HER SCOTTISH WOLF

Meet Your New Fated Mate

After her parents abandon her on the side of the road as a child, adult Chloe manages to reinvent herself with a great job as a DIY domestic influencer and a perfect alpha fiancé—he’s literally the prince of her Colorado pack.

And sure, he hates her job and doesn’t understand why she insists on making everything from scratch. And yeah, they’ve been engaged for nearly a decade without her going into heat—the ultimate sign that they’re ready to be mated on every level.

But other than that, everything in her life is going great….

Until a huge, red-haired, time-traveling Viking werewolf shows up to claim her as his fated mate.

Wait... what?!?!

One

“SO have you thought about what you’re going to wear on your first heat night?” Rafe asked Chloe as they climbed up King’s Trail, their boots crunching in the freshly driven snow.

Despite the frigid mountain air, Chloe’s cheeks went hot with embarrassment. “No,” she answered, keeping her voice as neutral as possible, so as not to betray how uncomfortable this subject made her. “Have you?”

Rafe slid her the most wicked of grins. “I’m thinking red lace, maybe some of those black garters. If you give me your measurements, I can put in an order online and have exactly what I want to see you in sent over to your place.”

At that moment, Chloe was grateful for the darkness of her skin, because she could feel her initial blush spreading over her entire body. And this despite the fact she was wearing little more than her favorite hand-knitted sweater over one of the many long prairie dresses she’d also made herself and favored even when she wasn’t filming episodes of Black Mountain Woman. Why did having these kinds of conversations with Rafe always make her so uneasy? He wasn’t just her fiancé, he was also her best friend—really her only truly close friend offline—and she’d become accustomed to bringing all of her problems to him.

But of course, she couldn’t tell him how uncomfortable it made her to talk with him about anything of a sexual nature. Was this how all she-wolves who hadn’t gone into heat felt about the subject of sex? If she were a normal person, she would go to the internet with her problem. Find a forum of similar women with a similar issue. Or maybe she’d consult one of her Black Mountain Woman fans. Many of them had come to feel like real friends over the three years she’d hosted her blog and YouTube show, and she knew at least a few of them had navigated their way around sticky relationship issues.

However, the North American Lupine Council had strictly forbidden talking on the internet about anything involving their species. It was bad enough, in their opinion, that interest in werewolves was at an all time high these days, with everything from books to movies being made about their supposedly mythical race. Better not to fuel the frenzy with a blog or forum that any non-paranormal could happen across.

Besides, even if she were able to reach out to other she-wolves on line, she doubted she would find much commiseration. There were only a few hundred alpha wolves in the entire world, and Rafe Nightwolf, the alpha prince of Colorado, had chosen her, a nobody she-wolf who had literally been abandoned at the side of the road outside their shifter town.

Rafe also happened to be ridiculously hot, with his Native American father’s high cheekbones and long, sharp nose, softened by the light brown eyes and toasted brown skin he’d inherited from his Latina mother. When he’d proposed to her in front of everyone at their high school graduation, the other young she-wolves in their class had only been half-joking about how jealous they were. Any other she-wolf would kill to have a werewolf as good-looking and well off as Rafe ask for her hand in marriage.

He was also kind and had proven himself to be incredibly patient. So far he’d waited over six years to consummate their relationship, since North American Lupine Council law forbade marrying or even mating with a she-wolf who hadn’t yet had her first heat. Most she-wolves went into heat between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, which was why female wolves tended to marry and start their families rather young by modern standards.

However, Chloe had turned twenty-five a couple of months ago, and even Rafe’s seemingly infinite patience was showing signs of wearing thin. He’d been snapping at her more and more lately for little things like wearing her prairie dresses to formal events and spending too much time working on her Black Mountain Woman shows. He’d also begun bringing up their heat night whenever they were alone together, imagining out loud what they would do and how they would do it. And though she’d had six years to get used to the idea, and had even watched a few porn movies in the hopes it would jump start her into heat, she still couldn’t bring herself to talk about it or even fully imagine it in her own head.

“Hey, did I tell you? I’m working on a chicken and fennel recipe for the next episode of Black Mountain Woman,” she said, covering up her rather unsubtle subject change with a bright smile. “Maybe I’ll have it ready in time for the wedding.”

He gave her a quizzical look, “You’re marrying an alpha prince. You can’t cook for your own wedding.”

“Why not?”

“What would people say?” he asked. “Listen, Clo, you know I love you and I support your weird hobby as much as I can, but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere. We’ll have people flying in from all over the world to attend our wedding. You can’t serve them homemade chicken and fennel.”

Chloe opened her mouth to argue. First of all, he didn’t really support her Black Mountain Woman projects. She’d garnered hundreds of thousands of fans over the years with her from-scratch recipes, DIY crafting projects, and organic cleaning tips. She was also able to support herself off the money she made from advertisers on her blog and her YouTube revenue stream. But her own fiancé referred to what she did for a living as a “weird hobby.” One, she knew without having to discuss it, he expected her to give up as soon as they married.

But before she could point out any of this, he asked, “Why is it every time I bring up our heat night, you change the subject to Black Mountain Woman?”

“Um…” She scrambled to come up with a good excuse, but could only produce a weak, “Do I?”

He regarded her with cool eyes. “Yeah, you do.”

Silence descended as they continued to press up the mountain. Many of her fellow wolves loved to hike King’s Trail, but Chloe had never seen the appeal of walking up a steep precipice just because. Her glutes were already starting to protest this rare trip to the portal, a gate through space and time, which was located on a plateau about two miles up the mountain that bordered Wolf Springs. According to their lookout, Jeb, who had a cabin nearby, it flashed thirty minutes ago, which meant they had a visitor. Maybe even one from the past.

Alpha princes acted in a somewhat vice presidential role for their pack until they inherited the throne, and though she hated making the somewhat arduous trip to the portal, greeting the werewolves who had come through it had been one of her favorite duties so far as Rafe’s future wife.

Technically wolves used the portal for one of two reasons. The first was to punish wolves, who had committed acts so heinous they were banished, not only from their communities but also from their own space and time. However, the last recorded instance of that happening had been when Rafe’s own mother, Lacey, was the future alpha princess. Lacey still occasionally told the story of how a werewolf had come through the gate, still-shifted and frothing white at the mouth. The crazed thing had leapt at her and Rafe’s dad barely had time to pull his gun and put a silver bullet in its head before it got to her.

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?”

Two

Many centuries ago…

“FENRIS, I would have words with you,” his aunt, Bera, said. The small woman did not wait for his assent before falling in step beside him, and he had to switch his bloodied sword to his other hand to keep from staining her clothes with it.

Even his respect for his aunt’s advanced years could not keep the terseness he felt out of his voice when he answered, “Whatever it is can wait until I have washed in the lake. I am fresh from the hunt.”

With pursed lips, she pressed a linen rag, with words written across it in charcoal ink, into his hand.

“What is this?” he asked, though he had a feeling he already knew. His lack of a mate was a subject well-visited by his aunt, even more so since he had reached twenty and seven winters.

“I have bid you too many times to seek your fated mate. You have not heeded me, mayhap because I am but a decrepit she-wolf. Thusly, I have put the spell down for you on this scrap, in the hopes you would bestow joy upon my heart by speaking it as I have written it.”

He looked from the spell to his aunt who despite her gray hair, much smaller size, and supposed decrepitude managed to keep up with his fast pace. “You realize I will disappear if I speak these words on my tongue?”

“I have put to words the return spell on the reverse side of the rag. You and your fated mate have only to speak them as one and you will be returned to this place.”

He held the rag out to his aunt. “You are dear to me, sister of my father, but you try my patience with this business. I will claim a mate of my own accord. I do not wish to be fated.”

His aunt clenched her hands by her side, refusing to take the linen back from him. “Your sires were fated.”

“Yes, and this be the reason I wish not to be,” he answered.

“Your mother and father were very happy before…”

She did not finish, but she did not have to. Fenris knew the rest. His sires were very happy, until his mother died giving birth to him, before his father was reduced to a husk of his former self in his grief.

“I do not wish a fated mate,” he repeated. “Take this back. I have no use for it.”

A knowing smile played on his aunt’s lips. “We shall see. This winter has been cold and dark. You will eventually want for a mate to warm your bed. Why not put yourself in the hands of the gods?”

His aunt was the last person he wanted to talk to on this subject, even if she was correct about the state of his bed. He had not lain with a woman since his visit to the human market to the south of them before the last summer moon. There, he and his unmated pack members could lie with human women willing to trade their services for the furs, iron, small weapons, and the other items his village was known to sell.

“Aunt Bera, the only thing I want for now is my soap.”

She stopped walking. “And you may have it. I will take my leave, but will leave you with the spell.” She then turned and hurried back toward their village before he could offer any further protest.

He balled the fabric up inside his hand. Having stripped down to bare feet and his leather hunting trousers in preparation for his bath, he had nothing with which to pin it to his clothing. However, he also did not want to leave it lying around for any young she-wolf to find. She-wolves could be silly when it came to matters of the heart, and even though most of them had no knowing of written words, they might seek someone who did to help them speak the words. In the past, his aunt had taken great care not to record the spell for fear it would fall into the wrong hands.

That she had written the spell down for Fenris without his having asked it, proclaimed her frustration with his refusal to take a bride more loudly than any words ever could. But he did not want to dwell on her actions. He was fresh from the hunt, having taken down no less than three reindeer and a bear, the latter of which he had been forced to use his sword, The King Maker, to finish off.

He desired to clean both himself and his trusted weapon much more than he desired to ruminate on his aunt’s concerns about his lack of mate. And he could see Wolf Lake, which bordered his village, glittering in the distance.

“It seems we have caught the King of Wolves unawares,” a voice said from behind him.

Fenris stopped short, his grip tightening around the hilt of his sword, before he turned to face his cousin, Vidar, a wolf almost as tall and broad as he. Fenris had banished Vidar from their village two moons ago, after the younger wolf had beaten and attempted to couple with a household servant girl who did not wish his advances.

Vidar had thought his position as cousin to the king would keep him protected, despite the strict laws against coupling with a she-wolf without her father’s consent. And indeed, it had pained Fenris greatly to banish a family member who shared his own longhouse. But in the end, even Fenris could not hold himself above wolf law, especially the ones he had set down himself during the bloody years he had spent reaffirming his position as the king of the North wolves.

But like a recurring dream, Vidar now once again stood before him. However, this time, his battle axe, which Fenris had allowed him to keep, was raised and his eyes were shining with hatred and malice. Also, this time he did not stand in front of Fenris alone. At various points behind him stood four other men with swords, three of which Fenris recognized as wolves he had banished from their village for crimes ranging from theft to the murder of humans, which were also strictly forbidden under both his laws.

Fenris raised his own sword. “You should not be so close to my village, Cousin. Your mother might see you and you have already well disappointed her.”

“I beheld you talking to the wicked sorceress.” He bared his sharp lupine teeth. “The one who did put that harlot servant to her false accusation.”

Though his aunt had been the one to bring the servant girl to Fenris, it had taken but one look at the badly beaten girl to assess what had happened. He knew her attacker to be Vidar, who he had spied watching the yellow-haired girl with hard losti—lust—in his eyes on several occasions. The extent of his crime against a girl who many in his household considered like a family member had been enough to sicken even his mother’s sister, Esja, Vidar’s own mother. She had yet to ask her nephew to reverse his decision, even though it was known by all that Vidar had only gone as far as the mountains on the northern side of the lake to live.

“What matter of business is this, Vidar?” he asked.

“I wish to once again take my place in our village and there is but one way to do that.” Vidar stopped smiling now. “Become the new alpha king.”

Fenris shook his head. “You cannot hope to best me on your own.”

There was a reason the Alpha King title had stayed in his line for five generations. The sons of Fenris were known throughout the Northern lands as fierce warriors, and he himself had been trained from childhood to defend his inherited crown.

Vidar grinned. “Not on my own, no. But my friends have avowed to herald it that way when we return to the village with your severed head in my hand.”

“No one will believe your tale.”

“It does not matter that they believe, only that they submit to their new king.”

Fenris spat. Vidar had been a pig’s penis since childhood, prone to tantrums and high-handed with his mother and two sisters. And now it was plain to see he had gone mad with desire for power and revenge.

Fenris considered himself a warrior of great skill, but even he could not best five wolves, especially having just come off the late winter hunt. He cursed himself for letting his mind become so distracted by the conversation with his aunt that he had momentarily relaxed his guard, giving his cousin the perfect opening for this underhanded attack.

The conversation with his aunt.

Fenris lowered the hand that held his sword and raised the one that held the rag with the spell written upon it.

Mistaking the lowering of his sword as an admittance of defeat, Vidar came charging toward him with his battle axe raised high.

Fenris barely had enough time to utter the words that would send him hurtling through a gate to the gods-only-knew—but at that moment, any land was better than this plain, surrounded by power-mad Vidar and his outlaw followers.

He did not hear the gate open behind him, but knew it must have, because Vidar came to a fumbling stop, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open.

In the next moment, Fenris was sucked backward into a pitch-black tunnel of wind, which sent his body hurtling through space and time at such a speed, he barely managed to hold on to his sword.

Eventually he was deposited on a snowy plateau, his head slamming against a large rock just as he hit the ground with a bone-crunching thud. His head spun, and he groaned in a bid to stay conscious, but it was a bid not won. And he was surround by blackness again.

The sound of two voices speaking a strange language above him eventually came filtering in through the new blackness. And when he opened his eyes he found what looked like a Moor standing above him with his booted foot on his chest.

Fenris moved quickly. Even though the man was dressed in a strange costume—some manner of faded blue trousers and a thin coat made of a shiny and slick material Fenris had never seen before—he could smell that the man was a fellow wolf. Consequently, he didn’t waste time trying to deduce who this wolf was or why he had his boot planted on his chest. His way had always been to kill quickly, and his own life had been spared many times over because he did so. In a few moves, he reversed their positions and had raised his sword for the killing blow⁠—

“No!!!!”

What sounded like a female’s voice rang out beside him. And he would have ignored it, except...his nostrils flared…he could not.

As if compelled by an invisible puppet master, he turned toward the voice, and found a trembling she-wolf with bushy hair and what looked like some manner of weapon pointed at him. Perhaps the spell had transported him to Iberia or what he’d heard referred to as Blaland, a hot and dry land to the far south where blamenn, black people with very dark skin, lived.

It was she.

Whoever she was, wherever she hailed from, he recognized her for who she was the instant his eyes met hers. Not only from her intoxicating scent, but also from his body’s reaction to her. A powerful wave of desire overtook Fenris, causing him to sway, even though he was in a firm killing stance. His cock swelled inside his hunting trousers, hard and surprisingly insistent, as if he were a pup in his first stages of coming manhood.

For a moment, he stood there frozen, unable to move, he was so enthralled by her. But finally he remembered himself enough to say, “I am here for you.” He held up the rag with the spell upon it. “And now we must speak these words as one, so I might go back to my lands and vanquish my enemy.”

She looked from side to side, before spewing forth words that sounded to him vaguely like some form of Germanic, but not a dialect he recognized. Why would this dark woman be speaking to him in Germanic?

He started toward her, which seemed to alarm her. She made a high-pitched noise, like a mouse, before squeezing her eyes closed. A whistling sound then emitted from her strange weapon right before something struck him with the sting of a fierce insect bite.

He looked down to see some manner of dart sticking from his shoulder. And just as he moved to pull it out, a powerful sleep overtook him, one he could not resist, even though he strove hard to fight the enveloping blackness.

Three

“YOU know, if we were mated that wouldn’t have gone so bad,” Rafe said, a couple of hours after the confrontation at the portal.

It had been an awkward and unwieldy business getting the large maybe-Viking down the mountain to the town’s two-room clinic. But he now lie sleeping upright in a hospital bed, to which he’d been handcuffed, looking much more peaceful than the two people in the room’s side-by-side visitor chairs.

Chloe adjusted her position to look at Rafe with an incredulous blink. “Seriously? We are in the clinic with a possibly crazed Viking sleeping off a tranq, and this is what you want to talk about?”

Rafe shrugged as if time-traveling Viking werewolves happened every day. “Once we’re mated, we’ll be telepathically connected, too, which means we’ll be able to say things like, ‘Hey, Chloe, don’t talk to him in German, just shoot him already.’”

“Or things like, ‘Hey, Rafe, you can thank me for saving your life any day now.’”

Rafe clenched his jaw and looked away. “The truth is, I’m more pissed at myself for letting him get the upper hand. I shouldn’t have let my guard down. What if he had hurt you, or worse? I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

He sounded so guilty that Chloe’s irritation was instantly replaced with the need to comfort him. She placed a hand on his arm. “But he didn’t hurt me or you. That’s all that matters.”

Rafe shook his head. “I’ve never seen a guy that big move so fast. I wonder what he did to get cast out of wherever he came from.”

So did Chloe.

Doc Fischer, their shifter town’s middle-aged and perennially cranky doctor, entered the room at that moment. “Has he tried to tell you why he got sent back yet?”

“No, he’s still not awake,” Chloe said.

The doctor screwed his up his craggy face. “What do you mean? He’s wide awake.”

They whipped their heads around to see the maybe-Viking lying there with his eyes wide open and staring at them. Hard.

Doc Fischer went to his bed-side and Rafe joined him. However, Chloe chose that moment to get out of the doctor’s way, repositioning herself on the opposite side of the room from the reluctant patient. As much as she had enjoyed meeting the werewolves who came through the gate in the past, she figured it was largely because they were she-wolves from different cultures or points in history—but blood-thirsty werewolves with swords? Nah, she wasn’t so into that.

This guy had come very close to killing her best friend. And somehow his prone position and the fact that he was handcuffed to the bed by both hands didn’t make him seem any less deadly. For whatever reason, Chloe was having trouble staying calm now that he was awake. Something about him caused her insides to go all skittery. It was similar to how she felt when Rafe tried to talk to her about their heat night, but with a side dish of electric fear that made her nerves tingle.

And she only became more unsettled when his intense gaze followed her in her attempt to put space between them.

“We figure he’s a criminal and got cast out of his pack. Maybe he challenged the alpha and this was his punishment,” Rafe told Doc Fisher, after the old man finished examining the maybe-Viking’s eyes with a pen-light.

The doctor frowned. “Hmm, you say he came through the gate un-shifted? Usually a gate banishment is done on a diseased wolf or in desperation and toward the apex of a fight. He doesn’t have any wounds, except some bruising where his head hit that rock.”

Rafe shrugged. “Maybe he had a trial and was found guilty. There were a few packs that used the trial system, right?”

“Actually, I just consulted on this case with a friend of mine at UC Denver who specializes in history and literature from the Viking period. He said Norway and Iceland were known for their strict legal system during the Viking Age, which is why he doesn’t think this is a gate banishment. According to him, they had a fairly thorough punishment system in place, no need to go wild with the gates.”

“Then maybe he’s not a Viking. He could be from some other place and time and we just didn’t recognize whatever language he’s speaking.”

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t think so. I sent a picture of that sword of his to my professor friend and he recognized it, because of the wolf on the hilt. He even sent me a picture. It’s on display at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. They don’t have a firm history on it. But it definitely dates back to the Viking Age.”

Doc Fischer re-pocketed his pen-light. “I think we might need to apply Occam’s razor here.”

A bad feeling began to brew in Chloe’s stomach.

“What do you mean?” Rafe asked.

“You know, ‘the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one?’” The doctor clasped his hands in front of him like a lawyer about to put forth his case. “He came through the gate un-shifted with no visible wounds. You said he tried to kill you but stopped because Chloe told him not to.”

“Not because I told him not to,” Chloe said. “It was more like I took him by surprise.”

Doc Fischer gave her skeptical look. “Plus, he hasn’t taken his eyes off of you, despite the fact that he’s handcuffed down to a bed in a time period clearly not his own. I’m thinking the logical conclusion here is this Viking has come forward in time for his fated mate.”

Both Chloe and Rafe gaped at him.

“And it’s Chloe,” the doctor added, just in case they weren’t getting his original meaning.

“No,” Chloe and Rafe said at the same time.

Doc Fischer turned his no-nonsense gaze on Chloe. “Chloe is there something you want to tell us?”

“No,” answered Chloe, her eyes going wide with indignation.

The doctor picked up the maybe-Viking’s chart and started making notes. “So you don’t feel anything at all right now for this wolf? No increased heart rate, heightened arousal, anything like that?”

“No! I don’t feel anything for him.” Chloe looked to the red-haired man who was still quite openly staring at her but then she quickly had to cut her eyes away, because she wasn’t lying, but she wasn’t exactly telling the truth either. While she was definitely not aroused when she looked at him, the weird skittery feeling did get worse.

“Look, we’re all thinking he’s probably a Viking, right?” she said. “The last time I checked, there weren’t a ton of black people in Norway back then. For all we know, this guy has never seen a black girl, and that’s why he’s staring at me.”

She turned to Rafe, hoping he’d back her up as he did in most things.

But Rafe didn’t agree. In fact his eyes burned with suspicion as he came to stand in front of her. He slowly and deliberately sniffed the air around her, and only then did he visibly calm down. “I don’t smell any arousal on her,” he said, his voice angry with the declaration. He swung his gaze back to the doctor. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Doc.”

The doctor held his hands up. “Don’t kill the messenger. I’m only checking off all the possibilities.”

Rafe glared at him. “I won’t let you insult her like that. She’s my mate.”

“Not yet, she isn’t. Not officially.” The doctor shook his head. “And it’s not an insult. I’m older than both of you, and I know you two love each other, but . . .” He paused, seeming to search for the right words. “These things happen. More often then you think. Especially among wolves. There’s a reason all of our legends involve either great alpha fights or tragic love stories. North American wolves have only strayed away from the tradition of fated mates spells in the last two hundred years, which is relatively recent if you think about it in terms of world history. You need to realize it can still be quite powerful when one is cast.”

“Well, that’s not what’s happening here,” Rafe informed him. “He’s a criminal, and even if he’s not shifted, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t banished for something.”

Chloe was having a hard time figuring out how she should be reacting to this conversation. Though she was happy Rafe decided to come to her defense—eventually—the longer he discussed this topic with Doc Fischer, the more nervous and on edge she felt. Plus, she could still feel the maybe-Viking’s eyes burning hot on her, which made her feel even more awkward.

“All right, if you say so. I mean, you’re the alpha prince,” Doc Fischer answered. It was impossible not to hear the insincerity in his words. He might as well have said, “You’re being unreasonable, but I’ll just go ahead and agree with you because you’re the entitled alpha prince.”

And apparently Rafe sensed his real meaning, too, because he said, “I’ll prove it. If he came back here for Chloe, then he’d go ape if I kissed her in front of him, right?”

The doctor nodded. “Yes, he’s her fated mate, he’d definitely ‘go ape’ as you call it.”

Rafe turned to her and cupped her shoulders. Chloe immediately felt her body tense.

“It’s okay,” Rafe said. “I know you don’t like public displays of affection, but this is for a good cause.”

This didn’t soothe Chloe any. The truth was, she had told Rafe early in their engagement she didn’t like kissing in front of other people, but that had been an excuse to keep their make-out sessions contained. Rafe was outrageously handsome, and she loved talking with him and laughing with him and hugging him and even cuddling with him. However, kissing him gave her a slight case of the heebie-jeebies, and she had to not only brace herself for his kisses, but also concentrate on something else altogether in order to keep it from showing. More than one Black Mountain Woman blog post had been completely composed in her head, while she forced herself to make out with Rafe.

But in this case, she didn’t really have time to fully brace herself before his lips fell on hers. And she immediately set all her attention to fighting the weird urge to rip her lips away from his that always overtook her when they were intimate. However, less than a few seconds into the wildly uncomfortable kiss, they were interrupted by a loud clanging sound.

Rafe pulled away from the kiss, which allowed her to see the source of the sound. It was the maybe-Viking. He was thrashing in the bed, and the handcuffs clanged against the bed’s metal railing, he was straining so hard to break free. His face had turned red with anger, and she could actually see the veins in his neck. And that was before he started spewing his strange language, directing several words toward Rafe that Chloe was fairly sure involved some really harsh threats and expletives.

Seeing this display of temper paralyzed Chloe, rooting her in place. But Doc Fischer, who held degrees in both medical and veterinary science and had apparently seen it all, lazily prepared a syringe before stepping forward and plunging it into the maybe Viking’s arm without a word.

The sedative only took a few moments to take hold, but the maybe Viking fought his restraints the entire time, his eyes bulging and locked on Rafe as he cursed in his foreign language, his face screwed up with rage, until eventually his words began to slur and he fell back against the bed in another heavy sleep.

After he passed out, Doc Fischer regarded them both with the cynical aplomb. “Well, I think that answers our question.”

Four

FOR as long as Chloe could remember, she had wanted to be part of the Nightwolf family. She could still remember the three weeks she’d spent in their family’s mansion after being found by the side of the road, shivering and alone. The wolf law of every state was that the king had to take in any abandoned children left in his province, which she later figured out was why her parents had chosen to abandon her in this particular place.

Back then, the clan only placed wolves with families of the same race. So though most abandoned children her age were placed in three days or less, it took three whole weeks to find her a home. And they were three of the best weeks of her entire life. Even at the age of four, Rafe had been charming and awesome. Two seconds after she stepped through the door, he had immediately asked her to come up and play in his toy room, which was just what it sounded like, a room larger than the entire one-bedroom apartment she had shared with her parents. It was designated for all of Rafe’s toys, and he’d been more than happy to share with her.

She also instantly loved Rafe’s parents. His father had a booming laugh and considered himself a friend to all—as long as they were Broncos fans. Luckily she had answered with a tentative, “Yes?” when he’d asked her at their first meeting, “You cheer for the Broncos, little girl?” And Rafe’s mother was warm and nurturing in a way her own had never been, hugging her often and assuring her everything would be all right.

When three weeks passed and they had only been able to find Myrna Adams, a local black spinster, to take her in, Chloe had actually been grateful. She wouldn’t be with a family of her own, but at least she’d stay close to the family she now loved the most.

And a year later when she and Rafe entered kindergarten at Wolf Springs Elementary, the only all-wolf public school in Colorado, they’d picked up right back where they started, playing together every day, and soon she and Myrna became regulars at their Sunday dinners. She had grown up with Rafe, and when he proposed to her, it felt like he was not only asking her to be his mate, but also inviting her into his loving, close-knit family, which she wanted more than anything.

Over the pass few years, she had prayed and prayed for her heat night to come, not just so she’d feel more comfortable kissing Rafe, but also so she could take her official place as part of his family and even start one of her own with him. There was nothing in this world she wanted more.

So when some random time-travelling, maybe-Viking werewolf showed up out of the blue all but saying out loud that she was his fated mate, it felt like nothing short of getting stabbed.

“No,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “We are not... we are not fated mates.”

The maybe Viking stilled in his thrashing and stared back at her, his own eyes softening as if the sound of her voice alone was enough to calm him down.

“Did you lie to me?” Rafe asked, dropping his hands from her arms.

“No!” she said again, turning back to him. “I would never do that.”

The Rafe she knew, the laid back and reasonable one with a great sense of humor, was gone now and in his place was a stranger, with a voice so distinctly hard, it felt like the only thing in the room. “Did you know who he was from the beginning?”

She reached for him, catching his rigid arms beneath her trembling hands, “No, Rafe, I had no idea he thought he was here for me.”

He glared at her. “Do you want to mate with him? Do you want to start kissing him in public?”

“No, no, no!” She shook her head with frantic denial. “I swear I don’t. I swear I had no idea. I would never lie to you. You’re my best friend, and I love you more than anyone else in this world. Please believe me. I feel nothing for him. Nothing.”

Rafe’s face remained impassive as he sniffed the air around her, his nostrils flaring wide.

“She’s not aroused,” he said to Doc Fischer. “Wouldn’t she be aroused if he were her fated mate?”

Relief coursed through Chloe like a river through the desert. The cold stranger had gone and her Rafe was back, once again defending her, just as he had when they were kids and the wolves in their class made fun of her for being a foster pup.

Doc Fischer gave them a long, considering look before saying, “In rare cases, a fated mate can catch the scent of someone who doesn’t return his feelings. Those situations usually get messy and end up with the two males fighting for dominance.”

Rafe set his jaw. “I will be more than happy to put his ass down if that’s what it comes to.”

“Now, now, calm down, young wolf,” the doctor said. He pulled out his smart phone. “I’m going to call back my friend at UC Denver. Maybe if I get him up here, he can help us out with this language barrier and we can figure this out without any wolves having to lose their lives.”

“Call your friend,” Rafe said, alpha prince to his very core. “But I’m letting you know right now, if he tries to lay one hand on Chloe, it’s not going to end peacefully.”

The doctor gave Chloe a sullen look, as if this entire situation were all her fault as opposed to some unfair trick of fate. But he eventually answered Rafe. “Noted. Now get out of here, I’ve got some calls to make if we want to get this situation resolved before tomorrow’s full moon.”

She wasn’t aroused by the Viking, and she hadn’t lied to Rafe about not feeling anything sexual whatsoever for the strange visitor. If anything, the whole situation had turned her nether regions even more numb. Before, there had been the loud absence of any kind of sexual feeling on her part. But now she was feeling the opposite of aroused, like she’d rather hike up a thousand King’s Trails than have sex with anyone, ever. That’s how horrible the scene back in the clinic had been.

But still, guilt clawed at her insides as Rafe walked her home from the clinic. People kept stopping him to ask who had come through the portal this time.

“Is it true it was a man?” their high school Social Studies teacher asked. “Mercedes Griswold said she saw you two carrying a man’s body into the clinic. Is he dead? Did you have to kill him like your dad had to kill that rabid wolf back in the day?”

Rafe handled all the questions diplomatically, with various versions of, “We’re not allowed to talk about it just yet, but we’ll be making an announcement soon.” The answer sounded neutral enough, but Chloe knew him too well not to recognize the edge in his voice as he answered question after question about their mysterious visitor.

“You don’t have to walk me home,” she told him. “It’s been a long day and I know you probably want to catch up at your office.”

Along with his duties as the alpha prince of Colorado, Rafe was also the vice president of Wolf Springs Timber, one of the largest privately owned logging companies in the world. It was rare for him to take lunch, much less a whole half-day off work.

“You said you were going to do a chicken recipe for your next show. Doesn’t that mean you need me to kill the chicken?” he asked.

She wrung her hands together. “You know what, I’m going to try to kill the chicken myself this time. It’s so ridiculous that I always have to call you to do it for me.”

“That’s what mates are for,” Rafe said, his voice flat. “We help each other out when we need it.”

“Sure, sure,” Chloe answered. “But what kind of werewolf can’t bear to kill a chicken? It’s so embarrassing.”

“Not as embarrassing as what just happened in the clinic,” he answered.

And there it was. Rafe never had been the sort to dance around the elephant in the room.

“I’m sorry that happened,” she said. “I have no idea why the fated mates spell would send that guy forward in time for me, especially since I feel no connection to him whatsoever. You believe me, right?”

He stopped and studied her face for a few moments before deciding out loud, “I do.”

“And if it comes down to a choice between you and him, I pick you, Rafe.”

“I know.”

“You’re my best friend.”

Now something unreadable passed over his face. “You keep on saying that.”

“What?”

“That I’m your best friend. You’ve said it like five times today. But you know what I call you when I talk about you? My mate.”

And just when she thought things couldn’t get any more awkward. “I call you that, too,” she insisted. “And what does it matter what I call you anyway? The most important thing is I love you. I love you so much, more than anybody else in this entire world.”

“I believe you. But this Viking thing...”

She grabbed his hand. “Look, Rafe, if you want to have sex before I go into heat, that’s fine with me. I don’t care what Council law says. I’m twenty-five, old enough to make my own decisions.” Including the decision to ignore the wrenching of her own stomach as she made this offer.

Rafe rubbed the side of his face with his knuckles, considering. But then he said, “No, I’m an alpha prince. I can’t ignore the law.”

A wave of relief swept over her. She could have forced herself to hold still for sex with Rafe, just like she forced herself to accept his kisses, but it wouldn’t have been pleasant at all. For what felt like the millionth time, she sent up a tiny prayer that going into heat would solve everything between them and finally help her body catch up with her heart. She-wolves were actually known for their lusty nature, and she’d seen nerdy and mousy girls from her high school honors classes transform into black leather-wearing, unapologetic sexpots with just one moon cycle and mating. She hoped to God it would be the same for her.

But out loud to Rafe, she said, “Okay, if that’s the way you feel, we won’t break Council law. I just want you to know how committed I am to you, to us, to our being together and starting a family.”

“I know you are.” Rafe took her hand in his and began walking again. “But you know how the wolves gossip. We’re not going to be able to keep this a secret for long.”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to hide. He thinks I’m his fated mate, but I’m with you. Tomorrow, we’ll have Doc Fischer’s professor friend explain that to him, and he’ll go back to whatever time period he came from. The end.”

“How about if he challenges me?” Rafe asks.

“There’s nothing to challenge if I say no-go. This isn’t the dark ages when she-wolves didn’t have any say over who claimed them.”

“We could move in together.”

This time she was the one who stopped walking. “Wait, what?”

Rafe ran a hand through his dark locks. “Listen, I didn’t tell you this…because it’s bullshit. You know how much my dad likes you, but he kind of thinks you haven’t gone into heat because you’re not really in love with me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What? That’s not even how it works. It’s purely physiological. Like getting your period. It happens when it happens. Doc Fischer says she-wolves can go into heat as late as their thirties.”

“I know what Doc Fischer says,” Rafe said. “But Dad’s old-school. He’s not buying it. And he’s the Colorado alpha. So if this guy steps up, claiming you as his fated mate, and you’re not even physically living with me, he might pull the king card and say we can’t get married.”

Chloe studied his face and knew this wasn’t really a hypothetical they were discussing. Rafe was telling her the king was so upset about how long they’d been engaged, he would pull rank in order to end it if he had the right opportunity.

“I wouldn’t let him get away with it,” Rafe assured her, reading her mind as best friends did. “If he tries to pull that shit, I’ll run away with you before I let him tear us apart. But I don’t want it to come to that.”

She clamped her lips together. “I don’t want it to come to that either. And you know, even if your dad said we couldn’t get married, that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry some weird, blood-thirsty Viking who came through the portal. It’s either you or nobody for me.”

“Look at you, getting all angry and defending our love.” Rafe smiled down at her. “I like this side of you. There might be a little wolf in you yet.”

He pulled her into his arms and Chloe nuzzled her face into his chest, her she-wolf loving the way it felt to be packed in close to another body.

It was a very sweet moment until Rafe said, “But think about moving in with me, okay? I mean, we’re going to do it after your heat night anyway, so why wait?”

Her face fell. “Actually, I was hoping you’d move in with me.”

“My place is bigger, “ he pointed out. “Four bedrooms. You’ve only got two. Plus, I didn’t buy the house for you to stay there. The plan was to move you out and move somebody else in, so we can start receiving rent on it.”

“Yeah, but…” She tried to figure out a nice way to tell him she’d rather live in the small, cozy cabin which was set up just the way she liked it for her Black Mountain Woman videos, than his man cave of a house with flat screens in every room, including the bathroom and kitchen.

But she already knew what he’d say. This was Rafe. He’d offer to remodel the kitchen and get rid of its small flat screen if it really bothered her that much. But he’d resent her for it. He’d never understood why she preferred to live like a homesteader as opposed to a modern woman in the modern ages, and it was hard to explain the draw of the lifestyle to someone who liked his electronic toys as much as Rafe did.

But ever since Myrna had first taught her to sew on her ancient Singer, she had felt drawn to the idea of doing everything herself. Making her own clothes, her own food, her own just-about-everything and never having to depend on others to provide for her again. Still as passionate as she was about how she chose to live, she didn’t like the idea of getting into a lifestyle battle with Rafe any sooner than she had to.

“Can I think about it?” she asked, when what she really meant was. “Can you give me some time to figure out how to save our engagement, keep you from falling out with your father, and get rid of the Viking who thinks I’m his fated mate without having to move in with you before my heat night?”

“Sure,” he said. An apologetic smile settled on his face. “Listen, I’m sorry we’re having to deal with this bullshit. I wish we hadn’t been the ones to go up there. Sometimes, I wish I weren’t the alpha prince of Colorado. It would be nice to be a normal wolf with normal problems that my dad would judge on a fair basis, not because I’m his son. If this were happening to any other couple, it wouldn’t even be a question of who he’d side with.”

When they reached his house they parted with another hug. As she watched Rafe walk away, she remembered his proposal in the high school gymnasium, just two weeks after Myrna died as if he couldn’t bear the thought of her being alone in this world again like she was when they first met. He really was her best friend, and she couldn’t lose him, which meant she had to get rid of the maybe-Viking, whatever it took. The consequences of not doing so were just too scary to even think about. She didn’t know if she could mentally survive being a lone wolf again.

Five

“YOU’VE got to be kidding me,” Chloe all but yelled into her cell phone the next day.

“Listen, kid, my nurse is off on full moon days and the guy smells like animal blood. He’s stinking up the entire clinic, and he needs a sponge bath.”

“Then why can’t you do it?” Chloe asked.

“Because I’m on the road to Denver to pick up my professor friend, who doesn’t drive. And also, because he’s your fated mate.”

Chloe gritted her teeth. “He’s not my anything. I am one hundred percent with Rafe.”

“Okay, well then because he’s the werewolf who came over one thousand years into the future just to find you. Is that any better?”

“No,” she grumbled.

“Well, here’s the deal, kid. You and Rafe asked me to keep this situation under wraps, so unless you want me to ask your fiancé to do it, I suggest you get down here and clean this guy up. And get him some new clothes while you’re at it.”

And that was how Chloe ended up abandoning her preparations for her chicken and fennel episode of Black Mountain Woman, and running to the local general store to pick up a pair of extra-large basketball shorts, men’s underwear, and a Wolf Springs T-shirt for the man who had turned her life upside down in less than twelve hours.

Doc Fischer was right about being able to smell him as soon as you walked in the door, but it was Chloe’s opinion he had exaggerated how bad it was. He did smell of some animal whose scent she didn’t recognize off the top of her head, but it didn’t overwhelm his real smell, which she actually found quite pleasant. It was a mixture of smoke, evergreens, ocean, wind, and mountain that made her think of outdoor barbecues and ski vacations.

In any case, she was happy he was still out cold when she arrived in his room with the clothes and a basin, which she filled with warm water. She washed his face first, running the warm cloth over it and wondering what he looked like under his thick beard. She already knew his eyes were light gray and she could see his nose was long and straight, but the red beard and his tangled lion’s mane of a hair-do pretty much hid every other feature.

Next she added soap to the water in the basin, before dipping the towel in again and running it over his chest, doing her best not to admire the hard muscles she felt underneath her cloth. Whatever this guy did for a living wherever he was from, it had gifted him with a beautiful body. She had to put some effort into lifting his arms, which were so thick with muscle that getting underneath them in order to wash his arm pits was a bit of a challenge.

Somewhat out of breath, she emptied out the water and refilled it with a fresh batch of warm, soapy water. Now she had to do his bottom half.

Once again she had to put a lot of effort into getting him clean. First she had to tug off his pants, which didn’t have any fasteners on them, so she had to roll them down his hips—quickly averting her eyes when she saw he wasn’t wearing any underwear underneath. She kept her eyes averted, washing around his groin area as best she could without actually looking at it. Still that didn’t keep her heart from just about jumping out of her chest when something long and thick thumped against her arm, like a baton of flesh-covered steel.

Her eyes flew to the maybe-Viking to see if he was awake, but he slept on, apparently unaware of what the lower half of his body was up to.

Chloe finished up with that particular area as quickly as she could, her head turned away, then tugged the underwear and basketball shorts on him—no small feat but worth it if it meant covering up his sleeping erection. She wished she also cover up his chest, but he was chained to the bed, which meant she wouldn’t be able to get his arms through it. So she just put that item on the bedside table, and replaced the now cold water in the bowl.

A few minutes later, she silently cheered when she reached his long and wide feet, giving each a few quick swipes with her towel. All done, and now she could just tip-toe on out of the room, without the maybe-Viking never even knowing she was there.

But then, suddenly, that same skittery feeling from the day before overtook her and her stomach sank. Sure enough, when she looked up, she found the Viking wide-awake and staring at her with enough heat in his eyes to melt all the snow on the nearby mountain.

Fenris came awake slowly blinking against the bright light. His body was still heavy with whatever potion he had been given, but for some reason, his manhood was now swollen and constricted in some manner of binding he did not know. Despite this, soft waves of languid pleasure were coursing through his body, starting at his legs.

He turned his eyes in the direction of the pleasurable sensation and found his fated mate, the dark beauty from the day before, giving him, of all things, a bath.

She was once again dressed in a strange costume, some manner of wool tunic top, dyed a pale blue that covered her neck and arms but squeezed her chest in such a way that left little doubt a heavy bosom rested beneath it’s confines. In his land, it was forbidden for both she-wolves and human woman to wear the clothing of men. But her legs were encased in tight black men’s trousers that framed her shapely hips and made him want to rut her where she stood, even if he could smell that she hadn’t yet had her first heat. A strange notion within itself, since she had quite obviously come into her womanhood.

On this day, she wore her bushy hair tied to the side in a long braid that fell all the way to her bounteous breasts. He reached out to touch it, so different from his own, but then he remembered anew that he had been tied to the railing of a strange, mechanical bed with some manner of metal, which somehow held him fast despite it’s light and thin nature.

He once again rattled the bed in a bid to free himself.

But the dark beauty shook her head, frantically speaking to him in her strange dialect, before coming around the bed and laying her hands on his chest.

Her touch immediately calmed him, and soon he found himself falling back against the bed’s soft pillows, his desire to be free of his bonds replaced with the desire to gaze upon her great beauty.

She tried to pull away from him then, but he covered her hands with his own, keeping her there.

“Nay, stay here, maiden,” he said, even though he had gleaned by now that she could not understand his tongue any better than he understood hers.

“Stay here,” he repeated in a whisper, gazing into her wary brown eyes, as he allowed himself to absorb the warmth of her hands on his naked chest, and enjoy the sight of her own chest heaving up and down with quickened breaths.

Then he leaned forward and took the kiss he had been wanting from her since first their eyes met.

For a moment she acquiesced to his kiss, but then she suddenly pulled away, her face aghast as she said something else in her tongue and tried to reclaim her hands from his.

He did not let go at first, and perhaps would have kept her there for a few more sweet kisses, except he suddenly smelled another presence in the room. His smile faded when he looked up and found the wolf from yesterday standing in the doorway. The same wolf who had dared touch what was his.

For what had to be at least the tenth time that day, Chloe cursed the fates that had brought her to this situation. When the maybe-Viking had started rattling the bed again in his attempt to get out of the handcuffs, she had placed her hands on his chest more out of instinct than plan.

“Stop. You’ve got to calm down,” she’d said. To her surprise he’d obeyed her command, instantly calming down, the expression on his face replaced by a look so soft, it sent an unbidden jolt of electricity through her stomach. One she didn’t like at all.

She tried to pull her hands away, but he kept her there, speaking softly in his strange language with a smile that crinkled his eyes and made him look way more handsome than she’d thought he was while she was bathing him.

And then the next thing she knew, he was kissing her. She’d been so surprised by the feel of his lips moving over hers and by the complete lack of heebie-jeebies on her part, that she just froze, all of her senses momentarily overwhelmed.

But then she remembered herself and pulled away from him. “Let go,” she said.

He didn’t, only gripped her hands tighter. But then his eyes hardened as he gazed at something beyond her shoulder. Even if her sense of smell hadn’t chosen that moment to come back online, she would have known just from the look on his face it was Rafe standing in the doorway.

This time she yanked on her hands so hard, they slipped out of the maybe-Viking’s grip, and even then she only just managed to get in front of Rafe before he leaped toward the hospital bed, looking like he was set to tear its occupant apart with his bare hands.

“Rafe, no,” she said, pushing him backwards before he could.

“You were kissing him,” Rafe said, the words thick and feral in his throat.

“No, he kissed me, and it took me by surprise. I didn’t kiss him back.”

“All the more reason for me to kill him,” Rafe said.

“Rafe, please. It was nothing. You have to calm down.” He was pushing so hard to get past her, Chloe was half afraid he’d take her out just to get at the other wolf. And if that wasn’t enough, she could hear the bed rattling behind them, which meant the maybe-Viking was once again trying to free himself to get to Rafe.

Luckily, just when her arms were about to give, Doc Fischer and a stringy man in a tweed blazer walked in. They quickly assessed the situation and took over restraining Rafe, each grabbing him by one of his long arms.

“Now calm down, son,” Doc Fischer said, his voice quiet but firm. “If you’re going to try to take him out every time my back is turned, then I’m going to have to make you wait outside.”

The maybe-Viking chose that moment to start spitting words of challenge and insult at Rafe, which needed no translation. And Rafe jerked forward, all but frothing at the mouth in his effort to get to him.

In the end, Doc Fischer and the professor had to drag Rafe out and lock the clinic door so he couldn’t get back in.

It was all Chloe could do to hold back tears of frustration as she watched them toss Rafe out like some derelict. And even after they locked the door, she could hear her fiancé, who normally tried so hard to hold himself in a manner befitting an alpha prince, yelling like a mad man outside the building.

“Well, so much for keeping this situation a secret,” Doc Fischer said. “As loud as that got, the whole town probably knows what’s going on now.”

“I should go to him,” Chloe said, heading toward the door.

But Doc Fischer stopped her with a shake of his head. “No, young lady, you should sit down. Whatever your fated mate has to say, you should hear it, too.”

“Rafe is my mate,” she said, “You admitted it yourself. I’m not aroused, so the attraction must be one-sided.”

“No, I said in rare cases, a fated mate catches the scent of someone who doesn’t return his feelings. I didn’t talk about what happens when she-wolves mate with other wolves only to have a fated mate come along and try to claim her. But I’m telling you now, it rarely ends well. Half the time the she-wolf runs away with her fated mate, sometimes even leaving her pups behind. The other half of the time her current mate has to kill the fated one in order to make him leave her alone. For your sake, I also didn’t mention in front of your fiancé that I suspect the only reason you’re able to resist this wolf is because you haven’t gone into heat yet, and who knows how much longer that will last?”

“I would never⁠—”

Doc Fischer interrupted her with a snort and a roll of his eyes. “I hate when young wolves try to tell me what they’d ‘never’ do. The truth is you have no idea what you’d do until you actually go into heat like a regular she-wolf would have years ago. And God help you if your fated mate is here when you finally do.” He pointed at the guest chair. “Now if you’re serious about telling this guy you don’t want him and sending him back through the portal, sit down so we can get this over with.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and sat. She didn’t like Doc Fischer insinuating she would leave the man she loved the most in this world for some stranger she’d only met the day before, but he was right about one thing. It was better to just get this over with. The sooner they did, the sooner she could go to Rafe. He’d quieted down, but she could still sense his presence outside the clinic, furious, hurt, and brooding.

The professor tentatively stepped into the angry silence of her acquiescence. He looked to be around the same age as Doc Fischer, but had the nebbish quality male wolves who never claimed mates tended to get. He was tall and skinny, and though he didn’t wear glasses, since all werewolves had better than twenty/twenty vision, it looked like he ought to be.

“Hi, I’m Professor Henley,” he said with a small wave. “I teach Viking Studies at the university. Normally I wouldn’t risk travel on a full moon night, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.”

He turned to the Viking, who had calmed after they ejected Rafe and now sat watching all of them, his eyes glittering with what looked like a combination of anger, frustration, and curiosity.

“The sword I saw out in the lobby and the fact that he was yelling at your... ah, friend in Old Norse tells me he’s a Viking,” the professor said, running his eyes over the large man as if he were a majestic sight indeed. “Also, his hair is red. It’s rumored the Norwegian Viking wolves all had ‘hair like fire.’ And quite a few of my fellow werewolf history professors believe Erik the Red to have been a werewolf.’” He reached out, as if to touch the Viking’s hair, but pulled back at the last moment, probably sensing correctly that this wasn’t the type of man who would appreciate being petted.

“Thanks for the history lesson,” Doc Fischer said. “Can you talk to him or what?”

The professor held up an Old Norse-English dictionary. “Well, I’ve only used Old Norse in the context of translating or reciting poems and certain texts from that age, but I’ll do my best.”

The professor cleared his throat before hawking up a few words of Old Norse.

The Viking’s eyes widened in surprise, and he answered with a few words of his own, which caused the professor’s own eyes to widen.

He turned back to her and Doc Fischer. “He says he’s called Fenris. Do you know what that means?”

They both shook their heads. “Fenris is the Norse wolf god, the one all Norwegian werewolves believed themselves to be descended from. Only wolves in the alpha line are given this name.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Chloe said, holding up her hands. “Are you’re trying to tell me this guy is also an alpha prince like Rafe?”

The professor asked the Viking another question in the harsh language.

And this time the Viking looked at her when he answered.

The professor gave a nervous laugh, before translating. “No, he’s not an alpha prince. He just commanded me to tell you he is king of the North wolves. He say he’s come to this strange place to fetch you and he’s ready to take you home with him.”

The Viking continued to stare at her as he spoke one more word, which the professor immediately translated. “Now.”

Six

IT took Chloe quite a few shocked moments before she was able to speak again. “Well, wow. Um, can you tell him I’m not going anywhere with him and I would like him to return home to his own time period? Now.”

After looking up a few words, the professor translated, and the Viking’s eyes shined with amusement as he answered.

The professor translated, “He’s basically saying, no, you will come with him. And even if he was willing to leave you here, which he isn’t, he won’t go back with out you.”

She shook her head. “Who do you think you are?” she asked the Viking directly. “You can’t just step into my time and tell me to come to yours. I have a life here. And that wolf you were trying to fight earlier is the person I’ve chosen to spend the rest of my life with. Not you.”

The professor had to look a few more words up in order to translate. But before he could even finish doing so the Viking was shaking his head and pounding his chest for emphasis.

“He says he will spray Rafe’s blood across the snow for his insult—it’s actually some pretty poetic stuff he’s saying. Very Beowulf-esque. But the main point is he wants you to know you are his.”

“Can you explain to him in my time period, men don’t own women? They don’t drag them around by the hair, and he can’t tell me what to do.”

The professor flipped through the pages of his dictionary. “I can try.”

“Good,” she said, standing. “Exhibit number one can be me walking out of here to go be with the man I’ve chosen and love.”

And she did just that, her own righteous anger fueling her steps.

But that anger faded when she found Rafe sitting on the clinic steps, hunched over with his fists balled up on top of his knees.

She dropped down beside him and strung her arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry that happened,” she whispered.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. But he leaned over toward her and Chloe was pretty certain he sniffed her for evidence of arousal before saying, “It’s not your fault. This is some fucked up shit, but it’s not your fault.”

Her heart flooded with love for him then. And she nuzzled against his shoulder in the friendly way they used to before Rafe came into his manhood, before his brotherly affection became muddied with lust.

“I’ll move in with you,” she said.

He turned to her. “What?”

“I’ll move in with you after the full moon. I want everyone, including your father, to know how much I love you and how committed I am to you and only you.” She nudged him. “But you’re going to have to get rid of that TV in the kitchen. I hate it.”

He cupped her face in his warm hand. It was in the twenties that day, but wolves ran hot—male wolves even more so than female ones. “You just made me a very happy man.”

“I want to be with you. I choose you,” she told him.

“Well, I think you made the right choice,” Rafe said, patting her knee. “Now, seriously, you want me to kill that chicken for you before I leave for work, right?”

Chloe let her head fall against her shoulder in embarrassment. “Right. I tried to do it myself this morning, but it looked at me with these big innocent eyes.”

Rafe shook his head and chuckled.

“I know, I know,” she said, before he could. “Worst wolf ever.”

The day passed quickly with Chloe rushing to finish up her chicken and fennel recipe and get it edited and posted online before the full moon rose. Generally, Rafe bounced back from shifting with energy to spare, but turning into a wolf and then back into a human took a lot out of her. It often took up to forty-eight hours for her to sleep it off, and back when she’d been in school, almost all of her absences had been due to recovering from her monthly shift.

Rafe thought this was because she chose to cage herself up during full moon nights as opposed to running with the pack as he did. But as civilized as modern werewolves were in human form these days, they became particularly wild when they shifted, or “got wolf” as Rafe referred to it. They spent the entire night, in what seemed to Chloe to be a hunting-lust, taking out animals big and small, or whatever else crossed their paths.

A few times human hikers, who had ignored all the “No Trespassing” signs at the foot of Wolf Mountain, had gone missing or survived the attack and gotten changed into werewolves themselves. Back in the eighties, the number of wolf attacks had gotten so bad the North American Lupine Council had strictly forbidden shifting outside of full moon nights, just to keep the damages to a minimum.

In any case, it just wasn’t in Chloe’s nature to “get wolfed,” so she chose to shift in the confines of her own home rather than running to the mountain with her fellow wolves.

About an hour before sunset, Doc Fischer called to tell her they’d made little to no progress in convincing the Viking to go back to his time. “He keeps telling the professor he can’t go back without you. I’ll cage him up before sunset, but we can’t just keep him chained to a bed when he turns back into a human. I think it’s time to bring the king in to handle this.”

“Why do we have to bring the king into it?” she asked. “He can’t make me go back in time with him.”

“No he can’t, that’s why we’re going to have to consult with him. We’re at a stalemate, and he’ll have to decide how to handle it.”

Chloe rubbed a hand over her face. If anyone else were her mate, the king, who was an otherwise fair and level-headed leader, would side with the she-wolf. But since she was engaged to his son, he might just decide to declare their engagement null and void, if it meant freeing Rafe up to mate with another. The king liked her well enough, but he liked the king of Alaska’s three daughters even better, and if he could forge an alliance and get grandpups, he’d probably be more than willing to kick Chloe to the curb.

Rafe had been right, if they had any hope of his father ruling in their favor, they had to make a strong show of commitment by moving in together.

“Or I could kill him,” Rafe said when she called to give him the update. “That would solve everything.”

“Rafe, you can’t take a life. You may ‘get wolf’ one night a month, but you’re still half-human and bound by council law.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rafe muttered. “I’m just glad we’re moving in together, even if it’s under these circumstances.”

“Me too,” she lied, looking with real regret around her homey kitchen, which was pretty much the exact opposite of Rafe’s uninviting and sterile one.

After she got off the phone, she started making her own preparations for the night’s turn. Unlike Rafe, who simply met up with a bunch of his friends in the woods and stripped out of his clothes before shifting, her preparations were a bit more civilized. First, she plated up the rest of the chicken and fennel recipe and put it in the refrigerator. If she was lucky, it would be enough to tide her over for the next forty-eight hours. Next, she turned off all but a few lights and dug out a fresh pair of pajamas to wear the next day before descending the stairs into her basement. This was where her washing machine, dryer, and wolf cage lived.

The cage had come with the house. Wolves who didn’t care to roam the countryside all night locked themselves in cages, so as to keep from destroying their homes as wolves were wont to do. Luckily for her, the house’s last owner had felt as she had about turning outdoors and had installed a custom floor-to-ceiling cage.

When she moved in, she’d added the further amenity of covering the hard concrete floor with cushions made from the same soft but synthetic fabric used in chew-proof dog beds. She’d also placed her foster mother’s record player outside the cage, so she’d have some form of entertainment while she waited for the turn. She usually spent her evenings crafting or reading, but she couldn’t bring anything that she didn’t want destroyed inside the cage, so that wasn’t an option.

Listening to Myrna’s old R&B records somehow made it feel like her foster mother was still alive and in her next-door cage, speaking soothing words to the pup Chloe had once been, while they both waited for the turn.

Myrna had possessed more heart than money, so she’d only been able to afford cramped dog cages for herself and the abandoned she-wolf pup she volunteered to care for. But still, Chloe had valued the fourteen years they had together, and liked to think back to those days when she curled up in her own cage, which was luxurious by comparison.

That night, she put the soundtrack to Mahogany on before closing herself into the cage and stripping down to her panties. She put the cage’s key into the box on the far wall. Key boxes were another clever werewolf invention. They were placed just high enough so she couldn’t get to it in wolf form, but could easily access it when she was human again and let herself out of her cage. This was another step up from the one Myrna had provided. Back then, they’d had to wait for Rafe’s mother to come and let them out.

Rafe’s mother had already told her she expected Chloe to take over the royal duty of opening the cages once she and Rafe were properly mated, and Chloe would be more than happy to do so. She liked that she’d be of true service once she became part of the royal Colorado family, and she was excited about her many upcoming duties. She just hoped the Viking didn’t ruin everything for her.

With a sigh, she put the heavy cage key into the built-in box and laid down, covering herself up with the warm, indestructible fire blanket she kept in the cage for full moon nights. She then closed her eyes, listening to Diana Ross sing while she waited.

She soon dozed off and therefore didn’t realize something was wrong until the music stopped playing, and the thunk of the needle slipping off the record jolted her awake.

She sat up, her eyes going to the basement window. But no, it was dark outside. Now that the music had stopped playing, she could even hear the far-off howls of her freshly-turned pack members. So why was she still in human form?

Her body began to tingle. At first she thought maybe it was the turn, come late, and she got to her knees, preparing to go feral. But the turn didn’t happen, and the tingling continued, spreading over her still-human body until she was flush with fever, and sweating from the unrelenting prickling underneath her skin. It was as if all of her nerve endings had electricity coursing through them.

She must be sick, she thought. Usually wolf-sicknesses took the form of things like rabies, which contrary to her current situation, kept them in wolf form long after the sun had risen again. But maybe this was a wolf-sickness she had never heard of before.

She ran her hands over her face, which was flush but didn’t seem to have anything wrong with it. She touched her neck next, checking her thyroid, but it seemed to be okay, too.

She ran her hands over her arms and legs, and even cupped her breast to give herself a self-examination. She’d never heard of a she-wolf contracting breast cancer, but since wolves weren’t allowed to talk about being wolves on the internet, you never knew…

When her hand grazed her nipple, a sweet pain zapped through her, freezing her where she knelt and causing her to draw in her breath and then release it again with a short gasp. She looked down and saw that her nipples were now as hard as rocks. And as if they had minds of their own, her hands started kneading her breasts, her thumbs strumming over black-cherry-colored buds again and again, unable to stop themselves from exploring the sensations this action caused within her body.

Soon she felt a tugging sensation below, and the lips of her most intimate part clenched in and out in a wet silent beg, before it began to release something even she could now recognize as heat.

She was in heat, she realized foggily, literally dripping with the need to have a wolf mate with her. But Rafe was somewhere on the mountain, running through the night with his fellow pack members.

Chloe dimly recalled a Health class, in which they were informed that she-wolves in heat didn’t turn, even during a full moon, nature’s way of cutting down on possible birth defects. No, once you went into heat, you stayed in heat until you were mated with a pup in your belly. And after that, neither you nor your mate turned again until three months after the baby’s birth.

For the first time in her life, she touched her pussy for a reason other than cleaning it. The clenching was so insistent, the tentative rubbing against the swollen bulb between her folds proved to be too little. She was soon plunging her fingers into her tunnel, working them in and out, trying to find some relief.

But if anything, this only made it worse. As if angered by her meager offering, her pussy clenched even tighter, sucking her fingers into its vise grip, but refusing to be satiated by anything less than a mate’s cock. Soon, tears of frustration began to roll down her cheeks. They weren’t even an hour into the full moon and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could bear the wait for Rafe to change back and come find her.

“Please, please…” she begged no one in particular as she rubbed herself against the mat, trying desperately to find some sort of release.

That was when his scent filled her nostrils. She opened her teary eyes and found the Viking standing at the bottom of her stairs.

He had clearly been watching her trying to masturbate.

And his eyes were hot with one hundred percent unadulterated and extremely feral lust.

Ooohhh! You definitely want to find out what happens next!

Buy Her Viking Wolf

OR

Get this book for FREE

when you sign up for my mailing list!

Special Thanks to My Ruthless Patreons!

Become a Ruthless Patreon!

RUTHLESS MEGAS

Akisha

Anita Allen

Beatrice

Colleen

Cynthea Carbon

DARSHELL HARPER

Evelyn Whitehead

Germaine Behagen

Janet

Jessica Johnson

Julienne

Lady Hawke

Lica N.

MaKaylah Stewart

Monique A.

Monique Freeman

Nicole

Quin Nesselhauf

Shaneka Nichols

Tammy

Tona

Toni

Vernecia McCall

RUTHLESS SUPER DUPERS

Brianna Simmons

Christy Manning

CrystaM0

Genine Tyson

Georgette Connell

Hannah Kirstin

Josephine Thompson

Kendra

Leslie Tucker

lisa

MonaGirl Lewis

Mylene Williams

Mzbooklovershawty

Nicol

Patricia Cardinal

RONI WAWA

Sandra Wynn

Shanel

Sharon Keyes

Simone Frazier

Sonya Barry

Susan Hall Comrie

tameka teal

Vanessa F A

RUTHLESS SUPER

Aaniyah Smith

Alice Rutland

Alicia Stowers

Allison Hester Solomon

Amy

Andrea

ANGELA L DAVIS

Angela Z

AsiaRenee

Audrey Foreman

Ayalibis Dowell

Beverley Jackson

Biaunca Albury

Billie Henry

Bojana Pavicevic

Bonita Jackson

Brenda

Bria

CallaLily Hill

Chinyere Offor

Clustelle Nielle Charles

Daeterria McLucas

Dana R

Dana Sandoval

Danette

Danielle Blanchard

Danyelle

Darcy Leone

Deanna Rivera

Deb Derrepente

Deja

Denise Hughes

Dr. CC

Elrica Christopher

Erica Severan

Erin J

Evelyn Green

Eyeljay

Fanny Mateo

Grace

Hin Lee

Hridhi Islam

Jaleda Wyatt

JaLese

Jenetha Williams

Ju Berrymore

JYELVERTON

Kandi Facison

Karen

Kim

Kimberly Czerwinski

Kimmey

Kisha Patton

Lashan Delancy

Latricia Warren

Leah

Leahcar Dzansi

Leonora Rush

M Jones

Manoucheka Chery

Meaka

mimi

Monica O

MrsZaraki

Ms. Not For Everyone 01

Nadia Penn

Nakinah Webb

Natalie D. Eckman

Nicole H

Nikki

Nilise

Nina Driver

Nina Sandra

Nita Field

OOW

Penny

prietamia1

Ray

Sabrina

Sandi Hospedales

Sasha Steele

Sedoya Hayes

Shawnie

shazie1436

Shelley G

Sheryl Wilder

Shiva

Simp

SokkasGirl

Sonya Napier

Sophia Temba

Stacy

Tanecia Appling

Tasha

Terri Thao

Tiffany Burns

Tiffany Mays

Tiffany P

Toni

Toni Daniel

Treecie

Trenita

Vickie

WakeUpMakeUp Slay

Wanda J Agee

Woods and Creek

Yolanda Sullivan

Yvonn Keen-Zic

Zay

RUTHLESS FANS

Andrea

Angela Givens

Anissa M Jones

Ashleigh Dixon

Ayesha Cruickshank

Babette Cooper

Bookish Lattes

Cherisse Ray

ChloSteph2

Flo Ltoile

Free

J Gordon

Jackie

janice whitaker

karezone

Kellee Wilhite

Kemba Hollinsed

Keri Stevens

Kia

Lisa

Marina Benitez

Martha

nanc evans

Portia Henderson

Rebecka Lancelot

Rochelle Younger

Shon Brown

Shronda C.

stacey kindles

RUTHLESS READERS

Adrienne Jones

Aiesha Hutson

Alexa Abdelatey

Ama misa

Amanda Greene

Amariah Brown

Amoy robinson

Amy Mathews

Anastacia Isaacs

Andrea

Andrea Gregory

Angela

Angela Ball

Angela Ramey

ANGELLA BURTON

Anita Burge

Anita Burge

Ann-Marie Mattis

Anna.Vassell

Annette Wynne

Antoinette Green

April Marro

Aretha Rivers

Ateusa Salemi

Autumn Park

Ava Nichol

Babs

Barbara MurphyWilson

Bernadette Mason

Brenda Blount

Brittany Young

Caira F

candy barbary

Caroline Jones

Cecile

Chan Leverett

Chance

Christian Hibbard

cierra adams

Claudia Ferreira

Claudia Lasite

CM

cmdennis

Cole Roe

Courtney

cynthia lewis

Cynthia Mckissick

DANA C.

Dana Clark

Deborah Smith

Deidre Clayburn

Deirdre Pierce

Diana

Didi

Earline Stephen

Eboni

Ebony

Edana Walker

Eliza F

Elle

Emily Zientara-Harvey

Erna Bragad√≥ttir

Falone LeBlanc

Fathom Watson

Felisha Workman

Fran Cadore

Fran Thomson

Free Peay

Gail

Gina Sturgis

Haniel Udubra

Hannah

Heather Goltz

Helen Dale

Henrietta Appiah

Jackie Karnley

Jacqueline Britt

Jakea Leakes

Janel Chapman

Janel Chapman

Janice Hipps

Jeanine Hawkins

Jennifer Hall

JLA

Jody

Johari Crews

Judith

Judy

Julie Agbasi

Kali Murray

Karen palmer

Kay Lamb

KB

Kesha Sansone

Keva Wilson

Kiara

Kisha Caldwell

Lady KJ

Lajauna Middlebrooks

Lani D. Lester

Latifah Scott

Latoya

Laura Ross

Laura Royals

Lavett Ballard

Lelia

Lethia M Grimes

Lilith Darville

Linda Browne

Lindsey Buch

Lisema Sinord

Lola Lovington

Lori

Lyndetta Timmons

Lynn Leary

Lynnette M

Machelle Bryson

Maga Jackson-Triche

Marian Cork Barbary

Marie Alonzo

Marilyn Hinton

material.gworl

Mechelle Bagot

Melissa Draughn

Melody

Melonease Shaw

Michelle Smith

Mikki

Mimi

Miriam Lumbard

Mo

Monique Biggett-Johnson

n thomas

Natalie Sang

Natalie West

Neah White

Nicole Kohlmeier

Nicole Pack

Nicole Patterson

Nina Moore

Nthabiseng Ralebitso

OAA

Oratile Ntimane

Paula Thompson

Phyllisa Toney

Raffy

Ramona L Green

Rashida Harrison

Rashonda Burkett

Renee

Renee cox

RL McGruder

romance_reader

Romanticide

Roxanne

Rukiya

Ruzenia Jones-williams

Sandra Wilson

Sandra-Dee

Sarkastik Mastermind

Sercee

Shalaia Walters

Shan

Shanice

Shawn

Shawnte Reasor

Shayna Hayes

Shirley Ellis

Sidney

Simone Howard

Sonia Eubank

Stacie Ervin

Stephanie Palacio

sweet g

SY JJefferson

T. Williams

Tammy Chin

Tangela McGee

Tasha M.

Tashiana Stephens

Tea.S

Teneatha Jackson

Teresa Saez

Terri Robinson

Tiffany Hereford

Tiffany Morris

Toi

Toni

Tonya Collins

Tonya Fairley

Tracy Williams

Triniese Nicole Thompson

Twana B

Twiza Kathleen

Tykeisha Rice

Val Zaharia

Vanita

WC Ford

WP

Wynette Houston

Z Mol

Zina Hamilton-Thomas

Zinnia Hamm

Become a Ruthless Patreon

Also by Theodora Taylor

THE SCOTTISH WOLVES

Her Scottish Wolf

Her Scottish King

Her Scottish Hero

ALPHA KINGS

Her Viking Wolf

Wolf and Punishment

Wolf and Prejudice

Wolf and Soul

Her Viking Wolves

ALPHA FUTURE

Her Dragon Everlasting

NAGO: Her Forever Wolf

KNUD: Her Big Bad Wolf

RAFES: Her Fated Wolf

Her Dragon Captor

Her Dragon King

RUTHLESS MAGNATES

Kayla in Paris

Sunny in Vegas

RUTHLESS TYCOONS

Ruthless Scion

Ruthless Billionaire

Ruthless King

Ruthless Husband

Ruthless Captor

RUTHLESS TYCOONS: Broken and Ruthless

KEANE: Her Ruthless Ex

STONE: Her Ruthless Enforcer

RASHID: Her Ruthless Boss

RUTHLESS TRIAD

VICTOR: Her Ruthless Crush

VICTOR: Her Ruthless Owner

VICTOR: Her Ruthless Husband

HAN: Her Ruthless Mistake

PHANTOM: Her Ruthless Fiancé

RUTHLESS MC

WAYLON: Angel and the Ruthless Reaper Book 1

WAYLON: Angel and the Ruthless Reaper Book 2

GRIFFIN: Red and the Big Bad Reaper

VENGEANCE: Snow and the Vengeful Reapers

HADES: Stephanie and the Merciless Reaper

HADES: Stephanie and the Ruthless Mogul

THE VERY BAD FAIRGOODS

His for Keeps

His Forbidden Bride

His to Own

RUTHLESS FAIRYTALES

Cynda and the City Doctor

Billie and the Russian Beast

Goldie and the Three Bears

Reina and the Heavy Metal Prince

(newsletter exclusive)

RUTHLESS BOSSES

His Pretend Baby

His Revenge Baby

His Enduring Love

His Everlasting Love

RUTHLESS BUSINESS

Her Ruthless Tycoon

Her Ruthless Cowboy

Her Ruthless Possessor

Her Ruthless Bully

RUTHLESS RUSTANOVS

ALEXEI

NIKOLAI

BAIR

IVAN

ALIEN OVERLORDS (as Taylor Vaughn)

His to Claim

His to Steal

His to Keep

About the Author

Theodora Taylor writes hot books with heart. When not reading, writing, or reviewing, she enjoys spending time with her amazing family, going on date nights with her wonderful husband, and attending parties thrown by others. She LOVES to hear from readers. So….

Join TT’s Patreon

https://www.patreon.com/theodorataylor

Follow TT on TikTok

https://www.tiktok.com/@theodorataylor100

Follow TT on Instagram

https://www.instagram.com/taylor.theodora/

Sign for up for TT’s Newsletter

http://theodorataylor.com/sign-up/

Join the Ruthless Romance Readers on Facebook

https://www.facebook.com/ruthlessromancereaders