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 feltlike 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, whereone 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 arenotlike 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’reNoblewolves. 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?”
