“The Heat Laws…” I began.
“The Heat Laws,” he scoffed, waving awaythe 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 withtwoother 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. Myrealname…
“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 thelife 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. Itoldher 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.
