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 instantagain.
“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 ritualsrequired. 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.
