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 thingabout 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?
