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 itlosing my head.
But it was nearly a week later, and I still hadn't managed to fully shift back to human.
