The breathing exercises my uncle had taught me to control the wolf shortly after I hit puberty hadn’t worked. Neither had the many hand shandies I’d given myself in the castle structures we called “light showers.” No amount of seed spilling was enough relief to satisfy my wolf.
Hence the breakfast where I cut into an egg with my human hands while fighting off the temptation to bury my furry snout in the pint of Normanwolf stout that our castle chef always had poured for me whenever I lost my head.
Astrid's wife had started out as one of the guards at the Belfast wolf compound where Astrid grew up, so she hid her emotions well —while also stuffing her mouth with the criminal amount of rashers she'd piled onto her plate. But I could tell Astrid was unsettled to be sharing breakfast with the hybrid version of her brother, the supposedly all-powerful True King.
Who'd turned out to be powerless regarding one particular she-wolf.
Want mate! Want mate! Want mate!My wolf howled inside me, but I pretended not to hear him as I rushed to reassure Astrid.
“Manby wedding,” I growled, unable to access my human vocal cords.
Astrid, having grown up in Belfast, didn’t understand the wolf tongue. “What did he say?” she asked Wild.
“That he’ll be fine by the wedding," Wild answered our sister with a disbelieving grunt. Then he turned back to me to ask,“But what about the next time she gets yer willy up without bothering to go into heat? And the time after that? The Bridal Appeal is our best chance short of calling in the Dublin King and risking him showing up here with the Scottish Wolves at his back.”
Wild had a point, and I was desperate. Even after having surrendered my head, the wolf within me snarled and surged, eager to tear through my human form and claim dominance. My skin prickled as if thousands of tiny needles were piercing through, and the bones in my arms and legs ached with the effort it took not to fully shift under the pressure of the wolf clawing at my insides.
A now-familiar panic rose in my chest, cold and sharp, as I imagined our queen — who was already incredibly resistant to wolf-mating — witness me lose control. I could already see the disgust in her eyes, the scorn she would feel if she ever found out that I was not only a kidnapper but also incapable of restraining the near-feral beast inside of me. I couldn’t let that happen.
She had to go into heat. It was the only way to keep my wolf under control now that my future mate was living less than a kilometer away from the castle.
“Yes,”I growled, nodding my furry head at Wild.“Try your idea.”
Wild let out a whooping howl.
And once again, our sister asked, “What did he say?”
Naomi
“Any more questions before we leave?”I asked the other she-wolves gathered in the mini-classroom of chairs, couches, and floor blankets I’d set up in the habitat’s common space.
Since Astrid had dropped off the wedding invitation disguised as a mandatory group date, I’d done my best to…
1. Explain the underground world and ah… alternative customs of the Irish Wolve's secret kingdom.
2. Fill in the considerable gaps in our basic sex education. The Scottish she-wolves helped me as best they could, but it was still a huge undertaking, considering we were all unheated. The old saying,the blind leading the blind,had come to mind several times while I…
3. Prepared them as best I could for the “group date” to the Kingdom Castle.
Knowledge is power— I'd read and heard that often on the forbidden internet and had even made it the screen saver on my contraband laptop.
So, I'd spent the days before the new moon educating the Wölfennites as best I could. Which apparently wasn't good enough. I knew I had utterly failed my mission when several hands shot into the air in response to my question about whether they had any more questions.
And the first query out of Orpah's mouth was, "Exactly what is a group date?”
“Um…”
The truth was I wasn't sure myself. Astrid hadn’t returned to the habitat since serving us with wedding invitation. Not that she’d been great at answering any of my questions before that. Or even allowed to.
Fiona stepped in to answer Orpah's group date question. “It’s basically when a bunch of people get together, have a few pints and a chin wag. The hope is by the end of the night, a few new couples will be made."
“Pints?" Priscilla, who also had her hand raised in the air, fretted her lips. "Do you mean alcohol? Amanda wouldn’t like that. It's against theOrdnung.”
"Seriously? This Ordnung shite again?" Kirsty, one of the Scottish she-wolves, rolled her eyes."We're going to her wedding to two feral wolves. I think we're a wee bit past these rules you've been hanging on to from Canada."
"Wildwolves." I felt compelled to correct Kirsty. "You can also call them the Nature Wolves since their pack dates back from before the Bronze Age."
Miriam squinted at me, her shrewd, foxy gaze narrowing with suspicion. "You learned all that in less than an hour outside this habitat?"
