“Nae, we wouldn’t want to abandon Amanda,” Fiona agreed with her own sober nod before adding, “And I, for one, am looking forward to a meal made by someone other than myself. I bet they have right nice desserts at the castle proper!”
The murmurs of assent grew even louder, and Miriam had to raise her voice to ask her next question. “Do they all come in pairs like the ones who took Amanda? Or can we mix and match? For example, if I went into heat and wanted to pair that handsome Sea King who came in here with one of those Wild Wolves you mentioned.”
I did not anticipate her hypothetical. Or the strange, angry feeling that pinched my gut when she spoke about going into heat with Sea.
“Ah, I do believe the Sea King is already spoken for,” Kirsty told Miriam with a grimace. “Did you not see the way he looked at our de facto leader when he helped with Amanda?”
“No, I didn’t,” Miriam said to Kirsty before turning back to me with a hard, aggressive blink. “Is that true, Naomi? Do you want to call dibs on the Sea King?”
Suddenly, everyone’s eyes swung to me.
“N — I… n — yes, I mean, no,no, most definitely not!” I insisted after a couple of false starts.
And weird… I wasn’t even a true believer. So, why did I feel like Judas denying Jesus?
Anyway, I cleared my throat. “Like everyone else here, my only goal is to get through this so-called group date without accidentally going into heat. The Sea King has promised to deliver anyone who remains unheated back to Scotland in the spring, and I am most definitely going to be taking that trip."
Why would you make a promise you cannot possibly keep?Sea's voice dropped into my head. Dark and unbidden.
Shoving his voice from my mind, I gritted my teeth to remind the she-wolves around me, "If you remember what I taught you, we can all make it back to Scotland unharmed.”
But not unscarred.
Flashes of Wild’s head between my legs pulsed again like an erratic heartbeat.
“What’s that smell?” Hannah, the she-wolf closest to me, audibly sniffed. “It’s like a lighter version of when Amanda —”
"They’re here! They’re here!” one of the Wölfennites called out before she could finish.
My heart sped up at the announcement. No more questions. Everyone rose from their seats to run over to the windows, where apack of wolves dressed in gold-trimmed white tunics and fur mantles stood on the other side of the glass.
It was time.
And as hard as I’d worked to prepare the habitat she-wolves and myself for this group date, I didn’t feel remotely ready.
Especially when I found Sea staring at me on the other side of the glass.
My breath caught at the first sight of the male who’d written me all those intimate letters. Was it possible he’d grown even more devastatingly handsome in the days since I’d last seen him?
He looked every bit the Viking King, and his intent to claim me shone clear in his amber eyes.
Oh God, Naomi… don’t go into heat. Don’t go into heat. Don’t.
My pulse quickened, but I couldn’t look away from his golden gaze as I wondered what tonight would have in store for me.
Naomi
Beyond the window,Sea raised a heavily inked arm to touch one of the knotted wolves on either side of the brooch chain that held together the flaps of his royal blue cloak. Without taking his eyes off me.
A tall and wide door, which I hadn't been able to discern a few moments ago — or during my bewildering investigations of the clear material that domed the habitat — suddenly defined itself, like an etched rectangle being drawn on glass before sliding open with barely a whisper of sound.
As Sea stepped through the newly formed door alone, all sorts of questions about energy displacement and molecular phase shifting filled my head.
Until he stopped directly in front of me and looked me up and down.
An awkward self-consciousness replaced all of my questions when I realized just how underdressed I was in comparison to the other she-wolves surrounding me.
We'd all found casual clothes of various sizes hanging in the closets of our rooms, along with beautifully knit sweaters and cardigans.
