By the gods… Thank the three gods…
Suddenly, Sea’s and Wild’s quaint exclamations struck me in a new light, and I forgot to kick.
Were these the gods they’d spoken of? The ones who’d provided their people with the highly futuristic tech to make the secret kingdom?
I twisted in the water, my lungs threatening to explode as the cold seeped into my bones. But I couldn’t tear my gaze from the statues.
They didn’t look like wolves. Were they…? Could the gods be…?
Breathe! You have to breathe.
Some primitive survival instinct yanked me out of my curiosity trance, and I kicked the rest of the way upward until I finally broke the surface with a huge “Aah!”
The air screamed out of my chest, only to be sucked right back in by my desperate lungs. For a while, all I could do was tread water, gulping down the oxygen I’d been starved of for minutes on end.
Thank goodness this lake hadn’t frozen over with a thick sheet of ice like the one in St. Ailbe this time of year.
But soon, the relief of being able to breathe gave way to chattering teeth and a weird numbness that couldn't be good.
Got to breathe!Got to get out of this lake!
After a thankfully short swim, I heaved myself onto the lake’s bank, my muscles trembling with exhaustion.
And I did mean heave. This lake turned out to be more like an extremely large swimming hole. It was as if someone (or maybe some ancient entities?) had cut out a deep circle in the earth and filled it with water. There was no shore. Just a super steep, zero-notice drop.
My fingers slipped on the grass of the frost-covered bank as I dragged myself onto it, then crawled away from the freezing cold water. Eventually, I found myself lying on my back, breathing hard underneath a sign warning that this was a dangerous and protected lake — NO SWIMMING ALLOWED.
Now you tell me, I thought with a sarcastic, watery chuff.
Cold wind stung my face as I lay there in a grateful but weary heap. After that ordeal, I only wanted to let the solid earth hold me for a while.
But…safety…original life plan… find Sadie and make sure she’s alright.
Also, I really needed to change out of these cold, wet clothes.
I sat up on my forearms and looked around. The town, which should have been positioned behind me, was blocked from sight by a huge hulking shape, a mountain that hovered over the lake like a giant who'd nodded off beside it. But I could see faint lights in the distance on the other side of the hole the gods had filled with water. Maybe it was the house I'd seen from the cliffside stone circle?
There was only one way to find out.
With a coughing sigh, I forced my shivering, aching body into a standing position. I'd wanted to make it to the town, but thehouse I'd seen sat like a beacon of hope on the other side of the lake.
If I could make it there, maybe I’d find warmth — and a phone I could use to call for help. With that hope burning inside my chest, I hauled myself forward, every muscle protesting as I began stumbling around the mountainside of the lake toward the lights in the short distance.
Dublin
"I thoughtthe Bridal Exchange program was on hold." I set aside my laptop and walked over to the office window, which looked out onto the vast expanse of what the cashier at the local SuperValu had called Three Gods Lake.
"It is. The North American Lupine Association has been swamped with applications," she assured me with a wry chuckle. "But I'm calling you about a possible exception. See, we're getting a lot of interest, but you're the only king who oversees a tech hub, and I think that makes your situation especially appealing to those of us she-wolves who prefer cities and modern industry. So when the NASL decided to deny your application, I decided to take matters into my own hands and give you a call."
"Sorry, who am I speaking with?"
"Oh…" She let out a nervous laugh. "I can't believe I forgot to introduce myself!"
Her name was Lis Nightwolf. The USA divided their kingdoms by state, and she was one of the twin princesses of Colorado, whichexplained how she’d managed to pull my application from the NASL's discard pile.
Her idea was to pitch her parents and several relatives who ruled other states on forming a special contingent of she-wolves in the tech industry willing to move to Dublin for at least a year as part of what she called a "Lunar Partnership Initiative."
It wasn’t a bad idea, and I mentioned that I had plenty of human friends in the tech sector who could help American she-wolves secure jobs and internships. But before I got too hopeful, I had to warn her, "We have male wolves who work in tech, sure. But most of them work under me at Norwolf."
