He expelled an audible breath. "That's exactly the word I'm looking for. Are you famous or something? Once, I had a conversation similar to this at our Brit Awards after-party with someone who turned out to be one of the twins from Sasha and Kasha."
"I'm not famous. At all." I almost told him I'd never even had my picture taken before. But then it occurred to me to ask. "Wait, are you a celebrity? What were you doing at a party with a famous singer?"
"Oh, Norwolf beat Guinness out for the major sponsorship spot at the Brit Awards," he explained, his voice taking on a proud note. "And I'm Norwolf's CEO."
CEO — that was a modern real-world title I recognized and another promising sign that he had nothing to do with the Sea orWild Wolves. But… "Norwolf? Guinness?" I shook my head. "What kind of companies are those?"
"You don't know Norwolf or Guinness?" His expression became slightly alarmed. "How long have you been in Ireland, then?"
A shrill alarm from another room saved me from having to answer his question.
“Sorry, that would be the porridge letting me know it’s done.” My savior rose back into a standing position. “You're starving, right? I should bring back two bowls for us to eat together.”
Together. For some reason, his correct assumption about me being hungry sent a delicious thrill up my spine.
“Yes, please,” I barely managed to choke out.
“Back in a sec," he said, jogging out of the room.
It was an odd parting. His scent lingered, even though he'd gone, and a hollow feeling caved in my stomach — one so weird, it took me a few moments to pin a label on it. Bereft. I felt strangely bereft. My wolf whimpered inside me, lonely and sad, even though I'd only just met this stranger.
What in the world?
And why hadn’t I asked him right away to use his phone? What was wrong with me?
I threw off the blanket and stood, determined to squelch…these strange, familiar feelings fluttering inside my chest and ask him for a phone.
But that was when I realized why his scent lingered even after he left the room.
I wasn’t wearing any pants. Or underwear, for that matter. Just a shirt with the words IT’S ALWAYS A GOOD TIME FORNORWOLF written out in green block letters. He'd stripped me out of my wet clothes and redressed me in his clothing.Hisshirt. And nothing else.
“Do you want to eat at the dining room table then?”
I looked up, my face flushing hot. The stranger was now standing in a different archwayleading directly into a dining room. He held two bowls, which he set on the long table without waiting for my answer.
I tentatively followed him into the dining room, an alcove with a huge bay window. Outside, the first whispers of morning light filtered through, cold and gray.
If he was half as embarrassed about my state of undress as I was, it didn’t show.
He said, “Sorry, I’ve got a puzzle going."
He threw me an apologetic wince over his shoulder as he set two large spoons beside the bowls, a short distance from a nearly completed puzzle — four different views of the same Norwolf gate, one hand-drawn. "Don’t tell anybody, or they’ll accuse me of being a pensioner. But there’s some room here at the end.”
"No problem," I answered, suddenly feeling comfortable again.
Was making random she-wolves relax and feel completely at home a special talent of his? I wondered as he pulled out one of the chairs for me.
The dining room was much draftier than my seat by the cozy fire, and I shivered, realizing that I was no longer in the perfectly conditioned world of the secret kingdom.
“I can fetch the blanket if you like,” heoffered. “Or hold on…”
He dipped out of the dining room’s other entrance and returned a few seconds later with a large, thick, cable-knit sweater that opened at the front.
“Here you go,” he said, wrapping it around my shoulders like a blanket. “Figure that will do you until your clothes are dry.”
His kind gesture tugged at something in my chest, warm and intimate. But I had to remind myself that I didn’t know this male. He could be one of Sea's or Wild's allies, charming me into a false sense of security.
If so, I had to admit, it was kind of working. The sweater carried his particularly amazing scent, and I found myself on the edge of a swoon as I looked up into a pair of soft gray eyes in the morning light.
