She broke off, straightening in her saddle and lifting her nose with an audible sniff. “Is that Wölfennite named Sadie back? There’s an odd smell in the air. Do you think…?”
Dorie had a crackerjack nose. She could even smell something as sensitive as the sex of a baby before the mother did.
But the issue with having an exceptional sense of smell was that sometimes you forgot to use your other good senses. Like your eyes.
Hamish, with his average sense of smell, didn’t forget to scan the distance for the source of Dorie’s scent.
And when he did, his entire world came to a halt.
Standing at the town’s gate—where a 24/7 sentry had been posted ever since the second Irish kidnapping—stood the most mesmerizing female he’d ever seen.
She wore a plain blue dress and black bonnet, like all the other Wölfennites. But she was maybe twice as old as one of their brides. Short but sturdy, with eyes that might have been large if they weren’t squinted up in suspicion.
Her accented voice floated back to their ears.
“Listen to me now. My name is Claudine Ellis, and I’m here to see my daughter, Sadie,” she was telling the sentry. “It’s taken some kind of misery and paperwork to even get here. You will not hold me up, little boy. You will be taking me to my daughter, Sadie, right now.”
“Sadie’s Maem seems mean,” Dorie whispered beside him.
“I agree,” Hamish whispered back to his dearest granddaughter.
Then he climbed down from his horse to introduce himself to the female he already knew, deep in his bones, would change his life.
Happy New Year
Sadie
I endedup sleeping through the rest of Christmas—and quite a few days after that.
A black, dreamless sleep served as a reward for six days of constant sex, topped off by some wild out-of-body experiences.
Transcendental…The word had sparked into my head on a current of the Shadow King’s knowledge, right before I’d passed out in a heap.
When I woke up, I was still stark naked, but no longer a mess of my own want and my bear kings’ seed.
I was also no longer in the nest Declan had built for me, but lying on a bed, smaller than the circular one in my room, but still large compared to the twin cot I’d slept on in St. Ailbe. A wide, square bed located beneath a high ceiling with exposed beams.
Where am I?
I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and blinked around a luxurious room I’d never seen before.
The palette was technically warm—earth tones—but everything still appeared cool to the touch. Frosted wardrobe doors, golden drawer handles, polished marble floors.
Whoever’s space this was, it was aggressively neat. Nothing out of place…
…except me, lying beneath a ridiculously soft, warm, brown blanket and crisp, cream-colored sheets.
Oh—and also the massive image of Tadhg, sleeping in my bedroom suite in nothing but white underwear, streaming from the digital wall in front of me.
A soft electronic whirr and whisper sounded, and the scent of rhubarb hit my nose.
I turned to see Declan emerge from what must have been the washroom. His rich-brown hair, with its white streak, was damp, and water droplets beaded his broad chest. Along with the rest of him.
Because the High King was also naked as the day he was born.
A sudden rush of shyness made me pull the sheet up over myself. But then my good-Wölfennite-girl instincts were overridden by the straying of my bad girl eyes down to the trunk of flesh between his legs.
Even flaccid, it looked formidable. Wide as my fist and hanging nearly to the bottom swell of his muscled thighs.
