My mother’s voice had only been a whisper in my head while I finished sewing a dull blue shifting robe to Amanda’s specifications, so that at no point would we have to stand in front of each other naked—even in wolf form. But the moment we crossed the castle’s threshold, her voice started shouting, clogging my throat and making my steps stutter.
“Sadie? Are you okay?” Naomi, who had been walking beside me, turned and doubled back when she realized I hadn’t made it past the door.
I couldn’t answer. I could only clutch at my chest as my mother’s voice screamed in my head.You cannot, girl. Cannot!
“Have… have to go change somewhere else,” I barely managed to choke out before dashing toward the forest. Luckily, I found a cave that not only kept me hidden but also shielded me from the icy rainstorm I’d woken up to this morning.
The one I’d use as my first excuse not to return to the dorm house at New St. Ailbe right away.
I’d meant to go back after the storm passed. Explain myself. But then I saw the bird in the heather, and I guess I’d lost track of time because now Amanda was standing here looking up at me quizzically underneath the warm glow of the late-afternoon sun.
“It’s well past lunch,” she said. “I thought you’d at least show up to eat and relieve yourself.”
She wrinkled her nose. “Have you been using the outside as your toilet? If so, that’s against the Ordnung.Thou shalt practice humanity in all things outside of a full moon.”
Was she kidding?
I knew Amanda had taken it upon herself to be what Naomi called The Ordnung Police—making sure all of us she-wolves kept to the strict rules with which we’d been raised, even if we were in a foreign land. But… “It’s only been twenty-four hours. Why would you think I’d have to resort to going outside?”
“Because of nature’s design.” Amanda shook her head, as if I was the one with strange notions about how long one could hold their bladder, not her. “Everyone must relieve themselves a few times a day.”
I tilted my head. “Only if they want to. It’s like eating. You can always turn your hunger off for as long as you need if you don’t have access to a meal.”
Or have been locked in your room for weeks upon weeks.I thought back darkly to my last punishment.
Amanda screwed up her face. “What are you talking about? You sound like a rooster crowing in the middle of the night.”
I frowned at the Wölfennite saying that basically meant you sound crazy because her thinking I sounded crazy sounded crazy to me. I knew we grew up cloistered, but did she truly not get how basic wolf anatomy worked?
Before I could defend myself, though, she waved her hands in the air like she was wiping the conversation clean. “Oh, let’s stop with all of this toilet talk. That’s not why I tracked you out here anyway.”
Which made me scrunch my brow to inquire, “Whydidyou come find me?”
“So glad you asked. Guess what, Sadie Schaduw.” Her face lit up, and she clasped her hands. “We’ve been invited on a courting walk!”
A Courting Walk
Sadie
Acourting walkwasan ancient romance ritual specific to the kingdom village of Faoiltiarn. It involved a male wolf strolling through town with a she-wolf to signal to others that he was interested in her.
I couldn’t quite figure out if the signal was supposed to say, “Stay away, she’s mine!” or “Hey, other male wolves, here’s your competition!”
Either way, I should have known Amanda’s invite was too good to be true.
As desperate as the Scottish Wolves supposedly were, so far, I’d found the eligible males in Faoiltiarn to be like the ones back in Old St. Ailbe—just much larger and dressed in red plaid kilts.
Sure, they were a lot more polite than the St. Ailbe males. There had been no explicit references to my odd smell or nicknames likeStinky Sadie Schaduwwhispered behind my back.
But, to my great disappointment, none of them had bothered to speak more than a few words to me—much less ask me to take a courting walk on the cobblestoned path that surrounded andseparated the Scottish kingdom castle grounds from the darling thatched-roof stone houses where the rest of the Scottish Wolves lived.
I refused to declare my time in Faoiltiarn a bad crop, but so far, the only males who’d actually approached me with a hopeful look in their eyes had done so to ask me to deliver notes to “the banrigh’s exceptionally bonnie sister.”
AKA Naomi.
And correction:Amandahad been invited on a courting walk.
I should have known this situation wasverrottender Fisch—rotten fish—when Amanda told me the eligible wolves were called Malcolm and Gavin, but quickly changed the subject when I asked which one of them had asked to take a courting walk with me.
