“Can I make you a plate, too?” Sadie’s sweet voice brought me back to the present conversation.
“No, your Mountain King has got it,” I assured her with one of my patented easygoing grins. “Only wish right now is to watch you enjoy this meal after all we’ve put you through to get you here.”
“Oh—okay.” Her face lit up with a shy smile, and that smile was enough to ebb the violent thoughts as we both tucked into our food.
We ate in companionable silence. I loved the way she hummed happily while methodically eating everything I’d put on her plate. I didn’t want a difficult Q&A session to dampen her mood. Or mine.
Seeing her happy made me happy in a way that required none of the usual pretending on my part.
“Could I make you another?” I asked as soon as she finished her first serving.
It was a question that required no answer. I was already back on my feet, piling more food on her plate before she could reply.
“Here—take a couple of these as well for later.” After setting down her second serving of brunch in front of her, I wrapped up two medium-sized blueberry muffins in cloth napkins. “On winter brunch days, I like to tuck a couple away to get me through to supper.”
I held them out, but she eyed them with a hesitant look.
“Do you prefer another kind of muffin? That’s all we have.” I turned back to the tea service, wishing I’d made more treats. “We’ve also got a few mini-scones, but they’re not all that filling, I’m afraid?—”
“No, it’s not that.” She took the muffins from me and set them down on the table before I could start rummaging through the tea service again. “It’s just that I don’t understand. Any of this. Why I’ve been—not just kidnapped, but separated from the rest of the Wölfennites and treated so nicely. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”
Alright.I suppose I’d put it off long enough. I sank back into my seat.
“Looks like we’ve hit heavy conversation time,” I said, trying to keep my tone light—and my eyes from drifting down to that magnificent chest of hers. There was no way I was getting through this without spewing in my jeans if I let my gaze go there.
“Where should I start?” I asked with more enthusiasm than I actually felt for my first proper negotiation in… well… ever.
“How about thewhyof it all?” She set down her fork. “Why would you have me kidnapped all the way from Scotland? Do you bears also have a population problem you’re trying to solve?”
“Ah, not quite.” I settled back in my chair. "Unlike the wolves, the Irish Bear community is mostly concentrated right here in our Secret Kingdom. We’ve had little to no interaction with the human world—what we call The Above.”
She fretted that plump bottom lip of hers again, and I had to stifle a groan before it made it to my own mouth.
“So you don’t know anything about the Canadian bear community either?” Her face fell just a bit. “You don’t have a WolfNet or anything like that?”
“Afraid not. Never had the need for it.” I adjusted to face her fully in my chair. “We’ve no laws against turning outsiders, so our numbers have never really dropped. Here in Ireland, finding a proper mate from a nice, non-bear and foreign population pool is the main reason most of our younger subjects head off to university instead of staying here—even though our school system down here’s better than anything you’d find in The Above.”
“But not you?” she asked.
She peeped over at me with a shy look that made me want to kiss it off her face. Let her know she had no reason to ever be shy with her Mountain King.
“No, not me,” I confirmed with a wry smile. “Truth is…”
I was waiting for you.
But it was too early in the negotiation to tell her that. Didn’t want to scare her off.
Out loud, I finished with, “I didn’t even bother looking. Declan, Cian, and I were so caught up in building and growing our company that the next thing we knew, we were closing in on thirty with no prospects between us.”
I literally had a bear of an appetite, but I set my empty plate aside at that point. There was no way I could go into this next part and eat at the same time.
“You see, Sadie, there are two concepts. You might call them legends, depending on your level of belief. There’s The Prophecy, and there’s The Potential.
“The Prophecy involves this tablet we’ve got—goes back gods only know how many thousands of years. Actually, only the godswould know, since they’re the ones supposed to have etched it up for us.”
Sadie’s brow furrowed straightaway, like I’d set a particularly nasty maths problem in front of her.
Well, I was off to a shite start. Could already see the storm of confusion brewing in those pretty brown eyes. But I pushed on anyway. Better to stumble through it now and take many more questions after.
