This was the real mission. I was finally going to meet my aunt.
Meanwhile, I’d decided to throw Sadie some softball questions to hopefully warm her up to telling me why I’d been chosen over way more suitable wolves for this assignment.
But Sadie grimaced, like I’d put her in the hot seat. “I don’t know how much you remember about your aunt….”
“I don’t remember anything about her,” I admitted. “I never met my other aunt. Before I was born, my mother was taken away from her original pack to Prince Edward Island by my sperm donor.”
My stomach knotted with disgust, remembering the male who’d technically fathered me but had never treated my mother and me like anything but trash before his ultimate death.
“My maem and I came to Faoiltiarn right before you all were abducted by the Irish Wolves—and apparently, bears.”
“Oh no, the wolves did all the kidnapping.” Sadie looked over at me with a cheery smile. “My guys just paid for the whole thing and coordinated their efforts.”
Which got my da killed.
But I’d learned just enough about diplomacy not to point that out. As bitter as I was over the loss of Da in the battle we all referred to as Bloody February, the bears had no real part in it. He didn’t die intheirkingdom.
Still, keeping my cool when facing Naomi was going to be a challenge. Did she know which one of her kingdom’s warriors had killed my da? Would she even be willing to tell me?
The crushing feeling returned—that certainty that the Scottish Wolves had sent absolutely the wrong she-wolf for this job.
Then Sadie sobered and added, “There’s only the Wild Princess and the Sea Prince with her now. The City Prince went to live in Dublin with his father after their parents split.”
I jolted. “Is Aunt Naomi no longer with the last remaining king?”
“They tried, for the children’s sake,” Sadie said. “But I heard you talking at that last breakfast about how your mother never got over the loss of Alban Scotswolf. Well, Naomi never got over the loss of her Sea and Wild Kings, either. And you should know that’s made her a bit…”
Sadie paused, obviously searching for the most judicious way to phrase what came next.
“…not always kind.” Sadie clucked her tongue, making the same kind of sympathetic sound Granni Claudine did when she talked about sad things. Like her life before Senair Hamish.
“I know this is a lot to request coming from the bear who hasn’t spoken a single word to your beloved Granni since myMountain King rescued me from Faoiltiarn,” Sadie continued. “But you will have to pre-forgive Naomi for her particularly acerbic tongue.”
Once again, the Mountain Prince’s voice echoed:Good luck with that….
Before something else suddenly caught my eye.
A shining city. Like something out of a sci-fi novel, it had a skyline of pointed buildings that glinted in the sun, each one appearing to be made of green crystal.
Even more surprising, the rolling hills in front of the sparkling city were occupied.
With rows upon rows of people. All dressed in the same emerald-green robes as the maybe-druid storyteller. And staring straight at us.
“Um, what is that, then?” I asked Sadie, a thrum of alarm going off in my chest as I watched them watching us.
“Oh, that’s a… ah—I guess you could call it a hybrid third secret kingdom? Of bear and wolf shifters, but also a few other kinds from around the world.”
I scrunched my brow. “There are other kinds of shifters?” I read every legitimate news publication on the version of the internet we lupine called WolfNet, and I’d never heard mention of weres outside of bears and wolves.
“There are,” Sadie answered in the careful tone of someone standing on shaky knowledge ground. “My Shadow King calls them original experiments. It’s kind of a long story.”
Okay, well, I definitely wanted to hear that long story. But first…
“Can I ask why what feels like the entirety of this third secret kingdom is out here, staring at us?”
“I mean, you could ask,” Sadie said as we zipped past the staring horde. “But I’m not quite sure I could give you asatisfying answer. They don’t usually leave the sanctuary of their city at all, much less in these numbers.”
I craned my neck to watch the silent spectators after we passed. Not one of them looked away. In fact, the hundreds of green-robed figures turned their heads as one. Staring right back at me until they disappeared from my view.
