11. Naomi

Naomi

I tried to wrench free of the Pirate King's iron grip, but he held me fast.

"If you try to get between two wolves in heat thrall and their mate, I promise you, they'll forget your title," he warned me. "Lorcan and Ronan'll try to tear you apart, and I'll have no choice but to slaughter them both for daring to touch you."

My heart trilled strangely at his words.

I'd spent all of my adult life knowing that if the St. Ailbe pack leader showed up to take me before the rise of a full moon, no one would protect me. Not my sister, Tara, who'd run off after her attempted wolf mating. Not my mother, who'd grown up in this community. Not my foreign-born father who considered passively standing by while his daughters got snatched from their home the price of his conversion to W?lfennite. Not even Sadie. It probably wouldn't even occur to her to use her superior strength and size to fight my wolf mating.

No one had ever vowed to protect me.

For a moment, I stopped struggling against his hold, I was so surprised by his violent offer.

But then I remembered who I was failing to protect.

Amanda. Poor Amanda being claimed by two wolves right in front of us. "You can't let them do this! She's innocent ."

"She's in heat ," the Pirate King's tone took on a rigid, insistent note. "Furthermore, she gave them her binding pledge, which means she is theirs. Theirs to claim."

"But…"

I trailed off when I noticed something pressed into the small of my back. A hard length, long and thick.

What was that? Some kind of weapon? Maybe the hilt of some dagger I hadn't registered when I got my first scary look at him?

"I'm sorry," he said, as if in response to all my questions. "I have no wish to make you uncomfortable. But the scent hanging over us and the sight of the Wild Wolves taking their new mate. I cannot help my arousal."

Arousal. Even I understood what that word meant. I stilled. Swallowed. Would this pirate try to do the same thing to me that those two animals were doing to poor Amanda on the floor?

My lower stomach twisted with that strange tingling sensation again at the thought. Disgust. Yes, it most definitely had to be disgust at the thought of the Pirate King entering either of my holes.

"You've no need to worry about me, Mairinua," he assured me, his voice husky in my ear. "The Heat Laws state that I must have your pledge before I take you. Also, my wolf is too afraid to move on you. "

"Afraid." As crazy as this situation was, I let out a scoffing laugh. "I find that hard to believe."

"Notice your Wild king is not here. He had to depart, same as the others for fear of not being able to control himself with a female's heat in his nose. I,alone, was able to stay behind with you because my wolf is crouched low. So, believe me when I tell you that you make him nervous."

The Pirate's breath whispered over the skin of my neck as he spoke, and I shivered, my stomach tingling with even more disgust.

"My human, however, can't help but have a response to watching this with you. Look at them, mobanríon ."

As if against my own will, my gaze snapped to the writhing bodies. Lorcan and Ronan were two separate wolves, but they moved in throbbing sync around Amanda, their eyes glowing brightly under the dim lights. Lorcan thrust up into her from below with his hands on her hips. Meanwhile, Ronan pulled at her shoulders, arching her back so that her bottom stayed high in the air as he thrust into her from behind. Amanda's sounds were ones I'd never heard before.

"I'm imagining how it will be when you beg your kings to claim you," the Pirate murmured against my ear as I watched.

"I would never ," I whispered, scandalized. Even as the weird tingling sensation pooled lower, accompanied by a strange tightening in my lower belly.

Disgust. So much disgust. But for some reason, I didn't feel like throwing up, and had a strange urge to rub my legs together.

"Something's happening! Something's happening!"

Amanda's cries pulled me out of my confused thoughts about the odd feelings happening inside of me .

"Can't stop it! Can't stop it! It's coming. I'm —

She abruptly cut off with a choked whimper, and her entire body flushed red as she let out a long moan.

"Jayzus Christ, you're killing me," Lorcan said below her.

"Me as well," Ronan grunted. "She's so tight around my —" He, too, suddenly stopped talking.

But he roared, tightening his hands around Amanda's shoulders as his entire body began to quake behind her.

I had seen just enough animal husbandry to know what was happening. Ronan was releasing. Releasing his seed inside Amanda's back hole!

And for reasons I couldn't begin to understand, his release made Amanda moan even louder, her entire face lighting up with what appeared to be unadulterated — but in no way pure — pleasure.

Eventually, they quieted down, and Ronan pulled out of her back hole with a wet pop. "There, my first part is done. Now it's down to you and Lorcan."

Amanda collapsed onto Lorcan's wide chest like something deflating after having a plug pulled out. But Lorcan kept on going, switching from thrusting up to moving her hips back and forth over his staff.

Until.

"What's that?" Amanda's eyes suddenly popped wide open, and her body went rigid. "What's happening? Oh, my wolf, what's happening?! Ah! Ahh! "

"Ssh, ár ngrá , all is well," Ronan, who'd repositioned himself into a crouch beside Amanda and Lorcan, assured her. He stroked her back, and his gentle voice was a surprising contrast to his rough taking just a moment ago. "Your other mate is knotting inside of you in the way of the wolf. Then it will be my turn to do the same."

Do the same?

Amanda looked just as horrified as me. But she couldn't answer Ronan. Her face had become a complete rictus, with her mouth pulled back so wide, I'd think she was smiling if her eyes weren't flashing so wild and crazed.

And then she started screaming. "What is that? What is that?"

Once again, I tried to lunge forward.

And once again, the Pirate King's hands tightened around my arms, keeping me right where I was.

"Hold." His soft command filled my ear as I struggled to get free.

"But he's hurting her!"

"I promise you, he is not." The heavy thing against my back pulsed as he addressed my fear with a calm tone.

But I could clearly see that wasn't true. Amanda pressed both palms into Lorcan's chest and jerked her hips in a frantic up motion that should have unseated her.

But it didn't.

"It won't let me get off," she cried out as she kept trying and failing to lift her hips. "What is it?"

On the floor, Lorcan's eyes rolled. "By the wolf, Ronan, it's like nothing I've ever felt before. She's gripping so tight. It's the sweetest pain I've ever known."

"Tell me what's happening?" I demanded since the Pirate King wouldn't let me help her. "Why can't she break free of him? What's he doing to her?"

"Did they truly teach you nothing in your community, then? Even the very basics of wolf biology? Of course, he's knotting inside of her."

My chest tightened. "Knotting? What does that mean?"

Lorcan yelled out before the Pirate King could answer.

"Agrhh!" he half-barked, half-yelled. "By the prophecy!"

His body began to quake and jerk in the same way Ronan's had before.

"It feels so… it feels so…" Amanda sobbed before letting out a blood-curdling scream. Her body went ramrod straight as if she'd been hit by an invisible bolt of lightning. Then she keeled over, crashing onto Lorcan's chest in a complete slump.

Only then did the hands holding me back finally loosen.

"Amanda?"

I rushed to her side to finally give her aid. But she didn't respond.

And the strange smell she'd been emitting earlier began to fade.

"Amanda," I whispered, reaching for her neck.

Relief nearly crumpled my knees when I found her pulse still pounding despite her unconscious state. This time, she hadn't just collapsed against Lorcan's chest, she appeared to have passed out.

They both had. Lorcan lay beneath her, his mouth hanging open as if his mind had given out mid-yell.

But my relief soon gave way to a darker rage. She was alive, but that didn't erase the horror of what I'd just witnessed .

"You animals," I shrieked at the two males who'd rutted her like mindless beasts. I didn't care that only one of them was awake.

Ronan shook his head like someone coming out of a daze. Now that the smell had dissipated, the glow had disappeared from his eyes.

He opened his mouth to answer. Then quickly averted his gaze as he had on the boat.

Which gave me a sudden idea.

Using all my wolf strength, I pulled Amanda's unconscious body from the horrible male who'd claimed her so ruthlessly.

To my great relief, Lorcan remained passed out below her, but Ronan surged forward after me when I dragged her toward a huge display case of dishes. The dark wood piece of furniture was even bigger than the wardrobes my father made — just large enough to hide Amanda from the view of all the wolves on the other side of the glassed-in space.

"C King, tell your queen to give her back to me," Ronan shouted, following in my wake. "She is ours!"

"You can't touch me," I reminded Ronan. I propped Amanda's limp body against the wall beside the large case and used my entire body to block him from grabbing her again. "She doesn't want you. She doesn't want this!"

Ronan let out another angry roar behind me. And I squeezed my eyes closed and braced myself to be torn apart like poor Amanda's dress.

"Don't."

The single word brought my head up, and I peeked over my shoulder to find C behind me. Providing a barrier between us and the wolf trying to get through me to get to Amanda .

The Pirate had held me back before but now was helping me. Protecting me.

The two words dropped into my head, along with three more. Like he promised .

"But, she is ours." I heard but couldn't see Ronan past the back of the male he'd call the C King. "You heard her give us her pledge. You all did."

"She didn't understand what she was agreeing to because she was in so much pain," I pointed out between clenched teeth. "This is the exact opposite of everything Amanda wanted. She wanted to mate with one nice Scottish wolf and bring him back to Canada. You ruined everything!"

The thought of Amanda's wrecked plans, combined with my dashed hopes and that last glimpse of Sadie in the glass box, brought tears to my eyes. "You ruined all of her dreams. Do you really think I'll let you hurt her again? You'll have to kill me first."

"C King, you must let me complete my claim!" Ronan's voice broke as if he were on the verge of crying, too. She gave us her pledge. You know, and I know, that Lorcan and I were within our rights."

"And, you know Wild will not hesitate to gut you and tear out your throat before the babe is born if he finds out you so much as touched her," C answered, his voice as cold and hard as Ronan's was angry and desperate.

"But, she is ours." Ronan whined like a child denied his piece of dessert.

"I'm aware." The Pirate King hunched down, and his tone became a little less hard as he assured the truly despicable Wild Wolf. "We will sort this out. You have my vow. "

"What has happened?"

"Where are we?"

"What is that strange smell?"

The small lake of passed-out she-wolves wriggled and came alive with the sounds of the other prisoners waking up.

"Ach, did one of you lot go into heat?" One of the few non-W?lfennite she-wolves asked.

Her thick Scottish accent made the word "heat" sound more like "hate," which was exactly what I felt as a fresh wave of anger surged within me.

The Pirate King tried to reason with the Earring Wolf, who was trying to claim Amanda as if he'd been wronged. But they were the reason we were trapped in this weird half-dome prison.

"Get out," I hissed at the Pirate King, doing my best to keep Amanda shielded from the curious stares of our W?lfennite sisters. "Take your terrible friend and get out of here now!"

C turned to me, irritation etched into his face. "You are not in command of me, and this is a delicate situation."

"Get out now," I repeated. "Or I will encourage everyone in this room to turn into a wolf and rip you and your friend to pieces. There's two of you and at least two scores of us."

I held his gaze, praying that he didn't call my bluff and find out none of us were capable of turning outside a full moon.

The Pirate King regarded me for a long, hard second.

Then he said to Ronan. "Help me with Lorcan."

"What's going on?" Priscilla asked, climbing to her feet. "Oh my wolf, is that Amanda? Why is she naked? Why does she smell like that?"

I pulled off my sweater, which turned out to have a shirt underneath it — a Sasha x Kasha concert tee, of all things. I briefly wondered exactly who had redressed me while I'd been passed out.

But whatever, that mystery was far down the list of questions roiling in my mind as I pulled my sweater over Amanda's head and grabbed a blanket from the back of the chair C had been sitting on when I woke up… wherever we were.

It looked like we were in a cave of some kind, but with a straight up and down granite back wall with stairs and four landings worth of doors on each level.

The entire first floor was a front room with five couches, several armchairs, and not one but two fireplaces, and a dining area with five long, communal tables.

The place would almost look like a cozy cavern commune if not for the huge slab of glass domed over the entire space. And all the male wolves standing on the other side of us, all but mouth-breathing on the glass. Seriously, where in the world were we?

Another question I'd have to figure out later.

For now, I wrapped the blanket around Amanda like I was preparing one of the waakye burritos I made to my Ghanaian father's delight on the rare occasions my mom hadn't been able to get home in time to cook supper.

Supper … that life back in Canada seemed like a million years ago now, and I needed to stay grounded in the present.

"One of those doors must lead to a bedroom." I nodded toward the stairs leading up to the first landing. "Run up ahead of me and figure out which one. Amanda is sick and needs to lie down."

Priscilla gave the air another suspicious sniff but nodded and hitched the skirt of her blue dress to run up the steps.

Meanwhile, I bent down and threw Amanda over my shoulder like she was a large portion of beef I had to haul out to the ice house. But Amanda was way heavier than a piece of cow.

I grunted under her weight. I could ask the other she-wolves to help me. But I knew there was no way Amanda would want the other W?lfennites to smell the two new males on her, and the blanket could only do so much work to mask their claiming scent.

Besides, the difficulty of carrying her up a set of stairs gave me something to focus on as I blinked the tears of frustration from my eyes.

We'd been taken from Scotland. Sadie had been given to some rando giants. And now this.

Welcome to the world of the Irish Wolves.

The Irish Wolves had surprised me a third time, but never again. I would protect Amanda like I failed to protect Sadie. I would protect all of these she-wolves from our Irish captors.

I'd fight them, yes, I would. And I wouldn't stop until I got us all out of this nightmare of a world we'd woken up in.