12. Dublin

Dublin

From: Lars Ulvsson, Assistant to The Norway King

To: The Dublin King

Subject: Mate Exchange

After much consideration, The Norway King has decided he cannot accommodate your request. According to our geneticist, because our ancestors seeded much of your colony in the British Isles, the chances of a minor-scale program working less than a generation after our own necessary exchange program with the North American Lupine Association are not optimum.

Have you considered contacting the North American Lupine Association about an exchange as we did?

Wishing you luck in your endeavors ,

Lars

As I read the message from the Norwegian King's assistant in the elevator on my way up to the corporate offices of Norwolf Stout, I couldn't help but roll my eyes. I hovered my thumb over the reply button, sorely tempted to type back: Didn't think to inquire with the world's largest and most diverse wolf population first. With me being an eejit and all that, I decided to start with you because you're so special.

But, in the end, I pushed the phone's side button to darken the screen. Irish sarcasm didn't always translate, especially over highly encrypted emails.

Also, I hadn't drunk my first cup of coffee yet. When I was feeling less churlish, I'd probably be able to admit that I was just jealous. Norway had special ties to a few of the most powerful wolf families in North America, thanks to some business with their fating gates that I still didn't quite understand.

Anyhow, Norway's Bridal Exchange requests had probably gone to the top of their list. Meanwhile, I'd gotten a form reply warning that it would be a while to hear back from them due to the high volume of requests for diplomatic mate exchanges. Four long months later, some algorithm had written back to tell me that, unfortunately, the North American exchange programs were so backlogged that they were freezing them altogether due to alack of interest from their state kingdoms.

Same went for the much more robust Eastern European and Asian Programs.

As a werefolk often (only partially) joked, wolves didn't like to travel. And popular as we were with the humans, our kind especially had no interest in settling forever in smaller countries with endangered wolf populations like mine.

Norway hadn't been my Plan A. They were my Plan C, and I had no idea what I'd do if none of the countries I'd contacted agreed to an exchange.

I silently cursed and slipped the phone back into the inside pocket of my blazer just as the elevator doors opened on the top floor of Norwolf Stout's headquarters.

As usual, my assistant, Lambert, awaited my arrival with my coffee already in hand. Hellos from my subjects/employees in the cubicle farm rose all around us as we made our way through the offices above our world-famous brewery.

"Hiya, Dublin!"

"Hello there, Dublin! Hope you're well then."

"Morning, Dublin!"

Meanwhile, Lambert immediately launched into his usual morning rundown.

"We've got a busy day ahead of us. All the tours are booked out for the entire week, and the lads on the main floor want to have another talk about over-capacity before we open the calendar for the summer. Also, we might need to have a chat with Scrubber Steve about standards and practices. He didn't fill out the weekend check-off list again, and the canteen was a right mess when I went in to make your morning coffee. Other than that, this afternoon, you have meetings with…"

I mostly zoned out while Lambert rattled off the usual crowd of bigwigs who refused to accept an email in lieu of a face-to-face meeting: distributors, retail chain bosses, and those glossy marketing execs who just had to spin your ear as they walked you through their new packaging ideas.

"They've already worked out an exchange with a Canadian pack with a surplus of she-wolves."

The Sea King's words echoed through my mind. But then my father's voice reminded me, "We are not like those backwards savages. City Wolf kings do not share."

Yes, even with our prospects of finding a sustainable population of compatible she-wolves being so dim, I'd been right to nip that criminal scheme of theirs in the bud.

Hadn't I?

"Also, have you given any more thought to the special request I made last week?" Lambert's inquiry pulled me away from the question that refused to cease cycling through my mind since I walked away from that stone circle.

Jayzus, not this again . I stopped walking just before we reached my corner office door and lowered my voice to inform him. "We're not going to cancel the Heat Laws just so you can get married, Lambert."

"How about a special dispensation then?" A desperate note crept into my assistant's voice. "We could call it an experiment. Like when the brewers tried out that new fermentation process on the hops."

I arched an eyebrow at him. "And how'd that turn out for us?"

"Alright, the general public didn't exactly appreciate it."

"Rancid Ruin, I believe the Dublin Times Food Editor called it. Millions of euros wasted on R & D just to go back to our tried and faithful stout formula."

"Alright, alright, that was probably not the best point of comparison, I'll give you that." Lambert huffed. "But Rhonda sincerely believes that our marrying will make her go into heat."

This time, I couldn't stop myself from rolling my eyes. "Did you tell Rhonda that's not how it works? "

"Well, that's the thing, isn't it?" Lambert shook his head. "None of us know how it works. Do you even?"

I answered that question with a withering look.

And Lambert winced. "I'm sorry! I shouldn't have ever said that to you, of all people. Of course, you know more about these things than Rhonda."

A wee pang of guilt niggled in my belly. Ah, sure, I was the Dublin King, but did I truly know much more than him about how wolf babies were made? Like Lambert and his mot, Rhonda, I'd been born an only child here in Dublin before the Heat Laws went into effect, so I'd never actually seen anyone go into heat.

That was the trouble with living scattered throughout a city filled with humans, wasn't it? We Dublin wolf walkers had to keep our true natures hidden, so the only close community we enjoyed was at all-wolf workplaces like the company my several greats ago grandfather established back in the 18th century.

Beyond that, we didn't live close enough to one another to see the intimate details of each other's lives. In my experience, all heats had been office canteen stories. As in, "Did ya hear about Sean? Missed work 'cause his mot went into heat. Maybe we should sort out a card and some cakes for when he gets back from his two weeks off, eh."

Though, as of late, no one had filed for the two weeks of heat moon leave that we gave our employees in addition to the floating three days they got off for every full moon. After years of mostly male births that I could count on one hand with fingers left over, last year, we'd had our first zero-birth twelve-month cycle across all kingdoms.

Dire times, indeed, with no relief coming from any of the countries I'd contacted .

"The thing is, if I don't marry her, I reckon Rhonda's going to leave me," Lambert said, pulling my attention back to him. And the no he was refusing to take.

"As she should've done ages ago," I pointed out. Maybe a bit too harshly. Truth be told, Lambert had picked the wrong bleeding morning to pursue this with me, what with me getting broken up with myself this weekend — just before receiving that hope killer of an email from Norway at the top of the day.

I hit him with a bespoke version of the break-up spiel Tess, the British she-wolf I'd been seeing up until that past Friday, gave me — minus all the stuff about me having zero emotional availability.

"Four years together and not a whiff of a heat to show for it? You're clearly not a genetic match. Best for the both of you to cut your losses and try with somebody else."

"Easy for her, but what am I to do, then?" Lambert whined."Join all the other lonely knobs hoping to catch the eye of the few she-wolves available to us here in Dublin? Go west and double up like the Sea and Wild Wolves? See if that increases my odds?"

"Not that any of them would have you as a second!" one of the lads in Accounts called out.

Like many of his fellow office workers, with their heads poked above their cubicle walls like meerkats, he made no attempt at all to act as if he wasn't using his superior wolf ears to eavesdrop on my and Lambert's conversation. "Can't farm, engineer, or boat, and you wouldn't last a week of West Coast winter in the elements. Who would agree to go in on a mate with some skinny malink City Wolf whose number one skill is slipping discs into the Tassimocoffee machine anyway?"

As the rest of the office laughed, the memory of Wild's sneer, talking about how soft we Dublin wolves were, floated through my mind. I could barely imagine being a second to him or Sea, much less a third as was supposedly prophesized on those stone tablets the Wild Wolves carried about like the Ten Commandments.

I'd been right not to entertain the idea of a Second Reaping, and I informed Lambert, "There will be no revocation of the Heat Laws. It's a pity your relationship won't work out, but I'm not calling a meeting of the three kings so that you can hang on to it."

"That's because you're a hard-hearted wolf who doesn't understand the meaning of connection!" To my surprise, tears rose in Lambert's eyes. "What kind of king doesn't care about his subject's suffering?"

No more snickering. The entire floor of mostly unmated male wolves went deathly silent. As if they wished to hear the answer to those questions themselves.

Did any of them have a clue? Did anyone understand how much this weighed on me? The state of my pack was a constant worry, keeping me awake at night. Literally. I couldn't remember the last time I had a full six hours of sleep since I made the call on that Second Reaping. None of them, not even Lambert, staring me down for his answer, knew what it meant to lead a dying pack.

And they never would. I wasn't as emotionally distant as Tess accused me of being yesterday, but I wasn't about to let my subjects see how truly worried I was about our future.

I kept my expression cool as I told my assistant, "You're upset. Take the rest of the day off and gather yourself."

Lambert's face twisted into a stubborn scowl. "But I'm not done —"

I placed a firm hand on his shoulder before he could finish his protest. "Take the rest of the day off, or you'll find yourself without a job."

That threat finally got through to him.

"Sorry." Lambert lowered his head. Glanced toward all the openly staring office workers. "Yeah, yeah. I'll take the day. Tell Rhonda one of us will have to move out."

He left then. Exactly as I wanted. But not as I wanted.

Only bonded mates could read each other's thoughts, but I swear I could hear the resentment brewing in the heads of the other office males who hadn't been sent home for speaking their minds.

Less than five minutes into the official work day, and it'd already turned to shite. Plus, my office was a right tip. I could smell that Scrubber Steve, as we called our dedicated office cleaner, had been in here recently. But my waste bin was still full, and my desk was covered in the crumbs from the biscuit I'd eaten before meeting up with Tess Friday night for what was supposed to be a concert date before dinner and a rideshare back to her flat in Ballsbridge.

Also, the office had an overpowering, outdoorsy smell on top of Scrubber Steve's. Like woods and open fires. Was Scrubber Steve using a new cleaning product in here, I wondered as I closed the door behind me.

If so, I'd have to assign someone other than Lambert the task of talking to him about going back to the old stuff, or at least something that didn't smell so…

My thoughts trailed off on strong when I saw Scrubber Steve's crumpled form behind the door I just closed… and the large, male wolf with shaggy red hair and a thick beard to match who stood above him.

I realized in an instant that this fellow, not some overly scented cleaning product, was the source of the aggressive outdoorsy scent. Dressed in a full-on argyle kilt and a black tee that stretched across his broad chest, he looked like the Scottish version of the fellow on the front of my favorite Viking Shifters video game.

I might have even commented on the uncanny resemblance.

If not for the massive knife tucked into his large fist.

I glanced back down at Scrubber Steve. Had he … ?

"Dunnae worry, he's passed out, is all," the Scottish intruder assured me. "But you…"

He pointed the knife at me. "I fully plan to slit your throat if you dunnae give me the answers I need."