14. Sea

Sea

"I'm telling ye, we should've gone in ourselves!"

Wild wasn't currently imprisoned inside the Kept Brides Habitat. In fact, we waited for Astrid and her mate Frey beyond the point where anyone inside the domed space could see us, behind the tape I'd laid down when I forbade the other males from gawking at our "guests."

Yet, the Wild King paced back and forth like an impatient predator in captivity waiting for his meal. "How does this look, then? Sending in a princess to do a king's job? Also, what happened to sticking to the plan, True King?"

My wolf growled inside me in full agreement.

According to the plan I'd laid out to Sea and Wild Wolves, this was supposed to be the day we all rocked up to the habitat, like suitors of auld with a gallant offer to show them around the secret kingdom.

It had worked before — alright, nearly 500 years before, sure. But the point was that a couple of weeks of courting with good food, magical scenery, and absolutely nothing else to do outside of enjoying our unmated male's company still felt like a winning formula.

We were meant to show them that we were more than the bride-thirsty wolves who'd shown up in the middle of a wedding reception to steal them away.

Instead, I'd been forced to make a new plan when our Mairinua came to the unexpected physical defense of the she-wolf meant for Lorcan and Ronan.

In truth, the last thirty-six hours had been excruciating, even though my castle sat far beyond where the heat smell could reach.

My wolf had stayed quiet while in our mate's vicinity. But as soon as we were out of it, he pitched a fit, demanding I return to her. Touch her. Smell her. Claim her into submission.

The memory of standing behind her with my hands around her shoulders had been assaulting me ever since we parted. And though I had technically "calmed down," the physical pain of being so hard it hurt continued to linger.

Still, I managed to maintain a stoic expression as I answered the Wild King. "This new tactic is the best way to help her learn."

"Learn what?" Wild spat out the two words like bullets from a gun. "How to command us? Is she the True Queen, then? And ye and I the dogs she can order around?"

"Wild, you are being dramatic —"

"Ruff! Ruff!" Wild cut me off with his approximation of a bark. "Shall we pant and beg until our owner allows us back inside the prison we put her in?"

Alright, then, it is a truth foresworn through blooded and bound handshake by the mates of Mairi that Sea is the True King. That means that by right, mine was the Last Word in any and all disagreements between Ireland's rulers.

But the electric glow of Wild's eyes made me suspect he was even closer to the edge than I was. Unlike myself, he was used to living in peace with the beast inside him. Going against his animal instinct to stay away as I'd commanded — well, that was probably a lifetime first. Furthermore, I was used to living in the secret kingdom twenty-four seven, but this was likely the longest the Wild King had been without access to the great outdoors since the original Cursed King was forced to give up his residence rights. Was it any wonder he paced back and forth like something caged?

I gave explaining my logic another go. "She's banned us from the habitat, Wild —"

"Which she's not bloody allowed to do!" Wild snarled. "We are her kings ! The ones prophesied to claim her."

My wolf thrashed inside of me in full agreement.

"You're right. She's not technically allowed to defy us," I conceded to both Wild and my inner beast, tilting my head to the side. "But she threw herself over that Amanda she-wolf like some science fiction force field. I suspect she knew she'd be protected. And she was right. Then she threatened to convince all of the Brides to wolf-out if we didn't leave. If that was the plan she came up with in only a few minutes, how do you think a clever mastermind like her will respond if we barge in there against her wishes because we're ‘her kings'?"

I air-quoted our possessive titles as the memories of her defiant words crashed through my mind, like waves that capsize boats.

"I don't know what kind of plan you had for me with wolf mating off the table, but I will never call you my kings. And I will never, ever forgive you for this! "

"Prison invasions aren't exactly conducive to wooing, are they?" I pointed out to Wild. "And we're already in the toilet as far as her opinion of us goes."

Wild stopped pacing to declare, "We shouldn't let her use our claim rules against us. Makes us look like bloody fools."

It amused me that he kept using words like "let" and "allow," as if he couldn't clearly see the power she already wielded over us.

"I could lift the ban on unmated male wolves touching or talking to her," I suggested, ignoring the snapping protest of my own wolf to make my point. "Is that what you want?"

"No!" Wild rolled the word with a deep growl, balling his hands into fists. But then, he released them, and his shoulders sank. "Lorcan and Ronan — you should see the state of them."

Wild ran a hand over his weary face. "They can't eat. Can't sleep. Forget dark circles. They've got caves under their eyes."

I laid a hand on his shoulder to address him king-to-king. "I understand it cannot be easy to watch one of your males suffer like this. Much less two."

"Good, you understand." Wild knocked my hand off his shoulder and wiped the vulnerable expression from his face with a snarl. "Then let's stop mickeying around out here and go in there like Irish fucking wolves. We'll hold our Flower back while Lorcan and Ronan fish their mate out of there and take her to the Wild camp for their rightful claim."

"Then what?" I raised my eyebrow. "Do we tie her up to tell her our plan to let our males come to the habitat to court the Reaped she-wolves over suppers? Then, when she says no to that because she's truly come to hate our guts, will we send our males in anyway? Take turns sitting on top of her every time she tries to stop one of them from being claimed? "

Wild scoffed. "You sound like Dublin."

Dublin who'd been right about a Reaping not being so easy in these modern times.

And what if Wild was right about nothing working with her but a full invasion of forced proximity, so that their wolves would send them into heat, even if their humans despised us?

Doubt about both my Plan A and Plan B began to creep in. What if everything I did only made her hate me more? Shy schoolboy phases were just that — a phase. How long would the beast stay down if she kept rejecting us?

My wolf thrashed around inside me as if to answer: Not long .

Outwardly, though, I held my ground with Wild. "I might sound like Dublin, but you sound like an amadán who can't think long-term."

"Long term? Who's the amadán now?" He shook his head at me. "What the fuck does long-term matter to the Cursed King?"

I winced. Alright, poor choice of words. Still, I had to press my point. "Surely, you can see why we've no choice but to let her learn for herself what a true heat looks like. It's the only way to secure her cooperation. Then we can talk about returning to the original plan of giving the W?lfennites a proper wooing."

Wild didn't argue. But he cut his barely glowing gaze toward the Eastern Hills, behind which the unmated Wild Wolves had set up their camp. He was still fretting over Lorcan's and Ronan's demise. I wouldn't ask, but I could imagine what he'd had to do to keep them away.

"Understand, Amanda's the one in heat," I told him. "Which means her suffering is ten times more wretched than anything Lorcan and Ronan are going through now. Trust me when I tell you this plan will work, and their ordeal will end soon."

"And what if it doesn't?" Wild's glowing eyes dimmed, his wolf receding a bit. "What if she hates us forever? Like she vowed?"

His questions sank into my chest like a dagger from the baldric I'd stored away, so as to seem less kidnappy and violent.

So those words were still echoing through Wild's mind, too.

I opened my mouth to offer him reassurance I didn't necessarily feel myself, but the whisper of the glass habitat door sliding open lifted both our heads.

"Neither of you melters thought to tell our new banríon about your favorite sibling?" Astrid demanded.

First things first, as if she hadn't been sent into the Kept Brides Habitat on an important mission.

Wild growled low in his throat.

And I rolled my eyes before answering, "Apologies, Astrid. Didn't occur to us while we were kidnapping enough she-wolves to jumpstart our population numbers from a clan of hostile Scots to tell the banrión who's already decided she despises us about our messy family tree."

"Yeah, she did go on for paragraphs and paragraphs about how much she hated you." Astrid grimaced. "Which sort of sucks for the two of you, doesn't it, considering you're supposed to be…"

"Astrid…" Wild said with another warning growl.

I'll admit I had some trouble keeping my voice unexasperated as I commanded, "Give us your report, then."

"Well, first of all, she might hate you, but she loves me!"

Astrid was a Trinity scholar with an advanced degree in medicine. But she stuck her tongue out at Wild and me, proving herself the annoying little sister she truly was underneath all that prestige — before adding, "Second of all, you basically sent me into a lesbian porno."

Both Wild and I stilled.

"Are you attempting to tell us that our banrión …?" Wild began to growl.

"No, you jealous eejits. Not her. Some other nameless blue dresser was gobbling on Amanda's muff, and your banrión was having a right time sorting them out when I cruised in with my needle. She was upset, but I do believe it's unlocked a new role-play scenario for Frey and me."

"Fuckin' hell," Wild cursed, covering his ears with both hands. "Sea, have you any acid lying around your castle? That might be the only thing to scrub that picture out of my mind's eye."

This time, I couldn't accuse Wild of being dramatic.

"Please stop making me reconsider my decision to lift the ban on gay mateships," I begged Astrid. "Do you have any idea how hard that was to get passed, considering the state of our population?"

"Oh, I feel so terrible for putting you in that position. I mean, it's not as if you're the absolute monarch of Ireland or anything like that." Astrid rolled her eyes without even a speck of gratitude. "It must have been sooo hard to use your dictator-level of power to catch the Irish Wolves up to the current century."

I glowered at her for an annoyed second before asking, "Is she going to let Lorcan and Ronan have their mate?"

"Oh, yeah, that." Astrid's snarky expression morphed into a grimace. "Well, brothers of mine, I've got good news, and I've got bad news. Which would you like to hear first?"