3. Naomi

Naomi

"Hello?"

Sure I'd heard something, I stepped further onto the gravel outside the front door of Iain Scotswolf's cottage, searching the woods on the other side of his circular driveway. "Who's there?"

Someone was watching. I could feel their eyes on me.

My normally dormant wolf crouched inside me at full alert as I sniffed, trying to catch a scent. But I could only pick up what must have been an entire burrow filled with rabbits.

"Who's there?" I demanded again. This time, though, I inserted a hard note into my voice to sound a little braver than I actually felt in a foreign land with some unknown set of eyes crawling over my skin like spiders. "Show yourself!"

"Hiya, it's just us!"

I jumped when a voice sounded not from the woods but directly behind me.

I turned to find two Scottish male wolves shuffling around the side of Iain's house. One sported shaggy blond hair and wore a sheepish expression. The other stood slightly taller and held up his hands with an ingratiating smile.

"Didn't mean to scare you there, lass," he said. His chin-length brown hair gleamed underneath the setting sun like it was auditioning for a shampoo commercial.

"Then why are you…?" I stopped and quickly shoved the phone — which a good W?lfennite female most definitely shouldn't have in her possession — back into the large pocket of my modest dress before finishing my question. "Then why are you skulking around, watching me like some kind of creepers?"

They exchanged glances like two boys silently agreeing on their cover story after they knocked a baseball through someone's window.

"Saw you walking over this way earlier while we were watching that bat and ball game you W?lfennite lassies enjoy playing so much," the shaggy blond answered. "Not you, though. Never see you playing."

I controlled the impulse to roll my eyes.

I loved a good pick-up game of baseball as much as anyone who'd been raised with one sport — and one sport only — as their sole option for physical gameplay. But ever since we'd arrived at this place the Scottish Wolves called their "kingdom village" for the Bridal Exchange program, our fun matches had become more like scouting pageants.

The hopeful Scottish grooms had made a habit of gathering at the fence around the diamond the kingdom built for us as a welcome gift, gawking and loudly ranking us to the point that I'd noped out of playing any more games .

Unlike the other W?lfennites, I refused to let mating a devout-enough male be themain point of my life. My plans were bigger than the Bridal Exchange, and the last thing I wanted was to actually enter into any kind of relationship with the would-be Scottish grooms. Which was why my tone came out one-hundred percent skeptical and zero percent pleased when I asked the two Scots standing in front of me, "And how exactly does that connect to you following me over here?"

The walking shampoo ad stepped forward with a slight bow of his gleaming head. "We were waiting for you to come out so we could escort you to the church."

I stared at them blankly.

"For your sister's wedding?" the shaggy blond reminded me.

Oh …

That's when I noticed they were both freshly shaven and wearing wool tweed vests and jackets over the kilts the Scottish male wolves preferred exclusively to pants.

"Did you not hear the gathering bells ringing, then?"

A bit of shame poked into my balloon of annoyance. "No, I didn't."

I'd spent all morning constructing a sternly worded email to the Registrar's office at the Ontario Institute of Technology after getting a schedule filled with basic science and math 101 courses for my first in-person semester in January. They didn't seem to care that I'd already taught myself Calculus, Linear Algebra, Physics, and Chemistry in secret, using old textbooks and the laptop Barbara, the woman who owned the bookstore next door to my parents' furniture shop, had gifted me for my sixteenth birthday — even though us W?lfennites technically weren't supposed to celebrate birthdays with outsiders offering us forbidden technology.

I'd taken that gift, though, and spent the next six years, using it to secretly give myself the kind of education that was denied to me after my W?lfennite education was "finished" at the age of fourteen. However, the folks at OIT didn't care about my equivalency diploma or the hours I'd spent in the dead of night taking free online courses, or the fact that I'd already passed the AP Calculus and Physics exams that should have placed me in higher-level courses.

I'd been so busy arguing my case that I hadn't registered the loud clanging of the church bells for my sister's wedding.

"What were you doing in Iain's cottage, then?" Shampoo Ad asked. "Having a gawk at all that tech he's got in there? Must've been like looking at an alien spaceship for one of you W?lfennite lassies. Probably had no idea what any of that stuff was."

"Um…" Instead of admitting I knew every gadget in Iain Scotswolf's basic smart house, I asked, "Why did you want to walk me to the church?"

"Because we're interested in courting you," the shorter one answered, his expression becoming confused. "I know you didn't post anything for the letter-writing part of the exchange, but isn't that why all of you came here?"

"Hmm." I made a noncommittal sound since my sister, Tara, had already warned me against telling everyone the truth. I'd only signed up for the W?lfennite exchange program as a free ticket to her wedding.

W?lfennite she-wolves didn't have much money to their name in the first place. Every penny I'd managed to secure, working odd jobs at the bookstore next door, had gone to furthering my education to achieve my dream of attending university in the human world.

I'd loved the idea of going someplace to lay low until the start of the winter semester — just in case Leader Daniel got any ideas about wolf-mating me before I could escape St. Ailbe. Also, there was the wedding of the middle sister I hadn't seen in years before she popped up out of the blue at our village offering a Bridal Exchange. But no way would I have been able to afford a ticket to Scotland if I hadn't signed up for a program I had absolutely no interest in actually completing.

The awkwardness of the shorter one's question lingered in the air, but I wasn't about to launch into my real reasons for being here — ones that had nothing to do with finding a mate.

"So, you both want to court me?" I waggled a finger between the two Scots, turning the question back around on them. "Together?"

"No! No!"

If I'd been interested in seeing a Highlander turn beet red, I got my wish in stereo.

"Of course not the both of us," the shampoo ad blustered.

"We're not weird sexual deviants like them Irish Wolves," the shaggy blond insisted.

"The Irish Wolves?" I repeated, my pesky curiosity feature rearing its head. "Who are they, and why are they considered…?"

" The point is we're both after a chance to mate with you, lass," the shampoo ad interrupted before I could finish asking about the courting practices of these Irish Wolves. "You don't have to say who you want right now. But maybe you can give us an answer at the reception. "

"You want an answer from me at the reception," I repeated. "After having just met you two minutes ago."

The shaggy blond's face fell. "We've met! Twice already. I'm Gavin. This is my best mate, Malcolm. Remember? This is the third time we've introduced ourselves to you."

I could only wince back at the one called Gavin with no memory of ever having met him. I'd been so preoccupied with getting OIT to let me take more advanced classes that sneaking into the only places with WiFi in the kingdom village — Iain's house and the library at the castle — had taken priority over memorizing the names of any of the Scottish Wolves who kept shoving themselves in my face.

"Anyway, the point is you're the bonniest she-wolf in the lot Canada sent over, and we're the most handsome in the kingdom village." Malcolm pointed one thumb at himself and the other at his friend. "So, it's your choice. Pick me — or Gavin, I reckon, if you can stand him being a rocket on the subject of horses."

Malcolm spun a finger around his head, letting me know that "rocket" was most likely Scottish slang for a crazy person.

"If I weren't a proud member of the king's guard, I'd be even prouder to work at the stables in service of the most majestic creatures in the known universe!" Gavin declared, seeming not the least bit insulted by his best mate's derisive comments.

"So when you pick me , Gavin will keep on looking for a lass who doesnae mind him going on and on with that horse nonsense," Malcolm continued. "Though maybe you'll be wanting to point him in the direction of one of your mates. That way, we can all go on courting dates together."

"Not that odd-smelling giant who was walking beside you the last time we met, though." Gavin visibly recoiled. "We're courting — not running a charity business."

"Hold up." I raised a hand and jutted my chin. "I'll admit I'm not the best at understanding your Scottish brogue. But are you seriously trying to insult Sadie ? Sadie, the most beautiful and interesting she-wolf I know?"

"Beautiful she-wolf. Yeah, right!" Gavin and Malcolm let out loud, scoffing snorts.

Malcolm realized his error when I continued to glare at them. His eyes widened. "Oh, you're not having a go, then?"

I tensed my jaw and tilted my head. "No, I'm not having a go."

He winced. "Well, I suppose Gavin could take her out for a wee time if that'd make you happy."

"Why'd I do that?" Gavin asked Malcolm with a look so confused it would be comical if he were talking about someone other than my wonderful best friend.

"For me!" Malcolm threw him an irritated glance before extending both of his hands toward me. "If it will make you happy, Naomi, then have no worry. I'll force him to — hey, where are you going?"

I didn't bother to answer since, as I told Sadie about an hour later, "I've reached my upper limit of putting up with courting offers from guys who only want to mate me because my facial features are symmetrically aligned."

The wedding between my heavily pregnant sister and the King of Scotland was done, and we were walking to the castle underneath a sky full of stars and a waning gibbous moon as I explained to my best friend why I'd volunteered to babysit the Scottish Prince's daughter instead of attending the reception in the castle's throne/ballroom .

"It's not just your looks. You're also really smart," Sadie insisted as we entered through the castle entrance's flung-open doors.

"Yes, I am super smart," I agreed, wiping dirt off both shoulders, even though I knew it was a prideful gesture that Sadie couldn't possibly understand. Unlike me, she'd actually stuck to the strict no-tech rules of the St. Ailbe Ordnung all these years.

Not that her compliance had gotten her anywhere. My soft-hearted friend wanted nothing more than to marry. She'd risked everything and pretty much destroyed her relationship with her over-controlling mother to fly to Faoltiarn for the Bridal Exchange program. But here she was, facing down the same prejudices from the males in the Scottish kingdom village as she had from the ones back in our hometown of St. Ailbe.

Anyway, I told her, "My keen mind isn't why any of these Scottish dudes want to date me."

"Dudes!" Sadie raised a hand to her mouth to smother a little giggle. "I've never heard this word before, but it somehow sounds like the perfect way to describe them. Oh, Naomi, where do you come up with these turns of phrases?"

Speaking of people, I couldn't tell the full truth about my intentions. Sadie had no idea that I'd been secretly using forbidden technology to plot my escape from St. Ailbe for years now — or that I'd be leaving her here in Scotland before the new year.

Avoiding her admiring gaze, I made another noncommittal sound as we joined the group of W?lfennites waiting in the wide hallway outside the throne room.

The piercing rhythm of yet another bagpipe song spilled from the open doors, along with the sounds of feet stomping and hands clapping in unison. I tapped my booted foot a little but resisted the urge to bop along since I was still pretending to be a halfway decent W?lfennite and worldly activities like dancing were against St. Ailbe's Ordnung.

"What's going on? Why aren't we going inside?" Sadie asked Orpah, a hopeful W?lfennite Bride with an upturned nose and mousy brown hair.

Sadie towered over her, too, and I tried not to be jealous.

Sometimes, it felt like we'd been born into the wrong bodies for our personalities.

People always expected me to be way more demure than I was because of my slender frame and the way my dark father's and light mother's features had combined in almost perfectly balanced symmetry to create delicate features that did not at all match my straightforward personality.

Oh, how I would have loved to occupy Sadie's big, bodacious body with her radiant dark skin. I could only imagine how much less nonsense I'd have to put up with if I took up more space and stood taller than most other people I met. And, unlike those two fools from earlier, I adored the way she smelled. Like a fresh winter breeze flowing through a space of same old-same old.

Not that Sadie ever appreciated her good fortune. She kept her huge afro hidden in thin cornrowed braids underneath her bonnet, and even though she was nothing but lovely and gentle, she walked through the world like a female-shaped apology.

Even now, she hunched her shoulders down, making herself as small as possible as she waited for Orpah's answer.

"Tara and Magnus are performing some kind of wedding entrance dance called the Grand March," Orpah answered. "And Amanda says we must wait here until the Scottish Wolves finish their worldly activity."

"Because Amanda's the boss of all of us now that Leader Daniel isn't here to tell us what to do," I muttered.

Sadie threw me a warning look, and Orpah wrinkled her brow to ask, "What?"

"Nothing!" It wasn't Orpah's fault that Amanda had lodged herself into the power vacuum created when we left our faith-based and completely male-led community of St. Ailbe behind.

"Do you see Iain and Milly anywhere?" I asked Sadie. I hopped up on my tiptoes, wishing I, too, could see over most of the heads in the throne room's hallway. "They said they'd meet me out here with the baby so I wouldn't have to go to this stupid thing."

"You're not going to your own sister's wedding reception!"

I turned to find Amanda Smucker, the self-appointed spiritual guide for the Bridal Exchange program, staring down at me, like a yellow-haired, blue-eyed, modestly dressed Judgement Day angel.

Her voice vibrated with outrage as she asked, "Naomi Hamilton, did you truly come all this way without any intention of finding a suitable husband among the Scottish Wolves?"