30. Naomi

Naomi

Frey had remarked on my preference to hear the good news before the bad.

I supposed some people liked to hear the bad first and then use the good news as a balm to deal with it.

But in my experience, the good news was just something to get out of the way. The bad news was the actual situation you had to deal with in the end — the ‘y' you had to solve for ‘x.'

The good news was that after years of hard work, my secret plan to get into the school of my dreams, the Ontario Institute of Technology, had worked.

The bad news was that I had to wait until January to be able to join classes and take a bunch of intro courses I could do in my sleep.

The good news was that I'd gotten one of the two older sisters I'd never thought I'd see again back a year ago.

The bad news was that in order to attend her wedding, I had to sign up for an absurd Bridal Exchange and take a side trip to Scotland — where I and a bunch of my fellow unmated W?lfennites were subsequently kidnapped by the Irish Wolves.

The good news was that the Irish Kings had sworn to return any captured she-wolf who did not go into heat to Scotland so that we could proceed with our lives as originally planned by spring.

The bad news was that all the imprisoned, unheated she-wolves were having a dangerous amount of fun at Amanda's wedding reception. Including me.

You asked how I could love two strangers I only met a week ago. The answer is, how could I not?

What Amanda had suggested about us choosing the Irish Wolves who had kidnapped us over returning to Scotland had been crazy.

But her words seemed to drift through the nighttime wedding along with rollicking Irish music as woven plates of roasted meats, cheeses, and delicious bread rolls were passed around by the milling guests.

The W?lfennites did not dance, and unlike Amanda and the Scottish she-wolves, they refused to disobey that part of the Ordnung to do anything resembling gyrating to the lively music.

But that somehow didn't stop them from fully enjoying the festivities and all the attention they were getting from Irish Wolves in male and beast form. I spotted Orpah setting a plate of meat in front of the two wolves and Miriam having a lively conversation with a Sea Wolf who appeared delighted to be in her company. His side-shaven locks only reached his shoulders and he sported no tattoos. But he had the same rust-colored hair as Sea and a similarly long nose and wide mouth.

"Is that a relative of yours?" I asked Sea, since he still hadn't let go of my hand — just like Wild had refused to leave my side .

"My younger cousin, Thorin." Sea sounded pleasantly surprised that I made the connection. "He's the product of the trimate relationship my uncle moved on to after my mother died, but he oversaw my care when he became King Regent. Of course, he had his own family to attend to, but he made sure to visit me every day until I reached adulthood and could rule on my own."

A pang of sympathy pierced the heart I was trying to keep hard. I hated thinking about a young Sea living mostly alone in his castle, with only daily visits from an uncle who'd moved on to another relationship that didn't include his nephew. "Why didn't he bring his new family to live with you in the castle?"

"I had… a few issues… after my father's departure, especially during my teenage years." Sea looked at the ground. "It wouldn't have been a good idea to expose Thorin, who was still a young boy at the time to my struggles to adapt to my new role as a too young ruler."

"It's hard to imagine you ever having a hard time ruling," I told him. "You seem so at home in your role."

"You can put that down to all the extra years of practice," he answered with a careless grin. But I noticed his smile didn't quite reach his amber eyes.

"Sea…" I started to reach out to touch his arm with my free hand.

But then a sharp trill of laughter made me pull back my hand.

I looked over to find that Miriam had thrown back her head, laughing overly hard at something Thorin said.

Actually, this party was at peak glee, I noticed, glancing around. Laughter washed across the outdoor gathering like waves as the W?lfennites talked with, petted, and in some cases, scratched the Irish Wolves, behind the ears .

"Come," Sea said in that authoritative "I've been kinging forever" way of his. "We've a few people we'd like you to meet."

Wild led the way as Sea escorted me around the wedding, introducing me to various elders in Gaelic I couldn't understand.

Apparently, his and Wild's insane rule about males not being allowed to talk to me didn't count if they were already mated. One of the first things Lorcan and Ronan did after kissing their bride was run up to Sea, Wild, and me, place their fists upon their chests and make a somber declaration in unison — also in Gaelic.

Sea let me know it was the "lifelong vow that every warrior owed their banreen" before saying something back to them that I also didn't understand.

So, I had just enough information to feel like a big old fraud as older warrior after warrior made the same vow as soon as Sea introduced me to their triad.

To be clear, I tried telling them they didn't have to swear me any kind of fealty — especially since I'd be gone in the spring.

But I gave up protesting after the first three warriors pretended not to hear me say that.

Luckily, after the formal introductions, all the elders answered in English and appeared delighted to meet me.

Even when I responded to their friendly questions like "Howya farin' then?" and "What did you think of our secret kingdom?" with "About as well as anyone who was ruthlessly kidnapped and is currently being held captive" and "It's the prettiest, most insane prison I've ever laid eyes on."

In fact, my honest answers were often met with eruptions of laughter and odd compliments like, "Oh, you're pure clever, aren't you?" and to Sea and Wild, "The gods have truly blessed you with a banreen of worth."

Their responses were… well, not what I was used to.

The decision to speak my sharp-tongued mind had come at fifteen as a defense mechanism against getting mated with any of the misogynistic males in St. Ailbe.

And between the otherness of me being half-Black and what the elders often referred to as "my prickly temperament," my vocal defense system had worked.

But to hear the Irish Wolves' elders' responses to my sharp answers, you'd think I was the brightest, wittiest, most charming person they'd ever met.

And the feeling that gave me inside my chest wasn't… well, it wasn't exactly unpleasant.

After growing up in St. Ailbe, I wasn't used to such community acceptance.

Or males who didn't mind that I wasn't even remotely the subservient, docile mate that nearly every guy in St. Ailbe had been conditioned to want.

Wild happily loped along beside me, occasionally nudging my hand for another scratch behind his ears. And though Sea barely knew me, his voice rang with pride when he introduced me to his only family members outside of Astrid at the party who were actually allowed to converse with me: Darragh — the uncle who'd acted as his King Regent until he turned sixteen, his aunt-in-law, Aoife, and a short, wiry male named Finneas who Sea called his third-in-law.

A strange defensiveness lingered over the fact that they hadn't pulled Sea into their happy family unit. Still, it was nice to finally put faces to the names from Sea's long letters about his life before he decided to steal a bunch of innocent W?lfennites from Scotland.

"So then, the True King tells us you've a right keen mind and might have quite a few questions for me," said Finneas, after Uncle Darragh — who also served as Sea's warrior beta — was done with his whole fealty spiel.

"True King?" I asked.

Aoife chuckled. "You'll find after you're officially mated that all Irish royals have at minimum three titles. Our Sea can be addressed as the Sea King, the True King, and the Viking King — especially if we're doing up one of those pyre funerals."

"And those are just the official ones!" Darragh added with a laugh of his own. "I'm sure once you exchange your birth names, you'll also come up with pet ones of your own if ye haven't already."

I blinked, slightly startled. Was that why Wild kept calling me Flower ? Was it his pet name for me until he received my real one? An unexpected warmth filled my chest at the thought.

"Anyhow," Finneas said, bringing the conversation back around to his original point. "If you've any questions about the design of the secret kingdom — or want to have a go at using the god tech to create new annexed villages like the one I heard you lot had built back in Scotland, perhaps the Sea King can escort you over to my office in the castle for a chin wag."

"Wait." My heart sped up. "Are you trying to tell me you have access to the tech that made this place? And you can manipulate it to create other structures?"

The answer to that question turned out to be yes… sort of. Finneas and I spent the next few minutes in an exciting but frustrating conversation about his role in using the "god tech. "

Apparently, he was what the Irish Wolves called a Master Builder, a position that had been passed down in his family from generation to generation ever since the Sea Wolves took over the secret kingdom that had been left to the Wild Wolves after the "gods went to sleep."

That meant Finneas had what sounded like a SIMS level of creation power over the look of the secret kingdom and could actually program certain 3-D structures into its simulated reality — that was the good news.

The bad news was he didn't actually know how the god tech worked — like, at all.

When I pressed him too hard, he shrugged and said, "S'pose it's like asking a software lad what makes a computer tick. All I was taught, all I've ever known, is how to code the thing and make it work. The god tech is beyond my frame of reference. No wires or understandable hardware I can see. Just a glass console loaded with glowing words in the god language."

"The god language?" I thought of all the codes and symbols in the cave kitchen. "Is that the same as —"

"Enough of this tech speak, now. It is a wedding," Sea commanded. But then his gaze softened on me, and he said, "If you like, Mairinua, I can take you to the control room at the castle tomorrow."

Mairinua? Was that another pet name or one of the titles I would inherit if I were to actually agree to be his queen?

My heart fluttered with curiosity — along with something else I still refused to name as I answered, "I'd like that very much."

There were more guests to meet after that, including the Master Farmer, who managed the secret kingdom's vast fields, and the Master Shepherd, who offered to give me a walking tour of what he referred to as "donkey acres of pastures filled with sheep — a few donkeys, too, actually — but mostly sheep."

All this wedding nonsense must have really softened me up. Instead of giving him a sharp-tongued, "No effing thanks," I made a non-compliant sound and waited until he was gone to confess to Sea, "Seriously, after growing up in St. Ailbe, I'd be totally alright with never seeing a farm animal again."

Sea chuckled in response, and it felt weirdly intimate. Like we were some kind of real couple sharing a secret laugh. Even though we weren't. We most definitely weren't.

"It's getting late," I cleared my throat and chose that moment to point out, "And no one's gone into heat. I guess your group date plan was a bust."

"We'll see." Sea's mouth hitched up into a self-assured half smile. That was beginning to become familiar. Then, he unexpectedly let go of my hand. "Wait here for me while I go fetch us some cake."

Another command. But instead of feeling resentful after he left, I found myself staring off into the distance as I imagined what the control room for this secret kingdom might look like. Were there truly no wires? Then perhaps I'd find some solar panels. Seriously, it could be anything. Would I even be able to figure out what I was looking at?

Maybe I should ask Sea for something to take notes with before tomorrow's field trip — even paper would do. I mean, I hated writing by hand, but I did want to be a non-self-taught physicist someday. And what physicist, amateur or real, would pass up the chance to figure out how a sustained simulation with actual 3-D structures worked just because she didn't have access to a tablet when —

"I know what ye're thinking about," a rough voice said beside me out of the blue. "And I'm here to tell ye, it ain't going to work."

I didn't realize I was staring in the direction of the tower until I jerked my head around to see Wild, now in human form, glaring down at me.