42. Dublin

Dublin

It had felt like an act of rebellion, buying that gaming chair for the office I set up at the Belfast house.

A small, silent victory after years of sitting in my father's old leather executive chair back in my Norwolf office. I hadn't kept it out of affection but because I knew the old Dublin King would throw a right fit if I ever replaced it. He still grumbled about me switching the C-suite to business casual when I took over as CEO. Imagine the row if he popped by and found his prized chair was gone.

So, I stopped short when I walked into my office that morning and saw my father sitting in the gaming chair I'd had delivered from Galway at great expense.

"Dad?" I asked, coming a little further into the room to stand in front of the desk I'd sanded and stained myself after watching a tutorial. "What are you doing here?"

Despite the vintage brown Savile Row suit tailored to his trim frame, Dad somehow looked perfectly at home in the faux leather, modern chair. His hands were even steepled over an ashtray, where one of his favored Spanish cigars burned, thin tendrils of smoke curling into the air.

The cigar smell hit my nose harder than it should have. Something about it set my nerves alight, though I couldn't quite figure out why.

"What did I warn you when I retired early?" My father's voice cut through the haze of smoke and unease

Confusion and alarm tangled in my brain, but I managed to say, "That we're not like…"

"We are not like those Sea and Wild Wolves," he interrupted, his tone sharp. "Not like the ones who treat prophecy like gospel and tie themselves to superstition. You know better than that. We don't share wives. We don't follow stones or tales from centuries ago. We're Noble wolves. One mate. One family. That's the way it's always been, save for one ill-advised time in the 1500s."

Shame twisted deep in my gut. This wasn't the first time we'd had this conversation. More like the hundredth.

His reminders had started up when I was still a boy, right after Sea's father predicted we'd be the ones to fulfill the prophecy. And they'd become increasingly more stringent as my father aged.

"That Mairi business is a black mark on our family," he told me yet again. "Not something to be celebrated. Or revisited."

"I understand," I said, my voice low. "I'm not meant to share a wife with the other kings. I know that."

"You understand, do you?" He arched both copper eyebrows. "Then why haven't you mated?"

"The Heat Laws…" I began.

"The Heat Laws," he scoffed, waving away the excuse.

"That American princess is exactly the kind of mate I'd deem fit to continue the Normanwolf line," Dad suddenly pointed out. "Why didn't you bring her to Ireland straightaway?"

"Because…" I floundered, searching for a reply to the same question I'd been asking myself — and still hadn't answered.

"Because you've let those savage wolves and their nonsense get in your head," he spat, leaning forward over the cloud of odd-smelling cigar smoke. "That ridiculous prophecy! You truly think you're fated to be bound to that she-wolf? To share her with two other kings?"

"No!" I denied, squeezing my eyes shut as memories of "that she-wolf" thundered through my skull on a drumbeat of headache.

The smell of her…

Unexpectedly finding the most beautiful female — human or wolf — I'd ever seen in a hole in the mountain wall…

The way she'd made me feel over breakfast. Like we'd known each other forever…

Telling her my name. My real name…

"What were you thinking?" my father's voice cut through the fog. "Only your claimed mate is to know your true name."

"I don't know," I whispered, the words barely a defense. The air thickened around me, the cigar smoke clawing at my throat as emotions I didn't want to feel churned in my chest.

Her telling me she was one of the W?lfennites…

One who'd been taken…

Me promising I'd help her escape, help her flee the wolves who'd stolen her and get back to the life she'd planned…

Even as my heart sank with the knowledge that I couldn't ethically lay claim to her…

Right before she went into heat…

"I didn't claim her," I managed, my voice hoarse, as I opened my eyes to meet my father's cold stare. "I locked myself away. I told her to leave, to go to the human town, to get sedated until her people could take her home."

"And then what?" His lip curled into a sneer. "That's your grand plan? To hide from her?"

"Yes," I bit out, the pain in my head throbbing harder, the smoke thickening. "That's my plan."

"Then why are you still here?" His words twisted like a blade in my gut. "And why, for the love of God, are you bollocks naked?"

"What…?"

I looked down —

And woke with a start. My head was pounding, and I was moving — being dragged by some force I couldn't see, couldn't stop. Panic shot through me until my nose caught the scent in the air.

Heat.

Her heat.

And it all came rushing back to me.

My heart wrenching in my chest as I did my best to ignore the moans coming from the primary bedroom.

I knew.

As soon as I exited the toilet I'd locked myself up in, I knew I had to escape the heat-filled house. But I'd left my work laptop in the office upstairs without backing it up to the office servers.

I thought I could slip and out — that the hardest part would be trying to ignore the sounds coming from the room next door. The squeaking of the four-post bed I'd restored and the bangs of its headboard against the wall as Wild claimed Naomi. Hard.

"Where ye going, City King?"

Wild — that feral fucker had appeared out of nowhere just as I was about to leave. Naked and reeking of what he'd done with Naomi.

My heart screamed at the sight of him, and the laptop fell out of my hands as my wolf charged him without warning.

The last thing I remembered was Wild grabbing the standing lamp I'd unboxed but hadn't plugged in and swinging it…

He must have knocked me out cold. That would explain my pounding head. I tried to lift my hand to rub at it, but I couldn't move my arms.

Or my legs! What the hell?

"Brought you a present," Wild's voice announced above me.

A spinning sensation.

Then Sea's voice demanding, "Wild, what have you done?"

I blinked and raised my throbbing head. The world was a blur.

Suddenly, it wasn't. I instantly regretted not leaving my work laptop behind. Sure, I hadn't uploaded the past week's work to the office servers, but losing days of progress would've been better than witnessing this scene before me — one I'd never be able to unsee, not in a thousand lifetimes.

Naomi kneeling on the bed in front of Sea with her hands cupped around his face. Her sex glistening with heat. Sea with one hand curled around her wrist. They looked exactly like what they were. Two werewolves on the verge of consummating her heat.

"Caught him attempting to pull a runner," Wild explained in the same casual tone one would use to talk about inclement weather. "Thought I'd invite him to reconsider."

"You can't…" Naomi glanced at me and then up to Wild standing behind me, her face stricken with horror. "You can't do that! You can't make him — ughhh!!!"

Naomi suddenly doubled over, letting out a pained cry as the scent of her heat intensified.

"Flower!" Wild appeared on the other side of the bed in the blink of an eye. "Ye're in need. Let's get ye sorted, first of all."

He rubbed her back but threw me a scathing look. "Dublin's not even worth talking about."

If Naomi wanted to argue in my defense, she no longer had the strength for it.

She moaned, then panted. "Need… need…"

"I know exactly what ye need, love," Wild crooned, pulling her back to her knees.

He somehow positioned her limp body so that she was braced against his back but facing me, her slender body, naked, dripping, and glorious.

"But —" Wild spoke in her ear while looking straight at me. "Let's also make sure we give the wolf refusing to mate ye a show."