9. Wild

Wild

"Sadie!"

Our Flower woke up still screaming the Tríbéirríthe potential's name.

So you can just imagine how well she reacted when she found me crouched over her like a fucking Gollum.

"Get away from me!" She scooted back on her hands and feet, putting space between us. Again.

Space that I closed in a crouched instant again .

"This business would go a lot easier if ye stopped asking for space I ain't capable of giving."

Her chest lifted with a harsh gasp.

"You're scaring her, Wild."

I swung my eyes over to the Sea King, who, after nearly wolfing out at the first sight of our banríon, was now somehow managing to sit unbothered several feet away in a chair he made look like a throne.

"Give her some room," he commanded.

Sea was The True King, so I had no choice but to back away a wee bit. Just enough to see the genuine fear in her gaze. As if I could ever hurt her.

Truth be told, I was beginning to resent her innocence. Not the bit where no one else touched her before her kings, but the bit where every male she'd encountered was either a too-eager mouth-panter like those Scots or completely defanged by the heavenly god my ancestors had rejected when St. Patrick came round . I'd known in an instant that she was our fated mate, no fating stone ritualsrequired. But she regarded me like an animal she was afraid would eat her alive as she climbed to her feet.

She looked down at herself, then all around before demanding, "What did you do?"

I rose to a stand, wondering which situation might be upsetting her the most.

Me clapping another hit of knock-out chemicals over her mouth back at the Tríbéirríthe's residence?

Waking up in the homey front room of our Kept She-Wolves Habitat?

The heavy knitted sweater and long skirt she was now wearing instead of that shapeless lookalike W?lfennite dress?

Or maybe it was the sight of her fellow reaped she-wolves passed out all around her on the stone floor.

"Where are we? Why am I in new clothes? What did you do to these she-wolves? Where is Sadie?"

Ah, so it was all three, then, with a bonus question attached.

Before either Sea or I could answer, the sound of someone's loud moan turned all of our heads.

On the other side of the habitat's large front room, a she-wolf with a lopsided bonnet and yellow hair rose into a seated position amongst all the unconscious females.

"What happened?" she asked, her voice cracking with confusion. "Where am I?"

Like our Flower, she looked all around. But her search stopped when she found Lorcan standing in front of the habitat's four-story-high observation windows with Ronan and the rest of the wolves who'd carried out the Second Reaping.

We'd been nearly twenty-four hours at this mission, transporting these she-wolves across land, sea, and air to arrive at the secret kingdom. But when given the option to let another group take their place until the she-wolves woke up, our warriors had done the same as Sea and me. Refused to leave.

These she-wolves — they were our treasure, weren't they? And like jealous dragons, a primal compulsion to stand guard over them burned inside us.

"Where am I?" the yellow-haired female asked Lorcan directly this time. "Why do I feel so weird?"

"Thought none of them was supposed to wake for another hour or so," one of the Sea Wolves muttered, throwing Lorcan a baleful look. Probably still sore that Lorcan had declared the yellow-haired one his under the old Wild laws.

That had been shortly after we'd loaded his future mate and the other unconscious she-wolves into the real lorry. The other two were dummy trucks driven by unwitting humans to a private airfield and the closest port to the Scottish kingdom village. A neat diversion to send the Scots on a wild goose chase, while the real truck headed to a southern port farther from the Highlands, yet much closer to Ireland. From there, we'd taken an unmarked cargo ship across the Irish Sea to Wicklow to drop off the potential with the Tríbéirríthe.

Then we sent the Tríbéirríthe's private plane on another dummy trip — this time to Ulfrford, an old Viking wolf village near Waterford, where the original Viking wolves who'd emigrated to Scotland had settled before the Wild Wolves handed over the residence to the secret kingdom. Meanwhile, we loaded the she-wolves into another lorry, and a few hours later, they were all installed in the secret kingdom's enclosed habitat.

Anyhow, the True King had declared that no one else could call dibs on their future mate after Lorcan used the chaos of the heist to claim his yellow-haired she-wolf — the yellow-haired she-wolf he was meant to have fully knocked out again.

I, too, glared at Lorcan. "Did you not give her the needle this time?"

We'd only chloroformed our Flower, so it was natural that she'd be awake a shorter time later, but I'd given Lorcan explicit instructions to inject his complaining female with something strong enough to keep her knocked out for hours as we transferred over fifty she-wolves to the secret kingdom. Of all ofthem, she should have been the last to wake.

"I promise you, I gave her the needle." Lorcan gritted his jaw and threw the yellow-haired she-wolf an apologetic glance.

"You lying toerag!" the disgruntled Sea Wolf said. "It's obvious you didn't, or else why would she be awake?"

"Where is Sadie? Why isn't she here!" Our Flower fired off more questions at us before Lorcan could answer the Sea Wolf calling him out.

She scanned the room, and her voice became even more panicked when she didn't find her friend's delivery box. "Tell me where you put Sadie right now!"

I exchanged a look with Sea, who stood up from his throne chair to let her know. "She's not here. Not anywhere near here, so it's no use looking for her."

"No use looking for her?" Our Flower reacted as if Sea had punched her straight in the face.

Her whole body jerked back, and her expression crumpled. "Oh no! Tell me you didn't…" She grabbed at the front of her new hand-knitted sweater. "Tell me you didn't leave my best friend alone with those three guys!"

Another exchanged look between Sea and myself let her know that was exactly what we did without either of us having to say so out loud.

"Why would you do that?" she practically shrieked. "We have to go get her. You have to go back and get her right now."

Look at her, already throwing around commands like a queen. Under different circumstances, I'd be plain delighted with her. But under these, I had to pull rank.

I held both hands up to let her know, "Aw, Flower, we cannot do that."

"Why not?" she demanded.

"Because they're long gone by now," Sea answered. He stepped forward to present a united front with me as he told her, "You have to understand, she was the only purpose for them — the reason why they funded this entire venture."

"What do you mean? I don't understand anything you're saying!" Flower regarded him with an expression filled with so much hatred and disgust, that it put the one she'd given me earlier to shame. "Why didn't you bring her along with the rest of us? Why would you strand my innocent best friend all alone with three men she doesn't know?"

"Didn't you see for yourself why we did it?" Sea shook his head at her. "I mean, what were we to do with a female like that? It was clear she belonged with them!"

"Clear, how so?" Flower practically shrieked back. "Because she's a little taller than average, you thought she deserved to be sold off to fund your criminal activities?"

"No, because she's…" Sea turned to me for help explaining.

But I was just as confused as him by her reaction. "Could ye not see,"I asked our Flower, "not smell that she belongs with them?"

"What are you talking about? I don't care if she smells odd or if she's bigger than average. She's an innocent she-wolf, and she doesn't deserve to be left alone with some rando giants. Oh my gosh, when she wakes up, she's going to be so scared…"

Tears pooled in her eyes, and Sea and me stepped forward to comfort her.

"Don't touch me," she hissed before we could, her voice laced with venom. "You sold her! You sold my best friend to fund your evil kidnapping scheme. 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 neverever forgive you for this."

Sea, soft soul that he was, flinched.

And I'll admit her impassioned words grated over my coarsened hide as well. Hadn't anticipated our banríon being so close to the Tríbéirríthe's potential. I had some doubts for the first time since I was told of the Tríbéirríthe's price for funding the Second Reaping.

Still, I shrugged in the face of her current abject hatred, knowing that it wouldn't matter in the end.

"Ye W?lfennites'll forgive us everything we've done to ensure the continuation of the Eire Wolves.By the prophecy or by the body."

"I have no idea what you're talking about."

Her eyes narrowed in a way that let me know she was once again stuck between confusion and outrage. And, theconsiderate future mate that I was, I gladly clarified the situation for her. "Ye'll either step into the role destiny has already set for ye, or ye'll go into heat."

She glared at me. "How many times do I have to tell you we are a pure, wolf-mated-only community?The chances of me or anyone else you're holding captive in this weird dome room going into heat are zero to —"

"Ahh! What is happening to me?"

Our Flower cut off when the yellow-haired W?lfennite cried out on the other side of the room.

Not in pain, though.

Discovered that fact the extremely hard way when a surge of scent crashed through the room stronger than the full moon tide.

It had been a long time, years and years, since I last encountered such a smell. Dark and spicy. Quiet as death. Yet louder in my ears than the ocean underneath a thunderstorm.

The flesh below my waist thickened into a bar of lead, letting me know that both me and that irritable Sea Wolf owed Lorcan an apology.

It hadn't been his failure to jab her properly that had woken the yellow-haired she-wolf up from her forced slumber early but biological necessity.

Heat.

The yellow-haired she-wolf was in heat.

In a room full of males who had been eunuched by the Heat Laws for their entire adult lives.

In a room full of males who weren't allowed to touch a she-wolf unless she was in her time of need — which for the she-wolf stumbling like a newborn doe to her feet was now .

"Why do I feel so strange?" she asked Lorcan, her voice husky with confusion. And ache.

"Well, fuck," I said, once again forgetting to watch my mouth as Dublin had warned me.

Then, Sea and I sprang into action to keep all hell from breaking out.