I woke to the sound of my phone ringing … and someone singing a jaunty Gaelic tune in my shower. I sniffed, noticing the sweet, chemical fragrance of my foundation. But I never fell asleep in my makeup. What …? Oh.
It all came back in a rush the moment I attempted to move. My inner thighs groaned in protest, and I felt as sore as I would after spending a day on horseback.
Oh, that wasn’t a horse between your legs, girl, but you’re not far off … my wolf answered gleefully.
Oh, God. Not again.
My phone stopped ringing. Which was for the best because I was in no state to talk. Hell, I could barely move.
But then the singing stopped along with the shower. A few minutes later, Magnus came out of my bathroom wearing a kilt and a sweatshirt he must have borrowed from Iain’s closet. University of Edinburgh was printed across the front and had the same never-worn appearance of the Toronto University hoodie buried at the bottom of my sweater drawer.
His dark hair was dripping wet, and the scent of my Shea Moisture Raw Shea Butter body wash clung to him like a second skin.
My phone started ringing again.
“Ah, good. You’re awake,” Magnus said. He picked my phone up off the nightstand and frowned down at it. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to put this thing on silence all afternoon.”
It was a pretty average smartphone. But Magnus was jabbing at the screen as if he’d never used such a device before in his life.
“Bloody reporters have been calling all morning. No clue how they got your contact info but it’s safe to say you’ll have to switch to another number.”
“Reporters …” I repeated. There was so much to piece together. I’d gone into heat and begged Magnus to take me … right after vowing to hate him forever after he took the liberty of informing everyone and their Scottish mum that I was “up the duff,” as Gordon put it.
“Ach! Tell me how to make this shut up.” Magnus thrust the phone at me.
I reached out to take it … and got yet another reminder of what had happened between us when one naked breast fell inelegantly out of my ruined nightgown. I quickly shoved it back into place and pulled the tatters of my gown closed with my free hand.
Magnus smirked, his eyes darkening with appreciation. “I just took a shower, banrigh. But if you like, I’d be happy to come straight back to bed after you turn that damn thing off.”
The phone abruptly stopped ringing.
“Well, then. Looks like your mobile is in full agreement.”
I didn’t respond. I was too busy studying my smartphone screen. While most of my missed calls were from unknown Scottish numbers, the most recent one had Barbara’s name attached to it.
I sat all the way up and tapped Barbara’s name without bothering to check the voicemail.
Barbara answered on the first ring. “Hello, Barbara’s Used Book Shop, how can I help you?”
“Barbara, it’s Tara.”
“Oh, thank goodness! I told your parents about your engagement and now they’re dying to talk to you.”
Oh, God. “WHAT?! Oh, my frickin …” I briefly released my gown to rub my forehead. I took a deep breath. “Barbara, you really shouldn’t have done that.”
“I completely agree, my dear. I shouldn’t have,” she replied, her tone sanguine. “But my life is filled with nothing but old books and gossip. You’ll have to forgive an old lady for wanting to be part of your exciting adventure—oh, hold on … your parents are still here hanging your mother’s latest quilt.”
“Wait! Barbara, do NOT put them on the phone.”
I needed time to figure out what to say to them. How to explain this….
But it was too late. I could hear Barbara calling them over, “Danso, Else. It’s your Tara!”
A second or two passed, and then my parents were on the phone. And as I predicted, they were not pleased.
“You got mated without telling us?” my normally soft-spoken father demanded in his still heavily accented Ghanaian English.
“But you said you did not want a family and children. What happened to change your mind?” my mother demanded in rustic German.
I closed my eyes. My parents were doing that thing where they shared Barbara’s landline receiver to talk to me at the same time. I usually thought this habit was adorable with a side order of cute middle-aged lovebirds. But normally they weren’t yelling at me.
My mother and father had always been the tolerant sort—too tolerant if you were to ask a few of their fellow pack members about Danso and Else Hamilton. They’d even given me their blessing to move to Toronto after what happened with Jacob. So, this sudden show of disapproval tore at me.
I glanced up and motioned for Magnus to leave the room and give me some privacy. But he just stood there, his eyes narrowed and watching me like he’d never seen the universal sign for “give me some space!” in his life.
Well, okay then. I quickly switched over to my mom’s language and launched into what I hoped was a solid explanation. “Mamm, Daed …”
I closed my mind to Magnus and responded to my parents’ questions as best I could without providing too much unnecessary detail. And finally, after several minutes of back and forth, my parents agreed to hang up and talk with me more during their next Monday call.
Only fifteen minutes had passed by the time I put down the phone, but it felt like I’d run a marathon.
And then there was Magnus, still standing beside the bed as if he’d been waiting to say, “I get that you dinnae want your parents to know about me. But you ken that we’ll need to bring them over for the wedding.”
I groaned. This day was proving to be utterly relentless. Still clutching the front of my ruined nightgown, I tried to figure out how to get out of the bed with one available hand without exposing my chest again.
Seeing my struggle, Magnus took me by the crook of my modesty-saving arm and easily pulled me to my feet.
“Thank you,” I said.
“Bitte,” he answered. In German. With a wolfish smile.
“Okay, please stop,” I said.
“Bitte, danke, and nein are about all the German I ken.” Of course, Magnus being Magnus … he kept going. I might have only known him a short time, but from what I could tell, he always kept going. “But I ken enough to understand that’s what you were speaking just now on your mobile. And last night when ye came under me, screaming like a banshee—ach, do the Germans have a word for banshee?”
I refused to take the bait and get sucked into another verbal sparring match with him. Instead, I turned and headed toward the bathroom.
“Should I have our vows translated to German, too?” he asked, following right behind me.
“No!” I squeezed my hand even harder around my torn nightgown as I turned back to face him. “My family is not coming to our wedding, and I am not moving to your village. I agreed to be your mate. But I did not agree to pick up and move to the Highlands. My job is here. My whole life is here!”
“Not anymore,” he answered. “There’s no reason to go on living with your pet humans. You will have plenty to do as the banrigh of Faoiltiarn. And besides, I’ll be getting my 100th cap soon. I have already decided to retire when the season’s done. There’ll be no reason for me to come to Edinburgh any longer.”
Banrigh! The word grated across my soul along with the echo of the cage door locking behind me.
“Stop calling me that! I can’t be the queen of some … some backwater village,” I spat. “I just can’t. End of discussion. Now, I’m going to go take a shower.”
With a lightning-fast move, Magnus grabbed my arm before I could go into the bathroom.
“What do you mean you can’t be my queen?” he demanded, his voice sharper than the straight razor my father used to shave off his mustache.
I shifted from foot to foot, hating that he wouldn’t let me go. Wouldn’t give me even a little time to think. I could feel the panic closing in again, threatening to overwhelm me.
But I wasn’t just some eighteen-year-old she-wolf anymore. I was strong and brave and no male—human or wolf—was going to push me around. I raised my chin high and looked Magnus right in the eyes. “I am not going to leave the life I’ve created for myself here among the humans to live the one you want for me with your wolves!”
“Why not?” he growled back. “What’s so cracking about your life here?”
Ugh! “Do you even know what I do?” I asked, snatching back my arm. “I’m a platform engineer for the RSB mobile app!”
Magnus stared back at me blankly. I translated, “That means I spend eight or more hours a day on a computer making sure our customers can access all our products from their smartphones.”
“Gan, that’s what you do?” His eyes bugged out as if I had just told him I shoveled pig shit for a living. “Feck, lass. You should be thanking me for taking you away from that job. It sounds miserable.”
“Not to me, it doesn’t!” I insisted. “I love working here in the city and I love my career. I love computers and software design. I literally get paid to do something I love. Do you know how rare that is?”
I used my whole hand to gesture towards myself. “To me, being a platform engineer is one of the best jobs on earth. Better than anything I ever imagined when I went off to university. How can you expect me to give it all up?”
“What I expect is for you to keep your promise,” he returned viciously. “You gave me your vow.”
“Okay, look. Maybe in your village being someone’s mate means a she-wolf has to follow her husband wherever he goes. But in the Ontario pack—”
“For feck’s sake, Tara… we are not in Canada!” he suddenly exploded. “You are in my kingdom. And moreover, you are carrying my bairn! Do ye really think I can have you traipsing about the city alone and unprotected while I’m off in Faoiltiarn?”
This turned out to be a question he didn’t really want me to answer because when I angrily opened my mouth to reply, he cut me off with, “Tara, you gave me your true vow and I will not abide ye back-pedaling on me now. I suggest instead of fighting me, you turn your efforts to accepting you will be coming home to Faoiltiarn with me. ‘Cos in the end, I am king here and it doesnae matter what you think of the laws we’ve made, only that we have them. And ken you this … as king, I am allowed to make up the laws as I see fit. No matter what loophole you throw at me, what I say goes. I am the Scottish king and my word on this subject is final. Do ye ken?”
Thunk! A thousand thunks went off in my head. And instead of my usual fight-or-flight response to being told what to do, an urge I hadn’t felt in almost ten years suddenly overtook me.
I wanted to scream. I wanted to hit. But more than that, I wanted to cry.
Tears clogged in my throat, making it so I couldn’t talk. Couldn’t argue. Couldn’t do anything but run blindly to the bathroom lest Magnus see how truly weak I was deep down inside.