by Alyssa Day
She grinned at the memory. Rhi was her kind of woman.
The grin faded, though, when the warrior in the mirror stared back at April and reminded her silently that she had nothing to wear to a formal dinner. What would an ambassador wear? She had some vague memory of things Queen Riley wore to formal events, but they were all girly dresses and jewels and other things April would never in a million years consider wearing.
Leathers it was, then.
A knock sounded on the door of the spacious room they'd given her in the enormous stone manor house that many of the wolves seemed to call home. It wasn't far from the remains of the ancient stone fort, so April had walked with the others instead of transporting via mist as she had when she'd first arrived. She knew that must have freaked out her hosts, since they wouldn't have been able to use their famously sharp wolf senses of smell to know that she was entering their territory.
She was still smiling about that when she crossed to the door and yanked it open. "What?"
Nyneve stood in front of the door, hand raised to knock again, with a harassed expression on her face. In her other hand she held a long plastic bag. Pine's sister aimed her piercing green gaze at April and shook her head. "'What'? Really? That's how you answer the door? Been an ambassador long, have you?"
She pushed her way into the room and dumped the bag on the enormous, fluffy-looking bed that had been tempting April to take a nap ever since she'd first seen it.
"Try three hours," April said dryly.
Nyn's eyes widened. "What?"
"Now you're doing it."
"What?"
"Yes. That."
Nyn's puzzled expression faded, and she laughed. "Oh. Doing the 'what?' thing. I get it. Well, you have to know that this whole ambassador thing is somewhat surprising, since I just heard about it for the first time."
"Join the club," April muttered. "I'm a warrior, not an…oh, forget it. What do you want, what's in the bag, and where is the killer wolf cub?"
Nyn blew out a breath, clearly exasperated, but April could also see the love the woman held for her daughter, and she felt a sudden pain in her chest at the sight. Tried not to wonder what it must feel like to know you had a mother's unconditional love.
Tapped her foot in impatience, with herself, with Nyneve, and with the entire situation. But mostly, definitely, with Pine.
"Why does he have one green eye and one blue?" She'd blurted out the question without thinking, as she so often did, and she fought against the hot flush of color trying to rise up into her cheeks. She didn't need to know personal things about Pine, for Poseidon's sake, and she certainly didn’t need to be giving the man's sister any reason to suspect she was interested in the man.
Wolf.
Whatever.
Distracted by something she was doing with the bag, Nyneve shook her head. "What?"
"You're doing it again," April pointed out.
"Oh!" The shifter laughed. "Sorry. It's rare but not unknown in wolf shifters, and more common still in pure wolves."
"Pure?"
"Actual wolves who have never been human and never will be. All shifters contain a part of their animal form, but not all animals contain any human, of course."
"Of course," April repeated, rolling her eyes. "I don't need a basic lesson on shifter biology. We've been dealing with your kind for thousands of years."
Nyneve sighed. "Right. You know, for an ambassador, you're fairly prickly. Here, try this on."
Before April could ask the obvious question, Nyn held out an armful of shimmering fabric.
April stepped away and put her hands behind her back. "What, exactly, is … that?"
That turned out to be a dress. No, more like a gown. Whatever you called it, it was the girliest, most unexpectedly beautiful item of clothing April had ever seen.
And there was no way on earth she was wearing it.
"Consider it an apology dress," Nyneve told her, eyeing April up and down. "You're about my height and basic shape, although my chest is a little bigger--"
"Boobs get in the way of archery," April informed her haughtily.
Nyn laughed. "It wasn't a judgment, just my way of saying that the dress should probably fit you well enough. I figured you hadn't brought anything formal in that small bag of yours, and this dinner is going to be a big damn deal, because my boneheaded brother is pulling out all the stops, and I wanted to apologize for my equally boneheaded daughter, and so, well, just wear the damn dress already."
April blinked. Evidently everyone in Pine's family shared his insanity.
"I could just shoot you and be done with it," she finally pointed out, tapping the bow that now hung from the bedpost, always in easy reach of her hand.
"You could try." Nyn bared what seemed to be a surprising amount of very sharp teeth. "Wolf, remember?"
"Fine. I'll wear the dress. Consider it my first official ambassadorial duty," April said, well aware that she was sulking but feeling distinctly put upon by the events of the day. "This dinner better not last long."
"Surely not longer than three or four hours," Nyn said breezily as she let herself out of the room. "There are a few other things you might need in the bag, too. Like a hair brush."
The door closed behind her before April was quite finished with the blue streak of ancient Atlantean curse words she was muttering. Somewhere after "dung of sea urchin scum" but before "rodent grandfather of a motherless barnacle."
Oldies but goodies.
The door opened again. "Dinner's at eight. Meet us down in the hall."
This time, April threw one of her knives. It slammed into the door just after Nyn closed it.
April left it there and started taking off her leathers so she could put on the stupid dress.
5
Pine looked up from his conversation when the hall fell silent in an uncharacteristic hush, and then he almost swallowed his tongue. April wasn't just beautiful and brave and funny and fearless.
She was magnificent.
She stood framed in the doorway for a moment, but Pine knew instinctively that it had nothing to do with any desire to display herself to the best advantage, although she was certainly doing that just by existing in this space and time, in his house, in his territory, in his mind and skin and blood and …
He shook his head to clear it and stood to greet her, and thirty wolves followed his lead. April's eyes narrowed as she scanned the room, and he grinned as he realized he'd been right. She hadn't been showing off her stunning beauty. She'd been identifying and cataloging exits and possible threats.
He crossed the room to her and held out his arm. She looked at it, and then at his face, and her fingers twitched in a motion he already knew meant she wanted to reach for her bow. Or one of the knives she almost certainly wore in places too delicious for him to think about right now without embarrassing himself in front of his entire hall.
"Let's try this again," he said quietly. And then, louder: "Welcome to Scotland, Ambassador."
His people, now all standing, applauded politely, but he saw puzzlement and suspicion on many of their faces. After all, Nyn wasn't the only one he hadn't told about April. He hadn't told anyone.
First, he wasn't sure she'd even come, and he didn't want to look like a fool.
Second, he had no idea what he would have said. "I think I fell in love at first sight with the deadliest, fiercest, most beautiful woman I've ever seen? I blackmailed a warrior into becoming an ambassador by direct appeal to the king of Atlantis? I'm a complete and utter gobshite who deserves to be kicked in the bollocks for thinking with them instead of with my head?"
Yeah. No. Any would have been true. None would have been appreciated.
"Shall we dine?"
She rolled her eyes. "Shall we dine? Really? You really picked the wrong ambassador if this is what you expect."
But she nodded, ignoring the arm he held out but walking next to him to the head table.
"You look very beautiful," he murmured,
unable to take his eyes off her. She smelled like flowers and the sea and, very faintly, of the leathers she'd worn when she arrived. He found the combination of scents incredibly erotic, and caught himself leaning over to sniff the wild red cloud of her hair.
When she gave him an incredulous look, it occurred to him that this might be what it felt like to go completely mad. He was sniffing her hair.
He was sniffing her hair in the middle of his damn hall, with his people watching their every move.
Sniffing the ambassador's hair. Yep. It was official. He was insane.
April was glad she'd foregone Nyn's strappy little shoes for her own sturdy boots, because the last thing she needed was to stumble beneath the scrutiny of what must be more than a hundred shifters. Or at least thirty. Well, she assumed everyone in the enormous hall was a shifter and one of Pine's people, but that might be wrong. For now, she was estimating the threat as Shifters: 100, to April: 1, and not liking her odds.
And Pine … was he sniffing her hair?
He tried to take her hand, but she yanked it away and kept walking, avoiding his hot gaze. She'd seen lust often enough to recognize it in him, but it didn't flatter her or incline her to the same. Lust was impersonal and objectifying; she wasn't interested and she definitely wasn't amused.
On the other hand, he was possibly the most striking man she'd ever met, especially in the black suit and white dress shirt he'd changed into, and she'd met a lot of striking men, considering she lived and worked with the cream of Atlantis manhood. Pine, though—something about him reached inside her and tugged at her nerve endings, sensitizing them in a way that raced along the edge of pleasure almost to pain. She was hyperaware of him at all times and afraid he knew it, but everything about the man's looks pushed all her buttons. He was a few inches taller than her and built like the warrior he must be to hold alpha position of the European wolves. His different colored eyes contained a mystery, and both the blue and the green had gold flecks in the pure color, and the way his golden-brown hair framed his face made her want to plunge her hands into it and pull his head down to hers and …
Enough, April.
Pine helped distract her from her internal catalog of his hotness when he practically ran over a man standing in their path because he was too busy staring at her. She blew out an exasperated breath, grabbed his arm, and yanked him to a stop.
"It's just a dress, you idiot, get over it," she hissed at him, and his eyes widened in what looked to be sincere confusion.
"What?"
"Oh, gods. Not this again." She smiled, or at least bared her teeth, at the man they'd nearly run into, and stuck out her hand, not seeing any way to avoid it. "April Athereon from Atlantis. Poseidon's newest Warrior and, as of today, a temporary ambassador to your people. It's a pleasure to meet you."
It wasn't; nothing about this evening was a pleasure so far, although the food smelled good, but she figured she'd try to be diplomatic or ambassadorial or at least not outright rude.
Pine unexpectedly put his hand on her lower back, and she acted solely on instinct. She dropped into a fighting crouch and knocked him off his feet with a leg sweep. When he landed on his ass, the collective gasp by everybody else in the room and the utter shock on his face struck her as ridiculously funny, for some reason, and she started to laugh—the first real laugh she'd gotten out of this ludicrous situation. She stood and held out her hand to him to help him up and, to his credit, he grinned and took her hand, but when he leapt to his feet and stepped in close, far too close, he murmured in her ear: "Well played, lass. Well played."
She put one hand to his chest and gently pushed until he moved away, and then she looked around at the rapt audience surrounding them and held her hands out in a shrug.
"Ambassador training. It kicks in at the darnedest time."
The man they'd stopped in front of laughed and then started clapping, and the rest of the room followed suit. April could feel a lessening of the tension in the room, so she played along and swept a dramatic palace-etiquette-inspired curtsy.
"I'm Sean, this one's second when I'm at home," the man before them introduced himself. He had dark brown hair to Pine's golden brown, two blue eyes, which April suddenly found to be indescribably boring, and wore a dark suit and white shirt. He had Pine's lovely Scottish accent, though, and she liked the humor she saw in his eyes and smile.
She grinned at him. "And when you're not at home?"
Next to her, Pine made a soft growling noise that startled April but had a stunning result on Sean. The smile dropped off his face, and he instantly stepped back two paces away from April and tilted his head slightly to the side.
She knew enough of shifters to recognize a show of submission when she saw one, and a slow burn started in her gut and burned its way up to her throat. She clenched her teeth around maybe the most fake smile in the history of the world and leaned in to Pine. "Did you just growl at that man because he talked to me?"
In spite of her outrage, she found herself fascinated by the sight of Pine's throat as he swallowed, hard. "Er, more because you talked to him, I think," he muttered. "I might be going mad, lass, er, April."
She stared him down. "That will be Ambassador Athereon to you, Pine. And anyway, which is Pine? Your first or second name? What should I call you?"
He sighed. "Dumbass. You should call me dumbass, and I'd deserve it. I'm sorry, Ambassador. Sean, I'll be begging your pardon, too, man. The day has knocked me sideways, and that's the truth."
April's innate sense of fairness wouldn't let an apology go unanswered, and she allowed her tense shoulders to relax and grinned at him. "I could go with dumbass, but I bet it's not in the ambassador handbook. Here's the deal: you call me April, and I'll call you?"
"Pine."
"Pine what? Or what, Pine?"
His eyes narrowed. "Never you mind. Just Pine, if you please."
"Ah. A mystery. I'm good at mysteries. So, Sean. About Pine's name?"
But the other man just laughed and shook his head. "I'm out of this conversation, Ambassador."
"April, please," she told him. "Is that roast beef I smell? I think my stomach started growling an hour ago."
"It's roast everything," Pine said. "I think the cooks are showing off for you."
"The cooks? Fancy." April knew the palace had cooks, but she'd spent her life fending for herself. Maybe she could get used to this luxury thing. She definitely liked to eat.
Pine held out his hand, apparently to help her up the single step to the head table. "Shall we?"
She lifted the hem of Nyn's dress and showed him her boots. "I'm good. Let's eat."
Before she could take the step, the smallest of noises alerted her to the presence of somebody hiding behind the tablecloth that draped down to the floor, and she quickly sidestepped and pushed Pine out of the way.
"What's happening--"
"Quiet," she told him. "I'm about to get murdered."
6
For the next few hours, Pine contented himself with watching April charm his people without even realizing she was doing it. If she'd been perfect, or practiced, or polished, none of them would have trusted her, but she was so clearly exactly what she appeared to be—a warrior trying to do an ill-fitting job—that they relaxed and just talked to her. She was genuinely interested in people, he discovered, and had a natural curiosity that lent itself to good conversation with everyone from Sean, his second, to the girl who carried the pies to the table.
Pine hadn't even known her name (Meggie) or that she was his head cook's granddaughter, visiting from England. April, on the other hand, was already best friends with her and Meggie had promised to show the ambassador the Tower of London and Big Ben on her next trip to England.
Even Annie, who'd slunk away in disgrace after April drenched her with a pitcher of water in the middle of Annie's ill-timed leap, was now back at the table in human form and chattering away with both April and Meggie. The Atlantean's gentle teasing had gone a long way to
heal the teen's hurt pride.
April caught him looking at her and leaned over to steal a small chocolate cake from his plate. "Teen girls are the worst," she murmured, just before popping his cake in her mouth. "All wounded ego and giant ball of insecurities, wrapped up in one hormonal package. Luckily, we get over it."
He forgot how to make words as he watched her lick her lips to get every bit of frosting.
"Suddenly, I'm jealous of cake," he told her, his voice strained.
She stilled. "Is this why you wanted me here? You think I'm going to play hide the sausage with you?"
Pine, who'd just taken a drink of water, almost snorted it out his nose. "Is that colorful expression in the ambassador handbook too?"
She didn't smile.
"No. I … no. Conlan has been after me to join in his alliance for a while, and yes, it's true that I hoped to get to know you better, but I have more respect for you than that, April. You saved my life."
She still said nothing, so he plowed ahead. "Look, I admit I was planning to come to Atlantis and find you and see if you'd be willing to have dinner with me or go for a walk or … or … something, if you didn't want to be an ambassador. I'm sorry that I let my impulse rule my head, and I'll fix it."
He nodded and then said the words he so didn't want to say. "I'll talk to Conlan and tell him we need another ambassador. You're a warrior, and I had no right to back you into this corner. I apologize."
He bowed his head and stared down at his plate, empty but for one last cake, and wondered if he'd ever feel like eating again after having to stuff humble pie down his throat.
After losing April back to her warriors.
A long moment of silence passed, and then her elegant fingers appeared in his line of vision and snagged his last cake.