by Jenny Frame
“You’re right. I need to try because I love Ricky and this is my chance for happiness,” Zaria said.
“We haven’t known each other long, Zaria, but I’ve known Ricky my whole life, and me, Callum, and all our other friends are going to support you all the way. No matter what.”
Heather was a lovely, caring, gentle woman. Zaria knew they were going to be the best of friends. Then Zaria heard her name called from across the marketplace. She looked up and saw Milo running to her with a big smile on her face.
“Hiya, Zaria. I heard you were going to be the new Mater,” Milo said excitedly.
Heather chuckled and Zaria said, “I suppose I am. Aren’t you supposed to be in school?”
“Aye, my class is over there.” Milo pointed to a small group of kids on the other side of the marketplace, standing with an elderly woman. “We’re having art class down by the loch. I’m going to paint the Kelpie, but none of my other friends believe I saw it.”
Heather nudged Zaria and said, “Well, you’ve got to keep an open mind. We are wolves, after all.”
Zaria opened her arms and invited Milo in for a hug. She empathized with Milo. They were both outsiders to the pack, and trying to find their way.
“I believe in you, and I believe in magic, so anything is possible, Milo,” Zaria said.
“Will you come with me to look for the Kelpie sometime, Zaria?”
“Sure, I will. Why don’t you introduce me to your friends and teacher?”
It was time to start making friends and bond with the pack.
* * *
Kenrick sat at her pater’s desk, now her own, in their office on the top floor of the distillery. Her pater had gone to meet with some of the elders of the pack to try to make arrangements for a mating ceremony. It was going to be a rush, but Fergus felt it was important that Zaria took her place by Kenrick’s side in the Alpha ceremony, and to so that they had to be officially mated.
She just hoped Zaria didn’t feel too rushed or pressured by it all. Earlier in the afternoon she had felt Zaria’s stress through their new mate bond, but it soon calmed.
Kenrick was on the computer making inquiries about the new equipment she wanted installed all over the business. She had learned a lot from Dante and wanted to make Wulver Whisky and Spring Water a truly streamlined, modern company.
Kenrick’s research progress had been slow. Everything she looked at seemed to remind her of Zaria, and her whole body screamed for her to go home and spend the day wrapped around her in bed. Normally a newly mated pair would stay close to each other for at least a week or two after mating, but circumstances dictated that wouldn’t be possible.
She could hear her mother’s I-told-you-sos loud in her mind. That was one of the practical reasons wolves historically avoided the mate bite till after a mating ceremony, so they could enjoy their honeymoon and give their partner all their attention.
Kenrick leaned back in her chair and shut her eyes. Her mouth started to water as she remembered sucking Zaria’s nipple and rolling it around her tongue.
“Drunk on love, Rickster?”
The new voice made her jump violently out of her skin. “Bloody hell!”
Wolves were usually never taken by surprise. Another creature’s scent always gave them away, unless the wolf’s mind was too caught up on their mate.
“You nearly gave me a heart attack, Rhuri,” Kenrick said.
Rhuri had the biggest smile on her face and opened her arms wide. Kenrick went to her and they hugged like the old friends they were.
Rhuri smacked her on the back. “Well done, pal. You’ve finally found your teeth.”
Kenrick touched the mate bite on her neck with pride. “Hey, you can talk.”
Rhuri sat down on the other side of the desk and snorted. “Please, with looking after Milo, I don’t have time to sneeze, far less meet lassies. The Great Mother hasn’t found Mrs. Rhuri in Wulver Forest and I don’t have time to look around.”
Kenrick took her seat again. “Well, I had to go all the way to America, but I found my lassie.”
“You did.” Rhuri grinned. “She’s a beauty and I know she’ll make a great Mater. Milo hasn’t stopped talking about how cool it is to have an American wolf in the pack.”
“I can’t believe how lucky I am. It’s taken a lot to get her to trust me,” Kenrick said. “She’s been through so much in her life, and I want to give her the family, the pack, she’s never had.”
“We’ll look after her and make sure she feels part of the Wulvers, don’t you worry about that. Anyway, looks like I’ve got a stag party to plan, and I’ve got just the whisky barrel in mind for the party,” Rhuri said with an even bigger grin.
“Aye, I bet you have. I don’t know how we’re going to fit it in before Saturday’s Alpha ceremony. I’ve still got the purification ritual on Friday,” Kenrick said.
Rhuri laughed. “Purification comes after whisky and lots of it.”
“I’ll talk to Zaria later. My pater had a few ideas about how to plan the mating around my ceremony,” Kenrick said.
“Aye, just let me know and I’ll sort it. So, how did the board meeting go?”
Kenrick pulled at her shirt collar. “Apart from me being late, it went well. My pater’s talked about this day since I was a cub, but it always seemed so far in the future.”
Rhuri leaned. “I know how hard it’ll be to give up your job out in the forest, working downstairs with all the wolves.”
“When I left to go and work with Dante, I was dreading it, but so much has changed.” Kenrick got up and walked to the window that looked out over Wulver Loch. “Dante showed me that I can put my own stamp on the business and drive it forward. Pater was right to send me to work at Venator. I’m so full of ideas and I need you to help me.”
“You know I’m your right paw. Whatever you need, I’ll be there,” Rhuri said.
Kenrick sat on the edge of the desk. “We need to upgrade our IT systems, build a social media presence.”
Rhuri tapped her fingers on the desk. “I think we’ll need some outside human help on that.”
“We will, and I know it’s a risk to let human eyes into our business, but the Wolfgangs make it work. Wulver is a well respected brand name all over the world, but I think there’s more we can do. I’d like to attract a younger market to our whisky, maybe make some new drinks?”
Rhuri raised her eyebrows and smiled. “I like it. You do really want to shake things up.”
“What’s the point of new leadership if we don’t try new things, eh?” Kenrick said. “Now I’ve got Zari by my side, I feel like I can do anything.”
“Aye, you’re right there.” Rhuri stood up and said, “Right, I better go and check on the boys in the malting room.”
“Oh, one more thing. Four of the older elite wolves have decided to step down with my pater. So I need you to draw up a list of some new candidates for me.”
“No problem.” Rhuri thumped her chest and left, leaving Kenrick counting down the hours till she saw her mate again.
* * *
Zaria couldn’t ever remember laughing so hard as she listened to Heather and her friends recount stories of Kenrick and their childhood together.
After meeting Milo in the marketplace, Heather took her to a tea shop to meet her old school friends.
The tea shop was nothing like the diners she had worked in all of her adult life. It was everything she imagined a traditional British tea shop to be. Polite serving staff, wearing black and white with crisp white aprons. Immaculate tablecloths and napkins, cakes and tiny sandwiches on a tiered cake stand, and real china cups and saucers. She imagined the tea shop by the loch for the human tourists was similar.
Zaria felt out of place at first in the genteel little place, but Heather’s friends made her so welcome and at her ease. As a submissive wolf coming into the pack, she knew how important it was to be accepted with the higher ranking Wulver submissives.
There was Donny, an angeli
c-looking male submissive wolf, with the most gorgeous shoulder-length blond hair. Then Florrie, a short female with elfin features and a pixie style hairstyle. And finally Moira, an elegant woman with jet black hair and the most gorgeous Irish accent.
Donny was the most talkative of the group and a lot of fun. Zaria was trying to keep up with the new names and places in the story, and take it all in.
“Judah, Ricky, Marcus, Lukas, and Rhuri put the bucket of fish guts over the door, sure that Callum was going to come through the door—”
“So,” Zaria interrupted, “Judah is your mate, Donny, Marcus is yours, Florrie, and Lukas is Moira’s?”
“And you’ve already met my Callum, Zaria,” Heather finished for her.
“Got it,” Zaria said. “What happened next?”
Donny continued, “They held their breath, kept as quiet as wee mice. The door opened…”
Zaria chuckled as Donny mimed the door opening dramatically.
“Then in walked the Mater, who got a bucket of fish guts on her head,” Donny said.
Zaria gasped then smiled. “She did not.”
“Oh, she most certainly did,” Florrie said smiling.
Moira poured more tea into Zaria’s cup and said, “I’ve never heard the Mater growl as loud and fiercely as she did that day.”
Heather leaned in and said, “The whole pack of cubs shifted and ran deep into the forest. They were so frightened to come back that some of the adult wolves had to be sent out to gather them up.”
“What did Elspeth do to them?” Zaria asked. She could just imagine the look on a much younger Kenrick’s face when she realized what she had done.
Donny lifted a dainty salmon sandwich from the cake stand and held it aloft. “The Mater said if they loved fish so much, they could work in the fish packaging facility at the other end of the loch and gut fish every day after school for a month.”
“It’s not the most pleasant building, as you can imagine,” Heather said, “but surprisingly Moira’s mate Lukas grew up to manage the fish side of the Wulver business.”
Moira took a sip of her tea and smiled. “Yes, I think the fish got into his blood then.”
“So what do you think of our wee marketplace and pack lands, Zaria?” Florrie asked.
“It’s absolutely beautiful. Very cold compared to back home, though,” Zaria joked.
“Cold and rainy,” Donny added. “That’s Scotland, but you couldn’t find a prettier place to live.”
There was one thing she had wondered. “How do you keep it so private and hidden from the human tourists who come to visit?”
“We have had a few interlopers over the years,” Heather said, “but they are on our private land so we shut off roads and pathways, and we keep the treeline high at the back of the tourist buildings. It’s not perfect, but we lead a private life here.”
Zaria suddenly felt intense sensation in her mate bite. She gasped and touched her neck. Kenrick was feeling something intensely. She closed her eyes for a few seconds and analysed the sensation. It was deep need, want, for sex, for Zaria. Zaria became aroused instantly. Her nipples hardened and her sex was wet and aching.
“Drunk on love, ladies,” Donny said loudly.
Zaria snapped her eyes open and felt heat come to her cheeks. She shouldn’t be thinking deeply sexual thoughts in this traditional tea shop.
The women laughed at Donny’s words, and Heather said, “Don’t worry. You’re newly mated. It’s natural.”
“Talking of newly mated,” Florrie said, “when are you having the mating ceremony?”
“And the hen night?” Donny said with excitement.
Zaria raised an eyebrow. “Hen night?”
Heather patted her hand. “Scottish for bachelorette party.”
“Then there’s the purification ritual to organize,” Moira told Heather.
The women and Donny started to talk and make plans for all those things and that little knot of worry started to grow again. Zaria’s new friends didn’t mean to pressure her, they were trying to be kind and welcome her into the pack, but it felt like she was being rushed towards a role she wasn’t confidant she could perform. She had to talk to Kenrick about it.
Chapter Twenty-one
Kenrick paced impatiently outside the distillery building, waiting for Zaria to arrive. The longer the day went on, the hungrier and more desperate Kenrick became for Zaria’s company.
The need her body felt inside was so hard to control. She wanted more than anything to shift and run, to track down her mate, but she knew Zaria was with Heather and meeting some of the other submissives. So it was important to let her mate find her way.
Finally Kenrick saw Zaria walking from the barrier that separated their world from the human one, up the slight incline to the distillery.
She strode over to meet Zaria and immediately took her into her arms. “I missed you so much.”
Zaria stroked a teasing finger down Kenrick’s cheek. “I could feel you, Ricky.”
Kenrick sniffed all around her mate bite and neck, spreading her scent over her mate.
Zaria kissed her softly and just as she was about to deepen the kiss she heard voices beside them. Zaria looked around and saw a group of human tourists, who were about to go in and take the public tour, staring at them. She whispered, “I think humans are still a bit shocked at two women kissing.”
“Let’s get back to this later then, without an audience.” Kenrick took her hand and led her around to the back of the distillery. “Are you ready for your tour?”
Zaria smiled. “Isn’t that what’s happening at the entrance round there?”
“Nah. This a special tour only given by me. I want to show you all about Wulver whisky.”
Zaria kissed her cheek. “Show me then, wolf.”
Kenrick opened up one door and they entered a huge shed. To get fully into the room you had to get past a thick glass security door, locked by a code. Kenrick punched in the number and opened the door.
The first thing that hit Zaria was the strong smell of cereal, and the second thing was the size of the room. “Wow, it’s so big,” Zaria said.
“It needs to be. We produce a lot of whisky,” Kenrick said proudly.
The floor was covered in a carpet of grain and five men and woman in overalls walked up and down the floor with what looked like snow shovels, lifting and tossing the grain. When the wolves saw it was Kenrick who had came in, they stopped what they were doing and saluted before getting back to their jobs.
“What is this grain and what are they doing?” Zaria asked.
“I’ll show you.” Kenrick took her hand and led her further into the room. She kneeled down and scooped up a handful of grain. “This is barley. The barley contains starch and we need to convert the starch into soluble sugars to create alcohol.”
Zaria took some grain from Kenrick’s hand. “Where do you get this from?”
“We have a good relationship with a few human farmers in the area. They keep us well supplied. When we get it from the farmer it’s soaked in water for two to three days, then spread out on this malting room floor to germinate.” Kenrick pointed to one of the seeds. “You see the green shoot there?”
“Yeah, what do those guys with the shovels do?” Zaria asked.
“The barley needs to be a certain depth and temperature, so they turn it over to make sure all the barley is germinating evenly.”
“What happens next?” Zaria asked.
Kenrick had never felt prouder than showing Zaria the Wulver pack’s pride and joy. The interest and enthusiasm she was showing excited her, giving her a rush.
“When the green shoots appear, we have to stop germination by drying it in a peat fuelled kiln. The type of peat and how long it’s dried gives every whisky it’s distinct flavour.”
Zaria smiled and said. “I can see how proud you are of this place.”
“I am. We’re a family, a pack, and this whisky flows in our veins.”
Zaria
kissed her cheek. “Show me more, mate.”
* * *
Zaria was loving every second of her tour. She never knew the whisky making process was so clever and intense. From the malting house, Kenrick led her through to what she called the mashing machines, where Kenrick explained they mixed the milled grain with the fresh Wulver Loch water to extract the sugars.
There was a lot of the process and terminology Zaria didn’t understand, but she loved listening to the passionate way Kenrick described it. She then led her through to the distillation room where huge copper kettles, bowl shaped at the bottom and thin at the top, held the liquid.
This area was noisy, filled with busy workers. She even spotted Rhuri at the other side of the room. Higher up on the wall there was a platform that led along the side of the room. The human tourists were being shown along by another member of staff.
“What goes on here?” Zaria asked.
“These stills hold the liquid called the wash and distil the alcohol from it twice, to take away the impurities. All these people are called still workers. They are highly skilled and do the tricky part of removing the alcohol from the heart of the distillation. Not too weak and not too strong.”
“Just right, as Goldilocks would say,” Zaria joked.
Kenrick chuckled. “Aye, lassie. Quite right.”
Zaria loved the look of happiness in Kenrick’s eyes. She could scent the confidence and strength and literally feel it in her body. Kenrick truly had the strength of an Alpha, and it made her want Kenrick really badly, but that wasn’t going to be possible for a while.
As they watched the activity in the room, Rhuri walked over to join them with a big bear of a man. He had long black hair twisted into a braid that hung down the back, undercut like the other younger wolves with the Celtic wolf symbol, and a goatee ending in a braid with silver ring fastenings.
These wolves were very different to their American counterparts, Zaria realized again. They still kept that ancient Celtic tribe vibe with their traditions and appearance.