Fast forward to the next morning. Tara brushed her hair out of her face and reminded herself she was safe here at Iain’s. She swung her legs over the side of the bed and set her feet on the heated floor.
I’m safe, she reminded herself again. At least for now…
Tara showered, applied her make-up—and then abruptly decided to stay home. There was no way in hell she could handle work after what happened the day prior.
She returned her second-favorite Ted Baker dress to the closet and slipped into the pink satin Boux Avenue nightgown she’d bought while shopping for a wedding gift for Milly.
Had that only been ten weeks ago?
Tara shook her head, unable to fathom how much her life had changed since her best friend became a werewolf.
The ringing of her cell phone put an end to her troubled thoughts. Tara dashed over to the nightstand where she’d left her phone charging the night before. She glanced down at the main screen and cursed when she saw the familiar Canadian number. It was Barbara, the used bookstore owner and long-time family friend who let her parents use the phone at her store for their Monday calls.
“Hey, Barbara,” she said, forcing as much cheer into her voice as possible. “How are you?”
“The question is how are you, Miss Tara?” Barbara’s wholesome Canadian voice answered. “Your parents were worried when you missed the call yesterday.”
Tara’s chest tightened. Just when she thought she couldn’t possibly feel any worse about yesterday…turns out she completely forgot to call her parents for their weekly chat.
Then again, she’d been kind of preoccupied. After all, being abducted, held prisoner, and escaping in a stolen car didn’t leave a lot of spare time to call the folks. But her parents didn’t know this, and Tara hated to worry them. “I am so sorry,” she replied. “Something…came up.”
“I’ll say,” Barbara chuckled, her voice taking on a teasing quality. “But your parents were worried sick. You’ve never missed a call. Not once!”
“I know, I know. And I am so, so, sorry.” Tara loved her parents. They were kind and thoughtful and she always looked forward to their weekly conversations. “Please let them know I’m ok and I’m sorry I didn’t call.”
“And…?” the teasing tone had returned to Barbara’s voice.
Tara was confused. What was going on with the older woman? “Uh…and…I’m very sorry? I mean, I don’t know what else to say, Barbara.”
“Okay, I understand. I imagine you want to tell them yourself. But in the meantime, don’t you want to share your exciting news with me?”
“What exciting news?” Tara asked, totally bewildered.
“Oh, you know—the announcement plastered all over the Scottish news sites! Your parents were very worried yesterday when they didn’t hear from you. I decided to check online after they left to make sure nothing had happened to you. I mean, you have never missed a call. Anyway, I Googled your name and almost had a heart attack when the results popped up. But then I took a closer look and, well, you know…”
“Hold on, hold on. What do you mean, ‘you know’?” Tara was trying to be patient with Barbara but she was become more confused than a fattened turkey on Canadian Thanksgiving. She took a deep breath and reset. “Okay, let me see if I understand. You say you found something about me online? Are you sure it’s not another Tara Hamilton? I mean, I can’t be the onl—"
She was interrupted by two short beeps announcing another incoming call. “Hold on, Barbara…” Tara glanced down at the screen to see her boss’s name pop up on caller ID. The notification was right beneath her phone’s digital clock…which helpfully reminded her that she was over an hour late for work.
Oh, shit.
“Barbara, I am so sorry but I really have to go.”
“Tara, wait...!”
“I can’t talk right now. My boss is on the other line. I’ll call you back soon…” Tara didn’t wait for Barbara to reply…just switched over to Gordon.
“Hi, Gordo, I am SO sorry I’m late. I—uh—I was just about to call in sick,” she began…
“Glamour!” Gordon’s voice boomed into the phone and he sounded downright…jovial? “Hold on a tic, lass. Let me put you on speaker…” She could hear him fumbling with his desk phone and then, “Everyone, I’ve got her on the line!” This was followed by a loud cheer.
Tara frowned. What in the hell was going on? And then it clicked—of course! This was obviously some kind of joke...probably because she didn’t show up this morning. Tara’s co-workers would happily “take the piss” out of a nun if given the chance.
“Okay, okay. I get it. I’m late. But I have a very good reas—”
A loud burst of laughter cut her off followed by Glenda’s voice shouting, “Well, of course you’re late! I’d be late too if I were in your shoes…!!”
Tara sighed. This was definitely the last thing she needed right now.
“Look, Gordon? Gordon!! Can you please take me off speaker for a minute? Or at least can we talk in private?” She waited until she heard the click of Gordon’s office door. “Okay. So Gordo…I’m going to have to leave Scotland sooner than I thought. I’m really so—”
“What?!?!” Gordon bellowed into the phone. “Do you mean to say the rumors are true? Scotswolf will retire at the end of the season after he gets his 100th cap? No! Say it isn’t so!”
“Gordo…STOP! What are you talking about?” Tara was too confused and frustrated to be polite.
“What are you on about?” He demanded right back at her. “Because if Magnus is retiring as a result of you and him getting hitched and having a bairn on the way, then I cannot be as happy as I was when I first heard the news. I mean, I know most players throw in the towel after 14 years, but I still think Scotswolf has a good two or three more left in him.”
“Excuse me,” Tara said, her eyes widening. “Who told you I was pregnant…and getting married?”
“He did,” Gordon answered.
Tara felt her stomach knot. “Are you saying Magnus contacted you and told you I was pregnant and engaged to him?” she asked.
“No, course not! Why would he do that?”
“Then wha—?”
“It was in the press release, announcing you and him were up the duff. You’re famous!”
Iain’s penthouse took up the entire top floor of the building. And according to Iain, the floors, ceilings, and walls had been well insulated to minimize incoming and outgoing sounds. Still, Tara doubted there was single resident in the entire building who didn’t hear her shrieked “WHAT?!?!”
As if on cue, the apartment security system announced, “Magnus Scotswolf and guest are at the front door.”
Chapter Six
Some of the brightest minds in the design and home security sectors had come together to build Iain’s state-of-the-art building. With a mind toward impenetrable security, code boxes were attached to all doors in the building, and both human and electronic surveillance covered every square inch of non-residential space beyond Iain’s front door. After leaving the Holyrood apartment she’d shared with Milly to move into Iain’s place, the building manager had given her a thorough tour of the facilities had assured her there was no safer block of flats in all of Edinburgh, and quite possibly all of Scotland.
But to Tara’s horror, shortly after announcing Magnus’s presence, the door made an electronic whirring sound and then opened without so much as a “can I come in?” from the wolf on the other side.
“What. The. Hell?” she asked the “impenetrable” security system and Magnus as he and Alban strolled right on in.
Instead of responding, Magnus immediately took her by the arms and forced her to stay put as he instructed Alban to, “Find the rifle and get it out of this flat.”
“What in the hell are you doing here? How did you get in?” she demanded, struggling against his hold. “And how could you send out a press release telling everyone we were getting married? You had no right to do that! Let me go!”
If Magnus were a human male, she would have easily knocked him out cold for daring to touch her without her consent.
But he wasn’t. So he had no problem holding her in place with both hands circled around her upper arms. He very decidedly did not let her go, and his face maintained its stone-like expression as he waited for Alban to finish searching the flat.
After a few minutes, Alban emerged from her bedroom with the rifle in one hand and his Land Rover keys in the other.
“Take it back to Faoltiarn while I deal with her,” Magnus instructed his beta.
Alban nodded in the no-nonsense way of a soldier and left without another word.
Only when the door closed behind Alban did Magnus finally release her. And like an unleashed dog, the cocky smile she hated so much instantly sprang across his face. “Ho, now, banrigh. You already know swearing at your king is unlawful, as is forgetting to bow when he enters the room. Raising your voice in argument to a sovereign is also against our laws. Besides, that’s no way to greet your mate now is it?”
“You are not my mate!” Tara fired back, her eyes blazing with indignant fury.
“I put that bairn in your belly,” he returned. “And like it or not, that makes me your mate, banrigh.”
“No…no, it most definitely does not!” she spat back. “Wolf matings are not bound by mating laws unless both parties give consent. And I do not give my consent.”
“What a progressive nation your Canada must be,” Magnus replied with an arrogant shake of his head, his dismissive tone making it clear what he thought of progressive nations. “But here in Scotland all matings are binding, especially if there is a child involved. Now Ireland, well, that’s a different matter. But then those crazy fucks have all sorts of unorthodox rules, don’t they? However, here in Scotland, my rule is absolute. So no more games, Tara. You must accept that you belong to me, now.”
“Oh, I must, must I?!?!” she all but growled, her nostrils flaring. “You think my life is yours to just waltz in and take charge of whenever you like? That’s not how these things work, Magnus. I refuse to allow you to ruin my life—”
“You put yourself and our bairn in danger, Tara,” he shot back, his tone becoming low and dangerous. “I am trying very hard to give you the benefit of the doubt, especially because you aren’t from here and clearly have no clue how to conduct yourself among Scottish wolves. But bloody Christ, woman, you’d set a monk to cursing God! And for feck’s sake, I am not trying to ruin your life, banrigh. We’ve a bairn on the way, and your behavior—running off when you should be seen by a midwife, turning a gun on your mate and his kin…”
“You are not my mate!” she insisted between clenched teeth.
“…refusing to accept that you are in a different country with a different culture and different rules,” he shot back.
Oh, God…oh, God. Without warning, the feeling of being trapped crashed over her with the suddenness of a fierce thunderstorm on a sunny day.
“Then I will go to Ireland!” she said. “It sounds a lot more civilized than here.” This comment was as much for her as it was for him. She was reminding herself that she still had options, and that this situation wasn’t about to become a repeat of what happened back in Canada…
Magnus stilled. “You think I would let you out of the country or even out of my sight while you carry my bairn?” he asked.
And that’s when Tara knew she was in trouble because instead of answering Magnus, she was overcome with the memory of what had happened in Canada all those years ago…
Barbara sneaking over to her parents’ furniture store as soon as they left and announcing in a sing-song voice, “Guess what came in the maaaa-aaaaail…?”
Tara opening the envelope from Toronto University, a place that—unlike the University of Toronto—did not have a secret program for shifters. She had jumped up and down and hugged Barbara after reading the letter that informed her she’d been accepted. And moreover, she’d been awarded a special scholarship for those in her particular circumstance. It was everything she’d dreamt of and it would be her future so long as she submitted all the necessary paperwork to prove her Canadian citizenship.
She had closed up shop early, wishing she could tell her older sister the news. But she no longer had easy access to her sister. Leora now lived on the other side of the country on Prince Edward Island, which might as well mean she lived on the moon so far as communication with her was concerned.
Still, Tara had been excited on the bike ride home, busting at the seams to share her news with her parents and younger sister. She hoped they would be proud of her even if the rest of the pack was not. Leora’s sudden leaving had been hard on her parents, but Tara felt sure both her mother and father would understand why she had decided to leave the pack, too.
However, Tara’s heart stopped when she reached the hand-carved sign for their pack town of St. Ailbe. A town car was parked beside it, dark and ominous. And there was a man in its driver’s seat with his cell phone raised outside the lowered window, probably trying to get a signal…
A surge of fear rose into her throat. Leora’s mate had arrived by town car, too.
But maybe whoever had arrived in this town car was here for another she-wolf. Not her.
Please not her, she prayed.
However, her prayers withered like winter wheat when she entered her family’s humble house to find two male wolves waiting for her instead of her parents and twelve-year-old sister.
One of the wolves was well known to her. It was their pack alpha, Abel Flosswulf. He stood and regarded her with kind eyes. She remembered him wearing the same expression on the afternoon when he came to her home to tell her family that a wolf from Prince Edward Island would soon arrive and Leora would be wolf-mated to him that full moon night. He explained that they must leave as things went easier for the young couple when only Abel Flosswulf and the chosen male was there when the chosen she-wolf arrived home. “We do not want to cause her any more discomfort than absolutely necessary,” Abel had said.
That conversation had taken place two years ago before Leora had returned home. At the time, it had been her older sister’s job to mind the furniture store. But that job now belonged to Tara. And there stood Abel Flosswulf, just as he must have when Leora came through the door.
The other wolf stood as well…
He was dressed in the same manner as Abel, but his clothes were black and white instead of black and blue. He smelled different. Like the sea and red earth.
His scent unsettled her because the wolf who mated Leora had smelled the same. This male also had the same kind face. Handsome and open like Leora’s mate, Joshua.
Then Abel Flosswulf spoke. “Tara, I want to introduce you to Joshua’s younger brother, Jacob. Joshua is well-pleased with your sister. His brother has come here in the hopes of gaining a mate with as many positive attributes as Leora.”
“It pleases me to hear this news of my sister,” Tara said to Jacob in a careful tone. “I have had no communication from Leora since her departure. Can you tell me how it goes with her?”
“She is a good wife and mother,” Jacob answered with a kind smile, as if that was everything Tara could possibly want to know about the sister she hadn’t seen nor heard from in over two years.
Tara smiled back even as she silently screamed on the inside. She was so focused on keeping control of her emotions that she barely heard when Abel Flosswulf said, “As you know, Tara, most girls your age have already been wolf-mated…”
She had applied to college to escape her pack’s compulsory wolf mating program. And she’d been accepted. But now it looked like her reprieve had come too late.
But Magnus was right. She was no longer in Canada.
“No,” she told him, raising her chin high with defiance to tell Magnus what she dared not say to Abel Flosswulf and Jacob. “No, I do not want to be your mate.”
He flinched, and Tara watched his expression become stone-like. “You have no choice,
mo banrigh.”
“You have no choice in the matter, dear child,” Abel Flosswulf had said when Tara showed reluctance at entering the mating cage. “Jacob is a fine male, and he has come a long way and at great expense. It has already been decided.”
Decided without her…
“There is always a choice,” she told Magnus as she should have told Abel Flosswulf. “Show me where in the rule book it says I have to move to your backwards village in nowheresville.”
His head jerked into an angry tilt as his face screwed up in outrage. “Faoltiarn…my kingdom village—is not backwards—”
She cut him off. “Do you have electricity? Wi-Fi? More than a mile of land without livestock on it? A store that sells high heels? Cafés?”
“Iain’s home has electricity and Wi-Fi!” Magnus retorted as if he’d just delivered a truly devastating rebuttal. “And he doesn’t own so much as a chicken. The whole village had a right stir about it when he gutted the old blacksmith’s house and sold off all the fowl in the coop behind it. He’s also got one of those high-end coffee makers, just like the ones at Caffe Nero. I reckon he might even have a pair of high heels lying about in there somewhere. He’s lived in Edinburgh for a while now and you never really know what those city wolves can get up to...”
“Magnus, is there or is there not a rule about where I must live?” Tara demanded, between gritted teeth.
A sullen beat. Then Magnus crossed his arms and admitted, “Nae, not exactly.”
“Then get out,” she all but hissed, pointing toward the door.
Magnus didn’t move. “Wolf fathers have rights, though,” he informed her. “Many more than most human ones do during their child’s gestation period. As you are aware, we male wolves are biologically programmed to protect our young. In my kingdom, unless a mother brings me a case of physical abuse, she is not permitted to tell the father of her unborn pup that he can’t be near her—as you seem keen to do with me. And nae, I cannae compel you back to my village. You are right about that—even though the best place for a she-wolf in your condition would be among your own kind. But there is a law in place about she-wolves attempting to leave the country when pregnant…”
Her Scotttish King: (Howls Romance) Loving World Page 4