As he spoke, Magnus seemed less sure of himself and even stumbled over his words. Tara’s heart beat faster. Could he be as nervous around her as she was around him…?
But then she remembered the other things Iain had told her and Milly on the ride home from Magnus’s highland castle. According to Iain, their kingdom village of Faoltiarn had been struggling with record high infertility rates for a few decades now. A baby hadn’t been born in the village for nearly twenty years, which was why the Faoltiarn pack considered it a minor miracle of sorts when Milly became pregnant by their second-in-line prince.
However, according to Scottish pack law, because the second prince had an heir on the way, Magnus was at risk of losing his crown completely unless he got a she-wolf pregnant before his brother’s baby was born. This was why Iain agreed to take an extended babymoon with Milly. Because when he returned, there was a pretty good chance the tech billionaire who’d left his old-fashioned kingdom village behind would be forced to take over as King of the Highland and Eastern Scottish Wolves.
Tara held up a hand. “Hold on a sec. Is this about you needing to knock someone up before Milly and your brother have their baby? You know, so you can hang on to your crown?” she asked him flat out.
Magnus faltered. Just for a second. But it was all Tara needed to know she hit the bullseye. “Wow,” she said. “Let me get this straight…your brother goes outside your inbred village and manages to knock up a black woman and now you’re thinking, ‘Hey, if it worked for him, it could work for me!’”
“Wait! This has nothing to do with ye being black—” he spluttered, his face reddening. Then he seemed to recall who he was—Magnus Scotswolf, King of the Highland and Eastern Scottish Wolves—and he quickly reset.
“I was not lying about being compelled by ye,” he insisted, taking a step forward.
“And I was not lying about not liking you,” Tara answered, taking a step back. “I haven’t liked you from the moment we met—you know, when you pointed that gun at my pregnant best friend? Also, if I wanted to be an incubator for some wolf, I would not have chosen to live in Edinburgh surrounded by humans.”
“I am not ‘some wolf,’” Magnus reminded her, his voice taking on a slight growl. “I am the most powerful king in Scotland. Your king so long as you live in my lands.”
“With all due respect, King Magnus…” Tara replied, throwing as much mockery as possible into his title. “I am still not interested.”
This time, Magnus didn’t argue with her. But Tara couldn’t help but notice as she pulled her straightened dark brown hair into a ponytail, that he wasn’t leaving either.
“Like I said,” she reminded him. “I prefer to shift alone.”
Magnus shot her a cool, calculating look. “I’m afraid that isnae possible.”
“Sure it is!” she insisted. “All you have to do is get in your car and drive back to your village or, you know, somewhere that isn’t here, before moonrise.”
Magnus inhaled the rapidly cooling air through his long nose. “You’re wrong about that,” he answered. “The moon will rise early this eve.”
Tara tilted her head suspiciously. “You can’t possibly know that…”
Her words trailed off because he’d begun to strip. First went the cape, which he unceremoniously dropped to the ground like it was a cheap costume prop rather than the heirloom she suspected it to be. Then he unzipped his cable knit sweater and pulled it off, revealing a strong, naked torso consisting of muscles slabbed on top of pecs that eventually rippled into a truly impressive set of abs.
Are you sure you are not interested? her wolf whined, straining forward. Because I definitely am.
Tara ignored her wolf and continued to address Magnus as if nothing out of the ordinary had occurred. “According to my weather app, the moon isn’t due to rise for another hour or so.”
Though she kept her eyes averted from his body, Tara could clearly see the condescending smirk reappear on his face. “Aye, those humans do love their predictions. But we wolves are a part of nature, as we say in my village.” His stone-gray eyes looked her up and down, seeming to note every curve. “If I were you, Tara, I’d remove that shiny dress or else the moon will shred it to pieces.”
She glanced down at her Ted Baker jacquard dress. Milly used to say it was Tara’s “compliments” dress because it never failed to garner positive attention from women and men when she wore it out. Tara had barely been able to pay her rent the month that she bought it. So, yeah, she definitely did not want to destroy her favorite dress by shifting in it. But…
“Look. I’m not…I am not doing this with you. You will have to find some other place to shift. But not here…not with me…okay?”
Magnus didn’t reply. Just slid his feet out of his polished Ghillie boots. “So did you grow up as one of those city cage changers then? Have you never seen an unrelated male wolf naked before, Tara?” he asked as he began to pull off his folded-over cable-knit socks.
Real talk. No. Not in the flesh…
And especially not one that looked like Magnus. Her eyes drifted back to his torso. Seriously, before now she’d assumed muscles like his were a trick of Photoshop.
Yum, her wolf growled, even as her human shivered.
Then Magnus began to unfasten his kilt.
“No, wait! Stop!” Tara squeaked. Only to be silenced by the energy surge of a sudden shift.
And that was the last thing she remembered from that night.
But the next morning…
Tara would never forget waking up the next morning. On the hard Scottish ground in a ruined Ted Baker dress.
It wasn’t that unusual for her to wake up outside. Unlike most of the official Canadian packs, her town in Ontario was nowhere near a mountain, so her pack cage changed. But after she distanced herself from her pack and refused to align with any other packs during college and here in Scotland, Tara became accustomed to shifting outdoors on her own. She knew all too well the feeling of waking up outside on the cold, damp Scottish ground in the frigid air.
But that morning, she wasn’t cold. Like, at all.
In fact, she almost felt too warm, as if she were sleeping next to a roaring bonfire. A huge bonfire with arms and legs that draped over her like the heaviest of blankets. She glanced down and instantly recognized the signet ring on one of the hands circling her waist. Magnus. She was wrapped in the arms of the Scottish alpha king.
And that wasn’t even the worst part. Shifting burned a lot of calories and like most modern wolves, Tara didn’t hunt while in wolf form. As a result, she was usually ravenous after a shift and the first thing on her mind when she woke was to fill her empty stomach.
This morning, however, breakfast was the furthest thing from her mind. Because she was already full. Very, very full. But nowhere near where she should be.
Magnus’s long thick shaft was inside her…stretching her impossibly wide. He was embedded so deep, she could feel every pulse.
No...! No, no, no! They could not have!
But when Tara attempted to move away from him, she found herself held in place by a hard, unyielding knot. A sharp bolt of pleasure rippled through her womb as if to say, in a dark Scottish accent, “Aye, you most certainly did. Moreover, you enjoyed it.”
Oh, God! They’d wolf-mated, with her wolf and his going at it like, well, animals while their humans were out cold. They’d obviously shifted back with him still embedded inside her. And now her core was milking his hard, unyielding knot which meant she was trapped. Tara wouldn’t be able to leave until this episode of animal biology completed and she’d squeezed every drop she could from the still sleeping male wolf behind her.
All she could do was curse. And even that had to be done quietly so as not to wake Magnus. Female wolves typically woke earlier from a shift than males, which was why she-wolves were usually put in charge of tending to the young ones and elderly after a full moon night.
Of course, a wolf mating did not mean an automati
c pregnancy. Her former Canadian pack used wolf matings as their main method of impregnating unheated she-wolves, but it didn’t always work.
Yes, technically, her oldest sister, Leora, was wolf-mated to a male from Prince Edward Island. And Leora was the product of a wolf mating between their white mother and Ghanaian father. But wolf mating was a crap shoot as best, with no guarantee of a pregnancy.
Therefore, the wolf mating between Tara and Magnus could very well be fruitless. Totally fruitless, she insisted to herself even as the monster buried deep inside her continued to shock her formerly virgin sex with pulse after pulse of knotted pleasure.
It wasn’t long before Tara had to bite her lip to keep from crying out when what can only have been an orgasm shuddered through her. Don’t move, she told herself after it finished. If she kept still and ignored the pulsing sensations inside her, he’d eventually unknot and she’d be free of him. Then she could sneak back to her car near the main road and get out of here.
Thankfully, Magnus unknotted a few minutes later. Tara carefully moved away as soon as she felt him deflate. She stood and took stock of her situation. Her lovely Ted Baker dress was in tatters and she would need to change ASAP. Of course, like any good shifter, Tara kept some spare clothes and a pair of shoes in the trunk of her car. But instead of beating a hasty retreat, she paused to stare down at the sleeping Magnus.
He was prone and no longer at “full mast,” but he still looked magnificent.
Mate, her wolf whispered.
Nope. Not happening, Tara answered, shoving her beast down and scrambled back to her car, praying her run-in with Magnus would end here. With only her knowing all the details of what had passed between them.
As soon as she arrived home, Tara made a beeline for the shower. She turned the temperature to near-scalding and thoroughly washed herself in every nook and cranny. But his scent would not come off. Nor did it fade in the hours after. In fact, it became more and more prominent with an undercurrent of hCG until finally, Tara had no choice but to acknowledge she was not one of those she-wolves who could wolf mate and not get pregnant.
That’s when she really started cursing herself for spending all her leftover wages on after-work drinks and a business-to-evening wear wardrobe to match. Because neither Ted Baker nor Kate Spade could help her out of this jam.
Tara assessed the situation. First off, she wouldn’t shift during the next full moon, or any other, for a year—nine months to gestate and three additional months for nature’s version of she-wolf maternity leave. That wouldn’t be so bad. Lord knew she wouldn’t mind not having to max out her sick days to recover from shifting like she’d had to do ever since she took the job at RSB. No…her biggest problem was that wolf fathers also stopped shifting for 12 months. Which meant even if Magnus didn’t yet realize he had a kid on the way, he’d definitely figure it out when he didn’t change with the next full moon.
And considering his crown hung in the balance, who knew what he’d do when he found out she was pregnant with his pup. Or what he’d make her do…
Chapter Three
Which was why Tara ended up crouched beneath a co-worker’s desk on Friday and seated across from her boss in his corner office the following Monday morning.
Gordon looked grumpy on the other side of his glass desk. Probably because she’d emailed him a letter of resignation over the weekend. Friday’s unannounced visit from Magnus had been far too close for comfort and she decided she had to get the heck out of dodge, with or without a job.
“Why are you so keen to move to Ireland anyways?” Gordon whined, before Tara could even fully settle into his office guest chair.
It was definitely against International Lupine Law for Tara to tell her human boss that a) she was a shifter and b) the father of her unborn baby happened to be an alpha king masquerading as a much-admired rugby player with absolute monarch privileges in Scotland which c) meant she had to get out of Auld Reekie while she still could. So instead, she gave him a modified version of the truth. “Well, as I said in my resignation letter, I’m ready for a change.”
Gordon harrumphed. “Don’t see why you’re so hell bent on this particular change unless it’s about that rugby player of yours. According to the office gossips, the two of you were secretly dating but then he went off and cheated on you and now you’re so heartbroken you’re willing to endure Stench’s bowfing odor rather than speak to the fellow. Even worse, you’re moving to a city without a professional rugby team! But look here, Glamour—there’s no reason to let your pride take you north. You can lick your wounds right here in our Technology department where you’re needed and much appreciated.”
Tara opened her mouth to defend herself against the overly dramatic—and completely fictitious—version of why she had to leave Scotland. Then she closed it, deciding not to look a gift horse in the mouth. “Thanks, Gordo. I appreciate your advice. But I’ve given this a lot of thought and I don’t think I can live in the same city as that man.”
Which was true enough, just not for the reasons Gordon and her office mates had concluded.
“But the fellow doesn’t even live here!” Gordon pointed out. “He has his own village in the Highlands. Owns the land and merely drives into town for practice, matches, and bird hunting.” He snickered suggestively. “Ye see, Glamour, when I say bird hunting, I don’t mean the kind you find in the trees…well, not unless they’re truly oot their face.”
“Yep, I get it, Gordo,” she said, before he could over-explain the joke any further. “He’s a huge man whore. Copy that.”
“So then you see why you don’t have to move cities at all!” Gordon said, spreading his arms wide as if he’d just proven his point with pure science. “He doesn’t even live here.”
“Edinburgh may not be his primary residence but he’s here more than you think,” Tara returned, carefully crafting the lie as she went along. “And that’s more than enough reason for me to leave.”
“Aye, suppose you’re right,” Gordon agreed, as if her logic made complete sense. “And Dublin doesn’t even have a professional rugby team. You’d never have to see him unless he was in town for Six Nations.”
Tara had no clue what Six Nations was, but she made a sound of agreement just to end the line of conversation. “Anyway, I am sorry about resigning. I just can’t wait any longer for the transfer to go through.”
“And I suppose there’s no chance you’ll forgive him for cheating on you?” Gordon asked hopefully.
“No, I’m afraid not,” Tara replied dryly, while suppressing an eyeroll.
Gordon gave in with a heavy sigh. “Aye, you’re probably right not to forgive him. He may be close to 100 caps but from what I hear, there’s barely a bonnie lass left in the city who he hasn’t had his way with. You’re better off meeting a like-minded person in Ireland and living out a nice, uncomplicated life there.”
Tara made a non-committal sound because even with the move, her life was going to get more complicated from here on out. And she would eventually have to tell Magnus the truth. He had a right to know, after all. She simply wanted to make sure she was a long way away from his kingdom and its antiquated laws when she did so.
Tara really missed Milly. All her other friends were humans, which meant—per International Lupine Law—she could never reveal what she truly was. Usually, that wasn’t a problem. She’d fought hard to live among the humans, and most of the time she resented being a wolf. But right now, she needed to talk to someone about this. Really talk. And she wondered if these confusing feelings surrounding her wolf’s attraction to Magnus would follow her all the way to Ireland.
Gordon cleared his throat, startling Tara out of her thoughts. He rubbed his chin thoughtfully and then declared, “I refuse to accept your resignation.” He held up a hand to stop her protest. “Hold on, now. I’ll admit I was taking my own sweet time with the transfer request because you’ve been such an asset to us. But I can see you’ve made up your mind. Tomorrow I’ll call over t
o RSB Dublin and make sure they expedite the approval process. If you’re that set on moving to Catholic Country, I won’t be the cause of your destitution. You’ll have your transfer papers by tomorrow, end of day.”
“Oh, wow! Thank you, Gordo! Thank you so much!”
If he hadn’t been sitting on the other side of a glass desk, Tara would have hugged him. “Off with you, now,” Gordon answered gruffly. “Get out before I change my mind.”
Tara quickly did as she was told, but she thanked him all the way out of the office.
She went to her desk and happily spent the rest of the day closing out and reassigning her biggest projects. Her life was complicated, for sure. But at least a move to Ireland would give her some breathing room so she could plan her next move. And for the first time since she realized she was pregnant, she finally felt as if she was in control of her life.
“Want to come out for a couple?” Daphne, a software engineer, asked near the end of the day.
“Oh, I’d love to, but I can’t. I’ve got that weekly call with my parents,” Tara replied, glad for the excuse. Here was yet another good reason for her to transfer. Her human co-workers would soon become suspicious if she went from being a social butterfly to a complete recluse.
“Oh, that’s right! Forgot it’s Monday,” Daphne said with a smile. Then leaned in towards Tara and whispered, “Just don’t tell my mum. I barely manage once a month and she’s only as far as Glasgow.”
Tara cackled. “Ooh, that’s so bad! I’m definitely going to have to tell your mom.”
“Please don’t! I’ll never hear the end of it. And she’s already after me to start dressing like you.” Daphne rolled her eyes and launched into an exaggerated Glaswegian accent. “Och, why cannae you dress lovely like that black lass in your photos? Ask her for tips is what you need to do, so boys dunnae think you’re only interested in their sisters.”
“Ouch!” Tara gave her a sympathetic wince. “If it makes you feel any better, my parents don’t like how I dress either.”
Her Scotttish King_Loving World Page 2