Her Scotttish King
(Howls Romance) Loving World
Theodora Taylor
Copyright © 2018 by Theodora Taylor
All rights reserved.
No part of this book may be reproduced in any form or by any electronic or mechanical means, including information storage and retrieval systems, without written permission from the author, except for the use of brief quotations in a book review.
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Contents
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Chapter 14
Chapter 15
Chapter 16
Chapter 17
Epilogue
HER SCOTTISH WOLF
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Chapter 9
Chapter 10
Chapter 11
Chapter 12
Chapter 13
Epilogue
Also by Theodora Taylor
About the Author
Chapter One
“Hey, Pavios, what’s up? Could you move your legs? I need to hide under your desk.”
Pavios stared up at Tara openmouthed, giving her an unappetizing view of his partially chewed limburger cheese and tuna salad sandwich. Much to the dismay of his Royal Scottish Bank colleagues, Pavios had a habit of eating the same type of smelly sandwich every day at his desk. That, along with his questionable personal hygiene, was why his RSB office mates took to calling him “Stench” behind his back.
Right now, however, Tara was beyond grateful that Stench AKA Pavios (by the less nose-sensitive on their floor) was oblivious to the wall of smell surrounding him. This was precisely why she’d ambushed the hapless IT guy in the first place.
Meanwhile, said hapless IT guy was still struggling to respond.
Maybe he was surprised the Canadian from Technology, nicknamed “Glamour” by her co-workers, had deigned to speak to him of all people. Or, more likely, Tara’s odd request was so out there he simply had no idea what to say.
Either way, Tara couldn’t wait around for Pavios to pull himself together. She only had a few seconds to hide before HE showed up. And HE was coming in fast. There was no time for explanations.
Without waiting for a response, she yanked at the seatback of Pavios’ wheeled office chair—effectively moving it and Pavios out of the way—and dove beneath his desk. She scrambled as far back into the small space as she could, tucking her Kate Spade-heeled feet beneath her. The desk space was dimly lit and—whoa!—extremely pungent. Tara spotted a pair of brown Church-brand loafers on the dark blue carpet next to her. Well, that explained the extra layer of stink. Once this situation was over, she vowed to pull Pavios aside and urge him to get his hands on a tube of extra-strength anti-fungal cream.
Most humans in Tara’s current position would be trying hard not to gag or vomit. But her shifter senses relied on scent to gather important data about her surroundings. This meant she could handle any number of smells that were often too offensive for humans to bear full on. And Pavios, hands down, had the most intense scent of anyone in the office.
Tara sent up a silent prayer that the combination of Stench’s stench and the heavy spritz of Keinwulf Neutralizing Fragrance she always wore would be enough to mask her smell from the incoming mega-problem she wasn’t nearly ready to face.
“Don’t tell him I’m down here!” she instructed Pavios in as loud a whisper as she dared with HIM nearby.
“Tell who? What’s this all about then—?” Pavios stood up from his chair in order to better bend down to look at her underneath his desk… but then he froze in place, cut short by the sight above his high cubicle wall. “Crivvens! Is that Magnus Scotswolf? Ach, it is! Right here on the Technology and Auditing floor! What’s he doing here?”
“Don’t. Tell. Him. I’m. Here,” Tara commanded, wrapping a hand around the steel stem of Pavios’s rolling chair and yanking it towards the desk. The chair neatly punched in the back of Pavios’s knees, which forced him back into a seated position. Good, because she needed it to look like the IT guy was simply eating lunch at his desk—not talking to the she-wolf hiding under it.
“Have you seen Tara Hamilton?” a voice asked only a few milliseconds later. It was low and commanding with a ridiculously thick Highland brogue.
Tara braced herself, doubting Pavios had it in him to keep quiet about her. But instead of spilling the beans, he sputtered, “You’re…you’re Magnus Scotswolf!”
“Aye, that’s me,” the deep and officious voice answered. “I’m looking for Tara Hamilton. According to yer office mates by the lift, she was last seen heading in this direction. Did ye see her?”
Again, Tara braced. And again, all Pavios could manage was a choked, “You’re Magnus Scotswolf…Magnus Scotswolf!” His voice was only a few registers below that of a prepubescent girl and it sounded to Tara as if he might pass out.
“Aye, right again, mate. Now, could you tell me where—”
“I heard you might reach 100 caps this season!”
A pause. Then, “The only argument I have with that statement is the word ‘might,’ mate. Now, do ye think ye can point me in the dir—"
“Magnus Scotswolf is here! At my desk! Talking to me. Me!!!” Pavios began to make a sound Tara could only describe as a cross between a wheeze and a scream. It was more than a little obvious the poor man had a serious man crush on Magnus and would be of little use to him.
Magnus seemed to reach the same conclusion. “All right, mate. Well met. I’ll—er—I’ll see if the folks in the next section can help.”
“Magnus Scotswolf talked to me. To me!” Pavios repeated breathlessly, even as Tara watched the male wolf’s black Ghillie boots beat a hasty retreat from the cubicle and head towards Auditing. She also caught a brief glimpse of the red plaid kilt Magnus always wore before its owner, disappeared around the cubicle corner.
Upon Magnus’s departure, there were a few seconds of welcome silence (if you didn’t count Pavios’ star struck fanboy declarations) followed by the light banter of some staffers returning from lunch. Tara heard Magnus ask them her whereabouts, then his voice was drowned out by the gasping, hooting sounds people make when they are well and truly surprised. Above the din, the familiar voice of the normally stodgy Head Auditor roared, “Feckin’ hell, it’s Magnus Scotswolf!”
“Aye, that it is. I’m looking for—”
“But why are you on this floor?” the Head Auditor demanded before Magnus could finish. “The private banking fellows are on the second floor. This is the seventh floor—Technology and Auditing.”
“Uh, yes, I ken what floor I’m on. See, I’m looking for Tara Hamil—”
“Tara Hamilton? D’you mean Glamour?” the Head Auditor asked, cutting Magnus off yet again. “She’s in Technology over by the lifts. This here is Auditing. Nobody in this department would wear heels the likes of her. Right impractical they are. I have worries about the future health of that lass’s spine.”
“I already checked with her department but her desk is empty. They told me she headed this way.”
“Am I dreamin’?” another voice butted in. “Because I had a dream exactly like this. Except you were naked
. And so was I. And the rest of you lot just watched.”
Tara rolled her eyes. That would be Glenda, the oldest auditor on staff, and why did she have the feeling that story was one-hundred percent true?
“If you can’t find Tara, she’s probably at lunch,” a helpful voice suggested. It belonged to the new Auditing intern from Canada. Her recent arrival to Scotland explained why she didn’t sound as breathless or awed as her colleagues when she spoke to Magnus, one of Scotland’s top rugby players. “She usually grabs lunch outside the office. Maybe try the kebab place near the shops on Multrees Walk?”
“But,” interjected Glenda, “Before you do that, let me help you check the loo. After all, she might have popped in to powder her nose. Right this way, you dead sexy man…”
Glenda’s voice gradually faded as she led Magnus away. Tara didn’t budge from her position beneath Pavios’ desk. Nor did she loosen her tight clasp on his ankle. She wasn’t taking any chances.
Not that she need have bothered. Because Pavios was still going on about how he’d met and spoken with Magnus Scotswolf. And he kept it up until Magnus finally headed back to the main elevator bank. Tara listened carefully for the far-off dinging of an arriving elevator car followed by the swoosh-hum of its slow descent. Thanks to her preternatural hearing and sense of smell, she not only knew the very moment Magnus left the floor, but she’d known the very moment he arrived, too.
Finally, HE was gone. Tara released her breath and Pavios’s ankle and then carefully crawled out from under the desk.
But her problems didn’t end with Magnus’s departure.
By the time Tara got to her feet, every single employee on the floor, including her boss—a tubby redhead named Gordon—had gathered around the cubicle. And it was obvious, based on the expressions they wore, that they were all wondering the same things.
Why was Magnus Scotswolf looking for you?
Why on earth did you hide from him? And under Stench’s desk, of all places?
Before anyone could say a word, Tara turned to Gordon and said, “So… any updates on my transfer request to RSB Dublin yet?”
Chapter Two
Five Days Earlier
“I hoped I’d run into you again.”
That’s what Magnus said when he showed up out of the blue at her secret changing place an hour before moonrise.
At first, Tara wanted to ask him how he’d come to be in the dense woods near the Scottish/English border. But then she recalled what his brother Iain told her two full moons ago: Magnus can be…temperamental.
Iain explained that despite his brother’s rugby superstar image, Magnus took his role as alpha king of the Highland and Eastern Scottish Wolves seriously. Very seriously. “And,” Iain helpfully pointed out, “you did punch him in the face…”
Tara had merely rolled her eyes at Iain’s warning. After all, she had good reason to hit Magnus and would do it again if given the chance. Moreover, she could take care of herself. She explained all that Iain and his fiancée, Milly (her formerly human best friend). But Iain was so certain Magnus would seek retaliation against her, he’d insisted she move into his heavily secured apartment in New Town while he and Milly traipsed around the world on an extended babymoon.
And then…nothing happened. Tara hadn’t heard a peep from Magnus. And she’d been planning to call Iain and tell him as much with more than a little “I told you so” in her voice. Now she was glad she hadn’t. Because Iain had been right about his brother. Here he was, smelling of pine trees, moss, stone, and lake water. And he was steadily approaching her private space with a lazy lope that put her in mind of the wolf he’d become once the full moon rose in an hour or so.
Magnus stopped just a few inches in front of her…and it was way too close for comfort. He towered a good foot above her and wore a full-on cape with a fur collar over his usual sweater-and-kilt combo. The cape smelled ancient and Tara could all but hear the roar of the bear that was killed to make this Jon Snow-cosplay moment happen.
The whole outfit was, in a word, ridiculous. Even so, her wolf did that same weird flip-flop just like it had the first time Tara met Magnus. It stood up, as her father described the feeling whenever he told his daughters the story of when he first laid eyes on their mother.
Yet unlike her father, Tara despised the wolf who had just strode into her secret changing place like he owned it. And she would have tied her own noose and hung herself with it before ever acknowledging her wolf’s reaction to him in any way.
“What are you doing here?” she demanded.
Magnus smirked. “Ye ken, most lasses—human and wolf—would be chuffed for me to show up like this. And on a full moon night, no less.”
“You should know by now I am not most women. Or even most shifters,” she shot back, ignoring the way her wolf rolled inside her at the sound of his voice. “And I prefer to shift alone, so…” Tara made a shooing action with her hands.
But Magnus ignored her and continued to inspect her small dell with a frown. “Not much cover out here,” he noted. “What will you do if s0me dumb humans break down on the road just beyond?”
“Not a problem. I tie myself to a tree before I shift,” Tara answered smugly. “It’s an old Native American trick.”
“Aye, I’ve heard tale of that lot. Clever. Though as I understand it, most of North America is now run over with the descendants of wolves from my side of the pond. So perhaps I wouldnae be so quick to trust their methods if it were myself out here in the woods alone without mate or clan.”
She squinted up at him, unable to believe his arrogance. The male wolf standing before her was the opposite of the Canadian ones she’d grown up with. Vain as a rooster and more entitled than a cat. “Yeah, and according to the humans, wolves are supposedly extinct here in Scotland,” she shot back, “which means unlike in Canada, you all have to hide out like punk-ass sheep in your villages. So…I think it’s safe to say native methods have some obvious advantages over yours.”
Tara’s human took perverse pleasure in watching Magnus’s jaw tighten and tick in response to her sass. She might have even felt triumphant if her wolf wasn’t blatantly ogling the Scot, more than a little curious about the male with the strong, clean-shaven jaw, dark hair, and stone-gray eyes. He smells soooo good, her wolf panted, and Tara was suddenly aware of the strength and power hidden beneath Magnus’s sweater and over-the-top cape. Even though her human out-and-out hated the alpha king disguised as a popular rugby player, her wolf could not stop inhaling his scent…
It was an unsettling combination of emotions and Tara had no idea how to manage them all. After she left her pack she chose to live as the humans did. She shopped like them—way too much and with more money sitting on her shoe shelves and hangers than in her savings account. She worked an eight-to-five job. She went out for after-work drinks with her co-workers. And when Milly was still human, Tara was probably one of the few shifters in Scotland with a human roommate-slash-best friend.
But as glamourous as her co-workers believed her to be, Tara was still a she-wolf at heart. She didn’t easily turn down men because she was a hard-ass as she’d let her human friends believe. She turned them down because she was biologically incapable of feeling sexual desire for them. At least not until her first heat…
And indeed, her human didn’t feel much more than disdain for the cocky rugby player king, and a strong urge to throw another punch at his overly smug face—her usual modus operandi for overly aggressive males.
But Magnus wasn’t just any male. He was a wolf.
An extremely sexy wolf—with broad shoulders and a gray-eyed gaze that made her feel, despite his arrogance, that his attention…every single ounce of it…was completely focused on her. And nothing but her.
“Look,” she said, after taking a deep breath. “I don’t like you. And you don’t like me. If you’re here to give me a hard time about hitting you, you need to know I really don’t care about your royal butt hurt. So can we just agree to be
enemies from, like, far away?”
Magnus stilled and she could sense him fighting to hold on to his notorious temper.
Which made the next words out of his mouth even more surprising. “Tara, I dinnae come here to argue with you. I came to offer you the hospitality of my village.”
“The hospitality of your village,” she repeated, not understanding.
“Aye. It is not altogether safe for a wolf to shift, as your folk call it, in unprotected woods. I want to invite you back to my village next moon-tide. You can make the change there, and after, you can come ‘round to my castle and we can get to know each other as we break our full moon fast.”
His brogue was so much thicker than that of her Scottish co-workers in Edinburgh that it took her a few moments to register exactly what he was proposing. “Hold on. Are you asking me out on, like, a post-shift breakfast date?”
Magnus’s jaw ticked again as if Tara had somehow dishonored him with her blunt assessment of his invitation—which she probably had. Her pack in Canada had barely registered the existence of the Ontario alpha king, and they definitely didn’t acknowledge the human Queen of England. But according to Iain, the Scottish wolves took their monarchy way more seriously than their North American counterparts.
For a split second, it looked to Tara like that temper of his might blow. But then his expression softened, and his stone eyes found hers as he said, “Aye, we got off to a bad start, you and I. But I do fancy ye…and I’d like us to come to know each other better. You see…I have found myself thinking of you since our first encounter. And I’m keen to…explore that.”
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