“Oh, yeah., sorry…” Milly said behind Tara. “She volunteered to take care of our daughter during the reception, so she won’t be coming,”
The male’s faces fell. “And why would she go an’ do that?” Malcolm demanded. “What’s the point of her coming if she’s not even going to meet with us? She’s wasting our time and the kingdom’s money!”
“I suggest you think of her as more of a chaperone,” Magnus suggested, his demeanor toward them cooling considerably. “And if I were you lads, I’d focus more on connecting with the she-wolves than ranking them, or else you’ll end up wasting everyone’s time.”
“Thanks for the back up,” Tara said into her husband’s head.
“Always, mo banrigh. Always and forever.”
And to think she had been so afraid when she’d stepped onto that plane with Magnus in Canada. It seemed like he gave her a new reason every day to thank her wolf for superseding her human and making the right choice.
The Faoltiarn Grand March went beautifully. Magnus and Tara marched into the castle’s celebration hall to the sound of bagpipes. Then they were joined by Milly and Iain. Then Lachlan and Valentina. And, eventually, the rest of the guests with both the New St. Ailbe brides and the Faoltiarn wolves coming together to perform a traditional reel that left them all breathing hard, laughing, and happy to be a part of this once dying kingdom village.
After that, nothing could kill Tara’s mood. Not even the reformation of the line of male wolves that had been cut short when Lachlan announced it was time for the traditional grand march.
However, she was surprised when Alban, who’d been missing during the big group dance, suddenly appeared and cut to the front of the line.
“Alban, you want to have a go at the St. Ailbe brides, too?” Magnus said, looking shocked.
Tara wore a similar expression on her face. After all, Alban had given her a gruff “Nae” when she stopped by his house to see if he wanted to put his name down on the letter exchange list. Her mind now scrambled to figure out which of the sweet and sheltered St. Ailbe she-wolves could possibly be a good match for the grizzled veteran.
Alban gave a jerk of his head. “Nae. It’s your sister. She’s here with the child asking for you.”
“Naomi’s here?!” Tara said, “Is Ellie okay?”
Magnus tensed. “You go to her, Tara. I’ll find Iain.”
“Nae! Nae! Not her,” Alban answered, grabbing both their arms before they could run off. “T’other one.”
The other one…? Tara struggled to grasp his meaning until she realized, “Wait, do you mean Leora? My older sister? She’s here? With her…daughter?”
“Aye, she’s here and she needs to see you. Come! Come!” Alban said with more urgency—or words, for that matter—than she’d ever seen him display.
But just as Tara started to follow him, a great shout went up. In Gaelic, but not the happy kind she occasionally heard at the cafe when Magnus scored a “try” (which, like every other rugby term Tara had come across, was both confusing and misleading. In this case, what would have been called a goal or touchdown by, like, every other sport, they called a try).
This was an angry shout—clipped and accompanied by Alban suddenly shoving her behind him until Magnus showed up.
Alban shouted something to Magnus before running in one direction while Magnus pulled her in another.
“What is going on?” she asked Magnus.
“Alban’s going to find your sisters and provide them protection.”
“Protection? From what?!” she demanded.
“The Irish. This is 1503 all over again—thank feck they already have it open.”
Tara’s eyes widened when she saw what he meant—a great chunk of the hall’s back stone wall had been slid open to reveal a dark passageway. At least half of the St. Ailbe brides were being shoved inside along with the few unheated Faoltiarn she-wolves.
“What is this? What’s going on?” she asked as Magnus attempted to do the same to her.
“I’m sorry, mo banrigh, but now more than ever you must be our queen. Keep the lasses silent and guide them down the passageway. It will bring you to a cave in the woods. Walk, don’t run, since it’ll be dark and ye’ll have no light. But if you hear the stone slide open behind you, tell the she-wolves to run and I’ll find ye afterwards.”
“After what? Magnus, what is going on?”
Another shout went up before he could answer, and though only about ten of the St. Ailbe’s she-wolves were in the passageway with her, the stone door began to slide close.
“I’m sorry, mo banrigh, there’s no time. The Irish are here and we have no weapons to defend ye with.”
With that, the stone door slid closed and the next thing Tara heard was someone say on the other side of it, “Tell us, King Magnus, what is this news we’ve received about a house full of brides…?” The voice had a heavy Irish accent, which Tara normally found pleasant and melodic. But this one sounded menacing and darker than the passageway she’d been shoved into.
“Take the brides away!” Magnus yelled inside her head. “Take them NOW.”
And so she did. “Okay, ladies. Keep quiet, turn slowly, and start walking,” she said, her voice calm and steady though she could smell the fear coming off the she-wolves gathered together in the black passageway.
But they did as she said, shuffling carefully along in the dark for a full twenty minutes to the soundtrack of nothing more than their rapid heartbeats.
Eventually, though, Tara decided to disobey her mate’s orders and asked, “Can one of you please tell me what happened in 1503?”
“I’m not sure as I’ve only ever heard it from my gran,” a voice answered—one she recognized as the baker’s daughter who’d refused to charge her for the sausage roll she’d enjoyed that morning. “But I think it has something to do with a wedding like this one. Knowing our males would be sottered with the celebration of their king’s wedding, the Irish wolves came and stole away nearly half the unheated maidens in our village. It’s the reason why we built this secret passage into the castle’s main celebration hall. It’s also the reason Irish and Scottish wolves still dinnae get along to this verrae day.”
“Oh, my goodness!” one of the St. Ailbe exchange brides murmured, giving voice to the horror every she-wolf who’d never heard this story was probably feeling right now.
The passage grew colder. Tara could smell the outdoors now—snow and trees and rabbits. They must be near the cave where the passage let out, and given the strong scent of rabbits, it seemed a warren of them had also decided to take refuge in the cave. There was no scent of Magnus, however, though he’d promised to meet them at this very spot.
“Are you okay?” Tara pushed into Magnus’s head.
“Aye, made our way out with our fists. We’re headed to you. Alban has secured Leora and he and Iain are on their way to Naomi.”
Thank goodness…relief filled her just as they stepped into the cave. The smell of rabbits was even stronger here, but at least she could see the moonlit night beyond the cave’s entrance.
“So what happened after you got the maidens back?” Tara asked the baker’s daughter as they stepped from the passageway into the cave. “Was it all-out war?”
“That’s just it,” another of the Scottish she-wolves answered. “According to my great- granny, we never got them back. We sent our best hunters after them, and eventually the king himself. They either came back empty handed or not at all.”
This time the chill that went through Tara had nothing to do with the dark cave. “But how is that possible?” she asked.
“Well, if you’re askin’ me, muirnin, it’s because the Irish wolves are a much cleverer lot than your males,” a voice answered. A male voice. One Tara did not recognize…with the same melodic-but-dark accent as the one she’d heard earlier in the hall.
Several flashlights suddenly lit up the cave, revealing at least ten male wolves stepping out of the cave’s shadows. They al
l wore coats that appeared to be fashioned out of strung together rabbit furs. Which explained the strong animal scent and why she couldn’t smell them before she entered the cave. They were all to a man, huge, with dark paint streaked in lines, patterns, and symbols across their broad faces.
The she-wolves, including Tara, all stared at the males.
The males grinned at the she-wolves, their eyes glittering with intent.
And then…all hell broke loose.
* * *
Oh, my gosh! Oh, my gosh! What will happen with the Irish wolves? How—and even more important—why did Tara’s older sister show up in Faoltiarn out of the blue?!?!
I can’t tell you how happy I am to finally share Tara and Magnus’s romance. As soon as our heroine let me in on her super secret back story, I knew this Howl’s romance would be all kinds of fun. I hope you enjoyed it, too.
If so, do us the further boon of leaving a review—but ssshhh! SUPER PRETTY PLEASE keep it spoiler-free, so other readers can enjoy Tara’s big reveal.
I really cannot WAIT to tell Leora’s and Naomi’s stories. So if you haven’t already, please sign up for my newsletter to be the first to know when my next Howls Romance, HER SCOTTISH WARRIOR, lands and to get updates on the Irish Wolves spin-off series.
Meanwhile, please enjoy Iain’s and Milly’s fan favorite story after the swipe!
So much love,
Theodora Taylor
HER SCOTTISH WOLF
Chapter One
You need this job… You need this job… You NEED this job.
Milly reminded herself of this fact several times while waiting outside her Scottish boss’s solid oak office door for their daily 4:00 A.M. stand up. Yes, 4:00 A.M. Not 3:58 A.M.—which was the time now. Not 4:01 A.M. But exactly 4:00 A.M. in the freaking morning. Neither a minute before, nor a minute after met Iain Scotswolf’s infamous “standards.”
Speaking of which…
She squinted at the clear plexiglass wall opposite her desk. It was still dark out so Milly could just make out enough of her reflection to run a quick scan of her appearance.
Lucky mustard yellow cardigan correctly buttoned? Check.
Wrinkle-free, gray pencil skirt? Check.
Glasses on straight? Milly pushed her black, thick-framed glasses up her nose…check.
Makeup? Eh, not bad, especially considering how hard it was to match her unique shade of “too much time spent indoors” beige, which had only become more pronounced here in Scotland, home of the people with milk-colored, freckled skin. She’d made do as best she could with the MAC products her roommate, Tara, had brought back from her last trip to London. So, sure…check.
Hair? Well, they say opposites attract. But thanks to the opposite types of kinky hair genes she’d inherited from her Jewish-by-way-of-New Zealand father and her Ghanaian-American mother, her coils had been straight up battling for curl superiority all her life. It was a worse situation than that of her parents who’d come together, only to split up before she’d been born. Because at least they’d been able to break up.
Unlike the never-ending curl war on top of Milly’s head which had resulted in a veritable nest of frizzy spirals that could only be governed by a triple regime of headband, ponytail holder, and super aggressive product. And even then, there was no guarantee a few of the curls wouldn’t mutiny by the end of the business day. But for now, they were all contained and accounted for.
So, check. Her hair was what it was. Just like this job. Which she needed even if it meant having to remind herself about this every weekday, and sometimes way more often than she liked on weekends, too. And even it if meant standing like a dog outside Iain Scotswolf’s door at the butt-crack of dawn so she could walk in the second the clock struck four in the morning.
Speaking of which…
Milly glanced at the huge brushed steel clock on the other side of her glass-encased workspace, which doubled as the reception area for Iain’s office. It took up nearly the entire wall behind her desk. Looming over her as if it, like her boss, considered itself her lord and master—
Oh no…
The short hand now sat completely on the four, but the long hand no longer rested on either of the slots before the 12. In fact, it was now just a little past the top of the hour, with the thin second hand rushing past the 11 to make it official. Her heart thunked.
She was only a few seconds away from 4:01 A.M.
Crap! Crap! Crap! She rushed to open the door, only to jump when a voice boomed, “Stop your dithering and get in here, Millicent!”
Milly did exactly that. Scrambling into her boss’s adjoining office suite as quickly as she could. But before she could even open her mouth to apologize, the man standing behind a very tall, black desk with six widescreen monitors mounted on top of it, yelled out, “Tardy!”
Milly’s cheeks heated at the reprimand. She knew…knew down to the very last drop of her rapidly dwindling reservoir of pride that Iain wasn’t the dreamboat Scottish billionaire the local media made him out to be. Yeah, he might be a brilliant coder who’d cleared a billion in product alone with the first version of his visionary AlgoFortune finance software—all before reaching the age of 25. A total catch in most women’s eyes. But to Milly, he was nothing more than her foul-tempered, rude, and extremely demanding boss.
At least that was how she typically felt about him. However, per usual, it was hard not to stare when she walked into his office because he looked like a modern day Scottish male fantasy come to life.
From what she’d observed while working in Edinburgh’s main technology district for nearly three years, no Scottish guy with a nine-to-five office job wore kilts to work on a regular basis. But Iain Scotswolf did. With a vest and blazer during the colder months, and a simple button up shirt during the warmer months. And thanks to exceptional good looks and what appeared to be a generous helping of muscles beneath his unusual business attire, he pulled it off.
And then there was his accent.
Even before coming to Scotland as an intern, Milly had loved the Scottish accent. The brogue-ier, the better. And Iain’s accent was especially delicious. Deep and rich, with a gruff undertone. That voice of his had sent shivers up her spine when they first shook hands across his standing desk during her interview.
“Hello there, Millicent. I’m Iain Scotswolf,” he’d said with a huge smile, like she’d already made his day just by walking into the room. Her heart, her mind—heck, her entire body—had warmed beneath the sun of that smile. And for a full ten seconds, she’d thought she might have scored a dream job interview with an even dreamier boss.
But then his smile suddenly disappeared. Replaced by the cold, expressionless mask she’d come to know well over the next three years. He’d told her they’d be conducting the interview while standing. That was how she discovered the first of Iain’s long, long list of standards. There were no chairs to be found anywhere in his office space because “sitting”—yes, sitting—wasn’t up to his standards.
And the interview had only gone downhill from there. He’d spent an entire hour lecturing about the long list of things he wouldn’t put up with. And then—much to her surprise—he’d hired her on the spot without bothering to ask her a single question.
“Tardiness, Millicent. By now I’d expect you to know that’s not up to my standards,” Iain said, still clacking away at his computer.
“Sorry,” she replied with a sincerely apologetic look.
Not that he noticed. From the look of extreme concentration on his chiseled face, he was still knee-deep in the new algorithm he was drafting for next year’s AlgoFortune 4.0 product launch.
And he didn’t so much as acknowledge her apology, just barked, “Report!” rolling the second “r” hard.
“Okay, let’s see…” Milly pulled out her tablet and nudged her glasses back up her nose. “Yesterday I received the first draft of the new pitch package and checked it over for errors. So that’s ready for you to look over. Oh, and the b
usiness development team is requesting you get it back to them by Thursday—”
“Tell them they’ll bloody get it when they get it! If their reports were up to standard and not riddled with so many mistakes that my assistant is forced to do the first pass just so I can read the twaddle they come up with, then maybe—mebbe—they could start inquiring about deadlines. Feckin’ wallopers, the lot of them—tell them that exactly.”
“Okay…” She opened the email browser on her tablet and composed a polite note to the head of biz dev, letting him know Iain would look over the package at his earliest convenience. She pressed “send” and then continued, “Your brother called. He and your father want to have lunch with you this Thursday.”
“Not possible. I’m swamped.”
Milly winced. She liked Iain’s father, Lachlan Scotswolf—even if his Highland accent was so thick, at times it was nearly unintelligible to his son’s American assistant. But Iain’s brother, Magnus, was the one who’d tagged her with a now unshakeable office nickname, “Milly Mouse,” the very first time he’d dropped by to visit Iain after she’d been hired. And now the entire staff of AlgoFortune, save Iain, called her this. So seriously, no love lost there.
Still, she was obligated to say, “He told me to tell you it was a command if you said no.”
Iain’s fingers paused on his keyboard, his clean-shaven jaw locking for a few irritated seconds before he grudgingly replied, “Fine, put them on the calendar. Tell them they’ve got forty-five minutes with me. Not a minute more. I will not have my time wasted, and there’s a ton needs doing before the long weekend.”
Funny how Iain always caved to his brother’s demands no matter how much he had going on. Maybe it was because Magnus was his older brother? Having no siblings herself, Milly could only guess. But without fail, whenever Magnus “commanded” Iain—the busiest and least accommodating man Milly had ever met—Iain always acquiesced.
Her Scotttish King: (Howls Romance) Loving World Page 16
