8. Tara #2
I silently screamed on the inside.
Meanwhile, Abel Flosswulf said, “As you know, Tara, most girls your age have already been wolf-mated, and tonight…”
Oh no. Oh no, oh no, oh no …
I had applied to college to escape my pack’s compulsory wolf mating program. And I’d been accepted.
But tonight was a full moon and I hadn’t yet applied for official permission to leave.
Now it looked like my reprieve had come too late.
The memories of that full moon night crashed down inside of my head like a cold December rain.
But then I reminded myself that Magnus was right. I was no longer in Canada.
“No!” I raised my chin high with defiance to tell Magnus what I’d been too young and scared to tell Abel Flosswulf and Jacob. “No, I do not want to be your mate.”
He flinched.
And then his expression became stone-like. “You have no choice, mo banrigh.”
“You have no choice in the matter, dear child,” Abel Flosswulf said when I showed reluctance at entering the mating cage. “Jacob is a fine male, and he has come a long way at great expense. It has already been decided.”
Decided without me …
“There is always a choice,” I told Magnus as I 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. “Faoiltiarn… my kingdom village—is not backwards—”
I cut him off. “Do you have electricity? Wi-Fi? More than a mile of land without livestock or farm fields 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.”
Again he shook his head in a way that put me in mind of men like Abel Flosswulf.
“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... ”
Okay, he was trying to distract me, but I refused to play his game.
“Magnus, is there or is there not a rule about where I must live?” I demanded, between gritted teeth.
A sullen beat. Then Magnus crossed his arms and admitted, “Nae, not exactly.”
“That’s what I thought.” I pointed toward the door. “Now get out.”
Magnus didn’t move.
“Wolf fathers have rights, though,” he informed me. “Many more than most human ones do during their child’s gestation period. As you must be aware, we male wolves are biologically programmed to protect our young.”
He folded his arms imperiously across his broad chest. “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… ”
“Okay, are you not the least bit concerned or at least slightly curious why pregnant she-wolves were so eager to skip town that your pack had to go and make a law about it?” I squinted at him, frustrated as hell with this country’s wolves and their sire.
“We’re a verrae auld country, banrigh,” he answered simply. “Our pack hails back to the Vikings. We have laws for almost every situation and outcome you can name—and a few are literally set in stone.”
He unfolded his arm and spread his hands with a shrug. “So, how you feel about our laws doesn’t really matter, does it? It willnae change the fact that you cannae leave the country unless you’re returning home—specifically to your pack.”
I blinked. Home to my pack…
No. I couldn’t go back there. Ever. I’d vowed to never return after what happened with Jacob.
“If you won’t come with me, it is within my rights to stay here with you,” Magnus continued. “And I guess that means I’ll be moving into Iain’s flat.”
My fists balled. I so badly wanted to hit him again. I’d escaped one cage only to wind up in another …
“No, no, I do not want this! I want to return to my family’s house!
” I screamed when they attempted to put me in the mating cage inside Abel Flosswulf’s basement.
Granted, the designated cage was much larger and more comfortable than the humble cages my family used to shift on full moon nights.
These had floor-to-ceiling bars and a padded floor.
But I completely freaked out the moment the pack alpha opened the door and directed me to enter it with Jacob.
“You cannot make me do this!” I protested.
But as it turned out, they could. As if by mutual agreement, both Jacob and Abel blocked me from running, each catching me by the arm.