Alban
Three weeks after what Malcolm and Gavin had taken to calling “The Irish Wolves Sequel,” we returned to Faoiltiarn under a dark cloud.
One that had nothing to do with the grey puffs overhead trailing our caravan of Land Rovers as we made our unceremonious way back into our Scottish town, which had been covered in a blanket of winter snow since we saw it last.
As the Kingdom Defender, I drove the vehicle at the head of the caravan, but I slowed when I saw the two people standing next to the town sign—an ancient rock with FAOILTIARN chiseled into its front.
I took my hands off the wheel momentarily to rub the weary grit from my eyes. But aye, the two people looked like my father and the toothless girl wolf I hadn’t seen since the night before that disastrous wedding.
Was I dreaming, though? Seeing my father outside our town house was unusual enough, but why would he be out here in single-digit Celsius weather with Dorie?
Could be a trick of the mind. God kent, the males in my search party had suffered plenty of those while we scoured Ireland, looking for our kidnapped brides and unheated females.
A flash of red in the snow-covered forest that had turned out to be a bird—not hair as suspected.
A strangely aligning stone that could have been a secret entrance—but nae, it had just been a big rock that decide to park itself in front of one of those puny hills Ireland called mountains.
At one point, the baker’s son had been sure he heard his sister calling his name.
His sister had been an angry goat, separated from the rest of his feral herd.
I hadn’t fallen prey to any of these delusions so far, but after three weeks of fruitless searching … I wouldn’t be surprised if my mind didn’t decide to have itself a wee crack.
But then Malcolm, who was sitting in the passenger seat beside me, asked the rest of us, “Is that a little brown girl standing next to Alban’s father at the town’s sign, or am I hallucinating?”
And sure enough, when I rolled down the window to give the rest of the caravan the hand signal to stop, Dorie’s voice came floating to me in the wind.
“Alban! Alban! Hi! Hi! Over here!” she called as if there was any possible way of us missing her.”
“Holy feck, it really is a girl!” Gavin, Malcolm’s best mate, crowed from the back seat.
I couldn’t blame Malcolm and Gavin for staring at Dorie in shock.
It had been over a decade since a wolf had been born in Faoiltiarn, and that last lot had all been boys. Before Dorie, I hadn’t seen a she-wolf girl her age in the flesh since my own childhood days, and I doubted any of the younger males who’d traveled with me to Ireland had either.
But what the hell was Dorie doing out here with my da of all people?
I brought the Land Rover to stop right beside them and climbed down to ask just that question. “What are the two of ye doing out here?”
Da shrugged. “We were out on our usual morning hike when we saw you coming through the passageway.”
“Your usual hike?” I scrunch my entire face up at him. Da didn’t hike. He didn’t even leave the house most days except to tend to the chickens in the back garden. And I knew for a fact he subsisted exclusively on Marmite and toast when I wasn’t there to make a stew for him.
“We’re so glad you’re back!” Dorie threw her arms around my waist before I could make Da explain his not-usual, but in fact, very brand-new habit to me. “Maem, Seanair, and I really missed you.”
Hold on … Leora missed me? My heart lifted for one glorious moment—then it sank when I recalled what had passed since I saw her last.
I’d let her sister “voluntarily” walk out of the castle while holding Milly and Iain’s wee bairn in my arms. And then, my three-week mission had ended with exactly zero kidnapped she-wolves found.
How much would Leora miss me when she discovered that I’d failed her sister and my kingdom in every way?
Also ...
“Senair?” I asked the little girl who’d come out to greet me.
“Did I say it wrong?” Dorie pulled back from the hug to worriedly ask, “That’s the Scottish word for grandpa, right? The boys at school keep teasing me for saying Gaelic words wrong.”
I wanted to hear the names of these boys who’d dared to tease the only little girl currently residing in St. Ailbe. But first, I had to tell her, “I ken what Senair means. You’re pronouncing it exactly right. Did your mother’s and aunt’s father decide to fly over here, then?”
I shot my own father a dark look as I asked this, and he took a sudden interest in the gray sky overhead as Dorie answered, “No, that’s what Hamish told me to call him.”
“What is this all about, then?” I asked my father.
I glance at the wolves I’d left behind in the Rover.
Malcolm was openly staring at us from the passenger seat, and Gavin had his head stuck out the backseat window like a nosy dog.
They were obviously as curious as me to hear what the man everyone in town called Mad Hammy would say to defend himself.
“It’s not right to have children calling you by your first name, is it?” Da asked with a stubborn look. “But somehow, it’s against the girl’s religion or something like that to use titles. So that was the compromise we came up with. What about it, then?”
“What about it, then?” I wrenched away from Dorie to glare at my da. “You cannae just have a she-wolf who’s not your blood calling you Senair.”
“Why not?” Hamish demanded. “It’s not as if you’re that far off from making me the real deal.”
I started and stuttered, “What do ye—what do ye mean by that?”
I could feel Malcolm’s and Gavin’s eyes on me, and a few of the wolves in the Land Rovers behind us had rolled down their windows as well. But none of them were asking after the holdup—which let me know they were simply listening with their wolf ears perked straight in the air.
Faoiltiarn’s third favorite sport after rugby and football was gossip, after all.
“I mean,” Da answered with a rather shifty look, “that Leora is yours for the taking. And it has nae been for lack of other males trying with her. Plenty of them have asked your she-wolf to walk the town with them …”
“BUT she’s turned ALL of them down,” Dorie finished happily as if this were some sort of sales script they’d rehearsed. “So, if you want to marry my mom, you’re clear to go!”
Before reason could intervene, a new rage stole over me. While I’d been away, other male wolves had swooped in to try to talk to Leora. And a few of them had even invited her on a walk, a known courting ritual here in Faoiltiarn.
Strolling through town with a bonnie she-wolf on your arm was our males’ way of laying claim to her. Letting everyone else see that this she-wolf belonged to you.
The other wolves in the caravan weren’t even pretending not to eavesdrop at this point. Malcolm had climbed over to the driver’s seat, and all the other wolves with their heads poked out the windows turned toward me to see what I’d say next about the queen’s sister.
Then Dorie just had to go and say, “If you and Maem married, I could call you Da instead of Alban.”
Da … the word made my entire chest ache with the want of things I couldn’t have. Things I would never be able to have.
I turned on my father angrily. “What are ye doing, scheming like an old matchmaking biddy with a child?”
“Well, the child’s mother is eligible, bonnie, even-tempered, and patient—which would be needed for the likes of you.
” Hamish folded his arms, and that mutinous cast once again came over his face.
“Not to mention, she cooks a right dream! It’s been three weeks of heaven on a plate for breakfast, lunch, and supper! ”
“Hold on, Da …” I could feel—actually feel the veins swelling in my forehead. “Are you meaning to tell me Leora and Dorie are still staying on at our house?”
“The castle’s too big with too many people,” Dorie said as if that explained everything. “I like it better at your house.”
“Aye, the child likes it better at our house.” Hamish pointed to Dorie with his palm up as if she were wee Oliver Twist, orphaned and living on the cruel London streets.
He widened his eyes with a helpless look.
“What did you expect me to do? Kick them out? And have I mentioned the girl’s mother cooks a dream? ”
“You don’t keep somebody on just so they can keep cooking for you!” I yelled at my father. “That isn’t something I should have to explain.”
Before he could answer or list off any more of Leora’s good qualities, I asked, “And why are you walking about with Dorie out here by yourself? Toothless as she is, anything could happen.”
Da glared at me, and Dorie reared back as if I’d slapped her.
“I taught you everything you kent, before you joined Black Watch, laddie,” Da yelled back at me. “Now you reckon I’m too auld and decrepit to protect one wee she-wolf?”
At the same time, Dorie insisted, “I don’t need protecting! I’ve already won at Scots and Irish against the biggest boy at the village school. Twice!”
Her boast would have been impressive, not to mention adorable, if it had been in reference to any other battle of strength.
As it was, my anger deflated at her words.
The children in the village had been playing Scots and Irish for centuries as if it were just a game.
But it wasn’t just a game. It had actually been a protocol based in history.
Even the smallest girls were encouraged to learn to fight so that they could defend themselves if the Irish wolves ever darkened our door.
And, aye, the possible Irish king had kept his promise. No she-wolves under mating age or already heated to another had been taken. But still …
I ground my jaw. “Enough of this. I have to report to the king.”
I turned on my booted heel and headed back to my Rover while calling over my shoulder. “Your hike ends now. Take the girl back to the house and have her pack her things so that she and her mother can move to the castle before the sun sets.”
Both the girl and the old man began to protest at the same time. “But, but …”