Here’s how wolf mating works. Two wolves mated in wolf form. Got pregnant in wolf form. Then shifted back to human form and went about their lives. Wham! Bam! Thank you, Moon, for the free baby—no messy heat sessions required.

One of the reasons her pack had voted for compulsory wolf matings was it involved much less fuss than the heat alternative favored by most other packs. Also, if a she-wolf was wolf-mated before going into heat, she wouldn’t fall prey to mating with an inappropriate male while under the influence of an overwhelming biological urge.

Tara was wolf-mated. She could smell the baby growing inside her, clear as day. She should not be in heat. It was technically impossible for this to be happening.

Yet, it was definitely happening. A powerful wave of lust caught fire between her legs and spread to every nerve ending in her body before she could even think of ways to put it out.

One moment, Tara was trying to tear a certain alpha king’s eyes out. And the next, she was trying to tear off his clothes.

Magnus’s heavy knit sweater came apart in her hands as if it were made of tissue paper, but he stopped her after she tore through the strap of the small leather purse he wore over the waist of his kilt.

“Calm yourself, banrigh,” he said. “All my clothes are handmade by the Faoltiarn tailor and his mate. I cannae let you ravage their good work, no matter your state.” With a low chuckle he pulled one of the pleats back to reveal a set of buckles.

Tara felt his arrogant gaze on her, watching as she fell on the fasteners and all but wrenched them apart.

Her breath caught when his kilt finally fell away. However big Magnus had seemed that morning several days earlier, he was much, much bigger in the flesh. Hard and uncircumcised, his huge cock seemed to pulse with an invitation for her to touch it. An invitation she accepted with the desperation of a starved animal who’d finally been given food.

Unfortunately, needing and knowing were two very different things. Tara took him in hand only to fumble…

She honestly wasn’t sure what to do next, how to get him in her so he could sate the raw hunger.

“You’re alright, banrigh,” he assured her. “Turn ‘round for us and bend over the sofa.”

Tara usually hated being told what to do, but right then it felt like she couldn’t comply fast enough. She got into position with more speed than she’d ever followed an order in her life. Tara braced her hands against the back of the couch.

“Aye, just like that…” he said, his voice low with amused approval as he hiked up her nightgown and easily tore off her lace panties.

She’d bought those panties at a high-end lingerie store at 30 pounds a pair. But she didn’t complain. In fact, Tara whimpered when his hand found its way between her legs, exploring for a few efficient moments before pushing in deep. “Ohhh!” she moaned at the mind blowing feel of his two large fingers inside her.

“So tight…so wet, banrigh…” he observed with a dark chuckle. “How about I put in more than my fingers?”

For once, his arrogant tone didn’t grate on her nerves in the least. It seemed to hold a dark promise of things he could give her.

“Yes, please,” Tara whimpered. “Your fingers aren’t nearly enough.”

“Let me see. You’re already pregnant, but you want my seed. Is that right, ye greedy female?”

Her human hated that the answer was yes. A desperate, unequivocal YES in all caps. But her wolf, shivering at the thought of having him inside of her again, pushed the truth out of her mouth on a moan: “Yes, please!”

“You want my seed.” Not a question, but a command to respond.

“Yes, I want your seed!”

“How much do you want it, banrigh? Enough to formally accept my mate claim? Because as you pointed out to me before, I am a wolf who bides by tradition. I willnae knot inside a she-wolf who is not my willing mate.”

Tara squeezed her eyes tight, clenching her teeth before any more breathless words could escape her mouth. He wasn’t fighting fair. He wasn’t fighting fair at all. And she would not give in to him.

As if reading her thoughts, Magnus pulled his fingers out of her.

“No!” she gasped, desperate to have that erotic pressure back even if it wasn’t enough. Not nearly enough.

Magnus didn’t answer. Just reached around her chest, his hands finding the neckline of her satin nightgown. Without a thought to its cost or beauty, he ripped the front in two, effectively freeing her heavy breasts. Tara cried out as his large hands, callused from years of rugby, caught both her breasts. Massaging them hard in a way that made the soft flesh swell even tighter.

Somehow this was even worse than having his teasing fingers inside her. His intimate touch left her pussy with nothing to clench but air, making her even more desperate for him to take her. And then he viciously rolled her nipples.

“Aaaaghhh!” Right on cue, another wave of uncontrollable lust slammed into her. She was so turned on, she should have come then and there.

But that wasn’t how it worked. She remembered from the one and only conversation her mother had with her about the heat process. A she-wolf’s heat wasn’t like normal desire at all. It could not be masturbated away. It could not be gotten around. It could only be sated by a male wolf. Or, as her mother put it—your chosen mate.

Tara did not want to be mated. The very notion of it made her feel as if shackles had been placed around her wrists. But Magnus refused to take her without her acquiescence. And she did not know how much longer she could hold out.

To her credit, Tara tried. She clamped her lips together and refused to say anything. As cool as Magnus was playing it, she knew males were as affected by the heat smell as she-wolves. Which was one of the reasons her old pack considered unheated shifter teens to be so dangerous. If Tara could just stay quiet and wait Magnus out, he would have to eventually give in to the heavy scent that was rumored to drive unmated male wolves so crazy, they often had to be caged or chained up to stop them going after a she-wolf in heat.

As it turned out, she’d been correct about Magnus eventually having to give in. But the outcome did not seem promising. “I’ll give you ten more seconds to decide, banrigh. Then I’ll be forced to take what’s under my kilt and bury it in the first willing human female I find.”

“What happened to being an honorable wolf who would never take another?” she bit out.

“The same thing that happened to your vow to never have me, I suspect,” he answered, his voice a blend of arrogance and ultimatum.

He was bluffing. Tara was sure he was bluffing. But then she remembered what her boss had said about Magnus and women…and how Daphne reacted to his office visit. “You’re crazy to hide from that one. All he’d have to do is look in my direction and my legs would fall open with a ‘welcome’ sign hanging around my fanny.”

In the end, he could make good on his threat. But she doubted the wolf screaming, Mate! Mate! Mate! inside her would let her do the same.

“Okay, fine!” she cried out, her core clenching so hard it felt like it was shouting its consent, too.

“’Okay, fine’ might work in Canada,” Magnus answered, his voice as unyielding as a winter wind. “But here in Scotland, we have a set of formal words a she-wolf must give before a Faoltiarn male knots inside her. Now banrigh, I’ll admit the sight of ye is giving me cause to forget all about such notions. But seeing as how the future of my clan is at stake, I’m afraid I’ll have to insist on having your vow in the auld language.”

Oh, God…this could not be happening.

Tara wanted to argue with Magnus. Wanted to scream at him for being such a tool, the type of wolf who would take advantage of a she-wolf in heat.

But her wolf did not care. Mate, mate, mate! it chanted inside her without any thought or regard to how her human might feel about the matter.

“Okay…okay…” she croaked, responding to her wolf as much as she was responding to him. “Just give me the damn words.”

He answered with a short string of Gaelic. And she echoed the words back to him as best she could, given the complexity of the language. Tara didn’t know what they meant but they definitely had the rhythm of ritual, making it easy to guess just how binding they were. Especially in Scotland where laws only ever seemed to get created. Never updated, modified, or—God forbid—removed from the books completely.

Magnus had been playing it cool ever since the start of her surprise heat. Teasing her. Manipulating her. Both literally and figuratively, before finally offering her a deal her wolf would not allow her to refuse.

But if Tara thought he was unaffected by her heat, she soon found out how very wrong she was.

“Christ, Tara. That took everything I had in me,” he confessed on a harsh exhale as he fell on her back. He then pushed inside her with one hard stroke.

Without delay, Magnus began to move into her from behind, his breath hot on the back of her neck.

“Magnus,” she whimpered, too far gone to chastise or hate him the way she definitely had before all this began—how long ago had that been? Minutes? Eons?

It honestly didn’t matter because the way he rode her, with his chest pressed hard into her back and his arms braced on either side of her, caused every single defense she’d built to come crumbling down.

“Magnus! Magnus! Oh, God, take me. Claim me! Please! Ich bin dei Wölfin! Ich bin dei Aldi! Bidde! Bidde! Oh, Gott…”

After that, Tara didn’t know what she was saying, only that she defaulted to her first language—the one her mother spoke—and couldn’t stop. Not until the first shudder of a fierce orgasm abruptly cut her off.

She knew they were building up to this. Tara had read about it in books. And seen it on TV shows. But nothing—nothing—could have prepared her for it. She shuddered around his cock, expelling so much heat, she was afraid he would slip out.

And perhaps he was afraid of that happening, too. Magnus gave a rough growl and she felt him sink his teeth into her shoulder, holding her shuddering body in place as he continued to drive into her.

His bite cleared her head. Kept her from collapsing as she focused on surviving the onslaught of pleasure.

But just as the orgasm started to die down, Magnus knotted inside her. His huge cock spreading her so wide, it felt like he would tear her apart. And a second orgasm blasted through her with the intensity of a tsunami. Tara was paralyzed in place as it electrified her with an almost painful pleasure for moments on end.

Now she understood why her wolf had caved so easily. If their wolf mating had been anything like this, even Tara couldn’t blame her beast for wanting to be with Magnus’s wolf again. And again. And again.

“I agree with you completely, banrigh. Our wolves had the right of it, and now we’ve sealed our claim,” a dark and husky voice said inside her head.

And that was that. Tara could hear Magnus speaking in her head. Meaning they’d 100% unlocked their mate bond in a way her wolf-mated parents couldn’t until they’d been taken over by the heat mating that produced her, their second child.

Tara was startled by the sound of his voice in her head. It was as loud as if he’d spoken directly into her ear. But she was far too wrung out to react. Or form words, mental or otherwise. In fact, Tara doubted she’d still be capable of standing upright if not for Magnus’s mouth on her shoulder, holding her up.

Magnus didn’t want to boast, but his banrigh was fair to useless after their unexpected heat mating.

The moment he released her from his bite, she fell forward into his arms, her head lolling to the side even though he was still very much embedded inside her. And so it was left to Magnus to position them both on the floor beneath the fleece throw blanket he’d taken off the back of Iain’s sofa.

Tara didn’t look nearly as put together now, he noted as he watched her sleep. A sheen of sweat plastered her straight brown hair against her face. And though she’d somehow managed not to smudge her lipstick, her mouth gaped open instead of wearing its usual “butter would grow cold in my mouth” tough-lass smirk.

Her core, however, was still hard at work. Despite her unconscious state, she felt like a fist around him. In fact, his study of her was forced to pause when a second orgasm rippled up his back. With a low groan, Magnus released into her soft body a second time, resisting the powerful urge to bite her again.

He didn’t want to wake her. When his father gave him the talk not long after Magnus reached puberty, his da told him she-wolves needed to rest during this process and could even sleep for hours after the first session had completed.

So, despite what Tara’s core was doing to him, Magnus forced himself to stay still until he finally—mercifully—unknotted. At which point he gathered her gently into his arms and carried her to the guest room she had clearly taken as her own. Magnus carefully placed her on the bed and pulled the pale pink duvet over her sleeping figure.

Pink. It definitely didn’t fit in with the rest of the flat’s gray, black, and chrome color scheme. Magnus was willing to bet Tara brought it over from her flat when she moved here. She seemed to like bright colors. He recalled the bright yellow heels she’d been wearing when he’d found her and Milly breaking into Iain’s house and escorted them back to the castle with his great-great-great-great grandfather’s rife in hand.

The more he reflected on that incident, the more he understood why her human punched him, even though he’d felt her wolf staring just as hard at him as his wolf had stared at her.

Another lesson his father taught him: she-wolves were not often aware what their wolves wanted—at least not until they went into heat.

Which would have been fine if Tara were like all the other she-wolves he’d encountered in Scotland, or even like most human women. As pretty-with-heels-to-match as she dressed, you’d think she’d appreciate the attentions of a rich Scottish king like himself.

But unlike him, she quickly recovered from their first encounter. And though he hadn’t been with another female, human or she-wolf, since that fateful first meeting, Alban reported she’d gone about her life, business as usual. Working, partying, shopping—enjoying her life among the humans as he hadn’t been able to enjoy his life since his wolf stood up for her and rendered him incapable of even flirting with another female.

Magnus flinched as he thought about that time in the small dell. His attempt to flirt with her had gone abominably. Tara took every word out of his mouth as either an offense or an attempt to manipulate her. A bug would have had better luck trying to escape a Venus flytrap than he had of convincing her of his sincerity.

He’d almost lost hope during that particular interaction.

But luckily for Magnus, her wolf took the wheel. Which meant he’d not only keep his crown, but he got the girl, too. It was all he could do not to climb under the pink duvet with her.

But Magnus had business to attend to before he would let himself curl up with the lovely she-wolf who, by some miracle, was finally his. He made his way into the living room, closing her bedroom door softly behind him, and picked through the small pile of clothing Tara had torn off him during her heat. Ah, there it was. The leather pouch strap hadn’t managed to survive her frenzy but the flip phone Iain was always nagging him to update was still tucked safely inside.

Magnus reached for it…and almost dropped it when it went off in his hand.

He frowned, recognizing the Italian country code. It was his mother. Again. Ever since she and Iain made up last summer, she began leaving Magnus weekly voicemails in an obvious attempt to reconnect.

Not a chance in hell, Valentina. Iain might be so blinded by happiness that he was easily able to forgive and forget. But Magnus…he was a different story. He was the king of a village that held grudges for centuries.

Hell, the pack still hadn’t forgiven the Irish wolves for what their ancestors did back in 1503. So, it wasn’t bloody likely he’d forgive his mother anytime soon for leaving his da—and their kingdom—in shambles. Without giving her another thought, he quickly depressed the wee “call deny” button on the side of his phone and then flipped it open to make some calls of his own.

Tara woke to the sound of her phone ringing…and someone singing a jaunty Gaelic tune in her shower. She sniffed, noticing the sweet, chemical fragrance of her foundation. But she never fell asleep in her makeup. What…? Oh.

It all came back in a rush the moment she attempted to move. Her inner thighs groaned in protest, and she felt as sore as she would after spending a day on horseback.

Oh, that wasn’t a horse between your legs, girl, but you’re not far off…her wolf answered gleefully.

Oh, God. Not again.

Her phone stopped ringing. Which was for the best because Tara was in no state to talk. Hell, she could barely move.

But then the singing stopped along with the shower. A few minutes later, Magnus came out of her bathroom wearing a kilt and a sweatshirt he must have borrowed from Iain’s closet. University of Edinburgh was printed across the front and had the same never-worn appearance of the Toronto University hoodie buried at the bottom of her sweater drawer. His dark hair was dripping wet, and the scent of her Shea Moisture Raw Shea Butter body wash clung to him like a second skin.

Her phone started ringing again.

“Ah, good. You’re awake,” he said. He picked her phone up off the nightstand and frowned down at it. “I’ve been trying to figure out how to put this thing on silence all afternoon.”

It was a pretty average smart phone. But Magnus was jabbing at the screen as if he’d never used a smart phone before in his life.

“Bloody reporters have been calling all morning. No clue how they got your contact info but it’s safe to say you’ll have to switch to another number.”

“Reporters…” Tara repeated. There was so much to piece together. She’d gone into heat and begged Magnus to take her…right after vowing to hate him forever after he took the liberty of informing everyone and their Scottish mum that she was “up the duff,” as Gordon put it.

“Ach! Tell me how to make this shut up.” Magnus thrust the phone at her.

Tara reached out to take it…and got yet another reminder of what had happened between them. A naked breast fell inelegantly out of her ruined nightgown. She quickly shoved it back into place and pulled the tatters of her gown closed with her free hand.

Magnus smirked, his eyes darkening with appreciation. “I just took a shower, banrigh. But if you like, I’d be happy to come straight back to bed after you turn that damn thing off.”

The phone abruptly stopped ringing.

“Well, then. Looks like your mobile is in full agreement.”

Tara didn’t respond. She was too busy studying her smart phone screen. While most of her missed calls were from unknown Scottish numbers, the most recent one had Barbara’s name attached to it.

She sat all the way up and tapped Barbara’s name without bothering to check the voicemail.

Barbara answered on the first ring. “Hello, Barbara’s Used Book Shop, how can I help you?”

“Barbara, it’s Tara.”

“Oh, thank goodness! I told your parents about your engagement and now they’re dying to talk to you.”

Oh, God. “WHAT?! Oh, my frickin…” Tara briefly released her gown to rub her forehead. She took a deep breath. “Barbara, you really shouldn’t have done that.”

“I completely agree, my dear. I shouldn’t have,” she replied. “But my life is filled with nothing but old books and gossip. Can you forgive an old lady for wanting to be part of your exciting adventure? Oh, hold on…your parents are still here hanging your mother’s latest quilt.”

“Wait! Barbara, do NOT put them on the phone.” Tara had to figure out what to say to them. How to explain it.

But it was too late. She could hear Barbara calling them over, “Danso, Else. It’s your Tara!”

A second or two passed, and then her parents were on the phone. And as she predicted, they were not pleased.

“You got mated without telling us?” her normally soft-spoken father demanded in his still heavily-accented Ghanaian English.

“But you said you did not want a family and children. What happened to change your mind?” her mother demanded in her rustic German.

Tara closed her eyes. Her parents were doing that thing where they shared Barbara’s landline receiver to talk to her at the same time. She usually thought this habit was adorable with a side order of cute middle-aged lovebirds. But normally they weren’t yelling at her.

Her mother and father had always been the tolerant sort—too tolerant if you were to ask a few of their fellow pack members about Danso and Else Hamilton. They’d even given Tara their blessing to move to Toronto after what happened with Jacob. So this sudden show disapproval tore at her.

Tara glanced up and motioned for Magnus to leave the room and give her some privacy. But he just stood there, his eyes narrowed and watching her like he’d never seen the universal sign for “give me some space!” in his life.

Well, okay then. She quickly switched over her mom’s language and launched into what she hoped was a solid explanation. “Mamm, Daed…”

Tara tried to respond to their questions as best she could without providing too much unnecessary detail. And finally, after several minutes of back and forth, Tara’s parents agreed to hang up and talk with her more during their next Monday call.

Only fifteen minutes had passed by the time she hung up, but it felt like she’d run a marathon.

And then there was Magnus, still standing beside the bed as if he’d been waiting to say, “I get that you dinnae want your parents to know about me. But you ken that we’ll need to bring them over for the wedding.”

Tara groaned. This day was proving to be utterly relentless. Still clutching the front of her ruined nightgown, she tried to figure out how to get out of the bed with one available hand without exposing her entire chest again.

Seeing her struggle, Magnus took her by the crook of her modesty-saving arm and easily pulled her to her feet.

“Thank you,” she said.

“Bitte,” he answered. In German. With a wolfish smile.

“Okay, please stop,” she said.

Of course, Magnus being Magnus…he kept going. Tara might have only known him a short time, but from what she could tell, he always kept going. “Bitte, danke, and nein are about all the German I ken. But I know enough to understand that’s what you were speaking just now on your mobile. And last night when ye came under me, screaming like a banshee—ach, do the Germans have a word for banshee?”

This time, Tara refused to take bait and get sucked into another verbal sparring match with him. Instead, she turned and headed toward the bathroom.

“Should I have our vows translated to German, too?” he asked, following right behind her.

“No!” she replied, her hand squeezing even harder around her torn night gown as she turned back to face him. “My family is not coming to our wedding, and I am not moving to your village. I agreed to be your mate. But I did not agree to pick up and move to the Highlands. My job is here. My whole life is here!”

“Not anymore,” he answered. “There’s no reason to go on living with your pet humans. You will have plenty to do as the banrigh of Faoltiarn. And besides, I’ll be getting my 100^th cap soon. I have already decided to retire when the season’s done. There’ll be no reason for me to come to Edinburgh any longer.”

Banrigh! The word grated across her soul along with the sound of the cage door locking behind her.

“Stop calling me that! I can’t be the queen of some…some backwater village,” Tara spat. “I just can’t. End of discussion. Now, I’m going to go take a shower.”

With a lightning-fast move, Magnus grabbed her arm before she could go into the bathroom. “What do you mean you can’t be my queen?” he demanded, his voice sharper than the straight razor her father used to shave off his mustache.

Tara shifted from foot to foot, hating that he wouldn’t let her go. Wouldn’t give her even a little time to think. She could feel the panic closing in again, threatening to overwhelm her.

But Tara wasn’t just some little she-wolf anymore. She was strong and brave and no male—human or wolf—was going to push her around. Tara raised her chin high and looked Magnus right in the eyes. “I am not going to leave the life I’ve created for myself here among the humans to live one you want for me with your wolves.”

“Why not?” he growled back. “What’s so cracking about your life here?”

Ugh! “Do you even know what I do?” she asked, snatching back her arm. “I’m a platform engineer for the RSB mobile app!”

Magnus stared back at her blankly. Tara translated, “That means I spend eight or more hours a day on a computer making sure our customers can access all our products from their smart phones.”

“Gan, that’s what you do?” His eyes bugged out as if Tara had just told him she shoveled pig shit for a living. “Feck, lass. You should be thanking me for taking you away from that job. It sounds miserable.”

“Not to me it doesn’t!” Tara insisted. “I love working here in the city and I love my career. I love computers and software design. I literally get paid to do something I love. Do you know how rare that is?” She used her whole hand to gesture towards herself. “To me, being a platform engineer is one of the best jobs on earth. Better than anything I ever imagined when I went off to college. How can you expect me to give it all up?”

“What I expect is for you to keep your promise,” he returned viciously. “You gave me your vow.”

“Okay, look. Maybe in your village being someone’s mate means a she-wolf has to follow her husband wherever he goes. But in the Ontario pack—”

“For feck’s sake, Tara…we are not in Canada! Or Glasgow! Or either of the tiny islands where my rule doesn’t extend!” he suddenly exploded. “You are in MY kingdom. And moreover, you are carrying my bairn! Do ye really think I can have you traipsing about the city alone and unprotected while I’m off in my kingdom village?”

This turned out to be a question he didn’t really want her to answer because when she angrily opened her mouth to reply, he cut her off with, “Tara, you gave me your true vow and I will not abide ye back-pedaling on me now. I suggest instead of fighting me, you turn your efforts to accepting you will be coming home to Faoltiarn with me. ‘Cos in the end, I am king here and it doesnae matter what you think of the laws we’ve made, only that we have them. And ken you this…as king, I am allowed to make up the laws as I see fit. No matter what loophole you throw at me, what I say goes. I am the Scottish king and my word on this subject is final. Do ye ken?”

Thunk! A thousand thunks went off in her head. And instead of her usual fight-or-fight response to being told what to do, an urge she hadn’t felt in the almost ten years suddenly overtook her.

She wanted to scream. She wanted to hit. But more than that, she wanted to cry.

Tears clogged in her throat, making it so she couldn’t talk. Couldn’t argue. Couldn’t do anything but run blindly to the bathroom lest Magnus see how truly weak she was deep down inside.