RUGBY PLAYER ROW! WEDDING PLANS OFF?

Normally, Magnus didn’t read the internet headlines when he was at Iain’s house using his brother’s computer. Especially when they featured him. Because the answer to those inane headline questions was always nae. THINGS HEATING UP BETWEEN MAGNUS AND HOT ACTRESS? Nae, mate, it was only a one-nighter. MAGNUS SMITTEN WITH SEXY SINGER? Nae, not even close. They’d only spent a couple of hours together. And she was rubbish in the sack if you want the truth.

But unlike that type of fake news planted by “close friends” who were really publicists for the women he’d slept with, RUGBY PLAYER ROW! WEDDING PLANS OFF? was accompanied by a clear photo of him arguing with Tara. He looked like he’d gone off his dinger, with arms spread and mouth wide open while wee Tara looked…not like her normal fierce self. But hurt and terrified. Like she’d rather be any place in all the world than getting yelled at by the Rover’s star centre.

Nae, that wasn’t exactly a headline he could deny after that biff in front of the clubhouse.

And unfortunately, his mid-morning call with the Alpha King of Ontario didn’t bring him any closer to getting an answer to the headline’s ultimate question.

“Hello, King Scotswolf! So nice to make your acquaintance,” the Ontario alpha said cheerily. “Thomas Farkas here. I received the messages you left for me last night and wanted to give you a call as it sounds like there’s a situation afoot with…the, ah…let me see my notes here, the mother of your newly conceived pup?”

“Mate. She’s my mate.”

“Aha…yes…well, as you may or may not know, wolf matings aren’t binding in—”

“I know all about your progressive laws, believe me,” Magnus answered, rubbing the bridge of his nose. “But I do have paternal rights—even in your country—so tell me the name of her pack leader and I’ll take the negotiations from there.”

“I’d be happy to give you that information and kick it down to a pack alpha. However, are you sure you have the right province? I’ve scoured our database and we only have three Taras, none of whom have the last name of Hamilton.”

Magnus frowned, but then reset with, “One of them’s got to be her, then. She must have taken on a different name when she moved to Scotland.”

“Hmm, maybe so,” the Ontario king answered with polite consideration. “But the surname ‘Hamilton’ isn’t in our database at all—not surprising since most shifter families have last names derived from the word wolf. Also, it is highly unusual for shifters to travel abroad or live strictly in the human world as your Tara has reportedly done. As you’re probably more than aware, there are a number of factors that keep us more or less confined to the places where we grew up.”

“Aye, I get it. I’m a rugby player, which means I have to fake an injury every time they try to put me into a full moon game—once missed a final Challenge Cup due to it,” Magnus answered. “But nonetheless, Tara came over here from there.”

“I don’t want to contradict you, King Scotswolf, but I must ask if you’re sure this Tara grew up in Ontario. I took the liberty of calling the three Taras I found and none of them have ever been to Scotland, much less heard of you.”

Magnus blinked, but then decided, “One of those Taras has to be lying! Give me all their info and I’ll sort it out.”

“In general, Canadian wolves are honest to a fault,” the Ontario king answered. His voice was still polite, but it had taken on a slight bristle. “And you should know I took the liberty of checking with their pack alphas. They confirmed what these three Taras said. They haven’t been out of the country—much less to Scotland for a five-year stay. However, there are a few packs with special exemptions from having to register with our province roll. Is it possible she’s an Indigenous American?”

Magnus’s heart flared with hope only to remember, “No…her father is black—from someplace in Africa, I think. And her mother spoke German. I don’t understand why she wouldn’t be listed with you.”

The Ontario king made a sympathetic sound. “Ah well…she definitely doesn’t sound like someone who grew up in one of our Registry-exempt towns. But just to be sure, let’s call the Toronto alpha. You say she went to university here five years ago. If she took any classes with the University of Toronto’s wolf program, he might be able to put us in touch with someone who knew her…”

“Nae, mate, not the University of Toronto—Toronto University.” He remembered them discussing how the larger “UToronto” might have had a rugby team, but her smaller university had not.

The Ontario king made a pained sound, as if Magnus has just cold cased this call with that one edit. But then with what sounded like loads of forced cheer, he said, “Well, the Toronto alpha should be up and about by now. Let’s call him anyway to see if he has any ideas about this mystery she-wolf of yours. I’ll just get him up on our three-way…”

But a few minutes later, Magnus rang off even more confused than when he took the Ontario King’s call.

According to the Toronto pack alpha, they only had a few black wolves in their pack—none of them were mixed race. In fact, they were all Africans mated to other Africans. And none of them had left Toronto for the greener pastures of Scotland.

So now the question had become not only “where was Tara?” but “who the hell had she been in the first place?”

Magnus jumped when his mobile rang and rushed to answer it.

But it was only Iain calling to apologize for sending in their mother.

“She seemed right reasonable the last time we saw each other, and a little sad about how things ended with Da. I thought she’d talk Tara down. Not help her leave the country. And seriously, Ri Faol, what did you do to make her so cross she decided she needed to escape back to Canada? I mean, it’s only been six days since I gave you the codes to get into my flat. That’s got to be some kind of ‘cock it up’ record. You just couldn’t let your pride go for a little while? Not even for the sake of your mateship?”

Magnus ran a hand over his face, not bothering to tell his brother that he had let his pride go. He’d made concessions and even asked Lachlan to take over more of the day-to-day business of running Faoltiarn, just so he could make a go of it with Tara, who wanted him, but not his kingdom village.

But it hadn’t worked. None of it. Not wooing her. Not buying her things. Not opening up to her about topics he never discussed—not even with his own brother or father.

The image of her standing next to his mother floated back to him. Them sticking up for each other with the same indignant anger on their faces. He’d turned his back for a second and she’d run away, like he wasn’t her mate but a leper she couldn’t bear to live with.

And I was not lying about not liking you!

She told him that with her eyes wide open just a moon ago. Why hadn’t he believed her? His pride reared again. Telling him not to ache for someone who apparently couldn’t stand the thought of being with him long term. But his wolf…

His wolf was curled up in his stomach like an animal on its death bed. She was pregnant and out there somewhere without his protection. Not searching for her felt biologically impossible.

Which was why he really did swallow his pride to ask Iain, “She left in your plane. And she still has her mobile. Can you track her down?”

“Nae, brother. I’m in Kenya,” Iain answered with a chuckle, as if Magnus had just told him an outrageous joke. “It’s right majestic here, but the wi-fi’s not much to speak of in the wilds of Africa, ye ken.”

An elephant trumpeted in the background of the call as if to make his brother’s point.

“So what are you trying to say?” Magnus demanded. “That I’m to leave the mother of my bairn to her own devices? There’s nothing I can do to track her down?”

“Not nothing,” a voice said.

Magnus whipped his head around to find his father standing in the doorway of Iain’s office, rain drops rolling off the hooded cape he’d worn for the walk over from the castle.

“Da, I’m on Iain’s computer for king business. Go back to the castle.”

“Your king business sounds an awful lot like family business, son of mine, so I believe I’ll have a sit,” Lachlan answered, dropping into one of the chairs they’d brought down from the castle, since his brother “didn’t believe” in sitting.

“You could hire an investigator,” Iain said on the other side of the phone. “And what does Da mean ‘have a sit?’ Tell me you haven’t been rearranging things in my office.”

“An investigator would take ages,” Magnus complained, completely ignoring Iain’s question about his formerly chair-free house. “And I want my she-wolf back yesterday.”

“Well, I don’t know what else to tell you, Magnus. Maybe if you hadn’t cocked it up, like I said you would—”

Alright then…Magnus pressed the call end button, deciding he was done with this conversation even if his brother wasn’t quite finished with his lecture.

But then Lachlan hit him with a stern stare and asked, as if in continuation of his other son’s lecture, “So, king of mine, I thought things were going well between you and that feisty she-wolf. How did you manage to cock it up six days in?”

“I didnae cock it up,” Magnus answered, sinking back wearily into the high-backed leather chair Iain most certainly wouldn’t have approved. “She left, Da. I gave into to all her demands and she left anyways!”

“And you listened to her?” Lachlan asked. “Women want to be listened to, according to your mother and all those ebooks I read on the subject after Iain got me that Kindle device eight Christmases back.”

Could you for just once in your life listen to someone other than yourself?!

“Aye, I listened,” Magnus answered, despite the harsh memory now floating around with all the other muck in his head. “She said she wanted city and glamour. So I gave her city and glamour.”

“Are you sure that’s what she said?” Lachlan asked with a cock of his eyebrow. “Because your mother once accused me of being the sort who only heard what I wanted to hear.”

“What does Valentina know?” Magnus answered with a disgusted wave. “She left you, so she could go off and live her glamourous life in Milan. Just like Tara.”

“Nae, Magnus. That is not why your mother left me. I ken, that’s what I said. It was what I believed at the time…” Lachlan shook his head sadly. “But I now know she left because I was like you: unwilling to compromise. She didn’t ask the world of me. She just wanted me to spend some time with her in Milan. She missed her pack and hated our winters, and when you boys got older, she started talking about us living half-and-half in Italy and Scotland. I told her nae. Of course, I did. Generations of Scotswolfs have ruled over this land. We came here as Vikings and never once had a king—which I still was when she asked me this—decide to go half-and-half. Spend our winters in some inane country run by dishonorable mafia kings? Nae, I wouldnae do it. But when I told her that, she told me she wanted a divorce. And I thought with my pride instead of my head…”

Lachlan looked into the distance as he recounted all of this, as if he were watching the story from thirteen years ago replay like game film. “She was already set on leaving me,” he concluded with a sigh, “but I can’t say I didn’t send her on her way.”

“Aye, maybe…” Magnus said. He’d never thought of the divorce from his mother’s point of view. Maybe because she’d been happy little postcards with beach scenes, while his father was left a crumble of a man. Walking around their keep like a wraith until her scent finally faded a good five years after her leaving.

“You saw what her leaving did to me,” Lachlan said, as if picking up on his thoughts. “I wasn’t fit to be king without her. For the five years it took our mating scent to fade, my sons were the only thing keeping me alive. We make songs about a king’s loyalty to land and home, but without love…it’s shite, actually. It doesn’t matter how well we do the job, a king’s life is shite without a mate to call his own.”

Lachlan’s eyes grew distant. “She’s more than likely moved on. Beauty like her—she would’ve been claimed by all those waiting in the wings before the sun had even fully set on her mate’s scent. She was a wild, fearless beauty, ye ken. I can still see her standing in our European History class—telling a professor twice her age he was wrong and how he ought to consider it from the woman’s point of view. She knew her mind and would tell any male why he was wrong and she was right with a passion unlike anything I’d ever seen before. I couldn’t believe it when she went into heat on our very first date. I thought I was the luckiest wolf alive and that my want of her and no other would be enough to overcome our vast differences. But they weren’t. And now when I look back on it, I can see the real situation. We were both at a mostly human university. And I was there. Just there…”

Lachlan shook his head and asked, “Do you know how painful it is to love a she-wolf with all you have inside your soul and not have that love returned?”

Magnus could only shake his head. Not wanting to confirm, but unable to deny.

Lachlan chuckled. “Ah, king of mine, I can see that pride flashing like lightening in your eyes. But you ken pride does not keep a king warm at night. Not like a mate. And my one regret…my everlasting regret is I did not go after my queen before our mating scent faded. Don’t do what I did.”

For a moment, Magnus could only stare at his still stricken father. These were more words he’d gotten from Lachlan about the romantic start and disastrous end of his relationship with Valentina in an entire lifetime. And he’d had no idea his father had come to regret not going after her.

“I am going to find Tara,” Magnus assured him. “And when I get her back here, I’ll… try harder. I promise you that. But right now, I have to find an investigator to put on a search.”

“What do you mean you have to find an investigator?” his father said. “There’s one person you still haven’t called. You have her number, even if you’ve never used it. And she’s more likely than anyone to know where your banrigh is.”

At first Magnus screwed up his face to ask what he was on about, but then he realized…his father was right.

Valentina had whisked his mate away and Valentina might still know where she was.

Which meant if he wanted his mate back, he’d have to do what he’d been refusing to do for thirteen years.

Call his mum.