One month. Magnus had convinced Tara to return to Faoltiarn and live there with him for one month. Just through the Autumn Test Matches…which he then had to explain weren’t actual tests, but showy international games. The Rovers would be at home, hosting the matches for three weekends in November before going on the road for a number of European fixtures—nae, that’s not an architectural term. Fixtures are matches against other rugby teams which were played at home and away. They were the matches that counted most because they resulted in cups and trophies—and, aye, his 100^th cap—after which he’d been planning to retire….

Like most wolves in professional sports, Magnus only needed to retire from the sport when he felt like it since his wolf genes helped him to heal faster and age more slowly than most human players his age. But he promised his mate if she truly did not like Faoltiarn, he’d delay his retirement plans. They would limit their time in the Highlands until the bairns were born, and she could even join him on the road if she so wished.

Yet four months later, Magnus woke to find Tara’s side of the bed empty…again. And it occurred to him he might never have brought her home to Faoltiarn if he’d known he would be waking up alone for the remainder of the foreseeable future.

Tara hadn’t liked being the reigning Queen of Faoltiarn.

She loved it. Too much, he suspected after he began waking up alone in their bed because his mate had decided to return to “St. Ailbe” hours—which apparently meant jumping out of bed at four in the bloody morning.

Within a week of coming to Faoltiarn, Tara created a list of improvements which would be added to the newer modern half of town, and for New St. Ailbe which Tara referred to as the Brigadoon side of town (but only in private so as not to offend anyone). There had been some shuffling of homes and many in-person visits, but Tara eventually managed to get everyone on the same page and to agree to the new terms. She’d even commissioned the creation of a small stream dug from the castle’s moat to serve as the line of demarcation.

Tara, as it turned out, was not the type of queen anyone expected. She was far better. She didn’t just agree to take on the role, she threw herself into it. Magnus had cheered when she quit her job to oversee the construction of the New St. Ailbe Exchange Home and focus on her list of Faoltiarn improvement projects. But by the end of November, he found himself out on the road alone. Tara barely had enough time to make it to his home games, much less travel with him as some of the wives and girlfriends did.

Currently, he was home for a rare four weeks with only a couple of home games on the Rover calendar. However, he already decided when the season was done in April, he’d be done, too. In the end, his reluctant mate turned zealous queen made his decision to retire an easy one. Because if he actually wanted to see her and the pups she was growing between all the village work, he’d have to give up rugby, just like she sacrificed her job in the city.

If you could call it a sacrifice. His mate now seemed more dedicated to her daily Faoltiarn routine, than he’d ever been to his rugby practice. Magnus thought maybe she’d make an exception to her usual crack of dawn routine on today of all days. But like nearly every day he’d spent with her in Faoltiarn so far, he began this one searching for his mate.

“Have you seen Tara?” he asked his parents at breakfast.

It was rare to have them there in Faoltiarn. Not just because they still hadn’t bothered to remarry, but also because Lachlan had decided after his trip to Canada that he quite liked traveling. Valentina, in turn, had offered to show him around… the entire world.

Thus far, they’d gone on long holidays to Thailand (it turned out his Da enjoyed Milly’s copy of The Beach much more than Tara), Australia, Bali, Korea, and Texas—from which they, like every self-respecting European tourist, had returned wearing flashy heeled riding boots and the biggest ten-gallon cowboy hats they could find. But they had finally returned to Scotland for a two-week visit, and with Milly’s help, they were trying to decide whether to go to South America or Africa next.

In any case, neither of his parents responded to his question about Tara’s whereabouts. Magnus wasn’t even sure they’d heard him. They were too busy giving each other nibbles of food as if they’d both come down with some rare disease that rendered them incapable of feeding themselves, only each other.

Technically, Magnus was happy—if slightly befuddled—to see his parents back together. But this morning their moony behavior grated on his nerves, acting as yet another reminder that he’d woken up alone. Again.

“Dinnae make me declare a law that only married people can go at it worse than feckin’ teenagers under my roof,” he said, lobbing one of the rolls the New St. Ailbe mail-order brides brought with them when they arrived two days ago.

“Sorry, king of mine, did you say something?” Lachlan asked after the roll bounced off his head.

“Have. Ye. Seen. Tara,” Magnus repeated, not bothering to hide his impatience though Tara had told him several times he should try to better understand that his parents were in “back together again” mode.

His mother, proving she hadn’t changed that bloody much, had the nerve to laugh at her son’s show of temper. “Oh, Lachlan, someone—I will not say who, but he looks exactly as you did thirty years ago, mi bello—seems very upset that he cannot find his mate…again,” she sing-songed.

“Have you seen her or not?” Magnus demanded through gritted teeth.

“Nae,” Lachlan answered for the both of them. “But mebbe ask Milly…I can hear her coming now.”

Milly and Iain arrived on cue carrying their one-month-old daughter, Elspeth, with them. She’d been born in this very castle, much to the delight of the village. Elspeth was sleeping peacefully as a lamb inside her mother’s arms. But judging from the dark circles under his brother and sister-in-law’s eyes, that might not have been the case last night.

“Have you seen Tara?” Magnus asked his brother’s mate as he took his wee niece from her. Not because Milly looked exhausted, mind ye. But because he was the king and should be allowed to cuddle with his adorable niece whenever he wished.

“Sort of,” Milly answered in her decidedly American way. “Ellie was up all night, crying. Tara came by our rooms but took one look at me and told me to go back to sleep because she had this morning covered. She even said she’d ask her sister to babysit for us tonight—seriously, Magnus, she’s such an awesome queen.”

Too awesome, he decided as he stomped across the stream toward the New St. Ailbe Exchange House. The snuggle time with his niece had done little to alleviate his bad mood. Nor did his change into his special leather Rufglen kjalta and Prince Charlie jacket. If anything, his mood became as dark as the mud from the newly made stream splattered across his vintage kilt hose and Ghillie brogues.

A truly bucolic scene greeted Magnus when he finally reached the three-story Exchange House the Faoltiarn males had built in record time on the eastern side of the village.

All but a few of the mail-order brides were playing baseball in the snow-covered field next to the house. And they’d drawn a bit of a crowd. At least forty villagers—mostly young males also dressed in their leather kilts and Prince Charlie jackets—watched the game from a respectful distance.

“We’ve been cooking all morning, and they’re playing a game before we change into our church dresses,” Naomi told him when he found her setting out an array of pies and other desserts on the house’s long communal table. Unlike the she-wolves playing baseball outside, Tara’s sister had no interest in the young male spectators on the other side of the field. A disappointment for sure since a few of his subjects had already asked Magnus about the brown beauty who’d shown up with the rest of the brides but hadn’t bothered to send so much as a postcard in the letter exchange before her arrival.

Even more disappointing, Naomi hadn’t seen Tara since she’d come over to help with the milking and asked Naomi to babysit.

“You let a she-wolf, five months pregnant with twins, milk a cow?”

But Naomi only shook her head and said, “It’s not like it’s a wood burning stove. Do you think she’s been here so long she’s forgotten how to milk?”

With a roll of his eyes, Magnus walked back toward the main part of town, asking villager after villager, most of whom were already dressed in their Highland finest, if they’d seen Tara.

What was frustrating—though not unusual—was that nearly everyone had seen her. She’d dropped off a pair of heels with the cobbler and asked that he put some tread on the bottoms when he was done with the order of sturdy black shoes for the exchange brides.

She’d also stopped by the baker’s for a morning sausage roll even though she could have eaten a proper breakfast at the castle, couldn’t she?

And Alban complained she’d knocked on his door personally to ensure he had enough volunteers to handle tomorrow’s delivery of solar panels, which they’d be installing themselves.

Nae, Alban did not have any volunteers yet—because he could do it himself and didn’t need anyone else in his way. He told her this thinking the matter sorted. But less than an hour later, a few of the village men came to him with reports of their five-months-pregnant banrigh rubbing her belly as she asked if they really wanted to let her and Alban down by not volunteering to help with the solar panel installation.

Aye, the luster of a doubly pregnant queen had fallen off Tara’s crown rather quickly. Now people were more likely to hide rather than gape when they saw the banrigh heading their way. They’d learned from experience that wherever Tara went, work followed.

Even though… “I told her ‘just me!’” Alban insisted when he finished his story.

Right now, the only one more exasperated than Alban with the new queen was the king himself.

“I saw her head over to the bank after she ambushed me at my house,” a bitter solar panel volunteer told him. “She said I was the last person on her list of people to harass. Do you ken she actually has a list? And it actually says PEOPLE TO HARRASS—I watched her make a tic next to my name!”

The bank…of course. Of all her projects, updating one of the oldest (albeit secret) banks in the United Kingdom was closest to her heart. And that’s exactly where Magnus finally found her…snuggled up with the town’s treasurer.

“Magnus!” she said, jumping in her seat when she saw him fuming in the doorway of the Faoltiarn Treasury. Just a few weeks ago, the bank had been little more than a desk and a cash box in front of a large vault. But now it had a partner’s desk with an array of ten monitors on top of it. They were stacked so high, he could barely see his wife and the male wolf behind them.

“It’s not what you think!” she said at his furious look.

“I see. Ye aren’t in here with the treasurer, setting up yer new invisible money system when ye were supposed to be with me?”

“Okay, it is what you think,” she said with an apologetic grimace. “But can you please stop calling it invisible money? It’s digital money that we can pass back and forth just like paper, which means Willie and I are literally bringing this place into the current century—”

Four months ago, Magnus had decided to give his she-wolf anything she wanted and promised to never, ever lose his temper with her again. Four months ago, he’d found it charming and even teased her about how quickly she’d taken to Faoltiarn after all her resistance.

But this particular morning, Magnus had had enough. “It is our wedding day!” he roared. “Can you set aside the village for one bloody second and pledge your troth to me like a normal bride?”

“Well, looks like it’s time for me to go, Willie,” Tara said, rising from her seat and walking around to the front of the desk.

She wore her wedding dress, the one the Faoltiarn tailor assured him she’d picked up over an hour ago. It was the first time Magnus had seen her in it. They’d agreed the wedding would be a mix of his traditions and hers, but this gown was all Scottish. It featured long tulle sleeves and an empire waist, a style that would have passed as fashionable in this century and the two before it. The dress would have worked as is, but the tailor had laid the Faoltiarn tartan over it in the auld way, and it neatly framed her swollen belly on both sides.

Tara looked nothing short of breathtaking, but without a further word to her or the treasurer, Magnus took her by the arm and hauled her out the front door.

“Bye, Willie,” she called over her shoulder.

“See you at the church then,” Willie called back.

“I’m sorry,” she said, once they were outside. “I only meant to talk with him for a few minutes, but I guess I got distracted.”

“Bad enough Milly insisted we not see each other for a full twenty-four hours before the wedding,” he grumbled. “Now I have to share ye with another man on the day itself?”

“Yeah, you should be really concerned about a wolf old enough to be my grandfather, who—quite frankly—I think has a crush on your dad. Not sure how to break it to him that Valentina and Lachlan have barely left the bedroom since they came back for our wedding.”

Magnus didn’t laugh, which made Tara laugh in turn. “Okay, I’m sorry not getting to sex me up for a couple of days has put you in such a terrible mood, Ri Faol.”

“That and your tardiness. To your own wedding, I might add!” he said as they passed Iain’s old house, which his brother had been disgruntled to find converted by Tara into a café and town Wi-Fi spot in his absence.

She peered at Iain’s former home and bit her bottom lip with a wicked smile. “Well, there’s a sturdy stone wall right over there. We can solve one of your problems right now, but it might make us even more tardy for the ‘wedding of the century.’”

Magnus stopped, his wolf standing up along with another part of him at the suggestion…

Which is how the royal couple ended up arriving over an hour late to their own wedding. They entered the church, looking rumpled as if they’d been caught in a gale force wind, and they smelled strongly of sex. However, the formerly grumpy groom passed the hour-long ceremony with a beaming smile upon his face. And everyone agreed he couldn’t have looked happier to finally marry his queen.

“For someone who said she didn’t want to be queen of our land, you’ve gone out of your way to give the clishmaclavers stories to tell for years to come!” Iain said as they waited in the hallway outside the castle’s ballroom. The formally clean-shaven tech billionaire still sported what he called his “travelling beard,” and his dark shaggy hair had grown nearly past his collar. But whatever accent he’d lost during his world travels with Milly came back in full force within a week of them returning to Scotland for their baby’s birth. The first child born in Faoltiarn during the current century.

“I’m just glad there’s finally a scandal to replace when I broke into Iain’s house,” Milly said with a chagrined smile. “Who knew there were towns in Scotland that still had bards?”

Both Tara and Magnus laughed, too chuffed to be bothered by the fact that their late arrival and the reason for it might literally be committed to song. Tara was also grateful for a little alone time with Iain and her best friend, Milly, after a such a hectic week.

In honor of the mail-order brides’ visit, Tara had opted to incorporate a few of her pack’s traditions and a few of Magnus’s Scottish ones. After the wedding they’d crossed the small stream bisecting the village in Faoltiarn and New St. Ailbe twice for Scottish good luck And tomorrow morning, she and Magnus would rise early to wash their clothes together as the St. Ailbe Ordnung commanded. But since there would be no pictures taken at all today, the wedding party had a chance to relax before the reception (to which the Faoltiarn males wouldn’t be allowed to bring swords or so much as a dagger). At least until the band finished setting up for the traditional Faoltiarn grand wedding march.

“I’m just glad we got married here instead of my village,” Tara said. “Those weddings are no joke. Three plus hours. In High German, no less!”

“If you think that’s bad you should try going to an Indian wedding,” Iain said. “Two to three days of celebrations and you cannae understand a bloody thing the priest is saying during the four-hour ceremony. Truly, it will make you reconsider taking on unwed programmers, just so you don’t have to lose years of your life attending their weddings.”

“Had a Greek teammate get married in one of those Macedonian Orthodox ceremonies,” Magnus said. “It went on for ages with them calling for us to sit and stand every ten minutes. I still have nightmares about it…where I only think I went back to my real life but it was a dream and in actuality, I’m still at the Macedonian wedding. Like purgatory or an episode of Black Mirror.”

“Beggin pardon, Banrigh…”

A young male by the name of Donnan approached, interrupting their discussion. He bowed quickly before saying, “I’ve a few questions about this Sarah. My da said she-wolves are more likely to go into heat if you show an interest in what they like. But when I asked Sarah what she likes, she wrote back listing her favorite activity as butter sculpture. Is that some kind of joke, then?”

Tara grimaced. “I’m afraid not. Where we come from, the annual butter sculpture competition is a bit like your Six Nations.”

Donnan stared back at her, wide-eyed and very confused. “Yer saying there’s violence and gameplay involved? This is some type of sport…with butter?”

“Well, not exactly,” she answered with a sympathetic look.

Magnus had pre-apologized on the plane ride over for the amount of awe she’d have to put up with because of her twin pregnancy. But that had only lasted until Magnus announced the imminent arrival of ten to twenty nubile she-wolves in search of mates. The village males immediately switched from awestruck subjects to nervous young men. Which was understandable, Tara supposed. Much like the visiting she-wolves, they’d never left their village and hadn’t practiced their interested—but not too aggressive—flirting skills on many outsiders.

It wasn’t any wonder then that no less than eight males came up to her before the traditional Grand March to get intel on the newly arrived she-wolves.

“I thought this would be easy after writing back and forth with Orpah, but now I’ve no idea what to say to her….” another male lamented, sounding like a fretful schoolboy even though Tara was pretty sure he was older than her. It seemed the prospect of actually talking to the woman he’d written to for months was doing his head in.

“Try saying ‘hello,’ mate,” Magnus advised. “It really does work.”

“You can also offer to show her your horse,” Tara added, even as she mentally acknowledged how ridiculous this would sound to anyone outside the village.

“And where’s this sister of yours?” Gavin, a striking wolf in his mid-twenties, asked after waiting with his ridiculously handsome best friend, Malcolm, to speak with Tara. “We talked with the other wolves and turns out none of us got a letter from her. But she’s the prettiest of them all and now we cannae find her anywhere.”

Tara gave the two would-be lotharios a dry look. Why did she have the feeling there was some kind of bet riding on who her younger sister would give the time of day to first?

“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 all 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.

* * *