Page 7

A Courting Walk

Sadie

A courting walk was an ancient romance ritual specific to the kingdom village of Faoiltiarn.

It involved a male wolf strolling through town with a she-wolf to signal to others that he was interested in her.

I couldn’t quite figure out if the signal was supposed to say, “Stay away, she’s mine!” or “Hey, other male wolves, here’s your competition!”

Either way, I should have known Amanda’s invite was too good to be true.

As desperate as the Scottish Wolves supposedly were, so far, I’d found the eligible males in Faoiltiarn to be like the ones back in Old St. Ailbe—just much larger and dressed in red plaid kilts.

Sure, they were a lot more polite than the St. Ailbe males.

There had been no explicit references to my odd smell or nicknames like Stinky Sadie Schaduw whispered behind my back.

But, to my great disappointment, none of them had bothered to speak more than a few words to me—much less ask me to take a courting walk on the cobblestoned path that surrounded and separated the Scottish kingdom castle grounds from the darling thatched-roof stone houses where the rest of the Scottish Wolves lived.

I refused to declare my time in Faoiltiarn a bad crop, but so far, the only males who’d actually approached me with a hopeful look in their eyes had done so to ask me to deliver notes to “the banrigh’s exceptionally bonnie sister.”

AKA Naomi.

And correction: Amanda had been invited on a courting walk.

I should have known this situation was verrottender Fisch —rotten fish—when Amanda told me the eligible wolves were called Malcolm and Gavin, but quickly changed the subject when I asked which one of them had asked to take a courting walk with me.

The two wolves who supposedly wanted to publicly escort us around town were the most handsome I’d seen so far—which was saying something in a mountain kingdom town bursting with strong-jawed males who took particular pride in the swell of their calf muscles underneath the kilts they always wore.

With a sinking heart, I watched the light in their twinkling eyes dim as we approached the stone brook bridge where Malcolm and Gavin had asked us to meet.

They both wrinkled their noses when Amanda introduced me as “my dear friend, Sadie Ellis.”

I had no idea she knew my actual surname wasn’t the Wolfennite Dietsch version of "shadow" before that.

However, the pleasantness of that discovery was completely erased by the heart-sinking realization that we’d all been tricked.

Amanda had obviously told these two handsome males, who stiffly introduced themselves, that she’d bring a friend on their courting walk.

And they’d obviously been expecting Priscilla, or Orpah, or any of the other Wolfennites I’d heard described as right bonnie during our weeks in Faoiltiarn.

Instead, they’d gotten me.

The one Wolfennite who offered Amanda absolutely zero competition.

“I’ll lead the way with Amanda!” Malcolm declared, his glossy shoulder-length brown hair shining in the setting sun.

He took Amanda by the arm like someone calling dibs.

Gavin cursed softly in Gaelic, then raked a frustrated hand through his shaggy blond hair before falling in beside me.

He wore the same expression St. Ailbe teens did when they found their name on the list to attend to the community latrine that month.

I’d taken a shower and scrubbed my entire body with the heather I’d brought back from the cave for this.

My stomach churned, miserable and embarrassed, as we set off on our courting walk.

Malcolm walked close with Amanda, laughing and flirting, while Gavin shuffled along, as far away as he could get from me on the narrow cobblestone path.

He averted his head whenever another Faoiltiarn wolf passed by, suddenly becoming very interested in the skyline, as if he had no idea who I was and just happened to be on the same path as me during his evening birdwatching stroll.

I’d never seen anyone put so much effort into not signaling interest.

Speaking of birdwatching, I fingered the Scottish finch I’d carved in my pocket, wishing I was still back at my cave.

It had only been meant as a temporary shelter while I shifted for the full moon, but I’d found the place oddly comforting.

A sense of belonging had stolen over me there.

And maybe that was why I dragged my feet about returning to the Exchange House I shared with the rest of the Wolfennites.

The cave’s all-encompassing quiet had been nice.

The heavy silence that hung above me while Gavin and I walked behind Amanda and Malcolm was nothing short of excruciating.

My mind raced as I tried to come up with something to say to my reluctant “date.”

Before I could, Gavin surprised me by speaking first. “I have a question I’ve been wanting to ask you for a while now, Sadie, ever since you lot arrived in our little kingdom town.”

I turned my head to find him finally looking at me, his gaze soft.

A kernel of hope began to sprout in my chest. Maybe I had read this situation wrong.

Maybe he was awkward, too, and the silence had been nervousness on his part.

Maybe we were more alike than I?—

“What’s going on with the banrigh’s sister, Naomi, then? I’ve seen her out and about with you plenty of times. But from what I’ve heard, she hasn’t accepted any of our males’ invitation for a courting walk.”

Oh.

He only wanted to talk to me about Naomi.

I couldn’t say I blamed him.

Naomi was gorgeous inside and out.

And the kind of person who would say the same thing about me.

I knew that for a fact because she often did—with a straight face.

“God, I wish I had your bushy hair instead of these limp curls.… Your skin color is so dark and lovely.… I love the way you smell—so different from everyone else....Ugh! I’m so jealous. Why can’t I be tall and awe-inspiring like you? It’s like being best friends with an overly humble goddess. I swear, these guys should be building you an altar.”

Those were just a few of the things Naomi had said to me over the years, despite covetous actions like spoken comparison and even the mention of false god worship being strictly forbidden under the St. Ailbe Ordnung.

And the crazy thing was, she’d meant it.

Naomi actually thought I was the most attractive person she knew, while she referred to her own ethereal looks as “an unlucky accident of unwanted symmetry.”

She truly was the best friend an uber-odd she-wolf like me could have.

And that made my jealousy feel even worse.

But while my best friend was convinced I was a catch, the Scottish wolves obviously didn’t share her lovingly biased view.

And if I didn’t find someone willing to mate with me before the end of the exchange year, I’d have to go back to Canada.

Back to my mother and the childless, mateless path she’d already laid out for me.

...

“You filthy, ungrateful slut! Do you think they’ll want you over there in Scotland? None of these wolves will ever want you. How many times do I have to tell you that? Why won’t you listen to me, you idiot girl?”

My mother’s screeches as the bus pulled away echoed in my head.

“Are you not giving her any of the notes our lads have been passing on, then?”

Gavin’s accusatory question brought me out of the memory.

I’d given Naomi every single note.

And watched her ball them all up and toss them into one of the dorm’s wastebaskets, often without even bothering to read them.

She was truly only here to attend her sister’s wedding, but that was supposed to be a secret.

Naomi’s second-oldest sibling, Tara—the soon-to-be official Banrigh (the Scottish title for queen) of the Scottish Wolves—didn’t want her people to suspect that Naomi was using the Bridal Exchange as a free ticket to Scotland.

Also, a convenient excuse to escape St. Ailbe, where she could be forced into a wolf mateship she didn’t want by the new leader at any time.

I hated lying, and I didn’t want Gavin to think I’d do something like that out of jealousy—even if he had zero interest in me.

But admitting I had passed on the notes would only invite more questions.

So, instead of answering, I took a page from his book and averted my gaze, looking anywhere but at him.

I focused on the small kingdom castle where the king and queen lived…

…and the 14th-century bell-tower-topped church where their wedding ceremony would be held…

…and the two groups of boys playing in yard in front of a steepled school house, attacking each other ferociously with wooden swords painted green and red.

Hold on…

Now it was my turn to ask Gavin a question.

“What’s that all about then?” I stopped, watching as two of the fighters began tugging a boy with a ratty lace bridal veil clipped to his head back and forth between them.

Gail Glaswolf, the new school teacher was standing in the background of the skirmish, leaned up against the castle on the other side of the schoolyard.

But she seemed more focused on her phone, taking advantage of one of the few wifi spots in Faoiltiarn, rather than the strange fight happening just a meter away.

“Oh, they’re playing Scots and Irish !” Gavin stopped, too.

“That’s a game us kingdom kids have been playing since the 1500s. Used to be my absolute favorite. The ones with the red-painted swords are the Scots, and the green are the Irish. The goal’s to get the ‘bride’—that’s the lad in the veil—across one of those rope lines to your side.”

I hadn’t noticed Malcolm and Amanda had also stopped until she asked, “What happens after that?”

As if in answer to her question, one of the red-sword boys yanked the “bride” across one of the rope lines on either side of the melee.

Instantly, the green-sword boys turned their backs and began counting in what sounded like Gaelic.

“ Uhn… dah… tree… kehhir… kohig… ”

Meanwhile, three red-sword boys picked up the boy playing the bride like a log and ran at full speed as the rest of their team raised their wooden swords in what even I recognized as a defensive position, despite being raised under an Ordnung that strictly forbade violence.

“The Scots now have to the count of fifty to hide the bride,” Malcolm explained on the other side of Amanda.

“Then the Irish’ll have to break through their defenses to find her.”

“I think that one needs medical attention first!” I said, pointing at a brown-haired defense position boy who was bleeding profusely from the nose.

My healer assistant instinct lit up, and I started forward.

“Nae, he’ll be alright.” Gavin blocked my path with an arm barred in front of my chest. “You’ll only embarrass him if you stop the game.”

I backed down, sensing one of the cultural differences we’d been warned about by Tara when she made the big speech welcoming our Bride Exchange to her Scottish kingdom.

But Amanda pressed both hands to her chest as the green swords boys concluded their fifty count and attacked the red swords with a renewed ferocity.

“I just don’t understand why you would give children weapons and let them play like this,” she said.

“This village has no enemies.”

“That you can see,” Gavin corrected.

“The Irish Wolves will always be our enemy, and Scots and Irish is part of a tradition passed down through the centuries. First, you train them on wood, and when they’re good enough, you give them swords tipped with silver.”

Gavin pulled up his sleeve to reveal a scar, angry and welted despite his magical healing abilities, which told me he’d been cut with one of those swords tipped in silver, an element we wolves were deeply allergic to.

“Got this fighting for the Scots when I was sixteen.”

He threw me a pointed look.

“No patching up, and I still kept fighting to help my team to victory.”

His voice rung with pride, but Amanda’s face was aghast. “I don’t understand,” she said, shaking her head.

“Why train children to fight like this?”

“Because one day they might need to.” Malcolm regarded Amanda with a solemn look.

“You see, lass, five hundred years ago, the Irish Wolves invaded us during a royal wedding reception, just like the one taking place tomorrow. Those devils stole our newly crowned Banrigh Mairi, and every other female they could get their dirty Irish claws on—even a few of the babies!”

“And we do mean devils ,” Gavin chimed in, picking up the story.

“Rumor has it that the Irish Wolves worshipped three serpent gods and believed in mating in husband pairs, and sometimes even husband threes .”

Amanda clasped the neck of her plain blue dress.

“How ungodly! Please tell me you were able to rescue them!”

“We were not!” Malcolm answered with a dramatic relish that made me suspect he was enjoying telling Amanda this historical horror story.

“We sent boats after them and scoured that emerald isle for months. But none of our females were ever seen or heard from again, including our pregnant queen Mairi, who’d already pledged her troth to the Scottish king.”

This was a story—maybe even a myth—from over five hundred years ago, I told myself.

But a chill ran down my back as Gavin concluded the terrible tale with, “Ever since then, the Irish Wolves have been banned from our lands, and we train to protect our own. To defend the women we’re sworn to protect, in case they ever get it in their devil heads to try us again.”

“Remember the Irish Wolves,” Malcolm called out in the same tone our Wolfennite bishop used to talk about walking through valleys of death.

“Remember the Irish Wolves,” Gavin repeated, his tone just as grave.

“Now I feel scared.” Amanda’s voice shook, and though touching a member of the opposite sex was against our Ordnung, she grasped Malcolm’s arm, visibly trembling.

“Dinnae fash yourself, lass. You’ve me to protect you.” Malcolm crooked his arm under her hold and started them walking again.

“And, I would never let anything happen to you.”

“Also, it was over five hundred years ago.” Gavin jogged to fall into step on the other side of Amanda.

Leaving me to trail behind as he assured her, “We’re even foregoing our weapons for tomorrow’s wedding reception to stay in line with your pacifism mandates.”

“You’ve naethin to worry about, I promise you.” Suddenly, Malcolm’s voice became light and cheery, as if he weren’t just scaring Amanda to death with his historical horror tale of lascivious Irish Wolves a few moments ago.

“We say ‘Remember the Irish Wolves,’ but I highly doubt that lot would try it with us again in these modern times.”

I doubted it, too.

Recalling the cameras and security we had to go through at the airports to get here made me certain history wouldn’t repeat itself.

It would be like modern-day France deciding to try and claim Canadian territory again.

The possibility of the Irish Wolves returning to steal all the females from this small Scottish kingdom felt just as improbable.

There is probably less chance of that happening than me actually finding someone here in this Scottish village willing to mate with an oversized she-wolf whose scent seems to turn them off at a biological level.

That sobering thought sat heavy as a stone in my belly as I followed behind Amanda on her courting walk.

Little did I know then that, in less than 48 hours, finding a Scottish Wolf to mate with would be the least of my worries.