Etienne said. “You will be ready for a day of ceremony and pomp.”
“Of course.” Likely the entire pack would have to don suits and pin on tiny flowers or whatever it was wedding parties were required to wear. He could deal with that.
“You’re taking this rather well. Good man, Kirnan. Good man.”
“Whatever details you need me to arrange, I’ll see to them. I assume that’s what you intended when you said I drew that short stick?” He smiled, but his leader only matched it with a shake of his head. And an imploring lift of brow. “Wait.”
The more he thought about it... If he had drawn the short stick...
Kir’s heart stopped beating for a full three seconds. He swallowed, flexed his fingers at his sides and then croaked out, “You mean me?”
Etienne nodded. “We went down the chain of command. I, of course, am happily married to my beloved Estella. Eighty years and counting. And my son and the pack scion, Jacques, as you know, is engaged to sweet Marielle. So the task falls to the third in command.”
Kir spoke before thinking. “Oh, hell no.” Now that he understood he was the unlucky sap, he smacked a fist into a palm and paced before Etienne’s desk.
“It must be done, Kir. You are young. You have no current romantic entanglements.”
Not for lack of want. A guy didn’t need to be in love to have a good time.
“You are an excellent offering.”
“An offering?” Kir winced at the word. It sounded so...sacrificial. A burn of bile stirred in his throat.
“I shouldn’t have put it that way,” Etienne added.
“I can’t marry a woman I don’t know. Principal Montfort, when I do marry I want to marry for love.”
“Are there any females in the pack whom you desire?”
“No, I—” Kir shoved his fingers roughly through his hair. “As you’ve said, I’m young yet. Twenty-eight years is but a pup in a werewolf’s lifetime. I have never given thought to marriage. Well, hell, yes, I have. I do want family and a happily-ever-after. But I want to date freely until I’ve met the one.”
“The one.” Etienne smirked. “Estella and I were an arranged marriage. Do not rule out the possibility of an interesting match, Kirnan.”
“Interesting?” The word felt vile on his tongue. Interesting was not love. “You and your wife are an amazing couple, Principal Montfort. But I’m not like you. Not patient or, apparently, so accepting.”
And, hell, his dad had screwed up his marriage; what made Kir think he could manage a loving family without an eventual nasty divorce? And abandoning the children to scar them forever?
“I’ve my work with the enforcement team that keeps me busy,” Kir tried. “I don’t have time to dote on a wife and...do the things a husband needs to do.”
Like what, exactly? He didn’t know. And he didn’t want to know! Not...this way.
“Isn’t there another wolf in the pack with equal standing?”
Etienne shook his head. “It would shame Valoir were we to offer a male who had not an esteemed rank. You are the highest ranked wolf who is available. Please, Kir, I’m asking you to do this as a favor. I’m not commanding you.”
Pacing before the window, Kir’s brain zoomed from standing at a dais and getting a first look at a woman he must vow to shelter and love forever to running away from the pack, becoming a lone wolf, free—yet forever ostracized and alone. Like his father.
He didn’t want to repeat the sins of his father.
“She will be one of the Unseelie king’s daughters,” Etienne added with a hopeful lilt.
One of them? How many daughters had he that the man could deal one out as a seal to the many bargains he may make?
“Our breed gets along well with the sidhe,” Etienne tried. “Er, regarding when it comes to mating. And faeries are very often quite lovely. I don’t think you should worry about how she looks. And I have heard that wings can be quite—”
Kir put up a hand to silence his principal. He needed to think about this. Sunday was two days away. He was captain of the enforcement team, alongside Jacques, who was the lieutenant. His job required he police the wolf packs in Paris, and it kept him busy much as a nine-to-five job would.
He didn’t need a wife. He wouldn’t know what to do with a wife. If his own family’s history was any example—well, that was it; his family was no example of how to live and love in a happy, healthy relationship.
Kir wasn’t prepared to welcome a woman into his home. Nor did he want to stop looking at other women. He didn’t want to stop having sex with other women. What must that be like to sleep with only one woman? For the rest of his life? And to be castigated by a wife for looking at another woman?
Heart pounding, he caught his palm against his chest.
“So it’s agreed, then,” Etienne finally said. “The ceremony is scheduled to begin at twilight. I’ll have my wife arrange all the necessary suits and whatever else is needed. All that wedding frippery, you know. You’re a good man, Kirnan. Thanks for doing this for pack Valoir. I’ve got to rush out now.”
Etienne walked Kir to the door and down the hall to the front door of the nondescript concrete building the pack used as a headquarters. The principal flagged down his driver, who waited at the curb, and, with a wave, was off, leaving Kir standing on the sidewalk, hands hanging at his sides and jaw dropped open.
Married in two days? To a woman he’d never met.
Kir felt like the last one standing on the gym floor after all the rest had been chosen for sides. And he was the odd man out, not needed for either team, both of which stood on the sidelines laughing and pointing at him.
And, to make matters worse, he had no one to confide in, no one to ask for guidance. His father he had not seen for a decade. His younger sister, Blyss—it had been years since she had been estranged from the pack. They spoke on the phone because she summered in the United States with her new husband. But she wouldn’t be interested in his dilemma. She had just given birth to a new baby and was busy with life and marriage.
That left his mother, Madeline, whom he tolerated and begrudgingly respected at best.
“Married?” he muttered.
The clenching in his chest seized up his breath and he gripped his throat.
The forest shivered with a warm midsummer breeze that seemed to sing in a language Kir recognized but could not interpret. It was a joyous sound, which helped to settle his crazy nerves. Overhead, thousands of tiny lights darted within the tree canopy. Faeries. Kir was surrounded by his pack and all sorts of
