Munro swore under his breath, “Bluidy bad luck.”

“Just force my shoulder back in place! Be quick, man!” Naturally, the first time Garreth encountered his mate—the one he’d awaited so long—she’d seen him calling his competitors pussies and playing by dirty rules. He was shirtless, well on his way to being drunk, and filthy with blood and mud. He wasn’t even wearing shoes.

And it probably appeared as if he’d been about to take part in an orgy.

“You tell no one of this,” Garreth grated.

“Why the hell no’?” Munro gave a hard yank on Garreth’s arm.

“Whatever she may be, she’s other,” he said. “And she’s to be the Lykae queen? No one knows, not until she’s marked and mated. Vow it!”

“Aye, then, we vow it,” Uilleam said.

The second they popped his shoulder back in, he took off at a sprint. —Track her. Claim. —With his Instinct louder and sharper than it’d ever been, he ran headlong through the rain.

He’d just been despairing over another year without his older brother, another year of royal responsibilities that he’d never thought would fall to him. On this day, the fates still refused to surrender Lachlain. But they’d given Garreth his mate in that ethereal creature.

As he charged forward, excitement welled within him, followed by overwhelming relief. With the way the rain had been pouring earlier, he could’ve missed her scent. Now he was on her trail.

Yet at the line of moss-curtained cypresses—the entrance to the most remote section of the swamp—he slowed. Somehow her scent was emanating from four different directions. He decided on one to follow, then raced through the brush, hurdling streams and bogs.

When he reached the source of the scent and there was no sign of her, he turned in place. Then gazed up to find one of her arrows lodged in a tree, so deep only the flights showed. And to those, she’d tied little bits of her T-shirt. Clever girl. She’d used her arrows to obscure her trail.