Deepwood Weald you waiting at ho[m]e for me saying what time do you call this?

Turning her head to seek more of his touch, “I like when you are not a gentleman,” Lotte informed Arturo with typical forthrightness. Having grown up surrounded by boisterous, life-loving wolves who spoke plainly and were just as likely to burst into combat as they were into song, the soot-stockinged rogue saw little reason to hide her feelings and thoughts beneath a coquettish simper. She wasn’t working, after all. Around those she loved and trusted, she said and did precisely as she wished — and perhaps that was why the next thing that popped out of her mouth was: “You’re to put me to work, Ceannasach.” Though her smile was mischievous and her laughter warm and low, the glint of her argent eyes was utterly earnest. “Your word is law — the Family before everything else,” she quoted prettily. “It is more than your bed I want to share — if the Bear was still here — ” she began, intending to rattle off her credentials, but the clench of pain that came from missing Lærke stopped the words in her throat. Treading carefully, as though tiptoeing around the subject would put an end to the ache, “If my older brother was still here, he would tell you — I am quicksilver in combat and silver-tongued besides.” The quip fell a little flat, but Lotte found a smile for the Fearghal nonetheless.

The worry that Arturo would soon regret his decision to court such a bold, straightforward girl stewed briefly in Lotte’s gut, but she saw no merit in hiding things unless they were meant to be hidden. “I love my freedom,” she said softly, forcing herself to meet his citrine gaze, “and I will fight to protect you and Chusi — and Furiosa. I have met her, you know.” Distractedly, Lotte turned a tight circle around the black-masked coywolf, drawing away to lie on her back in the patterned ferns. “I have never been courted,” she admitted, “and I do not want you to regret your decision, but I would not be content being only a wife. I want — I want cubs with eyes like yours. Fat cubs in winter coats, slender cubs with bandit masks. I want to taste the blood of your enemies on my tongue and sing your victories.” Absurdly, her silver eyes grew misty as she thought of a winter away from the Fearghal. Stupid girl, she thought fondly to herself. “What I wish to say, kullanmuru,” she murmured, using her first term of endearment for the fiery-eyed gangster, “is that if you court me, I wish for you to use me well.” Her wording was clumsy, but her intentions were pure. It was a line a more wily female might have employed to allude to other things, and although Lotte certainly hoped those other things were included in the Fearghal marriage package, she was presently more focused on her place in Arturo’s Family.

“Arturo,” she said finally, putting a stop to her whirring thoughts in favor of satisfying a much more urgent desire. She wriggled appealingly on her back in the ferns. “I am sorry for talking in waterfalls — do you remember when I swept you off your feet in your forest, gallant soturi that I am?” She was referring, of course, to the time they had collided with each other in an unceremonious tangle of limbs — the time she had nearly given him a concussion if not for the helpful pillow of her décolletage to break his fall.

“Can we do it again — slower this time?”