Page 1 of His Savage Sweet

Chapter 1

Wulf

“Findlay, put down the book, please.”

At Mother’s gentle criticism, my eyes snapped to my younger brother. Findlay’s cool blue gaze never left the small leather-bound volume he held in his left hand while he held the spoon in his right, but he did raise an eyebrow at Mother’s nagging.

“I am reading—bettering my mind. I thought that was an acceptable pastime?” he challenged without a flicker in his gaze.

I snorted into my soup.

Unfortunately, that just drew Mother’s attention. “And you know how to sit up straight when you eat, Beowulf. You look like some kind of…beast.”

It was the wrong thing to say, and my growl of irritation must have reminded her of it, because she rolled her eyes and turned to our father.

“Can you do something about them, Iain? I feel as if I have raised a pack of princes who won’t respect me or their place.”

As if Father could do anything about any of us. After the big marriage announcement, none of us were feeling too fooking kindly towards him right now, and we didn’t mind him knowing.

Imagine just announcing your sons had to be married by summer’s end! As if this were the dark ages!

Luckily, he’d picked up on our feelings. “They’re grown men. They’re allowed to eat the way they want.”

He reached over to pat Mother’s hand, and I didn’t bother hiding my snort again.

Always with the touching.

It was almost embarrassing how in love our parents were, always touching each other, even after all these years.

The reminder that they wanted me to have the same thing made me push aside the soup bowl and reached for the platter of baked savories.

Mother had raised us to be polite and proper, aye, as befitting a princess chosen to be a king’s wife. But at twenty-nine I could do whatever I damn well pleased, no matter what my father thought “the kingdom required”.

Fook both of them.

I was a grown man—at least he acknowledged that—and I didn’t have to get married just because my father said so…King or not!

“Besides,” Da continued, doing that disgustingly lovey face at Mother he always did, “at least ye have Rickard.”

Perfect, perfect Rickard. Fook him, too. He probably didn’t see anything wrong with getting married just because Father said we had to. In fact, his perfect little wife sat beside him now, and the two of them couldn’t seem to quit touching one another anymore than our parents could.

Fooking perfect Rickard.

To cover my irritation, I bit into one of the savories arrayed on the silver platter in front of me…and forgot all about my father.

“Holy shite,” I said around a mouthful of something I couldn’t identify. “This is fooking delicious.”

“Language, Beowulf.”

I ignored Mother and waggled a pastry at Rickard, since Findlay was ignoring us. “Have ye tried this?”

As my older brother shook his head, I tossed him the one I was holding.

The look of surprise on his face made me smile. I would have laughed outright if it had splattered across his perfectly coiffed hair, but unfortunately he caught it.

To further my surprise, he actually bit into it.

Perhaps marriage to Clarissa was mellowing him a tad?