Her Irish Bears

A why choose the bear(s) romantasy

Theodora Taylor

Letters and Secrets

Sadie

“Hallo, Sadie Schaduw!” a lilting voice called out behind me in Wölfennite Dietsch. “Is any of that mail for us?”

Amanda Smucker and her best friend, Priscilla Glickwulf, fell into step beside me on the dirt road before I could reach either of their houses with the last of the letters I’d promised to deliver for Reuben.

“Actually, yes,” I answered in English with a little squeak.

We were all around the same age—our early twenties—and we had attended school together. But Amanda rarely spoke to me directly, much less asked me any questions.

The thing was, people called me Sadie Schaduw for a reason. I’d spent most of my life trailing behind my best and only friend, Naomi, the quiet shadow to her fierce, confident flame. Finding myself suddenly flanked by two girls who wouldn’t even bother to say hi to me if I wasn’t carrying this mailbag made the urge to shrink behind my best friend rise up like a biological reflex.

But Naomi wasn’t here. It was just me and all the nerves I had to steady before reaching into the mailbag Reuben had handed me earlier when I offered to help with his route so he could finish the rest of his chores before all the parents returned from the community meeting about the upcoming Scottish-Canadian Bridal Exchange.

"Here you go." I passed Amanda a bundle of envelopes, neatly tied with twine. All the letters she’d received from potential Scottish grooms in the international mail.

“Goodness, are all of these for me?” Amanda’s hair—tucked away under her black bonnet in a crown of golden braids—somehow managed to swish before she snatched the stack of letters from my hand.

“Most of them.” I reached back into the bag for the last two letters in Reuben’s mailbag. “These are for you, Priscilla.”

“Dank je wel,” Priscilla murmured, her face flushing as she accepted the letters with far less pride than Amanda.

She slipped them into the deep pocket of her plain blue dress—an exact match to the ones Amanda and I wore, although mine was several sizes larger.

All three of us also sported white aprons over our dresses, marking us as unwed she-wolves of St. Ailbe. But while Amanda and Priscilla were already expecting letters from potential suitors all the way in Scotland, I couldn’t even imagine receiving a piece of mail from anywhere beyond our little Ontario village.

What would that even feel like? To have someone show interest in me—openly, and for all to see?

“Has Naomi received any letters from the Scottish grooms?” Amanda’s question snapped me out of my musing.

Her tone sounded casual, and coveting was strictly against the St. Ailbe Ordnung—the long, handwritten list of rules that governed our village. Still, a trace of jealousy lingered in the background of the question.

Naomi didn’t care that she was the prettiest she-wolf in the village—maybe in all of Canada. But I could tell Amanda did.

“Um…” I shifted the now-empty mail satchel on my shoulder, trying to come up with a truthful answer that didn’t accidentally reveal Naomi had only signed up for the Bridal Exchange to attend her older sister’s wedding in Faoltiarn.

She hadn’t even tried to correspond with any of the Scottish grooms, despite being in charge of all the logistics, like getting plane tickets and passports for a bunch of she-wolves who’d mostly never set foot outside St. Ailbe.

“Or you? Did you receive any letters?” Priscilla added. Her careful tone let me know the question was one made more out of politeness than genuine curiosity.

“Ja, sicher.” Amanda let out an incredulous snort along with her “yeah, sure” before I could answer.

But then she caught herself and reset her face into one of serene piety. Mocking was strictly against the St. Ailbe Ordnung, even if you didn’t believe a she-wolf like me had any real shot in the Bridal Exchange.

And as Naomi once pointed out, “Amanda’s trying to out-pious us all.”

“I mean, I assumed you didn’t even sign up for the Bride Exchange trip to Faoltiarn,” she said, pressing a hand to the top of her apron. “Doesn’t your mother need you? Who would help her with all her good work if you weren’t here to assist and translate?”

She wasn’t wrong.

I’d never fully understood how my Jamaican-born mother ended up in a Wölfennite settlement in Canada. She had mostly withheld any details about her life before St. Ailbe, or how I came to be—aside from fussing at me to put away my whittling work because it reminded her too much of “that no-good male.” That no-good male being the father she compared me to but refused to actually talk to me about.

What I did know was that she’d never quite lost her island accent—or managed to pick up the particular dialect of bastardized German her chosen community spoke.

For as long as I could remember, the rest of St. Ailbe had complained about two things when it came to the couple of Jamaican wolves in their midst: our odd smell and my mother’s persistent refusal to speak or even attempt to learn Wölfennite.

But they tolerated us—barely—because my mother had made herself indispensable as the town’s healer.

Delivering babies, tending to the elderly, and treating anything that couldn’t be healed with the magic of shifting into animal form. It was good work, but from where I stood, being groomed to fill her shoes one day, it often looked less like service and more like servitude.

But maybe that wouldn’t have to be my fate. Thinking of Reuben, I offered Amanda a neutral smile and conceded, “No, my mother would never allow me to leave St. Ailbe for a Bridal Exchange in Scotland.”

“Maybe this is for the best,” Amanda answered in Wölfennite with a decisive nod. “Since our Ordnung makes us not allowed to send pictures, it would be perhaps misleading for you to correspond with someone who was unaware you do not quite…”

She tapped her lips with four fingers, searching for the right word, until she finally came up with, “…match. You do not exactly match the rest of the St. Ailbe she-wolves—with your size and distinct smell—now do you?”

Again, not wrong.

Ninety-nine percent of the eligible she-wolves in our village were thin, White, and well under six feet, with long hair demurely tucked into braids beneath their prayer coverings.

I was none of those things.

My hair was basically a large bush of kinky curls that couldn’t be fully contained beneath a prayer covering, no matter how tightly I braided it down.

I didn’t know who my father was, but he must have been Black, too, because I was easily the darkest person in our entire community. Darker even than Naomi’s Ghanaian father.

Also taller. Standing over six feet without shoes on, I towered over every other she-wolf and nearly every male in the village. I wouldn’t call myself hulking—though some of my classmates did before I finished at the village school—but with a huge chest and wide hips, I certainly wasn’t dainty or slender. My mother often complained about how much extra fabric she needed to barter for whenever it came time to sew me a new plain blue dress.

Thank goodness, I’d finally stopped growing.

But not soon enough. If photos were allowed by the St. Ailbe Ordnung, I’d stick out like an overlarge Black thumb.

Amanda wasn’t saying anything I hadn’t heard before. Still, her words sliced through me.

And that hurt made the fingers on my right hand tingle in that way they sometimes did—when angry, violent feelings rose up inside of me, despite my being raised a pacifist. Clenching my teeth, I rubbed my thumb against the piece of knotty wood I’d stuff into my apron pocket, grounding myself in the rough grain, pushing...the anger…down.

“Where is Reuben Yoderwulf, anyway?” Priscilla asked in English, crinkling her brows. “Isn’t the postmaster’s son supposed to deliver the mail?”

Another question I didn’t know how to answer—this time without giving my secret away.

But then I spotted Reuben Yoderwulf in the distance over Priscilla’s head, stealthily approaching the tree where we’d agreed to meet after I finished my route.

My heart soared, the tingling in my fingers stopped, and suddenly, Amanda’s words about me not matching didn’t feel quite so hurtful. 

There was one male in St. Ailbe who knew exactly how I looked and smelled, and he’d decided to court me anyway.

“Enjoy your letters!” I gave Amanda and Priscilla a little wave and all but skipped away from that awkward conversation. Toward the man who would save me from my fate of living and dying alone in St. Ailbe.

It was only the second official day of spring, but I already had the feeling that my entire life was about to change along with the landscape.

By this time next spring, everything will be different, I promised myself.

Little did I know how right I was about that—just not remotely in the way I was thinking as I made my way toward Reuben.

Spring Fire

Reuben’s face was ruddy after a hard few hours of making repairs on his family’s thatched roof in preparation for the incoming spring rains, and sweat had stained the pits of his plain-weave shirt. But he smiled above his chin-to-chin beard when he saw me coming and gave me a little covert wave.

However, before I could reach him, he gave the subtle signal: a tilt of his head toward the abandoned community barn, letting me know he wasn’t so glad to see me that he actually wanted to be seen with me.

My heart dipped, and a little of the happiness faded from my step.

Only for a few more months, I reminded myself.

Reuben had promised we’d go public after the she-wolves left for the Bridal Exchange.

“That way I can tell my parents you’re the only option I had left,” he said.

Not exactly the most romantic thing I’d ever heard. And I knew Naomi would have something acerbic to say about his reasoning—which was why I hadn’t told her about my secret relationship with the mail steward’s son.

She wouldn’t understand. Despite St. Ailbe’s dismal population statistics of three she-wolves of claiming age to every eligible male, she’d been fighting off unwanted attention since her teens. As much as I admired her willingness to tell people off and always speak her mind, I suspected she’d developed her infamously acerbic personality to keep eager shifters from asking to court with her.

But in my entire twenty-three years on this earth, Reuben was the only male who’d ever looked at me twice.

So I didn’t mind our secrecy. Not really.

Affixing a happy smile on my face, I slipped into the quiet, shadowed barn, as instructed, two minutes later.

To find Reuben lying on his side with his head propped in one hand. He’d already pushed his leather suspenders down and unbuttoned his trousers. “Quick. Come lie down. We’ve only got a few minutes before my parents get back from the community meeting.”

He waved a hand of invitation over the bare patch of floor in front of him.

“You didn’t bring a blanket?” I asked, eyeing the dusty hardwood floor.

“Didn’t have enough time,” he answered, even though I’d spotted a quilt hanging to dry at his place when I saw him on the roof and offered to deliver the mail for him today.

My wolf made that strange sound it sometimes did inside of me.

Not quite what I’d call a canine growl. It was lower. Grumblier. Like some distant thunder rattling behind my ribs. Violent and angry. And my fingertips were tingling again, with a sensation that made me think of my nails suddenly turning into claws.

Though that was silly. Wolves couldn’t partially shift, and anyway, turning outside of a full moon was strictly against the rules of our Ordnung.

I tamped down all the weird sounds and sensations swirling inside of me.

This is fine, I told myself, gingerly lying down in the space Reuben had indicated. It wasn’t like a blanket made things that much better.

Relations, as my mother called the act that went against several Ordnung rules when performed before marriage, had been just as tedious and not-that-bang-up-fun as she’d promised.

She would kill me if she ever found out about what I was doing with Reuben to prove to him that I would be a good wife and to douse the Spring Fire that had lit up inside of me. Every year around this time, forbidden desires stole over me, driving me to touch myself in ways I planned to go to my grave without ever confessing.

Premarital relations with Reuben didn’t exactly quench those naughty feelings inside of me. But at least he was something, even if his particular brand of something was way too quick.

“Don’t worry, I’ll be quick,” Reuben promised, rolling to lie on top of me after I laid down.

“Actually, I was wondering if you could⁠—”

“Aua!” Reuben’s yelp of pain cut off my tentative request for him to go a little slower.

He reared back up and glared down at my apron, before pulling out the basswood stick I’d slipped into its large front pocket.

“What is this?” he demanded, turning his narrowed eyes on me.

“Oh, that’s, um…” My cheeks went hot. “Just a stick I picked up.”

“A stick?” He squinted at it the same way my mother looked at ants before ruthlessly exterminating them with her homemade bug spray. “For what? The only things around here to be scared of are us wolves.”

“It’s for whittling,” I admitted. “I saw it on your mail route and thought it’d be perfect for carving. I’m going to make a wolf pup with it—you know, for luck.”

“Luck?” He went still. “Luck like the voodoo they warned us about in church? Is this some kind of devil spell from Africa? Something your mother taught you?”

“What? No!” My stomach twisted, and I sat up on my forearms. “Of course not. My mother’s from Jamaica—not Africa. And she would never. She’s the most devout wolf in St. Ailbe. Why would you think that?”

Reuben eyed me suspiciously. Was he having second thoughts now? What would I do if he decided I wasn’t worth his courtship?

In a panic, I reached into my pocket and pulled out a small package wrapped in brown paper.

“I brought you some zucchini bread,” I offered quickly. “I made it this morning with the last of our winter stores.”

“Wirklich?” Reuben’s mood changed in a flash. He tossed the stick aside and took the slightly sweet treat I’d actually been planning to eat as an afternoon snack from me.

He unwrapped it right there, taking a big bite, without thought of the crumbs spraying down on my apron. I gritted my teeth and tamped down another thunder growl.

“Best zucchini bread in St. Ailbe,” he mumbled with a full mouth. “This is why you’ll make somebody a good wife someday. Doesn’t matter what those other folks say.”

I froze.

“You mean I’ll make you a good wife,” I said softly.

Reuben blinked. “What?”

“You said ‘somebody,’ and ‘someday,’ but you meant right after the Bridal Exchange she-wolves leave, right?”

He finished chewing and swallowed in a way that made me fear he was going to say something I wouldn’t like. But then he grinned and agreed, “Ganaw. Nachurleek .”

Yes, of course.

His words should have made me happy, but my stomach remained tight as he hiked up my skirt and settled between my thighs. And as I stared at the wooden ceiling above us, a single thought wormed its way into my mind.

Is this really what love is supposed to feel like?

“Un-un-unnnhhh!” Reuben abruptly stopped squirming on top of me and spilled his seed with a shudder.

“That was great,” he panted. Then he kissed my shoulder. Not my lips. He never kissed me on the lips.

Is this really what love is supposed to feel like? The bad, doubtful thought echoed even louder.

“I’ve got an idea,” I said when he lifted up from on top of me. I made my tone a little bit more chipper to suggest, “Maybe we could meet up again tomorrow?”

“Tomorrow’s Sunday.” He frowned down at me and pulled up his suspenders. “My parents will be home after church. They’ll smell you on me.”

“Not if we just eat and talk,” I pointed out, pushing the skirt of my plain blue dress down. “We could have a picnic. Out by the lake, where no one will see us.”

“Just eat and talk,” he repeated with the same expression he’d used on the stick. “Ach ja, Sadie, I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why not?” Sitting on the barn’s cold, hard floor, I couldn’t quite tamp down my annoyance. “What about my suggestion that we actually spend time together eating and talking feels like such a terrible idea to y⁠—?”

“Reuben? Reuben, where are you?” someone called from beyond the barn doors, cutting off my question. “Amanda Smucker said she saw you come in here.”

It sounded and faintly smelled like Marta Weitzwulf, the building steward’s nineteen-year-old daughter.

Reuben’s face fell. “Oh no! Get up! Get up! We’ve got to get you out of here before she finds us.”

The panic in his eyes made me grab the stick he’d tossed aside and scramble to my feet to make a quick dash towards the barn’s back doors. This wasn’t how I wanted people to find out about our secret relationship, either.

But I didn’t move quickly enough.

“Reuben!” The barn’s front door opened to reveal a shocked Marta.

She took in the scene, her mouth gaping open—until she snapped it shut to demand, “What are you doing in here? With Stinky Sadie Schaduw?”

Ouch. I hadn’t been called that nickname to my face in years, but it still hurt like it did when I was a teenager.

“Marta, listen to me. You can’t tell anybody about—” I started to plead nonetheless.

Reuben moved in front of me to block her from my view before I could finish—well, partially. I was a few inches taller than him, so I could still see Marta’s angry expression over the top of his head as he told her, “It’s nothing, I swear.”

“Like when you swore to my father that you wanted to court and marry me?” Marta’s voice shook with fury. “And convinced him to forbid me from signing up for the Bridal Exchange?”

What?! My entire body trembled with a new fear beyond being found out by the rest of the village before Reuben was ready.

“Reuben? What is she talking about?”

“I was just practicing,” he blurted to Marta without so much as a glance back at me. “I knew we’d be getting married soon, and I didn’t want to be bad at it on our wedding night. That’s why I practiced with Sadie. To be ready. For you, Schatz. My real wife.”

Each word cut into me, gutting me like the boning knife my mother used to clean the insides of the fish I’d brought back from the river yesterday.

The world went fuzzy as the real story came together in my head.

Reuben had claimed to be secretly courting me. But he’d asked Marta’s father to court her in real life. He’d gone to her family. Begged the building steward to make her stay.

He’d been practicing with me. But planned to actually marry her.

Oh, mein Gott.

Somewhere in the distance, Reuben assured Marta in Wölfennite, “I would never choose Stinky Sadie Schaduw over you. I swear it on my soul. This was only for me to become a better husband to you.”

Suddenly, the river wasn’t outside the village but filling my ears in a rush of noise, shame, and regret. How could I have been so gullible? So stupid?

Without thinking, I ran. And ran. Until my legs cramped. And I still didn’t stop.

Not until I reached the two-bedroom cottage I shared with my mother and ripped open the door.

A shower. I needed to light our stove for a scalding-hot shower before my mother got home from the community meeting⁠—

“Sadie! Sadie Ellis!” My mother’s voice broke through the icy rapids of shame and betrayal rushing through my head. “What are you doing? Why do you smell like that?”

I froze.

And that’s when I realized two things with regrettable tardiness.

One: Of course my mother—who would not even let me go to the college in the neighboring city—would opt out of the community meeting with an international Bridal Exchange at the top of its agenda.

And two: After months of sneaking around with Reuben behind her back, there was now nothing I could do to keep the woman who stood at the counter in our small open kitchen from finding out that I’d broken the 3rd rule in the St. Ailbe Ordnung: Thou shalt not engage in marital relations outside of marriage.

But I reeked of the male who’d just shattered my only hope of being able to get married and raise a family in St. Ailbe.

Surrounded by the pungent plants and metal pots she used to make medicine bags, the person I was most scared of in this entire world stared at me with rage glittering in her eyes.

Punishment

“Mama,” I choked out. “I can explai⁠—”

That was all I managed before a barrage of the metal dishes and spoons she used for her poultices came flying at me.

“Explain what, you filthy… slutty Jezebel? Why would you shame yourself like this?! Shame me?!”

She yanked off her left boot and came flying around the counter to slap my shoulders and arms with the hard sole.

“No, don’t cover your head. Don’t try to hide your disgraceful self now,” she screeched when I made the mistake of shielding my face.

She swung her boot again and again, so fast and furious, I didn’t realize she was herding me into my room until it was too late and the door slammed behind me.

Click.

She locked the door.

No! No! No! Not again!

An old terror surged through me, left over from when she’d locked me in here for months when I was sixteen—for daring to even suggest I wanted to go to college to learn a trade of my own choosing.

I banged the side of my fist against the metal door she’d commissioned from Naomi’s father, Danso, a furniture maker with a store along the route to Waterloo.

“Let me out!” I pleaded. “Mama, please, please! I’m sorry! I’m sorry! I didn’t mean to upset you. I’m so sorry!”

Silence.

No matter how hard I sobbed and begged, only silence answered me.

Hours passed. Then days. Then weeks. Maybe. I lost track of the date quickly.

Mama had boarded up all the windows in the house when I was a child. “To keep the gossipers from having their look,” she said when I asked why.

Without the sun’s rise and fall, time melted.

Reuben’s scent faded from my skin.

I carved three wolves and added intricate details, like deep-set eyes, toothy smiles, and waves of fur. A Mama, a Papa, and a Baby Wolf who they treasured.

Winter was over, but I slept. A lot. And made up stories for my happy wolf family in between. They loved and respected each other. Never yelled. Never shamed. Just went on whatever adventures they could find inside my room.

A full moon came and went, then another. Maybe three. It was hard to tell. But the morning after one of them, I woke up to find strange gouges at the foot of my bed—deep claw marks, bigger and angrier than anything I’d seen on any of the community buildings leftover by someone getting stuck outside during a full moon.

Had I done that?

The Spring Fire had vanished around the time I lost track of the days, but the violence I worked so hard to keep suppressed hummed inside of me as I stared at the shredded wood.

And stared.

And stared.

Anywhere but here.

Who said that?

Oh.

It was me. Or, at least something inside of me, half-growling, half-whispering…

Anywhere but here…. Anywhere but here… Anywhere but here.

It was a wish. A wish, my soul couldn’t stop repeating.

But wishes were futile in a room where you couldn’t even see the sky, though.

More time passed. I stopped wondering how much and found myself sleeping whole days away. But one morning, when I was actually awake and playing with my wolf family, the metal door banged open without warning.

“What is this nonsense?” My mother’s eyes narrowed on the wolves gathered around the little den I’d built for them out of buttons, fabric strips, and mattress stuffing.

I could only imagine how the scene looked to her--her overgrown six-foot-plus daughter playing a game of make-believe on the floor.

“I rebuke this tomfoolery!” my mother cried out with more fervor than our Bishop warning us against the devil.

Before I could stop her, she reached down and picked up both the Papa and Mama wolf. One in each hand.

Crack. She crushed them inside her palms—splinters of wood falling like judgment from her fists.

She was small, just five foot four, but I’d seen her snap thick tree limbs without wrinkling her blue dress. Her brown eyes glittered underneath the prayer covering she always wore tied tight over her braids, even though they weren’t required in the privacy of your own home.

“Think I didn’t hear you in here, telling yourself those silly stories, girl?” she asked, her words overpronounced and scornful.

I didn’t answer. Only stared at the remnants of my wolf carvings on the floor.

“When are you going to realize that none of these wolves will ever want you for real like that?” she asked above me. “If they come sniffing, it is only because they smell your desperation and know my idiot daughter will defy everything I’ve taught her to open her legs for any daft boy who looks at her twice.”

Anywhere but here.

I kept my eyes on the floor, knowing she didn’t want answers—only obedience.

“Stand up!” she commanded.

I climbed to my feet.

And we stood in silence, her gaze pressing down on me like a blanket made of lead. She was more than half a foot shorter, but somehow, she always loomed over me.

“You hungry?” she asked after several moments of watching me stare at the wood splinters on the floor.

Am I?

I hadn’t eaten in… I didn’t know how long. But the moment she said the word, hunger came rushing in like a flood, along with the need to pee. My bladder filled in an instant, and my stomach let out a low, embarrassing growl.

“Alright, then. Go shower.” My mother sucked her teeth and waved me toward the door. “I’ll have something ready when you get out.”

True to her word, there was a steaming bowl waiting for me after my cold shower—sweet cornmeal porridge, thick and golden, with extra condensed milk and a dash of nutmeg. My favorite. She must’ve felt guilty. Cooking comfort food was the only version of an apology you’d get from Claudine Ellis.

I sat at our little wooden table—the one Naomi’s father had gifted to us when I was small. As I ate, I glanced up at the handwritten devotional calendar on the wall above the cupboard. She made them every Advent for the next year, spending all four weeks painstakingly choosing and writing out the verses.

Today’s devotion: Train up a child in the way he should go, and when he is old, he will not depart from it. Proverbs 22:6

The date underneath it made my stomach twist.

Nearly four full moon cycles had passed. I’d been locked in my room for an entire season. Spring was over, and summer had begun.

The longest punishment she’d ever given me. Because, in her mind, having sex with a boy—actually daring to hope for another life—was the worst thing I’d ever done.

“This world is cruel, Sadie.”As if reading my thoughts, Mama sat down on the other side of the table with her own bowl of corn porridge. “It’ll eat an idiot girl like you alive. I am only trying to protect you—even from yourself. Them wolves—marriage and babies—like I told you, that is not your path.”

She had told me that. Over and over.

Since the moment I started to change, she’d made it clear: I was not for love. I was not for wanting. I would serve, like she had served. I would learn her ways, become a woman of the same purpose, and not stray from her path. Ever.

“Girl, eat,” she said, tapping the counter. “Don’t dilly-dally. I only let you out because I need you to help me jar these summer vegetables before they go to rot.”

I nodded and ate faster. Then I helped, slicing and jarring up the wooden boxes of corn, green beans, and young carrots we’d received as our portion of the community crop, while my mother cooked down the spinach and kale.

“There’s another community meeting tomorrow about the Bridal Exchange. Don’t get me started on that foolishness,” she muttered as she stirred the greens in a large steel pot. “How ridiculous is it that all these parents are letting their girls break the Ordnung and fly across the sea to that heathen Hamilton girl’s kingdom?”

That heathen Hamilton girl was what Mama called Naomi’s second-oldest sister—the one who’d run away from the village and somehow returned a decade later with a wolf king as her mate and a kingdom full of eligible males looking for mates.

“The nerve of her,” my mother muttered as she ladled the greens into a jar with a slotted spoon.

I made the proper sounds. Tsked in all the right places. But my fingers compulsively kept dipping into my apron pocket, rubbing a thumb over the orphaned baby wolf.

Eventually, the day ended.

And I left the door to my room open, as I always did after a punishment.

But I lay awake long after the house went quiet, thinking, Anywhere but here.

And listening for her soft snores in the next room.

“Sadie!” Naomi whispered in surprise when she answered my tap at her bedroom window. “What are you doing here at this time of night?”

It was so late, I’d expected to have to wake her up from a dead sleep. But her eyes were bright and alert on the other side of her now opened window, and her delicate face was haloed by a strange, faint light—something cool and blue that couldn’t possibly be candle glow. I blinked at it, confused.

“Sadie?” Naomi asked again. “Everything okay? I haven’t seen you since spring. Your mom just kept saying you were too busy to come to church or see anybody.”

My eyes swung back to hers, the reason I’d come echoing louder than my curiosity about the blue glow.

Anywhere but here.

“I want to sign up, too,” I told her on a great burst of breath, fingering the baby wolf in my pocket. The only one left.

“I want to sign up for the Bridal Exchange.”

No, Thank You

Claudine

Claudine hadn’t meant to end up at a hotel bar in Toronto, celebrating her big news alone—but there she was, in scrubs, ordering something called a Kir Royale while a Sarah McLachlan song about remembering played overhead.

“You passed one of those nursing exams that come with a big pay raise, didn’t you?” the bartender guessed when he set down a tall flute filled with a bubbly dark-red drink.

Claudine raised an eyebrow. “What gave me away?”

He grinned. “The badge. And the drink order. Pretty girl like you orders her own bubbly drink—means she’s got something she really wants to celebrate.”

With a chagrinned glance down, Claudine realized she was still wearing her RN badge. She’d just come off a twelve-hour shift at Toronto General when she found the letter from the CNO—the regulatory body that administered NP licenses—waiting in her mailbox.

She wasn’t in the habit of smiling back at flirty men in service jobs, but she couldn’t stop herself from preening a little as she informed him, “Just found out I passed the Nurse Practitioner exam on my first try.”

“Then you definitely deserve this drink. Congratulations!” The bartender offered her a wink that started off complimentary but turned into a leering up-and-down look. “But you’re celebrating alone? No boyfriend?”

“No boyfriend,” she confirmed. Her lips tightened as she picked up the flute, averting her eyes so this guy wouldn’t mistake her answer for having a chance with her.

“The devil done cursed ya with that kind of face dutty boys like,” her mother had warned Claudine before she left Kingston for the University of Toronto. “Be careful up there in Canada now, Deenie. Find yourself a nice, stable doctor, and don’t go messing about with any those rude boys.”

Good advice. That she’d followed. Until her perfect med-student boyfriend disappeared from her life with nothing but a cryptic email. No dating after that.

And, she’d quickly learned that her kind of singular focus didn’t attract girlfriends. Most women her age were more concerned with work gossip and TV dramas than their life trajectories. No other RN in the Critical Care Department had mapped out a 25-year plan to become a hospital director.

And since her mother would have already gone to bed back in Jamaica, there was no one who understood her enough to celebrate her achieving the second step of that plan tonight.

Not that it mattered.

Another piece of her mother’s guidance echoed in her head: All ya need is you, Deenie. Make that a stone ya keep in your pocket.

Mentally rubbing the pebble she always kept in the pocket of her scrubs, Claudine raised her glass to the bartender to let him know, “All I need is me.”

“Feminist, huh?” The bartender huffed, but then the lothario look came right on back. “How about letting me buy you that drink anyway?”

Claudine fingered her silver cross, her face hardening. Apparently, he had managed to mistake her declaration of independence and a clipped two-word answer to his question about whether or not she had a boyfriend for an invitation.

“No, thank you.” She set the no longer quite so delicious drink down. Why did men have to ruin everything?

“I insist.” He slid a cocktail napkin toward her. “And if you want to thank me, you can write down your number. I get off in a couple of hours.”

Claudine opened her mouth to inform him she had cash to pay for her drink—and zero desire to thank him.

“No worries, friend,” someone else said before she could answer.

Two crisp Canadian bills landed on the napkin. “I’ve got her drink money right here, and I’ll have a whiskey neat. Keep the change.”

That voice: Black Canadian excellence, only slightly tinged with a Jamaican accent, because he’d actually grown up here in Ontario, not just come for University.

Claudine turned. And blinked. Then blinked again.

Even after ten years, she recognized him. The med student she’d made the mistake of typing into her 25-year plan as Future Doctor Husband. Before he abruptly ended their two-year relationship with an email about how he’d decided to drop out of his program and wouldn’t be coming back to the University of Toronto. Or her. Ever.

Claudine’s heart stumbled, then dropped—straight into the ache she thought she’d buried years ago.

“Is it really you?” she asked, barely managing a whisper. “What are you doing here?”

Then she saw the ring on his left hand.

A thick soapstone band with some kind of tribal pattern etched into it.

“You’re married,” she said flatly.

A shadow crossed his face.

“More like... ‘joined in ceremony.’ And we’re currently going through a rough patch. But yes.” His mouth twisted bitterly. “In the eyes of her and her people, we’re married.”

“So then you’re planning on leaving her with nothing but a cowardly email, too?” The acid words slipped out before she could think about how she wanted to come across to the ex she hadn’t seen in nearly a decade.

“No, I took this trip to Ontario to clear my head. Not to repeat my worst mistake. I shouldn’t have left you like that, Deenie.”

To Claudine’s surprise, guilt replaced the tight, bitter look in his eyes. “And, I apologize for how I ended things with you. You deserved better.”

Claudine blinked. Then swayed. She hadn’t expected him to acknowledge her pain. In her experience, men didn’t apologize for their cruel actions. Especially men with medical degrees.

“So, I am assuming you never finished your schooling,” she guessed out loud.

The much less flirty bartender chose that moment to return with the whiskey, and the man Claudine had once thought she’d marry one day took it with a wry smile.

“Same old Deenie. You got me. I changed career paths after discovering I had a talent for—Hey, do you mind if I sit down and explain what happened? Maybe catch up on the last ten years, if you’re up for it.”

Claudine stared at him. Blinked. Then answered, “No, thank you.”

He blinked back. “What? You’re really saying no to me—your dream guy? The most handsome man you’ve ever met?”

“Read my lips,” she said, borrowing the popular American catchphrase. Triumph swelled in her chest as she repeated. “No, thank you. You are the devil, and I rebuke you. Now, bye, boy, bye.”

Her ex’s mouth fell open.

And Claudine jerked awake with a bitter taste coating her mouth, like a metallic after-sheen.

Regret.

Because it had only been a dream. A dream based on an actual unexpected reunion from twenty-three years ago. And wishful thinking.

Because in real life, she hadn’t said no. She’d invited him to sit down.

And he had ruined her entire life.

Why had she been having that dream so much lately? Claudine rubbed at her pounding head. It had been recurring almost nightly ever since she was forced to administer Sadie’s latest, and hopefully last, punishment.

Normally, it dissipated like a whisper as soon as she woke up. But this morning, it lingered. A cloud hanging over her head as she sat up in bed and pushed her feet into the pair of house shoes.

Claudine’s heart softened, looking down at the soft wool slippers. Sadie had knitted them for her last winter.

Such a sweet daughter. Since the day she was born, with no idea of how hard she had made her poor mother’s life just by existing, she’d been a huge, kind heart wrapped up inside a big, chubby body. Both a gift and a living reminder of Claudine’s worst mistake.

But she loved that little idiot. She did.

That was why she had to discipline her rightly. Keep her safe. Keep her protected. Even from herself.

Claudine rose from bed to make the two of them some corn porridge for breakfast.

But then she stopped, frowning.

Her door was closed.

Claudine never closed her door as it blocked out too much sound. Living in a windowless, technology-free room, she’d come to depend on the rooster’s crow from the neighboring farm to replace the digital alarm clock that used to wake her up when she’d been a Critical Care Nurse.

That vaguely bad feeling turned into a knife of dread, twisting cold and sharp in her gut.

Something was wrong.

“Sadie?” she called out, yanking her bedroom door open to find an empty house, free of Sadie’s strawberry scent.

How late had she slept? The metallic taste in her mouth took on a new tinct. The memory of the nightly cup of tea Sadie always brought her before bed came back to her then.

It had tasted strange last night. More bitter than usual. But Claudine had ignored it. Even though it was months later, she still felt a bit guilty about punishing her daughter the way she had after Sadie had walked into the house reeking of the mail steward’s spawn, Reuben Yoderwulf.

But now, understanding crashed over her.

Sadie had drugged her with valerian root—a plant that was harmless to humans but known to have a temporary sedation effect in shifters, with a metallic aftertaste left behind. If Sadie had known her mother required a much higher dose to be put out, Claudine might still be sleeping. In any case, the girl must have closed the door to her bedroom to increase the chances of Claudine not waking up in time to… what?

An image of that weaselly Yoderwulf boy, who hadn’t dared to meet her eyes in church while Sadie was on punishment, popped into her mind.

A mind which Claudine then proceeded to lose.

She didn’t stop to put on proper clothes or even her prayer covering. She charged outside in her nightdress, fury and fear powering her steps.

Her outsized strength hummed dangerously under her skin, and for once, she didn’t tamp it down.

Because she planned to use it.

She’d tear that cowardly boy who'd given her daughter such terrible ideas to go against her own mother apart.

Then, she’d drag Sadie home by the hair if she had to. Lock her up for six months this time. A year! However long it took to drain the stupidity out of her.

Foolish girl! Chasing false dreams of love. Claudine’s mouth twisted as she broke into a lumbering run.

Sadie didn’t know…love was a lie, a snare, a curse. Claudine had believed in love once, and it had left her pregnant, abandoned, and unable to function in the human world—much less stick to her twenty-five-year plan

She rounded the bend toward the mail steward’s house…

And stopped cold when she spotted something in the distance that she hadn’t seen with her own eyes in over two decades.

A bus. A transportation carriage, like the ones they’d used to ferry nursing students in for hospital visits.

It sat just beyond the town sign, which was as far as cars were allowed in St. Ailbe.

Its engine grumbled as a line of she-wolves in black bonnets and hand-sewn laundry bags repurposed as luggage climbed aboard.

Including one female who stood a good half foot above all the others.

“Sadie!” Her heart rattled, threatening to give out.

And then every single bit of color drained out of the world.

Later, she’d try and fail to recall exactly what had happened.

There had been tears. Sadie’s as she pleaded from the bus window, “Mama, please. Please understand. You want me to stay here forever, but I’ve got to try for something more.”

But Claudine couldn’t understand, couldn’t form coherent thoughts or words over the crazy lady screaming. Screaming so loud.

That crazy lady was her, calling Sadie every name outside the good book as her worthless best friend Naomi’s even more worthless father, Danso, held her back, along with three other full-sized males.

And even then, she’d managed to break away, thanks to the strength she usually kept hidden. “SADIE! SADIE, NO! NO!”

But by then, it was too late. The bus was already pulling away. She barely managed to claw at its metal exterior before it trundled down the road, kicking up dirt and pebbles behind.

Only then did the right words find their way to her mouth.

“YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!” she screeched after the bus. “YOU HAVE TO COME BACK. YOU DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU ARE!”

These were the right words. What she should have said. Finally. Sadie didn’t hear her, though. The bus kept going along with the spinning of the world.

But Claudine did eventually have to stop. Her arms dropped uselessly to her sides as she struggled to catch her breath.

Her daughter was gone.

And there was nothing she could do about what most certainly would come next.

The Potential

Tadhg

“Heya, Tadhg. Heya.” The second I stepped off the elevator on the top floor of the Dublin KaCh€ng App offices, my assistant, Eileen, all but pounced on me.

My COO alarm instantly went off. She looked rattled—more rattled than the one time we had to reschedule payroll due to a company-wide software glitch.

Bloody PR nightmare that was for a fintech app. “What’s wrong?” I doubled my speed toward my office suite at the end of the long hallway. “If there’s a fire to put out, we’ll want to turn an extinguisher on it immediately.”

“Not a fire, exactly. There’s…” Eileen huffed as she struggled to keep up with me, letting me know she hadn’t been taking better advantage of the treadmills in our company gym as she’d sworn she would toward the beginning of the year. “There’s someone in your office! I walked in ten minutes ago to find him just sitting there behind your desk, looking as if Edward Scissorhands and Professor Severus Snape decided to have a right grim and completely silent child. Who’s grown up now and holding a whiteboard that says ‘Cian Mahoney here to meet with Tadhg Ryan.’”

I stopped walking. “The Shadow Kin—” I caught and corrected myself before I could call him by his official, but largely unknown, title. “Cian Mahoney, our CTO, is here? Waiting for me in my office?”

“Well, that’s who he claims to be. According to the log, he let himself into the C-suite using a working badge with the highest level of security clearance. But he’s so pale. I’m not even sure he’s corporeal.” She leaned in, voice pitched low. “Should I call security, just to be safe? Or maybe those Ghostbuster fellas? I mean, he’s just... sitting behind your desk. Like a wraith who thinks he owns the place.”

“Well, technically, he does,” I pointed out, glancing toward my office. “A one-third majority stock holding, anyway.”

“So, that’s really him, then?” Eileen whispered. She had no idea our kind could hear even a whisper from behind a closed door. “I never would have guessed from looking at him that he used to be on the rugby team with you and Declan.”

That was because Cian hadn’t actually played—just consulted with our coaches. Same way I hadn’t technically been married to a plus-sized supermodel.

Well, I was. But only for the couple of weeks it took to get it annulled after the drugs and alcohol from my IPO funding celebration week in Koh Samui wore off and we both came to our senses.

As for Cian, he’d only “joined the team” to test an algorithm that might have earned him millions in the sports analytics market—if he hadn’t pivoted to creating a global financial product to compete with PayPal, Venmo, and Wise instead.

But now wasn’t the time for a correction to the bio he hadn’t bothered to update since we founded KaCh€ng from our shared Trinity University housing.

I waved her off. “It’s alright. I’ll handle it from here.”

“Should I bring you anything, then?” Eileen asked with another fretful glance toward the door. “Tea? The blood of a virgin, perhaps? I hear wraiths like that.”

“Nothing for us. Thank you, Eileen,” I answered, pushing into the office before she had a chance to ask me anything else about our company’s reclusive third co-founder.

The glass wall of my corner office tinted as soon as I stepped inside, and sure enough, there he was. Cian Mahoney—KaCh€ng’s CTO and our secret kingdom’s very own Shadow King. He rose to his feet like a gothic raven behind my desk with the window remote in his hand. I could understand why my lapsed Catholic human assistant covertly crossed herself before I closed the door behind me.

The tallest of we three kings, he was pale as milk, with eyes the color of bright-blue sea glass. But those were the only two light qualities to his appearance. The rest of him read dark as the dead of night. He had a mess of jet-black hair that somehow managed to look tousled and spiky at the same time and wore head-to-toe black, with a heavy cable-knit fisherman’s sweater and leather pants some long-ago ancestor of his had most likely skinned and dyed his family line’s signature color with squid ink.

“I see you’re still dressing like the Irish answer to the Sandman comics,” I observed, coming to stand on the other side of the desk. “To what do I and my now incredibly spooked first assistant owe the pleasure of this visit, Shadow King?”

Cian, of course, did not answer—at least not out loud. Only used his long-fingered hand, nails painted black, to push a stapled sheath of papers across the desk toward me.

The first page turned out to be a printout of an email from an ex-employee. According to the origin string, it had been forwarded several times, starting with an employee in our Scottish offices.

Hiya,

I’m not sure who to talk to about this, but I really need to reach Declan McMahon or Tadhg Ryan, quick. I’m from a wee village up in the Scottish Highlands. Just now, we’ve a group of visitors from Canada come over for a sort of mail order bride scheme. But one of them isn’t like the others. She’s different. Different like Mr. McMahon....

“Different...” A flicker of unease struck a match inside my chest. In “the world above” as our kind called it, “different” could mean anything from high on the ASD spectrum to deeply in trouble if you got caught out on a full-moon night. Which was why I, unlike Declan and the reclusive Shadow King, always wore a scent-masking cologne. “Are you thinking the writer’s a shifter then?”

Cian raised his sharp black eyebrows in a way that clearly conveyed “keep reading.” Even this unprecedented in-the-flesh visit wasn’t enough to make him abandon his eerie vow of silence.

With a sigh, I flipped the page to a printout of a conversation from our highly encrypted message system that took place between Cian and someone with the AU tag assigned to all Anonymous Users who were only given temporary accounts.

CM: Hello, this is Cian Mahoney, speaking to you on an encrypted line. Are you a wolf? If so, state your business. 

AU: Yes, I’m a Scottish wolf. Born and raised in the kingdom of Faoiltiarn. Are you like Declan?

CM: Yes.

The uneasy feeling flared brighter as I read over the conversation, which revealed that the male Scottish Wolves were currently participating in some sort of Bridal Exchange with a group of Canadian she-wolves who hailed from a fundamentalist community that called themselves the Wölfennites. 

AU: However, one of them is most definitely not a wolf.

CM: Are you saying that all these brides, including the one who is not a wolf, have come from across the sea?

AU: Well, they’re from Canada. So yes, they had to fly across the Atlantic Ocean to get to us here in Scotland.

The words across the sea snagged my eyes—and my memory—and made me realize out loud why the Shadow King had made the unprecedented decision to visit me here in our Dublin offices. In person.

An ancient hand fisted around my heart. “You think this is the prophecy? The sign that we’ve entered the time of the Second Reaping?”

Cian nodded once. His face would have made a gravestone label him much too serious, and his sea glass eyes glittered with a true believer’s conviction beneath all that black hair covering his forehead.

“No.” I took a step back and dropped the printed-out conversation back down on the desk like it was a hot coal that had seared my hands. “No, lad. No way. You’re not actually entertaining the thought of telling the Irish wolves about this to commence a Second Reaping? The first one nearly prevented us from being able to open an office in Glasgow. Over five hundred years later.”

He lifted the whiteboard to reveal words already written on it as if he’d predicted this would be my response: TELL & FUND & GET OUR QUEEN.

Queen was underlined. Three times.

“Are you cracked?” I asked him with absolutely null levity. Only to answer my own question. “Most obviously, you’re cracked. You’ve gone full Mad Hatter locked up in that black basement you call a castle. But guess what?”

I pointed angrily at the printout, as if I were a prosecutor and it was a felon trying to plead not guilty in court. “Declan won’t go for this. He doesn’t believe in anything that can’t be run through an ROI calculator. And have you forgotten? We’ve jobs to do in the real world. Board meetings to attend.”

The Shadow King wiped off his whiteboard.

“And before you say we can work remotely. One—” I turned my accusatory finger on him. “You are a walking advertisement against working from home, lad. Look at the state of you. You could step in for another unnecessary remake of The Crow.”

Cian looked down at his black-on-black leather outfit and conceded my point with a shrug. But he kept writing.

So I kept going. “And maybe you’re used to living behind a keyboard in your secret kingdom abode, but Declan and I are meant to be interviewed by the Irish Times at Davos this fall, aren’t we? How’re we supposed to be the face of this company if we’re hiding from the Scottish Wolves? What’s this then?”

I paused, squinting at the board Cian flipped over to show me: If you look in the folder, I’ll go and not bother you further.

With that promise, he slid a folder across the desk.

I’d made the list of Nicest Billionaires on the Planet for my philanthropy and easygoing personality, but I swore, permanent frown lines were being etched into my face as I snatched up the folder.

“What do you possibly think could change my mind on⁠—”

Both my words and the world stopped the moment my eyes landed on the folder’s contents.

A single photo, blown up to 8 x 10, with a small tab note labeled: The Potential.

And then everything changed.

There she was.

The Potential. The girl from the email. The prophesied queen from across the sea.

It felt like stepping off a cliff and crashing into the Three Gods Lake. I was being pulled under, my life divided into two parts.

Before I laid eyes on this female. And after.

No, Declan wasn’t going to like this.

But I looked at Cian, my chest still tight with the sensation of drowning in the knowledge of this female’s existence.

And then five words fell from my mouth, as if they’d been etched into me thousands of years ago by the serpent gods who supposedly created our kind.

“Call in the Irish Wolves,” I told The Shadow King.

He nodded and exited my office without another word, leaving me with the life-changing picture—and a new future to set in motion.

Faoiltiarn

Sadie

“There you are, Sadie Schaduw. I’ve been looking everywhere for you. Thank goodness that odd smell of yours makes you easy to track.”

Just a few weeks after our autumn arrival in Faoiltiarn, I looked up from my latest whittling project to find Amanda Smucker standing above me. I was sitting on a rock outside the cave I’d found the night before, putting the finishing touches on a figurine of a small finch-like bird nestled in a patch of nearby heather.

Its belly and small beak reminded me of the pine siskin, a finch I loved to carve back home, though it lacked the bright yellow that made siskins easier to spot in the wild. It also had a smaller, cuter beak.

I’d been so engrossed in trying to capture that distinguishing detail that I didn’t hear or smell Amanda approaching until the bird suddenly flew away, and I looked up to find the blonde Wölfennite staring down at me, her yogurt-and-muesli scent filling my nose.

I jumped to my feet, feeling a little caught out... and invaded. “Amanda, what are you doing here?”

“A cave, really?” She cast a disapproving frown at the stone structure behind the rock where I’d been sitting, whittling in the afternoon sun. “Is this truly where you decided to run off to last night when you insisted on abandoning us in that fit of hysterics?”

I fidgeted under her judgmental cornflower-blue gaze… and the memory of what had happened the night before, when I attempted to accompany her and the other Wölfennites to the dungeons below the Scottish kingdom’s castle for our monthly full moon shift.

I’d shoved down every compliant instinct I had in order to leave Canada for this Bridal Exchange. But last eve before the sunset, I’d learned the hard way that there was no escaping my mother’s voice inside my head.

“You are not to ever make the moon change in front of anyone, Sadie girl. Not even me.”

The she-wolf starved kingdom of Faoiltiarn had generously repurposed two of its fields to provide us Wölfennites with a large plot of land we’d named New St. Ailbe. It came with a three-story, 25-room dorm, wooden planter boxes for growing food, a cow barn, an icehouse, and even a chalk diamond to play our beloved baseball during free time. They’d gone out of their way to make our lives in New St. Ailbe match the original one.

But over fifty changing cages to satisfy the modesty-based shifting rules of our new Ordnung had been too much of an ask.

The compromise of using the castle dungeons for a group shift had been fine by everyone, including me—until we arrived at the castle for an early dinner with the king and future queen a couple of hours before sunset.

My mother’s voice had only been a whisper in my head while I finished sewing a dull blue shifting robe to Amanda’s specifications, so that at no point would we have to stand in front of each other naked—even in wolf form. But the moment we crossed the castle’s threshold, her voice started shouting, clogging my throat and making my steps stutter.

“Sadie? Are you okay?” Naomi, who had been walking beside me, turned and doubled back when she realized I hadn’t made it past the door.

I couldn’t answer. I could only clutch at my chest as my mother’s voice screamed in my head. You cannot, girl. Cannot!

“Have… have to go change somewhere else,” I barely managed to choke out before dashing toward the forest. Luckily, I found a cave that not only kept me hidden but also shielded me from the icy rainstorm I’d woken up to this morning.

The one I’d use as my first excuse not to return to the dorm house at New St. Ailbe right away.

I’d meant to go back after the storm passed. Explain myself. But then I saw the bird in the heather, and I guess I’d lost track of time because now Amanda was standing here looking up at me quizzically underneath the warm glow of the late-afternoon sun.

“It’s well past lunch,” she said. “I thought you’d at least show up to eat and relieve yourself.”

She wrinkled her nose. “Have you been using the outside as your toilet? If so, that’s against the Ordnung. Thou shalt practice humanity in all things outside of a full moon.”

Was she kidding?

I knew Amanda had taken it upon herself to be what Naomi called The Ordnung Police—making sure all of us she-wolves kept to the strict rules with which we’d been raised, even if we were in a foreign land. But… “It’s only been twenty-four hours. Why would you think I’d have to resort to going outside?”

“Because of nature’s design.” Amanda shook her head, as if I was the one with strange notions about how long one could hold their bladder, not her. “Everyone must relieve themselves a few times a day.”

I tilted my head. “Only if they want to. It’s like eating. You can always turn your hunger off for as long as you need if you don’t have access to a meal.”

Or have been locked in your room for weeks upon weeks. I thought back darkly to my last punishment.

Amanda screwed up her face. “What are you talking about? You sound like a rooster crowing in the middle of the night.”

I frowned at the Wölfennite saying that basically meant you sound crazy because her thinking I sounded crazy sounded crazy to me. I knew we grew up cloistered, but did she truly not get how basic wolf anatomy worked?

Before I could defend myself, though, she waved her hands in the air like she was wiping the conversation clean. “Oh, let’s stop with all of this toilet talk. That’s not why I tracked you out here anyway.”

Which made me scrunch my brow to inquire, “Why did you come find me?”

“So glad you asked. Guess what, Sadie Schaduw.” Her face lit up, and she clasped her hands. “We’ve been invited on a courting walk!”

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 Wölfennite 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 Wölfennites I’d heard described as right bonnie during our weeks in Faoiltiarn.

Instead, they’d gotten me. The one Wölfennite 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 Wölfennites.

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 Wölfennite 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.

Cloudy with a Chance of Alban

After that disaster of a “courting walk,” I practically collapsed into bed and slept for what turned out to be literal days.

Yet, when I woke up the morning of Tara’s wedding to King Magnus, I was still exhausted—and ravenous. Muffled voices of chattering Wölfennites and the smell of freshly baked bread and savory breakfast meats drifting up through the floorboards of the second floor room I shared with Naomi let me know breakfast was already well on its way. Along with the Winter Sloth.

Yes, it was easy for a wolf to turn off their need to eat. I could only guess that Amanda had never used this particular ability or else she wouldn’t have been so baffled when I brought it up.

But for some reason, I always felt hungrier and sleepier as fall wound down. My mother had derisively called it my Winter Curse and had often shaken me awake with greetings like, “None of this sloth business, Sadie girl. Do I look like an alarm clock? Next wake up call’s going to be a bucket of water, you gluttonous, sleepy, good-for-nothing but causing me extra work.”

Mama…

A picture of her at the stove, warning me not to indulge my Winter Curse, even while making triple the usual portion for breakfast, drifted into my mind as I got dressed to join the others downstairs.

Would she ever forgive me? Understand why I did what I did? Ever be willing to talk to me again, even if I had to return to St. Ailbe at the end of the exchange year because none of the wolves in Faoiltiarn wanted me, either?

All versions of my future hung like a dark cloud above my head as I made my way down the wooden stairs. Then were promptly forgotten when I saw the breakfast buffet of baked breads, meats, and fried potatoes waiting for me.

It had been days since I last ate. I doubt I could have turned off my hunger switch if I’d wanted to. And I definitely didn’t want to. Something grumbled happily inside of me as I stacked a plate high with scrambled eggs, bacon, sausage, fluffy pancakes, and heaps of fried potatoes.

The food would probably be cold after being left out for so long, but I didn’t care. I all but skipped to the communal table with my overflowing plate… until I saw Naomi and most of the other Wölfennites were gone.

Only Amanda, Priscilla, and the Schmidt sisters remained.

A glance toward the communal room’s front windows revealed that many of the other Wölfennites had already left for a pre-wedding ceremony game of baseball.

I’d been politely asked not to participate in baseball games for the crimes of hitting the ball too hard yet running too slow. And Naomi had stopped playing with the other Wölfennites as soon as the would-be Scottish grooms had started coming around to watch the games like it was, in her words, “some kind of bridal pageant.”

Unfortunately, Naomi must have decided to head over to the castle early to assist her sister. She was nowhere to be seen, and that meant there was no shadow for me to sit in. No buffer between me and the other four Wölfennites when I sat down at the communal table.

Thankfully, Amanda was in the middle of one of her lectures and didn’t even seem to notice my arrival.

“Oh, my goodness. There are just so many males who wish to take me to wife here. I’m not sure what to do. But of course, I will judge them on the quality of their devotion, and I’ll only accept a proposal from a wolf who agrees to come back with me to the real St. Ailbe and live under our much stricter Ordnung. I promised my father that was what I’d do. And I encourage all of you to think about making that a condition of your marriage agreements, too. Oh, goodness, Sadie Schaduw, do you truly need so much food?”

Amanda broke off her lecture after catching a glimpse of my plate, piled high with as much food as I could fit on it.

“You know gluttony goes against the original St. Ailbe Ordnung, which we should really still be adhering to—even Naomi insisted on making the new one unnecessarily less restrictive. Perhaps showing more restraint would help the males of Faoiltiarn overcome your many...” She paused, probably nixing several words that would have made her come off like a non-pious she-wolf before settling on “...differences.”

I paused with the first piece of bacon halfway to my mouth. That low grumble-growl was back. The one that always came with the finger-tingling, decidedly non-either-Ordnung sanctioned desire to do violence.

Was she seriously lecturing me about food after the confidence-killing trick she pulled on me yesterday?

For both Amanda’s and my sake, I grabbed my plate and stood up with the intention of eating outside.

“Do not be cross, Sadie Schaduw,” Amanda called after me. “I am your sister in piety, and I’m only trying to encourage you toward making wiser choices where eating is concerned so you might actually attract…”

I closed the Exchange House’s door on the rest of her words, but they rang in my head as I found another place to hide. This time, it was a rock located behind the cow barn.

Hunched over where no one else could see me, I miserably ate my now very cold food as fast as I could in the even colder Scottish morning air. And it still wasn’t enough to slake my hunger. My stomach continued to growl for more food after I cleared the plate of every crumb.

Maybe my mother had been right. There was something inherently wrong with me. No wolf would ever want me. Even here in Scotland.

A terrible hopelessness made me set the plate aside so I wouldn’t give in to the temptation to lick it clean. And that was when I saw the male on the castle’s roof.

Is that…?

I rose from my hideout, leaving the plate behind, to rack all my focus onto the shirtless male on top of the royal residence. It was a rather gray day, yet his hard muscles somehow managed to ripple under the sun as he hefted what appeared to be a large, upturned black glass panel onto the roof.

Yes, it was him! Alban. Alban Scotswolf was back!

I clasped my hands in front of me, and the hope that had almost completely abandoned me refilled my chest like a glass bottle being replenished with freshly pulled milk.

A few weeks ago, when Tara’s fiancé, King Magnus, had introduced his cousin Alban as the Kingdom Defender, I’d perked up a bit at the sight of him.

Alban was giant! Brawny, with a bushy red beard and wild, unkempt hair to match. Looking at him, I’d suddenly understood what the other Wölfennite school children had meant by hulking when they’d referred to me.

He was the only male I’d ever encountered who was both wider and taller than me. The Kingdom Defender towered over every other person on the royal welcoming committee, including the former rugby player king! And I couldn’t say I disliked it. Also, there was no ring on his finger.

Sure, he appeared a bit rough around the edges. He could have bothered to run a comb through his hair before coming to the castle to meet us, and his gray eyes held more contempt than welcome for a group of she-wolves who’d crossed an ocean to help his kingdom solve their dismal birth-rate issue.

But I had a feeling he looked at everybody that contemptuously, not just us. And maybe—most importantly when it came to a male wolf—not just me, for once.

He reminded me of the cranky tanner back in the original St. Ailbe. He was about ten years older than Naomi and me and had shocked the village by choosing one of the homeliest and stoutest of the unclaimed females to wolf mate after turning twenty-five. His stated reason? “Tannery is hard work. I need a she-wolf capable of true help—not beauty or a sparkling personality.”

Even back then, at the age of 15, I had been jealous that the only male in town who appeared to value strength and fortitude—two qualities I happened to possess in abundance outside of the winter months—would already be married and most likely a father by the time I was old enough to become a wife.

But Alban struck me the same as that tanner. Maybe he won’t mind my height or my size, I’d thought to myself, or the odd smell the St. Ailbe males hadn’t been able to get past.

However, before I could gather the courage to talk to him, Naomi crushed my hopes when she told me that Tara and Magnus were upset Alban had abruptly moved to a homestead cabin in the mountains. “Something about it getting too crowded here in town and wanting to be alone.”

But now he was back. Perhaps for Tara’s wedding, where it was rumored that many of the males would make their interest known, and maybe even propose!

A chance… that’s what this Alban sighting was. A chance to approach him at the wedding reception and show him my worth.

My heart sped up as the church bells began to ring in the distance.

Just like that, my prospects for finding a husband here in Faoiltiarn shot back up…

…only to plummet again a few hours later.

I did finally get my chance to speak with Alban at the reception after the royal wedding. Unfortunately, that came courtesy of Amanda shoving me into his path with an “Oh, look, there’s that one wolf who’s always glowering at us as if we’re criminals. Perhaps you can tame him, Sadie Schaduw!”

Suddenly, there I was, standing like a rabbit in the path of the huge Kingdom Defender bearing down on me.

But then Alban’s face lit up, as if he recognized me. As if I were exactly the person he was looking for at this reception.

Oh, my goodness!

He continued straight toward me, his gaze intent, and stopped right in front of me. A towering wall of black t-shirt and red hair.

Oh, my goodness! Oh, my goodness! This was my chance!

I opened my mouth.

And then it hit me, belatedly, after putting all my eggs into this Bridal Exchange basket, that I truly was Naomi’s shadow, and I had no idea how to be my own person. Eep.

All those reasonable arguments about how I could be a she-wolf of use to a male like him slipped right out of my head.

I could not come up with one word—not even one word to say to this huge specimen of a wolf. Until, without warning, all the words came spilling out like a brook flooded by an excessive amount of rain.

“I’m not good at talking,” I blurted. “I mean, maybe I am. But I’m pretty sure I’m not. I’ve only been talked to once at a social. And I’m pretty sure that was only out of charity. It was the son of Abel Flosswulf, our pack leader. Before he married, he used to talk to every she-wolf at every social gathering. He was really nice. But anyway, I’m not good at talking. So, you should know that before you ask me to… um, talk.”

Alban squinted at me and said, “Excuse me.”

Oh no. He didn’t understand anything I said? I opened my mouth to try again, with way, way fewer words this time.

But before I could, the Kingdom Defender said, “I need to get by ye, lass, to speak with the queen.”

I realized then that, in the new position Amanda had pushed me into, I was now the only thing standing between him and Tara, who was at that moment hosting a receiving line of well-wishers beside her new husband.

The Kingdom Defender clasped me by both shoulders and set me aside so he could get to the she-wolf he actually wanted to talk to at that moment.

Leaving me standing there all by myself in a crowded reception hall filled with townspeople and would-be Scottish Grooms, eager to marry.

Anyone but me.

I glanced back at Amanda and the other St. Ailbe she-wolves to find them practically falling over with laughter.

I’d told Naomi I’d stay for at least an hour before leaving the reception to join her upstairs, where she’d chosen to babysit Iain and Milly’s baby daughter because, as she’d put it, “I’ve reached my upper limit of putting up with courting offers from guys who only want to mate me because my facial features are symmetrically aligned.”

I had the opposite problem, and suddenly, I couldn’t just keep shoving everything down, like I always did.

I didn’t just walk away from Amanda and her cronies this time, I ran. Ran out of the reception that had been my best chance to meet a male willing to take me on as a mate.

I’d held on to hope for so long.

I’d kept gathering and regathering it, even though it was always slipping through my hands like sand.

But there was no more sand in the fragile hourglass I’d built around my hopes for this Bride Exchange. It had all run out.

While Amanda and the other Wölfennites laughed, tears filled my eyes as I fled up the grand staircase toward Prince Iain and his American wife Millie’s suite of rooms, where Naomi would be. Where I should’ve been all along.

Sadie Schaduw. That was all I was, and at that moment, in Naomi’s shadow was the only place I wanted to be. On my own wasn’t safe. I needed the comfort of trailing behind my best friend.

“Naomi! Naomi!” I called out as I ran into the empty front room of the minor royal’s official suite.

I frowned when I picked up the scent of several wolves along with Naomi’s maple leaves smell. How many pups had she agreed to babysit? I thought it was only supposed to be Millie’s baby daughter.

Cheering a bit at the prospect of being able to both hide out in here with my best friend and offer her some help, I headed in the direction of the smells behind a closed door. “Naomi? Are you in here?”

“Sadie, don’t—” Naomi called out from the other side of the door.

“I know it hasn’t been an hour,” I explained as I barged through the door. “But you won’t believe what…”

I trailed off, the word “happened” dying in my throat when I saw the scene in front of me.

Naomi holding a baby in one hand and a knife in the other, facing off against two large and scary wolves.

Males I would soon learn were the Irish Wolves—the ones Amanda had been assured wouldn’t dare to attack a royal wedding again.

Wicklow Code KB

Declan

“Oh, there you are! Right on time, Dec,” Tadhg called out when I came barreling into the kitchen after running all the way from the airstrip following the private plane’s landing outside the Wicklow Gate mansion. “I’ve just pulled the last of the tea things out of the oven.”

Breathing hard and vowing to up the time I spent on cardio at the company gym to keep my six-foot-six frame under 18 stone, I looked from the Mountain King, Tadhg Ryan to the Shadow King, Cian Mahoney, our figuratively and literally silent KaCh€ng app partner.

Clad in black, as usual, he squatted on the bench beneath the panoramic window, his bright-blue eyes fixed on something beyond the glass overlooking the cliffside beach and dock below the mansion. He didn’t look up or offer me even a nod of greeting.

Mind you, the last time I laid actual in-person eyes on him was over five years ago—and it most certainly hadn’t been for kingdom business.

Normally, as the High King, I handled all of that nonsense for us. Yet, it had been The Mountain King, my second in charge in both the human and the shifter worlds, who’d sent the code Wicklow Gate 3KE a little under twelve hours ago.

Which meant all three of us kings were to drop everything and meet at our shared seaside mansion in Wicklow because there was a kingdom emergency.

And I had—driving up the Portland freeway at breakneck speed to hop in the unmarked cargo plane Tadhg had sent ‘round for me because it was so important I travel back to Ireland.

Only to find the most massive of we three kings pulling bake items out of the Gate mansion’s oven. Like Jamie Fecking Oliver.

“What in the devil is going on here, then?” I demanded since nobody was volunteering any explanations.

“Sod, my glasses’re all fogged up.”

Tadhg dropped the tray on the white kitchen island in front of what must have been a three-foot-tall tea service. I hadn’t even known we were in possession of a serving contraption that gigantic.

“Tadhg…”

“Just a moment, Dec,” Tadhg replied before I could finish. Apparently, wiping his glasses with the flap of his shirt took priority over any questions I might have after my eleven-hour nonstop flight in a considerably less posh plane than I was used to as CEO of our company.

He was dressed in his usual redhead gorilla nerd C-suite uniform: a grey tee under a denim shirt and dark-wash jeans. His thick red hair was less purposefully disheveled than I remembered, though, and he'd trimmed his slightly darker beard since the last time we had a video meeting with our teams about investor relations.

“Tadhg, you sent me an emergency 3KE,” I reminded him, gritting my teeth. “I was in Portland, meeting with Go Rodriguez and No Nakumura about making the KaCh€ng app standard on the next iteration of the GoNoTo phone. Most important partnership opportunity of the decade, and I had to cut it short—drop everything to get here on that rando cargo plane you arranged.”

“I’m aware, and I was dead afraid you wouldn’t make it on time.” Tadhg popped his glasses back on—prescription-less specs he only wore to draw attention away from his massive height and frame. Like Cian and me, he had perfect 20/20 eyesight, along with night vision and superior distance focus. But he swore the glasses made him less intimidating to the roster of techies he oversaw as COO.

“I’ve been stress-baking all morning, haven’t I?” he grumbled. “Wretched habit, I know, and not great for my waistline, especially with winter coming next month.”

Tadhg began plucking what appeared to be mini-scones from the tray and placing them on the highest tier, which was already overloaded with finger sandwiches. “By the way, did you tell the crew to start immediately refueling it, like I messaged? We’ll need it in place for the Irish Wolves. They just arrived on the cargo boat we arranged for them.”

What?

I walked over to the window that The Shadow King had all his attention fixed on, and sure enough, there was an unmarked cargo boat anchored at the end of our dock.

That superior distance focus kicked in as I took in the figures moving about on the deck, including a couple of males I recognized immediately—Sea and Wild, two of the three Irish kings.

I’d met with them a handful of times during my reign as High King, mostly to update and re-sign treaties and trading agreements our two kingdoms had negotiated eons ago. But never last-minute or without warning.

They appeared to be speaking rather intently to a much smaller female. Light-brown skin but wearing a long blue dress and a strange black bonnet that made her look like something out of an 1800’s North American prairie novel.

They’d clearly decided she was theirs. I could tell by Sea’s hunched body language and the way Wild hovered as close as he could without actually touching her.

Had the Irish Wolf Kings chosen a bride, then? Two of them, at least. I didn’t see Dublin, the king whose renowned stout company was an official partner of the KaCh€ng App.

Still…

I turned to inform Tadhg, “Even a new queen for two of the Irish kingdoms wasn’t a good enough reason for you to pull me away in the middle of a partnership negotiation. I’m going to have to work like hell to get that GoNoTo deal back on track.”

“About that…” Tadhg turned the range top on underneath a large copper teapot, then came over to join Cian and me at the window. He rubbed the back of his neck, and the cologne he always wore to cover his real scent drifted into my nose as he told me, “You might have to let go of that deal. At least for a little while. Six… sixteen months, tops.”

I stared at him for a violent beat. Then I demanded, “Tell me what’s going on, Tadhg. Right. Fucking. Now.”

“Alright. Alright. You’re not going to like this.” With a sheepish look, Tadhg took a breath to finally answer my question. “But we’ve done a thing. Basically, engaged the Irish Wolves to acquire something of utmost importance. We believe. S’pose one could call this situation an incredibly special delivery.”

“This is about a package?”

9,500 euros.

That was how much a minute of my time was worth.

570,000 euros—that was what an hour of my time was worth.

So I found myself having to quite seriously ask The Mountain King, “You tanked a deal and wasted nearly seven million euros of my time for a package?”

The Mountain King grimaced. But not for the reason he should have, as it turned out.

“A package is a bad, bordering on disrespectful term for this,” Tadhg started to say—only to cut off and squint at something happening beyond the window. “What’s she up to, then?”

I followed the direction of his gaze to see the prairie-novel woman running toward the ship deck’s banister.

My breath caught at the same time her two Irish Wolf kings held out their hands, their body language screaming after her.

“No, no, don’t do that!” Tadhg commanded beside me in the same tone he used to talk to the lads playing TV footie matches.

Right before she did exactly what we all feared she’d do—jumped over the railing and plunged directly into the ice-cold sea.

“Well, that wasn’t part of the plan,” Tadhg muttered beside me.

What plan?

Less than twenty minutes later, I pushed through the swinging kitchen door into the mansion’s sitting room, where Tadhg was tending to the she-wolf who’d jumped into the sea, then shown up at the kitchen door a few minutes later looking like a drowned otter in a plain blue dress.

Apparently, she’d lost her black bonnet during her dip in the Irish Sea.

“You poor woman. Sit here,” Tadhg guided the tiny she-wolf toward an antique sheepskin chair that definitely wouldn’t survive her sitting upon it in her current state. Meanwhile, Cian entered the room from the foyer just off the east wall with a stack of towels, which he must have grabbed from the facilities attached to the live-in housekeeper’s ensuite bathroom.

I noticed the housekeeper was nowhere to be seen today, though.

By coincidence or arrangement? I added that to the pile of questions forming in my mind as I watched The Shadow King hand over the towels like some sort of raven-turned-butler.

“Obliged, Cian. Maybe pour her a cup of tea from that pot I was brewing up when I heard her at the door? And you…”

Tadhg thrust the stack of towels at her. “Wrap these around you quick, won’t you? Your teeth are chattering like castanets.”

She grabbed the towels from him but insisted, “L-lock the door! B-bad m-males are af-after me. T-took m-my fr-friends. M-must h-help th-th-them.”

Were the Irish kings the bad males she was referring to? Watching the way they spoke to her on the deck of the boat, I thought she surely must be their she-wolf.

But her accent was distinctly North American, and her claims sounded more complicated than someone simply turning down a mateship proposal.

What had the Mountain King done?

“What’s she on about, then?” I asked, staring Tadhg down and demanding answers behind the soaked she-wolf’s back.

“Not sure,” he answered, his eyes bouncing and refusing to meet mine. "But I can tell she's distressed. So, don’t start."

“Please help us.” The female grabbed onto Tadhg’s arm—by the shirt, thank goodness.

Wolves were extremely territorial when it came to their mates. If she truly belonged to the kings, they wouldn’t abide smelling any male but them on her.

“There's a boat parked at the closest dock to this house. It has a bunch of females in it. We’re being… trafficked! We’re being trafficked. You’ve got to call the authorities. You have to help us!”

Trafficked? What in the devil?

I stepped forward, the urge to grab Tadhg by the lapels of his eejit jean shirt and demand he tell me exactly what was going on nearly overpowering me.

But Cian chose that moment to come back in with a cup of tea.

“Perfect, Cian!” Tadhg’s face lit up, using Cian’s arrival as an excuse to extract his sleeve from the small she-wolf’s grip. “Yes, a nice cuppa. That’s exactly what she needs.”

But now Tadhg was avoiding her eyes, too, even as he handed her a teacup on a saucer that also contained a finger sandwich and one of the mini-scones he’d just pulled out of the oven.

“This tea’ll warm you right up, won’t it?”

"I'm not going to sit here sipping tea while nearly everyone I know is trapped on that boat outside!” The she-wolf’s voice was weak but threaded with conviction. “You’ve got to help me. You’ve got to help us.”

The affable look Tadhg had worn like a mask ever since our PR firm dubbed him the chummy, accessible face of our company slipped a bit.

“Listen—”

A doorbell cut him off, and Tadhg’s light-brown eyes flared behind his pretend glasses. He liked to be prepared for anything, but I could tell he didn’t feel quite ready for whatever had arrived at our door—even if he’d arranged its delivery.

And that panic in his expression prompted me to say, “Cian, go get that, will you? That’ll be our package.”

I just about growled the last word. I didn’t know what was going on here, but I was going to find out—whether the Mountain King was ready for me to or not.

“No! Don’t answer it!” The she-wolf tried to jump up from the seat she’d probably destroyed with her drenched residency.

“Relax.” To my surprise, the most easygoing king in our trio pressed a hand to the much smaller she-wolf’s shoulder and used his superior strength to keep her in place, even as he assured her, “Everything will be okay.”

“No, it won’t be. You don’t understand.”

She actually tried to fight Tadhg’s hold. She’d probably mistaken him for a human, and even a rail-thin she-wolf like her could best one of that species in strength.

But her inability to move even an inch under his firm grip was the clue that made her realize he wasn’t fully homo sapien beneath the scent-masking cologne he wore.

“What are you?” she demanded.

With his free hand, Tadhg pushed his fake glasses up on his nose. “Everything will be all right. I promise you that.”

“Don’t go making their she-wolf promises you can’t keep,” I warned. I didn’t know what kind of game Tadhg was playing here, but he was putting us in a precarious position, daring to touch the Irish Wolf kings’ future queen.

As if to confirm that notion, a coarse voice growled from the foyer, “Get yer hands off her!”

The Wild King came charging into the sitting room, his eyes glittering with violence. “Ye shouldn’t be touching her!”

Tadhg lifted both hands, his affable mask falling right back into place. “Sorry about that, Wild. Was afraid she’d pull another runner before you could secure her.”

He immediately ceded the space. And to my surprise, Wild, one of the roughest males I’d ever met—human or shifter—dropped down in front of her, his eyes filled with soft concern. “Ye crazy girl! What were ye thinking, jumping into the sea like that? Should I hug ye or strangle ye?”

He tenderly cupped her face, belying his harsh words. “Have ye any idea what ye did to my wolf when ye pulled that trick?”

She was his, I could tell that for certain now. But she jerked back, as if repelled by his touch. “Where am I? Who are these people?”

Great questions. I looked to Tadhg for the answers, only to find him no longer in the room.

At least not in the immediate room. He and Cian stood in the foyer, their eyes intent on something being heaved inside by Sea and two other fellows, whom I recognized as the beta enforcer wolves that stood behind the Wild and Sea Kings whenever they met in person with me.

I couldn’t tell immediately what they were carrying through the door. But maybe I knew.

Suddenly, I was in the foyer without remembering having decided to move.

I arrived just in time to see them set a clear glass container down near the base of the grand staircase.

No, not glass. God tech. The sheer, smudge-less perfection of the encasing let me know that a special piece of equipment from our secret kingdom stores had been dispensed for this delivery—without my permission.

I opened my mouth to demand answers, yet again.

Then I saw her.

Everything...

Everything inside me—the air traveling to my lungs, the blood pumping to my heart, any and all questions that had been rattling around my overtired brain…

Everything stopped at the sight of the sleeping female inside the crate.

The package.

Tadhg hadn’t wanted me to call her “the package.”

And in that moment, I immediately knew why, even though the god tech case was blocking me from her scent....

Potentials.

That’s what we called outsiders of our kind who might match with us. But the label became singular, received a capital letter, and got a “the” attached when the possibility of matching with more than one king came up.

“The Potential,” Tadhg whispered beside me. “Cian found out about her, and he suspected she was part of the prophecy. Of course, we couldn’t be sure. But we had to try. Even if it meant risking the wrath of the Scottish Wolves. She and the rest of her lot are from across the sea.”

The Prophecy….

So, they’d had her kidnapped, I dimly realized. The part of my brain that was still managing to form coherent thoughts began putting it all together.

The cargo boat... the strangely dressed female... this unparalleled beauty... from across the sea.

All that alternative Irish history I’d learned before my ascendency to the throne—I’d never thought I’d use it. But now it gelled inside my head, coming together to paint a clear picture of what had transpired behind my back.

Tadhg hadn’t just learned about this Potential. He’d engaged the Irish Wolves to carry out the prophesied Second Reaping in order to acquire a queen for our kingdom.

“I’m sorry I didn’t tell you,” Tadhg said beside me. I could sense him standing there, but I couldn’t bring myself to switch my eyes to his face. “The thing is, I knew there was a chance you wouldn’t see what I saw. That you’d try to stop us if I ran it by you first.”

I would have tried to stop him. This was madness. Madness that would send us into hiding from the Scottish Wolves for at least sixteen months—possibly years.

I could still stop him. I was the High King, after all. The last word in our Tríbéirríthe. The first claim of any wife we chose to take together.

“Sadie!” The she-wolf’s voice suddenly sounded in the foyer with us. I’d forgotten she was even here. “Oh, my wolf! Sadie!”

Sadie. Was that her name? It suited her.

I took in her dark, serene face and the curves that were both plentiful and no-nonsense. She wasn’t a rail, like the future she-wolf queen who’d jumped into the sea. The Potential had a body fit for both carrying future kings and having them planted inside her.

Suddenly, my blood started pumping again, rushing to the flesh below my waist. I stood there frozen, but hot molten magma swelled in my chest. As if the serpent gods who’d carved the Wicklow Mountains had awakened and decided to set off their next volcano inside of me.

“What are you doing with her?” The future she-wolf queen demanded somewhere in the distance. “Let her out of that box—mmfff!”

I sensed, rather than saw, Wild clap a knockout drug over his she-wolf’s mouth. He and Sea dragged her out of there, with the Sea King apologizing for the inconvenience.

And still, I couldn’t look away from the female inside the god tech box.

This was a disaster. Crossing the Scottish Wolves at this scale would require unprecedented amounts of diplomacy to right the wrong Tadhg had sanctioned—and holy feck, actually funded.

But I was the High King. I had to stop this, to end this farce and go into full crisis mode.

Yet, I couldn’t look away.

“What do you say, High King?” Tadhg asked beside me. “We’ve gone through all this trouble to acquire our prophesied queen. Can we keep her?”

Nothing could be heard save for the crashing of the ocean against the cliffs beyond our front door as the Shadow and Mountain Kings awaited my answer.

Death

Sadie

The world was black, but swirling with voices. Mine, Naomi’s, Alban’s, and two strangers I didn’t know.…

“Naomi!”

“Sadie, run!”

Me in Wölfennite: “What is happening? Why are these mossy wolves attacking us?”

“I think they’re Irish,” Naomi answers. “They are once again here to kidnap all the unmated she-wolves.”

Me: “Oh, heavens!”

“No idea what the two of ye are saying, but if ye come with us nice and easy, no one will get hurt — aw, feckin’ hell. What’re ye doing here, Kingdom Defender?”

Naomi’s voice: “Alban!”

Echoes of Malcolm and Gavin proclaiming “Remember the Irish!” rings out over the conversation.

“Stay where ye are, Defender,” the scariest of the two wolves growls. His voice is so feral, he barely sounds human. “If ye make me cut our she-wolf, I’ll gut ye and feed yer entrails to the forest boar for their supper.”

Our she-wolf???

“So, you ken my title,” Alban answers the feral growler, his voice shockingly unafraid. “Then you also ken I can’t let you take any of these females out of here without a fight.”

The less scary Irish Wolf speaks up: “Kingdom Defender, this situation isn’t the same as in the 1500s.”

“So, you’re not looking to steal all our females? Again?”

“Not all of them, no. We will leave behind the mated ones this time. The ones we do take will be brought back to our kingdom to give our males their consideration for matehood. But in the spring, they will be given a choice about staying, and the ones who are not heat-mated and no longer wish to stay with us will be delivered back here to Faoiltiarn. Tell your king he has my vow on that.”

“Tell him yerself. After I deliver you to the dungeon cells underneath the castle.”

“There are two of us. And one of you. We can do this the easy way, where you step aside and let us leave. Or… we can do this the hard way and risk the life of the precious first baby born to the Faoiltiarn royal family in over thirty years.”

“Either way, she is ours! We will not be leaving Dùn Faoiltiarn without her.”

The sound of the scariest of the two wolves sticking his tongue out and licking Naomi’s neck. Actually licking her!

Me, screaming in English: “Leave her alone!”

Naomi calling out: “Stop! I agree to go with them. Just take the baby. Take the baby so she doesn’t get hurt.”

Alban: “I cannae let you make that sacrifice, Naomi.”

Naomi insisting: “It’s not up to you. I made sure the rule was included when we put together the New St. Ailbe Ordnung. She-wolves can come and go as they like—without restraint or repercussion.”

Me, without even having to think about it: “I volunteer to go, too!”

Naomi: “No, Sadie, you can’t!”

“Actually... going with us isn’t a choice. You’re both coming with us for this special opportunity, either way.”

With that statement, the formerly least scary Irish Wolf moves into first place.

Me, swallowing but trying… trying to be brave: “See, Nay, it’s already all decided. I’m going with you.”

“Okay, then, we’ll be on our way,” says the feral growly one. “If you’ll put down the pokey stick and step aside, Defender.”

Back and forth the voices of Naomi and Alban go until finally he concedes with an… “Aye, give her to me, then.”

The new first-place scariest wolf: “Alright, enough of this drama... We’ve a mission to carry out.”

The Feral Growl wolf: “Ye’re going to need both our jabbers for sure to know The Potential is out. Here, take mine. I’ve got some other stuff to give to our banreen.”

Banreen—not banrigh, but close. Are these random Irish Wolves referring to Naomi as their queen? What will happen to her? To us?

Fear, like nothing I’ve ever known, consumes me as I’m stabbed with not one, but two needles at the same time. I whimper in the black.

Naomi’s voice: “It’ll be alright. Everything will be alright... No matter what happens, we’ll be all right, and I’ll figure out how to get us out of this—mmfph!”

Black.

Black.

More black.

Then, suddenly, I heaved awake with a huge inhalation… to find myself inside a glass coffin surrounded by white.

I was dead!

But I wasn’t!

I was alive!

But in some kind of heaven, enclosed in a glass box.

“Help me! Help me! Help me!”

Someone was screaming the words in my ear with a heavy THWUMP! THWUMP! THWUMP! in the background.

It was me. My screams for help hit the glass walls and echoed right back at me inside the box. And the thwumping sound was coming from my palms. Slamming against the coffin lid… to no avail.

Everyone in the new St. Ailbe village thought I was so strong. But the lid didn’t budge—not even a tiny bit.

Oh heavens! Oh heavens! What was I going to do? I’d die in here. I’d never get out⁠—

The sound of something popping. Like the vacuum seal on a canning jar releasing, but one hundred times louder.

Then air hissed all around, and the glass cover raised—just popped right up, like something on a spring hinge, though I could see no metal in this coffin… box…whatever it was.

The air filled with a crisp citrus smell. Lemons, ripe and ready to be picked in a space flooded with heavenly light.

I sat up, expecting to find myself in some sort of celestial lemon grove, but no…

All that sparkling white I’d woken up to turned out to be a chandelier dripping with crystals, hanging down from a high ceiling of white plaster.

I was sitting inside the coffin, on top of a long table. In some sort of modern dining room, framed by several picture windows, flooding the space with daylight.

What in the world? I began to ask myself.

Right before I saw Death himself, looming above me with a whiteboard sign in his hands that held two words: Don’t Scream.

I didn’t scream.

Mostly because I was too shocked.

Being friends with someone as cynical as Naomi had made me secretly harbor some doubts about the afterlife depicted in the Wölfennite version of the Bible.

So, I hadn’t actually expected angels to greet me at the gates of heaven and lovingly remove the cursed stain of wolfhood from my body so I could live out my eternal life as a human.

But I also had not expected Death to be an actual person.

Yet there Death stood, pale-skinned and dressed in a black turtleneck and leather pants that belled out over heavy black boots. He loomed over my coffin, with a storm of black hair so wild and tousled, it almost appeared to be moving.

I blinked at him.

“So, after all those promises that scary Irish Wolf made Alban, he and his friend just killed me?” I asked Death. “Poisoned me with whatever was in that needle they poked me with and left me to rot?”

Another terrible, much darker thought suddenly occurred to me. “Is that what happened to the original stolen she-wolves? Why they never found them? Were they all kidnapped and murdered in their sleep?"

I looked around frantically, "Please tell me Naomi isn't here, too.”

Death quirked a dark brow over eyes that were a surprising shade of crystal-clear light blue.

They twinkled with amusement before disappearing under silky black lashes as he cast his gaze down.

To my surprise, he wiped the Don’t Scream message away with his sleeve before writing something with a fat marker he pulled out of his front pocket.

His hand, I noticed as he wrote, was covered in strange tattoos. Symbols—possibly a language, but unlike anything I’d ever seen before. The markings didn’t resemble Hebrew, Chinese, or the Celtic runes I occasionally saw in Faoiltiarn. They felt wholly foreign and otherworldly, full of dots, crescents, and shapes that looked half-finished.

He turned the board around to me: Not Death

“Oh no…” My stomach dropped, thinking of the Spring Fire and the Winter Sloth. Had my mother been right about my general unworthiness? “Did I not—did I not make it to heaven? Am I in the other place? Are you…?” I lowered my voice to a whisper to ask if I was, in fact, speaking to “…the devil.”

This time, the amusement quirked his mouth, raising one side of his lips. More erasing. And soon I got another message: Not Death. Not Devil. Glad you are living. And awake.

“So I’m not dead...” I let out a huge breath of relief before it occurred to me to ask, “Then why am I here? Why did the Irish Wolves put me in a coffin?”

More erasing. Then: Very Long Story. Tadhg will tell it.

“Who’s Tadge?” I winced a little over my pronunciation. I highly doubted I’d gotten that name right. And even possibly ruder, I felt compelled to ask the possibly disabled man standing in front of me, “And is there a reason you can’t tell the long story? Why don’t you talk?”

His light-blue eyes switched to the side with a considering look. He wrote for a bit longer this time before flipping the board: Eschewed spoken words years ago. They are inefficient. Cannot abide that speaking your thoughts requires so little thought.

“Well, I suppose you have a point there,” I conceded. Heat warmed my cheeks. “I’ve felt nothing but silly since I mistook you for Death.”

Another quirk of his lips. And more erasing. Then: Sadie, may I touch you? Help you out of your box?

I jolted a little. “You know my name?”

More writing. Then: Yes. I am Cian, your Shadow King . May I…?

He punctuated his written question with a palm-in-air extension of his other hand, and his sleeve pulled back, revealing the bottom of more tattoos crawling up his wrist.

The Shadow King… He wanted to touch me...

A weird sensation warmed my stomach, then rose, clogging my throat. I barely managed to choke out, “Sh-sure. Thank you.”

He came closer, and that was when I realized the delicious lemony smell I’d attributed to heaven was actually coming off of him.

His citrus scent filled my nose, bright and sharp. Also, he smelled… different. Not like a fellow wolf. But somehow familiar. So, not wolf. But also, not human… maybe.

Once again, I resented my sheltered upbringing. Only knowing the other community members of St. Ailbe for nearly my entire life meant I didn’t have the context to suss out the answers to so many of the questions I’d had since making this trip nearly a month ago.

The Shadow King’s eyes fluttered when he got close, and I braced myself for another written question—this time about my odd smell.

Instead, he set the board aside and held out his hand.

Which I took.

Because I didn’t realize everything inside my body would go haywire as soon as I touched his palm. But somehow, it wasn’t upsetting.

It was like being an egg cracked and dropped into a frying pan full of heat and butter.

As he helped me out of the coffin and down from the table, everything inside my body was scrambling and rearranging.

Until suddenly it resettled, and I was standing in front of him. Still an egg. But completely reformed.

“Hallo,” I breathed out with a new feeling inside my chest.

He was even taller than he’d looked when I was sitting inside the glass coffin. To my surprised, I had to tip my head back to meet his eyes, and he hunched a little—like I sometimes did when talking to Naomi, since she was so much shorter.

Only our height difference was worse. The Shadow King had to be nearly a foot taller than me—long, but not overly slender. I sensed muscle beneath the thick cable-knit sweater, and his broad shoulders met the ends of his storm-cloud black hair.

He didn’t return my Wölfennite hallo. Of course, he didn’t. But his eyes…

There was no way to explain it with my limited experience. But it felt like I really was that plate of scrambled eggs, and he was eating me up.

And though his lips didn’t move, I heard the words, “You’re awake. Good.”

The voice was a deep, affable rumble, and it didn’t sound at all like the Shadow King looked.

In the next moment, I found out that was because it belonged to another person entirely when a huge, red-haired male came to stand beside us.

And that’s when I fell right back into that frying pan for another scramble.

He looked a lot like Alban—but also, not at all.

He was around the same size and heft, but he wore a strange cologne that completely blocked his scent. Still, I suspected he, like the taller Shadow King, wasn’t a wolf. Or fully human.

Like Alban, he had thick hair and a lot of bulk. But unlike Alban, his hair was combed back in neat, lustrous waves, his beard was neatly trimmed, and his eyes were a twinkling light brown instead of a contemptuous, stony gray.

Better than Alban, something whispered inside of me as he regarded me with a warm, inviting gaze.

“I see you’ve already met Cian, your Shadow King,” he said. “I’ll introduce myself, then. I’m Tadhg, your Mountain King.”

So, Tadhg with a long “I” sound—not Tadge. And apparently, the Shadow King’s C-i-a-n wasn’t pronounced Cyan, as I’d originally assumed, but Kee-ann. And did he say he was also a king of… wherever this was?

I looked around, but all I found were more mysteries.

Not only did I appear to be standing in a dining room with two walls made mostly of glass, but beyond one of those window walls lay what appeared to be a long dirt road with an abrupt end. Almost like some sort of landing strip, similar but smaller than the one we’d taken off from back in Canada.

I’d be fascinated by all these details I was finding out about all at once, if I wasn’t so busy trying not to faint. Because now Tadhg was also looking at me like I was a plate of eggs.

“H-hallo,” I somehow managed to get out.

“May I take your hand to greet you, or does it belong to the Shadow King now?”

I didn’t realize Cian—the Shadow King—still had my hand gripped tight between us until he said that.

And before I could withdraw, the Shadow King transferred his long, pale, symbol-covered hand to my wrist and offered my hand to Tadhg.

As if he were giving the other male a present.

A present Tadhg affably accepted with both of his hands.

“Hello, Sadie. I know, under the circumstances, it’s likely hard for you to believe. But we really do want to try to get your consent for everything,” he told me. “So, is it alright with you if your Mountain King lays a kiss upon your hand?”

I’d actually seen this custom of kissing a hand in greeting carried out a few times at Tara’s wedding reception. It was no big deal, I knew. More a way of showing respect than anything else.

But him asking the question while looking me directly in the eye made it feel like a big deal.

Made me stutter, “Y-yes. Um, okay.”

He pressed his lips to the top of my hand...

Oh my goodness, oh my goodness, oh my goodness.

Outside, I managed to appear calm, but everything inside of me was screaming and scrambling again inside that frying pan with a high flame underneath.

“I imagine you have a lot of questions.” Tadhg’s voice cut through all my internal noise like a calm, warm boom. “And I’m here to answer all of them.”

Did I have questions? The frying pan sizzled and popped as I tried to get a hold of my right mind.

“Why did you kidnap me? And where are all the other Wölfennites? Especially Naomi!” I blurted out, finally resetting to my awkward default.

“Good question,” Tadhg let out a low chuckle as he lowered but didn’t, I noticed, fully let go of my hand.

Was that a thing? A custom in… wherever this was? Did people not let go of hands after a greeting, just held on until who knew when?

Tadhg went on. “Well now, the Irish Wolves carried on to their own kingdom with your friend and the other she-wolves after dropping you off with us. It’s admirable that your community’s so inclusive in Canada, but I’m afraid us Irish shifters haven’t quite caught up yet. We still keep to our own, with them on the east coast and us on the west.”

“What, it’s just me here with you two?” I shook my head. “I don’t understand. Why did the Irish Wolves leave just me behind?”

“I know it’s a lot to take in,” Tadhg said, his amused gaze softening into something more sympathetic. “But we don’t want you confused about any of this—or about the choices you’ll be asked to make. So I’m happy to explain everything. Including our reasons for… arranging this meeting.”

I tilted my head at his swapping in arranging for kidnapping.

Meanwhile, Tadhg explained. “It all started when we found out that the Canadian she-wolves who came to the Bridal Exchange brought someone like us with them.”

“Someone like us?” I repeated, still very confused, despite his patient and warm tone. “What do you mean?”

Tadhg’s brow knitted, and for the first time since walking in, he looked as confused as I felt. “What do you mean by what do I mean by someone like us?”

I shook my head, not understanding his confusion over my puzzlement. Then it occurred to me there was one other question I maybe should have asked before all the others. “What exactly are you two?”

Wicklow and Other Mysteries

Alban

“Any news?” Magnus asked as soon as he answered Alban’s first call on the satellite phone.

Alban had been issued the sat device years ago but had only recently learned to use it on the boat ride across the Irish Sea to the east coast of what humans now called Ireland. The wolves, however, had their own name for this country: Tìrarnàimhdean, Scottish Gaelic for “Our Enemy’s Land.”

Alban had spent the past thirty-six hours berating himself for having forgotten, even for a moment, that the wolves of this land had been their archnemeses for longer than Ireland had been nicknamed the Emerald Isle.

“Please tell me you found my sister and all the others.” Magnus must have put the phone on speaker. Their new banrigh’s voice interrupted Alban’s rueful thoughts. “Leora and I are beside ourselves.”

Leora...

The older sister, whom the queen had only recently discovered had also traveled from her Wölfennite community in Canada to their wolf kingdom in Scotland. An image of the pretty she-wolf’s open and trusting face, covered in brown freckles, flashed through his mind. But he couldn’t let himself get distracted by her. Again.

Instead, he sat down on the edge of the Wicklow hotel room’s bed and delivered his report to Magnus and Tara. “We’ve just made landfall after tracking them to the west coast of Tìrarnàimhdean. The boat we suspect they took blipped off all visible radars a few hours ago. But it looks like the coordinates stop right at Wicklow, a posh county south of Dublin.”

Alban hadn’t wanted to stop and rest the previous night, but he’d had to allow the other Scottish Wolves he’d brought with him to recover. It had been over twenty-four hours since they set off after the bloody Irish Wolves who had kidnapped every Faoiltiarn she-wolf of claiming age, along with all the Wölfennites.

Well, almost all of them. Alban thought of Leora, the queen’s older sister, whom he’d found squatting in his cabin, along with her eleven-year-old daughter, Dorie. They’d completely derailed his initial plan to live as a recluse.

And he failed to remedy the situation when he’d tried to deliver them to the castle the night prior to the royal wedding….

“I suppose we should get going. Thank you again so very much for hosting us, Alban. I’ll wash and return your clothes as soon as I can.”

Alban had been determined to be rid of them and get back to his cabin, where he could resume his previously planned life of solitude. The pretty, plump little she-wolf had already taken too much of his time—not to mention the kilt he’d had to lend her because she’d wolfed out during the full moon, shredding her black version of the plain Wölfennite dress.

But watching them climb out of the carriage he’d driven them down in had cracked something inside his chest.

“Wait!”

Leora immediately stopped. “Yes?”

“You’re right. That outfit isn’t good for meeting your sister for the first time in over ten years. Wearing my kilt will give her and the others at the castle the wrong impression. In Faoiltiarn, she-wolves only wear a male’s tartan to show others she’s already been claimed—by the wolf whose kilt she’s sporting.”

“Oh, I didn’t realize... I’m so sorry for putting you in this position. What can I do to make sure no one mistakenly thinks that?”

Leora’s question had gutted him.

Nae, the she-wolf he’d found at his cabin wasn’t his, and he’d called himself every kind of fool while driving her and Dorie back to the house he shared with his father in town. But now, he could only feel grateful.

Because of his foolish actions, Leora hadn’t been at that wedding. She and the daughter she’d worked so hard to protect from her former mate were safe—because Alban coveted her, and despite all she’d suffered in her previous life in Canada, Leora had been naïve enough to fully trust him.

He wanted to ask after her, to hear how she and Dorie were faring now that Leora and her middle sister, the new queen, had been reunited. But after what he’d allowed to happen to their younger sister, Naomi, Alban knew he had no right to ask.

He hadn’t let himself rest for more than the few hours it took to log just enough sleep to function in the morning.

He didn’t care what the Irish Wolves’ leader had claimed about sending all of the females who wished to return to their Scottish kingdom back in the spring.

Those Irish radges had no idea who they’d crossed. Alban wouldn't accept anything less than the full recovery of every single Wölfennite bride they’d stolen.

He pulled on his combat boots, balancing the satellite phone between his ear and shoulder as he continued on with his report. “I’ve completed all the wake-up calls, and we’re headed to the last Wicklow coordinates now. Hopefully, I’ll have better news for you the next time we talk. But before I begin my investigation, I have a few follow-up questions for the two of you that I wanted to get cleared up before we leave.”

“Certainly, anything, anything I can do to help,” Magnus replied. “I’ll never forgive myself for not consulting with you first before I issued that no-weapons decree for our reception.”

And as the Kingdom Defender, Alban would never forgive himself for putting Magnus in the position to make security decisions on his own because he’d been up in the mountains.

But now wasn’t the time to dwell on their many regrets.

“Too many things already aren’t adding up,” he told Magnus. “Their infiltration of our kingdom tells me they must have had a source on the inside, giving them names and exact details. Any ideas about that?”

“No,” Magnus answered. “I’d hate to think of any of our people betraying us to our worst enemy. But I’ll have Iain look into it.”

“Good idea,” Alban agreed. Though he hated technology, even he knew that a thorough digital investigation would be necessary to complement his work on the ground. “Tell him to text me anything he finds out, and I’ll do the same.”

“Got it. Is that all?”

“No,” Alban replied. “We also found a smartphone that had been tossed on the road outside the castle. According to Malcolm, it’s a make and model that isn’t available in Scotland yet. Only in the American territories and Canada.”

“Then it has to belong to one of the Irish Wolves,” Tara chimed in. “None of the Wölfennites would have tech like that.”

“That’s what I’m assuming,” Alban conceded. But something about the phone only being available in the Americas didn’t sit right with him. “Those wolves who took the queen’s sister and her strange friend were dressed in old-fashioned clothes. They didn’t look like the kind of people who made international trips to get the latest GoNoTo phone.”

Speaking of that strange friend…

“I also wanted to ask you about your younger sister’s friend, Banrigh,” Alban said, turning his attention to the queen. “The wolves were obviously very interested in Naomi, but they seemed just as, if not more, determined to take Sadie. I’m wondering what a kingdom of wolves could possibly want with a bear.”

There was a pause, and then the Canadian queen spoke, her voice laced with confusion. “What bear are you speaking of, exactly?”

Alban squinted at the phone.

Then Magnus asked his new wife, “Hold on. I didn’t bring it up because I thought maybe it was part of some protection deal or something like that. Are you telling me you didn’t realize the Wölfennite brides brought a bear with them?”

A beat of silence. Then Tara answered, “Wait, are you trying to say you think Sadie is a bear?”

“She’s your sister’s best friend!” Alban couldn’t keep the frustration out of his voice as he bit out, “Are you truly saying you didn’t know what she is?”

“I mean, I know she smells a little odd, but bears…” Tara’s normal, all-knowing voice faltered. “Bear shifters aren’t a thing. Are they?”

“Yes, they are,” Alban replied between clenched teeth. “When I was in the Scottish Guard, I ran a few missions with the Canadian Bear Reserves. From what they told me, there are more bears than wolves in Canada. And you’ve nae desire to ken how the Russians are using their bear shifters. It’ll keep you up at night.”

“What in the…” Tara said, clearly flabbergasted. “How could this have gotten past me?”

“If it makes you feel any better, moi banrigh, I also didn’t know they were a thing until I played against a few of them on the U.S. team in the lead up to the World Cup.”

As usual, Magnus went out of his way to protect his mate from any bad feelings brought about by her own overzealous commitment to change and her willful ignorance of the shifter world at large after growing up in a cloistered Wölfennite community, followed by years of hiding out in Edinburgh among the humans.

Alban, however, gave exactly zero fecks about the new queen’s feelings. “Here’s the thing about your oversight, though,” he told her, returning them to the subject at large. “Now we’ve nae idea why the Irish Wolves seemed just as determined to take Sadie as they were your sister.”

“What are you thinking?” Magnus asked with a frown in his voice. “That the North American Bears asked the Irish Wolves to kidnap Sadie?”

“I don’t know what to think, actually.” Alban rubbed a hand over his face. “Wish you’d been able to give more answers about this bear business. But I’ll let you know what we find in Wicklow.”

“Wait, wait, wait.” Tara’s voice chimed in, as if she were catching up to the information she’d just been given. “Sadie referred to herself as a she-wolf. So did Naomi and the rest of the Wölfennites. And from what Naomi told me, Sadie was just as determined to find a groom as the other brides. If I didn’t know, and Naomi and the other brides didn’t know, there’s a huge possibility that Sadie doesn’t know what she is either.”

Her words landed on the conversation like a wheelbarrow full of bricks.

And though Alban wasn’t a religious man, he found himself tempted to cross himself on Sadie’s behalf. She might not know she was a bear, but the Irish Wolves certainly did, judging by the way they’d known to use one instead of two doses of knockout serum.

An image of the way Sadie had fallen stone asleep in the Irish leader’s arms flitted through his mind like a harsh mountain wind.

One thing was for certain: If what the queen said about Sadie not knowing her own nature was true, when she woke up… wherever she woke up… she was going to be incredibly confused.

“…I’m a what???”

Sadie

I was so, so incredibly confused.

“You think I’m a what?”

I’d just gotten used to the guttural Scottish accent, and though Tadhg’s deep and resonant Irish one was much easier to understand, I could only assume I’d heard wrong. “I’m sorry, but it almost sounded like you called me a bear.”

Tadhg’s eyes drifted upward and to the side, and I realized he and the Shadow King were exchanging a look over my shoulder.

Even though the whiteboard was still lying on the table, it felt like the two males had an entire conversation before Tadhg said, “I did call you a bear, Sadie. Because that’s what you are—a bear, just like us. You were aware of this fact before now, no?”

“Fact?” Disappointment filled my chest, and I yanked my hand back, suddenly not caring about keeping to the strange customs of the people who’d kidnapped me.

So, these two males were bear shifters, and the only reason they’d “arranged this meeting” was because… “You honestly think I’m a bear? I mean, I know I smell odd.”

“You don’t smell odd,” Tadhg insisted with another glance toward the Shadow King over my shoulder. “You smell like a bear. A bear covered in strawberries and heather, for certain. But a bear, unmistakably.”

“What?” I shook my head at him. “What would make you think that? I’m a she-wolf. I’ve always been a she-wolf, and I do not understand or like this game you’re playing with me.”

That’s what this had to be—a game. Some sort of horrible trick, worse than anything the cruel boys in St. Ailbe ever pulled.

“Why? Why would you say that?” I gasped out, because suddenly I couldn’t breathe. “Why are you doing this to me?” The room was both spinning and attempting to suffocate me at the same time. I had to…I had to get out of here.

I cut toward the dining room’s window door, running blindly, desperate to get outside. Desperate to get some air.

Why would Cian and Tadhg play this trick on me? Bring me all the way here just to make me feel like a freak who didn’t belong with the other Wölfennite brides?

“Sadie, don’t run!” Tadhg had the nerve to chide behind me. “You do not run from bears.”

I was still too much of a Wölfennite to use foul language, but I threw him an extremely dirty look over my shoulder and, yes, continued running as fast as I could toward the dining room’s glass door.

Just as I was about to make it there, a black bear appeared in front of me, rising to its hind legs to reveal a large Celtic knot medallion shaped like a bear hanging over its chest, which was covered in light-brown fur.

It was huge at full height, but the smell of lemons emanating from its fur-covered body let me know this was the Shadow King. Other than blocking my way in the scariest form possible, he didn’t make a move to harm me.

Still, I reeled around, crying out like a trapped animal and running in the other direction.

But then there was Tadhg. Huge and mountainous, even in human form.

“Sadie, we’re not trying to scare you. But you can’t run from us, Strawberry,” he said patiently, as if he and the huge black bear standing right behind me hadn’t completely trapped me between them. “It sets off our predator instincts, doesn’t it? And gods know, we’re already having a hell of a time keeping ourselves polite and sane around you. You’ve no idea how long we’ve been waiting for this opportunity.”

Was he…? Was he crazy? Were all the Irish shifters crazy?

Actually, the answer to those questions didn’t matter—only getting myself out of there.

“I’m not a bear shifter!” I replied, cutting left around him toward one of the dining room’s interior doors.

But the Shadow King blocked that path, too, and this time he dropped down on all fours to growl at me, revealing a mouth full of razor-sharp teeth.

Even if he still held a “Don’t Scream” sign, I wouldn’t have been able to stop the shriek that erupted from my mouth. I wheeled back, only to hit something big and broad.

What turned out to be another bear. But this one was wearing glasses and sported brown fur all over its head and neck, which appeared to be sitting on top of Tadhg’s still-human body.

I immediately stopped screaming, but only because I was so shocked.

Apparently, not only was there such a thing as bear shifters, but they could also partially shift just one part of their body if they chose to do so.

But that didn’t mean… it couldn’t mean…

“I am not a bear!” I insisted. I’d never been as emotionally sturdy as my mother or best friend. They would have kept it together, but hot tears burned in the back of my eyes as I told the two scary bears—told myself… “I live in a wolf village. I shift into a wolf every full moon.”

Suddenly, the bear with Tadhg’s body became a full male again, its face collapsing back to that of the kind-eyed redhead I’d met previously—only with messier hair.

“I’m sorry, Strawberry.” His hazel eyes filled with contrition, and he rubbed the back of his neck. “We’re not trying to terrify you. But explaining your very own nature to you wasn’t on my possible scenarios list when we sent the Irish Wolves to fetch you from Faoiltiarn, was it?”

What? What?… All the what’s rained down. “Are you saying that you two are the ones responsible for the Irish Wolves’ attack on Faoiltiarn?”

Instead of answering that question, Tadhg reset his face to the calm, agreeable expression he’d worn when we first met. “Are you one-hundred-percent sure that you are what you think you are, Strawberry?”

That nickname. Another one I didn’t ask for. But somehow, it felt the exact opposite of Sadie Schaduw.

My heartbeat calmed a bit, even as I answered, “Yes, I’m sure I’m a she-wolf! I don’t know why you think I’m one of you, but I’m not. I promise you, I’m not. I’ve never, ever done…” I waved my hands toward the face that had just been a bear’s a few moments ago. “…whatever that was with any part of my body. Because wolves can’t do that, and I’m a wolf!”

I was refuting everything he’d told me, but for some reason, Tadhg’s expression remained infinitely patient as he asked, “Okay, then, are you able to go without eating or relieving yourself for long periods of time—days to weeks, if need be?”

“Yes, but…” I squinted, wondering how this particular topic of conversation was coming up again so soon after my weird discussion with Amanda. “All wolves can do that.”

“All wolves cannot do that,” he assured me, and he didn’t give me a chance to answer before asking, “Have you been feeling sleepy as of late? And unbelievably hungry?”

How did he know?

I scrunched my forehead. “Yes, but that’s just because I’m gluttonous and prone to sloth when the weather gets cold.” I stared at him blankly. “My mother told me that because she had a child outside of wedlock, I was born with those two stains on my character. And it’s something I must fight within myself every season.”

“Why would she…?” To my surprise, Tadhg’s expression darkened. But only for a moment or two, then it softened into sympathy. Like he felt sorry for me, even though I’d just explained that I was a she-wolf who’d been cursed from birth. “I don’t know why your mother told you that. But it’s nothing to do with your character, Strawberry. It’s in our nature. Because we’re bears living in a world that doesn’t hibernate. That’s part of the reason Cian opted out of living in The Above, so he did.”

He indicated the Shadow King, who now sat on his bottom. Technically resting, but his back paws were on the floor, putting him in a crouch, and his two front paws were also braced between his bent back legs. That and his chosen position directly between me and the glass door made me suspect he was ready to come after me with that maw full of teeth, if I tried to run again.

“Cian normally takes a sabbatical around this time,” Tadhg told me. “Finding out about you is the only reason he hasn’t already retired to his castle for the next season. And even after over a decade of living in the human world, Declan, the other Irish Bear King, and I still have a hell of a time in the winter.”

Tadhg sighed. “Imagine our company would be twice as profitable if we’d been born wolves, like Iain Scotswolf.”

A wholly unusual sensation of feeling understood rushed through me. How many times had I gotten down on myself because of the Winter Sloth? I’d had a harder time with school when the weather got colder. Also, keeping up with my community duties, staying awake in church, or even during quiet conversations with Naomi—sometimes just day-to-day functioning felt like a chore. One I couldn’t do well in the winter.

“But that doesn’t mean I’m a⁠—”

“Give me your hand,” Tadhg suddenly said.

“What?”

“Give me your hand, and I’ll leave off trying to prove it to you until the next full moon. My sister’s pregnant with her husbands’ cubs at the moment, so she’ll be able to take a picture of you when you turn.”

Finally, something familiar. I understood the concept of shifters not shifting while pregnant. His kind must have that built-in protection measure, too. But did he say she was pregnant by her husbands? As in, more than one?

I fretted my bottom lip, remembering what Malcolm and Gavin had claimed about the Irish Wolves mating in pairs.…

“Sadie, will you give me your hand?” Tadhg’s insistent question interrupted my meditation on what other strange customs Irish Bears might have.

I swallowed. “Okay, if it will put an end to this conversation.…”

I held out my hand.

Which Tadhg took and turned over, his grip light but firm.

I understood why when he reached inside his shirt collar and pulled out a medallion with a knotted Celtic bear, just like the one around the Shadow King’s neck. “A least two of the Irish Wolf Kings also have these, but theirs are made of bronze.”

I immediately began tugging to get my hand back. Whereas the Shadow King’s lemon smell had covered what his knotted bear was made of, the scent of the medallion’s pure silver hit my nose. “Don’t. Don’t!”

Tadhg’s grip tightened.

He turned my palm over, promising, “This won’t hurt.”

“But it will!” I told him, tugging back on my hand as hard as I could. Did he not know? “Wolves are highly allergic to sil⁠—”

I broke off when he laid the medallion in my hand and…

…nothing. The beautifully knotted medallion was slightly larger than my entire palm, yet the only warmth I felt was the faint heat from Tadhg’s body.

But how…?

I looked up from the silver medallion to Tadhg to ask, “How is this possible?”

“It’s possible because you’re a bear, like Cian and me. And unlike wolves, bears are not allergic to silver.”

His words hit me like a bucket of ice-cold water.

I wanted to deny it again. Everything I’d been taught, everything I was, depended on me proving him wrong.

But the proof I was looking for stared me in the face. Large as what he was claiming I actually was… hadn’t known I actually was on the inside…

Remembering all the times I’d felt a strange tingling in my hand when someone said something to me that made me violently angry, I made myself visualize….

Reuben denying me in the barn… Amanda commenting on my full plate at the breakfast table… The other Wölfennites laughing at me at Tara’s wedding reception…

“Oh, my heavens! Oh, my heavens!” I nearly dropped the silver medallion when my entire hand and forearm disappeared underneath a long mitt of jet-black fur and a palm covered in what looked like some kind of worn dark-gray rubber.

“Hiya, so you’re a black bear, then—not a brownie, like the High King and me.” Tadhg raised his red eyebrows on the other side of my shifted paw. “I’m certain the Shadow King’s line will be impossible to deal with after they find out we’ve finally got another black bear who isn’t related to them.”

Tadhg tucked the medallion back into his shirt. “By the by, not to sound too superior, but wolves can’t turn just one part of themselves, either. That’s a special power, Strawberry, just for us bears.”

He was still trying to convince me, but I didn’t need it as I clamped and unclamped five claws over a spongy palm that was no longer light brown but a dark and dusky black.

This is not a wolf paw, I realized, staring at the one piece of me I’d turned just to see if I could.

It was too big. Too fierce. Too other. Just like me.

No more denials. My throat clogged with tears, and for several moments, I couldn’t even talk.

All these years…

All these years of feeling like a freak of wolf nature, and here was my answer.

I’d never been a wolf. I’d been a bear. One of Tadhg’s and Cian’s kind all along.

Another epiphany hit me. My mother must be a bear, too!

That would explain so much. Why she almost never talked about her past or my father. Had made me large portions of food, despite complaining about the outrageous expense of my out-of-control gluttony.

Of course, she had lied to me. Hidden what I was from me with shame and criticism. That was clear now.

And relief… Relief like nothing I’d ever known, even when I released my bladder after months of being shut in my room, filled me up like a bottle of maple syrup. Sweet and sticky in a way that clung to the container, even after it was emptied.

At the warm thoughts, the violent tingling faded, and I once again found myself gazing upon my human hand.

“I’m a bear,” I whispered.

“You’re a bear,” Tadhg confirmed. “Even the Shadow King is trying to tell you.”

He nodded in a new direction near the table, and a shout of laughter burst from my mouth when I found the Shadow King, still in bear form but once again holding the whiteboard between two paws: You’re a BEAR!!!

Bear was in all caps and underlined three times.

But wait…

I stopped laughing and scrunched my forehead when I realized, out loud, “That still doesn’t explain why you kidnapped me.”

“Oh, well, actually…” The chagrinned look returned as Tadhg explained, “That was the story I’d planned to lead with, but then this weirdly existential conversation came up. You see, Sadie⁠—”

The blare of dual alarms, loud and even more piercing than a rooster’s crow and a kettle’s steam whistle combined, cut him off.

I found out where the terrible sounds were coming from when Tadhg pulled out a phone, and the Shadow King’s bear lumbered over to the leather remnants of the pants he’d shredded through to presumably do the same.

Tadhg’s expression went from laughing to serious in the next moment. “Gods, I didn’t expect them to suss it out so fast,” he said before pressing something on his phone screen.

Muffled clunks sounded from all around. Locks closing, maybe, all at once? Alarm bells sounded inside my head as I asked, “Suss what out? What’s going on?”

“The Scottish Wolves.” All the room's windows tinted to black, casting Tadhg’s face in shadows as he informed me, “The Scottish Wolves are at our dock and headed toward the house.”

Secret Kingdom

“The Scottish Wolves are here.”

I barely had time to fully comprehend Tadhg’s words before my wish to be free of the dining room was abruptly granted.

Instead of blocking me from leaving, Tadhg suddenly dragged me out of the space where I’d woken up, past the glass coffin, and across a sitting room, where a fire roared in the hearth.

“Wait! Just—wait a moment. Where are you taking me?” I yanked back, heels digging in with everything I had.

Another secret I’d been bade to keep by my mother.

“Never show the male wolves how strong you truly are again,” she’d chided after I bragged about bringing back the largest sheet of ice from the lake for the community ice house. “Bad things will happen if they ever find out you’re stronger than them.”

But the Scottish Wolves were here. To rescue me from my kidnappers.

It felt strange to finally go against my mother’s orders and employ my full strength to yank my arm from the Mountain King’s grip.

And even stranger when it didn’t work.

The Mountain King hauled me along like the rag dolls I used to make out of old dresses before I figured out how to carve.

With what appeared to be very little effort, Tadhg pulled me up to a set of ceiling-high double doors, similar to the ones that led into the hall where Tara and Magnus’s reception had been held. But instead of wolves carved into the wood, these had large, gleaming knobs shaped like bears.

Knobs Tadhg didn’t even have to use. The doors swung open for him on their own, as if his presence alone was command enough.

The sentry-less opening might have come off as dramatic, if not for what lay behind them.

Not a ballroom, but a circle of stones tall as buildings loomed over a dirt floor with tufts of grass scattered about. Bright sunlight poured onto the structure, bathing the giant rocks in majestic light.

Had we gone outside?

No… I realized, looking up. The entire ceiling was made of glass, which explained the copious amounts of sunlight in this room.

If nothing else.

My mind kept spinning, even after Tadhg stopped in front of a slot between two of the standing stones and pulled the chain with the bear medallion from beneath his T-shirt.

“I’ll handle drop off,” he told the Shadow King’s bear, who had followed us into the otherworldly standing stone room. “You make sure the house is fully locked down. I doubt they can hack their way through god tech, but it’s been a while since we had to flip all the security buttons on this place. Could you make extra certain?”

The Shadow King answered with a nod of his large black head and lumbered back toward the still-open double doors.

Meanwhile, Tadhg pulled me through the stone’s opening with a grip stronger than any I’d ever known.

Bears. We were all bears. And while a female bear could easily best a male wolf, there was no way I could take a male of my own species.

This latest confirmation of what I truly was tumbled inside my chest as Tadhg hauled me deeper into the standing granite structure and raised his medallion to one of the stones.

“Stop! Where are you taking me?” If I couldn’t use my no-longer-superior strength, I had nothing left but words. “You said you wouldn’t do anything without my…”

I blinked, and the word consent fell like a pebble out of my mouth when I found myself standing in pitch black.

For a moment, I was as blinded as if I’d closed my eyes in my windowless room back in St. Ailbe.

Then my night vision kicked in, along with my sense of smell. I was inside another room now.

Underground. Some kind of cellar. Dirt. Moss. Stone. That was what the place smelled like.

“I said we would try not to do anything else without your consent,” Tadhg corrected. He let go of my arm. Apparently, he was no longer concerned with me running. “As you’re seeing, there will be a few times when it can’t be helped.”

The room’s door slid open. Before I could argue with his interpretation of his earlier promise.

And then all arguments fell away when I saw the scene laid out before me.

My mouth dropped open, and I found myself moving forward without need of a tug. Emerging from the underground cellar into…

…a world. An entirely new world that looked like something out of a picture book.

Vibrant. Glowing under the light of a bright sun.

I stood in front of a glimmering lake with three castles lying to its east, north, and west.

At least, I could only assume those were the directions.

Even my wolf sense of—I mean, my bear sense of—orientation had become jumbled in this strange place that looked like a fairy tale but smelled like damp stone and cool earth.

To the maybe west, a jet-black castle stood in sharp contrast to the emerald-green grass.

Its walls were shiny. Almost like onyx, though how could an entire castle be made of smooth, ebony jewel? Either way, it sparkled like some kind of facet-less gemstone under the sun.

Weirdly, its spires and turrets gave it the look of an old-fashioned storybook castle. But deep-red symbols, like the ones inked on the Shadow King’s human hands, covered every surface.

I couldn’t tell what the symbols were made of. Not neon. Not mercury. Something else that glowed and pulsed. Like electric blood.

What was that word Naomi had once used to describe a forbidden book she'd read, set in outer space?

Sci-fi. Somehow, the black castle to the maybe west struck me as extremely sci-fi.

The castle to the possible north was a bit easier to make sense of.

It reminded me of the one in Faoiltiarn. If someone had embedded it into the side of a steep mountain and set it high above our heads, with only a single set of stone stairs leading up to it.

Another word I’d read but never seen in real life floated across my mind.

Fortress.

Yes. It looked like a fortress.

Barely any windows. Sharp, jagged edges. Towers that looked less like turrets and more like watchpoints. Built not to impress, but to keep people out.

And yet… somehow I knew it had to belong to the affable, bespectacled bear who came to stand beside me.

The Mountain King was literally the ruler of this intimidating mountain fortress.

The castle to the maybe east looked like it had gone out of its way not to match the others.

From what I could tell, it was only one floor. And castle didn’t feel like the right word for it.

If not for the sheer size, I might have called it a house. Or maybe a mansion. But even grander.

It didn’t have the height of the other two, but it possessed wings and courtyards that sprawled so far, I couldn’t even see where they ended from this angle.

The residence was shorter than the other two. But it took up a lot more space.

And instead of standing open to the lake, it was fronted by a tall hedge of trees. Like it wanted to keep its distance from the lake. And the rest of this strange world.

What was this place?

My nose told me we were inside granite. Encased in some sort of cellar or basement.

But when I looked over my shoulder, I saw we’d come out of a tall tower that stretched all the way up into a gorgeous blue sky with fat cotton clouds. And beyond the tower lay an entire village of thatched-roof houses.

Much like the ones in Faoiltiarn. Only this village was way bigger. What had to be hundreds of houses stretched all the way to a wide dirt road with no end I could see. And even though it felt quite pleasant—sixteen degrees, tops—every single thatched roof was covered in a light sprinkling of snow.

I didn’t... couldn’t get it.

It was like I was looking at—standing inside—a painting with more than two dimensions.

It smelled like a dry cave. Yet felt like a perfect early spring day. And looked like a town on the cusp of winter.

“Where... where are we?” I asked the Mountain King in charge of a fortress that didn’t match his affable demeanor.

“No time to explain.” Tadhg took me by the hand this time and started toward the residence to the maybe east.

All I could do was stumble along after him, toward the front of the sprawling estate, which hosted a row of high, arched windows embedded in its massive stone facade.

But we didn’t stop at the short set of steps leading up to a dark wood front door framed by columns. Instead, we kept going until we reached the side of the estate farthest from the tower.

That’s where Tadhg finally brought us to a stop. In front of another arched window, though this one sat on the ground and put me in mind of a glass door embedded into stone.

At least, I thought it was glass. The ground-level window’s smooth exterior was tinted black, so I couldn’t see anything on the other side of it.

“Welcome to the High King’s palace,” Tadhg boomed.

Okay. So it was a palace.

Lots and lots of follow-up questions swirled around my mind. But first, I had to put my hands on my knees and wheeze.

“Sorry, Strawberry.” I could feel Tadhg’s sympathetic gaze above me. “Didn’t mean for your first day with us to be filled with so much confusion and cardiovascular activity.”

Despite his giant size, Tadhg seemed to have had a much easier time with all the running than me. There was barely any breath in his voice as he said, “I’m just going to tuck you away here until we’ve sorted this early arrival from the Scottish Wolves out. Then we’ll have brunch and return to our explanatory conversation.”

Meanwhile, I could barely stand back up to pant out, “High... High King? Who’s that? How... how many kings do you... do you have, anyway?”

“There’s only the three of us, and trust, that’s enough for you,” Tadhg answered, his tone wryly amused. “But Declan’s a topic we’ll need to save for brunch. Let’s get you inside. Just tell it to open.”

“The door?” I asked him.

“Your door,” he corrected. “It’s meant to be a safe haven for you until we come to an agreement. You’ll have to give it a command for it to grant you entry. A simple ‘open’ should do.”

“Open?” I repeated, not quite understanding.

But the door didn’t seem to need my full comprehension. It slid open with a quiet whisper, just like Tadhg said it would.

“Great, the Shadow King’s already got it set to your bio-coordinates.” Tadhg led the way into the newly opened space.

I had no idea what bio-coordinates meant. But that—and all the other questions crowding my brain—disappeared the second I saw the bedroom he’d guided me into.

More like a suite.

Or... what did my mom call the kind of place she used to live in back in Toronto, before she joined the Wölfennites? A studio apartment.

Yes. The space was so big and well-appointed, with gleaming and sleek everything, if they’d added a kitchen, it could have been one of those studios.

Though I had a feeling my mother never lived in a space with walls made of smudge-less white glass. And a gigantic bed big enough to fit me, her, and a couple of people more.

But the craziest thing was the wall behind the bed.

It was some kind of floor-to-ceiling screen with a view of the glimmering lake. The tower to the left. The black castle I assumed belonged to the Shadow King up ahead. And that uninviting mountain fortress on the right.

The picture was a level of resolution I’d never seen before . Not even on the one big screen in the Faoiltiarn pub where everyone gathered to watch rugby and soccer matches.

Technically, I knew it had to be some kind of video. But it featured birdsong. And what sounded like an actual breeze. If not for the framing of the room—and knowing the lake wasn’t really on the back wall—I would’ve thought I could walk right past the bed and onto its shore.

“These digs are just temporary for now, but make yourself comfortable,” Tadhg invited. “Maybe wash up. It’s been a journey for you, hasn’t it?”

Hold on, he was going? No!

“Tell me where am I first,” I spun around to demand. “Are we underneath the place where I woke up? Like, inside a cave or a cliff? But with some kind of overlay—like a magical sketch, but made of technology?”

“Ah, fair play to you for figuring that out,” Tadhg said with a conceding grin. “The whole Secret Kingdom business isn’t exactly something we’ve ever had to explain to an outsider before—never mind one raised away off in rural Ontario, Canada. I wasn’t sure you’d take to the idea of god tech at all, to be honest. Jaysus, I barely get it myself, which is why I stick to the logistics side of things down here and leave all the fancy overlays, as you called them, to Cian. Right. I can see I’ve lost you again.”

I didn’t realize I was wearing my confusion so plainly on my face until he started backing away with a, “I’ll explain everything later, but right now, I’ve truly got to go.”

“But wait, I have so many more questions. How do you know where I came from, and how was any of this even made?”

“We’ll get all of your questions answered at lunch, I promise, Strawberry.” Tadhg kept backing away—this time clasping his beefy hands with an apologetic wince. “Truly, make yourself comfortable, and we’ll be back as soon as we can manage it. Unfortunately, you can take the COO out of the human world, but my job is never done.”

I swear, my mind nearly collapsed under all my befuddlement. “What’s a COO?”

Tadhg just promised, “I’ll tell you all about my boring job once we’ve secured the kingdom. Rest for now.”

This time, I didn’t get the chance to argue. He stepped over the threshold, and the door slid closed behind him.

Leaving me alone in the luxurious studio apartment that apparently belonged to me.

Washrooms Without Bathtubs

Okay, maybe Naomi had a point about me being too compliant.

For as long as I could remember, she’d accused me of just going along with everything I was told to do. And she might have been right.

After all, there I was, standing in the most luxurious washroom I’d ever seen, after the most confusing day I’d ever had, putting more effort into figuring out the controls in front of me than coming up with an escape plan.

Though, calling this place a washroom felt like a huge understatement. It sported a toilet covered in those strange red symbols—the same ones on the Shadow King’s ebony jewel castle and his hands. There was also an open closet space, complete with places to hang clothes, and a large mirror on top of a unit of drawers, framed in soft, bright light.

The so-called washroom even had a velvet-covered couch. For sitting, I guessed. In case, I don’t know, reading books in the same place where you pooped was your thing.

But what it didn’t have was a bathtub.

Just a large glass room with several nozzles and a wall that looked more like a cockpit control panel than something a regular person could operate.

Again, I missed Naomi.

She’d grown up just as sheltered as me, but somehow always knew how to work every piece of tech we’d run into on the way to and in Scotland.

Was she okay?

The image of that awful wolf licking her neck flickered across my mind. Both of those males had seemed intent on her, tracking her every word and breath, even while going back and forth with Alban.

Naomi’s well-being—yet another question for the brunch list. Which was getting really, really long. I’d have to find a way to formally write all of them down so I could remember everything. Just as soon as I figured out how to work this shower.

“Oh, you poor thing!”

Suddenly, the sweet smell of some kind of baked bread hit my nose.

“Look at you, struggling with that sci-fi shower.”

A woman with red hair tied back into a messy bun burst through the glass shower’s open door.

“See, I knew this is how I’d find ye when Tadhg texted that he’d left you here to fend for yourself. Here, step aside, Sadie love, and let me get this sci-fi going for you.”

I blinked at the woman who already knew my name—and that I’d have no idea how to operate the shower. Not just because she was a stranger. But because she was huge.

Even larger than me, actually. A couple of inches taller, with much wider hips. She was also several months pregnant, if the defined swell under the tight, off-the-shoulders Niall Horan concert T-shirt she wore was any indication.

I not only wondered who Niall Horan was, but also where she’d come from… and why she had what looked like large bite marks on both shoulders, right above each clavicle.

“Here, watch me work the buttons so you can see how this sci-fi shower works. Sci-fi’s what we call all the god tech, which my outsider husband informs me is not exactly intuitive. In fact, bloody confusing, if you didn’t grow up with it—What’s the matter, then? Have I something on my face? I was halfway through a contour when I got the message from my worthless brother.”

I hadn’t realized I was openly staring at her until she called me out. I quickly averted my eyes.

“Alright, now you’re not able to look at me. Is it because I said something bad about your Mountain King? I don’t truly believe Tadhgie’s worthless, y’know. That’s just me being Irish. Love and respect of a sibling can only be expressed with complete and utter derision.”

“No, no, it’s not that. It’s just... You seem to know about me, but I don’t even know your name. And I’ve never met another female who’s larger than me,” I blurted out.

Then clapped both hands over my mouth.

“Oh, sorry. I didn’t think about how rude that would sound before it came out. Maybe I should get a writing board, like the Shadow King.”

“Please don’t,” the woman—who was apparently Tadhg’s sister—answered with a roll of her eyes.

“Name’s Brigid. And I’m here to tell ye that Shadow King is the absolute worst, isn’t he, with that thing? Half the time he doesn’t bother to use it. Just aggressively makes you talk to yerself while he sits there, figuring out new scary looks to ensure he always features in the kingdom’s children’s nightmares.”

“So... you like him?” I guessed carefully.

“Sussed it out, didn’t you?” Brigid grinned in a way that would’ve told me she was Tadhg’s sister, even if she hadn’t announced it. “Grew up with him. And unlike the other two kings, he actually lives down here with us. He’s like a second brother who lets me run the kingdom however I want. Long as I don’t mess with any of his precious god-tech designs. Speaking of which...”

She turned back to the shower’s control panel.

“What’ll ye be having today? A rain shower, a warm massage, or the kind of power spray that’ll strip every inch of dirt off your body?”

I shifted from foot to foot before confessing, “These are not options I am used to.”

“Here, allow me.” Brigid noisily sniffed the air and declared, “Oh, ye smell gorgeous, don’t you, Sadie? Like heather and fresh summer strawberries shipped in from The Above.”

Again, I could only stare. I’d never had my smell described as anything but odd—or the generous “way more interesting” by Naomi. Was this why Tadhg kept calling me “Strawberry”?

Like finding out I was a bear, I had no idea what to do with this new information.

“A rain shower’ll do ye just fine, in my opinion,” Brigid said over all my clashing thoughts. “Here’s the button for that.”

She made a dramatic show of pushing a glowing button with three interlocked triangles.

“Take your time, then we’ll get you dressed in one of the outfits I brought over for you and see to your hair.”

Yep. Way too compliant.

I dutifully showered with unscented bar soap that smelled the opposite of all the flowery ones I’d made for years to try to cover my odd smell. Then I somehow didn’t die of embarrassment when I came out to find Brigid waiting with a huge fluffy towel and a bathrobe.

If she cared about my naked immodesty, it didn’t show. As I slipped into the robe, she went over to a stack of things she’d laid across the velvet couch.

“Alright, I’ve this sports bra for ye. Warning—it might pinch, as you’re even more blessed than I am in the chest area. Lucky bitch. Sorry, Tadhg told me you’re about that puritan life, and I’ll need to watch my tongue.”

Brigid winked at me with what Naomi would have called a “sorry not sorry” face.”

“In any case, these grannie panties’ll fit a bit looser on you, but they’re brand-new—straight out of a package I grabbed on my last shopping trip in The Above. I just wish I’d known about your imminent arrival or I would’ve picked up something more for you.”

Somehow, I found myself reassuring the sister of one of my kidnappers. “It’s okay. I’m very grateful you came with any garments on such short notice. I’m sure everything will be fine.”

“Ah, we’ll see about that.” Brigid turned back to the pile of clothes. “I tried to find something conservative in my closet, but the only plain blue things I own are denims—and I’m a firm believer in letting my chest back up all household arguments. Hopefully, this will do you until we can get your dress laundered.”

I’d sworn to stop gaping less than an hour ago, when Brigid caught me staring at her. But my mouth fell open all over again when she held up a vibrant pink dress covered in strawberries with a scoop neck.

“My outsider husband got this for me as a bit of a joke back when we were in uni together. Because I’m a strawberry blonde, as they sometimes call us. He’s a blondie, so he didn’t know that bright pinks are a hard one for us pale girls to pull off. But I figured the color would look great on you, with all that lovely dark skin.”

She suddenly lowered the dress with a disappointed look. “Oh, ye hate it, don’t ye. I’ve got options, though—maybe⁠—”

“No, I want this one!” I all but snatched the dress out of her hands. Then my cheeks heated at her surprised look. “I’m not... I’m not that conservative. I only grew up in a conservative community. I’ve actually dreamed of wearing something other than plain blue—which actually looks awful on Black people with dark skin.”

A relieved grin split Brigid’s face. “In that case, we’ll have to see if I’m right about the color.”

A few minutes later, I found myself standing in front of the mirror Brigid referred to as a vanity—which was appropriate, considering I couldn’t keep myself from the prideful behavior of turning back and forth in the strawberry-print dress that hugged my chest before flaring out just below my waist into a swingy skirt.

“Aren’t ye gorgeous?” Brigid crowed. “I love when I’m proven right.”

I’d meant to ask Naomi to rebraid them for me the morning before the wedding, but I’d been so excited to tell her about my Alban sighting that I totally forgot.

Usually, I trusted my bonnet and prayer covering to hide their frizzy state. But it felt wrong, verging on insulting to pair this pretty of a dress with a clunky black bonnet.

“Would you be okay with wearing it down?” Brigid asked as if reading my mind. “Otherwise, I’ve got some French braiding skills that might work on your hair in a pinch.”

“I can braid too, but I never learned to do neat ones on my own hair. Maybe we can make wearing it down work, though.” I eagerly sat down in the chair in front of the vanity and began unraveling the first of eight braids. “How long do I have before I’m expected to meet Tadhg?”

“However long we make him wait,” Brigid answered with a snort. “But here, I’ll help you.”

With no tools but our fingers, it took the two of us much longer than it would’ve taken my mother or Naomi to undo eight cornrows. I figured this was a good time to get in a few questions from my list.

Brigid answered them the best she could. Apparently, I’d guessed right—I was in a secret kingdom located beneath the western cliffs of Ireland. This was where the Irish Bear community had always lived.

But Brigid had no idea how it had been built.

“The rumor goes that the gods constructed it for us before they left, donkey eons ago. Before bears supposedly went extinct in Ireland, even. Most of our lives, the knowledge of how to use the god tech has been passed down from generation to generation. But the Shadow King’s the first of our kind to try to figure out how to employ it in The Above—and possibly replicate it.”

“The Shadow King lives in the black castle, right?”

“Right,” she confirmed. “And I live with Tadhg, our father, and my husbands in that scary mountain fortress you probably saw on your way in.”

I wanted to ask more about the fortress, but something else she said snagged my attention.

I was pretty sure she’d said husbands, plural.

Not husband.

“So the Irish males really do take one wife in pairs?” I asked her, hoping the question wasn’t too rude.

“Sometimes in threes, even. It was said the tradition was started by the trio of serpent gods that created us. And by the time Christianity came to our shores, we were just too set in our ways.”

“So you believe your kind—bears—were created by a set of three gods?”

“Our kind and the Irish Wolves, too. What does your lot of bears believe over there in Canada?”

“Well, I don’t exactly know....” I told her the long—but actually pretty short—story of how I’d thought I was a she-wolf until this morning. A she-wolf who’d grown up in a community that taught us our monthly shifts were God’s punishment for the sins of greed and avarice that we were required to spend a lifetime in humble service to our community to make up for.

“Wow, Sades. Gotta admit, your puritan community does not sound like a craic time at all.” Brigid shook her head as she started on another braid, three rows up from my left ear. “I think I’ll stick with our creation myth.”

But is it a myth? I wondered.

Leaving an entire planet behind, as we believed our Christian deity had, was one thing. But the Irish Bears—and, apparently, the Irish Wolves, too—had actual leftover technology they could still use, even if they didn’t fully understand it.

The foundation of everything I’d been brought up to believe was beginning to shift like a house built on sand. Maybe that was why I found myself asking, “Is it hard... having two husbands?”

“It’s extremely hard carrying their heavy babies, I’ll tell you that.” Brigid rolled her eyes in the mirror. “Thank the gods a bear’s gestation period is only six months. I hear the poor she-wolves have to suffer through a human nine.”

Brigid visibly shuddered, but then a smile tipped up her wide mouth.

“Nothing about my marriage is hard, though. Even when I’m heaving around this stomach of mine, I feel like the luckiest bear above or below the earth. I’m married to the High Prince, y’know—the High King’s younger brother. Not sure if Tadhg told ye.”

“No, I didn’t know that,” I said. “I only found out about the High King earlier this morning. I still haven’t met him. Have you and the High Prince been together since you grew up down here?”

“Actually, we didn’t connect until university. And I was already several years deep into a relationship with my other now-husband, who was just an outsider boyfriend back then—with no idea he was dating a bear shifter.”

Brigid shook her head. “If it had been any other lad besides a bear prince vying for my heart, the two of them would’ve come to blows and made me choose. Which is why I’m always telling anyone who’ll listen that my life’s a pile of four-leaf clovers.”

I couldn’t get over how happy she looked as she moved on to the second-to-last braid above my left ear.

None of the she-wolf wives had glowed like this when talking about their marriage.

Not even Naomi’s parents—and they were the happiest couple I knew.

Though now that I thought about it, when Tara was barking out orders, she sometimes looked upon her one husband, the Scottish King, with a similarly soft expression.

“Are all she-bears as happy as you, or do you think it’s because you married a prince?”

“We just call ourselves bears. Or female bears, if you truly need to make the distinction,” Brigid gently corrected. Then she smiled to herself.

“And you could have a point there. I love both my husbands ‘equal but different,’ as we say here in the Secret Kingdom.

"But the High Prince is so feckin’ devastating. He’s got this cool white streak running through his hair and these amazing gray eyes—makes you want to dive into them like a lake. And can you believe he’s also a great listener, on top of being dead sexy? Feels like I can tell him anything. I always say he would’ve made a crack therapist if his brother hadn’t made him major in Business Administration.

She paused, the smile turning rueful.

“The only thing I regret is how long it took me to realize he wasn’t a complete wanker like his High King older brother.”

I had no idea what wanker meant, but it didn’t sound good.

“So you like the High King?” I guessed again, moving down to the second-to-last braid on my side.

“Actually, no. I honestly mean he’s a wanker.” Brigid wrinkled her nose, like she’d smelled something foul. “When the High Prince told him he’d decided to come back down here to be with me, instead of making Declan and his company more money they don’t even need up in The Above, Declan—that’s his given name for the human world—completely lost it.”

She started untightening the last braid on her side.

“Told his brother he was wasting his life. Said he’d regret it. Slipped the business card of a wolf shifter divorce lawyer into the flowers he sent in lieu of attending our wedding. I’ll never forgive him for that. Joke’s on him, though. Almost seven years later, we’re all still together, happy as could be.”

In the mirror, Brigid’s bitter look shifted to something softer. “You’ll probably see my forever prince lumbering about the grounds. Can’t miss him. He smells like an entire basket of juicy plums.”

“I’ve never had a plum before,” I admitted.

“Well, I’ll tell you—it’s my absolute favorite fruit now.” Brigid waggled her eyebrows.

I could only imagine my mother’s face if she were the one participating in this conversation. But for whatever reason, my so-called puritan sensibilities had completely abandoned me.

I felt nothing but fascinated—by Brigid’s unorthodox relationship, and by this secret world—as I wondered out loud, “Do all bears smell like food?”

“You could say that.” Brigid shrugged as she finished unweaving her last cornrow. “All bears love food, so we often perceive people as smelling like foods we like. What do I smell like to you?”

I sniffed the air. “Baked bread. The sweet kind we make for dessert.”

“Aw, that means you like me!” Brigid threw me a wide grin in the mirror. “And I think you smell like strawberries, which means we’re definitely going to be friends.”

She chuckled, then added, “My other husband—the human I was dating before I realized I also had feelings for the High Prince—he smells like whipped cream. We all smell good together. And in the bear community, that’s how you and everyone else can tell you’re a true match.”

“Okay... I think I’m actually getting this concept,” I said. “So the Shadow King, who you like, smells like lemons to you, too?”

“Yes. And he’s absolutely in need of a bit of sweetness to make a good dessert. But sweet bread and lemons don’t pair well together, so we could only ever be friends. Do you understand?”

Actually, I did.

For once since coming here, I didn’t feel impossibly confused. This all made a strange sort of sense.

“And the High King? What does he smell like?”

Brigid’s face twisted. “Like rotten celery. Can barely stand to be in the same room with him without holding my nose. He’s a cold one, that High King of ours. Only cares about profits and margins, and smells like the most useless vegetable.”

She shook her head. “I think the only reason he and Tadhg ended up such great pals is that he reminds Tadhg of our da—cold, withholding bastard, he is. But at least Da showed up to walk me down the aisle before kipping off back to his digs in the attic. Declan’s—an’ I’m not even slightly exaggerating here—the absolute worst altogether.”

I furrowed my brow. “Yet your brother deposited me here in his palace and sent you to help me acclimate.”

I finished unweaving the last braid on my side and twisted in the seat to face Brigid directly.

“Why would he bring me here and ask you to come, too, knowing how much you truly despise him?”

Ready to Go?

Brigid froze, her eyes wide in a way that reminded me of the expression on the fox’s face that one time I walked into the community chicken house and found him with a hen’s neck in his mouth. Completely caught in the act.

But then she wiped her face and reset.

“You know what, I’m prone to exaggeration. Tadhg’s always on me about that,” she waved a dismissive hand. “You should hold off on judging your High King until you’ve had a chance to meet him yourself. I mean, you’re here, so he can’t be as bad as I thought, right?”

Confusion returned to roost.

“What does me being here have to do with⁠—”

“Oh my gods, look at you!”

Instead of letting me finish, Brigid grabbed my shoulders and spun me back toward the mirror.

“No need for braids, babes. If I had hair like yours, I’d be insufferable.”

I didn’t know what to say. I stared at the thick cloud of curls resting on my shoulders, struck speechless by yet another completely new sensation.

Truly liking the way I looked.

“Well, enough of this admiring how gorgeous you are. Worthy pastime, for certain. But I’m supposed to escort you to brunch, and with the winter months setting in, Tadhg’s likely to eat you in the bad way if we take too much longer.”

I was starving, too, but…“Eat me in the bad way?”

I chewed my lip—a stress habit my mother often fussed at me about. “I’m trying and failing to imagine a future in which I’m not confused by this place and everything you all are saying to me.”

Brigid just laughed and opened the washroom door. “You say exactly what’s on your mind. I like that.

“Though... not as much as you’ll like finding out what I mean by eat you in the good way. I’ve a feeling you’re about to leap into a pile of clovers yerself.”

Then she stopped short.

“Oh look. Seems I won’t be escorting you after all.”

My nose filled with the sharp, refreshing smell of citrus.

I stepped into the main suite behind her and found the Shadow King standing there, this time in a new set of leather pants and some kind of half cape, half tunic-like shirt with a deep V that revealed his near paper-white chest was also covered in those strange symbols that looked like no language I’d ever seen before.

He held up the whiteboard: Ready to go?

Was I ready to go?

Either way, it was happening.

Brigid waddled back to the bathroom to grab my clothes for laundering, leaving me with a vague promise. “See you later, babes, if this all works out the way Tadhg hopes it will.”

And then I found myself walking down a long hallway side by side with the Shadow King.

Questions buzzed in my head, but talking and writing probably didn’t go together. The Shadow King had clipped the whiteboard onto a leather cord and slung it over his back, leaving our only form of communication an inconvenient over-the-shoulder reach away.

It was even harder not to stare at him than it had been with Brigid. He was unbearably ethereal.

It felt like walking beside the moon. An incredibly tall moon dressed in black. So tall I had to tilt my head back just to look up at him—and every time I risked it, that scrambled-egg feeling went off inside me again.

Luckily, I had all the portraits hanging along the hallway walls to direct my eyes toward.

They reminded me a bit of the ones in Faoiltiarn, where the past Scottish kings and queens stared down at castle visitors from the stairwell.

But most of the kings in these portraits had dark hair with a distinctive streak of white running through it like lightning and wore imperious expressions under heavy silver crowns.

If these were past High Kings, I wouldn’t be surprised.

They were probably long dead, but I still felt like they were watching me—judging me down their long noses—as I walked past.

Each one wore a knotted bear medallion—an exact copy of the one Tadhg had brought out from under his T-shirt. But unlike his, theirs weren’t hidden—they glinted in the painted light as the only jewelry displayed over their rich blue robes.

The kings were always pictured beside a queen. And while the identities and robes of those queens changed, they all had one thing in common: either one or two bared shoulders.

And on that naked shoulder, a very obvious bite mark—painted in shimmering gold, as if to say it glowed.

Was this just an artistic choice? Or did the male royals really bite their queens in a way that left a permanent mark?

And I did mean royals.

Only a couple of the early portraits showed just one king and one queen. Most often, another man stood beside them—usually with a white streak of hair. Possibly a brother?

Their crowns were smaller, and they didn’t wear bear medallions. But in those paintings, the queen had both shoulders bare, with two golden bite marks on display.

Occasionally, a hulking redheaded king would take that second spot instead. None of them wore spectacles, and they all glowered rather than smiled, but I suspected they were the Mountain King’s descendants.

Then came a portrait unlike the rest. A Mountain King and a white-streak High King flanked a tall, slender woman with heavily hooded eyes and jet-black hair that fell nearly to the floor. She wore an ornate crown, dripping in gold jewels.

Her skin was much darker than the male who walked beside me, and her smoky black eyes held a serene confidence that made me recall the long, slinky models of indeterminate ethnicity I’d seen on posters advertising luxury goods in the Edinburgh Airport’s duty-free shop.

Still, I pointed to the portrait and asked the bear I suspected to be her descendant, “Is she your ancestor?”

The Shadow King nodded once.

And then I saw the next painting—three kings surrounding a short and plump pale blonde queen.

A High King with the white streak to her right. A glowering red-haired Mountain King to her left. And on the far right... a tall, slender king in black robes and black leather pants.

All three wore knotted bear medallions. And their queen had both shoulders bared, with a hand raised to show yet another set of teeth indents along her wrist. Three bite marks, all glowing gold.

That was the only portrait with three kings, though. The rest featured either the High King and Shadow King or a Mountain King—never both. And as we neared the end of the hallway gallery, the paintings began to feature couples composed of just one male and one female.

Which was probably how it was supposed to be.

I braced myself to feel the same squirmy discomfort Amanda had when the idea of multiple males sharing a wife had come up.

But the revulsion never arose.

Much like the scent-matching thing, it made a strange sort of internal sense, even though it went against almost every rule I’d grown up with.

Rules that were starting to make less and less sense now that I knew I was a bear.

To my surprise, we stepped out of the royal gallery into a strikingly modern central space, full of comfortable chairs, low couches, and soft pools of light.

If not for another back wall featuring that you-could-just-walk-straight-into-it lake view—like the one in my room—I would’ve sworn this place was a hotel lobby. One of the fancy ones I’d seen in the in-flight magazine on our way to Scotland.

Also, on a raised dais directly in front of the lake wall sat a huge throne encased in rich blue velvet. Next to it, a slightly smaller version—same velvet, same embroidery.

Even if I hadn’t seen a similar setup in the Faoiltiarn castle, I would’ve known what that second seat meant. It was a queen’s throne.

My heart stuttered a little for some reason.

And it occurred to me that the last king in the final portrait might not have been some dead ancestor.

He could be the person this palace belonged to.

And hadn’t Brigid said she was married to the High King’s younger brother? Back in St. Ailbe, older siblings usually married first.

“Is the High King married?” I asked the Shadow King.

He shook his head with one efficient sideways back and forth.

And I tried. I really tried not to ask the moon I’d mistaken for Death another personal question.

But blurting is a disease.

Two more words slipped out before I could stop them. “Are you?”

Another Yes/No question.

But to my surprise, the Shadow King pulled the whiteboard from his back, uncapped the marker, and wrote two words, followed by one of those pictograms Tara had called emojis while showing Naomi and me her smartphone: Not yet :)

Then he stopped in front of a high arched black glass door, which slid open to reveal a columned, covered patio—with an actual real-life view of the glimmering lake just beyond the hedge of trees lining the property’s edge.

And in front of that stood a table that made the Exchange House spread for fifty she-wolves seem like a last-minute potluck.

Also, Tadhg was there, with his arms spread wide, looking the same but somehow opposite of all the glowering Mountain Kings in those paintings.

“Welcome to the Secret Kingdom, Sadie,” he boomed.

Brown Eyed Girl

Tadhg

My “Welcome to the Secret Kingdom” started off strong, but my voice nearly gave out by the time Sadie came stepping out of the house behind the Shadow King.

Holy shite—a phrase I’d best stop using now that I’d notions of queening a modern puritan.

I could barely breathe as she crossed the space to the table I’d set up with all the tea things I’d stress-baked earlier, plus a few extras I’d ordered up from Chef Pascal—who’d only had half a day’s notice that he, his housekeeper wife, and the gardener (who made up their three-way marriage) would all need to return to the High Palace to actually do the jobs the kingdom paid them for year-round without ever asking much of them.

I could tell Sadie was stunned by the sheer amount of food Chef Pascal and Marnie, the housekeeper, had managed to put out.

But not nearly as stunned as me by what Sadie had on display.

The plain blue dress had hung off her like a tent. This one did not. All that gorgeous dark skin was wrapped in a pretty pink dress covered in strawberries, with a bodice that strained to contain a set of large, bountiful breasts.

And her hair… I’d had no idea what to expect when she arrived in that shapeless frock and black bonnet. But now I knew.

Her hair fanned out over her shoulders and down her back in a mesmerizing cloud of kinky spiral curls. I’d thought I had a thing for brunettes before this, but in an instant, my new favorite color became whatever matte shade of black her hair would be called.

I wanted to sink my hands into it. See if it was as soft as it looked. Unwrap her like a package and let myself feast.

I silently cursed my sister. What had Brigid been thinking? I’d asked her to help Sadie acclimate—not send her out looking like something out of a wet dream.

My cock, which I’d always been able to control in my day-to-day work life, thrummed dangerously as images that would definitely get me sanctioned by HR flashed through my head.

“You’re not staying?” she asked the Shadow King, pulling me out of my stare-fest.

I tore my eyes away to find Cian holding up a sign: Hope to see you later.

He dipped his head to her with a contrite look, then shot me a squint that growled: Do not feck this up.

“You don’t want…” she started to ask, but trailed off when the Shadow King simply loped off toward the tree line without another word.

“Sorry, Strawberry,” I said, apologizing on his behalf as we watched him disappear into the mini woods between Declan’s palace and the lake.

“Shadow King’s not fond of brunch. Or chat. Or sunlight,” I noted when the sun was covered by a patch of remote-controlled clouds that Cian had most definitely ordered up, and the sky darkened.

“Do you think it’ll rain?” she asked, fretting her bottom lip between her teeth.

Aw, feck, Strawberry, don’t do that.

Inside my head, Van Morrison’s “Brown Eyed Girl” was being remixed over the Boom-Chicka-Wow-Wow of a vintage adult film.

“No, don’t worry about that. We’re good until the daily burst at three on the dot.”

Thank the gods I’d put in over a decade of pretending in the human world. As I led her the rest of the way to the table, I managed not to walk like a lad who’d be needing a cold shower and a quiet moment with his left hand straight after this meal.

“Figured you’d prefer privacy to staff service, so we’ll need to make our plates,” I explained.

But when she reached for a plate, I stopped her with a gentlemanly smile that didn’t match the state of things in my down below. “No, Strawberry—allow me.”

I took the plate from her hand and piled it high as I spoke. “We couldn’t get any solid intel on what you liked to eat, so I just had the High King’s cook prepare every breakfast food he could think of.”

I set the plate in front of her. “If there’s something specific you’d like, I can ask Chef Pascal to⁠—”

“No, this is way more than enough,” she said, gaping at the size of the plate. “I can’t believe you gave me so much food.”

I threw her a curious glance as I started stacking my own plate. “You’re not feeling the effects of the incoming hibernation season, then?”

“No, I am. I am,” she said quickly. “I’m just not used to being offered enough food to fully satisfy it. At least not without being accused of outrageous gluttony.”

My bear grumbled low inside of me, and my fingers tingled, wanting to claw out. Once again, I was glad the bears and wolves lived separately. Otherwise, those Wölfennites the Irish Wolf Kings kidnapped might’ve gotten a glimpse of the not-so-nice side of me. Between them and her mother, I could tell they’d done a number on her head.

If they’d treated her like some kind of irredeemable sinner just for wanting more to eat in winter before hibernation set in, how had she managed in the spring, when bears naturally felt higher than average sexual urges?

The thought of her needing to seek relief from a wolf deepened the growl rumbling low in my chest—and doubled the violence I wanted to unleash on everyone who’d hurt her—and any male werewolf who’d dared to touch her before her Bear Kings. The dark temper I’d inherited from my father threatened to overtake me.

“Can I make you a plate, too?” Sadie’s sweet voice brought me back to the present conversation.

“No, your Mountain King has got it,” I assured her with one of my patented easygoing grins. “Only wish right now is to watch you enjoy this meal after all we’ve put you through to get you here.”

“Oh—okay.” Her face lit up with a shy smile, and that smile was enough to ebb the violent thoughts as we both tucked into our food.

We ate in companionable silence. I loved the way she hummed happily while methodically eating everything I’d put on her plate. I didn’t want a difficult Q&A session to dampen her mood. Or mine.

Seeing her happy made me happy in a way that required none of the usual pretending on my part.

“Could I make you another?” I asked as soon as she finished her first serving.

It was a question that required no answer. I was already back on my feet, piling more food on her plate before she could reply.

“Here—take a couple of these as well for later.” After setting down her second serving of brunch in front of her, I wrapped up two medium-sized blueberry muffins in cloth napkins. “On winter brunch days, I like to tuck a couple away to get me through to supper.”

I held them out, but she eyed them with a hesitant look.

“Do you prefer another kind of muffin? That’s all we have.” I turned back to the tea service, wishing I’d made more treats. “We’ve also got a few mini-scones, but they’re not all that filling, I’m afraid⁠—”

“No, it’s not that.” She took the muffins from me and set them down on the table before I could start rummaging through the tea service again. “It’s just that I don’t understand. Any of this. Why I’ve been—not just kidnapped, but separated from the rest of the Wölfennites and treated so nicely. I keep waiting for the other shoe to drop.”

Alright. I suppose I’d put it off long enough. I sank back into my seat.

“Looks like we’ve hit heavy conversation time,” I said, trying to keep my tone light—and my eyes from drifting down to that magnificent chest of hers. There was no way I was getting through this without spewing in my jeans if I let my gaze go there.

“Where should I start?” I asked with more enthusiasm than I actually felt for my first proper negotiation in… well… ever.

“How about the why of it all?” She set down her fork. “Why would you have me kidnapped all the way from Scotland? Do you bears also have a population problem you’re trying to solve?”

“Ah, not quite.” I settled back in my chair. "Unlike the wolves, the Irish Bear community is mostly concentrated right here in our Secret Kingdom. We’ve had little to no interaction with the human world—what we call The Above.”

She fretted that plump bottom lip of hers again, and I had to stifle a groan before it made it to my own mouth.

“So you don’t know anything about the Canadian bear community either?” Her face fell just a bit. “You don’t have a WolfNet or anything like that?”

“Afraid not. Never had the need for it.” I adjusted to face her fully in my chair. “We’ve no laws against turning outsiders, so our numbers have never really dropped. Here in Ireland, finding a proper mate from a nice, non-bear and foreign population pool is the main reason most of our younger subjects head off to university instead of staying here—even though our school system down here’s better than anything you’d find in The Above.”

“But not you?” she asked.

She peeped over at me with a shy look that made me want to kiss it off her face. Let her know she had no reason to ever be shy with her Mountain King.

“No, not me,” I confirmed with a wry smile. “Truth is…”

I was waiting for you.

But it was too early in the negotiation to tell her that. Didn’t want to scare her off.

Out loud, I finished with, “I didn’t even bother looking. Declan, Cian, and I were so caught up in building and growing our company that the next thing we knew, we were closing in on thirty with no prospects between us.”

I literally had a bear of an appetite, but I set my empty plate aside at that point. There was no way I could go into this next part and eat at the same time.

“You see, Sadie, there are two concepts. You might call them legends, depending on your level of belief. There’s The Prophecy, and there’s The Potential.

“The Prophecy involves this tablet we’ve got—goes back gods only know how many thousands of years. Actually, only the gods would know, since they’re the ones supposed to have etched it up for us.”

Sadie’s brow furrowed straightaway, like I’d set a particularly nasty maths problem in front of her.

Well, I was off to a shite start. Could already see the storm of confusion brewing in those pretty brown eyes. But I pushed on anyway. Better to stumble through it now and take many more questions after.

“In any case, The Prophecy predicted that both the wolf and bear kingdoms would receive a bride each, from across the sea. I can’t say I completely believe in that prediction, myth, or whatever you want to call it.

“But there is another one we have—called The Potential. That’s when all sitting rulers of the Bear Kingdom agree to consider one bride as a shared mate.”

I waited for something—anything—to dawn in her expression. But she kept right on regarding me with that same furrowed brow.

I cursed Declan under my breath for refusing to handle this part.

As COO and second in command, I was meant to be the one making sure everything ran smoothly. Negotiations were supposed to be his department.

Nevertheless, I soldiered on.

“There hasn’t been a three-Bear King Potential in nearly eight hundred years. The king’s mother was a Byzantine-era Slav Tsarina—that’s essentially a princess from old Bulgaria. Back then, there were only two ruling bear lines. But she ended up mothering the Shadow King’s line when she fell pregnant with twins soon after giving birth to the High King’s son. It’s said that the first-born twin was slight and long, with dark hair like hers, and the second-born was large and wide, like the Mountain King. Normally, the second-born would have become the High Prince. But…”

I tilted my head, considering how to phrase the next part. Probably not the best idea to reveal that I came from a long line of petty arseholes, but I’d promised to be honest. “But as the twins grew older, the Mountain King began to suspect the High King was the first-born twin’s father, and he didn’t want to hand over his throne to someone who looked so little like him. It’s said that the High King adored their queen so much that he established a third kingdom line rather than cause her any pain because of the Mountain King’s jealous temper.”

I gave a short shrug. “Anyway, bit of history for you to help you process all of this.”

Sadie didn’t appear to fully understand the lesson. “Okay, that explains some of the paintings I saw on the way. But what does this have to do with me, exactly?”

“Most shared queens, including the Shadow Tsarina, have been others–that's what we call foreign bears,” I explained. “But Cian, Declan—that’s the High King, and me… we’ve never found anyone–outsider or other--that even two of us agreed on. So when we learned that you Canadians had your own bear population—and that one had arrived in Scotland—we knew this meeting had to be arranged.”

Sadie’s brow remained knit, but she started working it out aloud. “So you don’t necessarily believe in The Prophecy… but you kidnapped me in order to take a chance on this Potential?”

“Almost exactly.” I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. At least she understood the bones of it—the tangled mess of myth, duty, and procreation.

“The Shadow King is the true believer in The Prophecy. And at twenty-nine, he’s eager to see it fulfilled.”

“I get that,” she said with a rueful twist of her mouth. “I’m about to turn twenty-four, and I’ve been dying for a mate since I was eighteen. I can’t imagine doing five more years of this.”

Then she winced. “Even though… yeah, kidnapping wasn’t the way to go about it. Still, I want to help the three of you out.”

My heart soared. I hadn’t totally fecked this up. She understood. She was on board. Despite her puritan upbringing, she got it.

But then her expression fell.

“I just don’t know how to help. I mean… I only found out I was a bear—what? A couple of hours ago? I don’t even know how to find this Canadian population of bears you think might hold your Potential.”

I stared at her, stunned. And then realized she truly didn’t get it.

“Sadie,” I said carefully, “do you not understand?”

I leaned forward, holding her gaze so that this time there would be no misunderstanding my explanation.

“The Shadow King and I arranged this meeting with you. We sent an army of Irish Wolves into enemy territory to get you. Based on one picture.”

I let that land.

“You are The Potential. The one we’re hoping to claim. The one we want. The one we risked everything for. You. And no one else.”

Who Me?

Sadie

“I’m The Potential?”

The fulfillment of a prophecy etched out in what sounded like a Ten Commandments-level tablet by the gods who left all of this super-advanced tech behind?

The one the three Irish Bear Kings want to make their queen—like the ones in all those portraits?

No, no, that couldn’t be right. I must have heard him wrong⁠—

“You didn’t mishear me,” Tadhg said preemptively, as if he could sense my thoughts. “Just like with the bear business, I’m one hundred percent serious about us wanting you. But I know…”

He gave me a sympathetic look. “I know this is a lot to process.”

Understatement. Huge, huge understatement.

Being a bear was one thing. But all my adult life, I’d been trying—quietly, politely, desperately—to find someone who might be willing to mate with me. And now here Tadhg, the Mountain King, was telling me I was this “The Potential,” meant for not just one but all three kings. That he and the Shadow King had arranged and funded all of the Wölfennite brides being kidnapped just so they could get to me.

Me. Sadie “Nobody Wants the Bear Who Thinks She’s a She-Wolf” Ellis.

“No...” My voice nearly gave out. I shook my head, feeling dazed—worse than I sometimes did when I woke up from a too-long Winter Sleep, groggy and still exhausted.

“Isn’t this what you wanted, Strawberry?” Tadhg reached out but didn’t quite touch my hand, just settled his much larger one next to it. “Was finding a mate not why you went to Scotland?”

Yes, finding a mate willing to have me was what I wanted—why I’d defied my mother and traveled thousands of miles for the exchange. But something wouldn’t let me answer his questions out loud. I could only stare at him, mouth partially open to say words that never made it to my tongue.

“Is it the literal three-body problem?” Tadhg reached into the pocket of his open plaid button-down and pulled out a folded-up piece of paper. “I know it goes against your Bible, but there are a number of strong arguments for why three mates are better than one.”

“Actually, there’s nothing in our Bible forbidding more than one spouse.” Voice still weak, I managed to choke out a correction. “As Naomi says, that’s part of the extra stuff leaders throughout history made up to control the masses.”

“Okay, so you’re not hung up on that. Good.” He tucked the paper back into his pocket with a wry look and admitted, “I wrote a whole list of pros, starting with division of family labor after you deliver our cubs.”

Something twisted and flipped inside my stomach. “You want children, too?”

“Of course. Future kings to carry on our lines. Though we’re not looking to turn you into an incubator, Strawberry. We can negotiate how many if you’re not comfortable with one son for each kingdom.”

My chest rocked with the sensation of my heart wanting but failing to explode with happiness.

Yes, this was everything I’d ever wanted—more than everything. I could never in my wildest imagination have come up with this—even during the worst of the Spring Fire months when I had to take two showers a day to secretly satisfy the forbidden hunger.

But then Tadhg continued on with, “Though, there is something you should know when it comes to children and a royal marriage. The High King has original claim of you.”

“Original claim?”

Tadhg laid his hand back down next to mine on the table. “Alright, sadly, I was so concerned about you not going for the three kings bit, I didn’t come up with a list of pros for this next part. But, Sadie, our kingdom is incredibly old. So old, I couldn’t give you a start year because we date back to a time before record-keeping. And as with any society that has lasted this long, we have ways and rituals. Rules.”

He averted his eyes so he was looking at the tree line leading out to the lake when he told me, “When it comes to taking a queen, the High King has your first claim—the right of first penetration. Neither I nor the Shadow King can penetrate you in a baby-making manner until he has you first and you’re pregnant with his cub.”

“The High King has the right of first penetration?” I went completely still, everything inside of me screeching to a halt.

And Tadhg grimaced. “You do understand what penetration is—how babies are made, at least among us mammals?”

I did understand. But that wasn’t the reason for my reaction.

It suddenly occurred to me why I was having so much trouble just saying, “Yes, yes, sign me up.”

I narrowed my eyes. “Where is this High King? If he has this all-important first claim, as you mentioned, why isn’t he here requesting a three-spouse marriage, too? Or taking the lead? You’d think it would matter most to him, considering this is his first child we’re talking about.”

Tadhg hesitated. And my heart sank.

That pause told me exactly what my gut had been trying to all along.

“He’s not on board,” I realized out loud. “It’s a three-king plan, but only two of you are behind this. He doesn’t want me.”

“He doesn’t not want you,” Tadhg said carefully. “He didn’t exactly say yes after you were delivered, but he also didn’t say no. He only walked away.”

“Walked away?” I repeated. The image of this unknown High King with the streak in his hair, taking one look at me and running, churned in my stomach. “Walking away from something—from someone—is the exact definition of saying no to it.”

“No, no, not here, Strawberry.” Tadhg leaned in, his eyes taking on a fierce glitter. “It may not look like it, given the way I’m dressed, but our world is quite formal. And that includes yeas and nays. Only a formal no means no. And only a formal yes means yes.”

This time, Tadhg did cover my hand. With both of his. I wasn’t sure if he was comforting me or making sure I didn’t leap up from the table.

Either way, I had no choice but to sit there as he tried to reassure me. “It’s complicated. We sprung this on him, the same as we sprung it on you. And unfortunately, our mateship isn’t a go until the High King says it is. But Declan… he’s still processing all that’s happened, is all.”

Right. Processing.

I suddenly understood why they called this position The Potential. As Naomi was sometimes prone to say, “This is giving me bad vibes.” In this case, bad job candidate vibes.

“And how long will he be processing this?” For the second time that day, I felt compelled to tug my hands back from his grip.

But just like I suspected, Tadhg easily kept me there as he admitted, “By tradition, if a Mountain or Shadow King nominates a Potential, then the High King has three moons to decide—so that would be just after the New Year.”

And by just after the New Year, he meant… “February,” I clarified. “The High King has until February to decide whether he wants to reject me or not? Which, judging by his absence, he probably will. I mean, he’s not even here...”

“Actually, he is?” Tadhg winced. “With the Scottish Wolves on our trail, arranging this meeting has cost us the ability to walk about in The Above. So, here in the Secret Kingdom is the only place he technically can be without jeopardizing our position.”

“He’s here?” I jutted my chin. I think Tadhg actually thought knowing the High King was on the premises would bring me some comfort.

“He’s here, and he can’t be bothered to come find me?” I half asked, half pointed out. “He doesn’t even want to talk to me?”

Tadhg raised one beefy hand to rub the back of his thick neck. “I’ll admit, we’re off to a bad start.”

“It’s more than a bad start.” Taking advantage of his lightened hold, I pulled away and jumped to my feet, spreading my arms to the side. “I mean, how would this even work for the next three months? I just sit around twiddling my thumbs while I wait for him to formally reject me?”

“Again, that’s not a foregone conclusion.” Tadhg also stood up. It was like having a mountain rise in front of you. He blocked out my view of the lake and tree line behind him. And though he wasn’t quite as tall as the Shadow King, I still had to tip my head back to look him in the eye.

Yet his face reddened, and he averted his eyes, as if I were the intimidating one. “There’s, ah… a ritual that governs how the time is spent prior to the High King making his decision. But I was saving that discussion for another time. Perhaps we could talk about it over dinner. Or at tomorrow’s brunch.”

Naomi was definitely right. All my life, I’d been way too compliant. I knew this for truth in that moment because I could pinpoint to the minute exactly when that nonsense stopped.

It was now. Right now. When I refused to continue playing by the Mountain King’s schedule. “No, Tadhg. No more secrets. No more pushing things off to the next meal. Tell me everything. Tell me everything right now.”

“Everything’s a lot,” he hedged.

I just stared back at him, unblinking this time. Waiting for my answers. All my answers.

“Alright.” His eyes bounced everywhere but down at me. “By tradition, the other king—or kings, in this case—are meant to train you so you’re ready for the wedding night and, ah… know what to do and expect. It’s meant to be a kindness for The Potential. If the High King says yes at your Presentation Ceremony, then you’ll have the knowledge you’ll need to please him and achieve your own pleasure on your first wedding night.”

Tadhg stopped there. At least he tried to. No-longer-compliant me jumped on his pause with a, “And if the High King says no?”

Tadhg’s embarrassed look turned wary.

I could tell he didn’t want to answer, but to his credit, he didn’t drag it out this time. “Then The Potential is sent home happy. Her pleasure will have been attended to while she waited, but if the High King says no, she is not allowed to stay with the other king or kings. And, ah, vice versa.”

“Sent home?” I echoed.

Tadhg raised his hands to hover beside my shoulders. Like he wanted to clasp them. But he didn’t. “A few hundred years ago, we learned the hard way that making the High King's decision a final split was the best way to handle a nay.”

He lowered his arms, hands twitching by his sides. “I could tell you all about it, but that would be another history lesson.”

I didn’t want another history lesson. Just like I didn’t want my only true offer of mateship ever to come with a huge High King-shaped condition.

“This is the most messed-up bride selection process I’ve ever heard of.” I flared my eyes. Then demanded, “How would that even work? When you’re not even allowed to touch me?”

“We’re not allowed to penetrate you, Strawberry. We can touch you as much as we want.” Tadhg’s gaze heated, boring into me in a way that made my belly flutter. “And believe me, there’s a lot to be done outside of a baby claim.”

He stepped closer, erasing the slice of space between us. “We call it tradition, but in actuality, it’s more like an excuse.”

Something rose and lodged in my throat, forcing me to swallow. “An excuse?”

The hungry look was back in his eyes, even though we’d just eaten. “Yes, an excuse. By tradition, the king who knows what he wants—who he wants—spends his decision time doing everything he can to send The Potential into estrus.”

Estrus. I had just enough animal husbandry knowledge to know that was another word for heat. Felines, rabbits, and she-wolves went into heat—though the latter much more spontaneously than the first two.

Horses, sows, and apparently female bears went into estrus.

“Wha…?” Now my face heated, though, thank goodness, it didn’t show under my deeply melanated skin the way it had on Tadhg’s. “Wha-what happens if you—if training sends me into estrus?”

Another hot look. “If that happens, the High King will come to you, and all debate about whether he’ll have you or not will come to an end.”

That sounded terrible. And strangely arousing. But mostly terrible.

“I don’t want to trick anyone into having me.” I clasped a hand around one arm and turned my gaze to my half-eaten second serving of food.

“And I don’t know if I can agree to this, especially having never met this bear that may or may not reject me.”

I’d been rejected—like, a lot. But this was different, somehow.

If the High King says no, The Potential is sent home happy.

That was what Tadhg had claimed.

But the thing was, I didn’t think that would be the case. I’d been disappointed and upset by the wolves who’d rejected me.

But I had a bad feeling about this. If the High King said no to my becoming their queen, I’d be beyond upset. More like completely and utterly crushed.

Maybe Tadhg read that fear on my face.

“Look, I’ll go into the palace and have a discussion with him. See where his head’s at. He’s not exactly talking to me right now. He can be stubborn—I mean, he’d make a mule look like the most reasonable of animals.”

Tadhg took a step back and went around me toward the palace door I came out of. “But I’ll have a go at breaking through to him on at least meeting with you.”

So, he’d have to beg the High King just to talk to me? My chest was already cracking, and I hadn’t even met this guy yet.

Tadhg made me feel so wanted. And the anonymous High King made me feel just the opposite.

“Tadhg…” I began to say.

“Just hold on, Strawberry.” Tadhg turned around to face me but kept backing away toward the arched black door. “Let me try to arrange a meeting. Stay right here, and don’t go anywhere until I come back.”

He made his exit before I could argue with him. For a giant, he moved awfully fast when it came to avoiding conflict.

The door whispered closed behind him, and I was left standing there, alone with my thoughts. Trying to hold all the pieces in my head without breaking them.

Bear. Mates. Potential. Training. Kings.Queen. Judgment.

It was too much. The familiar urge to whittle while I fretted came over me. And even though my knife had fallen—or been removed from my pocket somewhere between here and Scotland, my eyes drifted to a nearby tree line.

A few moments later, I found myself foraging for the right stick through what felt more like a small woods when you were inside it. This secret kingdom place was some kind of intense overlay, but the trees operated like the real deal, with sticks and branches that fell to its floor, just like back in Ontario.

With racked focus, I scoured the wood’s dirt- and leaf-covered floor until I came upon a large hunk of a stick lying just a meter or two away from where the tree hedge stopped near the carved stone steps that led up to the Mountain King’s fortress.

“Yes!” I plucked the prize piece of wood from the ground and held it up like a winning trophy, right before the wind shifted.

My nose filled with a new smell. A delicious mix of sweet and a complementary sour. What was that?

I turned around, nose first, following the waft of smell to…

I froze. A bear. A huge, scary brown bear stood directly behind me.

The Plum Bear

A bear. A bear was standing right there on all fours, staring straight at me.

And sure, I’d learned a lot this already very, very long morning, including my own status as a female bear shifter.

But half of me was still human, and human instinct is human instinct. Especially when it came to creatures that were much larger than you with razor-sharp teeth.

I opened my mouth to scream, but before I could let it out, a huge paw spread in front of my entire face, its rubbery palm blocking out everything beyond it.

He didn’t cover my mouth, but my rising scream ebbed back. Partly out of surprise that he had held up the bear equivalent of a stop sign in front of my face, and partly out of surprise that it wasn’t ripping that same face off.

We stood there like that for several moments, until the stop-sign paw was withdrawn to reveal the bear, now regarding me with a wry, censuring look. One that I translated as, “Seriously, don’t do that.”

So, I didn’t do that.

Curiosity replaced fear as I took in the large beast standing before me. And that was when I noticed it had eyes the same color as a gray lake and a streak of white running through its fur that started a few inches above its left eye and disappeared over one fuzzy white ear. It stood in sharp contrast to his dark-brown fur, but unlike Tadhg and Cian, he wasn’t wearing a medallion on a long chain.

“You must be Brigid’s husband!” I realized with a sigh of relief. “So this is what a plum smells like!”

I indulged myself in a huge sniff. “She’s right. Your scent is delightful. Sweet and sour, sharp and rich, all at once. I’ve never smelled anything like it before. Want a muffin?”

I held out one of the muffins Tadhg had encouraged me to take with me. I’d stuffed them into both dress pockets as an emergency snack before setting out to find an emergency mental-health whittling stick.

The bear squinted. Then reared back and bared his teeth.

Making me cringe. Stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Who offers a bear a muffin?

I nearly jerked my hand away.

But then he deftly plucked the treat from my outstretched palm without so much as touching me with that razor-sharp maw.

The muffin disappeared into his mouth with one quick tip back of his furry head, and his lips curved up in a smile. For me or the muffin, I didn’t know.

Either way, it pleased me that my gift had pleased him.

“I’m glad you liked it.” I put the stick in my now empty muffin pocket. “I wish you could tell me if your brother likes muffins, too. That’s what I did back in St. Ailbe, when I was trying to get this one male to like me. I baked.”

My shoulders sagged. “It didn’t work. And your brother doesn’t sound like the kind of guy who can be swayed by baked goods, anyway.”

The bear tilted his head to the side, in a way I translated as, “Don’t be so sure about that.”

“So, you think I should make him some kind of bread or muffin?” I asked hopefully. “Wait, what am I saying? He has his own chef. Obviously, my home-baked goods won’t compare.”

A sullen frustration made me shake my head. “Ugh! I hate being back in this position again. It’s Faoiltiarn all over again. Me trying desperately to get somebody to like me who obviously doesn’t want to like me. But even worse, because your brother-in-law told me that he and the Shadow King are fully on board to mate with me. I guess it’s the High King holding things up, and he’s got all the power in this situation. I’ve got to be trained to please him, and I think I’m supposed to perform for him or something?”

I fretted my bottom lip as old, familiar feelings of not being good enough—good enough not even being within the realm of my possibility—washed over me.

“You know, I don’t have a ton of pride. Especially when it comes to males,” I admitted to Brigid’s husband. “But this feels crazy, like it’s crossing some kind of line. Now that I know I’m a bear, I don’t want to keep on chasing after males who don’t want me. I should tell Tadhg no. Ask him to drop me off…”

I mentally searched, and more frustration welled up inside my stomach when I realized out loud, “Goodness, I don’t even know where I’d go. Scotland’s all wolves who don’t want me. And my village in Canada no longer feels like home. I guess because it never truly was.…”

My chest clenched as all my St. Ailbe memories rewrote themselves with a “you’re actually a bear” filter.

“I don’t know if Brigid told you this yet, but my mom didn’t even tell me I was one of you. I just found out this morning. How messed up is that?”

Brigid’s mate tipped his head to the side in a way that said, “Pretty messed up.”

And I found myself rubbing a thumb over the thick branch sticking out of my right dress pocket.

“But I probably should go back to Canada. Get answers. Maybe find other bears. Or just one—one bear who’d actually want me without any caveats. You know, for once in my life, have some pride instead of settling for somebody’s table scraps. Want another muffin?”

The bear hesitated.

“Don’t worry, there’s a lot more for me back at the house.”

A warm feeling filled my chest as I told Brigid’s husband, “Tadhg had a ton of food put out for me. It was nice. So nice.”

In a way that made the question of whether I’d take him up on his conditional offer not as clear-cut as I’d like it to be.

The bear wasn’t nearly as conflicted about my offer, though. He plucked the second muffin out of my palm and tipped his head back to toss it into his razor-sharp maw with a great CLWOMP! of his jaw.

How fascinating.

It made me wonder what else there was to find in this Secret Kingdom, who else there was to meet.

But…

“I should go back to Canada,” I told the bear. “Tadhg’s reasonable. He’d understand why I’d need to get some answers and why I’d rather try my luck there without risking getting my ego re-broken. But what if my mother joined a wolf community for a reason? Maybe there aren’t really any bears in Canada. Maybe that’s why she was all alone?”

My eyes fell on the stone steps leading up to the Mountain Fortress.

“What if Tadhg and the Shadow King are my best chance—my only chance—of making my dreams come true? I mean, I don’t hate them. In fact, if not for this High King snag, I’d be pinching myself. And this training stuff…”

My cheeks heated, but I had to admit, “It doesn’t sound terrible. Sometimes—usually during the spring—I can’t help touching myself in ways forbidden by our Ordnung. That’s the set of rules that govern the Wölfennite community I’m from. But I’m not a wolf, I’m a bear, and Tadhg made me wonder what it’d be like to have someone else touch me.”

I searched the ground and found a few other candidates for whittling sticks.

“Maybe it would be nice with them,” I told Brigid’s husband as I continued to forage. “Not like the bad sex I had with Reuben. He’s the guy back in St. Ailbe I used to bake for, but it turned out he was just using me.”

I sighed. Strange how that felt like such a distant memory already, even though it only happened a few months ago. “At least Tadhg has pure intentions. Even if they’re governed by your brother, the High King, who may never come around.”

The bear didn’t respond to my dig about his brother. Just continued to regard me with a neutral expression. And a few muffin crumbs stuck in the fur around his mouth.

Honestly, the crumbs and non-judgment in his gray eyes made him easier to talk to.

I folded my arms over my chest, hugging myself as I parsed my dilemma out loud.

“It’s such a long shot, but so was coming to Scotland. Anywhere but here—that’s what I kept telling myself when I left St. Ailbe. And technically, this secret kingdom is anywhere but here, even if it wasn’t my intended anywhere but here.”

I threw the bear a rueful smile over my shoulder as I bent down to pick up another stick. “I wonder if you felt like this when you defied your brother in order to marry Brigid. It was a risk, but it all worked out. She’s so happy. I can’t even imagine being that happy.”

I began sorting through all the sticks I’d picked up while rambling on, tossing away the ones that were thinner than I wanted or spongy from rot.

“But what if I could? What if I let Tadhg and Cian train me, and the High King actually ended up saying yes to accepting me as their wife? After everything I’ve been through, don’t I owe it to myself to at least try before I’m handed over to this mysterious High King for judgment?”

I waited for a response. But, of course, it never came.

Who knew if the bear even understood me while shifted? I mean, I’d never remembered anything from any of my full-moon nights—not even my true form.

I thought of Naomi’s weirdly cynical and almost scientific view of the world. Maybe I was giving this bear more humanity credit than it was due. Like when I kicked the fox out of the hen house with a stern warning, instead of snapping its neck like any other Wölfennite would have done.

But I wasn’t a wolf. I no longer had to play by St. Ailbe’s rules.

“Oh, my heavens,” I said to the bear who may or may not have understood a word I said. “I think I know what I have to do.”

The bear tilted his head in a way that could have been interpreted as curiosity.

I laughed at him. And myself.

“Sorry for unloading on you. But Brigid was right. Even in bear form, you’re a really good listen⁠—”

“Sadie? Sadie? Where are you?!”

Tadhg’s voice in the distance cut me off.

“I guess that’s my cue to go.” I looked over my shoulder, where I could hear but not see Tadhg calling for me. “Thanks for listening.”

The bear just blinked at me.

But that was okay.

“Believe it or not, you helped me make my decision,” I let him know. “Now all I have to do is tell Tadhg.”

I gave him a little wave before hustling back through the hedge woods toward the palace’s front lawn.

Tadhg wasn’t going to like what I had to say, but I was done with being walked all over. I’d made up my mind, and I was prepared to stand firm in my decision—even if it meant losing my first and maybe only opportunity to become a wife and mother.

Conditions

Cian

MK: Palace

The one-word message from the Mountain King made me suspect that the negotiations with Sadie hadn’t gone well, even before I arrived in the gallery hallway to find Tadhg pounding on Declan’s black glass door with the side of his hammy fist.

“Don’t be such a dryshite, sulking in your room like some kind of fecking cladharaire.” The rough Mountain King accent that Dublin had civilized out of Tadhg was back in full force as he banged on the door. “Have ye not a care about our future happiness? She’s so upset about ye not showing up for her, it might tank the entire deal. All I’m asking is that ye talk to her. If ye’re going to resist, let her see ye actively resist—Oh good, ye’re here, Shadow King. Can you sci-fi this door open, then, so I can beat some sense into the High King?”

I set the black leather duffel bag I’d packed for my hopeful stay at the palace down on the floor.

I doubted he was serious about beating Declan. One of his ancestors had tried that, and doing so had invited sanctions and led to several generations of second-in-command Shadow Kings.

And yes, I could override the lock on the god-tech door, but…

I glanced at the room next door—Sadie’s. Technically, the suites were soundproofed in ways no human tech could replicate. But she didn’t need to come out to hear Tadhg shouting.

I thought of our future queen, awkward and shy like me, but with a much prettier smile. I’d known her less than a day, and already my internal code had rewritten itself with a new root-level priority: protect(Sadie).

Instead of pulling out my phone to punch in the override codes on Declan’s locked door, I flipped the sign I’d made when I passed the empty portico: Sadie where?

Tadhg froze, fist halfway to banging on Declan’s door again. “She’s not out on the portico where I left her?”

I shook my head, chest clenching. He’d left her on the portico?

The one that sat only a few meters away from the tower that transported anyone who wished to go to the Wicklow Gate to The Above in the blink of an eye.

I’d sent out a kingdom-wide announcement that the gate was closed until further notice. But Sadie didn’t have access to our kingdom net.

And the mansion that housed our stone circle entrance was designed to keep people out. Not in.

She hadn’t screamed.

But she might have run.

Tadhg must have thought the same thing. With a curse, he took off toward the portico door, employing the speed that had made him such a quality asset when he played for Trinity’s rugby team.

I followed after him, hating that my gut feeling had been wrong. I’d thought her bewilderment would turn into understanding once she talked to Tadhg.

It had not.

The portico was still empty when we stepped back outside, and Sadie’s strawberry scent was nowhere to be found among the array of foods kept warm on the god tech table. A quick glance toward the expanse of green between where we stood and the tower didn’t yield any sight of her either.

“Sadie! Sadie! Where are you?”

Tadhg was already on the High Palace’s front lawn, yelling out for the female bear we’d hoped to make our queen.

By the time I reached him, the Mad Mountain King gleam Tadhg always fought so hard against glowed hot in his hazel eyes.

“I shouldn’t have made it seem like a choice and left her alone,” Tadhg bit out between clenched teeth. “She’d been so upset about Declan not being there, I’d prioritized trying to get him to come ’round.”

Bitter regret shone in his eyes, followed by a hard squint of anger. “We should have done this in the fortress, like I said. We need to hunt her down, drag her back here, and make her understand what we mean when we tell her not to run from bears.”

That declared, he cupped his hands again to yell out, “Sadie, if you’re in vicinity, you need to show yourself. Now!”

That last word tore out of his throat on a bearish roar.

This was not good, verging on catastrophic. Sadie had run. And Tadhg was no longer trying to control his Mad Mountain King instincts.

This was what Tadhg hadn’t wanted. Why he wasn’t there when Sadie first woke up.

After it became clear that Declan wasn’t going to run the negotiations like he’d always done for our trio, Tadhg had recused himself to the sitting room “to breathe so that I don’t get overeager and show her the Mad Mountain King side.”

He’d done an admirable job during that first meeting. Staying calm, even when she tried to run.

But now his bear hummed beneath the surface, glowing in his eyes as he cupped his hands to yell out, “Sadie! Sadie! Where are you?”

Couldn’t say I blamed him. My own bear growled low in my chest as I pulled out the old GoNoTo phone I’d kludged into a remote control and monitor for all the kingdom’s atmospheric and infrastructural god tech.

But now I had two problems: getting Sadie back here and making sure Tadhg stuck to the original plan.

Hold on.…

I lifted an eyebrow at the perimeter report I’d pulled up on my screen, then grabbed Tadhg’s arm to get his attention and make him look, too.

He shoved my hand away. “No, no, I shouldn’t have ever agreed to your approach.” At this point, his voice was more bear than human. “The stakes are too high—hold on, are you trying to say the tower hasn’t been accessed since you came through hours ago?”

The bear glow in his eyes abruptly ceased, and Tadhg broke off his rant to snatch the phone I’d been waving in his face. His pupils dilated as he racked focus on the time stamp for the tower’s access log.

“But how is that possible?” he asked. “If she didn’t run, where is she?”

“Hi, here I am! Here I am!”

As if in answer to Tadhg’s question, the smell of strawberries hit our noses, right before we turned to see Sadie emerging from the hedge woods.

Relief slammed into me at the sight of her shuffling across the lawn toward us, an assortment of branches jutting from both pockets of her adorable strawberry-print dress. Her thick, wavy curls blew back in the manufactured breeze, which had been scheduled to shift toward the lake earlier in the hour. That explained why we hadn’t been able to catch her scent when we came outside.

“Sorry about that,” she said when she reached us. “I went looking for a stick. Then I ran into Brigid’s husband. And I ended up talking to him for a while about your offer, working through all of this.”

Tadhg’s eyes no longer glowed, but the tight set of his jaw told me he wasn’t happy about our Potential talking to another bear.

All his adult life, he’d fought hard against his Mad Mountain King instincts. Had chosen a boring COO life in The Above to keep that side of himself in check.

Yet here he was, straining against the seams again.

Her mere presence cracked his mask. And the idea of her talking to someone else—confiding in a bear who wasn’t one of her kings—threatened to shatter it.

So, even though he was supposed to be the main line of communication for the both of us when it came to Sadie, I brought out my whiteboard and wrote, giving him time to slip back on the affable mask he’d ripped off when he’d thought she’d pulled a runner.

I turned the whiteboard to her: Decision?

“Kind of.” She glanced at Tadhg nervously, probably sensing if not completely comprehending his internal struggle. “I actually have a few counter requests.”

Counter requests. Interesting. I lowered the board and waited for her to continue.

“You said everything was up for negotiation.” She averted her shy gaze to somewhere beyond Tadhg’s shoulder. “So, I wanted to talk with you about this training.…”

Not good. Our entire plan was underpinned by the training we’d give her.

Tadhg and I exchanged a look.

And mask back on, he returned to talking for the both of us with a much gentler tone. “I said we were open to negotiation, Strawberry. But some things aren’t up for discussion. Especially when it comes to your training.”

“Oh.” Her shoulders sagged.

And my bear made a disgruntled sound inside my chest.

Did she truly not want us, then? Were none of the sparks I’d felt from the moment she sat up in that box, read my sign, and asked if I was the embodiment of Death present inside of her?

Also, we were not up for negotiation when it came to training. But there was no scenario where either of us would force ourselves upon her if she did not wish for our touch.

Tadhg shifted his huge body with a conflicted look.

“Strawberry…”

“It’s just, I was hoping there would be kissing.” Sadie eyed the ground miserably. “I don’t want just touching. I want kissing, too. But if you’re not willing to do that…”

“Sorry, are you fecking kidding me?” Tadhg asked. “You actually thought kissing was something you could negotiate?”

Sadie didn’t answer. Just continued to stare at the ground miserably. And her voice was much quieter when she said, “I’d hoped. Just hoped.”

Tadhg stepped closer and put a finger under her chin to tip up her face.

“And I’m telling you, kissing’s not a thing you hope for with us. Because it’s a non-negotiable. We’re going to kiss you, Sadie Strawberry. We’re going to kiss you everywhere. There’s no getting out of that.”

I had no wish to see Sadie miserable or any more confused than we’d already made her. But the sweet smile that lit up her face after Tadhg told her that almost made her few moments of pain worth it.

“Was that the only thing holding you back from agreeing to your Potential Training?” Tadhg’s voice had become a quiet, confidential husk, even though there was no one else around to hear him and Sadie talking.

“No, not the only thing.” She took a step back, away from Tadhg’s touch. And this time, when she lifted her chin, she met both of our eyes.

“I have two more conditions. And these aren’t negotiable for me.”

Pact

Sadie

A couple of years after her sister, Tara, ran away from St. Ailbe, Naomi started talking in a peculiar way.

More and more, she used strange idioms and curious turns of phrase that were completely foreign to me, yet somehow always made sense and often described things perfectly. I privately labeled it Naomi Speak.

And I’d been using it like a second language ever since waking up in a glass coffin.

In Naomi Speak, my first day in the Secret Kingdom was a whole situation.

Tadhg agreed to my conditions:

#1: Training had to include kissing.

#2: I wasn’t waiting three months for the decision from “on high.” Their High King only had until the New Year to decide.

#3: No matter how things turned out, afterwards, they had to let me check on Naomi to make sure she was alright and take me to her if she wasn’t.

Tadhg had crooked his head at a reluctant angle at the last two. But in the end, he assented with a regal nod that reminded me he was a king. Even if he didn’t look like one in jeans and a plaid shirt worn over a black t-shirt.

“Should we start your training now?” he asked. “Seal the pact with a kiss?”

I jolted at the offer. Then surprised myself when I answered without hesitation, “Yes, please!”

The Mountain King’s eyes darkened, and once again, his hand stole under my chin, tipping my face up to him.

“Do you, Sadie Ellis, agree to be our Potential—to let us court and prepare you for the High King’s yea or nay in good faith?”

This wasn’t any kind of ceremony. We were standing on a lawn with the Shadow King as our only witness.

Yet there was a weirdly solemn feeling in my chest as I answered, “Yes.” And I got so lost in Tadhg’s intent gaze, I almost forgot to add, “As long as you agree to all three of my conditions.”

“We do,” the Mountain King vowed, his gaze as solemn as I felt. “You have our word on this.”

Then he curled a hand around my neck and kissed me. A soft, exploring press to my mouth that felt like a careful sip and lingered like the last notes of a song.

Even after he pulled away.

My first kiss. I’d thought it would feel like being dropped back into the frying pan to get scrambled.

But no… it felt like the last slat on a roof being raised, something final clicking into place.

Maybe Tadhg had felt the click, too. “Ah Jaysus, yer lips taste as good as ye smell.”

He rubbed a thumb over my cheek, his gaze tender. “Something tells me your Mountain King’s about to get addicted to this mouth. Won’t be long till he’s absolutely ruined for anything else.”

Addiction. Ruin. Those were very bad things.

But Tadhg made them sound like good things.

Like very bad good things he wanted to do. With me.

“Aw, feck, Strawberry, don’t look at me like that.” Tadhg’s voice took on an accent I hadn’t heard before. Thicker than the one he’d used to explain everything to me, and rougher, too. “I’ve done an admirable job of resisting ye up until now. Don’t break me before ye’ve had time to rest up for what’s to come.”

I had no idea how I was looking at him, but I liked this. I liked feeling wanted. Like someone a male had to resist.

“Alright, naughty Strawberry, enough of that.” The Mountain King let out a low groan before clasping my shoulders and turning me around. “Cian’s turn.”

To my surprise, the Shadow King was already holding up a sign:

Agree to be our Potential w/ 3 conditions attached?

☐ YES

☐ NO

He’d drawn a checkbox in front of both of the possible answers, and he handed me the fat marker.

No more frying pan. The sizzling had been replaced by fizzy bubbles of delight.

I suppressed the urge to giggle as I put an X in front of the YES option, wondering if the Shadow King would also seal the deal with a⁠—

The marker fell out of my hands when Cian crashed into me. No longer an ethereal moon but a ravenous animal. Drinking, not sipping. Taking my lips in huge gulps as his tongue delved between them, tangling with mine.

“By the gods, Shadow King,” Tadhg groused. “I said rest, not a full-body snog. Put her down, will ye?”

Put me down?

Cian pulled back his mouth, and that was when I realized I was no longer standing.

Sometime during that intense kiss, I’d either climbed or been lifted. Either way, my legs were now wrapped around the Shadow King’s waist, and his long fingers cupped my bottom, holding me steady.

Apparently, he was much, much stronger than his lean frame suggested.

I couldn’t remember ever being picked up. My mother had more than insinuated a few times that I’d been born too heavy and had only become a bigger and bigger problem for her since.

So there were no words…

No words to describe the sensation of being held like this. Kissed like this.

But I tried.

“That was…” I breathed out a lot of embarrassment and St. Ailbe conditioning to admit, “That was really nice. I liked it so much. My belly is tingling.”

His sea-blue gaze had darkened, and his eyes lingered on my lips.

But he set me down as Tadhg instructed, his face an ethereal being’s promise of things to come.

“Alright, Sadie, it’s time to go home.”

Tadhg’s larger hand once again enveloped mine, and the Shadow King waved with one tilt of his wrist before the Mountain King escorted me back to the side of the palace with the interior door to my room.

Home.

I’d only been here a few hours, but somehow the word already felt right, even though questions continued to percolate in my throat. I shot him several nervous glances.

Until Tadhg said, “Is there anything else you’re wanting to ask me, Strawberry?”

His regular accent was back. Smooth and easy-going, with an ever-present tint of amusement.

“Did you have…” I tried to figure out a judicious way to put it. “…more than two parents growing up?”

“No, I did not,” he answered. “I had a father and a mother. Then just a father after my mother passed.”

“I’m sorry for your loss.”

He let out a heavy sigh. “Me, too.”

The silence came again. Much more awkward this time.

But the blurting disease made me ask, “Was that strange for you? Watching me kiss the Shadow King?”

This time, Tadhg turned his head to regard me, amusement glinting in his hazel eyes. “Are you asking if I was jealous?”

“Ye-yes, I—I guess I am,” I stammered.

He tilted his head. “Relieved, actually. That I wasn’t.”

My brows drew together in surprise.

“Historically, Mountain Kings aren’t great at sharing,” he went on, voice quieter now. “We’re a peaceful kingdom, but nearly every war in our history started because one of my predecessors couldn’t let go.”

He looked away. “And my da… Let’s just say my mam had stopped loving him by the time Brigid was born. But she stayed. Somewhat out of duty. But mostly out of fear.”

When Tadhg looked back at me, there was something unguarded in his expression. “I’ve been trying not to be like him ever since.”

His jaw worked, and a pained shadow passed over his face as we came to a stop in front of the exterior door to my room.

“I’m sorry for bringing it up,” I said, hating that I’d killed the mood in Naomi Speak.

“Don’t be. So far, your willingness to say exactly what’s on your mind to me is what I like most about you.”

His thoughtful expression morphed into something much more intense. “Pardon my language, Strawberry, but my parents’ marriage was a piece of shite. They couldn’t talk to each other. My mam was afraid of my da. I don’t want that for us. For our children. If you ever have a question for me, ask it...”

I opened my mouth.

“…when you see me next. Like I said, now’s the time for rest.”

Any protest I might have had was pushed back by another soft kiss. Another lingering song. And my heart continued to beat to the melody when he let go of my hand and said, “Good sleep, Sadie.”

Limits

Declan

So far, I’d managed to avoid the two kings who had completely derailed my next two years in less than two days. There’d been arrangements to make—though not as many as I’d thought.

When I called my assistant, Gerard, to let him know about my hiatus, he’d acted like I’d come down with early-onset dementia.

“Yes, the PR package is all set up and ready to launch,” Gerard said in the same tone he used to remind the cleaning service never to enter our suite if I was still in the office, no matter the hour. “Eileen and I have been working on it for weeks.”

So not only had Gerard been in contact with Tadhg’s executive assistant, but…

“You were putting together a PR package for my hiatus, and it didn’t occur to you to consult me about it?”

“Eileen said you weren’t to be bothered with it. Same as Davos. We cleared your schedule without interruption,” Gerard replied in his defense. “By the way, The Irish Times is asking to move next year’s summit. Any idea how long this hiatus is meant to last? Eileen gave us a six to sixteen-month window, which... raised a few flags.”

Of course it did.

I hadn’t taken six days off in a row in years. Gerard and the rest of the team probably reckoned Tadhg and I were having some kind of twin mental breakdown.

My jaw clenched. I wanted to correct him. To say there’d been some kind of administrative mix-up. That I wasn’t about to step away from the helm of the fastest-growing tech company in Europe for over a year. That I’d be back in the office shortly.

I just had to pop over to Scotland to clean up one last piece of bear business.

That was what I wanted to say, what I’d been trying to say for the steadily increasing hours between now and when I discovered the other two Irish Bear Kings had completely fucked our ability to do business in The Above.

“Declan?” My assistant’s voice cut through the rising static in my brain. “Do you have an answer for me? Or The Irish Times?”

I gritted my teeth. But in the end, all that came out was, “Hold off on the announcement package for the hiatus until you hear otherwise from me.”

“Will do.”

Gerard sounded relieved. He’d probably thought I was calling to say I no longer needed an executive assistant while I was secretly checked into a psychiatric facility.

“And as long as I have you on the phone, there are a few more questions I’ve been fielding from the teams⁠—”

Questions with answers I already knew I didn’t have. I ended the call before he could finish, hating this situation.

Hating myself for not being able to de-escalate this disaster like any CEO of a multi-billion-dollar company should.

I tried to work. The hiatus hadn’t been announced, so as far as everyone else knew, I’d just stopped answering my carefully curated-by-Gerard email and abruptly canceled all in-person meetings for a day or two.

There were still plenty of reports to follow up on, and of course, I’d have to tap our chief strategy officer to return to the GoNoTo table and close the deal I’d been working on before Tadhg and Cian unleashed this unmitigated clusterfuck into my life.

But without the stimulus of the outside human world, the words on my laptop began to swim. The winter hibernation instinct kicking in, threatening to pull me under.

Until, all of a sudden, I was being awakened by pings on the kludged GoNoTo phone the Shadow King had given us to use whilst in the Secret Kingdom.

I blinked with the bleary-eyed grogginess of incoming hibernation at a new series of texts from the Mountain King, appearing underneath the ones I’d been ignoring all day.

But unlike the messages I’d swiped away about falling for his honey trap of “just meeting” with The Potential he and the Shadow King had chosen and abducted without any weigh-in from me, this one started with a one-word text.

MK: Update.

MK: So, while you had your head all the way up your ass, she countered our Potential offer. She’s only giving you half the time to make up your mind.

SK: Deadline’s hardcoded for New Year’s Day now. No decision by then, and she’ll terminate the deal before you can.

MK: Since you weren’t there to do your job—by assignment and tradition—Shadow King and me had no choice but to agree to her terms.

SK: Suboptimal launch to our courtship protocol. Compatibility workflow would’ve deployed cleaner if you’d onboarded with The Potential as planned.

MK: Her name is Sadie, by the way.

SK: Though, Tadhg’s already rebranded her as Strawberry in his system files.

MK: Because she smells unbelievably delicious.

MK: Why aren’t you answering, then, lad? Too busy holed up in your room like a teenage girl upset about her favorite boy band breaking up?

So the real Mountain King was back. And baiting me.

Gritting my jaw, I closed my laptop and gave my full attention to answering his enraging message.

HK: After your betrayal, I’m drafting an email to my personal lawyer, actually. Seeing how much it’ll cost me to dissolve our business partnership.

SK: Solid threat. My predictive model still puts the probability of you pushing the kill button on this at 27.5%, rounding up.

MK: It was 98% within an hour of delivery. So, we were happy when you just walked away.

My bear growled low inside me.

Exactly what every CEO wanted to hear—that the numbers are already stacked against him.

I needed to end this fiasco. End it before the odds dropped even further out of my favor.

Instead, I typed…

HK: You’ll have your answer by the end of the year.

MK: I’ve a feeling it’ll come sooner.

SK: I as well.

It was only words on a screen, but I could feel both of them laughing at me. Not taking me seriously in a way they’d never dared before.

I glared at the phone, vowing to make them eat their words.

Possibly as early as tomorrow.

SADIE

I didn’t think I’d be able to sleep, not with the sun still hanging over the lake in its late-afternoon glow—at least, according to the scene playing on my wall.

But I lay down in the oversized circular bed anyway, hoping to pass a couple of hours before it felt acceptable to go looking for dinner.

And then I woke…

Not lying down. Not clothed. Naked in a way I never was outside the brief seconds it took to step into a bath.

I wasn’t in a bath, though. I was sitting upright, facing the lake wall, which now contained a view of the rising morning sun. My back was resting against something—no, someone.

My sense of smell fought through the fog just enough to register the scent of butter, bread, and sugar. Like Brigid’s, but different. Less sweet bread and more like a pie crust.

Tadhg.

This must be what the Mountain King smelled like—his real scent, unmasked by cologne.

But I couldn’t see him. He sat directly behind me, his giant, tree-trunk legs bent and bracketing my waist. His chin was nestled into my shoulder, his beard brushing my neck. There was also something pressing into my lower back, hard as steel and covered in one thin cloth barrier.

Suddenly, I understood with a new kind of certainty how poor Eve must have felt. I clamped my knees together and began to raise my hands to cover my exposed chest, only to freeze at the even more shocking sight waiting at the edge of the massive bed.

Cian, the ever-silent Shadow King, kneeled there. His skin, pale as milk, gleamed in stark contrast to the jet-black fall of his hair. And the ink on his skin. It wasn’t just his hands. Those strange god-tech symbols ran up the length of both arms and over his shoulders. As if the gods he praised had written all over him.

He wasn’t bare, like me, but wore only a pair of black cotton briefs. And the tent in their middle was what Naomi would call a context clue for what was pressing against my spine.

“What the…” I shifted between Tadhg’s thighs.

“Ssh…” he hushed in my ear. “You’re alright, aren’t you? Remember we discussed this?”

“Remember?” My voice cracked.

“Your training,” he said, gently but firmly. Like a patient, giant teacher. “We must prepare you for the High King. Learn your body. Teach you how to receive him. This is what you agreed to when we made our pact.”

“Oh.” My heart thundered. I let out a shaky breath. “I thought there’d be more kissing. I liked that.”

The Mountain King chuckled, the sound vibrating through my spine.

“There will be kissing, Strawberry,” he promised. “We liked that, too.”

After years of being treated as ugly and repulsive by the males of St. Ailbe, my heart fluttered to hear him say that he liked kissing me. That he wanted more.

But then his affable voice darkened. “Cian, you may begin. Start at her feet,” he ordered, “and don’t stop until she’s screaming… and begging for more.”

The Shadow King took hold of my foot and massaged the arch with his thumbs. A strange thrill shot up my leg, straight into my spine, and my head fell back against Tadhg’s shoulder with a helpless moan.

He rumbled again, his hands finding my breasts. “Look at you,” he teased. “And we’ve only just begun.”

Oh my…

I swallowed hard.

What had I signed myself up for?

Survey

CIAN

This was what I’d been waiting for, ever since our Scottish source sent that picture to us of our future queen.

I started at her feet, pressing my lips to the top before moving to the bump above her ankle bone, beginning my not entirely scientific observations.

I could sense Tadhg working her breasts, which, unfortunately, compromised the purity of our erotic survey.

But I didn’t dare shoot him a “stop it” look. My cock was already straining dangerously at the first engagement. I feared what might happen if I allowed myself to watch him cradle and knead her fantastic cíochai while I kissed her calf... the top of her knee... the back of her knee.

She moaned, and the strawberry scent intensified, filling the air like a fine perfume.

“Erogenous response detected,” Tadhg murmured, his voice thick with the data we were collecting.

SADIE

Technically, I had no idea what the word erogenous meant. But I figured it out as the Shadow King continued fulfilling Tadhg’s promise to kiss me everywhere.

Cian’s back was also covered in those dark, god-tech symbols. They rippled above his flexing muscles as he made his way up my thigh, his tongue giving soft, exploratory flicks over my heated skin. Until he reached a place near the top that made me whimper, the air perfuming with the scent of my arousal.

"Another erogenous response detected," Tadhg murmured in my ear.

“Didn’t expect you to be so sensitive, Strawberry.” His large hands continued to massage my breasts as the Shadow King’s mouth lingered on my upper thigh. “Look at your pretty cunt, already begging for the Shadow King’s kiss.”

Another unknown word, but its meaning was clear. I helplessly followed his instructions. For the first time, I dared to let my eyes drift down to the most secret part of me.

Another whimper escaped my mouth when I found it wet and glistening—and yes, it felt like it was begging for something... something more than my own hand.

TADHG

Her cunt quivered just above the top of the Shadow King’s head. And though I’d called her sensitive, perhaps this was a case of kettle and pot. Just the sight of her being studied by the Shadow King, cradled between my legs…

My own cock began to leak against her back, betraying my own sensitive state.

This felt like as good a time as any to make my dark request.

“Can we show ye to the High King, Strawberry? Make the case for a ‘Yea’ to marriage and happily ever after?”

The Shadow King paused, raising his gaze to Sadie. His eyes had darkened to near black, his pupils so dilated they were nearly swallowed by the iris.

But he held himself still as we both waited to see if Sadie would agree to this most important part of our plan.

DECLAN

I’d refused to indulge my hibernation instincts, even though I’d been forced to hide in the Secret Kingdom.

I woke up at my usual six a.m. to begin the Secret Kingdom version of my morning routine: three circuits around the lake, followed by a triple portion of Irish breakfast—prepared with an extraneous amount of butter that I wouldn’t have sanctioned from my private Dublin chef.

Still, I considered it a small victory for sanity when I sat down at my desk in my suite at exactly eight a.m. Above Time, ready to begin my first three-hour block of work.

However, only a few minutes into the third hour, the lights dimmed, and the room emitted the same buzz it did in the late evening when I initiated the security protocol to lock down my room for the night.

I stilled. What in the hell...?

Was this some kind of trick from the other kings, designed to lure me into answering another round of texts, which I’d gone back to ignoring after yesterday’s unproductive back-and-forth?

I reached for the kludged GoNoTo phone, only to find the screen blank, as if it had switched itself off and refused to turn back on. I discovered this was actually the case when it didn’t respond to any of my attempts to power it on, despite being fully charged when I returned from breakfast.

My heart froze. Could this be something else, then? Had the Scottish Wolves figured out our part in the Second Reaping and come to exact their revenge? I rose to my feet. This was exactly what I’d feared—why I couldn’t just let myself go along with their dangerous plan to...

“Alright, Strawberry. We’re live.…”

My heart froze again. But I couldn’t stop myself from turning, like a character in one of those horror films, toward the digital wall, which I’d set to a Dublin City view as soon as I arrived.

It was no longer a Dublin City view.

SADIE

“Be a good strawberry and say hello to your High King,” the Mountain King told me while the Shadow King moved to my other leg for what Tadhg had called a symmetry test.

But the wall still displayed a lake view.

“He—he can see me? Really?”

It was hard to comprehend. Hard to speak. Hard to breathe. The Shadow King continued to suck and kiss my other thigh, his thumbs massaging the erogenous zones he’d uncovered beneath my knees.

“You cannot see him, but he can see you,” Tadhg assured me, massaging my heavy breasts while the Shadow King continued to do such sensual things to my thighs. “And I guarantee you, he cannot look away. Now say hello, Strawberry, then we’ll continue on with our survey.”

The way his voice rumbled low in his chest made it sound like both a threat and a promise.

DECLAN

Holy shite.

The screen was filled with the sight of Sadie’s thick, dark thighs, strewn over the Shadow King’s pale, tattoo-covered back.

Meanwhile, Tadhg sat behind her, cupping her breasts as if his large hands were her new bra.

A bra that didn’t fit. Her breasts were so generous, they spilled over his hands, the nipples hard and distended inside dark areolas.

The Shadow King’s lean back muscles rippled as he kissed the inside of her right thigh. But he’d gone out of his way to do so at an angle, giving me a beyond-4k view of her glistening mound, quivering and clenching in a needy beg.

Her expression was nervous, unsure. But then she looked straight ahead—straight at me—and let out a breathy, “Hello.”

One word. It was only one word.

But my cock swelled and lengthened in a painful instant, threatening to ejaculate inside my jeans.

The loo… some dim part of my brain reminded me. There were no electronic locks on the loo door. I could hide in there. Avoid all of this.

But I couldn’t look away as Tadhg’s thick fingers found her nipples, squeezing them between his thumbs…

SADIE

…with increasing pressure, until it sent a painful zap through me. Straight to my core.

“It hurts,” I cried out, arching my back.

“Good hurt or bad hurt?” Tadhg asked in my ear, his voice somehow both wicked and calm.

And I realized. “G-good. I think.”

Tadhg let out a dark chuckle at my answer. “We’ll file it away for further testing, then. Is there something you’re wanting to ask your Shadow King?”

What did he mean?

“I-I don’t know….” I squirmed under his touch and the Shadow King’s kisses. They made me feel like a pot of water set on the stove to boil.

“Somewhere else you want him to kiss you? On your pretty cunt, perhaps?” Tadhg’s voice was a polite, dark smoke in my ear. “All you need do is ask.”

Oh goodness…

My mound had its own heartbeat now. The button I’d rubbed in secret during the Spring Fire throbbed with a painful ache.

Tadhg was right. There was a question I wanted to ask. Needed to ask. Even if it was beyond embarrassing.

“C-could you… you k-kiss me… there?”

The Shadow King lifted his head and regarded me with a bemused, hooded gaze. As if waiting for something more.

“Please?” I tried the magic word.

“Very polite, Strawberry, but I’m afraid he’ll need you to tell him where specifically,” Tadhg explained with an almost syrupy sympathy in his deep, resonant voice. “You don’t want him mistaking your meaning and going straight to your belly button, now do you?”

No, no, I didn’t want that. My belly was sparking, too. But not nearly as much as the space between my legs.

“Tell him to kiss that pretty cunt for you,” Tadhg encouraged. “Use the word we prefer, so there’s no mistaking your meaning.”

CIAN

She stilled, her soft, dimpled thighs stiffening under my hands.

Letting the High King watch was one thing, but I could tell we were pushing against her boundaries.

He’d gone too far, I feared. Tadhg was still on plan, but maybe this was too much, too soon. My protect(Sadie) protocol threatened to engage.

But then she said, “C-Cian, if you don’t mind, c-could you kiss me… on my, um… cu—oh!”

I was between those sweet folds before she could even squeeze the dirty word out of her innocent mouth.

Lapping up her strawberry want and pushing my tongue into her slick tunnel.

SADIE

Oh, goodness! Oh, goodness. What was he doing to me?

His flat tongue licked over my sensitive nether lips.

Then it tunneled inside me. Going farther and farther… farther than he should have been able to go with the same tongue he pushed into my mouth.

“Unh… unh…!” I could no longer control the sounds coming out of my mouth.

I was a fatally wounded animal, happy to die under the pleasurable assault of the Shadow King’s tongue.

I could only imagine what I looked like to the High King.

DECLAN

One moment, I was telling myself to go hide in the loo from this.

In the next blink, I was on my bed, positioned directly across from her on the screen. My jeans were open. My cock in my hand, helplessly stroking as I watched the Shadow King go down on her with more enthusiasm than I’d ever seen him show for anything in his life.

Including creating the original code that rocketed our little fintech start-up to atomic success.

SADIE

“Talk to us, Sadie. Is he doing a good job?” Tadhg’s voice was back in my ear. “Let us know how it feels.”

“Different!” I gasped out. “It’s so long. Not like yesterday. It’s, uh… rough… rough!”

“Rough in a bad way or rough in a good way?”

“Good way!”

The Shadow’s King’s strangely textured tongue was stroking deep… so deep… hitting sensitive nerves I never would’ve guessed were inside that tunnel, melting me from the inside.

My skin was on fire, and without conscious thought, I reached down to grip his head.

Only to have Tadhg grab hold of my wrists and pull them back up to my chest, binding my hands between my breasts, beneath both of his.

“Nuh-unh, Strawberry. No interference with the survey. That’s naughty. If you want your Shadow King to do something, tell him with your words.”

CIAN

“Keep going… keep going, please.” Sadie’s voice was little more than a sob. “Please, don’t stop. Don’t stop.”

I doubted I could have stopped if I wanted to. My cock was painfully hard, spasming and leaking all over inside my black boxer briefs.

But I was hungrier for her orgasm than I was for my own relief.

I kept going, my long bear tongue twisting and delving inside her tunnel, relishing every helpless cry.

SADIE

It felt so good. Better than anything. The fire was ablaze inside of me. Crackling and popping with sensations I’d never felt before.

But the secret button between my folds continued to throb. Whining for…

“More!” I gasped out. “I need… I need something… more.”

“Ask your Shadow King nicely for his fingers,” Tadhg instructed, ever the patient (and slightly amused) teacher. “He’ll welcome the distraction of keeping them off his own cock. You’ve got him so worked up, Strawberry. Look at him, straining in his undies. See that stain in the front? That’s him leaking with want of ye.”

I couldn’t see what Tadhg did at this angle, but I moaned at the image of him leaking from his tip.

Moaned, then stuttered out, “Fingers… please.”

CIAN

My balls were tingling dangerously, but I pushed in two fingers and very nearly cursed out loud.

Her channel was so tight, it was hard to push in.

I made a mental note to tell Tadhg we’d need to loosen her up for Declan. Who was probably going out of his mind in the next room.

DECLAN

I was going out of my mind. My hand furiously worked my cock, desperate to come… to break her spell over me.

TADHG

Feck if I wasn’t going to come all over Sadie’s back. I’d planned this scene with getting over the obstacle of Declan’s obstinance in mind.

But the sounds she was making as the Shadow King’s dark head and fingers worked between her legs.

Holy Feck.

SADIE

This was so much better than Reuben. So, so much better, even if it felt like I was about to burst out of my burning skin.

Yet, the quickening sensations that always came so fast in the shower hovered in the distance, just out of reach.

“Do you need your little clittie touched, Strawberry?” Tadhg guessed in my ear. “Is that the only thing keeping you from your release, then?”

Clittie… Maybe that was his word for the secret button throbbing with such intensity between my folds.

“Yes,” I sobbed.

“I’m going to give you what you need to come, but you have to promise me you’ll be good, naughty Strawberry,” he warned. “Keep your hands above the waist and off that weeping pit of yers.”

A shame like none I’d ever experienced washed over me at his warning. All my life, I’d been derided for being a bad Wölfennite. I’d been called odd-smelling… gluttonous… a jezebel.

But this shame was different. It made the fire inside me swell, as if he’d added gasoline.

Good shame or bad shame? Tadhg’s knowing voice asked inside my head.

Good shame, my mind answered. Before I promised Tadhg on a pant, “I’ll be good, please, please…”

Please was the magic word this time. Tadhg’s hand found the place directly above my secret button, and I cried out, my eyes fluttering closed as my head fell back against his shoulder.

“No closing yer eyes, Strawberry. Ye’re meant to guide me, aren’t ye? Watch. And tell me how ye like this. Soft or harder?”

He applied more pressure to illustrate his point.

“I don’t know! I don’t know!”

My mind was coming apart under his touch and Cian’s ministrations.

“Oh goodness, it all feels so good. I don’t know.”

“Look at what I’m doing to ye, then, so you can give me yer feedback. Tell me how I’m doing,” Tadhg commanded.

I looked.

And I didn’t tell him.

Because as soon as I saw his giant hand rubbing circles over my secret spot while Cian’s head undulated between the legs strung over his shoulders, his tongue twisting inside me…

The world…

The world…

It exploded.

DECLAN

On the digital wall, she came with a scream, her heels kicking into the Shadow King’s ink-covered back.

And I went off like a rocket in response, grunting as ropes of cum shot out of me.

Still, I couldn’t look away.

I watched her screams collapse into moans, then gasps of “too much, too much…” as she pushed at the Shadow King’s shoulders.

The Shadow King immediately reared back, swaying like a drunk man as he walked out of frame.

“Where’s he going?” Sadie asked, worry edged into her formerly blissful expression. “Is he upset?”

“No, Strawberry, the opposite.” Tadhg’s hands returned to her breasts, lightly fondling them. “Overcome. He’ll need a moment by himself in the loo.”

“Oh…”

And then, to my shock, her glassy eyes found mine as she stared straight at me.

“Was that good?” she asked Tadhg, her voice soft and shy. “Do you think the High King liked it?”

“Aw, Strawberry, I know he did.” Tadhg turned her in his cradle hold. “And we’ve only just begun the survey.”

That declared, he captured her mouth with his for a deep, passionate kiss that made her moan under his tongue.

And, hell…

I was hard again.

That was when the room buzzed with the sound of all my doors unlocking, along with the GoNoTo kludge turning back on.

Unwelcome Visitor

Sadie

The survey wasn’t over yet.

Tadhg’s kiss was nothing like the chaste one he’d given me the day before. But it wasn’t like the Shadow King’s either. He slowly consumed my mouth, drawing from my lips in a way that made my tummy flutter and kick.

Soon I was whimpering, pressing myself into the steel rod between us, making desperate little sounds because my stomach and the barrier wall of his white underwear were in the way, blocking me from access.

Tadhg pulled back abruptly. “Aw, Strawberry, ye’re making this too hard on me. The sounds coming out of ye are making me want to claim you, ritual be damned.”

He pressed his forehead to mine, his breath coming in harsh bursts. “I’ve got to stop.”

“Okay, I understand. We’ll stop,” I agreed.

Right before our lips crashed together again.

This time, he kissed down my neck, his teeth, tongue, and lips grazing a hot path. When he reached one of my heavy breasts and drew it into his mouth, I gasped. His tongue swirled⁠—

That felt good.

Then he sucked.

That felt even better. “Oh, Tadhg! Ohhh…”

His mouth was full, but I didn’t need him to speak the words. I could feel them: Erogenous response detected.

I wasn’t a wolf, but I lost control, humping his thigh with desperate little whimpers, like a starved animal begging for food.

My clit had swollen again, demanding attention. But when I tried to reach down, Tadhg caught my wrist in his too-strong grip.

“Don’t be naughty, Strawberry,” he warned, voice dark and rough. “Use your Mountain King if you’ve a need to get off.”

Need was the right word. A hot, squirmy frustration washed through me as I tried to figure out what he meant.

Then he rolled us, bringing me with him, twisting his powerful legs to keep me trapped between them as he laid flat on his back.

Alarm cut through my haze of need. Reuben had warned me—sternly—against ever trying to get on top.

“It’s the male’s position, Sadie. And besides, you’d probably crush me, big as you are.”

But Tadhg just pulled himself out, hard and veiny, and settled me between his thighs. Parting my folds with his long, thick length as he warned, “Don’t open yer legs, no matter how good it feels. Ye cannot let me in. But you can use me however you need, Strawberry. Rub that little clittie over this cock ye’ve made so hard.”

I’d had sex before. Penetrative sex, at that.

But Tadhg made me feel like a virgin. Innocent and awkward.

I relished the press of his chest against my sensitive breasts, the thick ridge of him parting my slick folds. I moved tentatively between his legs, though, afraid I was doing everything wrong.

But then, Tadhg gazed up at me with that same tender, patient-teacher look. “Brilliant. That’s exactly right, Strawberry. Just like that. You’re slipping up my cock so good.”

How could someone so kind talk so dirty?

I moaned as a new orgasm began to build, swift and blinding.

“Let him hear it,” Tadhg whispered in my ear.

I didn’t need a pronoun clarification to know who he meant. The High King. The one who might be watching.

“Tell him how good it feels to rub that clittie up and down my cock.”

It did. It did.

“Oh—I’m coming. I’m coming again. Too fast. I’m sorry. I’m sorry.”

“Don’t apologize to me. Ever.” Tadhg’s voice darkened, unexpectedly harsh. “This cock belongs to you, Strawberry. You use it however you want.”

I’d never imagined wanting a piece of someone’s body as a gift. But the way he said it—my ownership of him—sent the waves rushing higher, cresting fast.

Suddenly, I was drowning. Shamelessly rubbing my drenched slit against his thick length, lost in the pleasure.

He didn’t move. Just held me—one hand cradling my bottom, firm enough to guide me, loose enough to let me grind.

The orgasm burst through me. This was for me. All for me— Until Tadhg’s whole body shuddered beneath mine and something hot spurted between our stomachs.

“Well, I’m the one saying sorry now, aren’t I?” There was a rueful note in his voice as we both came down from our releases. “I tried to wait until I could swap with the Shadow King in the loo. But you’re too much, Strawberry. Just too much.”

Too much. I’d felt that way about myself all my life. But the way he said it made me grin into his neck.

“Good Too Much or Bad Too Much?”

He took my face in his large hands and lifted it.

“Good Too Much. If ye don’t already know that, you will by the time ye earn the High King’s yes.”

The High King. The thought of the still-unseen male behind the wall who could bring this all to a screeching halt at any moment sobered my playful mood.

“But what if he⁠—”

Tadhg kissed me before I could finish the question.

And by the time he was done, the Shadow King was standing next to the bed with a wet towel mitt in his hand and a dry bath towel slung over his shoulder.

I suspected, but didn’t ask if he’d watched me hump Tadhg to a second release.

Either way, the survey still wasn’t done.

Several more erogenous responses were recorded for what I could only hope was strictly a mental record.

Wet washcloths between my legs? Check.

Squeezing and licking over my round belly? X.

“Aw, that’s too bad, Strawberry,” Tadhg lamented. “That’s the Shadow King’s favorite bit on your body.”

How he knew that, I had no idea.

But the Shadow King himself confirmed that kisses to the side of my neck made me shiver.

I also liked what Tadhg called the Lotus Snog n’ Grab, which was basically the Shadow King and me “slogging” with my legs wrapped around his waist while he kneaded my bottom with those long, strong fingers—and Tadhg warned him with the sharpness of a schoolmarm to keep his cock trapped against my stomach.

Then the Shadow King began kissing down my neck, and the warnings abruptly turned to: “Mind your teeth, lad. Mind your⁠—”

The Shadow King suddenly pulled away, disentangling himself and all but running out of the room.

“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, watching him go.

“Opposite.” Tadhg was there in an instant, taking the silent king’s place between my thrown-off legs. Though thanks to the size of my thighs and the width of his waist, ours was less lotus and more me butterflying my knees over Tadhg’s tree-trunk thighs while he revisited the erogenous zone of my breasts.

I didn’t need him to tell me what his favorite bit on my body was.

But I did want to know why the Shadow King had run out.

“Is he sick? Is it a reaction to going so long between meals?”

“No, he’s just not used to holding himself back, is all. The Shadow King’s line is genetically unbothered. But no-fuss self-regulation is only an asset until a cute patootie mate gets hand-delivered to your door. I reckon he’s having a hell of a time not biting you.”

I scrunched my forehead. “But why would he…?”

“Biting’s the way we make our claims in bear world. We leave a permanent mating mark. But the rule is⁠—”

Now it was my turn to interrupt.

“The High King has the first right to that,” I guessed.

Tadhg rested his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy.”

“I thought we weren’t supposed to apologize.”

He chuffed. “You’re not to apologize to me. I’m allowed to grovel as much as I want.”

The Shadow King returned before I could argue. And soon after that, we unlocked another erogenous response—kissing the Shadow King over my shoulder while Tadhg sucked on my breasts in front, his hand rubbing between my folds.

By the time the sun disappeared behind the lake on the wall, they’d kept their promise to kiss me everywhere.

And I was little more than a puddle.

“Alright, enough of that.” Tadhg pulled my boneless body off the circular mattress and ran another wet bath mitt over me while the Shadow King remade the bed with sheets he produced out of nowhere.

“You’ve been such a good bear for us, Strawberry,” he said once I was clean. He guided me over to the freshly made bed. “Now it’s time for you to get some much-needed rest and recovery.”

He was right. I was tired and sore in nearly all of my major erogenous zones—and a few places I’d never considered, like the backs of my thighs. It took effort just to stand through Tadhg’s attentive cleaning.

Still, a small fizz of protest bubbled in my chest. I didn’t want the day to end.

If my eyes weren’t already drooping shut as Tadhg covered me with a fresh blanket the Shadow King handed him, I might’ve made a strong case for continuing the survey.

But sleep dragged me under, and the last thing I heard was Tadhg saying, “Good night, Sadie Strawberry.”

Good night, indeed. I slept on a sea of deep, satisfied black.

Until I woke to find my mother standing over the bed.

“You dirty, dirty girl!”

A cold, nasty shame froze my blood. “Mama, what are you doing here?”

If she heard my question, it didn’t show.

Her face remained a rictus of shadows and judgment as she shrieked, “How could you? I’m going to lock you in your room! This time for a thousand years!”

“No, don’t! Please, don’t⁠—”

“Sadie!” another voice said. A familiar voice.

But my mother yelled over him. “Jezebel. Harlot! You think these boys want you? How stupid can you be?”

Suddenly, I was back in my room in St. Ailbe. Boarded-up windows. Metal door. The sound of locks clunking all around. No way out.

“Mama, don’t!”

“Sadie!” the other voice said again.

“Mama!” I tried to pound on the door with my fist, but my arm was too weak. My knocks weren’t even strong enough to make a sound. Tears filled my eyes as I sobbed, “Please, Mama! Don’t! Let me⁠—”

“Jaysus Christ, Sadie. Wake up! Wake up right feckin’ now.”

I couldn’t pound on the metal door. But a strong pair of hands shook me—shook me so hard my eyes popped open and there he was…

…a red-haired giant in nothing but a pair of sweatpants, standing over me.

I gasped out with relief. “Tadhg! Oh my goodness, Tadhg.”

I grabbed one of his arms, clinging to him like a buoy in the lake. Then I burst out crying.

And then he was crawling into bed with me. “It’s alright, Strawberry. I’m here for you.”

He wrapped me in his strong arms. “I’m here. I’m here.”

Yes, he was. And that only made me cry harder, which somehow felt even more embarrassing than screaming out my release while the Shadow King mercilessly lapped his tongue between my legs.

“The High King!” I choked out. “I don’t… I don’t want him to see me like…”

I was crying too hard to continue, but I didn’t have to finish.

There came a soft electronic whirr, and the room went pitch black with the disappearance of the softly lit picture on the lake view wall.

“It’s just us now. Cry as much as you want.”

I didn’t want to cry.

But I couldn’t stop.

Tadhg held me against his chest until I shuddered to a stop.

Then he kissed the top of my head and asked, “Wanna talk about it?”

“No,” I answered miserably, right before adding, “It was just a stupid nightmare about my mother. I liked my training so much. But I guess my head is confused or something. And I have sticks, but I don’t have any whittling knives, so I can’t work through things like I usually do. And anyway, my mother is what Naomi would call ‘the worst.’ She’s lied to me my entire life, and… and I don’t know why I’m letting her get to me like this.”

“Parents are a hell of a thing.” Tadhg gathered me even tighter in his arms. “They get in your head even after you accept they’re a walking bog sack of issues who had no business having children in the first place. I haven’t talked to my father in years, and I still hear his voice laying into me when I feck up at work.”

“Do you have nightmares, too?”

“About him? No.”

I waited for him to tell me who he did have nightmares about. But nothing came after that.

Just me, sighing in the dark as my eyes fluttered closed, with Tadhg’s strong arms wrapped around me.

I fell asleep in Tadhg’s arms but woke up alone the next day with savory smells wafting into my nose.

I opened my eyes to find a large, oval serving dish on a wheeled cart covered in a pristine white cloth—along with a note.

We fear we cannot share a meal with you without wanting to eat you, too. Here’s something to help you think while you recover from our devotion—a wee gift to stab your mother with the next time she dares to crash into your dreams. —TMK

Did TMK stand for the Mountain King? And what gift could he possibly be talking about?

My breath caught when I saw the rolled-up piece of supple leather lying on the far side of the tray.

Then I let that same breath go when I unrolled what turned out to be a sheath case—and found a set of five whittling knives with sturdy wooden handles.

Not just a standard carver, but also a hook knife for scooping and hollowing, a detail knife with a finer blade, a chip knife, and an angle-bladed gouge for texture and lettering work.

I couldn’t believe it.

The Mountain King had given me a gift. The most thoughtful, thoughtful gift I’d ever received in my life.

My eyes filled with tears.

Then my chest filled with terror unlike any I’d ever known, even when a bear reared up in front of my path to stop me from fleeing.

Because, though such a short time had passed, I could already feel myself falling.

And if the High King didn’t say yes before I hit the ground, this was going to hurt. Much worse than a broken ego.

It would shatter me.

November

The High King did not say yes in November. Though the other two kings spent the entirety of the month training me to take his claim.

First with the Shadow King’s long fingers: two to start, in a version of the lotus position with me partially leaned back and Tadhg’s particular brand of low, dark instruction.

“That’s right, Strawberry, open up for your Shadow King. Relax into his hand. We don’t want you in any pain when the High King takes you.”

It was hard to imagine a scenario where sex could be painful with the Shadow King working those two long fingers inside me, the muscles flexing under his inked forearm as he moved his hand with smooth, deft strokes. There was a fleeting grin on his pale, moon god face.

Soon an embarrassing squelching sound was coming out of me, and that apparently was the cue for Tadhg to instruct Cian, “Add a finger, lad. Reward her for being so cute and responsive.”

The Shadow King withdrew both fingers and came back with all three, filling me up tighter than I expected.

I cried out a little, not sure what to do.

“You’re alright, Strawberry,” Tadhg assured me. “Keep on relaxing into it. That’s all you’re responsible for doing. At least for now.”

You know, being compliant wasn’t all that bad. My natural instinct to follow all instructions to the best of my ability earned me several hot, appreciative looks from the Shadow King and a lot of “good Strawberry” praise from the Mountain King over the next few minutes.

“Such a good Strawberry,” Tadhg murmured when the Shadow King’s strokes became smooth again, his three long fingers easily working in and out. “Look at you, adjusting and creaming all over the Shadow King’s hand.”

But the training didn’t stop there.

After a few days of working the Lotus Finger Bang (Tadhg’s labeling, not mine) into our training exercises, the Mountain King replaced Cian, pulling me back onto his wide chest.

Maybe because of the initial survey, I loved this position. Tadhg’s voice in my ear, his thick length lodged against my back.

Like something trained, my core immediately started clenching, begging to be tended. But instead of the Shadow King’s tongue, I received Tadhg’s two middle fingers, pushed slowly into my canal.

Just two of his thick fingers stretched me out even wider than the Shadow King’s three.

“Unh!” I whimpered and dug my heels into the mattress, trying to find enough purchase to lift and get away from his hand.

“Calm yerself, Strawberry. I’m not hurtin’ ye ever.” Tadhg’s rough Mountain accent was back. “Ye know that. And ye’ve got the Secret Kingdom if it’s truly too uncomfortable.”

The Secret Kingdom… the safe word I’d been told to use at any time.

This was the first time I’d even considered it. His fingers were so big, so thick—wider and longer than Reuben’s penis.

They felt like an invasion. Until I heeded his words. Calmed myself. Forced my breath to come out in intentional exhales instead of frantic gasps.

“That’s right, that’s right. Ye’re so good at this, Strawberry. I’m going to need ye to open your legs wider. Let me into that sweet cunt.”

I spread my legs, a helpless puppet under his coarse, hypnotic words.

“Good, Strawberry. Now give me my welcome. Make yerself want this. Get yerself so wet I can get a third finger into you without a problem.”

His instructions didn’t make any sense. Yet somehow they did.

Instinctively, my heels dug into the mattress again—this time so I could grind my hips, building heat until I was slick enough to push down on the invading fingers.

Then I started undulating, instead of avoiding his hand.

“Aw, look at ye riding my hand, Strawberry.” Tadhg rested his chin on my neck and curled his beefy arm around my belly. His voice took on a prideful tone. “Neither of us have ever seen anything so sexy, have we? Thank ye for this gift. Ye going to cream for me?”

I wasn’t a wolf.

And I wasn’t a cat.

But soon I was mewing, then creaming, as Tadhg called it, all over his fingers.

The Shadow King was rubbing himself through his boxers, a sign I’d begun to appreciate. Usually, he excused himself to the washroom. But I loved when he got so worked up he couldn’t help but touch himself. Like he, too, was a victim of the Spring Fire.

But the Spring Fire was me. Grinding myself with wanton abandon on Tadhg’s thick, fully seated fingers.

“Good, Strawberry. Such a good Strawberry, taking my two fingers like a queen. Tell me you want the third one. Beg me sweetly to put it in your tight little cunt.”

His words were so unnecessarily coarse. Sometimes I couldn’t believe this was the same male who tucked me into bed with a soft kiss to my forehead every night.

But his dirty words sent a rush of heat through me. “Third one!” I gasped out.

“Manners, Strawberry,” Tadhg chastised in his schoolmarm voice. “Ask your Mountain King nicely.”

“Please, Mountain King!” I gasped. “Please, may I have the third one?”

Just like the Shadow King had, Tadhg fully withdrew. But instead of immediately working his index finger in, his invading hand found one of my breasts, smearing it with my own essence.

Then he used the wet to play with my nipple.

A piercing spike of pleasure shot from my chest to my core, making me cry out. But it wasn’t enough—because now I sat empty.

My channel had been too tight before, according to Tadhg. But now it felt like it was gaping open, hollowed out with need. Panting for…

“More. Oh goodness, please! More, more!”

“Shadow King, come have your dessert,” Tadhg invited. “Help me hold her down while I perform a new survey question.”

A new survey question, I wondered—right before the Mountain King plunged not three, but all four fingers into my sex.

Taking what he wanted from me with rough, hard strokes.

I could barely describe the invasion. Tadhg’s fingers filled me up, stretching me to my very brink.

The near entirety of his hand was inside me, and his other hand held tight to my hip—making it so I couldn’t move. Could only take what he was giving me.

Meanwhile, the Shadow King was beside me, drawing the breast Tadhg had smeared into his mouth like some kind of sweet treat.

This was wrong. So wrong.

What if the High King was watching me—spread open like this? So wide, getting more than I’d asked for?

The Secret Kingdom.

I might have said the words… if I didn’t immediately start coming in the next moment.

“There you go, Strawberry.” Tadhg’s hand continued its work as I reached my peak. “Just like I suspected. Ye like it a bit rough, don’t ye? Look at ye, coming so hard after taking my hand.”

I looked down.

I shouldn’t have.

It was the lewdest sight imaginable—my drenched folds, contracting around the hand stuffed inside me.

Then the Shadow King reached over to my other nipple and pinched—hard enough to cause pain.

Another wave of orgasm overtook me before the first one had even finished.

Suddenly, I understood why the Shadow King had been invited over to hold me down. I thrashed and writhed like someone possessed under their rough attention.

The climax kept going and going, refusing to ebb.

I was screaming.

I was sobbing.

I was losing my mind.

And time.

I blinked—and suddenly, I was under the covers, coming back to consciousness in the arms of the Shadow King, who was holding me tight and kissing me softly on the back of my neck.

“A bit of aftercare to keep your mother away,” Tadhg explained as he joined us, climbing into bed on the other side of me in a fresh pair of underwear. That, along with his damp red hair, let me know he’d taken care of himself in the shower.

Not for the first time, I felt guilty that I was the only one receiving pleasure from our sessions.

But I didn’t dare say I was sorry. Tadhg had threatened that if I gave into that temptation again, he’d introduce me to something called impact play.

Instead, I asked, “Do you think he’s upset that I lost my mind like that?”

As usual, we never had to clarify who he was. I still hadn’t seen him. Yet I often sensed he was watching—through the innocent-looking lake wall. Watching, but not communicating anything.

“I think he’s something,” Tadhg answered with a tired chuckle. “Wouldn’t be surprised if we had his decision by December.”

December

We did not have the High King’s decision by December.

The beginning of the month came and went without a word from the unseen ruler—even after the full moon.

That’s why I was happy to see Brigid when she knocked on the exterior glass door two days after my first shift post-learning I was a bear. She was a welcome distraction from my near constant thoughts of the incoming new year and the High King’s final answer.

“Come in, come in,” I invited, waving her into my suite as she waddled past me.

Her pregnant belly had doubled in size since our first meeting, but she seemed as bouncy and energetic as ever. She pulled me toward the suite’s couch, which, like the bed, sat in front of the gigantic lake-view digital wall.

She told me she’d taken several pictures of me at magic hour, when the sun hadn’t yet set but the moon was on the rise, and came to show them to me—conveniently during my now-scheduled brunch and whittling time.

“When I knew those two obsessive kings would let you breathe and have a little company. I swear, have you ever met a more selfish pair of knobs? Oh, don’t give me that look, Sadie Strawberry.”

Brigid rolled her eyes at the look I hadn’t been aware I was giving her. “You know I’m only joking. Sure, it’s fine that they trapped you in the palace and Stockholm’d you with 24/7 sexcapades while your arse of a High King takes his sweet time making up his mind.”

“That’s not all we do,” I insisted to Brigid.

First of all, we slept. A lot. Everyone—not just me—had the Winter Sleepies, and our wake times were steadily dwindling.

Second, the kings still had to manage the general upkeep of their business.

“Checking in daily to make sure the wheels aren’t falling off the company we built,” Tadhg had explained apologetically when he and the Shadow King were late to our nightly dinner.

We’d fallen into a routine where I had brunch and spent the late afternoon alone. Then they would join me for a veritable feast on the portico, which we always shared as a trio before returning to my room for what Tadhg had taken to calling second supper.

Third, the two kings had a lot of stuff to educate me about outside of the circular bed.

The Shadow King had taught me how to use a computer, set me up with a keyboarding program, and warned me off something called Reddit.

Tadhg was giving what he insisted were far more important lessons on the laptop they’d gifted me: how to “make a proper playlist of R&B from the ’90s and early 2000s” and how to “binge a multi-season series while picking your nose and doing feck all.”

Picking my nose, I was told, was optional. The Breakthrough Mary J. Blige album was not.

Between the human’s internet (minus Reddit) and an all-season viewing of a “completely accurate horror shitshow” called Industry and an outer-space show called Star Trek: The Next Generation, I honestly felt as if I was making real progress—catching up to and, at the same time, never wanting to join the modern world outside St. Ailbe.

But I still didn’t understand many of the things that came out of Brigid’s mouth.

I wrote down “Stockholm syndrome” on the little notepad the Shadow King had gifted me to house the many questions I wanted to ask either Tadhg or the internet later.

I usually opted for Tadhg. The internet could be, to use a Naomi Speak phrase, a total dumpster fire. Also, many of the results that came back for my questions included Reddit posts.

But no matter what Brigid said, I could honestly tell her, “We don’t only have sex.”

“Is that so?” Tadhg’s sister raised both red brows. “How’s your wardrobe coming along, then?”

She cast a disparaging eye over the strawberry dress I wore, which, admittedly, I’d hurriedly slipped on along with a sports bra when the room nearly shocked me to death with a loud: “Alert: Mountain Princess Brigid Ryan approaching door! Alert: Mountain Princess Brigid Ryan approaching door!”

My cheeks heated. “I like this dress.”

“Do you like it, or do you only need one dress because the lads are quite insistent on keeping you naked?”

Long pause. Then: “I mean, both can be true.”

“Well, thank goodness they actually let you out for the full moon. Or else I wouldn’t have gotten these darling pictures.” She set her GoNoTo phone on her belly. “Look at this adorable Sadie bear.”

Brigid, as she’d already confessed, could be prone to exaggeration. But I couldn’t help but smile as she swiped through pictures and a couple of videos of a big fluffy black bear with a brown muzzle, frolicking and galloping around the lake.

“That’s me?”

“That’s you, babes,” Brigid confirmed. “My High Prince husband almost joined you—said you looked like you were having so much fun. Even though the kings forbade anyone to shift within a kilometer of the lake during the full moon.”

I scrunched my brow. “Why did they do that?”

“Uh, because you asked to shift outside, and they couldn’t just tell ye, ‘No, sorry, Sadie Strawberry, that would send us into a jeally rage.’”

Jeally... was that short for jealous?

“But why would they be—” I started to ask.

And Brigid began her answer before the question was even done. “An unmated female bear can attract unwanted bear attention, that’s why. And bears can be especially frisky on full moon nights. Why did ye think ye were out there all alone when ye went to strip naked in the hedge woods?”

I shook my head. “I thought everyone else just preferred to shift inside.”

“Nobody prefers to shift inside. Are ye mad? We’re bears, for Jayzus sake.”

Not in St. Ailbe.

“Was always shifting inside another one of your cult rules?” Brigid guessed off my look.

It was. And I couldn’t help but feel a little guilty that my freedom had come at the cost of everyone else’s.

“Don’t go feeling guilty.” Brigid rolled her eyes again. “This is why my brother didn’t want me to mention it to you. Made me promise three times I wouldn’t bring it up if he let me visit.”

“But you just brought it up,” I pointed out.

“Well, ye know, feck that cunt. He ain’t the boss of me.”

I stared at Brigid. Then burst out laughing.

“Alright, that’s the reaction I’m looking for, Stockholm Sadie. Blink twice and all that.”

Brigid shot me a conspiratorial grin and rubbed her hands together over her belly. “Now let’s really piss ’em off by going into town in the one dress ye’re allowed. I say it’s time we do a bit of holiday shopping—just for ye, of course. Those arsewipe kings deserve nothing under their tree.”

I didn’t have any desire to piss off the kings who’d been so generous and kind to me. But I was honestly curious about the darling town I’d only seen in the distance on the lake wall. And maybe I could “do with,” as I’d been learning to say since coming to this Irish underground kingdom, a new dress.

Chances were I’d only be here until the New Year, and I’d need a few pieces of clothing before I left.…

But I pushed those sad thoughts down as Brigid drove me into town in a golf cart that bumped and rocked so hard over the dirt roads, I had to ask her, “Aren’t you afraid so much jolting will send you into early labor?”

I eyed Brigid’s considerably larger stomach warily.

“I can only hope these heavy bastards come sooner rather than later,” she replied. “Be happy ye didn’t go into estrus, like Tadhg was hoping. I could’ve done with a couple of years of marital bliss with just me an’ the boys I didn’t have to squeeze out of my nether regions. But wouldn’t you know, I’m a big ol’ sentimental marshmallow on the inside. Caught my cycle on our wedding night.”

Brigid’s words sent a pang through me. What would it be like to have a wedding night on the same day the bear version of a heat cycle hit?

It sounded glorious. She was right, though, to assume that wouldn’t happen for me before the New Year. Tadhg hadn’t mentioned it, but I was pretty sure he’d given up on the High King accepting me because I went into spontaneous estrus.

A squeaky beep sounded in the distance, and Brigid waved to a couple of older ladies approaching comically slowly on their own golf cart. “Good morning, O’Neilly Sisters. Top of the day to ye!”

“Is that The Potential, then?” one of the sisters called out as we passed them by.

“Shouldn’t she be at the castle until the High King makes his decision?” the other sister asked.

“It is, and she should!” Brigid yelled back over her shoulder. “But I’ve stolen her, and I’m not giving her back until she has a couple more proper dresses.”

“Good for you!” the non-driving first sister yelled back.

“Shouldn’t you be keeping your eyes on the road?” I asked Brigid, fretting my bottom lip.

“For you, babes, anything,” Brigid answered with another breezy grin.

That only got wider when we stopped at a line of shops lining the main road.

My breath caught as we climbed out of the golf cart.

I knew it was a god-tech overlay—specifically, a holiday god-tech overlay that the Shadow King had worked on the entire week while Tadhg explained all the things I didn’t understand in the show Industry—which was everything.

But the village looked like something pulled straight from a storybook or one of those Christmas movies they kept advertising at the top of our show viewings.

Every shop along the main road had a wreath on its door and windows sparkling with lights. The thatched roofs were no longer just dusted but covered in a thick layer of snow that looked so real. Even though it was warm enough for me to be comfortable in nothing but my strawberry-patterned dress, I couldn’t help but wonder if it would be cold to the touch.

Either way, the fake snow, combined with the garlands of holly wrapped around every pole and the twinkling lights, gave the town such a festive glow that it seemed nothing short of absolutely magic⁠—

“Oi! Is that The Potential?” a gruff voice called to the left of us. “Isn’t she supposed to be locked away in the palace?”

“She’s fine, Bat,” Brigid called to a huge male in a tweed cap and jacket lumbering out of the butcher shop. He looked to be of Asian descent and had to stand nearly seven feet tall. “I’ve just kidnapped her from her captors for the day, is all.”

Brigid was asked pretty much the same set of questions by every customer and shopkeeper we encountered—and then even more when she confirmed my identity.

“Is it true they kidnapped you all the way from Scotland, then?” the butcher asked when Brigid stopped in to order a Christmas ham.

The butcher seemed pleasantly unconcerned with the kidnapping part of his inquiry.

“Is it true she told the High King he had 'til the New Year or he could go stuff himself?” a female couple who were both well over 6'4" stopped to ask Brigid on the street.

“Is it true she used to be part of a cult that brainwashed her into thinking she was a wolf?” asked the shopkeeper who ran the only decent—“not just for old lady bearies,” Brigid told me—dress shop in town.

I might have felt offended if everyone weren’t so large and didn’t seem to mind me staring at them right back.

Also, the dress sizes at the store started at an XL. Not only were they not plain blue, but everything was designed to fit me.

I teared up as I pulled a Christmas-green wrap dress off the rack that would look perfect on me.

“Have the townspeople upset you, then? Oh babes, I swear they don’t mean anything by it. They’re curious about you, is all.”

Brigid had a peculiar way of being both devil-may-care and empathetic to my every change of expression. It made me wonder, not for the first time, how she and Tadhg had grown up. Even with all the weeks we’d spent together and a co-teacher who didn’t talk, the subject of his mother and father hadn’t come up again since that day he’d walked me home.

“No, it’s not that,” I answered with a watery laugh. “It’s just—I like it here so much. I was kind of hoping maybe I’d hate the town, and that would make it easier to leave if the High King says no.”

“Oh.” Brigid gave me a wholly sympathetic look. Then she asked, “So then, yes or no to a spot of tea at the café down the road? Though I should warn ye, if ye’re crying over this dress shop, that place is going to gut you. Charming as feck, it is.”

So no, I didn’t always understand Brigid, but she made me laugh as we ordered cups of Christmas blend tea at a café just down the road from the dress shop.

She was right, I was a bit gutted by the place. The shop oozed cozy charm, with mismatched furniture, twinkling lights, and shelves brimming with handmade goods, like candles, thick knitted sweaters, and soaps. A roaring fire in the hearth filled the air with the smell of woodsmoke but emitted no actual heat—more sci-fi god tech I suspected.

But Brigid loudly bragged about how the huge, shiny industrial coffee machine sitting behind the counter was 100% real human tech—no sci-fi. Apparently, the café owner had brought both it and a Portuguese outsider bear back to the Secret Kingdom after her time working in The Above as a barista.

“I mean, it breaks down all the time with no one here to service it, and we end up having to use the sci-fi more often than not to get our caffeine fix. Really, it’s become a bit of decoration and nothing more. But it’s the sentiment of it all, isn’t it?” Brigid told me in a much quieter voice as we went to find a table with our steaming mugs of tea.

Somehow, that only made the café even more charming. It was the kind of place I could see myself walking to with a book from the palace library tucked under my arm.

Brigid kicked two teenage boys out of a two-top beside the window—literally, she kicked at them with the bottom of her Adidas sneaker as she said, “That’s what you rotten teenyagers get for not offering a pregnant lady and her friend yer seats when she walked past ye!”

Brigid was nothing like Tadhg. I knew this because she announced, “I’m nothing like Tadhg” after I told her what shows I’d been watching. She then proceeded to make me a written list of shows “my feckhead brother should have led with.”

She shook her head as she wrote in my little notebook. “How have ye seen Industry, but not Buffy the Vampire Slayer? I swear, you’ve been kidnapped by devils!”

Brigid’s animated words turned into an unintentional shout when all the sound dropped out of the room and everyone, including us, turned their heads to the new arrivals at the café’s door.

It was Tadhg and the Shadow King—looking wholly out of place in the café, even though they were technically the rulers of this kingdom.

There came a stark several beats of silence.

Then everyone but Brigid and me either dropped to one knee or sank into a deep curtsy.

“Your majesties… your majesties… your majesties…” dropped down like the rain Cian always scheduled for three to four p.m. as they made their way over to us.

“Wow, stalk much?” Brigid whispered to me under her breath before standing up with a bright smile. “SK! MK! So glad ye could make it out to your own kingdom town, which you haven’t visited in donkey years. Sit! Sit! I’m just making Sadie Strawberry a list of shows she should watch—that’s not that shitty space and business drama stuff you like.”

This greeting struck me as typical Brigid. But there was a tense moment in which the whole shop seemed to hold their collective breath, turning their heads to Tadhg to see how he’d react.

He’d been nothing but kind to me, though—okay, pretty wicked in bed, but mostly kind. Not to mention generous.

I always had to ask him to slip and slide, as he called our technically non-penetrative sex. Otherwise, he and the Shadow King took turns quietly attending to themselves in the bathroom after showering me with multiple orgasms.

But these people were looking at Tadhg like they expected him to go off like a bomb.

Behind glasses I hadn’t seen since I first arrived in the secret kingdom, the Mountain King glowered at Brigid for several long seconds. His face was like the thunder clouds Cian had told me he only scheduled on a holiday called Samhain.

I was beginning to wonder if the townspeople had it right. Maybe there was a side to Tadhg that I hadn’t seen.…

But then a wry grin split across Tadhg’s face, and he told his sister, “If you suggested Buffy the Vampire Slayer, I swear I’m going to excommunicate ye.”

“Holy psycho bear. What kind of absolute maniac doesn’t appreciate Buffy the Vampire Slayer?” Brigid immediately returned, making me suspect this argument wasn’t new. “Vampires are obviously the best, and you’ve got to put this in the rotation right away. I’m serious about this, Brother King. Right away.”

“Vampires are not the best when shows like Star Trek: Deep Space Nine are still out there, waiting to be watched. Besides, Farscape is next on deck.”

“Oh, you’ve got to be kidding me. Sadie, please use your pussy power to make him see sense.”

My face heated. This argument in no way struck me as an appropriate one to have in public. But soon the whole shop was involved in a sci-fi vs. fantasy argument.

Two more chairs and special Christmas blend teas magically appeared at our two-person table. To my surprise, we spent a perfectly pleasant afternoon in the charming town that was nothing like St. Ailbe.

And, unfortunately for my heart, somewhere I could definitely see myself wanting to live forever.

Second Supper

“Are you upset that I left?”

I turned in my seat to ask Tadhg this question as the Shadow King drove us back to the palace in a black-on-black four-seater golf cart a couple of hours later. The green dress, which had magically cost no money, sat in a bag at my feet, along with a box of something called buttered brack slices for the palace staff.

Tadhg, who had the entire back bench of the cart to himself and took up about two-thirds of it, leaned forward to take one of my hands in both of his.

“I’m upset you didn’t tell us you were leaving.”

He kissed the back of my hand, then my palm. “This was different than your whittling after brunch. You scared us unnecessarily when we found out you’d left the premises without making it known to anyone.”

Tadhg looked tired—bordering on weary—and I wondered if he’d been woken up from a Winter Sleepies nap to come find me.

“I’m sorry.”

“Sadie,” he warned. “We’ve talked about the apology stuff.”

“I know, but I actually am sorry. I didn’t mean to scare you. I feel terrible.”

Tadhg sighed. “Not as terrible as I fail to feel every day about kidnapping you and bringing you here to live in a foreign place you don’t quite understand.”

“Sure, but in all fairness, I wouldn’t have understood anywhere I went,” I answered with a bittersweet smile. “St. Ailbe kept me pretty hopeless.”

“I don’t know about that, Strawberry. I reckon you’ve made the Shadow King and me more hopeful than we’ve been in… well… ever.”

Hopeful until…

I didn’t let myself finish that thought or that sentence.

And that night after dinner, I stopped them from having “second supper,” as they liked to call me. (Yes, I was more than caught up on the meaning of eat you in a good way by that point.)

After I’d gotten naked and they stripped down to their undies, I pressed my hands into the Shadow King’s chest and said, “No. You lie back this time.”

I’d figured I’d start with the king who required a whiteboard and a marker to mount his protest.

But the Shadow King just looked over my shoulder at Tadhg, who sat up from his usual watching position at the edge of the bed farthest from the lake-view wall.

“Strawberry, what are we on about?” His tone was half question, half warning. “It’s already been a day.”

“I know it has, and that’s why I want to give the two of you pleasure tonight, instead of the other way around.”

Not like me… not like me… but I made myself be bold. I reached into the band of the Shadow King’s black boxer briefs and took his length in my hand.

“Let me have you for second supper, Shadow King.”

I stroked my hand back and forth over his length, the same way I stroked my core over Tadhg’s when he let me rub myself against him until I found my release.

The Shadow King’s eyes fluttered for a moment, but then his bright-blue gaze went back to Tadhg, obviously conflicted.

“Sadie…” Tadhg started.

“Didn’t you say that I had to be taught to please the High King?”

I continued to stroke the Shadow King, and his chest heaved… a quicker rise and fall as he balanced on his knees, visibly trying to resist the pleasure of my strokes.

“Jayzus Christ,” Tadhg groused behind me. “I knew letting you hang out with my sister, even for a little while, would be a colossally bad idea.”

I wanted to tell him Brigid had nothing to do with this, but he continued on before I could.

“The High King will never use your hand or your mouth. At least not until he’s planted a cub in you. That’s not how bears work.”

Tadhg’s voice became coarse again. “Once we have ye for proper, all we desire is to fill you with our babies, and we’re positively diabolical about it until we get what we want.”

I slowed my strokes. But maybe he was right about Brigid being a bad influence on me.

“So you’re saying that if I want to have you for supper, it has to be now. Before the end of the year—which is in less than two weeks.”

“Sadie, you don’t have to—” Tadhg started.

“I want to,” I said, holding the Shadow King’s gaze. “Look at me. Not him. I want to. I want to.”

To his credit, the Shadow King did look me in the eye. It felt like getting scanned for every version of my consent until he gave in with a nod.

This time without looking to Tadhg for approval.

The Shadow King was not a moon god—I’d asked after a particular mind-shattering session of eating me in a good way.

But the feeling of having been granted a divine audience wouldn’t leave my chest as I pushed his boxer briefs down and bent over to take him in my mouth as enthusiastically as he always did me⁠—

What is that?

I blinked. Then froze.

The Shadow King’s equally pale moon penis sported four black balls on its head. One on top, one on the bottom, and one on each side—left and right.

Not god tech. But piercings. Actual piercings. As if someone had stuck both a horizontal pin and a vertical pin through the head, then attached balls to all the ends. Four black balls, glinting in the low overhead light.

“Something wrong, Strawberry?” Tadhg’s question had more than a hint of amusement in it. “Pulled out more than you can eat for second supper?”

He infuriatingly didn’t add anything else. No explanations. No instructions. Just a quiet snerking sound.

I was pretty sure it was him snickering at me.

I didn’t dare look back over my shoulder at him. Or up at the Shadow King, who was probably regarding me with pity. Waiting for me to give up.

That left only one choice, as far as I was concerned.

I think I surprised all of us when I closed my eyes and took the Shadow King in my mouth—swallowing him down, strange balls and cross piercings and all.

After that, I only had my instincts to guide me. I concentrated on taking him as deep as I could without choking.

The Shadow King wasn’t as thick as Tadhg, but he was long, with a slight curve that made the balls on his piercings rub against the top of my throat.

The sensation wasn’t unpleasant, and my core heated with a new, curious question: What would it be like to have him inside me? To have this pierced length go the same places his tongue had when he beared it out inside me?

That question made me moan. That moan made me take him even deeper.

Tadhg remained silent as a piece of disapproving stone. But I sensed I was doing a good job when the Shadow King sank from his knees to his bottom, bringing me with him and guiding my bobbing head as he lay back on the bed.

I hadn’t taken my hair out of the two braids I’d put it in before brunch. He lodged his fingers underneath them, encouraging me to bob faster and faster. Pulling me farther down so I had no choice but to choke or open my throat.

I happily opened my throat, welcoming the metallic feel of his strange jewelry.

I stretched an arm up his body, settling one palm over his pec. His heart was racing, and his chest was rising and falling at a pace that probably would have made a sound—if he was into that.

No, I didn’t have to. But I’d never wanted to please someone so much in my life.

Not Reuben. Not my mother. Not even myself.

I relished the opportunity to attend to him like this, and when his hips began to jerk, I kept on sucking to the best of my ability.

Swallowing every drop before letting him out of my mouth, spent and fully deflated.

My core was achy and throbbing.

But the blissed-out look on my moon god’s face… for a moment, I completely understood how he and Tadhg felt. My pleasure was a distant priority at the moment—an unnecessary thing in comparison to that of my two kings.

I turned to Tadhg, who was now sitting upright on the bed with an expression that bordered on horrified. Worse than when we were watching the people on his complicated money show make increasingly bad choices.

“Don’t, Sadie…” he warned.

So it was Sadie now? Not Strawberry?

Something about the switch made me smile inwardly… and begin crawling over to him anyway.

“Sadie… Sadie…” he warned over and over again until I was crawling on top of him, using my lips and breasts to softly knock him onto his back and take his thick, straining cock in my hand. “Don’t do this.”

“Don’t do this good, or don’t do this bad?” I asked, stroking my hand up and down.

“Feck, don’t do this good!”

Tadhg knocked the back of his head against the bed, frustration etched into his face along with hunger.

“Have mercy on me, though, Strawberry. Only your hand. I’m not the Shadow King. Don’t think I can go on with the memory of your sweet mouth on my cock if this doesn’t go the way we want.”

I understood. And I wished I didn’t.

As someone who’d been bound by rules all her life, I knew how hard they were to break.

But I had to ask.

“It’s not ancient times anymore. And this doesn’t feel reasonable. What would happen if the three of us went against the High King’s ruling?”

I looked over to the Shadow King, who was now sitting back up on the bed, his jeweled penis retucked away behind his briefs.

But my moon god just shook his ethereal head.

And Tadhg seemed to speak for both of them when he said, “Do ye think we haven’t thought of that?” Tadhg regarded me with a pained look. “But it’s not just the two of us who’ll be affected if we go against his ruling.”

Tadhg shook his head. “The High King’s is the original line—the one that always gets the final say. The continuation of both our lines is at his discretion. If we go against him, the Irish Bears will have only one king. Our castles will be collapsed. Our entire line will be banished from the Secret Kingdom. That includes Brigid and her husbands and the cubs she’ll be dropping any day.”

Brigid, who was on the brink of having two babies, and whose husbands had given up so much to fulfill her dream of living in the Secret Kingdom—the hometown she loved—for the rest of her life.

Now, I truly understood.

And that understanding made me recapture Tadhg’s lips, stroking him faster and harder until he grunted into my mouth and spurted onto his belly⁠—

Calling out my real name in a way that sounded like a curse. But felt like a triumph.

I wasn’t given long to gloat, though.

The Shadow King grabbed hold of me.

Before Tadhg even had the chance to come down, Cian put me on my back and dove between my legs, his shoulders lodging into my under-knee erogenous zones as he ate me in a very, very good—I mean, incredible—way.

Retilting scales I feared would never balance out.

First Claim

“Guess what! I gave the Shadow King a blow job,” I announced the next day to Brigid’s husband, whose name I still didn’t know. “Muffin?”

This had become a bit of a routine with us. Not always. But more days than not.

After brunch, I would usually walk by myself around the lake to get some exercise and cut back through the hedge woods after I passed the Mountain Fortress’s stone steps.

Brigid’s husband often seemed to be hanging out in bear form next to the rock I’d brought over from the palace’s back garden to sit on while I whittled.

And the day after I skipped my usual walk and whittle to go into town, I found him plopped down next to the rock, as if he’d been waiting for me. And the latest gossip about my training.

He lifted an eyebrow at my opening blow job line. But, as usual, he plucked the muffin from my hand, first things first. It was pear today, a winter fruit I’d been told by Chef Pascal grew in the rows of orchards the town kept on the other side of the Shadow King’s castle.

Though, ironically, there weren’t any lemon trees.

In any case, we’d only had apple trees and fruits that could be grown in the ground, like strawberries, in St. Ailbe. So all the pear desserts I’d been getting lately were a real tongue treat.

The High Prince happily ate his muffin as I took a seat on the rock.

Then he settled in for another confessional. That was what I’d decided—in an unprecedented act of self-grace—to call “our listening sessions,” as opposed to the much unkinder label of “him just sitting there, waiting for his second muffin, while I rambled on and on about everything from my complicated relationship with my mother to my sex life.”

Lately, my confessionals had mostly filled with me excitedly describing the new things I’d learned—mostly about myself under Tadhg’s and Cian’s tutelage.

But today, I found myself in a somber mood as I brought out the detailing stick to work on the huge bear I’d been whittling all December.

“I really liked it. Giving someone else pleasure instead of just receiving for once. But somehow, it only made everything worse.”

There was a splintery feeling inside my chest as I confessed, “I’ve never been in love. But I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. And I knew from the start that it would be stupid to get my heart involved. But guess what. I am stupid. Ask anybody back in St. Ailbe. And my heart is so, so involved. But they’re not free to love me back.”

I blew off some of the wood dust I’d created, then pulled out the gouging knife to work on the very last detail above the bear’s right eye.

After several minutes of silent work, my carving was done. But instead of feeling happy, I had to ask my furry onlooker, “Am I the stupidest woman on Earth for agreeing to play the High King’s game?”

“Sadie? Sadie? Where are you?”

I rose from the rock and threw the High Prince’s bear a rueful look.

“That’s my cue. Thanks for the ear, as always. Here’s your muffin.”

I held out the muffin, and he plucked it out of my hand.

“And hey, this is also for you.”

Not sure where else to put it, I set the carving I’d just finished down on the rock.

“But this is not for eating, okay? It’s a carving I made of you. See the little streak I did with the gouging knife Tadhg got for me?”

The bear glanced at the carving, then back at me, his expression confused.

He was probably going to eat it as soon as I turned my back.

Still, I smiled and said, “You know what, do what you want with it. It’s yours. I just wanted to thank you… for everything. Your friendship over these past few weeks has really meant a lot to me. Brigid could not be luckier.”

The bear’s eyes narrowed in a way I couldn’t read—not that my other reads of him probably weren’t all in my mind.

“Sadie? Sadie? Are you out here?” Tadhg’s voice was much closer now. So close, I could hear his sneakers displacing the leaves on the ground. “I thought we’d go back into town for tea again, but if you’re not done, I can always come…”

His last word trailed away when he emerged through the copse of low-hanging tree limbs and found me there with the High Prince.

Now his eyes narrowed.

“I was just talking with your brother-in-law again,” I explained. “Hey, do you have a muffin on you? He loves muffins.”

Tadhg’s narrowed gaze switched from me to the bear, back to me again, then back to the bear before he answered, “No, I do not have any muffins, Strawberry. ’Fraid I’m clean out. In fact, there won’t be any more muffins, I’m told, if the High King doesn’t put in an order soon.”

He was talking to me, but his eyes stayed on the High Prince.

Also…

“That doesn’t make any sense,” I said. “It’s just bread, milk, eggs, and whatever fruit. Why would Chef Pascal need an order to make them?”

“Because the High King can be a pain in the arse when it comes to letting someone else take control. Wants everything in his world nice and orderly. Even when it’s obvious the time for nice and orderly has come and gone, and there’s nothing he can do about it.”

Well, that wasn’t a very nice thing to say. Especially in front of someone’s younger brother.

I glanced nervously at the High Prince. Who just glared at Tadhg… before lumbering off toward the lake. Leaving behind the bear I’d carved for him.

What was that all about? Did Tadhg and the High Prince not get along or something?

“C’mon, Strawberry.” Tadhg rolled up my whittling bag and took me by the hand.

He didn’t walk through the woods but pulled me directly onto the lawn on the palace side of them, striding so fast I nearly had to jog to keep up.

“I thought we were going into town,” I said when we passed by the golf cart still parked outside my room and came to a stop in front of my door.

“Change of plan.” Tadhg’s eyes burned over my body. “Tell your door to open.”

“Open,” I commanded, ever dutiful.

But after we entered together, I turned to ask, “Tadhg, what’s this all about—mmh!”

Suddenly, it wasn’t just his eyes on my body—it was his lips, colliding into mine.

Devouring. Ravenous. In a way he’d never been before.

Then he pulled back to ask, “Do ye trust me, Strawberry? Do ye trust me to claim you the only way I can before he does?”

“Of course.” The two words weren’t even a thought, just a fact. “But he might not⁠—”

Tadhg’s lips were on mine again, stopping only for quick breaths and to yank his clothes over his head with wild urgency.

Catching on, I just managed to toe off the boots I’d never fully tightened before he pushed my underwear down my legs.

Then I was flying onto the bed, Tadhg using his superior strength in a way I liked. I landed with a giggle and a thrill of anticipation.

Being manhandled. Yet another erogenous reaction detected.

But then, instead of going for my breasts or the part of me he and the Shadow King had spent hours licking and fondling, he flipped me over, hooking his hands around my hips to pull me to my knees.

And pushed up the strawberry dress that had no panties underneath.

He drew in a sharp breath, as if the sight he’d revealed had burned him. But he wasn’t afraid to touch again. His large hands spread my bottom cheeks, and then I felt his tongue in another hole.

One no one had ever touched. Including me.

What… what was he doing? And why did it feel so good?!

Tadhg’s mouth was too busy to give explicit instructions, but somehow, my body knew what to do.

I melted into this never-before kiss, moaning at the new sensations. Until he stopped to ask, voice rough above my raised bottom, “Can I have ye here, Sadie?” One thick finger replaced his tongue, rimming the hole he’d soaked with his mouth. “Make you mine in this special place?”

“Y-yes,” I agreed, waves of the good shame washing over me.

This was so dirty. And I was saying yes to it.

“The Shadow King isn’t here, so this is the one time you’re allowed to touch yourself,” Tadhg said behind me. “Rub at yerself as much as you need to in order to enjoy yerself.”

With that, his slow invasion began.

The thick head of him pushed into my back hole, stretching me, impaling me in a good way.…

I moaned into the burn of him back there.

And Tadhg groaned back.

“Aw feck, you’re tight around me. Breathe for me, Strawberry. Welcome me in so I don’t have to push too hard. Ye’re not ready for it rough back here. Yet.”

That yet sent a shiver through me.

And I breathed into that part of my body, like he’d taught me. Becoming as pliable as I could until he was fully seated—until I could feel the sac of flesh he’d told me to ignore the evening before.

Anything.

For him. I’d do anything. Step over any comfort zone line he asked me to cross.

Suddenly, I couldn’t hold it in anymore.

“I love you, Tadhg!” I blurted, twisting my head to look at him over my shoulder. “I’m sorry. I tried to stop myself, but I love you—and the Shadow King—so much.”

Tadhg froze behind me.

And my heart seized.

I’d gotten too comfortable here. Thought my blurting disease wouldn’t be a problem. But of course, this was too much. Too soo⁠—

“I love ye, too.” His expression was both sincere and pained. “To the point I want to rip my heart out of my chest. Burn down my fortress. And fuck over everyone who’s come before or after me to have yer sweet everything.”

He let out a heavy exhale. “I’m the one who’s sorry, Sadie. If I’d known how much I’d come to love ye, I never would’ve put ye in this position. Never would’ve risked him breaking yer heart. Or not treating ye like the treasure ye are.”

This was more than I’d ever expected.

Poetry to my Blurting Disease.

There was nothing I could do. Nothing I could reply.

Except: “I love you! I love you! Please claim me. However you can.”

Tadhg hesitated. “I’m giving you time to stretch and adjust.”

But I didn’t need it.

“Tadhg…” I whined. “Finish your claim. Please.”

Please was all it took.

His hands tightened on my hips, and with a heavy groan, he started to move. Quietly. Fatally.

There were no instructions this time. No praise or encouragement.

We were dirty, dirty animals, and the only sound in the room was that of our flesh slapping as he took me hard and fast from behind.

“Holy feck, Strawberry. Yer king cannot last long inside this glorious miracle you call a bottom. Come with me. Get yerself where you need to be to make the trip.”

I moaned into the bedsheets. I could feel the orgasm building, even without clitoral stimulation.

But I remained compliant to a fault. And I wanted to make the trip with him.

I rubbed at myself the way I’d only ever done in secret—in the shower, under hot water and denial.

I was already drenched. It didn’t take long for the orgasm to shift from building to threatening to completely consuming me.

Like the muffin disappearing behind the High Prince’s jaws. CLWOMP!

Someone was speaking Irish.

Was it me?

No. It was Tadhg.

Words I didn’t understand drooled out of his mouth. But somehow, I could translate them.

He loved me. He loved me. He never wanted to be without me.

I’d had sex before.

But not like this.

Never like this.

The orgasm came for me like a tornado, whipping me into the sky for dizzying seconds before slamming me back down onto the hard ground of present-day reality.

Just in time to hear Tadhg half-growl, half-groan as he filled my most forbidden hole with hot, pulsing loads of cum.

So much, it dribbled out of me when he pulled out with a wet sound.

“Feck, Strawberry…” Tadhg breathed, his voice filled with admiration, as if I’d done all the work.

I could only tremble in response—aftershocks from that shocking act still pulsing through me.

I felt, rather than saw, Tadhg climb out of bed as I collapsed onto my stomach.

He returned with the now-familiar bath mitt and towel combination.

But I shivered again when he cleaned me. I was sensitive there now. A bundle of raw, sparking nerves.

“I didn’t mean to lose control like that.” He ran a hand down my back. “Did I hurt ye, Strawberry?”

I wasn’t sure my no-longer-virgin hole would ever recover. But…

“Good sore,” I assured him. “Very good sore.”

Another departure. Longer this time. I suspected a shower.

That guess was confirmed when he came back smelling like only himself again. Pie crust fresh out of the oven.

Without a word, he pulled me into his arms, settling in beside me to sleep.

That wasn’t unexpected. Or new.

Since the first—and only—nightmare, either the Shadow King or Tadhg had always slept beside me after I was trained on something new. Quietly providing a first line of defense against the mother who haunted my dreams.

But what was new was waking up to him still there. Along with the smell of lemons.

He and the Shadow King always returned to their rooms after I was deep into sleep.

But when I opened my eyes the next morning, I didn’t find a double serving of brunch waiting.

Instead, I found Tadhg and the Shadow King—on either side of me—sitting up and watching.

Watching me.

Their expressions were rapt, as if they’d been there for hours.

Waiting for me to wake up.

What in the world?

I opened my mouth to ask the question aloud—But then I saw the sign the Shadow King held: The High King is ready to give you his YEA or NAY.

Yea or Nay

Everything happened fast after that.

We’d trained so much. In bed. But I realized in that moment, we’d never practiced for the actual ceremony.

“What do I say? What do I do?” I asked them, my heart pounding in my chest. Fear or anticipation? I couldn’t tell.

No, I knew. It was both. It was so, so both.

The Shadow and Mountain Kings had become familiar. But I didn’t know the High King from Adam. The only thing I knew about him was that I’d spent an inordinate amount of time wanting him to like me without ever knowing if he did.

As if in answer to my question, the room announced, “Mountain Princess Brigid Ryan approaching on foot.”

And for the second time in as many days, I had to scramble to find clothes. The Strawberry dress was dirty, so I had no choice but to pull on the green one I’d bought the day before—even though I’d meant to wear that one at Christmas in a few days.

“My turn!” Brigid said, barging into the room in the same way her golf cart charged down the kingdom’s only road.

She carried a vanilla dress with bell sleeves in with her on a hanger, holding it high so the long skirt didn’t drag on the floor.

Long like a wedding gown. Is that for me?

Brigid used the pretty frock to swat at her brother and the Shadow King. “Shoo! Shoo! Away with you two now. The Mountain Princess has got it from here!”

The dress was for me to wear—after a shower set to strip-paint mode.

Brigid insisted, “Lest you go down the aisle reeking of my brother. Seriously, babes, did you let him put it in your bum? I didn’t think you had that in you, but it’s a good idea for us kingdom bears. I had my outsider husband put it in there on the first date. Lil’ necessary preview, if ye know what I mean.”

I did know what she meant, and it worried me that my Brigid translator had started working so well. Less than an hour before I found out if I’d never see her again.

After zipping me into a dress that turned out to be my exact measurements and was made by the female bear whose dress shop I’d liked so much.

But how?

“You sleep like the dead, babes, and the Shadow King’s always up for a project that doesn’t involve him having to talk—like taking measurements.”

The dress fit me perfectly, squeezing at my chest and fanning out in the prettiest way until it hit the floor. Also, the bell sleeves made me feel like something fairy-born. And it had pockets!

“It’s a tall girl’s dream dress, isn’t it?” Brigid said, flashing me an approving look in the washroom’s vanity mirror. “Now sit, and let’s see if that YouTuber who said she could teach anyone to braid Black hair was full of shite.”

As Brigid installed a hopeful crown braid, she told me that the ceremony had already been set up in the throne area of the palace.

“Reckon the servants are never going to forgive your High King for springing this on them right before the holidays. All hands on deck to set up chairs for the lot of us.”

“The lot of us?” I repeated, not liking the sound of that.

From what I could tell from my short time in the Secret Kingdom, “the lot of us” could mean just me and the two training kings. Or “the lot of us” could mean the entire kingdom.

Unfortunately, it meant the latter.

“By tradition, the whole of the kingdom is invited to the ceremony,” Brigid explained. “After all, if the High King says yea, then it basically becomes a royal wedding. Did Tadhg not tell ye any of this?”

“No, he didn’t,” I answered between clenched teeth. The overabundance of love I’d felt for him the previous day began to cool considerably.

“Probably because he knew you’d pull a runner if you had the full gory details.” Brigid’s tone was both wise and cruel. “I mean, who wants to risk getting rejected in front of an entire town? I tell ye, these traditions of ours are something else.”

“Have you considered amending them?” I suggested with as much politeness as I could muster, which, at that point, was not a lot.

“If the High King gives ye a yea, dusting off those old rules and updating them should probably be your first point of business,” Brigid suggested. “Ah, ain’t you a feek piece of confetti? I cannot stand myself for doing so well with this crown braid. I am most definitely going to like, comment, and hit subscribe on Braids4U’s video.”

The braid she’d cornrowed in a circle around my head and interspersed with heather was indeed gorgeous. I was torn between thanking her for her efforts and crying. Both won out.

“Thank you,” I said with a watery voice. “I hope… I hope all this effort was worth it.”

“Aw, dry those up! It’s fifty/fifty, either way. And him deciding right before Christmas might be a good thing.” Brigid tipped her head to the side with a thoughtful frown. “Or a bad thing.”

She waved a dismissive hand. “But either way, ye’ve got to keep up yer chin. If I were ye, I’d carry my whittling knife in with me and stab the bastard if he dares to give a bear as gorgeous as ye a nay.”

Brigid unwrapped the towel she’d put around my shoulders and shook it out. “Just make sure ye do it somewhere fatal, okay, babes? Don’t just stab—slice open his guts. Then, for good measure, pull that other knife across his throat. I mean, that’s what it was meant for anyway, iddn’t it? What was it called again? A gutting knife?”

“A gouging knife.” I was beginning to deeply regret showing Brigid the whittling set Tadhg had gifted me.

“That’ll do it, too, I bet. Especially if you aim for the eyes.” She made a high stabbing then worrisome scooping motion to illustrate her point.

I’d never imagined saying this on my possible wedding/rejection ceremony day, but… “I’m not going to kill the High King.”

“Aw, ye weak-as-shite spoil sport,” Brigid grumbled. “The least ye could do is set me up to be queen if ye’re not going to get the gig. Anyways, I’m rooting for ye not to get yer heart cracked in front of every single person ye met yesterday—plus a lot more ye haven’t. Sorry ahead of time about us Secret Kingdom bears being laughers. It’s either that or cry, ye know.”

And with that incoming future humiliation briskly explained, she handed me off to Tadhg and Cian, who were waiting just outside my glass hallway door, no longer in just their underwear.

Tadhg wore a brown velvet tunic embroidered with golden bear sigils and mountain shapes. A fur-lined cloak, nearly identical to the one worn by the Mountain Kings in the portraits on the hallway wall behind him, was draped over his broad shoulders, and a heavy leather belt with a raised bear claw emblem was cinched tight around his waist.

Cian stood beside him in silent contrast, cloaked in a high-collared black silk robe lined with raven feathers instead of fur.

They both wore grim expressions that made a new lump of fear rose in my throat.

“Well,” Brigid said, sounding far less concerned about the situation than any of us looked, “better get meself a seat before they’re all gone.”

“Greg and Darach saved you one in the front row,” Tadhg told her.

Darach. She’d mentioned her outsider husband by name, so Darach had to be the name of her High Prince one. Which reminded me…

“By the way, just in case I never see him again—please thank Darach for being such a great listener. I truly appreciated the ear.”

Brigid scrunched her face at me. “Say what now?”

“Get to your seat before one of the O’Neilly sisters tries to steal him from you again. You know Agnes has a crush on both your husbands,” Tadhg reminded her. “We’ve got it from here.”

Brigid frowned but did as Tadhg instructed. For someone who claimed not to be great at leading, I noticed he had that effect on people.She left, and then it was just the kings and me alone in the hallway. But the rumble of the crowd from the throne foyer room was so loud, it traveled all the way down the corridor.

“What if he says no?” I asked them, though I didn’t know if I’d even hear their answers past the loud thump of my heart beating in my ears.

The Shadow King held up a pre-written sign:

OUTCOME PROBABILITY MATRIX

YAY: 59.5%

NAY: 26.7%

CHAOTIC THIRD OPTION (e.g., delay, demand, twist): 4.5%

DATA SOURCE: Pattern Recognition — High King Precedent (n=117)

CONFIDENCE INTERVAL: ±9.3%

Okay if I was reading his right (and believe, I was not confident about that), those odds weren’t the most terrible. But considering there was probably only a one-in-a-million chance of me being here in a secret kingdom located underneath the country of Ireland in the first place, it didn’t make my heart beat any steadier.

I’d thought the High King would continue dragging this out until my imposed deadline. I assumed I’d have until the New Year. And…

“I’m not ready,” I whispered to both of them. “I’m not ready to give you up. I thought we’d have more time.”

Tadhg said nothing. But his hazel eyes shone with everything he’d said yesterday.

Meanwhile, the Shadow King drew me into his long arms. He cupped one side of my head, pressing the other into his black shirt.

And then he breathed with me. Just breathed, until my heartbeat slowed to match the calm one beating against my ear.

We never had a chance to tell each other how we felt, like Tadhg and I had. But the way he looked at me when he pulled back…

I knew.

They each took one of my hands, and Tadhg fell back into the teacher role as they led me down the hallway, past all the judgmental High Kings of yore.

“It’s tradition for the presenting kings to escort The Potential down the aisle. But that tradition comes with a purpose. It’s so you don’t hurt yourself, as you must keep your head bowed and your eyes lowered until your High King tells you to raise them for his answer. If it’s yea, then you’ll join him up on the dais, and the wedding will take place with a big celebration afterward.”

I was no longer the naive girl who’d been delivered to this kingdom. I didn’t ask about the alternative—it had already featured in my worst waking nightmares. Heavily.

But I did ask, “What happens if I peep?”

“Don’t peep, Strawberry.” Tadhg’s tone took on a note of stern warning as we came to the end of the hallway. “It’s considered incredibly bad luck if you look before he gives you permission. So lower your gaze now, and no matter what happens—or how he smells—keep your eyes on the floor.”

“How he smells?” I asked, even as I lowered my eyes just as he said.

Tadhg didn’t answer, and a grand ceremonial kind of music started up. Not quite a wedding march, but not a funeral dirge either.

Something in between, that could go either way.

I sensed each row standing just before I passed by. But I kept my eyes glued to the dainty ballet flats Brigid had brought me.

I’d never owned such delicate shoes before.

I wondered if I’d be allowed to take them with me—if the odds didn’t go in my favor.

I wanted to hold on to anything, anything I could from my magical time in the Secret Kingdom.

We came to a stop, and the smell of sweet and sour plum filled my nose.

Strange.

Maybe the High Prince was standing on the dais, too—not sitting with Brigid, as I’d assumed, in what had sounded like a very, very large audience.

Maybe the looking-down stuff was one of the Irish Bear traditions I didn’t totally hate.

The Shadow King gently pushed me to my knees on the floor while Tadhg said something in Irish. It sounded melodic and ancient in a way that neither English nor Wölfennite Dietsch could match.

Then a not nearly as deep but much more resonant voice spoke above us, and the sound of a considerable number of people sitting down filled the space.

So many people had shown up to witness my possible humiliation.

My throat clogged, and my heart shuddered. The incoming rejection felt certain. No longer just a possibility but a fact that would surely break me.

Why, oh why, had I rushed this? I could have had three whole months in this heaven on earth if not for my condition.

I stewed in misery, unable to imagine a future where I’d ever be as happy as I’d been over the last few⁠—

“Yea, I accept you, Sadie Ellis. You may now rise to become my High Queen.”

I blinked. Then blinked again.

Did he…

Did he just do that thing that was the opposite of rejection? Say yea instead of the nay I’d been expecting, given his behavior?

I could barely believe it as I lifted my eyes to find…

Just one male standing on the dais.

Handsome as one of the models in the Edinburgh airport ads for Burberry suits, the High King had a white streak in his hair, and he even wore a knotted bear medallion over his royal robes.

But his scent… it was wholly familiar.

As were the gray eyes staring back at me with a mixture of judgment and curiosity… that could easily be mistaken for a listening face.

No. No. No. It couldn't be him. But there was no mistaking that scent.

This was the human male version of the bear from the woods.

The High King smells like rotten celery.

I hadn’t had a plum before. But occasionally, the smaller St. Ailbe community gardeners planted a celery-like fruit. One that tasted both sweet and sour, depending on how you cooked it.

Rhubarb.

This bear smelled like rhubarb, not plums.

The bear I’d been spilling my guts to this entire time wasn’t the High Prince.

He was the High King.

Wedding

The High King—the rhubarb-not-plum bear—stood before me in a midnight-blue velvet robe heavy with silver knotwork and sapphire-lined cuffs. The bear-shaped medallion on his chest gleamed under the room’s dimmed lights.

And he was holding out his hand… to me.

I was too stunned to take it, but then it turned out I didn’t have to.

The Shadow King placed my hand into the upraised palm of their supreme ruler.

The next thing I knew, I was on the dais with him.

And a minister appeared out of nowhere.

No—not a minister.

He carried a staff topped with a scepter made of twine twisted tightly around a green orb that seemed to pulse faintly with light. And though he wore long robes like the Presbyterian clergywolf who oversaw Tara’s wedding, his cloak was deep green—green as evergreen moss—with the hood pulled up high.

And on top of that hood sat an animal skull.

A pale, bleached thing with a distended upper jaw that cast most of the clergymale’s face into shadow.

All I could really see was a long, gray beard and a heavy mustache that extended down to the middle of his chest, where a round medallion rested, embedded with a green stone inside a carved bear paw.

Was the skull a deer? An elk, maybe?

It had a full rack of antlers, chipped and wide. But its canines were long—disturbingly long.

I didn’t know of any herbivore with teeth like that. And it occurred to me… this might be an animal I’d never seen.

It might be an animal that no longer existed. Some extinct creature from a time unknown.

The wall’s lake view abruptly dissolved into one of the hedge woods, dark under the gray morning light and steeped in shadow.

The scene was so vibrant and resolute, it almost looked like whatever kind of clergymale this was had emerged from those dark woods.

I could nearly hear the strings and drums of ancient music in the air.

Hold on—not nearly…actually.

A quick glance to my left revealed a small collection of musicians playing instruments wholly unfamiliar to me.

After a lifetime of ceremonies soundtracked by nothing more than a lone piano—or more recently, an entire troupe of bagpipes—the sight was surreal.

The music, like the Irish Tadhg and the High King had spoken, sounded ancient and timeless.

Then the strange clergymale began to sing.

It almost… almost sounded like a hymn. But his song had a more natural quality. As if it had been composed by the wind and sky, as opposed to man-made notes, like the ones in our songbooks.

Apparently, his song was some sort of call and response. When he stopped, the High King sang. Not like we did in St. Ailbe. This song was held low in his throat, with notes that reverberated and echoed.

Then the audience sang the same thing behind us, intoning low and deep, as opposed to the purposefully monotone singing we were required to use in the Wölfennite community.

I believe this was the moment when I made my final cognitive split from the life I knew.

Suddenly, everything I’d learned—everything I’d been taught to believe in that faraway place—struck me as clearly made up.

This was real. Ancient and factual in a way science could never replicate.

I am a bear! I am a bear!

And my voice joined the others, humming along, though I knew no Irish.

Then the song was suddenly over, ending with three pounds of the clergymale’s staff. Still, he didn’t speak.

He just produced a pot of black something out of nowhere. Paint, perhaps?

He stuck his thumb in it and stepped forward to smear it across the High King’s forehead, leaving behind a black mark… before offering the High King the pot.

The High King stuck his thumb into the maybe-paint, and I jolted when a pair of unseen hands turned me to face him.

They belonged to the Shadow King, I realized when the scent of lemon hit my nose. He’d taken on the role of attendant. Offering me up to the High King.

Who smeared the paint across my forehead. It was cool and smelled of stone and ash.

The High King stood slightly taller than Tadhg, though not as tall as the Shadow King. But he was broader than the pale moon god now presenting me.

Declan’s hair was a rich brown, against which the white streak practically gleamed. He bent forward after anointing me with the ash-paint and pressed his lips to my forehead.

Then each of my cheeks, leaving behind a mark, I was sure. I shivered as something ancient passed through me, like a spell had been cast.

When he drew back, his lips were clean. He took my hand, raising it to slip on a silver ring. Instead of a diamond, like Tara’s, the center held a bear claw, crafted from a gemstone I didn’t recognize. But it was the same midnight blue as his kingly robes.

Then he turned over the hand he’d just adorned and placed a second ring into my palm. This one had a thicker band and the same blue bear claw.

A match.

Finally, he spoke directly to me again. “Put it on me, álainn. And the ceremony will be complete.”

And just like that, I understood the difference between a teacher and a ruler. His voice held a steel authority that Tadhg’s never had. As if he’d been born with the right to command.

Which probably made it all the more confusing for him when I looked up from the ring and asked⁠—

“Are you kidding me? Is this some kind of not-funny-at-all joke?”

A collective gasp rose from the reverent audience. Then every eye swiveled to him, waiting for his response.

Only to snap back to me when I didn’t give him a chance to reply.

“You strung me along. For weeks, you kept me waiting. Meanwhile, you were pretending to be your brother? Meeting with me nearly every day and listening to all my deepest, darkest secrets?” I shook my head at him. “Now you just expect me to what—just go along with all of this? Act like you didn’t trick me by pretending to be someone else?”

Murmurs filled the chamber, nearly as loud as the song from before.

But one voice rang out over the others: “Well, lads, your gift from the royal family this season will be years’ worth of gossip. Ye’re welcome!”

I was pretty sure that was Brigid.

But Declan—the very not High Prince—just stared coldly down at me.

“I never pretended to be anyone I wasn’t. You assumed. And the secrets must not have been that dark—or that secret—if you were willing to tell them to a complete stranger.”

His words hit like a slap across my face, making everything inside me sting. Did he not understand?

“They were!” I assured him. “I trusted you! You know more about me than Tadhg and Cian—and I’m over the moon in love with them. The little I know of you, I don’t like. I mean, how dare you?”

I splayed a hand across my chest. “How dare you do something like this to me?”

The High King just stared down at me, his gray eyes so much colder than I remembered.

Then he informed me, “What I dared doesn’t matter. The ceremony is only that—ceremony. We were bound in marriage as soon as I gave my Yea. It’s already done. So you might as well accept your fate, as I’ve reluctantly accepted mine.”

I blinked at him.

And though I never, ever cursed, I found myself telling him, “Fuck this total deception of yours. Fuck this ceremony. And Declan…”

I opened my mouth a little wider here to make sure to use the most enunciated English I’d ever spoken: “Fuck. You. I am more than a deal, and my feelings matter.”

I punctuated that last part by throwing the ring at him, which seemed to understand its new role. The piece of jewelry he’d actually expected me to put on his hand bounced off his chest and hit the floor of the dais with a very satisfying clatter.

But still, the High King’s stony expression didn’t change. Nor did he look away from me.

It didn’t matter. I’d made a great speech. Naomi would’ve called it a total microphone drop.

Our wedding audience was afire with whispers by this point.

“I’ve still absolutely no idea how I got mixed up in this,” said a tall, rotund male with a white streak in his rich-brown hair, seated beside Brigid. He threw up his hands in exasperation.

This was obviously Declan’s brother, Darach. The real plum bear.

That last realization probably should have been my cue to stomp off while my words still echoed in the air.

But before I could turn my back on him in triumph, something else reverberated through the room.

Something that smelled like strawberries…

…but hit with the piercing intensity of an emergency siren.

Underwear.

Specifically, the lack of it.

All the ones in the package Brigid had given me had been so large they created what she’d called an “unsightly panty line you definitely don’t want on your possible wedding day” when she’d convinced me to go without them.

I immediately came to regret that decision when my whole body flushed with a heat unlike anything I’d ever known.

And a damp spot bloomed on the front of my pretty, vanilla fairy-tale dress. Right above my core.

No more whispering.

The room went deathly silent.

Which made the High King’s next words hit like a roar: “Everyone. Leave. Now.”

Chaotic Third Option

The Shadow King’s Probability Matrix flashed into my mind.

OUTCOME PROBABILITY MATRIX

YAY: 59.5%

NAY: 26.7%

CHAOTIC THIRD OPTION (e.g., delay, demand, twist): 4.5%

Me going into estrus most definitely fell under that 4.5% twist.

Declan didn’t have to command everyone to leave twice. I’d seen Wölfennites move slower with a tornado on the horizon.

Three words from their High King, and the room scattered.

Even the Shadow and Mountain Kings disappeared. Though Tadhg threw me a look brimming with regret before slipping through one of the black arch doors—doors that had all magically opened, flooding the room with bright light after the ceremony’s dim hush.

But the light didn’t last.

The doors sealed shut, and the shadows rushed back in.

Meanwhile, a core-clenching need—unlike anything I’d ever felt—nearly doubled me over.

My essence… I could feel it sluicing out of me, the patch on the front of my skirt spreading wider by the second. My mind spun under the weight of it, dizzy with need.

Still, the High King didn’t move.

I could feel his cold gray eyes on me. Watching me suffer.

I had to… I had to…

Belatedly, I remembered: I still had free will.

I could go after Tadhg. Or the Shadow King. Someone not related to the liar in front of me. Someone worthy who could help me relieve this unbearable ache.

Mate! Mate! a small, distant voice cried inside me.

“Where are you going, Sadie?” the High King’s hard voice asked as I stumbled down the dais stairs.

“Not you,” I croaked over my shoulder. “Anyone but you.”

The wet spot was bigger now, staining nearly the entire front of my skirt. My thighs slipped slickly against each other as I made for the lake-facing door the Shadow King had disappeared through.

I had to find him. I had to⁠—

“It can only be me.” Suddenly, Declan was in front of me, his rhubarb scent sharp and acrid beneath the cloud of my estrus. “I am the High King. The one you gave First Claim when you allowed yourself to be presented.”

“You tricked me!” I shot back, trying to shoulder past him. “That presentation meant nothing!”

The black door the Shadow King had used was right there. Less than a meter away. Directly behind the not-very-nice-at-all High King.

To my surprise, he let me pass by him.

I made a mad dash for the door⁠—

Only to have his body slam into mine from behind just as I reached it. His arms came down on either side of me, caging me in, pinning me between the door’s glass and his unyielding chest.

“Did no one tell you how unwise it is to run from bears, álainn?”

Once or twice.

But I’d hold my breath and die before admitting that to him. The Shadow King wasn’t the only one capable of stubbornness.

“I will not…” I growled, my cheek pressed to the glass. “I will not make a baby with someone who thinks so little of me. Who let me sit in fear of rejection while he laughed at me from behind a wall.”

“You think I was laughing at you?” His cold voice heated like iron over flame. “You think I let you stew? I was the one stewing, Sadie. The one burning alive in your heat.”

“What?” My eyes darted, but I couldn’t find him in my peripheral vision.

“You don’t know how hard I fought against this. How hard I tried to do the right thing—for all of us—and send you away.” His mouth hovered behind my neck now, breathing on but not touching the spot the Shadow King had already identified as an erogenous zone.

And I couldn’t help it. A shiver ran up my spine, sending another rush of slick down my thighs.

“Tadhg and the Shadow King won’t ever tell you. Because they’re kind. But I, dearest Sadie, am not,” he informed me.

I stilled. Because I believed him. I’d felt it—how often the other two held back, even when I asked direct questions. I couldn’t stop myself from taking his bait. “What didn’t they tell me?”

“That you are our ruin.” His voice cracked against my ear. “The reason I can no longer do business in The Above. The reason I can’t think. Can’t function.”

A growl rumbled in his chest. “I’ve watched nothing but Sadie on the wall telly for weeks. How dare I? How dare you cast this spell? Making me obsessed with you, even though I knew it would mean abandoning every value I’ve built my life on.”

My hand pounded the glass beside where he had me pinned. “You think that’s my fault?”

“Who do you think was watching you, Sadie?” he demanded, pushing the side of his face into mine. “Who sent Tadhg after you when he heard you crying in the night? Who told him to pick up those whittling knives I couldn’t stop myself from ordering for you from the kingdom armorer? Who started texting that traitor again when you ran off with the insane Mountain Princess my brother married?”

That… that was him? Declan?

My mind nearly buckled, trying to take it all in.

But—

“I didn’t… I didn’t ask you to…I didn’t ask for you or any of this!”

“Do you think you had to, álainn?” he growled. “All you had to do was appear to destroy my life. I didn’t know you were ruinous at first. I holed myself up in my room, thinking that at any moment I could put an end to this madness. But no…”

The High King pressed his nose to my neck, audibly breathing in my scent.

“You just had to smell like strawberries, didn’t you? My perfect scent match. And you had the nerve to be good in bed. After claiming you’d only had bad sex and your own hand for years. Why didn’t you tell us from the start what you really were? You ruinous witch.”

His accusation sent another shiver through my body, even as I protested, “I’m not a wi⁠—”

“If you’re not a witch, tell me what you are then!”

I opened my mouth, but nothing came out. I didn’t even know what I was anymore. All I could feel was the weight of his body, the sting of his words, and the throbbing, drenched ache between my legs.

“What kind of true innocent casts a spell over a High King like this?” he asked in my ear. “Makes him abandon all his principles just so he can watch you all day with his cock in his hand?”

My breath caught.

Not from shock. Not from shame. But because some messed-up part of me… liked hearing that. Liked knowing he watched. Liked that so many of his waking thoughts had been filled with me the way mine had been filled with him.

“Do you have any idea how much I hate you, Sadie Ellis?” he growled. “It’s a lot. Almost as much as I desire you. Because I couldn’t. I couldn’t say no to this marriage, no matter how sensible it would have been. No matter how badly it fucked my life in The Above, I couldn’t resist.”

“You could have left,” I countered. “You live in a palace. You could have gone to any other room in the house.”

“Don’t think I didn’t try, my witch of a queen. But I couldn’t close my eyes unless yours were. Couldn’t look away from even a second of your training. You had me watching you like A Clockwork Orange.”

I had no idea what that meant, but it didn’t sound good. Still… “That doesn’t explain you misleading me. Pretending to be your brother’s bear⁠—”

“The only thing I was pretending to be was not obsessed,” Declan insisted. “Do you truly think there’s any other explanation for my behavior? The few moments of peace I was granted were when you left your room to go whittle in my hedge woods. What else could explain me not being able to keep myself from leaving my room to stalk after you? Pretending I just happened to be standing by that rock every single time you came by?”

My knees went weak, threatening to give out—not under his weight, but under his words.

“I could only interact with you as a bear because I knew… I knew if I dared to do it in human form, all would be lost for certain. Oh, Sadie…”

He let out a bitter laugh and rubbed his entire face into my neck as he spoke. “You believe the joke to be on you, but it’s on no one but me. Because you charmed me from every angle. I both couldn’t get enough of your voice as you made your confessions to me, and wanted to murder my own brother, just because you thought you were making them to him. Yes, joke’s on me. And then, you gave me this and pushed me over the edge!”

The High King pushed something underneath the hand I had splayed against the glass. Something small and hard.

The carving. The bear I’d made. When I thought it was just his brother.

“That’s just a piece of evidence for the case I’m making. The case where you cast your spell with the offer of a muffin, making me love you from the start. You giving me this carving was the final straw.”

I closed my fingers around the bear I’d whittled. This? This was what had broken him?

“I’ll be needing that right back,” he said, taking the carving from my hand. “Because I am a male too far gone. This gift is mine, just like you. And I’m never letting it go. Just like I’m never letting you go now that I’ve accepted the burning down of my life for you, Sadie Ellis, my reluctant queen.”

He let out another bitter laugh that held not even a flicker of amusement. “I’d lost to you from the beginning, hadn’t I? There was no version of our story that wasn’t going to end with me finally giving in to the spell you’ve cast. Now, let me in, little witch. Give me the first claim I more than deserve after trying and failing to stay out of your cauldron.”

I didn’t know what surprised me more.

His confession…

Being called little anything…

Or the sound I made right before I turned my head and found his mouth with mine.

His mouth caught my kiss with a sharp spark that sent us both spiraling into a frenzy.

Clothes.

There were too many clothes.

The sound of ripping fabric filled the air. My beautiful fairy-tale dress. His stately king robes. Every barrier between the front of his body and the back of mine got torn away.

Until suddenly—there was something thick at the back of my vagina. Pressing my hot, panting core into the cool glass. And then…

With one great shove of his hips, he filled me up so thoroughly that my feet kicked air. The force of his first claim lifted me off the floor. Then I was back on solid ground again with his hands on my hips as he rocked into me from behind.

Tadhg and the Shadow King had been right to worry. Declan was large. The width of Tadhg’s curled hand with the Shadow King’s length.

He was so deep inside me. And still it wasn’t enough for him.

He lifted one of my legs, crooking my knee over his forearm, forcing me to take him even deeper. “Give me this cunt, little witch. First Claim. First Baby. It is mine. It is mine!”

Oh goodness. Oh goodness. I thought this would be like training.

But it was nothing like training.

He was so rough. So dominating. So all-consuming. And I came so fast.

“Not yet,” he said in that steely king voice that brooked no argument.

“I’m sorry,” I gasped. “I can’t stop it. I can’t⁠—”

The orgasm stole the rest of my words, choking me as I helplessly defied him, coming with a broken, ragged cry.

“Little witch,” he bit out.

Then he roared.

His length spasmed inside my tight channel, right before it flooded me with liquid heat. His heavy body shuddered behind me—again and again—until his seed was dripping out of my hole and hitting the floor in wet plops.

“Fuck me, little witch?” Declan hissed in my ear. “Fuck you. Over and over until my baby’s swelling that soft tummy. Then fuck you even more.”

He pulled out of me, releasing more of his cum—and my want—which dribbled down to the floor beneath the smeared black-glass door.

“But first,” he said, rough and low, “I’ll make you a nest.”

Christmas Morning

TADHG

I jerked awake on Christmas morning in Sadie’s bed to the sound of her moans. But she wasn’t in bed with me.

A low grumble erupted in my chest, and I flung my forearm over my closed eyes.

Without even needing to open them, I knew Declan was fucking her. Yet again.

He’d managed to resist her for six weeks⁠—

DECLAN

Now it appeared we couldn’t make it sixty minutes.

After too short a sleep, I woke to the sound of her moaning and her strawberry scent thick in the air. Her hips were squirming over the makeshift nest I’d built from my robes, coats left behind by our wedding guests, and tapestries I’d pulled down from the walls.

I’d wanted to fetch her a proper mattress—or at least some pillows—between her early cycles. But apparently, it would’ve been too dangerous for me to leave the vicinity.

When I tried to access the hallway, I discovered the Shadow King had used infrastructure god tech to create new doors, effectively sealing us in by blocking off all exits from the throne foyer.

TADHG

The Shadow King had sealed them off in a scent and soundproof room. More for our sake than theirs.

Just knowing she was in estrus was a complete and utter mind fuck, wasn’t it?

This was the part the Secret Kingdom history lessons never talked about.

The High King had First Claim of The Potential, but that left the other two kings in a state.

Leaving that throne foyer was the hardest thing I’ve ever done. The Shadow King and I had been sick with lust for days.

Not eating. Barely sleeping. Just rolling around in the rapidly fading strawberry scent Sadie had left on her mattress. While watching the High King fuck her so hard, it looked like punishment.

And felt like one, to the two kings watching from afar.

I refused to open my eyes this time. It was too hard.

In several senses of the word.

It didn’t matter whether I opened them or not.

Even though I’d spent the lead-up to this holiday handshandying myself nearly raw, it once again rose to the occasion. Like a soldier that refused to quit.

Dribbling pre-cum all over my thigh.

A few days ago, when I still had some pride left in me, I might’ve cleaned up. Now I just let it leak. Part of the recipe for the regret-and-jealousy stew I’d unwittingly signed myself up to bring to our three-king, one-wife potluck.

No wonder so many of the Mountain Kings had gone mad.

As I listened to him fuck her—probably between the sweet thighs I’d been dreaming about wrapping around my own waist—my eyes burned with mad bear-glow, and a spike of petulant anger erupted in my chest.

“Didn’t I tell ye to turn that off last night?” I asked the Shadow King, whose lemon scent now drifted from the direction of the couch where I’d taught Sadie how to properly binge.

The Shadow King, of course, did not answer. And that turned out to be the thing that made me wrench my forearm from over my eyes and shout, “I told ye to turn it off. I can’t take much more of⁠—”

I cut off when I saw the whiteboard propped against a pillow, so it’d be the first thing I saw when I woke: Day 6. Worried. Running analysis.

SADIE

Someone was moaning like a wounded animal in need of treatment.

That someone was me.

Something was wrong.

Declan had fucked me. He’d fucked me for who knew how many days. Servicing every estrus cycle. But it still wasn’t enough.

Even though he’d only pulled out a little while ago, the world remained a fire pit of need. Burning me from the inside out.

My hips mindlessly rocked against the nest, seeking relief. Everything swollen. Heavy. Desperate for more.

“Sadie…” Declan’s voice was somehow both too far away and too loud.

Like he was screaming through water, directly into my ear.

“How are you in cycle again? So soon? We just finished not forty-five minutes ago.”

I don’t know! I don’t know!

But I sobbed into the fur stole of his robe, needing relief. “It hurts!” I whined, feeling sick in the head—and even more so down below.

“Sssh, I’m here.” He rubbed my back with more gentleness than I probably deserved. “I’m here for as long as it takes to get you through this.”

I noticed he was no longer talking about babies, and I got the sense he’d given up on that particular dream for himself.

We were both sore and tired. And like me, he probably wanted this to be over.

CIAN

The Mountain King was shouting about something in the distance, but I couldn’t rip my eyes away from the screen, where Declan was once again mounting Sadie.

Something was wrong.

TADHG

“What kind of analysis are you running, then?” I asked the Shadow King.

No answer.

And my eyes went to the screen I’d been trying to avoid, like a feckin’ moth to a flame.

Holy…

Declan wasn’t between her legs, but on top of her back, rutting with the mindless abandon of an animal, until Sadie’s soft mews turned to faster cries.

Fuck me…

Wishing it was me, I took my cock in hand again to make another deposit in the simmering pot of self-pity stew.

SADIE

I’d hated the High King so much six days ago, but I felt nothing but grateful when he fell back on top of my back and rutted me again, until another orgasm shuddered through my body.

But this time, when he pulled away, the need immediately flared up again. Almost worse than before.

And the strawberry scent I’d grown sick of… sprayed the air once more.

CIAN

The now-familiar slap of Tadhg trying to give himself relief filled Sadie’s room. My cock spasmed painfully inside my boxer briefs, wanting me to do the same.

But I refused to abandon my analysis.

On screen, Sadie had come, and then Declan right after. Her orgasms triggered his. That much had remained consistent over the past five days.

What had started as hate sex had become the High King making up for lost time.

But this session had come only forty-five minutes after the last one.

Which had been just an hour after the one before that.

As I suspected, the time between her estrus spikes was contracting.

Declan collapsed beside her. Spent.

But Sadie’s hips kept rocking back and forth over the nest of king robes, coats, and priceless tapestries she was dripping all over—even though Declan had just serviced her.

The slapping sounds abruptly stopped.

And Tadhg asked, “Is she…?”

Yes. She was.

I rose to my feet, my protect(Sadie) protocol fully engaged, and headed toward the door.

SADIE

The world was only fire. I couldn’t stop my hips from moving back and forth.

Then, suddenly, someone’s hands were on my body. Turning me onto my back to reveal my dripping mound.

“Sadie… Sadie… open your eyes. Look at me, my darling,” a voice said.

A new voice. Gorgeous.

Like black silk sliding over my raw nerves.

But who…?

I opened my eyes and gasped when I saw the Shadow King’s worried face hovering above mine.

“Did you… did you just talk to me?” I asked, wondering if maybe I was hallucinating.

“Yes. You’re in thrall,” he said. “I’d calculated for intervention on Day 7, but your current trajectory suggests system failure long before then.”

As wrecked as I felt, I still couldn’t help but smile up at him.

“You sound as ethereal as you look. Are you super-sure you’re not a moon god?”

A flicker of amusement. “Sadie, I’m sure.”

Then he sobered. “Your pupils are fully blown. Tell us what you need to complete the cycle.”

“I don’t know,” I sobbed, feeling so weak.

“Ask your bear, Sadie. She’ll tell you.”

TADHG

I felt like a true piece of shite, watching the Shadow King tend to her. There I’d been, fapping off and feeling sorry for myself, while she was in real trouble.

“What are you…?”

Beside them, Declan blinked at Sadie and Cian—like he also thought the Shadow King might be a hallucination.

Then his cold gray gaze flipped like a switchblade to me.

I held it. Daring him to pull the First Claim card.

The Mad Mountain King bear inside me was stalking back and forth. Just looking for a reason to punch him in his smug High King face.

DECLAN

All I felt was worry. I’d already started suspecting something was seriously wrong. And I knew I was right when the other two kings came charging through the new hallway door like paramedics on a human medical show.

Just as I’d suspected, they’d been watching.

And they wouldn’t have interrupted my First Claim unless they suspected something was wrong, too.

“What’s the matter?” I asked Cian. “Why can’t we complete the cycle?”

The Shadow King didn’t answer. I had a feeling this once-in-a-decade speaking event was reserved exclusively for Sadie.

CIAN

Only for Sadie. I would speak for no one else.

Thank the gods, she’d taken my advice to consult her bear. Her eyes were fully shifted to the side. Like a child who hadn’t yet learned to hide when they were speaking to their bear.

In a way, Sadie might be the equivalent. The bear who hadn’t known she was a bear was only seven weeks old as far as her consciousness was concerned.

I cursed myself for not thinking of this sooner. I should’ve paid more attention to the interior nature portion of her education.

It likely hadn’t even occurred to her to speak with her bear until now.

“What is she saying to you?” I asked, drawing her gaze back to mine.

Sadie’s expression filled with apology. “You’re probably not going to like this.”

TADHG

That was the only warning the Shadow King got before she bit the hell out of him, sinking her teeth into the flesh between his neck and shoulder. Binding him to her forever with a mate bite.

A beat. That’s all we three kings got with our sanity.

A single beat.

Then the Shadow King bit her back, and all hell broke out.

DECLAN

There was an order to these things.

Rituals to follow.

Ceremony. Vows. Process.

And my bear gave not one single fuck.

He roared inside me, lunging forward, maw-first.

SADIE

The Shadow King flooded into me. All his memories. All his serenity. All his moon knowledge.

He’d been born this way. Quiet as the moon. Utterly without the desire to speak.

A human psychiatrist once tried to label it. And that diagnosis had been the very thing that made him come out—as someone completely unwilling to talk.

It hurt him to speak. Like knives scraping his chest.

But he loved me. Loved me so much. He’d do anything to protect me. To keep me safe.

Including biting me back. So our telekinetic link would be established. So I’d never be without his words again.

But there were only three words in his head when I made my mark on his neck: “I love you. I love you. I love you.”

Over and over again.

A hard-coded script, running on an infinite loop. Installed the moment our eyes locked across the dining room. When my strawberry scent first triggered his internal recognition protocol.

And I’d mistaken him for Death.

For a moment, we were the only two objects in the universe.

Which I understood now, down to the calculations and theories. Including The Big Laptop. A story theory he’d developed to explain our existence: What he believed to be a written version of reality. He believed in the bears’ three serpent gods. But he also believed we were little more than story. One that may or may not have a happy ending.

I stared at all his knowledge in wonder, giving him the little I had in return.

And then something else crashed into me.

TADHG

The High King’s teeth sank into the space on the other side of Sadie’s neck at the same time his hips plunged into her strawberry wet.

DECLAN

I drove into her like something possessed. Biting viciously into her, in the same way she’d taken the Shadow King.

Then I drowned in the knowledge of her.

Her mind had been conditioned to be simple.

But it was also a Rubik’s Cube of ever-shifting wants and needs and instincts she didn’t understand.

I’ve always been rather good at Rubik’s Cubes. And negotiations.

I rutted between her legs as my teeth marked her forever. And inside this animal sex, my bear ran straight toward hers on a plane of existence filled with ancient stone circles.

“Let me in,” I commanded. “Take my seed.”

Her bear walked toward me on the stone circle plane. And my bear froze in shock.

She was gorgeous. Big and black, with a proud, gleaming coat and a muzzle of brown fur around her nose. And she was wearing a crown.

Not the silver one I would have placed upon her head had she allowed the ceremony to conclude without protest.

This crown was older. Deeper. Woven from something no forge could shape—braided gold wire, deep-rooted shells, and carved onyx beads that glinted like stories passed down through generations. In the center sat a chunk of raw garnet, uncut and unpolished, but glowing with a fierce inner light.

“You’re a queen already.”

“I am. I will forever be. I was born this way,” the bear said, regarding me with a lofty tilt of her head. “Tell me, what does ‘álainn’ mean? My moon god does not know.”

The bite mark I’d given her let me know she was referring to the Shadow King.

“He’s not a moon god.”

“He is to me. And if he is to me, it must be true.”

My bear cocked its head. Like recognizing like. “You’re confident, bordering on arrogant,” I realized. “Not as insecure as your human seems.”

The bear’s entire body heaved with a sigh. “I’ve been trying to tell her about our crown our whole life. But she kept pushing me down. Tell me, why does my beautiful moon god not know the meaning of this Irish word?”

My bear chuffed. “Because, as literally quiet as it’s kept, he’s more stubborn than your Mountain King and I combined. He refused to learn the language as a child with the rest of us. Maybe he always knew he’d end up like this.”

“Hmm. Well…” Her bear responded to my explanation with a queenly shrug. “Gods have no need of words. That’s why he understands god tech better than anyone else.”

“That he knows of,” I pointed out.

“That he knows of,” the bear conceded with a regal nod. She looked my bear up and down. Sniffed. “Will you tell me what ‘álainn’ means?”

“It means beautiful. Obviously. The most beautiful female I’ve ever laid eyes upon.”

“Oh… That makes sense.” The already-queen bear’s expression lit up with pleasant surprise. But instead of gazing down shyly, as her human would have, she held my eyes and told me, “You should have led with that.”

I could feel the incoming orgasm barreling toward the two of us like a train.

“Let me in,” I commanded again. “Take my seed.”

“Why should I?” she asked, tone haughty. “You are not my moon god. Or my trusted teacher.”

“No, I am neither of those things,” I agreed. “I am your king. Your devil. The male who will stop at nothing to make you happy to be mine.”

Her brown eyes flared with heat underneath her one-of-a-kind crown. But then she reminded me, “I am already happy to be theirs. You have six weeks of catching up to do, Devil King.”

The orgasm had nearly reached the end of its climb. And she dared to keep challenging her High King.

This female…

“Do not make me chase you,” I growled deep in my chest.

“What if I like being chased?” she asked, her voice liquid gold.

“Then I will chase you,” I promised, matching her tone. “Because a moon god will grant all your wishes, but a Devil King will hunt you down and make your wishes match his own.”

Her bear blinked with a serene slowness that her bite told me she’d already borrowed from the Shadow King. Then she said, “I will consider it.”

Just as our combined orgasm crested the cliff.

In the next moment, I slammed back to earth and then into Sadie’s strawberry wet one last time before exploding inside of her.

SADIE

I screamed into the Shadow King’s neck as the orgasm wracked through me.

Something was happening. This wasn’t like a regular climax.

It felt as if my womb was pulsating, rushing and quickening, like it was taking delivery of fireworks. Creating something.

“A baby,” my bear informed me proudly. “The High King asked me nicely.”

I wasn’t sure how biting me out of nowhere was “asking nicely,” but according to the new voice inside my head: “These are games we kings and queens like to play. Maybe you’ll understand in the years to come. Now, receive your Mountain King. I am not yet satisfied.”

With a gasp, I let go of the Shadow King’s neck and said, “Tadhg! Tad⁠—”

He was between my legs before I got the second call of his name out.

TADHG

Fucking her like I hadn’t let myself for six long, long weeks. It was worth the wait. Glorious. Druid songs layered on top of R&B until we both exploded.

My teeth tingled… but no. Not yet... Maybe not ever.

Mad Mountain King. There had to be a discussion. There had to be⁠—

Sadie came with a great intake of breath and a heaving arch of her back as her cunt strangled my length. And though I’d wanted to last as long as I could, my cock kicked and spewed ropes of cum. Emptying, transferring every bit of life-making material I had inside me… to inside of her.

Every last drop. That was what her cunt took from me.

I collapsed beside her, a male desiccated.

But she continued to shudder beside me, the orgasm still wracking her body, even after I was done.

SADIE

I could no longer see. I suspected my eyes had rolled to the back of my head, but couldn’t bring myself to care that I was seizing as another deep womb orgasm overtook me.

And still, the new voice inside my head—the one I’d been suppressing for so long—said: “One more.”

And with that, I blinked back into the real world to inform the Shadow King over our new mental link: “She’s asking for you.”

Our irises were opposite colors, but our eyes looked the same now. Black and blown out.

Everything could be a drug, my new Shadow King knowledge informed me. Even pleasure. And especially intimacy.

And my moon god climbing on top of me, last but never least, was the best kind of intimacy.

He stroked a hand over my now incredibly messy crown braid, gazing upon me as if I were the most mesmerizing woman in his universe.

He held my black stare with his, then slowly pushed in until his piercing—I now knew it was called a magic cross—hit my back wall.

We both… oh goodness. The bear bite bond made sure we both felt everything the other did. Every sensation. Every contraction. The utterly calm feeling of finally coming home after a long journey.

Holding my gaze, he started to move. Taking his time. Letting me know over the bond of our bite that this… me… was the best drug he’d ever known.

“Me, too.”

He was everything my bear wanted. From the first moment she sat up in the glass box.

“Finish it,” she whispered inside me as we rode on each other’s pleasure, hearts filling up as the orgasm built inside both of us.

Then he downshifted his hips. And… and… hello, outer space.

Supernovas formed and atoms collided. We rocketed to his moon and gazed directly into the sea of sun-stars.

And then we jumped into the space between them and floated back down to our plane here on Earth.

“Core memory codified,” his black silk voice murmured inside my head.

It was amazing to know exactly what he meant as my body finally stopped emitting estrus. And my eyes fluttered closed to the image of the four of us at the table, telling our three progeny about how I became the first queen in all of Secret Kingdom history to become pregnant with three future rulers on her First Claim wedding night.

An Unexpected Visitor

Hamish

Faoiltiarn

“Senair?” Dorie, Hamish’s new granddaughter, asked as they were finishing up their morning ride on the horses, in that Canadian way of hers, where she just said his name without spitting out her question.

If Hamish didn’t like the sound of her calling him grandfather in Scottish Gaelic so much, he might have fussed at the twelve-year-old granddaughter he’d unexpectedly gotten for Christmas, with another pup on the way now that Alban had mated and married her mother.

As it was, he indulged little Dorie with a patient, “Yes, granddaughter mine?”

Her light-brown face tilted up to him, more somber than usual, especially when she was out riding. “Do you think we’ll ever see Aunt Naomi and the others again? I’m afraid to ask Maem because I know it makes her sad.”

Sweet child, always considering her mother. This was why it was impossible to fuss too much at her about her inefficient question-asking.

Still, Hamish had to be careful with his words. Alban—who Dorie had already taken to calling Da—had warned him over and over again to protect the girl’s feelings. She’d already been through so much with her abusive birth father.

“Well, what do you think?” he asked with a gruff-but-gentle tone. He’d been trying to soften his speaking voice as of late, now that there were she-wolves living in his and Alban’s house.

“Da says we’ll get them back, no matter what. But the boys at school say we never got the first stolen brides back, and it’s unlikely we’ll ever see these lost brides again, either.”

Dorie’s shoulders sank a bit.

“I saw Aunt Tara crying in Uncle Magnus’s arms the last time I went to the castle stables,” she said. “She didn’t see me coming around the corner. But she was telling him it was all her fault and she had no idea how to break the news to everybody back in Canada because she knew they’d flip.”

No doubt. Tara was lucky that the Wölfennite community she’d gotten to agree to the exchange didn’t believe in technology, or the gig would’ve already been up for their new queen.

Hamish had no idea how Tara would clever her way out of this jammy. But one thing was for certain...

“This is why it’s never a good idea to discount children,” he told his thoughtful granddaughter. “You often get the right of a situation without even having to grow up.”

“But what does that mean?” Dorie asked. “Which one of them is right?”

“Well, what do you think?” he asked her back.

“I think…” Dorie worked her jaw, her thoughts clearly churning. “I think... Da should stay here in Scotland. Not go to Ireland looking for them again. We’re happy, the four of us. And the Irish Wolves’ leader said they’d let any brides who want to come back return in the spring.”

Hamish nodded, agreeing with her conclusion. But...

“Knowing the male your Da is, do you think he can do that?”

“No,” Dorie answered, her voice miserable as they rounded the corner that led to the main road toward the Faoiltiarn gates. “But I have such a bad feeling about the February trip. I wish there was a way to—Do you smell that?”

She broke off, straightening in her saddle and lifting her nose with an audible sniff. “Is that Wölfennite named Sadie back? There’s an odd smell in the air. Do you think…?”

Dorie had a crackerjack nose. She could even smell something as sensitive as the sex of a baby before the mother did.

But the issue with having an exceptional sense of smell was that sometimes you forgot to use your other good senses. Like your eyes.

Hamish, with his average sense of smell, didn’t forget to scan the distance for the source of Dorie’s scent.

And when he did, his entire world came to a halt.

Standing at the town’s gate—where a 24/7 sentry had been posted ever since the second Irish kidnapping—stood the most mesmerizing female he’d ever seen.

She wore a plain blue dress and black bonnet, like all the other Wölfennites. But she was maybe twice as old as one of their brides. Short but sturdy, with eyes that might have been large if they weren’t squinted up in suspicion.

Her accented voice floated back to their ears.

“Listen to me now. My name is Claudine Ellis, and I’m here to see my daughter, Sadie,” she was telling the sentry. “It’s taken some kind of misery and paperwork to even get here. You will not hold me up, little boy. You will be taking me to my daughter, Sadie, right now.”

“Sadie’s Maem seems mean,” Dorie whispered beside him.

“I agree,” Hamish whispered back to his dearest granddaughter.

Then he climbed down from his horse to introduce himself to the female he already knew, deep in his bones, would change his life.

Happy New Year

Sadie

I ended up sleeping through the rest of Christmas—and quite a few days after that.

A black, dreamless sleep served as a reward for six days of constant sex, topped off by some wild out-of-body experiences.

Transcendental… The word had sparked into my head on a current of the Shadow King’s knowledge, right before I’d passed out in a heap.

When I woke up, I was still stark naked, but no longer a mess of my own want and my bear kings’ seed.

I was also no longer in the nest Declan had built for me, but lying on a bed, smaller than the circular one in my room, but still large compared to the twin cot I’d slept on in St. Ailbe. A wide, square bed located beneath a high ceiling with exposed beams.

Where am I?

I sat up, rubbed the sleep from my eyes, and blinked around a luxurious room I’d never seen before.

The palette was technically warm—earth tones—but everything still appeared cool to the touch. Frosted wardrobe doors, golden drawer handles, polished marble floors.

Whoever’s space this was, it was aggressively neat. Nothing out of place…

…except me, lying beneath a ridiculously soft, warm, brown blanket and crisp, cream-colored sheets.

Oh—and also the massive image of Tadhg, sleeping in my bedroom suite in nothing but white underwear, streaming from the digital wall in front of me.

A soft electronic whirr and whisper sounded, and the scent of rhubarb hit my nose.

I turned to see Declan emerge from what must have been the washroom. His rich-brown hair, with its white streak, was damp, and water droplets beaded his broad chest. Along with the rest of him.

Because the High King was also naked as the day he was born.

A sudden rush of shyness made me pull the sheet up over myself. But then my good-Wölfennite-girl instincts were overridden by the straying of my bad girl eyes down to the trunk of flesh between his legs.

Even flaccid, it looked formidable. Wide as my fist and hanging nearly to the bottom swell of his muscled thighs.

He was all wet from the shower, but my mouth went dry, remembering everything that had passed between us.

The things we’d said to each other.

The hateful, hateful sex.

Followed by begging. So much begging.

My entire face burned, remembering how many times I’d begged him to fill me up while I was in estrus.

I didn’t know whether to feel aroused, proud, or deeply, deeply embar⁠—

“The first two,” Declan said before I could finish the thought. With authority.

As if to prove his point, the staff between his legs rose to fully erect and pointed straight at me. Like an arrow.

I still couldn’t believe that monster had been inside me. Lots and lots of times. So many, I’d lost count around day two or three.

“Keep thinking thoughts like that, and it’ll be inside you again,” the High King warned, reminding me that he could now read my mind, thanks to the bear bite he’d given me. “And you’re supposed to be recovering from the most not-by-the-book First Claim in kingdom history. So, eyes up here, álainn.”

He pointed at his face. At least I think he did. My eyes stayed glued down there.

What would it feel like in my mouth? Would I even be able to fit my mouth around⁠—

“Jayzus Christ, you remain a ruiner of well-laid plans,” he muttered.

Then he disappeared the distance between us and, before I could blink, snatched away my modesty sheet and tumbled me sideways on the bed.

“Little witch…” he said with a chastising shake of his head, yanking me to the edge of the mattress and burying his face between my legs.

It was his first time doing this to me. But from the way his mouth moved over my mound, he needed no lessons. His tongue licked up my seam, then beared out, extending long and rough and oh-so-deep into my tunnel.

I whimpered, my fingers tangling in his damp hair.

Then he added fingers. Two sank inside me, assisting his tongue, while the thumb of his other hand worked over my clit with just the right amount of pressure.

Oh my goodness. He hadn’t lied about watching my training sessions. He hadn’t just studied for the test, it was obvious he was using the magical one-sided link created by the bear bite he’d given me to earn extra credit.

I became a moaning wreck beneath him. Squirming. Arching. Begging again. This time, not to stop.

“Ah, now, something’s getting well-laid, but it’s not our plan to let you rest until the new year,” another voice said.

I turned my face toward the digital wall. Tadhg was no longer asleep.

In fact, the Mountain King was sitting up and watching—watching Declan tongue me down—with another mountain having risen between his legs.

I squirmed at the new, heady feeling of knowing explicitly that I was being watched—not just sensing it, but knowing.

“None of that close-your-eyes business. Remember your lessons, Strawberry,” Tadhg instructed from the screen, stroking his length up and down. “If another king is watching you, give him your pretty brown eyes. Keep them here right on me. And if you really want to make me hurt, rub those delicious tits while you do.”

I didn’t want to hurt him. I never wanted to hurt my wise teacher, not to mention the kindest man I’d ever known. But some feminine instinct made me hold his hazel gaze as I raised my hands to my heavy breasts, squeezing the nipples just as he would’ve. As hard as I could. Which escalated the pleasure zapping between my legs.

“Oh!” I whimpered.

And Tadhg groaned. “Feck, Strawberry…”

His hand moved faster up and down his thick shaft, his expression strained, pained. But he didn’t stop watching me.

Even when I started coming, clenching around the High King’s fingers as I creamed into his mouth.

The licking and flicking didn’t stop until I did, and on the big screen, Tadhg rocketed ropes that made the aftershocks hit even sweeter.

When I looked away from him to thank Declan, I found the High King already standing above me, licking his fingers clean. His mouth glistening with my essence, his eyes gleaming with devilish intent.

“Let’s see if I can find this clit I’ve heard so much about.”

He proceeded with his search. But he didn’t use his fingers.

He wrapped his hand around his long, thick arrow and dragged it along my seam. Poking and pressing until⁠—

“There you are,” he murmured when my back arched on the bed.

“Should I reward you for waking up my cock and ruining yet another plan,” he asked, “or punish you?”

Even just the tip of him rubbing against my secret button felt incredible. Sparks of pleasure raced up my belly, tingling across the place that held not one, not two, but three future royals.

It didn’t matter that I was already incredibly pregnant. Even with estrus over, I wanted him inside me. Filling me again.

“Please don’t punish me,” I begged.

At the same time, Tadhg said, “Punish her—and let me come over to help.”

The High King didn’t even hesitate. “Door’s open,” he said to Tadhg, eyes glued on me.

“What in the world?” I asked when Tadhg barged into the room not five seconds later, holding a bottle filled with some sort of clear, viscous liquid.

“I thought you two hated each other,” I said, as Declan cruelly removed his mushroom tip from my clit and stepped aside for Tadhg.

“What?” Tadhg jerked his head back, looking both baffled and offended. “This male is my brother from another. The best friend I’ve ever known.”

Declan’s brow lowered in agreement. “Tadhg is the best brother I’ve ever had. And I actually have a full-blooded one.”

“What would ever put a notion like us hating each other into your mind?” Tadhg asked, shaking his head.

I didn’t even know how to begin answering that.

“She’s confused because of how we’ve been treating each other in the six weeks since you and the Shadow King arranged this,” Declan translated, reading me over the bond bite again. “Brigid tried to explain to her the nature of being Irish, but she hasn’t got a full grasp.”

He glanced at me, then added, “Also, we’re losing the mood to her confusion.”

Tadhg’s baffled expression dissolved back to intent. “Well, we can’t have that, can we?”

“No,” Declan agreed. “Let’s give her a comprehensive demonstration of our operational synergy…”

Lube. The clear liquid was lube. And that morning, I found out my clit wasn’t the only bundle of nerves capable of being tortured with just the tip.

After putting me on my knees above Declan’s face, they proceeded to show me just how wrong I’d been about them by executing a mind-breaking campaign of pleasure.

Declan licked me everywhere but that secret button, while Tadhg teased another hidden spot from behind that I didn’t even know I had.

They weren’t satisfied until I was crying, begging, apologizing—even though I still didn’t know what I’d done wrong.

And I wasn’t satisfied until Tadhg stood me up on my knees, allowing Declan to turn around so that our privates were lined up. The new position left him perfectly placed to receive me as Tadhg guided my trembling, dripping core onto his best friend’s monstrous cock—inch by inch, he filled me up.

Then came the lube again—rubbed into my back hole, slick and warm—so Tadhg could also fill me completely from behind.

Yes. These two worked very well together.

It only took a few coordinated pumps to send me spiraling. I cried out, gnashed my teeth, and clawed at Declan’s chest as the pleasure crashed over me. They felt so good.

By some silent agreement, Tadhg picked me up afterward, and they both carried me back to my original bedroom suite, where I passed out between the two brother-from-another kings.

More sleep.

This time, I woke to the most delicious smells yet.

“New Year’s feast,” Tadhg explained, dragging an armchair close to the service cart that had been placed beside my bed. “To welcome the best year of our lives.”

It was so much food. A whole beef and Guinness pie just for me. Two for Declan. Three for Tadhg. Between us sat several heaping bowls—rich buttered cabbage, crisp roasties, candied carrots, mountains of champ, and thick slices of soda bread stacked beside a crock of golden butter.

As it turned out, I was ravenous. Tadhg ended up giving me half of one of his pies, reminding me gently, “You’re eating for four now.”

I accepted it with a quiet “thank you,” shame tightening inside my chest.

It must have shown on my face.

“What’s wrong?” Tadhg’s happy eating expression crumpled into worry.

“She’s got her evil mother echoing through her mind,” Declan answered before I could. “It’ll take a while for the voice to fade.”

“In that case,” Tadhg said, tone firm, “I’m insisting you take two portions of this caramel cake for dessert.”

My face burned. I wasn’t sure I’d ever get used to Declan reading my mind. It was like having my confessional bear back—but now I didn’t even have to speak for him to know my worst, darkest thoughts.

“You’ll get used to it,” Declan assured me.

I frowned. “I don’t think I⁠—”

“You will,” he insisted, spearing his one piece of caramel cake. “And let your bear know that after six weeks, you’ll want into my head, too.”

That’s when I realized someone was missing.

“Where’s the Shadow King?” I asked.

“Acting pure mule-headed about waiting his turn,” Tadhg said, rolling his eyes just like Brigid. “Sorry, Strawberry, that training session was a once-off. Your Shadow King’s a loner, through and through. I’m hanging out with you two for the week, with Declan’s permission. But you won’t be seeing Cian again until it’s his turn.”

That tracked with what all I’d learned about the Shadow King when I bit him. But…

“His turn?” I asked them.

Turns

So, apparently, the kings took turns with me.

By tradition (of course), until the First Claim baby was born, shared queens split their time between their kings’ palaces.

Like many rituals, it made a strange kind of practical sense. Throughout the Irish Bears’ history, this had meant that if a queen’s kings didn’t get along, they didn’t have to share—or watch their queen be shared by another.

“But what happens once the first baby is born if they don’t get along?”

Both Declan’s and Tadhg’s faces clouded at that question. And Declan declared in his kingly tone, “No dark history lessons to start off the new year.”

Luckily, Declan and Tadhg did get along. They proved just how well over the entirety of the first week of January.

If Declan was still upset about my unexpected delivery ruining his plans for his next six quarters—“at least”—it didn’t show. We filled our days with large meals, long naps, and even longer conversations while I whittled a five bear set to give Brigid as a gift. To my surprise, the High King was still an excellent listener in human form and incredibly easy to talk to for hours.

“It’s a good skill set to have as a CEO,” he explained one evening when we looked up from what was supposed to be a short picnic lunch to find the sun dipping below the lake. “And it’s much more interesting talking to you than sitting in endless meetings about numbers.”

As angry as I’d been at the wedding I’d cut short with what Declan still referred to as that “dead-sexy temper tantrum,” this felt like having my bear confessional back again. Only better.

Because this rhubarb bear kissed and licked and punished and had a seemingly unending list of things he wanted to do to me. Including rolling me over and wrapping one of my legs around his waist to make love to me on a picnic blanket while the sun set behind us.

Love.

We both gasped when he filled me up. Then groaned. I still hadn’t adjusted to his size, and the tightness of my channel made him have to stop and breathe, “So I don’t embarrass myself.”

But maybe we were getting used to each other, because he began moving on top of me after only a few held moments.

“By the gods, I love you,” he whispered, dropping tender kisses on my lips. “And I swear to you, I’m going to earn your bite.”

As he rolled his hips between my legs on that blanket, he told me his intentions. That he would send me to the Shadow Castle, then to the Mountain Fortress. That he’d spend the next two weeks plotting ways to woo me into wanting him inside my head.

“Oh, have I got plans for you, álainn.”

Plans. Uh-oh…

As Declan kept reminding me, I was a great ruiner of those.

And it felt like the most natural thing in the world to maw my teeth and sink them into the space between his shoulder and neck before he was ready.

But as I soon found out—when all his emotions and history downloaded into my mind—he was never ready for me. He doubted there’d ever be a time he’d look at me and consider me anything less than a surprise.

“The best surprise,” he corrected, right before he seized up on top of me…

And sealed our official bonding with a cum.

It was Declan’s week, but Tadhg was the one who walked me over to the Shadow Castle the next night, stopping for several lingering kisses when we reached its lowered drawbridge.

“You’ll have to tell me what it’s like in there when I return to pick you up,” he said after the third or fourth goodbye.

Not for the first time, I wondered about the absence of our bond bites. Tadhg hadn’t even brought it up, despite having practically moved into the palace during Declan’s turn. But right before I was about to disappear for a week was probably not the time to introduce the subject.

“You’ve never been inside the Shadow Castle?” I asked instead.

Tadhg shrugged. “Like we said, when he’s not throwing the whole kingdom sideways to make you his queen, he’s a proper hermit, so he is.”

His gaze drifted over my shoulder, and my nose filled with the scent of lemons.

I turned to find the Shadow King standing at the halfway point of his drawbridge. He wore a pair of leather pants and nothing else. His chest, bare and carved like stone, had a fresh tattoo inked directly over his heart:

Shadow Queen, our mutual bear bite bond relayed, written in the strange, ancient language of his gods.

I hadn’t realized how much I’d missed him until I was running, loosening the front of my wrap dress so my chest was also bare by the time I leapt into his arms and wrapped my legs around his waist.

He’d missed me, too. That was why he wore no shirt—he wanted to feel my skin against his.

And thank goodness I didn’t have a bra that went with the green dress yet. I wanted what he wanted, without ever needing his words. We stood like that for nearly an hour, just holding each other and letting our scents merge, before he finally set me down and took my hand to escort me inside….

…only to escort me back out, what felt like mere moments later. But this time he was dressed in a black-on-black tuxedo with full tails paired with a silver crown that gleamed under the glowing, red god-tech symbols on the castle’s exterior wall.

I found Tadhg in his usual jeans, t-shirt, and open button-up, waiting on the other side of the drawbridge.

“Did you decide to come early?” I asked, brow scrunching in confusion.

“No, you were definitely in there for a week,” Tadhg insisted, offering his hand as he helped me down from the lowered drawbridge onto the solid ground. “Longest one of my life.”

But not mine. I turned to wave at my moon god, but he disappeared from the castle’s entrance, and the drawbridge was already closing with a soundless, electronic speed.

“What was it like?” Tadhg asked again, this time more sincerely, as we circled the lake toward the Mountain Fortress, walking side by side.

“Alice in Wonderland,” I answered.

He waited. Then, when I didn’t elaborate, asked, “Did he at least have furniture?”

“Not the way you think of it.”

Tadhg tilted his head. “Furniture is furniture.”

“Yeah, kind of, but… There’s not a lot of gravity in the Shadow Castle. So it’s more like hooks? And the occasional strap? Also, an altar?”

“There’s no gravity?” Tadhg repeated, brow furrowing.

“No, there is. Just… not much of it,” I said, tipping my head toward the stars the Shadow King had programmed into the sky. “That’s the thing about gravity. It’s technically the weakest of the four fundamental forces, but it still holds galaxies together. Moons. Bodies. And we don’t actually know why it exists. Or what it wants. It’s like the universe’s quiet gift. Or maybe a doorway to some kind of next-level knowledge. I don’t know. It blew my mind.”

“Yeah, well, you sound like you’re on drugs, Strawberry. Can I just say that?”

“Drugs!” I snapped my fingers. “That’s what I should’ve said instead of Alice in Wonderland. Drugs! I’m not, don’t worry. But that’s actually a better way to describe the Shadow Castle. Yes, drugs!”

Tadhg rubbed the back of his neck. “Just so you know, my Mountain Fortress is nothing like that. No drugs. No fairy tales. No floaty straps.”

“Oh, thank goodness.” I took his large hand in both of mine. “I had a great time—or what he calls ‘paragraphs,’ for reasons yu’re probably not going to understand. I barely do, and I’ve got the bond bite going with him. But my body is wrecked from not having the gravity I’m used to for… however long I was in there.”

I gave Tadhg an apologetic look. “I don’t want to confuse you more than I already have—or myself. But he’s running some pretty crazy time experiments in his clean-room lab, and I’m still not sure our whole week didn’t get compressed into one of his paragraphs.”

“Does the lab have gravity?” Tadhg asked, looking as hopelessly confused as I didn’t want him to be.

“Of course. I mean, I think. I wasn’t allowed to go in any of his labs.”

“How many labs does he⁠—”

I waved that side question away before he could finish asking it. “Main point: sex in 16.5% of Earth’s gravity is… a lot.”

Tadhg raised both eyebrows, then let out a low chuckle. “Well, I look forward to throwing you against a wall and pounding you back into reality as soon as we get there.”

There. Not home.

We weren’t bonded by bites, but I noticed a tightness in his shoulders now that hadn’t been there when he walked me to the Shadow King’s castle.

Which made me hesitate to ask the question I’d been saving for the kingdom’s self-proclaimed Logistics Guy.

But of course, he read me. No bond bite required. “Got something you’re wanting to ask me about, Strawberry?”

“Maybe we should save it for tomorrow,” I hedged. “Or after you show me around your fortress.”

“Not much to show. Just your room—where most of the visit will take place.” His face went completely neutral, and I couldn’t tell if that meant he had no feelings about showing me the Mountain Fortress… or too many.

Either way, he insisted, “Tell me what’s on your mind. You know I want to hear it, first things first.”

I took a deep breath. “So… you know my birthday’s coming up.”

“I do know that.” His shoulders relaxed slightly. “The Shadow King actually deigned to text us about it. Wanted to make sure we didn’t forget. And I’ve been told not to spoil Brigid’s gift.”

I laughed. “After a week at the Shadow Castle, I don’t think I’m up for any more surprises. And you know she’d spoil the surprise if it were the other way around.”

“You’re right." Tadhg gave in with a conceding nod. “That dose is getting you a whole wardrobe from that store you two like in town.”

“I’m going to love that,” I told him sincerely. “I can’t wait to act surprised.”

I squeezed the hand I was still holding in both of mine. “And I hope it’s not too much to ask for one more thing.”

“You’re never too much, Strawberry. We’ve been over this,” Tadhg said, his tone gently chastising. “And if it’s about our promise to check on Naomi, we’re working on it.

“The Wolf Kings aren’t answering any of our messages at the moment. But the Shadow King’s got some god tech workaround. He can hack into their digital wall if⁠—”

“No, it’s not that.” I cut him off, a bit guilty that this request had nothing to do with my best friend. “It’s something else.”

Tadhg stopped walking and reversed his hold, wrapping both of my hands in one of his. “Anything you want. It’s yours. You only have to name it.”

I let out a breath I hadn’t realized I’d been holding. “Good. Because I know we were talking about going into full hibernation mode after my birthday, but before we do, I want to go to St. Ailbe.”

He went still. Face shuttered.

“Just for a little while. One, maybe two weeks, tops.” Maybe because we weren’t bond-connected, everything I’d been holding in came tumbling out. “I keep thinking about how the Secret Kingdom has all this history, and I have… nothing. Not a clue who my father is. No idea why my mother kept my true nature from me. Maybe if I went back to Canada and confronted her, I could find out. Or at least get a name. An explanation⁠—”

“No.”

Now it was my turn to wait. But the explanation didn’t come.

He just let go of my hand and started walking again, like that one word was final.

I had to jog to catch up with him. “But⁠—”

“I said no,” he snapped, cutting me off before I could even get more than one word out.

“Why? You said anything.”

“Because I didn’t think you’d be so idiotic as to actually believe we’d let you go anywhere with the future of our kingdoms in your belly.”

Idiotic. The insult sliced clean through my chest. He’d never yelled at me before. Never called me names.

Also…

“Let me?” I repeated. “Maybe I shouldn’t have put it as a request. Since you kidnapped me away from my passport, I’d love your help getting back to Canada so I can get the answers I deserve after all of this.”

“Do not go here with me, Sadie.” He stopped again to point at the ground between us. “This is a boundary that will not be crossed. You’re staying here. And you are not leaving until we say you can.”

“And when would that be?” I demanded.

He glowered. Silent. But his silence felt loud. Aggressively loud. Especially when he just turned and started walking again without giving me an answer.

Not knowing what else to do, I fell into step behind him, wishing I had saved this discussion for the morning when we were both fresh.

The Mountain Fortress did not at all resemble the palace. Or the Shadow Castle.

It was all reinforced steel and depressing grey stone with nothing but shadows on the walls of the entrance hall I followed Tadhg into.

However, the bedroom he showed me to after that… either he or Brigid had clearly prepared it with care.

It was warm, cozy, and softly lit by a fake-fire hearth, like the one in the café. There were no digital walls, but one entire side of the room was covered in living evergreen moss. A huge armchair—perfect for reading—sat by the hearth, and colorful plush rugs brightened the cold stone floors. Everything was anchored by a lovely canopy bed in the center of the room, its linens faintly emitting the scent of heather.

My heart softened toward him at the sight of it. Other than the total absence of windows, it was a perfect room.

“Did you do this for⁠—”

“I’ll be down the hall if you need me.” He cut me off before I could finish.

Then he left. No kiss. No hug. No goodbye.

Once again, I was left alone in a strange room he’d escorted me to. But this time felt worse than the first day I landed in the Secret Kingdom.

Because somehow, this time, I actually was starting to feel a little trapped.

Scream

Declan

I made myself wait until the second day of Sadie’s stay at the Mountain Fortress before texting Tadhg.

HK: Checking in. How’s our HMSQ? Did she have a good time with her Shadow King?

It took him several hours to respond.

MK: She’s fine.

Two words. I waited another thirty minutes for more before trying again.

HK: Did she like the room you kitted out for her? I know you were nervous about it.

MK: She’s fine. We’re fine. I’ll have her delivered back to you by her birthday. I know you’re feeling impatient.

I frowned and typed,

HK: It’s not about that.

Though I was impatient—and had half-hoped he might invite me to spend a night or two with them at the fortress—I added,

HK: I just wanted to check on my people.

No response.

So I texted my brother.

HK: You’ve seen Tadhg and Sadie about the fortress?

HP: Was just about to text you. Brigid’s in labor! baby, light skin tone baby, medium-light skin tone Taking her into town now.

Well, hell... The first royal birth since my ascension to the throne took precedence for a while. I was on my way to visit my brother and my new nephews the next day when I received an alarming message on my kludged phone.

SK: Forwarding this message from our source.

SK:

Attachment:

Dear Mr. Mahoney:

I’m writing this from an internet café in Glasgow, where I’m pretending to visit some old friends. A lot has happened since I helped you get those brides, including some things with my partner that might blow back on me. While I appreciate the money you transferred for my services, I’m afraid I’m going to need more so that I can hand in my resignation and move permanently from Faoiltiarn. Please advise.

SK: “Please advise” subtext analysis: Blackmail-adjacent bid for substantially more money.

MK: Well, shite.

I guess this proved it. I truly was committed to spending the rest of our lives with Sadie. I put my CEO hat back on and texted:

HK: Send me her information. I’ll negotiate a new deal.

SK: Pronouns she/her. Info pack on way.

HK: On it.

Those negotiations—and the arrival of my nephews—distracted me for a while. But two days later, I reached out to my best friend again.

HK: I was surprised not to see Sadie at the town clinic. Or you.

MK: I didn’t tell her Brigid delivered.

HK: Alright, why are you being so weird?

MK: We’ll see them both in a couple more days, when they return to the fortress.

What in the hell?

I frowned down at that message and made a mental note to ask the Shadow King to kludge together a phone for Sadie.

Cian had sent daily updates on her vitals and emotional well-being during his turn, and though Tadhg hadn’t reported in, I’d assumed I’d be invited over to the Mountain Fortress, so it wouldn’t matter.

But not only had I not received an invitation from Tadhg, I was starting to feel uneasy about Sadie having no way to reach either of her other kings, especially since the fortress had no digital walls.

HK: This is worrying me. I’m officially requesting a visit.

MK: No. And it’s my week.

I started to type a response, but another message came through.

MK: She’s fine. I promise you. We just need some time alone. Please don’t come over here until you’re scheduled to pick her up in a couple of days.

I trusted Tadhg. And so did Sadie. They had a natural rapport, a higher-level connection that she and I hadn’t reached yet, even with our bond bite.

Still, I put down my phone with a bad feeling in my chest. But I decided to give the Mountain King the benefit of the doubt.

Then, in the middle of the night, I awoke to a psychic scream.

Sadie.

No more benefit of the doubt.

I tore toward the Mountain Fortress.

The closer I got to the fortress, the more I felt her distress as if it were my own, surging through the mutual bite of our bond.

By the time I reached the steps, I was nearly as frantic as she was—close to what I’ve heard panic attacks described as. But I still wasn’t close enough to get specifics, just waves of emotion. All of them huge. All of them bad.

I took the stairs in great, running leaps—only to stop short when I reached two massive metal doors, shut tight against me. True barrier doors. Not the digital kind, but handcrafted by some long-ago Mountain King to be immune to a god-tech override.

I cursed viciously just as footsteps pounded behind me and the Shadow King came charging up the steps. He must have felt her scream, too. All the way from the other side of the lake.

“Goddammit, Tadhg!” I yelled, pounding on the metal barrier. “Tadhg! Open this door! I swear to all that’s holy, if you don’t, you’ll have to shoot the both of us because we’re not leaving until⁠—”

The door swung open.

And there was Tadhg. More wrecked than I’d ever seen him—even at his mother’s funeral. Hair disheveled. Face drawn and haggard. His eyes were clear of bear-glow, but they were bloodshot and rimmed red.

Meanwhile, Sadie was still screaming.

Even though the fortress was soundproof, and I couldn’t hear her, I felt her. This close, I had a clear image of her: locked in a room, banging on the door, begging to be let out.

Another nightmare about her mother? But no—if that were the case, why didn’t Tadhg wake her up?

I pushed through the panic, searched the bond, and realized… she wasn’t dreaming.

She was awake. Locked inside the very room Tadhg had spent an entire week decorating for her. He’d sent me picture after picture for my opinions, he’d been so desperate to get it right.

But now she was trapped behind a door she couldn’t open.

He’d locked her in.

I turned to Tadhg, my eyes flared wide. “What did you do?”

Before he could answer, the Shadow King launched at him like something out of an anime, with a flying kick straight to the face.

It sent Tadhg’s large body crashing to the stone floor, and a key clattered out of his hand.

The Shadow King snatched it up without a word and flew up the next flight of stairs, following the psychic scream of our queen.

Tadhg didn’t try to stop him. He just climbed shakily to his feet, looking like a male on the brink of a breakdown.

Mad Mountain King.

He’d held it at bay for so long. I’d trusted him to hold it forever.

“Why?” I bit out. “Why didn’t you tell me it overtook you?”

“It didn’t,” he rasped. “I was handling it. I wasn’t going to give in. But then she… she tried…”

It took him a few attempts to get it past his swelling lip. “She tried to leave. I caught her at the tower. She was sneaking out.”

No, he hadn’t.

Sadie’s version had her taking a walk to clear her head in the middle of the night. She couldn’t sleep after the tense days they’d shared.

She’d seen the tower that led to the Wicklow Gate and wandered over out of curiosity.

I said the rest out loud, delivering each word like another blow. “She wasn’t sneaking out. She just wanted to take a look.”

In the psychic distance, Sadie’s screaming had stopped. The Shadow King was with her now, holding her, keeping the door propped open so she’d know he wouldn’t let it close.

“Yeah, that’s what she said. But she was lying, wasn’t she?” Tadhg’s bitter voice pulled me back to him. “Obviously, she was trying to run away from me.”

“You thought she was lying, so you locked her in her room?” My chest cracked under the weight of how badly he’d fucked this up. Fucked our four-person partnership with one catastrophic choice. “Tadhg, no…”

“What other choice did I have?” he roared. “She was going to leave. We could’ve lost her!”

He was fully triggered now. Memories of his mother—her tragic death, the loss, the helpless grief—etched across his face. But I couldn’t care.

“Anything! You could’ve done anything but this,” I shouted back. “If things were going sideways with our queen, you could’ve called either of us. The last thing you do is lock her in a room. Shred every ounce of trust she had in you.”

Tadhg’s eyes flared. “It wasn’t—it wasn’t worse than the kidnapping. Or sealing you two in the throne foyer.”

This eejit.

“Her palace room has open doors, and she was too far gone in her estrus to realize we couldn’t get out of that foyer.”

Still, Tadhg shook his head. “Why does it matter⁠—”

He broke off when the Shadow King appeared at the top of the stairs, Sadie cradled in his arms.

Her face was buried in his white chest, but through the bond, I could feel that her eyes were still popped open wide and staring glassily into the distance. She could barely comprehend Tadhg doing this to her—was near catatonic at his betrayal.

“Take her back to the palace,” I told Cian. “And stay with her until I get there.”

“Sadie…” Tadhg had the temerity to start forward toward her, his eyes glowing.

I stepped in front of him. “I swear to all three gods, if you try to stop him, I will have the Shadow King pull some god-tech weapon and aim it straight at this fortress—with you inside. You’ve done enough tonight.”

My words must’ve cut through the Mountain King madness. The bear-glow faded, retreating to hazel.

And he stood down, watching as the Shadow King carried her out through the still-open metal doors.

Tadhg stood there, dazed. Like a bomb had gone off in his hands.

“I… I don’t… I don’t understand.”

Of course, he didn’t. Because even though he was the first of us she confessed her love to, he hadn’t given her his bite. If he had, he would’ve known.

“That’s what her mother used to do to her when she got in trouble,” I told him. “Lock her in a room behind a metal door. The last time was just last spring. She left her there for months. Not hours. Not days. Months without food or water. Sadie lost an entire season of her life because that unworthy female would do anything to control her. To stop her from making her own choices. From living her own life.”

In the background of my bond bite, I could still feel Sadie’s heart pounding with fear, like someone who’d narrowly escaped a bear attack.

I wanted nothing more than to go to her. But first, I had to tell the male I no longer trusted with our most precious gift: “You were triggered by what you thought was her trying to leave. But you broke her by doing the exact same thing her mother did.”

"I didn't..." All the color drained from his face. “I didn’t know. I didn’t⁠—”

I refused to hear the rest.

Sadie needed me.

And Tadhg…

Tadhg was about to live out his own worst nightmare.

Because I didn’t see our queen bouncing back from this. She might never forgive him.

Mutter Wulf. Vater Wulf. Baby Wulf.

Sadie

I’m still locked away in the fortress room.

Whittling wolves.

“Got her out but… seems… trapped inside her mind… scared… Anything we can…?” There’s a warped voice speaking on the other side of the fortress room’s locked metal door.

Not real.

Mutter Wulf.

“Appears… suffering… psychosis…” another warped voice says.

A wave of worry crashes in—different, fresher than all the others. Real? Maybe. The emotions aren’t mine, though.

I keep carving.

Vater Wulf.

“Already days… How long will she…?”

A bright light floods the room. That happens sometimes. I pay it no attention. Just continue carving.

Baby Wulf.

“Days… sometimes weeks… years… Our clinic… not equipped…”

Despair joins the worry. Not mine. I’m whittling wolves.

But then a booted foot suddenly crashes down on my wolf family. CRACK!

A higher-pitched warped voice asks, “Anything yet?… Brought… boys to meet her…”

Oh. Better start again.

Mutter Wulf.

“Only images… giving us… carving wolves, over and over again…”

Vater Wulf.

“Hold… nephew while I… her hair… Least I can do…. Tadhg’s gutted.”

Baby Wulf.

The foot comes down again. CRACK! I’ll need to start over.

“Sadie. Sadie. Are you processing my voice?” A piece of black silk glides across my skin. “If-then, please reboot and come back to us. Clear this buffer.”

There’s a full moon speaking to me. But all the windows are boarded shut. I can’t see it. But I want to.

“Her eyes shifted… I think she’s trying to blink—Sadie? Sadie?”

Oh well. Back to whittling.

Mutter Wulf.

Vater Wulf.

“Sadie… here, take this… Remember… Come out of this… Come back to us…”

The original voice is louder now. It carries so much authority. But I need to carve the…

Baby Wulf—hold on.

I open my hand, and there’s not a baby wolf in it, but a large, rotund animal. A bear. Intricately carved, with details too fine for my little whittling knife to pull off. There’s a streak gouged from its eye to its ear.

What is this?

I blink.

“Oh God—did you see that? It worked! She blinked.”

The intense worry ebbs. Just a bit.

“Hand me the light… the one the doctor left.”

A bright light floods the room. This time it’s blinding.

I raise my hands to shield my eyes.

“Turn it off,” I croak, my voice brittle from disuse.

The light disappears.

And, suddenly, I’m in a washroom. My room. At the palace.

Seated on the velvet lounge that never quite made sense.

Declan and the Shadow King are crouched in front of me. They both have beards now. Weeks of growth. Unkempt and wild.

They’re still the most beautiful males I’ve ever seen. And most importantly…

Not the Mountain King.

“Hi,” I whisper with a little smile.

Their relief floods through me as they lunge forward and pull me into their arms.

Birthday Present

In the end, I got what I wanted for my birthday, which had come and gone while I was in a catatonic state.

But it was a few weeks later now, and the private plane ride to Canada was uncomfortable.

Uncomfortable in the bad way.

The Shadow King took my hand as soon as we settled into the soft leather seats. Declan sat directly across from us.

Neither of them said anything. Felt anything.

Our bond bites had been weirdly silent since I woke up, and I had the sense they’d closed off their ends of the link.

Probably because I was feeling enough for all three of us.

Ever since coming out of what the town doctor had called “your wee break,” I’d been aswirl in unchecked emotions.

But that didn’t mean I couldn’t still sense their worry as we crossed the Atlantic, headed to get the answers I wanted.

Needed actually. Even more desperately after what had happened with Tadhg.

Whose name we hadn’t spoken.

Not even when Brigid visited with her adorable sons: Gregorio Jr., a beige cherub with a head full of black curls like his Portuguese father, and Cathal, a bald little chubster with steel-grey eyes who her husband Darach insisted would inherit the family’s white streak.

“Look at yer brother, praying for the legacy of genetic mutation for our spare,” Brigid had teased Declan.

“Well, we were both born bald, too,” Declan pointed out. “But we could do with a redhead in the High King family.”

He and Brigid had started getting along. That’s how worried they’d been about me.

The exceptionally cute baby nephews also helped patch the rift. But mostly, it was the worry.

So, I didn’t blame Cian and Declan for being so quiet on the flight. But that didn’t mean I could put up with it forever.

“We should probably talk about him before we land in Canada,” I said to Declan after the attendant popped back out of the main cabin after telling us we had less than an hour to go until we reached our destination.

To the High King’s credit, he didn’t pretend not to know who I meant. But his mind stayed carefully blank as he said, “Ask us anything.”

There was only one question. And it had been swirling in my head since they’d snapped me out of my wee break.

“Why?”

Declan audibly exhaled. And though the Shadow King stayed silent on all fronts, he squeezed my hand and moved it over the armrest to settle in his lap.

“Short version of the story: His mother tried to run from his father,” Declan said into the tense silence. “And she died trying. Their relationship was… fraught.”

…my parents’ marriage was a piece of shite. They couldn’t talk to each other. My mam was afraid of my da. I don’t want that for us.

The solitary few things Tadhg had ever said about his parents blew through my mind like a haunting wind.

Until he locked me in that room, I’d been dealing with a shell of the Mountain King I knew during his turn. There was no digital wall in the bedroom he gave me, but he’d appeared out of thin air every time I left the suite.

Our conversations were stiff. Empty.

I’d tried to discuss Canada with him before it was time for me to leave for the palace. “Are we going to freeze each other out all week or talk about this?”

But he’d shut me down. “I don’t plan to ever talk with you about that particular subject again, Sadie.”

Sadie—not Strawberry.

It didn’t sound sexy this time.

And the constant watching, with no attempt to speak, felt more suffocating than the digital wall ever had.

So I’d snuck out while he was supposed to be sleeping, just to get some alone time, and I happened to check out the tower.

I still didn’t understand why that one small rebellion had been enough to⁠—

“It wasn’t small to him,” Declan said quietly. He leaned across the tray table and took my free hand—the one not resting in the Shadow King’s lap. “And he wasn’t trying to suffocate you. I think shutting down the topic was the only thing he could think of to stop himself from exploding again.”

“But it didn’t work,” I pointed out.

“No,” Declan said with a sad, bittersweet smile. “It didn’t work. You still saw the part of him he’d been working so hard to hide.”

The High King opened his side of the bond bite—just enough for me to feel the churn of conflicting thoughts inside him. Tadhg was his best friend, but even now, Declan didn’t know whether to defend him.

“His father was rather—actually, extremely—controlling. The Mountain King’s line is descended from Vikings. Bears who fought viciously to claim and pillage. The real history of the line has been mostly lost to the annals of time, but rumor has it they stormed their way into the Secret Kingdom, and a king’s throne was offered to them in a desperate attempt to avoid war.”

Declan gave me a knowing look. “That’s why we have an armorer and a reserve army.”

I hadn’t ever stopped to wonder why such a peaceful kingdom, with seemingly few enemies, had an armorer capable of turning around a whittling knife order in under 24 hours. But I supposed that explained it.

“Yes,” Declan confirmed off my thoughts. “The Mountain King line is responsible for our peace. But understand—when something is gained by force, there’s always the fear it’ll be taken the same way. That fear… it seeps down through the generations.”

He paused, choosing his next words carefully.

“For centuries, the Mountain Kings have been known for what we file under the general umbrella of ‘madness’—but it’s more accurately a combination of extreme paranoia leading to controlling behavior.”

Declan shook his head. “Unfortunately, psychology wasn’t something our parents’ generation had any tools for.”

“None of it was known to me before I bit you,” I admitted.

“Exactly. So maybe you can see how the Mountain Kings came to believe that this jealous paranoia was just… in their blood. And how that belief might have shaped your Mountain King.”

Over the bond, Declan showed me boyhood images of Tadhg through his eyes as he continued.

“Growing up, Tadhg watched his father get worse and worse. Accusing his mother of cheating. Forbidding her from wearing dresses with even modest cleavage. Banning heels. She wasn’t allowed to leave the fortress without permission, and The Above was strictly forbidden.”

Then a clouded memory passed between us—dark and sharp-edged.

“The one time she dared to defy him,” Declan said quietly, “she took Tadhg and Brigid into town for some Christmas shopping. He came for her in public.”

That was an understatement.

The memory played across our bond like one of the TV shows Tadhg had shown me.

The then-Mountain King storming into a toy shop, dragging his queen out by her arm like he wanted as many witnesses as possible to her humiliation. His voice thundered as he accused her of all kinds of horrible things… because she’d dared to wear peep-toe flats. Not even heels. Flats.

It was easy to see why the entire town—and even Declan’s parents—had called him the Mad Mountain King behind his back.

Tadhg had been ten. Brigid, seven.

They’d begged him to stop.

But the Mad Mountain King didn’t stop. Not even when their mother collapsed to her knees on the cobblestones, sobbing and begging forgiveness for her “crimes.”

Only when she removed her shoes did he allow her to stand.

She walked back to the fortress barefoot. Her pantyhose were ripped and bloody by the time she reached the main road. Hobbling by the time she passed the tower next to the palace.

Tadhg and Brigid had been sobbing by then, too.

Declan exhaled hard after the memory faded.

“If you’ve ever wondered why there hasn’t been a shared queen in several generations… that’s the reason,” he said. “My parents had to interfere. Father pulled High King rank while Mother carried the Mountain Queen into our house. I showed Tadhg and Brigid to their rooms. That’s how Tadhg and I first became friends.”

And Brigid and Declan never quite did.

A few future flashes of her history leaked through into the story. The string of broken hearts Brigid left behind before university. The needless teenage rebellions. The endless tests she put Declan’s smitten younger brother through before finally making a commitment to him and Gregorio.

It made me feel bad for judging Declan based on her words alone. He understood why she’d been messed up. That didn’t mean he approved of her marriage to his brother.

But Tadhg… their friendship had been different.

“We weren’t just young co-kings—we became true friends,” Declan said. “They stayed with us for weeks. Until their father came to the palace and promised never to do anything like that again.”

Declan’s jaw flexed.

“Of course, that promise wasn’t kept. Over the years, the Mad Mountain King got worse. The paranoia fed on him, unchecked. Eventually, she couldn’t take it anymore.”

Declan’s other hand joined the first, folding mine in between both.

“Just a month after Tadhg got accepted to Trinity University, she ran. Went to the tower gate. The kindest version of this story says she planned to come back for Brigid… but we’ll never know. She was hit by a car almost immediately after reaching her first road in the human world. The thing was, she’d married at seventeen, and the Mad Mountain King never let her visit The Above. Supposedly, for her own protection.”

The irony of her tragic end wasn’t lost on me. And even though I’d never met that female, as a fellow long-cloistered bear… I felt her in my bones.

“So believe me when I tell you,” Declan said, “Tadhg has always known it was a curse. And he’s spent his whole life trying not to give in to it.”

Declan regarded me with a somber stare. “He took a job in The Above with me. Embedded himself in the human world. Used his tactical brilliance to execute my business plans. And he never dated any bears—not once. He was so afraid of becoming a Mad Mountain King, he practically gave up his title. I doubt he ever would’ve returned if not for you. And even then, he went out of his way not to become his father.”

Declan reached into my memory, plucking up two moments I hadn’t even realized he’d noticed.

“You asked him how he felt about sharing a queen. You asked him why he didn’t defy me getting First Claim. What he didn’t tell you was that he didn’t trust himself to be with you alone. He always wanted another line of defense between you and his legacy. He had no desire to risk you walking home barefoot and bleeding, the whole town watching.”

A fresh thought jolted through me.

“Then why would Brigid ask me to go into town with her, without his permission?”

Declan didn’t hesitate. “Same reason I sent him after you. It was a test. He passed it.”

More rewriting. I now saw what the other townspeople saw when he’d entered the café without warning. A story possibly about to repeat. A Mountain King who needed to prove he wasn’t his father.

Pity swelled in my chest.

But I still had to say it. “He passed that test. And then two weeks later, he turned around and locked me in a room.”

Just saying it made me queasy, made my mind waver and threaten to collapse again. “I banged and banged. He didn’t let me out.”

Declan’s anger flared as I relived it.

“I’m sorry he did that. And you have every right to feel the way you do. But you should know—the Shadow King and I would’ve said no to your request, too. Bears are extremely protective.”

I turned to my ever-silent king. “Cian is fine with this. He’s being reasonable.”

“I assure you, he’s not,” Declan said. “And if it seems like he is, that’s only because he’s blocking you out. Just like I’m doing with the worst of my own feelings about being on a plane to Canada with my pregnant wife.”

“What? No…”

But when I looked over at the Shadow King, he confirmed Declan’s words with a solemn nod.

Which explained the silence I kept feeling from him. Not the moon’s serenity. This was cottony. Muted. A refusal to let me feel the depth of what he was truly feeling.

“Nothing in us likes this,” Declan said—his voice sharper now, less patient than Tadhg’s had been during my training. “We’re only allowing it because of what he did. It’s his fault we’re on this plane. Otherwise, you’d be home right now, being pampered endlessly until it was time to take you into town for the delivery. None of us would’ve liked you even talking about leaving. And without this bond bite, I don’t know how we would’ve responded, finding you at that tower.”

I bristled. “Are you saying it’s my fault that he⁠—”

“I’m saying, he was already on edge,” Declan cut in. “Even if you only went up there out of curiosity. I know you weren’t planning to leave. But⁠—”

“I told him that! I told him over and over again as he dragged me back!”

Tadhg hadn’t listened. Hadn’t said a single word. Just threw me into my room and locked the door.

“You told him,” Declan said gently. “And he couldn’t believe you. All he saw was his innocent, cloistered queen, taking the same escape path his mother once did.”

Declan exhaled heavily. “But believe me—he’s paying for that oversight. You’re pregnant with his child. And you’ve been taken away from him. He knows full well you may never forgive him. That a custody agreement might be the only contact you two ever have from now on.

“And believe me, Sadie—he’s in a hell right now that makes anything your people came up with feel like a cakewalk.”

“I…” I shook my head, at a loss. “I don’t know what you want me to say to that.”

“I don’t, either,” Declan admitted. “But you asked why, and I’m telling you. Because I want you to understand what happened—even if you never forgive him.”

Never forgive him.

Never speak to him again.

Never…

My chest splintered before I could finish the thought.

That was when I started to sincerely regret falling in love with the Mountain King. There’d only been catatonia, then anger, these past few weeks.

But now my heart wrenched between understanding why he did what he did and despairing that I could never trust him not to do something like that again.

“If you truly wish to trust him, then you must exchange bites.” The Shadow King’s black-silk voice startled me when it slid into my mind without warning. “It’s the bears’ natural protection protocol. It ensures these kinds of misunderstandings never happen.”

He would know. His parents had never even fought in front of him. And Declan’s bonded parents were happily retired to the kind of place bears dream about: quiet woods, no drama, plenty of salmon.

“But Tadhg’s parents were bonded, too.…” I pointed out. Only to be hit with the truth from both sets of mental links.

They weren’t. The Mad Mountain King had never allowed anyone into his mind—not even his queen. He’d been too paranoid.

Just like Tadhg had been too afraid to bite me.

“Not just like. He’s terrified of becoming his father,” Declan said, gently correcting me. “Just like you’re afraid of becoming some version of your mother. The difference is that his worst fear came true. And while that’s no excuse for what he did, it is a reason.”

Declan squeezed my hands. “And the Shadow King’s right. If you forgive him, you need to talk to him. Not with words. But with a bond bite, the way bears do.”

Was that true? Some stubborn, aching part of me didn’t want it to be.

But before the room incident, there had only been trust between the current Mountain King and me. And the kind of understanding I’d never known with anyone.

So, which version of Tadhg was the real one?

The plane touched down before I could decide on the answer.

Clue

Iain

Iain Scotswolf woke up to the best feeling in the world: a morning handy from his beautiful little wife, Milly.

He kissed the top of her curly head and asked, “To what do I owe this--no pun intended—pleasure?”

She raised her cute face to his, grinning. “Happy Valentine’s…”

Iain narrowed his eyes. “It’s not Valentine’s Day yet.”

“…Week,” she finished. “Happy Valentine’s Week.”

He was considered one of the smartest men in the world, but at that moment, he couldn’t think of anyone more brilliant than his wife.

Whose smoothly stroking hand already had him about to rocket off.

“Happy Valentine’s Week, mò chridhe.” He slipped his hand beneath the covers. “As it happens, I got you something, too.”

His fingers found her seam and discovered her already dripping wet.

One day, they might fail to arouse each other in an instant. But that day hadn’t come yet. And as Iain slid his fingers into her, he doubted it ever would.

“Slow your hand and open your legs a wee bit wider, will you, mò chridhe?” he half suggested, half commanded. “I want to enjoy you riding my hand. The feel of you... say aye to your husband, Milly. Say it now.”

Milly’s legs fell open on a moaned, “Aye.”

Hell would freeze over before he stopped wanting this former full human, he’d gone against village laws to turn her into a werewolf like him. Or loving her. Risking everything for her was the best decision he’d ever made—because she was the best thing that ever happened to him.

However, just as her moans reached a fever pitch, the second-best thing that ever happened to them started crying on the baby monitor in the nursery of their Edinburgh penthouse.

Causing them both to groan in a much less sexy way.

“I’ve got her,” Iain offered, pulling his hand out of his favorite place on Earth.

“I can⁠—”

She could. Which was exactly why he never let her. Now that he was back at the office, she was with their shifter baby all day. She deserved her morning rest.

He got out of bed before she could, effectively ending the argument.

“We’ll bring you back a coffee after we check morning emails,” he said.

However, he would not end up keeping that promise.

After strapping Ellie into his front-facing baby carrier and popping a bottle into her grabby little hands, he walked them both over to his standing desk.

And found two surprises waiting on the screen.

First, the high-number account sweep he’d run on everyone in Faoiltiarn not banking with the new system his sister-in-law had set up had come back with a hit.

But the second program—his facial-recognition algo—was flashing with an even bigger alert.

Designed to ping him if a Wölfennite bride or any of their persons of interest showed up on an official CCTV feed, it had tagged a series of screenshots.

Iain’s eyes widened.

There was Sadie Ellis. Clear as day, walking past an airport camera.

Flanked by two fellow fintech billionaires who’d recently announced they were on indefinite hiatus.

Now he knew why.

“Gotcha,” he whispered.

With the return-to-Ireland trip date fast approaching, Alban had decided to take a honeymoon with Leora, his new bride and Queen Tara’s other sister--the one who hadn’t been kidnapped by the Irish Wolves.

Too bad for him.

Iain handed Ellie back to Milly with a quick apology and snatched up his Jag keys.

Because Alban’s honeymoon was about to be seriously interrupted.

By their biggest clue drop to date.

Return

Sadie

Only Declan accompanied me to St. Ailbe. The Shadow King had taken a separate car, rented under a secret name, to the hotel where we’d meet him after I confronted my mother. Declan and I drove another rental to the sign just outside St. Ailbe.

“You’ll have to pull…” I started to say, only to trail off as he cranked the wheel to the left, already reading my thoughts about technology not being allowed past the town limits.

I once again wondered if I would ever…

“You will,” Declan assured me before the thought could finish. “Twenty years from now, our kids won’t even know how much we’re gossiping about them behind their backs.”

I laughed as we stowed our phones and digital watches in the glove box, which he locked with a click.

To my surprise, I felt much more relaxed than I’d expected as we walked the rest of the way into town on technology-free foot.

Not Declan, though. He looked like he was about to come out of his skin. “I don’t think I’ve intentionally been without a phone or some other piece of tech since my school days in the Secret Kingdom. Feels like I left my right hand in the car.”

“Don’t worry, it’s still here.” I took hold of his right hand to prove it.

“That’s not what I meant….”

“I know.” Now it was my turn to interrupt. “I just wanted an excuse to hold your hand.”

We exchanged a grin, and his mood lightened considerably as we turned onto the dirt road that wound through our small Wölfennite village.

No. Their small village.

I’d never felt more like a bear than I did walking through the quiet Wölfennite community. Where I used to live was a rough sketch made with dull crayons. This place had nothing on the Secret Kingdom—or the full-blown work of extremely fine art walking next to me.

Declan threw me a sly smile. “I’m glad you appreciate the, ah… vibrancy of our home.”

Home. I already couldn’t wait to get back after I finally got my answers.

But the empty landscape told me I wouldn’t find my mother in the sad, tiny, boarded-up house I used to live in near the community horse pasture.

Everyone was likely still in the weekday morning service.

“Do you want to go to the church or wait at the house for your mother?” Declan asked, reading my thoughts.

“Church,” I answered, leading the way. I was ready to get this over with.

But when we arrived, I stopped us walking before we made it to the door. “Do you mind waiting over there?” I pointed at a tree, half-hidden behind the church’s side corner. “Even me, showing up out of the blue in casual clothes, will be less jarring than a stranger in a suit.”

Declan absolutely minded. Male bears weren’t huge fans of standing outside without full visuals on their pregnant mates. But the High King kept those thoughts unspoken and went with a clenched jaw to wait by the tree I’d pointed to.

“I’ll be right back out,” I promised.

He didn’t reply. Just watched me intently as I turned and headed toward the steps of the humble little church that used to be the center of my universe.

Not anymore.

As I walked up, it struck me: I’d learned more in a few months in the Secret Kingdom than I had in a lifetime in St. Ailbe.

“Sadie? Is that you?”

The scent of sweat and construction materials hit my nose, and I looked up to find Reuben coming out the church’s front door, though I could still hear that familiar monotone singing echoing inside.

He must’ve been assigned usher duty, which included propping open the door before the end of service. It was surreal, remembering how my whole life used to revolve around assignments like that.

Reuben didn’t seem particularly committed to his post.

He jogged down the steps toward me without so much as glancing at the sanded wood prop he was supposed to be using to hold the door open.

“What are you doing here?” His entire face lit up. “I never thought I’d see you again. And goodness, you smell amazing! Did you finally see a doctor about your odd scent?”

“She got several injections to alter it,” another voice answered before I could.

Declan.

His rhubarb scent wafted through the air just before he looped an arm around my waist, stepping in like a High King of yore to look down his nose at Reuben.

“Oh, hallo, I’m—I’m Reuben Yoderwulf.” He straightened up as much as he could, pushing his shoulders back. “Sadie’s probably told you about me.”

My eyes flared slightly. Was he really going there?

Yes. Yes, he was.

When Declan stared down at him blankly, Reuben clarified, “We were together a few times.”

Declan just squinted at him. For so long Reuben began to visibly squirm under his hard stare.

“I’m sorry if she didn’t tell you,” Reuben added quickly. “Or if she let you think she was pure before you got her.”

Another long, long beat of silence.

Then Declan turned to me and asked, completely deadpan, “Is this the boy with the small penis who was so bad at sex you ran away from St. Ailbe just to find anyone else?”

Reuben’s gotcha expression turned tomato red.

“It is,” I confirmed, turning fully to Declan as well. “But the truth is…”

I cupped a hand to the side of my mouth and lowered my voice to a confessional whisper that Reuben could still clearly hear. “I kind of forgot he existed after meeting you and getting to experience what actual pleasure is.”

I tutted. “His poor wife. I feel so sorry for Mara. The way she must be suffering.”

“My queen, you remain ever thoughtful,” Declan added pity and consternation to his expression to match mine. “Would you like to offer her refuge in our kingdom?”

“Kingdom?” Reuben repeated, his voice squeaking. “Queen?”

“I mean, it would be the right thing to do, my king,” I continued on as if I hadn’t heard Reuben’s questions. “Hopefully, we can convince her there’s a better life out there than being married to this sad, sad—and did I mention incredibly bad at sex?—little male. But you know… conditioning. She’d probably find it hard to leave.”

Declan considered this dilemma with a grave look. “I could kill him and hide his body somewhere no one would ever find it. Then she’d be free. A widow.”

“What?!” Reuben yelped with a sound that put me in mind of a puppy, not a full-grown wolf.

“That’s a brilliant idea!” I clasped my hands and gazed up at Declan with genuine adoration. “Then we’ll offer her a one-way ticket to a new husband who actually gives a fig about her pleasure—and is able to hold an erection for more than sixty seconds. Do you have a weapon, though?”

“Look at him,” Declan answered without actually bothering to look at the Wölfennite male. “I can snap his neck with just my bare hands. Easy.”

“We’re not married!” Reuben protested, holding up his hands. “Mara found somebody else and immediately went into heat because she never forgave me for what I did with⁠—”

Before he could finish referring to that humiliating time in my life when I actually deigned to give Reuben even an ounce of attention he didn’t deserve, Declan turned back to him.

“In that case,” he said, “why don’t I just kill you anyway? Save any future she-wolves from suffering through your terrible sex.”

He leaned forward. Mawed his teeth. His eyes glowed silver, and his voice dropped into an ursine growl. “For fun.”

Reuben blinked up at Declan.

Then took off running.

Apparently, there were some conditions under which you could run from bears.

Declan just laughed and threw an arm around my shoulders. “So, we’re done with that request for me to stand more than a meter away at that tree.”

I could have wondered if that was a question. But the authority in his voice and the possessive waves rolling across our bond made it clear it wasn’t.

Also, that was the exact moment the entire congregation of St. Ailbe came spilling out of the church.

We were immediately bombarded with questions.

“Sadie?! Is that you? I thought you were in Scotland! And what are you wearing?”

Strange. I’d always thought myself invisible here, despite my size. But standing next to Declan, I suddenly felt like some kind of hometown celebrity.

The much smaller wolves gathered around us, peppering me with questions and throwing nervous glances at Declan, who stood there calmly with his arm around my shoulders—his ring catching the midday sun like it had a message to deliver.

And I guess you really could take all the dutiful out of a St. Ailbe girl.

I ignored every question and announced, “I’m here to see my mother. Is she staying behind to give the bishop her notes on his sermon?”

The wolves exchanged confused looks before an elderly female, whom my mother had helped recover from a fall a couple of winters ago, told me, “She disappeared several weeks ago. No one’s seen her since. She didn’t even leave a note as to when she’d be back!”

“What?”

I couldn’t imagine my mother going to the next town, much less fully disappearing from the community she'd called home for twenty-three years.

But Leader Daniel himself confirmed it. “We’re pretty baffled ourselves. It’s been quite a hardship not having her here to tend to our elderly and sick.”

I squinted at him. “My mother disappeared without a word, and not only did you not bother looking for her, but your only concern is how it affected you?”

“No, no, we were just expecting her to come back, is all,” Abel Flosswulf, the St. Ailbe pack’s former leader who’d appointed Daniel, insisted. “Of course we’re worried about her.”

Right.

“Great. Then point me toward the person in charge of searching for a longtime resident who’s vanished without a trace.”

Both leaders—and the entire crowd—went quiet. Suddenly, they didn’t seem nearly as excited to ask me questions about my unexpected visit.

“Wow,” I said. “You’re all a bunch of hypocrites. Not to mention users. You took and took from us without ever bothering to know us or make us feel like we belonged.”

Leader Daniel’s face reddened. “Now, Sadie Ellis. I don’t know what you’ve gotten up to in Scotland, but a good Wölfennite⁠—”

“I’m not a good Wölfennite,” I cut in. “I never was. Because I’m a bear. You might’ve figured that out if you’d actually practiced what you preached and gave my mother and me any consideration beyond what we could do for you.”

A collective gasp went up.

“You’re a bear?” one woman called out, clutching her chest.

“A bear queen, actually. And I’m her husband, the bear king,” Declan added, stepping forward. “I’d say it was nice to meet you all, but that would be a lie. From what I’ve seen and heard, you’re a pretty shitty and judgmental excuse for a shifter pack.”

This time, they choked. The crowd didn’t even have enough air to gasp dramatically.

And on that note, I announced, “Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m going to my mother’s house to look for clues about where she might’ve gone.”

“That’s just an excuse to exit,” I explained over our mind link to Declan as we strode away with a strut that felt like we were walking in dramatic slow-motion. “I’m pretty sure she got a passport somehow and tried to follow me to Scotland.”

“No problem,” Declan answered inside my head. “As long as you know I’m fucking you against the first surface I see as soon as we get wherever we’re going.”

So, I didn’t lie about going to the house to the Wölfennites. And Declan really didn’t lie about what he planned to do to me.

I was thrown up against a wall as soon as the door to my mother’s house closed behind us.

“Holy shite,” Declan growled against my neck. “Watching my wife tell off those villagers unlocked a new level of turned on.”

He ran his mouth up my throat and yanked up my skirt. “Let me in, my queen. We’re going to christen this last-ever hometown visit with the fuck it deserves.”

I was all for that.

But first, I had to tell him.

“I forgive him. The Mountain King. I forgive him.”

Declan stopped kissing me.

And even though he could clearly see my reasoning through our mate bond, I still needed to say it out loud.

“He made a mistake. But before that, all he ever did was support me. He never used me. And even though I haven’t seen him in weeks, I know he cares. He’s the opposite of a user. He’d do anything for me. Including the scariest thing.”

“Let you in,” Declan said.

“Let me in.” I shook my head, still stunned that I was just now realizing, “All I have to do is ask him.”

A slow, wicked smile spread across Declan’s face. “Now we really have a reason to christen this trip with⁠—”

There was a whistle of sound.

And suddenly, Declan jerked forward—his gray eyes widening with shock.

Right before he crumpled to the ground, revealing the thick dart sticking out of his back.

And Gavin and Malcolm, the Scottish wolves I’d gone on that disastrous walk with, standing behind him in the dark.

They were dressed like Wölfennites, in pants and suspenders instead of kilts. They were also wearing some sort of scent blocker. But why…?

Oh goodness! That was when I remembered a word I hadn’t paid much attention to because I’d been so focused on getting myself to Scotland.

Exchange…

The exchange with Scotland hadn’t gone just one way. The Scots had sent people over here, too.

And they might have sent even more males over to join the St. Ailbe sect as some kind of diplomatic gesture after all the Wölfennite brides were stolen by the Irish Wolves.

The last horrific puzzle piece fell into place right before another whistling sound rent the air.

And an immediate blackness overtook me.

I should have turned the plane around. I should have asked Declan to take me straight back to Tadhg.

That was my last thought before everything disappeared.

When I woke up next, I found myself chained to a small twin bed with heavy-duty shackles.

And my mother was standing over me.

Not in a dream this time.

For real.

I knew because her peppered yams scent filled my nose as she said. “Sadie, girl! What have you done?”

Hell Beneath the Earth

TADHG

I was dancing with Sadie to the Mary J. Blige version of U2’s “One,” and having a great time mansplaining to my mate why it was the best collaboration of all time, when a huge splash of water killed the dream.

“Alright, enough of this. Get up, ye pathetic dirty dose.”

Where am I?

I cracked one eye open to the now-familiar landscape of empty Teeling whiskey bottles, plates from over a month ago that Sadie had eaten off of, the broken pieces of the GoNoTo kludge I’d smashed with my boot just to feel something, and the green dress she’d left behind.

Oh, yeah… hell beneath the earth. That was where I was.

I sat up in the room I’d made for her, in the bed that had stopped smelling like her just a few days after she’d left. I pushed my wet hair out of my face.

Without access to my mobile barber from The Above, I hadn’t bothered getting a haircut since right before our queen delivery. It was nearly to my shoulders now and greasy to the touch, despite the fact that someone—probably Brigid—had just doused me with what must have been a full bucket of cold water.

Sure enough, there stood my sister above me, holding the empty pail.

“For feck’s sake, look at the state of ye. I recovered faster from squeezing two twelve-pounders out me fanny!”

“You wanted to meet those babies. I didn’t want to fuck-up so bad I lost the love of my life.”

“Is that Da’s reserve whiskey? Jaysus Christ, those bottles are worth a good four figures in The Above. And what am I counting—eight to ten of them, completely drained? On top of enough empty Norwolf extra stouts to supply a recycling plant. What were you thinking?”

Brigid didn’t get it. Drinking an entire bottle of Teeling’s every night because the Norwolf wasn’t enough wasn’t about thinking. Just the opposite.

You got that bollixed every night to stop thinking. To stop rerunning every mistake. To maybe pass out and get the dream where you’re dancing with her to Mary J. Blige—rather than the one where the Shadow King’s carrying her out of your life forever.

“Ugh, I refuse to ask what’s all over that green dress.”

She knew.

My head was screaming with a headache on top of all the bitter self-loathing. I bent forward and put my elbows on my knees to cradle my head in my hands, dripping water onto the carpet she’d helped me pick out for Sadie. I was grateful back then. Now…

“Go away!” I growled.

My feckin’ sister did not go away. “Ye’ve gone positively feral in here, Tygie.”

“Yeah…” My stomach churned, threatening to turn my regret into a load of vomit to join all the other filth. “You should leave me the fuck alone, then.”

“I would—except I just about jumped out of me skin when the Shadow King popped up on the digital wall in the babies’ room with that feckin’ whiteboard of his.”

I froze, looked up from my slump. “What?”

“Yeah. Lil’ Greggie’s still crying. Pretty sure he’s got the PTSDs now, so thank Jack feckin’ Skellingking for that.”

“Brigid. Brigid!” I stood up and grabbed her by the shoulders, this close to shaking her. “What did the sign say?”

“Oh.” Brigid sobered. “It said to check your messages. Sadie’s in some kind of trouble.”

Conversation and Other Threats

Sadie

“I miss Declan and Tadhg, but I also never want your turn to end.”

I confessed this to the Shadow King while we floated in the dark expanse of his throne room, curled around each other in lotus position.

Golden balls of soft light that he referred to as metaphorical knowledge orbited us like planets, along with an organic altar that he’d constructed himself out of stone, sticks, and moss after engaging the Irish Wolves to deliver me to the Tríbéirríthe, as the three bear kings called themselves in Irish.

I didn’t know how much time had passed since my arrival, but I had the terrible feeling it was coming to an end.

“Time is merely a construct of the Big Laptop,” the Shadow King answered.

“What do you mean?” I asked, not quite understanding, even over the mate bond.

“This sequence we’re in can last a paragraph or be split over several pages. It is not necessarily for us to know. Or remember.”

Our bond bites pulsed, glowing in the dark, and then I understood as he understood how easy it was for even the most meaningful of events to be montaged.

Milestones, pasts and futures, entire lives could be reduced into a single sentence. Or not even written down at all.

“You’re scaring me.” This had been the best, most mind-expanding week of my life. But… “Are you saying I might not even remember this conversation? Or everything else that happened here?”

“It is up to the godsnake.”

The godsnake. That was what he called the writer behind the Big Laptop.

Because whoever it was caused all our strife but was also responsible for all our joy.

I’d been going to church my entire life, but for the first time, it felt like I was actually receiving a true message. The true meaning of existence. At least ours.

My eyes filled with tears at the thought of not being able to remember this time. These feelings. “I don’t want to forget this conversation, but what if this entire week is reduced to a paragraph?”

The Shadow King reached out to snag the altar he’d built for me out of its orbit. “I thought for much of my life that I lived inside a sentence. That perhaps I was a side character in someone’s fantasy story.”

He positioned me on top of the altar he’d grabbed, laying me on my back.

“As of late, though, evidence is pointing toward us living out a romance—a somewhat unorthodox romance, but still, an experience like this week would not fit that type of story.”

He wrapped vines of ivy around my wrists.…

“However, those kinds of authors can be kind when it comes to endings.”

He then secured my ankles to keep me there upon his altar, spread out to him like an offering.

“Perhaps our godsnake will let you remember this conversation. In flashback, maybe. When you most need it, you’ll be reminded that we’re on a journey toward a happy ending.”

Then the time of words was over.

The magic cross scraped over my heated skin as the Shadow King began kissing his way down my body for paragraphs upon paragraphs of worship.

When

I

most

need

it….

I awoke with a soft gasp, bound yet again.

Not on the Shadow King’s altar this time but in a bright and sunny bedroom with bookshelves, pencil drawings taped to the wall, and a computer desk covered in stuffed animals that probably used to be on the bed.

The bed I was now chained to with shackles instead of ivy.

“Magnus is asking that you try with her again, Deenie.”

A muffled voice floated up to me through the floorboards, older and a little reedy.

“He’s getting nowhere with her mate in the castle dungeon. He’s still in bear form and refusing to switch back.…”

“Did you not see me try to talk some sense into her, after they brought her in, smelling like an entire strawberry-rhubarb pie?” My mother’s voice shot back. “It’s been two days of her just looking right through me whenever I try to talk with her about what happened to the other brides. Feels like she’s giving me the bad eye. I’m telling you, it’s hard to even be in the room with her.”

“Can I try?” a much younger voice asked.

“Nae, Lil’ Dorie!” the older male answered.

At the same time, my mother answered. “Absolutely not, child. Go on outside now and leave the grown folk to their talk until I’m done making this breakfast.”

Footsteps pattered, then my mother’s voice came again. “I don’t know how to get through to her. I’ve never seen her this bad.”

“Have you considered opening with an apology?” another feminine voice asked, soft-spoken and sweet.

“Or maybe some food,” the older male suggested. “You could’ve asked me for anything, including the moon, after those apple doodles you made last week. Best cookies I ever had. No offense, Leora.”

“None taken, Hamish,” the younger feminine voice answered with a soft chuckle. “He might have a point, Claudine.”

“Are the two of you right in the head?” my mother answered. “I’d be afraid she’d try to bite me on top of the bad eye!”

My nose suddenly filled with the smell of apples, and I lifted my eyes from the floorboards to find a little girl creeping into the room with her finger raised to her lips.

“Don’t tell them I came in here, okay?” she whispered.

The girl was maybe eleven or twelve, with curly brown hair and light-beige skin. She was dressed in jeans and a sweater, but her freckled face and sharp brown eyes reminded me of a woman I knew well.

I found myself blinking at her, then asking, “Are you related to Naomi?”

“She’s my aunt, but I’ve never met her because you all were kidnapped before I could,” the girl answered. “Hi, I’m Dorie.”

That meant the other voice had to belong to Leora, the oldest Hamilton sister, who was wolf-mated and sent away from St. Ailbe with a male from another Wölfennite community when Naomi and I were around Dorie’s age.

“I’m Sadie.”

“I know,” she answered with a proud smile. “I smelled your bed when my maem and I went to get Aunt Naomi’s things from the Exchange House. And you’re all we’ve been talking about since you came back.”

I glanced ruefully at the reinforced chains I’d tried but failed to break free from. “I wish we were meeting under better circumstances.”

“Me, too,” Dorie answered with the sincerity of a child. “You’re very interesting.”

She stared at me for a beat with wide-eyed wonder. Then she asked, “Will you tell us where my aunt is? And the other Wölfennite Brides? My da is in Ireland, looking for them now. I miss him, and I really want him to come back.”

My steely resolve didn’t waver, but a flutter of guilt went off in my chest. Dorie looked a lot like how my children with the three Irish Bear Kings would. And I could already imagine them missing their fathers when they took trips.

But…

“I’m sorry. Like I told your king, any brides who want to come back will be returned in the spring. You just have to be patient.”

Dorie let out a sad little breath. “I don’t think they can be.”

“Dorie, girl, what did I tell you about not coming in here?”

My mother’s sharp voice in the doorway made the little girl jump.

“Oh, I was just… just…” I didn’t want to accuse this child of being a terrible liar, but she looked just about everywhere before awkwardly and obviously going over to the bookshelf. “Getting my math book! For school!”

“Mmm-hmm.” My mother gave her an up-and-down look and sucked on her teeth. “Well, the breakfast casserole I made is out of the oven. Better get down there before that bottomless stomach you call a grandfather eats it all.”

“Yay! I love your breakfast casserole! It’s even better than Maem’s!” Dorie cheered.

To my shock, she threw her arms around my mother’s shoulders. “Thank you, Granni!”

“I’m not your grandmother, child. When you asked what people from Jamaica call their grandparents, I was only giving you information. We’ve been over this.”

“That’s what Senair used to say,” Dorie answered with a wide grin, flashing her little but sharp canines.

“The audacity of you. I swear, I’ve got a shoe with your name written across the bottom of it!”

Nonetheless, Claudine gave the girl a squeeze back and even placed a kiss on top of her head. “Now get. I’m not about the habit of letting food go cold because little girls want to be disobeying.”

“Okay, see you downstairs!” Dorie said with a happy chirp before dashing out of the room.

It was like watching a rattlesnake be nice to a baby chick. I had no idea how to process what I’d just seen.

“Don’t look at me like that,” Claudine said, her voice going from affectionate to testy. “These are kind, decent people, and they’ve been letting me stay here. Cooking for them is the least I can do.”

I stopped looking at her like that, but only so I could ask, “Do they know you’re a bear, or do you plan to keep lying to them like you did to me all my life, too?”

“So, you’re talking to me now. You done with all the bad eye?”

I didn’t answer because I doubted I’d ever be done with that.

And eventually, Claudine admitted, “They know. That son of Hamish’s had it all figured out by the time I came here looking for you.”

She shifted from foot to foot. “And I wasn’t lying. I was protecting. Everything I did was to protect you.”

“Everything you did was to control me!” I shot back with bear in my voice. “And now you’ve colluded with ‘these kind people’ to lock me away in another room.”

My mother’s eyes flared. “This is a situation of your own making this time, Sadie Ellis. All you have to do is tell them what they want. Then we can let you go, and the Scottish Wolves can get the rest of the brides and⁠—”

“What, Claudine? What do these Scottish Wolves plan to do when they find those brides who may not even want to return here?” I bared my teeth at her. “Knock them out and drag them back to Scotland in chains, too?”

If the wolves' Secret Kingdom was anything like the bears’, I already knew hose brides wanted to be there, just like I wanted to be back in my own Secret Kingdom more than anything.

“No, I’m sure they’d talk some reason into those silly girls’ heads,” Claudine insisted with a shake of her own head. “And do not call me by my first name. I am your moth⁠—”

“You are the female bear that lied to me and manipulated me my whole life. Be happy I’m not calling you worse.” The chains leading from the wrist shackles rattled when I yanked on them so I could sit up when I declared, “If you want to survive what happens when I figure out a way to break out of these chains, you will not refer to yourself by that name again.”

Claudine’s mouth dropped open. “You’re threatening me now? And why do you smell like a strawberry-rhubarb pie? More than one ingredient. Are the rumors true about those Irish shifters making you girls sleep with two at a time⁠—”

“The rumors are true, but I didn’t sleep with two Irish Bears,” I assured her.

Claudine let out an audible breath of relief. “Thank goodness, maybe we can⁠—”

“I mated with all three bear kings,” I gleefully informed her, relishing the scandalized look on her face. “And I have no doubt the other two are already on their way here to rescue us. If I were you, Claudine, I’d let me out of these chains so I can make the case for letting you and the nice people who took you in live when they get here.”

Claudine stiffened, fear replacing some of the know-it-all sharpness. “Hamish, Leora, Dorie… They have nothing to do with this.”

“You made them part of this,” I ruthlessly shot back. “When you conspired with the Scottish Wolves to kidnap my mate and me and bring us back to Faoiltiarn. Now let me out of these chains.”

“No, obviously we need to keep you here, make you see reason⁠—”

“Do you love him?”

Claudine blinked. “What?”

“That male who convinced you to come up here. He’s smitten with you. Definitely interested in eating more than your apple doodles.”

“Dutty girl!” Claudine’s entire face flared with scandal and shock. “Who are you talking to with this mouth?”

“Mmm-hmm.” Now it was my turn to suck my teeth. “Are you smitten with him back?”

Claudine fretted her hands. Wiped them on the front of her blue dress. Then: “He’s a fool.”

“Obviously,” I agreed. “But are you smitten with him back?”

Claudine shook her head. “Silly nonsense wolf, batting his eyes with a bear. Nothing can come of it.”

This time, I just stared at her. Let the silence be my accusation.

“The way he looks at me…”

She trailed off, but it was easy for me to translate for her. “It makes you feel safe. Seen. Chosen.”

Claudine’s eyes softened with recognition as I labeled what she was feeling.

But then she shook her head like someone coming out of a daze. “I don’t… I don’t think I deserve it.”

“I know you don’t,” I assured her. “So deserve it.”

“What do you mean?”

“Give in to the soft feelings you’ve been fighting all your life. Let me go,” I clarified. “Prove to me there’s someone worth sparing under all that psychosis.”

She drew back her shoulders. “You think I have a mental illness?”

“Of course, you know what psychosis means.” Bitterness rose like bile in my throat as I realized, “You hid behind your translation of scripture and the Ordnung. But you’ve always known more than you let on while purposefully keeping me ignorant and blind.”

“Stop, just stop! I’m not some kind of evil mastermind,” Claudine insisted. “I was a girl, barely older than you and completely abandoned after a one-night stand I shouldn’t have ever agreed to!”

Her voice faltered. “I was all alone, with no family in Canada. My own mama was too disappointed to talk to me. Trust, she didn’t drop everything to come to me, like I did to follow you over to Scotland. And I had no way of tracking down your father. It was like he disappeared into the ether. Again.”

Claudine’s eyes went glassy, as if she’d time-traveled to the past. “And I really didn’t know what was happening when both you and me started shifting in my tiny studio apartment just a few months after I gave birth to you. No daycare. No way to work during a full moon.… I did what I had to do after I scented that pack of wolf shifters at the farmer’s market—where I was working part-time because I couldn’t hold down a nursing job anymore. I was barely holding on…”

Claudine folded her arms under her chest. “You’re acting like I had a plan in all this. But you destroyed all my plans. Everything I’d worked toward.”

I sighed. Remembering that plane conversation with Declan.

“I think it must have been very scary to wake up a bear one morning,” I said to her. “And I know there’s a reason—several of them—for why you did what you did.”

“Thank you,” Claudine started to say.

“But Claudine, none of those reasons were valid,” I let her know. “None of your excuses will ever make up for how you raised me to think I was unlovable, dirty, and not worth even a speck of softness or your love.”

“I loved you,” Claudine insisted. “I loved you so much. I just…”

Claudine stopped, and I could tell the truth had finally caught up with all of her excuses.

I’d forgiven Tadhg. In the end, it was easy to give him another chance. But I’d never, ever forgive her. And I believe this was the moment when she finally saw that.

“I know you probably don’t know much about bears, but you’ve got to be smart about this,” I advised. “You and your friends have kidnapped and held hostage a bear. A pregnant mama bear, whose mate and cubs you’ve put in danger.”

My eyes glittered with barely contained rage as I informed her, “So please believe me when I tell you, I will not hesitate to murder you and everyone else in this house save that little innocent girl if you do not let me out of these chains by the time I count to five.”

Claudine unfolded her defensive arms, her eyes going wide. “You can’t be serious!”

I blinked as serenely as my moon god and answered, “One…”

“Sadie, listen to me.…”

“Two…”

“You have to understand why I⁠—”

“Three…”

“But…”

“Four…”

Claudine fished the key out of her apron pocket and let me out.

For the rest of my life…

Whenever I came upon a dilemma that appeared to have no answer.

When one of my children yelled at me in a hormonal fit, raising their voices at me in a way that both reminded me of Claudine and sparked thoughts of how I would never, when I’d been their age…

When waves of the bad kind of shame rose like ghosts that could be banished but never fully exorcised…

Whenever I was put in a situation that required giving myself grace that I hadn’t been conditioned to ever have…

I imagined that sound. The metal release of shackles unlocking.…

And the answer became apparent.

The patience was found.

The shame was evaporated.

And grace was put back on like the crown I could suddenly feel myself wearing as I rose to my feet. So much taller than my mother than I remembered.

No more words.

Claudine could no longer even meet my eyes.

In fact, she lowered her own and dipped her head.

In a way that felt like a bow.

And she did not lift it again as I left the room and walked down a set of stairs to a cozy living room with a fireplace that actually emitted heat and smoke that wasn’t merely a scent.

Dorie was nowhere to be found, but the massive man with hair the color of dirty snow and crazed eyes stood at the front door. With a shotgun raised.

“Hamish, don’t!” Claudine called out behind me.

Right before there came a sound I’d only heard on the digital wall and inside my mind when the climaxes with my kings were particularly good.

An explosion.

Followed by the urgent ringing of church bells. The same kind we used back in St. Ailbe when a tornado was coming our way.

And just like that, the rest of my Irish Bears’ love story was reduced to an…

Epilogue

Twenty Years Later

DORIE

“Some last factoids for you before you go, Dorcas. Wolves don’t live as long as humans. While the average full Scottish human can expect to live seventy-five to eighty years, depending on several factors, like gender and general quality of life, the average wolf can only expect to live to sixty to sixty-five. But bears have a life expectancy that’s between humans and wolves—seventy to seventy-five. Did you know that?”

“I did not!” I admitted.

But that explained why, by the time the oldest Shadow Princess told me this factoid at the goodbye breakfast the Irish Bears threw for me on my last morning in their Secret Kingdom, Senair Hamish was long gone, but Granni Claudine was still kicking around in the room they’d shared at the top of the stairs in our three-generation house.

Right now, she was probably humming old hymns between fussing at my mother and little brother Albie to eat more breakfast before they left—for her last week of teaching at the village school and his first week of a summer sentry internship at the palace, respectively.

Granni never quite seemed to grasp the difference between how much food wolves and bears needed to survive and constantly guilt-tripped us about our apparent determination to starve ourselves to death and leave her with no one.

Was it any wonder I’d gone from near-emaciated when we first arrived in Faoiltiarn to 5’9” and fluffy by the time I reached the bears’ Secret Kingdom at my apparent middle age of 32?

Still, I couldn’t even begin to compare, or keep up with, the other shifters around the table, which was long enough to fit over twenty large and ravenous bears and the first she-wolf they’d ever invited into their kingdom.

I’d dutifully gone to the wall-long breakfast buffet for Granni’s always-insisted-upon second serving. But the oldest Shadow Princess, who stood much taller than me—with dark-brown skin, bright-blue eyes, and stick-straight, jet-black hair flowing down over her ample curves, all the way to her wide hips—was already on her fourth.

“What have you thought of the kingdom so far?” the oldest Mountain Prince asked from the other side of me. “Anything or anyone yer planning to revisit before you leave?”

He was the same age as my younger brother, but considerably more flirtatious.

While the Shadow Princess—who, like Albie, was also on break from uni—had been peppering me with helpful epigenetic and historical facts all week, the Mountain Prince’s factoids had bent a lot more biological.

He’d especially wanted me to know about the bears’ recently concluded Wedding & Awakening Season, which appeared to be a poetic way of saying everyone had come out of hibernation to either get married, get down, or both for most of the spring.

Being away at university, he’d missed it, but he’d hinted more than once that he was always open to belated celebrations.

And before I could answer his question, he let me know, “I’ve always preferred older bed partners. And you’ve got a couple more hours before Mum drives you to the Wolves’ kingdom, I believe. Sex with the future king would make for a great souvenir, wouldn’t it? Not to mention a hell of a story.”

I tried to hide the cringe that thought set off in me, but apparently, I didn’t do a good enough job.

“Read the social cues she’s exhibiting,” the Shadow Princess said from the other side of me. “It’s obvious she has no wish to have casual sex with you before she leaves on the most important diplomatic trip of all our lifetimes.”

Sure. That was as good an excuse as any. At least I wouldn’t have to explain that I didn’t have near the experience he clearly thought I had, even though I was 32.

“Also, she’s an unmated wolf, and most likely a virgin,” the Shadow Princess added without being asked. “She-wolves, as they refer to themselves, often don’t exhibit sexual desire until they go into heat—which, given her childless state, she has not.”

Okay. Well. I guess that was out there.

Not for the first time, I wished I wasn’t quite so light. I had enough curls on my head to easily be identified as partially Black, but not quite enough melanin to hide when I blushed beneath my freckled skin.

“Can we change the subject?” I asked, feeling the opposite of the consummate diplomat vibe I was going for.

“What did you plan to tell your Scottish King and Queen about us when you got back?” the second-youngest Mountain Prince asked from the other side of his brother.

“Oh, um…” I tried to think of how to tell him in the nicest way possible that the king and queen did not care at all about the Irish Bears—especially Aunt Tara, who’d given me a long list of questions to ask her estranged younger sister, the Queen of the Irish Wolves.

Once again, the Shadow Princess beat me to the punch. “Given that this was the twenty-year anniversary of the Scottish Wolves’ invasion of the Irish Wolves’ kingdom, I highly doubt Dorcas’s king and queen are thinking of us at all. We were just the party that offered an invitation to peace talks.”

“You really can call me Dorie,” I told the Shadow Princess. For, like, the one-hundredth time that week.

“I prefer Dorcas as it’s not the same as a cartoon fish,” she answered in that overly direct way of hers.

“But what about our da’s invasion of their kingdom?” the younger Mountain Prince asked his older sister before I could defend my much-preferred nickname.

He squinted at me in a way that reminded me of the hardened Mountain Kings in many of the portraits lining the gallery walls of the palace’s main hallway.

According to the Shadow Princess, gestating bears were believed to choose their own genetic traits in the womb from the DNA they had to work with, which explained her having her mother’s very dark skin paired with her father’s extremely bright-blue eyes.

But the red-haired and hulking second-youngest Mountain Prince had chosen only his mother’s brown eyes and taken the rest from his Mountain King line. Even though he was still a teen, he towered over me and was at least three times as wide.

He was hard to look at, to be honest. With his red hair and sheer brawn, he looked even more like Da than Albie did.

“Successful zero-death interactions are rarely discussed,” the Shadow Princess answered. “There’s a reason the French Revolution makes every European History syllabus, but almost no one studies Portugal’s bloodless military coup, the Carnation Revolution.”

“Portugal had a military coup?” the older Mountain Prince asked, proving her point.

But while she was right about the Irish Bears’ successful invasion not being discussed much in Faoiltiarn, I had thought about that day often.

Back then, I hadn’t known that the Irish Bears kept a standing army that basically required every single citizen of their community to be trained to fight and follow orders in bear form.

So that day, looking on from the window of my parents’ room with my mother, all I’d seen was what looked like a river of bears dressed in strange armor flooding from the gate toward the main street below our house.

The reason the invasion had been bloodless came down to primal instinct. Wolves didn’t fight bears in nature, and the citizens of Faoiltiarn—who had definitely not received any military training beyond playing Scots and Irish—quickly got out of the bears’ way, instinctively ducking into the nearest shelter to avoid being trampled or worse.

I’d never forgotten the sight of the General Bear at the head of the rampaging herd suddenly halting in the street outside our house and shifting from a reddish-brown beast into a man, his strange armor shrinking and reshaping itself to fit his human form.

Despite my overhead viewpoint, I could tell he was even more giant than my new da, Alban.

“SADIE! WHERE ARE YOU? I CAN SMELL YOU!” he’d roared as bears rushed by all around him. “SEND OUT MY MATE OR I WILL BURN THIS ENTIRE KINGDOM TO THE GROUND!”

“I thought the bear in the dungeon was Sadie’s mate,” I’d whispered to my mother, who held me tight in her arms, despite her swollen baby belly.

Maem hadn’t answered. Her wide, scared eyes had stayed locked on the scene below. Looking back, it was obvious she’d feared the General Bear would track his mate’s scent into our house, which would put us all in danger. Senair Hamish had gone to the front room with his shotgun and a grim look after telling us to lock ourselves into the primary bedroom.

But to my shock, Sadie had burst out of the house and called, “Tadhg! Tadhg! I’m right here!”

The general, who I would later be introduced to as His Majesty, Tadhg Ryan, Mountain King of the Irish Bears, had turned to face her and roared, “HALT!”

The river of bears had come to an immediate stop, like soldiers playing freeze tag.

And he and Sadie had rushed to each other through the sea of standing bears. But instead of kissing, as I’d often seen Da and Maem do when they thought I wasn’t watching, he’d ripped off his forearm armor and offered his crooked bare arm to her with a formal bow of his head.

To my shock, Sadie had offered him her forearm, too, placing it directly against his mouth.

I’d thought it was some sort of strange bear greeting—until they both bit down on each other’s forearms, hard.

I’d spent the week getting answers to the questions I had back then, learning about the Irish Bears’ culture—from their praise of three serpent gods to their practice of bond-biting, which established a psychokinetic mental link. No mating heat required, like with us wolves.

But I never forgot that invasion. Mostly because of my mother’s sudden expulsion of pent-up air and the happy smile that followed…relief that Hamish hadn’t killed Sadie with his shotgun and, therefore, hadn’t signed all our death warrants.

“I remembered,” I told the sons of those two bears, twenty years later. “When you all left with Sadie without hurting anyone... that was the last time I saw my mother smile. She never got over my da, Alban, not coming home from Ireland. Neither did I.”

A somber silence fell over the table at the mention of the battle that had estranged the Sister Queens of Scotland and Ireland forever.

Until the Shadow Princess told me, “My own da says that time is only a construct of the Big Laptop. Whether you got a short sentence or a longer saga with your father, the love meant the same.”

A poetic sentiment, to be sure, but I couldn’t help the flare of resentment inside me. Someone who’d had twenty years with three fathers would never understand the pain of losing the only good one I’d ever known less than two months after I started calling him Da.

“If you’ve had enough to eat, Dorie, we should probably get going,” a voice said behind us.

We all turned to see the Queen of the Irish Bears, often referred to as the acronym HMSQ by her ten children and subjects alike, standing beside the oldest of her three High King sons.

By tradition, the throne was ascended when the inheriting king or queen turned twenty-five. So in just over five years, Sadie’s reign would be ceded to the Shadow Princess, the flirtatious Mountain Prince, and the High Prince with steely gray eyes and a white streak in his loose curls standing next to her.

But dressed in one of her infamous strawberry-patterned gowns, paired with one of her three crowns, she stood every inch the queen today.

In fact, I suddenly felt underdressed. She’d told me specifically to wear comfortable pants and a light tee. She’d even gifted me a thick, cozy, Irish-knit green sweater cardigan, saying, “It might get quite cold on your trip.”

I stood up immediately and curtsied, as I’d seen so many of her subjects do throughout my week here. “Your Majesty,” I said with a bow of my head. “Should I change into something more formal?”

“No, do not worry yourself, Dorie,” she answered with the same gentle tone and eyes I remembered from when I was a child, curious about the bear chained to my bed. “You are perfect just as you are.”

Less than an hour and a kiss from two of Sadie’s three kings later, we were on the road in a vehicle that the Shadow King—the still-unmet royal I’d privately begun referring to as the Invisible King—had designed and built for long-distance travel using the extraordinarily advanced technology the royals referred to as “god tech.”

It looked like one of the golf carts the kingdom used to get around, but it was wheel-less and sped along on what felt like a soundless cushion of smooth air, heading toward the Irish Wolves’ kingdom on the opposite coast.

The Queen of the Bears, I’d learned, had gone into estrus more times than any queen in the kingdom’s history—and had also managed to earn a psychology degree. Though she refused to call herself a therapist formally, she was known throughout the kingdom as the person to turn to when you had an emotional problem you needed help with.

So asking her what to expect when I met Aunt Naomi seemed like a natural conversation-starter for the trip.

“Well, you won’t have to deal with ten princes and princesses asking you questions, like you did with us.” Then she sobered and added, “There’s only the Wild Princess and the Sea Prince with her now. The City Prince went to live in Dublin with his father after their parents split.”

I jolted. This was not part of the intel I’d received since arriving in the Bear Kingdom.

The ad hoc welcoming committee of princes and princesses that had shown me around seemed more concerned with teaching me how to use the god tech and having me memorize poems in Irish I was supposed to recite to Naomi, but which, according to the High King himself, I was absolutely not to say out loud, not even in a whisper, before meeting the Queen of the Irish Wolves.

“Is Aunt Naomi no longer with the last remaining king?” I asked.

“They tried, for the children’s sake,” Sadie said. “But I heard you talking about how your mother never got over the loss of Alban Scotswolf. Well, Naomi never got over the loss of her Sea and Wild Kings, either. And you should know that’s made her a bit…”

Sadie paused, searching for the most judicious way to phrase what came next.

“…not always kind. I know this is a lot to request coming from the bear who hasn’t spoken a single word to your beloved Granni since my Mountain King rescued me from Faoiltiarn, but you will have to pre-forgive her for her particularly acerbic tongue.”

Once again, I found it hard to believe that this unfailingly kind and warm female could be estranged from the Granni who’d not only stayed and made Hamish’s last years worth living, but also gotten our family through the worst of our pain over losing Alban.

In fact, just a few months before sending me on this diplomatic trip, King Magnus had awarded her a Medal of Honor from the city for her extraordinary acts of service, including overseeing the midwifing of the baby boom that followed the Norwegian exchange brides the village had been granted a couple of years after “Bloody February,” as both the Scots and Irish now called the battle that had taken so many lives on both sides.

But before I’d left, Granni had only said, “Please let my daughter know I’ve spent the rest of my life deserving it.”

I’d passed that message on to Queen Sadie not long after our first meeting. Her eyes had teared up—but then, just as quickly, she’d shifted the subject to my twin cousin Scottish princes.

“Has it been decided which of them will inherit the throne?” she’d asked, as if the males she’d never met interested her far more than the mother she’d lived with for 23 years.

As I’d learned through my own years with my grieving mother, there wasn’t anything I could do about that pain. So instead, I’d asked the one question I knew Granni Claudine would want answered.

“Did you ever get the name Granni sent you—of your father? Through the Shadow King? She wasn’t sure, since she never heard back.”

“I did,” Sadie confirmed. “And he’s still alive and kicking, just like your Granni. Next month, we’re actually scheduled to visit him—and my half brother, half sister, and all their nieces and nephews. I never could have imagined, growing up in that small village, that my family would eventually become so big.”

She smiled, and I could tell her memories of that parent were far fonder than the ones of her mother.

“Are they, ah… like Irish Bears?” I asked awkwardly, wishing I’d done literally anything to prepare myself for diplomacy before I was unexpectedly assigned the role of brokering this once-in-a-lifetime chance at peace the Irish Bears offered us out of the blue, as long as Magnus and Tara sent me, and only me.

“If you mean, do they mate in multiples—the answer is yes,” Sadie replied with a teasing smile. “They call their setups mauls. But can you believe the male maul bears also give each other bond bites? Declan and Tadhg were completely aghast. I don’t think they could fathom being in each other’s heads the way they’re both in mine. And especially not the Shadow King’s.”

She laughed, and I tried to smile along, though I’d never met her mysterious third husband and wasn’t sure what part of being in his head was supposed to be funny.

I was about to ask a follow-up question, but then something caught my eye in the distance.

A shining city. Like something out of a sci-fi novel, it had a skyline of pointed buildings that glinted in the sun, each one appearing to be made of green crystal.

And as if that weren’t alarming enough, there were people standing on the rolling hills in front of the sparkling green city.

Rows upon rows of people. All dressed in the same green robes. And staring straight at us.

“Um, what is that, then?” I asked Sadie, a thrum of alarm going off in my chest as I watched them watching us.

“Oh, that’s a… ah—I guess you could call it a hybrid third Secret Kingdom? Of bear and wolf shifters, but also a few other kinds from around the world.”

I scrunched my brow. “There are other kinds of shifters?”

“There are,” Sadie answered in the careful tone of someone standing on shaky knowledge ground. “My Shadow King calls them original experiments. It’s kind of a long story.”

One I sensed I needed to hear. But first…

“Can I ask why what feels like the entirety of this third Secret Kingdom is out here, staring at us?”

“I mean, you could ask,” Sadie said as we zipped past the unblinking, staring horde. “But I’m not quite sure I could give you a satisfying answer.”

Then, just like that, she pivoted back. “Anyway, I’m still wondering about your Twin Cousin Kings. So you’re saying the law is whichever one of them mates first becomes the future King of the Scottish Wolves? Do you have opinions about who’s going to be mated first?”

I did, actually. And even though I sensed the subject had been changed, I easily fell into one of Faoiltiarn’s favorite topics.

“It even has a pool that’s up to over six million pounds now! The town’s taken to calling it the Twin Kings Lotto.”

We stuck to more pleasant subjects for the rest of the trip. However, I was surprised when we didn’t stop at the smaller, but no less quaint, village of thatched-roof houses and a single castle that Sadie identified as the Irish Wolves’ Secret Kingdom.

Instead, Sadie passed by the village altogether and pulled the floating cart to a stop beside a tower in the middle of a sheep pasture.

It looked just like the kind that had taken me from the mansion that the Irish Bears called Wicklow Gate to their Secret Kingdom beneath Ireland.

“Tara asked to meet at a neutral location in The Above,” Sadie explained, hauling the duffel I’d brought with me out of the cart’s back seat. “We’ll have to get out and hike for a bit. I hope you don’t mind.”

I didn’t mind. After we popped out back in The Above as the bears called it, into a stone circle on an open seaside cliff, Sadie revealed that she had inherited Granni’s resonant singing voice with a slow, rambling rendition of that bittersweet Mary J. Blige and U2 song that King Tadhg had put on when he got in a slow dancing mood after my big welcome dinner.

Also, making or way over rolling hills toward a two-story red house perched in front of a sparkling lake for a kilometer or two was way easier than the hikes Senair used to take me on through the mountains “to walk off the grief” after Alban’s death.

I couldn’t believe this green, hilly place was where Da died—or that I, of all people, was actually here to broker peace between the two wolf kingdoms.

“Why me?” I asked Sadie as we got closer to a. “Uncle—I mean, King Magnus—said you requested me as their ambassador specifically, even though I just moved back to Scotland after going to uni and working abroad.”

One of the first questions the youngest and fourth High Prince had asked was, “Why do you sound like North America?”

For so many reasons, I didn’t feel equipped to handle these negotiations.

“I hope you’ll understand after you meet Naomi,” Sadie answered. “It could only be you.”

Maybe. But I didn’t understand at all when my Aunt Naomi, the Queen of the Irish Wolves, emerged just before we reached the house.

She was small but sharp as a razor. High cheekbones, wiry muscles, cornrows that fell down her back like whips. Everything about her was sharp, the complete opposite of Sadie’s teddy bear softness. It was hard to believe they were best friends.

A much taller female and male flanked her, and they carried the same sharpness, though younger. Her children. I could tell at first sniff.

The son had long red hair braided in a way that reminded me of the Vikings of yore. And the daughter had wild curls with leaves and sticks with bright red berries woven through them—clearly intentional, but it made her look like a living bush of poisonous berries.

They all wore leather outfits that could have easily gotten them cast as bandits in one of those historical entertainments set in the days before metal armor.

The first thing Naomi said to me was, “You are not allowed in my home. We will have this discussion by the Three Gods Lake.”

Then she turned and headed around the house toward the sparkling body of water, obviously expecting us to follow.

Sadie didn’t seem the least bit surprised by this announcement. She simply adjusted my duffel on her shoulder and followed.

I trailed behind, wondering where I was expected to sleep. Maybe in the small town I could see on the other side of the lake in the distance.

We stopped at the water’s edge—so close I could see that it was more like a reservoir or basin. No beach. Just a grassy lip with a steep drop, surrounded by signs warning that swimming wasn’t allowed.

No problem. I’d never learned how to swim, and even after the hike under a real sun in hot, unmoderated temperatures, the thought of risking my life in what looked like a massive, sheer-drop hole of water did not appeal to me.

Naomi turned to face me, her expression as hard as one of the stones in the circle we just hiked here from.

Was this where I was supposed to recite the poem I’d been taught? I looked to Sadie for some kind of clue about how to proceed.

“You probably have questions for me,” Naomi said before I could speak. Her voice was cold, and her eyes glittered with unchecked rage. “Including which one of us killed Alban Scotswolf. I’m told you called him Da.”

“I did,” I confirmed. “But I don’t need to know who⁠—”

“It was me,” Naomi said, tilting her sharp, beautiful face with the expression of someone enjoying a truly delicious memory. “He murdered my husbands and then dared to come to the castle to negotiate peace. But of course there could be none after what he did. I slit his throat with the dagger my Wild King gave me as a baby moon gift. It is important to me that you know that.”

Naomi told me this… told me she’d killed my da, who’d survived the battle with her evil, kidnapping husbands… who had only wanted to get his duty over with and come home to me, his unborn son, and my pregnant maem… She told me this with a proud smirk on her lips, madness sparkling in her eyes.

Okay…

Okay…

I realized two things in that moment:

1.   I was no diplomat. Uncle Magnus should never have sent me.

And…

2.   This bitch was about to die.

In an instant, the temper I’d learned to tame after a difficult childhood flamed hotter than a bonfire. My fists curled at my sides, and I stepped forward, vision going red with only one thought in my mind: Kill her.

But then Sadie was suddenly in front of me, blocking my path, her taller, larger body shielding me from Naomi.

“Here, Dorie. Take this,” she said quickly, swinging the duffel she’d insisted on carrying for me from her shoulder to over my head and arranging it like a crossbody satchel.

Probably her way of weighing me down. To keep me from lunging. To keep me from ripping out Naomi’s throat for what she’d said. For what she’d done to my da.

“Dorie! Dorie!” Sadie said again, forcing my attention back to her.

Despite the duffel, she pulled me into her arms, hugging me tight.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so very sorry. Remember the poem! Say it out loud!”

Is she kidding?

No peace would be brokered here today. And there was no way I was going to recite my bitch of an aunt a poem. The only thing I was going to do was⁠—

Sadie’s hands landed hard on my chest, cutting the violent thought off.

Sadie was so nice.

So warm and kind.

It wasn’t until I hit the ice-cold water that I realized… she’d shoved me.

And in that instant, Aunt Naomi became the furthest thing from my mind.

I was drowning.

Oh God, I was drowning. Much faster than I should’ve been under the weight of the duffel.

I kicked and twisted, but I couldn’t get free. Couldn’t stop sinking.

And for some reason that song Sadie had been singing about forgiveness and temples and higher laws went off in my head as I sank…

Down…

Down…. past the lake’s stone wall.

Except… the wall changed. It went from smooth to bumpy.

I vaguely registered carvings. Three statues. Giant dragons with extended snouts.

I was drowning.

Dying…

With a song about fractured relationships that may or may not work out playing in my head.

But as I sank, I couldn’t help wondering, What are these intricately carved statues of sleeping dragons doing down here?

Then the dragon statue in the middle… blinked… its eyelids opening to reveal glowing orbs, green as emeralds.

And staring straight at me.

***

WHAT IN THE ENTIRE WORLD?!?

I can’t wait for you to find out

what happens next in the truly duly

EPIC conclusion

of the Irish Shifters trilogy:

HER IRISH DRAGONS

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(Plus a free copy of HER VIKING WOLF)!

Meanwhile, please make sure

to read all the books in the

Scottish Wolves Trilogy!

Her Scottish Wolf

Her Scottish King

Her Scottish Hero

Keep scrolling to…

wolf Meet Iain, the Scottish Bosshole with a huge secret.

wolf Get a big, red, hot introduction to your fated mate—a time-traveling Viking Werewolf (whom you can meet for free when you sign up for my newsletter).

Worst Bosshole Ever.

--5 Star Review

My Scottish billionaire boss is arrogant, secretive, demanding, and far too insanely hot for me, his meek assistant, to actually look in the eye. But somehow, I manage to put up with the boss from hell...until I get a terminal cancer diagnosis. 

Totally valid reason to quit, right? 

Not for my cruel devil of a boss. 

You will not believe his response to my resignation...or the secret he's been hiding all along!

This book features:

• knots and kilts hot pepperhot pepperhot pepper

• a secret work crush

• a meek and mousy assistant makeover

• lots of Scottish brogue, and….

• an unfairly hot bosshole who will not allow you to quit. Ever.

WARNING: do not buy this book if you're not ready for a REAL Scottish alpha wolf who will have you cursing him one moment and saying, "Aye, Iain!" the next. 

This hot romance has so much heart, it just might inspire you to hop on the next flight to Scotland and start searching for your very own "wolf in a kilt." 

One

Acute lymphoblastic leukemia, or ALL as it was known when I’d started undergoing treatment for it at the age of 19, is one of the meanest members of the cancer family.

It killed my mother at the young age of 24, and I’d spent the most formative years of my young adult life fighting the disease.

So yeah, ALL is a terrible uninvited guest who nobody wants to hear from again if and when you manage to kick it out of your body. But apparently, there was something way worse than getting the cancer that killed your mother and almost killed you.

The cure.

Four years ago, thanks to extensive chemotherapy and a bone marrow match from a good Samaritan of a similar racial background, I went into remission. I’ll always be grateful for that. Unfortunately, the cure that saved my life also turned off my body’s immune system, effectively leaving the door open for an even scarier monster: acute myeloid leukemia.

AML … those were the three letters now hanging over my head a few hours later as I walked back into the ultra-modern AlgoFortune office building in a daze.

It hadn’t taken my Scottish doctor nearly as long to explain AML to me as it did the doctor back in Albany, New York where I’d grown up to explain ALL. And that turned out not to be a good thing.

The disease typically showed up in eight to ten percent of cancer patients within an average of five years. And for patients with a history and genetic profile like mine, AML had an average life expectancy of eight months. Give or take.

Eight months. The roar of an ocean started between my ears as Dr. Keller explained why chemotherapy and radiation were no longer options for me. Then he gently suggested we schedule another appointment to discuss “palliative options.”

TL; CP—Too long/couldn’t process version: “Your cancer is back, you’re dying, and there’s nothing you can do about it.”

For once, I was happy the office Iain had given me outside of his suite was made entirely of glass. Sitting inside a rectangular fishbowl that put me on view for anyone who happened to be walking by was the only reason I didn’t immediately burst into tears as soon as I sat down at my desk.

Instead, I flipped through the brochures the doctor’s nurse had pressed into my hand.

They had much less hopeful titles than the ones I’d received as a sick 19-year-old. Less “rah-rah, you can beat this!” and more “oh well, better deal.”

The “Coping with Loss and Grief” booklet listed all the mental and physical therapy resources in Edinburgh Cancer Care Centre’s network. There was also a practical pamphlet entitled, “Talking with Loved Ones about Advanced Care Planning.” And rounding out the world’s most depressing collection of medical brochures ever was, “Transitions: Taking Charge at the End of Life” which consisted of three brief commiserative paragraphs followed by a list of local hospices and in-home hospice care providers.

Wow, I’m really going to die.

At the age of twenty-five.

That’s a thing that’s going to happen to me in less than a year, and there’s absolutely nothing I can do about it.

Even though I skipped breakfast and lunch, my stomach pitched and rolled, and I set the brochures aside for fear of what my body would expel if I continued to dwell on them … or my fatal diagnosis.

Okay, time to stop wallowing. “Stiff upper lip” as they were known to say around these parts. I pushed my glasses up my nose and typed in my computer passcode.

I’d been gone less than an hour. But in that time, Iain had sent me over thirty messages—four of which were marked urgent.

I glanced toward his office. His door was firmly closed. Which meant he was probably scrambling to get the code for the latest algorithm completed before taking off for his retreat.

Good. That meant I could work in peace. Without him hovering over me, complaining I’d missed two serial commas in my daily market report (as he’d done yesterday). Or repeatedly ordering me to draft emails from him to workers that typically began with “Dear [insert one of the numerous Scottish terms for idiot here].”

Yes, that was what I would do. Throw myself into my work. Try to forget about the new set of letters hovering over my head—at least for a little while.

I started re-typing Iain’s notes to the GUI team from this morning’s update so they’d sound like they’d been written by a semi-decent human being and not a pit viper in a kilt. I managed to focus on that and only that for five whole minutes. But then a restless feeling overcame me.

A restless feeling that made me open a new tab in my internet browser and type in the URL for the Royal Scottish Bank. A password, a security question, and a few clicks later, my savings account popped up on my screen.

I stared at the four-figure number. It wasn’t a lot. But it was something. Enough to go somewhere else—somewhere I’d never been before and survive for a month or two. I could maybe even stretch it out to four or six months if I didn’t come back to live in crazy expensive Edinburgh.

I opened another new tab on my computer. This time, I typed “Milford Track New Zealand” into the empty search bar at the top of the window.

It was where I’d originally planned to travel at the end of my summer internship in Scotland. But then the position at AlgoFortune had become available …

I clicked on the Images tab, and my screen filled with pictures of a gorgeous fjord, flanked by lush green mountains and majestic waterfalls, the likes of which I’d never seen in real life. And might never get the chance to see again—not if I didn’t go there before it was too late.

My heart thundered, and I knew—knew what I had to do. Right now, before I could chicken out and stop myself.

I stood abruptly and charged into Iain’s office without knocking. Totally against his standards. I was actually supposed to send a text first and get formal permission before even daring to knock. But I no longer cared about his infamous list of protocols.

I mean, what did I have to lose?

I marched right up to his stupid standing desk and cranked my head back to look him straight in the eye—only to have my newfound courage peter out as soon as my gaze met his annoyed one.

Ugh. Why did he have to be so ridiculously gorgeous? My heart skipped all the beats, as usual, and my stomach dropped like I’d gotten on a roller coaster, not simply tried to look at my boss straight on for once.

I ended up quickly redirecting my eyes to my feet.

“Well?” Iain demanded, his voice even testier than usual. “Out with it. Why did you barge into my office without the required permission to enter text.”

“Um … I just found out I have cancer,” I said, dropping my eyes to my feet. “Actually. I had cancer before. Leukemia. It’s been in remission since before I came to Scotland. But now I have a new type of leukemia. And I guess it’s too aggressive for them to treat, so it looks like I don’t have much longer …”

I trailed off, expecting a barrage of questions. What kind of cancer? What do you mean untreatable? Why am I just now hearing about this?

But he didn’t say anything. And I was too afraid to look up to see how he was taking this. With my eyes still glued to my feet, I told him, “I’m sorry. I really am, but I need to quit. Effective in two weeks.”

This time I did look up. Not because I felt particularly brave. I just needed to get a sense of where he was at before I said anything else.

Iain thought he had an answer for everything, and he hated change of any kind. I got a “not up to my standards” reprimand the other day just for modifying a report’s font from Avenir to Avenir Next—that was how opposed he was to even the tiniest minutia of deviation from his standard.

So, I had no idea how he’d react to the news that for reasons completely out of his control, he’d be losing his assistant in two weeks.

However, Iain’s face remained its usual hard mask, his jaw tightly clenched with irritation.

“I’m sorry.” I dropped my gaze again. To my hands this time. They’d somehow folded into a tight prayer-like clasp against my chest. “I … I know it’s going to be inconvenient to replace me, especially as we go into stage two of the new product launch. I’ll start looking for my replacement today⁠—”

“Both your parents are no longer in your life, correct?”

I started, majorly surprised by that question coming out of Iain Scotswolf’s mouth. I mean, I knew almost everything there was to know about Iain. I made sure his one-night stands went as smoothly as possible, fielded calls from his brother, sent in monthly five-figure donations to his alma mater, the University of Edinburgh, on his behalf.

Last month, I’d refused yet again to put through a call from Iain’s Italian mother, Valentina, who’d moved back to the Italian countryside after splitting up with his father, Lachlan. And next month I’d make sure Lachlan received a new set of golf clubs for Scottish Father’s Day. When I went back to my desk earlier that morning, I’d set up the requested date with Lisette because that was how involved I was in Iain’s life outside of work.

But I figured Iain knew next to nothing about me. He’d never asked me a single question about my background or life outside the office—not until this morning when my doctor’s appointment came up. And now here he was asking about my parents. What was going on here?

“Um … no, they’re not,” I answered carefully. Knowing how impatient he could be, I left out all the details about how my dad left pretty much right before I was born, and how my mother had died soon after.

“So, you have no close family to speak of?”

“No,” I answered again. A painful memory from four years ago surfaced … of being the only person at the funeral of the grandmother who’d raised me after my mother had died. And of the sudden realization that I was entirely on my own now that she was gone.

“Right then, you’ve nowhere to go. So why would someone in your condition quit a well-paid job with private benefits? That’s just daft!”

The harsh truth of Iain’s words hit me with a sharp pang.

He was right; I didn’t have anyone.

No home to return to. No loving arms to comfort me in my last few months. My roommate and best friend, Tara, would do her best, but she was the same age as me. Only twenty-five, and still in the prime of her life. It wouldn’t be fair to burden her with the responsibility of caring for a dying friend.

A wave of self-pity washed over me. Iain was right. The wisest course of action would be to work until I couldn’t work anymore. Then use the money in my savings account to make sure I’d have everything I needed when I checked myself into one of those hospices in the brochure.

But the only thing more depressing than dying in eight months was the thought of working for Iain until my body tapped out and I had to go to hospice.

Which is why I found myself answering, “Why would someone in my condition quit a well-paid job with private benefits? I guess because I’m a 25-year-old virgin who’s never been anywhere further away from my childhood home than Scotland. I guess because I know exactly where my father came from in New Zealand, but I’ve never been there.”

Hot tears spilled down my face as I both said and realized this aloud. The truth of how little I’d lived horrified me. But it also spurred me on to do better by myself.

“I have a little money in the bank—not a lot, but enough to go a few places. Like New Zealand,” I told both Iain and myself through the tears. “So that’s what I want to do. I want to go somewhere else that’s not here … maybe have a fling or two … see things while I still can.”

“Don’t cry, Millicent.” Iain took a tissue from the box on his desk and stiffly handed it to me. “I can’t bear it.”

Of course, he couldn’t bear the sight of me crying. Iain hated drama. And tears. Me crying was another thing that wasn’t up to his standards. And he looked away as if he was embarrassed for both me and himself.

“I’m sorry,” I said, taking the tissue and hastily wiping away the offending tears. “I’ll go type up my two-week notice, okay? I can email it to you, so I don’t have to come in here again. I just wanted to tell you in person before I sent it.”

He gave me a long, measured look before saying, “HR tells me most of the people we hire don’t bother to read their contracts before signing them. I’m surprised to find out you’re one of those lackadaisical employees, Millicent.”

I lowered the tissue. “Wh-what do you mean?”

“I mean, if you’d bothered to read your contract in full, you’d know AlgoFortune requires a minimum of thirty days’ notice if you wish to quit. Not fourteen, but thirty. Exactly.”

He leveled me with a cool look. “So, write your letter if you want, Millicent. But if you leave this job in anything less than thirty days, you’ll be doing yourself a great disservice. After our lawyers have finished with you, you won’t even have that little bit of savings you need to go flitting about on your quest to …”

He pauses and gives me another derisive look before finishing with, “See things, and have sex with strangers you just met.”

“What?” My heart withered inside my chest. “I don’t understand. Why would you⁠—”

“You don’t understand.” Iain’s face remained a hard mask. “Well then, let me make it very clear for you then, Millicent. Employees who quit in the middle of a project do not meet my standards. And that is why I had that clause put in every hiring contract. You will stay on until your thirty days are up, and not a day less, or I will sue you for everything you have. Now, do you understand?”

I stared at him in mute shock. Seriously … how could anybody be this cruel?

“I’m waiting for your verbal response, Millicent,” he said, his voice cold as Scottish winter. “Do you understand that you’ll need to stay on in my employ for thirty more days, or I’ll be forced to sue you for breach of contract?”

For heaven’s sake, I was only an assistant! The pitiful woman everyone in the office called Milly Mouse. Why on earth would he sue me just to make sure I served out a ridiculous thirty-day quitting clause? I opened my mouth to ask that very question.

But then a bolt of clarity struck me, and I suddenly understood something I’d only suspected before.

Iain, for all his various recurring five-figure donations to numerous charities, cared little for anyone or anything outside of his precious algorithms.

My cancer was an inconvenience. And if there was one thing that wasn’t up to Iain’s standards, it was being inconvenienced.

Most people wouldn’t be this cruel. Most people would have at the very least, expressed sympathy. But Iain wasn’t most people. And he had no problem showing his true colors … at least where I was concerned.

“Yes, I understand,” I answered in the end, my tone dull and flat. Because what else was there to say?

“Good,” he said, voice clipped as if he were the aggrieved party in this conversation. “Now, it appears I won’t be finished with this code before my retreat. But I promised to have it to GUI by tomorrow. I’ll take it with me to finish, and then you’ll have to come up to my place in Faoltairn tomorrow morning to pick it up. 4:00 A.M. sharp.”

“Are you serious?” I crooked my head, dull acceptance giving way to surprise.

While I’d arranged for countless deliveries to Iain’s million-dollar flat in New Town, I wouldn’t even know Faoltairn was a small Highlands mountain village if not for having to arrange for a special courier to drop off Lachlan’s Father’s Day gifts.

“You want me to come to your home in the Highlands?” I asked. “Like, the house where you grew up?”

Iain gave an impatient jerk of his head. “Nay, not there. My brother’s taken over that place. I have another residence I keep for myself. As I said, I’ll expect you there at 4:00 A.M. on the dot. I won’t be there to meet you in person, of course, as I’ll be camping. But I’ll leave the algorithms on a thumb drive in my home office. All you’ll need to do is go inside and fetch it off my desk.”

Fetch it. Like a dog …

“You can go now,” he said, dismissing me before I could say anything further. Then he went back to his computer, furiously typing as if he was angry with me for wasting even this much of his time with my dying stuff.

Love at first sight.

“Hello there, Millicent.” I once again recalled how Iain had smiled down at me when I offered him my hand at the start of the interview.

That smile had hit me like a freight train. My heart had sped up, and my stomach had suddenly dropped with the sensation of falling.

Love at first sight. Those four words had floated into my head, rocking me down to my very soul.

And I’d actually thought Iain felt the same way too. He’d held my slender hand in his much larger one for way longer than was professional. And he’d gazed down at me with a look so soft, I’d felt for sure that this was the first meeting of soulmates.

But then his nose had flared, sniffing at the air like he’d smelled something rank. And just like that, his smile was replaced by the hard mask I’d come to know well in the years I’d worked for him.

One glimpse. It had been just one glimpse of a man I’d thought maybe I could spend the rest of my life with, but that small peek had haunted me ever since. And, despite all evidence to the contrary over the years I’d worked for Iain, I’d found myself wondering too many times to count if maybe—just maybe that guy who’d warmly said, “Hello, Millicent” was still lurking beneath my boss’s hard and unfeeling exterior.

Well, now I knew the answer.

Iain Scotswolf was a 100% bastard. He didn’t have an ounce of consideration for me, much less love.

The man obviously didn’t even give two craps about me, and I’d been a fool to spend over three years of my life secretly hoping it might be otherwise.

Two

“What. A. Dick. You told him you were dying and that’s how he responds?” Tara squawked from my phone’s speaker. “I just CAN’T with this douchebag. Ugh, my rage levels are spiking so high right now!”

I immediately regretted telling my roommate about the whole Iain refusing to let me leave thing. But she’d called to check in on me on her way to her boyfriend’s place in Liverpool, and the whole story had come out in a huge gush before I remembered why I usually kept stories of how bad things were at work to myself.

“Tara …” I said, as I popped a Sainsburys’ Chicken Tikka Masala ready meal into the microwave, sitting on top of the very little counter space in our tiny flat’s narrow kitchen.

“No, Milly. Don’t Tara me!” she commanded from my phone’s speaker. “Give me one reason—just one reason why I shouldn’t hunt him down and tear out his throat!”

“It’s okay, Tara. It’s fine …” I insisted—not because it was, but because Tara sounded violently upset, and I didn’t want her to do anything rash.

I didn’t have many girlfriends before Tara—those were surprisingly hard to make and keep when you’d spent large swaths of your prime bestie-making years in various medical centers battling leukemia.

By the time I’d finally made it to Scotland for a summer-long business and technology internship at the Royal Scottish Bank, my social skills were so underdeveloped I didn’t even begin to hope I’d make any friends there.

But my friendless days were over from the moment I met Canadian Tara Hamilton at the RSB orientation. Tara was a self-professed anti-Canadian.

Rude, bold, and strong—in both body and personality. Plus, she was ultra-fashionable. I swear, if they were casting Sex in the City: Edinburgh, she’d easily get the role of the Canadian glamour girl.

The only thing we had in common other than our internship was being biracial. But we even were at opposite ends of the spectrum on that. While I had a split-up Black mother and White Jewish father, Tara had a black Ghanaian father and a White German-Canadian mother who were still together.

They did cutesy things like wait with each other by their landline phone when Tara was expected to make her weekly scheduled call home. And they all spoke in excited German together when they talked.

I could barely mumble in English. I still have no idea why she picked me, the shy nerd with zero confidence, and the least dazzling of our program mates to befriend, but she did.

And when we both landed jobs in Edinburgh right before the end of our internships—Tara at the Royal Scottish Bank and me at AlgoFortune—we decided to move in together, and we’d been best friends ever since.

However, as much as I treasured my best friend, I had to admit, she had a nasty temper, one that could quickly get out of hand. I’d literally had to pull my bestie out of bar fights on Trivia Pub Quiz nights when she got too heated. And don’t even get me started on what she did to the drunken I-Banker bro who slapped her on the butt during the after-work drinks thing she’d invited me to last spring.

I’ll just say, he no longer works at the main branch of the Royal Scottish Bank Edinburgh. And avoiding sexual harassment charges wasn’t the only reason he put in his notice.

So, while I might feel the same way as Tara, I had no doubt my extremely loyal friend was more than capable of hunting my boss down and setting herself up for some serious assault charges if I didn’t act like Iain’s behavior wasn’t a big deal.

“Tara, it’s okay. Seriously,” I tell both her and myself. “Four instead of two more weeks working for the boss from hell won’t matter in the scheme of things.”

“No, it’s not okay! It’s totally messed up,” Tara grumbled. “That asshole’s lucky I’m visiting Brian tonight, or I’d find out where he lives, and shove his stupid hiring contract right up his ass.”

I let out a sigh of relief, almost, but not quite grateful for her horrible boyfriend.

Just a few weeks after moving to Edinburgh, Tara had met a sketchy English musician at a pub. And though I had yet to meet him, from what I could tell, he was the worst. Like, completely-undeserving-of-my-amazing-best-friend the worst.

He always made Tara visit him in Liverpool, never once deigning to make the journey to Edinburgh to hang out with Tara and her friends. Nearly three years into our relationship and I had yet to meet the guy, let alone see a photo of him. In fact, I wouldn’t even call what Tara and he had a relationship. More like a long-distance booty call made worse by Tara’s slavish devotion.

As strong and loyal a friend as she could be, Tara was a complete doormat when it came to her boyfriend.

And I had learned early on that my otherwise smart friend would not budge on the topic of Brian. Tara visited him whenever he called, and once there, nothing would bring her back until Brian let her go.

Case in point: I’d called my best friend to tell her I …

1) only had eight months left to live, and

2) could not quit my job without getting sued for the last bit of money I had.

But Tara, rather predictably, threatened to do physical damage to Iain but didn’t so much as offer to come back to Edinburgh to commiserate with her dying roommate.

More self-pity washed over me as I pulled my sad microwave dinner out of the small electric oven.

But that wasn’t fair.

Tara had mostly been the best friend a meek little assistant like me could ask for in the world. It wasn’t her job to comfort me or drop all her plans to help me drown my diagnosis sorrows in several bottles of wine.

“I just wish my Brian thing wasn’t tonight. Otherwise, you know, I’d be right there with you, right?” Tara asked, her voice softening.

“I know,” I said, pushing down the self-pity. “You’re a good friend.”

“And you’re my best friend ever. I love you, Mils. And I’ll do whatever it takes to help you through thi—” Tara suddenly cut off. “Sorry, Milly, Brian just got here. I’ve got to go. I’ll call you at work first thing tomorrow, okay?”

I opened my mouth to tell her I probably wouldn’t be at work first thing tomorrow since I had to drive all the way to the Highlands to pick up the thumb drive with Iain’s rough code on it.

But she hung up before I could get the words out.

I hated driving in Scotland. Despite having lived there for nearly three years, I just couldn’t shake the feeling I was driving on the wrong side of the road every time I got behind the wheel—a wheel that was, from my perspective, located on the passenger side of the car.

And it wasn’t like I got many opportunities to drive all that often. The only reason I’d even bothered to get my international license and learn to drive a stick was because Iain had told me an assistant who couldn’t drive a car when needed wasn’t up to his standards.

My job occasionally called for me to use one of the company cars to pick up and drop off items at different tech outfits located all around the city. And now it called for me to drive into the Highlands to pick up a thumb drive so the software development team could get as much work done as possible on it before the bank holiday weekend.

Funny, I hadn’t thought I could feel any worse than I had walking out of the doctor’s office. But driving to Iain’s childhood village in the earliest hours of the morning to pick up a thumb drive? Wow. My life, what was left of it, was hitting new lows all over the place.

However, my depression began to lift after I negotiated the Vauxhall Astra up a narrow mountain road. As it turned out, Faoltairn, the Highland village where Iain grew up, was a charming postcard of a town with a large mountain on one side and a shimmering loch on the other.

It was still very dark out, but the full moon hung heavy as a spotlight overhead, working in conjunction with the smattering of streetlights to illuminate the collection of darling stone shops on either side of the main street. Even though it was almost June, the small village reminded me of something out of a Christmas card, with its dark green detailing and multiple windows sporting the same red plaid found on Iain’s kilts.

The main street soon gave way to a wider graveled road that wound lazily around the eastern side of a glittering loch. Little white stone cottages with thatched roofs dotted the side of the lake closest to me. And on the other side of the loch sat … no, that couldn’t be right.

But yes … there, nestled among the tall pines, stood a castle. A small castle to be sure, but it was way more grand than the ruins I occasionally saw on the side of the road when driving around Scotland with Tara in her car (she wasn’t nearly as scared as me about the wrong side of the road thing). The castle stood three stories tall and even had a low perimeter wall.

Whoa! I thought, just as the GPS informed me that my destination was ahead on the right.

I pulled the car to a stop in front of yet another cottage. It was slightly larger than the ones I had passed. But other than that, it looked just like all the rest—whitewashed stone walls, thatched roof, and super old.

As I got out of the car, a funny feeling came over me. Like maybe I’d somehow stepped out of my own time into a highland village from the distant past.

To add to the eerie ambiance, something that sounded an awful lot like the far-off howling of wolves punctuated the otherwise silent night.

No, not wolves, I assured myself. It had to be dogs.

I’d read wolves had been hunted to extinction in Scotland back in the 1700s. And while there were a lot of discussions happening across Scotland about possibly reintroducing the European wolf, no decisions had been made yet. I mean, At least, I don’t think they had …

Still, those dogs sounded an awful lot like wolves—at least to someone who’d grown up in upstate New York. And they served as the perfect soundtrack to the “ancient Scotland” BBC documentary I’d apparently stumbled into as I walked toward the cottage’s dimly lit front door.

The door was unlocked, just as Iain said it would be. And walking through it gave me the feeling of having exited a time machine with the dial set firmly to “the future.”

So much for the old-timey vibe I’d sensed during my drive through the village. While Iain’s cottage appeared to be a few hundred years old on the outside, it was modern as all get out on the inside.

I tapped the light switch closest to the door, illuminating an open plan living room with stylish, upscale furniture in every direction I looked. A large flat-screen TV hung above the fireplace, and three different video game consoles sat on its mantle along with several framed pictures of Iain with his brother and father. None of him with his mother, though, I noted.

What had she done to get cut out of his life so thoroughly? I wondered about Iain’s relationship with the Italian-accented woman whose calls he never returned as I made my way down the narrow hall off the main living area. Only one door stood open, and voila, it turned out to be the one that led into my boss’s home office. Inside, I found another standing desk, but this one was made of dark oak without technology to raise it up or down. He’d attached a white sticky note to the desk’s right-corner front edge. THUMB DRIVE was written across it in bold, black Sharpie.

I furrowed my brow. The note—written in Iain’s distinctive all-caps handwriting—was very clear. But the space above the note was empty.

And even more alarmingly, there was a large cage sitting just under the desk’s right edge. It resembled an oversized dog kennel, like the ones they’d set up in the hospital for the therapy dogs when they weren’t “on duty” and visiting patients.

There on the cage’s metal floor, I could see the thumb drive, its USB port gleaming in the low light. It must have fallen in there from the desk.

But unfortunately, the thumb drive wasn’t the only thing in the cage.

A huge, silent wolf stared back at me with silver eyes that seemed to glow in the room’s low light, and the thumb drive was lying halfway underneath its front paw.

“Okay, what the hell,” I said out loud.

I started to reach for my phone to call Iain, but then I remembered …he was camping. Which meant I was on my own. In his cottage. With … his wolf.

Crap!

I crouched down in front of the cage, a wave of fatigue crashing over me for reasons that had nothing to do with the overproduction of white blood cells currently killing me before I got the chance to live a solid twenty-five years on this Earth.

I tell you, I used to not believe in reincarnation. But now I really had to wonder if I hadn’t seriously effed up in a past life. I mean what other executive assistant on Earth had ever found herself in a situation like this?

I stared at the creature, and he stared back at me.

And man, I must have been some kind of brainwashed by my billionaire boss. Dutiful-to-a-fault me actually began to reach out for the thumb drive—before I came to my senses and yanked my hand back at the last moment.

“I’m not doing this. I’m not doing this. I refuse to stick my hand in a cage with a freaking wild animal,” I told both the creature and myself. “I mean, what’s your dad going to do? Fire me for refusing to retrieve the thumb drive from underneath the paw of his pet wolf? I mean, who keeps a wolf as a pet anyway, then just conveniently forgets to tell his assistant about it? If anything, this thumb drive mess is all his fault. So, nope, nope, I’m out!”

I start to stand up out of my crouch, but then the wolf does the strangest thing.

He whimpers and pushes the thumb drive toward me. Then he bows his head, and gazes up at me in a way that I immediately recognized as the universal canine language for “pet me, pretty please.”

Aww! Maybe this big guy wasn’t a wolf after all. There was a chance, I’d been so startled that I overreacted, and assumed “wolf” when really, he was just one of those dogs that only looked like a wolf. Like a malamute or a husky.

A really, really huge husky. But just in case, I’ve gotten this situation all wrong, I insert the tips of two fingers through the cage bars and gingerly patted the maybe-not-a-wolf on top of its huge head.

In response, Mr. Trust Me I’m Not A Wolf affectionately pushed his head into my fingers, as if to say, “See? I don’t bite. You should pet me some more!”

I laughed, and with a little maneuvering, I pushed my whole hand in just past my wrist between the thick wires of the cage to carefully give him a full-handed pet.

A noisy metallic clang suddenly rose into the air. It was his tail, I realized. He was wagging it so hard, it created a drumming sound against the cage’s back wall.

“Oh, my gosh, you like pets, don’t you?” I said with another laugh. “I bet your dad doesn’t give you any love at all. Poor thing.”

Honestly, the wolf-dog didn’t seem scary at all, anymore. But I was here on a mission, I soon remembered.

I stuck my other hand through the cage to retrieve the thumb drive. “Okay, just a few more pets, but then I have to⁠—”

With lightning speed, the happy wolf-dog dropped all pretense of tameness and launched itself at my other outstretched arm, clamping its sharp teeth down on the fleshy part below my forearm.

It happened so fast, I didn’t feel a thing for the first few seconds other than crushing disappointment in the wolf-dog for turning on me.

But my disappointment was soon followed by a much less metaphorical pain. I screamed as I desperately tried to shake the creature’s mouth from my arm. But the wolf-dog held on for several more seconds, its silver eyes bright and resolute. And despite the huge adrenaline spike, I simply wasn’t strong enough to pull my arm from the wolf-dog’s firm bite.

But just as I was beginning to wonder if I would be forced to watch the creature tear off my arm and eat it in front of me like something out of a particularly graphic horror movie, it just let me go. So suddenly, I fell back on my butt.

I cut off screaming to stare at the unblinking animal. I had no idea why it had bit me and then just let me go. But I was done pretending it wasn’t a wolf, and I wasn’t about to look this unexpected gift-of-freedom horse in the mouth.

Scrambling clumsily to my feet, I clutched my injured arm to my chest and ran like a bat out of hell back to the relative safety of my car.

Without the thumb drive.

Three

“Oh, my God, Milly! Are you okay?!”

Tara jumped out of a hard plastic seat and ran over to me as soon as I entered the front lobby of the remote hospital’s A&E department.

“I’m fine. It was just a few stitches and a rabies shot.” I held out my gauze-wrapped arm. “See, all fixed. You didn’t have to come all the way out here. I only left that message because I didn’t want you to worry about me when you got home and saw I wasn’t there.”

“Oh honey, don’t say that! Of course, I came! First that awful cancer diagnosis and now this. Oh, mein Gott, this is all so messed up …” Tara looked stricken for a second, but then she grabbed me by the shoulders and demanded, “Why the hell were you in Faoltairn?! That’s the middle of nowhere! What if you hadn’t been able to make it to the closest hospital? Anything could have happened to you!”

“Well, it’s not exactly in the middle of nowhere. And I thought it was kind of charming …” I stopped when I saw the way my bestie was glaring at me. “Anyway, I only went because that’s where Iain’s cottage is located—he goes for these, like, weird monthly camping trips. And he needed me to drive over and pick up a thumb drive for the development team.”

Tara’s bunched her brow. “Wait, your tech-savant boss has a home in Faoltairn?”

“I know, right?” I reply, nodding in agreement with her shocked tone. “I don’t get remote mountain retreat vibe off him either. But I guess he grew up there … and, you know, keeps a wolf in his home office. Crazy, right? But the nurse who bandaged my arm said their clinic gets what appear to be wolf bites at least once or twice a year.”

“Wolf bite?” Tara frowned ugly at me. “Okay, so you went to your boss’s house and got bitten by a wolf?”

She sounded confused, and I didn’t blame her. I was still having a hard time processing what happened myself, and I’d had three hours to go over what had happened multiple times while waiting to be seen.

“Sorry for the wait, dearie,” the nurse practitioner who’d stitched me up had said when I finally made it to her station. “Full moon nights can be absolute madness ‘round here.”

“How do you feel now?” Tara asked.

“Fine,” I assured her. “It barely hurts anymore. And the nurse said I was lucky. It was a pretty clean bite, so it might not even leave a scar.”

“Okay, okay, good …” But Tara continued to eye my bandaged arm with sharp worry in her brown eyes. “But you could have been hurt. Really, really hurt. Have there been any … side effects?”

“Side effects?” I repeated not understanding the question. “Like what? They only gave me Ibuprofen. And the shot should have taken care of everything else⁠—”

I cut off when Tara suddenly engulfed me in a bear hug. “Honestly, it doesn’t matter. I’m just so relieved you’re all right. So relieved …”

The hug kind of hurt my bandaged arm, but I didn’t try to disengage. And suddenly, I found myself working hard not to cry.

I didn’t realize how much I’d needed a hug until I was wrapped in my much taller friend’s comforting embrace. And no, Tara hadn’t come up from Liverpool to make me a cup of tea last night. But showing up here this morning? Let’s just say all was forgiven.

Despite my diagnosis, I counted myself blessed to have such a wonderful friend.

We stood like that for a while before finally agreeing it was time to leave. There was some debate about whether I was ok to drive myself all the way back to Edinburgh, or if I should go with Tara in her car.

But Tara was already running nearly an hour late for work, and I didn’t want to make her any later.

Plus, I couldn’t just leave the company car parked at this rural hospital. Iain aside, most of the people who worked at AlgoFortune were friendly and easy to get along with most of the time. I didn’t harbor any ill will against them, and I didn’t want to inconvenience at least two unlucky co-workers by leaving it an hour outside Edinburgh. Plus, there was the real possibility it could get clamped—which was kind of like a triangular form of booting—before anyone could pick it up.

The good news was that Tara had no need to worry. I made good time back to Edinburgh, and my arm only twinged a little during the drive. The bad news … it was raining by the time I got back to the city.

Not that this was unusual weather for Scotland. But since I’d only taken my wallet and phone for what was supposed to be a quick pick-up at Iain’s cottage, I didn’t have an umbrella.

I was seated in the parked car, contemplating the fastest route into my flat, when a loud rap sounded on the driver’s side window. I jumped and nearly screamed.

Then the driver’s side door yanked open, revealing … Iain! Seriously. I squinted up at him in disbelief through my glasses.

My boss stood on the curb outside my apartment building holding a big black umbrella—like a giant. He could have probably fit an entire family under that thing.

And as for Iain, he looked ... well, not up to his usual standards. His familiar red plaid kilt was gone, replaced by a pair of dark gray sweatpants and a green t-shirt I would never have guessed he owned, much less wore out and about where people could actually see him.

Not only that, his usual neatly styled hair was mussed and disheveled as if he’d rolled right out of bed and driven straight here. No, he was definitely not up to his usual standard.

And though Iain’s hair was drying, the rain must have caught him off guard as he was getting out of his Jaguar XJ. Because his green tee was just about plastered to his body; highlighting rippling muscles I’d guessed laid underneath all those button-up shirts but didn’t know were there for sure.

He had them though. Oh man, did he have them. So clearly, his wet t-shirt display made me wonder what it would be like to feel them with my bare hands or pressing up against my skin …

“Come on then, Millicent! Stop gawking at me and get out of the bloody car!”

Okay, I hadn’t realized how openly I was ogling him until he snapped at me.

My cheeks heated, and I quickly scrambled through the open door, scooting as far beneath the umbrella as I could without touching him. And, oh wow … he smelled good. I mean really, really good.

The scent was much too subtle to be cologne. It was a heady combination of pine trees, moss, and crisp lake air that made me think of castle ruins and bagpipes. A mountain. He smelled like a mountain. To be specific. He smelled like the Highlands. Like Faoltairn.

Why hadn’t I ever noticed how good he smelled before?

The sound of sniffing brought my head up. Iain’s nose was flared as if he, too, was taking in a scent. But unlike me, he didn’t appear to like what he was smelling.

“Was someone …” he sniffed again, his eyebrows pulling down so hard that a crease appeared above his nose. “… holding you?”

I had no idea what he was talking about until I remembered his super-sensitive nose. “Ah … yes. My roommate came to see me at the hospital.”

“Your roommate,” he repeated, voice flat. “You never mentioned you lived with someone.”

“You never asked,” I gently pointed out. “Now, might I ask why you’re here?”

Iain stiffened. He was clearly not used to being interrogated by me. It was always the other way around with us.

“When I came down from the mountain this morning, I found the thumb drive in my home office,” he answered stiffly. “It was covered in blood. I washed it off, drove it into the office myself, and when I saw you weren’t there, I came here to check on you. See if you were all right.”

He finished his explanation with a huge expulsion of air through his still-flared nostrils.

“Are you?” he asked. “Are you all right, Millicent?”

I tilted my head up at him. Okay, let me get this straight …

Iain, Iain Scotswolf … one of the most self-absorbed individuals I’d ever met, had driven all the way to my flat in Holyrood? Just to check to make sure I was okay?

Why hadn’t he just called? Or texted⁠—

The still-American side of my logic cut me off, answering all my silent questions before I could voice them.

“You didn’t have to come here, Iain. I’m fine,” I thinned my lips. “And I’m not planning to spend the short amount of time I have left suing you.”

Iain’s expression remained static, registering neither guilt nor denial. But after a beat, he said, “I’ll tell Linda in HR to include a generous bonus in your next paycheck. For your … inconvenience.”

It wasn’t quite an apology, but it was more than I would have expected from my cold boss even a few hours ago.

“Thanks,” I said. Honestly, I’d rather he gave me those two extra weeks he was making me work. But a bonus was nice, too. Especially if it meant I could travel a little longer before figuring out all the hospice end-of-life stuff.

That should have been the end of the conversation. But instead, we both continued to stand there, rain pitter-pattering against the top of his ridiculously large umbrella. And after a few more seconds, I cleared my throat and said, “Iain?”

“Aye, Millicent?” His brogue whispered over my skin. Like an aural caress.

And I had to clear my throat before pressing ahead with, “I know you aren’t a fan of hearing other people’s opinions. Especially mine. But I really think you should reconsider having a wolf as a pet.”

I took a brave breath, and informed him, “They’re magnificent creatures, and no matter what you may have seen on shows like Game of Thrones, they’re not meant to be cooped up like that. I mean, is that even legal? Anyway, I’m not surprised it bit me. Poor thing is probably going crazy in that cage.”

Iain regarded me for a long second, and I braced myself to get chewed out. But to my surprise, his serious gray eyes took on a distinct cast of amusement. “Let’s see if I’m clear on this. My wolf bit you badly enough to send you to the hospital, and you’re worried about his well-being? Really, Milly Mouse, this is too self-effacing. Even for you.”

“Don’t call me that!” I snapped before I could stop myself.

Iain stilled. Probably shocked at the harsh reaction he’d elicited from his generally meek assistant.

Another wave of fatigue passed over me. He was probably right to be shocked. Sometimes it felt like that was all I was: a self-effacing little mouse who came into this world with barely a squeak and would go out the same way.

“I’m sorry. It’s been a long night.” I scrubbed a hand down the side of my face. “I should go inside and get cleaned up for work. And you should probably get back to your camping … and your pet wolf.”

“Alright,” he answered.

“Alright,” I echoed softly, waiting for him to make the first move and go.

But then he said, “I promise never to call you Milly Mouse again. Come on, let me walk you to your door …”

Iain took me by the elbow and escorted me down the short walkway and then up the steps toward the covered entrance outside the front door of my terrace house flat.

“Um … thanks,” I said, not quite knowing how else to respond to this unprecedented act of gentlemanly behavior.

Or how to feel about the way my elbow tingled as we walked together up the steps.

Or what to think when he lowered his umbrella but not his hand once we reached the top of the stairs.

“Thanks,” I said for the third time, even though I was finding it increasingly difficult to squeeze any words out at all through my suddenly bone-dry throat.

“Millicent …” Iain said, looking down at me. His steely gray gaze became as soft as it had been the first time we’d met during my interview. His hand felt like a pulse against my elbow.

“Yes?” I asked, my heart thundering in my chest.

Iain opened his mouth … but then the softness faded from his eyes, and his face hardened into its usual cold mask. “You can work from home today, but I’ll expect you in at four tomorrow morning.”

With that, he finally released my arm. Then he jogged down the steps without waiting for my reply.

By the time I spotted him opening the door to his Jaguar, the thundering of my heart had come to a full stop.

And as I watched him drive away without so much as a backward glance in my direction, it occurred to me that his gentlemanly display was probably more about me not suing him than anything else.

I let myself into the flat with Tara’s words echoing in my ears. What. A. Dick.

***

If you think he’s a bosshole now, wait until Milly goes into heat.

Find out what happens next in

HER SCOTTISH WOLF

Meet Your New Fated Mate

After her parents abandon her on the side of the road as a child, adult Chloe manages to reinvent herself with a great job as a DIY domestic influencer and a perfect alpha fiancé—he’s literally the prince of her Colorado pack.

And sure, he hates her job and doesn’t understand why she insists on making everything from scratch. And yeah, they’ve been engaged for nearly a decade without her going into heat—the ultimate sign that they’re ready to be mated on every level.

But other than that, everything in her life is going great….

Until a huge, red-haired, time-traveling Viking werewolf shows up to claim her as his fated mate.

Wait... what?!?!

One

“SO have you thought about what you’re going to wear on your first heat night?” Rafe asked Chloe as they climbed up King’s Trail, their boots crunching in the freshly driven snow.

Despite the frigid mountain air, Chloe’s cheeks went hot with embarrassment. “No,” she answered, keeping her voice as neutral as possible, so as not to betray how uncomfortable this subject made her. “Have you?”

Rafe slid her the most wicked of grins. “I’m thinking red lace, maybe some of those black garters. If you give me your measurements, I can put in an order online and have exactly what I want to see you in sent over to your place.”

At that moment, Chloe was grateful for the darkness of her skin, because she could feel her initial blush spreading over her entire body. And this despite the fact she was wearing little more than her favorite hand-knitted sweater over one of the many long prairie dresses she’d also made herself and favored even when she wasn’t filming episodes of Black Mountain Woman. Why did having these kinds of conversations with Rafe always make her so uneasy? He wasn’t just her fiancé, he was also her best friend—really her only truly close friend offline—and she’d become accustomed to bringing all of her problems to him.

But of course, she couldn’t tell him how uncomfortable it made her to talk with him about anything of a sexual nature. Was this how all she-wolves who hadn’t gone into heat felt about the subject of sex? If she were a normal person, she would go to the internet with her problem. Find a forum of similar women with a similar issue. Or maybe she’d consult one of her Black Mountain Woman fans. Many of them had come to feel like real friends over the three years she’d hosted her blog and YouTube show, and she knew at least a few of them had navigated their way around sticky relationship issues.

However, the North American Lupine Council had strictly forbidden talking on the internet about anything involving their species. It was bad enough, in their opinion, that interest in werewolves was at an all time high these days, with everything from books to movies being made about their supposedly mythical race. Better not to fuel the frenzy with a blog or forum that any non-paranormal could happen across.

Besides, even if she were able to reach out to other she-wolves on line, she doubted she would find much commiseration. There were only a few hundred alpha wolves in the entire world, and Rafe Nightwolf, the alpha prince of Colorado, had chosen her, a nobody she-wolf who had literally been abandoned at the side of the road outside their shifter town.

Rafe also happened to be ridiculously hot, with his Native American father’s high cheekbones and long, sharp nose, softened by the light brown eyes and toasted brown skin he’d inherited from his Latina mother. When he’d proposed to her in front of everyone at their high school graduation, the other young she-wolves in their class had only been half-joking about how jealous they were. Any other she-wolf would kill to have a werewolf as good-looking and well off as Rafe ask for her hand in marriage.

He was also kind and had proven himself to be incredibly patient. So far he’d waited over six years to consummate their relationship, since North American Lupine Council law forbade marrying or even mating with a she-wolf who hadn’t yet had her first heat. Most she-wolves went into heat between the ages of sixteen and twenty-one, which was why female wolves tended to marry and start their families rather young by modern standards.

However, Chloe had turned twenty-five a couple of months ago, and even Rafe’s seemingly infinite patience was showing signs of wearing thin. He’d been snapping at her more and more lately for little things like wearing her prairie dresses to formal events and spending too much time working on her Black Mountain Woman shows. He’d also begun bringing up their heat night whenever they were alone together, imagining out loud what they would do and how they would do it. And though she’d had six years to get used to the idea, and had even watched a few porn movies in the hopes it would jump start her into heat, she still couldn’t bring herself to talk about it or even fully imagine it in her own head.

“Hey, did I tell you? I’m working on a chicken and fennel recipe for the next episode of Black Mountain Woman,” she said, covering up her rather unsubtle subject change with a bright smile. “Maybe I’ll have it ready in time for the wedding.”

He gave her a quizzical look, “You’re marrying an alpha prince. You can’t cook for your own wedding.”

“Why not?”

“What would people say?” he asked. “Listen, Clo, you know I love you and I support your weird hobby as much as I can, but I’ve got to draw the line somewhere. We’ll have people flying in from all over the world to attend our wedding. You can’t serve them homemade chicken and fennel.”

Chloe opened her mouth to argue. First of all, he didn’t really support her Black Mountain Woman projects. She’d garnered hundreds of thousands of fans over the years with her from-scratch recipes, DIY crafting projects, and organic cleaning tips. She was also able to support herself off the money she made from advertisers on her blog and her YouTube revenue stream. But her own fiancé referred to what she did for a living as a “weird hobby.” One, she knew without having to discuss it, he expected her to give up as soon as they married.

But before she could point out any of this, he asked, “Why is it every time I bring up our heat night, you change the subject to Black Mountain Woman?”

“Um…” She scrambled to come up with a good excuse, but could only produce a weak, “Do I?”

He regarded her with cool eyes. “Yeah, you do.”

Silence descended as they continued to press up the mountain. Many of her fellow wolves loved to hike King’s Trail, but Chloe had never seen the appeal of walking up a steep precipice just because. Her glutes were already starting to protest this rare trip to the portal, a gate through space and time, which was located on a plateau about two miles up the mountain that bordered Wolf Springs. According to their lookout, Jeb, who had a cabin nearby, it flashed thirty minutes ago, which meant they had a visitor. Maybe even one from the past.

Alpha princes acted in a somewhat vice presidential role for their pack until they inherited the throne, and though she hated making the somewhat arduous trip to the portal, greeting the werewolves who had come through it had been one of her favorite duties so far as Rafe’s future wife.

Technically wolves used the portal for one of two reasons. The first was to punish wolves, who had committed acts so heinous they were banished, not only from their communities but also from their own space and time. However, the last recorded instance of that happening had been when Rafe’s own mother, Lacey, was the future alpha princess. Lacey still occasionally told the story of how a werewolf had come through the gate, still-shifted and frothing white at the mouth. The crazed thing had leapt at her and Rafe’s dad barely had time to pull his gun and put a silver bullet in its head before it got to her.

To this day, the king still made them carry tranquilizer guns when they made these trips, even though a banished wolf hadn’t come through the gate in almost three decades. No, these days, most of their visitors were using the gate for its second intended purpose: to find one’s fated mate.

Fated mates spells had fallen out of fashion in modern times, and most had been lost to the winds of history. But about once a year a she-wolf from another place and/or time, came through the portal. These she-wolves were usually at two ends of a rather extreme spectrum: silly romantics, who hadn’t fully considered the repercussions of a spell that could literally rip them out of their current space and time, or women who were well-ahead of their time or couldn’t fit in with their own societies. They’d had a pre-Civil War southern debutante come through the gate the year before, but prior to that, they’d gotten one suffragette and one modern she-wolf from a middle-eastern country that put serious restrictions on women’s rights.

She glanced at the tranquilizer gun, which she kept hidden in a vintage leather holster at her hip, and wished she could just get rid of it altogether. Holsters and prairie dresses didn’t really go together.

“Who do you think it will be?” she asked, when they were about five minutes away from the gate. She was once again changing the subject, but she hoped he wouldn’t call her on it this time.

Rafe shrugged. “You never know.”

That was when they heard a groan.

“Did you hear that?” Chloe asked, dropping her voice and wishing she’d brought a first aid kit. “Do you think she was hurt? The portal spits people out so hard.”

“No,” Rafe pulled out his tranq gun. “It sounded male.”

They carefully approached the portal, an invisible rift in space and time that a lycanthrope could feel but couldn’t quite see, unless it was sucking a wolf in or spitting one out. And indeed, they soon spotted a large figure passed out in the snow and facing away from them.

Definitely male, Chloe thought. The top half of his torso was uncovered, revealing a back that was hard with muscle, even in repose. A pair of leather pants covered his legs, which were as thick as tree trunks, and probably just as hard if they matched his back. No, even though long, red hair fell to his shoulders in thick, tangled waves, Chloe could sense his maleness from his smell alone, an intense mix of wood, animal blood, and testosterone.

“Stay behind me,” Rafe told her. He edged closer to the semi-unconscious shifter and used one booted foot to turn him over.

Chloe did as she was told but even from behind Rafe, she could see the man had a hard and serious face, half of which was covered with a thick, red beard. His hand was clutched tightly around a sword, which featured an ivory grip, a large iron wolf at the top of its hilt, and a double-edged steel blade. It was coated in blood, and looked wickedly sharp. Luckily the werewolf, who had been on the verge of unconsciousness when he groaned earlier, seemed to be completely unconscious now.

She spotted a large rock near where his head now lie. “He must have hit his head on that rock when he came out of the portal. Maybe we should move it. I’d hate for the next person who came through to get hurt, especially if it’s a she-wolf.”

“Check the gnarly beard on this guy,” Rafe said, lowering his gun. “He looks like a Viking, right?”

Chloe stepped from behind Rafe to fully observe the unconscious man. “He’s either a Viking or a very strange rock star, and I’ve never seen a rock star with⁠—”

Suddenly the maybe-Viking’s eyes popped open. And that was all the warning they got before he yanked on Rafe’s leg, pulling him to the ground and jumping to his own feet. As Rafe’s tranq gun went flying across the snow, the red-haired man pinned Rafe with a large bare foot planted squarely in the middle of his chest. And his eyes blazed with a warrior’s fury as he raised his vicious-looking sword above his head with the blade pointed downward. Chloe didn’t know a lot about sword fighting, but even she could tell this was the preparation for a killing blow.

“No!” she screamed, raising her own tranq gun and pointing it at the mad wolf.

He paused and looked toward her, pinning her with a piercing gray gaze that looked like it had been fashioned from the same material as his steel sword.

Chloe just hoped to the heavens above that whatever time period this wolf was from, he understood what a gun was—even if hers technically wasn’t a real one.

“Put the sword down or I’ll shoot,” she said, hating that she couldn’t keep her voice from trembling as she issued this command.

She half-expected him to kill Rafe then come after her. He’d pinned Rafe so quickly, he’d probably be able to do away with them both before she managed to squeeze the trigger. But he didn’t kill Rafe or her. He just stood there staring, his eyes flinty under the midday sun.

Several seconds ticked by, but he did not look away.

And eventually he said something to her in a thick, coarse language that sounded a little like German, but she couldn’t be sure. Oh God, he probably really was a Viking, she realized.

“Um,” she said, wishing now that she hadn’t chosen to take three years of high school Spanish as opposed to a language that might actually be useful when dealing with a possible Viking werewolf. Her mind fumbled around for any German she knew, and started spewing every single word and phrase, in the hopes something would stick. “Dankeshein? Um…neinn…sprechen sie Englisch? Um…um, oh my God, Auf Wiendersehn?”

He squinted at her. Then to her great alarm, he lowered the sword and came stalking straight toward her.

“Um, stop. Stop, please! Stay right where you are!” How did you say “stop” in German? She had no idea.

In the end, she squeaked, squeezing the trigger, and her eyes shut at the same time.

She heard a hard thump and when she opened her eyes, the maybe-Viking was lying crumpled on the ground with a dart lodged in his shoulder, already rendered unconscious by the fast-acting sleep agent it administered.

Beyond him, she could see Rafe, now sitting up and shaking his head. “Chloe…”

She re-harnessed her tranquilizer gun. “I know, I know, tranq the wolf first, ask questions later.”

“Especially when he has a sword pointed at my freaking neck.” Her normally indulgent fiancé didn’t look too happy with the Viking or her at that moment. “And do I really need to tell you not to close your eyes when you shoot?”

Two

Many centuries ago…

“FENRIS, I would have words with you,” his aunt, Bera, said. The small woman did not wait for his assent before falling in step beside him, and he had to switch his bloodied sword to his other hand to keep from staining her clothes with it.

Even his respect for his aunt’s advanced years could not keep the terseness he felt out of his voice when he answered, “Whatever it is can wait until I have washed in the lake. I am fresh from the hunt.”

With pursed lips, she pressed a linen rag, with words written across it in charcoal ink, into his hand.

“What is this?” he asked, though he had a feeling he already knew. His lack of a mate was a subject well-visited by his aunt, even more so since he had reached twenty and seven winters.

“I have bid you too many times to seek your fated mate. You have not heeded me, mayhap because I am but a decrepit she-wolf. Thusly, I have put the spell down for you on this scrap, in the hopes you would bestow joy upon my heart by speaking it as I have written it.”

He looked from the spell to his aunt who despite her gray hair, much smaller size, and supposed decrepitude managed to keep up with his fast pace. “You realize I will disappear if I speak these words on my tongue?”

“I have put to words the return spell on the reverse side of the rag. You and your fated mate have only to speak them as one and you will be returned to this place.”

He held the rag out to his aunt. “You are dear to me, sister of my father, but you try my patience with this business. I will claim a mate of my own accord. I do not wish to be fated.”

His aunt clenched her hands by her side, refusing to take the linen back from him. “Your sires were fated.”

“Yes, and this be the reason I wish not to be,” he answered.

“Your mother and father were very happy before…”

She did not finish, but she did not have to. Fenris knew the rest. His sires were very happy, until his mother died giving birth to him, before his father was reduced to a husk of his former self in his grief.

“I do not wish a fated mate,” he repeated. “Take this back. I have no use for it.”

A knowing smile played on his aunt’s lips. “We shall see. This winter has been cold and dark. You will eventually want for a mate to warm your bed. Why not put yourself in the hands of the gods?”

His aunt was the last person he wanted to talk to on this subject, even if she was correct about the state of his bed. He had not lain with a woman since his visit to the human market to the south of them before the last summer moon. There, he and his unmated pack members could lie with human women willing to trade their services for the furs, iron, small weapons, and the other items his village was known to sell.

“Aunt Bera, the only thing I want for now is my soap.”

She stopped walking. “And you may have it. I will take my leave, but will leave you with the spell.” She then turned and hurried back toward their village before he could offer any further protest.

He balled the fabric up inside his hand. Having stripped down to bare feet and his leather hunting trousers in preparation for his bath, he had nothing with which to pin it to his clothing. However, he also did not want to leave it lying around for any young she-wolf to find. She-wolves could be silly when it came to matters of the heart, and even though most of them had no knowing of written words, they might seek someone who did to help them speak the words. In the past, his aunt had taken great care not to record the spell for fear it would fall into the wrong hands.

That she had written the spell down for Fenris without his having asked it, proclaimed her frustration with his refusal to take a bride more loudly than any words ever could. But he did not want to dwell on her actions. He was fresh from the hunt, having taken down no less than three reindeer and a bear, the latter of which he had been forced to use his sword, The King Maker, to finish off.

He desired to clean both himself and his trusted weapon much more than he desired to ruminate on his aunt’s concerns about his lack of mate. And he could see Wolf Lake, which bordered his village, glittering in the distance.

“It seems we have caught the King of Wolves unawares,” a voice said from behind him.

Fenris stopped short, his grip tightening around the hilt of his sword, before he turned to face his cousin, Vidar, a wolf almost as tall and broad as he. Fenris had banished Vidar from their village two moons ago, after the younger wolf had beaten and attempted to couple with a household servant girl who did not wish his advances.

Vidar had thought his position as cousin to the king would keep him protected, despite the strict laws against coupling with a she-wolf without her father’s consent. And indeed, it had pained Fenris greatly to banish a family member who shared his own longhouse. But in the end, even Fenris could not hold himself above wolf law, especially the ones he had set down himself during the bloody years he had spent reaffirming his position as the king of the North wolves.

But like a recurring dream, Vidar now once again stood before him. However, this time, his battle axe, which Fenris had allowed him to keep, was raised and his eyes were shining with hatred and malice. Also, this time he did not stand in front of Fenris alone. At various points behind him stood four other men with swords, three of which Fenris recognized as wolves he had banished from their village for crimes ranging from theft to the murder of humans, which were also strictly forbidden under both his laws.

Fenris raised his own sword. “You should not be so close to my village, Cousin. Your mother might see you and you have already well disappointed her.”

“I beheld you talking to the wicked sorceress.” He bared his sharp lupine teeth. “The one who did put that harlot servant to her false accusation.”

Though his aunt had been the one to bring the servant girl to Fenris, it had taken but one look at the badly beaten girl to assess what had happened. He knew her attacker to be Vidar, who he had spied watching the yellow-haired girl with hard losti—lust—in his eyes on several occasions. The extent of his crime against a girl who many in his household considered like a family member had been enough to sicken even his mother’s sister, Esja, Vidar’s own mother. She had yet to ask her nephew to reverse his decision, even though it was known by all that Vidar had only gone as far as the mountains on the northern side of the lake to live.

“What matter of business is this, Vidar?” he asked.

“I wish to once again take my place in our village and there is but one way to do that.” Vidar stopped smiling now. “Become the new alpha king.”

Fenris shook his head. “You cannot hope to best me on your own.”

There was a reason the Alpha King title had stayed in his line for five generations. The sons of Fenris were known throughout the Northern lands as fierce warriors, and he himself had been trained from childhood to defend his inherited crown.

Vidar grinned. “Not on my own, no. But my friends have avowed to herald it that way when we return to the village with your severed head in my hand.”

“No one will believe your tale.”

“It does not matter that they believe, only that they submit to their new king.”

Fenris spat. Vidar had been a pig’s penis since childhood, prone to tantrums and high-handed with his mother and two sisters. And now it was plain to see he had gone mad with desire for power and revenge.

Fenris considered himself a warrior of great skill, but even he could not best five wolves, especially having just come off the late winter hunt. He cursed himself for letting his mind become so distracted by the conversation with his aunt that he had momentarily relaxed his guard, giving his cousin the perfect opening for this underhanded attack.

The conversation with his aunt.

Fenris lowered the hand that held his sword and raised the one that held the rag with the spell written upon it.

Mistaking the lowering of his sword as an admittance of defeat, Vidar came charging toward him with his battle axe raised high.

Fenris barely had enough time to utter the words that would send him hurtling through a gate to the gods-only-knew—but at that moment, any land was better than this plain, surrounded by power-mad Vidar and his outlaw followers.

He did not hear the gate open behind him, but knew it must have, because Vidar came to a fumbling stop, his eyes widening and his mouth falling open.

In the next moment, Fenris was sucked backward into a pitch-black tunnel of wind, which sent his body hurtling through space and time at such a speed, he barely managed to hold on to his sword.

Eventually he was deposited on a snowy plateau, his head slamming against a large rock just as he hit the ground with a bone-crunching thud. His head spun, and he groaned in a bid to stay conscious, but it was a bid not won. And he was surround by blackness again.

The sound of two voices speaking a strange language above him eventually came filtering in through the new blackness. And when he opened his eyes he found what looked like a Moor standing above him with his booted foot on his chest.

Fenris moved quickly. Even though the man was dressed in a strange costume—some manner of faded blue trousers and a thin coat made of a shiny and slick material Fenris had never seen before—he could smell that the man was a fellow wolf. Consequently, he didn’t waste time trying to deduce who this wolf was or why he had his boot planted on his chest. His way had always been to kill quickly, and his own life had been spared many times over because he did so. In a few moves, he reversed their positions and had raised his sword for the killing blow⁠—

“No!!!!”

What sounded like a female’s voice rang out beside him. And he would have ignored it, except...his nostrils flared…he could not.

As if compelled by an invisible puppet master, he turned toward the voice, and found a trembling she-wolf with bushy hair and what looked like some manner of weapon pointed at him. Perhaps the spell had transported him to Iberia or what he’d heard referred to as Blaland, a hot and dry land to the far south where blamenn, black people with very dark skin, lived.

It was she.

Whoever she was, wherever she hailed from, he recognized her for who she was the instant his eyes met hers. Not only from her intoxicating scent, but also from his body’s reaction to her. A powerful wave of desire overtook Fenris, causing him to sway, even though he was in a firm killing stance. His cock swelled inside his hunting trousers, hard and surprisingly insistent, as if he were a pup in his first stages of coming manhood.

For a moment, he stood there frozen, unable to move, he was so enthralled by her. But finally he remembered himself enough to say, “I am here for you.” He held up the rag with the spell upon it. “And now we must speak these words as one, so I might go back to my lands and vanquish my enemy.”

She looked from side to side, before spewing forth words that sounded to him vaguely like some form of Germanic, but not a dialect he recognized. Why would this dark woman be speaking to him in Germanic?

He started toward her, which seemed to alarm her. She made a high-pitched noise, like a mouse, before squeezing her eyes closed. A whistling sound then emitted from her strange weapon right before something struck him with the sting of a fierce insect bite.

He looked down to see some manner of dart sticking from his shoulder. And just as he moved to pull it out, a powerful sleep overtook him, one he could not resist, even though he strove hard to fight the enveloping blackness.

Three

“YOU know, if we were mated that wouldn’t have gone so bad,” Rafe said, a couple of hours after the confrontation at the portal.

It had been an awkward and unwieldy business getting the large maybe-Viking down the mountain to the town’s two-room clinic. But he now lie sleeping upright in a hospital bed, to which he’d been handcuffed, looking much more peaceful than the two people in the room’s side-by-side visitor chairs.

Chloe adjusted her position to look at Rafe with an incredulous blink. “Seriously? We are in the clinic with a possibly crazed Viking sleeping off a tranq, and this is what you want to talk about?”

Rafe shrugged as if time-traveling Viking werewolves happened every day. “Once we’re mated, we’ll be telepathically connected, too, which means we’ll be able to say things like, ‘Hey, Chloe, don’t talk to him in German, just shoot him already.’”

“Or things like, ‘Hey, Rafe, you can thank me for saving your life any day now.’”

Rafe clenched his jaw and looked away. “The truth is, I’m more pissed at myself for letting him get the upper hand. I shouldn’t have let my guard down. What if he had hurt you, or worse? I wouldn’t have been able to live with myself.”

He sounded so guilty that Chloe’s irritation was instantly replaced with the need to comfort him. She placed a hand on his arm. “But he didn’t hurt me or you. That’s all that matters.”

Rafe shook his head. “I’ve never seen a guy that big move so fast. I wonder what he did to get cast out of wherever he came from.”

So did Chloe.

Doc Fischer, their shifter town’s middle-aged and perennially cranky doctor, entered the room at that moment. “Has he tried to tell you why he got sent back yet?”

“No, he’s still not awake,” Chloe said.

The doctor screwed his up his craggy face. “What do you mean? He’s wide awake.”

They whipped their heads around to see the maybe-Viking lying there with his eyes wide open and staring at them. Hard.

Doc Fischer went to his bed-side and Rafe joined him. However, Chloe chose that moment to get out of the doctor’s way, repositioning herself on the opposite side of the room from the reluctant patient. As much as she had enjoyed meeting the werewolves who came through the gate in the past, she figured it was largely because they were she-wolves from different cultures or points in history—but blood-thirsty werewolves with swords? Nah, she wasn’t so into that.

This guy had come very close to killing her best friend. And somehow his prone position and the fact that he was handcuffed to the bed by both hands didn’t make him seem any less deadly. For whatever reason, Chloe was having trouble staying calm now that he was awake. Something about him caused her insides to go all skittery. It was similar to how she felt when Rafe tried to talk to her about their heat night, but with a side dish of electric fear that made her nerves tingle.

And she only became more unsettled when his intense gaze followed her in her attempt to put space between them.

“We figure he’s a criminal and got cast out of his pack. Maybe he challenged the alpha and this was his punishment,” Rafe told Doc Fisher, after the old man finished examining the maybe-Viking’s eyes with a pen-light.

The doctor frowned. “Hmm, you say he came through the gate un-shifted? Usually a gate banishment is done on a diseased wolf or in desperation and toward the apex of a fight. He doesn’t have any wounds, except some bruising where his head hit that rock.”

Rafe shrugged. “Maybe he had a trial and was found guilty. There were a few packs that used the trial system, right?”

“Actually, I just consulted on this case with a friend of mine at UC Denver who specializes in history and literature from the Viking period. He said Norway and Iceland were known for their strict legal system during the Viking Age, which is why he doesn’t think this is a gate banishment. According to him, they had a fairly thorough punishment system in place, no need to go wild with the gates.”

“Then maybe he’s not a Viking. He could be from some other place and time and we just didn’t recognize whatever language he’s speaking.”

The doctor shook his head. “I don’t think so. I sent a picture of that sword of his to my professor friend and he recognized it, because of the wolf on the hilt. He even sent me a picture. It’s on display at the Museum of Cultural History in Oslo. They don’t have a firm history on it. But it definitely dates back to the Viking Age.”

Doc Fischer re-pocketed his pen-light. “I think we might need to apply Occam’s razor here.”

A bad feeling began to brew in Chloe’s stomach.

“What do you mean?” Rafe asked.

“You know, ‘the simplest explanation is probably the most likely one?’” The doctor clasped his hands in front of him like a lawyer about to put forth his case. “He came through the gate un-shifted with no visible wounds. You said he tried to kill you but stopped because Chloe told him not to.”

“Not because I told him not to,” Chloe said. “It was more like I took him by surprise.”

Doc Fischer gave her skeptical look. “Plus, he hasn’t taken his eyes off of you, despite the fact that he’s handcuffed down to a bed in a time period clearly not his own. I’m thinking the logical conclusion here is this Viking has come forward in time for his fated mate.”

Both Chloe and Rafe gaped at him.

“And it’s Chloe,” the doctor added, just in case they weren’t getting his original meaning.

“No,” Chloe and Rafe said at the same time.

Doc Fischer turned his no-nonsense gaze on Chloe. “Chloe is there something you want to tell us?”

“No,” answered Chloe, her eyes going wide with indignation.

The doctor picked up the maybe-Viking’s chart and started making notes. “So you don’t feel anything at all right now for this wolf? No increased heart rate, heightened arousal, anything like that?”

“No! I don’t feel anything for him.” Chloe looked to the red-haired man who was still quite openly staring at her but then she quickly had to cut her eyes away, because she wasn’t lying, but she wasn’t exactly telling the truth either. While she was definitely not aroused when she looked at him, the weird skittery feeling did get worse.

“Look, we’re all thinking he’s probably a Viking, right?” she said. “The last time I checked, there weren’t a ton of black people in Norway back then. For all we know, this guy has never seen a black girl, and that’s why he’s staring at me.”

She turned to Rafe, hoping he’d back her up as he did in most things.

But Rafe didn’t agree. In fact his eyes burned with suspicion as he came to stand in front of her. He slowly and deliberately sniffed the air around her, and only then did he visibly calm down. “I don’t smell any arousal on her,” he said, his voice angry with the declaration. He swung his gaze back to the doctor. “I don’t like what you’re insinuating, Doc.”

The doctor held his hands up. “Don’t kill the messenger. I’m only checking off all the possibilities.”

Rafe glared at him. “I won’t let you insult her like that. She’s my mate.”

“Not yet, she isn’t. Not officially.” The doctor shook his head. “And it’s not an insult. I’m older than both of you, and I know you two love each other, but . . .” He paused, seeming to search for the right words. “These things happen. More often then you think. Especially among wolves. There’s a reason all of our legends involve either great alpha fights or tragic love stories. North American wolves have only strayed away from the tradition of fated mates spells in the last two hundred years, which is relatively recent if you think about it in terms of world history. You need to realize it can still be quite powerful when one is cast.”

“Well, that’s not what’s happening here,” Rafe informed him. “He’s a criminal, and even if he’s not shifted, that doesn’t mean he wasn’t banished for something.”

Chloe was having a hard time figuring out how she should be reacting to this conversation. Though she was happy Rafe decided to come to her defense—eventually—the longer he discussed this topic with Doc Fischer, the more nervous and on edge she felt. Plus, she could still feel the maybe-Viking’s eyes burning hot on her, which made her feel even more awkward.

“All right, if you say so. I mean, you’re the alpha prince,” Doc Fischer answered. It was impossible not to hear the insincerity in his words. He might as well have said, “You’re being unreasonable, but I’ll just go ahead and agree with you because you’re the entitled alpha prince.”

And apparently Rafe sensed his real meaning, too, because he said, “I’ll prove it. If he came back here for Chloe, then he’d go ape if I kissed her in front of him, right?”

The doctor nodded. “Yes, he’s her fated mate, he’d definitely ‘go ape’ as you call it.”

Rafe turned to her and cupped her shoulders. Chloe immediately felt her body tense.

“It’s okay,” Rafe said. “I know you don’t like public displays of affection, but this is for a good cause.”

This didn’t soothe Chloe any. The truth was, she had told Rafe early in their engagement she didn’t like kissing in front of other people, but that had been an excuse to keep their make-out sessions contained. Rafe was outrageously handsome, and she loved talking with him and laughing with him and hugging him and even cuddling with him. However, kissing him gave her a slight case of the heebie-jeebies, and she had to not only brace herself for his kisses, but also concentrate on something else altogether in order to keep it from showing. More than one Black Mountain Woman blog post had been completely composed in her head, while she forced herself to make out with Rafe.

But in this case, she didn’t really have time to fully brace herself before his lips fell on hers. And she immediately set all her attention to fighting the weird urge to rip her lips away from his that always overtook her when they were intimate. However, less than a few seconds into the wildly uncomfortable kiss, they were interrupted by a loud clanging sound.

Rafe pulled away from the kiss, which allowed her to see the source of the sound. It was the maybe-Viking. He was thrashing in the bed, and the handcuffs clanged against the bed’s metal railing, he was straining so hard to break free. His face had turned red with anger, and she could actually see the veins in his neck. And that was before he started spewing his strange language, directing several words toward Rafe that Chloe was fairly sure involved some really harsh threats and expletives.

Seeing this display of temper paralyzed Chloe, rooting her in place. But Doc Fischer, who held degrees in both medical and veterinary science and had apparently seen it all, lazily prepared a syringe before stepping forward and plunging it into the maybe Viking’s arm without a word.

The sedative only took a few moments to take hold, but the maybe Viking fought his restraints the entire time, his eyes bulging and locked on Rafe as he cursed in his foreign language, his face screwed up with rage, until eventually his words began to slur and he fell back against the bed in another heavy sleep.

After he passed out, Doc Fischer regarded them both with the cynical aplomb. “Well, I think that answers our question.”

Four

FOR as long as Chloe could remember, she had wanted to be part of the Nightwolf family. She could still remember the three weeks she’d spent in their family’s mansion after being found by the side of the road, shivering and alone. The wolf law of every state was that the king had to take in any abandoned children left in his province, which she later figured out was why her parents had chosen to abandon her in this particular place.

Back then, the clan only placed wolves with families of the same race. So though most abandoned children her age were placed in three days or less, it took three whole weeks to find her a home. And they were three of the best weeks of her entire life. Even at the age of four, Rafe had been charming and awesome. Two seconds after she stepped through the door, he had immediately asked her to come up and play in his toy room, which was just what it sounded like, a room larger than the entire one-bedroom apartment she had shared with her parents. It was designated for all of Rafe’s toys, and he’d been more than happy to share with her.

She also instantly loved Rafe’s parents. His father had a booming laugh and considered himself a friend to all—as long as they were Broncos fans. Luckily she had answered with a tentative, “Yes?” when he’d asked her at their first meeting, “You cheer for the Broncos, little girl?” And Rafe’s mother was warm and nurturing in a way her own had never been, hugging her often and assuring her everything would be all right.

When three weeks passed and they had only been able to find Myrna Adams, a local black spinster, to take her in, Chloe had actually been grateful. She wouldn’t be with a family of her own, but at least she’d stay close to the family she now loved the most.

And a year later when she and Rafe entered kindergarten at Wolf Springs Elementary, the only all-wolf public school in Colorado, they’d picked up right back where they started, playing together every day, and soon she and Myrna became regulars at their Sunday dinners. She had grown up with Rafe, and when he proposed to her, it felt like he was not only asking her to be his mate, but also inviting her into his loving, close-knit family, which she wanted more than anything.

Over the pass few years, she had prayed and prayed for her heat night to come, not just so she’d feel more comfortable kissing Rafe, but also so she could take her official place as part of his family and even start one of her own with him. There was nothing in this world she wanted more.

So when some random time-travelling, maybe-Viking werewolf showed up out of the blue all but saying out loud that she was his fated mate, it felt like nothing short of getting stabbed.

“No,” she said, finally meeting his eyes. “We are not... we are not fated mates.”

The maybe Viking stilled in his thrashing and stared back at her, his own eyes softening as if the sound of her voice alone was enough to calm him down.

“Did you lie to me?” Rafe asked, dropping his hands from her arms.

“No!” she said again, turning back to him. “I would never do that.”

The Rafe she knew, the laid back and reasonable one with a great sense of humor, was gone now and in his place was a stranger, with a voice so distinctly hard, it felt like the only thing in the room. “Did you know who he was from the beginning?”

She reached for him, catching his rigid arms beneath her trembling hands, “No, Rafe, I had no idea he thought he was here for me.”

He glared at her. “Do you want to mate with him? Do you want to start kissing him in public?”

“No, no, no!” She shook her head with frantic denial. “I swear I don’t. I swear I had no idea. I would never lie to you. You’re my best friend, and I love you more than anyone else in this world. Please believe me. I feel nothing for him. Nothing.”

Rafe’s face remained impassive as he sniffed the air around her, his nostrils flaring wide.

“She’s not aroused,” he said to Doc Fischer. “Wouldn’t she be aroused if he were her fated mate?”

Relief coursed through Chloe like a river through the desert. The cold stranger had gone and her Rafe was back, once again defending her, just as he had when they were kids and the wolves in their class made fun of her for being a foster pup.

Doc Fischer gave them a long, considering look before saying, “In rare cases, a fated mate can catch the scent of someone who doesn’t return his feelings. Those situations usually get messy and end up with the two males fighting for dominance.”

Rafe set his jaw. “I will be more than happy to put his ass down if that’s what it comes to.”

“Now, now, calm down, young wolf,” the doctor said. He pulled out his smart phone. “I’m going to call back my friend at UC Denver. Maybe if I get him up here, he can help us out with this language barrier and we can figure this out without any wolves having to lose their lives.”

“Call your friend,” Rafe said, alpha prince to his very core. “But I’m letting you know right now, if he tries to lay one hand on Chloe, it’s not going to end peacefully.”

The doctor gave Chloe a sullen look, as if this entire situation were all her fault as opposed to some unfair trick of fate. But he eventually answered Rafe. “Noted. Now get out of here, I’ve got some calls to make if we want to get this situation resolved before tomorrow’s full moon.”

She wasn’t aroused by the Viking, and she hadn’t lied to Rafe about not feeling anything sexual whatsoever for the strange visitor. If anything, the whole situation had turned her nether regions even more numb. Before, there had been the loud absence of any kind of sexual feeling on her part. But now she was feeling the opposite of aroused, like she’d rather hike up a thousand King’s Trails than have sex with anyone, ever. That’s how horrible the scene back in the clinic had been.

But still, guilt clawed at her insides as Rafe walked her home from the clinic. People kept stopping him to ask who had come through the portal this time.

“Is it true it was a man?” their high school Social Studies teacher asked. “Mercedes Griswold said she saw you two carrying a man’s body into the clinic. Is he dead? Did you have to kill him like your dad had to kill that rabid wolf back in the day?”

Rafe handled all the questions diplomatically, with various versions of, “We’re not allowed to talk about it just yet, but we’ll be making an announcement soon.” The answer sounded neutral enough, but Chloe knew him too well not to recognize the edge in his voice as he answered question after question about their mysterious visitor.

“You don’t have to walk me home,” she told him. “It’s been a long day and I know you probably want to catch up at your office.”

Along with his duties as the alpha prince of Colorado, Rafe was also the vice president of Wolf Springs Timber, one of the largest privately owned logging companies in the world. It was rare for him to take lunch, much less a whole half-day off work.

“You said you were going to do a chicken recipe for your next show. Doesn’t that mean you need me to kill the chicken?” he asked.

She wrung her hands together. “You know what, I’m going to try to kill the chicken myself this time. It’s so ridiculous that I always have to call you to do it for me.”

“That’s what mates are for,” Rafe said, his voice flat. “We help each other out when we need it.”

“Sure, sure,” Chloe answered. “But what kind of werewolf can’t bear to kill a chicken? It’s so embarrassing.”

“Not as embarrassing as what just happened in the clinic,” he answered.

And there it was. Rafe never had been the sort to dance around the elephant in the room.

“I’m sorry that happened,” she said. “I have no idea why the fated mates spell would send that guy forward in time for me, especially since I feel no connection to him whatsoever. You believe me, right?”

He stopped and studied her face for a few moments before deciding out loud, “I do.”

“And if it comes down to a choice between you and him, I pick you, Rafe.”

“I know.”

“You’re my best friend.”

Now something unreadable passed over his face. “You keep on saying that.”

“What?”

“That I’m your best friend. You’ve said it like five times today. But you know what I call you when I talk about you? My mate.”

And just when she thought things couldn’t get any more awkward. “I call you that, too,” she insisted. “And what does it matter what I call you anyway? The most important thing is I love you. I love you so much, more than anybody else in this entire world.”

“I believe you. But this Viking thing...”

She grabbed his hand. “Look, Rafe, if you want to have sex before I go into heat, that’s fine with me. I don’t care what Council law says. I’m twenty-five, old enough to make my own decisions.” Including the decision to ignore the wrenching of her own stomach as she made this offer.

Rafe rubbed the side of his face with his knuckles, considering. But then he said, “No, I’m an alpha prince. I can’t ignore the law.”

A wave of relief swept over her. She could have forced herself to hold still for sex with Rafe, just like she forced herself to accept his kisses, but it wouldn’t have been pleasant at all. For what felt like the millionth time, she sent up a tiny prayer that going into heat would solve everything between them and finally help her body catch up with her heart. She-wolves were actually known for their lusty nature, and she’d seen nerdy and mousy girls from her high school honors classes transform into black leather-wearing, unapologetic sexpots with just one moon cycle and mating. She hoped to God it would be the same for her.

But out loud to Rafe, she said, “Okay, if that’s the way you feel, we won’t break Council law. I just want you to know how committed I am to you, to us, to our being together and starting a family.”

“I know you are.” Rafe took her hand in his and began walking again. “But you know how the wolves gossip. We’re not going to be able to keep this a secret for long.”

She shook her head. “There’s nothing to hide. He thinks I’m his fated mate, but I’m with you. Tomorrow, we’ll have Doc Fischer’s professor friend explain that to him, and he’ll go back to whatever time period he came from. The end.”

“How about if he challenges me?” Rafe asks.

“There’s nothing to challenge if I say no-go. This isn’t the dark ages when she-wolves didn’t have any say over who claimed them.”

“We could move in together.”

This time she was the one who stopped walking. “Wait, what?”

Rafe ran a hand through his dark locks. “Listen, I didn’t tell you this…because it’s bullshit. You know how much my dad likes you, but he kind of thinks you haven’t gone into heat because you’re not really in love with me.”

Her eyes narrowed. “What? That’s not even how it works. It’s purely physiological. Like getting your period. It happens when it happens. Doc Fischer says she-wolves can go into heat as late as their thirties.”

“I know what Doc Fischer says,” Rafe said. “But Dad’s old-school. He’s not buying it. And he’s the Colorado alpha. So if this guy steps up, claiming you as his fated mate, and you’re not even physically living with me, he might pull the king card and say we can’t get married.”

Chloe studied his face and knew this wasn’t really a hypothetical they were discussing. Rafe was telling her the king was so upset about how long they’d been engaged, he would pull rank in order to end it if he had the right opportunity.

“I wouldn’t let him get away with it,” Rafe assured her, reading her mind as best friends did. “If he tries to pull that shit, I’ll run away with you before I let him tear us apart. But I don’t want it to come to that.”

She clamped her lips together. “I don’t want it to come to that either. And you know, even if your dad said we couldn’t get married, that doesn’t mean I’m going to marry some weird, blood-thirsty Viking who came through the portal. It’s either you or nobody for me.”

“Look at you, getting all angry and defending our love.” Rafe smiled down at her. “I like this side of you. There might be a little wolf in you yet.”

He pulled her into his arms and Chloe nuzzled her face into his chest, her she-wolf loving the way it felt to be packed in close to another body.

It was a very sweet moment until Rafe said, “But think about moving in with me, okay? I mean, we’re going to do it after your heat night anyway, so why wait?”

Her face fell. “Actually, I was hoping you’d move in with me.”

“My place is bigger, “ he pointed out. “Four bedrooms. You’ve only got two. Plus, I didn’t buy the house for you to stay there. The plan was to move you out and move somebody else in, so we can start receiving rent on it.”

“Yeah, but…” She tried to figure out a nice way to tell him she’d rather live in the small, cozy cabin which was set up just the way she liked it for her Black Mountain Woman videos, than his man cave of a house with flat screens in every room, including the bathroom and kitchen.

But she already knew what he’d say. This was Rafe. He’d offer to remodel the kitchen and get rid of its small flat screen if it really bothered her that much. But he’d resent her for it. He’d never understood why she preferred to live like a homesteader as opposed to a modern woman in the modern ages, and it was hard to explain the draw of the lifestyle to someone who liked his electronic toys as much as Rafe did.

But ever since Myrna had first taught her to sew on her ancient Singer, she had felt drawn to the idea of doing everything herself. Making her own clothes, her own food, her own just-about-everything and never having to depend on others to provide for her again. Still as passionate as she was about how she chose to live, she didn’t like the idea of getting into a lifestyle battle with Rafe any sooner than she had to.

“Can I think about it?” she asked, when what she really meant was. “Can you give me some time to figure out how to save our engagement, keep you from falling out with your father, and get rid of the Viking who thinks I’m his fated mate without having to move in with you before my heat night?”

“Sure,” he said. An apologetic smile settled on his face. “Listen, I’m sorry we’re having to deal with this bullshit. I wish we hadn’t been the ones to go up there. Sometimes, I wish I weren’t the alpha prince of Colorado. It would be nice to be a normal wolf with normal problems that my dad would judge on a fair basis, not because I’m his son. If this were happening to any other couple, it wouldn’t even be a question of who he’d side with.”

When they reached his house they parted with another hug. As she watched Rafe walk away, she remembered his proposal in the high school gymnasium, just two weeks after Myrna died as if he couldn’t bear the thought of her being alone in this world again like she was when they first met. He really was her best friend, and she couldn’t lose him, which meant she had to get rid of the maybe-Viking, whatever it took. The consequences of not doing so were just too scary to even think about. She didn’t know if she could mentally survive being a lone wolf again.

Five

“YOU’VE got to be kidding me,” Chloe all but yelled into her cell phone the next day.

“Listen, kid, my nurse is off on full moon days and the guy smells like animal blood. He’s stinking up the entire clinic, and he needs a sponge bath.”

“Then why can’t you do it?” Chloe asked.

“Because I’m on the road to Denver to pick up my professor friend, who doesn’t drive. And also, because he’s your fated mate.”

Chloe gritted her teeth. “He’s not my anything. I am one hundred percent with Rafe.”

“Okay, well then because he’s the werewolf who came over one thousand years into the future just to find you. Is that any better?”

“No,” she grumbled.

“Well, here’s the deal, kid. You and Rafe asked me to keep this situation under wraps, so unless you want me to ask your fiancé to do it, I suggest you get down here and clean this guy up. And get him some new clothes while you’re at it.”

And that was how Chloe ended up abandoning her preparations for her chicken and fennel episode of Black Mountain Woman, and running to the local general store to pick up a pair of extra-large basketball shorts, men’s underwear, and a Wolf Springs T-shirt for the man who had turned her life upside down in less than twelve hours.

Doc Fischer was right about being able to smell him as soon as you walked in the door, but it was Chloe’s opinion he had exaggerated how bad it was. He did smell of some animal whose scent she didn’t recognize off the top of her head, but it didn’t overwhelm his real smell, which she actually found quite pleasant. It was a mixture of smoke, evergreens, ocean, wind, and mountain that made her think of outdoor barbecues and ski vacations.

In any case, she was happy he was still out cold when she arrived in his room with the clothes and a basin, which she filled with warm water. She washed his face first, running the warm cloth over it and wondering what he looked like under his thick beard. She already knew his eyes were light gray and she could see his nose was long and straight, but the red beard and his tangled lion’s mane of a hair-do pretty much hid every other feature.

Next she added soap to the water in the basin, before dipping the towel in again and running it over his chest, doing her best not to admire the hard muscles she felt underneath her cloth. Whatever this guy did for a living wherever he was from, it had gifted him with a beautiful body. She had to put some effort into lifting his arms, which were so thick with muscle that getting underneath them in order to wash his arm pits was a bit of a challenge.

Somewhat out of breath, she emptied out the water and refilled it with a fresh batch of warm, soapy water. Now she had to do his bottom half.

Once again she had to put a lot of effort into getting him clean. First she had to tug off his pants, which didn’t have any fasteners on them, so she had to roll them down his hips—quickly averting her eyes when she saw he wasn’t wearing any underwear underneath. She kept her eyes averted, washing around his groin area as best she could without actually looking at it. Still that didn’t keep her heart from just about jumping out of her chest when something long and thick thumped against her arm, like a baton of flesh-covered steel.

Her eyes flew to the maybe-Viking to see if he was awake, but he slept on, apparently unaware of what the lower half of his body was up to.

Chloe finished up with that particular area as quickly as she could, her head turned away, then tugged the underwear and basketball shorts on him—no small feat but worth it if it meant covering up his sleeping erection. She wished she also cover up his chest, but he was chained to the bed, which meant she wouldn’t be able to get his arms through it. So she just put that item on the bedside table, and replaced the now cold water in the bowl.

A few minutes later, she silently cheered when she reached his long and wide feet, giving each a few quick swipes with her towel. All done, and now she could just tip-toe on out of the room, without the maybe-Viking never even knowing she was there.

But then, suddenly, that same skittery feeling from the day before overtook her and her stomach sank. Sure enough, when she looked up, she found the Viking wide-awake and staring at her with enough heat in his eyes to melt all the snow on the nearby mountain.

Fenris came awake slowly blinking against the bright light. His body was still heavy with whatever potion he had been given, but for some reason, his manhood was now swollen and constricted in some manner of binding he did not know. Despite this, soft waves of languid pleasure were coursing through his body, starting at his legs.

He turned his eyes in the direction of the pleasurable sensation and found his fated mate, the dark beauty from the day before, giving him, of all things, a bath.

She was once again dressed in a strange costume, some manner of wool tunic top, dyed a pale blue that covered her neck and arms but squeezed her chest in such a way that left little doubt a heavy bosom rested beneath it’s confines. In his land, it was forbidden for both she-wolves and human woman to wear the clothing of men. But her legs were encased in tight black men’s trousers that framed her shapely hips and made him want to rut her where she stood, even if he could smell that she hadn’t yet had her first heat. A strange notion within itself, since she had quite obviously come into her womanhood.

On this day, she wore her bushy hair tied to the side in a long braid that fell all the way to her bounteous breasts. He reached out to touch it, so different from his own, but then he remembered anew that he had been tied to the railing of a strange, mechanical bed with some manner of metal, which somehow held him fast despite it’s light and thin nature.

He once again rattled the bed in a bid to free himself.

But the dark beauty shook her head, frantically speaking to him in her strange dialect, before coming around the bed and laying her hands on his chest.

Her touch immediately calmed him, and soon he found himself falling back against the bed’s soft pillows, his desire to be free of his bonds replaced with the desire to gaze upon her great beauty.

She tried to pull away from him then, but he covered her hands with his own, keeping her there.

“Nay, stay here, maiden,” he said, even though he had gleaned by now that she could not understand his tongue any better than he understood hers.

“Stay here,” he repeated in a whisper, gazing into her wary brown eyes, as he allowed himself to absorb the warmth of her hands on his naked chest, and enjoy the sight of her own chest heaving up and down with quickened breaths.

Then he leaned forward and took the kiss he had been wanting from her since first their eyes met.

For a moment she acquiesced to his kiss, but then she suddenly pulled away, her face aghast as she said something else in her tongue and tried to reclaim her hands from his.

He did not let go at first, and perhaps would have kept her there for a few more sweet kisses, except he suddenly smelled another presence in the room. His smile faded when he looked up and found the wolf from yesterday standing in the doorway. The same wolf who had dared touch what was his.

For what had to be at least the tenth time that day, Chloe cursed the fates that had brought her to this situation. When the maybe-Viking had started rattling the bed again in his attempt to get out of the handcuffs, she had placed her hands on his chest more out of instinct than plan.

“Stop. You’ve got to calm down,” she’d said. To her surprise he’d obeyed her command, instantly calming down, the expression on his face replaced by a look so soft, it sent an unbidden jolt of electricity through her stomach. One she didn’t like at all.

She tried to pull her hands away, but he kept her there, speaking softly in his strange language with a smile that crinkled his eyes and made him look way more handsome than she’d thought he was while she was bathing him.

And then the next thing she knew, he was kissing her. She’d been so surprised by the feel of his lips moving over hers and by the complete lack of heebie-jeebies on her part, that she just froze, all of her senses momentarily overwhelmed.

But then she remembered herself and pulled away from him. “Let go,” she said.

He didn’t, only gripped her hands tighter. But then his eyes hardened as he gazed at something beyond her shoulder. Even if her sense of smell hadn’t chosen that moment to come back online, she would have known just from the look on his face it was Rafe standing in the doorway.

This time she yanked on her hands so hard, they slipped out of the maybe-Viking’s grip, and even then she only just managed to get in front of Rafe before he leaped toward the hospital bed, looking like he was set to tear its occupant apart with his bare hands.

“Rafe, no,” she said, pushing him backwards before he could.

“You were kissing him,” Rafe said, the words thick and feral in his throat.

“No, he kissed me, and it took me by surprise. I didn’t kiss him back.”

“All the more reason for me to kill him,” Rafe said.

“Rafe, please. It was nothing. You have to calm down.” He was pushing so hard to get past her, Chloe was half afraid he’d take her out just to get at the other wolf. And if that wasn’t enough, she could hear the bed rattling behind them, which meant the maybe-Viking was once again trying to free himself to get to Rafe.

Luckily, just when her arms were about to give, Doc Fischer and a stringy man in a tweed blazer walked in. They quickly assessed the situation and took over restraining Rafe, each grabbing him by one of his long arms.

“Now calm down, son,” Doc Fischer said, his voice quiet but firm. “If you’re going to try to take him out every time my back is turned, then I’m going to have to make you wait outside.”

The maybe-Viking chose that moment to start spitting words of challenge and insult at Rafe, which needed no translation. And Rafe jerked forward, all but frothing at the mouth in his effort to get to him.

In the end, Doc Fischer and the professor had to drag Rafe out and lock the clinic door so he couldn’t get back in.

It was all Chloe could do to hold back tears of frustration as she watched them toss Rafe out like some derelict. And even after they locked the door, she could hear her fiancé, who normally tried so hard to hold himself in a manner befitting an alpha prince, yelling like a mad man outside the building.

“Well, so much for keeping this situation a secret,” Doc Fischer said. “As loud as that got, the whole town probably knows what’s going on now.”

“I should go to him,” Chloe said, heading toward the door.

But Doc Fischer stopped her with a shake of his head. “No, young lady, you should sit down. Whatever your fated mate has to say, you should hear it, too.”

“Rafe is my mate,” she said, “You admitted it yourself. I’m not aroused, so the attraction must be one-sided.”

“No, I said in rare cases, a fated mate catches the scent of someone who doesn’t return his feelings. I didn’t talk about what happens when she-wolves mate with other wolves only to have a fated mate come along and try to claim her. But I’m telling you now, it rarely ends well. Half the time the she-wolf runs away with her fated mate, sometimes even leaving her pups behind. The other half of the time her current mate has to kill the fated one in order to make him leave her alone. For your sake, I also didn’t mention in front of your fiancé that I suspect the only reason you’re able to resist this wolf is because you haven’t gone into heat yet, and who knows how much longer that will last?”

“I would never⁠—”

Doc Fischer interrupted her with a snort and a roll of his eyes. “I hate when young wolves try to tell me what they’d ‘never’ do. The truth is you have no idea what you’d do until you actually go into heat like a regular she-wolf would have years ago. And God help you if your fated mate is here when you finally do.” He pointed at the guest chair. “Now if you’re serious about telling this guy you don’t want him and sending him back through the portal, sit down so we can get this over with.”

She crossed her arms over her chest and sat. She didn’t like Doc Fischer insinuating she would leave the man she loved the most in this world for some stranger she’d only met the day before, but he was right about one thing. It was better to just get this over with. The sooner they did, the sooner she could go to Rafe. He’d quieted down, but she could still sense his presence outside the clinic, furious, hurt, and brooding.

The professor tentatively stepped into the angry silence of her acquiescence. He looked to be around the same age as Doc Fischer, but had the nebbish quality male wolves who never claimed mates tended to get. He was tall and skinny, and though he didn’t wear glasses, since all werewolves had better than twenty/twenty vision, it looked like he ought to be.

“Hi, I’m Professor Henley,” he said with a small wave. “I teach Viking Studies at the university. Normally I wouldn’t risk travel on a full moon night, but I couldn’t pass up this opportunity.”

He turned to the Viking, who had calmed after they ejected Rafe and now sat watching all of them, his eyes glittering with what looked like a combination of anger, frustration, and curiosity.

“The sword I saw out in the lobby and the fact that he was yelling at your... ah, friend in Old Norse tells me he’s a Viking,” the professor said, running his eyes over the large man as if he were a majestic sight indeed. “Also, his hair is red. It’s rumored the Norwegian Viking wolves all had ‘hair like fire.’ And quite a few of my fellow werewolf history professors believe Erik the Red to have been a werewolf.’” He reached out, as if to touch the Viking’s hair, but pulled back at the last moment, probably sensing correctly that this wasn’t the type of man who would appreciate being petted.

“Thanks for the history lesson,” Doc Fischer said. “Can you talk to him or what?”

The professor held up an Old Norse-English dictionary. “Well, I’ve only used Old Norse in the context of translating or reciting poems and certain texts from that age, but I’ll do my best.”

The professor cleared his throat before hawking up a few words of Old Norse.

The Viking’s eyes widened in surprise, and he answered with a few words of his own, which caused the professor’s own eyes to widen.

He turned back to her and Doc Fischer. “He says he’s called Fenris. Do you know what that means?”

They both shook their heads. “Fenris is the Norse wolf god, the one all Norwegian werewolves believed themselves to be descended from. Only wolves in the alpha line are given this name.”

“Wait, wait, wait,” Chloe said, holding up her hands. “Are you’re trying to tell me this guy is also an alpha prince like Rafe?”

The professor asked the Viking another question in the harsh language.

And this time the Viking looked at her when he answered.

The professor gave a nervous laugh, before translating. “No, he’s not an alpha prince. He just commanded me to tell you he is king of the North wolves. He say he’s come to this strange place to fetch you and he’s ready to take you home with him.”

The Viking continued to stare at her as he spoke one more word, which the professor immediately translated. “Now.”

Six

IT took Chloe quite a few shocked moments before she was able to speak again. “Well, wow. Um, can you tell him I’m not going anywhere with him and I would like him to return home to his own time period? Now.”

After looking up a few words, the professor translated, and the Viking’s eyes shined with amusement as he answered.

The professor translated, “He’s basically saying, no, you will come with him. And even if he was willing to leave you here, which he isn’t, he won’t go back with out you.”

She shook her head. “Who do you think you are?” she asked the Viking directly. “You can’t just step into my time and tell me to come to yours. I have a life here. And that wolf you were trying to fight earlier is the person I’ve chosen to spend the rest of my life with. Not you.”

The professor had to look a few more words up in order to translate. But before he could even finish doing so the Viking was shaking his head and pounding his chest for emphasis.

“He says he will spray Rafe’s blood across the snow for his insult—it’s actually some pretty poetic stuff he’s saying. Very Beowulf-esque. But the main point is he wants you to know you are his.”

“Can you explain to him in my time period, men don’t own women? They don’t drag them around by the hair, and he can’t tell me what to do.”

The professor flipped through the pages of his dictionary. “I can try.”

“Good,” she said, standing. “Exhibit number one can be me walking out of here to go be with the man I’ve chosen and love.”

And she did just that, her own righteous anger fueling her steps.

But that anger faded when she found Rafe sitting on the clinic steps, hunched over with his fists balled up on top of his knees.

She dropped down beside him and strung her arm around his shoulders. “I’m sorry that happened,” she whispered.

“Don’t apologize,” he said. But he leaned over toward her and Chloe was pretty certain he sniffed her for evidence of arousal before saying, “It’s not your fault. This is some fucked up shit, but it’s not your fault.”

Her heart flooded with love for him then. And she nuzzled against his shoulder in the friendly way they used to before Rafe came into his manhood, before his brotherly affection became muddied with lust.

“I’ll move in with you,” she said.

He turned to her. “What?”

“I’ll move in with you after the full moon. I want everyone, including your father, to know how much I love you and how committed I am to you and only you.” She nudged him. “But you’re going to have to get rid of that TV in the kitchen. I hate it.”

He cupped her face in his warm hand. It was in the twenties that day, but wolves ran hot—male wolves even more so than female ones. “You just made me a very happy man.”

“I want to be with you. I choose you,” she told him.

“Well, I think you made the right choice,” Rafe said, patting her knee. “Now, seriously, you want me to kill that chicken for you before I leave for work, right?”

Chloe let her head fall against her shoulder in embarrassment. “Right. I tried to do it myself this morning, but it looked at me with these big innocent eyes.”

Rafe shook his head and chuckled.

“I know, I know,” she said, before he could. “Worst wolf ever.”

The day passed quickly with Chloe rushing to finish up her chicken and fennel recipe and get it edited and posted online before the full moon rose. Generally, Rafe bounced back from shifting with energy to spare, but turning into a wolf and then back into a human took a lot out of her. It often took up to forty-eight hours for her to sleep it off, and back when she’d been in school, almost all of her absences had been due to recovering from her monthly shift.

Rafe thought this was because she chose to cage herself up during full moon nights as opposed to running with the pack as he did. But as civilized as modern werewolves were in human form these days, they became particularly wild when they shifted, or “got wolf” as Rafe referred to it. They spent the entire night, in what seemed to Chloe to be a hunting-lust, taking out animals big and small, or whatever else crossed their paths.

A few times human hikers, who had ignored all the “No Trespassing” signs at the foot of Wolf Mountain, had gone missing or survived the attack and gotten changed into werewolves themselves. Back in the eighties, the number of wolf attacks had gotten so bad the North American Lupine Council had strictly forbidden shifting outside of full moon nights, just to keep the damages to a minimum.

In any case, it just wasn’t in Chloe’s nature to “get wolfed,” so she chose to shift in the confines of her own home rather than running to the mountain with her fellow wolves.

About an hour before sunset, Doc Fischer called to tell her they’d made little to no progress in convincing the Viking to go back to his time. “He keeps telling the professor he can’t go back without you. I’ll cage him up before sunset, but we can’t just keep him chained to a bed when he turns back into a human. I think it’s time to bring the king in to handle this.”

“Why do we have to bring the king into it?” she asked. “He can’t make me go back in time with him.”

“No he can’t, that’s why we’re going to have to consult with him. We’re at a stalemate, and he’ll have to decide how to handle it.”

Chloe rubbed a hand over her face. If anyone else were her mate, the king, who was an otherwise fair and level-headed leader, would side with the she-wolf. But since she was engaged to his son, he might just decide to declare their engagement null and void, if it meant freeing Rafe up to mate with another. The king liked her well enough, but he liked the king of Alaska’s three daughters even better, and if he could forge an alliance and get grandpups, he’d probably be more than willing to kick Chloe to the curb.

Rafe had been right, if they had any hope of his father ruling in their favor, they had to make a strong show of commitment by moving in together.

“Or I could kill him,” Rafe said when she called to give him the update. “That would solve everything.”

“Rafe, you can’t take a life. You may ‘get wolf’ one night a month, but you’re still half-human and bound by council law.”

“Yeah, yeah, yeah,” Rafe muttered. “I’m just glad we’re moving in together, even if it’s under these circumstances.”

“Me too,” she lied, looking with real regret around her homey kitchen, which was pretty much the exact opposite of Rafe’s uninviting and sterile one.

After she got off the phone, she started making her own preparations for the night’s turn. Unlike Rafe, who simply met up with a bunch of his friends in the woods and stripped out of his clothes before shifting, her preparations were a bit more civilized. First, she plated up the rest of the chicken and fennel recipe and put it in the refrigerator. If she was lucky, it would be enough to tide her over for the next forty-eight hours. Next, she turned off all but a few lights and dug out a fresh pair of pajamas to wear the next day before descending the stairs into her basement. This was where her washing machine, dryer, and wolf cage lived.

The cage had come with the house. Wolves who didn’t care to roam the countryside all night locked themselves in cages, so as to keep from destroying their homes as wolves were wont to do. Luckily for her, the house’s last owner had felt as she had about turning outdoors and had installed a custom floor-to-ceiling cage.

When she moved in, she’d added the further amenity of covering the hard concrete floor with cushions made from the same soft but synthetic fabric used in chew-proof dog beds. She’d also placed her foster mother’s record player outside the cage, so she’d have some form of entertainment while she waited for the turn. She usually spent her evenings crafting or reading, but she couldn’t bring anything that she didn’t want destroyed inside the cage, so that wasn’t an option.

Listening to Myrna’s old R&B records somehow made it feel like her foster mother was still alive and in her next-door cage, speaking soothing words to the pup Chloe had once been, while they both waited for the turn.

Myrna had possessed more heart than money, so she’d only been able to afford cramped dog cages for herself and the abandoned she-wolf pup she volunteered to care for. But still, Chloe had valued the fourteen years they had together, and liked to think back to those days when she curled up in her own cage, which was luxurious by comparison.

That night, she put the soundtrack to Mahogany on before closing herself into the cage and stripping down to her panties. She put the cage’s key into the box on the far wall. Key boxes were another clever werewolf invention. They were placed just high enough so she couldn’t get to it in wolf form, but could easily access it when she was human again and let herself out of her cage. This was another step up from the one Myrna had provided. Back then, they’d had to wait for Rafe’s mother to come and let them out.

Rafe’s mother had already told her she expected Chloe to take over the royal duty of opening the cages once she and Rafe were properly mated, and Chloe would be more than happy to do so. She liked that she’d be of true service once she became part of the royal Colorado family, and she was excited about her many upcoming duties. She just hoped the Viking didn’t ruin everything for her.

With a sigh, she put the heavy cage key into the built-in box and laid down, covering herself up with the warm, indestructible fire blanket she kept in the cage for full moon nights. She then closed her eyes, listening to Diana Ross sing while she waited.

She soon dozed off and therefore didn’t realize something was wrong until the music stopped playing, and the thunk of the needle slipping off the record jolted her awake.

She sat up, her eyes going to the basement window. But no, it was dark outside. Now that the music had stopped playing, she could even hear the far-off howls of her freshly-turned pack members. So why was she still in human form?

Her body began to tingle. At first she thought maybe it was the turn, come late, and she got to her knees, preparing to go feral. But the turn didn’t happen, and the tingling continued, spreading over her still-human body until she was flush with fever, and sweating from the unrelenting prickling underneath her skin. It was as if all of her nerve endings had electricity coursing through them.

She must be sick, she thought. Usually wolf-sicknesses took the form of things like rabies, which contrary to her current situation, kept them in wolf form long after the sun had risen again. But maybe this was a wolf-sickness she had never heard of before.

She ran her hands over her face, which was flush but didn’t seem to have anything wrong with it. She touched her neck next, checking her thyroid, but it seemed to be okay, too.

She ran her hands over her arms and legs, and even cupped her breast to give herself a self-examination. She’d never heard of a she-wolf contracting breast cancer, but since wolves weren’t allowed to talk about being wolves on the internet, you never knew…

When her hand grazed her nipple, a sweet pain zapped through her, freezing her where she knelt and causing her to draw in her breath and then release it again with a short gasp. She looked down and saw that her nipples were now as hard as rocks. And as if they had minds of their own, her hands started kneading her breasts, her thumbs strumming over black-cherry-colored buds again and again, unable to stop themselves from exploring the sensations this action caused within her body.

Soon she felt a tugging sensation below, and the lips of her most intimate part clenched in and out in a wet silent beg, before it began to release something even she could now recognize as heat.

She was in heat, she realized foggily, literally dripping with the need to have a wolf mate with her. But Rafe was somewhere on the mountain, running through the night with his fellow pack members.

Chloe dimly recalled a Health class, in which they were informed that she-wolves in heat didn’t turn, even during a full moon, nature’s way of cutting down on possible birth defects. No, once you went into heat, you stayed in heat until you were mated with a pup in your belly. And after that, neither you nor your mate turned again until three months after the baby’s birth.

For the first time in her life, she touched her pussy for a reason other than cleaning it. The clenching was so insistent, the tentative rubbing against the swollen bulb between her folds proved to be too little. She was soon plunging her fingers into her tunnel, working them in and out, trying to find some relief.

But if anything, this only made it worse. As if angered by her meager offering, her pussy clenched even tighter, sucking her fingers into its vise grip, but refusing to be satiated by anything less than a mate’s cock. Soon, tears of frustration began to roll down her cheeks. They weren’t even an hour into the full moon and she wasn’t sure how much longer she could bear the wait for Rafe to change back and come find her.

“Please, please…” she begged no one in particular as she rubbed herself against the mat, trying desperately to find some sort of release.

That was when his scent filled her nostrils. She opened her teary eyes and found the Viking standing at the bottom of her stairs.

He had clearly been watching her trying to masturbate.

And his eyes were hot with one hundred percent unadulterated and extremely feral lust.

Ooohhh! You definitely want to find out what happens next!

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About the Author

Theodora Taylor writes hot books with heart. When not reading, writing, or reviewing, she enjoys spending time with her amazing family, going on date nights with her wonderful husband, and attending parties thrown by others. She LOVES to hear from readers. So….

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