Page 22

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 Wolfennite.

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.