Page 35

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! 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.