Page 9

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.