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’dlocked 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. “Iwashandling 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.”
“Youthoughtshe 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 doneanythingbut this,” I shouted back. “If things were going sideways with our queen, you could’ve called either of us. Thelastthing 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 hasopen 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.”
