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 dancingwith 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 queendelivery. 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!”
“Youwantedto 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 aboutthinking. 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.
