Males I would soon learn were the Irish Wolves—the ones Amanda had been assured wouldn’t dare to attack a royal wedding again.
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 codeWicklow Gate 3KEa 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 Iremembered, 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.”
