Then the Shadow King began kissing down my neck, and the warnings abruptly turned to: “Mind your teeth, lad. Mind your?—”
The Shadow King suddenly pulled away, disentangling himself and all but running out of the room.
“Did I do something wrong?” I asked, watching him go.
“Opposite.” Tadhg was there in an instant, taking the silent king’s place between my thrown-off legs. Though thanks to the size of my thighs and the width of his waist, ours was less lotus and more me butterflying my knees over Tadhg’s tree-trunk thighs while he revisited the erogenous zone of my breasts.
I didn’t need him to tell me what his favorite bit on my body was.
But I did want to know why the Shadow King had run out.
“Is he sick? Is it a reaction to going so long between meals?”
“No, he’s just not used to holding himself back, is all. The Shadow King’s line is genetically unbothered. But no-fuss self-regulation is only an asset until a cute patootie mate gets hand-delivered to your door. I reckon he’s having a hell of a time not biting you.”
I scrunched my forehead. “But why would he…?”
“Biting’s the way we make our claims in bear world. We leave a permanent mating mark. But the rule is?—”
Now it was my turn to interrupt.
“The High King has the first right to that,” I guessed.
Tadhg rested his forehead against mine. “I’m sorry. I know this isn’t easy.”
“I thought we weren’t supposed to apologize.”
He chuffed. “You’renot to apologize tome.I’mallowed to grovel as much as I want.”
The Shadow King returned before I could argue. And soon after that, we unlocked another erogenous response—kissing the Shadow King over my shoulder while Tadhg sucked on my breasts in front, his hand rubbing between my folds.
By the time the sun disappeared behind the lake on the wall, they’d kept their promise to kiss me everywhere.
And I was little more than a puddle.
“Alright, enough of that.” Tadhg pulled my boneless body off the circular mattress and ran another wet bath mitt over me while the Shadow King remade the bed with sheets he produced out of nowhere.
“You’ve been such a good bear for us, Strawberry,” he said once I was clean. He guided me over to the freshly made bed. “Now it’s time for you to get some much-needed rest and recovery.”
He was right. I was tired and sore in nearly all of my major erogenous zones—and a few places I’d never considered, like the backs of my thighs. It took effort just to stand through Tadhg’s attentive cleaning.
Still, a small fizz of protest bubbled in my chest. I didn’t want the day to end.
If my eyes weren’t already drooping shut as Tadhg covered me with a fresh blanket the Shadow King handed him, I might’ve made a strong case for continuing the survey.
But sleep dragged me under, and the last thing I heard was Tadhg saying, “Good night, Sadie Strawberry.”
Good night, indeed. I slept on a sea of deep, satisfied black.
Until I woke to find my mother standing over the bed.
“You dirty, dirty girl!”
A cold, nasty shame froze my blood. “Mama, what are you doing here?”
If she heard my question, it didn’t show.
Her face remained a rictus of shadows and judgment as she shrieked, “How could you? I’m going to lock you in your room! This time for a thousand years!”
