Her pregnant belly had doubled in size since our first meeting, but she seemed as bouncy and energetic as ever. She pulled me toward the suite’s couch, which, like the bed, sat in front of the gigantic lake-view digital wall.
She told me she’d taken several pictures of me at magic hour, when the sun hadn’t yet set but the moon was on the rise, and came to show them to me—conveniently during my now-scheduled brunch and whittling time.
“When I knew those two obsessive kings would let you breathe and have a little company. I swear, have you ever met a more selfish pair of knobs? Oh, don’t give me that look, Sadie Strawberry.”
Brigid rolled her eyes at the look I hadn’t been aware I was giving her. “You know I’m only joking. Sure, it’s fine that they trapped you in the palace and Stockholm’d you with 24/7 sexcapades while your arse of a High King takes his sweet time making up his mind.”
“That’s not all we do,” I insisted to Brigid.
First of all, we slept. A lot. Everyone—not just me—had the Winter Sleepies, and our wake times were steadily dwindling.
Second, the kings still had to manage the general upkeep of their business.
“Checking in daily to make sure the wheels aren’t falling off the company we built,” Tadhg had explained apologetically when he and the Shadow King were late to our nightly dinner.
We’d fallen into a routine where I had brunch and spent the late afternoon alone. Then they would join me for a veritable feast on the portico, which we always shared as a trio before returning to my room for what Tadhg had taken to callingsecond supper.
Third, the two kings had a lot of stuff to educate me about outside of the circular bed.
The Shadow King had taught me how to use a computer, set me up with a keyboarding program, and warned me off something called Reddit.
Tadhg was giving what he insisted were far more important lessons on the laptop they’d gifted me: how to “make a properplaylist of R&B from the ’90s and early 2000s” and how to “binge a multi-season series while picking your nose and doing feck all.”
Picking my nose, I was told, was optional.The BreakthroughMary J. Blige album was not.
Between the human’s internet (minus Reddit) and an all-season viewing of a “completely accurate horror shitshow” calledIndustryand an outer-space show calledStar Trek: The Next Generation, I honestly felt as if I was making real progress—catching up to and, at the same time, never wanting to join the modern world outside St. Ailbe.
But I still didn’t understand many of the things that came out of Brigid’s mouth.
I wrote down “Stockholm syndrome” on the little notepad the Shadow King had gifted me to house the many questions I wanted to ask either Tadhg or the internet later.
I usually opted for Tadhg. The internet could be, to use a Naomi Speak phrase, atotal dumpster fire. Also, many of the results that came back for my questions included Reddit posts.
But no matter what Brigid said, I could honestly tell her, “We don’t only have sex.”
“Is that so?” Tadhg’s sister raised both red brows. “How’s your wardrobe coming along, then?”
She cast a disparaging eye over the strawberry dress I wore, which, admittedly, I’d hurriedly slipped on along with a sports bra when the room nearly shocked me to death with a loud:“Alert: Mountain Princess Brigid Ryan approaching door! Alert: Mountain Princess Brigid Ryan approaching door!”
My cheeks heated. “I like this dress.”
“Do you like it, or do you only need one dress because the lads are quite insistent on keeping you naked?”
Long pause. Then: “I mean, both can be true.”
“Well, thank goodness they actually let you out for the full moon. Or else I wouldn’t have gotten these darling pictures.” She set her GoNoTo phone on her belly. “Look at this adorable Sadie bear.”
Brigid, as she’d already confessed, could be prone to exaggeration. But I couldn’t help but smile as she swiped through pictures and a couple of videos of a big fluffy black bear with a brown muzzle, frolicking and galloping around the lake.
“That’s me?”
“That’s you, babes,” Brigid confirmed. “My High Prince husband almost joined you—said you looked like you were having so much fun. Even though the kings forbade anyone to shift within a kilometer of the lake during the full moon.”
I scrunched my brow. “Why did they do that?”
“Uh, because you asked to shift outside, and they couldn’t just tell ye, ‘No, sorry, Sadie Strawberry, that would send us into a jeally rage.’”
Jeally... was that short for jealous?
