“It’s not ancient times anymore. And this doesn’t feel reasonable. What would happen if the three of us went against the High King’s ruling?”
I looked over to the Shadow King, who was now sitting back up on the bed, his jeweled penis retucked away behind his briefs.
But my moon god just shook his ethereal head.
And Tadhg seemed to speak for both of them when he said, “Do ye think we haven’t thought of that?” Tadhg regarded me with a pained look. “But it’s not just the two of us who’ll be affected if we go against his ruling.”
Tadhg shook his head. “The High King’s is the original line—the one that always gets the final say. The continuation of both our lines is at his discretion. If we go against him, the Irish Bears will have only one king. Our castles will be collapsed. Our entire line will be banished from the Secret Kingdom. That includes Brigid and her husbands and the cubs she’ll be dropping any day.”
Brigid, who was on the brink of having two babies, and whose husbands had given up so much to fulfill her dream of living in the Secret Kingdom—the hometown she loved—for the rest of her life.
Now, I truly understood.
And that understanding made me recapture Tadhg’s lips, stroking him faster and harder until he grunted into my mouth and spurted onto his belly?—
Calling out my real name in a way that sounded like a curse. Butfeltlike a triumph.
I wasn’t given long to gloat, though.
The Shadow King grabbed hold of me.
Before Tadhg even had the chance to come down, Cian put me on my back and dove between my legs, his shoulders lodginginto my under-knee erogenous zones as he ate me in a very, very good—I mean,incredible—way.
Retilting scales I feared would never balance out.
First Claim
“Guess what!I gave the Shadow King a blow job,” I announced the next day to Brigid’s husband, whose name I still didn’t know. “Muffin?”
This had become a bit of a routine with us. Not always. But more days than not.
After brunch, I would usually walk by myself around the lake to get some exercise and cut back through the hedge woods after I passed the Mountain Fortress’s stone steps.
Brigid’s husband often seemed to be hanging out in bear form next to the rock I’d brought over from the palace’s back garden to sit on while I whittled.
And the day after I skipped my usual walk and whittle to go into town, I found him plopped down next to the rock, as if he’d been waiting for me. And the latest gossip about my training.
He lifted an eyebrow at my opening blow job line. But, as usual, he plucked the muffin from my hand, first things first. It was pear today, a winter fruit I’d been told by Chef Pascal grew in therows of orchards the town kept on the other side of the Shadow King’s castle.
Though, ironically, there weren’t any lemon trees.
In any case, we’d only had apple trees and fruits that could be grown in the ground, like strawberries, in St. Ailbe. So all the pear desserts I’d been getting lately were a real tongue treat.
The High Prince happily ate his muffin as I took a seat on the rock.
Then he settled in for another confessional. That was what I’d decided—in an unprecedented act of self-grace—to call “our listening sessions,” as opposed to the much unkinder label of “him just sitting there, waiting for his second muffin, while I rambled on and on about everything from my complicated relationship with my mother to my sex life.”
Lately, my confessionals had mostly filled with me excitedly describing the new things I’d learned—mostly about myself under Tadhg’s and Cian’s tutelage.
But today, I found myself in a somber mood as I brought out the detailing stick to work on the huge bear I’d been whittling all December.
“I really liked it. Giving someone else pleasure instead of just receiving for once. But somehow, it only made everything worse.”
There was a splintery feeling inside my chest as I confessed, “I’ve never been in love. But I’m pretty sure that’s what this is. And I knew from the start that it would be stupid to get my heart involved. But guess what. I am stupid. Ask anybody back in St.Ailbe. And my heart is so, so involved. But they’re not free to love me back.”
I blew off some of the wood dust I’d created, then pulled out the gouging knife to work on the very last detail above the bear’s right eye.
After several minutes of silent work, my carving was done. But instead of feeling happy, I had to ask my furry onlooker, “Am I the stupidest woman on Earth for agreeing to play the High King’s game?”
