34. Dublin

Dublin

Hiding out in the Belfast House — as the Belfast Priest still called it, from when he used to preside over annual meetings — wasn't as bad as I thought it would be.

The red brick two-story sat halfway between the crumbling Cliffs of Ailte and the old Viking wolf town of Aillte Faoilmar. I'll admit, I had my doubts when I opened the place up for the first time in nearly twenty years and found it completely untouched. And not in a good way.

Someone had the sense to throw drop cloths over the furniture, but the rest of the house had been left to fend for itself. A thick layer of dust blanketed every surface, so dense it muffled my footsteps. Cobwebs clung to most of the corners, with the husks of unlucky insects hanging like Samhain decorations. When I dared to open the kitchen cabinets, I found that rats had chewed through the back, leaving behind droppings that had crumbled to dust, along with a smell that put me right off eating dinner despite the long drive in from Dublin.

The windows were so caked with grime that I could barely make out the lake just a few meters from the house. And the late 1900s-era wallpaper wasn't just faded, it was peeling off the wood paneling in damp, sad strips.

Not going to lie; I took one look around and said, "Right, I'm out." Drove into town — the one the humans took over after those Viking Wolves buggered off to… well, wherever the secret kingdom is. Plopped down my credit card at the first guest house the GPS led me to and ended up spending the night in a much more charming residence overlooking the sea.

But the next morning, I found myself back, and in the daylight, the house didn't seem quite so hopeless. Despite the lack of visible power lines, it still had electricity and, to my surprise, a strong 5G signal. At least I could set up a hotspot for online meetings.

I decided the dust and cobwebs could be sorted with a bit of elbow grease. After a quick supply run into town, I got to work, wiping away years of neglect. By the time I crawled into bed that night in the upstairs primary bedroom, the place felt less like a tomb and more like — well, if not quite home, at least somewhere I could comfortably hide out until Sea returned the unheated she-wolves next spring.

On Day 3, I tackled the kitchen. Cleaning out those rank cupboards was the opposite of craic, but at least whatever had nested and eaten the leftover food was long gone. On Day 4, the grimy windows scrubbed up clean enough, and on Days 5 and 6, I stripped the rest of the damp wallpaper off the paneling and slapped on a few coats of fresh paint.

And on Day 7, I rested.

Only messing — I took on the disgusting upstairs and downstairs bathrooms. It made me feel like one of those Japanese business titans who clean their own toilets every day to stay humble .

Can't say it knocked my ego down any, but I did feel proper accomplished when I got them sparkling, thanks to a fair bit of hard graft and loads of descaling cleaner.

But by the end of the first week, I reckoned I could've hosted a meeting of the rulers myself — if we still did things like that.

The quarterlies came to an abrupt halt after that Terrible Belfast Mess. First, because Sea was too young to be anything but a king in name only. Then, because of what happened with Wild's father. By the time we all got our acts together, none of us three kings were interested in doing more than posting a dismal population report to WolfNet at the end of each year. Truth be told, I'd seen the American country star Colin Fairgood play at the 3Arena more often than I'd seen Sea and Wild since the Heat Laws meeting.

Yet, the prophecy expected us to share a queen?

Yeah, I'd definitely made the right call when I told Sea I wanted no part of his and Wild's kidnapping scheme. Even if it meant I had to hide out until next spring.

Truth be told, this coastal country living wasn't half bad.

I found I liked my job a lot better when I didn't have to share an office with a bunch of disappointed, unmated lads. Don't even get me started on dodging their questions about the Scottish werewolf who'd turned up out of the blue in my office and knocked our overnight cleaner unconscious.

It wasn't that I didn't want to be straight with them — it's more that I knew they wouldn't be too chuffed with the decision I'd made on behalf of my city kingdoms not to join Sea and Wild's gang on kidnapping a bunch of brides who weren't too genetically close to us to actually go into heat.

Anyway, ruling and CEO-ing over Zoom was a lot easier than doing it in person. And with plenty of space to walk outside, I didn't feel trapped like I did when I was stuck in my penthouse in Dublin.

By the end of the first week, I'd even gotten into the habit of hiking the few kilometers into Ailte Faoilmar instead of driving. Sure, sometimes I got caught in the rain, and the coastal winds could be an even bigger beast than the one I carried inside me. But strangely enough, this part of Ireland had started to feel like home, and I wasn't in any hurry to get back to Dublin.

In fact, I was in the middle of composing a company-wide email giving the rest of the office the go-ahead to work from home when I got a call from an unknown number with an American dialing code.

"Hello?" I answered the phone with a frown.

"Hi! Is this the King of Ireland?" came a cheery American voice on the other end.

"One of them," I replied cautiously.

"Oh, right…" She made a considering sound. "You mentioned that Ireland has three kings in your application. But I'm seeing that you specifically were looking for marriage-minded women to move to Ireland?"

At first, I was confused. Then it clicked. "Hold on, is this about the application I sent to the North American Lupine Association for a possible Bridal Exchange?"