Concern for the King

*Isla*

“We need to talk,” I say to Poppy, and she stops fluffing the pillows on my bed long enough to look over at me.

“Oh? Now you would like to talk?” She sits down on the edge of my bed and crosses one leg over the other one so that her foot is dangling. She kicks it around in a circle, her hands folded over her knee. “All right. What would you like to discuss? What do you think about the rain we got last night? Oh, did you hear that Barbie in the kitchen found her true mate? Do you think Beta Seth plucks his eyebrows?”

Letting out a sigh, I walk over and sit next to her. “Stop it, Poppy. I understand that you’re upset. You feel like I should’ve told you what was going on, and you’re not wrong. I just… I didn’t know anything until last night. And after I talked to Maddox about it, I was so exhausted, I just wanted to go to sleep.”

“I understand.” She pops up off of the bed and crosses to where she left her duster earlier. Picking it up, she begins her aggressive dusting motion agai