A Cursed Kiss (Myths of Airren Book 1)

by Jenny Hickman

  “It’s late,” he said, lacing our hands together. “We should go.”

  Something had changed between us.

  We’d come to an understanding of sorts.

  Tadhg wouldn’t harm me, and I wouldn’t harm him. He was only here for the ring, and I was only here for Aveen.

  But what about the days and hours between this moment and when we got what we wanted?

  Tadhg held open the inn’s door and ushered me inside.

  Chairs had been stacked atop the tables that had been packed with patrons earlier. The fire was down to ash and embers.

  A portly man sat in a rocking chair, his swollen leg raised on a stool. One look at the two of us left him cursing. “Don’t try asking me for lodging.” His chins wobbled as he spewed spittle at Tadhg. “I will not rent that thing a room.”

  “Lucky for me, we’ve already organized rooms,” Tadhg drawled, straightening his waistcoat. “Give us the keys so we can be on our way.”

  The man jabbed his meaty finger at a handwritten sign behind his bald head.

  Do not ask for credit as refusal often offends.

  “I’m not asking for credit.” Tadhg withdrew a purse from beneath his overcoat and gave it a jingling shake.

  The innkeeper harrumphed and pushed a load of nailed flyers out of the way.

  No Dogs. No Creatures.

  The man looked past Tadhg as though he were invisible. “Ye can stay, milady, but that”—he jerked his head toward Tadhg—“can sleep in the stable with the other filthy animals.”

  Tadhg’s hands flexed at his sides. I could smell the magic leaking out of him as he struggled to keep his temper at bay. Tadhg turned to me and offered a sardonic smile. “I will meet you back here at noon tomorrow.”

  It was no different than what he’d done most nights. But the idea of Tadhg being forced to stay somewhere else—perhaps even with someone else—because of what he was felt wrong.

  This was wrong.

  “Nonsense.” I had booked two rooms, and I was going to get them.

  Green eyes narrowed. “Leave it.”

  I could have left it. But today, Tadhg had helped me in his world, and I was determined to help him in mine. Unfortunately for humans everywhere, this bald-headed buffoon was one of us.

  I skirted around Tadhg to the innkeeper. “I want my keys.” There was a basket of them beside the rocking chair. All he had to do was stick his hand inside, drag out two, and hand them over.

  The innkeeper scrubbed a hand down his jowls. “Did ye pay fer the rooms?”

  The woman had been so busy, she’d said I could give her the money in the morning. “Not yet, but—”

  “Then I’m afraid yer outta luck. I have no tolerance for monsters,” he ground out, eyes narrowing as they swept down my dress, “or their whores. Get the hell out of here—both of you.”

  He thought I was a— “How dare you! I am a lady. You will not treat me as though I am some common—”

  A hand clamped around my elbow, and Tadhg hauled me toward the door. I tried to wrench free, but he didn’t let go until we were back on the street. The unmistakable sound of a lock falling into place scraped from the other side of the door.

  “What were you thinking?” Tadhg growled, dragging on the ends of his hair and scowling at the stars. “You could’ve had a feckin’ room.”

  “Me?” He thought this was my fault? “I was defending myself! Defending you.”

  “And I told you to let it be.”

  The wind picked up, twisting my skirts about my ankles, whisking my anger and indignation into the night.

  “Where am I going to sleep?” Oh god. Oh no. I steadied myself against the side of the building to keep from collapsing. I had nowhere to go. With the festival going on, the other inns would be full. With the rest of the humans returned to their safe havens, the empty streets were fit for things searching for a midnight meal. Tadhg had said not all of the Danú wanted to kill humans, but that didn’t mean there weren’t a few of them who did.

  That damn pressure was back. All encompassing. Overwhelming. And I couldn’t breathe.

  “Come with me.” Tadhg held out his hand.

  The moment I focused on his eyes, the pressure vanished. “Come with you where?”

  His head tilted, sending a lock of hair falling over his forehead. My fingers itched to brush it away. “I’m going to get you a room.”

  His hand was warm when I took it. Instead of going toward the street, he brought me to the back of the inn, across from the paddock and stables to where light filtered through the curtains in the ground-floor windows.

  “Wait here,” he said, giving my fingers a squeeze.

  “You’re leaving?”

  Did that shadow move? It did. It definitely did.

  What was that scraping sound? Was it a branch or claws? Claws. Definitely claws.

  “Look at me.” His commanding tone drew me back to his glowing eyes. “I will be right back.” Slowly, he pried my fingers free, one by one, then nudged me toward the inn’s chimney and vanished.

  I pressed myself into the cold stone and prayed for survival as I listened to the sounds of the night. Footsteps crunched from the direction of the road, growing louder, louder, louder and then fading. Something howled. The beast sounded far away, but that didn’t mean it was the only beast lurking in the woods behind the village. There could be more. They could be coming for me.

  I squeezed my eyes shut and focused on breathing. How could something I’d done my entire life feel so difficult?

  “There’s one free room.”

  My eyes flashed open.

  Tadhg stood in the same spot he’d vanished from. “It’s on the third floor,” he said, indicating a small circular window at the top of the inn.

  There was no way he could’ve known that unless . . . “You got inside?”

  His brow furrowed. “Of course I did.”

  “Weren’t the doors locked? Can you just go wherever you want? Like, nothing can stop you?” If that was the case, then I had never known a day of safety in my life. Was it just him or all the Danú? The kelpie? The witch?

  “There are rules about breaching locked doors, but as the room was unoccupied and I didn’t steal anything, I’m fairly certain they do not apply,” he explained. “Besides, these are extenuating circumstances, wouldn’t you agree?”

  I could only nod as another realization came over me. Tadhg could evanesce. But what did that mean exactly? Could he go anywhere he wanted at any time?

  “Where have you been staying?” I asked, my suspicions growing.

  Tadhg shoved his hands into his pockets and shifted his weight from one foot to the other. The mysterious howling beast wailed in the distance, but he didn’t so much as flinch at the haunting sound.

  “What do you mean?” he asked.

  “I mean, where have you been sleeping at night?”

  A shrug. “Here and there.”

  “That’s not an answer.”

  Tadhg grimaced and kicked a stone with his toe. It bounced off the building and landed in the grass. “Most nights, I just go home.”

  No wonder he had been so indignant about staying at an inn. Tadhg had been going home to his own bed. His own pillow. His own bloody house.

  “And where is home?” I asked, glancing up at the grimy third-story window, my hopes of the room inside being clean dwindling by the second.

  “I live in Tearmann.”

  Here I’d thought I was being kind by paying for his rooms. At least now I knew I didn’t have to waste any more money on him. He must think me an empty-headed dolt. “Well, then, I would appreciate it if you would help me get inside my inn before you pop off home.”

  “Ah, come now, Maiden Death.” He knocked his hip against mine and gave me a playful smile. “There’s no need to go back to being so formal. I appreciate what you tried to do tonight, it just wasn’t necessary.”

  “Well, I would’ve appreciated if you would’ve told me instead of le
tting me make a fool of myself.” The innkeeper really had thought I was Tadhg’s whore. And the woman last night . . .

  If yer not usin’ him—

  “I thought . . . What I mean is . . . I assumed you knew what inviting someone like me to your inn meant.” Chuckling, he shook his head. “Although now that I think of it, you did the same thing last night and paid for a separate room.”

  He’d honestly thought I was going to sleep with him?

  What was I thinking? Of course he bloody did. He didn’t need an inn. The only reason for him to stay in one was to—

  My stomach tightened and heat flooded my lower belly.

  “Do you want to go inside or stay out here?” Tadhg swept a hand toward the building.

  “Since I don’t want to sleep in the stable and I can’t go home, I don’t have much of a choice, now do I?” I inhaled a shaky breath, but when I tried to exhale my anger, all it did was leave me more unsettled. “What do I need to do?”

  Should I close my eyes or leave them open? Closed or opened? Closed or opened?

  Opened.

  I wanted to see what happened when one evanesced.

  Tadhg pointed toward the slanted roof over the conservatory. “You need to climb.”

  “Are you mad? You expect me to climb up there?” Sober, it’d be difficult. But after all that stout, I’d probably end up breaking my neck.

  “I’ll help you.”

  “Can’t you just”—I waved my fingers in his face—“make me disappear?”

  “If only,” he said with a small smile. “Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. Evanescing is essentially shifting from one place to another. It doesn’t work well with live humans—too draining.”

  He did not just say live humans. How many dead humans had he needed to transport to learn there was a difference? I didn’t ask because I did not want to know.

  “At this stage, the best I could do is get you to the first set of windows.” His teeth scraped across his bottom lip. “But then I may not have anything left to get us inside.”

  “What will happen if the innkeeper catches us?” Being locked in a jail cell was less appealing than the stable. Not that Tadhg would be the one getting caught since he could vanish at will.

  Tadhg blew out a breath. “At this stage, I’d kill him to get some feckin’ sleep.”

  At this stage, I’d probably let him.

  Climb or stable? Climb or stable?

  Climb.

  “All right. I’m in.” I bent to hitch up my skirts and tie them between my knees, telling myself this was no different than all those times I used to sneak out of my bedroom to meet Robert.

  Tadhg laced his fingers together and held his clasped hands toward my boot. Once I’d braced my hands on his shoulders, he hoisted me like I weighed no more than a child. I caught the edge of the drain and hauled myself onto the conservatory’s slate tiles.

  Tadhg appeared at my side a split second later. “Two more to go.”

  With only walls and windows between us and our destination, we had to rethink our strategy.

  Tadhg’s head tilted as he considered. “If you can get onto my shoulders, you should be able to reach the window ledge. I can boost you from there.”

  We had already come this far. “Only if you promise not to drop me.”

  “I’ll do my best.”

  I punched him in the arm. His indignant yelp was worth the pain in my hand.

  “All right, all right,” he chuckled. “I promise.”

  He stooped so I could wrap my hands around his neck. The last thing I wanted to think about was the way it felt to have my chest pressed against his back. And then it was all I could think about. His dark hair tickling my cheek smelled like the soft strands had trapped the crisp autumn wind.

  “I always knew you wanted to climb on top of me,” he muttered with a gruff laugh.

  I may have dug my nails into his back as I adjusted my grip and jammed my knee into his ribs on my way to his shoulders. He cursed and groaned as I steadied myself against the wall and rose to standing. Even with Tadhg’s hands clamped around my ankles steadying me, my fingers barely reached the gritty windowsill. I didn’t have the grip to get any higher. I tried and tried, but it was no use. “I can’t do it.”

  “Just pull yourself up.”

  “What do you think I’ve been trying to do?” I braced one boot against the wall for leverage. The movement loosened the knot between my legs. If only I could get a little higher. “I may need to stand on your head.”

  “Are you mad? I’m not letting you stand on my head.”

  My fingers began to cramp. If I didn’t get up there soon I may as well give up.

  Tadhg adjusted his stance. I glanced down and caught him looking up. “I swear, if you so much as try to peek up my skirts, I’m going to kill you.”

  The last boy to do that had ended up with a black eye, courtesy of my sister.

  “I’m too busy to peek up your skirts,” Tadhg shot back. “Now, if you’d like to lift them for me as a reward when we get inside, that’s another matter entirely.”

  If I hadn’t needed him to hold me up, I would’ve kicked him in the face. Channeling my indignation, I tightened my grip, planted one foot against the wall, and launched myself upward with all my strength. My arms wobbled, but I managed to get my torso onto the ledge. Tadhg was too far below to be of any help now.

  I should have chosen the bloody stable.

  Something moved on the other side of the dark glass. A startled scream caught in my throat until I noticed a familiar face grinning at me from inside the room.

  Tadhg pressed a finger to his lips before unlatching and opening the window. He caught me beneath the arms and dragged me until I was able to get a knee onto the windowsill.

  The dark room’s occupant snored quietly as we crept across the creaky floor to the door.

  The turning key made a loud click, and the snoring stopped.

  A gruff voice muttered something from behind me. I held my breath as Tadhg opened the door.

  Despite the hallway being darker than the bedroom, we managed to find the stairs, and crept up, up, up until we reached the top. Once we were safely inside, I collapsed against the wall. The room smelled musty, like it hadn’t been aired in a while.

  At this point, I didn’t care if it was covered in cobwebs and dust.

  This had been the longest day of my entire life and sleep couldn’t come fast enough.

  Tadhg went to the far side of a small bed, near the only window, and sank onto the edge of the mattress.

  Panic clawed at my stomach when he kicked off his boots, pulled one of the pillows beneath his head, and closed his eyes. There was room for two people, but there was no way in hell that was happening.

  “Tadhg?”

  One eye opened.

  “I’m not sleeping with you.” Not now. Not ever.

  “Is it because you don’t want to or are you afraid you won’t be able to control yourself with no one watching?”

  “I don’t wa—” The alcohol was affecting my speech. I did not want to sleep with Tadhg. “I don’t w-wa—”

  “I believe the lie you’re trying to tell,” he drawled, propping himself on his elbow, “is that you don’t want to sleep with me.” The springs whined when he bounced on the mattress. “I doubt anyone would hear us unless I can make you squeal louder than the bed.”

  “Tadhg!”

  His deep chuckle reverberated off the low ceiling. “Don’t get your knickers in a bunch,” he mumbled, rolling off the bed. His silhouette sauntered toward me. “I’m bound by my oath to Padraig, remember? Your maidenly virtue is safe . . . ” Cold lips grazed my cheek as he whispered, “For tonight.”

  What would those lips feel like moving lower?

  Teasing. Tasting. Touching.

  Forbidden. Wicked.

  “What’s wrong, Maiden Death?” Tadhg exhaled against my ear. “Are you disappointed?”

  No. No. No . . . “Yes.”
>
  His hand found my hip and squeezed. “Shall I make it up to you tomorrow?”

  I bit my lip to keep from responding.

  What if this was the real reason we’d been taught to stay away from the Danú? Because in darkness, inhibitions fell by the wayside. Weak, pathetic humans couldn’t compete with what they were.

  The magic they possessed.

  The unnatural beauty.

  The pull of darkness within them.

  The promise of something so far beyond our limited imagination . . .

  “I need to go to bed,” I gasped.

  Tadhg’s hand dropped, and he stepped away. “Yes. You do.” With a flick of his wrist, a small mattress appeared between the bed and the wall.

  The fire in my blood turned to smoke. “I thought you were going home.”

  “That little swim with the kelpie wasted my supply of magic for the day.” He collapsed onto the mattress he’d shifted from heaven-knows-where. “And I don’t fancy a night in the stable.”

  It would be fine. He would be fine there, and I would be fine in the other bed, and everything was going to be fine.

  My racing heart slowed as I made my way to the bed and unhooked my cloak. I untied my boots with stiff, trembling fingers, tucked the witch’s dagger under the pillow, and slipped beneath the thin quilt.

  “It’s cold down here,” Tadhg whined.

  There was no way I would admit that I was cold as well. “Shift an extra blanket.”

  “I would rather use you as a blanket.”

  I screwed my eyes shut and focused on catching my breath. My traitorous mind kept saying I should let him. That it’d be worth it.

  “Shall we talk about my mouth some more?” Tadhg crooned.

  “All right.” I left a healthy pause before saying, “Your mouth should stop talking. I’m exhausted.”

  A husky chuckle lifted into the darkness, wrapping around me like a warm pair of arms as I drifted off to sleep.

  11

  Pain throbbed through my skull every time I peered toward the slash of muted sunlight cutting through a gap in the moth-eaten drapes. I tried sitting twice and ended up flat on the mattress, my stomach threatening to purge itself of the poison I had ingested last night. If I never saw another pint of stout, it would be too soon.