“Why? Did they hurt you?” Tadhg reached for me, his hands moving clinically from my neck to my arms.
I couldn’t lie and say I wasn’t hurt. Because I was. But magic couldn’t fix a broken heart.
“Not me. Padraig.” I grabbed Tadhg’s hand and pushed to my feet. He swayed when he stood, giving me more of his weight than expected. A V formed between his bunched eyebrows as I towed him toward Padraig’s grave.
“Keelynn . . . Stop.”
I couldn’t stop. I had to keep going.
Tadhg jerked out of my grasp.
“Padraig didn’t deserve this,” I cried, tears slipping free as fear and sorrow and regret raged inside me. “You have to heal him. You have to bring him back. I’m asking you to try. I’m begging.”
“No.”
“But he’s one of you!”
Tadhg reached out a hand. “Keelynn . . . ”
“Don’t touch me.”
His hand tightened into a fist that he smacked against his thigh. “I don’t care if he’s a human or a leprechaun or a feckin’ dog. Life left Padraig the moment that dagger pierced his heart. This isn’t a matter of healing, it’s a matter of resurrection. I’m sorry, but he’s gone.”
I knew it was the truth, and yet it wasn’t enough.
Tadhg was speaking, but his words didn’t register. His hand clasped mine, tentative and slow, as if he was waiting for me to tell him to stop touching me again. I couldn’t find it in myself to speak or protest as he pulled me away from the road, toward the ruins to collect my cloak, and into the forest.
Twigs and stones crunched under my boots. Birds chirped from their places high in the treetops. On and on we walked until pain lanced through my heels with each step forward.
“Where are we going?” If I didn’t get these boots off soon, I wouldn’t be able to walk tomorrow.
“It should be around this bend.”
I stepped over a fallen log devoured by deep green moss. Ferns sprouting beneath the swaying trees shuddered in the soft evening breeze. “What should?”
Before he could answer, I heard it.
Water.
A small river cut through the hillside, falling toward the valley below. Tadhg dropped his bag, which had magically reappeared, next to a flat, moss-covered boulder. “Shelter or food?”
“Excuse me?”
Bracing his hands on his hips, he nodded toward the clearing. “There was a time when I could manage both after a fight, but not anymore, so you’re going to have to choose one.”
“We’re staying here?”
The pebble-strewn grass gave way to silty sand on the riverbank. Leaves swirled in an eddy below a massive boulder splitting the river in two. It was beautiful, but it was the middle of a bloody forest.
“We don’t have much of a choice. We’re too far from anyone I know, and the nearest village is hours away.”
We couldn’t stay here. It wasn’t safe. “Why did you bring me through the forest? Why didn’t we follow the road?”
“And risk encountering the man who murdered Padraig?” Tadhg removed his overcoat, balled it up, and stuffed it into his bag. “I don’t fancy dying today, do you?”
I could only shake my head. I didn’t deserve life, but for some reason, death didn’t want me either.
The trees stirred in the wind, their branches creaked and leaves rustled.
Shelter or food?
There was no telling what manner of creature lurked in this forest. My aching stomach could wait until tomorrow. “Shelter.”
Tadhg’s lips flattened as he nodded. “We’ll need firewood. Do you think you can handle that?”
Although my feet whimpered at the thought of traipsing around the forest, I steeled my shoulders and said, “I can handle it.”
“Good.” A nod. “Leave your cloak here and keep sight of the river so you don’t get lost.”
“My cloak? Why?”
He glanced toward the darkening sky. “Because the heavens are about to open, and you’ll want something warm and dry to wear tonight.”
Tonight. Alone. With Tadhg.
We’d shared a room two nights ago, but this felt different. More intimate. More dangerous.
I meandered upriver, collecting fallen sticks covered with lichens and slugs, bits of driftwood, and the largest log I could manage on top of it all. Everything on this cursed island was damp.
Once I dropped the load on the grass next to Tadhg’s bag, I stretched my aching back.
In the distance I heard a splash followed by a litany of curses.
Downriver, a pair of willow trees draped over a pool of blue-green water. Tadhg’s wet clothes had been spread over a rock, the bloodstains washed away in the river.
A dark head emerged from the pool, followed by broad, tanned shoulders. Heat unfurled in the pit of my stomach as I watched his toned arms stroke toward the shore.
I had no right to be attracted to him.
To feel anything when those I loved felt nothing.
We needed more wood.
On and on I walked, following the meandering river, collecting sticks and small logs until my arms were full again. On the way back, I stumbled upon a stretch of blackberry bushes, their thorny branches sagging with plump fruit. The wood rolled out of my arms and clattered to the ground. Tiny thorns scraped my hand as I freed a berry. Juice dribbled down my fingers, staining them a deep purple. Seeds crunched between my teeth, sweetness burst on my tongue, and some of the hollow ache in my belly subsided.
It began to rain, and heavy drops rattled the bush’s leaves as I alternated between eating and filling my pockets with food for Tadhg. I didn’t stop until my fingers were too cold to bend.
Shoving my dripping hair from my eyes, I retrieved the load of wood and made my way back to camp.
Woodsmoke carried on the breeze, promising fire and warmth, spurring me onward. Sopping skirts slapped against my frozen thighs. Icy raindrops glued the bodice and sleeves of my dress to my skin.
When I reached the bend in the river, my feet stilled at the sight of our “shelter.” I had expected a tent or a shack, not a one-room cottage.
Tadhg could shift a whole bloody house?
My measly offering of blackberries and wood felt pathetic in comparison.
The hinges on the door whined when I let myself in. Heat prickled against my frozen fingers. There was no furniture and no decoration beyond a small stone fireplace. Tadhg’s overcoat was stretched in front of the hearth with my cloak folded like a pillow at the top.
My stomach fluttered.
There would be no extra mattress shifted tonight.
Tadhg bent over the fire, wearing only his breeches. Silver scars covered his entire back. Some were small, like the one he’d received today. But others spanned from his shoulder down to the waistband. He glanced over, and when he saw me, he shot to his feet and came for the wood. “What took so long? I was afraid you’d gotten lost.” He dropped the wood next to a massive pile of logs he must’ve collected himself.
“Don’t worry, the ring and I are here safe and sound.” There was no point fooling myself into pretending he cared about my well-being. I pulled a crushed berry from my pocket. “I brought you food.”
“You brought me food?” His mouth gaped as though I’d said something scandalous.
“I’m hardly going to eat them all myself.” My gaze landed on three fish roasting on a spit, and I deflated even more. “Although you obviously didn’t need my help.”
Tadhg plucked the berry from my fingers. “I’d take a bushel of blackberries over a trout any day,” he said, popping the fruit into his mouth and cupping his hands together. “Give them here and get out of those wet clothes before you freeze to death.”
There were enough half-crushed berries to fill both his hands. He brought them over to the fireplace and portioned them out on two small slabs of slate.
I unhooked the witch’s dagger and set it next to Tadhg’s bag and boots. When I tried to unfasten the
front of my dress, my frozen fingers refused to cooperate.
Tadhg glanced sidelong at me; his gaze fell to my chest. Slowly, he rose and erased the distance between us. Hot, calloused hands closed over mine. “Allow me?”
This close, I could see his pupils dilate and feel the heat radiating off his bare chest. My mouth refused to work, so I nodded. Long, nimble fingers unfastened the hidden clasps and drew the black material down and down until it fell to the floorboards in a sodden heap.
The only sounds were my racing heart, our uneven breaths, and the soft patter of raindrops on the roof.
“Turn around,” he said, his voice a gravelly whisper.
My body responded as though I was his to command.
With my back to him, Tadhg gathered my hair, settled the damp strands over my shoulder, and traced my spine down to where the laces on my stay waited. The garment loosened as the satin strings slipped through the eyelets with a soft hum until it fell to the ground on top of my dress.
Warm hands slid the top of my shift aside to make way for cold lips grazing over my bare shoulder. Heat surged in my core, pulsing with need.
And then Tadhg stepped away.
“Here.” He shoved his shirt toward me. “Put this on.”
Put this on? I didn’t want to put anything on. I wanted to take everything off.
He went back to the fireplace and stooped to turn the fish like he wasn’t affected. Like he didn’t even feel a hint of desire. Like I’d imagined the entire bloody exchange.
I peeled my feet from my boots to find blood had fused the stockings to my heels. Removing them looked too painful, so I didn’t bother. Tadhg’s blessedly dry cotton shirt replaced my shift, and I hid the emerald beneath. My own clothes were so wet, they’d left a puddle. The only hope of drying them by morning was to spread them out on the dirty floor.
“Are you finished?” Tadhg asked, his back still to me.
“Yes.”
He glanced over his shoulder, but quickly looked back to the fire. I sat on top of his overcoat and tucked my knees beneath his shirt. Tadhg passed me one of the shale “plates” with fish and a handful of berries on top.
“Thank you. And not just for this.” I indicated the plate. “For everything.”
Tadhg only nodded.
The piping hot meat burned my fingers, and I had to chew carefully to keep from choking on the tiny bones.
“I know it’s not what you’re used to,” Tadhg said, picking at his fish before reaching for more berries.
“It’s wonderful.”
He gave me a skeptical look.
“It is. I didn’t think I would get any food tonight, so this is a feast.”
His brow furrowed, and he looked away, toward the hearth. “A feast. Right.”
“Really. I’ve always wanted to go camping,” I confessed. Although, my fantasies had been considerably more luxurious. “Aveen and I used to beg our mother and father to let us camp in the gardens. They never did.” The night was the Danú’s domain. “So we’d steal scraps from the kitchen and bring them to our bedroom and eat in a makeshift tent in front of the fire.”
A small smile played on his lips. The memory of what those lips had felt like on my skin left heat creeping up my cheeks.
“Tell me about her.”
He wanted to talk about Aveen? “Why?”
After wiping his hands on his breeches, Tadhg collected the remnants of our meal to throw in the fire. “I want to know about the woman who is worth all of this.” He gestured around the cottage.
I found myself wanting to tell him so that he would believe this mission was for a worthy cause.
“After our mother died, our father threw himself into running our family’s estate. She was only a year older, yet Aveen took it upon herself to look after me. Her childhood ended that day, but she ensured mine did not. She played every game I suggested, read every fairy tale, pretended to be witches and faeries and princesses with infinite patience, even though she had no interest in any of it.” Aveen would’ve rather been in the gardens, pulling weeds, pruning bushes, and planting flowers.
Tadhg turned so his back was against the wall and drew one knee to his chest. “She sounds selfless.”
“She was. Aveen was selfless so that I could be selfish. And I was. So, so selfish.” I wrapped my arms tighter around myself, struggling to keep the tears at bay. Tadhg’s gaze shifted to the flickering orange flames. “I told her everything. My hopes. My fears. My dreams. She bore it all—did her best to make them come true. I was so self-absorbed that I never asked about her life. What she wanted. The night she died . . .” I inhaled a shaky breath.
Tadhg was looking at me again, eyes wide, a V between his dark eyebrows.
“It was her betrothal ball, and I was so hateful and angry toward her for something that wasn’t her fault. Our father had arranged for her to marry the man I loved.” So much had happened, the ghost of that first love seemed a distant memory. “His name was Robert.” Huffing a laugh, I scrubbed at my eyes with the back of my hand. “Aveen despised him.” After what had happened, I couldn’t blame her. He should have loved me enough to refuse the arrangement. “So did Padraig.”
Padraig.
“He was one of you,” I whispered.
The muscles in Tadhg’s arms flexed as he leaned forward to add a few sticks to the fire. The light reflected off those scars. I wanted to hear their stories, trace them with my fingers, my lips.
“I know,” he said quietly. “I could see his glamour on the day we met.”
See his glamour?
Oh, right. The enchanted kohl. It was easy to forget when he wasn’t wearing it. “Why don’t you do that?”
“Do what?”
“Use a glamour to hide your ears.”
Shrugging, he brushed his hair aside and touched a finger to the tips. “I used to hide them when I was young. But now it seems like a waste of magic.”
How much magic must Padraig have possessed to be able to hold a consistent glamour day in and day out? He must’ve been incredibly powerful or constantly exhausted.
“I wish he would’ve confided me.” I would’ve told him that I cared for him no matter what he was. That he didn’t need to hide around me. A log in the fire popped, sending a shower of orange sparks onto the hearth. Smoke twisted up the chimney in a lazy dance. I’d trusted Padraig with my life. Had he not trusted me?
Tadhg snapped a twig and tossed it into the fire. “Living among humans is dangerous for us. The more people know, the higher the risk of discovery.”
“Dangerous for you? But you have magic.” With the sort of power Tadhg possessed, I didn’t think he’d be afraid of anything.
“Magic isn’t always enough to save us,” he said with a sigh, resting his head against the wall. His eyes took on a faraway look, like he wasn’t in this room but somewhere else. “All it takes is one human to make a false accusation. Airren law always rules in a human’s favor. If Padraig had been caught using a glamour to conceal his identity, he would’ve been hanged.”
The punishment for wielding magic was harsh, but I had never questioned it because in my mind, the magic being used was dark and destructive, not something as simple as a glamour for protection.
“If it was so dangerous, why did he stay?” He should’ve gone back to Tearmann where it was safe.
“Padraig said he and his human wife decided to live in her family’s home in Graystones. When she passed”—green eyes met mine—“another human had stolen his heart.”
Another human. “He stayed for me, didn’t he?”
A nod.
Padraig had stayed to look out for me and keep me safe. And I had gotten him killed. His death was my fault. His blood was on my hands.
Padraig had been such a good and honorable man. Kind, loving, and loyal. He didn’t deserve to have his life stolen like he was nothing. His fate should’ve been mine. It was no less than I deserved for being selfish and jealous and cruel and hateful.
&nb
sp; I buried my face in my hands and let my tears flow free. Another piece of my shriveled heart turned to dust. “It hurts,” I cried, clutching the material at my chest. “It hurts too much.” If only someone would crush my hateful heart and end this pain.
The floorboards creaked, and Tadhg’s arm came around my waist, holding me in the heat of his embrace until my sobs turned to soft sniffles.
“I can make it go away,” he whispered against the shell of my ear. “Say the word, and I’ll make the whole world go away.”
I wanted to sink into his darkness. For the heat of forbidden desire to burn the pain and sadness until only ash remained. “Please.” Anything had to be better than this. “I don’t want to hurt anymore.”
He dragged his mouth down my throat; unnaturally cold lips sent shivers down my spine. My head fell back; he could take what he wanted as long as he stopped the pain.
“Put on the ring.” The rough command ignited my racing pulse.
“What?” Why would I put on the witch’s ring?
“Put it on,” he said again, almost desperately against my collarbone.
My hands shook as I lifted the chain from my neck and undid the clasp. The ring slipped onto my finger, then tightened as if by magic.
His fingers tangled in my hair, holding me in place against his hungry mouth. “Tell me you love me.”
“But . . . I don’t.” This wasn’t about love. It was about forgetting.
“Lie.”
“I . . . I love you.” The lie slipped through my lips without a sliver of pain.
Cold lips crashed against mine, stealing the breath from my lungs. Harsh stubble scratched my chin, so at odds with the sweet, sensual softness of his mouth. Tadhg drew his tongue across my lips. A silent request. When I opened for him, he swept inside and met my impatient tongue with a slow, deliberate caress.
“Say it again,” he murmured, tracing my breast over the cotton shirt, his calluses scraping the sensitive tip.
“I love you.” I’d lie to him every day for the rest of my life as long as he kept going.
Tadhg twisted the shirt’s hem in his clenched fist and dragged it over my head.
Wind and rain battered the walls as Tadhg lowered his head and sampled my body with his tongue. I laced my fingers in his hair, clutching his head against me, relishing the way his throaty chuckle vibrated along my skin.
A Cursed Kiss (Myths of Airren Book 1) Page 14