A Cursed Kiss (Myths of Airren Book 1)

by Jenny Hickman

  He smiled down at me, then pressed a kiss to my temple. “I love you too.”

  Our kiss tasted like wine and love, heady and sweet.

  “I love kissing you,” I told him, slipping the ring from my finger but keeping my hand hidden beneath my skirts. If only this night could last forever, and we never had to leave this settee.

  “I should hope so,” he murmured against my mouth, “since I’m the only man you’ll be kissing for the rest of your life.”

  Hearing Robert talk about forever made me giddy. Life with Robert would be perfect. We could travel to Graystones in the summer and visit our families at Yule. We could pick a favorite restaurant in the city and visit every Friday when he finished work. We could have two children—no, three. No, four. Four children with golden hair and hazel eyes and—

  “What did Tadhg want today?”

  Tadhg? I didn’t want to talk about him. “What do you mean?”

  “When he met you at the tea house. The two of you looked like you were engaged in serious conversation.”

  “I didn’t realize you saw us.” Had he been close enough to overhear us? No, that was crazy. He wouldn’t be asking if he already knew. “We were talking about—” Aveen. Sharp pain rattled through my brain. “We were talking about—” Aveen.

  I couldn’t lie.

  The curse.

  It should’ve been broken.

  Why wasn’t it broken?

  “Talking about what?” Robert prompted, gesturing for me to continue.

  The ring. I had to put on the ring. I felt beneath my leg but couldn’t find it. Dammit. It must’ve slipped. I scooted out of Robert’s embrace and shot to my feet.

  “What’s wrong?” Robert’s eyebrows came together. “Are you all right?”

  “I lost my ring.”

  He frowned at the settee. “It’s not a big deal, is it? We can find it in the morning.”

  “No. I need it now.” Hiding my left hand behind my back, I searched between the cushions. “Help me find it. Please.”

  Robert swore under his breath and moved the cushions aside. Something pinged off the floor and rolled next to my boot. I snatched the ring before Robert could and shoved it back onto my finger.

  “What the hell was that about?” he growled, folding his arms over his chest and scowling at my clasped hands.

  “Nothing. I just . . .” Think, Keelynn. Think. “This ring isn’t the one Edward gave me. It belonged to Aveen,” I explained, the lie sliding free without a spark of pain.

  “Why didn’t you just tell me that when I asked about it?”

  “I . . . um . . . didn’t want to upset you. I know the two of you were engaged and thought the reminder might be painful.” That sounded convincing, right?

  “I never loved your sister,” Robert said, stepping closer and brushing my hair back from my face. “I’ve never loved anyone but you.”

  His words made my legs weak, and his kiss took my breath and—

  Wait.

  I loved Robert.

  And yet my curse hadn’t been broken.

  Robert’s hands slid from my hips to my backside, pulling me hard against him. He groaned against my lips and urged me toward the settee.

  Why hadn’t the curse been broken?

  I loved Robert, but did he not really love me?

  No. That was insane. Of course he loved me.

  The backs of my legs collided with the settee, and I fell to the cushions. Robert dropped to his knees and nudged my thighs apart with his hip. The buckle on his belt jingled when he slipped the leather strap free.

  “We can’t do this,” I gasped when cold hands slipped beneath my skirt.

  Hooded hazel eyes met mine, clouded with desire. “Yes, we can.”

  He loves me.

  He loves me.

  He loves me.

  If that was true, why was I still cursed?

  He dotted hot, open-mouth kisses down my chest. My head fell back against the crooked cushion.

  He loves me.

  He loves me.

  One hand found my breast, the other slipped higher . . .

  He loves me.

  What if he didn’t?

  The emerald ring shifted when I threaded my fingers through his short hair; the tattoo beneath was a mocking sliver of black.

  You are my wife.

  “No,” I whispered. We couldn’t do this. Not yet. Not until I was free from my marriage. And not until I knew for sure that Robert loved me.

  Robert stilled. Chest heaving. Eyes burning. “Do you need more wine? I have more bottles in the cellar.”

  Wine? I didn’t need more bloody wine. I needed to know he wasn’t lying. I needed to know that this was real and not some fantasy inside my muddled mind. “No. I just want to wait.”

  He sat back on his haunches and raked a hand down his face. “Wait for what?”

  “For a time when my mind isn’t clouded with drink.”

  “This is about Aveen, isn’t it? I knew you hadn’t forgiven me.” He shoved to his feet and fastened his belt. “How long do you plan on torturing me for one bloody mistake?”

  Torture? How could he think I was trying to torture him?

  “Robert, this has nothing to do with your engagement to my sister. I’ve spent the last few weeks traveling across this cursed island, and nearly died.” Multiple times. “I just need a little space to breathe before I jump into anything.”

  The last four months had been riddled with mistakes. What if this was another one?

  24

  Shadows shuddered in my peripherals. Hellish black eyes peered from between trees with bone-white bark. Magic writhed like smoke over the fresh dirt piled next to an empty grave, creeping closer and closer until its cloying stench wrapped around my tongue. Footsteps thundered through the forest, louder and louder and louder until—

  Crash

  I shot upright and slammed a hand against my racing heart. A thin layer of sweat coated my face and neck, like I had been the one running through that cursed forest. But I wasn’t in a forest. I was in a bedroom. In Robert’s townhouse.

  Thankfully, my head felt clearer than it had when I’d stumbled into bed. With a few more hours of sleep, I thought I might avoid a hangover altogether.

  The vase of roses Robert had bought before we left the city wasn’t on the bedside table where Daisy had put it. Shards of glass glistened in the puddle of water and roses spreading across the wooden floor. Had I knocked it over in my sleep?

  A shadowy figure emerged from the nook between the wall and the fireplace.

  I opened my mouth to scream—

  The figure flicked its wrist, and the mess on the floor vanished.

  “Tadhg?”

  “Shhhh . . . Go back to sleep,” he slurred, stumbling toward the door. Where was he going? He couldn’t be here. If Robert found out, he’d never forgive me.

  I threw the quilt aside and jumped out of bed. The floorboards were dry underfoot. “What are you doing?”

  He caught himself on the wall with two hands and gave the patterned wallpaper a kiss. “Nothing. I’m not here.”

  “Yes, you are. I can see you.”

  “No, you can’t.” Bracing a shoulder against the wall, Tadhg slid into a heap on the ground.

  The smell of stale alcohol gagged me when I knelt beside him. “Are you drunk?” Just what I needed to deal with tonight. At least I had sobered up. The two of us drunk would only lead to another fight or something worse.

  Tadhg hiccuped and rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands, smearing kohl to his cheekbones. “Yup.”

  “You’re drunk and you came here?” He could’ve evanesced anywhere in the world. I tugged the hem of my shift to cover my ankles and clutched my knees to my chest.

  “If Fiadh wants to kill my wife, she’s going to have to”—hiccup— “go through me first.”

  “And you thought you could defeat her in this state?” Even with all his faculties, Fiadh and her dark magic would be a fo
rmidable opponent. Tadhg was powerful, but he had been fighting humans, not an evil witch with a score to settle.

  “It’s not about defeating her.” His heavy exhale rustled the hair falling over my shoulders. “It’s about giving her a more enticing target.”

  Fiadh’s hatred of the Gancanagh, of Tadhg, was the reason I had been sent on this pointless quest. As angry as I was with him for the decisions he’d made, I didn’t wish him dead. At least not at the moment. “Tadhg—”

  “I like the way you say my name.” He booped me on the nose with his finger and giggled. Giggled. This man, a Prince of Tearmann, giggled like a schoolgirl when he was drunk.

  I don’t know why I found the fact so endearing. “You like the way I say your name?” I repeated. Why was my stomach fluttering? It should not be fluttering. Those flutters belonged to Robert now.

  The wind outside howled. A draft made its way down the chimney, leaving me shivering against the cold. Not adding coal to the fire when I’d come to bed had been a mistake.

  Tadhg nodded, and the corners of his lips lifted in a slow, sleepy smile. “I like a lot of things about you.”

  I snorted. “Like what?”

  He pressed his finger to his lips and shushed himself. “Don’t think I should tell you. Don’t want to get slapped again.”

  I shouldn’t want to know. I should leave it, kick him out, and go back to bed. For some reason, I couldn’t. For some reason, hearing his answer had become my sole purpose in life. “I promise not to slap you.”

  “Ah, but you can lie.”

  The house creaked from the battering storm. There was something eerie about the storms that struck at night and left with the dawn. Legend claimed the coastal winds were only this frenzied when the banshee culled the seas of the dead.

  I removed the ring and set it on the floor between us. “There. I promise I won’t slap you.”

  Tadhg’s fingers tapped against his knees, and his teeth scraped his bottom lip as he considered. “All right. Why not?” Slowly, he leaned forward and inhaled against my hair. “I like the way you smell.” Candied almonds replaced stale alcohol as his magic brushed against my bare ankles.

  “That’s it?” Could he not think of anything else? That certainly didn’t warrant a slap.

  “No.” Tadhg’s exhale tickled my neck. “I like the dreadfully high collars you wear that conceal this lavender-scented patch of skin right here.” Cold lips trailed along my collar bone. “I like the way you taste.” His tongue nipped out, leaving wetness glistening on my skin.

  The world stopped.

  The wind. The rain.

  All of it stopped.

  “But most of all,” he said, placing a final kiss over my pulse, “I like the way you hate me.”

  I like the way you hate me, the silence echoed.

  I like the way you hate me.

  A flash of lightning illuminated the room. Tadhg’s wide, kohl-smeared eyes. His sinful lips.

  And then the night returned with a single clap of thunder.

  “I don’t hate you,” I said, edging closer to his warmth. It wasn’t a lie. I felt something toward him. Gratitude, mostly. Perhaps there was some fondness there as well. But not hate. Not anymore.

  He caught a loose curl and wrapped it around his finger. “Loathe? Or detest? Ohhh, despise. That’s a good one. You despise me.”

  “And you think that’s a good thing?”

  A nod. “If you didn’t hate me so much, I would’ve seduced you that very first night and never gotten the chance to know you.”

  “You don’t know me.” A lifetime wasn’t long enough to truly know someone. How could he think he knew me in only a handful of days?

  “I know you love your sister and would do anything to get her back. I know you didn’t care for your husband. I know you hate mourning dresses and like hydrangeas.” He slid a finger along my foot, to the healing blisters at my heel. “I know you don’t complain, even when you’re in pain. I know you whimper when you find release and sigh just before you fall asleep.”

  Heat bloomed across my cheeks.

  On and on he went, telling me small details about myself that were more accurate than any description I had ever heard.

  We had only known one another for a few weeks, but in that time, we had experienced both adventure and heartache. We had gone from enemies to partners in crime to lovers to whatever we were now. Friends didn’t feel like a strong enough word.

  Tadhg smiled down at my hand and laced our fingers together. “Most importantly, I know that you are the type of woman others are willing to die for—myself included.”

  Aveen may have willingly died for me, but I hadn’t deserved her sacrifice. And I couldn’t let Tadhg do the same if Fiadh came.

  The pelting rain became a soft, humming drizzle.

  Tadhg let go of my hand to stretch his arms toward the ceiling with a yawn. “Right. Wake me if the murderous witch shows up.”

  He curled up on the hard floor and closed his eyes.

  Tadhg knew so many things about me, I felt guilty knowing next to nothing about him. I wanted to learn about his life, his joys, his heartaches. And his curses.

  “Tadhg?” I poked his shoulder. He looked dreadfully uncomfortable on the floorboards, using his hands as a pillow.

  He hummed softly.

  “Why did Fiadh curse you?”

  He was silent for so long, I thought he’d fallen asleep.

  “I told women I loved them so they’d come to bed with me,” he said quietly, his eyes still closed as he confessed to the night. “And one of them happened to be a hateful witch who doesn’t know the meaning of forgiveness. She ripped away my magic, leaving only a pittance, and cursed me to be used by women the way I had used her. And then she took my lies and cursed my lips so that I could never escape.”

  I couldn’t move, couldn’t breathe, as he raised onto his elbow and looked at me as though he saw me. As though he felt not only the weight of his own sins but the weight of mine as well.

  “I deserved all of it,” he said. “I have done terrible things, things that would make you hate me more than you already do. But I am not the man I was.

  “I don’t want to be a catalyst for death. I don’t want to be used and cast aside like I am nothing. I have served my time, and now I want to be free.”

  No one deserved eternal torment for a mistake made long ago. And it had taken me far too long to realize that everyone, even cursed monsters, deserved forgiveness.

  “Here.” I collected the ring from the floor and placed it in his palm. “You deserve to be free.”

  I would find a way to deal with my truth curse. It was nothing compared to Tadhg’s suffering. And if my truth cost me Robert, then he didn’t deserve me in the first place.

  Tadhg shook his head. Tears spilled from his eyes, trailing streaks of kohl down his cheeks and landing on the collar of his wrinkled white shirt.

  “It doesn’t work.” He took my hand and slipped it back on my finger. “I tried but couldn’t lie. Or say no.”

  Cursed to be used and cast aside.

  “It was my mother’s, you know.” Tadhg’s expression took on a strange, faraway look. “She enchanted it to keep me safe from curses.”

  “Was your mother a witch?”

  He nodded. “She was called Bronah. She married my father Midir when they found out she was pregnant. My father was never the same after she passed and didn’t know what to do with me. He had more interest in women than raising a child. Luckily, I had this ring to keep me out of harm’s way.”

  According to legend, Bronah was one of the fiercest witches to have ever walked this island. She was burned centuries ago. And Midir, the infamous fae ruler, slaughtered thousands of humans in the war. What had it been like for Tadhg growing up with such terrifying parents?

  “Fiadh knew about the ring and must’ve tailored the curses to bypass the spell. She asked for it that day, said she wanted to see how it looked on her finger. I hadn’t care
d . . . about the ring. About Fiadh. About anyone but myself, really.”

  My heart ached for this cursed prince. If only I loved him. and he loved me, so I could break his curse.

  We could pretend, couldn’t we? It wouldn’t affect the curse, but perhaps it would help him forget, if only for tonight.

  “I love you,” I whispered, pressing kisses to the hair at his temple. The delicate points of his ears.

  “You don’t have to say that.”

  “I want to.” I kissed his cheekbone. His jaw. “Let me help you.”

  Tadhg sat up but kept me at arm’s length with two hands on my shoulders. “I don’t . . .” A wince. “I’m too drunk to be of any use to you.”

  “I don’t want to use you.” No matter how attracted I was to Tadhg, I couldn’t do that to Robert. I was willing to toe the line but not cross it.

  A V formed between his eyebrows. He looked so confused, I almost laughed.

  “Come here.” I helped him off the floor and escorted him to the bed. He sank onto the edge of the mattress and sat as still as a statue, watching me remove his waistcoat, belt, dagger, and boots.

  “Take off your shirt.”

  With a flick of his wrist, it disappeared. Broad shoulders. Sculpted chest. Lean waist. The indentations at his hips leading to—

  Swallowing over and over was the only way to clear the thickness from my throat. Damn he was beautiful. “Scoot over and lay down.”

  Tadhg followed my instructions but remained rigid when I climbed in beside him and drew the quilt over us. “Head here.” I patted my left breast.

  Tadhg gave me a skeptical glance before resting his head at my heart. After a moment, he reached across my stomach and hugged me against him.

  Any time I was sad or struggling, Aveen would sneak into my room to comfort me, not with words and promises but with the strength of silence. She’d held me like this the night our mother had passed; the time Padraig had fallen gravely ill; the night I had given myself to Robert in the garden.

  No matter the situation, my sister had been there to cradle my head and play with my hair until my tears subsided and I fell asleep.

  Tadhg’s soft, silky hair slid through my fingers. When I traced the point of his ear, his breathing hitched.