Twig of Thorn (The Blackthorn Cycle Book 1)

by L. M. Hawke

  Ailill pulled back and gazed down at her, wonder and devotion shining in his eyes. “You are here,” he murmured.

  “Of course I am,” Una replied. “Where else should I be?”

  “It suits you,” he said.

  Una shook her head vaguely. “What suits me?”

  He lifted one hand and touched her forehead. No—not her forehead, but the thing she wore on it. Suddenly Una could feel a light pressure, the faint weight of a… a hat? A headband? Something was sitting on her head.

  She reached up to feel it. It was a circlet of twisted branches, thin and slightly damp. She lifted it gently from her head and held it out between herself and Ailill so she could examine it by the light of the flowers.

  It was a crown made of interwoven twigs. And there was no mistaking the white blossoms that glimmered here and there along the circlet.

  Blackthorn.

  Una’s hand tightened reflexively on the circlet; she gasped in pain as a thorn pierced one of her fingers. The crown tumbled from her grasp.

  She stared at her finger—at the drop of ruby-red blood that welled there. “Blood,” she muttered. “I’m bleeding.”

  “Don’t,” Ailill said, suddenly frantic. He seized her hand, trying to cover the tiny wound, with his fingers, to hide it from sight. From whose sight? “Don’t let her see.”

  Una looked up at him, mouth open, ready to ask, Don’t let who see? But in that moment, the wind in the trees turned to the breathy sigh of a woman, and then the sigh flowed into a seductive moan.

  Ailill’s eyes flashed with fear.

  From somewhere back along the forest path, the man in the trees called, “Cousin!” The panic in his voice was unmistakable.

  * * *

  Una sat bolt-upright in her bed with a loud gasp that filled the attic room. She clutched the quilts up around her chin, panting, feeling the sweat evaporate from her body, leaving a creeping chill behind.

  It was only a dream, she told herself.

  Only a dream—and yet it had felt more real than any dream had before. The strange, glowing beauty of the dark forest haunted Una’s memory; she could almost swear that she still saw the afterimage of the flower-light playing behind her eyelids each time she blinked. The starlight shimmering through her window seemed dull and weak by comparison to the light given off by the gold and purple blooms. She could still smell the forest, too, as if she’d left her window open to admit a night breeze. But the curtains were unstirring, the window tightly shut.

  And Ailill… She could still feel him, too; the hard, strong contours of his body, the protective circle of his arms. She could feel his kiss, light and careful at first, but growing more insistent. His mouth had been warm and sweet—warm enough to drive away that chills that threatened to wrack Una’s body. She wanted more of that kiss, wanted to go back to the dark forest despite its strangeness, just so she could be with Ailill again. With a sudden, sharp pang, Una realized that she wanted Ailill desperately. She ached for him.

  No, she told herself firmly. She had felt that powerful draw to a man before—a few times, in truth, which were a few times too many. That particular kind of longing never led anywhere good—not for Una. The men whom she lusted after the most always turned out to be bad news, to have dangerous habits, or to carry difficult baggage at the very least. The last thing Una needed now was another entanglement, another tie to Kylebeg. Her grandmother’s cottage was bad enough.

  But it wouldn’t be easy to shake off her desire for Ailill. Una sensed that with a sinking heart. This wasn’t the first time she’d felt this way about a man, but she had never felt so strongly about a man before.

  That’s stupid, she scolded herself. You hardly know Ailill, and now because he kissed you in a dream, you want him more than ever before?

  Una knew exactly how to break herself of that feeling. She would avoid Ailill altogether—stay away, and once the cottage was sold, she would never have to worry about him again.

  Nor would she ever have the chance to kiss him again, to be held by him again…

  You never did. It was just a dream.

  She sighed and settled back into bed, hoping fervently that what she told herself was true.

  9

  The following day, Una worked alone in the garden, pulling up whatever she could identify as a weed, clearing debris from the paths with a little rush-bristled broom she’d found in her grandmother’s pantry, and tidying up the outdoor space as best she could. Angus had done a perfectly adequate job of maintaining Nessa Teig’s garden—the beds were orderly and thriving, the paths neat enough to walk on. But Una was determined to sell the place as soon as possible. Perfectly adequate wouldn’t suit; she intended to whip the cottage and its grounds into tip-top form by Wednesday, when she and Michael O’Malley were to meet again to begin the process of the sale.

  It was a lovely day, brimming with gentle springtime warmth and slow, pleasant breezes. Birds sang cheerily in the garden beds; the air was perfumed by flowers and sun-soaked herbs. But Una couldn’t enjoy any of it. The remnants of her dream still hung all around her, clinging like threads of cobweb.

  The memory of the man calling from within the forest left her feeling increasingly unsettled, but worse was Una’s sharp, clear sense of Ailill. That image—that feeling, from his touch to his long, hungry kiss—wouldn’t release its hold on Una’s mind. As she tore at the weeds and plied her rake and shovel with a furious energy, she relived each moment of her dream-encounter with enigmatic singer. But songbirds and butterflies make for poor distractions. The longer Una worked, the more isolated she was with her thoughts and fantasies. Soon she found she could no longer fight off the memory of Ailill. She felt weak inside with longing.

  But you can’t trust yourself with Ailill.

  Una had had more than her fair share of disastrous relationships. Dublin was a perfect wasteland of ruined opportunities and bitter disappointments—to Una, at least. She had long since decided that any man she was strongly attracted to was probably not one she ought to date. Her track record spoke for itself, and spoke at a volume she really couldn’t afford to ignore.

  You don’t have to date him, a mischievous voice murmured deep inside. You can just…

  Una pulled up a great handful of brambly weeds, wrenching at the tangle with all her might in an attempt to distract herself from her own traitorous musings. As she worried at the brambles, a thorn stabbed through her gardening glove, piercing her finger exactly where the blackthorn had pricked her in the dream.

  Una gave a stifled shout of surprise and stood up, pulling off the glove and frowning accusingly down at the bramble. She peered at her finger. There was the droplet of blood, dark as a garnet, beading on her fingertip. As she watched the little gem of blood well slowly, the strange, intriguing sensations of the dream flooded back into her body, moving along her limbs with a cold but eager shiver. She closed her eyes—and could all but feel the sighs of the weeping, pale-haired woman brushing against her cheek. She could see the ripple of the round pool behind her eyelids, and strained again to read the familiar but unidentified face that looked at her from its depths. And she could hear again the panic in the ethereal man’s voice as he called out into the forest. Cousin!

  Then another sound interrupted her reverie. It was a voice she both did and did not want to hear… the very voice she somehow knew she would hear that morning, and must hear.

  “Una.”

  She looked up from her bleeding finger. Across the sunlit garden, beyond veils of gleaming haze and the sparkle of milling insects’ wings, Ailill stood beside the stone wall. He hesitated at the edge of the garden, as if seeking her permission to enter. Even across the distance that separated them, Una could see the brightness of his eyes, their piercing color and intensity.

  She lowered her pricked hand slowly, gazing back at him. A vague befuddlement hung over her thoughts—disbelief at the strange coincidence, combined with utterly certainty that this was no coincidence at all.
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br />   You promised yourself you wouldn’t see him again, she thought frantically. You know this can’t lead anywhere good.

  But another voice—still her own, yet somehow not—answered, I never promised anything.

  She wanted Ailill. Something about him called to her powerfully, with the same desperation she’d heard in the pale man’s voice in the woodland of her dreams. She recalled the wild energy, the joyous lack of inhibition she had witnessed at the Beltane fire. That energy, that wildness, seemed altogether right now. Right and good and inevitable. She dropped her other garden glove on the path among the pile of pulled weeds, and went eagerly to Ailill.

  He came toward her just as eagerly, all but running through the golden light to meet her halfway, on the moss-lined pavers of the main garden path. Wordless, they reached for each other with a furious desperation. Una kissed him hungrily, and he returned the kiss so forcefully that it seemed insistent—as if he were trying to prove something… to himself? To Una? She couldn’t be sure. His hands clutched at her back through the simple flannel shirt she wore, nails digging in possessively. It was as if Ailill feared Una might break away from him, or some other force might tear her out of his reach.

  “I shouldn’t,” Una murmured between their frantic kisses. But she invariably leaned in for another kiss.

  “Neither should I,” Ailill admitted, before kissing her yet again.

  The wind picked up, raising from its former gentle stirring to a forceful gust. It whipped Una’s dark hair around Ailill’s face, framing him for a moment so that he seemed isolated from all the world—so both of them were isolated together, alone with the force of their mutual longing. The birds quieted in the sudden howl of wind. For a moment Una paused, holding Ailill at arm’s length, listening to the wind moan around the cottage. Did it carry the faint suggestion of a woman’s voice—a sigh, a murmur? But then Ailill leaned in to kiss her again, with even more insistence and desperation than before, and Una forgot all about the wind. She forgot everything, and gave in to the urging of her heart.

  Still wrapped in each other’s arms, unable to tear themselves apart, Una and Ailill stumbled into the cottage. Una kicked the door closed behind them, shutting the wind outside.

  * * *

  Afterward, Una rolled over in her bed, glowing with the warmth of comfort and satisfaction. She draped her arm across Ailill’s chest, trailing her hand languidly along his ribs. His skin was amazingly soft, and so incredibly fragrant. She couldn’t get enough of the smell of him. She breathed in that spicy, woodland scent until her head was spinning.

  She couldn’t quite believe what had just happened. Ailill had been as hungry for her as she was for him—and as insatiable, too. They’d spent hours together before exhaustion finally forced them to rest. But as tired and happy as her body was, Una’s mind still raced, struggling to process it, to make sense of it all.

  It seemed flat-out impossible, for a man as gorgeous as Ailill to be drawn to an ordinary woman like Una. But the proof of his feelings still thrummed along her veins, a constant, blissfully endless replay of his every touch, kiss, and breath.

  Gone were the shouts in her head to avoid him, to leave him alone, to flee from Kylebeg as soon as she could and be rid of his temptation forever. For the time being, every other worry was forgotten, too—even the burden of the cottage. Una simply lay, contentedly quiet, and felt the easy beating of his heart beneath her hand. She and Ailill lay in perfect stillness, caught in one another’s spell.

  Then the wind blew again, creaking and rustling in the thatch over their heads. Ailill drew a sharp breath, as if something had pained him, and winced slightly.

  Una sat up and looked at him. The air of melancholy that had hung about Ailill before was back—but it was redoubled now, casting his beautiful face in a strange shroud. He looked gaunt and tormented, his eyes dulled by some unknown anguish.

  “What’s the matter, Ailill? Are you all right?”

  He nodded, but slowly, faintly. His mouth opened and closed as if he wanted to speak, but couldn’t find the words, or couldn’t summon the power to do it. He only went on nodding, staring at nothing with a fixed and distant expression, as the wind blew with a vengeance outside.

  “Storm coming up, I suppose,” Una said. “Strange… the weather was so nice this morning. Does the weather often turn this fast in Kylebeg?”

  Ailill did not answer right away. He sat up and removed Una’s hand from his chest—gently, but with a decisive air.

  “A lot changes in Kylebeg, and faster than you’d ever believe,” he muttered.

  He slid from her bed and, without another word, began searching about the floor for his scattered clothes.

  “Leaving so soon?” Una tried to make herself sound light and unconcerned, but even she could hear the hurt in her own voice. Suddenly the admonishing voice was back with a vengeance inside her head. Here it comes, she told herself, disgustedly. What did you expect, you fool? It always ends this way… this way, or even messier.

  “I must,” Ailill said. His voice was soft and apologetic, but he didn’t look at Una once. “I’d rather not, but… I must.”

  “Can’t you stay a little longer? Where have you got to be?” What possible urgent business could anyone have in this sleepy old village?

  Ailill still refused to meet Una’s eye. He hung his head, shaking it slowly, and hurried to gather up the last of his discarded clothing. Una watched in helpless, stunned silence, a thick knot of self-loathing tying itself up inside her guts.

  When Ailill was dressed, he slipped quickly from Una’s bedroom—and the cottage, too—without another word.

  10

  “How do you like that?” Una muttered angrily to herself as she trudged through the darkness. “Leaves without a word, as if I’d robbed him or something.”

  For the rest of the afternoon, she had stewed in her hurt and anger, ripping the last of the weeds vengefully out of the garden, then standing in the steam of a hot shower for so long that her fingers turned to prunes and the hot water ran cold. But nothing could ease the pain inside her; it had settled decisively into her bones.

  This was not the first time Una had seen a man flee from her presence. Usually they waited until the first sign of a real relationship appeared. Ailill, though, was the first man she’d ever known who ran before the specter of a commitment was even raised. She felt cheap and used, and furious with herself for having given in so quickly, so easily and thoughtlessly, when she’d known all along that nothing good could come of this. She’d known it would be trouble to sleep with Ailill, or even to think about him. And she’d gone and done it anyway.

  But Una couldn’t stop thinking about him. Angry as she was, still she replayed every blissful moment of their time together—the way he’d stroked her skin, the feel of his weight against her body, the slow, lingering nature of his kiss.

  And each time the images repeated in her head, she berated herself all the more.

  After the hot shower failed to clear Una’s head, she decided a walk in the cool night air might do the trick—might drive all thought of Ailill from her heart and mind. For surely, Una knew, it would be disastrous to allow that bastard to take up any more of her time or thoughts. She had already wasted enough of herself on Ailill. She must find some way to break the spell he’d cast upon her, even if it meant venturing out into the night again, facing the wind with its dark voices and compelling urges.

  Una was determined to walk down to the crossroads fearlessly and calmly. She felt a deep need would prove to that place—to the whole damn village, and even to herself, if she could—that there was nothing to be afraid of. That she was stronger than Kylebeg, stronger than her disastrous attraction to Ailill.

  She paused on the slope of the hill, staring down through the night toward the crossroads. It loomed in the darkness, the dense trees clustered together in a conspiratorial fashion at the foot of the hill. Una stared, her heart beating wildly, but she refused to show any outward sign
of her discomfort, even though there was no one about to see it. She listened to the wind, half expecting the disembodied, half-heard voices to return. But the breeze moved easily, innocently in the grasses of the hillside pastures. The night remained ordinary and safe.

  “Nothing to fear,” she told herself briskly. “Get on with it, then.”

  Una continued down the road, drawing closer to the crossroads with every step. She would walk until Ailill loosed his hold on her. She would walk until she proved to herself that everything she’d experienced thus far had been nothing more than tricks played on her mind—her mind and her heart. Maybe, Una told herself, she would keep on walking—all the way back to the village and down its cobbled street, back to the motorway where she would catch a bus and ride it through the long night, all the way back to Dublin. Perhaps she would even keep going—move on past Dublin. Cross the water and settle in London, maybe, or find someplace likely and exciting on the continent. Berlin? Prague? The possibilities were endless. And there was nothing to hold her here in Kylebeg, or even in Ireland. Nothing. Una repeated that to herself with every footfall as she descended the hill and entered the thick band of forest at the crossroads.

  Though the darkness was dense beneath the trees, Una could find no threat in it. The sounds that drifted around her were all ordinary: the whispery calls of night creatures in the leaf litter and underbrush, the intermittent chirp of insects in the treetops, the wordless sigh of perfectly innocent breezes. Her heart slowed from its fearful rush. Confidence returned to Una in a pleasant, warming flood.