Chandi hesitated. Then she nodded, helping herself to another frothing goblet of liquor before plunging into the mass of dancers, swirling toward where her sisters reveled.
I was nearly to the edge of the trees when a hand circled my wrist, tight enough to wring my bones. Fear catapulted into my throat, and I spun, grasping uselessly at my waist for knives that were no longer there. I looked up into the face of a strange Gentry man.
An eagle-sharp nose over curved lips. Tilted golden eyes beneath frowning brows. The glint of a copper torc from beneath the russet curls kissing his neck. I almost relaxed—he was handsome and smiling. But as he leaned closer, the moonlight warped and shifted over his face, bruising the hollows of his eyes and lengthening his teeth over his bottom lip. A sudden breeze threw his scent against my face; he smelled caustic, like carrion and burnt metal. The spell of his beauty dissolved, and I noticed the red fur rippling over his unnaturally swollen muscles; the sharp, pearly claws circling my arm.
I jerked back, but he squeezed me harder.
“Be still, kitling.” His voice ground like gravel between the beguiling tatters of his glamour. “A lovely morsel like you should not wander the forest alone in the dark.”
I forced myself to glare up at his rough-hewn face, his feral eyes, his hungry teeth. Uncertainty danced wild within me. Again, my free hand grasped at my hip as if I could will my skeans back into existence. “Is that a threat?”
“An opportunity.” He gripped my chin in a painful grasp. His claws cut into my cheek; I felt blood trickle down the line of my jaw. Panic prickled up my spine and along my collarbones. “Perhapseven a bargain. I will keep you safe tonight—from anything that might harm you.”
Funny, when he was the thing I needed safekeeping from. “And in return?”
“A kiss.” He did not wait for assent before pressing his lips to mine. I jerked back, but his too-long canines caught on my lower lip andtore. Pain lashed over my face—my hand lifted unconsciously to my mouth, where two ragged cuts dripped blood down my chin.
Shock made me stupid.
“I’d rather die,” I snarled.
The desire in his eyes turned deadly. Russet hackles lifted along his shoulders. “I am sure that can be arranged.”
Terror shoved me from him. Right into someone else. I registered little more than deep blue silk enrobing the height and breadth of a man before he stepped in front of me, facing the predatory Gentry.
“She is not alone.” His voice was cool and calming, faintly accented. I stared at the sleek mahogany hair spilling down the man’s back, but I didn’t recognize it. Or him. “She is with me.”
“Islander.” The Gentry’s voice was a snarl, but he gave way, stepping back half a pace. “Does your strumpet not know our ways?”
“Theladydoes. As do I, barda.” The blue-robed man said this easily, but I suspected the last word was meant for me. Thorns of fear and fury tangled sharper within me—the fox-faced Gentry was one of the Gate bardaí? “And as her companion, the terms of your bargain extend to me. Is that not right?”
He reached forward, grasped the front of the barda’s mantle, and dragged him forward for a kiss. Surprise and wrath flashed across the Gentry lord’s face, and he shoved the blue-robed man away roughly.
“If I wanted you, islander, you would know it.” The barda straightened his clothes, snarled under his breath, then paced briskly off.
“I amsureI would.” The blue-robed man’s murmur was sharp edged with sarcasm. He waited until the barda disappeared back into the revel before turning toward me. He studied me, and I him.
He, like the barda, was Folk Gentry. But that was where the similarities ended. Like me, his face was mostly hidden behind a mask—an intricate, sweeping design in blue and silver that made me think of waves upon the ocean. Beneath it, I glimpsed golden-brown cheekbones and a wide, wry mouth. His eyes were black.
“I daresay thanks are in order,” he prompted.
“I did not ask for his advances.” The encounter had left me bruised with fear, raw with pain. “Nor did I ask for your help in rebuffing them.”
“Have it your way.” His eyes were keen on mine. They were not black at all, but the deep, endless blue of an ocean at night. “But I did save your life. So I am nevertheless owed a boon.”
Morrigandamnthese scheming Folk. “What could you possibly want from me?”
Casually, he lifted a hand to my face. He wiped away blood with his thumb, then held it to the moonlight, where it gleamed emerald. Curiosity flashed in his fathomless eyes. He looked back at me, considering.
“The kiss the barda tried to steal.” His smile was wide and winsome. “I wish for you to give it to me instead.”
Wrath rose in me like a tide, sending thorns to spike my skin. Had I really escaped one predator only to fall into the claws of another? I clenched my fists, then decided the fastest way to escape this situation was to acquiesce to his dishonorable request. I puckered my bleeding lips and advanced on the blue-robed Gentry. But he waylaid me with a cool palm on my chest. My thorns ripped against his skin, vicious.
“Easy.” His laughter was deep and unruffled, betraying no pain—even as his palms began to bleed. It stoked my ire even higher. “I wish to taste neither your gore nor your hostility. I will choose the time.”
He wiped his hand—stained now with both my blood and his—on his robes, then walked away from me. A moment before he passed from earshot, I called after him, “Then I will simply avoid you!”
He paused and looked over his shoulder at me. The moonlight outlined his sleek profile in silver. “Try, Thorn Girl. You will find the magic of Tír na nÓg is not so easily fooled.”
