Page 80
I close my eyes, still needing the dark to see it properly.
“It moved without sound,” I say. “Not a breath, not a footfall. The fog wrapped around it, hid its edges, and its tail—” I falter, searching for the words. “When it finally withdrew, I could see it was all wrong. It looked heavy, matted, and coarse… dragging through the wet like a rope.”
“Withdrew?” Róisín echoes. “It ran off?”
I open my eyes.
“Nae,” James says at once.
Alex shakes his head. “It didn’t run.”
“It backed away,” I say. “Slow. Measured. Like it was leaving because it chose to, not because it had to.”
My gaze shifts to Maeve then, drawn there without quite deciding to look.
There’s no disbelief in her expression—only a grim recognition that settles cold in my chest.
“There’s only one thing that fits,” I say quietly. “The sort of thing you’re told so you mind your step in the woods and make it home before dark.”
Spoken aloud, it sounds insane. Still, it’s the only thing that belongs.
“Cú Sidhe.”
A knock at the door comes sudden and unexpected.
Three measured raps, the sound snapping through the hall like a whip.
Róisín startles hard enough to knock against Alex’s injured arm. He hisses, biting back a curse, and she freezes, hands flying to him at once. “I’m sorry—Gods, I’m sorry—”
Taskill moves to answer, tension pulling tight across his shoulders. He crosses the hall and opens the door.
The man on the threshold looks untouched by the night.
There’s something about his presence—effortless, assured—that hushes the room the instant he steps inside. His hair, long and silver, falls loose down his back, and the light clings to it the way it clings to water at night. He moves with a fluid grace that feels stolen from another age—made for fine halls and gilded chandeliers, not this draughty Highland castle perched above salt water and stubborn rock.
He steps fully into the hall.
His gaze moves once around the room—taking in the blood, the bandages, the way we’re all standing too rigidly—and then it settles, unerringly, on me.
Maeve exhales, and it sounds like recognition settling into place.
“I should’ve known you were the reason for all this mess.”
The corner of his mouth lifts.
“Now, Maeve,” he says softly, “I would never bring trouble to your door. Trouble knows where to find you all on its own.”
They embrace, and shock ripples through the room.
Because whoever this man is, Maeve and Taskill greet him like kin.
And judging by the look that passes between them, they have known him as such for quite some time.
“So,” Maeve says. “What brings you back to Castle Connemara, Mannie?”
CHAPTER FIFTEEN
JAMES
