Page 16 of Druid Cursed

CHAPTER

“Did I not warn you of the peril, wandering the grounds alone, entering the castle? And yet here you are.” Kellen stared her down, and his voice lowered to an ominous rumble. “Pray your excuse is a valid one, Maggie.”

She licked her lips. Even the way he said her name was enough to make her heart ricochet between her ribs.

But it wasn’t only fear that sent her blood racing and her skin tingling.

His heat washed over her, seeping through her sweater, and he was so close the tension in his big body echoed in hers.

The dark stubble on his jaw dared her to touch, and his mouth…

Maggie couldn’t breathe. His kissable mouth was only a tip-toe lift away.

“Answer me.” His growled command made her stomach dip.

“Scavenger hunt,” she managed through a gasp. When his scowl only darkened, she pulled Wendy’s card from her jeans’ pocket. “Wendy came back to our room before the competition ritual yesterday and gave this to me, but I haven’t seen her again since.”

Kellen plucked the card from her fingers and scanned it. His scowl didn’t change. “This is from your friend?”

“It’s Wendy’s handwriting, and she knows I can’t resist a scavenger hunt. It’s so fun.”

“You…search for refuse as a diversion?”

She blinked. “You’ve seriously never heard of a scavenger hunt?”

“Need I remind you that I found you in my home, appearing to be readying to pilfer my belongings?” The soft menace set off sparks in her nerves.

“I wasn’t going to pilfer anything. And other than a hole in the tower wall, I didn’t find any obvious disrepair.

You said the castle was dangerous for guests.

” So what if her tone leaned toward snappy?

Part of her needed to turn the tables on him, to push back.

Another, needier part wanted to melt into him and see where the force of his current would take her.

She wasn’t sure which would be more unwise.

“It is dangerous here.” His miniscule smile was all sinister.

Goose bumps danced over her arms. When he said “dangerous,” she got the sense he didn’t mean decaying floorboards or crumbling stone.

He was what made the castle unsafe to guests, the one who handed out harsh consequences to trespassers, and at the moment, she fell into that category—intruder and assumed thief.

“I see you have not deigned to replace your protection charms. ’Tis fortunate you did not cross paths with a pooka or imp on the journey here.” He trailed his fingertips along her jaw, to her neck, butterfly-light. The sensation scorched her blood, dizzying. “Or Sorcha.”

“Who’s Sorcha?” The question came out more as a breathy murmur. He’d said that name when they’d met in the garden, too, an accusation.

Kellen studied her for a long moment, his fingers resting at the pulse in her throat, their heat like a brand on her skin. He seemed to be gauging her honesty, weighing her character, and the results of his decision could be fatal.

“Sorcha,” he said as he traced her collarbone with his fingers, “is the witch who cursed me.” His gaze tracked the progress of his hand on her skin, as if the sight mesmerized him as much as it did her. “She also happens to be your ancestor.”

“Uhuh…” Maggie couldn’t stop looking at his mouth, the sensation of his touch making everything tingle.

She’d been too hasty earlier. Why would she want to avoid kissing such perfect lips? As she pushed up onto her toes and lifted her face, his words finally registered through the haze of lust he’d triggered.

“Wait,” she said, feet firmly back on the floor. “What do you mean my ancestor? Are you calling me a witch now?”

“ Are you a witch, Maggie O’Malley?”

This was way out of line. The mole beneath her eye was not a wart.

She planted a fist on her hip. “No, Kellen. I’m not a witch, but thanks so much for asking. You really know how to make a girl feel special. And you’re a lot more shadowy than I am. Maybe you’re the witch in the room.”

“Druid.” Seemingly immune to her terror tactics, he slid his fingers along the back of her neck and cupped it, keeping her gently captive. “There is a difference.”

Druid. He’d said the word in such a matter-of-fact tone… He really was a druid?

The vision of him from the ritual, wild and powerful, flashed to life, and the spell he had on her reformed, holding her tight in a web she had no desire to break. Her gaze again drifted to his mouth, so close his breath tangled with hers. “So that’s why you’re all dark and snarly?”

“I am snarly by nature, naught to do with being a druid. Caedmon is evidence of that.”

“Caedmon’s a druid, too?”

“Aye.” The word was barely audible. He eased closer, and his lemon-licorice scent curled around her, another facet of the spell drawing her deeper beneath his influence. “I do not wish to speak of my brother right now.”

“Agreed.” She held her breath, anticipation a live-wire inside her. Her body hummed in a heavenly way. She couldn’t remember ever wanting to be kissed so badly, to feel his lips on hers, to lose herself in all things Kellen Ravenwood.

Kiss me, kiss me, kiss me.

A mere inch from her mouth, he paused. “Yesterday, outside this very castle, you requested that I refrain from drawing too close. Does that wish still stand true?”

Right. The last thing she needed was a fling that endangered every single goal she’d made since her divorce and would probably leave her feeling used and crushed. Abandoned and unworthy.

The fog holding her dissipated as if hit by a jet-powered fan, and her blood cooled with it. She wrapped her fingers around his wrist and pulled his hand from her neck. “Yes, it does. How did you know I was even here? Were you following me?”

“I vowed to protect you during the length of your stay.” Which wasn’t an answer.

He clasped his hand over hers and caressed a slow path over her skin with his thumb.

His palm was rough and callused, not the soft hands of a man unknown to labor, and the sensation threatened to reignite the recently doused fire. “Naught will change that.”

“Protect me from what?” Maggie focused on his throat, needing a distraction from his mouth, his eyes that seemed to pierce all the defensive layers of her heart and see straight into her soul.

“Sorcha,” he said.

Her gaze returned to his. By his grim expression, he wasn’t joking. He honestly believed this woman, presumably her relative, was a witch and a threat. “I don’t know anyone by that name. What makes you so sure I should?”

Kellen straightened, maintaining his grip, making slow circles on her palm with his thumb.

“I must apologize. I should have been more forthcoming earlier and explained fully the plight I face. I was merely trying to protect you by withholding certain details, but it seems there is no other way to uncover the truth.” His black eyes glittered as he brought her wrist to his lips and pressed a kiss to the pulse point where his thumb had just been. “Allow me to explain.”

She nodded, the sight of his dark head bent over her more intoxicating than whiskey.

Heat licked through her, dancing along her nerves.

Every neuron came to life, as if dormant until this very moment.

Until this very man. He released her, and it took all her self-control not to fumble for his hand, needing to reconnect.

Hell, she’d probably settle for his big toe, so long as she was touching him.

“As I told you, I am a druid…and I have been cursed by the witch Sorcha. Your great-grandmother from many generations past.”

Her pulse quickened. Druids were real, of course. She knew that. Their practices were connected to nature. But curses and magic? A real-life game of DnD? Her brain refused to wrap around it.

Kellen retreated to the table and dragged his fingertip along the curve of a tiny animal skull wedged between a book and a flask with green residue caked at the bottom.

“I have been imprisoned in a place absent of…everything. A void. Time does not even exist there. My body remains as I was the day she cursed me, locked in the past. There is no sound other than my own voice. No taste or touch. ’Tis utter emptiness. Lifeless. Loveless.”

The desolation in his voice struck a gong in her heart, and the reverberating echo of truth made her chest tight.

He was absolutely believable, even as his words couldn’t possibly be true.

Her mind rioted with her heart, creating a whirlwind of emotion inside her, spinning between the urge to believe him and the urge to call bullshit.

She steadied herself against the bookshelves, needing something solid.

“Some centuries ago, Caedmon forged a spell that allows me seven respites from Sorcha’s curse.”

“ Centuries ago?” she squeaked.

He nodded. “I have been freed six times before, for seven days every half century, at Samhain. If the curse is not broken this week, this is my final release.” He glanced up at her.

“I will return to the prison Sorcha sentenced me to. Permanently. These days are truly all I am granted. They may very well be my last.”

She cleared her throat. There was so much to unpack here. “Why did she curse you?”

“She blames me for her daughter’s death.”

“Yeah, that would do it.”

His jaw clenched and he pivoted, leaning one hip against the table. “We suspect Sorcha may be influencing your friend, using her body as a conduit for her spirit in the mortal realm to wreak havoc and thwart us from breaking the curse. To what extent remains unclear.”

Maggie nodded slowly, hoping her expression remained blank. Wendy’s strange behavior, the sickbed muttering, her icy fingers…the scavenger hunt. Could that all possibly be witchcraft? Because she was possessed?

Kellen gripped the edge of the table, his knuckles bleeding of color. “Caedmon discovered a potential counter-spell to free me for good. Sorcha will do everything in her power to prevent that.”