Page 29 of Druid Cursed

The husky rasp of his voice ribboned through her, and she swallowed hard.

She had to get a grip on her goals, refocus on her purpose before she forgot why she was here.

This was her home at stake, her future and dreams, and no awkward social events, scary skeletons, or sexy druids with Old World charm would slow her down.

She’d make it to the end of the competition and win, dammit.

With the handful of people ditching this morning, her odds went up.

All she had to do was keep showing up at every event, no matter how strange.

And survive.

“What’s the wild hunt thing Caedmon mentioned?

” Not that she had any intention of joining in if not required—she still had a quest to complete, a magic rock to find—but she needed to get Kellen talking so he’d stop staring at her mouth.

“I mean, I know what the mythological wild hunt is, a band of fairies or Odin or whatever on the hunt with their hounds for souls. So what do the infamous Ravenwoods do for their wild hunt?”

“’Tis an unbefitting charade Caedmon devised while I was away, a deplorable abuse of a sacred ritual he mainly uses to entertain guests.” He leaned back and crossed his arms. “I will not be participating with him.”

“Well, when you say it like that, it sounds fun.” She hid a laugh in her coffee mug.

His black eyebrows drew down. “The twilight version for guests is essentially harmless, I suppose. ’Tis but a ride through the woods with Caedmon’s hounds.

When guests return from the ride, there is a bonfire with too much drink and food.

Caedmon, of course, is king of the hunt, and he chooses his queen for the night.

” He frowned. “I prefer not to ponder the activities that occur thereafter.”

“Ah. Shenanigans.” She didn’t need a lot of imagination to figure that one out. Her cheeks warmed. The fact Kellen chose not to engage only made him sexier in her eyes.

“Aye, shenanigans,” he said darkly. He leaned near again, his gaze intent.

“Be that as it may, tonight is not for wandering in the dark, Maggie.” The warning in his low voice erased any humor.

“If you choose to leave your chambers, do not go beyond the bonfire. Once you are in your chambers, lock the door. Do not open it for anyone. Do not come out until dawn breaks.”

A chill stitched down her backbone. After the morning she’d already had, she could only nod. “Any news on Wendy?”

“’Tis one of the matters I prefer to discuss beyond walls.” He leaned in, his voic e low. “Perhaps the best course of action is to recommence your noble quest.” He stood and offered his hand.

“You’re right.” She blew out a breath and pushed her worry down.

“You have the key?” She still couldn’t shake the strangeness of how an optical illusion of a key inside a tome could become real.

At the time, she’d assumed it to be some sort of magician’s trick, a sleight of hand.

Now, after seeing a skeleton rise from the earth, she wasn’t anywhere close to being sure.

“Caedmon is safekeeping it with the poison ring. Once we find the next item, mayhap we will puzzle out the connection.”

“As long as you give them back.” She slipped her free hand in his, ignoring how right it felt. But no amount of feelings could change the fact that once Halloween was over, so was her time with Kellen.

…

Kellen waited until he had led Maggie beyond the structured garden paths of Ravenwood and into the weald far enough that the trees hid them.

He drew a deep, bracing breath into his lungs.

By all that was good and green, how he loved the crisp air, the dew on the grass, the pine needles beneath their steps, thick and silencing.

How he wished this fleeting flash of peace, these moments with her would last.

Deeming it safe to speak freely, he paused and faced her.

“Your friend is most decidedly being used by Sorcha. Yesterday eve, after I left you with Jeeves in your room, she attacked me.”

“What? No way.” Maggie hooked her fingers in the pockets of her breeches and shook her head. “Wendy wouldn’t hurt anyone. She has an aversion to blood and violence.”

“Confirmation, then, that ’twas not Wendy who performed the deed,” he said with enough gravity she would understand he did not jest. “The person you saw in the library was not your friend, not exactly. We confirmed she is a vessel to Sorcha’s doings.”

Maggie’s fair face paled a shade. “If Wendy attacked you, why didn’ t you capture her and lock her in your dungeon?” She lifted a hand. “Wait, don’t tell me Ravenwood doesn’t have one. That would totally ruin the vibe you got going here.”

“Aye, we possess a dungeon.” Kellen’s words emerged more growly than he wished, and yet he understood her need for humor, the reality difficult to bear.

“I dared not endanger you by confronting her in the library. Earlier that evening, she cast a powerful potion over me, rendering me unfit to detain her, let alone chain her in the dungeon where she most assuredly belongs.”

Maggie went still. “Like what happened to Cara?”

“Similar enough.”

“I believe you’re a druid, know you’re into…

things that I’m not. Things I absolutely don’t want to be a part of.

As much as I want to believe those things aren’t real, I can’t deny what I’ve seen.

” Her hesitation bespoke of the difficulty of her confession, what it cost her to say aloud.

“And I also can’t deny that I’m a God girl.

I’d much rather believe there are rational explanations for it all—Wendy, Cara, bones breathed to life and speaking with my dead Aunt Maeve’s voice. ”

“You say you do not want to believe in certain… things , yet what is more supernatural than God?”

“I—” She closed her mouth and narrowed her eyes. “Well played, Kellen.”

“I heard the words this morn, warning you to flee. ’Twas your aunt’s voice that called to you?”

She nodded. “Aunt Maeve.” By the twist of her mouth, she preferred to keep the acknowledgment quiet. “She’s the entire reason I avoid horror movies, cemeteries, and Halloween activities in general.” She shrugged. “This competition is a necessary exception, obviously.”

“Obviously,” he echoed. His teasing earned him a narrow-eyed look. “What transpired with your aunt to affect you so?”

“I’ve never told this story to anyone. Not to my father.

Not to Wendy. No one.” She slipped her hands into her jeans pockets and shrugged.

“If I’m being honest, Aunt Maeve’s behavior is a secret I’ve kept because I was afraid people would think I was like that, too, though I’m not proud of that fact. ”

“I, too, have kept secrets for fear of what others might think of me. ’Tis freeing, shedding the fear of popular opinion. There is little in this world that surprises me anymore. I daresay whatever you share with me has not the power to change that.”

With the toe of her shoe, Maggie gently nudged a stand of toadstools nestled between a fern and fallen log.

“When I was young, I stayed with her for one Halloween weekend while my dad was traveling for work. Aunt Maeve was…different, even without Halloween. Every night I was there, I had disturbing dreams of chanting and bells. The first morning, I woke up to rocks with strange designs and her name etched all over them in my room. The second morning, those rocks circled my bed, and I had bracelets of beads, feathers, and plants around my wrists and ankles. But the last night there did me in. I woke up to my aunt conducting a ceremony in only her skin.”

“Ah. Family secrets revealed.”

She scrunched her nose. “Maeve definitely had some skeletons in the closet.”

“Bones are oft useful to have on hand. Caedmon has quite the collection.”

“That’s not what I—” Maggie shook her head.

“Never mind. When I freaked out, Maeve completely lost it, screeched some nonsense about reclaiming the family’s stolen magic, that I endangered us both by ruining her ceremony.

Scared out of my mind, I locked myself in the bathroom until my dad picked me up in the morning.

” She shivered. “I never forgot her screeching voice, like claws scraping my brain. I’d always thought she was weird with her special rocks and poisonous plant garden, but that? Way beyond creepy.”

“There is no doubt that your auntie should have asked for your permission before performing such rituals. What manner of rocks and plants did she use?” He stroked his chin. “’Twould be very telling.”

“No idea.”

He surrendered to the need to touch her ebony curls. The strands slid beneath his fingers, finer than any silk. As he dragged his fingertips along her neck, she stopped him with a grip on his wrist. She sighed, whether vexed, wistful, or a combination, he could not decipher.

“About last night, in the library, before Cara showed up,” Maggie said, clearly referring to their kiss. “That was a moment of weakness.”

“A moment of truth.” He tugged her hand close and laid it on his heart. “I only regret the untimely interruption.”

“Kellen.” She said his name like an exasperated mother with her child, yet she did not pull her hand away.

“You want me to forget the entire reason I’m here, getting my house back after divorcing my algae-sucking ex-husband, forget who I’m trying so hard to be, and instead take up the wand and jump into being your druid play pal of the week.

I’m not that girl. I can’t be. I won’t be. ”

“And I am not that man.” He hated that another had touched her, kissed her, hurt her while he had not been there to protect her.

Knowing she had belonged to the reprobate Darren for any length of time stirred a darkness inside him.

But och , her determination to be the woman she chose to be without the fetters of another’s approval, her bravery to defend her values no matter the cost, her refusal to allow the painful past to stain her future…