Page 46 of Druid Cursed

She studied him in silence, her expression unreadable. ’Twas worse than her anger. Where only yesterday she had been open and trusting, now she hid from him, dug a moat and erected a mighty fortress between them. ’Twas not entirely Sorcha who took her from him, but his own mistakes.

“Do you believe me, leannán ?”

“Honestly? I don’t know what to believe right now, about any of this.

You, Sorcha, Wendy, even the contest and my reasons for being here.

I need to…” She swiped her hand through her mussed hair, her expression weary, lost. “I need to be alone. I’ll stay in my room until it’s time to get Wendy back.

Discovering someone else’s skeleton in their ancient closet and sending off a vengeful ghost is about as much fun as I expected it might be. ”

Kellen swallowed the poison in his throat. “As you wish.”

She paused and looked at him askance, as if his words were some manner of trick or jest. He motioned toward the stairs in confirmation.

Maggie fisted her gown with both hands, and her gaze remained fixed on the steps beneath her feet rather than seek him out. The smile he had come to love did not return.

The air in his lungs fled, for he knew to the bottom of his soul the consequences of secrets kept and revealed by his enemy. Betrayal of trust hurt more than a physical blow. Whether or not they defeated Sorcha on Samhain, the witch had ultimately won.

He had lost Maggie.

…

The second Kellen had carefully kissed her farewell on the forehead and closed the door behind him, Maggie set the locks. She put her ear to the door and listened until his slow, heavy steps descended the stairs and only silence reigned.

Not that she was naive enough to believe that quiet meant anything in Ravenwood. Jeeves undoubtedly lurked somewhere, keeping watch.

Releasing a shaky breath, she straightened, and her gown hissed over her skin, a reminder that she’d lost twenty-four hours while trapped in a personal ghost tale.

No place was safe, not even in the manor and loaded down with protection charms—provided the charms were actually intended to protect her, not soften her up for the Samhain sacrifice.

She didn’t know who or what to trust anymore, how to escape the nightmare her trip had become.

She’d watched enough movies to know that running away, screaming for the hills never ended well.

Sneaking off was a better bet, not that the odds were in her favor.

And leaving Wendy behind was out of the question.

She was well and truly stuck at Ravenwood until Samhain.

A knock shook the door, and she jumped.

“Maggie?” Cara’s muffled voice held a tinge of urgency. “Can you let me in?” The door shook beneath her pounding. “I need to talk to you. Now. ”

“Okay, coming.” She released the deadbolt and cracked the door open.

Cara bulldozed inside on a draft of rich perfume, the end of her pink cashmere scarf brushing Maggie’s cheek. “Where have you been? Caedmon wouldn’t tell me anything.” She took Maggie’s face between her hands. “What happened to you at the masquerade ritual? It was like you disappeared. For good.”

Wearily, Maggie shook free of Cara and shut the door. “Wish I knew.”

“But you’re all right.” She cocked her head, still studying her. “Right?”

Maggie squinted at Cara. Her black hair hung loose in natural curls about her shoulders, and she wasn’t wearing even a hint of lipstick. Circles set beneath her eyes, as if she’d missed a night of sleep. “I’d much rather know what happened to you .”

She made an impatient gesture. “I killed it in the dance ritual, of course. Haven’t slept much since. Not important.”

“But you were chosen first in the initial ritual, the only one with a candle still burning in the second, you were queen of the hunt, and you won the dance.” She took Cara’s hands, her own troubles temporarily forgotten. “You’re getting the boon, aren’t you?”

“Forget about the competition for a second, will you?” Cara squeezed her hands back, hard enough to almost hurt. “Do you have it? The rock?”

A chill slithered down her spine. How did Cara know?

Maggie pulled the rock out of her gown pocket, the rock that had appeared in the castle after her phantom meet-and-greet.

It glowed an eerie blue in the low light.

She didn’t remember picking it up or putting it into her pocket, but she must have.

Her defensive charm necklace and the leather pouch Caedmon had given her had magically returned there, as well, or maybe they’d been there all along, rendered invisible by the spell that had kidnapped her.

“So my vision was real.” Her face paling a shade, Cara leaned her back against the door and slid to the floor, her sweater dress hushing a protest. “You were with a ghost.”

The memory of Aibreann’s dreadful face still froze her blood. “How did you know that?”

“The night of the harvest ritual, with Caedmon…” A flush stained her cheeks.

“How it happened doesn’t matter. I had a dream of you.

I tried to dismiss it, didn’t want to believe I’d inherited my grandmother’s proclivities.

My parents will be so proud, probably tuck me away in the country prison with my grandmother so I won’t ruin the family reputation.

” Her slender throat worked. “But the dream was so palpable, so distinct, I knew it was a vision that I couldn’t keep to myself. I tried to tell you at the dance, but—”

“Yeah.” Maggie slid to a sit beside her and tucked her knees under her gown. “I know.” She absently ran her thumb over the polished rock and paused. Grooves etched the smooth surface, and as she turned it over, the name engraved there stole her breath.

Cara leaned over her, reading the name. “Who is Maeve?”

She clamped her mouth shut, an old habit whenever the memory of her aunt came up. But she’d told Kellen, and he hadn’t judged her for it. Maybe it was time to release this burden of her past completely. She could tell Cara now. And she’d tell Wendy, once she was back.

Still, it wasn’t easy. Her hand shook, and the rock trembled.

“This is one of the same stones my eccentric aunt used years ago in a ritual. She claimed to be trying to reincarnate the family magic. I’ll never forget Aunt Maeve chanting, naked as the day she was born, the broken circle, her terrifying voice… ”

She swore an icy claw scratched her neck, as if Maeve confirmed her thoughts from the grave. Good. Great. Maggie forced a breath in and out, in and out, calming her rapid-fire pulse.

“There are many things I’ll never forget that I absolutely want to,” Cara said.

“There’s no going back.” She stretched out her long legs in their tan leather boots and crossed her ankles.

“You’ll be staying until the ancestral bonfire tomorrow night and the final ritual.

The boon isn’t on the table anymore—you guessed right, I won it—but it was the cash you wanted, anyway. You need to stay.”

“I don’t really have a choice. I can’t leave without my friend, who no one can seem to keep track of.” Now that she had the third item from the scavenger hunt, she had to figure out what to do next to save Wendy.

“Wendy.” Cara nodded. “Possessed by a witch. I heard. Caedmon talks in his sleep.” She arched an eyebrow. “Does Kellen?”

Kellen . The heat of his lips on her skin lingered like the memory of summer.

“I’m such a wimp and clearly haven’t learned anything from my divorce.

Kellen wiggled past all my roadblocks and completely seduced me with his noble dark druid act.

” She laid her head back against the door with a hollow thump.

“If I have to be honest with myself, I let him seduce me. I could’ve walked away at any time, should’ve called the police the second Wendy went missing. ”

“Or not.” Cara snorted softly. “How would you explain to the authorities that your friend’s possessed?”

“Or that the rich, brilliant Caedmon Ravenwood summoned me to sacrifice at Halloween because I’m the great-great-great times infinity granddaughter of the witch who cursed his brother Kellen, but my nonexistent personal charm changed his mind?

” Maggie shook her head. “No one would believe that one.”

“Damn,” Cara whispered.

Maggie drew a shuddering breath, each heartbeat a hammer threatening to shatter her. She was on her own.

Again.

Her throat clogged with a scarred knot of wounds both ancient and fresh.

All her failures rose, strangling. She hadn’t been enough of a daughter for her mother to stay.

Her father was long gone, her choice in husbands royally botched.

She’d lose the only home she’d known, and her best-case scenario future included working dead-end jobs and hoping she could both pay the rent and afford to eat.

In a matter of days, she’d totally fallen for a man who only wanted to use her.

Why did she keep falling into these traps?

Cara seemed to sense her building breakdown. She bumped Maggie’s shoulder gently with her own. “It might not seem like it right now, but you’re going to be okay.”

“How? I know I can’t change the past, but repeating my mistakes?

That’s all on me. I believed Kellen, every word out of his gorgeous mouth, even suspecting that his attention was only part of the week-long fantasy.

Maybe it was because I’d wanted them with all my heart to be true. ” She squeezed her eyes shut.

“Men can be the worst. And the best.” Cara set a silver flask in Maggie’s hands. “Druids are no exception.”

Maggie took a swig, liquid fire burning her throat. She handed the flask back to Cara, who tipped the flask up for several seconds, her eyes watering.

“I wanted that hope of finding my person to be realized, that one man who saw me exactly for who I am and loved me all the more for it.” She didn’t care that her voice trembled, the emotions too close to the surface to push down.

“Even if it meant waiting until I accomplished my dream and proved to myself that I can be perfectly fine on my own. As much as it defied all rationality and rules, I really, really wanted that person to be Kellen.”

Just thinking his name made her heart convulse. With Kellen, she’d felt like she’d belonged, was enough, cherished—exactly right while impossibly imperfect.

“My person.” Cara sighed. “What a lovely dream.”

The emptiness in Maggie’s chest throbbed until she thought her ribs might snap, and she wrapped her arms around herself.

When Darren had left her, she’d refused to shed a tear, resisted unravelling, made it through with her heart bruised, not broken.

But now, she swore she heard something crack inside her, a sharp, certain sound, like a fragile seashell crushed underfoot.

“How can a person I’ve only known for a few days—a person who may or may not have planned to trade my life for his freedom—have such a fierce, profound effect on me?

” The tears spilled, and she swiped at them, the flood unstoppable.

The urge to curl into a ball on the floor in her gorgeous gown and weep until she fell into a state of numbness fought to take over.

“I don’t have the answer to that, Maggie,” Cara said softly. “What I do know is that Wendy needs you, and there’s a solid reason for you being here this week.”

Cara handed her the flask again, and with it a bracelet made of leather cords, tiny ivory sections that looked suspiciously like bones, and golden agates.

“A friendship bracelet for you, the friend I never expected to find. Caedmon gave me a private, build-your-own-amulet workshop. I don’t know how or why, but you’ll need this tomorrow. ”

Maggie blinked back her tears. “Cara—”

She lifted her hand. “You can thank me by finishing with the ugly cry, then cowgirl up. If you waste my gift by letting any druid or witch stop you, I’ll watch while my sick grandma tortures you with her knitting needles.

” She stood, grabbed Maggie’s wrists, and hefted her to her feet, no protest allowed.

“True friends are hard to find, Maggie O’Malley. Go rescue yours.”