Page 8 of Of Shadows & Ash (Land of Shadows #1)
Chapter Seven
FELICITY FORREST
“Breeding with mortals is forbidden. Mortal blood shall not dilute ours. Offspring of such unions, born of revelry and recklessness, shall be purged. It’s decreed that such lineage heralds our ruin.”
Decree of the Crimson Court, Edict II
“W e seem to be the source of gossip,” I say, glancing around the bar. Weathered wooden beams and snug alcoves make it the perfect blend of rustic charm and lived-in comfort. The walls, adorned with local art and mementos, seem to hum with stories, and the laughter and music spilling out of the doors carry the soul of the island itself. It’s the kind of pub where secrets are shared and fights are settled.
Father Cleary laughs. “Aye, the craic around town has been all about the journalist who’s come to write about the púca. We haven’t had a fae visit us since I was a wee lad.”
I keep my face neutral. “Really? And what makes you think that it’s a púca?”
“Did you see the photo I sent your boss?” Father Cleary asks.
I’m not about to tell the priest the photo doesn’t prove anything. I want to see where he’s going with this. I dig it out of my bag and slide it across the table. The shot looks like it might have been taken at night, and whatever it is, it’s moving way too fast to make out. The blur could be from the motion. There’s this strange overlay, almost like lace or…no, more like a Veil.
What’s clear is the background. A stone tower looms in the distance, eerie as hell, and at the very top, a man with glowing eyes stands there, staring straight through the haze like he’s looking right at me. Nathan keeps saying it’s not a trick of photo editing, but I’ve insisted otherwise. Now? I’m not so sure.
“Aye, then you can see why we believe it’s a púca. The only thing I don’t understand is why it’s causing so much trouble. When I was a lad, the fae were a blessing.”
The whole “púca as a blessing” thing has me stumped. Everything I found last night boiled down to “Sometimes they’re helpful, and sometimes they ruin your life.” Which, frankly, could describe half the people I’ve ever met. Still, I can’t shake the feeling he knows something I don’t. Or worse, that he thinks I know something I don’t.
“Father, what do you mean that they’re a blessing?” I ask.
“Our island has always been bleak. We’ve relied on the púca to bless the crops. According to local legend, our relationship with their race dates back to before Christianity came to the Inishmore.”
I purse my lips together. “I see.”
It’s hard to wrap my head around a priest pinning the island’s problems on a mythical race. Isn’t that the sort of thing priests are supposed to frown on? Like, “No, child, it’s not fairies. It’s sin, and also, don’t forget to tithe”?
The waitress returns with our drinks, but a prickling at the back of my neck has me glancing around the room. Someone is watching me. I make the movement casual, like I’m just taking in the pub, but my gaze catches on a man seated at a table across the room.
His stare is steady and far too intimate for someone I don’t know. Heat rises up my neck, impossible to ignore. His hair spills over his collar and gathers into a braid thick enough to tie up a ship. His face is all sharp angles, striking and impossible to look away from. The beard is a nice touch—neatly trimmed but unruly enough to suggest he’s no stranger to trouble. And then there’s the piercing on his lower lip, off-centre, like he flipped a coin to decide which side to pierce and lost on purpose.
The shadows around him seem to pulse with energy, having nothing to do with the pub’s dim lighting and everything to do with the kind of power that makes lesser men give him a wide berth. He sits with the coiled tension of a predator about to strike, one hand wrapped around his glass in a grip that suggests he’s imagining it’s someone’s throat.
When a drunk patron stumbles too close to my table, his onyx eyes, flecked with shards of amber, flash with a promise of violence so immediate and absolute that the temperature in the room seems to drop. The message is as clear as blood on snow. Approach her and die. It’s the kind of threat that comes with practice at making good on dark promises, and suddenly, I’m not sure which is more dangerous. The way he’s looking at me or how my body responds to that look with a shiver that has nothing to do with fear.
There’s a pull deep in my chest. It wraps around my soul like barbed silk, each breath drawing the threads tighter until they threaten to pierce the skin. Tension pulses between us like a living thing, hungry and demanding. It whispers of pleasure sharp enough to draw blood. My fingers twitch against the table. It’s more than attraction. It’s destiny with fangs.
My stomach lurches, reality tilting sideways as the magnetism grows stronger. Looking away feels like fighting gravity, but I force myself. Even if he looks like he walked straight out of the old legends—the dark ones, where fae lords stole mortal women and left trails of bodies in their wake—all deadly grace and predatory beauty that makes my mouth water. Not that I’d admit that. But someone might. Probably Cyn.
The pull yanks at my soul again, demanding I look at him. When our eyes meet, the corner of his mouth lifts into a smile that belongs in sin itself, like he can taste my surrender in the air and plans to savour every moment of it. His gaze burns over my skin, heavy with promises of the exquisitely filthy things he intends to do to me, each one more wicked than the last.
I turn determinedly to Father Cleary, fighting the heat pooling low in my belly. Arousal that definitely shouldn’t happen in a priest’s presence, especially when it involves fantasies that would make a succubus blush. But the connection pulses again, my body responding to its call like it’s found its other half in the darkness. Each breath feels like foreplay, my skin too tight, my blood singing with a need that threatens to consume everything I am. Holy thoughts are impossible when every cell in my body is screaming for the kind of satisfaction that could get me excommunicated just for thinking about it.
He’s a walking bad decision, and I’m already halfway to making it.
I clear my throat. “You really believe that, Father?”
“That’s the history of our land, and I can’t argue with the evidence. But don’t take my word for it,” he says as he motions to someone sitting by the bar.
A slender woman with sharp features and a confident stride approaches the table, her auburn hair catching the light as it falls loose over her shoulders. Father Cleary introduces her. “This is Jenna Hall. She’s an American photographer and artist staying on the island. And she’s the one who saw the púca.”
Jenna sits on the chair beside him. “It’s true. I didn’t want to believe it, but I was going for my morning walk when I saw that thing .” She points to the picture.
“But the photo looks dark,” Cyn says.
“Tell them what you told me,” Father Cleary says.
“You’re going to think it sounds crazy.” Jenna hesitates, her fingers brushing a strand of hair behind her ear. Her cheeks pinken as she glances between us. “I have no way to explain what I saw logically. If I hadn’t photographed it, I wouldn’t believe it myself. Cameras don’t lie,” Jenna says.
Cameras capture what’s there, but they don’t always tell the whole truth. People? They lie far too often. “Go on…”
“What looked like a portal to another land opened in front of me.” She gestures with her hands, tracing its size in the air. “The air shimmered, like heat waves rising off asphalt, but thicker. Almost like looking through a watery mirror. It was oval-shaped, taller than me and much wider. Night-time on the other side or maybe darker because of the portal distorting the view, but it was right after sunrise here.” She pauses, swallowing hard. “There was a stone tower. It was the scariest and most extraordinary thing I’ve ever seen in my life. So, of course, I had to take a picture of it, or no one would believe me.” Jenna looks away, biting her lip as if deciding whether to continue. “I hardly believe it myself. But as I took the picture, a horse appeared on the other side of the portal. It spoke to me.”
Cyn nearly spews a mouthful of beer, choking back laughter too late to stop the spray. A few droplets splatter on her arm and the edge of her phone. “Shit!” She grabs a napkin, hurriedly dabbing at the mess while trying—and failing—not to laugh harder. “I’m sorry. What…?”
Awareness prickles across my skin. My gaze flicks toward the bar, and there he is again. Only now, he’s closer, sitting at a table with his friend like he just casually decided to move. Yeah, right.
His eyes lock on mine. It’s like getting hit by a freight train. Dark, merciless, and entirely too confident. This shameless compulsion twists and burns and makes me want to find out just how much trouble he really is.
He radiates danger, the kind that hums in your chest and promises to ruin you in all the wrong ways. And I can’t look away, no matter how badly I want to pretend I’m not affected.
I force myself to blink, dragging my attention back to the table. “You’re telling me the horse spoke to you.” My voice is surprisingly steady despite the heat still thrumming under my skin.
Her story should sound bananas, ridiculous even. It hit all the marks with impossible events, strange coincidences, and a heavy dose of drama, but Jenna herself seems so normal. No wild eyes, no nervous twitching, not even a hint of the manic energy you’d expect from someone spinning a story like this one. Her calm, level-headed delivery somehow makes the whole thing worse.
“I know…it’s crazy, right? I mean, the whole talking horse thing reminded me of Mister Ed.”
“Right, you are. Nuts,” Cyn says and takes a sip of beer.
I ignore her sarcasm. “Mister Ed?”
“Oh, sorry. It’s this old American TV show with a talking horse.”
Cyn chokes on her beer this time, but at least she manages to keep it in her mouth.
I try not to crack a smile. Serves you right for being a smart ass. “What did it say?”
“It told me not to come any closer. Not in a menacing way, but it sounded like a warning. It said I’d be trapped forever if I went any further. That was enough for me, so I backed away. Then it disappeared. The horse, the tower, the portal, poof , it was there, and then it wasn’t.” Jenna snaps her fingers. “Just like that.”
“Just like that?” I refrain from snapping my fingers, instead, turning to the priest. “And how did you get involved?”
“Aye, five days ago, Jenna came into the pub,” Father Cleary says, pausing to sip his beer. “She was having a chat with the bartender about that photo. After seeing something like that, I needed a drink, too. It wasn’t long before all of Kilronan heard her story about the púca. Someone who reads that tabloid of yours contacted your boss and put him in touch with me. He asked about the story and if I had any evidence to back it up. Jenna let me send him that evidence. And here we are…”
Something about it spikes adrenaline through me. It’s a rush I haven’t felt in a while. I glance down at the picture, my stomach doing a slow roll. Maybe there’s more to this than I thought. When Nathan told me about the case, I figured it was the usual prickly local trying to keep the resort from being built. I’ve been at this long enough to know how these stories go. Nine times out of ten, it’s a hoax, and I go in with my scepticism cranked up to eleven.
I always know when someone’s feeding me a rehearsed line like they’re auditioning for a part in a ghost hunt reality telly special. It’s practically my superpower. Jenna’s not doing that. She’s not playing up the drama or leaning on the old superstitions that float around places like this island. She’s telling the truth or at least her truth. It rattles me. “I see. Jenna, could you show me where you took this photo?”
Father Cleary answers before Jenna has a chance. “Aye, we’ll take you tomorrow. It’s not far from where the resort is being built. But it’s best to be heading back before midnight.”
Cyn grins. “Oh, we’re not afraid of the dark, Father.”
He gives her a stern look. “It’s not the dark, but what lurks in it. The púca are known to ride at night.”
Jenna coughs. “I’d be happy to show you tomorrow.”
The waitress reappears. “Can I get you anything else?”
Father Cleary rises from the table. “I’m gonna head on.”
“I should be going too,” Jenna says as she follows his lead. “See you tomorrow.”
I nod. “We’ll meet up with you after breakfast.” And a bit of Internet research. “Does eleven-thirty work?”
“Sure,” Jenna says.
“We’ll stop by Pier House,” Father Cleary says as he and Jenna leave the table.
“Well, I’m ready to order some food,” Cyn says. “I’ll have fish and chips.”
“Anything for you?” the waitress asks, barely looking up from her pad.
I run my finger down the menu, picking the first item that grabs my attention. “I’d like the chicken ciabatta and chips, please.”
The waitress takes our menus, heading off to the kitchen. Cyn chatters away, her voice bright and animated as she recounts her latest photoshoot. I nod along, but my attention is caught up in everything Jenna told us.
Before I can get too lost in thought, a sandy-haired local with a mischievous grin stops by our table. He leans in slightly, his gaze fixed on Cyn. “You’ve got a touch of the wild in you, don’t you? Like the wind couldn’t catch you if it tried.”
Cyn raises an eyebrow, her lips curving into an amused smile. “Flattery, huh? And here I thought I’d be blending in for once.”
“Blending in?” He snorts softly. “Not a chance, love. Someone like you? The world notices whether you like it or not.”
They exchange a few playful quips, and I take the opportunity to retreat into my thoughts while Cyn basks in the attention.
Our food arrives not long after, the rich, savoury smell wafting up from the plates, and the lad flirting with Cyn gives up. It should make my stomach growl, but Jenna’s story steals my appetite.
The tower and the glowing-eyed figure pull me deeper into something I’m not sure I want to touch. Maybe it’s a trick of the camera, a bad angle, and some weird lighting. Or maybe…it’s not?
I look up, mulling over the thought, and that’s when I see that Viking sex god still knocking back drinks with his friend. He looks up. When our eyes meet, his gaze is predatory, charged with a raw intensity that promises nothing but trouble. And I’m tempted to see just how much.
Crap. This time, I’m the one caught staring. Heat flares low in my belly.
His slow, delicious grin hits me deep in my belly and lower. It promises so much wicked sin. Then he stands like he’s about to walk over. That’s when I see it. A faint shimmer around him, like heat waves off the asphalt, only darker. My heart stutters. Whatever he is, Viking, mercenary, time-travelling bard, he’s not some random guy in a pub.
I drop the photo and reach for my glass, trying to act normal, but my hand shakes. It’s not the photograph I need to worry about anymore. It’s him .