Page 18 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)

“A long time ago, before the Kirkfoyles were even a formalized clan, they lived in peace with the fae. They bartered with them and carried out the proper rituals to show respect, and intermarried from time to time. But with time something… soured. Both parties wanted more power, more land, and war broke out. The only thing that put a stop to the bloodshed was the treaty. The fae went underground, and my family ceded the realm beneath the hills to them. In return, the fae would let my family live aboveground unbothered.”

“So what happened?” Adam asked. He was trying to sound cynical, but Nicola knew he was intrigued. She could feel it in the way his pulse pounded in his wrist. She hadn’t let go of him after carefully affixing his bandages. And he hadn’t pulled away either.

“The fae would only honor the agreement if there was a living Kirkfoyle ruling from Craigmar. If my line dies out or moves away, the treaty is null and void, and the fae reclaim the land.”

“They’ll take over the house and the grounds?” Nicola asked, running the calculations in her head. If Eileen wasn’t taking them for a ride, and if what she was saying was right, that was an awful lot of land.

“When the treaty was signed, the Kirkfoyles owned quite a bit of the countryside,” Eileen said, biting the inside of her mouth.

“If the treaty is broken, the fae have every right to overrun at least four neighboring villages and towns, not to mention the Craigmar estate. And the fae keep their bargains, but in letter alone, not in spirit. For generations, my line has been afflicted by unexplained illness, madness and death. Kirkfoyles have gone missing in their own backyards, and they’ve washed ashore on their own beaches dead.

People have tried to leave, but they always end up back here, in the end. Even if it’s only to come home to die.”

“You’re saying they’ve killed people?” Nicola asked, blood running cold. Eileen was sweating through what was left of her makeup as though unearthing family secrets better left buried.

“Our neighbors underground are capricious and territorial. I’d wager they’re worse than your stories, Nicola. I knew, growing up, that there might be one day where I woke up an orphan. I just thought, somehow, that I had more time.”

“You mean to tell me faeries killed your parents?” Adam said, sounding brusque and boyish and so, so rude. Nicola stamped on his foot under the table, and he hissed. “Ouch, Nikki.”

“My parents were both excellent mariners, and the sky was clear the day they went out sailing. Still the boat capsized,” Eileen said, eyes flat.

She sounded utterly exhausted. Like she had been trapped in this story for a hundred years.

“Water is a portal, Adam, just like a cave. You learned that today, surely. At any rate, I’m the last of my line.

The last Kirkfoyle that hasn’t flung themselves off a cliff or died in childbirth or wasted away upstairs from old age.

So please forgive me if I’ve been vague, or even misled you deliberately.

But you see, no one knows about this place, absolutely no one.

Kirkfoyles keep to ourselves, and we guard our secrets jealously.

And then you show up one day saying that your grandfather was here, that he knew my grandmother, that he told you for years and years that Craigmar was magic?

You see now why I couldn’t let you leave. Not until you understood.”

“And what am I supposed to understand?” Adam asked.

“That you’re meant to be here. That you’re meant to help me figure out how to save this place.”

Eileen’s chin dimpled, like she might cry, but then she sighed and her face smoothed out perfectly. Finley twisted the iron stud in his ear over and over, a nervous tic. And Nicola gripped Adam’s hand and waited to see what Adam would do.

“I’m sorry,” Adam said after a long while. “I just don’t think I can believe that.”

Eileen stood with a huff, too quickly for Nicola to stop her, and stormed out of the room. In the resulting awkward silence, Nicola became sure that they would never see their strange host again, certainly not until they took their leave.

But then, Eileen returned with a pewter box in her hands. It was battered, like a little girl’s trinket box that had seen considerable wear and tear over the years.

“If you won’t believe me, then please just trust me on one thing,” she said.

She opened the box and produced a thick men’s ring, flecked with the beaten marks of a blacksmith’s hammer.

“You’re giving me jewelry?” Adam asked as she pressed it into his palm.

“I’m giving you iron. It’s the best protection I know. My family wears it to ward off our neighbors. That ring was my father’s. It will keep you safe, even if you only wear it long enough to make it safely into your car.”

“This is a family heirloom,” Adam said. “You can’t just give it to me.”

“I’ve got no family left,” Eileen said with a shrug. “And I’d rather you live a good long life aboveground then get snatched away to faeryland. I’ve got something for you too, birdie.”

Eileen reached back in the box and produced a long-chain necklace, with a single iron charm dangling from it. The charm, Nicola realized as Eileen dropped it into her hands, was a tarnished Scottish thistle.

“That was mine, when I was a girl,” Eileen said. “Wear it faithfully and it will keep you safe. I’ll help you pack, if you want to go. I’ll even have Finley guide you as far as Wyke. But you asked me to tell you about Craigmar, and that’s the truth of it.”

Nicola searched Eileen’s expression for any indication of a lie, but there was none. Eileen just looked wrung-out and a desperate, staring at Adam with the cracked lips of someone who, long denied water, had happened upon an oasis.

“Well, what do you want me to do?” Adam asked, huffing out a disbelieving laugh. “We can’t just stay here with you.”

“Why not?” Eileen asked, with such a vulnerable hope that it nearly broke Nicola’s heart.

“We have hostel reservations, and a plane home to catch in a week.”

“Then forget your reservations and stay the week,” Eileen said. “If you decide to stay longer than that, I’ll buy you new tickets home whenever you like.”

Nicola paled. She knew damn well what those tickets had cost, especially since she had saved up for six months to buy her round-trip flight.

“We couldn’t let you do that,” Nicola said.

“Nicola, I’m rich. It’s nothing. Certainly nothing compared to the help you two might be able to give me.

You have an obvious expertise in this area as a student of folklore.

Your quick thinking out at the cave is exactly the sort of thing we need.

And Adam, I do believe that there’s something here about your grandfather we’re not seeing.

Something that could lift the weight of centuries of family suffering off my shoulders.

Quite frankly, you’re the first break I’ve had in this case for years.

And this big old house feels so empty this time of year, when everything is coming back to life outside.

Even if your grandfather is a dead end, it would be nice to have some company for a little while. ”

Adam and Nicola shared a long, silent look, weighing their options without having to speak. The choice was obvious: turn back towards safety and the known challenges of the regular world, or walk hand in hand together into something darker and stranger and altogether more exciting.

There was nothing waiting for Nicola back in Michigan except closing shifts at the florist’s and a half-finished children’s book manuscript on her computer that wouldn’t write itself and bumble dates that went nowhere.

There was nothing good guaranteed to come of staying at Craigmar, but there was certainly potential, of real magic, of a chance at deeper connection with Adam, of luxuriating in all of Eileen’s wonderful strangeness, of uncovering what lay beneath the warmth glimmering in Finley’s eyes.

Nicola had spent so long with no proper home, no safe place to rest that she hadn’t carved out for herself. And while Criagmar wasn’t home, it was a place she felt welcome, wanted even, and that was more intoxicating than any faery story.

Nicola already knew her answer. But more importantly, she knew Adam, and more than anything, she knew that deep down, Adam wanted to be a hero.

“Say yes,” she said quietly.

Adam sighed and surrendered.

“I guess I don’t really need to be in the States to get my freelance jobs done. I brought my laptop with me, just in case, but Nicola, I know you’ve got to work and—”

“The shop will manage fine without me,” Nicola said. “And this is the perfect place to work on my book. Maybe I’ll actually get it finished while you help Eileen go through those family records.”

“So you’ll stay,” Eileen said, letting out a relieved breath.

Finley, who had been observing the conversation very quietly and very intently up until now, said: “If you stay, I’m sure Eileen will give you full run of the house and grounds.

But you’ve got to promise to follow her rules, about the iron, about following our traditions, about keeping the good neighbors happy, all of it. ”

Nicola felt an unexpected thrill at those words.

She didn’t consider herself the kind of person who liked following rules as, well, a general rule.

But something about doing exactly what Eileen said, beautiful brutal Eileen with her impossibly dark eyes, made the prospect more appealing.

Nicola would probably do anything Eileen asked when she looked at Nicola like she was now, like Nicola was a flower whose petals she wanted to pluck one by one.

“I promise,” Nicola said, a little breathlessly.

“I promise,” Adam said, like a pact.

“Thank Christ,” Eileen said, slapping the table. A bit of color was returning to her cheeks. “Finley, could you get the rest of their things from the car? They’ll be staying with us a while.”

“I’ll help,” Adam said.

Finley gave a curt nod, his gaze fixed on the table. Why couldn’t he look Adam in the eye?

“Ready when you are,” Finley said.

Adam and Finley pulled on their coats, talking in a low murmur about weather or cars or whatever else men who didn’t know each other well talked about, and then left Eileen and Nicola alone in the kitchen.

Eileen leaned across the table, smiling conspiratorially.

“It will be so nice to have another girl in the house again,” she said. “Especially one as clever as you.”

Nicola smiled back, feeling a bit like a songbird who had wandered into a snare. To her surprise, Nicola found that a dark and needy part of her liked that feeling, especially if Eileen was the one holding the other end of the rope.