Page 43 of Savage Blooms (Unearthly Delights #1)

Panic started to rise up in Finley’s throat. He didn’t know CPR. If Adam died on his watch the girls would never be able to look at him again, and he would never be able to forgive himself.

“Come on, Lancaster,” Finley said through gritted teeth. Utterly out of options, he slapped Adam briskly across the face.

Adam stirred with a groan. Then, he rolled onto his side and spat up a frightening amount of water.

Finley rocked back on his heels and let his eyes slide shut.

“Thank Christ,” he breathed.

“Finley,” Adam rasped, turning those cornflower-blue eyes on his rescuer. “How did you find me?”

“I heard you call out for help,” Finley lied. Adam might be full of generous feeling towards Finley for the small matter of saving his life, but he wouldn’t take kindly to Finley spying on him.

“There was something…” Adam went on, coughing up more water and a green thread of loch grass. “Something in the water. I swear it.”

“Like a fish?” Finley said hopefully, half leaning, half falling down onto his back. His chest was on fire from panic and exertion, and he felt a bit lightheaded.

Adam’s eyes darkened.

“No. Something big. Something with hands.”

“Weren’t you wearing your ring?” Finley asked.

“I took it off,” Adam spluttered, gesturing towards where the ring lay nestled in his shirt. “It was a gift, I didn’t want it to slip off in the water and—”

“Never take it off,” Finley snapped, picking up the ring and thrusting it back onto Adam’s finger.

It was thoughtless, the way he took control, pressing a thumb sharply into Adam’s palm to spread his fingers for the ring.

After he was done, he grasped Adam’s wrist tight like he was a misbehaving child.

“Promise me you won’t take it off. Say it. ”

“Fine, Jesus,” Adam said. “I promise. I didn’t realize I had to wear it twenty-four/seven. I thought—”

“Water is a portal,” Finley said, repeating what Eileen had told him so many times, what her father had told her when he ordered her to stop swimming in the loch. “Come on, let’s get you back to the house.”

“Eileen!” Finley hollered, shouldering open the door to the main house. “Get down here!”

He pulled Adam inside with an arm around his shoulders. Adam could walk by himself just fine, and it wasn’t as though he was going to develop hypothermia. Still, holding on to Adam made Finley feel better, so he hadn’t let him go.

“What is it?” Eileen hissed, appearing at the stop of the stairs. She was disheveled from bed, her dark hair knotted and her eyes puffy from sleep. Judging by the way she winced against the light, she had a raging migrane. “Some of us are trying to sleep.”

When she finally looked down the stairs at them, all the color drained from her face.

“God in heaven,” she said. She hurried down the stairs, gripping the banister tight, and took Adam’s face in her hands as though to make sure he was still alive. “What happened?”

“He went swimming,” Finley said, shaking the water from his curls. He had mostly dried on the walk back to the house, but he was still cold and damp.

“S-something grabbed me,” Adam said, teeth chattering slightly. Maybe shock was getting to him, or maybe he just wasn’t built for the cold the way Finley was. “In the water. Finley pulled me to shore.”

“He took off his ring,” Finley went on.

Eileen’s eyes flashed, enraged both that their neighbors underground would try to steal Adam from her and that he had been stupid enough to go swimming without wearing his iron.

“What the hell would you let him do a thing like that for?” Eileen snapped.

“I’m not his keeper,” Finley responded, bristling.

“Adam, listen to me,” Eileen said. “Water is—”

“A portal,” Adam said, rubbing some warmth back into his arms. “I’ve heard.”

Eileen glared at him, but she put an arm around him and pulled him in tight all the same.

The other arm went around Finley, and the groundskeeper found himself smushed between Eileen and Adam, wrapped in the scent of iris and lake water and damp skin.

His hands drifted up of their own accord, pressing against their backs.

Adam was cold to the touch, and Eileen was trembling.

With fury or with fear, Finley didn’t know.

“Adam?” Nicola asked, appearing around the corner. “Oh my God, look at you!”

“I’m fine,” Adam said, but he gladly accepted the way she examined him like a nurse and kissed all over his face. “Finley found me.”

Without a thought for what the lake water would do to her sweater, Nicola embraced Finley. Finley’s chest constricted.

He was trying to let himself enjoy the good things while they lasted.

But it was so hard to believe that it all wouldn’t be taken away again the moment the truth came to light, and it was harder to believe that Adam or Nicola would want anything to do with them once they found out who he really was.

The things he was capable of, and what he was complicit in.

“You need a hot shower and warm clothes,” Eileen said, already pulling Adam towards the stairs. “Join us in the library once you’ve finished. We’ll add a few more logs to the fire and you’ll feel right as rain soon.”

“You’ve got to listen to me,” Adam said, stumbling forward as though in a daze. “There’s something out there, in the water, something mean and strong—”

“I’d wager there’s more than one something out there; it wouldn’t surprise me at all.”

“Shouldn’t you be more worried about that?”

“What happened to you is the exact same thing that’s been happening to Kirkfoyles for centuries. I’m far more concerned about your health than I am about draining my loch to keep faeries at bay.”

“What the fuck is going on in this place, Eileen?” Adam said, pulling his arm out of her grasp and stopping at the foot of the stairs.

She looked down at him from a few steps above, irritated with the pushback, but Finley saw clearly that Adam had scraped the bottom of the barrel of his patience and come up with nothing.

The air between Adam and Eileen was tense, pulled taut as a bowstring as they stared each other down.

At Finley’s side, Nicola slipped her hand into his own and gave a nervous squeeze.

“I’ve told you exactly what the fuck is going on,” Eileen said crisply. “You’re the one who refuses to believe me.”

“I’ve bent over backwards to believe you. I’ve certainly taken everything you’ve said in stride. But it feels like every time I go outside something attacks me and—”

“You’re right,” Eileen said with a nod. “It’s probably safest if you don’t leave the house for a while.”

“You can’t keep me on house arrest because Tinkerbell is outside—”

“Watch the way you talk about our neighbors,” Eileen said, hissing through her teeth as though warding off the devil.

“This is exactly what I’m talking about,” Adam said, stomping halfway up the stairs before turning to look back down at her.

Finley thought about breaking up this brewing domestic, but even he wasn’t brave enough to come between Eileen and whoever she was locked in battle with.

“I don’t know what’s real and what’s superstition, and I don’t know what happened to my grandfather here or why he left.

I don’t even know how long I’m going to have to stay. ”

“As long as it takes, I’m sure,” Eileen said nastily, probably showing more of her hand than she intended to. Eileen was incredibly calculating, but she got sloppy when she was mad.

“Lay off him, Isla,” Finley said, desperate to shut her up before she said too much. “He’s just had a scare.”

“Taking his side now?” Eileen demanded. “How very like a man.”

“I can handle this myself, Finley,” Adam said, just as ferociously.

Finley relented. No good deed went unpunished, apparently.

“Can you please at least tell me what happened to your grandmother?” Adam went on. “I know that you know why she disappeared, I can feel that there’s something you’re not telling me—”

“I don’t know what happened to her,” Eileen said.

“You’re lying!” Adam said, smacking the banister with a force that made Eileen start. The Kirkfoyle temper ran just as deep as the charm, it appeared. “What’s the point of me being here if you can’t even tell me the truth?”

“You’re here on my pleasure, Adam Lancaster,” Eileen said, voice cold as ice. “And you would do well to remember that.”

Adam looked Eileen up and down, as though finally seeing her for the first time. The expression that crossed his face next was pure disgust, like he had turned over a rock and found Eileen wet and wriggling on the underside.

“I’m going to shower,” Adam said, and he looked right through Eileen when he said it.

With that, he turned and disappeared up the stairs.

Nicola hurried after him, calling his name sharply one moment and then pleadingly the next.

Finley was left staring up at Eileen. She looked every inch the miserable fallen angel wreathed in the red halo glow of the stained glass behind her head.

Without another word, she stormed up the stairs to her bedroom.

Two hours later, after she had hopefully had enough time to cool down, Finley climbed the narrow set of stairs to the third floor and knocked lightly on her door.

“Go away,” Eileen said from inside.

Finley unlatched the door and pushed inside.

Eileen’s childhood bedroom was small, by no stretch of the imagination the grand quarters of the lord of the manor.

The dark wood paneling of the baseboards and trim contrasted starkly with the sky-blue wallpaper, dotted with little vines.

The walls were crammed with framed paintings, mostly of foreign locales, and one large tapestry of a man hunting a unicorn that hung over a small fireplace.

A modest bookshelf tucked in one corner boasted books of poetry, myth, fiction and picture books, many of which were antiques.