Page 29

A s soon as the door to his car shut, she twisted in the passenger seat, whirling on him. “You bloody bastard!”

“Oh, come on now. You’re not that big a fan of fucking Domhnall , are you?”

Fuck. He shouldn’t have revealed he knew the prick’s name, but he was done with this charade after all they’d talked about today, revealed subtly.

“I don’t mean about him, you eejit. I mean about not letting me study our specimens.”

“That’s rich, Atta,” he shot back. “You stole one from me.”

“And yet I have no idea what happened with the others, do I? Are you even going to tell me?”

“I’d planned to take you to see the Stage 4 gravesite after I dropped my friend at home, considering she didn’t bring her own vehicle, but here we are.” He threw his hands in the air. “Now she’s abandoned at night.”

Atta looked like he’d dumped a cold bucket of water on her. “You were out on a date?”

Heat lit in his chest. Was she envious? “Does it matter if I was?”

“No.” She crossed her arms and faced the dash. “Did you wear that stupid mask?”

“What do you think?”

He watched the calculation on her face as she tried to work out all the times she’d glanced at him throughout the night with that look that was driving him out of his skull. He could walk it all back right now if he wanted to. Make her believe she’d been wrong about who he was.

But fuck , he didn’t want to.

“She is a friend,” he said softly, and Atta turned her face toward him, but didn’t look at him directly, her eyes pinned on the steering wheel.

“All right.”

Without another word, he pulled out of the parking space and drove them to Trinity Cemetery. She was still quiet. More guarded than she’d been with him in weeks. He wanted to reassure her. Tell her it wasn’t a date. That he and Marguerite had ridden together from college and met up with their friends. That he couldn’t stop thinking about her . Hadn’t thought about another woman since the second she walked into his classroom that first time. No. Since the first time he’d seen her at Achilles House with a corpse she’d already opened.

was no eunuch, but he’d always been focused, driven. Pursued books and ideas and science far before women. They were a means to an end, a way to sate his primal hunger, not woo and build a life with. Atta was different. She appealed to every sense he had and never knew was there.

He turned off his lights and parked in the same spot as last time, hidden by brush.

He looked at Atta and she was peering out into the dark, but she ran her tongue over her bottom lip and he bit back a groan, exiting the car with haste.

“The Stage 4 is?—”

“Lauren,” Atta said sharply, handing him a shovel from the backseat. “Her name is Lauren.”

“Lauren,” he amended. “She is buried under the tree, just there.” He pointed and was surprised when Atta followed his direction, then whipped around to face him, her eyes wide.

“Under a hawthorn tree?”

“Yes. Is that significant?”

“It was on the coins we found last time. Do you still have them?”

“I do. In my lab at home.” He’d been correct about their properties being abnormal, possibly as foreign as the flora.

Her demeanour changed, intrigue slipping in, and he wanted to dive into it. “You have a lab at home, too?” Before he could answer, she went on, her face screwing up adorably in thought. “Didn’t you say you wanted to show me something?” She paused, considering. “Wait. No.” She shook her head. “Never mind. Come on.”

They approached the fresh mound of dirt beneath the tree and bent down in unison. Atta ran her fingers over the soil, inspecting it.

“It’s fertilised, just like the others. Bring your lantern in closer.” He did as she asked, illuminating a trailing group of mushrooms.

“Like a little cluster of trooping faeries,” she mused. “Did you bring gloves?”

Silently, he fished them out of his pocket and handed them to her, pulling a test tube out of his interior jacket pocket as she donned the gloves.

Carefully, Atta dug at the soil and he wished she wasn’t bent over in that skirt. She dug until she plucked up the mushroom, its fungal root system still intact.

“This is exactly what I needed,” she said almost reverently. “Fresh mycelium.”

He held out the test tube, grateful he’d brought a large size, and she gently stowed their findings away.

She stole the lantern from his grasp and leaned over the place she’d taken the mushroom from. “Do you think it’s coming from her, or called by her?”

“What do you mean?” But he already knew. He’d read her research paper three times, after all.

Atta sat back on her heels. “Mushrooms essentially ‘talk’ to trees by connecting to their root systems through this stuff, the mycelium, which is a network of microscopic threads. It creates a network of communication underground where trees and plants can exchange nutrients and water, all connected. Look.” She took his forearm and pulled him closer, but he couldn’t see well enough in the low light, not with the blasted mask on.

He reached for the edge of the mask, lifted it from his chin, and she gasped.

“ No .” She tightened her hold on his arm. “Don’t!”

“I can’t see, Atta.” But maybe he meant that he couldn’t see her. Not properly. Not the way he wanted to. In one swift movement, he had the mask off.

Atta’s lips parted. Her eyes went wide and glistening in the glow of the lamp. “ .” The way she said his name was like a dagger to his heart.

“ Atta . You’re a brilliant woman. You had to know it was me.”

She was looking at him with what he’d swear was relief, but then she said, “Of course I knew it was you, but now I have no plausible deniability!”

He huffed a laugh, enjoying how close he was to her. How alone they were. He wanted to take her beautiful face in his hands and learn how that smart mouth tasted. “If we need plausible deniability, we’re already fucked, a stór .”? *

Just then, a beam of light passed over their heads. cursed and pushed Atta down to the dirt, whispering in her ear to stay quiet as he covered her. The beam passed over the grounds, lingering on them once more before disappearing. A clang of the heavy iron gate revealed they were alone again a few moments later.

Rattled, they hurried to his car in a crouch and drove off without the lights on until they were far enough away.

At least they had the mushroom.

At least she knew it was him.

* ? a stór (uh stohr)—Irish Gaelic; meaning my darling, or my treasure