Page 218 of Flirting with Darkness

I clenched my jaw and lifted my chin. “I wasn’t talking to him.”

Feet planted, body centred low, like Faolán had shown me, I braced my shoulder and shoved into him. With my full weight ramming into him, he fell out of her grip and slumped to the side, leaving the sapphire-eyed woman staring up at me. Her sharp-toothed smile dropped as her mouth fell open.

With every bit of strength I possessed, I brought the blade down.

I knew the instant it touched her pale, pale skin, because even before my arms registered the resistance of flesh and bone, she shrieked.

Her body writhed and sizzled. “No, stop! It burns.”

But it was too late—my blade was buried in her to the hilt and her blood spilled onto the ballroom floor. Thick and darkest red, it pooled and gathered around the heart design Faolán and I had danced across as though drawn to it irresistibly. With a groan, the heart turned crimson and twitched like it was alive.

Stomach turning, eyes ready to pop, I stumbled back. I cursed myself for leaving the knife in her chest, because the way the heart pulsed to life, something worse had to be coming.

But a moment later, it shuddered and went black, leaving the sapphire-eyed woman’s blood to trail along the cracks in the floor, following only gravity.

As I crawled to Faolán, who lay still, she grabbed at the hilt sticking out of her chest, but her movements were weak. The glow that surrounded her throbbed.

“You stupid girl.” She gave up on the blade and reached for me instead, but I was out of her grasp, pulling Faolán’s head into my lap. “You could’ve made this house great again—could’ve made me great again.”

“Great? Do you mean young and pretty?” I scoffed and stroked Faolán’s straggly fur. He was still warm, still breathing, but he didn’t move.

“You… stupid… human…” Her back arched as she whimpered, the sound at odds with the vicious look on her face. “I had everything… was everything… more than you could ever…” She sagged, but those cold sapphire eyes glared at me. “Could ever have… could ever know.” Then the breath left her and she fell still.

Along with the breath, the glow left her too, gushing back into Faolán. Beneath the fur, his body cracked and shifted, joints popping and reforming, muzzle retracting. I stared and stroked him as the fur retreated into his skin.

When he was somewhere between wolf and fae, the house cried out. I covered my ears but couldn’t block out the inhuman shriek of timber, stone, and plaster, or that fact that somewhere beneath it all there was a flesh and blood voice. A woman’s voice.

It made every hair on my body spring to attention. “Faolán?”

He was back to his hulking, tattooed self, albeit naked save for the braided leather bracelet. The wolves etched into his chest expanded and contracted with his deep, even breaths. Suddenly they made a lot of sense.

I didn’t know the full story, why he’d attacked me, but after seeing Granny’s lies, I would take my chances with him. I stroked his cheek. “Time to wake up, my love, my beast.”

Nothing.

“Faolán?” I shook him. Nothing. I shouted for him, slapped his cheek hard enough to ring through the room.

He didn’t wake.

The old stories were full of enchanted sleeps where the dreamer never woke.

Had I failed to save him after all?

My heart clenched as I stared at the rise and fall of his chest, eyes burning. True love’s kiss. That was something else in the stories, wasn’t it? I’d never put much stock in it, but right now I’d try anything. Cupping his cheek, I kissed his brow, his crooked nose, his mouth.

His eyelids didn’t so much as flutter.

“Please?” I looked up at the cracked ceiling, like the gods might be listening to my cracked voice. “Please let him wake up. Bring him back to me.Please.”

“Rose?”

It was the most wonderful sound I ever heard.

When I looked down, he blinked up at me, hand coming up to cover mine, to hold it against his stubbly cheek. He smiled.

Like I hadn’t called him a monster, like he hadn’t attacked me, hesmiled.

“I’m so sorry, Faolán.” There was so much to say, to ask, I didn’t know where to start.

---