Page 7 of Consumed
Stepping before him, I unfastened his cloak, biting back a grimace at the slight sting of the iron clasp against my skin. My forwardness earned an alarmed look, but his gaze then fell longingly to the water, glittering with refractions of dawn’s first rays. He dragged a hand over his face, grinning and shaking his head.
“Well, I will not stand here and be called a child.” Eoin set aside the wooden carving to tear off his boots and tunic, much to my delight.
I backed away as he waded into the pond, my heart pounding with a wild glee. Eoin chased me, catching mearound the waist and making me squeal with laughter. I wriggled and kicked with threats that were as potent as wet paper until he at last set me back on my feet, his mirth buried into my neck. I turned, finding him submerged to his waist, and rivets of water running down his toned arms and chest. I was delightfully aware of how his eyes drifted downward, the delicate fabric of my gown all but disappearing as the water lapped just below my breasts.
Birdsong and rustling leaves gathered in the silence, surrounding us better than any musicians. I danced, shutting my eyes and throwing up my arms, swirling my heavy skirts in the deep water. There was always music in the woods, for anyone careful enough to hear it.
“Don’t humans dance?” I asked, drifting closer to him.
As he watched me dance—the way my sisters and I always did, joyously and untethered—something gave in Eoin’s polite mannerisms. In perhaps his boldest act since meeting me years ago, he put his arms out and intercepted me.
“Not like that,” he said, positioning me.
When I looked up at his face, I swore I could melt into his golden-brown eyes. I’d certainly die if he ever looked at anyone else with such smoldering tenderness.
Our breathing fell into sync, the two of us finding a new, playful dance. He lifted his arm and twirled me, grinning as I let my body sink into our invisible rhythm at his lead. Peace settled into my heartlike never before. I might have held onto him forever if he hadn’t interrupted the sounds of the forest.
“If only I could smuggle you into the village, my little rose. I could show the same hospitality that you have so offered me,” Eoin murmured, his voice a gentle rumble like earth shifting.
“It’s not a matter of hospitality on your part. I cannot leave the forest.” I reached up to trace his jaw with my fingertips. “You must understand, then, why my sisters and I are so protective of our home. It is ours by right, and all we have. Humans stake claims wherever they travel, while creatures of the forest cannot stray far.”
Eoin frowned. “What would happen to you? If you stepped out of these woods, I mean.”
I dropped my gaze to our hands, still clasped. Two worlds intertwined. “I am the forest. Less than a day away from it could drain everything I am,” I offered in a low voice. “It would be painful, to say the least.”
“I’m sorry,” Eoin murmured.
“Don’t be. There is more joy here than I could ever find out there.”
The disappointment in his gaze weighed heavily upon my heart as he leaned down, resting his forehead against mine. The gentle smile in his voice, however, alleviated the pain. “I suppose you’ll have to remain my little secret, then.”
His.
The displeased murmurs of my sisters had never felt further away. Didn’t they understand that logic could never hope to compete with infatuation?
We were so close. All I needed to do was tip my mouth a bit higher to catch his lips.
Patience. I had to be patient.
I forced a passive expression on my face and waded backward, putting inches between us that felt like a gaping canyon.
As I clambered back onto the bank, I grasped the wooden carving from beside Eoin’s discarded clothing. “Have you forgotten why we’re here?” I asked, raising my eyebrows. “Where shall we put it?”
Eoin waded back, giving a little shiver as he stepped back into the cool morning air beside me. “It is your gift, Róisín. You should decide.”
My answer arrived with an insulted little scoff. “I’ll do no such thing! Why have I brought you here if not for your artistic eye?”
“Why indeed,” Eoin murmured. I saw how his searching gaze caught on one of the tree hollows overhead.
“That’s a fine spot,” I prompted before he could point it out himself.
“Ah, it’s too high up. No footholds,” he said, gesturing at the thick column of the trunk. The soft moss clinging to the rivets would do him no favors, but my form held none of the clumsy boundariesof a mortal.
I savored the weight of his astounded gaze as I scaled the tree with the ease of something feline. My movements were unhurried—I sensed how his stare traced every curve of my body through my gown, still translucent and dripping cool water.
After delicately placing his gift in the hollow, I admired him from above. Even from a distance, I noted how he held his breath, worried about my precarious perch yet wanting nothing more to continue gazing upon me.
After descending with the same ease, I took his hand and led him to sit at the edge of the pond. Seated in the soft grass side by side, I gazed up at the carving he’d made of me. My own miniature likeness stared back.
