Page 72 of Savage Blooms
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 theway 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 wentaround 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 andstrong—”
“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.”
