Page 35 of Shamrocked
“Treasurekeeper.” I jerked my gaze back to the pooka, surprised that it could speak. “Evil Eye has promised a great reward for you. Especially if I bring you back alive.”
“Bring me back where?”
It grinned, licking slug-like lips that made me shudder. “He never said I couldn’t taste you first.”
I backed away, carefully, feeling for each step so I didn’t fall over a chunk of Doran. A sob tore through my throat.Doran.
A massive taloned paw dropped onto my shoulder and jerked me back against cold, hard stone. “You called,mo stór?”
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That voice. It rumbled like granite boulders tumbling down the side of a mountain, but underneath, it sounded like Doran. The man who’d whispered in my head, driving me to paint nonstop for days.
I started to turn to him, tears dripping down my cheeks, but the pooka let out a terrible shriek that made me clamp my hands over my ears. It sounded like a massive train derailing, metal screeching on metal as it came off its tracks. The other pookas came to join it. They bared blood-stained teeth, their long knife-like claws shredding the earth with anticipation, eyes glittering with hatred.
Aidan stepped up beside me and laid a hand on my shoulder. Keane dragged Ivarr up and they limped over to us. Ivarr lifted his head, and both he and Keane reached for me.
All four treasures. Touching me.
The wheel blazed to life inside me, spinning with Ivarr’s golden light. All four spokes. Whole. Balanced. Complete.
Then Warwick stepped closer, sliding his hand around Aidan so he could touch me too. Warwick’s green magic poured into the wheel, making it spin faster. Brighter. A wave of power exploded out of me. Their power, finally united once more. I trembled as the magic poured into me, swirled around the wheel, and then surged out, a constant, massive flow. I didn’t try to direct it, even if I could have. That wasn’t my job. Just as when I painted, I surrendered to the muse, or in this case, the treasures, and let them use me as their conduit.
Power slammed the pookas back into the bowels of the earth. Doran’s voice crashed like a massive thunderstorm. “Tell Balor that the Stone of Destiny lives and breathes again. The treasurekeeper is ours. The curse is broken!”
He snatched me close and surged up the stairs and out of the storage building. His wings unfurled and he launched into the air, clutching me against him. I twisted toward him and hooked my arm around his neck, burying my face against him. For one thing, he smelled good, like wet stone after a summer thunderstorm. But I also fucking hated heights. If I looked at how high we were, I’d probably throw up all over him.
He still felt like hard stone, but now he was hot to the touch, breathing, muscles moving beneath my cheek. His heart thundered against my ear and I felt his emotions as my own. He flew in a slow circle, drawing in deep breaths of fresh, crisp air, reveling in the sunlight. He wanted to soar as high as possible and roll crazily across the sky, his joy bubbling out on a vicious shout, but instead, he tucked me close and drifted back down to the ground to land with a gentle thud.
He set me on my feet, facing him. Even crouched down, his head was higher than mine. He was a deep, gun-metal gray, just as in my paintings, with black, inky eyes. And yeah, he had a fierce glare, a busted-up nose, huge claws, and leathery wings.
I leaped up to throw both arms around his neck anyway.
He enfolded me close, mindful of his claws. “Riann Newkirk, treasurekeeper, you are victorious this day. You broke the curse that held me trapped in stone for hundreds of years.”
His shape flowed beneath my hands, gargoyle’s hide fading away to a man’s skin.
A verynaked,very large man, who held me a foot off the ground and tucked me tightly against him.
“Doran!” Keane ran up and gave him a friendly slap on the back. “You’re as mean as ever, I see.”
Doran grinned and punched him in the shoulder hard enough that the other man grunted and took a half-step back. “Now that’s a grand way to say welcome back.”
Ivarr joined in, throwing an arm around me and one around Doran to draw us into a group hug with Keane laughing in the middle.
“Hey, now, if there’s going to be naked hugging, then I’d rather havemo stórbetween us.”
“Pointy Ears!” Doran bellowed. “Rustle me up some clothes.”
Warwick laughed in my head, giving me images of Doran dressed like what I’d first thought of when someone said leprechaun.:What would you like to see him in?:
I snickered. “Um, you’d better be more specific if you don’t want to be dressed in a green suit and pointy ears yourself.”
While they made increasingly vulgar suggestions about what my leprechaun should dress him in, I looked around for Aidan. He hesitated a few paces back, frowning, like always. Mean, furious, fists clenched at his sides. But all I felt from him was abject longing and deepest shame.
He wanted to join us. He wanted to laugh and joke and hug his best friend who’d been lost for hundreds of years. But his own guilt kept him locked away. It’d been his fault that Doran had been cursed in the first place, and pride kept Aidan from approaching. He’d rather choose to be ostracized than learn that his friend hated him for his part in the curse.
:Aidan.:I waited until he met my gaze, his icy blue eyes narrowed. I held my hand out to him and he flinched.:Come here.:
