Brigid’s kitchen was just as I remembered it, with potions and ingredients and herbs and animal parts in jars on shelves that reached to the exposed beam ceiling.
A crockery dish of fragrant apple crumble sat on the stone worktop. She cut and plated two civilized portions before collecting a bowl from beside a basket of green apples. “Fresh cream?”
“Please.” When she added a generous portion, I thanked her. But when I tried to leave the room, the door snicked shut.
“Who is she to you?” Brigid asked in a tone as frosty as the ground in January.
“My wife.”
“Before she was your wife,” she pressed, setting her own dish down and moving to stand in front of me.
My relationship with Keelynn was none of her feckin’ business. “An acquaintance.”
“I can’t imagine you saving a mere acquaintance, much less marrying one.”
What she could or couldn’t imagine had nothing to do with me.
Her hand dropped to my belt.
“What do you think you’re doing?” I choked.
Brigid’s face flushed. “I should think you’d know by now when a woman is hoping to share your bed,Gancanagh.”
Feck it all. I owed her for helping Keelynn, but I didn’t want to do this. I didn’t want her to touch me. I didn’t wantanyoneto touch me. “No.”
Her hand stilled on the leather strap. “Did you just tell me no? How?”
I . . .
I didn’t know how.
And I didn’t care.
All that mattered was that I had turned her down.
“I appreciate what you did for my wife,” I said, pushing her hand away. “But I’ll not be sleeping with you tonight.”
Her face flushed the same color as her hair. “I . . . um . . . I need to go.”
And with that, she evanesced.
I sank onto the ground and ate the entire dish of apple crumble all by myself.
* * *
“What do you mean you told her no?” Rían asked for the second time, watching me through narrowed blue eyes from his perch on the chaise. Shelves of books flanked the fireplace at his back.
“Just what it sounds like. She wanted a ride, and I said no.” Those two letters had never tasted as sweet.
The others had returned to their homes, leaving only Rían, Ruairi, and I in Brigid’s sitting room, contemplating the strange turn of events.
“Shoulda told the witch I was outside,” Ruairi said with a laugh. “I woulda given her a ride to remember.”
“Brigid prefers princes over feral beasts,” Rían said, stretching his legs out in front of him.
Ruairi’s fangs gleamed in the firelight. “That’s what ye think.”
Keelynn’s head thrashed on the pillow. Rían had fixed her dress, but the bloodstains remained. I needed her to realize this was necessary. That I wasn’t lying when I told her I didn’t have a choice.