“That’s supposed to be that?” I asked, pointing to the canvas.
“I’m workin’ on it,” she replied with a pout. “I watched a video on the Internet where they were dabbin’ all the colors on like this…” She slapped the brush against the canvas, adding more green to the shape she’d already created. “Buildin’ color.”
“What’s that green thing supposed to be?” I asked, tilting my head to the side.
“That part’s the hill.”
“Really?”
“Skye!”
I laughed, feeling a little lighter after mine and Boone’s emotional bender in the woods.
“Are you feelin’ okay?” Mairead asked, her brush falling into the jar of water with a plop.
“Fine,” I replied, rubbing my arms. The gashes from the ritual had almost faded—all that was left were two pale pink lines—but it was more nervous energy that forced me to rub than any pain.
Mairead didn’t look convinced.
“Do you want to go inside?” I asked. “My nipples feel like they’ll get frostbite and drop off. Anyway, I promised I’d look at your drawings and help you figure out shit. I kinda got waylaid the other night.”
“You had an excuse.” She glanced at my arm, worried Boone’s weird tongue magic was going to reverse itself, and I would bleed out on the spot.
“Don’t worry about it,” I said. “I’m not going to explode, you know.”
“You’re not worried about it,” she argued. “You’re not angry, or sad, or anythin’. You’re just…meh.”
I shrugged. I kinda was, but wallowing got no one anywhere. Man, when did I start growing up? I was being all wise and shit. Maybe Boone was rubbing off on me. Not in the literal sense, because we rubbed off on one another all the time, but in the philosophical kind of way.
Thinking about Lucy and the Nightshade witches, the ritual that was supposed to kill me and let Carman back into Ireland, the mass burning of the family I’d never met, the hatred toward my coven for standing up to Carman a thousand years ago, how they were ostracized for closing the doorways to the fae realm to stop a war from breaking out, and all the other injustices that had led to the Crescents calling me home, I scowled. I suppose I was angry. Real angry.
“But—”
“Life has to go on, Mairead,” I interrupted. “We’re fine, but we still have to do our duty by Derrydun. Boone and I… We can’t take a day off from that. We’ve just gotta deal and get on with it.”
“Not even after…” Her bottom lip trembled.
“Not even after near-death experiences. The bad guys won’t take time off for a weekend at the seaside, so neither can we. They’ll keep trying, and we have to be there to keep stopping them.”
“It’s not fair.”
I smiled and wrapped my arm around her shoulder. “It never is.”
Chapter 2
Leaning against the kitchen table, I watched Boone as he sliced some carrots, tilting my head to the side.
He had a really nice ass. Firm, round, and just—
“What are you lookin’ at?” he asked, not even turning around.
“How do you know I’m looking at you?” I retorted, leaning back in the chair, forgetting about the studying I was supposed to be doing. The Crescent spell book was before me, open at random page talking about magical Legacy—the word Legacy capitalized like it was a thing I was supposed to know—while Boone did what he did best. Cook for me.
“Do we really need to keep havin’ this conversation?” he asked, dumping the chopped carrots into a huge silver pot on the stove.
“No.” I sighed and shook my head. Boone always knew when I was staring at his ass. Always. I figured it was a magical animal thing, and animals were all into the ‘deed.’ You know, the nasty. He was a man, after all. “I thought you’d like me staring at your juicy peach.”
He turned, his brow furrowed. “Juicy peach?”
“Moneymaker?” I offered.
His lips twitched into a ghost of a smile before he turned around and resumed chopping, this time, starting on the potatoes.
A week after the ritual, and Boone was still fretting. His facial expression hadn’t changed from brooding—which was one of two settings he had, the other being cocky—and it was really beginning to worry me. At least, this time, he’d been transparent about it rather than hiding his fears away and stewing in his own juices. We all knew what happened last time he did that. Well, it did end up with us having sex in a ditch in the middle of the forest, but I couldn’t count on that happening again. While I liked being adventurous, I would rather my bare ass lay on something a little less…rocky.
“Where’s Mairead?” Boone asked over his shoulder.
“In the shed again.”
“Paintin’?”
“I should probably get her a heater,” I mused. “Or a hot-water bottle. It’s a pity I can’t spell her a fire pit or something.” It was a cool idea, but something like that would be a flare for wandering fae and craglorn. I may as well put up a flashing neon sign that said, All You Can Eat Buffet Now Open.
Rolling my eyes, I glanced down at my arms and shoved up my sleeves. When I’d jumped into the shower that morning, I’d been shocked to find the little pink scars had vanished. They were gone, kaput, erased, gone like they’d never been there at all. Magic wolf spit, indeed.
Turning back to the spell book, I flipped over the page. In all the time I’d been rifling through the ancient book I’d found under the floorboards, I couldn’t remember seeing anything about shape-shifting wolves that could heal with their tongues. There wasn’t anything about the Nightshade
