“Whoa, whoa,” I pant, my heart hammering against my ribs. I’m still holding her shoulders, checking her for scratches. “Okay. You’re okay. That was… that was really close, sweetie.”
She doesn't say anything. She just looks at my dress, then up at my face.
“You’re messy,” she says. Her voice is tiny but very stern.
Erhm, what?
I let out a shaky laugh, wiping a smudge of mud from my cheek. “Yeah. I’m a total disaster. But you? You can’t be out here alone. Where’s your mom? Your dad?”
She points vaguely back toward the resort. “Daddy was talking. I wanted the flower.”
“The flower isn’t worth falling into the ocean for, sweetie,” I say, crouching down so I’m at her level. I try to put on my best 'safe adult' smile, even though I probably look like a swamp monster in formalwear. “I’m Atara. What’s your name?”
“Maeve,” she says.
“Well, Maeve, you almost gave me a heart attack. Let’s get you back to—”
A shadow falls over us.
Huh.
I look up, and the breath I just managed to catch vanishes again.
Three men are striding toward us. Two of them are large, wearing dark, well-tailored suits that look out of place in the wild Irish countryside. They have the alert stance of people who are paid to erase things… or people.
But it’s the man in the middle who makes the air go still.
He’s tall. Built with a heavy, dangerous kind of grace. His hair is dark, almost as dark as the ocean below, and his eyes… they’re the color of woodsmoke and ice. Even from twenty feet away, I can feel his presence.
He’s not running, but his stride is urgent. His coat billows behind him, revealing a silver watch at his wrist.
As he gets closer, I see the tension in his jaw. He looks at Maeve, then his eyes snap to mine.
“Dada!” Maeve says with a grin.
Dada? This is her Dad?
Something shifts in my chest. A strange, sharp vibration that has nothing to do with the wind. I should be scared. I’m a girl alone on a cliff with three strange men. But instead, I want to slap someone.
He reaches us, ignoring me entirely at first. He scoops Maeve up, his hands surprisingly gentle as he checks her face, his voice a low, gravelly rumble.
“Maeve. What did I tell you about running off alone?”
The girl looks down at her yellow boots. “Sorry, Daddy.”
Then, he turns those grey eyes on me. He looks me up and down, the torn teal silk, the mud on my knees, my wild hair clinging to my skin.
“You,” he says. His voice is deep, vibrating through the soles of my feet. “Who are you?”
2
Lorcan
Thirty Minutes Earlier
If I could, I would have this meeting on fucking Zoom or something.
I wouldn’t be here at all.
