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My heart sinks. “This crusade of yours is stupid,” I whisper, fingers catching on his thickened length.
“Not to me.” Rory smiles down at me and speaks his next words with complete seriousness. “There’s nothing stupid in showing how special you are to me.”
49
Itrace idle patterns in the condensation of the coach window, thinking. About Rory, about Antiro, about the future.
Finlay watches me with interest before saying, “All right, all right, stop it.” I drop my hand in surprise. “Ye’re gonnae take awaya’the space for X and O’s.”
And so, instead of twirling my finger around the slick silvery film with no direction, we begin to play several games of tic-tac-toe, at which I can’t help but be the superior competitor and thrash him every time. In the end, when there are more marks on the window than condensation, I win all but one game, which turns out to be a draw. Finlay scrunches his nose, looking displeased by this result, and stretches over me to wipe the whole window clear with his sleeve, the better to hide evidence of his dismal defeat.
“Sore loser,” I chide with a laugh. His jacket sleeve lies sopping by my side.
“Never thought ye’d come for my title,” he mutters, blowing out an unhappy breath. But his disappointment soon melts away, and Finlay flashes a cocky grin at me. “So… whit were ye really gettin’ up tae at Dunhaven?”
I stare at him. “What?”
“Me and Danny — we didnae see ye around till the end.” His cocky smile fades, and Finlay shifts in his seat, rubbing the back of his neck. I wonder if he realizes how uncomfortable he looks. “Och, c’mon, sassenach. It’s a’ over yer face.” He drops his voice low and croons into my ear, “Was Mr. Munro gettin’ personal wi’ ye?” This makes me flush for reasons Finlay doesn’t realize. Because Mr. Munro, to me, is not Rory but his sadistic father. If Finlay notices how pink I’ve become, he doesn’t comment, and instead continues, “We thought we’d lost ye.”
“No, we were…” I don’t know why I’m considering lying. It’sFinlay. We share every ugly, beautiful, raw, naked thought between us.
But something about that stone, how together Rory and I had been, how entwined and wrapped up in each other, powered by ancient magic…
Personal. It’d been personal.
I clear my throat. “Rory was showing me around.”
Finlay raises a skeptical brow. “Aye,” he says slowly, looking bemused by my answer. “Aye, I believe that.” A wry, cynical half-smile twists the corners of his mouth. He leans forward and lowers his voice. “Tell me, Jessa.”
“Tell you what?” My tone is defensive. He so rarely uses my name like that. “We did nothing. Just… explored.”
Finlay’s dark brows furrow. “Explored. Aye.” He fixes me with a steady stare, his eyes hardening. He shakes his head once, sharply, and mutters, “So we’re hidin’ things from each other, are we?”
“So you don’t believe me?” I fire back.
“No’ when ye’re blatantly lyin’!”
For a long moment, neither of us speaks. We stare at each other, waiting for the other to crack. But both of us are stubborn-minded, both of us are rebel chiefs, and both of us are wholeheartedly Rory’s. Finlay’s lips thin and tighten, while I try not to fidget and squirm like some child accused of stealing sweets. Finally, he sighs and slouches into the seat, defeated. “I thought we trusted each other.”
“We do,” I say quickly. “It’s just…”
Finlay turns his large green eyes on me, looking hurt, looking for answers. First I demolish him at his game, now my blundering mouth seems intent on smashing his heart to pieces. I’m lying.I’mthe liar. For whatever reason, I want to keep this afternoon behind a protective, enchanting shield. I don’t wish to speak of it, to bring it to light, to have others gossip and reduce it tojust sex.
Because for me it hadn’t been. It had been primal, elemental, magical. Pleasure had taken root in my belly and flowered.
I’d heard whispers in the stones. Rory had brought them out and silenced them.
There is power in that boy. Power that utterly mesmerizes me. Power I can see and feel. Power that Finlay has only ever laughed at and declared non-existent.
He’d never noticed the magic of the island. He’s never believed the rituals of Samhain — rituals I’ve endured twice now. He’d rolled his eyes at the missing unicorn, despite Rory’s obvious fears. To Finlay, the power has never revealed itself. To Finlay, it’s something to be mocked.
And I realize, the longer I spend time in its spine-tingling presence, that the power is so vast and abundant that I want to take control and wield it. And I want Rory, its master, to show me how.
“Just tell me one thing,” Finlay mutters, tugging at his damp sleeve. “Did he finally come?”
It takes a moment for me to formulate a response to such a blunt question. “No,” I acknowledge quietly, sticking with the truth, proving to Finlay that I’d lied.
Finlay shakes his head, a troubled expression on his face. Whether about Rory’s continued madness or my easy falsehoods, he doesn’t say.
