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"So your flaming arrow said. Bit dramatic, don't you think?"
"Knew you'd ignore your phone." Connor gave Mara a careful once-over.
"Sorry, this is Mara. Mara, this is Connor. He heads up the Melbournian Druids. Mara has kindly come along as a witness to the events of the other night."
Connor's frown deepened. "Seamus didn't mention a girl."
"Then Seamus is a lying shit," Mara said sweetly.
"Aye, seems that way. Come on through, and we'll get to the bottom of it."
Seamus was already waiting at a table at the back of the kitchen. Augustus took considerable satisfaction in the boy's cocky smile slipping when he spotted Mara. He might not have remembered her previously, but he sure as hell was remembering her now.
Interesting, I wonder how shes's doing it.As if sensing what he was thinking, Mara very subtly smiled and winked at Augustus. He filed the wink and the grin into a very different mental folder.
"Seamus has said he was out with the lads when you picked a fight with him. They all came home battered and bruised. Poor Darren has a broken nose, and Llew has two black eyes. Didn't peg you for one to strike out at young lads, Augustus," Connor said once they were all seated around the table. "I know they become gobby shites when they've been drinking, but you know boys—"
"I swear to Christ if you say the words 'boys will be boys,' I'll break the little bastard's legs, and then I'll break yours. Don't condone his behavior. Do you think it's okay that your boy here likes to pin women to brick walls and hold them there when they refuse to drink with him?" Augustus replied, folding his arms.
Seamus started to make sounds of protest when Connor hissed something in Gaelic and took his voice away.
"Is this true, lass?" Connor asked Mara.
Augustus knew he shouldn't be surprised by anything the saint did, but he almost fell off his chair when Mara opened her mouth and started to retell the night to Connor in perfect Gaelic. Connor listened, nodding his head a few times before switching back to English.
"I apologize sincerely, Mara. If I had known, I wouldn't have bothered with the summons and dealt with Seamus's behavior on my own." Connor turned to his son. "Well? Anything to say for yourself?"
"Pa, seriously, I didn't mean to lay hands on her. I just needed to know what she was. Really, look at her. She's not like anything I've ever seen!"
"I am, and you know that it's disrespectful to ask a supernatural creature what they are. It's their bloody business and not yours. Augustus was in the right to step in. Is this how you behave when you go out? Accost women and demand things they don't want to give?"
"It wasn't like that at all. Look, I'm sorry you were offended, Mara, but I was just curious."
Augustus's temper flared, but Connor beat him to it. He slapped his hand over Seamus's and laid a curse on him hard in Gaelic.
"Until you learn to act like a man when you're drinking, you don't get to drink at all."
"What did you do?" Seamus asked in a small, horrified voice.
"Sober curse. Nice one, Connor," Augustus laughed.
Seamus lunged for him across the table, but Mara was too quick. She grabbed Seamus's face tightly and squeezed. He stilled as Mara's black eyes grew larger and wild magic drew up around her. "Do you want to know what I am, little Druid? I am not to be fucked with. If you ever try to cross my sorcerer or me again, I'll rip your darkest nightmares from your soul and make you live them daily for the rest of your miserable life."
Augustus rested a gentle hand on her back, and she let Seamus go with a hard shove. Connor pulled Seamus away and steered him towards the door.
"Feck off, I don't want to look at you for the rest of the day," Connor growled, and Seamus scattered. "You're a wise man not to have bairns, Augustus. I'm so sorry, Mara."
"It's fine," she said coolly as she sat back down. Augustus removed his hand from her back, his ears still ringing from the wordsmy sorcererand his magic still fluttering from the wild power she'd summoned.
Connor pulled a bottle of vodka from a cupboard and poured them shots. "I think you've given Seamus the collywobbles for the rest of his life, so if you're satisfied with that as a punishment, then we'll drink and be done with this."
Mara made him sweat for a minute before nodding. "I am if Augustus is."
"More than satisfied." Augustus tried to hide his shit-eating grin as he picked up his shot. "Sláinte."
"Sláinte agad-sa," Mara and Connor both replied at the same time, and they all drank.
"Now, I want to know where the sorcerer has been hiding you, Mara. You are too fine of a lady to lower your standards and let this rascal court you," Connor said, pouring them another round.
