“I’m sure Breen would particularly like your company, and so would we all. Sure I’m hoping you’ll join us.”
“Wow, thanks. Thank you. I’d really like to see it.”
“And you, Morena, will you come? I know your mother misses you.”
“I’d be pleased to go for a day or two. That’s about all the time I can handle the noise and the crowds, even for family, but not this time. This one,” she added, wagging a thumb at Marco, “he likes the noise and the crowds.”
“I like the quiet, too. But yeah, I’m a city boy.” He winced when he saw one of the wraiths, one that looked like something out of a horror movie, swipe at Breen with three-inch claws. When she went down, flat on her back, he started to vault over the paddock fence.
“She’s fine, Marco,” Morena told him. “Give her a moment.”
From flat on her back, she shot out what he thought might be sharp darts of ice. Right from her fingers. The wraith screamed, started to leap on her. Then went poof.
“See what she did? You see that! She is awesome!” Marco did a little victory dance as Breen scrambled up and went after the remaining two wraiths with sword, fists, feet, and—jeez!—lightning.
“Awesome!” he repeated. “The only time I ever saw her fight before? We were, like, ten and I was puny. I mean puny, and this asshole— twenty pounds and two years on me—jumped me on the way home from school. Guess he figured I was too gay to live. He’s pounding me into the sidewalk, and my Breen, she comes running. She jumped on his back and started wailing on him. He tried to shake her off, but she latched on, man. He hurt her, bloodied her nose, but she wouldn’t stop.”
He let out a breath. “I always figured she got in a lucky punch that flattened him, but maybe it wasn’t. Maybe it wasn’t luck at all. Anyway, her house was closer, so we went there. Breen with her bloody nose, me with the nose, a split lip, a black eye, bruises where he’d punched my guts out. Her mom doctored me up and took me home so she could tell my mom what happened. But she grounded Breen for a week for fighting.”
“Grounded?”
Marco looked back at Tarryn. “It’s a punishment, pretty popular with parents where I come from. It means you can’t go anywhere, well, except for school. Just school and home. No hanging out. That wasn’t right. It wasn’t right her getting grounded that way.”
“Where was Eian?” Tarryn asked him.
“On a gig somewhere. No, I guess he was probably here. We didn’t know about here.”
It hurt Tarryn’s heart to think of it. “He didn’t know. If he’d known, he would never have let it pass. He’d never have allowed Breen to be punished for coming to the aid of a friend.”
“What happened to the bullying git?” Morena wondered.
“He never bothered me again. He got his ass whupped by a girl, and for his type? Nothing worse.”
He shrugged. “I don’t know much about gods and all that, but it seems to me this Odran’s pretty much what Morena said. A bullying git. My money’s on Breen.”
“You’re a wise one, Marco.” Tarryn looked back to where Breen took a break, bent over, hands on knees. “And she’ll have the whole of Talamh with her.”
“She’s got me, too.” He lifted his bag of apples. “Hey, Breen! We gotta boogie.”
She nodded, straightened. Then she pushed her sword on Keegan and started toward the paddock.
“You’re not done.” Keegan came after her. “You’ve an hour more.”
“Not today.” Her ears still rang from her head slapping the ground; her arm still stung from phantom claws. “Marco has work he has to do from the cottage.”
“So he can go do it, sure and he knows the way by now. You have another hour of training.”
“I’ll make it up.”
“We’ve got to get our party on,” Marco reminded him. “Girl’s gotta change her duds.”
“Why? She’s fine. You’re fine,” Keegan insisted. “It’s a ceilidh, not a palace ball.”
“Dude,” Marco said, with pure pity.
“I’m filthy,” Breen snapped. “And I smell like demon dust. So do you. I’m going back, having a really big glass of wine and a really long, hot shower. Deal with it.”
She turned, realized she’d completely forgotten Tarryn stood right there. “I’m sorry, Ms. O’Broin.”
“No need for that, and Tarryn, if you will. We’re not formal in the valley as you’ve noticed. I’d apologize for my son, but the fact is, he’s a man. So there you have it. We look forward to seeing you tonight, and I hope for a song from both of you.”
“Thank you. I’ll make up the hour,” she said to Keegan, and walked away.
“Well now, it’s off I go,” Morena said brightly, and took Blue’s reins. “I’ll be back with my dancing shoes on. Tell Harken to be ready for it.”
“Be sure I will,” Tarryn said, and as Morena walked the horse to the road, turned to Keegan, grinned at him. “I like her.”
“She’s likable enough, but—”
“She trains hard, Keegan.”
“And needs all she can get. Another hour—”
“Makes little difference in the whole of it, as you know. She’s not a soldier, mo chroí.”
“All the more reason she needs to … And you’re right, as ever. An hour makes no change in it.”
“And she was right as well. You smell of demon dust.”
Frowning, he sniffed at his arm, then had to shrug in agreement.
“You’ll have a scrub. But first, you’ll have an ale by the fire while I fix my flowers, and I’ll tell you a story of her that Marco told me.”
Breen would not, no matter how Marco wheedled, wear the fancy green dress Sally and Derrick had given her before the first trip to Ireland. Or the fancy shoes that went with it.
Not appropriate, she insisted as she poured her wine and Marco put his apples on the stove to cook.
While he set up for his meeting, she took the wine outside to sit in the fresh air. She put her feet up, sighed with relief as she watched Bollocks splash in the bay.
She sat, even when the dog came back to rest his head on her leg. Sat, even as dusk settled, as it deepened.
She finally stirred, reminded herself Bollocks needed to be fed and she remained filthy and smelly.
When she walked in, Marco stood in the kitchen pouring batter into a Bundt pan.
“Girl, I thought you’d gone upstairs! You’ve got to get your ass up there, get that shower. We’re going to discuss wardrobe after I get this cake in the oven and get my own shower.”
“We can discuss, but I’m not wearing the sparkly dress.”
She filled the dog’s bowls, then accepted the beater Marco offered. Licked batter from it. “God, that’s good. Musical bakery or diner, Marco Polo. That’s the answer.”
Though parties where she didn’t know everyone made her anxious, she forbade herself another glass of wine before heading up to shower.
She dealt with bruises under the hot spray, and realized tending to bruises and scrapes equaled another return to the routine of her life here. Add blisters she just noticed.
Archery sucked, she concluded.
By the time she got out of the shower, she’d mired herself in self-pity. And felt entitled. Even as she wished she could just drag on pajamas, pull out a frozen pizza, drink more wine in front of the fire, she did her duty and started on her hair and makeup.
No point in looking tired and out of sorts, she told herself. She’d stay for an hour, be polite and friendly, then slip away. Party-hearty Marco could stay as long as he liked—someone would bring him back to the cottage, or he could just bunk at the farm for the night.
She stepped back, studied herself, and decided she’d pass Marco’s critical review. Maybe just, but she’d pass it.