Bastien was still gone, and if Kerdik hadn’t magicked the castle to keep me locked inside, I would’ve gone along to help free Lane, Damond, Reyn, Remy, and… My fragile optimism always waned on that last one. The thought of Judah being held in a dungeon was a mental image I couldn’t deal with if I wanted to keep my sanity. Judah had been my favorite (and often only) friend from grade school on, and deserved the best out of life. I’m talking parades, scholarships, hip-hop songs rapped in his honor – the works. What he did not deserve was to get caught up in my mess, and land himself smack in the middle of my mom’s dungeon, without his glasses, and without me. I could picture him huddling in a corner with Lane, scared and cold. The image woke me up in the middle of the night, wracking me with fear. Then came the crash of self-loathing when I remembered I couldn’t break myself out of the castle and go get him myself.
I frowned when a knock came to my bedroom door. I knew it was Kerdik, and I was still miffed at him for cutting me off from the rescue team. I took my sweet time opening the door, and shot daggers at him with my eyes when he greeted me with an irritable expression. “Took you long enough.”
“If I haven’t told you before, your personality is absolutely bursting with fruit flavor.” I rolled my eyes at him, my hand on my hip. “Are you here to check that I haven’t made an escape rope out of old sheets and flung them out the window, Warden?”
“If you were capable of besting my spellwork, then that’s exactly what I’d be doing. As you can’t even step a toe out of the castle, I’m not too concerned. I’ve brought you a friend to help you sleep.”
The raccoon in his arms was grousing worse than me, and looked about an inch from biting into Kerdik’s juicy forearm just to have done with it. “Hey, Walter,” I greeted him without enthusiasm. Walter was a sourpuss, who had nothing good to say about the world. Montel wasn’t too keen on me sleeping with another bear, so he thought a smaller animal would be best. Walter was a bit of a jerk, though, and we spent most of our time being pissed at each other. “I said, ‘Hey, Walter.’”
“Do you really need to talk all the time?”
“Well, seeing as how that’s what you’re here for, yes.”
“You’re exhausting.”
I sighed up at Kerdik. “Remind me again why I can’t just have my birds? They’ll knock me out so much quicker with all their chatter.”
“Because the Sluagh can change himself into a raven. We can’t chance him mingling with the other birds and flying his way straight inside.”
“Still no sign of the Grim Reaper, eh?” A Sluagh was a wicked person who’d died, and his spirit was so evil that a Sluagh was formed. The nasty bugger roams about, trying to suck the souls from the dying, adding to its power with each conquest. As I understood it, these jaggoffs were usually only in Éireland, but this dude made a special trip overseas just for Madigan. The Sluagh was targeting me now, courtesy of my fake engagement to Mad.
Kerdik sighed at my appearance. “What are you wearing?”
I looked down and rolled up the sleeves of the shirt that hung down almost to my knees. “What? I’m allowed to wear my boyfriend’s flannel shirts as pajamas. They’re comfortable. I can look however I want in my own bedroom.”
Kerdik’s disapproving expression wasn’t all that uncommon this week. He always had a bug up his butt about something. “I don’t like the look of you in his clothes. Have Montel and Link seen you like this?”
“Of course not. Link prefers me in nothing at all, so that’s how I greet him every morning.”
Kerdik pursed his lips, unamused by my pretty funny joke. “Hilarious.”
I crossed my arms over my chest and moved over to my window, unwilling to play this game for a third night in a row. “I’m sorry you can’t find the Sluagh. I know you get moody when you lose.”
He stood straighter, affronted. “I didn’t lose. I’ll find the Sluagh and make it suffer for forcing me to run around like a Commoner, searching for his own tail.”
“Ugh. This guy. He’s so annoying.”
“Hush, Walter. Kerdik’s just in a mood.”
Kerdik’s shoulders were tight as he stalked over to me. “I despise when you talk about me as if I’m a child.”
“If you don’t want to be treated like a child, then stop acting like a petulant baby.”
Kerdik let out a noise of frustration. “You drive me crazy!”
“Me? You’re the one who locked me inside, when I could be helping Bastien and the guys find Lane. At the very least, I could be helping the crew build the wall.”
“I have half a mind to raise up the rest of the wall myself, just to have done with it.”
I gaped at him. “Could you really do that?”
He shot me a simpering expression. “You must be joking.”
I ran my fingers over Walter’s fur, and he hissed for me to knock it off. “I guess that never dawned on me.”
“Oh, sweet girl. Your mind is so limited when it comes to all I can do.”
I scowled at him, looking more like the surly Walter than a girl should have a right to. “Don’t call me ‘sweet girl’ when you’re really saying ‘you dummy’. It’s patronizing.” When we reached our usual nostril-flaring stalemate, I lowered my shoulders and fished for a lighter topic. “Where’s Montel?”
“Doing a perimeter check before he turns in to sleep.”
Montel was a nervous sleeper, which wasn’t helped by the fact that Link made a big deal the first night about no man sharing a bed with an Untouchable’s woman. I wasn’t going to invite Montel into my bed in the first place, but the air had gone awkward all the same. “Okay. Did you need something?”
“A lock of your hair, actually.”
I quirked my eyebrow at him. “Come again?”
He gave me a labored sigh, as if my simple query was an arduous give-me-a-break. “Do you really want the complicated explanation, or can I just say that it’ll help me find the Sluagh, and be done with it?”
“If I’m donating body parts, I think I’ll request the complicated explanation.”
A labored sigh escaped his lips, complete with an eyeroll. “Every now and then, I wish you were afraid of me, like everyone else is. Then I wouldn’t have to do taxing things, like explain myself.” Kerdik harrumphed, as if my request was a huge inconvenience. “The Sluagh found you in Avalon, even though he’s from Éireland. I want to know if it’s you he’s tracking now, or if it’s still Madigan he’s after. If he’s tracking you, I can use the line of magic he’s tapping to trace it back to him.”
“Huh. Okay, then that’s cool. See? Was that so hard to tell me?” I cast around for scissors, but didn’t see any.
Kerdik pulled a pair from his back pocket. They were long and looked more like shears for sheep or something, which I guess it’s possible they were. He made his way over to me and inspected my hair, as if one chunk would be more ideal for the magic than the others. “This one,” he said, lifting up a curl to examine. It was a perfect Shirly Temple curl, unadulterated by a hairbrush or life. I didn’t have a ton of perfect curls, but guessed donating one of them to save my life wouldn’t be too grand a sacrifice. He pulled a string from the pocket of his standard brown pressed trousers and tied off the curl at the root. “Hold still.”
The look on Kerdik’s face when he examined my hair in his hand made me soften. He snipped the curl, not taking his eyes from the milk chocolate color I’d long been unimpressed by. Seeing my hair through his eyes was a new wonder, and I appreciated anew that there were parts of me that were beautiful. I’d been the stupid and ugly girl most of my life. The little looks of rapture that Kerdik or Bastien often shot me still took me off-guard.
A soft smile played on my lips. “Thank you.”
Kerdik quirked his eyebrow at me. “For taking your hair? You’re welcome?”
“No, for looking at it like that. Made me feel pretty just then.”
Kerdik chuckled, and I loved the way his eyes crinkled in the corners. S
omething about the green skin made the delicate folds that much more intriguing. “Well, you are pretty, so I’m not sure I did anything miraculous, other than notice what’s right in front of my face.”
“Just mate already and be done with it,” Walter sneered.
Continue the series,
and order Untouchable Girl today!
Other books by Mary E. Twomey
The Saga of the Spheres
The Silence of Lir
Secrets
The Sword
Sacrifice
The Volumes of the Vemreaux
The Way
The Truth
The Lie
Jack and Yani Love Harry Potter
Undraland
Undraland
Nøkken
Fossegrim
Elvage
The Other Side
Undraland: Blood Novels
Lucy at Peace
Lucy at War
Lucy at Last
Linus at Large
Terraway
Taste
Tremble
Torture
Tempt
Treat
Temper
Tease
Trap
Faîte Falling
Ugly Girl
Lost Girl
Rich Girl
Stupid Girl
Broken Girl
Untouchable Girl
Stubborn Girl
Faîte Falling: Faîte Rising
Common Girl
Blind Girl
Savage Girl
Dangerous Girl
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Mary E. Twomey also writes contemporary romance under the name Tuesday Embers.
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Broken Girl: A Fantasy Adventure Based in French Folklore (Faite Falling Book 5) Page 20
