Page 136 of Claiming Pretty

Ciaran froze mid-step, the forest swallowing the sound of his halted motion. For a moment, the only thing I could hear was the steady thrum of his heartbeat against my side.

His arms tightened around me protectively, his gripalmost painful. When he finally spoke, his voice was soft but unyielding, carrying a weight I couldn’t deny.

“You don’t get to decide how I feel, Ava. I love you, and Iwoulddie for you.”

His words hung between us, heavy and unshakable.

I wanted to scream, to argue, but I couldn’t. Not now. Not when we were this close to the tomb, this close to stepping into the lion’s den.

Through the slit in my eyelids, the trees parted like curtains, revealing the passagetomb ahead.

It rose from the earth like a relic of an ancient and terrible Celtic god, its moss-covered mound seeming to breathe in the silver light of the moon. Morning glories twined up its sides, their haunting purple blooms almost ghostly in the dark.

It seemed to pulse with a silent life of its own, beckoning us closer with an air of malevolent patience, as if it were waiting to swallow us whole.

The entrance loomed before us, a stone face interrupted only by a faint outline of a door in the ancient rock.

Ciaran slowed, then stopped. His grip around me tightened, his fingers pressing into my side as though grounding himself. The tension in his body radiated into mine, and I could feel the unspoken war raging inside him.

He glanced down, his face shadowed but his eyes searching, almost pleading, his voice softer than I’d ever heard it. “This is it.”

I didn’t respond, didn’t dare. I kept my breathing steady and my body limp, even as my pulse thundered in my ears. My resolve was iron, but the weight of the moment pressed heavily on my chest.

Ciaran’s head dipped lower, his breath warm against my skin. His lips found mine in a kiss so soft, so achingly final, that it felt like it might shatter me.

Panic twisted in my chest, the overwhelming urge to respond almost breaking through my resolve. But I didn’t move, didn’t give in.

The kiss ended too soon, leaving my lips cold.

He pulled back, his breath hitching, shaky and raw. His forehead brushed against mine, and for a second, the world seemed to pause, suspended in the silence between us.

“I love you too, Scáth,” I whispered, the words barely a breath, but I knew he heard them.

Ciaran straightened, his shoulders stiff with determination as he balanced me in his arms as he pressed his father’s signet ring into a small depression carved into the stone wall.

The sound that followed was deep and ancient, the groaning of mechanisms long dormant. Stone shifted against stone, grinding and echoing in the clearing, as the entrance slowly revealed itself—a spiraling staircase descending into darkness.

A blast of icy, stale air washed over me, carrying with it the scent of damp earth and decay. The oppressive weight of the tomb pressed down on me, even from here.

Standing at the threshold, Ciaran tightened his hold on me, his voice dropping to a whisper. “Last chance, Ava…”

His voice cracked slightly, the plea in it cutting through the cold air.

But I didn’t respond, my silence more resolute than any argument I could make. I couldn’t afford to waver now.

Ciaran took a step forward, crossing the threshold intothe tomb. The cold air enveloped us immediately, seeping through my clothes and sinking into my bones.

The staircase spiraled down, the shadows growing darker and heavier with each step. The walls seemed to press closer, the damp stone radiating an oppressive chill.

I kept my body slack in Ciaran’s arms, my breathing even.

Even as we descended farther into the jaws of a beast.

THE SHADOW

The stone steps spiraled downward into darkness, the air growing colder and damper with every step I took. Ava lay motionless in my arms, her head resting against my shoulder.

I tightened my grip on her as the faint flicker of torchlight greeted me at the bottom of the staircase, casting long, twisting shadows on the stone walls.

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