Page 195 of Flirting with Darkness

Faolán kept rubbing his eyes and even though we’d slept for a long while after the kelpie dream, he looked just as haggard as he had in the middle of the night.

“Are you all right?”

“I’m fine.” He said it with a tone of utter finality.

He must’ve realised how harsh he sounded, though, because he came a little closer as we approached the house, knuckles brushing mine before he caught my fingers. I didn’t pull away.

As we walked hand-in-hand through the same corridor we used every day on our way to and from training, he stopped short.

Head cocked, he peered at a painting on the wall. “Hmm.” His eyes narrowed as he bent closer and tapped a claw to the wide gilt frame.

“What is it?” I craned around him. A grand room with an even grander chandelier and mirrored walls that reflected its lit candles on and on and on into infinity. Its tiled floor depicted the swirling shapes of thorny vines. “Wait, that’s the ballroom—thisballroom.”

“Mm-hmm. And”—frowning, he glanced up and down the corridor as if confirming our location—“this wasn’t here before.”

I scoffed and shouldered him. “Haha, very funny. It’s cute you’re jumping on the haunted house bandwagon, but House definitely wins on that front.” I rolled my eyes at him.

But he didn’t so much as crack the tiniest smile. “This is no joke. Either she’s put it here or…” His lips pursed.

“Or House did.”

He scowled at me, then returned his attention to the painting. “Wait, there’s—”

“It’s moving!” I grabbed his arm and stared as the ballroom’s doors opened, and in walked a man. His tiny form made up of artful daubs of paint somehow suggested he was young and strong. He paused and looked around, as though expecting to find someone there.

While his back was turned, a shape emerged from a dark corner of the painting, and I gasped. A wolf. It skulked into the light, watching him.

“Behind you!” I couldn’t help it. Stupid to speak to a painting, I knew, but… “They look soreal.” I ran a nail over the raised brushstrokes, unable to tear my gaze away as the man turned and spotted the beast.

“They do.” Faolán’s voice sounded dreamy and distant. Out the corner of my eye, I spotted him also reaching for the canvas’s surface.

It was impossible to resist.

The man darted to one side, but the wolf leapt and bowled him to the floor. “You poor thing.” I stroked the man.

My vision went white, then gold.

A glimpse of mirrors.

My breath seized.

Darkness swallowed me.

Then candlelight.

29

PAINTED

Ididn’t wake, I justwas.

Fur and fangs. A thundering pulse in my ears. Breaths at once gasping and crushed by the weight on my chest of two great paws. My fingers dug into the beast’s chest and shoulders, desperately trying to keep the wolf’s great maw from my throat. It snarled, brown eyes fixed on me with murderous intent.

I tried to shift my grip but my hands didn’t obey my instructions.

Only, they weren’t my hands.

Large—far larger than mine. More like my Pa’s—wide, with blunt fingers and blond hair on the back that disappeared beneath the sleeve of my shirt. A man’s shirt. That covered a man’s muscled forearms.

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