Page 13 of The Seer

She sent him a sweet smile over her shoulder and released his hand to approach Josie.

“I was worried you wouldn’t find someone, T. That you’d closed yourself off after the incident with Morcant,” Josie confessed.

Fintan shuddered.

To this day, whenever he remembered the Arcane Devourer and his hold on the Stephens family, Fintan wanted to smash things. Taryn had fallen for Morcant after he’d disguised who and what he was—a weapon of chaos for a manky bastard at the Authority. It still rankled.

“Sure, and can we never say that fucker’s name again?” he asked. “It feels like the devil’s dancin’ on me grave whenever I think of him.”

Taryn nodded. “Same.”

“Sorry,” Josie said with a grimace. “No one is happier he’s dead than me, though.”

“Well, maybe there are a few, yeah?” he said. Damian’s daughter had been Morcant’s prime target during that fiasco. But the girl had outsmarted him and everyone involved. To this day, Fintan thanked the Goddess Anu for the girl’s clever brain and Oracle gifts. Had Morcant achieved his goal of appropriating the Aether magic he sought, they’d all be living in an unimaginable hell.

Josie smiled, but her amber eyes were troubled, and he felt a stirring of sympathy for all she’d gone through. She’d been tricked into a bond with Morcant, gotten shot, and—worst of all—suffered her sisters’ disdain when they believed she’d stolen Taryn’s boyfriend as some sick lark. For all her biting sarcasm, Josie had scars no one saw. She carried her shame in silence, hoping someone,anyone, might notice and tell her she would eventually be all right.

“You’ll find your happiness where ya least expect it, Josephine,” he said with all the assurances a Seer could offer. The future’s outcome was never one hundred percent set in stone, but this, he felt confident enough to tell her.

Her hope flared to life but as quickly died out, and she shook her head. “I don’t deserve it, Seer. But my sisters do.” With a careless shrug, she looked between them. “You’re different around him, Taryn. More alive somehow. Maybe you should explore—” She grimaced as she noted Taryn’s distasteful expression. “What? Did I put my big-ass foot in it again?” With an impulsive hug, Josie said, “I’m sorry I can never say the right things around you.”

She hurried from the room, leaving them in awkward silence.

Taryn’s arms remained stiffly at her sides, and Fintan ached for her. Yes, Josie had meant well, but it wasn’t something she was prepared to hear.

“You’ve never not been the liveliest version of yourself to me, Taryn-Taryn,” he assured her.

His words had the opposite effect than he intended, and her expressive eyes dulled.

“But you still don’t want me enough to fight for me,” she stated flatly, holding up a hand when he would’ve objected. “The facts are, you ghosted me back then and ignored me in the years between when you could’ve sought me out. And more recently, whenever I visit my friends at your estate, you avoid me by hiding.”

“Brenna’s estate,” he corrected. “I’m a lowly caretaker.”

She stared at him, not allowing him to joke his way out of the situation he found himself in, as was his way when grunts didn’t work. The weight of her words was a heavy burden.

Ghosted.

Ignored.

Avoided.

He’d never considered it from her angle. Yet standing here, observing her granite-carved expression, he couldn’t deny it. He was a fucking arse.

Fintan sighed heavily. “Aye. I ghosted ya, but the reasons were as valid when we first met as they are today. But it doesn’t mean I don’t want you more than I want to breathe my next lungful of air,aoibhneas mo croí.”

“Right.”

He hated her dismissive tone, but when he would’ve responded, she spoke over him.

“Let’s get the necklace to Damian.”

The fucking bloodstone necklace! He’d forgotten about it.

“May I see it first?” he asked.

“I thought you said it was a tool in your downfall. Like me.” She frowned as she shot a glance toward the sofa cushion. “Maybe you shouldn’t be in the room with it and me simultaneously.”

“I’m not sure it works that way—ah!”

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