“I’m really glad I met you tonight,” he said, as if her boldness had rubbed off on him during the meal. Clark didn’t believe in destiny or anything like that. His father had made sure he didn’t believe in anything but determination and grit. But even he could admit this felt—different.
She turned to him, the breeze tugging at the strands of her blond hair. “Do you wanna kiss me?”
Fuck. More than he wanted to keep breathing. But something held him back.
“It’s late,” he said, but didn’t move away.
“Kissing doesn’t have a curfew.” Her voice came out frayed at the edges.
“You don’t know me.” Clark stared at her bee-stung lips, for what felt like the thousandth time and the first, swallowing thickly. “I could be a terrible person.”
“Are you?”
“Sometimes,” he whispered without meaning to, and then, more dryly, “but in any case, you can’t take my word for it.”
This time when she laughed, Clark couldn’t resist. He reached up, slowly, carefully, to cup her jaw. And as her eyes fluttered closed, he closed the distance between them, bending to kiss her. Her lips were petal soft and so warm in contrast to the night air.
Riley dropped her hands to his shoulders and swayed forward, until they were pressed together from the knees up. Clark groaned into her mouth at the contact, the way her body molded to his, tugging her closer, moving one hand to her waist, the other sliding up to curl into her hair.
A moment ago, he’d been able to hear the vague sounds of people stacking chairs inside the pub, the whistle of the wind, but now kissing her drowned out everything else. There was nothing but the growing harshness of their breaths, Riley’s tiny gasp when he sank his teeth softly into the impossible fullness of her bottom lip.
Only the sudden clang of the bell above the door startled them apart.
“Sorry,” Eilean said, looking anything but. “I was worried if I left you out here any longer, you’d freeze together like horny statues.”
Riley laughed while Clark flushed, glad that his long coat hid exactly how much he’d enjoyed that kiss.
“I should get back to the inn and try to go to bed,” Riley admitted. “I’m sure I’m already gonna get rocked by jet lag tomorrow.”
“Right,” Clark said, and Eilean ducked back inside, leaving them to their goodbyes. “How long will you be in town?”
“It’s kind of hard to say.” Riley pressed her lips together, drawing Clark’s eyes back to them until he forced himself to look just over her shoulder for fear of trying to pull her back into his arms. “At least a week.”
A week. It was more than he’d hoped for from her trip to such a small village. “I’d like to see you again, if you—”
“Definitely,” she said before he could finish. “Here.” She reached into her pocket and pulled out a piece of card stock, sliding it into his palm. “My information’s on there.”
“Great, thanks.” He watched as she headed back toward the inn, the entrance close enough down the road that he could see it from here.
It wasn’t until she’d slipped inside, looking back once to wave, that Clark lowered his gaze to examine the paper.
Riley Rhodes, he read, Curse breaker for hire.
Chapter Three
Riley hurried down the footpath to the castle the next morning, stumbling on wet cobblestones while chilly mist beaded across her forehead and cheeks. Who knew Scotland was so wet? Her phone’s weather forecast for the week was downright depressing—a solid wall of weeping clouds. Apparently, she was committing to the dewy look for the duration of her stay.
Her meeting with Martin Chen, the project manager who’d hired her, started at eight. A hasty look at her watch read quarter past the hour. Not exactly a great start for someone looking to prove she could handle the big leagues.
Hopefully he’d attribute her tardiness to charming eccentricity. Usually Riley could get away with a fair amount of flightiness by virtue of her occupation. No one trusted an occultist who seemed too put together.
The inn was only about a mile from the castle, but she’d had to hoof it the whole way, paying the price for hitting the snooze button not once but twice this morning. Blame Clark, she thought, smiling to herself. He was worse than the time difference for her sleep schedule. She’d been up half the night, lying in bed with cartoon hearts circling her head. Thinking about his falling-angel grace. How quick he’d been to offer her a book when he learned she was interested in something. She sighed. The way her name sounded in his accent.
It was embarrassing, honestly, going to jelly over a random guy she’d met at a bar, but at least it was the safe sort of mistake. How much damage could a harmless little fling across the pond really inflict on her life?
Finally, she got across the footbridge—the place had an actual moat. Nestled on a cliff overlooking the North Sea, Arden Castle stood majestic and imposing even after centuries of neglect. Fortified by four towers, one on each corner, the castle was basically a giant rectangular outline protecting an open-air inner ward. Somehow, she’d accidentally come in at the back.
Riley didn’t have time to stop and admire the lush crop of wildflowers in the high grass. Later, she promised herself, slipping through a section of stone that looked to have been blown away by cannon fire at some point. Riley planned to learn all of this castle’s secrets.
As soon as she crossed the threshold, the scent of the curse hit her nostrils. A combination of smoke and metal and earth—ozone—buried beneath other, stronger odors. Wet stone and moss, the slightly sweet odor of decay.
Tracking was a learned skill like any other. One of the first tricks of the trade that Gran had introduced by hiding cursed objects sourced from all over the world for Riley to find. They’d started inside her tiny cottage, then later gone out into the forest, where there were so many more competing scents.
“It’s like hide-and-seek,” Gran had promised.
And it was—the same thrill of the hunt, the rush of discovery. Even now.
That training, her finely honed attuning to the scent of power, was how she knew a curse waited in this castle, banked but burning. Riley rubbed at her arms, trying to rid herself of sudden goose bumps as Arden Castle called to something deep in her blood.
Light refracting off the remaining stained glass in a series of windows sent colors glittering across the floor like the inside of a kaleidoscope. She held her breath as she tilted her head back, looking up and up and up to the vaulted ceilings where the skeleton of a chandelier swayed with the breeze. This must have been some kind of great hall.
“Hello?” Her voice echoed in the cavernous room. “Mr. Chen?”
The castle remained tomb silent. Layers of dust muted her footfalls as she wandered farther in, each step kicking up clouds that swirled and settled in her wake. It was easy, looking at the remnants of wooden benches withered to matchsticks, to imagine how many people had passed through this room, none of them withstanding the curse long enough to leave more than fading footprints.
As she got to the edge of the hall, she caught notes of conversation coming from somewhere down the corridor. Martin must have brought along a colleague to welcome her.