Free The Arrow (Children of Brigid Trilogy Book 1) by Maureen O'Leary

the sound of insects chewing inside the walls as they ducked out of the room.
    “I’m going crazy,” she said.
    “We all are, sweetheart,” Randy said.
    Komo’s head snapped up and his eyes met hers across the room. He broke into a smile that cut through the fog in her brain. The dancing girls turned, their eyes clouded. Cara was among them. A flash of anger crossed her face, but then disappeared so quickly that Fynn thought it must have been a trick of the flickering firelight. Then Cara was calling for her to join the dancing, beckoning her with her arms.
    “
I need you more than you need me.”
Komo’s face cocked in a wise-ass half smile. Komo always sang when other people would have said hello. His singing warmed the centers of her bones and she wanted nothing, but to hear more of it.
    “
Goddess of the Three, come to me
,” he sang.
    Fynn ignored the dancers and the surfers and the strange boys. She sank to Komo’s feet. Cara’s sequins caught the firelight and threw it around the room in tiny golden reflections. Komo watched the dancing girls with a satisfied smile. Fynn had seen the look on his face when they were at the Athenian school and his playing put the entire commons hall full of students and teachers in a trance.
    There were tables laden with fresh food and drink. Beautiful girls poured ruby-colored wine for themselves and each other. Warm, baked bread, fruit, and fine cheeses filled gold platters, and servants from the kitchen kept bringing more.
    “How can you sit still while he plays?” Cara asked. “How can you resist him?” She laughed and spun away.
    Beautiful women outnumbered the equally beautiful men, but everyone laughed, danced, and kissed one another in the large room with the nighttime ocean spread out before tall windows. Listening to Komo play guitar and sing was like being in a drop of amber. Komo sealed them outside of real time and the concerns of the real world. Nothing mattered, but feeling good and he made them feel so good.
    Fynn understood the smooth seduction of Komo’s presence and voice. She felt it herself. She craved it in his absence. Yet she never succumbed to the wild laughter that most women fell victim to when they got too close to Komo for too long. Cara was right. As much as she secretly yearned for Komo, Fynn could resist him. She loved his music, but she never lost control.
    It would be such a relief for once to lose control.
    “Is there somewhere we can go to talk?” she asked him. A pair of girls writhing in front of them cut her with their eyes.
    “I thought you said no,” he said over fingerpicking the beginning of a new song.
    “Komo, you need help,” she said.
    “I’m aware of that.” His eyes moved over the burgeoning crowd. “I told you I needed help.”
    “So let’s go somewhere and talk.” She could feel so small around Komo. He eclipsed her. She was sure that the people here looked at her and wondered what someone as plain as Fynn was doing with someone like Komo. Anyone could see that Cate was wrong. Komo saw Fynn as a bodyguard. A hired hand. A little sister. What else would he see her as with someone as gorgeous as Cara around anyway?
    “
We were born of the stars and the sea. . . . .”
Komo sang and sighs of appreciation rose to the high ceiling. Now she remembered. She had come prepared to fight demons, but, of course, everyone in the house was human, filled with human need that Komo both whet and satisfied. She’d seen it at Athenian before he was famous. Everyone would dance until they fell in exhaustion and he would never stop playing unless someone convinced him that he needed to rest.
    “Komo, please,” she said. “Make this the last song. I want to talk to you.”
    He strummed louder and pretended to ignore her. The two dancers moved closer, opening one another’s mouths with a long kiss. The girl behind him tightened her legs around his waist and moaned.
    Cara offered a glass of red wine so dark it looked like