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

Fynn said into the mirror. It was fun to say, though it was a stinking lie. The sound of the band thump thumped through the walls. How in the hell did that stupid band know
Fire Arrow
?
    Fynn tugged at the shoulders of the scratchy sweater. She took a deep breath. It could have been that Komo had sold the rights to it. She shouldn’t have been hurt or even surprised. They hadn’t seen each other since he left Athenian to go on his first tour and she went off to St. Cocha for college. It had been five years since then. She was a professor, a lead researcher in immunology living her own life. As for Komo, he could have called her from anywhere. Maybe he really was on an island somewhere far away.
    On Fynn’s way out of the bathroom, another little earthquake ran up her spine. She didn’t know why she felt so cold. She shivered while she smiled in response to Cara’s concerned look.
    Then the room changed.
    Fynn’s skin reddened, as though she were sinking into a hot tub of rose water. Heat bloomed in her belly from an intoxication that did not come from the candy-tasting bar drinks.
    She clutched Cara’s arm. “Komo is here,” she said.
    “You’ve lost your mind,” Cara said.
    Fynn didn’t have time to argue. She fished through her bag for mint gum. Her breath tasted rank. She ran her fingers through her hair. Komo loved its shiny coppery bronze. At Athenian, he sat behind her in class, so he could wind it into little braids. A whole group of the girls dyed their own hair red, hoping for the same, but not one got even close to Fynn’s color of metals moving through fire.
    Heat spread across her shoulders. It snaked around her throat. She wasn’t over Komo. She could still feel his fingers in her hair, tugging at her scalp. The back of her neck tingled with the memory of the sensation of his breath so close to her skin.
    “You’re crazy,” Cara yelled over the band.
    But Fynn wasn’t crazy. Komo was in the building. She knew this the way she knew her own heart beat in her chest. To prove it, the music screeched in a train crash of missed notes as a man taller than any of the other guys walked on from the side. He was tall and broad-shouldered, almost too big to be a human man. Surely too beautiful.
    It was Komo. Fynn’s Komo, striding across the stage in faded denim and an old t-shirt. A leather ribbon tied his long hair back. He did not look up at first. He just studied the neck of his guitar, as if he ever needed to watch what he was doing when he played his music.
    The audience rose in a wave. He grinned at everybody, as if he was surprised to see them there. They screamed as he nodded his great head like a lion shaking his mane. Fynn was pushed up to the stage by a tsunami of crazed fans.
    The Ritual Madness guitar player twiddled away even clumsier than before, but Komo still bowed to the band with respect. He stepped to the microphone. Fynn wanted to close her eyes to truly enter the music, but she didn’t want to miss looking at him. It had been so long since she could just look at him.
    “Goddess of fire, goddess of my life. . . .”
He growled into the microphone, like he wanted to eat it. There was only Komo, there was only ever Komo. The music lifted Fynn from the floor. The music lifted her from everything. Komo’s long brown fingers played a lazy game over the chords, but his eyes darted across the crowd beyond the stage lights.
    Then his eyes landed. He saw her. He sang her name around a smile like the rising sun.
    Cara’s fingernails dug into Fynn’s shoulder. “He just said your name. I swear to God, Komo just said your name right out loud.”
    Fynn kept her eyes locked on her old friend Komo. They were at least that, old friends. Two of the same, strange kind.
    Komo howled in ecstasy and the crowd answered. He bounced around the stage on the balls of his feet, as if on springs. Komo’s guitar wailed along, a whole other voice with a soul and will all its own. Everyone in the club at