The four McCoubrie siblings stared at their sudden and frankly unwanted guests, unsure as to what they were going on about.
"What do you mean, four of us?" Cian asked the regular mirth he carried, disappearing into an unease that you could see by the set of his shoulders.
Eoin cleared his throat, gathering himself a bit after his outburst. "We weren't expecting four of you. We were only expecting…well, you." He trailed off, looking towards Ashling.
"I'm still stuck on the part where you were expecting anything from us at all," Declan ground out behind gritted teeth. He was very quickly losing patience with the man he had immediately deemed a total idiot.
"Yes, right! I think we are getting a bit ahead of ourselves, Eoin." Eamon quickly established himself as the voice of reason between the two of them, bringing Eoin back from whatever tangent he found himself on.
Sighing, Eoin leaned forward, putting his elbow on his knees, bringing him closer to Ashling's personal space. "You're right. I should start with the fact that my parents were friends with your parents back in Ireland."
Declan scoffed, rolling his eyes. "Funny, they never mentioned anyone with the last name O'Connor," he said, lifting the white business card bearing Eoin's surname on it.
"I'm sure they didn't," Eoin countered, "Did they ever mention anything about their home? Family? Anything at all?"
"No, they always said they had no interest in living in the past whenever it came up," Ashling sighed, thinking back to many conversations with her parents. "I did some research of my own after they passed. But I never found anything other than they were from a village called Toormore on one of the southern peninsulas."
"Yes, that's right!" Eoin exclaimed, pushing even farther forward into his seat. She had been looking! Not like he had been looking for her, but that wasn't surprising, seeing as how she knew…well, nothing. "It's in County Cork."
Declan was steadily becoming more unhappy with the entire situation. He was just about at the end of his very short rope. "Ok, great. What was it you had to tell us, exactly?" He saw Cian and Seamus nodding in agreement, probably also very close to being over the whole thing.
"Yes. Right. Well," Eoin started and stopped, seemingly unsure of how to proceed. "This is going to sound very strange, but I want you to keep an open mind until we've finished." He looked to Eamon for help, who was sporting an uncharacteristically stoic face. He was going to let Eoin flounder on his own, the bastard.
He turned to Ashling, suddenly very nervous. He had been waiting for this moment since he was a teenager. But now that he was in the actual moment, he felt like he had no idea what to do. She was everything he thought she would be and then some. She was beautiful with her long red hair that hung in natural curls. Her green eyes held an obvious intelligence and curiosity to them. She was also covered in freckles which he found adorable.
There was also the matter that he could feel her power vibrating from her, the very moment he walked into her tiny office. It pressed down on his skin, but not in an oppressive way. It was almost like a caress or a curious once-over. He could also tell that she had no idea that she was doing it.
"Your parents were part of the same community my father is. They were friends back in the day," he started, still trying to find a way to explain without sounding like a completely insane person. "They were druids."
There was a pause then, the siblings each taking in the information. Eoin didn't continue, waiting for the inevitable outbursts, eyes carefully trained on Ashling's face, trying to gauge her reaction.
"Druids?" Seamus asked slowly.
"Yes, druids," was Eamon's answer, finally chiming in.
"Like magic and fairies. Those druids?" Cian questioned, staring at the two like they were losing their minds.
"Well, we have nothing to do with the fae if we can help it, but the magic part is true."
Declan was officially done. How dare these two harass his sister at her work and then have the balls to show up at their house. Now they were spouting some nonsense about their dead parents being fictional magical beings. These two sons of bitches had no shame, and he was done.
"Get out." He said, voice dangerously low.
Eamon looked to the eldest McCoubrie and saw nothing but impending violence in his eyes. "Yeah, sure. Not a problem. We will be leaving." He tried to pull his friend along with him as he got up from the sofa, but Eoin didn't budge.
"Ashling?" he asked, lowering his head to try and catch her gaze. "Can you feel it?"
"Feel what?" she asked, still avoiding looking at him. She couldn't believe what she was hearing. Part of her was outraged that these two had led them to think they had genuine information about their parents, only to come up with this rubbish druid nonsense. But then, there was another, small, buried part of her that whispered that it might not be as rubbish as it seems.
"Your magic." Eoin moved forward then, grasping her hand in his much larger one. A spark of energy seemed to crack beneath the surface of her skin before jolting into his. She gasped and stood. Eoin moved with her, still holding onto her hand. "Can you feel it push against your skin?"
"That's enough!" Declan roared, grasping Eoin's shoulder, and tearing him away from his sister. "How dare you put your hands on her!"
Though he was being shaken like a doll in the hands of the biggest McCoubrie, Eoin's eyes never left Ashling, and she found herself staring right back. What was that spark? How had that happened?
Suddenly, nothing made sense. Ashling's life wasn't the straightforward one that she had always believed it to be. Because she had felt it. What did that mean for her, though? Or for her family?
Finally forcing herself to break away from the dark eyes of Eoin, she turned and ran out of the room and up the stairs. She couldn't deal with all this right now, her mind spinning in too many directions.
She slammed the door to her room shut, leaving behind it the sounds of the two strangers being removed from their home by her brothers.