Black Heart (39 page)

over and sounding pissed. “We’re stuck in this fucked up position where we’re forced to

either live this bullshit existence or to take a chance and try to win a game that can never be

won.”

“What are you talking about?” Marty asked, trying to ignore the chill that tore

through her body as terror and disbelief fought for her attention.

“Every time that any of ye die, Macha, ye and all of our soul mates are forced to

come back again, living a life of pain and heartbreak. Each time we’re left with the choice

of sitting back and hoping that this time will be better for all of ye, or take a chance by

following after ye with the hopes that this will be the time that the curse will be broken,”

Aidan explained.

“The only problem is that the rules are set up to fuck us over. Every time we take a

chance to try and end this game our memories are completely erased and we’re left starting

fresh in a game that’s already in play,” Shayne added as he moved back to his spot by the

wall.

“We’re born with targets on our asses,” Quinn bit out and before she could ask what

he meant by that, Liam provided her with an answer that horrified her.

“There’s no escaping the curse, lass. When we’re like this we have the power to

send the spirits where they need to be and the ability to protect each other. We also

maintain all of our memories in this form, but when we’re born again we lose all of that,”

Liam said, sounding exhausted and making her wonder just how many times he’d been

through this.

“The curse follows us each and every time we try to end it. We start attracting

attention from spirits the moment that we’re born when we’re at our most vulnerable. We

have no way to protect ourselves or any memories to help guide us,” Liam said, sending

Tristan what could only be described as a look of regret.

“That’s why when we decide to attempt to break the curse that we make sure that at

least one of us can stand in as our protector,” Liam explained softly, looking at Tristan for

another moment before he forced himself to look away.

“We do it this way to keep each other safe and so that we’re not completely fucked

by this curse,” Declean said while looking at Tristan until he also forced himself to look

away.

“It helps to know that we’re not alone and that we’re not crazy,” Quinn quietly

added.

As she tried her best to digest everything they were telling her, something occurred

to her and made her wonder why Tristan had pushed her away all these years if he knew

that she was, supposedly, his soul mate. If the whole point of him being born was to break a

curse with her, then why did he-

“He didn’t know what ye were to him, lass,” Shayne said, answering her question

before she had a chance to finish thinking of it.

“Why not?”

She watched as Shayne leveled a glare on Tristan. “Because the stubborn bastard

broke his promise,” he bit out angrily.

“Oh, and what promise was that?” Tristan asked, sounding every bit as pissed as

Shayne.

“The one where ye promised to finally let her go.”

Chapter
33

“Stop!” Marty screamed and she’d probably be on his back trying to drag him off of

Shayne if one of his “brothers” hadn’t stopped her.

“Calm down!” one of them demanded as he tried to drag Tristan away from Shayne, but

Tristan wasn’t having that. Not after all the bullshit he’d gone through.

“Fuck off,” Tristan bit out, ignoring the agonizing pain shooting up and down his useless

arm as he tightened his hold around Shayne’s neck with his good hand and slammed the

bastard as hard as he could against the floor. He couldn’t kill the bastard, something that he

regretted at the moment, but he could hurt Shayne and for now that would have to be

enough.

“Calm the fuck down, lad!” Shayne snapped, moving to grab Tristan by the shoulders

and shove him away only to curse and disappear so that he wouldn’t hurt him. It should

comfort him that Shayne cared enough about him not to hurt him even when he was

bashing his head into the floor, but it didn’t.

Far from it.

“You fucking asshole!” Tristan roared, struggling to get to his feet and nearly falling

back on his ass when the pain in his shoulder and head become too much to handle, but he

pushed through it.

It didn’t matter that he most likely had a concussion and that his arm was seriously

fucked up, the only thing that mattered was that the one person that he’d trusted completely

had fucked him over. Shayne had lied to him, kept things from him and had put Marty in

danger.

“Lad, if ye’d just calm down I could explain everything,” Shayne said as he

materialized across the room.

“You fucking lied to me!” Tristan shouted, going after Shayne.

“I didn’t lie to ye, lad!” Shayne said, suddenly disappearing just as Tristan reached

him only to reappear on the other side of the room.

“Bullshit!” he snapped, shifting directions and going after Shayne, shoving anyone

dumb enough to get in his way aside.

“That’s kind of harsh, don’t ye think, lad?” Shayne said, once again disappearing

from sight just as Tristan was about to reach him. He reappeared across the room, forcing

Tristan to chase after him.

“You lied to me, kept shit away from me and kept me away from Marty!” Tristan

snapped, ignoring the pain in his arm as he went after his one time best friend. He was too

focused on killing the bastard to care that Shayne could keep this up all day or realize that

he probably had another five minutes of this before the pain became too much and knocked

him on his ass.

“I did what I thought was best,” Shayne said, ducking out of reach before

disappearing, this time just as Tristan swung at the bastard. The move sent him stumbling

and had him biting back a groan as the pain intensified, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.

Nothing short of murder would be able to stop him this time.

“Tristan?” Marty said, trying to get his attention, but he barely heard or saw her as

he continued to go after Shayne. At this point he was barely aware of anything else but

Shayne.

“Tristan?” she tried again.

“Not now,” he said absently, zeroing in on the bastard holding up his hands up in

surrender.

“Lad, yer hurt. Why don’t we just sit down and talk this through?” Shayne calmly

suggested as he disappeared only to reappear near the television and out of Tristan’s reach.

“You mean the talk that we should have had the night that you appeared in my

bedroom?” Tristan bit out.

“Ye were a child then, lad. It wasn’t something that I could talk to ye about.”

“Bullshit!”

“It’s not bullshit, lad! Ye had enough problems and ye didn’t need to know that-“

“That I wasn’t a fucking freak? Or that there was a reason why I was given such a

fucked up existence?”

“Well,-“

“You could have cleared up everything! Instead you left me wondering what the hell

was wrong with me! You made me think that I was doing Marty a favor by shoving her

away! You-“

“Ye,” Liam said coldly as he stepped in front of him and cut him off, “did that all on

yer own.”

“Fuck you,” Tristan snapped, moving to step around Liam and go after Shayne, but

Liam wasn’t having it.

When Tristan shifted to the side, so did Liam, blocking him. “Yer the one that made

Shayne promise not to help,” Liam said evenly, taking Tristan by surprise.

“What the hell are you talking-“ he started to demand only to get another surprise

when Marty cut him off.

“Would someone mind giving me a hand with this guy?”

Expecting to find one of the men holding Marty back so that she wouldn’t do

something foolish like try to get in the middle of this, he looked back only to discover that

all of his “brothers” were standing directly behind him and looking just as confused as he

felt. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see when Finn and Quinn shifted to the side so

that they could look back, but it definitely wasn’t his wife being chased around the couch by

a naked elderly man.

-
-
-

“Tristan?” she said, trying to remain calm as she gave the very grumpy and very naked

elderly man in front of her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Apparently he took her smile as an invitation. With his gaze locked on her, he moved

towards her. Well, it was more like a shuffle, leaving Marty to wonder if physical limitations

followed people into their deaths or if this man was just used to moving like that and didn’t

give it a second thought.

She took a step back, fully expecting either Tristan or one of the men that claimed to be

his brother to step in and handle the ghost. When the man shuffled closer, Marty took a

step back and risked a glance towards the other side of the room. What she saw had her

rolling her eyes and making a mental note to kick Tristan’s ass later.

While Tristan chewed Shayne out, and she fully planned on finding out what that was

about later, the rest of the men crowded behind him, looking ready to jump in at any second

and grab him. As she took yet another step back, she couldn’t help but wonder why they

hadn’t just grabbed him and ended the whole thing.

As she moved around the back of the couch, she watched as Quinn moved to grab

Tristan by his shoulders when Tristan got a little too close to decking Shayne, only to watch

the man hesitate, shake his head and drop his hands by his sides as he let out what sounded

like a curse. It was an odd move, but then again, so was being chased around the couch by

a naked elderly man that she didn’t know.

During her second lap around the couch, she watched as Fergus moved to grab Tristan

only to have a similar reaction. They didn’t want to hurt him, she realized as she slowed

down to watch an obviously frustrated Liam attempt the same thing and fail, which was

kind of screwed up since he was the one who’d hurt Tristan in the first place. He made one

more attempt before he dropped his hands by his sides and curled them into fists as he let

out what she was definitely sure was a curse and disappeared, only to reappear in front of

Tristan a second later.

She was so focused on what was going on with Tristan that she didn’t realize that she’d

stopped moving until the sound of a shuffle and a grunt had her saying a curse of her own

and hauling ass, well, walking away really fast. She was still nauseous after all and all of this

walking in circles wasn’t helping. After her fourth time around the couch, she, and her

stomach, finally had enough.

“Would someone mind giving me a hand with this guy?”

For a moment, they simply stood there looking adorably confused as they watched

the old naked guy chase her around the couch for another lap. Knowing that her stomach

wasn’t up for another lap around the couch, she veered off towards them, deciding that

she’d had enough of, well, everything tonight.

She walked right passed Finn and Quinn and kept going towards Tristan, who

appeared just as confused as the rest of the men. Once she reached him, she grabbed his

good hand, gave it a pull and somehow was able to get him to have a seat in the ugly chair

that Liam had vacated. Before he could get up and go after Shayne, and she knew him well

enough to know that was exactly what he wanted to do, she sat on his lap, careful of his bad

shoulder and made it clear that she didn’t plan on getting up anytime soon.

When Tristan tried to shift her off of his lap, she decided that perhaps a little

clarification was in order. “If you so much as move me an inch, I will give the term

‘morning sickness’ a whole new meaning,” she swore, wishing that it wasn’t true, but with

all the running around, stress and exhaustion, her stomach was less than pleased with her

and was at that very moment threatening to turn her promise into reality.

“That threat won’t work forever,” he said, sighing as he wrapped his good arm

around her and pressed a kiss against the top of her head all while he probably glared in

Shayne’s direction.

“We’ll see,” she said with a shrug as she watched Declean reach out as the naked

old man neared their group and pressed his hand against the old man’s chest.

A beautiful white light spread over his chest until it surrounded them. Feelings of

love, happiness and calm spread over her, stealing her breath and making her feel safe and

cherished. It was a feeling that she wanted to last forever, but all too soon it was gone and

so was the elderly man.