Black Heart (37 page)

channeled the asshole within. She honestly wasn’t sure if she could have handled another

minute of bickering.

“Ye didn’t have to be so rude about it,” one of the men grumbled.

“Apparently I did,” Tristan said dryly before adding, “Can we get to the point of your

visit without the bitching?”

“I don’t know how Shayne put up with you for all these years,” came the muttered

response, which piqued her interest enough for her to open her eyes and chance the world

spinning out of control. There was a little dizziness, but nothing like she’d experienced

before. A long, loud suffering sigh had Tristan muttering under his breath and her attention

shifting to Shayne.

“Some days were harder than others,” Shayne said solemnly.

“He always was a mean little bastard,” the man to Shayne’s left said with a sigh.

“Mmmhmmm, just a right mean bastard,” the man to the right said with a firm nod.

“Enough!” the man sitting in the large overstuffed black leather chair that didn’t go with

the rest of the furniture snapped, sounding pissed and reminding her of a certain someone

that was glaring at Shayne.

“Let’s get this over with,” the man said quietly, his tone and words instantly replacing the

light mood in the room with a sense of foreboding.

Tristan reached down and took one of her hands into his. He gave it a gentle squeeze,

letting her know that everything would be okay. She knew that he would never let anything

happen to her, but that didn’t stop her from worrying. She didn’t want to lose him. Kick his

ass? Absolutely. He had a lot of explaining to do and once he’d properly groveled, she

would consider forgiving him for hiding this whole thing from her.

“We should give ye a proper introduction,” the man sitting down in the chair that she’d

really like to get rid of, said. “My name is Liam.”

“And ye already know Shayne,” Liam said flatly, gesturing to Shayne who threw her a

wink.

Shayne nodded towards the man that was still lying on the floor, whimpering pathetically.

“And I believe ye’ve already met Finn,” he said cheerfully.

“And my poor, misunderstood precious balls,” Finn muttered, shooting her a pout that

would have made her feel bad if he hadn’t added the over the top lip quiver.

“I’m Quinn,” a warm, deeply masculine voice said, drawing her attention to the back of

the couch where the man with the thin scar running halfway over his bottom lip and down

to his chin stood, holding a blanket.

“It’s nice to meet you,” she said, feeling herself blush as he shook the blanket open and

laid it over her.

“The pleasure’s all mine, lass,” he said with a small, almost sad smile as he stepped away

and walked back to the doorway.

“I’m Declean,” a man said, drawing her attention to the far left corner where a handsome

man with a roguish smile stood. “And before ye ask, aye, I was always yer favorite.”

“She couldn’t stand ye,” Finn said, getting to his feet before he hobbled over to the wall

and leaned back against it, taking great pains to look pathetic and making him appear almost

sweet and innocent. Since he’d tried to use an obscene amount of charm on her upstairs to

try to persuade her to do what he wanted, she doubted that there was anything innocent

about the man.

“She adored me!”

“Uh huh,” the large man in the far right corner said dismissively before he added, “I’m

Aidan.”

“And that’s Fergus pouting in the back,” Finn said, gesturing to the man standing near

the windows with his arms folded over his chest and what appeared to be a permanent

scowl on his face.

“We shouldn’t even be here,” Fergus said evenly.

“And what do ye expect us to do then, Fergus? Are we supposed to sit back on our asses

and watch them die?” Quinn demanded, sounding irritated as he glared right back at his

brother.

When Fergus’ glare landed on her, she felt a chill spread down her spine and when he

answered his brother, she felt like her world was about to crumble down around her.

“Aye.”

Chapter
31

“Why don’t we cut the shit and get right to the point?” Tristan said, realizing that he’d

never regretted anything more in his life than not locking Marty’s ass up and keeping her

out of this.

She was frightened, but instead of admitting that, she was doing her best to hide it,

determined not to miss a single syllable of this bullshit. She didn’t need to be here. This was

his problem and he would take care of it. He knew that she wanted answers and he would

give them to her, but he didn’t want to do it like this.

He didn’t know what these men wanted or what they were going to say and he didn’t

want one of them scaring her again. She was doing her best to hide it, but he could feel the

slight trembling of her arm. The death grip that she had on his leg also clued him into the

fact that Marty wasn’t taking this whole thing as calmly as she would like them to believe.

“Why don’t we start from the beginning?” Liam suggested, sounding as though he wasn’t

sure that was a good idea.

Tristan looked around the room, his fingers continuing to lightly caress Marty’s arm, and

took in the stoic expressions of the other men. When his gaze landed on Shayne, he wasn’t

too surprised to find him standing there, trying to hide his worry behind a small forced smile

that told him everything that he needed to know.

He was truly fucked.

“We were all born in-“ Liam began, but Tristan cut him off, refusing to allow one more

second to pass without finding out about the only thing that mattered to him.

“Are you here to harm my wife?” he demanded, ignoring Marty’s startled gasp and the

few muttered curses that exploded around the room, keeping his eyes locked on the man

that he’d already determined to be the leader of this group.

“No,” Liam said, sighing heavily as he shifted back in the chair. “We’re here to protect

her and the boy.”

“What boy?” Marty asked, moving to sit up, but a gentle touch from Tristan had her

lying back down. There was no doubt in his mind that if she tried to sit up right now that

she would either pass out or make herself sick. She was ghostly white, her skin was cool to

the touch and she couldn’t seem to stop trembling even with the thick blanket tucked in

around her.

Biting back a grimace of pain, he leaned over and grabbed the blanket folded on the back

of the couch and pulled it over Marty. She sent him an annoyed look even as she grabbed

the edge of the extra blanket and pulled it up to her chin. He was grateful when several of

the men suddenly appeared around the couch and started fussing over Marty, adding a third

blanket and tucking her in. When they were done they disappeared just as quickly as they

had appeared and returned to their respective spots in the room.

“We’re here to ensure that ye and yer son get the chance to live a long and happy life,

Macha,” Liam explained softly.

Marty’s grip on his leg tightened past the point of pain, which was a blessing since it took

his attention away from the agonizing pain shooting down his arm. “What about Tristan?”

she asked even though she probably already knew the answer. He knew Marty well enough

to know that she needed to hear it before she could accept it.

After a slight pause, Liam confirmed his suspicions. “He can’t stay, Macha.”

“Stop calling me that!” she snapped, her voice cracking and this time when he tried to

stop her from sitting up, she shoved his hand away.

“Marty, relax,” he said, putting his good arm around her and pulling her against him. She

tried to fight him, but she was too tired to do anything more than to shove weakly at him.

Once he had her tucked into his side, she gave up and simply curled up against him, her

head on his shoulder as she laid her hand against his chest, careful of his old wound.

“They’re not taking you,” she said stubbornly, her voice breaking as she tried to stay

calm, but this was too much for her.

“I’m taking you upstairs,” he said, fully expecting her to put up a fight so when she

merely nodded against his shoulder he was a little surprised, but apparently the other men in

the room weren’t.

“Ye can’t escape, lass,” Quinn said with a shrug.

“There’s no use in trying, lass. We’ll just find ye,” Finn added softly.

“If ye leave without our protection, ye won’t last another night, Lass,” Declean

explained.

“I-I wasn’t going to try and run,” Marty said, but Tristan knew her well enough to know

that she was lying her beautiful ass off.

“Every time we have this talk, ye always try to escape,” Fergus pointed out.

“And it never works out well, lass. So do us all a favor and just let Liam tell ye what ye

need to know,” Quinn said, gesturing lazily to the man.

“How do you know that it’s a boy?” Marty asked, changing the subject, but not letting it

go. There was no doubt in his mind that she was even at this moment trying to figure out

how they were going to get away from these men.

They weren’t

Well, at least he wasn’t. The first opportunity that he had, he was sending her away and

Shayne, the betraying bastard, was going to take care of her. He didn’t know how he was

going to do it yet, but he’d figure something out.

“I think that it would be best if we started from the beginning,” Liam said in a hard tone

that let them know the time for asking questions was over. Knowing that they didn’t have

much of a choice and needing time to figure out a way to sneak Marty out of the house,

Tristan nodded.

“As I’m sure ye’ve figured out, we’re all brothers,” Liam began and Tristan didn’t need

any clarification to know that Liam included him in that group, but he added it anyway. “All

of us are yer brothers, Tadgh.”

“We were all born in Ireland a long time ago,” Liam continued only to be interrupted by

Marty.

“How long is a long time ago?” she asked, shifting until she was snuggled up tightly

against his side. She sounded calm, but the slight trembling of her voice gave her away. She

was terrified and it killed him that there was absolutely nothing that he could do about it.

“We’re not entirely sure of the date,” Shayne admitted with a shrug.

“For several generations our family managed to rule our own lands and live in relative

peace without drawing the attention of our king,” Liam began as Tristan noted that all the

men but one either looked down at his feet or looked away as if the action would save them

from this conversation. Shayne kept his gaze locked on Tristan, looking terrified and

resigned to the fate that awaited Tristan as the story continued.

“Our Da’ died shortly before ye were born, Tadgh, leaving it up to us to protect ye and

Ma and do whatever it took to keep our lands. Things were different back then and it

wasn’t unheard of for a lad to take over the job of a man.”

“By the time Da’ died, most of us had already been doing a man’s work and using a

sword to protect our land, but we were still just lads. That attracted a lot of unwanted

attention by men that would do anything to have what we had. Without that land we would

have had no way to provide for ye and for Ma so we did what we had to do to keep it.”

Shayne smoothly cut in, taking over. “When we weren’t taking turns patrolling our

land or working, we were training. Sometimes we’d get lucky and we could barter with a

trained soldier needing to cross our lands or needing a meal in exchange for more training.”

“But that wasn’t enough,” Declean explained, taking over. “We needed to keep our

people loyal and that was difficult to do with only a handful of lads left to protect them so

we each took a turn selling our oaths to whichever king was willing to pay and train us to be

mercenaries.”

“Three of us at a time would leave and go train while the rest would protect the

land, our people and ye and Ma. When we were done we’d share what we learned and

switch places,” Finn said, taking over and sounding as though he were reciting a well-

learned part in a play. “By the time that ye were becoming a man our reputation alone

protected our lands.”

“No one dared to cross us or try and take what was ours,” Fergus bit out before

Liam once again took over.

“We used our skills and coins to expand our lands and make sure that our people

never went a day without food. We were well respected and feared throughout the lands.

As long as we minded our own business, we were left alone by our king.”

Liam looked directly at him, a sad smile curving his lips slightly as he said, “But that

all changed when he learned about ye, lad.”

“What did Tristan have to do with it?” Marty asked softly as he struggled to wrap