Black Heart (42 page)

and the rest of the cowards would get back in here and finish this. Honestly, he didn’t think

that he could take much more.

“How can you be sure that this is the right thing for us?” she asked, cupping his face in

her hands. Before he could push her hands away she was leaning over him and brushing her

lips against his.

“For all you know, Tristan, taking yourself out of the game will trigger the curse and me

and the baby will suffer,” she said, hitting on something that he’d forced himself not to

think about, but now that she’d said it, that’s all he could think about.

What if leaving triggered something seriously fucked up happening to her and their baby?

“Fuck,” he groaned.

He could feel her smiling against his lips. She was a smug little thing, he noted as he

thought over what she’d said, trying to find an argument that would support his plan and

admittedly not trying very hard. He didn’t want to leave her, but he also didn’t want her or

the baby to suffer because of him.

“What’s your plan?” he asked, sighing heavily as he opened his eyes and raised his head,

already knowing that she had one.

“I thought that you’d never ask,” she said, smiling as she readjusted herself on his lap,

careful of his shoulder. “We interrogate your brothers,” Marty said, smiling as she easily

said the word and making him want to roll his eyes, “and find out absolutely everything we

can about the curse and the events that led up to the curse getting activated. That way we

know what to watch out for and we can make plans.”

He reached up with his good hand and pushed a loose strand of her hair back as he

gently cupped her face. “What if this plan doesn’t work?”

“Then we’ll learn from our mistakes and the next time-“

“I don’t want to put you or the baby through this again,” he said quietly.

She turned her face and pressed a kiss against his palm. “I would rather free the baby

than to take the chance of sending him back to wherever he’s been, Tristan. If that means

that we keep coming back until we get this thing right, then that’s what we’ll have to do.”

“I don’t think that I could keep putting you through this, Marty.”

“We don’t have a choice,” she said with a sad smile that made him want to take her in his

arms and never let her go.

“Because it’s the only way that we’re going to get our happily ever after.”

He pulled her closer so that he could kiss her, praying that he didn’t fuck this up.

-
-
-

“What’s the verdict then?” Finn asked as Shayne materialized in the kitchen.

“She talked him out of it.” Just as he knew she would.

“Thank fucking God for that,” Fergus muttered as he leaned back in his chair.

He’d never seen his brothers look so relieved before. Then again, they’d never been

asked to remove their little brother’s soul before. It wasn’t as though they were really killing

him. Tristan was one of them. He was a cursed soul and removing him from the body that

he currently occupied would have only been returning him to his true form. Reminding

themselves of that fact certainly hadn’t helped.

As pissed off as the brothers had been, none of them had been able to do it. He was their

youngest brother, their responsibility and they hadn’t been able to overlook that, even if it

meant saving Marty and the baby any more heartache or pain. Tristan was right.

They were fucking wimps.

Now they had to make a few choices. Did they make another attempt or did they go

along with Marty’s plan and try to destroy this curse once and for all?

“What do we do now, Liam?” Declean asked as he frowned down at the apple

pastries on the counter that he’d finally managed to steal for Marty.

“Other than wait for the curse to take them?” Liam asked, shaking his head slightly.

“I’m afraid there’s really not much we can do.”

Unfortunately for them, they didn’t have to wait very long for the curse to demand

its due.

Chapter
36

“What are ye doing, lass?” Shayne asked as he appeared right next to her, startling a

small scream out of her and making her drop her cell phone.

“What’s wrong?” Declean demanded as he appeared on the other side, earning another

scream from her and had her stumbling back.

“What’s all this screaming for, lass?” Fergus asked as she banged into him.

“Stop doing that!” she snapped, placing a hand over her pounding heart as she struggled

to calm her breathing. Honestly, they were going to give her a heart attack.

“Doing what?” Finn asked as he suddenly appeared, sitting in the black leather chair that

the brothers seemed to favor.

“Scaring the hell out of me!” she snapped, taking a deep breath as she bent down and

picked up her phone.

“Ye didn’t have to yell it, lass,” Fergus said with a touch of a pout as he took a seat on

the couch.

Shayne let out a long-suffering sigh that had her torn between rolling her eyes and

smiling. “She always was a violent little thing.”

“Aye,” Finn readily agreed, giving her a pointed look.

“Remember the beatings?” Declean asked conversationally as he sat on the couch near

Finn.

“I doubt any of us will ever be able to forget the beatings,” Fergus said in a harsh whisper

that had the others nodding enthusiastically.

“Are you done yet?” she asked, refusing to be amused by this. She had something that

she needed to do and she couldn’t do it with an audience.

“Why?” Shayne asked, his eyes twinkling with amusement, “are ye gonna beat us?”

“You really are related to Tristan,” she muttered, shaking her head in disgust as she

turned around and walked out of the room.

“What are we doing?” Declean asked as he appeared on her right side, startling another

scream out of her and causing her to stumble forward.

“Anything that we can help with, lass?” Quinn asked, appearing to her left and catching

her by the elbow and steadying her before she fell flat on her face just as the rather

frightening screams started from what sounded like the kitchen.

Instead of answering him, because at that moment she was pretty sure that she’d lost the

ability to talk, she blindly reached out and grabbed his hand. She squeezed the hell out of it

while she watched a half naked man with shaggy dirty blonde hair run out of the staircase

wall, across the small hallway, and through the opposite wall.

“Get back here, ye little bastard!” Aidan shouted as he ran out of the wall, across the

small hallway and through the opposite wall after the shaggy haired man who wouldn’t stop

screeching.

“Are ye hungry, lass?” Declean asked, giving her hand a gentle tug that had her

automatically following him. A few seconds later he pulled her back when the shaggy haired

man, still screeching, suddenly jumped out of the wall and ran back the way he’d come.

“We could get ye some bread or fruit,” Quinn offered.

She couldn’t do more than shake her head as she watched Aidan come running through

the wall, looking really pissed as he ran across the hall and into the wall.

“Ye really should eat, lass,” Declean said, giving her another nudge that had her once

again walking towards the kitchen.

“Stop trying to touch me, you pervert!” the shaggy haired man screeched as he once

again made an appearance, but this time she’d heard him coming and managed to stop on

her own without having to be prompted. They watched as he ran back through the wall and

then as one, they turned their heads and watched as Aidan stumbled out of the wall after

him.

“Will ye be needing some help with this one?” Quinn asked, sounding thoughtful.

Without sparing them a look, Aidan flipped him off as he took off after the shaggy haired

ghost who couldn’t seem to stop screeching. Quinn and Declean chuckled as they once

again started to lead her towards the kitchen, but between the screeching, the men scaring

the hell out of her by popping in and out of the room, and watching the two men run back

and forth, she had the start of what promised to be a really fun headache.

“I’m going back to bed,” she announced, turning around and heading for the stairs,

deciding that she could make her call upstairs before she crashed for the day.

“Are ye sure, lass?” Quinn asked, joining her on the stairs.

“Yes,” she said, pressing her fingertips to her temple that was already starting to throb.

Instead of disappearing like she’d expected him to, he continued to walk with her up the

stairs. When he took a right turn at the top of the stairs to walk towards her bedroom she

said, “You don’t have to follow me.”

“I’m afraid that I do, lass,” Quinn answered with a careless shrug and a gesture for her to

keep walking when she stopped to frown up at him.

“No, you don’t.”

“Aye, I do.”

“No, you
really
don’t,” she stressed, feeling her patience begin to fray.

He leaned down until his face was only a few inches away from hers and with a devilish

grin said, “Aye, I
really
do.”

“And why is that?”

“Because it’s my watch,” he said with a wink as he stepped back and gestured for her to

continue.

“There really isn’t any point in arguing with you, is there?” she asked, too exhausted to

put up much of an argument and not dumb enough to even try for two very important

reasons.

They were dealing with spirits and as stubborn as she was, she had to admit that she was

out of her league on this one. She didn’t know how to protect herself against them and

doubted that it was even possible since their touch seemed to paralyze her with fear and

dread. It was an experience that she never wanted to repeat again if she could help it.

The other reason that she didn’t even bother to argue with Quinn was very simple, he

was Tristan’s brother and obviously just as stubborn as her husband. Any other day or

situation and she’d probably argue with him just to wipe that smug smile off his face, but

today she was exhausted, cranky and wanted nothing more than to crawl back in bed with

her husband and sleep the rest of the day away.

“Ye won’t even know we’re here,” Quinn explained with a touch of arrogance that had

her rethinking her decision not to argue.

“Fine,” she sighed, resigning herself to the fact that she just didn’t have the energy to do

anything more than send her father a text message letting him know that they were both

going to be out sick for the day. Once that was done she shut the phone off and placed it on

Tristan’s bureau as she walked by it. She’d wait until after they got a little sleep before she

worried about how she was going to drag Tristan to see a doctor for his shoulder.

It was probably going to take a lot of threatening, pleading, and manipulation on her part

to get him to a doctor, but this time he was definitely going. Last night she’d been

overwhelmed, stressed, and trying to get over the scare that Tristan gave her to put up much

of a fight when he’d refused to go to the emergency room. His arm and shoulder were

covered with bruises, slightly swollen and obviously causing him a great deal of pain. He

needed to go to the doctor and if she had to, she would drag his stubborn ass all the way

there. First however, she really needed some sleep before she dropped dead from

exhaustion.

She nearly wept with relief when she pulled back the covers and crawled in bed with

Tristan, who was still sound asleep. The half hour of sleep she’d managed to get last night,

or rather this morning hadn’t been enough to wipe away a month’s worth of exhaustion. A

day of rest should take care of that problem, she’d decided an hour ago when she’d forced

herself to get up and go hunt down her cell phone so that she could call in sick.

Tristan wasn’t going to be happy and he’d probably bitch and glare at her when he woke

up, but she didn’t care. He was just as exhausted as she was, if not more. He needed some

rest and if this was the only way to make sure that he got it, then—

Why was the bed so hot? It felt like she’d crawled into a sauna. In a matter of seconds,

she was sweating and shoving the covers away.

“Is everything alright, lass?” Quinn asked, stepping away from the wall, disappearing a

split second later and reappearing by the bed before she could tell him that everything was

fine, but one look at Tristan’s still body had her questioning that assumption.

“Tristan?”

When he didn’t open his eyes or show any sign that he’d heard her, she placed her hand

on his good arm to give him a little shake, but the instant that she touched him, she knew

that she’d made a mistake in giving in last night.

“Tristan?” she said, trying not to panic as she shook him. “Tristan?”

“Lad?” Quinn grabbed Tristan by his good shoulder and rolled him over onto his back.