Page 55

He shrugs. “I reckon if you’re going to be a stubborn arse about helping me, the least I can do is be a bit more agreeable.”

“That’s…nice. Almost.”

He chuckles softly. “Trust me, it’s a foreign concept to me too.”

I watch the rain falling outside the sagging entry to the barn, oddly content to be quiet for a time. Lachlan says nothing beside me, and I can’t help but wonder what he’s thinking. I find myself wondering a lot of things about him since learning the truth of his curse. I wonder what it’s like to live your life knowing how it will end. It makes my chest feel funny when I think about it.

“Do you remember the last time you spoke with your father?”

He startles at the question, his head whipping toward me. I can feel his eyes on the side of my face, but I continue to stare at the rain.I’m not sure what prompted me to ask, but I realize I’m curious, now that it’s out there. Maybe it’s because he knows how I feel, given the things we’ve both lost.

“Aye,” he answers finally, his voice soft. “I remember.”

“How old were you?”

He leans to brace his forearms over his bent knees, eyes on the downpour outside. “I was only eight. A wean, really. I still remember the day, though.”

“What happened?”

“There were signs,” he tells me. “The curse is becoming unstable, see? We saw it in him, my mother and me. When he was angry, when he lost control…It was like you could see bits of the beast shining through the man.”

“Does that—” I can feel myself leaning in. “Does that happen to you?”

“Not much,” he answers. He looks at me then, his eyes moving slowly over the planes of my face as if studying me. “I do my best not to lose control.”

I swallow, the weight of his gaze suddenly too much. I avert my own gaze, clearing my throat. “That’s…good.”

“Aye. My da…he lost control one day. He…” Lachlan’s fists clench, and his body tenses, his brow furrowing as he remembers. “He hurt my mother. Not badly, you see, but enough to scare them both. The grief of that, of what he’d done…It’s like he let himself go to the monster. He went into the loch that night…and he never came back out.”

My chest clenches in sympathy, and I have the strangest urge to reach out and touch him, to offer him some sort of comfort—but I can’t decide if it would be welcome or not.

“I’m sorry,” I say softly.

He shakes his head. “I still remember what he said that morning. The last words he ever spoke to me.”

“What did he say?”

“He said…” Lachlan’s voice breaks, and he sucks in a breath just to blow it out. “He said that he was sorry. He said that he—that he tried. He tried to save me. I’m still not sure what he meant by that, but I can’t forget the sadness in his eyes when he said it.”

“It sounds like he really loved you.”

“Aye,” Lachlan murmurs. “He did.” He’s thoughtful for a second before, “My mother left not long after. She told me it would only be for a little while, me staying with my granny, but…I think looking at me was too hard. She missed my da too much. It did something to her mind. She’s never been…quite right since.”

“I’m sorry,” I tell him, meaning it.

He shrugs. “S’fine.”

“Did she know?”

“Hm?”

“Your mother,” I clarify. “Did she know about the curse?”

“Aye, from early on.”

“Then why did she—”

“She never expected to lose him to it,” he tells me. “My da was the first to be consumed by it like he was.”