Page 38

CHAPTER 37

“F ucking do it!”

“If ye would shut the fuck up I might be able ta!” Finn snapped back, his focus never shifted away from where his hand lay on Tristan’s chest.

Tristan ground his teeth shut as he waited for it to happen. Any second now, it would be over. The pain would be gone, the fucking stress from waiting for this bullshit to be over with, and hopefully, the agony of knowing that he would never see Marty again would be over.

This needed to end now. Deciding to take himself out of the game was hard enough, but the way that each and every one of his so-called brothers kept backing out on him and prolonging this was fucking torture. He didn’t want to do this, didn’t want to walk away from Marty and their child, but he had to do it. If his being around was a factor in triggering their deaths, then he had to be taken out of the equation.

It was supposed to be quick. One pull and everything should have been over, but ten minutes of bitching later, and he was still standing here waiting for someone to grow the balls to do it. When Finn shot a nervous look at Liam, Tristan knew that this whole thing was about to take a lot longer than any of them had expected.

“Just do it,” Tristan bit out through clenched teeth as he reached up with his good hand and placed it over the one Finn still had pressed against his chest.

“I’m trying!” But they both knew that he wasn’t going to do it. He had that same expression on his face that every man before him had just before they’d stepped back, made up some bullshit excuse and told someone else to do it. Now the only problem was that there was no one else left to do it.

“Try harder,” Tristan ground out, willing Finn to do it and end his suffering.

The pain from knowing that he would never see Marty again was surprisingly more brutal than his fucked-up shoulder and skull that had him seeing black spots and struggling not to give into his shaky legs and drop to the ground. He knew that if he gave into the pain that they’d use it as an excuse not to do this and he desperately needed them to do this.

He couldn’t stomach the idea of Marty or their baby suffering. He didn’t want to keep putting her through this hell and he didn’t want her life shortened because of him. He wanted her to go on and enjoy her life, raise their son and if she had to come back again, he wanted her to have a chance at being happy, growing old and-

“This ends now,” Marty said, shoving Finn’s hand away as she smoothly stepped in front of him. Looking relieved, Finn quickly retreated.

“Go back upstairs,” Tristan snapped, looking anywhere but at her, knowing that one look at her would probably break him and have him doing anything to stay with her even if it was only for one more night.

“No,” Marty said as she placed her hand on his good shoulder and shoved, taking him by surprise and knocking him on his ass.

Not that it would take much right now to kick his ass, Tristan thought as he fought against another wave of dizziness. As soon as his ass hit the chair, Marty was climbing onto his lap, looking pissed and more determined than he’d ever seen her before.

“Get off,” Tristan said, his voice sounding hollow as he struggled to stay with it.

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” Marty said dryly as she settled more comfortably on his lap.

“Maybe we should leave the room and give these two some privacy,” Shayne, the fucking coward, said, already making a quick retreat for the door.

He’d been the first one to back out of doing what needed to be done, sprouting some bullshit about not being able to do it because it would damage his video game playing hand. It hadn’t exactly surprised him that after all these years of protecting him that Shayne wouldn’t be able to do anything that would hurt him, but the others didn’t have that excuse.

They came here specifically to take him out of the game and should have been able to do it without any problems. When Shayne backed out on him, he’d expected Liam, who’d stepped up next, to get the job done. After five of the longest minutes of his life, Liam backed up, shot him a glare and flipped him off when Tristan called him a fucking pussy and gestured for Declean to take a shot at it.

“Put her back in her room and let’s finish this,” Tristan demanded, needing her out of the room before he lost his nerve to do this.

“I’m not going back to that room until you and I have a talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” Tristan said absently as he shifted to move her off his lap and do whatever it took to finish this when Shayne said, “We’ll be back in a few, lad. We need to discuss strategy and all that.”

Before he could argue, they disappeared, prolonging something that was becoming harder to do with every passing second. Why did she have to make this so damn difficult? He was doing this to keep her safe and give their baby a chance.

Right now, it was hard to accept, but one day, hopefully, soon she would understand the gift that he was giving her. He’d do anything to see her belly swell with their child, to hold him and to be by her side as they watched their son grow up, but that wasn’t in the cards for them. This curse explained so much and made him wish that he’d listened to his fears and stayed away from her. Then again, if he had, their child wouldn’t be getting this chance.

He knew what it was like to be alone and defenseless. Just thinking about their child suffering like that was enough to make him sick to his stomach. No child should suffer, and he was going to make damn sure that his child’s suffering ended now.

Letting them end his life was taking a huge risk, but right now, that’s all he had. His only hope was that he wouldn’t have to wait long before he had access to all the memories from his prior lives. That was one of the main reasons that he was doing this. They needed that information.

He knew that Marty was pissed with his plan and wanted to figure this out together, but if they had any real chance, this was it. It would hurt like hell to walk away from her, but he had no choice. As soon as he had all of his memories back, he was going to go through each one and try to find something that would help save his wife and child.

“You’re not doing this, Tristan.”

“It’s the only way,” he said tightly, refusing to look at her or touch her, knowing that it wouldn’t take much for him to break.

“No, it’s not,” Marty stubbornly said, and he knew that there was nothing that he could say to convince her otherwise, so he didn’t bother.

“I’ve made my decision.”

“And I’ve made mine,” Marty said as she cupped his face in her soft, warm hands and moved to pull his gaze to hers, but he wouldn’t allow it. Not when he was so goddamn close to breaking.

“This is the only way to save you and the baby, Marty. It’s not a choice that I’m making lightly, but it is my choice,” Tristan said evenly as he reached up with his good hand and gently removed her hands from his jaw, careful not to look at her.

“I tell you what, Tristan. Look me in the eye and tell me that this plan is our only hope and I’ll let you go, no questions asked.”

Without looking at her, he said, “When they remove me, I’ll get my memories back and hopefully some answers so that I can save you and the baby.”

“How very noble of you, Tristan,” Marty murmured dryly. “Now, why don’t you try looking at me when you say that?”

She knew him too damn well, Tristan thought with a sigh as he closed his eyes and let his head drop back. “Marty-”

“We need you, Tristan,” she said softly.

“I’m doing this for you,” he said, hating how his voice broke and wishing that Shayne 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?” Marty 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 we’ll pay the price for it,” Marty 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,” Tristan groaned.

He could feel her smiling against his lips. She was a smug little thing, Tristan 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?” Tristan asked, sighing heavily as he opened his eyes, already knowing that she had one.

“I thought that you’d never ask,” Marty 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 triggered. That way, we know what to watch out for and we can make a plan.”

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 like he knew she would.

“Thank fucking God for that,” Connall 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 didn’t help.

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 from any more heartache. Tristan was right.

They were fucking wimps.

Now they had to make a few decisions. 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. “I’m afraid there’s really nothing we can do.”

Unfortunately for them, they didn’t have to wait long before the curse demanded its due.