Page 8

I wouldn’t trust that venomous creature any further than I could throw her…. Off a bridge. Into freezing water. Filled with sharks. But the fear in her eyes was real. I wasn’t sure if that was because of the memory of the carnage, or something else.

“I know. I need you to tell me what you saw, and who those men were. Can you do that?” Eoghan’s voice was so tender, I wanted to throttle him.

“There were six of them. They wore masks. I don’t know. I was hiding. I couldn’t see anything!”

“Do you know why they came?” Eoghan asked, his thumb doing lazy, soothing circles on her knee.

“No!” she wailed, and it was the first time I felt that grating agitation from watching someone overacting—she was overdoing her lines. “I know nothing!”

Oh yeah, she knew something.

“Are you sure, Malinda? If you know something, you have to tell me. You don’t want me to find out any other—”

“There’s nothing to find out! I don’t know anything!”

“Are you sure?” He was too patient with her.

Far more patient than he’d ever been with me: not when he pushed me into marriage, dangling an insane pre-nup in front of my face, and not when he inserted himself into the life I’d created as Anna.

Malinda’s voice hitched, as she shook her head. “I’m sure.”

“You’re sure ?” he asked again.

Shiny chuckled, as she nudged me with her shoulder. “It’s about to get ugly.”

“What?” I said quietly, looking at Shiny, but she was watching Eoghan and Malinda.

Shiny and Ajax looked highly entertained, like they were watching a particularly juicy drama.

“He’s about to sweep in for the kill,” Ajax joked as if he were commentating on an MMA fight.

“He just asked her three times… and she lied to him three times. You know what he and Dairo say.” Shiny paused for effect, before affecting a fake, male Irish accent, “They take it as an insult.”

Oh…

“You’re sure that you didn’t smuggle the men in your van, because you know the guards wouldn’t check you?” Eoghan said, his eyes showing no emotion. “Especially when you run late on purpose.”

Malinda’s sniffling suddenly stopped, but then resumed. She was so busy trying to make the tears flow that she missed the subtle darkening of Eoghan’s eyes. She didn’t see the line that crept between his brow, or the way the energy shifted around him.

“No! They always check everything. I-I–” she stuttered.

Eoghan’s smile didn’t reach his eyes when he said, “Did you run late today, and that’s why they let you in without looking in the back of your mum’s van?”

Her silence made my heart skitter. Even though there was commotion all around, my ears blocked everything out.

Eoghan reached out his hand, tucking a strand of her fiery red hair behind her ear.

“Were you late again today, Malinda? Did you turn on the water works, and have them wave you through?”

Eoghan tsk ed. It was a reprimanding, but almost soothing as well.

“You poor soul. You could have harmed my family. You know what they say about laying hands on a Green.”

“I’d never let anyone harm you!” Malinda said loudly, her hands coming out to rest on his chest as she bent forward, as if she wanted to kiss him. “I’d never let them–”

“ Let them?” Eoghan interrupted her. “You had influence on them, then?”

“No! That’s not what I meant!”

“You brought them in here to do what? To kill my son? My heir?”

“No! I wouldn’t… I don’t… I’d never want to hurt your son! He’s a sweet boy. He looks just like you and—”

“Just my wife then?” Eoghan’s face was passive and expressionless, as he tilted his head to one side. If I did not know the context of his question, I would have thought that this conversation was just him satisfying his idle curiosity.

He took his thumbs and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A murderous bitterness ran through my body. I wanted to claw her eyes and rip out her throat with my teeth. I must have taken a step toward them, because Shiny grabbed me by the arm, keeping me close.

“Nuh-uh!” Shiny said, her eyes bright. “Let him finish. He’s really good at this.”

He kept wiping her tears. It was a gesture so affectionate that it made me want to die. Or, maybe, divorce… I wasn’t sure which.

“You poor soul,” Eoghan said again, his eyes on hers, as if she were the only person in the room. “I understand. You and I were cursed to inherit the lives of our parents. In so many ways, our fates were determined the moment we opened our eyes.”

Malinda leaned forward into his comforting touch, her eyes easing closed.

“Eoghan, I love you,” she said, her hands fisting around his lapels. “I love you. Even your father said we were made for each other.”

That was a bit of a stretch...

I couldn’t help my eyes from rolling to the back of my head.

“Watch out, or your face will freeze that way,” Shiny gently elbowed me in the side.

Eoghan looked at the redhead with sympathy as she whined. “Mal…”

“Do you know what it was like for me?” She pulled him in, falling to her knees on the floor, so they were eye to eye.

She pushed her bosom to his chest as she put her arms around his waist. He kept his hands on her shoulders.

“Do you know what it was like for me? Serving her beside you? Changing your sheets and cleaning your linens? Do you know what it was like, making your bed and seeing… smelling…”

The look in her eyes would have broken my heart if my hatred for her didn’t blind me to it.

“Mal, you poor thing,” he said as he wiped a strand of hair from her face. “You poor, silently suffering beauty.”

He put an arm around her, pulling her to him in an embrace.

My heart shattered into a thousand pieces, as her head tilted back as she stared at him with absolute love and adoration.

I knew that face. She was staring at him as if he hung the moon—as though he could make all her dreams come true.

It was an expression I had worn many times when I looked into Eoghan’s handsome features.

He held her, swaying back and forth in a rocking comfort.

“I should have been better to you,” he said, his eyes closed. “I should have been more thoughtful. More gentle with you.”

Eoghan shook his head as if he felt genuine pain. Maybe he did, because his next words looked like they stabbed him in the heart.

“I wouldn’t wish the doom of our parents’ fate on anyone,” he said, as his hand clasped at the red hair at the nape of her neck.

“You, taking your mother’s place as I take my father’s.

As the Durantes, the Vasilievs, and all the rest of us take the place of our forebears, never ascending, just walking on the same path to nothing but blood and death. What a sad existence we live in.”

What was he talking about? I wasn’t sure.

I looked at Shiny, and she looked as if this was an entirely normal conversation to have.

I caught Ajax’s gaze over her head, and he shrugged, as clueless as I was.

It must be some kind of Irish thing. Ajax and I were the outsiders, looking on at this strange farce.

“It’s all fine now,” Malinda whispered. “You never handfasted her. It was never real. You don’t have to accept this fate.”

My jaw clenched. That fucking hand-fasting again.

I slyly looked at Shiny’s open hand, seeing the diagonal line there. Ajax had an identical scar, which marked them as married. So they had hand-fasted, though Ajax, like me, wasn’t Irish.

My own palm itched. The skin felt thick without that telltale line. I clenched my fist, digging my nails into it.

“It will all be fine.” Eoghan paraphrased her line, and his eyes opened, landing right on me. “I’ll fix all of my mistakes.”

“Eoghan,” Malinda said sweetly as she placed a palm on his face. Then she gasped, her body straightening, her mouth opened in a quick and sharp squeak. She tilted her head, staring down her front.

“No one lays a hand on a Green without consequences.” Eoghan’s voice was low, almost calm. Then he came to his feet, stepping away from Malinda.

She crumpled to the floor, her knees bent to one side, her eyes so wide, I could see the whites all around the irises.

“No one lays a hand on my wife without suffering.” Eoghan’s hand was covered in blood once more. As blood red as the painting over his shoulder.

In Malinda’s stomach was a single blade—my husband’s blade.