Black Heart (36 page)

“How did you get past Finn?” Liam asked with a frown.

“You mean the big crybaby upstairs?” Marty asked, looking thoughtful.

“Why would you call him a crybaby?” Liam asked, looking confused while Shayne

looked quite amused and for good reason.

“Probably because she left him crying on the floor curled up in the fetal position,”

Tristan said with a sigh, knowing his wife’s temper well enough by now to know what she

was capable of.

Three weeks later and Tristan was still cringing on behalf of the dumb bastard that had

made the mistake of shooting his mouth off about how the Chief’s daughter had fucked her

way into having permanent job security. If the man had known that Marty had been

standing right behind him, he probably wouldn’t have called her a whore. Then again, if he

had known that she was behind him, he probably would have been prepared for Marty

when she decided to show him exactly how qualified she was to work for a police

department.

Personally, he thought the guy got off easy for calling her a slut and insinuating that she

did her best work on her knees. She’d only stolen his club, dropped him to his knees and

kept him there until he was crying and apologizing for being an asshole. Hank, after he’d

had time to cool off, had suspended the young officer for violating several sexual

harassment rules and sent the bastard home.

Tristan had kind of felt bad for the guy, being made to cry like that in front of the whole

squad. He’d made sure to catch up with the man in the parking lot and shared that thought

as he beat the shit out of him. He’d probably still be explaining things to the young officer if

his father and brother hadn’t arrived to rush the man to the hospital to have his jaw wired

shut.

“You might want to go check on him,” Marty said with a careless shrug that had Shayne

chuckling.

Several of the men cursed as their forms began to fade, but before any of them could

leave, Finn appeared on the living room floor, curled up tightly in a ball and gasping for air

which was a bit odd since he didn’t need to breathe.

“My balls, my poor, beautiful, innocent balls,” he whimpered pathetically.

All eyes, including his, went from the poor bastard lying on the floor, whimpering and

muttering prayers for his balls, to the small woman sitting next to him.

“What? He wouldn’t answer my questions!” she said defensively a split second before

her glare landed on Tristan. He swore that his balls twitched in fear beneath that glare, but

he didn’t let the very real possibility of having to face testicular recovery surgery keep him

from doing what had to be done.

“Go back upstairs, Marty.”

He didn’t want her to try and escape, not with spirits after her. She’d never be able to

outrun them and there would be no one to help her. She’d either end up dead or locked up

in a mental institution somewhere and neither option was acceptable to him. He just needed

her out of the room so that he could find out a few things without having to worry about

her.

“I’m not going anywhere so you might as well get on with it,” she stubbornly said as she

crossed her arms over her chest, giving them all a look that dared them to try and stop her.

“Please have mercy on my balls,” Finn whimpered, taking the decision out of his hands.

Chapter
30

“You were telling us how Tristan was your brother,” Marty said when the silence in the

room became awkward.

Men were such babies. Seriously, what did they expect her to do? They’d left her with a

man, well a male that wasn’t exactly human, that she didn’t know, who tried to keep her

locked up in her bedroom. Did they really think that she was going to sit on the bed like a

good girl and wait for the big boys to finish their super secret conversation?

Her father raised her better than that. She wasn’t the type of woman to leave it to a man

to solve her problems for her and seeing ghosts or whatever the hell they were was

definitely a problem. Now that she knew that she wasn’t going crazy, she could admit that

this whole thing was kind of cool, even if it did frighten her.

Whatever that had been that had occurred upstairs with that bloodied man was definitely

not something that she wanted to experience again. His touch had been cold and left her

feeling depressed, hopeless, and had filled her with so much dread that if he’d killed her at

that moment, she probably would have thanked him. It was something that she fully

planned on avoiding in the future.

It was also something that clued her into the fact that the men standing around the room,

watching the man curled up on the floor and whimpering about his “poor helpless balls”

were very different from the bloodied man upstairs in more ways than one. While the dead

man’s appearance was probably the same as it had been when he’d died, bloodied, his

clothes torn to shreds, and his face covered with developing bruises and gashes, these men

appeared to be in their prime.

Their clothes, mostly jeans, khaki cargo pants, and tee shirts, appeared to be clean and

undamaged in any way that she could tell. Besides a few minor scars, their faces were

clean-shaven, handsome and free of any signs of trauma. Since she doubted that all of the

men had died from a heart attack while they’d slept peacefully in their clothes that meant

that either they’d never been human or that they had the power to change their appearance.

Of course, there could be a third option, but she’d need a little more time and information

before she could think of one.

Another thing that she noticed was that these men could handle their forms. The

bloodied man had stumbled around the room, surprised and aggravated by the fact that he

could move through the bed and bureau. The only thing that he’d seemed to be able to

touch was her. He’d tried to touch the bed and grab the phone while he’d dragged her

around the bedroom, flipping out and demanding that she fix everything. His hands and

body went right through whatever they came in contact with. These men didn’t seem to

have that problem. They could sit down, open doors, pick up objects and lean against the

wall without falling through it.

Their touch also didn’t make her wish for death. Their touch was warm, comforting and

familiar. It was odd, but then again, wasn’t everything about this situation odd? For the past

month she’d been hearing voices and today she was seeing the dead and was apparently

pregnant. She wasn’t sure how, but she’d be willing to bet everything that she had that they

were all connected.

The fact that Tristan wasn’t freaking out over everything that was going on also clued her

into the fact that this situation wasn’t entirely new to him. Then again, nothing really fazed

Tristan. He’d always been level headed and thought things out before he reacted. Even

when they were children, Tristan would get the facts first.

Like the time that she’d caught one of his friends peeking into her window and watching

her change into her bathing suit. Before Tristan had broken his friend’s nose, he had

patiently listened to the boy babble on and on about getting lost when he was looking for

the basketball that had rolled across the street. Then how he’d accidentally tripped over a

plant and pressed his face against her bedroom window and watched her for five minutes.

Tristan had a temper and could be an asshole, but he usually managed to maintain that

deadly calm that kind of freaked people out while he figured things out.

She looked at him to find him slowly studying everyone in the room, no doubt taking in

every detail and storing the information away for later when he figured out a way to use it

to his advantage. When his gaze landed on her, his eyes narrowed as they conveyed the

silent promise of locking her in their room for the rest of her life if she didn’t move her ass

and leave the room, but since she wasn’t afraid of him, she simply ignored him as she

turned her focus back on the men that would answer all of her questions.

“How exactly is Tristan your brother?” she prompted the men yet again when it became

clear that they weren’t going to be able to stop sending pitying looks at the big baby whining

on the floor. Seriously, she’d only kicked him a few times, she mused, rolling her eyes in

disgust.

“Someone,” the man curled up into a ball on the floor paused to groan, “kill me.”

“Yer already dead! Now man the hell up and stop embarrassing us like this!” Shayne, she

thought his name was, snapped with open disgust and inadvertently answered one of her

questions.

The man pulled one of his hands away from his abused manhood long enough to flip

Shayne off and earn a few lighthearted chuckles from the rest of the men in the room.

Definitely brothers, she thought as she shifted to get more comfortable, but the way her

stomach suddenly churned had her pressing a hand against it and holding her breath as she

waited for it to pass.

“Marty, are you okay?” Tristan asked, shifting slightly so that he could place his right

hand over hers.

She opened her mouth to answer him when her eyes landed on his shoulder. It was

swollen and painted an angry red. It looked like it hurt and, judging by the way that he kept

his arm tightly by his side, it did. It took everything she had not to ask him about it. Her

father had taught them both to never give away a disadvantage and, if he was hurt, then

they were definitely going to be at a greater disadvantage than they already were.

This situation might be fascinating, but that didn’t mean that she was blind to the

dangers. She wasn’t sure what they wanted with her. So far they’d been very gentle with

her, babying her a bit, leading her to believe that they were concerned about her. Tristan, on

the other hand, seemed to have pissed them off, which wasn’t anything mind blowing since

he did go out of his way to do that to most people, but in this situation it felt different.

“Marty?” Tristan said, giving her hand a gentle squeeze to get her attention. “Are you

okay?”

“I’m fine,” she lied, forcing a smile. If he wasn’t going to give anything away, then

neither was she.

“No worries, lad. It’s just morning sickness,” Shayne explained.

“Aye, the lass always has a tough time of it when she’s pregnant,” the man leaning

against the wall added with a shrug while she struggled to make sense out of what he’d just

said.

“She’s never been pregnant before,” Tristan pointed out and before she got the chance to

add anything to the conversation her head began to spin as nausea once again took over.

“Marty?” Tristan said, sounding worried.

“I’m fine,” she lied, closing her eyes as she willed the nausea to go away.

“No, you’re not.”

“No, I’m good,” she said, shifting on the couch until she found herself lying down with

her head cushioned on Tristan’s warm jean clad leg and once she was there she never

wanted to leave.

The dizziness went away and took some of the nausea with it. She decided then and

there that they were just going to have to learn to live like this, because she was never

getting up again. The only thing that sounded better than staying here for the rest of her life

was a hot bath and curling up in her own bed. Since she didn’t trust Tristan or these men to

hold off on this conversation until she could move without getting sick or passing out, she

had no choice but to suck it up and stay here.

“Let me take you upstairs where you can rest,” Tristan said softly and for a second she

was tempted, oh so tempted to take him up on that offer.

“No,” she mumbled, well aware that she was probably pouting and not really giving a

damn at the moment.

“Get off yer lazy ass and get the lass an apple pastry!” someone demanded.

“My balls are about to explode, ye insensitive bastard!”

Knowing that it was only a matter of time before she was forced to seek out the comfort

of a bathroom, she interrupted the bickering men with the hopes that they could just get on

with it. “I’m fine,” she bit out.

“Maybe we should just get this over with,” one of the men said, sounding almost sad.

“Why don’t ye tell it, Liam?”

“He always tells it,” someone grumbled.

“That’s cause he doesn’t get distracted when he tells it!”

“I don’t get distracted, ye bastard!”

“Then what would ye call it?”

“Being fucking thorough!”

“Is that what ye call it?”

“Aye!”

“I call it being a fucking-“

“Shut the fuck up,” Tristan snapped and for once Marty was grateful that he’d