Black Heart (41 page)

into his arms, but he couldn’t. If he so much as saw her again, he knew that it would break

him.

“Do ye want to give her a proper goodbye, lad?” Shayne asked and he knew that he

was being offered one last night with his wife, but he couldn’t take it….he just couldn’t.

“No,” he forced the word out of his mouth as he opened his eyes and faced his

oldest friend and protector. “Send me home, Shayne.”

“Verra well, lad,” Shayne said quietly as he moved his hand towards Tristan’s chest.

“Let’s bring ye home.”

-
-
-

“You’re making a mistake!” Marty snapped as she tried to push past Finn.

“I’m sorry, lass,” he said again as he gently gripped her shoulders and stopped her

from going to the closed door.

“Would ye like something to eat or drink?” Aidan asked with a polite smile as he

gestured once again for her to lie down and rest.

Ignoring him, Marty ducked away from Finn’s hold, furious with herself for losing it

the way she had. Instead of crying and pleading with Tristan not to go through with this

asinine plan, she should have slapped some sense into him. She’d been so focused on losing

him that she hadn’t done anything to stop it from happening.

Now she was trapped in their bedroom with two guards while her husband was

downstairs making the biggest mistake of their lives and she had no idea how she was going

to stop him. Screaming and crying certainly hadn’t helped, she thought bitterly, pissed that

she’d screwed up what was probably her one and only chance at saving Tristan.

At saving them.

She needed him and so did their baby. She didn’t care what Tristan or these men

thought. Deep down she knew that this was wrong. It wasn’t just because she didn’t want to

lose him, she didn’t, but because this plan felt wrong for so many reasons. If they’d been

cursed together, then that’s how they needed to break this curse, together.

If the curse had a hold over their baby, then it was just as trapped as they were and

tying to cheat this curse was not going to help or change things. She also didn’t think that

this plan of theirs was going to free their baby. Their baby surviving to be born wasn’t a

guarantee that it would be free from this curse one day. For all they knew, the baby would

return to wherever it had been all these years once it was his time. Now since Tristan was so

hellbent on this plan of his, the baby would never get another chance to escape.

Their only chance to beat this curse for their child and for them was to face this

thing head on together. They needed more details on the curse so that they could do some

research. They also needed to know more about what had happened in their past lives and

the events that triggered the curse. What they didn’t need was Tristan destroying their only

chance at breaking this curse.

It had to be the hormones, she thought with a sigh as she pulled her foot up and

slammed it down on Aidan’s instep. That was the only explanation there was for it, she

decided as she ignored Aidan’s curses and focused on Finn, the only thing standing between

her and the door.

“Now, lass, we can talk about this,” Finn said, licking his lips nervously as he

stumbled back a step.

“Move,” she simply said, moving towards him, more than prepared to take a shot at

the family jewels again if that’s what it took to get him out of her way.

He opened his mouth to argue, but she was done playing around. She kept moving

towards him, knowing without a doubt that he would never hurt her even to protect himself.

She didn’t want to hurt him again, but she would if she had to and he must have realized

that because he suddenly disappeared.

“That was easy,” she murmured, more than a little confused as she shot a look over

her shoulder at Aidan to make sure that he was still distracted, but he wasn’t there.

She didn’t know what was going on and she wasn’t about to waste precious time

trying to figure it out. They could be back at any moment and she needed to be out the door

and heading down the stairs before that happened.

Realizing that all they’d need to do to return her to this room was to lay their hands

on her had her moving quickly. She threw open the door, half-expecting someone to be

waiting on the other side to grab her. When she didn’t see anyone, she bolted out the door,

hoping that her luck would hold.

All she wanted to do was get close enough to Tristan so that she could talk some

sense into him. If that didn’t work, then she’d use the chokehold on him that her father had

taught her in the second grade when some large fourth grade girl kept pushing her off the

swings and stealing her turn. It had worked like a dream back then and she hoped that it was

just as effective this time. This was her only shot and she wasn’t about to blow it. Well, not

again.

This time she was going to…..going to……

Why was Tristan calling someone a bitch and telling him to man up?

Chapter
35

“Fucking 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 laid 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

gone.

This needed to end and 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 wimping 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 situation.

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 over to 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,” he 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 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 away.

“Go back upstairs,” he ordered, 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,” she said simply as she placed her hand on his good shoulder and shoved, taking

him off guard and knocking him on his ass.

Not that it would take much right now to kick his ass, he thought as he fought against

another wave of dizziness. As soon as his ass hit the chair, Marty was climbing on his lap,

looking pissed and determined.

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

“Yeah, I don’t think so,” she 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’d come here specifically to take him out of the game and should have been able to

do it without any problems. When Shayne wimped 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 the room until you and I have a talk.”

“There’s nothing to talk about,” he 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

and harder to do with every passing second. Why did she have to make this so damn

difficult? He was doing this for her and their baby.

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

to escape.

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 very 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. It was the only

way.

“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 lose his nerve.

“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,” she 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,” he said evenly as he reached up with his good hand and gently

removed her hands from his jaw, careful not to look at her.

“Uh huh, 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,” she murmured. “Now why don’t you try looking at

me when you say that?”

She knew him too damn well, he 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