Loving Keelynn was the greatest pain I’d ever endured.
“Does it matter?” I made her press the blade until I felt the familiar kiss of steel beneath my ribs. “Go on, Keelynn. This is what you wanted, isn’t it? To kill the Gancanagh. Now’s your chance.”
Kill me.
Cut out my heart.
Take it.
It’s yours.
After all I’d done, Keelynn should want me dead. Why wasn’t she killing me? “What’s wrong? Don’t you want to screw Robert-the-bland with a clear conscience?” Once the words started, I couldn’t stop. Vicious vitriol spewing from my cursed lips. “Don’t you want to rid yourself of our marriage bond? Although, going back to a human after you’ve been with one of us will be disappointing. Just ask Marina. Oh, wait. You can’t. She’s dead.”
“I know what you’re doing. But it won’t work. Hearing you spew hate doesn’t make me hate you, Tadhg. It makes mepityyou.”
I let go of the tost, shame heating my neck and jaw. Ruairi-the-feckin-hero escorted my wife to the exit, fawning over her, throwing hateful glances over his shoulder.
I didn’t give a shite what he thought.
He didn’t know how I felt.
No one knew.
The moment the door swung shut, he stalked back to our table. I picked up one of my pawns from our forgotten game of draughts and moved it forward a space.
“You and I need to have a little chat,” he ground through a clenched jaw.
“I have nothing to say to you.”
“Too feckin’ bad, Princey. Killing this human was one thing. Butthat”—he threw a hand at the door—“whatever the hell that was, was unacceptable. See these people?” He gestured to folks who needed to mind their own feckin’ business. “They’re all witnesses. And they saw ye hold a human against her will and manhandle her. Yer brother is going to have yer feckin’ head.”
Like I was scared of Rían. “Let him have it.”
Ruairi cleared the whole table, the glasses, the draughts, all of it with one sweep of his arm. “No more drink. Yer comin’ with me.”
“That’s not happen—”
The bastard threw me over his shoulder and carried me up the back steps into Lorcan’s kitchen. I shifted a bottle of puítin. He stole it and dumped the entire thing down the sink.
So I shifted another.
That bottle shared the same fate.
“I can do this all feckin’ day, Tadhg.”
I couldn’t. If I kept this up, I’d end up killing myself. I’d come back without the brand andpoof. Problem solved.
My knees wobbled, and I sank to the floor.
Ruairi shoved a glass into my hand.
It didn’t smell like anything. “I don’t want water.”
“That’s all yer getting until ye sober the hell up.”
I drank what I could, feeling sicker than a dog. “It’s making me sick.”
“Sure. Blame it on the water and not the vat of drink swimming in yer guts.”