“You think you know everything, don’t you?” Keelynn ground out, drawing me back to the present.
“I know more than you.” So much more about pain and loss and hate than she could ever imagine.
Her steely eyes narrowed as she leaned forward, bracing her hands against her knees. “IwatchedyourinnocentGancanagh murder my sister.”
What? Wait.What? Her sister? Which one of my victims had a sister? She must be mistaken. Orla? No, no. Couldn’t be her. I’d killed Orla the night I’d met Keelynn. She’d already been set on this foolish quest. There hadn’t been anyone else in over a year.
No one else except—
Shit.
I caught her shoulders, needing to see her eyes when she spoke. To feel the vibrations from her words as she told me why the hell she thought I had killed her sister. “Tell me exactlywhat you saw.”
She shoved me away, pressing herself into the cushion at her back. “I’m not telling you a thing.”
“If you don’t, then I will get out of this carriage and leave you to fend for yourself.”
The glow from my ring around her neck flared at my words.
Her eyes widened. Her throat bobbed when she swallowed. It wasn’t hate I saw on her pale face. It was fear.
She was terrified of me.
The realization felt like jumping into a cold sea.
She actually believed I would harm her. And why wouldn’t she? I’d just grabbed her, hadn’t I? And technically, I had planned to lead her to certain death.
“A-at my sister’s betrothal ball, I caught Aveen in the garden with a man in a hooded cloak. I-I didn’t get a look at his face, but Isawhim kiss her. And the moment his lips touched hers, she died. Then he just . . . vanished. Leaving her there. I tried,” she whispered, scraping at her chest, “I tried to wake her, b-but she was already . . .”
Shit.
Shit.
Aveen.
Her sister was Aveen.
Why the hell hadn’t Rían told me his feckin’ fiancée had a feckin’ sister?
Get off it, you eejit. Of course he wouldn’t have told me. I was the Gancanagh. He’d been trying to protect her. Who could blame him? I would’ve set my sights on Keelynn just to make him miserable.
There was no way he’d be willing to torture his fiancée’s sister or let her anywhere near the Black Forest. And from the fear and disgust on her face, there was no hope I’d convince her to share my bed.
The ring—thefeckin’ ring—was right there, within my grasp, and I couldn’t do a feckin’ thing about it. Having tasted hope, seen it with my own eyes, only to have it ripped away was the worst torture I’d ever endured.
I took out my frustration on the trunk, wrestling with the urge to close my eyes and send myself straight to Rían so I could end him.
Dammit.
I had to keep myself under control because the more I let the darkness take over, the harder it was to get it back under wraps, and if I didn’t kill someone—
I glanced at Keelynn.
—then I was going to do something I definitely shouldn’t do.
Inhale-Exhale-Inhale-Exhale.
This was Rían’s mess. He could clean it up. He could meet with Keelynn and explain that it had been his idea for Aveen to kiss me. Then she’d get this ridiculous notion of wanting to murder me out of her head and be so relieved that she’d hand the thing over.