23
Robert puthis hands all over Keelynn, and it took everything in me to keep from chopping them clean off. Who was he to deserve her attention? To hold her? To kiss her forehead and her hair and her cheeks? What the hell had he done to deserve a feckin’ moment of her time?
My darling.
It’s all right.
You’re here now.
That’s all that matters.
Enough of that sappy shite. I evanesced to the bottom stair and cleared my throat.
Hazel eyes slammed into mine. “Get inside.Quickly,” Robert hissed, hiding my wife behind his back as if I couldn’t send him flying head-first off the top step with a flick of my wrist. “Leave us alone, you filthy monster. We want nothing to do with you.”
Feckin’ brilliant. I didn’t want anything to do with him either.
“He’s not going to hurt us,” Keelynn insisted.
I wouldn’t hurt her.Robert, however. His life had been forfeit the moment he touched my wife.
“Robert, this is Tadhg,” she explained as if he’d care. “He’s helping me get Aveen back.”
The bastard put his arm around my wife’s shoulders. She didn’t stop him. She pulled him closer. Bile scorched my throat. Heat blurred my vision.
“What do you mean get Aveen back?” Robert asked.
She gave him an adoring look, as if he’d told her he’d buy her the feckin’ moon. “I have so much to tell you,” she said. “Do you mind if we come inside?”
Robertopened the door. “Of course. We can speak in the parlor.” Before I could follow, the bastard threw an arm across the threshold. “Youwill wait out here.”
“I think that’s for the best,” I agreed. I needed to get ahold of myself before I did something else unforgiveable.
His red door slammed in my face. As if I wanted to go into his small, miserable house. Suited to a small, miserable man. A feckin’ thimble. That’s what it was. A thimble with godawful shutters. Pitiful excuse for a garden. Couldn’t even swing a feckin’ cat in there.
I listened to the two of them arguing inside, hope swelling in my chest when Keelynn insisted on defending me to herlove.
What a feckin’ joke. If she lovedRobert, she wouldn’t have gone off with me. She didn’t tell him we were married. No surprise there. Who in their right mind would want to boast about being tied to me for a feckin’ day, let alone a year?
“My darling, my darling. What do you need from me? Just name it and it’s yours.” The bastard’s head would look good impaled on a fence post.
Keelynn asked if we could stay there. Both of us. At least that was something. That she wasn’t trying to rid herself of me. Yet. He agreed, saying he would do anything for her. Didn’t she see I would do the same? That I was here, sitting on this shite step in this shite neighborhood, risking life and limb to keep her safe. And all she wanted was feckin’Robert.
The door opened, and I could smell her perfume on the breeze.
“Well? What did he say?” I asked as if I hadn’t heard every feckin’ word.
“We can stay for as long as we need. Robert’s organizing dinner for us inside,” she added.
“I’m allowed in, am I?”
“Tadhg, you must understand—”
I understood perfectly well. Humans only cared for us as long as we were useful. And the moment Keelynn had decided to give up this pointless quest, I’d ceased to be of use to her. “Save the excuses for someone who cares. Go inside so you don’t freeze. I’ll join you shortly.” As soon as I didn’t feel like murdering anyone.
* * *
Robert feckin’ Trench. All pomp and circumstance in his fancy clothes with his tiny tea set. And the tiny knife sitting on his lap. What did he plan on doing with it? Poke a hole in my shirt? And the wine. Revolting. Like drinking piss. The food tasted like chewing on an old boot. My wife didn’t seem to notice as she fawned over her lover, giving him all her smiles and letting him put his filthy hands on her knee. He kept filling her drink like she wouldn’t want to be with him if she were sober.