Page 20 of King of the Dawn

“Tell them what they need to know about your uncle, Tanner Brock.”

Her eyes gave her away, as they darted for the door, then the window, then back to Eoghan, wishing for… something… for some kind of salvation that would not come.

“You’ve seen him?” Eoghan’s eyes flicked up and looked at the girl, narrowing just the slightest bit. He hadn’t missed her expressions, and had known they were significant. The boy wasn’t a moron after all.

“No! Of course not!” Her voice was too high, as she wiped her sweaty palms on her apron - another sign of a lie.

“Malinda…” Eoghan tsked, tilting his head and staring down at his finger which was making lazy circles along the desktop. “I’ve spoken to you before about Aoibheann. About how she was the lady of the house and in need of respect.”

Well, that was fucking news to me.

“I know how rumors fly among our people. You know what he did. I’ll be very disappointed if you keep secrets from me.” Then his black eyes darted up, looking right at the girl as if his gaze alone could crack her skull open, and find out the truth. “What do you know?”

Malinda looked fucking terrified. But not of me. Not of the two Russians sitting in the office, staring at her like she was the secret to eternal life, and opening the gates of hell.

She was terrified of Eoghan’s poor opinion.

“My… my uncle came and… and we told him that we couldn’t help him!” She looked at Eoghan, and almost stepped to him, if it wasn’t for his cold gaze, rooting her in place. “I… I told him to leave us alone and that we couldn’t help him.”

“When was this?” Eoghan’s impassive face was downright terrifying.

Malinda started shivering like a leaf, her head shaking. Her copper-colored hair started quivering in the air as she tried to hold back on the words that spilled out.

“When. Was. This?” Eoghan asked again, his eyes going from blank to angry. Downright black and stormy.

“Two days ago.” Her lips pulled back in an anguished cry.

Eoghan’s hand slammed on the table, and I observed this whole thing with a strange amusement.

He was worried about us causing harm to this girl? When he was terrifying her far more than a few pulled fingernails could. Malinda was a woman in love. Unrequited in love. Or, at the very least, infatuation.

Eoghan wiped his large hand over his face, as he stared at the girl.

“What else do we need to know?” Eoghan’s voice was cruel, laced with acid.

“I… I… I…” Malinda was weeping now, and it was a pathetic sight. Yuliya rolled her eyes.

She looked at me, pursing her lips and I almost laughed. At the age of ten, my sister had her fingernails pulled out. They had grown back, thank God. They had starved and beaten her, covered her in black and blue. She hadn’t peeped a single sound. But this woman? She was falling apart at a question. Pathetic.

“Malinda,” Eoghan’s voice was a low warning. “Jericho, Yuliya, and my stepmother are my family.”

Eoghan, to my surprise, slammed a fist to his own chest, as if to indicate that we were close to his heart… a lie, but I appreciated it all the same.

“They are blood of my blood, for what it is worth. So… are you by my side… or not?”

Those words made Malinda straighten, as she looked at him with adoration. This woman wanted to be by his side in more ways than just one.

“I’m on your side, Eoghan.” It was not lost on me that this girl called him by his first name. In a world where everyone else called him ‘Mr. Green.’ She looked back at me, then my sister, before her eyes turned back to Eoghan. With a deep, steadying breath, she began to speak. “He came to our house, and you know how my Ma is. I asked him to just leave, but my mother… she doesn’t know what’s happening. She wouldn’t let him go until she fed him, and I couldn’t stop her. I tried, I swear I did.”

She stepped forward, her hands reaching for Eoghan, as if pleading for him to understand her plight. But Eoghan didn’t move. He just waited there, his hand in a fist.

“He was crazed, you know?” She kept talking, her hands coming down in front of her. “He kept talking about a witch. And he said that the only way to break the curse was if he… he…”

She looked at me, then to Eoghan. I glared at her, daring her to speak.

“Your uncle is a dead man already. He just doesn’t know it,” I said, letting my Russian accent come out thick, and quiet. “The only thing unanswered, is what we choose to do with you.”

Her face contorted, waxing between fear, to defiance, then to malice.

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