Page 67 of Soulless Saint

Aodhán: Time will tell. You didn’t tell them it was me even though you knew, did you?

My thumbs rested just atop the screen, fumbling for a reply.

He was right. I didn’t tell them. I could’ve. But unlike he assumed, it wasn’t because of some crush I had on him, it was born of a desire to not have his blood on my hands.

Instead of replying, I slid the phone back into my purse. “Kaleb had an amazing dick,” I told Toby, no longer sorry. Friends didn’t give out friend’s numbers to total fucking strangers. I wasn’t angry with him, how could I be with that stupid loveable face, but I could still get my shot in.

“It was long and fat and glorious and circumcised.”

Toby pouted. “That’s cruel.”

“You asked,” I reminded him, smiling sweetly.

“Fine,” he groused. “I deserved that.”

“Yes, you did.”

He cleared his throat. “Can I ask you something else?”

“Shoot.”

“Hardin…”

He let the name hang there in the air between us for a moment.

“I saw him watching you last night, too. Like, intensely watching you. Did you…”

I shook my head quickly. “No,” I said, and wondered if Toby had an answer to the question that’d been eating at me since I first met Hardin St. Vincent. “Do you know why he never talks?”

Toby licked his lips, tipping his head this way and that. “No one really knows for sure, but I do know some really bad shit went down when he and Kaleb were younger. Have you seen all Hardin’s scars?”

I frowned, shaking my head.

“Well look closer next time, they’re hidden in all his ink, but there are a lot of them. Round ones that look like they’re from cigar burns. Long jagged slashes. Even patches that look like the skin was carved straight off his bones.”

Bile rose in my throat.

“Yeah,” Toby said, agreeing with my expression. “It’s gruesome. They don’t talk about it, but it must’ve been bad, whatever happened to them. Kaleb doesn’t have scars like his brother, but every once in a while he goes off on these drinking binges. Sometimes for days. Gets so wasted he can barely stand and Hardin has to come hunt down his ass at the Copper Crown or the club over on ninth. I had to call Hardin once to come get him because I was pretty sure he was going to get himself killed, picking fights with people at the club.”

“Oh.”

“Anyway, I’m guessing that’s why he doesn’t talk. It’s, like, a symptom of his trauma.”

So, basically, I was an asshole.

Awesome.

“He’s still a total dick though,” Toby added. “And vicious as fuck if anyone messes with his brother.”

Another sigh. “Doesn’t mean he isn’t hot as hell, though. Maybe even more so than Kaleb, but you have to be careful with that one, babe.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

Toby lifted a shoulder. “It’s mostly rumors, you know, but I heard he strangled a girl to death while doing the deed last year and they buried the body out in the canyons.”

“What?”

“Hey, I seriously doubt that’s true,” he amended, completely oblivious to how my pulse was racing in my ears. “But he is known to have some very particular tastes in the bedroom, if you get my meaning.”

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