Page 108 of Iron Blade

“You can go, Bourne,” I said, now knowing that Aoibheann was with Kira. She’d know to tell Kira that running away was not an option. Invoking my father’s wrath wasn’t wise.

All would be well, if I could just keep her close.

Chapter thirty-nine

The Little One

Kira

Iwas barely conscious when cool hands touched my forehead. My nausea was back with a vengeance, twisting me up. I felt dizzy. Though maybe that was everything that had happened.

“Are you sick, child?”

I thought I was dreaming, as I moaned against the tender hand.

“Kira?” the whisper-soft voice called to me. “You must eat something.”

I blinked, and the room was back. The room that was my new prison. The guilt of my choices slammed into me. I was a prisoner, cut off from my colleagues, my work, my purpose.

I was cut off from the world, in trouble, and alone.

All because I was stupid enough to fall in love. To fall for his words… to fall for an artist.

What the fuck was I? Some doe-eyed groupie?

I knew that I had to pull myself together and formulate a plan. But my stomach was in knots, and my heart ached like it had when I lost my only family.

“Kira?” the voice called again. “We have to get you up, child.”

An Irish voice. Another fucking Irish voice. I blinked and a ghostly apparition appeared.

“Child, you cannot stay in bed tonight. I’m sorry. We must get you dressed.”

Light fingers pulled at my hair, tugging it behind my ear. I knew who she was. Eoghan’s stepmother. But what was she doing here? He must have sent her.

“He’s trapped me,” I said, in a whisper. A whisper not that dissimilar from hers.

She looked at me with pitying eyes.

“I know.” She brought her forehead down to mine, and mumbled something that sounded like an apology.

“What do I do?” I said, because I had no one else. I had no one else to talk to.

My friend, Cosima, wouldn’t even speak to me now. I knew that. I couldn’t get a message to Blink.

“He’s taken my phone,” I whispered.

It was painful to think that I was now cut off and alone. I hated technology, and lamented its existence. But now, being without it made me feel like I was floating in a terrible ocean that was dark and full of monsters in the deep, circling beneath my feet.

“There are other ways to get a message out.” Her words were so quiet, like it was a secret.

I sat up in bed, letting the blanket fall to my waist. I was in nothing but a t-shirt, but I didn’t feel exposed in front of this strange woman. She looked like a person who could keep secrets. She sat on the edge, dressed in black from head to toe, which made her white skin even paler. The light from the outside washed over her features, and she reflected it like the moon.

Her brows knotted, as she scanned my body. She cupped my face, her eyes curious, as if I had a strange growth coming out of my face.

I was so self-conscious that I wiped my face, wondering if I had drooled on myself or something.

With Eoghan out of my life, the full force of my loneliness had slammed into me anew. The seduction, the courtship, the wedding… I had forgotten about the undercurrent of loneliness that ruled my day, ever present, but ignored. It was like a chronic pain I had learned to live with. Then he had given me a cure, then yanked it away.

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