Page 90 of Iron Blade

“She’s not a witch,” Dairo said, letting out a little laugh, his eyes not quite on me, but certainly lingering in my direction. He was speaking to me. “That wind was in the forecast this morning. And the way the house sits, you’ll always hear a slight whistle, before it picks up. It was just a show.”

Dairo smirked, as he chuckled lightly.

“She is a witch,” Eoghan said. “And it’s best never to cross her.”

“Bloody superstitious Irish,” Dairo retorted.

All the while, I said nothing.

Because I had no fucking idea what I had just walked into.

Chapter thirty

Tell Her

Eoghan

“You need to tell her,” Dairo said, before he turned around and opened the door, walking out across the hall to his own room. The same room he had grown up in.

I held onto Kira for dear life. She hadn’t said a word and hadn’t pushed me away. I was afraid to see horror in her eyes. Would she hate me for bringing her here? Would she hate me for bringing her into this world of madness? Would she be afraid of me, the way Aoibheann was afraid of my father? The way I was afraid of my father.

The secret was out now. At least this part of it. The rest of it? The blood oaths, and medieval feudalism? That would have to come later. But surely, it would be more acceptable, if she could just accept my father.

“I need you to understand a certain… madness that might run in my family,” I choked out, my head still in the confines of her throat, my eyes landing on the beautiful skin of her neck.

I took in a deep breath, inhaling the scent of her gorgeous hair as I tried to put words to all that I had kept from her. The world I had kept from myself by hiding away in the city, and staying far, far away from Mourningkill.

“What do you mean? Do you have literal skeletons at your big house? Is there going to be a guy walled up in your basement with a cask of Amontillado?” Her hand came up to stroke my hair. I chuckled at the slight comfort.

A good Edgar Allan Poe reference would always be appreciated.

“Aye, there very well may be.” I tried to laugh, but winced.

My father likely did wall someone in the basement. A Russian informant who had been turned by us, but then fed information back to Yuri Vasiliev. A double agent. He had been taken to the basement to be tortured, but never came out. Not as a corpse to be delivered as a message to Yuri Vasiliev, or in many trash bags to fertilize the woods on the property. He simply disappeared. The next time I went down those stairs, there was fresh mortar on the wall. So, I could only guess…

“But I doubt anyone would spare the good booze to kill someone in the Green household.” I hoped she thought I was sarcastic. Afterall, I was telling the truth. I could still look her in the eye and be honest about who I was, and what I knew. I had never lied to her.

She pulled out of my arms, and I was too tired to hold onto her. Even if she did run from me, where would she go? The guards outside, and the distance to the gate would make her easy prey out there. And I was the beast that would keep her safe.

Because I had brought her here, and it was my fault.

But she made no move to run, her high heels clacking on the wooden floor. She was slowly perusing my room, staring at the paintings that hung against the dark green wall. She stopped at one - the painting I had made years ago, long before the face of Kira Kekoa crossed my path. But now that I re-examined it… the figures in the painting looked vaguely like us. The skin color was wrong on Kira, but the wild black curls were right. So was the curve of the woman’s figure - shapely, and full. Just like everything about my wife.

“This one is so… complex,” she tilted her head one way, then the other, as if a different angle would give her a new perspective. Maybe it did. “It looks like he’s forcing the kiss on her, because of how he’s holding her face, and her body language. But if you look at her lips and eyes…”

“She wants it.”

Her eyes turned to me, as she smirked. “The old fantasy of wanting something you shouldn’t, and someone forcing it on you.”

I quirked a brow, “Is that a fantasy of yours?”

She snorted. It was an honest reaction, and I liked it. I liked her in this room, surrounded by my paintings. Maybe all the rest - the mafia life, my insane father, and all the blood oaths could wait. Just for now, in this moment, we could be us.

“To be forced into something I’m denying myself?” Her eyes did something peculiar. They cut away, down to the floor, her smile vanishing for a moment as her voice went soft. “Hardly.”

My Muse was lying. Maybe to herself. Maybe to me. But I couldn’t blame her for any of it.

I’d take her lies if it meant I got to taste her.

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