Page 127 of Cry of the Firebird

You know the truth about real monsters. You couldn't have saved those children. You could barely save yourself from that beast.Knowing that didn't stop the horror of the night from coming back to her. She could still smell the blood and fear in the air, see the toys and tiny bodies littered over the floor…

"Where do you think you're going?" Hamish's voice cut through the noise of the train, making her jump. "I never picked you for one to bugger off in the middle of a fight."

"I'm not running. I'm getting out of the way, so I don't kill someone. I won't work for the fucking Illumination."

"You're going to stay and talk to me about what happened back there, Belle." Hamish reached over and pulled the clutch cable out of her handlebars.

"I don't need the bike to go, cowboy." Isabelle slid the door of the carriage open, and rain poured in over her. Isabelle jumped but not quickly enough. Strong hands grabbed the back of her coat and ripped her back inside.

"Let me go!" Isabelle turned and scratched out at him, but Hamish didn't loosen his grip as he picked her up and dumped her on the hood of a car.

"You think I'm going to let you go when I've only just found you again?" Hamish shook his head. "You aren't leaving until I get some answers first. Tell me about that scar. You didn't have it when we were together."

Isabelle leaned forward and put her head in her hands. The only way she could get away from him was to hurt him, and she couldn't do it. She wiped the rain from her face and looked up at him. Hamish's hazel eyes were boring into her, so full of worry and concern, a sob rose in her throat again. If there was one person in the world that might understand, it was Hamish.

"It was after the bombing," Isabelle said and swallowed hard as the smell of the place hit her again. "I was outside Budapest, hunting a possessed child about thirty years ago. I followed it to an orphanage, and when I got there, it had slaughtered everyone in the building. I'd never been up against a demon before. I didn't even know that was what I was hunting until it was too late. It just about ripped my throat out."

Hamish leaned against the car beside her, his arm going around her waist to comfort her. "Fuck, Belle, how did you get away?"

Isabelle sniffed and wiped at her face again. She knew she shouldn't, but she leaned into his warmth anyway. It had been so long since someone had tried to comfort her. "I was saved in time by a priest called Vadim, who was also a hunter. He killed the demon and took me back to his church, and I would've been dead as all of those other kids if it wasn't for him. I lived but not without a price, and I've had to live with a demon stigmata ever since."

"Oh, Belle, why didn't you find me? I could've helped you," Hamish said, his expression softening enough to make her heart ache.

"It took me a long time to deal with it, Hamish," Isabelle replied.Monster. That fucking word had been like a mantra in her head back then. "I thought I had lost my soul. I couldn't bear to look at myself in the mirror, let alone see if an older lover would still accept me with all the changes that happened to my body."

"I would have understood, Belle. You shouldn't have had to go through that alone."

"You thought I was dead, and I didn't want to put you in danger again. You saw that guy tonight, they all think I did it," she said and took his hand. "I'm sorry for letting you believe I was dead, but I really did think I was doing the right thing."

"I know that now, but I lost my fucking mind," Hamish said, his grip on her tightening. "Do you know the whole reason I got sent to Australia as a convict in 1790 was over a woman? She was the love of my life, and when a bunch of English bastards tried to rape her, I beat the shit out of them."

"You never told me that," Isabelle replied. God, the secrets they had kept from each other.

"I had planned on telling you everything about me the night you disappeared. I figured if you could accept it all, then I was going to marry you."

Isabelle felt like she had been kicked. "Really?"

"Truly. I was crazy about you, even if you did put a bullet in my ass," he said with a small smile. "A scar that still pains me when it rains, just so you know."

"What happened next?" she asked, her heart breaking at how stupid she had been to walk away from him instead of just being honest.

"I got sent to Australia as a convict, and they transported my wife too. They knew I was good in a fight, so they made me their killer. If I didn't do it, they would kill her. The English were determined to claim the land for a colony, and they killed any indigenous tribes who tried to fight back. I knew it was wrong, but the one time I tried to stop them, they beat my wife so hard, she miscarried our baby," Hamish said, his voice breaking with loss and rage. "The day I got cursed by one of the tribe's elders, I turned into a dingo, and the manacles slipped from me for the first time in four years. I killed every single one of the English bastards who had been holding my leash. I was too late to save my wife. As soon as they heard of the attack, they knew it was me and shot her. I had been out in the bush, trying to figure out how to change back into a human, and while I fucked about, they killed her."

"Jesus, Hamish. I'm so sorry." Isabelle didn't know what else to say. She just held his hand until the anger rolling off him calmed down.

"Can you see why I lost my mind over you, Belle? I was too late to save you too. You were the one woman I met since my wife that I thought might actually accept this side of me," Hamish said finally and took her face in his hands. "I won't loseyou again. Not over a squabble with these Illumination bastards for a crime you didn't commit."

"I'm sorry I put you through all of that, Hamish. Really, I am," Isabelle replied, hands going over his. Tears fell down her cheeks, and it was the first time she had cried in over a decade. "Like you, I figured I was doing the right thing by staying away as I tried to live with what I had become."

"We were both idiots for staying away doing the 'right' thing," he said with a smile as he brushed away her tears. "Don't cry, baby. It breaks me up."

"I can't help it. As soon as I get around you, I get bloody emotional."

Hamish kissed her forehead. "It's good for you. You've been so cold since you turned up, I've been worried. That closed-off person isn't the Belle I remember."

"The demon killed her. That's why," Isabelle said.

"I don't believe that for a second. You're still her. You just need to let the people around you bring it out again," Hamish replied.

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