Page 107 of Black Heart

“No! Just one more time! Please! We can do this!” Marty screamed as she felt her heart starting to break.

“I need ye to be strong, lass. I need ye to go on without me for this child,” Tristan said, giving her stomach a gentle caress.

Marty tried to speak, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t go on without him, didn’t want to and she knew at that moment that the curse had its grips on her. She wouldn’t last long without him and there was nothing that she could do about it.

As her father held her in his arms, rocking her gently as he swore to her that everything would be okay, Marty numbly watched as Liam and Shayne appeared on either side of Tristan’s soul, and with a firm nod, grabbed him by the arms and disappeared, leaving her with the grief that was swallowing her whole.

* * *

“Let me go!”Tadgh shouted as they materialized in the operating room.

“Sure thing,” Shayne murmured, praying that this worked. With a nod, they picked Tadgh up and slammed him down into his body.

They watched him for several minutes, praying that something, anything would happen. This had to work, needed to work. Hell, he didn’t know what he would do if it didn’t work. A tiny beep was the only warning that they had before one of the most terrifying things that he’d ever witnessed occurred.

Tristan’s body arched off the table, startling everyone working on him, but the unholy roar that he released when he slammed back down on the table terrified them. Seconds passed as everyone stared at Tristan in shock, the solid beep quickly becoming separate sounds as his heart started to work on its own.

Shayne watched with amusement as a nurse’s eyes rolled back into her head seconds before she swayed and dropped to the floor. The other humans barely spared her a glance, their gazes remained locked on Tristan.

“What the hell was that?” the surgeon asked, looking stunned as he stood over Tristan’s body, the paddles he’d been about to place on Tristan’s chest still clutched tightly in his hands.

“That was checkmate,” Shayne said smugly, butting fists with Declean as he made his way out of the operating room.

He needed to tell Marty that everything was going to be okay and he meant to do just that, but he couldn’t. He needed a moment to…

He just needed a moment.

He wanted to go home, throw on the television and blast it to help clear his head, but he couldn’t leave the hospital. Tristan and Marty were too vulnerable right now and his brothers were going to need help keeping them safe. He needed noise, lots of it and preferably cries of pain or pleasure, it didn’t matter. Both would work, always had.

“Aye, that’s much better,” Shayne sighed, popping into the emergency room waiting room as the screams of a drunk man arguing with the triage nurse reached his ears. The rest of the background noise was like music to his ears.

It wasn’t as loud as he preferred, but he’d take what he could get at the moment. They weren’t as good as porn movies, but they would have to do. The fake groans, moans, screams of pleasure, and horrible music were the perfect substitutes for the sounds of the old war camps.

The noises of fighting, arguing men getting into drunken shouting matches and the sounds of the camp whores screaming in pleasure once served as a lullaby for him. While most men lost themselves in their drink or between the legs of a woman, he’d lost himself in sounds, loud, unpredictable sounds.

He’d always done his best thinking in loud places. They comforted him, probably because pure silence scared the living shit out of him. It always reminded him of-

“Oh, fuck,” Shayne groaned, grabbing his side as a cramp shot through his lung.

Another cramp, and then another more powerful cramp shot through his lungs, dropping him on his ass as he struggled with some unknown need. His lungs were on fire and felt like they were going to explode. Something wasn’t right. Something was really fucking wrong.

The curse.

Shit!

He needed to get to Tristan. He needed to figure out a way to spare his brother anymore pain. He needed to-

“Hey, buddy, you might want to put some clothes on.”

CHAPTER42

“What?” the rather delicious male specimen said, adding to his sex appeal with an Irish brogue that nearly distracted her from her purpose here.

Almost.

Ashlyn ran her eyes over his rather impressive body, lingering here and there before finally looking up and meeting intense green eyes. “People are starting to stare,” Ashlyn said, shrugging it off as she reached past him and grabbed a folded white sheet off a cart and shook it open. “Not that I can blame them,” Ashlyn added with a wink as she laid the sheet over his lap.

Gasping for air like he just ran a marathon, his brows curled up in confusion as he looked around the busy waiting room. “Ye can see me?” he asked, making her sigh in disappointment.

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