Page 91 of Black Heart

“Enough!” Tristan and Liam shouted.

“Cut the shit and just tell us what’s going on,” Tristan demanded even as he gave her arm a comforting squeeze.

“We’re all bound to this earth and so are our soulmates,” Finn said, shoving his fingers through his hair as he stepped away from Connall.

“While our soulmates are stuck being born over and over again,” Quinn said, taking over and sounding pissed. “We’re stuck in this fucked-up position where we’re forced to either live this bullshit existence or to take a chance and try to win a game that can never be won.”

“What are you talking about?” Marty asked, trying to ignore the chill that tore through her body as terror and disbelief fought for her attention.

“Every time that any of ye die, Macha, ye and all of our soulmates are forced to come back again, living a life of pain and heartbreak. Each time we’re left with the choice of sitting back and hoping that this time will be better for all of ye or take a chance by following after ye with the hopes that the curse will be broken this time,” Aidan explained.

“The only problem is that the rules are set up to fuck us over. Every time we take a chance to try and end this game, our memories are completely erased and we’re left starting fresh in a game that’s already in play,” Shayne added as he moved back to his spot by the wall.

“We’re born with targets on our asses,” Quinn bit out, and before she could ask what he meant by that, Liam provided her with an answer that horrified her.

“There’s no escaping the curse, lass. When we’re like this, we have the power to send the spirits where they need to be and the ability to protect each other. We also maintain all of our memories in this form, but when we’re born again, we lose all of that,” Liam said, sounding exhausted and making her wonder just how many times he’d been through this.

“The curse follows us each and every time we try to end it. We start attracting attention from spirits the moment that we’re born when we’re at our most vulnerable. We have no way to protect ourselves or any memories to help guide us,” Liam said, sending Tristan what could only be described as a look of regret.

“That’s why when we decide to attempt to break the curse that we make sure that at least one of us can stand in as our protector,” Liam explained softly, looking at Tristan for another moment before he forced himself to look away.

“We do it this way to keep each other safe and so that we’re not completely fucked by this curse,” Declean said while looking at Tristan until he also forced himself to look away.

“It helps to know that we’re not alone and that we’re not crazy,” Quinn quietly added.

As she tried her best to digest everything they were telling her, something occurred to her and made her wonder why Tristan had pushed her away if he knew that she was his soulmate. If the whole point of him being born was to break a curse with her, then why did he-

“He didn’t know what ye were to him, lass,” Shayne said, answering her question before she had a chance to finish the thought.

“Why not?”

She watched as Shayne leveled a glare on Tristan. “Because the stubborn bastard broke his promise,” he bit out angrily.

“Oh, and what promise was that?” Tristan asked, sounding every bit as pissed as Shayne.

“The one where ye promised to finally let her go.”

CHAPTER35

“Stop!” Marty screamed and she’d probably be on his back trying to drag him off Shayne if one of his brothers hadn’t stopped her.

“Calm down!” one of them demanded as he tried to drag Tristan away from Shayne, but Tristan wasn’t having it. Not after all the bullshit he’d gone through.

“Fuck off,” Tristan bit out, ignoring the agonizing pain shooting through his useless arm as he tightened his hold around Shayne’s neck with his good hand and slammed the bastard as hard as he could against the floor. He couldn’t kill the bastard, something that he regretted at the moment, but he could hurt Shayne, and for now, that would have to be enough.

“Calm the fuck down, lad!” Shayne snapped, moving to grab Tristan by the shoulders and shove him away only to curse and disappear so that he wouldn’t hurt him. It should comfort him that Shayne cared enough about him not to hurt him even when he was bashing his head into the floor, but it didn’t.

Far from it.

“You fucking asshole!” Tristan roared, struggling to get to his feet and nearly falling back on his ass when the pain in his shoulder and head became too much to handle, but he pushed through it.

It didn’t matter that he most likely had a concussion and that his arm was seriously fucked up, the only thing that mattered was that the one person that he’d trusted completely had fucked him over. Shayne had lied to him, kept things from him, and had put Marty in danger.

“Lad, if ye’d just calm down, I could explain everything,” Shayne said as he materialized across the room.

“You fucking lied to me!” Tristan shouted, going after Shayne.

“I didn’t lie to ye, lad!” Shayne said, suddenly disappearing just as Tristan reached him only to reappear on the other side of the room.

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