Page 92 of Black Heart

“Bullshit!” Tristan snapped, shifting direction and going after Shayne, shoving anyone dumb enough to get in his way aside.

“That’s kind of harsh, don’t ye think, lad?” Shayne said, once again disappearing from sight just as Tristan was about to reach him. He reappeared across the room, forcing Tristan to chase after him.

“You lied to me, kept shit away from me and kept me away from Marty!” Tristan snapped, ignoring the pain in his arm and tearing through the back of his skull as he went after his one-time best friend. He was too focused on killing the bastard to care that Shayne could keep this up all day or realize that he probably had another five minutes of this before the pain became too much and knocked him on his ass.

“I did what I thought was best,” Shayne said, ducking out of his reach before disappearing, this time just as Tristan swung at the bastard. The move sent him stumbling and had him biting back a groan as the pain intensified, but it wasn’t enough to stop him.

Nothing short of murder would be able to stop him this time.

“Tristan?” Marty said, trying to get his attention, but he barely heard her as he continued to go after Shayne. At this point, he was barely aware of anything else but Shayne.

“Tristan?” she tried again.

“Not now,” he said absently, zeroing in on the bastard holding up his hands up in surrender.

“Lad, yer hurt. Why don’t we just sit down and talk this through?” Shayne calmly suggested as he disappeared only to reappear near the television and out of Tristan’s reach.

“You mean the talk that we should have had the night that you appeared in my bedroom?” Tristan bit out.

“Ye were a child then, lad. It wasn’t something that I could talk to ye about.”

“Bullshit!”

“It’s not bullshit, lad! Ye had enough problems and ye didn’t need to know that-”

“That I wasn’t a fucking freak? Or that there was a reason why I was given such a fucked-up existence?”

“Well-”

“You could have cleared up everything! Instead, you left me wondering what the hell was wrong with me! You made me think that I was doing Marty a favor by shoving her away! You-”

“Ye,” Liam said coldly as he stepped in front of him and cut him off, “did that all on yer own.”

“Fuck you,” Tristan snapped, moving to step around Liam and go after Shayne, but Liam wasn’t having it.

When Tristan shifted to the side, so did Liam, blocking him. “Yer the one that made Shayne promise not to help,” Liam said evenly, taking Tristan by surprise.

“What the hell are you talking-” he started to demand only to get another surprise when Marty cut him off.

“Would someone mind giving me a hand with him?”

Expecting to find one of the men holding Marty back so that she wouldn’t do something foolish like try to get in the middle of this, Tristan looked back only to discover that all of his brothers were standing directly behind him and looking just as confused. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see when Finn and Quinn shifted to the side so that they could look back, but it definitely wasn’t his wife being chased around the couch by a naked elderly man.

* * *

“Tristan?”Marty said, trying to remain calm as she gave the very grumpy and very naked elderly man in front of her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Apparently, he took her smile as an invitation. With his gaze locked on her, he moved towards her. Well, it was more like a shuffle, leaving Marty to wonder if physical limitations followed people to their deaths or if this man was just used to moving like that and didn’t give it a second thought.

She took a step back, fully expecting either Tristan or one of the men that claimed to be his brother to step in and handle the ghost. When the man shuffled closer, Marty took a step back and risked a glance towards the other side of the room. What she saw had her rolling her eyes and making a mental note to kick Tristan’s ass later.

While Tristan chewed Shayne out, and she fully planned on finding out what that was about later, the rest of the men crowded behind him, looking ready to jump in at any second and grab him. As she took yet another step back, she couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t just grabbed him and put an end to this.

As she moved around the back of the couch, she watched as Quinn moved to grab Tristan by his shoulders when Tristan got a little too close to decking Shayne, only to watch the man hesitate, shake his head and drop his hands by his sides as he let out what sounded like a curse. That was odd, but then again, so was being chased around the couch by a naked elderly man that she didn’t know.

During her second lap around the couch, Marty watched as Connall moved to grab Tristan only to have a similar reaction. They didn’t want to hurt him, she realized as she slowed down to watch an obviously frustrated Liam attempt the same thing and fail, which was kind of screwed up since he was the one who hurt Tristan in the first place. He made one more attempt before he dropped his hands by his sides and curled them into fists as he let out what she was definitely sure was a curse and disappeared, only to reappear in front of Tristan a second later.

She was so focused on what was going on with Tristan that she didn’t realize that she’d stopped moving until the sound of a shuffle and a grunt had her saying a curse of her own and hauling ass, well, walking away really fast. She was still nauseous, after all, and all of this walking in circles wasn’t helping. After her fourth time around the couch, she, and her stomach, finally had enough.

---