Page 17 of Iron Crown

“No! That’s not what I meant!”

“You brought them in here to do what? To kill my son? My heir?”

“No! I wouldn’t… I don’t… I’d never want to hurt your son! He’s a sweet boy. He looks just like you and—”

“Just my wife then?” Eoghan’s face was passive and expressionless, as he tilted his head to one side. If I did not know the context of his question, I would have thought that this conversation was just him satisfying his idle curiosity.

He took his thumbs and wiped the tears from her cheeks. A murderous bitterness ran through my body. I wanted to claw her eyes and rip out her throat with my teeth. I must have taken a step toward them, because Shiny grabbed me by the arm, keeping me close.

“Nuh-uh!” Shiny said, her eyes bright. “Let him finish. He’sreallygood at this.”

He kept wiping her tears. It was a gesture so affectionate that it made me want to die. Or, maybe, divorce… I wasn’t sure which.

“You poor soul,” Eoghan said again, his eyes on hers, as if she were the only person in the room. “I understand. You and I were cursed to inherit the lives of our parents. In so many ways, our fates were determined the moment we opened our eyes.”

Malinda leaned forward into his comforting touch, her eyes easing closed.

“Eoghan, I love you,” she said, her hands fisting around his lapels. “I love you. Even your father said we were made for each other.”

That was a bit of a stretch...

I couldn’t help my eyes from rolling to the back of my head.

“Watch out, or your face will freeze that way,” Shiny gently elbowed me in the side.

Eoghan looked at the redhead with sympathy as she whined. “Mal…”

“Do you know what it was like for me?” She pulled him in, falling to her knees on the floor, so they were eye to eye. She pushed her bosom to his chest as she put her arms around his waist. He kept his hands on her shoulders. “Do you know what it was like for me? Serving her beside you? Changing your sheets and cleaning your linens? Do you know what it was like, making your bed and seeing… smelling…”

The look in her eyes would have broken my heart if my hatred for her didn’t blind me to it.

“Mal, you poor thing,” he said as he wiped a strand of hair from her face. “You poor, silently suffering beauty.”

He put an arm around her, pulling her to him in an embrace.

My heart shattered into a thousand pieces, as her head tilted back as she stared at him with absolute love and adoration. I knew that face. She was staring at him as if he hung the moon—as though he could make all her dreams come true. It was an expression I had worn many times when I looked into Eoghan’s handsome features.

He held her, swaying back and forth in a rocking comfort.

“I should have been better to you,” he said, his eyes closed. “I should have been more thoughtful. More gentle with you.”

Eoghan shook his head as if he felt genuine pain. Maybe he did, because his next words looked like they stabbed him in the heart.

“I wouldn’t wish the doom of our parents’ fate on anyone,” he said, as his hand clasped at the red hair at the nape of her neck. “You, taking your mother’s place as I take my father’s. As the Durantes, the Vasilievs, and all the rest of us take the place of our forebears, never ascending, just walking on the same path to nothing but blood and death. What a sad existence we live in.”

What was he talking about? I wasn’t sure. I looked at Shiny, and she looked as if this was an entirely normal conversation to have. I caught Ajax’s gaze over her head, and he shrugged, as clueless as I was. It must be some kind of Irish thing. Ajax and I were the outsiders, looking on at this strange farce.

“It’s all fine now,” Malinda whispered. “You never handfasted her. It was never real. You don’t have to accept this fate.”

My jaw clenched.That fucking hand-fasting again.

I slyly looked at Shiny’s open hand, seeing the diagonal line there. Ajax had an identical scar, which marked them as married. Sotheyhadhand-fasted, though Ajax, like me, wasn’t Irish.

My own palm itched. The skin felt thick without that telltale line. I clenched my fist, digging my nails into it.

“It will all be fine.” Eoghan paraphrased her line, and his eyes opened, landing right on me. “I’ll fix all of my mistakes.”

“Eoghan,” Malinda said sweetly as she placed a palm on his face. Then she gasped, her body straightening, her mouth opened in a quick and sharp squeak. She tilted her head, staring down her front.

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