Chapter 5
Ráth Finnéin, Ireland
“There’s nothing that ye can say or do that will break me,” the small woman, who’d decided to make herself comfortable, mumbled against the animal furs covering his bed.
“That’s what I was afraid of, lass,” Shayne said, ignoring the large bowl of stew and focused on the thick slice of oatcake drizzled in honey and blackberries.
“If ye let me walk out of here, I promise not ta hurt you,” came the sleepily mumbled promise that had his lips twitching.
“After seeing yer skills today, lass, I don’t think I’d stand a chance,” Shayne said, breaking off a piece of oatcake and tossed it in his mouth while he watched the small woman roll over, wiggle, and then somehow managed to burrow beneath the furs covering his bed.
“Then, we have an understanding,” she said as she curled up beneath the furs.
“Are ye planning on escaping anytime soon, lass?” Shayne asked, breaking off another piece of oatcake only to feel his lips twitch when she stuck her arm out of the furs and wiggled her fingertips expectantly.
“I don’t want ta startle ye,” she said as he dipped the piece of oatcake in honey and berry juice before leaning over and placed it in her hand only to watch her hand disappear back beneath the furs.
“That’s very thoughtful of ye, lass,” Shayne said, breaking off another piece of oatcake as he watched her hand reappear.
“Are ye going ta tell anyone about me?” she asked, her fingers wiggling in silent demand.
“That depends,” Shayne said, placing the piece of oatcake in her hand.
“I already promised not ta hurt ye,” she reminded him as she pulled her hand back beneath the furs.
“That does help with the fear threatening ta break me, lass, but I’m afraid that I’m gonna need a name,” Shayne drawled as he poured himself a mug of ale.
“And I’m afraid I’m gonna need something ta wash this oatcake down with,” she said, shoving the furs out of the way so that she could watch him as she held her hand out.
“I’m gonna need yer name, lass,” Shayne said, taking a sip of ale as he watched beautiful brown eyes narrow on him and-
“Who’s Lasarín?” came the question that had his stomach dropping as he opened his eyes to find Marty sitting next to him on the bed with a thick file opened on her lap. At his questioning look, she said, “You talk in your sleep.”
“Where is everyone?” Shayne asked, moving to sit up only to rethink that decision when the move sent sharp pain across his chest and down his spine.
“Tristan is sitting in the chair next to you, glaring, while Liam, Finn, and Quinn are glaring at you from their respective corners. Aidan showed up an hour ago to glare at you and I can’t be a hundred percent sure, but I’m pretty sure that Declean is most likely glaring at you from across town, where he’s currently watching over the soulmate that you’ve been pretending doesn’t exist for the past month,” Marty explained, not bothering to look up from the file on her lap as she turned the page.
“And Connall?” Shayne asked, already having a pretty good idea where his brother was.
“He’s in London,” Liam said after a slight hesitation.
“Caireann?” Shayne asked as he sat up, ignoring the sharp pain and aches that accompanied the move and leaned back against the headboard.
“It’s Maddie now,” Liam said as Shayne took in the burns covering his chest, arms, and legs, all the places the ghosts had been touching him when Quinn pulled him from the room.
“How much longer do ye think he’ll torment himself over her?
” Shayne asked, knowing that he would have lost his fucking mind by now if he’d been in Connall’s shoes.
He couldn’t imagine being in love with a woman for more than a thousand years only to watch her fall in love with another man over and over again.
“Until the very end,” Liam drawled as Shayne glanced around the room to find his brothers glaring at him.
“Ye could have been killed,” Quinn bit out only to have Finn add, “Ye dumb bastard.”
“I didn’t exactly have a choice,” Shayne reminded them.
“Ye still don’t,” Liam said, grabbing a thick yellow envelope off the bureau and tossed it to him.
“Meaning?” Shayne asked, sending his brother a questioning look as he turned the thick envelope over in his hands and ripped the seal open.
“She can sense us,” Liam said, confirming his earlier suspicions.
“How long?” Shayne asked after a slight hesitation, knowing the countdown began the moment that she sensed them.
“We think coming here today triggered the curse.”
“Which means that I have anywhere from a few days ta a couple of months before the curse comes for us,” Shayne said, knowing exactly how this was going to end.
With Ashlyn dying in his arms.
“We need ta talk about this plan of yers,” Liam said, folding his arms over his chest as he leaned back against the wall. “Why are ye pushing her ta work with Shayne on yer case?”
“Because he knows this case better than I do,” Tristan drawled with a pointed look at Shayne that had his jaw clenching.
“That’s how he passed the time while he watched over me.
When I was a kid, he used to read the books that I brought home.
He did the same when I went to college and the police academy.
Now, he passes the time by reading the files I bring home. ”
“Passing the time reading files doesn’t make me qualified ta work on this case,” Shayne pointed out.
“No, but finding people that don’t want to be found does,” Tristan added, making Shayne’s jaw clench.
After their mother sold Tadgh to the king, Shayne had been forced to swear an oath to the king so that he could watch over him.
He did whatever it took to keep his brother safe.
He’d trained the king’s men, led them into battle, punished them when they stepped out of line, and hunted down the king’s enemies.
All but one.
“She doesn’t want to work with me,” Shayne reminded them.
“She doesn’t have a choice,” Tristan said as Shayne took in everything in the envelope, from the driver’s license with the picture the hospital took of him for his visitor’s pass so that he could visit Tristan when he was in the ICU to the array of credit cards and debit cards with the name “Shayne MacNéill” printed across them.
“Does that plan include fraud and becoming someone’s bitch in prison?” Shayne asked as he glanced up to find his brothers sharing a look.
Clearing his throat, Quinn said, “We should probably talk about that.”
“Talk about what?” Shayne asked, tossing the envelope on the bed.
“Aidan went back,” Finn said, making him frown as he tried figuring out what his brother was talking about.
“Back where?” Marty asked as she looked up from the file.
“He went back to get everything from the cave,” Liam said, making everything inside of him go still as he found himself thinking about the stone tunnels beneath their home for the first time in years.
It started with a small pit their great-grandfather lined with rocks to store food only to be turned into a hidden cellar after their village was attacked and their grandparents lost everything.
After their father died, they reinforced the cellar with stones, added tunnels and several small rooms before adding a hidden alcove off one of the tunnels.
They’d filled the small rooms with the grains, butter, salted meats, and vegetables that the villagers paid them for protection and hid their best weapons along with the pieces of jewelry, silver, and coins that they were paid for their skills in the small alcove.
They kept the land that was given to them and most of the cattle and traded the rest for better weapons.
When he found out the king was coming for Tadgh, he’d sent word to his brothers, gave Bécc the small plot of land the king had given him to train his men along with the purse of silver coins he’d been given that month to take Lasarín north to keep her safe, and got Tadgh and Macha out of there before it was too late.
None of them ever made it back home alive after that.
“He was working at a coffee shop in London as a serving boy when he started noticing that the conversation had shifted from politics and gossip ta stocks, investing, and banking. He watched as men who could barely scrape together a penny for a cup of coffee one week came back the next week decked out in new wigs and silk shirts and tossing pennies at him for simply telling them the time.”
“So, he started paying attention, listening ta what they were talking about, watching who was struggling one week and the next, leaving in a custom coach. He also watched who came in with their pockets filled with gold only ta have ta borrow a penny ta enter the next week,” Finn explained only to have Quinn take over.
“He knew that we would need it if we ever broke the curse, so he saved his money, took a coach ta the west coast, bought passage on a merchant ship ta Ireland, spent the rest of his money on a wagon, a lame horse, a pick, and a shovel. It took him two weeks, but he eventually found the remains of our old roundhouse and another week ta find our stash.”
“He brought everything back ta London and sold it for a fortune. He began investing small, stocks, insurance, banks, and eventually, he bought property, invested with companies, and grew his holdings. He set up everything in a settlement and created a fake trustee and put everything that we would need ta manage the money in a metal box and hid it,” Quinn explained before Liam took over.
“By the time the curse came for him, Aidan had set everything up so that Quinn could take over. When he was in his cursed form, he guided us on what ta do, what ta buy, when ta sell, and how ta set it up for the next brother ta take over. He kept it going until the internet allowed him ta manage everything online. Thanks ta Aidan, we’ll never have ta worry about money,” Liam said while Shayne sat there, taking in everything that he’d just learned only to find himself wondering about one thing.
“When?”
“In the 1690s,” Finn said, drawing Shayne’s attention in a big fucking way.
“When we were all supposed to be alive,” Shayne said, wondering how his brother knew about their stash.
Every time they were born, they came back with a clean slate. They didn’t remember anything about their previous life, the curse, their soulmates, or each other. The only thing that they knew was that ghosts really existed and that there was one woman that they couldn’t seem to live without.
They depended on each other for everything else, which meant that one of his brothers had to have told Aidan about the stash. The question was, which one, Shayne wondered as he glanced around the room, noting the way that none of his brothers could quite meet his gaze before he settled on Quinn.
The weak link of the group.
He didn’t say anything, but then again, he didn’t have to, not with Quinn. When his brother’s jaw clenched and his gaze narrowed on the wall, Shayne knew that it was only a matter of time before his brother cleared his throat, shifted, intensified his glare, and-
“It wasn’t my idea,” Quinn said, licking his lips nervously as Finn and Liam glared at him only to release muttered curses when Quinn pointed a damning finger at Liam. “It was him!”
Slowly nodding, Shayne glanced at his brother to find Liam glaring at him. “We needed ta find out how the curse affected ye,” Liam said in Old Gaelic with a pointed look at Marty as he grabbed a memory stick off the bureau and threw it at him.
“Yer an asshole,” Shayne said, slipping into Old Gaelic as he caught the memory stick.
“If you hadn’t given into the pull, then we wouldn’t know that you need to make her fall in love with you in order to trigger the curse,” Tristan reminded him in Old Gaelic as he grabbed the laptop off the nightstand and handed it to him, making him bite back a curse since the last thing that he wanted to do was make Ashlyn fall in love with him, but he didn’t have a choice.
Not if they were going to have any chance of breaking this curse and setting everyone free.
“It’s not going ta matter if this plan doesn’t work,” Finn said as Shayne slid the memory stick in place and-
“They gave her the wrong files,” Marty said as she handed him the file and a way to get Ashlyn to agree to this asinine plan.