Chapter 6
“Ye poor, dumb bastard...” Quinn said with a pitying look that was matched by Finn as the two of them released matching heartfelt sighs as Tristan opened his bedroom door and-
“So, I have a few questions,” came the absently murmured question that drew his attention to find his wife sitting in the middle of their bed, making a show of studying her fingernails while he took in his old police academy tee-shirt, a pair of black flannel pajama pants, and what appeared to be a pair of his socks on her tiny feet and felt his lips twitch when she began wiggling her little toes.
“Should I call my lawyer?” Tristan asked, closing the door behind him.
“It depends on your answers,” Marty said with a sniffle that had him smiling as he made his way across their bedroom.
“What if I promise to cooperate?” Tristan asked as he climbed onto their bed and dropped back against the pillows.
“I’d be willing to take that into consideration,” Marty said as she climbed onto his lap with a satisfied sigh.
“Then, I guess I’d better cooperate,” Tristan said, placing his hands on her hips and helped her settle more comfortably on his lap.
“It would probably be for the best,” Marty said as she grabbed hold of his shirt and slowly pulled it free from his pants.
“What did you want to know?” Tristan asked as he watched her.
“I thought we’d start with what you and your brothers were talking about earlier that you didn’t want me to know about,” Marty said as she slowly pushed his shirt up.
“We were discussing the plan,” Tristan said, sitting up to make it easier for her to pull it off him. She knew that they needed to break the curse, but if she ever found out what Shayne had to do in order to break it...
She would never forgive them.
“And you felt the need to discuss it in an ancient language that I can’t understand?” Marty asked, blinking at him as she tossed his shirt aside.
“It did seem to make it easier for Shayne to call Liam an asshole,” Tristan said, watching her lips twitch as she shifted her focus to his torso.
“I can see how that would make things easier,” Marty murmured absently as she took her time tracing his tattoos with her fingertips.
When she came to the scar on his chest from the gunshot, Marty gently ran her fingertips around it as her gaze flickered to the spot where the scar should have been from the emergency surgery that he had last month to save his life.
“The blisters on Shayne’s burns disappeared pretty quickly,” Marty pointed out as she took in the patch of healthy tan skin where a thick pink scar had been only a week ago.
“The burns were already beginning to fade by the time we left,” Tristan said, watching her absently nod as her gaze shifted back to his tattoos.
“And your migraines?” Marty asked as she took her time tracing the lines of his Celtic tattoo with her fingertip.
“Gone,” he said after a slight hesitation.
“Shayne wasn’t reborn,” she pointed out, looking lost in thought.
“No, he wasn’t,” Tristan said, wondering where she was going with this.
“But he has scars,” she said, giving up tracing his tattoos and began absently drawing circles on his chest.
“Yes, he does,” Tristan said, watching her.
“So, do you,” Marty said as her gaze flickered back to the gunshot wound on his chest. “But the scar from the surgery you had a month ago is gone. What do you think it means?”
“I have no idea what it means,” Tristan said as he reached up and ran his fingertips along her jaw.
“And you’re not worried?” Marty asked, glancing up to meet his gaze.
“Not even a little bit,” Tristan said, running his fingertips along her jaw one last time before he dropped his hand away and placed it on the soft swell of her belly.
“Because we have enough to worry about with the curse or because you don’t want to scare me?” Marty asked, placing her hand over his.
Because he was fucking terrified that the curse wasn’t done with them yet.
He shouldn’t be here, not after he’d died on that table, but his brothers found a way around the curse, and now, he had to wonder what would happen once they broke the curse once and for all.
But he couldn’t tell his wife that, so instead, Tristan said, “Because you and I are finally going to get our happily ever after,” as he leaned over so that he could brush his lips against hers and-
“Who’s Lasarín?”
-chuckled when she decided to move on with her interrogation.
“Do you want the short version or the long one?” Tristan asked as he settled back against the pillows.
“What’s the short version?” she asked as he absently caressed the soft swell of her belly through her shirt.
“If Shayne hadn’t been forced to send her away to save us, he probably would have married her, had an obscene amount of children with her, and lived happily ever after,” Tristan said on a heartfelt sigh as he moved to kiss her again only to end up frowning when she suddenly climbed off his lap, scrambled across the bed, tore open her nightstand drawer, frantically searched for something, grabbed a bag of Reese’s Pieces a few seconds later only to quickly make her way back, climb onto his lap, shift, grumble, and shift again before she released a heartfelt sigh, ripped open the bag, grabbed a handful of Reese’s Pieces, tossed them in her mouth and gestured for him to get on with it.
That was followed by a murmured, “I’m ready for the long version,” which was immediately followed by her once again gesturing for him to get on with it.
“Should I start with ‘Once upon a time’?” Tristan asked, chuckling when she seemed to think that over as she tossed another handful of candy in her mouth.
“Will it add to the story?”
“It couldn’t hurt,” Tristan said, returning his hand to the soft swell of her belly.
“Then, we should definitely start from there,” Marty said, nodding as she once again gestured with a handful of candy for him to get on with it.
“Once upon a time, a young woman showed up dressed like a boy with the hopes of avenging her mother and killing the king,” he began, only to end up narrowing his eyes when she said, “You should have started with that.”
“I could always skip over the good stuff and go straight to the end,” Tristan said, letting his words trail off only to chuckle when she narrowed her eyes on him.
“And we could always find out what would happen if I shoved you into oncoming traffic,” Marty said with a look that told him that he better get on with it.
Deciding that it would probably be in his best interest not to piss off his hormonal pregnant wife, Tristan said, “Where were we?”
“You were getting to the good part,” Marty said, moving to grab another handful of candy only to rethink that decision and reach past him so that she could help herself to the bottle of water that he kept on his nightstand.
“She joined the rest of the boys that had been sent to the king by their parents to train as soldiers. Within minutes, she caught Shayne’s attention, mostly because she kept squeezing her eyes shut and dropping to the ground in the fetal position whenever one of the other boys came after her with a wooden sword. ”
“It didn’t take him long before he realized that she was a girl.
Since he was bored, he decided to see how it played out and took over her training.
He ran her through the basics, watching as she kept tripping over her own two feet until she was too exhausted to do anything more than fall face-first on the ground. ”
“He didn’t know why she was there, but he knew that she was in trouble, so he decided to take pity on her.
He kept her secret and allowed her to stay as his servant while he trained her, and in return, she was a pain in his ass,” Tristan said with a fond smile as he thought about the little pain in the ass that drove his brother crazy.
“Half the time, she forgot that she was supposed to pretend to be his servant. She hogged his bed, helped herself to his oatcakes, pouted when he tried to wake her up in the morning, and was known for sneaking in a few naps during the day when she was supposed to be doing chores,” Tristan said, thinking about the way that his brother would glare every time she helped herself to his oatcakes and-
“He loved her,” Marty said with a sad smile.
“More than anything,” Tristan said, sighing heavily.
“What happened?” she asked, taking a sip of water before she put the bottle back on his nightstand.
“The king asked him to kill her,” Tristan said, watching as Marty reached into the bag for more candy only to go still. “He found out that the men that he’d sent to kill her failed and told Shayne to find her and finish the job.”
“Why would he do that?” Marty asked, swallowing hard as she placed the bag of candy on the nightstand.
Tristan shook his head. “I don’t know why and I’m not sure that Shayne does either.
The only thing that I know is that Shayne never would have done it.
He’d planned on going, taking her along as his servant and bringing her up north to a piece of land he’d earned years earlier and leaving her there until my time with the king was finished and he could join her. ”
“And that’s when the king found out that we were married,” Marty guessed correctly.
“He gave Bécc, his second in command, all the coins he had on him and the land to take her safely up north and keep her there until he could come for her, knowing that Bécc would guard her with his life,” Tristan explained, watching as the sad expression on her face turned confused.
“Wait. I don’t understand. If he loved her, why didn’t he give in to the pull and go to her?” Marty demanded as he reached up and ran his fingertips along her jaw.
“Because it she isn’t his soulmate,” Tristan said, watching her swallow hard as his words hit.
“How do you know?” Marty whispered hollowly.
“Because he was never pulled to Lasarín’s death,” Tristan murmured softly.
“When you first died, I was there to watch you go. I felt the pull to you as soon as my heart stopped beating. Then, the first time that I felt the pull to follow you, I saw you standing there waiting for me and every time after that,” Tristan explained.
“And Shayne?” Marty asked, leaning into his touch.
“He waited until the last moment to give in to the pull. By the time he followed his soulmate, she was already gone. So, he never saw what she looked like.”
“What about when his soulmate died? He would have seen her spirit then, right?” Marty asked, looking so goddamn hopeful that it damn near broke his heart.
“She died in his arms,” Tristan explained.
“So, he’s never seen what his soulmate’s spirit looks like? For all he knows, Lasarín could have died before him and that’s why he was never called to her. She-”
“He knows,” Tristan said softly, cutting her off as he swept a strand of her beautiful, dark brown hair behind her ear.
“How?” Marty asked, reaching up to take his hand in hers.
“He tried to go to her after he died, but he couldn’t. We can’t go to our soulmates after we die. We have to wait until they take their last breath before we’re called to them,” Tristan said, wrapping his hand around hers and brought it to his chest.
“But you were able to come to me when you died in the hospital. Maybe-”
“Only because they were keeping my body alive,” Tristan said, pressing her hand against his chest, right above his heart.
“When he couldn’t go to her, he tried to go to Bécc only he couldn’t find him either.
He wasn’t sure that he was alive until a few years later when he found himself going to the village just outside the land he’d given Bécc to save her. ”
“Every time he tried to go to the land he’d given Bécc, he was met with a black fog, so he waited in the nearby village, desperate for a glimpse of them only to hear the villagers talk about Bécc and his beautiful wife with long blonde hair that looked like it had been touched by the sun and their children that looked so much like their mother,” Tristan said, watching as Marty swallowed hard.
“And Shayne’s soulmate?”
“Her name was Aileen. She was an orphan that his family took in when they were children and worked as a servant for his family, the one and only time he gave in to the pull,” Tristan explained.
“He was in the same situation that I was in, he had no one to watch over him or protect him. He was terrified that she would find out about the ghosts, so he pushed her away and kept his distance, but she refused to listen to him.”
“What happened?” Marty asked, shifting carefully so that she could keep her hand over his heart as she lay down on him with her head resting against his shoulder.
“She died in his arms and he refused to go through that again, telling himself and anyone that would listen that she was a pain in the ass and that he didn’t want her, never mind love her.”
“And the truth?” Marty mumbled softly against his chest as he stared up at the ceiling.
“He never forgave himself for falling in love with her.”