33. Liath
LIATH
The hospital still clung to me by as I entered the Cill na Caoine grounds, walking between crooked gravestones slick with rain and moss.
The Church of the Keening.
Antiseptic clung to my clothes and I breathed too deeply. I could still feel the freezing tiled floor beneath my cheek from where I’d hidden under Lorcan’s hospital bed while Alistair’s polished shoes stopped inches from my face.
My father.
My father who tried to kill me.
My own fucking father who would murder me if he discovered me.
I’d forced myself not to move even though my insides were screaming, my pulse battered against my ribs hard enough I thought Alistair might hear it. Not to breathe too loudly.
I squeezed my eyes tight and pressed my hand over my mouth as the urge to cough tickled my throat from the dust.
I passed a too familiar chest tomb, recognizing it from the newspaper photo.
The tomb Dahlia’s body had been found on.
The chalk symbols had long since washed away, the hound statuettes and black candle wax removed. But I could still see her lying there, naked, her body desecrated.
Black violets curled around the base of the stone, their petals dark against the wet earth.
An ache pulled taut in my chest, an invisible thread connecting me to every single woman who had been victimized by the Sons, through generations of their cruel bloodlines.
Starting with Dahlia.
It had to end with me.
An icy wind whipped through the graveyard, making me shiver. I tore my eyes away and climbed the church steps.
The building groaned around me as I slipped inside. Candle wax and old stone filled the air, causing trilling notes in my head while the church stretched dim and empty around me, the only light coming from the attic room at the top of the curling iron stairs.
I crept up the stairs and pushed open the wooden door sitting ajar at the top.
There in the attic room sat Deargán.
Weak blue light from a wall of computer screens washed over his face, turning him pale enough to look sick. Bruising darkened the line of his jaw already. Shadows sat heavy beneath his eyes like he hadn’t slept in days.
He looked worse than Lorcan.
The sight should have satisfied me. Instead, anger tangled together with a reluctant gratitude I didn’t want to feel at all. He carried Lorcan to the hospital. And I couldn’t hate him properly.
Deargán’s eyes widened as I stepped forward. Then his brows narrowed as he snapped his face toward Bas. “You told her where I was.”
Bas leaned back in his leather chair beside the wall of glowing computers and shrugged. “Yeah. I did. She’s better company than you, you moody bollocks.”
Deargán glared at him.
Bas pushed out of his chair and shot me a smirk as he passed me. “He’s all yours.”
Then he disappeared downstairs without another word.
Silence stretched through the attic. Branches tapped against the church roof overhead.
I glared at Deargán, arms tight across my chest as I tried to contain the cold anger lashing around inside me. “You stupid man.”
Deargán’s jaw tightened. “I was trying to end this. For you.”
Rage surged so fast heat flashed through my body. “Don’t you dare use me as an excuse to kill someone who’s done nothing except prove his loyalty against Alistair.”
“You don’t understand.” Deargán pushed himself up out of his chair, a wince pulling at his bruised face. “I found Maggie’s will. If the boy died, it all went to me. Not Alistair.”
I stared at him, unable to believe what was coming out of his mouth. “You’re using Maggie’s will as justification for murder?”
His expression hardened. “It was strategic.”
“Strategic?” A bitter laugh escaped me. “Strategic was joining us. Strategic was helping with the plans we already had in place. This was—”
This was never strategic. This was personal and selfish and ugly.
“Oh my God. You thought you could win me back if he died.”
Deargán said nothing, the only reaction a tick in his jaw.
That told me everything.
For one stunned second I could only stare at him, trying to force my mind around the sheer selfishness of it. He’d taken our mission and twisted it into a chance to reclaim me.
As if I were something waiting to be returned to him once the obstacle was removed.
As if Lorcan’s life had been negotiable.
As if my choices meant nothing beside what Deargán wanted.
Revulsion crawled through me so sharply my skin prickled.
“You selfish bastard,” I breathed.
Deargán’s features cracked with pain. “Liath…”
How dare he act wronged. Rage exploded through me so violently my hands shook, flooding my chest until I choked on it. I wanted to hit him. To shake him hard enough to force him to hear how insane he sounded.
“You fucking eejit,” I snapped. “You would have killed your—”
My jaw locked hard enough to ache.
Deargán went completely still.
I looked away first.
The secret sat heavy inside my throat while silence spread between us thick enough to choke on. That was not mine to tell. I promised Lorcan.
“You claim to have loved Maggie,” I said through gritted teeth, “but you would have killed her son, her blood, for your own personal reasons.”
“For you,” he whispered.
“No.” I shook my head as I backed away. “Not for me. Never for me.”
He took a step toward me, halting as I thrust up a hand between us, palm out.
“You stay away from him,” I said. “And you stay the hell away from me.”
I turned toward the stairs, my shoulders pinched to my ears.
“Liath, please,” Deargán called, his voice cracking. “I can’t lose you.”
I kept walking.
I almost looked back. Almost.
Downstairs, the church felt colder now as I walked down the center of the aisle.
Bas stepped out from the shadows and caught my arm, pulling me into a dark alcove.
Abraham stood above us, carved in stone with one hand raised over the boy laid across the altar beneath him.
I jerked my gaze away from it.
He reached into his coat and pulled out a thin file containing papers. “Found that thing you asked for.”
My pulse kicked painfully against my ribs as he held it out to me.
I stared at the file without taking it.
“Just tell me,” I whispered. “Yes or no.”
He hesitated. His eyes flicked upward toward the attic room. Then back to me.
Rain began to batter against the stained glass windows, signaling an impending storm, while my heartbeat turned deafening inside my ears.
Then Bas nodded once.
The world seemed to tilt sideways beneath me.
Deargán was Lorcan’s father.