Chapter 30
30
Lachlan
I’m still trying to rouse myself from the dredges of sleep, but even in my drowsy state, it is impossible to miss the way Key’s expression morphs from shock to betrayal in only a matter of seconds.
She knows.
I don’t know what it is she read in that journal, but her eyes tell me everything I need to know. Whatever she found—it’s clear that she’s aware I haven’t told her everything.
“I can explain,” I blurt out, swinging my legs over the side of the bed, my body on autopilot as it tries to get closer to her.
She shoves out of my kitchen chair, backing away from me and crossing her arms over her chest as if to guard herself. From me . That one small action cuts me like a knife.
“Key,” I try again. “I don’t know what you found, but I promise it isn’t—”
“Isn’t what?” she interrupts with a hurt tone. “Isn’t true? Isn’t what I think? You didn’t conveniently forget to tell me that your creepy little poem had a second verse?”
I glance down at the fallen journal lying face down on the floor, stooping to gingerly pick it up. I lay it on the table with care, frowning at it. “So you know about the curse. All of it.”
“ For the end only comes with a daughter of MacKay ,” she recites, and I heave out a sigh. “Why didn’t you tell me?”
I scrub my hands down my face, trying to resist the urge to move closer to her. “At first? Because I didn’t know you. I didn’t know what that part of the curse meant. I still don’t, I might add. And after…” I frown down at my feet, clenching my fists at my sides as guilt racks through me. “I didn’t know how to tell you. I thought maybe it would…hurt you.” I peek up at her, seeing the exact same hurt I’d been so afraid to inflict on her etched on her face. “I didn’t want to bring you any more pain, Key. You’ve had enough.”
“So what,” she huffs. “You just make my decisions now? You decide whether or not I’m capable of deciding whether you’re worth the risk, and now you decide whether or not I’m capable of handling the truth?”
“That’s not what I meant. I—”
She throws up her hands, fuming. “What if I’m making everything worse? Did you ever think of that? That damned curse says I’ll be the end . You don’t have any kids, Lachlan. If the curse takes you like it did your dad, the Greer line ends with you . What if that’s the whole point of all of this?”
“I don’t think that’s the way of it,” I argue. “It doesn’t feel right.”
“Well, how could I know any better when you didn’t fucking tell me everything ?”
“Key.” I reach for her, unable to keep from doing so any longer. “I didn’t—”
She backs away, and again I feel the sensation not unlike being sliced by a knife. “Don’t,” she says, putting more distance between us. “Don’t touch me.”
The gutting sensation left by her words almost knocks me over, and I have to reach for the table, grasping the edge to hold myself up. Terror unlike anything I’ve ever known grips me, wondering if I’ve fucked this up beyond repair. I’ve never felt fear like the one that comes from thinking I might lose her.
“I’m sorry,” I plead, needing her to believe it. “I was going to tell you.”
“But you didn’t. I thought you trusted me.” She shakes her head. “It makes so much sense now. A daughter of MacKay. Did you know Rhona told me that there had been no daughters born to the MacKay clan for centuries? Have you just been waiting for me to show up all this time? Or have you been afraid that I would?” She crosses her arms tightly over her chest, looking pained. “I feel so fucking stupid, don’t you get that? Here I was, thinking that we were in this together, but you didn’t even trust me enough to tell me what might be the most crucial bit of information you know. Like I’m some sort of child .”
“That’s not what I was trying to do,” I tell her. “And I was going to tell you. Today. I swear I was.”
Her eyes narrow. “That’s convenient.”
“I swear , Key.” I take a cautious step, stilling when I notice her flinch. I hate that after all my yearning to protect her, I still ended up being the cause for more pain. “Please believe me.”
She stares back at me for a long while, her green eyes bright with fury and her body rigid with tension. She expels a harsh breath when she finally averts her eyes, her lips pursing as she stares down at the floor, appearing to mull it over.
“I need some time,” she says finally, and I feel almost sick from the declaration. “I just…I can’t think around you. It’s hard to stay mad at you when I’m looking right at you, and this is a fucking big deal.” She cocks her head, peering up at me. “You get that, right? My entire fucking life has been nothing but secrets. I didn’t need any more. Especially not from you.”
“I know,” I answer with a nod. “I’m so sorry.”
Her chest still rises and falls with heavy breaths, and I watch as she seems to struggle with her own thoughts, finally shaking her head roughly back and forth as if to clear it. “I need time,” she says again. “I just need some space to think.” She holds out her hand. “May I have the journal, please?”
She doesn’t move from where she’s standing, holding my gaze as she offers her outstretched hand. I want to hold it, to gather it up in my palm and pull her against me so that I can beg her not to leave—because even with her telling me that she needs space, there’s nothing I want less with her.
But I did keep secrets from her, and it was my choice to do so. If there’s one thing I know all too well—it’s consequences. So with that in mind, I gently pick up the journal, placing it in her open palm with the same care. My fingers brush against hers, and I don’t miss the way her breath catches slightly with the contact, but after only a moment she snatches the journal back, clutching it to her chest.
“I’ll talk to you later,” she tells me. “When I’ve had a chance to calm down. I don’t want to say something to you that I’ll regret just because I’m mad at you.”
I nod solemnly. “I understand.”
“I wish…” Her expression falls, her eyes sad. “I wish you’d trusted me.”
“I trust you with my life,” I tell her earnestly, meaning every word. “There’s no person alive that I trust more.”
Her mouth parts as if she might say something, but then she quickly closes it, seeming to decide against it. She gives me one last long look with that same hurt expression that guts me, and then she spins on her heel toward the door, not looking back as she opens and shuts it behind her, leaving me alone. I stare at the closed door for an indeterminable amount of time, feeling as if the air has gone colder with her absence, like she took all the warmth with her.
I wish you’d trusted me.
I know she’s right. That regardless of my intentions, I’ve pulled the rug out from beneath her, leaving her in the dark as if she didn’t deserve to know her part in the story. As if she couldn’t handle it somehow. She told me only a few hours ago that my trust in her made me different. That it meant I wasn’t a monster.
I told her then I wasn’t sure if I deserved her.
I hope that this doesn’t make her realize that’s true.
It takes all that I have not to go after her in the hours following Key’s hasty departure from the cottage; I tried earlier to get some work done, but most of my time was spent staring forlornly at her bedroom window. I think even the cows were getting sick of my company after just a short spell with me.
I ended up back in the last place I touched her—face down on my bed and replaying every poor decision I’ve made lately. There are so many moments where I could have told her the truth: when I first kissed her, when we first made love, hell, even back in that bloody graveyard, where I’d first told her about her history. What had held me back then? I couldn’t even claim then that I wanted to protect her.
Or had I felt that need even then, without realizing it?
I suppose it doesn’t matter now, because all I can do is wallow here in the shadows—not bothering to change the bulbs after she’s gone and blown them out again—content to just lie here until the sun sinks, and I have to trudge back to the loch to spend another awful night away from her. Only now, there will be the added bonus of knowing she won’t be waiting for me when I get back.
How in the fuck did I do this before her?
I roll onto my back to stare blankly at the ceiling, mentally checking off ways that I could apologize to her. I have nothing to offer her, not really, but it doesn’t stop me from orchestrating half a dozen grand gestures in my head that might get her to hear me out. A more rational part of my mind says that she will come to me when she calms down, but it’s drowned out by the part of me that’s terrified she won’t.
A bitter laugh escapes me.
When did I lose all my sense for this woman?
I try to pinpoint an exact moment, but there are too many to choose from. Maybe it’s when she first stubbornly asserted that she was going to help me, that she was meant to. Maybe it was when I held her in that run-down old barn, her shivering body pressed to mine as she quietly asked me if I trusted her. Maybe it could have even been that moment when she burst into this very cottage—calling me out for being an eejit when it came to making her decisions for her. Not that her outburst seemed to actually teach me a lesson, considering I continued to do just that.
It seems that, ultimately, I can’t pick out one single moment when I fell in love with Keyanna MacKay.
Because I did. That much is glaringly obvious. When she walked out of this house, it felt like she took part of me with her. It’s inconvenient as hell, but it seems that’s not enough to keep me from being head over heels in love with the stubborn, beautiful redhead that might still be my mortal enemy, if the stories are to be believed.
Which, maybe they are. Maybe her very existence will spell my downfall. I can’t rule that out. But oddly enough…I don’t bloody care. I’d rather spend a short time with her than have even decades without her.
I shoot up in bed, realizing how much I need to tell her that. How much I need her to know that I don’t care if she means the end of me, of my line. Perhaps that’s even part of why I didn’t tell her everything—because it simply doesn’t matter to me. Whether she’s the boon forever sought or the end of it all…she’s all I want.
And suddenly, I can’t go another minute without letting her know.
There is another hour or so yet until sundown—plenty of time to stand outside her bedroom door and beg her to hear me out. And if that doesn’t work, I think, then I’ll just repeat it tomorrow, and the next day, and every day after until there are no more days left for me.
Resolved, I tug on my jacket as I’m shoving my feet into my boots, and I’ve barely got the laces tied on just one of them when there’s a soft knock at my door. My mouth parts in surprise because, Could it be her? I stumble toward the door like a lovesick fool, my jacket barely on straight and my laces trailing behind me. I wrench open the door with a pounding heart, elation ballooning for mere moments before it seeps right back out…because there’s no one there.
“Key?” I step outside the door, looking around but finding no one. “Key!”
I run to the edge of the house, thinking that maybe she changed her mind halfway through and turned back. I get to the very edge to round the corner, and several things happen all at once.
The sinking sun blazes a fiery light that is near-blinding for a second or more, and I raise my hand to shield my eyes from it. I notice immediately that Keyanna is nowhere to be seen, that it appears that she didn’t come at all, something that is obvious given who is actually standing there waiting for me.
Before I even have time to react, the sun is blotted out by something massive and solid, something coming down on my head at full speed, giving me no time to even ascertain with complete certainty what it is before I feel a shooting pain that blossoms in my skull but soon spreads outward, leaving blackness in its wake as darkness consumes me. My consciousness fades as I feel my body sink to the ground like a stone, and the last thing I remember is the sight of worn boots resting in my line of sight, that heavy something that might be some sort of club clunking to the ground beside them.
“I’m sorry, mate,” a familiar voice murmurs. “This will all be over soon.”