Chapter 14
Finn found her behind the inn, sitting in a shaded patch of grass hidden beneath a willow tree, her knees drawn up to her chest.
She had known he’d find her eventually, that it was only a matter of time.
Time and his willingness to look for her.
If Finn was determined enough, she had a suspicion he could’ve tracked her halfway across the planet, this bond between them a beacon.
Now that she knew it was there, it was impossible not to recognize it, not to feel it.
If she’d really wanted to avoid him, there were other places she could’ve gone, places he wouldn’t have thought to look, the distance alone delaying him, but she couldn’t hide from him forever. She didn’t want to.
He’d waited a few hours, and whether that was by design, to give her space, or circumstance, so the baby—Bea—was no longer with him, she wasn’t sure. Either way, she appreciated the extra time, the space to privately grieve what she’d never let herself grieve, before she shared it with Finn.
Grief for what could have been. What should have been. What had, for a little while, been hers. Hers for too short a time.
He joined her silently, his shoulder bumping gently against hers. He didn’t speak, just sat patiently, waiting for her to say something. Or not. She had a feeling he would’ve sat there in the damp grass for hours without pressuring her to speak.
She was loath to talk about this, but she owed him an explanation. If he hated her after for what she’d done, it would be his right. And it would be her cross to bear for her wrongdoing.
“I’m sure you have questions.” Her voice sounded scraped raw, rusty and thin.
“We can just sit here,” he said, confirming her suspicion that he really would let her sit there in silence if that’s what she wanted.
“Do you ever get tired, being so decent all the time?” Even to her own ears, she sounded fond.
He bumped her shoulder with his. “Careful. That almost sounded like a compliment.”
“It was.”
She was too tired for pretense.
Too tired for secrets, too.
Talking about this would be easier if she didn’t have to look at him while she was speaking.
“Spring slipped into summer and summer into fall, and before we knew it, it was winter, and I still wasn’t pregnant, and no one could tell us why,” she said, staring across the yard at where the sun was beginning to set, a brilliant orange burning on the horizon.
“It was the sixteenth century, so our understanding of reproductive medicine wasn’t exactly what it is today.
They advised that I drink catnip boiled in wine and— Well, I won’t traumatize you by telling you what the physicians did with weasel testicles back then. ”
She stole a glance at him from the corner of her eye and didn’t regret it, his grimace of disgust almost making her laugh. Almost.
“We were both young and healthy, and all anyone could tell us was that sometimes these things took time. But time was a luxury we didn’t have.
A full-blown feud had erupted between the MacDonalds and the MacLeans and it grew bloodier by the day.
There were whispers, suggestions made that, since it was a trial marriage, you should repudiate me and send me back to my family.
I heard whispers, but your uncle said it to you outright.
To say you were incensed would be putting it lightly.
You were the clan chief, and it was you who made decisions about your marriage, not your uncle, not your advisors, you.
And me, obviously, but that’s beside the point.
You refused to entertain the idea, and if anyone tried to force your hand, you told me we’d run away if we had to.
” She sighed, resting her chin on her knees.
“It wasn’t that simple. You had a duty to your clan, and… there was no other option.
“As the anniversary of our handfasting neared, I grew more desperate. One day, right there in the copse of trees where I knelt praying—the same spot where we’d exchanged our private vows—appeared a man I’d never seen.
There was something odd about him, something almost…
otherworldly.” Because there was. “He said he could give me what we wanted, that he could answer my prayers. All I had to do was promise him my soul in exchange.”
Finn sucked in a sharp breath, and she cringed.
“You have to understand, it felt like I was damned if I did, damned if I didn’t,” she said, trying to impress upon him just how desperate she had been.
He was free to judge her if he wanted, but she needed him first to understand her motivation fully.
“I couldn’t lose you. The thought of it—” She shook her head, words stoppered in her throat, a bottleneck of emotions that threatened to choke her.
“It would have killed me. Eternal damnation felt like a small price to pay for a lifetime with you, so I did what I felt like I had to do, and I took the deal. I didn’t whisper a word of it to anyone.
I didn’t know if it would work. If maybe I’d lost my mind and imagined the whole thing. ”
The wind picked up, the temperature dropping, and Effie hugged her knees tighter against the cold.
“It worked. I didn’t think I’d ever seen you so happy,” she said, smiling at the memory. “You needed an heir, and I wanted you, and a baby meant I’d get to keep you.”
Or so she’d thought.
“The labor itself was long and difficult, and the midwife had to call for a doctor, which was never a good sign. The baby was breech, so they tried to reposition her so that she wasn’t feet first, but it didn’t work.”
Effie squeezed her eyes shut, her heart aching with a fierceness that made her breath catch.
It didn’t matter how much time had passed, she could recall those final few moments with perfect clarity.
The pain, yes, it had felt like she was being torn in two, but the noise.
How loud the room was, the doctor shouting at her, the midwife, her face pale, praying. And then silence.
“She wasn’t crying, and I was bleeding. I could see it on everyone’s faces.
There was nothing anyone could do, and you looked so scared, and I…
I knew we weren’t both going to survive this.
” Her lips trembled and she pressed them together, swallowing hard.
“It didn’t matter, because in that moment, all I could think about was losing you both. ”
Her breath rattled and her vision blurred, but she couldn’t stop now. She had to finish this.
“If you’ve never been close to dying—and I hope you haven’t—there’s this sort of…resignation that comes with knowing that you’re going to die and there’s nothing you can do about it. I wasn’t okay with it, but you and the baby would have each other.”
She could feel Finn’s stare burning into the side of her face, and against her better judgment, she turned, her lip wobbling as she looked at him.
He looked shattered, devastated, his eyes rimmed red and his face pale and drawn.
She hated that he looked that way, hated even more that she was the one responsible.
To think, she hadn’t even gotten to the worst part.
“Something strange happened. It was like I was outside myself, watching everything happen. That’s when the man from the woods appeared.
I figured that was it, that I was dying and he had come to collect my soul.
But he was actually there to make me one more offer.
If I agreed to work for him, he’d spare me an eternity in the pit and he’d make sure she lived.
” She clenched her eyes shut, and several hot tears slipped out, wetting her cheeks.
“When I told you that the easiest yes I’d ever given was when you asked me to marry you?
I lied. This? This was the easiest yes.”
She blinked the moisture from her eyes. Finn’s mouth was pressed in a thin, unforgiving line, his whole body rigid.
Heat crept up the front of her throat, and Effie bristled in spite of herself.
“I don’t regret it,” she said, her tone leaving no room for doubt.
She meant what she said. “All the awful things I’ve done over the years as a demon?
I’d do them all over again. I would damn every single last person on this godforsaken planet, good or bad, whether they deserved it or not. ”
And she’d sleep like a baby after, too.
“The only thing I feel guilty about—my only regret—is loving you so much it made me greedy. You were a gift, our time together was a gift, and I wanted more. I shouldn’t have tampered with fate.
Because look at what happened. I lost you anyway.
I left you to raise a baby by yourself.” She dragged the heel of her hand under her nose.
“I didn’t care about the consequences. I only cared about keeping you.
I was selfish. You paid the price for my mistakes, and you never even knew it.
You never found out what I did. You went to the grave thinking I was innocent, and—I think maybe you didn’t know me at all. ”
Her breath hitched and she bit her lip until she broke skin, the metallic taste of blood hitting her tongue.
“That’s why I know you’ll hate me.” Because she hated herself.
“And it’s why you need to renounce your vows.
” To do what he should’ve done years ago and repudiate her.
“I didn’t know that we actually bound our souls.
For the last four hundred and…I don’t know how many years, you’ve been stuck in an endless cycle of reincarnation, your soul unable to rest, because of my choices, because of my greed.
It’s not right. You wanted me to have a choice, to be able to choose my own destiny, and here I’ve tied your hands, and—I know you feel it, too. This pull.”
She pressed her fingertips against her breastbone to illustrate what she meant.