Chapter 6 #2
"Bullshit." She moves past me, heading for the main room without waiting for permission. "Where's your first aid kit?"
I follow because arguing with her seems pointless, and honestly, my shoulder feels like someone poured acid into the wounds. "Pantry. Left side, third shelf."
She opens the door and stops. Just stops and stares.
The pantry is larger than most people's bedrooms. Walls lined with wine racks holding bottles that cost more than cars.
Spanish reds from vineyards my family used to own.
Rare vintage whiskeys in crystal decanters.
Shelves stocked with ingredients most chefs never touch in their careers.
White truffle oil. Saffron threads worth their weight in gold. Aged balsamic that predates my exile.
And on the third shelf, wedged between a bottle of 1947 Chateau d'Yquem and a tin of Caspian caviar, sits my first aid kit.
"You live like this?" Her voice carries something between disbelief and understanding. "Down here where no one sees?"
"I see it." I lean against the doorframe, watching her take in the wealth I never display above ground. "That's enough."
She reaches for the first aid kit but pauses, fingers hovering near the vintage whiskey. "This must have cost..."
"More than it should." I shrug with my good shoulder. "But it's mine. Earned it myself. Not inherited, not stolen. Every bottle, every luxury. Built from nothing after exile took everything else."
She looks at me differently then. Seeing past the crime lord to something underneath. Then she grabs the first aid kit and closes the door. Sets supplies on the counter with efficient movements. Gestures to the chair. "Sit. Shirt off."
My panther purrs at the command, responding to the authority in her voice despite everything she's been through tonight. Strength that doesn't break under pressure is rare and valuable.
I sit. Peel the shirt off slowly because the fabric has dried to the wounds in places, and tearing it free sends fresh fire through my shoulder.
Moira hisses through her teeth. Four parallel gashes from collarbone to shoulder blade.
Deep enough that white bone shows in places.
Ragged edges that speak to claws tearing instead of cutting clean.
And the skin around each wound carries an oily black discoloration that shouldn't exist with shifter healing.
"How bad?"
"Bad. This is necromantic corruption. It's fighting your healing. Poisoning you slowly."
"Can you fix it?"
"Maybe." She wets a cloth with water from the blessed container she packed. "This will hurt."
I set my jaw. "Do it."
She presses the cloth to the worst gash. Salt water mixed with something older floods the wound, and the burn that follows makes my vision white out for three seconds.
She works in silence. Cleaning each wound with blessed water that sizzles when it touches corrupted flesh. The black discoloration retreats slowly, fighting every inch, leaving pain in its wake that would have normal men screaming.
Panthers don't break. We endure. We survive. We heal.
The salt water does its job. Gradually, the corruption pulls back. The oily sheen fades. My shifter healing finally catches hold and begins knitting torn muscle.
"There." Moira sets the cloth aside. "It'll scar, but you'll live. Try not to shift for a few days. Let the tissue solidify before you put that kind of stress on it."
"Thank you."
She starts gathering supplies. Cleaning up. Moving with the exhaustion that comes after adrenaline fades and leaves nothing but bone-deep weariness. But she's stalling. Cleaning up to avoid stopping, to avoid being alone with what happened.
"Sit." I gesture to the other chair. "Tell me about the boat accident."
She freezes. "What?"
"The boat accident. Your sister drowned.
Your father too, based on what that thing said.
" I keep my voice gentle. As gentle as someone like me gets.
"Someone has been binding Elspeth's spirit for a long time.
Feeding on her terror and suffering. Using your failure to save her as the foundation for whatever they're building now. "
Moira sinks into the chair like her legs quit supporting her weight.
Stares at hands that still carry traces of her sister's corrupted magic.
"I was thirteen. Elspeth was eight. Mum had been gone for two years by then, so it was just the three of us.
Dad took us out on the boat to fish. It was tradition.
Every autumn, right before the storms came, we'd go out together. "
Her voice goes distant. Hollow. Reciting facts instead of feeling them.
"The weather turned faster than anyone predicted. One minute we were hauling nets, the next minute waves were swamping the deck. Dad tried to get us to shore, but something caught the rudder. We lost steering."
She closes her eyes. "The boat capsized.
Water everywhere. Cold. So cold it burned.
Dad was shouting for us to hold on, but the waves kept pulling us under.
I saw Elspeth go down. Saw her reach for the surface and not make it.
So I reached for my power. For the magic Gran had been teaching me.
For the sea that should have answered my call. "
"But it didn't."
"No. It ignored me. Swallowed my father and my sister while I floated there, helpless.
Too weak to command what should have been mine.
" She opens her eyes, and they're dry. No tears.
Just emptiness that cuts deeper than grief.
"The fishermen pulled me out hours later.
Found the boat wreckage the next day. The bodies were never recovered. "
Her voice stays flat. Clinical. Like she's reciting someone else's tragedy.
"You were thirteen," I say quietly. "A child. Your magic was barely developed. You couldn't have saved them."
"But I should have." Scraped from somewhere deeper than her chest. "Gran had been training me since I was ten. I knew how to call the waves. Knew how to command the tides. I'd done it in controlled situations. But when it mattered, when lives depended on it, my power meant nothing."
"So you hid it." Understanding slots into place. "Spent years pretending your magic didn't exist because using it means remembering you couldn't use it when it counted."
She nods. Once. Sharp. Final.
"And now someone has taken that failure and weaponized it.
" Rage builds in my chest. Cold and controlled, but potent.
"Bound your sister's spirit. Kept her aware and suffering for years.
Fed on her terror until it curdled into rage.
At you. At the ocean. At everything. Then pulled her up like a puppet to hurt you again. "
"Yes."
The word carries more weight than any confession.
More truth than any explanation. And suddenly, this isn't about murders or ritual magic or someone trying to frame me for those deaths.
This is about trauma weaponized. About guilt shaped into a blade.
About someone who looked at a thirteen-year-old girl's worst moment and decided to build an army from her failures.
"We're going to find whoever did this." I lean forward, catching her gaze and holding it.
"Not for the brotherhood's politics or territorial disputes.
Not even because it's happening on my island.
We're going to find them because they took your sister's death and turned it into torture.
Because they've been feeding on her suffering for years.
Because they're using your trauma as a weapon. "
"And then?"
"Then we end them." Simple. Final. The way my panther handles threats. "Permanently."
She studies me for long seconds. Looking for lies or empty promises, probably. Finding neither.
"Why do you care? You barely know me."
"Because you spent all the years carrying guilt that wasn't yours to carry." I stand, ignoring the pull in my shoulder. "Because even after all that, you're still trying to protect people. And because nobody should have to face their sister's corpse being used as a weapon."
I move toward my room, pausing at the threshold. "And because someone needs to pay for what they've done to you and to Elspeth. I'm good at making people pay."
She says my name differently this time. Softer. "Thank you. For saving me at the tidal pools. For this." She gestures to the space around us. "For listening."
"Get some rest. Tomorrow we start hunting whoever's responsible. But right now, you're safe. The wards won't let anything through. Not corrupted spirits. Not necromancers. Nothing."
She nods and rises. Moves toward her room with exhaustion dragging at every step. Pauses at her door. "Will you be able to sleep?"
"Eventually." Lie. But a kind one. "You?"
"I doubt it."
Honest. I respect that. "Door stays unlocked on my end. If you need anything, you call me."
"I will."
She disappears into her room. The door closes. The lock engages. And I'm left standing in my headquarters, shoulder throbbing from the corrupted magic, knowing that sleep won't find either of us easily.
My panther stirs beneath my skin. Not with threat or hunger for the hunt.
Something else. Something that recognizes the strength in her despite the trauma.
The way she didn't break when her sister's corpse tried to drown her.
The way she tended my wounds even though her hands were shaking.
The fierce determination that sent her to those tidal pools alone.
I want her.
The admission sits heavy in my chest. Not just desire, though there's plenty of that.
Something deeper. More complicated. The kind of want that comes from recognizing an equal.
Someone who survives when survival shouldn't be possible.
Someone who carries impossible weight and keeps moving forward anyway.
But wanting her doesn't mean I deserve her.
Crime lords who built empires on fear and blood don't get women like Moira Flynn.
Women who spend years hiding their power because using it means facing the worst day of their lives.
Women who still try to save people despite carrying guilt that would crush anyone else.
I move to my room and retrieve the burner phone I use for brotherhood communications. Text Declan a single line: Need to meet. Tomorrow. Bring everyone.
His response comes in seconds: Trouble?
Always. But this is personal.
Location?
My place. Noon.
We'll be there.
I set the phone aside and sink onto my bed. The shoulder wound pulses with each heartbeat. Exhaustion drags at bones that want nothing more than to shift and curl up somewhere dark and safe.
But my mind won't stop circling the problem. Someone powerful enough to bind a spirit for who knows how many years. Someone cruel enough to feed on a child's suffering. Someone bold enough to perform ritual murders in the open, leaving blood symbols and corrupted magic like territorial markers.
And someone who decided Moira Flynn needed to be involved. Marked. Threatened. Broken.
They made a mistake there. A fatal one.
She's under my protection now. That means keeping her safe from the necromancer using her sister as a weapon. From whatever's killing people on this island. And from me, if necessary. Because the last thing she needs is another predator circling when she's already being hunted.