Black Heart (Cursed Hearts 1)

“Tristan?” she tried again.

“Not now,” he said absently, zeroing in on the bastard holding up his hands up in surrender.

“Lad, yer hurt. Why don’t we just sit down and talk this through?” Shayne calmly suggested as he disappeared only to reappear near the television and out of Tristan’s reach.

“You mean the talk that we should have had the night that you appeared in my bedroom?” Tristan bit out.

“Ye were a child then, lad. It wasn’t something that I could talk to ye about.”

“Bullshit!”

“It’s not bullshit, lad! Ye had enough problems and ye didn’t need to know that-“

“That I wasn’t a f**king freak? Or that there was a reason why I was given such a f**ked up existence?”

“Well,-“

“You could have cleared up everything! Instead you left me wondering what the hell was wrong with me! You made me think that I was doing Marty a favor by shoving her away! You-“

“Ye,” Liam said coldly as he stepped in front of him and cut him off, “did that all on yer own.”

“Fuck you,” Tristan snapped, moving to step around Liam and go after Shayne, but Liam wasn’t having it.

When Tristan shifted to the side, so did Liam, blocking him. “Yer the one that made Shayne promise not to help,” Liam said evenly, taking Tristan by surprise.

“What the hell are you talking-“ he started to demand only to get another surprise when Marty cut him off.

“Would someone mind giving me a hand with this guy?”

Expecting to find one of the men holding Marty back so that she wouldn’t do something foolish like try to get in the middle of this, he looked back only to discover that all of his “brothers” were standing directly behind him and looking just as confused as he felt. He wasn’t sure what he expected to see when Finn and Quinn shifted to the side so that they could look back, but it definitely wasn’t his wife being chased around the couch by a na**d elderly man.

*-*-*-*

“Tristan?” she said, trying to remain calm as she gave the very grumpy and very na**d elderly man in front of her what she hoped was a reassuring smile.

Apparently he took her smile as an invitation. With his gaze locked on her, he moved towards her. Well, it was more like a shuffle, leaving Marty to wonder if physical limitations followed people into their deaths or if this man was just used to moving like that and didn’t give it a second thought.

She took a step back, fully expecting either Tristan or one of the men that claimed to be his brother to step in and handle the ghost. When the man shuffled closer, Marty took a step back and risked a glance towards the other side of the room. What she saw had her rolling her eyes and making a mental note to kick Tristan’s ass later.

While Tristan chewed Shayne out, and she fully planned on finding out what that was about later, the rest of the men crowded behind him, looking ready to jump in at any second and grab him. As she took yet another step back, she couldn’t help but wonder why they hadn’t just grabbed him and ended the whole thing.

As she moved around the back of the couch, she watched as Quinn moved to grab Tristan by his shoulders when Tristan got a little too close to decking Shayne, only to watch the man hesitate, shake his head and drop his hands by his sides as he let out what sounded like a curse. It was an odd move, but then again, so was being chased around the couch by a na**d elderly man that she didn’t know.

During her second lap around the couch, she watched as Fergus moved to grab Tristan only to have a similar reaction. They didn’t want to hurt him, she realized as she slowed down to watch an obviously frustrated Liam attempt the same thing and fail, which was kind of screwed up since he was the one who’d hurt Tristan in the first place. He made one more attempt before he dropped his hands by his sides and curled them into fists as he let out what she was definitely sure was a curse and disappeared, only to reappear in front of Tristan a second later.

She was so focused on what was going on with Tristan that she didn’t realize that she’d stopped moving until the sound of a shuffle and a grunt had her saying a curse of her own and hauling ass, well, walking away really fast. She was still nauseous after all and all of this walking in circles wasn’t helping. After her fourth time around the couch, she, and her stomach, finally had enough.

“Would someone mind giving me a hand with this guy?”

For a moment, they simply stood there looking adorably confused as they watched the old na**d guy chase her around the couch for another lap. Knowing that her stomach wasn’t up for another lap around the couch, she veered off towards them, deciding that she’d had enough of, well, everything tonight.

She walked right passed Finn and Quinn and kept going towards Tristan, who appeared just as confused as the rest of the men. Once she reached him, she grabbed his good hand, gave it a pull and somehow was able to get him to have a seat in the ugly chair that Liam had vacated. Before he could get up and go after Shayne, and she knew him well enough to know that was exactly what he wanted to do, she sat on his lap, careful of his bad shoulder and made it clear that she didn’t plan on getting up anytime soon.

When Tristan tried to shift her off of his lap, she decided that perhaps a little clarification was in order. “If you so much as move me an inch, I will give the term ‘morning sickness’ a whole new meaning,” she swore, wishing that it wasn’t true, but with all the running around, stress and exhaustion, her stomach was less than pleased with her and was at that very moment threatening to turn her promise into reality.

“That threat won’t work forever,” he said, sighing as he wrapped his good arm around her and pressed a kiss against the top of her head all while he probably glared in Shayne’s direction.

“We’ll see,” she said with a shrug as she watched Declean reach out as the na**d old man neared their group and pressed his hand against the old man’s chest.

A beautiful white light spread over his chest until it surrounded them. Feelings of love, happiness and calm spread over her, stealing her breath and making her feel safe and cherished. It was a feeling that she wanted to last forever, but all too soon it was gone and so was the elderly man.

“What just happened?” she asked, forcing herself to remain calm when all she wanted to do was to jump off Tristan’s lap and get out of this room, this house, this town and go somewhere where she didn’t have to worry that she was losing her goddamn mind.