Lorcan lets that statement hang in the air. I’m not sure what he’s trying to achieve other than pissing Arden off for failing to notice that his most prized possession is on the verge of exhaustion. Arden cracks his neck, and if I didn’t know any better, a flash of guilt crosses his face before he schools his face into a blank mask.
“Carrick, watch over her. Make sure she eats, rests, and doesn’t do anything stupid.”
“You want me to watch over her?”
“Did I stutter?” he retorts, daring me to object.
“I think Lorcan would be better equipped for the task, now that he’s gaining her trust,” I add, with more than a touch of sarcasm.
“I asked you to do it.”
“I can go,” Lorcan offers with a shrug like he isn’t trying to get more alone time with Cyn.
Frankly he can have it, because every time I’m around her I switch between wanting to fuck her or kill her.
“I want Carrick to do it. He’s the one who needs to make sure she doesn’t go through with her threat. If he doesn’t, then there'll be consequences.”
“Consequences. Who for, me?”
Arden squeezes the bridge of his nose. “For all of us, brother.”
“Point well made,” Lorcan shrugs, dropping into the seat opposite Arden and picking up the letter opener on the desk, twisting it in his fingers. “But if he loses control, I get to take care of his mess.”
I scoff. “I always knew you wanted to play hero.”
“If Arden’s her master and you’re her tormentor, that really only leaves one role for me, brother,” Lorcan shoots back, not bothering to deny it.
“Like I said this morning, she sees right through your act. Always has. She knows what to expect from me. At least I’m honest.”
Arden leans back in his seat, watching me carefully. “Are you sure about that?”
What’s that supposed to mean?
Instead of voicing that question, I turn on my heel, not bothering to respond. Arden might think he is Cyn’s master puppeteer, but he isn’t mine. I draw the line at being coerced into an altercation with him over a woman we’ve vowed to never let get between us again.
Stepping into the kitchen, I shake those memories aside, refusing to remember the time when we came to blows over the woman sitting at the table before me now. She might’ve been a girl back then and us mere boys on the cusp of manhood, but the feelings she provoked in us were powerful. There are many reasons I want her gone from our lives, but forcing a wedge between us is one of the main ones. She’s only been here a short time and already I feel her edging her way between us once more.
“I’m to make sure you eat, though I see you’ve already taken care of that,” I say, moving towards the table, a plate of sliced meat, a tub of butter and a loaf of bread resting on the surface.
She doesn’t look up, instead she folds up a piece of paper that she was looking at and slides it into her recipe book, before picking up her sandwich and taking a bite. I don’t bother to draw her into a conversation knowing that I’m the last person on the planet she’d ever want to willingly talk to.
Besides, the quiet suits me just fine. I’ve had a headache all day and it’s beginning to get to the point where nothing but a dose of rum and sleep is going to cure it.
No more than five minutes later I feel Cyn watching me, the fine hairs on the back of my neck a warning to guard myself from her special brand of magic. I drag my gaze from the view out of the kitchen window and back to her.
“What?” I ask.
She chews on her lip, and I half expect her to get up and leave the room, but she surprises me by picking up her pencil and scribbling something down on her notepad, twisting it around for me to read. She still refuses to communicate with her voice, writing words on paper, and even those words are sparse. I see it as a challenge, getting her to speak. Hell, to even make a sound. One day we’ll own her voice as well as everything else about her.
But she’s stubborn.
She hasn’t spoken a word for almost twenty years, ever since she witnessed her mother’s murder as a small child. Fuck if it doesn’t bother me that she still won’t utter a sound to the men who she lost her virginity to when we were no more than eighteen.
It bothers me more than it should.
You have a headache.
“How do you…?” I ask, my voice trailing off as she starts to write her response before I’ve even finished the question.
Your eyes. They’re glassy.
“That something you’ve learnt from your coven, cailleach?”
She narrows her eyes at me, not in a way that’s angry but as though she’s still assessing my symptoms. It takes her a moment to reply.
I don’t have a coven. I just understand the human body and know how to treat illnesses using natural remedies. It’s not magic, not in the way you think.
I read her words and snort. “I bet that’s what you say to everyone before you curse them.”
Unperturbed, she writes, I can make something to soothe your headaches.
“No.”
I can help you.
“I don’t need your help. I manage these headaches the same way I manage everything else.”
By suffering, you mean? she writes, getting to her feet.
“I don’t suffer, I just get on with it,” I snap, pissed that she’s looking at me like I’m some kind of martyr or worse, someone damaged.
She raises a brow, then pushes back away from the table and walks into the pantry. Glass chinks as she searches through the jars filled with different herbs, flower and plant matter all obtained for her in preparation of her arrival. Once Arden decided we’d call in her debt, he made sure she had everything she needed for her stay. A moment later she steps out with a jar of rosemary.
“Rosemary?”
She nods, placing the jar on the table and unscrewing the lid. Bringing it to her nose she breathes in, her eyes pressing shut in pleasure. I shift uncomfortably in my seat, getting the sudden urge to bend her flat over the table, lift up her skirt and bury my nose in her cunt, just so I can breathe in her scent in the same way.
“Fuck!” I mutter.
Her gaze snaps up and she blanches, slowly setting the jar on the table as she reads my expression. She must see something that she doesn’t like because her gaze tracks to the kitchen door as though she’s assessing how successful her escape might be if she needed to run.
She wouldn’t get very far.
“I could tell you that you’ve nothing to fear and that I don’t want to hurt you, but that would be a lie. I always have,” I say, nothing if not honest. “If you run, I will catch you. Haven’t I proven that every time in the past?”
Her cheeks flush a deep pink and I know she remembers all the times I caught her in our youth. It was always me who found her first. Always. I always let them believe they were the best hunters, they weren’t.
She presses her palms against the surface of the table. Her pinky finger grazing the handle of a kitchen knife resting there. I can almost see the thoughts running through her head as she debates whether to snatch it up and lash out at me.
I wait, intrigued to see whether she’ll give me a reason to hurt her, almost wishing she would put us both out of our misery and do what we both know she wants to do. Instead she reaches for her pad and pen, writing more than a sentence given the length of time it takes her to finish. I expect her to lash out, to berate me, scorn me, curse me with her words.