Hell Hound's Revenge (Fae 0f The North Shore Book 1)

by A. S. Green

  “For one, she killed the Black Castle who’d been working the north shore.”

  Declan and Aiden flinched.

  “That’s right,” Cormac said, feeling a flicker of pride despite the more overpowering irritation that it should have been him who’d made the kill. His brothers’ reactions said they knew it should have been him, too.

  “How do ye feel about that?” Aiden asked.

  Before he could answer, Declan jumped in. “That cailín can’t be a hundred pounds soaking wet.”

  Cormac let himself smile, grateful for an excuse to avoid Aiden’s question. “Actually, she’s more than a hundred pounds, even dry. But I get your point. She had the element of surprise in her favor.”

  “I don’t doubt that,” Aiden said. “Who would suspect her?”

  “Fine,” Declan said. “I’ll reserve judgment. But we’re still pissed at ye. Not a word, Cormac. Not one fucking word from ye in a half century.”

  “I…” How could Cormac explain? “I know how ye feel about me.”

  “Oh, aye? And how’s that, brother?” Declan asked, crossing his arms.

  “I failed ye both. Three times.”

  Declan snorted, but Cormac pressed on.

  “I couldn’t come back until I avenged them. I couldn’t look ye in the eye until there were three of theirs, lying dead at my feet.”

  Aiden and Declan looked at him with what Cormac thought might be pity, and it made him clench his teeth. “Don’t look at me like that.”

  “Fine,” Declan said, and his fist landed squarely against Cormac’s jaw.

  Cormac staggered back, hitting a floor lamp and sending it toppling to the ground. “What the fuck?!”

  “Maybe we can pound some sense into ye,” Declan said, and he landed another blow, right in the gut.

  This time Cormac was ready for him. He put his hands on Declan’s shoulders and pushed him backward, all the way across the room until his back slammed up against the wall and his glasses flew off his face.

  Cormac was surprised at the lack of resistance. Declan had size, but not as much strength as he’d assumed.

  Declan’s legs gave way, and he sank to the floor. Cormac looked down at him in horror. What had he done?

  A loud angry roar erupted from Aiden. He put his head down and charged at Cormac, sending them both staggering across the sitting room and crashing onto the coffee table, which splintered beneath them sending a half dozen magazines flying.

  Cormac scrambled to his feet, hands up in surrender. Aiden threw a punch to the gut.

  “Oomff,” Cormac said, doubling over. Apparently Aiden still thought there was a point to be made.

  Cormac dodged the next blow, then swiped Aiden’s leg. Aiden went down with a thud, then grabbed Cormac’s ankle and bit him right behind the knee.

  “Are ye fucking insane?” Cormac roared, kicking himself free. Aiden got to his feet but kept himself in a wrestler’s crouch, knees bent, arms out, ready for anything.

  “I needed ye,” Aiden said with a huff of air. “We needed ye, and ye were nowhere to be found.”

  Aiden’s fist jabbed out, landing a blow to Cormac’s nose. There was a sick crunching sound, and blood gushed from his nostrils, soaking his T-shirt.

  Cormac threw the next punch, which Aiden dodged, but Cormac followed it with an upper cut to the solar plexus. “Sorry I wasn’t here to wipe your noses, little brother, but I was busy hunting a killer.”

  With another sharp jab, Aiden tagged his jaw.

  “Jesus, Aiden, enough with the face.”

  “Ye were no help to me,” Aiden repeated, and his words hurt more than the broken nose.

  Pissed, Cormac lunged for Aiden again, pushing him up against the wall.

  “Did ye even know Declan was hospitalized?” Aiden asked.

  Cormac’s gaze darted to Declan, who still sat slumped against the wall.

  “Fuck,” Declan muttered, his voice sounding weak. “Keep me out of this.”

  While Cormac was distracted by this news, Aiden sucker punched him in the kidney.

  Cormac put his hand to the side of Aiden’s head and slung him away from the wall and into the room. Aiden’s hip caught the edge of the TV, and he only righted it just before it fell off its stand.

  “Watch it!” Declan cried, suddenly finding some strength. “The Vikes play the Packers at noon.”

  Aiden shifted to the side, just as Cormac rushed him, catching him around the throat and holding him against the opposite wall.

  “Fine,” Aiden said, holding his hands up. “Truce?”

  “I don’t know,” Cormac said sarcastically, ignoring how badly his nose throbbed. “Ye started this.”

  “Then truce.”

  Cormac gave Aiden a final shove against the wall then released him. There was nothing more to do or say. It was done. They’d either move on from here, or they wouldn’t.

  Declan muttered under his breath, something about them both being a pair of “crazy nutters.”

  Aiden straightened his shirt.

  Declan found his glasses, demolished under the coffee table, and put them on his face. They sat crookedly over his nose. “You’ll be replacing these,” he said. They couldn’t glamour glasses like they could clothing.

  “Whatever,” Cormac responded, holding the end of his T-shirt to his nose. “But now tell me why ye were in the hospital.” He knew his brother hadn’t meant the human one.

  “It’s no big deal,” Declan grumbled.

  “Oh, of course not,” Aiden said sarcastically, and Cormac got the distinct impression this had been an ongoing argument between them. “It’s no big deal that you’re an addict.”

  Declan corrected him. “Recovering addict.”

  “What?” Cormac asked.

  Aiden turned toward him. “You’re not the only one who’s had to deal with our parents’ death. And Madigan’s.”

  “Declan,” Cormac said, getting down on one knee in front of him.

  Declan looked away, so Aiden continued to explain. “Every month for the last two years, Doc O’Se’s been sending one of his nurses to our house to give Declan an injection that helps him deal with the withdrawal. And who knows how many pills…”

  “Four,” Declan muttered, and then the corners of his mouth twitched upward.

  Aiden threw up his hands. “Four! Four kinds of pills to tide him over until the nurse comes again. One for nausea; one for headaches; one for sleeplessness; one for….” He glanced down at Declan for a reminder.

  Declan shrugged. “I can’t remember what the fourth one does, either.”

  “So you’re handling it,” Cormac said, addressing Aiden, then he turned to Declan, “and taking care of yourself. That’s a good thing, then.”

  Cormac looked back up at Aiden and gave him what he hoped would be a look of confidence, though something about Aiden’s demeanor said he didn’t need his big brother’s vote of approval anymore. He didn’t even necessarily want it.

  “Enough.” Declan pushed up to his feet.

  “Declan, if you’re hungry,” Aiden said, “I’d just cooked two pounds of bacon when our brother’s little anamchara came skipping into the room.”

  “Maybe later.”

  “Wait,” Cormac said. “Are we good?”

  “For now,” Aiden said. Then he tipped his head and looked up at the ceiling. “But I think ye got another battle waiting for ye upstairs.”

  Cormac followed his gaze and his jaw got tight. “Right,” he said. “Shit.”

  Chapter Twenty-Two

  CORMAC

  When Cormac got upstairs, he found Meghan standing—now dressed—at his open bedroom window. She stared outside with her hands spread wide against the sill, probably trying to make sense of where they were. The one bad thing about tilting, there wasn’t much opportunity for taking in the sights.

  Now there was nothing to be seen but autumnal trees, trees, and more trees. No sign of the Great Lake anymore. It had to be disorienting for her.r />
  One more thing to apologize for.

  She whirled at the sound of him entering the room, then gasped when she saw that his shirt was soaked with blood.

  “They fought you two-on-one?” she asked, sounding both disbelieving and indignant on his behalf.

  He shrugged and his shirt disappeared. He replaced it with a new one. “They took turns.”

  Her mouth twisted. “Well, that was kind of them.”

  “Now it’s your turn,” he said, because they might as well get this over with. He hadn’t intended to mislead her about his middle brothers being dead, but obviously he had. Her reaction downstairs had made that clear enough.

  “I never agreed to this mate business,” she said, which caught him off guard.

  He narrowed his eyes in confusion. That wasn’t what he expected to be talking about. “Ye don’t have much choice in that.”

  “Oh, I don’t?” she asked, both her voice and temper rising. “Is that right? You’re just going to…what?…chain me to your bed?”

  By Danu, she was beautiful when pissed, and he had to admit, her suggestion had its appeal, but it wasn’t his style. He continued walking closer.

  “Ye have a choice in whether ye sleep with me, but no one can change the fact ye are my anamchara. Believe me, when I first met ye, I found that fact very inconvenient. I would have changed it then, if I could.”

  “Oh, so now you don’t want me? What’s it going to be, handsome?”

  Cormac turned his head and smiled at the ridiculousness of their conversation. “I didn’t say that. If you’d let me finish, I would have said that now I wouldn’t have it any other way. Don’t ye remember last night at all?”

  Her eyes flashed, then warmed. She remembered. So did his hound, which was already prowling just at the sight of her in his bedroom.

  She turned her back, as if that could erase it all. “I can’t be with someone who isn’t honest with me. I have a lot to process right now. Things are confusing enough without having to deal with lies.”

  “I didn’t lie.”

  She whirled around with her arms out and yelled, “You said your family was dead. You said you were alone.”

  “I said the Black Castle destroyed my family. They may have only killed three, but our family is not the same. It never will be. And I have been alone. For a very long time.”

  “By choice!” She was yelling even louder now. “Your brothers are alive.”

  “She makes an excellent point, dickwad,” Declan yelled up the stairwell. “If ye don’t want us all to fall in love with her, ye might want to close your door.”

  Cormac glanced behind him toward the hallway and muttered to himself. “Right now, I wouldn’t mind killing them both.” Then he looked over his shoulder at Meghan. “Would that make ye happy?”

  “It wouldn’t,” she said, and he could hear the worst of her anger slip away.

  He got to the door, slammed it shut, then turned to her in contrition. “I didn’t intend to mislead ye, and I’m sorry that I did.”

  “Well, I’m glad your brothers are alive. For your sake, as well as theirs. What I don’t understand is why you’ve been gone so long and without any contact with them. They’ve clearly missed you.”

  He arched one eyebrow at her. “Ye did see my shirt, right? If they missed me, they sure have a funny way of showing it.”

  Meghan frowned, unwilling to make light of the situation. He supposed that was right, so he got serious, too.

  “Despite what they said downstairs,” he explained, “it was for the best that I left. Ye have to trust me on that.”

  She groaned in exasperation. “How? How is not seeing your brothers ‘for the best?’”

  “Ye wouldn’t under—”

  “You better believe I wouldn’t understand.” She slapped her hands against his shoulders and pushed. He didn’t move, at least on the outside. Internally, everything moved at the feel of her touch.

  He wrapped his hands around hers and moved them to his chest.

  She bowed her head and rested it against him. “You know…you’re not the only one who’s lost someone, Cormac MacConall. Do you know how many people would kill to have a family? Any family? And you just throw yours away?”

  He kissed the top of her head. “Ye don’t know what you’re talking about. I didn’t throw them away.”

  “I have no parents, no siblings. No real family, not even the crappy one I thought I had. None at all. I’m fucking alone, Cormac.” She looked up at him, and there were tears in her eyes. “I would give anything…anything…to have what you have, but you’re too stupid to…”

  She shook her head and yanked her hands away. “Take me back to the lake.”

  “What?”

  “Take me back to the lake. I can hitch a ride from there, or if I strike out, at least I can follow the shore all the way up to Canada.”

  “I’m not going to do that.” How long would it take before she was back in the Black Castle’s clutches? Or fall prey to another group of leannán sídhe? What would they do if they discovered she was one of them, if only just by half?

  “Then I’ll ask one of your brothers to take me. I bet they’d be glad to get rid of me. They’d probably prefer a family reunion without a stranger here. So, yeah. I won’t need your help, and I don’t need your protection. Obviously I’ve proven that I can take care of myself.”

  At that memory, Cormac’s temper flared. He’d never felt as emasculated as he did in that moment when he sat, chained, while his woman took out the man he’d made it his mission to kill.

  “And I sure as hell am not going to be your anam…whatever.”

  “Chara.”

  “Whatever!”

  She walked toward the wardrobe where she’d kicked off her shoes the night before and got down on the floor to pull them on. “Why should I waste any more time on someone who would throw away the most precious thing in the world? You’ve got to be the biggest idiot in the history of mankind. Scratch that, your kind.”

  “Mo cuisle.”

  “Don’t you ‘mo cuisle’ me.”

  She glanced up at him, and it killed him to see the thick sheen of tears still glazing her eyes. She didn’t really want to go. She was just pissed. He understood that.

  “If you can throw your own brothers away, why should I expect any better treatment?”

  He didn’t know how to answer that. Maybe she should expect better because the thought of being away from her felt like his guts were being torn apart. Or maybe because the thought of being without her nearly brought him to his knees.

  “Nothing to say?” she asked.

  His jaw got tight. “Ye can’t go.”

  “I can.” She got up and wiped her hands down the sides of her thighs. Her body was only inches from his. All he’d have to do was lean forward, and her breasts would be flush against his chest.

  “If ye go, Meghan, I swear to Danu, I’ll follow.”

  She shrugged and sniffed, as if his oath meant nothing. “Do what you must.”

  He could feel the vibration of his hound growling and the sound welled up inside of him. “What I must do, is keep ye alive.”

  “Why?” she asked, putting a hand to her hip.

  “Why?” he repeated.

  “Yeah. Why? I’ve known you for four days. Just pretend they never happened.”

  “Impossible.”

  “Why?” She looked desperate to hear his answer and, by Danu, he was going to give it to her. She wanted the truth? She was going to get it.

  “I understand ye wanting to leave me. I certainly don’t deserve to have ye. I’m not a man. I’m not even a worthy cú sídhe. If I were, I would not have hid in a cupboard while my parents were slaughtered. I would have taken better care of Madigan. If I’d done those things, Declan and Aiden would still have their family. Intact. Whole.”

  She blinked, and a tear broke free and ran down her cheek. He looked away just so he could keep talking.

  “If I had do
ne what I was supposed to do, Declan wouldn’t be sick and addicted to God knows what, standing there, unable to fight because he’s a shell of the man he’s supposed to be.”

  “He’s sick?” She blinked up at him in surprise.

  Cormac didn’t answer her question, but kept on going. “Aiden might be away at the University. Everything is shit because of me.”

  She reached for him, resting her hand against his chest. “Cormac, you don’t—”

  “I didn’t throw my brothers away, Meghan. I left because I was too ashamed to look them in the eye, and I wasn’t going to do that until I could say that our family had been avenged. Then you came along.”

  He cupped her cheek in his hand, and she closed her eyes, leaning into it. “You’re not what I expected, Meghan. You’re completely wrong and somehow completely right, all at the same time. You’ve given me hope, mo cuisle. You’re the first taste of something sweet in half a century of nothing but bitterness.

  “I know, after all my failings, that I don’t deserve any kind of happiness, but if ye think I’m going to let that go—” He smiled, remembering her words from before. “Then you’re the biggest idiot in the history of mankind. Scratch that, your kind.”

  “Mack,” she said, and his name came out as mere breath.

  “Can ye please kiss me now?” he asked, his voice sounding low and rough in his ears.

  “Yes.”

  Their mouths hit, and immediately everything went white hot, burning him up from the inside. Cormac didn’t know if this was always the way between fated mates—his father had never gone into that much detail when they’d had “the talk”—but as much as he craved more of her, a part of him worried he might spontaneously combust.

  The kiss went wild, sucking, biting, teeth clashing.

  “More,” she said. “Please, Cormac. Give me more.”

  “Christ, woman. Ye don’t have to beg.” He tore off her clothes.

  Her hand fumbled at his belt, and she cursed her clumsy fingers until the buckle released. He rewarded her unnecessary efforts by making his pants vanish away.

  Her mouth dropped open and she whispered, “In a hundred years, I will never get used to that.”