Black Heart

by R. L. Mathewson

  That problem was solved when he grabbed some poor guy who’d made the mistake of walking by at that moment by his shirt and raised him off the ground. “Give me yer shoes, lad.”

  “All righty then,” she said, turning her attention to the elevator doors sliding open and pointedly ignoring the insane man as he committed robbery and made some poor guy piss his pants. “You have a nice life now and don’t forget to be a good boy and take your Prozac.”

  She stepped onto the elevator, pressed the button for the fifth floor and admittedly hadn’t expected the large mental patient to follow her. Then again, with her luck she really should have, she mentally berated herself as she calmly reached into her bag and palmed her gun. Then she thought better of it and reached for her stun gun.

  ‘This can’t be happening,” he murmured in that sexy brogue of his as he raised his hands in front of his face and moved them, wiggling his fingers as if he couldn’t quite believe what he was seeing.

  “Just keep telling yourself that,” she said, keeping an eye on him even as she watched the lights climb up to the fifth floor.

  “Ye do realize that I’d take ye down before ye even had a chance to pull that out of yer purse, don’t ye, lass?” he asked conversationally as he dropped his arms, admittedly shocking her and grudgingly impressing her at the same time.

  “Get tasered a lot, do you?”

  He took her off guard when he chuckled. It was deep, and sexy as hell.

  Mental. Patient, she reminded herself before she did something stupid like drool over him.

  The well-timed ding of the elevator was truly appreciated as it gave her the excuse that she needed to get away from this man and get her mind back on her work. When the elevator doors opened, she sighed heavily. Looked like she’d found the psych ward after all.

  “Hold her down!” a nurse ordered just as her large insane friend stormed past her.

  “Get yer fucking hands off her!” he roared, noticeably startling the orderlies charged with holding the pretty brunette down while a nurse struggled to shove a very large needle in the woman’s arm.

  The two large EMTs and the police officer with pepper hair helping to hold down the woman looked up as the raging insane man headed for them. It was more than obvious that her insane friend’s presence wasn’t a welcome sight and as she followed behind him, once again holding her stun gun, she contemplated the benefits of taking him down for them.

  “Mind your business!” the officer snapped, securing his hold around the struggling, screaming woman, that honestly was hard to listen to without feeling her heart break. The woman’s pain was almost palpable and she would have given anything at that moment to turn around and walk out of here, but the man she’d been trying to talk to for the past week was here and this couldn’t wait a minute longer.

  “Get yer fucking hands off her!” he snapped, grabbing the two orderlies holding the woman’s legs down by the backs of their necks and tossing them away from the woman like they didn’t weigh anything. That alone had her pulling her stun gun out of her pocketbook and setting the voltage to high, because really, there was just no way that the two EMTs, cop and nurse were going to be able to overpower this man.

  Without a word, he reached down and plucked the needle out of the nurse’s hand and tossed it aside, his gaze locked on the sobbing woman. When the younger EMT moved to grab him, her insane friend simply shoved him away, knocking him clear across the room.

  “Denny?” an older woman that she hadn’t noticed until then said, sounding calm which was probably a good thing right now since the last thing that this situation needed was a hysterical woman.

  “Macha?” her insane buddy said soothingly only to frown a few seconds later when the woman didn’t respond. Then with a sigh and a self-deprecating shake of his head, he said, “Marty? Lass? It’s fine. He’s alright.”

  The older EMT released his hold on the woman and looked like he was going to take his chances wrestling with the psych patient when the sobbing woman suddenly opened her eyes.

  “A-are you sure?” she asked, looking up at the psych patient with such hope that Ashlyn seriously considered tasering the bastard on principle alone for screwing with this poor woman’s head.

  He smiled fondly down at the woman. “Aye, he’s fine, still an asshole, but he’s fine.”

  The woman’s expression crumpled as her expression turned from heartbroken to relieved. She reached for the psych patient and wrapped her arms around his neck. He simply held onto her as she sobbed quietly against his shoulder and Ashlyn took that as her cue to move on. This wasn’t her drama so she really didn’t need to be here, she decided as she moved to take a step forward, but realized that there was no one manning the nurse’s station. So with a shrug, she faced the very confused looking group of people. She decided to ignore the ones that were unconscious, because they probably wouldn’t be much help and focused on the ones watching her insane friend.

  “Does anyone know where I can find Detective Black? I was told that he was here.”

  *-*-*-*

  “How did this happen?” Liam demanded as he paced the long room. He stormed forward, disappeared only to reappear on the other side of the room, doing that over and over again.

  “The curse,” he mumbled, carefully shifting Marty in his arms as she slept.

  The poor thing had pretty much collapsed into exhaustion once the surgeon came out and explained that it had been touch and go, but that Tristan had pulled through and was being transported to ICU. Shayne had tried to transport them both to his room, but had discovered that his ability to move around by jumping from place to place was gone.

  He was once again human and he had no idea how in the hell that happened. The only thing that he’d been able to come up with was the curse, which seemed to still affect him. He still saw ghosts. They saw him and irritated the shit out of him. The only thing that changed was that he was human, all of his memories were intact and the woman sitting across from him, texting like a woman possessed, seriously pissed him off. There was good reason for that, he thought bitterly as he narrowed his eyes on her and glared.

  She was his fucking soul mate.

  After all these years, here she was pissing him off and reminding him why he hated being human. If he’d still been in his true form he could have given her the swat on the ass that she rightly deserved and popped out of the room, never giving her another thought. That’s not how this was going to work out apparently.

  The curse had plans and they involved the two of them now. How did he know this? Well, that was really quite simple. He was the only dumb bastard out of his brothers who had been turned back to human. His brothers were still in their true forms, Tristan was still alive, hooked up to machines, but still very much alive and hopefully out of the curse’s reach.

  He ran his eyes over her, wondering how exactly he’d been paired with this woman when she clearly wasn’t his type. He liked long beautiful hair, soft eyes, pouty lips and a slender body. What he got instead was a woman with a very short haircut, shorter than his, about a half dozen piercings in her ears, tattoos on her neck and arms and God only knew where else and a body with an athletic build. Her style also grated, nothing truly feminine about her clothes. She wore a black tee shirt that showed off, of all things, a pierced belly button, jeans that rode a little too low and a pair of black combat boots.

  Fate was truly a fucked up son of a bitch.

  “Keep staring,” she said flatly without looking up from her phone. “I love it, really.”

  Yup, truly fucked up.

  “You want to hand her over?” Denny asked, stopping in front of him and tossing the ice pack that he’d been pressing against his face aside so that he could glare down at Shayne.

  “No.”

  “You want to tell me who you are since you’re holding my daughter?” Hank demanded. He probably would have simply taken Marty away from Shayne an hour ago except that when he’d tried, Marty had started crying again so the man
promptly handed her back over to Shayne.

  “No, not really.”

  Declean chuckled as he walked through Denny and sat down next to him. “Ye might want to tell them something, lad.”

  That probably would be for the best, he decided as he looked at his brothers for suggestions, but the useless bastards only shrugged. Very helpful, he thought, sighing heavily with annoyance. Looked like he was on his own, again.

  “I’m her brother-in-law,” he said, deciding to go with the truth. At least, the truth as far as he saw it.

  Denny chuckled darkly. “Nice try, asshole. I’m her brother-in-law.”

  “Aye,” Shayne readily agreed, “but you’re her brother-in-law by adoption. I’m her brother-in-law by blood. Tristan is my little brother.”

  “Wow, it’s like daytime television come to life,” his annoying soul mate mumbled, destroying the stunned silence that he had to admit was a bit off-putting. The glares weren’t exactly comforting either, he decided. The words of encouragement from his brothers definitely weren’t helping either.

  “Ye stupid son of a bitch,” Declean groaned.

  “Real smooth, shit head,” Finn added with a sigh.

  “I knew we were gonna pay for Ma’ dropping ye on yer head,” Liam said, shaking his head in disgust as he disappeared, probably to go pace in Tristan’s room.

  “Well, as much fun as this has been, and it’s been loads,” the annoying woman said, cutting through the silence as she got to her feet. “I have to go, but I really need to speak with the Detective when he wakes up,” she said, handing a business card over to a stunned Denny, who couldn’t seem to stop glaring at him.

  Yup, it was really fucking great to be human.

  Chapter 41

  “I swear to God that if you don’t drop that sponge that I will have you committed by morning,” he promised, leveling a glare on his mother.

  She sighed heavily as she dropped the sponge back into the small bowl. “None of my boys appreciate me.”

  “I do,” Shayne, the biggest fucking traitor, said cheerfully as he sauntered into the room and dropped down on the bed next to him.

  His mother gave that pleased smile that seemed only reserved for Shayne as she readily agreed, “I know you do, sweetheart.”

  Shayne, the fucking kiss ass, grinned smugly.

  “Fucking brownnoser,” Denny grumbled from the couch where he openly glared at Shayne.

  “Denny Black!”

  “Well, he is!”

  “Words hurt, lad,” Shayne said with a sniffle that made his mother’s glare turn murderous on Denny.

  “That’s it,” Denny said, getting to his feet and storming off towards the door, “I can’t take this any longer. I’m going to work.”

  “Never mind him, Shayne. He’s just upset,” his mother said with that damn smile.

  Seriously, how did the bastard pull it off? From what he’d heard his mother had wanted to wring Shayne’s neck when he’d pulled that whole long lost brother bullshit, but one shocking DNA test and sob story later and he had her wrapped around his finger. The woman couldn’t seem do enough for his “long lost” brother.

  His father, brother and Hank were still suspicious and if he hadn’t been able to get Shayne some fake papers they probably would have given into the urge to drag him out back by now and beat the shit out of him.

  “I have to go make dinner, but I’ll be back later to check on you,” she said, leaning over and pressing a kiss against his cheek. Before she could pull back all the way, Shayne was leaning over him and pointedly clearing his throat.

  With a small giggle, she leaned over and planted a big kiss on Shayne’s cheek before she grabbed her bucket and headed out the door, leaving Tristan to glare at the smug bastard.

  “Ye know that she loves me more, don’t ye?”

  “She really does,” Finn said, appearing in the seat that Denny had vacated.

  “Aye,” Declean said as he appeared, sitting on the corner of the bed. “She’s downstairs right now making him a sandwich.”

  “It could be for me,” Tristan muttered, already knowing that it probably wasn’t.

  Quinn appeared, sitting on the floor with his back against the wall, shaking his head. “No, it’s for him. She’s down there cutting the crusts off his sandwich the way he likes it.”

  “Actually,” Marty said, strolling into the room with two cans of soda in her hands, “she’s making it for me, because the crust upsets my stomach and later tonight she’s baking me an apple pie.”

  “If ye weren’t knocked up ye know that I’d be the favorite,” Shayne said, accepting the can of soda that Marty held out to him.

  “Keep telling yourself that,” Marty said smugly, earning a smile from him as she placed his soda on the nightstand and leaned down to kiss Tristan.

  “Enough of that now,” Liam said as he appeared in the room. Fergus appeared a few seconds later. “We have some things that we need to discuss.”

  Marty brushed her lips against his one more time before she carefully climbed over him so that she could sit between him and Shayne. If any other man had thrown his arm around Marty’s shoulders the way that Shayne did he probably would have killed him, but he didn’t have any worries. He knew exactly how Shayne felt about Marty, because he remembered everything, absolutely everything.

  It was a bit frightening at times to have so many memories swimming around in his head, but it was also a blessing. Now he knew exactly how much his brothers loved him and what they’d been through for him. For the first time in his life, lives, he felt truly whole. He had his wife, a child on the way and he had his brothers. He didn’t know how long this would last, but he planned on enjoying it while it did.

  The only thing that marred his happiness was this fucking curse. Things had changed and he didn’t know just how much or how it would affect them. He also wasn’t sure if he’d escaped the curse. Marty believed it and for now, to keep her happy he kept his thoughts to himself. He didn’t think the curse was done with them yet.

  “Quinn, ye need to keep watch over Shayne,” Liam announced, earning a snarl from Shayne and a shit eating grin from Quinn.

  “I don’t need a guard.”

  Liam simply ignored him the way that he normally did when he wanted to piss him off, which was often. “We need to figure out why Shayne’s soul mate is trying to contact ye,” Liam said, reminding him that he had a few phone calls that he needed to return. Now that he was back on full medical, that shouldn’t be a problem, he thought miserably.

  He fucking hated full medical.

  “She’s a private investigator,” he said, grabbing the ice pack on his shoulder and readjusting it before it could fall off. “She’s looking into a cold case for a client that I’m investigating.”

  Liam nodded, looking thoughtful. “Aye, that might just work.”

  “What might work?” Marty asked, snuggling into Shayne’s side since she couldn’t touch his left shoulder or arm without him passing out. Stupid fucking infection and separated shoulder, he thought bitterly as Shayne wagged his eyebrows in his direction.

  “We need an excuse to get these two together,” Liam explained, doing a great job of erasing all signs of humor off of Shayne’s face.

  “Hell no!”

  “Doesn’t she think that he’s a mental patient?” Marty asked, obviously trying not to laugh, but his brothers didn’t seem to care enough to try and hide their amusement.

  “Aye,” Quinn said, chuckling. “Shayne always did have a way with the lasses.”

  “I’m not doing it,” Shayne said firmly.

  “It’s the only way we can find out how this curse is working. If ye can get the lass and break the curse on yer end, it might allow one of us the chance to do the same,” Liam said, knowing that Shayne would do anything to help his brothers break this curse.

  “I hate her,” he said evenly, but not refusing, Tristan noted.

  “I’m not asking ye to fall in love with the lass.”r />
  But he was asking Shayne to make her fall in love with him. He didn’t say that and wouldn’t, not with Marty in the room. She wouldn’t like it and, if she hadn’t fallen asleep on Shayne’s shoulder, she’d probably be ripping Shayne a new one.

  “Fine, I’ll do it, but as soon as this thing passes off to one of ye, I’m done with her.”

  Tristan chuckled, he couldn’t help it. The idea of Shayne trying to court a woman and getting a chance at a little payback for all the bullshit that Shayne had put him through over the years was just too much. This was going to be fun.

  “What’s so funny, lad?” Shayne demanded.

  “Remember what I told you about payback being a bitch? Well pucker up, asshole, because here it comes.”

  Shayne closed his eyes and let out a pained groan as he dropped his head back against the headboard. “I really fucking hate being human.”

  Chapter 42

  One month later……

  A noise woke Marty up. She sat up in bed and looked around the room, frowning when she didn’t see anything. After a quick glance at the alarm clock on Tristan’s side, she realized that it was a little past three o’clock in the morning and the other half of her bed was still empty.

  She still had another night left without him, she remembered with a sigh as she looked around the room again, this time searching for his brothers. When she didn’t see Declean or Finn, she quietly whispered their names, hoping that they’d hear her.

  They didn’t.

  After a minute, she considered yelling for them, but she didn’t want to attract any unwanted attention if she could help it. She’d only experienced cold dread once and once was more than enough for her. She wouldn’t do anything to draw attention to herself if there was a ghost in the house.

  When she heard another loud noise it occurred to her that perhaps it wasn’t a ghost roaming the house. It was probably just Denny or one of their parents dropping by, she realized, letting out a sigh of relief that was quickly halted when something really important occurred to her.