Page 8 of Her Irish Savage

“Fuck you,” she tries again, but she curls against my chest.

She’s too light. Too fragile. And I try to ignore that she’s biting back sobs as I wrestle her into my Land Rover.

3

FIONA

The first time I wake, Moran is carrying me up a flight of stairs. There’s noise behind us, music and people talking, and I hide my face against his chest, trying to escape the dull glow of a bare bulb hanging on the wall. Moran swears as he reaches a landing, Irish words Da uses when he thinks I’m not listening.

Words Dausedwhen hethoughtIwasn’tlistening.

Da won’t be swearing anymore.

Moran juggles me, a key, and the door, and then the noise of the crowd is locked safely outside. He brings me over to a couch and lowers me to a cushion. My muscles are overcooked spaghetti, and I slump to one side, which is fine because all I want to do is sleep.

“Not yet,” Moran orders. “Sit up. It’ll help the swelling.”

It’s easier to sit straight than to argue. I’m too tired to open my one good eye as I hear him cross the room. He must be inthe kitchen, because a cabinet opens and closes. He runs water in a sink.

When he comes back, he presses something into my palm. I crack my eye open and stare, blinking hard enough to make out two round pills.

“They’ll cut the pain,” Moran says.

“Wh—What are they?”

“Oxy.”

“Oxy’s for b— bad shit.” I’m slurring, but I need to make my point. “Gimme Advil.”

He laughs. “Any worse shit, and you’ll be in the feckin’ hospital, mandatory reporting or not. Take them.”

He could force me to swallow the pills. I put them on my tongue. He holds the glass for me, tilting it just enough for me to fill my mouth. I swallow.

“Good girl,” he says.

Before I can remind him that I’m not a girl at all, that I’m twenty-four years old and I’ve killed men for the Old Colony Crew, he goes back to the kitchen. This time, I hear the rattle of a freezer drawer sliding open, and the clatter of ice cubes in a tray.

I’m dozing off when he eases a cloth-covered lump against my side. “Hold it close,” he says. “No.” He adjusts my arm. “Like this.”

I suck in my breath as the cold pack bites my ribs.

“Here’s another,” he says. “Keep it on your nose. Your eye, too.” He guides my free hand into place.

My fingers feel like they’re rolling over tiny marbles. “What?—”

“Frozen peas,” he says. “They’ll mold to your face better than cubes. Take it from an expert.”

For just a moment, I wonder where he gained his expertise. Then I remember he’s Braiden Kelly’s Warlord. He manages his clan’s soldiers for a living. He’s seen every possible way a human body can be bruised and broken.

“Wait here,” he says.

The frozen peas must be helping, or maybe the oxy’s already in my blood, because I’m suddenly tempted to laugh. I don’t know where Moran thinks I’m going. He could leave me here for hours, days even, and I wouldn’t be able to follow him.

I don’t know how long he’s gone. I think it’s only a couple of minutes, but my mind is playing tricks. It seems like I’ve been sitting on this couch for a lifetime.

I hear a scrape of plastic on plastic, the familiar sound of a lid twisting free from a jar. I recognize a scent as well—sage laced with rosemary. It’s arnica cream, like the stuff I keep in my travel kit, next to my birth control pills.

That reminds me—my travel kit is back at Madden’s apartment. Andthatreminds me of the last time I rubbed arnica into my wrists, when Madden fastened a pair of handcuffs tight enough to cut off circulation to my fingers, and he wouldn’t listen when I told him to cut me loose but just kept pumping away between my legs.

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