Page 97 of Iron Crown

“I remember.” I chuckled, sadly, because I knew what he meant. “You dragged me into a war against the Bratva, just for the chance to ask her to marry you.”

Ah, yes, I had seen myself in him when he’d done it. I supported him because I knew how he felt and what he wanted. I was keenly aware of that desire. The rush to get them down to the altar and pledged.

“You handfasted, though,” I said quietly.

Dairo shrugged. “So?”

He looked down at the scars on his palm. Scars that resembled my own, except one.

It wasn’t manly, I thought, to let a wife go. Especially with scars on your hand that forbid you from ever taking another. Our vows were sacred, even if we released our wives to forget us. To move on. To find another to warm their bed…

And I knew there was no question we would keep our vows. Dairo and I were alike in that respect. I would not bed a womanI did not love, and all my love was taken by the woman who held my son.

“So will you answer my question?” I tried to wind us back to my old purpose. “How do I hire Caledonia Security to watch my family in my absence?”

“You don’t have to ask, cousin,” Dairo said, letting out a long sigh. “If you and I become pathetic, celibate, loveless bachelors, pining for our women, consider it done.”

“At least we’ll be together, eh?” I was trying to cheer us up, but my tone missed the mark. It seemed that I was incapable of even joking.

“We’d be rotten company, old friend.”

That we would.

Chapter thirty-four

I Don’t Negotiate with Morons

Kira

He came back to the bedroom, and I hated the look of defeat in his eyes. Resignation, defeat, longing… What had happened to my dear Eoghan? The man who would not take no for an answer, and would bargain with the devil himself for a taste of my mouth? Who’d give gamble all his possessions for a chance to call me Wife?

“Why won’t you even look at me?” I whimpered when the warmth of his gaze strayed away.

In a blink, his eyes lifted, those dark circles speared into me. I flinched, as if the pain I saw there burned me.

“I look at you all the time,” he said, the familiar words grating on me. “I see you all the time, Kira. Even when you’re not here. I saw you every single day you were gone from this house. I could see your face and hear your voice. I talked to your fucking ghost. Don’t you see?”

He grabbed me by the shoulders, shaking me with a violence that would leave bruises on my arms.

“I am mad. I am insane. I am a Green, and I always have been. I always will be.”

His voice was a cry of anger and despair, and I tried to touch him. I tried to put my hands on his chest, but he just pushed me away.

“I am a madman who bleeds his prisoners, and will bringnothingto your home but more violence and danger.” He ran his hands through his blond hair until they spiked up, tousled and tossed, and still roguishly handsome. “You were right to leave.”

He paced back and forth, his hands tugging at his hair, his eyes wild with fury. He ground his teeth and growled somewhere deep in his chest, like an animal in a cage.

“Eoghan…” I whispered, reaching out a hand, and he smacked it away.

“Have you no understanding of my depth of obsession?” His laugh was chilling. He took my wrist in his hand, and slammed my palm against the wall. “Do you see why the walls have changed?”

I looked at the warm taupe-colored wall, my hand, and his pale one like a shackle on my wrist.

“See?” he insisted, as if what I saw would justify him abandoning me after he dragged me back here, into this strange house.

How could he think about leaving me after we had fought together? After we’d pledged to be more than partners? After all the times he’d insisted that he loved me, adored me, that he’d never move on…

“What do you see?” he asked, his eyes wild, his lips pulled in a pained grimace as if my answer would scald him like boiling oil.

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