Page 162 of Beneath the Mountain Sky
Instead, he gives me a sharp nod, then motions to the rest of the search party and takes them up the trail, disappearing into the trees, leaving me to do what needs to be done.
WILLOW
Over the years, I’ve seen Killian annoyed.
I’ve seen him angry, volatile, and lashing out at people.
But I’ve never seen him like this.
His entire body tenses while it trembles beneath my hand. A warm, flesh-and-blood man, yet his stone-cold, icy glare doesn’t even look human. Any ability to remember who he is at his heart has vanished in a cloud of rage.
That seems to have left him the moment I told him what I remembered.
Which is why I raced after him before Connor and Liam could get in my way—because I have to stop him from doing something he’ll regret if he can’t stop himself.
I grip his shoulder tighter, digging my nails into him, trying to get his attention and to break this trance he’s in. He’s lost somewhere I might not be able to drag him out of, the kind of darkness that sucks you in and doesn’t let you go. And if he kills this man, I know he’ll regret it later.
I know that the good man who’s truly deep inside won’t be able to live with himself in the end, despite what Earl did.
“Killian…” I shift to his side until I can see his face fully. And his eyes aren’t just icy, cold, they’re glacial. “Please.”
No recognition of my voice permeates through the chill.
I don’t even know if he sees me out of the corner of his eye as he stares down the man who kidnapped me, who tortured me, who stole my child, and left me for dead in that river.
All he sees is his hate, his need for revenge, a burning desire to hurt this man the way he’s hurt us.
But this isn’t the Killian McBride I know.
“Killian, please stop…”
Earl whimpers against Killian’s relentless hold, and blood seeps from his half-severed ear, but Killian stills the blade, and his gaze cuts to me. He keeps his hand at Earl’s throat, and the axe doesn’t budge from where it presses to his skin.
“Let me talk to him.”
Killian’s eyes flare. “Are you out of your fucking mind?”
I grip the axe and gently ease it away from Earl’s ear. Killian lets me, never taking his eyes off me. And I can finally release a long breath.
Tears stream down my face. Hot with my anger and worry. For Killian and Niall. For what this all might mean for our future.
A future I am willing to fight for.
I turn to the man who took the last year from me, who took my life and my memories and my ability to have everything I ever wanted with Killian.
And I should hate him.
I do, but I also pity him.
He’s not right in the head.
Whatever’s wrong with him has deluded him so badly that he can’t even process what’s right or wrong, and he has lost his grip on reality completely. He didn’t know who I was. Never once gave any indication that he understood that I wasn’t his wife, that the child I bore wasn’t his son. Even as he looks at me now, he doesn’t understand that I’m not Bobby.
It doesn’t excuse the abuse I sustained at his hands, the way he treated his “wife” for the past year, through physical blows and threats, but it makes it impossible for me to look at him the way Killian does.
I squat next to Killian, keeping my fingers curled around the axe handle so it’s kept steady. “Earl, I need you to tell me where our son is.”
Killian flinches beside me.
