“There’s only one way to find out,” Liam said with a determined glint in his eyes before he disappeared.

“Guard him,” he told Fergus as he followed after his brother, damn near feeling giddy at the prospect of finally getting one over on this curse.

*-*-*-*

“How are you still here?” she asked, remembering what they were told last night. He wasn’t supposed to be here. Once he died he was supposed to be ripped away from her.

“I’m not sure, mo shonuachar,” he said with a kind smile, his hand continued to caress her stomach. “But it might be best not to speak to me, lass, or they’ll think yer crazy,” he said with a wink, trying to tease her into smiling, but it didn’t work and she didn’t care.

She wanted Tristan back. She wasn’t ready to say goodbye to him, to live even a single minute without him. They still had time left, she could feel it down in her soul.

“There has to be a way,” she said, ignoring the concerned looks of everyone around her.

“There’s not, lass. Believe me, we’ve tried everything,” he gently explained. “The only thing left to do is let ye go now, Macha.”            

“No! Please!” she said, trying to reach for him, but she couldn’t move, not with her father’s arms wrapped tightly around her.

“It’s the only way,” Tadgh said with a sad smile. “I can’t keep putting ye and our child through this, mo shonuachar. This has to end now.”

“No! Just one more time! Please! We can do this!” she cried as she felt her heart start to shatter and break.

“I need ye to be strong, lass. I need ye to go on without me for this child,” he said, giving her stomach a gentle caress.

She tried to speak, but she couldn’t. She couldn’t go on without him, didn’t want to and she knew at that moment that the curse had its grips on her. She wouldn’t last long without him and there was nothing that she could do about it.

As her father held her in his arms, rocking her gently as he swore to her that everything would be okay, she numbly watched as Liam and Shayne appeared on either side of Tristan’s soul and with a firm nod, grabbed him by the arms and disappeared, leaving her with the grief that was swallowing her whole.

*-*-*-*

“Let me go!” Tadgh shouted as they materialized in the operating room.

“Sure thing,” Shayne murmured, praying that this worked. With a nod, they picked Tadgh up and slammed him down into his body.

They watched him for several minutes, praying that something, anything would happen. This had to work, needed to work. Hell, he didn’t know what he would do if it didn’t work. A tiny beep was the only warning that any of them received before one of the most terrifying things that he’d ever witnessed occurred.

Tristan’s body arched off the table, startling everyone working on him, but the unholy roar that he released as he slammed back down on the table terrified them. Seconds passed as everyone stared at the body in shock, the solid beep quickly becoming separate sounds as Tristan’s heart started to work on its own.

Shayne watched with amusement as a nurse’s eyes rolled back into her head seconds before she swayed and dropped to the ground. The other humans barely spared her a glance, their gazes remained locked on Tristan’s still body.

“What the hell was that?” his surgeon asked, looking stunned as he stood over Tristan’s body, the paddles he’d been about to place on Tristan’s chest still clutched tightly in his hands.

“That was us kicking this f**king curse’s ass,” Shayne said smugly, butting fists with a grinning Declean as he made his way out of the operating room.

He needed to tell Marty that everything was going to be okay and he meant to do just that, but he couldn’t. He needed a moment to….

He just needed a moment.

He wanted to go home, throw on the television and blast it to help clear his head, but he couldn’t leave the hospital. Tristan and Marty were too vulnerable right now and his brothers were going to need help keeping them safe. He needed noise, lots of it and preferably cries of pain or pleasure, it didn’t matter. Both would work, always had.

“Aye, that’s much better,” he sighed as the screams of the drunk arguing with the triage nurse reached his ears. The rest of the background noise was like music to his ears.

It wasn’t as loud as he preferred, but he’d take what he could get at the moment. They weren’t as good as  p**n  movies, but they would have to do. The fake groans, moans, screams of pleasure and horrible music were the perfect substitutes for the sounds of the old war camps.

The noises of fighting, arguing men getting into drunken shouting matches and the sounds of the camp whores screaming in pleasure once served as a sort of lullaby for him. While some men lost themselves in their drink or between the legs of a woman, he’d lost himself in sounds, loud, unpredictable sounds.

He’d always done his best thinking in loud places. They comforted him, probably because pure silence scared the living shit out of him. It always reminded him of-

“Oh, f**k,” he groaned, grabbing his side as a cramp shot through his lung.

Another cramp, and then another more powerful cramp shot through his lungs, dropping him on his ass as he struggled with some unknown need. His lungs were on fire and felt like they were going to explode. Something wasn’t right. Something was really f**king wrong.

The curse.

Shit!

He needed to get to Tristan. He needed to figure out a way to spare his brother anymore pain. He needed to-

“Hey, buddy, you might want to put some clothes on.”

Chapter 40

“W-what?” the rather delicious male specimen said, adding to his sex appeal with an Irish brogue that nearly distracted her from her purpose here, almost.

She allowed her eyes to run down his rather impressive body, lingering here and there before finally looking up and meeting killer green eyes. “People are starting to stare,” she said with a shrug as she reached past him and grabbed a folded white sheet off a cart and shook it open. “Not that I can blame them,” she added with a wink as she laid the sheet over his lap.

Gasping for air like he’d just run a marathon, his brows curled up in confusion as he looked around the busy waiting room. “Ye can see me?” he asked, making her sigh in disappointment.

Minus ten points for insanity.

“Yes,” she said, wondering if she should help him to the emergency room or up to the lockdown unit upstairs for the mentally challenged.

“Ye shouldn’t be able to see me.”

Locked unit it was then. Decision made, she stood up and looked around the busy waiting room until she spotted what she needed by some frat boy pressing a bloodied towel to his face. She made her way over to the wheelchair, ignoring the way the frat boy leered at her ass and rolled it over to the poor, hot nut job currently trying to stand up.

“Have a seat,” she said, gesturing to the wheelchair.

“I can walk,” he ground out, leveling a glare on her as he moved to prove just that, but he didn’t make it very far before his legs gave out on him and he almost fell back on his very fine ass.

With a sigh, she wrapped her arm around his waist and helped him to the chair. She really didn’t have time for this good Samaritan crap today, but what choice did she have? He was too screwed up in the head to take care of himself and the only hospital staff manning the ER waiting room was the triage nurse too busy arguing with some jackass in an expensive suit who was demanding that he be seen immediately, to help. That left it up to little old her to drop this insane hunk off at the psych ward.