“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 f**king 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 f**ked up son of a bitch.

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

Yup, truly f**ked 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, ass**le. 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 f**king 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 f**king 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 f**king 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.”