Memories flood my chest until I can’t breathe. I look up at the ceiling, unable to hold Quinn’s green gaze for a moment longer. Sensing my unease, the lass lies on my chest and strokes my hair. She doesn’t push. She just waits for me to continue.
So I do.
“I started young, pretty much at puberty. My mother caught on quickly, and she did her best to steer me to greener fields, but as I said, I was hungry. The risks I took were increasingly ridiculous, but I thought I was untouchable. I can’t even look fondly on the kills of my youth because I’m so ashamed. Not of the killing, but of the disregard for someone I cared for deeply.”
“Your mother may not have been pleased to learn her kid was a serial killer, but I’m sure she still loved you. And I know she knew how much you loved her.” Quinn sits up on her elbows so that she can look me in the eye. “You don’t doubt that, do you?”
I shake my head and manage a smile. “No, lass, I don’t doubt my ma’s love for a second. It was that love that cost her in the end, though. I didn’t escape capture for all those years because I was careful. I escaped because, unbeknownst to me, my mother was shuffling behind me with a mop and bucket to clean up all the messes I’d made. Before long, most of our town knew thetruth, that she was harboring a sicko, but no one could prove a damn thing.”
“What did your father think?”
“I can’t be sure. He was a man of few words before her death, but when he lost her, he refused to speak to me again. He blamed me, and he was right to. It still hurt when he called me a bastard, fatherless child, as if he could just erase me by denying his part in my creation.”
“I still don’t understand how it was your fault.” Quinn drops down against my chest again. “You’re leaving something out.”
Aye, I am. The hardest part is usually the easiest to leave out.
Part of it is the fear of what she’ll think of me. If my own flesh and blood couldn’t stomach the sight of me after all was said and done, how can I expect the lass to stick around? But the only way out is through, and the decision is for Quinn to make.
As she relaxes against me again, I find the strength to tell the last of it. “One night, she asked me to stop. Point blank, just like that. ‘Give it up, Aven,’ she’d begged, but I wouldn’t. I went out that very night, snatched up the first bloke I spotted on an evening walk, and brought him back to an abandoned mill near Grudie. Fields stretched out on all sides, and a herd of cattle often grazed in the distance. I could hear them lowing at night. It was one of my favorite places to kill.”
“Because of the seclusion?”
“That, but the acoustics in the old mill were heavenly. The screams, lass.” I hug her against my chest. “Ach, you had to be there.”
“Maybe you could take me there one day,” she says, and my heart shatters.
“I would if I could, but I cannae go back. You see, lass, I wasn’t the only dragon in Scotland. There are many, all lurking in the shadows. And one night, I happened upon one on his evening walk, and I made a grave mistake.”
“Oh shit,” she breathes. “Was he a mafia boss or something? I’ve read about those.”
I almost chuckle at her comparison, but the weight of the situation won’t allow it. That heaviness presses down on my lungs, refusing to allow laughter to escape. You think I’d be used to it after living with it well into my late thirties, but no. That weight just presses down.
“Something similar,” I say. “The head of an underground organization, so, close enough. I didn’t care. Even when he told me what his people would do, that they’d avenge him in the most final way, I just laughed in his face and kept cutting off fingers to hear him scream. The bastard was ancient, but he put up a fight. Lasted for ten rounds with my ax before he finally shit his pants and died.”
Quinn’s arms tighten their hold around me. “And his people made good on his promise.”
“They burned the pub to the ground while my mother was inside. She was identified via dental records. The fate I’d bestowed on so many other grieving families had become my own.”
“So why can’t you go back?” She sits up again. “The pieces of shit got their pound of flesh. Isn’t it settled?”
“Not even close. The man had a son, and he wasn’t satisfied with simply killing my ma. He demanded I leave Scotland immediately and said I wasn’t to return until I had the money to make good on what I’d taken from him. If I come back before I’ve paid him off, he’ll kill my da and make it so that I can’t so much as scratch my balls without the local government hearing about it.”
“So why not take him out?”
Now I do laugh. “This isn’t a romance novel, lass. I don’t have a magic gun that grants a satisfying conclusion to any of this. For starters, I don’t know anything about him. All communicationswere done via letters attached to burning rocks thrown through my bedroom window.”
“Then how are you supposed to pay him?”
“He’s moved to email now. I get one each year around Christmas.”
“What a jolly fucking asshole,” she mutters. “So how much do you need? I don’t have much in savings, but once Jim pays me?—”
“Absolutely fucking not!” I sit up on my elbows, but Quinn pushes my back to the mattress with one finger.
“Why not? You’ve been protecting me for weeks, and I’ve lost count of how many orgasms you’ve given me. You deserve a little compensation. And I want to help you.”
I pull her face closer so that I can kiss her. The lass is an angel, but I won’t accept her money.
