“Didn’t it bother you? Killing me over and over again?” I asked.
“No. I was fighting my own demons. And, as you’re aware, there’s nothing I won’t do for my brother. He is my blood. We’ve also established that lost memories or not, you are a hazard to him, which is why I still intend to kill you after we’ve brought him back and you’ve healed him.”
I hissed out a breath. “You’re a ruthless asshole, you know that?”
He dipped his head. “So I’ve been told.”
“If we bring Mack back, he’ll be free from my father’s curse. And I never vowed to kill him, only to free him. My curse or promise or whatever you call it will be ended, too.”
“Are you certain?” he asked.
I gave it some thought. “It has to be over at that point, King.”
“I am not willing to risk it.”
Seriously? “Well, I sure as hell am not going to let you murder me again, King—and has it ever crossed your mind that this is all your fault? That in your quest to protect Mack, you’re actually being extremely selfish? You can’t stand the thought of losing him, so you destroyed him. You keep killing the woman he loves—and by the way, you no longer have the excuse of being an evil disembodied bastard. I mean, for fuck’s sake, King, how would you feel if Mack kept killing Mia in the name of brotherly love? But somehow, Mack still loved you. And he forgave you. Again and again. Probably out of guilt because of what he did to you three-thousand-fucking-who-cares years ago. But you! You just keep hurting him with your high-handed ‘I know what’s best for my brother’ bullcrap, which is probably why he wanted to die. He couldn’t take watching me bite the dust anymore and he couldn’t turn his back on you.” I threw up my hands. “Just let the fucking man live in peace, King! Let me and him figure out how to fix this.”
King glanced at me with those cold blue eyes, but didn’t say a word.
“Fine,” I said. “But then don’t ask me to help you win back Mia. She can divorce your evil ass for all I care.”
King snapped his mouth shut and growled.
“Oh. Did you forget about that?” I asked. “Your wife who’s going to be heartbroken? You’ll be lucky if you ever get near her or your son again.”
A long, frigid moment passed.
“Perhaps,” King cleared his throat, “we can come to an agreement of sorts.”
I huffed and crossed my arms over my chest. “Yep. That’s what I thought.”
Point for Teddi.
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
When we pulled down that long dirt road shrouded in an eerie, foreboding energy meant to keep curious eyes away, I now had the distinct impression that King’s little tricks weren’t the only thing safeguarding these grounds.
“There are many souls watching over this land,” King said, reading my thoughts.
His Mercedes rumbled down the road, the wheels crunching and grinding the dirt.
“Stay out of my head!” I barked over the loud noise. “And how the hell did you and Mack find this place to begin with?”
“The place has power and is considered to be one of my possessions. I protect this land, and in exchange, the souls who reside here assist me from time to time.”
“Like some kind of ghost brotherhood?”
King smiled in a sinister sort of way. “Something like that.”
“So why did Mack want to be buried here?”
King’s smile faded.
“Tell me,” I prodded.
We pulled up to the rickety shack, and King turned off the engine. “Because he wanted to be with you. We buried your bodies here—a few anyway.”
I blinked at him. Jeez. How morbid. And why did you even care where my body went?
King stared ahead, his eyes locked on the cabin, though he clearly wasn’t looking at it.
I waited. “Why, King?”
“Because this place is where souls who die with honor are laid to rest.”
I stared at the side of his face, unable to truly believe what this man had just said. “But you hunted me. You ruthlessly murdered me.”
He cleared his throat. “I did what I had to do to keep my brother alive. And I would do it again. But that doesn’t mean I discounted the love he had for you.”
I looked away and my eyes followed a little dust devil spinning next to my door. This was possibly the strangest confession I’d ever heard. King had ended my life and then taken great care to bury me somewhere he clearly felt was special.
“Errr. Thanks. That was very thoughtful of you. In a very cold-blooded kind of way.”
“Don’t mention it.” King nodded but didn’t look at me. Regardless, the torment in his eyes was obvious. “Let us get to work.” He opened the car door.
“Wait!”
King had already gotten out, so he bent over and looked at me through the open driver door.