They say history repeats itself.
So do nightmares.
Please. Not here. Not again.
Every part of my brain screams that this can’t be real. That I must be dreaming, trapped in a fever nightmare.
Schick.
Schhhick.
This is no fever dream. The way the sound of the knife being sharpened against a stone across the room sends ice-cold chills over my skin is proof of that. The way my stomach drops through the floor, and the way the fear threatens to choke me to death, is proof of that.
No. I’m not dreaming.
This is reality, and I am wide fucking awake.
I shiver in the chair I’m tied to. The cabin is even smaller than I remember it. The only furniture is the chair I’m sitting in, the one he’s sitting in, and a tiny table, with the whetstone, a few gallon jugs of water, a tool box, and a small first aid kit on it.
The cabin is also filthier than I remember it. Crumbling, too—the ceiling above me is sagging, the windows are boarded up with rusty nails, and the floorboards squeak even if I barely shift my weight in the chair. Like I just did.
At the telltale creak, the man across the room sharpening his knife pauses. He turns, and I swallow back pure terror as his steely gray eyes lance into mine.
“You remember this place, don’t you, little bird?”
Little bird.
Fifteen years ago, he called me the same thing. In the same cabin, after the same drive, in a similar van. I know we’re in the same place.
The problem is, I doubt anybody else does.
I tremble, trying so hard not to show any fear as Seamus grins at me. But when he just grins wider, I know I’ve failed.
“Ahh, good. You do remember.”
I swallow nervously as his eyes stab into me, his hand coming up to push his long hair behind his ear.
Again, under wildly different circumstances, in some alternate reality, Seamus O’Conor could be considered a handsome man. He’s tall and broad-shouldered, with lean, muscled hips and powerful arms. I mean the man is in his late sixties, and he looks like he could take on guys Ares’ age.
His hair is longer than it was all those years ago—silver and straight, down to his shoulders now. But the beard—the same bullet or blade color as his eyes and hair—is still short and cropped.
It’s actually not even an alternate reality where Seamus could be considered handsome. Before I forced myself never to look into those disturbing corners of the Internet again, I saw plenty of the nauseating “fan clubs” that fixated on him. Whole forums of mostly women, but also some men, who fawned all over this monster. The same types who fetishize Dahmer and Bundy.
This man is a horror on the world. And yet there are people out there who’ve spent the last fifteen years using lawyers to petition for a conjugal visit with him.
Humanity can be dark beyond your worst nightmares once you peek behind curtains like that.
Seamus’ teeth flash white before he goes back to his blade. I shudder as he drags it slowly over the whetstone, over and over again.
Schick.
Schickkk.
“You hurt me, little bird.”
When I don’t say anything, he pauses with his blade.
“You sang such a pretty song all those years ago, to all those lawyers and that judge.” He turns to me, his teeth flashing again before his eyes narrow. “Such a pretty little pile of lies.”
It doesn’t matter that it was the truth. That he really did kill all those people in such horrifying, brutal ways. We both know what I said in court wasn’t true. Just as we both know my lies are what put him away.
“You clipped my wings, little bird,” he murmurs quietly, eyeing me coldly.
“If I could have clipped your head, I would have.”
He grins broadly as I croak out the words.
“Ahhh, such lovely fire in you,” he chuckles quietly. “That would be from my sister’s blood in your veins, wouldn’t it?” His eyes turn vicious. “It certainly isn’t from the poisonous Kildares. If I could separate the two in your bloodstream, I would.” He shrugs, smiling as he twirls the surgically sharp blade in his hand. “Pity that’s not possible.”
Suddenly, I hear car tires crunching outside. My heart soars and my eyes dart to the door. But when Seamus just chuckles as he goes back to his whetstone, the fantasy that I’m about to be rescued collapses.
Outside, the engine shuts off. I hear doors opening and closing, and then a wheezing, scuffling, grunting sound that gets closer and closer. The door kicks open. At first, when I see Owen Foley walk backwards into the cabin, my hopes shoot through the roof again.
Until my hope turns first to confusion and then dread when I realize why he’s walking backwards. Why he’s huffing and puffing, and red in the face. Why he barely even glances at me.
He’s dragging a bound, unconscious Ares.
No.
Owen wheezes some more as he drags Ares by the ankles into the cabin. He turns to glare at Seamus.
“You could fucking help,” he blurts angrily.
“I could.”
But Seamus doesn’t move from his chair. Owen glares at him some more before dragging Ares to the middle of the room and dropping him in a heap before shuffling over to slam the door shut again.
That’s when Seamus finally rises. He rolls his shoulders, taking a breath before picking up his knife and strolling over to the man I love who is lying slumped on the ground.
“Don’t you dare fucking touch him!” I hiss.
Seamus pauses as he crouches down next to Ares. He glances up at me, grinning sadistically.
“You mean like this?”
He drags the tip of his knife across Ares’ forearm, opening the skin. It’s not a deep cut: it’s not meant to be. It’s meant to make me hurt as I watch him make my husband bleed.
Ares stirs slightly, not waking, just groaning quietly, his eyes still shut.
“GET AWAY FROM HIM!”
Seamus chuckles, glancing at me as he brings the blade to Ares’ pushed-up shirt sleeve and wipes it clean. Then he stands and goes back to the little table with the whetstone.
Schick.
Ssschick.
I drag my eyes to Owen, who’s doing his best not to look at me.
“Owen…” I croak.
He winces. Finally, his gaze drags to mine.
“Help me!”
Behind him, Seamus chuckles quietly. Owen glares at him. When he turns back to me, his face is dark.
“I’m sorry, Neve. But this is how it has to go.”
I shudder, staring at him in a mixture of horror and disbelief. “What?! Owen, why are you—”
“Because it was supposed to be me!” he roars. Gone is the normally-slightly-drunk, ruddy-faced, quick-with-a-dirty-joke Owen Foley I’ve known my whole life. The man who glares at me with hatred in his eyes is a stranger I’ve never met before.
“I was supposed to be the king of New York, Neve,” he growls again. “It was supposed to be me.”
I swallow, shivering as I stare at him. “Owen, I—”
“You’ve never been told about your grandmother, have you? The story was hushed up when she bore that bastard you called Father. Then it was buried for good, once her precious little boy, sired by a man who couldn’t even be bothered to leave his wife for her, was declared a Kildare.”
I stare at him, not really following.
“I was supposed to marry Sheila O’Conor.”
My heart skips.
Sheila as in, my grandmother—the woman Cillian’s father had an affair with, before Cillian himself was born, resulting in my father.
“I should have killed Brendan the minute he started trying to charm her. But he was too quick to wield that magic Kildare name the Council of Clans so loves to fawn over. Then he kept coming back, over and over, until finally, he managed to worm himself into her bed.”
Owen sneers at me.
“Anyone else, and I wouldn’t have thought twice about putting a bullet in him. But this was the head of the magnificent Kildare family. The king himself deigned to fuck the woman I was promised to. And when she got pregnant with your father, the council dissolved the betrothal agreement between us.”
Owen pulls a flask out of his pocket, his eyes angry as he takes a greedy swig from it.
“Declan was an O’Conor first, of course. After all, his father was married to another woman, and his conception itself was a scandal. But then Brendan and his actual wife, Moira, had Cillian back in Ireland. And now that he had a true heir, Brendan petitioned the Council to have Declan’s last name changed to Kildare, so that he could grow up to act as prince of the second, American Kildare empire here in New York.”
His eyes stab angrily into me.
“That was meant to be my kingdom. It had already been decided by the council when my marriage to Sheila was agreed on. The Foleys and the O’Conors were the two most powerful Irish families in New York at the time. A marriage uniting them would have created a true dynasty, with me sitting on the throne. And it all went up in fucking flames when your goddamn grandfather stuck his fucking prick in—”
“My sister, yes,” Seamus growls quietly, turning to shoot a withering look at Owen. “I know. And I’m growing tired of your bleating.” He stands, twirling the knife in his hand.
Owen glares back at him. “Well? Are you going now?”
Seamus smiles evilly. “Going where, my fat friend?”
Owen ignores the insult. “To deal with Cillian.”
My eyes go wide. Owen catches it, turning to shrug.
“It is what it is, Neve. I’ve done my time. I’ve acted as number two to the Kildare family my entire life. I am owed this!”
“What do you mean deal with Cillian?” I choke.
Owen’s mouth thins. “The Foleys are the top vassal family to the Kildares, Neve. And the Council is still very much patriarchal, I’m afraid. In the absence of a male Kildare heir…” he smiles. “I ascend the throne. So Cillian needs to be eliminated.”
“But I—”
My mouth snaps shut before I can say “but I’m married to the technical ‘male Kildare heir’.”
Owen reads my thoughts. His eyes drop to Ares, then slide back to me.
“Indeed. I’m sorry, Neve.”
No.
My eyes bulge, my pulse roars.
“NO!”
Owen ignores me, turning to glare at Seamus. The monster himself is leaning against the wooden beam propping up the sagging middle of the cabin’s ceiling.
“Well? The Kildare forces are spread all over the five boroughs right now. There’ll never be a better moment to strike. If you leave now, you can be in the city in less than five—”
“I’ll deal with him later.”
Owen frowns. “No, our agreement was to take Neve to sow dissent and chaos within the Kildare ranks. Then you go take out Cillian. Then you return here and take out Ares. That’s how I seize power—”
“I said later,” Seamus snaps viciously, making Owen shudder and take a step back. “After I’ve dealt with her.”
My blood turns to ice as Seamus’ eyes slide to mine. His lips curl maliciously as he twirls the blade thoughtfully in his hands.
Owen’s face goes white.
“No,” he hisses. “No, you’re not hurting her. That wasn’t our plan.”
Seamus chuckles quietly.
“That wasn’t your plan. Me, I find plans…tedious. Confining.”
He starts to push past Owen, moving towards me. The older Irishman moves in front of him, blocking his path and getting in Seamus’ face.
“I freed you, you fucking prick.”
Seamus smiles coldly. “Indeed. Regretting your choices yet?”
Owen’s back is to me, and I watch as his hands creeps towards the gun stuffed into the back of his pants.
“I will be king of this city, you motherfuck—”
I scream when Seamus’ arm flicks out swiftly and Owen’s words turn to a horrifying wet gurgle as the blade slices his neck. I scream again as blood sprays sideways against the door and the wall before Owen’s body collapses to the floor next to Ares.
The cabin is silent except for my thudding heart. Seamus chuckles quietly as he gently wipes the blade off with a handkerchief from his pocket. His gaze drops to Owen’s body.
“Do you feel like a king now?”
Suddenly, he’s surging towards me. I kick and scream as he moves behind me, but he’s far stronger than me, and it’s no use. I flinch when I feel him cut some of my bounds. Then I’m gasping as he hauls me back to the wall behind me.
“Then I saw heaven opened, and behold, a white horse! He who sat upon it is called Faithful and True, and in righteousness he judges and makes war.”
He shoves me against the wall, and suddenly, he’s shoving one of my arms up and out against it. Rough rope loops around it, and when it pulls tight, I go stiff.
Oh God, no…
“His eyes are like a flame of fire, and on his head are many diadems; and he has a name inscribed which no one knows but himself.”
Seamus murmurs the words from the book of Revelation in a reverent whisper, his voice cold and brutal.
“He is clad in a robe dipped in blood, and the name by which he is called is The Word of God.”
I’m numb, frozen in abject terror as he grabs my other arm and shoves it against the wall too—also extended out away from my body. There’s a rope there as well that goes tight before he drops to his knees and starts to bind my ankles to the wood wall at my back.
No, not a wall.
He’s tying me to a fucking crucifix.
“And the armies of heaven, arrayed in fine linen, white and pure, followed him on white horses.”
“Please…”
Seamus chuckles, grinning demonically into my frozen, terror-stricken face.
“I’ll enjoy listening to you beg, little bird.”
He raises his hand; The Executioner lifting his axe. The blade glints like death itself as he lowers it slowly to the bare, soft skin of my wrist.
“From his mouth issues a sharp sword with which to smite the nations, and he will rule them with a rod of iron; he will tread the wine press of the fury of the wrath of God the Almighty. On his robe and on his thigh he has a name inscribed, King of kings and Lord of lords.”
The tip of his knife traces lightly over my skin, turning me to ice as horror explodes through every nerve in my body.
This isn’t how this ends.
This cannot be how this ends.
My gaze darts to the door, as if it’s going to magically open with help pouring through. But it remains closed, and my eyes fall to the man still out cold on the ground, bleeding slightly from the arm.
I never told him I loved him.
Seamus steps in front of me, blocking my view of Ares as his eyes meet mine. “The blood of the innocent, little bird,” he murmurs with deranged look in his eyes. Then he smiles thinly. “Or maybe the not-so-innocent.”
No…
It hurts when the blade cuts into my flesh. I bite down hard, clenching my jaw, refusing to give him the satisfaction of hearing my pain. Seamus grins, his eyes wide with a zealous hunger as he cuts another line across my wrist.
Blood begins to pour in dark ribbons from my veins.
Oh God…
Seamus crosses himself before he turns to the other outstretched arm. The blade slices me there too, once, twice, opening my soft skin and letting the red weep down my arm and spatter onto the floor.
He steps back, grinning, then turns. And I finally break my silence when he kicks Ares hard in the stomach.
“NOOO!”
My husband groans, his eyelids flickering.
Seamus turns back to me.
“A pity. It seems he’d like to sleep in today. I’d hoped he could watch you die before his very—”
“Get the fuck away from her!”
Seamus whirls. My eyes snap past him, my heart lurching when I see Ares. He’s up on one knee, his eyes bleary and unfocused, and it looks like a strong breeze might knock him over. He’s still got one hand tangled up in the ropes that were binding him. But the other is free.
And it’s holding Owen Foley’s gun.
“I said get the fuck away from—”
Seamus begins to chuckle.
“Ahh, the little dragon prince is awake,” he snickers quietly. “You can’t even see straight, can you?”
“Straight enough. Cut her the fuck down, now.”
Seamus smiles. “Interesting choice of words.”
Ares grimaces, his eyes half closing before he forces them to open and focus.
“I said—”
It all happens so fast I don’t even have time to scream. One moment Seamus is chuckling quietly. The next, he’s rushing at Ares like a runaway freight train. I watch my husband’s lips curl, and his finger pull the trigger of the gun. But Seamus was right.
He can barely stand, let alone see straight.
The shot sprays into the ceiling as Seamus plows into him. I scream as the older man wrenches the gun from Ares’ hand with a demonic howl. He kicks his legs out from under him, and I cry out as Ares crashes to the ground with a groan.
Instantly, Seamus has him from behind—dragging him back up to his feet, an arm around Ares’ neck.
The gun barrel jammed against his neck.
“Now, little dragon…” Seamus hisses coldly.
My vision starts to blur. Swallowing thickly, I turn, my face feeling white and clammy as I watch the life ebb out of my sliced wrists.
“Now, Drakos,” Seamus murmurs. “You get to watch the blood of the innocent wash away the sins of the wicked.”
The room starts to fade to black.
“Now you get to watch her die.”
