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“Orin—” I reached out without thinking …
His feral gaze slid down to where I clutched his forearm before darting away. At least he didn’t shake me off. His jaw clenched tight before he finally said, “I am a killer, Fallon. I told you that before.” He ran his eyes over me—rakedover me. “Now I hope you can believe it.”
He was trying to intimidate me, to scare me off, but I saw the flicker of shame.
“If you’re a killer,” I announced bravely, “then I am, too.”
“You didn’t have a choice,” he muttered dismissively.
I didn’t know why, but that got my hackles up. Why did his choice to kill diminish mine? What right did he have to shoulder this burden—this guilt—alone?
When I spoke again, my voice was strong—my indignant anger leaking through. “I had a choice. Live or die. Kill or be killed. I chose to live because my brother taught me that this world isn’t fair, and it sure as shit wouldn’t be fair back to me. Life is hard. We make decisions. We act on them. Good or bad, we have to live with it afterward. You are simply choosing to live, Orin.”
Shadows lurked in his cold dead eyes. “And what if I told you I enjoyed taking someone’s life?”
I let go of his arm and sat back against the door, but my body was still turned toward him. “Do you?”
He was quiet for a long while, then said, “I never want to lie to you, Fallon.”
“Then don’t.”
His eyes cut to me, then away. “What if I said yes? That I enjoyed the rush it brought me.”
I swallowed because the idea that someone enjoyed the kill was inherently wrong to me. I was studying to be a nurse—to helpsavelives.
I was about to answer him when he barked a humorless laugh. “You know what? Don’t answer that. Your silence is more than enough of a response.”
I didn’t want him to feel like I didn’t accept him. I may not have been able to trust him at the start, but he had proved himself to be someone I could rely on. We’d been through hell together, and the fight wasn’t over yet.
Wrapping my arms around myself, I shivered despite the heat blasting from the vents. “I don’t judge you for enjoying it. Sometimes, things happen in life that twist us around. Alter us completely. I know that this experience will harden me.”
He didn’t say anything to that for the longest time, and I thought the conversation was over.
“Don’t let that happen,” he said so softly I thought I misheard him.
“What?”
“Don’t let that happen. Don’t let this experience harden you. I let my life change me. Granted, some pretty fucked-up shit happened to me …” He huffed out a breath and ran a hand through his damp hair.
“Like what?”
“What?” he asked like he was stuck inside his head with other thoughts.
“Like what? What happened to you?”
He shook his head, refusing to say more.
I sat there, staring out the window, letting his words turn over in my head. It was clear he had a past—we all did—but what was clearer was that he wasn’t going to be talking about it anytime soon.
* * *
I wokeup when I heard soft voices. Peeling open one eye, I found the rain had stopped, and we were parked in front of an imposing stone building that bore a striking resemblance to a castle. The façade was austere and gray, the stones weathered by time.
Orin was standing at the front of the car, his arms folded across his broad chest. Beside him were Finnan Quinn—the Clan Boss—and another man I didn’t recognize. Orin’s dark gaze kept flicking back to me, and when he realized I was awake, he walked away while Finnan was still speaking and opened the door.
I blinked at him.
“We’re here,” he said, holding out his hand to help me from the car.
