Heart's Price (MxM)

Chapter 41

I stare up at Ambrose, heart thudding in my chest and my mind frozen with shock and alarm. He stares back with a similar expression, though his own holds far less fear and quite a bit more regret.

"Fuck," he says again, covering his mouth with his hand and gazing down at the body.

He sets the bloodied poker down and kneels, pressing his fingers to Brutus' neck to check for a pulse, though it seems obvious he's dead.

While he's thus occupied, I begin to inch away from him, still on my back, and get slowly to my feet. Seeing the movement, he looks up and my throat constricts with an involuntary whine of fright. He stands, brows pinched, and takes a step towards me. I back away, ready to bolt.

He halts. "Noah?"

I can't seem to find my voice.

"Love, you know I didn't do this, right?" he asks, his expression shifting from consternation towards concern.

Finally getting my tongue to move, I answer in a hoarse whisper. "If you d-didn't, then Ainach d-did, which is the s-same thing."

"What? Ainach?" he repeats, sounding genuinely surprised. "Whatever do you mean?"

"You're p-possessed, or s-something. You're w-working with him, or f-for him. It's y-you," I stammer, unable to stop myself. "Y-You're the th-thief, and y-you're a k-killer."

I've continued to retreat, a small step at a time, but I haven't been paying attention to where I'm going, and now my back bumps against the wall of the house. Ambrose watches with a calculating look, as though weighing his options, and then walks towards me as my heart accelerates with fear even as it breaks.

Here I am, thinking I've found my Mate, thinking I found someone who loves me, when all I've found is another mistake. Probably a fatal one, this time.

He stops, close but not touching.

"P-Please," I breathe.

He frowns. "Please what, love?"

"P-Please d-don't hurt me."

He blinks, his expression blanking with surprise before shifting towards pain. He reaches for me and I flinch and shut my eyes, but he only grasps me gently by the upper arms.

"Noah, sweetheart, look at me."

I do.

"What did I tell you about hurting you?"

"Th-that you n-never would."

He nods.

"And about lying?"

"Th-that you d-don't."

He nods again.

"Now, I don't know what you meant just now, about Ainach, or possession, but I do know I didn't kill Brutus."

"B-but you s-said 'not again,'" I counter.

I want to believe him—dangerously, desperately so—but the circumstances are against him.

"I did," he agrees, "and maybe you can help me make sense of it, if you saw me speak and act as someone else, but will you hear me out before you decide your Mate's a murderer?"

His quiet tone and gentle touch are doing a lot to calm me down, and I realize that part of my reaction was simple panic at stumbling on a dead body. It doesn't change the fact that Ambrose was standing over the dead body holding what looked an awful lot like a murder weapon, and had then declared himself to be the ancient dragon who had granted the Thornes and Oakfields their cursed gifts in the first place, and was also—supposedly—Ambrose's father.