Mack (King #4)(28)

That day would forever be known as the massacre near Camagüey. But what the history books do not tell is that I was the one doing the massacring. Spaniards, indigenous people, anyone who crossed my path. I was blinded with rage.

When the Spaniards finally caught up with me, I let them kill me. I wanted my pain to end.

But it wouldn’t.

Cleopatra’s ankh brought me back a few days later, and I clawed my way out of a mass grave, stole a boat, and headed north. I was beyond psychotic—something that wouldn’t change for the next several hundred years.





CHAPTER SIXTEEN


TEDDI





I wanted to judge Mack for the crimes he’d committed. I wanted to wish him to hell and make sure he stayed there. But the fact that he truly hadn’t been in control steered my heart in another direction: pity.

To be frank, I wasn’t a religious person. Not because I didn’t want to be, but because my analytical mind had never been able to subscribe to anything without proof. But if there was a god, she had abandoned this poor man long ago and left him to rot. It wasn’t fair. I could see the torment in his eyes, hear the guilt in every syllable spoken from his mouth, feel the despair leeching into the air around him. If there was a god, why punish him like this? Because he’d killed his brother? Mack had done it, thinking he might save their people. For screwing me without my father’s permission? Mack said he’d loved me. For becoming cursed with my father’s pain or being resurrected by his brother? Or because he wasn’t strong enough to resist their will?

This man didn’t choose. He was forced into every action. Yet he took the blame for all of it.

“Your guilt, Mack, is a sign that you are not evil,” I said.

As he stared at the crackling fire, I could tell his mind was off in some other world, reliving his sins.

“Mack,” I snapped, bringing him back, “you need to listen to me. You are not responsible for whatever you’ve done.”

He speared me with his gaze. “You don’t get it, do you? That doesn’t matter. Because at the end of the day, I am the one who has to live with the memories. I see their faces. I hear their cries. I relive their pain. What the f*ck does guilt have to do with any of it? I just want it to stop.”

“If I’m this person you say I am, then we can figure out a way to end the curse. And I can help you with the memories, too, Mack. I can work with you like I do all my patients.”

“You still don’t remember me, do you?” he snapped.

“Don’t change the subject—”

“Answer me,” he demanded.

I didn’t see where he was going with this, but fine. “No. I don’t remember. But what does that matter?”

“It matters because you always remembered. Sometimes it took a while, but you did. And this time, I passed you on the street. We were two feet apart and you didn’t even look in my direction.”

“You mean before you checked into the center?”

“That was when I knew; even you had recognized that it was time to give up. On me. On us. It is time to move on. And that is why I approached you the way I did, without trying to reignite what we had or felt, Theodora. I just needed your instincts, your curse to kick in so you’d kill me. But this—us.” He toggled his finger between us. “This needs to end.”

“Well, I’m sorry, but you’re wrong. Dead wrong. I’m not even close to giving up, Mack. Not even a little.”

Slowly, the human warmth in his eyes faded. He bolted from the armchair and threw me down onto the floor.

“Don’t f*cking argue with me, you bitch,” he growled, pinning me by the neck. “You did this to me. You f*cking had to offer yourself, didn’t you, óolal? And you knew all along what would happen.”

Clawing at his hands, I choked out the only words I thought would reach him. “Okay. You win,” I croaked. “I’ll kill you.”

Slowly, he released his grip around my neck, and the expression on his face turned to shock. “Fuck.” He scooped me up and pulled me into his broad chest. “Fuck, f*ck, f*ck. Are you all right?”

Panting and grateful for the ability to do so, I nodded frantically, my face pressed against his heaving chest. “I’m okay.” But now, more than ever, I was determined to save him. I didn’t want him to die. He deserved to find peace and live the life I’d robbed him of.

Slowly, Mack pulled back and stared into my eyes, the firelight dancing in his pupils. “Did you mean what you just said? You’ll do it?”

Oh God. I didn’t want to lie to the man, but I had to. He had to see I was on his side. All I needed was to understand how to undo this horrible curse, and perhaps a part of me already knew. I just had to bring it to the surface.

More time. I need more time.

“I meant it,” I lied. “But I want something for it.”

Cradling me in his arms, Mack’s troubled gaze drifted to my lips, and though that wasn’t even close to what I’d planned to propose, I found myself sitting there thinking, Yeah, that’ll work, too. Heck, more time was more time, right?

He smiled in a consoling kind of way, the dark hair falling into his vivid blue eyes. “The first time I saw that same look in your eyes, you got me into a hell of a lot of trouble, woman.”