Page 26 of 'Til All the Seas Run Dry

Callum replied, “Aye. Magda has let me use a cabin she owns.”

Magda.

Jory shot a glare at the older woman at the same time that Esther whipped her own head around. Magda was sitting in a bag chair next to Jamie. She stuck her tongue out at Esther before winking at Jory.

Through the fog of betrayal, Jory heard Esther ask, “How long will you be here?”

He didn’t answer right away. But instead of taking another bloody sip, he stared across the fire, locking his gaze on Jory’s with a pained look. Jory looked away, feeling the need to hide from his piercing eyes. She’d never been able to keep anything secret from him.

Well, except thatonesecret.

“As long as I need to be,” he finally said.

Esther snorted and Callum turned his intense gaze on her. “Esther, I—” He paused, as if considering the right words. “I want to apologize again for scaring you, for making your life such hell. Sometimes I— Immortality has been… och, it doesnae matter. I forgot myself for a while there. And you suffered for it. And for that, I’m sorry.”

A part of Jory wanted Esther to punish him, to make him squirm, or at the very least to withhold her forgiveness until Callum had had more time to stew in his own regret. But Esther was too good, too kind to refuse a sincere apology. “You’re forgiven, Callum,” she said, and Jory clenched her fist.

For this. He’d been forgivenfor this.

He nodded, looking relieved. Callum and Nat both took long pulls from their bottles, and Jory watched their powerful throats bob as they swallowed the blood. She didn’t want to know where they’d gotten it. It wasn’t the blood that disgusted her. Blood was life. She’d bled every month for a thousand years and more. It was theharvestingthat she couldn’t stand. And nothing he could say would make her feel otherwise.

Callum MacLeod used people. It didn’t matter that he took care of his victims in the aftermath. It didn’t matter that he didn’t leave his victims for dead. Because he’d left her for dead, and why hadn’t she, the supposed love of his life, deserved that kind of care?

Callum wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and looked at Jory again. She felt her breath catch. His gray eyes glittered in the light of the fire, the sparks shining in them as Hank tossed another log into the pit and stoked it with a long poker.

“He’s staying in Magda’s cabin,” Esther said quietly.

“I heard,” Jory whispered.

“He’s been here the whole time.”

“I know,” Jory replied, her voice a bit thicker than it had been just before.

“I heard he made a bag of it following Esther across the country and there was a to-do when he found her, but how do you know him, Jory?” Niamh asked.

Jory looked at Callum, who was deep in conversation with Nat, and murmured, “He was my husband.”

10

There was a stunned silence before Niamh asked, “Was?”

“Aye,” Jory replied. “A very long time ago.”

“Did he leave you?”

“Something like that.”

Jory knew Callum heard her. He could probably hear how fast her heart was racing.

“So you’re divorced now?” Niamh asked.

“Well, when one’s husband leaves them for dead in the middle of the night, that achieves much the same purpose, don’t you think?”

Out of the corner of her eye, Jory saw Callum flinch. Niamh whistled through her teeth and muttered, “Gobshite.” Esther squeezed Jory’s hand.

“Now, now,” Magda said from behind them. “Not everything is as black and white as it seems, my darlings.”

Jory spun quickly, feeling the hot tears spring to her eyes as she looked at her friend, or who she had believed to be her friend before a few minutes ago. She grabbed Magda’s hand and hustled her away from the group.