Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2) Page 23

  It was only when his hand slid into her hair that she realized he was awake. Immediately, she tried to roll away, but he held her fast.

  It was the first time he had challenged her wishes on this since that first night, when he had held her down to heal her.

  The anxiety spread, quickly turning to hysteria.

  "Let me go!" She screamed at him. Aidan didn't flinch, only pulled her on top of him, his arms wrapping her more securely against him.

  "Nae," his voice was quiet, but firm. "Breathe, love. Face the fear and accept it. Ye can conquer this, yer too damn strong to give up."

  She struggled harder, scratching him, clawing him, cursing him until her voice was raw. Her tears splattered on his face and throat before she collapsed, sobbing. His grip loosened at last, his hand stroked her back as her crying slowed.

  He would give anything to spare her this, but he was trapped. One more night. He had danced to Abhartach's strings for the past several days, delaying his oath by every means possible and he was exhausted, sick and ill with the things he had done.

  It had been worth it to keep Heather from beast for a little while longer. He had hoped they would be gone before the summons came down, but yesterday Abhartach had said the words Aidan had been dreading.

  "I want to see your pet again, Aidan. Come now, she's surely healed enough, after all your tender ministrations, for you to be certain of her 'recovery'." Abhartach had spoke the last with false delicacy making Declan titter in that way that set Aidan's teeth on edge.

  That they were spied upon, Aidan knew very well. It was why he hadn't spoken a word to Heather about the plan. Not that she had asked, either she was aware they were under constant observation, or she was afraid to question him, afraid there was nothing, no plan at all.

  Perhaps she didn't even care.

  She was so quiet, like a wraith confined to the four walls of their bedroom and content to be so. When they spoke, she would laugh and tease and play at being her normal self, but that was all it was, an act. The only flash of her real self Aidan had seen was when he tried to touch her.

  Then something cankerous and dark would come over her face and she would pull away from him in both body and soul. He was losing her. Worse, she was losing herself. She had survived Abhartach's torture, but he didn't know if she could survive the aftermath.

  It wasn't just his touch that brought that look over her. He had seen her shudder at the feel of her own skin, the way her eyes would go blank when she caught sight of her reflection.

  Scars covered her like a web from her collarbone to the arches of her feet. Rose and red and purple and white, depending on the depth of the cut that had been made. Thousands of them.

  Other than her face, only her back remained smooth as the vampire had not turned her to work there. He had told Aidan smugly that was for the next time Aidan defied him.

  "And if you don't give me your oath by week's end, I'll start on that lovely face. I doubt you'll feel so tender toward her if she lacks a nose, eh, my son?"

  Aidan repressed a shudder, continuing to caress Heather as her sobs subsided. She had to find her strength, he had to find a way to give it back to her.

  If she went to Abhartach in this state he would eat her alive. Possibly literally. Aidan had been trying to think of what to do to get through to her, but then he had woken to this. She was shakier than ever.

  Dread crept over him, if they couldn't get through this night, all was lost.

  "Ye canna give up, nobody." He hadn't meant to say the words aloud again, but he did, and his voice shook.

  She lifted her head. Her wild hair was a dark curtain framing a face was tear-streaked, blotched and pale. Violet eyes burned into his. She was the most beautiful thing he'd ever seen and if he had to watch her suffer any more…

  Heather's eyes searched his face. She frowned.

  “I did give up. Aidan, there was a time…I tried very hard to make him kill me, to end it. “

  She felt Aidan’s hands tighten into fists under hers, and slowly she pried them apart, forcing his leather-clad fingers to uncurl and relax until they were palm to palm once more. Knowing that he was letting her, knowing he was likely to allow her anything at this fragile moment and choosing to use that deliberately. “Do you want to know what I said to make that monster lose control, Aidan?

  He swallowed, but she didn’t give him the chance to answer. “I told him the truth, that he couldn’t break you. That you’ll never be like him, no matter what he does.”

  “Ye donna know tha', Heather.”

  “I really do.”

  “Bullshit! I am no longer tha' hero,” he spat out the word as if it left a bad taste in his mouth, “ye have in your silly head, if I ever fucking was. Damme! Donna put tha' on me!” Agitated, he would have rolled off the bed but it only took her hand on his chest to stop him. Something was wrong with him.

  For the last few days he had been the stoic one, showing her nothing but a façade of strength and resolve, but something had shook him now. He was losing hope, and that was enough to terrify her out of her own stupor. He needed to be strong.

  She needed him to be strong.

  “But, Aidan,” her voice was as gentle as her fingers against his skin. “You put that on yourself. By coming after me. I told him you wouldn’t, but I knew you would.”

  “So did he.” Aidan’s voice was bitter.

  “Yes, because he knows that part of you. He knows it is stronger than him and he is so very, very furious he can’t extinguish it.”

  Aidan looked at her blankly. “Do ye really think I am the good one here, the pure one, fer god’s sake? Do ye have any idea the things I’ve done? What he's forced me into these past few days 'tis bad enough, but at least it's only been his slaves so far. Tha' first time though, the last time he had me here…” He shuddered and pulled away from her. "Heather, ye'd hate me if ye knew the truth of it."

  “You killed someone, I imagine.”

  She sighed, not in dismissal, but only to steel herself to accept what was coming. Aidan didn't take it that way, though.

  ““Donna say it like tha'!” Aidan hissed. “Donna say it like it was so long ago tha' it does no’ matter.”

  She wondered if he realized that this was exactly what she was talking about, that his ability to care was so deep and wide that even after what had to be hundreds of years his ‘crimes’ weighed on him so heavily.

  If anything proved to her Abhartach had no chance of bending Aidan to his will, it was Aidan himself.

  But all she said was- "Tell me.”

  He got up from the bed, moved to the wall, then back again. Tension hummed from him, raising the hairs on her upper arms.

  “There was this woman, this very young woman from the village a little ways from my da's keep. She was the tanner’s daughter, Siobhán. She had brown hair, wavy like yers, with just a touch of red. We’d danced a time or two like ye did—I kissed her once. Maybe twice.” He spun around, his eyes blazing at her through the gloom.

  “No more than tha'. I wouldna trifle with the likes of her, nae back then. It woulda ruined her and even I was no’ so careless. Especially after Jo…well, after.” He wiped his hand over his face and turned away.

  When Heather didn’t press him, he turned back again. “Abhartach kidnapped her from the village. She was bound to the table when he summoned me to the hall that night.”

  Despite herself Heather’s hands dug into the sheets. That awful table. God in heaven.

  “He bid me take her at my leisure, to drink from her. I refused. It was one of the hardest things I've ever done. I was so starved by then, I was half-crazed. It had been a week or so since he’d turned me.” He laughed harshly. “I think the bastard was actually starting to fear I would die before he could get me to drink on my own. They had to force blood down me each night to keep me from dying again. He needn’t have worried though, later tha' very same night he…” Aidan swallowed and again wouldn’t look at her. “He found my w
eak spot.”

  “Weak spot?” Heather echoed.

  Slowly, Aidan dragged his eyes back to hers. “Yes, he found the one person I loved most in all the world. After he marked her, he made me swear to do whatever he wanted. And I did.”

  Oh. Her. Not this Siobhán, but yet another woman in his life. Somebody who had held his heart.

  Jealousy was ridiculous, she told herself sternly, even as her own heart tightened in her chest. It was Aidan’s pain that mattered here, not her stupid insecurity over some poor long-dead woman who had probably suffered greatly at the hand of that monster below. Heather shook herself and reached for his hand. While he didn’t pull away, he didn’t sit down beside her either.

  “Of course you did, Aidan. What choice did you have?”

  “I donna know. He brought me back into tha' fucking awful room. I was shaking so damme hard." Aidan's fingers had curled around a bed post and she heard wood crack. "He had Siobhán chained down again, and this time…this time…” The bleakness in his tone clawed at her heart.

  “She would’ve died anyway, Aidan.”

  “Aye, I know it. She was dead when he first touched her. But tha' does no’ make it better…what I did.”

  “It should.”

  He looked down at her as if she was mad.

  “Oh c’mon, Aidan. You’re not that dense. You killed her quick, didn’t you?”

  She prayed she was right, that Abhartach hadn’t forced him into something even more barbaric that first time. But after her hours alone with the demon, she was betting not. That monster would have wanted to take it slow, to soil Aidan by degrees. To take his time and savor defiling him. Murder alone would have been enough, at least that first time. She was betting on it.

  Aidan’s eyes widened slightly as he considered her words.

  Oh, thank god.

  “You didn’t,” Heather spit out the words in her relief, “drag it out…or torture her?”

  “Nae,” he whispered.

  “Then she should have blessed you! For what you saved her from. You are nothing like him, Aidan. Don’t let him mess with your mind. Yes, he made you a vampire. So fucking what?”

  “So what? Are ye out of yer damme mind, woman?”

  “Of course I am—but so what? He can’t take you away from yourself unless you let him…and you never will, you goddamn ass. You’re too stubborn.”

  He smiled, a heartbreakingly sad smile that told her didn’t believe her, but appreciated the sentiment all the same. For now that would have to be enough. This time he let her tug him down into the bed.

  When Aidan stretched out so carefully beside her, she swatted his arm. “I may be scarred but I am not a china doll, Aidan. You don’t have to treat me like I’m breakable, okay? I am all healed up.” Her lame attempt to let him know she was sorry for pushing him away so many times before.

  “Nae, ye’re no'.” He whispered the words into her ear and tears stung her eyes again, because she knew he understood. “But ye will be.”

  She swallowed, unable to speak as his fingers trailed over her throat, one of the few places on her body free of scars. His mouth followed his fingers. Soft, teasing kisses that made her heart flutter. Even as her stomach started to knot when he reached for the tiny buttons on her dress.

  I want this, she reminded herself. I have to have this, or he's right—Abhartach wins.

  She watched Aidan, watched his hands move, slow and sure.

  It doesn’t matter what he sees. He saw everything already when he healed me, goddamn it, and it was a lot fucking worse then.

  No matter what she told herself, when Aidan’s gloved fingertips first encountered a thin ridge of scar tissue, just over her collarbone, she flinched. He didn’t react, only kept trailing his hand down between her breasts, where the scars were thicker. Her hands wrapped themselves in the sheets and she started to shake. He didn’t pause. Again his mouth followed his touch, kissing each and every place where her flesh had been carved open.

  Aidan only stopped when he saw the tears running down her face into the pillow.

  “Donna do tha'.” His voice was stern.

  “I ‘donna’ want to, you stupid ass, but I can’t help it!” She choked, her throat so tight just getting the words out made her feel like she was drowning.

  “Why?”

  “Why? I look like an ugly freak, that’s why, as you damn well know!” She tried to curl onto her side as she said it, the truth of the words hitting her for the first time. The beauty that had been hers so easily for so long was truly gone. She would never bare herself to a man again without feeling this insecurity, this shame.

  She had tried to ignore it, to will herself into being grateful that she was alive and more or less whole. To appreciate that her face, at least, was unchanged. To see what she had, so she could forget what had been taken. To be brave and noble and unselfish and all that shit she never had been good at, but that she wanted to be good at now. Because of him.

  It was too much. She wasn't built that way.

  Had she thought she could do this, that maybe she even needed to do this? To prove that her body was her own once again, no matter how ruined?

  Well, she had been wrong. Panicked, the darkness swirling over her head, pulling her down, she tried to shove away from him once more.

  Aidan wouldn’t let her. He simply pinned her beneath him and she couldn’t move. For a minute she was so pissed she forgot to cry. “No, don’t do this again! Not now. Aidan, please, let go.”

  “Nae, I donna think I will.” He said slowly.

  “You won’t fuck me if I tell you no, I know that well enough.”

  He didn’t flinch at her crude words, or the raw hysteria bubbling beneath the surface.

  “I don’t think I said anything about fucking, at least not yet. And freak, is tha' how ye are seeing yerself now?”

  “Yes!” She screamed it at him, her words echoing off the stone.

  “Because of this?” He pressed a tender hand over the ragged patchwork of scars between her breasts, his voice as soft as his touch.

  She closed her eyes and turned her face into the wet pillow. She couldn’t get away from him, he was too strong. Well, fuck it. She’d just ignore him.

  Of course, Aidan didn’t allow that.

  “Oh, Heather,” he slid down her body, holding her captive, his hands pinning her wrists, one leg thrown over both of hers. “Have ye n’ver heard what they say about scars, love? They only show tha' ye are stronger than whatever tried to hurt ye.

  "These scars,” he ran his tongue over her belly, tracing a rough, pale line that crisscrossed her once perfect olive skin, then another. His breath was warm on her skin, making her muscles quiver before he lifted his head again. “They donna make ye a freak, love. They make ye brave. So fucking brave and strong. Ye were beautiful enough before, aye. Ye donna need me to tell ye tha'. But tha' was only beauty given to ye, this is a beauty earned.

  "When I look at each of these marks, they show me how incredible ye are, how you beat Abhartach. Gods, love, donna let him win now. What was tha' ye said before? ‘He can’t take you away from yourself unless you let him’?”

  Lying there, with Aidan’s words washing over her, Heather realized she had to make a choice. Right here, right now. Her last chance to save herself. She had to decide to move on, to take this step….

  Or let the fear conquer her forever.

  She lifted her head from the pillow and glared at him through the tears blurring her vision.

  “Throwing my own words back in my face? That’s me sorted, is it?”

  He let out a shaky laugh that danced over her skin as he smiled up at her. “Oh, I will sort ye alright, love.”

  Raising his hand in front of her face, he pulled his gloves off, one finger at a time. Then the other. Just like that first time, in her hotel room. Back in Istanbul.

  His eyes never left hers.

  Heather swallowed. He hadn’t taken off his gloves since he’d come to the Reeks
, hadn’t touched her once skin to skin. Not even when he'd opened his own veins to heal her with his blood. And she had known why. He was afraid of what he would feel from her. Pain, anger, blame…all of it. Even now his hand shook as he reached out, his fingertips brushing her cheek. He sucked in a breath when she reached up and covered his hand with her own, pressing his skin into hers.

  “Does it hurt, Aidan?”

  “Aye,” he whispered. “But I donna care.”

  She smiled. “Me either.”

  In the next second, his mouth was on hers. It was a soft kiss. Tantalizing, exploring…as if he were tasting her for the first time, and maybe he was. She was a far different person than she had been a short week ago.

  Her arms wrapped around his neck without thought as his tongue teased her lips apart. His hands sank into her hair, angling her just the way he wanted.

  Aidan kissed her until she felt weightless, almost buoyant. Then he pulled her head back abruptly with one hand, making her gasp as he trailed hot, nipping kisses down the line of her throat.

  Roughly this time, he pushed her half unbuttoned dress open so he could cup her breast. She whimpered as her nipple tightened against his palm. Aidan looked down at her and cursed. His face was taut.

  “I want to be gentle, Heather…but I want ye so much, I donna know if I can.”

  Abruptly, she sat up, throwing him off balance. “Then let me take over for once.” If she was going to do this, she might as well do it right.

  The momentary shock on his face was priceless, then he grinned.

  “Certainly.” He rolled over, settling on his back as he watched her scoot to the edge of the bed to shimmy out of her dress. She stood up and looked at him, totally naked, unable to breathe.

  She felt more exposed than she had in her entire life. Every horrible scar was on display, a mad cross-stitch of evil laid bare to him. She thought he would recoil from her, in some infinitesimal way she would catch something in his eyes.

  Instead, his gaze traveled over her body with as much desire as ever. Her skin heated under the stark lust in his perusal. When he finally reached her face the fire in those crystalline orbs could have shattered glass.