Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2) Page 3

  She swallowed. “Aidan…”

  He shifted his grip on her, still holding her wrists easily with one of his hands, but letting the other trail down the inside of her arm. Slowly.

  The cool touch of leather against her bare skin made her voice catch.

  His crystal eyes bored into hers as she tried not to squirm. His hand moved lower.

  Aidan’s fingers brushed over the thin fabric of her bra, lightly circling her nipple through the sheer material, bringing it to a hard, tight peak. Then he moved to the flare of her ribs. Flickered over the satin hollow of her tummy. Heather sucked in a breath, her tongue flicked out to wet her dry lips and that bright gaze darted to her mouth.

  It was madness to let this man close to her again. When she woke four days ago to find Aidan gone from her bed without so much as a note….well, you could say it had been like a cold, hard slap to the face.

  Heather had gathered her things, headed back to Greece and finished the shoot. She kept telling herself it was just a stupid one-night stand—okay, maybe it was more like a three-night stand—but really…there was nothing special about Aidan. Nothing at all.

  Face to face, that lie was becoming real fucking hard to swallow.

  She had to force the words out syllable by syllable. “I want you to stop.”

  He lowered his head, his lips brushing hers.

  “Say it like ye mean it, and I will.”

  The thundering echo of her own pulse roared in her ears as Aidan’s hand moved down, the tips of his leather-covered fingers sliding under the edge of her ruffled silk panties.

  Dear God, she couldn’t breathe! How did the bastard expect her to talk?!

  She opened her mouth, knowing she had to stop this. She couldn’t go through this with him. Not again.

  Her mind knew that, but her body begged her to give in. Her hips twitched, wanting to arch into his touch. To let him have his way with her, to use him in turn so thoroughly they both would end on the floor, a tangle of hot, slick limbs—

  No!

  “Now, Aidan. Goddamn it, stop!”

  He jerked away at her words. Heather almost fell. As it was, she slid bonelessly down the wall until her ass hit the floor with a jolt. Her knees came up and she lowered her forehead to them, closing her eyes and trying to slow her racing heart. Her body was trembling. He was the real drug here and fuck, if she wasn’t jones-ing for a hit. But she wouldn’t give into it…to him. Aidan O’Neill was serious bad news and she had to remember that.

  She couldn’t afford not to.

  When she lifted her head, her black hair falling over her flushed cheeks, he was crouched on his heels right in front of her. Close enough to make her yelp and jerk back.

  His eyes narrowed to glittery slits. “Just so we are clear, I am fine taking no for an answer, but—” He smiled in that way that made her tummy tighten with both need and anger. “If ye change yer mind…. Nae. When ye change your mind, little miss nobody, I’ll be expecting ye to beg.”

  Anger flared up, burning hotter than the desire and driving away the fear.

  “Fuck you, Aidan!”

  He stood up, straightening to his full height before he walked toward the door, throwing his words carelessly over one shoulder.

  “No' yet, but soon, I think. Very soon. Remember. On yer knees, love. Begging. Just like last time.”

  Heather leapt to her feet and turned, looking for something, anything to smash into his arrogant blond head. She grabbed the nearest thing to hand, the pitcher from the basin. It was only when she whipped back around, ready to let the delicate porcelain fly that she caught herself. She lowered the pitcher back to the dresser with one shaking hand. The door between their rooms was closing anyway, the sound of his boot heels fading away.

  She wished the feel of his hands on her body would fade as easily.

  Aidan cursed as the door shut behind him. He hadn’t intended to go there. Not that he had anything against using her desire for him to cloud her judgment. That was kind of the point.

  It was a game he had played more times to his satisfaction that he could count. He just wasn’t supposed to get bit by his own bloody trap.

  Those memories of Istanbul were far more potent that he cared to admit. As was she. He adjusted himself in his jeans with a grimace, knowing that nothing but time and distance would cure that particular need.

  If she didn’t get far enough away, fast enough, they'd end up in bed again. Well, that was her problem. And his pleasure. He smiled. At least she seemed satisfied about the accident at the moment. Dealing with her should be easy enough. Though he had to admit he had been a mite overwhelmed earlier today when the guards came.

  Just a bit, mind.

  He had dealt with them—even as his body started to scream that he was in imminent danger of igniting at any moment. As he suspected, Heather’s clean blood had started to overwhelm the potion-rich blood inside of him almost immediately. By the time the guards and the ambulance pulled up, he had been feeling rather uncomfortable.

  So he had wielded his psychic power in rough strokes; no smooth, careful cajoling of memories. His patch job hadn’t been pretty, but it was effective enough. He knew neither of the two policemen would remember anything amiss. A simple accident with a deer. The car was impounded, but that could be sorted later.

  They had Heather’s name and her id number for their reports, as did the paramedic. That would have been too big of a gap for him to fill in. The accident would be on record, as would her information. But he had wiped recognition of her from their minds. They would remember no more than she was pretty and foreign, but not the details. Most likely they would not remember him at all. He had assured himself there would be no mention of the famous Vogue model at some pub tonight.

  The hardest part had actually been to make the paramedic release her to him. The man had been insistent she be brought in to the hospital. Aidan was quite sure Heather was fine, his psychic skill made him confident of that, but the paramedic had been a man devoted to his profession. Aidan had to be rather cruel in the end, but there had been no time for anything else. He had been damn near burning alive by that point.

  He had barely gotten them to the B&B in time, even with enthralling the guards enough to drop Heather and him off at the edge of Rathkeale.

  The host had been a snap, since once out of the direct light of the sun, Aidan had been able to breathe a hair easier and take a little more time with his psychic meddling of the older woman’s natural caution and curiosity.

  He had given her the story of a famous woman exhausted and suffering from a mild illness, taking her health in the country air for a day or two with a devoted 'friend'. Aidan had also eased both her ridiculously old-fashioned sensibilities and her obvious distrust of his appearance by indulging her greater love of fattening her pocketbook. He'd engaged her two best rooms and miraculously the woman's countenance had cleared. After that he'd whisked Heather upstairs in his arms and things were grand. Or near as one could hope.

  Aidan would have thought very differently of that if he knew the B&B had another guest. One who had witnessed him checking in and his carrying Heather upstairs from the shadows of the hall outside the kitchen.

  A guest who hadn't recognized her, but who had recognized Aidan quite readily. A man he'd never seen in real life, but whose portrait he passed in the house of his master every night. It was impossible, but those eyes and face were unmistakable. Aidan O’Neill. The man had shivered in the shadows with fear and an unholy excitement.

  The vampire prince was home, and walking around in daylight. Two very improbable things, things the man was sure would be of monumental importance to his master. He would be rewarded greatly for this.

  He only hoped his payment would be in blood.

  At last.

  A hundred miles to the north, a woman in white walked the hills of what had once been Connaught. A waxing moon was on the rise, gilding the land around her in gentle sweeps of silver and pale gold. She love
d this land as she loved few things. She missed the days when fierce warriors darkened these hills and their cries of rage and fury had rang from sea to sea. The Red Branch, Finn MacCool, the high kings at Tara. Niall of the Nine Hostages and more. Cúchulainn. She knew their songs, their triumphs and their pain. Their blood had tainted the Shannon red and she had drank of the water as if it were wine.

  Those days were gone. Those glorious days when her power had been feared and men had trembled to hear her name. So few were left who recognized her, even fewer who believed what they had seen…but there was still one.

  Even if he was far from human now. And he would never forgive her for that. Not ever. She had teased him once that he would have a thousand lifetimes to forgive her and that she could wait. His answer, a thousand, thousand lifetimes granted against my will is never ever going to replace the heart you stole from me, Bav.

  Her love. Her Aidan.

  He knew her. And despite all, he had listened when she called. From almost four thousand miles away he'd heeded her warning and returned home.

  Not for her, though.

  She wasn’t fool enough to believe that.

  For his precious friend, for the wolf who was a wolf no longer. For Ronan Fitzpatrick, one of the Mac Giolla Phadraig. Never for her.

  Was that irony…the great and mighty warrior Cúchulainn mocking her through his descendants? Having the last laugh after these years?

  She held no grudge for the Mac Giolla Phadraig anymore, the clan Fitzpatrick that had been born of her old nemesis. Recently she had even deigned to save Ronan’s lady, snatching her back from the claws of death.

  It wasn’t atonement, nothing so pure as that. Though she had wanted him to believe that—for Aidan to see that she could be kind and merciful. That maybe she had changed.

  He had barely looked her way. Hadn’t acknowledged her at all except for one sarcastic comment. In fact, Aidan O’Neill had left the caverns of Knockdoon as soon as he knew Ronan’s chit and Ronan were safe. He hadn’t thanked her. And he hadn’t looked back.

  Bav knew better than to expect it, but what she had of a heart ached. Sometimes she wondered if she had learned anything from Cúchulainn at all. Her lip curled and she threw her silken hood back.

  Masses of wild scarlet curls fell around her shoulders, the contrast of her red hair against the white silk vivid in the pale light of the moon. Bav contemplated the hill of Cooley, the scene of her greatest defeat with her head high. Her strong, white throat worked as she remembered him. Cúchulainn. The dark-haired, quiet boy who had willingly substituted himself for a dog as a child but who grew into a man so fiercely proud he had defied her entire army.

  Alone.

  She forced herself to remember what failure felt like, what it tasted like and who had undone her. She, who had toyed with men’s lives like a careless and vain child, had been undone by a man. Oh, she had her revenge in the end. Indeed, she had. But it had been far from satisfying. Cúchulainn hadn’t wanted her—to the very last he had refused her help—refused to bow that arrogant head to save his own life.

  So, he died. And she'd mourned. Oh, how she had mourned!

  Mourned the enemy, the lover and the friend. She thought she'd learned from that experience, learned to keep her distance. To tread lightly where mortals were concerned, or at least lighter.

  Then centuries later, Aidan had come into his own—the pride of the O’Neills and all of Uí Néill —and into his bright young life she had rushed, like a moth to a glorious flame.

  She hadn’t been able to resist him.

  They drew her so, these proud, strong men of Eire. And they burned the heart right out of her.

  Again she had brought shadows and death in her wake. The more she had tried to save him from the darkness, the more she'd mired them both hopelessly. Now Aidan was lost to her, just as Cúchulainn had been.

  For those thousand, thousand lifetimes and more.

  Or mayhap not.

  A small, knowing smile curved Bav’s full lips as she raised her emerald eyes to the sky…and the moon.

  “Favors owed, little one. I am coming to collect. The time is at hand.”

  The moon seemed to shiver in the sky, tattered grey clouds drawing over its face, as if it sought to hide itself from her gaze. Bav laughed softly, bowing her head and drawing up her robe.

  The column of white silk covering the goddess’s lush curves trembled once as if in a gentle breeze, then swirled to the ground like sand slipping through an invisible hourglass. Bav vanished. In the space where she had stood hovered a large crow, wings glinting black on black, beating the air with a sound like bellows at a forge.

  The crow blinked blood-red eyes and opened its sharp beak, loosing a screech that reverberated down the ancient hills of Ulster like a tormented scream. The bird soared upward into the light of the moon, a dark arrow seeking its target.

  Chapter 2

  Heather let the hot water pound her head, neck and shoulders. She lifted her thick black hair as the steam rose in gauzy clouds and tried to let the water melt her tension away. Fat chance with that man in the other room. He made her question things she didn't know if she wanted the answer to.

  She had a very keen sense of self—who she was, what she was—down to the bone. She was no longer just a person. She was an entity, a business. A face on a billboard, a body to drape with clothes. The best, most expensive, most exotic clothes handmade for her measurements alone…

  Heather Grace Kantos was a logo, an icon and the wet dream of a million boys and men… and not a few women, too.

  And she was far from fucking sad about it. She had worked for this her entire life. Well, not just this. She wasn’t done ascending. Not by a long shot. She still had far to go. Modeling was only the beginning, and the least, of what she wanted. The only one who could keep her from getting there was herself.

  Her and her goddamn demons.

  Heather closed her eyes and inhaled the wet, mist-laden air, trying to drive out memories of cool, dry air perfumed with roses and linden trees.

  Aidan had been an escape—that was all. An escape from one of the black moods.

  Ever since she was a small child, growing up in her father’s Greek restaurant on the shores of Lake Superior, Heather had had what her papa liked to call ‘spells’.

  Heather herself thought of them as drop-offs. When she was little, she liked to wade in the icy waters of the big lake. Her toes would be safe on stone and sand. She could twirl, play and splash in the gentle waves for ages. But she would invariably try to go out too far. The solid ground would disappear from under her feet with a suddenness that could take her breath away. The water would close over her head, dark, glassy and swirling indifferently while she struggled to get free and breathe.

  The moods were like that.

  Drop-offs. Dark places where solid ground sank away and pulled her into that cold, black pit. Anxiety, depression, panic disorder… Hell, the shrinks had diagnosed her with all of the above and more. They’d even tried to tell her she had PTSD.

  ‘From what exactly, you stupid sonofabitch?’ Heather had screamed at that particular quack.

  She’d had a happy childhood; a good, solid upper Midwest upbringing, a father who doted on her, a mother who was sweet and a bit dim, maybe, but still a good mom.

  Her best friend, Lacey, now…there was a girl who had a reason to have PTSD, too damn many of them. Losing her mom and dad in a plane crash, then her guardian and aunt to a heart attack just a few years later. If someone like Lacey had ‘spells’ they'd deserve comfort and sympathy. Heather, with her pretty much as-perfect-as-it-gets life, had no excuse.

  Heather despised herself for that, but she couldn’t make it stop.

  She'd found ways over the years, if not to float over the blackness, then to tread water whenever she felt the bottom start to slip away.

  For a while, it had been school: crazy-hard work, all-nighters, ace-every-test-Hermione Granger-type madness. Then, toward the end
of her junior year, she had tried partying and sex. Both had their satisfying points, but since she was too driven and way too smart to lose herself to either of those pursuits, they hadn’t lasted long. Ditto regarding her foray into hard drugs at the beginning of her career.

  College had been easier because she’d found Lacey. Lacey with her big, jewel eyes, fiery hair and sweet nature,as well as that streak of quiet stubbornness, was the sister she’d never had. They'd roomed together at U of M all four years, not to mention worked together on the award-winning public TV show that they had created as partners. That friendship had solidified the ground beneath her a bit, but not completely. There were still times when it all crumbled away again.

  When the black moods struck nowadays, she ran away from them. Pretty much literally.

  It sounded like the coward’s way out, and maybe it was. Hopping a plane and jetting off to some city where she could have anonymity for a day or two was getting harder and harder, but it worked most of the time. She could dress down and slide into different skin for a handful of hours. Losing herself helped her not lose herself.

  It was crazy, but then Heather had always known she was crazy.

  She’d ran to Istanbul halfway through a nine-day shoot in the Mediterranean with a hot new photographer for Vogue. It would be her third shoot with them in less than five years. Everything had been going good when she got that coming out of her skin feeling again. Bad. The worst attack she'd had in years.

  She’d forced a hiatus to get her shit together. It was easy, she just pretended to be a psychopathic bitch and everyone gave in. It was unbelievable what people let you get away with when they thought you were beautiful. Heather wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth—particularly that one.

  She always wielded her beauty like a weapon and over the years, she'd become quite the master.

  The blackness had been thick enough to drown in when she finally got away. She had checked into the nice, but very average hotel in the Cukurcuma area of the city with her hands shaking. The paparazzi could be fooled more easily than people thought. It was only the ego of most celebs that made them so damn easy to find. Five star hotels and world-class restaurants were all well and good, but when Heather needed to get away she could drop all that like the bad habit it probably was.