Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2) (31 page)

"I
will
find this potion, I will track it—"

"How?" Aidan let his amusement breathe into his words. "The Changelings who used it are dead, Aillen is dead, along with all his secrets. And there is
none
left, Abhartach. I have used the last.
It is gone."

The low sound of bubbling hysteria coming from behind that door pleased Aidan to no end. Saving Heather alone would be worth the loss of the sun, but
this
…destroying Abhartach's dream? That was definitely icing on the cake.

"What if we can't ever recover more?
What if it's lost forever?!"

Aidan smiled, knowing the demon would hear it in his voice.

"Well, I donna care, do I? I have a few more hours in the light, and it's so beautiful, Abhartach. Can ye even remember…the way it feels, the way it
smells?
"

His hand edged toward the window and the demon king went crazy, wailing in freakish misery as Aidan ripped back the curtain at last.

He pulled Heather into his arms and leapt through the glass to freedom. The sound of shattering glass wasn't the only thing that followed them. The blackness of Abhartach's words poured through the window, a long crooked finger of night as they fell through the misty light of late morning.

"I'll find her,
I swear it!
I'll have her ripped to pieces before your eyes one day soon. Whatever it takes, wherever she goes, she'll never be safe.
Never!"

Even as he dropped, Heather in his arms, Aidan knew the demon's promise was far from an idle one. He'd known this would happen all along. Getting her out was only the first step in saving her. The second, and final step was his alone.

He would take her away so that she never had to see this place again. Then Aidan would return. He would give Abhartach the vow he wanted in exchange for an oath that would ensure her safety for the rest of her life.

There had never been any escape for him, nor would there ever be again. But Heather was free and he didn't care what it took to keep her that way.

They'd had less than an hour until sunset by the time Aidan felt they had lost their pursuers. Ronan had not been where he was supposed to be and that had both on them on edge. There was not enough time now to look for him, or get back to the Fitzpatricks before night fell and the vampires themselves came out.

Aidan wanted them hidden and their scent as cold as possible by then.

It didn't work out that way.

Aidan didn't find them the abandoned house until just past midnight, when he finally seemed confident that they were safe. They'd been avoiding lone hunters and small groups of one or two vamps for hours by then. He'd managed to keep them from any direct confrontation through stealth and skill.

Only once had he sensed anything close enough to truly alarm him, a quick flash of terror when he had lifted her in his arms and run so fast the wind brought tears to her eyes. That had been at least two hours ago.

He'd made a call to Ronan from a bar outside the small town before he'd found the house. Finding out that Ronan had been set upon earlier that day by a band of Abhartach's faithful. The big man beaten them easily enough, but it had slowed him down and put him out of position to back them up when the time came. He was on his way now, though. Aidan was trusting to Ronan's nose to find them once he got close.

Aidan hadn't enjoyed the sun today, she got the impression he had barely noticed it. Not even the sunset hadn't moved him, though she had seen him studying it through slitted eyes.

Something had changed. Something awful. He'd made a decision. And he wasn't going to share it with her. He was going to shut her out and walk away.

Again.

They were in what must have been the bedroom once, evidenced by the warped remnants of a huge four poster bed that had obviously been too cumbersome for vandals to bother with.

Moonlight cut through the broken window panes in ragged slices as she stared at him. Heather wished she could blame the strange light for making him look so different, all cold and foreboding, but she knew better.

"Are you going to tell me what's wrong with you?"

He blinked slowly.

"All manner of things, love. No' one of them yer business."

She shivered at his tone. He hadn't spoken to her like that since Abhartach had taken her. Did he really think she was too stupid to recognize when he was trying to push her away? Even that awful night she had known he was lying. Yes, it had hurt and it had devastated her, but she'd
known.
And she knew now.

"Stop it, Aidan. Just fucking stop it."

"Stop what, nobody? This is me. Being myself."

"What 'you' was it the last four days then?"

He turned away, but not before she saw him swallow hard.

"Ye needed nice, so I gave ye nice. Donna make too much of it. I dinna."

"Ri-ight.
Whatever,
Aidan. Don't tell me what's got you so inside out, that's fine. I won't push you, but don't bullshit me that what we just went through meant nothing to you."

"What do ye know, stupid human." He hissed it, but she heard those last two words in Abhartach's voice and despite herself, she sagged against the wall. For a moment, she couldn't move, her heart pounded and her scars ached and something inside of her tightened into a hard knot of fear.

No.

No fear. Not of herself, not of the dark, and certainly not of him.

Not of Aidan.

She wouldn't allow him to do this. No matter what she had to risk.

“I'll tell you what I do know." Heather straightened her spine and glared at him. "I do know that I love you."

Aidan's head whipped around, his gaze like quicksilver.

“Ye donna know shite, ye bloody eejit woman!” His words were harsh, but shock rang through them like a tolling bell.

He hadn’t expected her to say it. She knew why love held such fear for him now, but that didn't make it any easier to see that furious look on his face. Furious and terrified, she realized with a pang.

“If you don’t know that by now, then you don’t know anything, Aidan.” She said quietly.

His eyes flashed, crystal shards trying to slice her into ragged pieces, his words dripping with a loathing she told herself was feigned.

“I know you are scared…
terrified all the fucking time, little miss nobody.
”

Heather lifted her chin and even though her voice shook and her eyes stung, she didn’t turn away.

“Not when I'm with you. I'm not scared of you, Aidan.”

“Bullshit.” His leather-clad hands were clenched into fists at his sides, that lean, powerful body rigid—and poised to strike.

“Oh, you know it’s true…but that scares
you
, doesn’t it?” She smiled, her lips trembling. “Poor little vampire, scared of a human—“

“Shut it, Heather.”

“Or what?”

“Or I’ll give ye something to be scared of,
damnú air
!”

His eyes had started to glow and shivers trickled down Heather’s spine like icy droplets of water. But she wouldn’t back down, couldn’t.

If she did, she would lose him forever. And that scared her all right, all the way down to her fucking soul. She forced the words out, though her throat was closing.

“Try me.”

Heather didn’t see him move, but it was hard to miss the world exploding around her. Wood cracked like gunshots against the crumbling stone walls, and dust and splinters littered the air. Tatters of old bed hangings floated down like pale, frightened ghosts, slipping to the floor in the echoing silence.

He'd apparently thrown the old relic of a bed into the wall, but now it was her he'd moved to.

Aidan leaned over her, his arms locked on either side of her head, vibrating with anger, the thick cords of his shoulders and neck standing out. His face was strained white, his lips inches from hers.

“Ye want to die after all, is tha' the way of it?” His voice was as cold as she’d ever heard it and his eyes pulsed with light, making her insides go weak.

The darkness of his power reached for her—not on stealthy cat feet this time—but with the fatal leap of a vicious predator. Blinding and hungry, it tried to swallow her whole, to pull her down so it could render her helpless. She closed her eyes, breathing slowly and carefully until some of herself came back.

“I don’t want to die, Aidan.”

“Damme funny way of showing it, then.” His breath plumed against her mouth, along her jaw as she sensed him moving for her throat…for her jugular. He was only testing her. She knew it, but she also knew he was capable of anything right now.

“Stop, Aidan!” She didn’t dare open her eyes, but tried to jerk away. His hand plunged into her hair.

She could feel him deliberately winding the length of it round and round his knuckles until she was trapped. Unable to move her head even an inch—the bare skin of her throat tingling under the brush of his lips—as his words floated softly between them.

“Why, love? Ye want to be together, ye want to be with
me?”
The empty laugh that ran over her skin like an icy breeze made Heather’s stomach knot with pain. Pain for him. For all he had lost and endured. “This is the way of it, death and darkness forever.”

“Isn’t it awfully lonely in that hell of yours, Aidan?”

His laugh this time was strangled. She felt him lean his head against the wall next to her as if he was too tired to hold it up anymore. “Ye donna understand hell, Heather, no matter what ye think. Ye've only seen the gates.”

“I know it’s not a place you go, Aidan…it’s a place you
make
. A place inside your own mind and no matter how far or fast you run, it’s always there—ready to trap you in that godawful pit, to drown you in the blackness of your own soul.”

“I do nae have a soul, Heather.” His words were bleak.

“Bullshit.” She opened her eyes and met his. The glow had faded now, but the sheen there made her heart break. “You have the strongest soul of anyone I have ever known. The most beautiful.”

“Darkness isn’t beautiful, love.”

“That’s a lot you know, you stupid ass.” She struggled to turn her head, and he loosed his grip a fraction, allowing her to face him directly. “Some of the most precious things in the world exist only in the night. Stars, moonlight…”

The smile that played over his lips was bitter. “And vampires, I suppose? Ye are mad, love. Do ye nae remember the others…do ye nae remember
him?
”

“Not really,” she said. “Right now, I can only seem to see you. You taught me to love the dark, Aidan. If that's wrong, then I'm already damned.”

Aidan closed his eyes, but not in time to halt the single tear that tumbled down his angular cheek like a lost diamond.

Her hands came up to his chest, running over the thin cotton of his t-shirt, feeling the tension still tautening the sleek muscles there. He didn’t resist when she curled her fingers into the fabric and pulled him to her mouth.

Slow and soft, she kissed him. Tasting that single tear burst on her lips, salty and cool. Then his mouth opened and heat poured over her like she’d been plunged headfirst into a steaming bath. His hard body thrummed lightly against hers as he pressed her into the wall. As if he desperately wanted to breach their barrier of their skin just for this one moment so they could merge into one.

His tongue slipped into her mouth with a fierceness that made her whimper. His hand cupped the back of her head, tangled in her hair. Aidan plundered her mouth until only her fingers wrapped in his shirt kept her from sliding to the floor.

Need coiled through her like a living thing, a living thing cold and starved that senses fire and sustenance just within reach…

Heather would have gone to her knees now, she would have crawled….but he didn’t give her the choice.

With an oath in Gaelic, Aidan tore himself away from her. His face was rigid, the graceful, spare architecture of his bones stark with fury, pain and desire as he watched her sink back against the wall.

“Ye would have me kill ye? To force ye to become like me…like
him?
” Aidan’s disgust was palatable.

Helplessly, she slumped back against the wall. “No, I don’t want that for us. At least not like this, Aidan.”

“Then what are the options, eh? Where does this end, nobody? What am I to do? Become like him and change ye? Or watch ye die, bit by bit?
Am I to endure tha' along with everything else?”

Her eyes flickered over his anguished face, and then fell. “I don’t know.” She whispered.

Aidan’s laugh rang against the stone like the slamming of a door. “Then why did ye even tell me, ye heartless bitch? Why give me something so precious knowing I canna ever accept it…or return it?"

She couldn't answer him.

His words flailed her to the bone with the cutting truth. He was right. She was a selfish fool…and a cruel one.  Ronan had warned her.

Heather put her head down on her knees and sobbed, the tears hot and hopeless. Dear god, what had she done? When she raised her head a long while later, the room was empty. Aidan was gone.

From the ache in her heart, she thought he might be gone forever.

Bav watched Aidan leave the rundown house from the scrying pool. Even after swearing to herself that she would stop watching him, she couldn't. Emptiness filled her as she watched him walk out into the trees. His head was bowed. His steps were slower and heavier than she'd ever seen. He moved as if the weight of the world was on his shoulders.

In a way, she supposed it was. And she'd put it there, hadn't she? So very long ago, but it felt like yesterday sometimes.

She remembered that night, that awful, wonderful night. The night she had thought to save him, and make him hers.

The night she had seen his end. In this very pool. Shivering, Bav turned away from the basin and stared out into the star strewn sky.

It had been Aidan's birthday when she'd had the vision that had changed everything. Damme, but the man had no luck at all when it came to birthdays. By then she had known all about Abhartach.

She had watched on that earlier birthday, too. From afar as that stupid girl had saved him when Áedán turned one and twenty. Not that Jonee could have saved him without
her
help.

The wench had gotten lost and never would have found Áedán at all if it hadn't been for her. Bav could have gone to him herself, of course, but it had only been shortly after his rejection of her on the battlement walls and she couldn't bear to face him again so soon.

Bav had been horrified, but she had recognized the feel and power of a vow. It had taken every bit of strength she possessed not to interfere. The creature himself was one she knew well. In reputation, if not in the flesh.

Abhartach.

The name whispered in dark and secret places.

The strange and new. He would eventually spawn the race that owed her their allegiance, by their very nature. Vampires. The goddess of death. A match made in hell, to be sure.