by Gina Kincade
"It's okay," he offered, putting his hand in his jeans pocket. "Sorry. I was just trying to help. Just watch your last step there. Then, have a seat and I'll light the fire."
The beauty of this spot replaced her moment of disgrace at the way she'd reacted to his touch twice now. In fact, as she took in the surroundings, her body's desire to touch him had her more disturbed. Fear had easily been upped by lust in no time flat, and that wasn't how she wanted to feel around him. She'd come here knowing it would be hard to see him, but reminding herself that according to all accounts, he'd become his father. Now, he'd claimed otherwise. Briefly, for less than a second, she clung to the hope she'd hidden away deep within her, that he was different, that they could somehow be together again. Confusion wasn't her strong suit. Going after what she wanted like a steam roller, that she could do.
Regardless, she had a hard time directing her gaze, torn between letting her gaze rove over him or appreciating the stone fireplace that created a wall at the corner of the covered patio, if that is what you could call this lavish area plopped into a dug out spot in a cliff. If she spun in a circle, the beauty would astound her at every turn. None more so than the man now leaning over, creating fire. Such a basic task, but as the light grew around him, the lapping yellow to orange flames became a backdrop. In the shadows the light created on his body, she found herself more and more impressed with his rugged good looks, his chiseled features.
Her lips parting, she found herself stroking the flushed skin of her own arm, a poor surrogate for the object of her desire. Swallowing hard, forcing her eyes away, she marveled at the large, flat, sand-colored stones that matched the fireplace to the floor. As the glow of the flames increased, their little corner of the world brightened, countering the darkness, making her feel more remote, more alone with him than she had just mere seconds before. As she stood looking out into that black void, a flash of lightning lit the sky, highlighting the white caps on the crashing waves. The roar and rumble brought odd comfort to one as unsettled, as shaky as she felt. The ceiling above them consisted of dark wooden beams covered by some sort of glass, she guessed, that could take the weather, as here it still stood. She wished she could feel as solid, stable, and secure.
"So, how is the whiskey business treating you?" she blurted as he moved toward her. "That is where you are mainly investing your time, right?" she asked as she cursed him for sitting next to her on the overwhelming outdoor couch one could curl up in with a good book and never want to get out of.
Too close!
"Great, we did two hundred and forty five million liters last year between all of our distilleries."
"Though I have no point of reference, it sounds impressive."
"That's enough to fill one hundred Olympic sized pools," he offered, to which she tried to contemplate but lost her way with her lack of spatial intelligence.
"So, what are you drinking there, or were drinking there, as it looks as if your ice has melted and watered it down?" She changed the subject, clinging on to whatever sane thought she could find as she rummaged through the many hanging out there.
"True whiskey drinkers don't add ice. It dulls the flavor of the whiskey. It also reduces the temperature too much, inhibiting the flavor further while freezing the aroma. If you must, one cube is acceptable because taking it ‘neat' isn't acceptable either. One needs to add a splash of water to prevent the strong alcohol content from numbing our senses. Even then, one must be careful, though. The chlorine in tap water spoils the flavor, but spring water will enhance it. Blah. Blah. Blah. You don't remember my father always giving that speech?"
"Uh, maybe. Uh no. I didn't really listen to the man when he spoke. Sorry, but he wasn't a man you needed to respond to. He just told stories or gave directions. I didn't have much stomach for his ego. Must sound horrible for a girl who took his money, let him pay for her education and pay for every string that needed to be pulled, but honestly, he did that for himself, not for me. He did it to keep me away from his oldest son, his protégé. Not that I'm not thankful to have had it, but being grateful to that man is hard. I couldn't have you, and at the time, the education he paid for was not nearly enough to make up for that fact. Taking it, taking all I could was the only revenge I had accessible to me," she said, spitting out each word before she caught herself, realized in her ire and injury, what she had reveled to him. "Sorry. I shouldn't have said that."
She also couldn't look him in the eyes anymore. The subtle tropical print on the couch cushion became of utmost interest to her. Not what she'd have chosen, a plain sage green cushion with small accent pillows adding shades of browns, oranges, and wheat in a tribal stripe, but... Screw it. Look at him! No one in this family will ever intimidate you again. She'd already reminded herself of that a hundred times since getting trapped into coming by mother guilt. Licking her dry lips, she took to sucking in and biting the bottom one as she caught his gaze fixated there. A smile slowly twitched to life on his face. With that subtly evil grin, a strong awareness of her own heartbeat distracted her, at least a little, from the sensation of her core being flooded with warmth despite the prevailing chill in the air.
"Don't apologize for speaking the truth. You've no idea what it means to me to hear you admit such a thing. And, you never have to explain hatred of my father to me. So many times I've wanted to walk away from it all, come for you, but he made it so that was impossible, as in threatening your safety. Without questions, please know I never came after you to protect you, from him, from what he threatened to do to you if I walked away. You have to understand that. If there had been any way, any way at all, I would have moved mountains, or dug a tunnel through one with just a spoon to get to you. Whatever it took. But, your safety came before my heart, even before the possibilities of breaking yours."
"Threatened me how? Please, the truth. I have to know," she begged, hating the weak girl she heard pleading in her voice. "You never came for me. Nothing in my life has ever hurt me more."
She'd gone for broke, seizing this moment in time, steamrolling ahead no matter what the outcome. She'd handle it. Later. Much better than she had the first time around, not knowing, waiting for him, suffering the agony of the loss. She'd waited years to ask the why of it all. His why of it all, rather than a second-hand explanation from her mother. Something lifted from her chest just having done so.
Being honest. What a novel idea. The bitchiest voice in her head spat.
"No. I didn't. Everything in me wanted to, but I wanted you to have your dreams, and I had to protect you and your mother."
"He threatened us, but you won't tell me the threats? Of course. I always assumed he'd threatened you, since he threatened my mother as well if I didn't take his offer."
"The bastard," he yelled, then another, an angrier gale this time, took the majority of the sound with it, absorbing the vowels and consonants into the storm, sweeping the deep set, primitive emotions they had carried with them out to sea. She'd swear he made the storm. While it seemed to sit just at the horizon, it had grown fiercer, more and more ferocious, since she'd come. She'd never seen anything like the way it swept in now that they were alone.
With the wind picking up, the first big drops of rain hitting hard against the roof above them, she could swear it was feeding off of the emotions swarming between them. The waves crashed against the rocks far below, rising up like furious ghosts from their past when bright streaks of electricity cut across the sky. Honestly, she'd no idea if his father could still hurt them. She wouldn't have been surprised if he had put another up to the task of keeping them apart, like one of his two younger brothers who'd worshiped at the man's feet.
Ominously overcast and incensed, the ocean raged in a direct connection to her own wash of impassioned affections with the thoughts of never being free to love this man. Long rolls of rumbling thunder could be heard in the not so far off distance, the appropriate gothic background music for their meeting. The past and present on a rampage against them. Or, was that
only in her mind? Set by fate, churned by energy, or just a disastrous coincidence, the storm finally hit. The drops fell hard in a sheet around them, new walls to keep them in, make her feel safe and sheltered away from the real world.
As the next bolt of lightning sent a current through her, he grabbed her by the upper arms, eliciting a squeak, barely audible, that he swallowed as his lips met hers with all the fury of the night. She welcomed the affliction of his mouth crushing hers as tears burned and threatened behind closed eyes. His arms moved in time with his lips, fast and furious, embracing her, drawing her in. He held so tight she swore her bones would snap. Yet in all of these years, she'd never felt so at home, so loved, in anyone's arms.
He had her on her back in no time at all. His erection, the one she could see clearly in her mind, each ridge, each vein memorized, pressed between her open thighs. The ache for him to be buried deep inside her, pounding into her in pace with the ocean beating against the rocks, grew almost too much for her to overcome. She grabbed his ass, the cheeks bunched tight under his jeans, and pushed up against him, though they already couldn't be any closer. The pressure made her cry out as he pulled his mouth from hers to growl.
Opening her eyes, she gasped, the hair lifting on the nape of her neck, as a sliver of fear took hold. His eyes seemed to glow in a flash of red, before a black to dark blue storm emerged behind the usual cool ultramarine. Breath long held burst forth from her lungs, though she remained speechless. Something malevolent seemed to grip them both, an evil entity that had come from out of the stormy sky to stop them from continuing.
He pushed from her then, stomping to the fire. His hands gripped the stone mantel. The stonework crumbled to gravel between his fingers.
She sat up then, a scream lodged in her throat, trying to come up with an explanation for it all, something normal, natural, more probable than what she knew it to be. Though, she'd never let on to him. To tell him she knew about his family's curse, would be to tell him about her family's secrets. He wouldn't know about her, because part of the deal when his father had saved her mother from Ireland had been that she would do as he asked as long as he kept her secrets quiet. She couldn't be found here by those who wished revenge upon her family. She cringed, tightening the muscles in her throat to hold in the primal scream still waiting there to be heard.
She only thought to say, I need to go, though the words never left her mouth as she fled up the cliff, knowing, sensing, he wouldn't follow her. As the rain came down harder, beat in cold pellets against her warm skin, her dress soaked through. Crying, slipping, yet continually moving, she made her way around the house rather than go back inside. She stopped, each breath burning her lungs, at her mother's car. Sliding down to a puddle, she sat there, upright only because of the metal at her back. Taking out her phone, she texted her mother to come to the car. In the distance, she heard an animalistic cry, one more of rage than sadness, though it surely bore both.
Something inside her understood beyond mere comprehension that if a broken heart could break again, hers had shattered into a million pieces to fill the emptiness she experienced so profoundly right now. Ciaran Byrne would never be hers. Why she'd let the fantasy percolate for even a second tonight, she'd no idea. If she even had it in her, she'd have to start the healing process all over again. The overwhelming thought made her shut down, shut herself off, as she had for so long to deaden the pain. All she wanted was a warm, dry bed with stacks of heavy blankets to hide in, maybe never come out again except for him. The emotions of it hit her like déja vu. She'd had to, again, find her will to go on, alone. She'd have to find the lies she'd told herself the first time in order to pick up her life, and move through it each day, one damn foot in front of the other, just get from point A to point B without fail, without feeling.
Grabbing at the hair clinging to her in long, wet strands, she curled into a tight ball, rocked back and forth, not caring about her white dress as she curled her toes in the wet earth flooding her sandals. She fixated on her willingness to run to him, to throw herself into harm's way for any sort of relief from this suffering. She hyperventilated, gasping for air despite the wicked wind pushing its way into her nose and mouth. The nausea rose from where it had initially curled in a tight ball in her stomach until it threatened her closing throat. The chill bore through her aching muscles, creating phantom punches, blasts of pain on her thighs, her arms, her back. Yet nothing proved worse than the pain slicing through her heart, beating out of her chest. Abused again, it fought for escape, she sickly mused for her own wayward sense of amusement.
The bleep of her phone alerting her to a text startled her. Her mom had confirmed she was on her way.
"Bring whiskey," she texted back as she sighed and then started to cry.
She let the tears come freely, the storm masking them along with her sobs, endlessly crying until his magick whiskey came along with her ride.
"Are you okay?" her mother shrieked to see her sitting there in a puddle, the girl seemingly more worried about her clothes than anything else on earth most days. A ruse. A necessary distraction made of creative energy.
"I'm fine," she sobbed, choked on the words as she grabbed for the full bottle of whiskey in her mother's hand. "Get me home."
As only a mother could, she understood the severity of the moment, nodded her head, and unlocked the car. No questions asked. At least, not for now.
Chapter Three
Ciaran couldn't believe Allanah, beautiful beyond reason or explanation in his eyes, sat across from him, in his private living room on the second floor. He'd spent the last few days leaving her messages, apologizing for the other night, for whatever made her run from him. He didn't care if it was his fault or hers, he planned to apologize, beg and plead, if necessary, to get to see her again. One good thing about having an inner beast, being wealthy, and so on, he had all the accolades he needed to feel a man. So, when it came to her, and only her, he had no problem groveling. Not this time. His life might not be perfect, or even good yet, but now that he'd seen her, tasted her again, he would never let her go again.
Fuck you, dad, he hissed at the air above him until a heinous thought about his father's true possible eternal resting place pasted an evil smile on his face, a hateful and convoluted upturn to his lips. Fuck you, dad, he hissed it again, louder this time, only at the floor, an image of the fires of hell prevalent in his mind.
On top of his apology calls, he'd sent her flowers and wine and anything else deliverable daily, until she'd finally called him to demand he stop the overdone apology gifting. He'd gotten her talking then, first about the weather, stupid, but it bought him time to hear her voice. He'd changed the conversation, then, over to her work, something he'd chastised himself for not bringing up at his party to spend more time with her. Eventually, when he'd loosened her up enough, made her relax, he'd carefully requested seeing her again. He made it a dare, challenging her to spend a little longer with him. And, when the time felt right in the conversation, he even risked teasing her that she wouldn't be able to keep her hands off him. She finally stood up for herself, took his dare, and in the process had agreed to come visit him again when it would only be the two of them.
Worked every time, he thought, tapping a loose fist against the heart bumping around in his chest.
She'd never brought up his red eyes, or the crushed mantle, or anything else from the other night, but maybe she had found rational explanations for it all. Most people did, because what other explanation could they imagine. They'd blame the lighting, or a storm, for a trick played on their eyes. They'd blame faulty construction when his strength went beyond human. Always an explanation that had nothing to do with a legacy of evil, of magick, which led to all sorts of nefarious feats courtesy of a demon lurking within.
He'd had the same excuses ready. For his red eyes, the color of the flames of hell, he'd claim it had to be the lightning reflecting in his eyes, or maybe the fire. For being able to crumble large stones to gravel wit
h his bare hands, he'd claim the mantle had been unstable from the weather and in need of repair. Since the demon his father had summoned into him to maintain his son's magick, to ensure his loyalty to the coven, had appeared once Allanah had gone from his life—as in, days after—he'd made up excuses for his strength, his eyes, even his anger when out of control. Though few had seen him as the creature the demon turned him into. Sadly, those few had not lived to tell of it. Regret fluttered through briefly, until the beast within wouldn't allow it, fed off the guilt, slurping it up like coffee, re-energizing with it.
Despite the fact he knew she couldn't read his mind, his brows drew closer together as he looked away, avoided eye contact. Thumbing his ear, then tugging on his shirt, he sighed, stopping such inexcusable signs of weakness, while out of the corner of his eye he watched her inspect her surroundings. Turning to the window to witness the magnificent view he knew all too well, along with her, he ran his hands through his hair. Moments later, he tugged at his waistband. His jeans grew uncomfortable as he beheld the sight of her: the slight arch of her back, the curve of her hips and ass, all tiny but generous enough. Perfect for his large hands to consume. The darkness inside lurched in a lustful glee, forcing him to grab the cushions of the chair he sat on to remain seated. He sucked in a slow, long breath lest he shred the cushions with his bare hands.
Usually he had control over the damnable beast, giving it just enough leeway to satisfy it with women, while reigning it in enough not to appear too much of a dick in the bedroom. With Allanah, though, he didn't want it anywhere near her, but what choice did he have here today? He felt the demon ooze through his veins like slime on a daily basis. So, he'd kept his distance from her all of these years.
He'd yet to find a way to get rid of the blasted curse, especially given his family's need to keep him in the coven. The demons were insurance. Each man in the coven had one. They were each controlled by the head of the coven, his father before, and now him. If a man dared betray them, his demon had the ability to trigger any other man's demon in the coven in order to destroy that man.