Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2)

by Heather R. Blair

  She had bolt holes in all her favorite cities. Neighborhoods and hotels where, if she were careful and didn't overuse them, Heather could be reasonably sure of keeping her anonymity. Istanbul had seemed the perfect choice.

  By the time she got to her room, she’d had to force herself not to just curl up on the bed and let the drop-off take her under.

  Instead, Heather had put on jeans and an old, ripped-up Dropkick Murphy’s t-shirt, braided her hair into two long plaits and dragged herself out to a bar…

  She walked down narrow streets with peeling pavement showing old bricks. Streets hemmed in by pastel and rust-colored buildings piled story upon lop-sided story like towering stacks of books. Twilight was dusting the ancient city in purple and blue. It was lovely and cool after the heat of Greece. The sounds of a multitude of languages and the exotic, nutty-sweet smell of Turkish food followed her as she walked.

  Heather missed the old shisha cafes with their tangles of hookah pipes and the scent of tobacco perfuming the city. The smoking ban had ended all that a few years back.

  She settled for a tiny bar where she wasn’t sure at first that the stern-looking host would serve her, a foreign woman unescorted. Thankfully, the one thing she'd always been able to do was charm men.

  Before long Heather was curled in a corner of the open air bar, her back to the street, a glass of sweet yellow wine in front of her. She would've rather had whiskey, but it was Istanbul. They frowned on the harder liquors on this side of town. She drained it in three great swallows before wondering what the hell to do next. Usually in these moods she had three choices of distraction; fight, fuck or flip the hell out.

  Heather became aware of him just as the anxiety was getting damn near unbearable. The back of her neck tingled. She turned to see him watching her. A man in a black leather trench coat and a smile that screamed badass.

  He had an angular, not-quite handsome face and devastating crystalline eyes; long legs clad in black denim seemed to stretch for miles out from under one of those tiny wooden tables. She knew immediately he recognized her, but not what he intended to do about it.

  There was a dark aura about him, a hint of caged power in that deceptively casual, sprawled poise. Danger personified.

  If this had been a film she would have expected to hear the warning wail of an electric guitar creep over the soft background bustle of the city.

  They'd locked eyes for several long moments. Heather found herself holding her breath, unsure if she wanted him to approach her or not. Something about the man both frightened and intrigued her. Then he folded those long legs under himself and got to his feet, uncurling from the table with obvious purpose.

  Heather broke eye contact and looked down at her brimming wineglass, not remembering when the host had refilled it. She'd been too intent on the man in black. Her heart was racing and she was a little pissed about that. He was only a man about to hit on her—something she had been through hundreds of times before.

  Why then was it so fucking hard to breathe?

  His steps thudded on the brick and stone floor, coming closer and then stopping. She didn’t lift her head, even though she could feel his gaze on the back of her neck like the incessant tap of fingers.

  “So who are ye, I wonder?” The Irish colored his voice like the whiskey she was craving; smoky and dark, with a kick that sent a shiver down her spine.

  “Nobody.” She tilted her head, finally looking up at him, daring him to challenge her.

  His eyes glinted in amusement. “Tha' so, love?”

  “That’s my story and I'm sticking to it.” Up close, he was even more magnetic. There was something about the roguish dark blonde curls and the contrast with the hard planes of his face, the full, chiseled mouth. Not to mention the way he carried himself, with an indefinable energy—as if he could explode in wild fury, or raucous laughter at any second.

  He shrugged. “Well, then, ‘nobody’ it is. Nobody, I am Aidan. Aidan O’Neill. And I am thinking we have business tonight.”

  “Is that so?” Her tone edged toward derisive at the casual confidence in his tone.

  “I know what ye want, and I can give it to ye.”

  She laughed carelessly, cruelly. Heather appreciated cocky, but this man was too sure of himself by half. “Please. How many goddamn times do you think I have heard that before? You have no idea what I want.”

  He bent down, his hands on the bar, that tall, sculpted body invading her space. He smelled like leather, smoke and something faintly metallic, reminiscent of blood or brimstone. A dangerous, sexy smell that made her nostrils flair.

  Heather refused to retreat an inch, lifting her chin and giving him an icy, dismissive glare to hide the need slipping into her belly. Then he spoke in a low growl, raising the hairs on the back of her neck as he breathed in her ear.

  “How about absolute fucking distraction, at any cost? Tha' sound like yer ticket to ride, love?” The Irish lilt in his voice both taunting and seductive.

  Heather swallowed, turning her head as he pulled back a fraction, their mouths only inches apart.

  “Good guess,” she whispered.

  He smiled and the heat she had been fighting flared into flame. “I have my moments.” He gestured at her wine glass. “Drink tha'. Ye’re going to need it.”

  Heather sighed at the memories and lifted her arms in the shower, turning in a circle to let the water sluice over every inch of her skin.

  She didn’t have hang-ups about one night stands or quickie sex, but she damn sure wasn’t a slut either. Especially in her profession where more than a few people numbered their sex partners in triple digits.

  What happened with Aidan was easily the fastest she had ever gone from eye contact to intimacy in her life.

  The attraction between them went beyond mere chemistry, it was unlike anything she had ever experienced. Aidan was a force of nature, an act of God that she had no power or will to turn away. He had his hands on her before they made it halfway back to the hotel.

  She let her own hands slide down the soapy curves of her body as the hot water pounded her, remembering the heat of his mouth that first time…

  Night had veiled the city in black by the time she left with him. Pale stars glittered above the lights of the city as they walked, the distinctive lemony-jasmine tang of linden trees and the perfume of roses overwhelming. She was slightly dizzy with the wine and unsure of just what the hell she was doing.

  Heather reached for his arm to slow him down at one point, but she missed her target. Her fingers skidded down the leather of his coat sleeve instead, wrapping around his bare wrist just above his glove. Aidan hissed in surprise and in an instant Heather was up against an alley wall with no idea how she got there.

  His face was almost savage with desire, his hands on her hips, those leather-covered fingers sliding over the skin her low-rise jeans left bare under her shirt.

  His tongue slid into her mouth as she gasped. His hard, lean body covered hers, giving her no quarter as he took what he wanted. He yanked open the button of her jeans and plunged his hand down between her legs as he ravaged her mouth, his long leather-covered fingers stroking her through her panties, nearly forcing her to come right then and there in seconds. It left her dazed and more than a little scared.

  He'd barely been getting started.

  When they reached her hotel room, he closed the door behind them with a kick.

  He threw his coat over the settee in the foyer and pulled off his leather gloves one finger at a time, stalking toward her with an intentness that was both terrifying and incredibly hot as she backed away into the bedroom.

  “Strip or yer clothes will never be wearable again. And tha' would be a damn shame. I like the Murphy's.”

  She lifted her chin and stopped retreating.

  “Quit ordering me around.”

  Aidan laughed, yanking her to him so suddenly she let out a strangled yelp.

  He pinned her wrist behind her to the small of her back, f
orcing her up against him, face to face. Her toes were almost off the floor, as he bent his knees and circled his hips so she got the full impact of his cock through his jeans. He dragged himself deliberately between her legs, up and down, until her gasps filled the room.

  “I will, yea. That’s Irish for fuck no, by the way. I am going to order ye to do whatever the hell I want, and ye are going to do it. Because tha' is what ye need and what ye fucking want. Donna fight the darkness, nobody, embrace it.”

  And god help her, she had.

  Heather slid back against the shower wall, her knees going weak as she remembered all the things they had done that night, and the next. She opened her legs as she gave into the memory, her fingers trailing over her hip and dipping lower as the warm water ran over her already soaked core.

  She arched into the steaming hot spray until it made her hardened nipples ache. Closing her eyes, her own fingertips brought her back to the dark pleasure that cursed man had given her as the water ran down her naked body in streams. Her head fell back and her hips pumped as she bit back the cries she didn’t want him to hear.

  Aidan leaned against the other side of the bathroom wall, his own eyes wide open as he stared blindly into the dim bedroom. Shite and hellfire, the woman was going to fucking kill him!

  His gloves couldn’t protect him from the psychic lust blasting from the bathroom. He could have walked right through the goddamn wall, taken her down to the floor and fucked her silly in the water and rubble for what she was doing to him right now.

  But she had told him no.

  A serious, fat no. Despite the fact she was now seconds away from coming at the thought of him inside her. Goddamn contrary women! Aidan knew he could have convinced her otherwise in less than a minute, but that wouldn’t really be sporting—and she would hate him for it.

  Normally, he wouldn’t have been fussed over that, but with this one…

  Aidan didn’t know why, but he couldn’t do it. Besides, there was the matter of that little promise he'd made her. The chit would beg before he touched her again. He growled as his cock jerked at the thought and he tapped the back of his head into the wall in frustration.

  Not loudly enough to alert her to his presence, of course. He didn’t want her to stop, no matter how much it was torturing him.

  Helluva pisser, though. He was going to come in his pants if she didn’t finish soon and there was nothing he could do about it. Or almost nothing.

  He did have a hand after all.

  With a Gaelic curse and a rueful laugh, Aidan ripped open his fly.

  Two could play at this game.

  The man that had seen Aidan and Heather was well over an hour west of Rathkeale by the time she stepped into that shower. Deep inside the area of County Kerry known as MacGillycuddy's Reeks.

  High and wild saw-toothed mountains concealed a castle known as Du'n Dreach-Fhoula. Normally invisible on the mortal plane, a human wouldn't be able to find the castle even if they knew it was there.

  Unless the inhabitants were hungry, of course. In that case the black doors would appear and open…to let one or two in.

  Though never out again.

  Declan Foster was different. He belonged here. Or rather he belonged to the owner of the castle.

  His hands were fisted on the great stone table in his master’s dining hall. The surface was bitterly cold and rough under his skin, a sharp contrast to the opulent comfort of most of the castle. There was a reason for this as the demon fae didn’t dine in the manner humans did. Oh, they ate, to be sure, but less for sustenance than for the act itself. The taking of another life force to increase their own was a serious ritual. It mattered not if that life force consisted of the fruit of a tree or human flesh and blood. All consumption was sacrifice and this table had been an altar of sorts to many dark feasts.

  The man dearly hoped that wasn’t to be his end.

  His master was at the head of the table. Not sitting in the huge throne-like chair—carved from tortured trunk of a hawthorne tree—but standing behind it. His large, thin hands stroked the gnarled back contemplatively.

  This particular tree had contorted back into itself so many times it lent a twisted air to the room—one of deformed, agonized existence. An existence that no matter the cost had been endured. It was a fitting seat for the man behind it, a man who was no man at all. Only a demon who reveled in pushing all creatures to the limits of their endurance.

  Abhartach was not looking at his slave but at the painting that graced the far wall. It was of a young man with the dying sun in his fair curls, his legs spread wide in a fighter’s stance and planted firmly on a rocky outcropping with the hills of Ulster in the distance. The young warrior’s hands were wrapped around the grip of an enormous great sword whose lethal tip touched the stone between his booted feet. The pommel appeared to glint in the firelight of the chamber, an amber-colored stone with a blush of fire set at its heart. The artist had captured both the sword and the warrior in exquisite detail, down to the gleam of sunset along the blade’s double edges like blood and the fierce, crystalline gaze of the man—who had been called Áedán.

  O'Neill had modernized the name centuries ago, but a face didn't change as easily as a name.

  If the man Declan had seen this morning was not the same as in the painting, then they were doppelgangers. He wasn’t wrong, he couldn’t be wrong, but if he was…

  “You better not be wrong, daor.” There was no hint of a threat in Abhartach’s flinty voice as it rang off the stone table, only the absolute promise of a long and drawn-out death.

  Death is what he wanted, what he had always wanted, but not as an ending… as a beginning.

  “I assure you, Master, it was him.”

  Abhartach’s eyes stayed on the painting for a moment longer, lingering with a possessive caress, before turning on Declan.

  It was an effort, but he managed not to flinch under the king's unholy gaze.

  “If it is…if it truly is…. I will grant you all that you have ever desired and more.”

  Declan smiled, a thin splitting of his lips that he fancied made him look more like the demon fae before him than the human he was.

  “Thank you, my master. It will be my greatest pleasure to give you your vengeance. May I—” Declan hesitated, wondering if his request would be going too far, but Abhartach waved an impatient hand, the spidery shadows of his gesture skittering down the walls. “May I also have the pleasure of watching you end him?”

  This time it was Abhartach who smiled. That smile killed Declan’s pretended imitation of his master’s heritage. No human on earth could smile like that—red-black lips parting, dark teeth gleaming—a bloody crack leading straight to the bowels of hell. Declan sucked in a breath of pure terror and admiration.

  “Oh, daor, you silly boy. Who said anything about ending him? Aidan O’Neill has much to answer for, and answer he will. If he should fail again to bend to my will, then his screams will echo within these walls for the rest of eternity.”

  Abhartach swept from the chamber, one large hand brushing Declan’s shoulder for the briefest instance as he passed. His master’s caress burned like cold fire long after Abhartach had gone, an ache that pierced down to the bone. But the tears that splashed and darkened the grey stone between Declan’s hands were not of pain, but of a trembling ecstasy that threatened to burst from his every pore. His heart’s desire was so close he could taste it.

  Aine, goddess of the moon, stood next to the scrying pool of Ti'rna No'g, her heart heavy. The graceful, ethereal city of the gods swirled and gleamed softly with starlight around her delicate form.

  It wasn’t fair. Danu damn Bav anyway! This was no way to repay a debt.

  Yet...a favor had been granted…a favor that may have saved Aine's very life. So a debt was owed.

  Aine had a lot of spunk, but not enough to shortchange the goddess of death. Besides, this was a road they had started on together long ago. She just hadn't gotten the full picture of what
Bav had been up to at the time. Now, however…

  “But I like Aidan,” she whispered to no one in particular. Not to mention she pitied him. A pity the vampire would have undoubtedly mocked her for, but Aine didn’t care.

  Even by her extreme meddling standards, Aidan had been fucked with more than any mortal deserved. Not that he was truly mortal any longer, but still this…this was evil.

  She sighed and hesitantly dipped her fingers into the moonlight filling the pool, her cobalt blue eyes dark with regret, as she touched the cheek of the woman reflected in the bowl, a young woman with honey blonde hair and clever, half-familiar silvery-green eyes. When Aine’s fingertip made contact, the image scattered into endless rings that lapped agitatedly against the sloped sides of the scrying pool.

  The druidic runes carved into the lip of the ancient basin started to glow as Aine whispered the spell she had been given. A spell that only she and one other of all the Tuatha de Nanaan could have cast—

  ‘Child lost to time, Child born anew,

  Go in grace, go in haste…

  And seek the dark man of yew—‘

  Aine gasped as that last line escaped her lips and slapped a hand over her own mouth. She hadn’t meant to say that. Those weren’t the words Bav had demanded of her.

  Immediately, the pool shimmered and a strong masculine face, one Aine knew well, flashed on the surface of the moonlight. His green eyes met hers and narrowed, first in recognition and then in fury…

  Manannán mac Lir, god of the sea. Could he know what they had done?

  Oh crap…Bav was going to kill her!

  Gripping the basin with fingers gone white as bone, Aine glanced over her shoulder. Only her fairy half-sister was anywhere near her, but Fand was possibly the worst person to catch a glimpse of that face in the pool. Aine shook the bowl hastily so that the reflection vanished. Then she scooped the moonlight from the bowl and with a flick of her fingers sent it arcing back into the sky.