He hadn't said as much, but Aidan also suspected Ronan was trying to give him some privacy. As much as he loved the children, Aidan had to admit it was a welcome consideration. He wanted a measure of peace and quiet for this. "So what is yer problem?"
Ronan flipped a chair round and sat opposite Aidan. Setting his own tea down, he raised his eyes. "Ye remember the first time we met?"
"Aye, no' likely to forget tha' night, am I?"
It had been the night he had escaped Abhartach the first time. He'd been a vampire for less than a fortnight. It had been an awful and wonderful night. A night that had given him a new beginning, and almost ended him.
He had been in the middle of slaughtering one of the three guards the demon had following him, when Ronan had stepped from the shadows. Just as he had separated the creature's head from its body.
After being cursed by Aine to be a werewolf when he was only a teenager, Ronan had been entrusted by Lugh with keeping the Changelings of Ireland in check, among other things. While the creatures that would eventually be known as vampires were not Changelings, Ronan hadn't been one to fuss about technicalities.
Munster
899 A.D
"Bit odd, innit?" The big man who had slipped from the forest was eerily quiet for his size. He also smelled foul. Áedán wrinkled his nose, trying to place the odor.
"What is?"
"Bloodsuckers killing bloodsuckers. No' tha' I much mind, o' course. But it does make a body curious." He was edging left. Áedán circled warily to the right.
This man may look like just a 'man', but he wasn't. Nor was the sword on his back just a 'sword'.
The feel of both of them was making the hair on Áedán's forearms stand straight up. He was strong, much stronger than he had ever been in life, when he had been formidable enough. He also knew that Abhartach turning him personally, rather than leaving it to one of his minions, had given him even more strength than most of the others. Áedán was aware he was now one of the most lethal creatures on earth.
Yet, whatever this repulsive-smelling man was, he was dangerous, too. Very dangerous. Áedán wasn't sure he could beat him, especially after all he had already been through this strange night. Desperation tickled his spine and carried over into his voice.
"I am nae like them."
The big man chuckled. "Do tell."
"I dinna chose this!"
Shaking his dark shaggy head, the man unsheathed the sword. It glimmered in the grove with the promise of death. "I can smell the blood of innocents on ye, even now. Do nae deny it!"
Áedán was eyeing the sword, his mind racing when it came to him. With a shock, he realized the solution he had been looking for had presented itself, right here. That sword could kill him. He knew it.
Hadn't he been looking for a way out just a few short hours ago? Here it was. Why fight it? Yes, things had changed in those hours. Somewhat.
Áedán had managed to find a way out for the one he loved above all others, had been able to rid himself of Abhartach's hold over him. His intention had been to run now, to escape the beast after ensuring he would not be followed.
But the true beast was inside him, was it not? There would be no escape for him from that, not ever.
Unless—
Abruptly, he stopped circling and dropped his hands.
"Aye. Tha' is the truth of it."
Frowning, the big man cut the sword once at him, a flashing strike that Áedán could have avoided easily, but didn't. At the last second, the blow was pulled. "What ails ye, bloodsucker?" The big man sounded irritated.
It was Áedán's turn to laugh. A laugh that to his horror turned to a sob.
Ronan had chosen not to kill him, but to listen to his story. In listening, he had sheathed the sword. In the end, it had been together they had gone to Du'n Dreach-Fhoula and dealt Abhartach such a severe blow he had indeed let Aidan be in peace on Eire for a long time. Ronan had not only saved him that night, in more ways than one, he had become his friend. The only one Aidan had allowed himself to have since.
Now Aidan stared into that friend's eyes and wondered if there was a point to this stroll down memory lane.
"Aye, I suppose neither of us will be forgetting tha' night. I wonder tho…"
"What?" Aidan snapped, growing impatient with this dance, especially when he could feel the approach of the sun in his bones.
"As much as I love ye, brother, I know yer heart too well. Yer were a man without hope tha' night." Ronan swallowed, obviously uncomfortable but determined to say his piece. "I have no' wish to see ye tha' way again. Ye take my meaning?"
Aidan stared at him. "What's got yer panties in such a twist?"
Though he was pretty sure he knew. Ronan was afraid he was getting in too deep with Heather. He knew the price Aidan had paid for love before.
Ronan sighed and met his eyes.
"I can smell her on ye, ye know. The blood."
Blowing out a breath, Aidan got to his feet, avoiding Ronan's gaze. "It's what vampires do, Ronan. She is fine with it and it's really naught of your concern, is it?"
"Ye hunted last night." Meaning he hadn't needed to drink from Heather, of course. "Aidan, I thought ye said, she wasna… Tha' ye were no'—"
"I know what I said." He wasn't going to share this, not even with Ronan. He didn't dare tell anyone the way he had needed her last night. Her taste, her smell…the feel of her. Hell, he didn't want to know it himself. "Tha' is my business, brother or no'."
They locked eyes and Ronan's dropped first. But not before Aidan saw the fear there. It was a fear he shared, even if he couldn't tell Ronan that.
"Was anyone going to wake me up?" Heather, her dark hair rumpled, her face a bit pale, rounded the corner. Both men started.
“Aye," Aidan lied easily, giving her a smile through numb lips. "Just letting ye lie in for a bit. But I suppose it's time. We should do this. Give me a mo'.”
He left Heather and Ronan in the kitchen with an abruptness that had her frowning at him before her face cleared. He knew she had decided he was just nervous. Which, he supposed, as he mixed the potion with water in the bathroom and watched the needle slide into his vein, was true.
He was nervous, but not of the sun. It only had the power to turn him into ash.
There were worse things.
Chapter 11
The sky was iron grey blushed with pink when Aidan entered the kitchen again, rubbing his arm where he’d injected the potion. Ronan was leaning against the wooden table, a cup of tea in his hand, Lugh’s sword jutting over one shoulder, trying to look somber and failing miserably. The excitement of what they were about to do was affecting everyone.
Heather was sitting on the counter, her bare feet swinging lightly. She'd dressed while he was gone. She'd been making do with raiding Shelagh's closet. This time it was a long-skirted, white sundress that left her shoulders bare and made her eyes glow. They met his and she grinned at him. He couldn’t help but grin back. Despite the danger, despite the worry nagging at him, there was a giddy feeling in the room as the sky lightened. It danced between the three of them like a capricious child, driving away all gloom.
“I’ll be circling. I'll start a narrow circle, then go out to five miles and work me way back in. I'll meet up with ye later.”
Aidan nodded in acknowledgement of Ronan's low words, but didn’t reply. He was feeling kind of breathless, like someone was sitting on his chest. Ronan set his cup in the sink, gave Heather a short bob of his head and slid out the glass side door.
Aidan opened his mouth as he turned to Heather. She cut him off before he could make a sound.
"I am going with you."
"Tha' might be dangerous."
"Dangerous? With him patrolling the borders, that overgrown meat cleaver on his back," she jerked a finger after Ronan's retreating back, "and you right there with me? I think not."
"Oy, 'tis a fine thing, yer confidence in us, but damme, ye stubborn chit…"
She folde
d her arms over her chest and glared at him.
Aidan sighed. He wanted her with him, just like he had wanted her last night. He didn't want to be alone today.
Besides it was partially thanks to her insistence, and Ronan's nosy ways, that he was getting this shot again so soon. He owed her, and maybe he owed himself, too. He stamped down the warning that tried to rise, the old fear that breathed cold down his spine.
Oh, leave it be, just for today. 'Tis one day, what the fuck can it hurt?
"Fine. Jus' remember, this is a dangerous game we are playing at here. Ye understand me well? If ye donna do exactly as I say when I say it…"
She wagged an eyebrow at him and his eyes narrowed at her cheek.
Hmmm, there was an idea.
"I will bend ye over my knee and smack tha' fine little arse of yers 'til yer red as a beet. On both ends."
The expression on her face was priceless. Her lips thinned, her face colored and her eyes went the dark purple of a northern storm. For a moment, he thought she might slap him again. Then Heather took a deep breath and smiled. There was something a wee bit scary about that smile.
"Of course. For today, you're the boss, Aidan. I'll be good as gold." She swept out of the kitchen without a backwards glance, letting that sweet arse he'd just threatened sway far more deliberately than necessary as she did so.
Shite. She would get back at him for that, he could feel it.
Shite and hellfire.
Ten minutes later, they stood under the rose trellis and watched the sun come up together.
The morning was heavy with mist, the cool moisture settling on their skin like soft kisses. Everything was diffused, edges blurred, from the dark forest off to their right, to the rolling hills falling away in front of them. A silvery glint winking through the cottony haze was all that hinted at the lake below. It felt as if they were floating among the clouds instead of walking on solid ground.
When the sun peeped over the horizon everything was instantly washed in a golden pink glow.
It looked like they’d fallen into a fairy world.
Heather stole a peek at Aidan out of the corner of her eye. His lips were slightly parted, his skin flushed and there was such a wild joy on his face it made her insides ache. Without thinking about it, she reached for his hand.
He didn’t turn his head, but his fingers tangled with hers. Inexplicably, tears stung her eyes. She swallowed, wondering what the hell was wrong with her. She was happy for him, for god’s sake, not sad. There was no damn reason for her heart to feel this full. Aidan squeezed her hand, hard.
“Ouch.” She whispered it, but the sound broke the solemn mood. Aidan cocked his head at her and squeezed again. Her fingers went numb. “Damnit! I said ouch! What the hell was that for?”
“I guess I am jus’ powerful nervous, ‘tis all—”
Aw, poor guy.
“—please set me mind at ease and tell me no one gave ye the keys to any of vehicles? I really donna fancy another visit by the garda.”
She tried to yank her hand out of his, but Aidan laughed and pulled her up against him. He buried his face in her hair, his lips against her ear. “Ye smell even better in the dawn than in the twilight, I dinna think tha’ was possible."
Two seconds ago, she’d wanted to smack him for teasing her, now all she could do was turn to mush in his arms.
He was in a mood, for sure. A mood like she had never seen in him before. They walked down past the gardens and then up the knobby hill that rose behind the Fitzpatrick’s home. Aidan spun back and forth between the sharp-tongued, sexy pain-in-the-ass she had come to expect and someone entirely different.
Someone who knelt in the dirt to touch a sprig of a purple flower that he told her was called heather with wonder in his eyes. Who held his breath when a butterfly alighted on his knuckles.
“Why innit it frightened of me?” He asked her in a voice so low she barely heard it as the delicate blue wings beat once and then stilled.
She choked back a nervous laugh, confused by this Aidan, and filled with something she couldn’t put her finger on, but that made her feel both strangely protective of him and completely off balance.
“Silly vampire, you drink blood, don’t you? You don't eat insects. What does it have to be scared of? Unless the whole bat thing is true?” She stuck her tongue out at him and Aidan snorted. The butterfly shot off, a sapphire streak that faded into the perfect sky.
By midmorning the sun had burnt off most of the mist, except under the trees. Aidan guided her through them to a small river that gurgled along happily. There was a clearing of sorts here, thick with grass and wildflowers.
With a contented sigh, he sat down with his back against a small, sturdy tree. He leaned back and shaded his eyes as he looked up at her. “So sit, then.”
She grumbled, eyeing the beads of moisture glistening everywhere. “My ass will get wet.”
“Such a girl.”
He stripped his jacket off and tossed it to her, making her stagger a little with the weight of the heavy leather.
The sight of him was pretty staggering as well, she thought as she folded his coat and laid it over the grass before sitting cross-legged in front of him. She’d always thought he looked like a fallen angel and never had that been more apparent than now.
Aidan had settled under a rowan tree, shafts of sunlight shimmered through the leaves over his head. His curls were dark, tousled gold, and there was that arrogant tilt to his chin as he regarded her through slitted crystal eyes. His lean, powerful body was spread lazily against the tree trunk like a big, untamed cat in repose.
He looked good enough to eat and she licked her lips unconsciously.
Aidan shook his head at her.
“Oy, quit looking at me like tha'.”
“Like what?” She said, faking an innocently puzzled tone that had him rolling his eyes.
“Like I am a damme box of chocolates and you’re deciding which piece to eat first.”
It was so perfectly accurate an assessment of what she’d been thinking she burst out laughing. When she got her breath back, she asked him why that was a problem.
He gave her a considering look that made her toes curl. “’Tis not a problem, love, just ‘tis not the time.”
“So, what is it time for, Aidan?”
“I donna know.” His eyes were cast in shadows but she saw the bright flash as he glanced down at the river. A soft, reminiscent smile stole over his face. “How about a story?"
“Okay then, tell me…tell me how you got here. How you became a vampire and wh—” She said it without thinking. It had been on her mind the whole surreal morning and the words just slipped out before she could grab them back. The look on his face put a hard, cold knot in her stomach, stealing away the sweet warmth that had been with her since the sun rose.
“Fuck. I'm sorry, that was so stupid.” She breathed the words, unable to tear her stricken gaze from him.
Aidan didn't meet her eyes, his gaze had darted away over the river. She could feel the tension in him from here, see it in the tight bunch of the heavy muscles of his shoulders and she wanted to cry. She was ruining his day in the sun yet again, what the hell was wrong with her?
Something inside him seemed to release all at once and he leaned his head back against the tree with a sigh.
"'Tis nae stupid, nobody. Yer bound to be curious. And maybe ye should…aye, ye should hear it.
“’It really begins with a very old story, even older than me. One of my ancestors—he’s rather famous—if ye know anything about Irish history—“
“I don’t.”
“Aye, I figured. Ignorant chit.”
“Hey!” She rubbed at her eyes and gave him a shaky smile.
“Are ye gonna shut up and let me finish me story or no’?”
She ripped up a handful of grass and threw it at him. Aidan grinned, glad he had gotten those tears out of her eyes, before he brushed the grass out of his hair.
God, w
ho knew simple grass heated by the sun could smell so damme fine? His eyes trailed over the hills falling down to Aine’s lake and the way it sparkled, burning so bright it was like the water had caught fire…
“Earth to Aidan.”
He took a breath. It had floored him at first, her asking to hear about that particular piece of his history. The part that seemed so determined to haunt him lately.
Aidan realized he should have known that is what she would be most curious about. Shite, perhaps he had known. Perhaps he had just been waiting for an excuse to tell it to her.
That didn't mean it wasn't going to be hard.
Heather seemed to sense his sudden reluctance to speak. She put a hand on his outstretched leg.
“You know, you don’t have to tell me anything if you don’t want to.”
Aidan turned his head and gave her a smile.
“I know, love. But 'tis a fine day for a story. Even if the story itself is nae so fine." He took a deep breath. "It was me great, great, great-and-so-on grandfather, Niall of the Nine Hostages, he was called. He—“
“Hostages? Your ancestor kidnapped people?” She had leaned back on her elbows now, her eyebrows raised.
“He did a lot more than tha'. A chip off the old O'Neill block, was Niall. And I swear to Danu, if ye donna stop interrupting, I willna tell ye another word!”
She laughed, but waved her hand. “Oh, go on with yerself then.”
He winced. “Donna do tha'. Yer accent is bloody awful.”
Her nose wrinkled, making him fight the urge to kiss her as she playfully zipped her lips shut and looked at him expectantly.
“So Niall had a problem, ye see. A great demon came to Uí Néill—tha' being what the north was called back then. Anyway, the demon is killing his people, more than killing, drinking their blood. Nasty stuff. All the clans are terrified, everyone hysterical wondering who's gonna be wiped out next.
"Niall decides he’s got to do something and so he did. He and this other clan leader joined together and came up with a plan to capture the beast and kill it. And their plan worked. Or so they thought. Until the damme monster crawled out of the hole they’d buried it in. Night after night, same thing happened. Niall would kill it, bury it, the sun would set and up it would come.
Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2) Page 17