Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2)

by Heather R. Blair

  Daire, as a pure human, should be able to get close enough to the castle to hide the potion in a place Aidan had told them of. Daire wouldn't be able to see the castle himself, not unless they got extremely unlucky and it showed itself to him. Aidan was betting against that as Abhartach wouldn't be keen to invite in any distractions once he had Aidan to toy with again.

  After Daire hid the potion, Aidan would have to find a way to get it, or have Heather get it, if she was whole and able. Ronan would be waiting for them just outside the Reeks on that fifth day,to help distract, scatter or kill whatever might follow them out of Du'n Dreach-Fhoula.

  As the plan was for them to walk out at midday, there shouldn't be much in the way of resistance. Abhartach didn't know of the potion's existance after all.

  It should work.

  If a few small things went very right, and a dozen big ones didn't go very wrong.

  He said his goodbyes in short order. Everyone was all too aware this may be the last time they ever saw him and he wanted away from the heavy maudlin mood.

  Moiré kissed his cheek before he left, her hand warm on his arm, her whisper cool in his ear. "It wasna wrong to care for her, Aidan. Whatever happens, ye mustna put tha' on yerself."

  He leaned into her touch for a moment, even as her words scored his heart. Moiré was wrong. He wasn't allowed to care, he had known that and he had done it anyway.

  This was most certainly all on him, and now it was up to him to deal with what he had wrought.

  Du'n Dreach-Fhoula loomed before him less than an hour later. Stars sparkled in the blackness above the castle, but couldn't penetrate the night within it. The doors opened before he was in hailing distance.

  It was the white-haired man from Limerick that stood between them, smiling delightedly as the sight of him put a hitch in Aidan's purposeful stride.

  "Ye?!" So that had been the familiar tang behind this one's stench. He belonged to Abhartach. A slave, obviously, one of the hangers on Aidan had warned Heather about. This one was just the type, too.

  "We meet properly at last! I am called Declan Foster among humans, though you, of course, may address me as you please. My master waits for you inside."

  The man's eyes were glinting in a weird combination of awe and transcendence. His mouth opened again, but Aidan pushed past him without another word.

  He strode into the hall as if it were nothing, as if the familiarity of this place was not sickening in the extreme. How he had hated his short stay here. The things he had endured within these walls…the things he had been forced to do…

  Aidan's jaw tightened when he heard the familiar voice call to him from the dining hall. "At last. Do come in, my son."

  Not there. Ifreann na Fola.

  Abhartach was waiting, sitting in that wicked looking chair while a servant scrubbed the stone table. Aidan avoided looking directly at it as he approached the demon.

  "Well, well, you took your time, but I see you found your way home at last." The white-haired man approached Abhartach and the demon waved an impatient hand. Declan took up a seemingly familiar position kneeling next to Abhartach's chair. "Sit, my wayward son, and tell me what has placed that oh so determined look upon your face."

  Aidan sat, but he took care not to touch the table. He swore the thing had become imbued with the souls of all the lives that had ended on its' surface. He could feel the psychic residue of millenniums pulsing from it.

  "Does she live?"

  Abhartach's ugly mouth made a moue of disappointment. "Oh come now, must we be so blunt?"

  Aidan only looked at him.

  Abhartach shrugged.

  "Very well. Yes."

  Relief slipped through Aidan on a current so strong that for a second he forgot himself, until Abhartach let out a sigh of satisfaction. "Did I not tell you so, daor? Do you not see it?"

  "Yes, master," the human fawned, in a voice so low Aidan almost didn't catch it. "You always know."

  "I do. I also know, Aidan, that you wish to bargain. Let us see if you have anything worthwhile to give me." The demon sounded strangely eager.

  With an effort, Aidan raised his head. "Aye. I believe I do. Myself."

  Abhartach's lips twisted obscenely. "But I have that already, dear boy. Here you sit."

  "'Tis true enough…but I escaped ye before. I may do so again."

  "Cocky, cocky boy. I highly doubt that. Still you could try—"

  "What if I promise no' to try, no' ever again? What if I swear to ye tha' I willna ever leave your side, tha' I will become what ye have always wanted, yer true heir in every sense? And I swear it in blood?"

  Abhartach straightened, his eyes sharp. "Ye would make such an oath? A true vow? In exchange for what? I will not let her go, not for anything you can promise me—"

  "I know. Alls I ask is tha' ye swear no' to kill her or to keep us apart."

  This was the best Aidan decided he could hope for, it was a small risk on Abhartach's part, meant to entice. The demon could do plenty to Heather without actually killing her, and allowing them to stay together also put Abhartach out very little. Both requests were simply intended to bind the demon in small ways that would infinitely increase their chances of escape. "I want yer oath now, before I see her. Once I have and I have made she sure she will survive, I will give ye yers."

  "Oh that is tempting, so very tempting, indeed." Abhartach breathed the words as if struggling with himself. "So much for so little." He could tell the demon was wondering what he was playing at, but the carrot he was dangling was a large, juicy one. One he had no intention of ever handing over, but Abhartach didn't need to know that.

  Aidan leaned forward unconsciously, willing Abhartach to take the offer. The edge of his wrist pressed into the table, that evil, loathsome table and he recoiled as the images flooded into him.

  Heather's body on that table. The vision of her was new and bright and vicious, overlaying the other old memory that lurked there for him. It burned away all other thought.

  His eyes went wide as he stared down at the stone, he barely heard the demon's next words as her screams echoed in his head.

  "I swear that I will not kill the woman, not by my hand nor order it by the hand of another. I also swear to allow you to remain with her so often as you choose. If indeed you do so choose. You may find her less tempting now." The demon chuckled as he slashed his own hand open with one sharp fingernail. His blood dripped onto the table, smoked once and vanished, but Aidan didn't notice.

  He stood when Abhartach ordered his daor to search him, only vaguely feeling the repulsion as Declan's hands moved over him with reverent care. Aidan missed the flash of disappointment on Abhartach's face entirely when the daor gave a small shake of his head and stepped away.

  Aidan had been stunned senseless by the vision that flashed in his head. Surely, Abhartach lied. She couldn't be alive. No one could survive what he had just seen…could they?

  "We have an accord. Third door on the right. I am sure you remember the way." Abhartach raised an eyebrow when Aidan didn't move. "Well, go on then. What are you waiting for, dear boy? I thought you were anxious for this little reunion."

  The man who had moved back to the demon's feet tittered. Abhartach's hand sank into his hair and Declan went quiet as Aidan turned his head at last. The slave's dark blue eyes shone at Aidan with maniacal glee. There was something seriously wrong with that white-haired bastard.

  Turning away, his heart cold and heavy as iron in his chest, Aidan contemplated the staircase. It seemed impossibly high, stretching on and upwards far too long to be real. More likely it was his fear of what he would find at the top of those stairs distorting reality. His footsteps rang against the walls as he went up.

  When he opened the door and saw her lying on the bed, his first thought was that he had been right. Abhartach had lied and Heather was dead. For a moment, gods help him, for one terrible moment he wondered if that wasn't best.

  Especially after what he had seen for that aw
ful second below.

  The chamber before him was cold and grey, with little ornamentation. It had changed not at all since the last time it had been his. Only the huge, ebony four-poster, hung with midnight blue velvet drew his eye…and the woman lying in it.

  He stood there for a long time trying to gain the courage to cross the room. When he finally did, he had to hold on to the bedposts to keep upright.

  Her beautiful face was pale, the dusky olive gone white as milk. Eyes closed, the dark smudge of her lashes stark against wan cheeks. Her body was covered by a sheet of lightest blue, a sheet stained with blood, both new and bright, rusty and old. Aidan swallowed. He couldn't lift that sheet, not yet.

  Her smell drifted through the air, sweet and unchanged, but he could sense little from her. It was if her psyche was curled behind glass, silenced within an invisible, impenetrable shield.

  She took a breath. A shallow breath that rustled through the room, a whisper in the dark.

  Aidan laid his cheek into the sleek black wood and took a shaky breath of his own.

  "Gods, nobody, what did he do to ye?"

  "Aidan?"

  He started. He had thought her unconscious. With the tip of a gloved finger, he reached down to trace her jaw. She opened those violet eyes and his heart stuttered. Something brushed at him, something from deep inside her, full of terror and tears and breathtaking cold, then it swirled away. Back behind the glass.

  "You sure took your time." Her voice was as insubstantial as smoke, but her full lips curved.

  "Well, ye know the power of a late entrance." The flippancy stuck in his throat, but he choked it out.

  "For sure. I was fine with it, of course, but your demon….he got a little impatient." She closed her eyes, but not before he saw the sheen there.

  "Let's have a look then." He reached for the sheet, his hand shaking.

  "No." One soft word. But it froze him instantly.

  "Heather. I canna help, if I canna see…"

  "You can't help, Aidan."

  "Let me be the judge of tha'."

  She didn't open her eyes, but he saw her throat work.

  "You're gonna be a stuborn ass about this, aren't you?"

  "O' course I am, would ye expect anything less?"

  "Fine." Her voice was resigned.

  Gently, he pulled the sheet back. Heather turned her face into the pillow, but Aidan didn’t notice because his mind had gone utterly numb.

  His knees hit stone.

  Her body, that lovely, perfect body, had been more than ravaged, it had been turned into something unrecognizable. Oozing crimson trails crossed every inch of skin from her collarbone to the soles of her feet. A twisted map of Abhartach's cruelty in living flesh. How had she ever endured this?

  He bit his lips so hard, blood spurted over his tongue. The taste of it finally shook him from his horror. He got to his feet slowly, feeling every year of his long life in that moment.

  "I can make this better. I canna heal ye entirely, but…there is something. Will ye trust me?"

  As soon as he spoke the words he wanted to suck them back in. Trust him? The last time they had spoken he had been fucking vicious, and then he had left her in the hands of a monster for nearly 24 hours. How could he even think she would—

  "I do." She hadn't lifted her head from the pillow, so the two words were muffled, but unmistakable as a lightning strike through the heart.

  Damme.

  Aidan staggered a little. Then he nodded, though she couldn't see him. It was more to convince himself than her, anyway.

  "Okay then, this may…. Oh bugger tha', this is going to hurt like fuck all, love. I am sorry…but if ye let me use my power, I can ease it—"

  She cut him off. This time she lifted her head, her dark hair scattered over her face, but he could see the dark fire of that purple gaze.

  "No. What's a bit more pain, all things considered?"

  "Aye," he sighed reluctantly as he lifted his wrist to his lips. Even now, she refused to give up control.

  Her eyes widened at the sight of his fangs, but she didn't say a word, watching him steadily. He tore deep into his own flesh, opening both arteries and veins, wanting a strong, steady flow.

  She gasped when he stretched his hand over her body, letting his blood flow over the cruel wounds in her skin. For a moment, she seemed frozen in shock. Then her head rolled back. Her back bowed off the bed as her scream ripped through the room.

  He moved over her instantly, his gloved hand curving over her face, pulling it around to him. She swallowed, shaking her head at the glow in his eyes, closing her own tightly. The scream turned into a series of short, breathless gasps as she tried to twist away from him.

  "Stop, Aidan! I can take it…"

  "But I canna! Look at me. Come on, love. Please!" His fingers trembled on her cheek. Finally she opened her eyes.

  Instantly, he slipped inside her mind. For a split second Aidan couldn't breathe. The screaming inside her was piercing, unending and all-consuming behind that glass she had put up. Put up to protect him, he realized with a bone-deep certainty.

  It hadn't been about control at all, her refusing his power. She had just been trying to spare him this.

  Her agony ripped him out of himself. It was so black, so horribly complete that for a minute he was lost. It seemed an eternity before Aidan started to gain control. Like a man working his way up an icy slope, he forced the pain away step by slippery step, the fear, the torment…all of it.

  Heather's spine unlocked and she sank back into the bed as he pushed her headlong into unconsciousness. He felt the shivers dancing over her skin, saw the sweat glisten as his blood worked to heal her. Her breathing had settled, thanks to his interference.

  Vampire blood could heal, but the way of it was harsh and agonizing.

  She'd be scarred, though. Terribly. He couldn't do anything about that. Not unless he let her drink from him directly. And that he would never do.

  Chapter 14

  It took all that night and most of the next day for Heather to heal. She never woke without seeing Aidan somewhere close. He must have left at some point, because he used his blood on her twice more, so he had to have fed. She didn't want to think of from who.

  He was sleeping in a chair next to the bed when she opened her eyes to find herself free of pain for the first time since Abhartach had hit her at the Fitzpatrick's.

  Aidan was sprawled in that careless poise of his, all lazy, beautiful power. His curls were tangled, as if his fingers had streaked through them only a minute ago. He was pale. Paler than she'd even seen him. There were blue smudges under his eyes and his cheeks were hollow.

  Heather watched him. Her hands twisting the bedcovers, remembering how she had looked at the painting of him while she lay on that cold table. How she had drawn strength from his mere likeness. Having him here in reality was far better, just as she'd told Abhartach.

  Wasn't it?

  He'd get them out. Aidan had to have a plan. That was what had taken so long, surely. He had been working something out. That was all.

  "Why are ye crying, love?"

  She blinked. She hadn't seen him open his eyes. Heather ducked her head. "I'm not crying."

  "O' course, yer no'. 'Tis just raining. Inside. On yer face."

  She smothered the mad urge to giggle against the sheets. "And what a face it must be."

  "'Tis a very beautiful face, nobody." She caught the unspoken 'still'. Abhartach had not touched her face with his blade. Aidan was reminding her of that, however gently. It made her mad.

  "I'm not vain."

  Aidan snorted, stretching in his chair. "O' course ye are."

  "That's not true." As if vanity was anything after what she had been through. Though she didn't have the courage to lift the sheet to look at her body. A body that she wouldn't even know anymore. That she didn't want to know. Maybe he was right.

  She bit her lip.

  "Oh bollocks," he shot at her. "Ye're one of the
most beautiful women in the world. O' course yer vain. Obnoxious about it sometimes, too."

  "You fucking—"

  "Ass?" He interrupted her angry whisper and her lips twitched.

  She shook her head at him, her eyes flashing. "You said it, not me."

  And yer not crying anymore, he thought. For now.

  She did cry, though. Lots more. Mostly when he couldn't see her, but sometimes she slipped. Another night and day went by. Things were hazy. There was still pain. The first time Aidan helped her wash. The first time she walked across the cold floor, the scars on the soles of her feet pressing in like she was treading on tangled ropes. The first time she felt his lips on her skin and shoved him away.

  Heather didn't leave the room.

  Aidan did.

  More often by the third night.

  She didn't ask what he was doing. And he didn't tell her. His face became more drawn with each passing hour.

  Still, they did not talk about what went on below. But they did talk. For hours.

  They mostly avoided his past and her future. They talked about nonsense and drivel and anything but what was important. Another day passed. He slept in the bed with her now, but they didn't do more than touch in passing. Heather wouldn't allow it. When they were awake. Sleeping it was different.

  Her body betrayed her.

  She woke with her head on his chest, her hip curved into his, her thigh over his legs. Four nights had passed since Aidan had returned. In that time, she had seen no one but him. Had heard no one but him. Tonight that would be different. Abhartach had demanded her presence below. Not in the dining hall, Aidan had promised her that much, but in the throne room. There was no choice, he had explained to her in the hours before dawn, the starlight soft in his hair through the wide open window. His eyes had been hard and unyielding.

  She had nodded dully, but hadn't spoken to him for the rest of the night.

  She didn't think she could do it. Face the thing that had tortured her. Look into those cold dead eyes, seeing those blackened, red lips. Heather pressed her face into Aidan's chest, her breath coming in hard, fast hiccupping gulps as the panic started.