From Jennifer Ashley, With Love: Three Paranormal Romances from Bestselling Series

by Jennifer Ashley

  Amber made him coffee. She decided it was either that or watch Adrian tear her family’s house apart one piece at a time.

  Adrian hadn’t been kidding when he’d said search the house. He started in Susan’s room, peeling up floorboards and peering into every crevice before demanding a hammer and chisel so he could pry off the baseboards too.

  Amber tried to weave a spell around him to at least make him slow down and explain why Susan knowing about Tain and Ravenscroft enraged him so much, but when her spell touched him Adrian only looked over his shoulder in irritation and kept on wrenching up boards.

  At one point, Adrian held out his arm and snapped his fingers impatiently. Amber wondered what he wanted, then she heard a slithering sound on the hallway runner and looked down to see Ferrin bending himself around the doorframe. She jumped back, knocking her elbow painfully against the doorknob. The snake looked at Amber with its glittering black eyes, and if snakes could smirk, this one was smirking.

  Lowering his head, Ferrin slid along to Adrian, who, without looking at him, grabbed him and fed him into the hole, telling him to report back what he found.

  That’s when Amber decided to go make coffee.

  When she came back upstairs with a cup for Adrian, Ferrin was coiled around Adrian’s biceps again as the silver armlet. Adrian knelt in the middle of the floor, one hand pressed to the sketches in Susan’s book, the other to his face. The big man’s body shook, his naked back heaving as though he were having a seizure.

  Amber plunked down the cup in alarm and hurried to him. Not until she knelt next to him did she see that he was crying.

  Not just crying, weeping, his eyes shut, his mouth drawn in silent agony, his cheeks wet with tears. Sorrow poured from him in waves that threatened to knock Amber over and maybe pull down the house down as well.

  “Adrian?” she whispered. When he didn’t respond, she touched his wet cheek. “You all right?”

  He didn’t acknowledge her. He was lost in some world of his own, his fingers blindly tracing the drawing of Tain as though he could feel every stroke of the lines.

  Riding between, Susan had written. Riding between was dangerous and only very good witches attempted it. She meant riding dreams in the world between the conscious and unconscious mind, the astral plane, but the witch had to be firmly anchored to her body or she’d be lost forever to the ether. The witch could travel along ley lines, using the tendrils of power that snaked around the earth to keep themselves tied to their own bodies.

  The fact that Susan had been riding between and not telling Amber chilled her. A witch usually asked another witch to sit with her while she rode, so that if her mortal body showed any sign of distress, the other witch could pull her back home before it was too late.

  Susan had seen the man she’d drawn while riding between, and something about him and Immortals had worried her very much. She must have gone to the warehouse to understand what she’d found while riding, maybe even to learn how to stop it. Susan had been a very strong witch, often attempting dangerous magic that Amber begged her not to.

  Susan usually won her point through strength of will, which only bolstered her confidence to try things even more dangerous. Amber was a more practical witch, learning how to earn their bread and butter from reading rune stones or performing cleansing spells, using magic to make their lives roll along. A domestic witch, Susan always called her. Susan had the talent and creativity, and she and Amber had shouted through many arguments about what the Craft was truly for.

  “Adrian.” Amber gently stroked his shoulder. Whatever he’d suffered must have been terrible, and he’d suffered it alone.

  He opened eyes that were wet and shining like dark jewels. He traced the drawing of the man again, his mouth pulled in sorrow.

  “That’s your brother?” Amber asked.

  Adrian nodded slowly, finally acknowledging her. “She saw Tain. In seven hundred years, this is the first trace I’ve ever found of him.”

  * * *

  Amber made him drink the coffee. She convinced Adrian to stop tearing up the floor and return with her to her bedroom, where she sat cross-legged on the bed and watched him sip the coffee.

  Adrian drank silently, stopping to wipe away fresh tears when they leaked from his eyes. Unlike most men she knew, he seemed in no way ashamed of crying. Amber understood. Some pain was too important to keep bottled up.

  “Are you going to tell me about it?” she asked.

  “This is dangerous knowledge, Amber.”

  “I figured that. I also figure I know too much already, so you might as well tell me the rest.”

  Adrian grasped her hand, his fingers warm from the coffee mug. She felt his pulse beating under her touch, his heartbeat quick and hard, his skin warmer than a normal human’s. “I’ll do better than that,” he said. “I’ll show you.”

  “How?” she asked doubtfully. “Psychic projection?”

  “No.” Adrian cupped her cheek and tilted her head so that she looked straight into his eyes. “Stronger magic than a parlor trick.”

  Amber couldn’t have looked away from him even if she’d wanted to. He held her with his black gaze that promised her the secrets of the universe if only she could learn how to read them.

  She sensed the room whirling away from her, but she also had the feeling that this was perfectly fine, as long as she was with him. Adrian’s strong hand warmed her face and she found comfort falling into darkness of his eyes.

  The first thing she felt was cold. Bone-chilling icy cold from wind that swept down from a northern sea. Amber stood on a wooded slope that ran down to a clear blue lake, its vast sheet of water curving out of sight around a jagged mountain. A castle jutted up on the far bank, something square and squat. It was a fortress, not a fairytale castle, grim and faceless, meant for holding off enemies. Adrian was nowhere in sight.

  “Adrian?” Amber’s voice rang in the sudden emptiness.

  Her breath didn’t mist, which it should have in that climate, telling her she was only magically there. In truth she must still be in her bedroom with Adrian, his hands cupping her face, his dark eyes making her see what he wanted her to see.

  She started down the slope, noting that she had to step over bramble and fallen branches, although they didn’t cut her feet.

  “Adrian, where are you?” she called.

  No answer. She gritted her teeth and kept walking down the hill, for some reason believing she’d find Adrian, or at least an answer to where he’d gone, at the bottom. She never got out of breath or hurt, and she thought it unfair that she had to search for him at all.

  Unless something had gone wrong. This was somewhat like riding between—Amber had attempted it twice in her life, with Susan supervising, and it had scared her senseless both times. But this was different. She couldn’t feel any ley lines, didn’t experience the weightlessness and ability to flit from place to place with a thought. Riding between had always left her slightly motion sick. Here she was definitely on the ground, solid, her legs aching from all the walking.

  “You might have warned me I’d have to hike,” she called at the woods around her. “Whoever you are, Adrian, you’re driving me insane. Which only proves that you’re male.”

  As she reached the edge of the trees, she heard shouting, deep hoarse shouts, and the clash of metal on metal. Halting, she peered around one of the largest trees into a clearing that led to the shores of the lake.

  A dozen creatures with bent backs and leathery wings circled a lone warrior. The warrior stood tall and wore mail covered with a surcoat stained with blood. He had a chain mail hood and greaves on his arms and legs and hefted a huge sword that Amber had seen earlier that night at the warehouse.

  Adrian turned in a wary circle, watching the demons, his sword held ready. A word swam in Amber’s brain—Unseelie. Large, strong, bad-smelling Celtic nasties that killed cattle and stole children and did other traditionally evil things. Right now they were ganging up to kill Adrian.
>
  Amber had no way to tell whether this Adrian was from the past, which meant she already knew he’d live through the fight, or if he was the Adrian she’d met tonight, pulled into some kind of bizarre game the demon had begun. The Adrian in blue jeans slung low across his hips—no underwear showed above the waistband, which led Amber to believe he’d left them off after his shower—was nowhere in sight.

  The Unseelies charged Adrian at the same time. Amber pressed her fist to her mouth to stifle her scream as they plunged at him. She started to conjure magics in her mind, but they petered out almost instantly, reminding her this place wasn’t real—she walked in Adrian’s memories. Her magical body and mind remained on the bed in her house.

  A warrior’s cry rose from Adrian’s throat and echoed from the clearing to ring across the lake and surrounding mountains. He swung his sword in a furious arc, slamming the blade into first one monster then the other. The Unseelies struck back without remorse, using their advantage of aerial height. This was no choreographed Hollywood fight, where the crowd of villains politely waited for the hero to take them one at a time. These monsters swarmed Adrian, determined to kill.

  Adrian methodically beat them back. Amber watched talons rake his shoulders, some foiled by the chain mail, while other Unseelies sliced through to draw blood. She understood Adrian’s scars now—he’d won them in battles like this and many others. Adrian didn’t stumble or go down, he fought remorselessly, shoving the sword through body after body, a ferocious smile on his face.

  The creatures dropped at his feet as he stabbed them through, the odor as they died making her gag. The remaining Unseelies, instead of fleeing, kept at him, as though they couldn’t leave without at least trying to accomplish his death. Adrian shouted again, his voice rolling off the mountainside, and then Amber realized he was laughing. He thought this was fun.

  Once the monsters were dead in a circle around him, Adrian stood still a moment, chest heaving, then he whooped in victory and tossed his sword in the air, end-over-end. He caught the sword by its hilt, the blade black with blood.

  “Tain!” he shouted. “I’m done. ’Twas as easy as you said.” The words were not English, but Amber understood every syllable of them inside his memories.

  Adrian’s laughter rolled across the lake. “Tain!” he called again. He waited, listening, but all was silent except the faint roar of wind in the trees. “I thirst. Let us hie to the village and drown ourselves in a barrel of ale. They’ll stand it.”

  He waited another moment, listening, then he began making his way toward the lake, pulling off his chain mail hood and letting the wind stream through his hair. “Tain?”

  Amber listened too. At first she heard nothing but the trees—not even a birdcall split the silence. She thought a whisper floated on the wind, a faint sound that sounded like words, then it was gone.

  The warrior Adrian heard it too. He halted, gazing out over the lake to the castle at the far end. Resting the sword over his shoulder, he started to walk, then to stride, and finally to run.

  Amber made a noise of frustration and scrambled after him, but suddenly the woods whipped away from her, and she landed on her feet inside a dark room. The walls of the room were made of huge blocks of stone, not well finished, and she guessed that she was now inside the castle.

  Adrian was there too. So were about ten other people who lay on the floor, their bodies still with death. Some were bloody, others merely lay as though they’d dropped in place. Adrian said a foul word and strode across the room, sorrow creasing his face as he stepped over the bodies.

  One young woman was still alive. Her gown had been made of a fine material, thick against the weather, and she wore the tattered remains of a fur cloak. Adrian knelt next to her, raising her head to his lap as Amber moved closer.

  “Where is Tain?” Adrian asked urgently.

  “Gone.”

  Again, they didn’t speak English, probably a dialect of old Gaelic, but Amber understood.

  “Gone where?”

  The young woman tried to grip Adrian’s arm, but her hand fell back, weak. “She took him. She took him, and her demons killed us.”

  “Who did?”

  The girl’s voice was a faint whisper. “Nimue.”

  She named a sorceress who had seduced Merlin of legend and sealed him in a cave. Adrian showed no surprise at the name, and only the tightening of his muscles betrayed his anger. “Tell me what happened.” His voice was both gentle and urgent.

  “Lord Tain protected us until the end. But there were too many. He couldn’t fight them off and protect us too. Then she came.” The girl swallowed, her eyes moving back and forth as though she could no longer see Adrian. “She took him away. He went with her, he didn’t fight . . . She must have enchanted . . .”

  Her voice trailed off. Adrian stroked her hair comfortingly. “Help will come.”

  The girl opened her eyes again. “No, I. . .” Her voice broke, and this time she went still with death.

  Adrian’s expression changed from one of gentle comfort to rage so pure it radiated from him like magic. White sparks danced in his eyes, the incredible power Amber had sensed in him earlier coming to the surface. He closed the girl’s eyes with his gloved fingers, then he bowed his head, his hand splaying across his face as though he prayed for her.

  Amber let out a sigh of sympathy. The poor young woman had so believed that Tain and Adrian would defend her, and her words had not blamed either of them in the end.

  Adrian looked up suddenly, his white-hot gaze focusing directly on Amber. He saw her, even though he shouldn’t be able to—this was a vision, a memory, and he was Adrian from the past.

  “Leave them be,” he snarled and flung his hand out, fingers open.

  Power streamed from his hand and sent Amber flying backward. She screamed and flailed and then instantly was on her feet on the wooded slope, gasping for breath. Silence flooded the valley, and Adrian was nowhere in sight.

  Another blast of freezing wind poured down from the mountains, making Amber’s teeth chatter, even though she knew that her between state kept her protected from the real cold. With the wind came a cry, a haunting scream of anguish.

  Adrian! Help me!

  The cry was so full of torment that Amber wanted to rush to the man’s side, wherever he was.

  Adrian!

  “You can hear him?” Adrian asked beside her.

  Amber jumped, stifling a scream. Adrian stood next to her as though he’d always been there, dressed in the mail and tattered surcoat, his sword held point downward in his huge hands.

  “He didn’t cry out the day he was taken.” Adrian scanned the valley, his dark eyes flickering. “Only in my dreams. It’s haunted me for centuries.”

  Amber rubbed her hands over her arms, trying to scrub warmth into them. “Let me get this straight. Tain was lured away by Nimue the sorceress?”

  Adrian shook his head. “The young woman could have seen anyone, a goddess, a demon in woman’s form, a witch. She knew the stories and decided she’d seen Nimue. I saw no reason to argue with her.”

  “She said Tain went willingly, without fighting.”

  “I know.” Adrian’s deep blue surcoat stirred in the wind, his face incredibly sad. “Though I’ve started to wonder whether he did go willingly. He’d fallen in love with a woman, and wanted to stay with her. I was annoyed, lectured him on his duty, and he defied me. It’s obvious that the Unseelies attacking the valley were a diversion to get us out of the way while Tain went off with her, leaving those people to die. She’d never have taken him if I had been with him at the castle. That’s what I’ve had to live with all these years.”

  “You don’t know that,” Amber said. “You don’t know whether you’d have been able to stop it.”

  His eyes were somber. “I do know.” His clothes changed to the blue jeans, his torso naked to the wind. “From that day to this I’ve never found a scrap of evidence of Tain or where he’d gone. Me the great Immortal wa
rrior,” he finished bitterly.

  “How did Susan find him?” Amber asked.

  “That is what I need to know. And more to the point, what she found out about him.”

  Amber reached out and slid her fingers through his. “I’m so sorry, Adrian. I wish I knew more, I wish Susan would have told me what she was up to. She was probably trying to protect me from dangerous knowledge. I wish I could help you better.”

  Adrian gave her a puzzled look. “You care about this.”

  “Of course I care. I just lost my sister. I know what you went through with your brother. The shock, the hope that it’s all a mistake, that she’ll come walking through the door, laughing that she played a joke on you. The question of whether I could have done something to prevent it. The constant Why? What did I do wrong? Am I close?”

  “Yes.” Adrian stroked her fingers with his thumb. “The only difference is I know that somewhere Tain is still alive, trapped, and in pain. I have to find him.”

  The wooded hills spun away, along with the cold, and the two of them were sitting on her bed again in her warm house in Seattle. Adrian ran his hand through wind-tangled hair. His eyes held the mist of tears, as though their journey had lasted but a second—and maybe it had.

  “Now I remember,” he said, voice soft, “where I’d seen you before.”

  Amber knew she should stop herself, but she decided not to. She closed the space between them, got herself onto his lap, and wrapped her arms around him. He stiffened in surprise, then his arms came around her and he held her close.

  Chapter Five

  Adrian buried his face in Amber’s neck, taking comfort in her sweet scent. He’d become so used to being alone in his anguish that her burst of compassion startled him.

  Showing her what had happened on the day Tain disappeared had been harder than he’d expected. A brief flash, then it was gone, though to her it had happened in real time. But even the short moment reliving the shock of Tain’s disappearance cut him deep.

  Amber was right—when a person lost someone to violence they blamed themselves for not preventing it. I should have known. I should have seen. I should have stopped it.