Page 12 of Dark Embrace

He felt Malcolm leaving the hall, going below, and his mind began to ease. His senses intensified impossibly. Tonight, he thought, he would find and destroy Moray.

Tonight, he would tear Moray’s throat out with his teeth. Then he would feed his heart to the wolves.

And he gave into the wolf, a savage and ruthless beast he could barely control, an animal intent on mayhem and death. He lifted his face toward the moon and howled. Outside, he felt the pack gathering and begin to howl in return, lusting for blood and death. He quieted, leaving the wolves to their eerie, savage chorus. He was ready now.

He walked to the center of the circular room and sank to the floor, where he sat cross-legged on the cold, hard stone.

More than six decades had passed since his son’s murder. His demonic father could be in any time, in any place. Moray clearly thought himself the victor in their privy war, but he was wrong. Their war would never end, not until one or both of them was vanquished. He didn’t care which it was—as long as Moray went to the fires of hell with him.

He began sifting through the sands of time, in the future and the past, through deserts and mountains, villages and cities, searching for Moray’s evil power.

Hours passed. He strained through time, evil everywhere, a long, painstaking process. The moon rose. He did not need to see it to know. The hairs on his nape prickled, like hackles rising. But the blackest power he was hunting eluded him.

He could not give up. He growled in frustration.

And through the hours of the day and then the night, Innocence wept for salvation. He heard every single cry for aid, for his senses were not just attuned to evil but to its helpless prey. Men, women and children begged him to rescue them from destruction and death.

He would not recall the last time he had protected Innocence. It was before his son had died.

He ignored their cries now.

He did not care who died.

TABBY UNLOCKED THE DOOR FOR HER, giving her a smile. “Isn’t it great to be home?” she asked.

Brie didn’t smile back. She stepped into her loft, wearing the clothes Tabby had brought her—an oversized sweatshirt embroidered with a blue-and-gold dragon and her comfy loose-fit jeans. She was more worried than ever about Aidan. She’d spent another full day at Five, under close observation, and she was champing at the bit. She had been taken off all sedation and the antianxiety medication, so once again she could think clearly. Aidan was no longer being tortured, and he was no longer crushed by stone. She couldn’t feel anything from him at all.

God, was he even alive?

She was adept at blocking out human emotion, for it was a necessity in order to get through each and every day. But she hadn’t been able to block his torment at all. His emotions had consumed her as no one’s ever had before, even across centuries. What, exactly, did the fact that she felt him so powerfully across time mean?

Everything was meant to be, and every Rose woman knew it.

Brie shivered as Tabby’s cell phone rang. Brie shut and locked the door, going to her work station on the far side of the loft. She sat down at her PC, which remained in sleep mode. He could not be dead.

Tabby came over. “That was Sam. She’s talked to every contact and snitch she knows. It looks like you’re right. He’s not here.”

Brie whirled her chair to face her. “How could I empathize across time?”

Tabby clasped her shoulder, their gazes locking. “You must really love him, Brie. It’s the only explanation I can think of.”

Her heart lurched. Her crush had been so safe and silly, until now. Loving him was terrifying, because he would never love her back—even if their paths crossed. “It’s just a crush,” Brie whispered, turning back to her PC. She was praying that there was another reason for her amazing empathy.

But now she stared at her computer’s wallpaper, the ruins of a castle on Loch Awe. Nick had asked her if the name Aidan of Awe was familiar. Her heart thundered. It felt so right. She’d put up the wallpaper after meeting Aidan…and there was no such thing as coincidence.

This past year she had been tempted to go through HCU’s immense historical database, looking for a mention of him, but it was against the rules to use the system for personal projects and she hadn’t done so. She hit a button and CDA’s site filled her screen. She began to log on, a process that required three passwords. She had something to go on now. And what did Nick know about Aidan, exactly?

If HCU had anything on him, by now, Nick was on it.

Brie was still amazed that she hadn’t been fired.

“What are you going to do?” Tabby asked. “He’s not here, Brie, and we can’t time-travel.”

Brie bit her lip and punched in a search for Aidan of Awe. As the search began, she shifted restlessly, and then she cried out, getting a hit.

Tabby peered over her shoulder.

The message on her screen was glaring. Aidan of Awe—Level Four—Access Denied.