Page 19 of Dark Embrace

Nick said, “Let her go, Aidan, and I’ll let you go.”

Brie knew it was a lie. So did Aidan, because he laughed. “Ye forget, Nick, I can leap away whenever I choose. Ye canna stop me. I stay here to war with ye because it pleasures me.” More silver energy blazed.

Nick grunted, going down to his knees, but he somehow kept the gun in his hand.

And Tabby and Sam appeared on the threshold of the loft, both of them breathless. As they halted, Sam’s favorite weapon appeared in her hand, a steel Frisbee with a dozen knifelike teeth. She could sever a man’s head from his body with it—a great way to bring even the purest demons down. But she said, in disbelief, “Aidan?”

“Sam, he saved me. Don’t hurt him,” Brie cried.

Aidan jerked her closer to his hard body. “Be quiet.”

Nick was back on his feet now. “How good are you with that thing?” he asked Sam.

“Good, but I won’t risk hurting Brie, too,” Sam said, never taking her gaze from Brie and Aidan.

Tabby, who was amazing in crises, now sank to her knees and started chanting a spell. The Book of Roses had been translated long ago from Gaelic to English, but her spells were always spoken in the language of their foremothers, which gave her magic all the power the Ancients would allow.

Aidan’s body filled with a new tension. Brie glanced up, and for the first time saw wariness reflected in his eyes.

He didn’t fear Nick or Sam and their weapons, but he feared Tabby’s magic. Brie instantly guessed her cousin’s intentions. Aidan could not be restrained with ropes, shackles or steel bars. Tabby intended to bind him with a spell, making him an impotent, virtual prisoner.

Aidan snarled and his grasp on her tightened.

“Don’t,” Nick snapped.

It was too late. Brie gasped as the force began. They whirled through the room, through the loft’s walls, through the building, across the city skyline. And then, as they were hurled with the speed of light through the atmosphere, past suns and stars, she screamed, the velocity ripping her body to shreds.

He did not make a sound.

HE HELD HER TIGHTLY, his senses furiously ablaze as never before. He was acutely aware of the woman in his arms—the Innocent he had leapt through time to rescue. As they landed, he instinctively shifted his body to break her fall. He did not know why he did so. He shouldn’t care if she was hurt.

She screamed from the impact anyway.

He welcomed the pain of landing on the stone floor.

He had leapt time, against his own will, to protect her from evil. He had just served the gods.

His rage increased.

They had landed in the tower room, which remained in absolute darkness. She wept in his arms now, sobbing from the torment of the leap through so many centuries, her body atop his. He was acutely aware of her torment.

He did not want her in his arms. He did not want to feel her pain or be aware of her body. He hated her hair in his face. And he hated her for what she had done to him.

When he had forsaken the gods, he’d done so by spilling his own blood all over Iona’s holiest shrine, where the Brotherhood lived. His defiance was written in blood and death, and not just his own. He’d poured the blood from the Innocent at Elgin all over the shrine, too.

“Ye canna walk away from yer vows.”

Aidan knelt in the blood of his victims, breathing hard. “Get away,” he warned the greatest Master of them all—MacNeil, the Abbot of Iona.

MacNeil came closer. “Yer in grief. I’m sorry, Aidan, sorry fer what was done.”

“What was done?” He leapt to his feet, enraged. “Do ye speak of my son’s murder at my own father’s hands? Did ye see the murder in yer precious crystal? Did ye ken Moray would come an’ steal his life from me?”

Tall, muscular and golden, MacNeil looked at Aidan with compassion. “I canna see all, Aidan. Ye must let Ian go, lad.”

“I will never let him go!” he shouted.

“His death was written,” MacNeil began, clasping his shoulder grimly. “In time, ye’ll ken the truth.”