Page 69 of Dark Embrace

Ian looked desperately at him. “Papa? Please?”

He could hear his son. Was this a different kind of dream? Was it an enchantment? Or was it real?

“Your soul,” Moray said softly.

Aidan tensed. He knew his father would have him commit an atrocious crime, and a terrible inkling began.

“Yes,” Moray said, lurking. “That is what I want.”

Aidan did not move.

Moray wanted him to take Brianna to bed now—and to take pleasure in her death.

“Aidan?” Brianna whispered, looking up uncertainly at him.

“She can’t die in a dream, my boy,” Moray said. “Go, take her now.”

Aidan had his arm around her. She had died in her dream last night, but somehow had awoken alive anyway. His every instinct told him now that she would die in this dream—and she would never awaken from it.

“Do you want your son?”

“Aidan, what does he want?” Brianna cried.

Aidan breathed hard. He ignored her. “’Tis a lie, a trick.”

“Give me your soul and I will give you your son,” Moray repeated.

Aidan stood there, frozen, aware of Ian staring desperately at him and of Brianna pressed to his side.

Ian was dead. Wasn’t he?

He could not destroy Brianna. Could he?

Wouldn’t he do anything to get his son back?

“Don’t you want to know what your son has been trying to tell you for sixty-six years?” Moray inquired.

“You are disgusting,” Brianna shouted. “And you will be vanquished. No demon lives forever!”

Moray laughed at her.

Aidan, shaking and ill, looked at him. There was nothing he wanted more than to know what Ian had been trying to say to him—unless it was to bring his son back from the dead. And as he stared, Ian suddenly vanished.

“Bring him back,” Aidan shouted in helpless rage. “Ian!”

But there was no answer. Where Ian had just been standing, the air shimmered and sighed.

“Destroy her,” Moray ordered. “Destroy her and the boy will return.”

Brianna gasped and became rigid in his embrace.

He didn’t dare look at her now, but his grasp on her tightened. It was his duty to Ian to do whatever he had to bring him back.

He looked at Brianna and he heard her thoughts. Her faith hadn’t wavered. She didn’t believe he would ever hurt her, not even to spare his son’s death.

She was fighting tooth and nail for his soul, and she had been doing so since the day he’d abducted her from her time.

Her white light was a blessing—and the only light in his life.