Книга - The Immortal’s Hunger

The Immortal's Hunger
Kelli Ireland


WHEN YOU PLAY WITH FIRE . . .It was only a matter of time before Gareth Brennan had to die. Before he made that ultimate sacrifice, the assassin wanted to know warmth once again. His recent experiences had destroyed his ability to create fire, yet sexy bartender Ashley Clement was now igniting one within him.As a Phoenix, Ashley had limited time herself; soon a male Phoenix would claim her. Unless she could find a lover. Gareth was the perfect man for the job. Except he was no human, and their union might draw even more danger. But to deny their fiery attraction…that was a truly impossible task.







WHEN YOU PLAY WITH FIRE...

It was only a matter of time before Gareth Brennan had to die. Before he made that ultimate sacrifice, the assassin wanted to know warmth once again. His recent experiences had destroyed his ability to create fire, yet sexy bartender Ashley Clement was now igniting one within him.

As a Phoenix, Ashley had limited time herself; soon a male Phoenix would claim her. Unless she could find a lover. Gareth was the perfect man for the job. Except he was no human, and their union might draw even more danger. But to deny their fiery attraction...that was a truly impossible task.


“I’ll show you mine when you show me yours.”

Ashley leaned into him and the smell of sunshine and dry heat intensified. “Clever man. I suppose closing time will provide us both the answer I’ve not yet decided on. Stay if you will.”

Spinning on her heel, she strode across the pub and slipped behind the bar.

Gareth stole a look at his watch.

Midnight.

Two hours to kill.

If this woman was his last chance? If she could give him the chance to find even a moment’s peace before an eternity of torment? There was nothing he wouldn’t do, no sin he wouldn’t commit. And he would do any of it, all of it, without batting an eye. After all, he was already damned, a dead man.

There was nothing left to lose, only a warm woman to gain.


KELLI IRELAND spent a decade as a name on a door in corporate America. Unexpectedly liberated by Fate’s sense of humor, she chose to carpe the diem and pursue her passion for writing. A fan of happily-ever-afters, she found she loved being the puppet master for the most unlikely couples. Seeing them through the best and worst of each other while helping them survive the joys and disasters of falling in love? Best. Thing. Ever. Visit Kelli’s website at www.kelliireland.com (http://www.kelliireland.com).


The Immortal’s Hunger

Kelli Ireland






www.millsandboon.co.uk (http://www.millsandboon.co.uk)


Dear Reader (#ulink_8bbaefc4-9bd2-5ac9-a7f3-7944cb8ca633),

Welcome back to the myth and magic of Ireland! The first book in the series introduced you to the five men, all Druids, who make up the Assassin’s Arcanum. This second book introduces the man who’s second in command, or Regent: Gareth Brennan. Darkness has weighed him down for too long, but the personal sacrifice it will take to shed that weight may be too high a cost. Only time, and the power of love, will tell.

I was fortunate to spend several weeks in Ireland not long ago. The country is as charming as it is indescribably beautiful. And I can tell you without batting an eye that the country is as green as it’s reputed to be. And the people? They’re warm, friendly and have a quick wit about them. I made friends there that I still miss (waves at Mary and Tommy!).

Every time I delve into an Arcanum member’s story, I’m transported back to this land. Ireland wove her own magic around me. It seemed anything...everything...was possible while I was there. I’ve cherished each discovery I made in Ireland, both personal and professional. But that particular feeling of being able to do anything I set my mind to? I’ve held it closest of all.

May that sense of wonder and the urge to believe in the impossible find you somewhere within the pages of Gareth’s story.

Until next time,

Kelli


To all the amazing people who touched my life while I was in Ireland researching this series.


Contents

Cover (#ue4613d6f-e95e-597d-bec5-f90d63a736fd)

Back Cover Text (#ubad54ab7-66e8-5424-ac28-bbe510955958)

Introduction (#uf0c69602-dd0c-51d6-b55b-a8deed94931e)

About the Author (#u2830645b-8b32-5985-8d4e-9e3eccf08e41)

Title Page (#u9d90739f-b3ba-57be-a394-85f36b427481)

Dear Reader (#ulink_96c05b6e-65da-5192-b959-98692ae0d065)

Dedication (#ub50ab6f2-290a-524d-a82e-1a29594e5b92)

Chapter 1 (#u9a66318b-85d5-5b0e-b544-bbe66cc77b66)

Chapter 2 (#u9b6d275f-7417-5c55-bd49-6175159f7a4e)

Chapter 3 (#u3ee3f77d-fbdf-5fa4-8359-7a7326061ccf)

Chapter 4 (#u9960b57b-0a91-5d1a-975c-83d36c5e0b1f)

Chapter 5 (#u06bfb091-5c4c-5dcf-a355-863dfd2c78f7)

Chapter 6 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 7 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 8 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 9 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 10 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 11 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 12 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 13 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 14 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 15 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 16 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 17 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 18 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 19 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 20 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 21 (#litres_trial_promo)

Chapter 22 (#litres_trial_promo)

Extract (#litres_trial_promo)

Copyright (#litres_trial_promo)


Chapter 1 (#ulink_d1f35b1a-81fd-583c-9c69-7cc1cf03c77c)

Gareth Brennan considered the frost-rimed grass, yellowed and made brittle by a persistent cold no summer month in Ireland had ever seen. Toeing the edge of the macabre pattern of cracked earth with his booted foot, a hard shiver raced up his spine. The Old Ones, ancestors lost long before the modern day, held that a man knew when someone passed over his grave. They’d known with certainty what time such events occurred and disbelief at the myth had turned into an old wives’ tale, suggesting that the connection between life and death was so thin that the soul rebelled at death’s most subtle threat.

Gareth had died here a little more than six months ago. And he’d been resurrected. His connection to this very place had been cemented that day. Whether anyone believed in the old legends, or his reactions, was irrelevant. Gareth knew every time man, animal or...other...crossed this ground.

Clumps of dark, cracked soil broke away as he continued to think. The ground seemed to sigh, exhaustion bleeding out of the unnatural fissures. It shamed him that fear, not fury, was his immediate response to that sound, the sound that called up memories of his death. The goddess, Cailleach, bound millennia before to the Shadow Realm, had sought to break her chains and return to this plane. She’d sought to displace the gods and remake the world to her satisfaction, placing her and her siblings as rulers over mankind.

Gareth hadn’t been of an accord. And he also hadn’t been willing to fight her, not when she’d possessed a woman who bore no responsibility in the merging of souls beyond having been born to the wrong bloodline at the worst possible time. He couldn’t condemn her for something so beyond her control. Well, that and the fact the Druid’s Assassin, Gareth’s boss and brother by choice, loved the woman. That had certainly influenced him, as well. As Regent to the Assassin and his Arcanum, second in command in all things, he’d made an executive decision. Dylan’s happiness trumped the man’s loneliness. So Gareth didn’t fight back, instead allowing the woman to run him through with a sword. A large sword. Bloody bad idea that had been.

He kicked at the earth again, and it did, indeed, sigh.

His fear intensified at the sound, one so familiar to the breathy voice that haunted him both waking and asleep.

Death.

Phantoms.

The goddess.

War.

Gareth shuddered and took a step back as he considered the scarred soil.

How much stronger was the connection between life and death if a man experienced death and rebirth in the same spot? How tightly bound would he be to the place if the Goddess of Phantoms and War herself told him she’d see him here again come Beltane?

There wasn’t an easy answer. He only knew that each time someone crossed this patch, his entire body shuddered with repulsion. His breath stalled. The goddess breathed into his ear, her voice as chilling as mortals believed it should have been hot.

“Beltane.”

Always the same singular word, and always uttered with the same undisguised intent.

She’s coming for me.

He fought the urge to run, to get in his car and drive, to get away from Ireland by plane or by sea and never, ever look back. But to what end? History had proven over and over that there was nowhere one could run to that death couldn’t find him. The goddess was cagey like that.

Bitch.

He backed away several feet, eyes on the ground as if she’d emerge at his unfavorable thought. When nothing happened, he turned and stalked toward the giant keep.

Mortals, and particularly tourists, who came to the cliffs saw only a decrepit building of tumbling stone and vine. If they came too close, a sense of bowel-loosening foreboding repelled them. And if they persisted? A little magickal push from one of the Assassin’s watchmen sent them on their way.

He saw the place, known as the Nest, for what it was. A rather foreboding castle, it had a tower on all four corners. The courtyard had been enclosed to make a huge foyer over two hundred years prior. The garage was a bit archaic seeing as it had, for centuries, housed horses versus horsepower. And Wi-Fi had gone in—thank the gods—four years ago. The place was still a drafty monstrosity, and it always would be. But it was home.

He jogged through the front doors, fighting the compulsion to keep his jacket on. He was cold, was always cold, now.

“Yer late,” a thunderous voice called out, and he knew for whom that particular boom tolled.

“And you’ve no cause to announce to the world I’ve come to drop my trousers for you,” Gareth countered.

The burly man grinned as he stepped full out of the doorway to the infirmary. “Ye’ll drop yer drawers because I’m the only one who can give ye what ye need.”

“Yep, your reputation’s toast,” an identifiable male voice called from an invisible point and was followed by general male laughter.

“Shut up,” Garret called, shaking his head. “Bunch of tools.”

He strode into the Druidic version of a physician’s office. The eye of newt was missing, but beyond that, it was relatively similar to that which a nonmagickal person would expect. Natural remedies, crushed herbs and preserved root stock shared space with modern medical equipment and, in some cases, drugs. In the midst of it all stood Angus O’Malley, the Druid’s version of a physician and owner of the voice that had started the trainee assassins chattering in the hallways.

“Did you have to call out like that, Angus? You know they’ll fear coming in here now.” Gareth nudged the door shut with his hip and, with reluctance, shed his jacket. The cold that had chilled him became abrasive and he couldn’t repress a hard shudder.

Angus looked him over with a critical eye. “No better, then.” A statement, not a question.

“No worse,” Gareth countered.

“Yer optimism’s noted.” He jerked his chin to an exam table. “Drop your denims and assume the position.”

Scowling, Gareth undid his jeans and braced his palms on the table edge. “You know, I hate this. Just get it over wi—ow! Fecking hell,” he said, teeth gritted, hands clenching. The burn of the injection and the subsequent medication was almost as painful as Angus’s warm hand laid against the bare skin of his hip. He thought it possible he melted under the incredible heat of the healer’s touch, was less than a breath away from calling stop and begging to have the needle removed, when the large man pulled it free of his flesh.

Gareth yanked his jeans up with enough force he doubled over with a grunt. He shot a sharp look at Angus. “What was in that bloody injection? Hydrochloric acid? Perhaps a little potassium sulfate to enhance the burn?” He rubbed his hand over the offended butt cheek. “Gods be damned, but in the course of this...this...nonsense, that was the most painful ‘treatment’ yet!”

“‘Nonsense,’ is it?” Angus asked as he skewered Gareth with a sharp look. “As Regent, the Assassin’s second in both rank and command of the Assassin’s Arcanum, and considerin’ yer one o’ the brighter men I’ve yet tae meet, I believe I’m safe in saying the problem’s no’ the mix. The problem centers around yer fear, Gareth, and well ye know it.”

Heat, unusual and yet welcome for its rarity if not the cause, burned across Gareth’s cheeks. “Tell a soul I’m scared o’ needles and it’ll mean fists between us, auld man.”

Sighing, Gareth tucked the tails of his henley under his waistband with fierce jabs, retied his combat boots and—more gingerly—situated his pants legs before facing the man who’d treated his every injury since childhood. He propped one hip on the exam table and crossed his arms over his chest, mirroring Angus’s posture. “Is there anything you’ve found in treating me, anything so wrong that himself’s a need to know this very minute?”

Besides the fact the phantom goddess marked my soul as hers, sealed the claiming with forced sexual contact and has promised to fetch me home by Beltane? Sure, and there’s that.

Thank the gods he’d shared that with no one. “Well?” he pressed Angus.

The healer rolled his shoulders forward, lips thinning. “Nay.” He shoved meaty hands into hair that resembled the topknot of a Highland steer. “That doesna mean yer symptoms aren’t worsening, though. Only that I doona know best how tae treat ye.”

Ignoring his internal voice, the one that latched on to the admission he was worsening with a silent wail of rage, Gareth gave a sharp nod. “Then what do you recommend I tell Dylan? Should I say that I’m...what? Can you definitively prove that I’m...I’m...dying?” He swallowed hard and waited. What if Angus says yes?

“I doona ken, but...no.” Angus dropped his hands to his sides, his wide shoulders sagging. “Ye’ve symptoms the likes o’ which I’ve never seen, symptoms as would scare a logical man near tae death. But I cannot predict death any more than you.”

Every semblance of attempted humor fell away, and Gareth grew colder than normal. “I assure you, this isn’t as remotely scary as experiencing death itself.” And Gareth couldn’t predict death. He’d been given the date to expect the retrieval of his soul. Only eight days remained. The truth hit him like a sledgehammer to the sternum, and he fought the impulse to clutch his chest, take his pulse and have Angus examine him one more time.

The healer gripped the counter, his gaze locked on some undefined spot to his left. “Ye never speak of it. Of dying, that is.”

Because the horrors are too great to relive, and to speak of it could draw the phantom queen’s attentions prematurely.

Gareth swallowed, the movement nearly impossible as the muscles in his throat tried to freeze, failed to work and wouldn’t respond. Stubborn, he pushed harder, the thought of speaking the goddess of death’s name turning his blood to slush, his marrow to ice. He opened his mouth and closed it once...twice...a third time, but he couldn’t do it.

The healer paled. “Either you tell Dylan how fast this is progressing, that yer core temperature is dropping and yer symptoms are rapidly growing worse, or...or I will.”

Gareth’s hands flexed. He’d told Dylan the whole truth and the rest of the Arcanum most of what had transpired, but none knew the extent of his degradation and suffering. He’d kept that to himself on purpose. He wouldn’t have them engage the phantom queen and risk their lives unnecessarily. “You’ve no right.”

“Maybe no’,” Angus conceded, meeting Gareth’s hard stare and then stepping back in the face of that burgeoning fury, “but as he’s the Assassin, I’ve every obligation. Ye’ve got until the end o’ the week.”

Gareth shook his head, fighting to speak around emotion’s unexpected stranglehold. “I need more time.”

“To do what?”

Die. Again. But on my own terms. He would be ending this before the phantom queen could execute her threat. That pleasure, at least, he could deny her.

His answer, though unvoiced, hung between them as if shouted.

Angus narrowed his eyes. “I’ll no’ be giving ye time to prove yerself an eejit, man.”

Gareth dragged a hand down his face, fighting to shake off the black pall that clung to him like a cloak woven from a spider’s web. “If you’re worried about me proving myself an eejit, don’t. That little fact was proved in roughly 1892 when I slept with the local laird’s daughter.” He forced a grin but the effort climbed no higher than his lips, leaving his eyes barren. “Her mother discovered us in the haystack...and remembered sleeping with me herself a mere thirty years earlier. Awkward, that, when a man doesn’t age as a mortal should.”

The healer scowled. “Ye’ve the heart of a lion, but it’s a right jackass ye’ve become.”

“It’s a jackass I’ve always been. And, as always, your kind words come near to sweeping me off my feet—” he reached over and pinched the physician’s ruddy cheek “—only to instead dump me on me arse.” Pushing off the exam table, Gareth stumbled before regaining his balance and striding across the room where he grabbed his jacket, paused and glanced back. “Be well, Angus.” Then he passed through the doorway and headed down the hall.

Ahead, the sound of good-natured taunts and deep male laughter ricocheted off the stone walls. Rounding the corner, he found several senior trainees leading a group of junior trainees out the keep’s front door. “Gentlemen,” Gareth said, addressing them as a whole.

The young assassins turned toward him, their faces growing serious immediately.

Jacob, the highest ranked individual in the group, stepped forward. “Regent.”

Gareth inclined his head, taking in their civilian clothes and the clink of car keys in more than one hand. “You lads out for a bit of sport?”

Jacob lifted his chin, face blank, emotions contained but eyes a bit wary. “Yes, sir. Thought we’d go to the village. There’s a group of musicians from Dublin playing at the pub. We’re looking for a little craic tonight.”

Fun and music, maybe a little dancing. He could go in for that.

If they’d have him.

Six months ago, he would have been invited outright, title—and troubles—notwithstanding. The men had enjoyed his company when they got a little rowdy. In return, he’d enjoyed theirs—both their company and the wee bit of hell they’d raised together. But the word hell brought about an entirely different meaning now. Once a passing phrase, it had now become a tangible reality not related to fun in any way.

Gareth had been there.

He’d met...her, the Goddess of Phantoms and War whose name he couldn’t bring himself to utter, even now. She had changed his perspective on tossing the word hell around without a care. She’d forced him to consider what awaited him when this life came to an end, and she assured it would be sooner rather than later. Now he’d grown wary of sleep, fearful she’d exercise her mark on him and take his soul while he lay defenseless.

Conjecture regarding his experience ran wild. The Arcanum and senior assassins had left him be, but the young men, those in training to become assassins, couldn’t help but wonder aloud. Speculation regarding his visit to the Well of Souls regularly traveled across darkened rooms, whispered like ghost stories on stormy nights. Conjecture as to what he’d seen ran rampant. But the fear they might die in service to the gods, might see whatever terror it was that had changed Gareth? That ran far more rampant, often followed by brazen boasts that only the darkest of the dark among them should bother to worry about such nonsense. He often interrupted these morbid conversations with simple if hard words. “Train harder, fight smarter and never hesitate to take your enemy down. Then you ladies can finally stop having this conversation. Understood?”

Having died on his own turf, on land where he should have been strongest and had the advantage in any fight, he knew better. The phantom queen could find a man anywhere and would take him without hesitation if he was at all reluctant to strike back. Even if he did...

“Sir?” Jacob’s voice said, cutting through Gareth’s wildly wandering mind.

His focus shifted to the young assassin. “Apologies. What did you say?”

“Would you care to join us?” The young man’s uncertainty was apparent in the tight line of his mouth and the flat tone of his voice.

Gareth considered for a split second before grinning and giving a short nod. He would take tonight to live as he once had, would force himself to get out of the keep and stop looking over his shoulder at every suspicious action, every strange sound, every odd occurrence. His own demise was imminent, by his hand or hers, so tonight he would simply remember. “Who am I to tarnish memories of times gone by? You gents go on ahead and secure a booth near the telly. Ireland’s playing Scotland tonight, and I’ll want to toast our every goal. I’ll be no more than fifteen minutes behind you.”

“Fair enough.” Jacob winked. “Gives me just long enough to toy with the bartender a bit.”

Gareth stopped, brows drawing down. “Is he a new bartender? When did he start?”

“She. The bartender is one hundred percent ‘she.’ And to a man, we’re grateful,” one of the group responded, letting out a low, slow whistle and shaping his hands over the invisible hourglass figure of a lush woman while oblivious to Gareth’s hesitation. “You being late will let us have a bit of a flirt with her before ye get there and steal her heart, ye careless bastard.”

“Good to know.” Gareth swallowed hard and waved them on. “Fifteen minutes and we’ll see what her type of man is.”

Several ribald jests were tossed about then as Gareth historically tended to be every woman’s type.

Ignoring the men as a whole, he spun on his heel and jogged across the massive entry hall to the wide staircase, taking the steps two at a time. The sudden urge to remain at the keep, to stay inside the protection of the thick walls and the powerful wards that reinforced them, had him reconsidering his offer to go out with the men. But they needed it. Truly. They needed the support of the Assassin’s Arcanum, that elite group of five warriors, in all things, from the most difficult of their training all the way to burning off a little excess energy. So he would suck it up, stop his whining and let go of this ridiculous obsession of waiting on the queen’s calling card. Gareth was going to the bar. He could check out the new bartender while he was there, perhaps find a way to have a bit of sport as part of his last hurrah. That would also allow him to ensure she wasn’t a threat to the assassins here. Shaking his head at his paranoia, his smile felt brittle. He needed to stop seeing everything, and everyone, unknown as a threat. That she’d happened to show up while he was fighting his own demons didn’t make her one of them.

Besides, in spite of his hardships over the last six months, Gareth’s three life truths still held true. First, nothing got a man’s mind off his troubles like a well-built Guinness.

Second, an equally well-built woman was balm to the soul.

Third? Well, third was his favorite. A mutually pleasurable one-night stand could make a man forget his woes.

And all Gareth wanted to do was forget.

* * *

Ashley Clement hoisted the tray of drinks above her head, turned and began winding her way through the ever-expanding Friday night crowd. Setting down pints and baskets of bar food as she went, she also retrieved empties and took new orders. An hour ago she’d called in an additional waitress. Ashley would only work the floor as a barmaid until the girl arrived, and the sooner, the better. Seeing to the bar satisfied her far more than running to and fro, fending off wandering hands and keeping her volatile temper in check. The latter had cost her all she was willing to pay in every lifetime she’d claimed as her own. And as a phoenix? That number was vast.

There’d be live music tonight from the traveling group, The King’s Footmen. They would play everything from contemporary hits to old favorites and traditional Irish ballads, pulling in a more diverse crowd as the band had a sound both young and old could appreciate. Tonight’s festivities alone ensured she would more than double her average take.

Fergus, the bar’s owner and short-order cook, emerged from the small kitchen. The man was huge, his white apron appearing more like a dainty dishtowel banded round his waist. His gaze roved over the patrons, searching.

Ashley knew he was looking for her, but something made her hesitate to raise a hand and wave. His behavior had been odd of late. Odd enough, actually, that she was considering moving on.

He finally found her watching him, and his face darkened. “Stop yer lollygagging. Orders up!”

She offered a jaunty salute. “Soon as these fine men are served, I’ll retrieve as commanded.” He ducked back into the kitchen and she added softly, “Jackass.”

Laughter wove through the crowd nearest her.

“He’ll have yer head should he hear ye,” said a regular who’d overheard her.

“And a fine trophy it would be to join the others,” his tablemate answered.

Others. It had to be a coincidence. Neither mortal man knew what she was.

Ashley shifted her tray as she turned her attention to the table of attractive men who’d shoved into the largest booth nearest the telly. Distributing their drink order with care, she watched them under lowered lashes. To a body, they were larger than most Irishmen in both height and muscle, and instead of harboring the general spirit of goodwill inherent to the Irish, they seemed to blend with the shadows even as they appeared weighed down by some invisible onus. Their auras ranged from the palest shade of early morning fog to a gray so dark it appeared inky. Then there was the way their gazes continually roamed the room, all but announcing that, even in their cups, these men never found their ease. All in all, it had been a lot for Ashley to pick up on in the fifteen minutes they’d been here, but she could relate. And that she’d taken it all in was proof that living the last four centuries on the run had helped her develop a few survival skills. Nondeadly ones, anyway. The deadly stuff? Well, that part of her couldn’t be turned off any more than the sun could be commanded to rise in the west come morning. So she’d watch the men as she pulled taps, built Guinness after Guinness and poured the hard liquor with flourish. Should push come to shove and she discovered they represented a threat she hadn’t yet sniffed out, she’d be out the back door in seconds and with nothing more than the backpack she always kept within reach.

Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she smiled at the group as she set the last of the drinks down. “You gents fancy some crisps or chicken gujons tonight? Clearly I’m headed to the kitchen and would be happy to deliver your order.”

One of the men lifted his pint and tipped his chin toward her before taking his first sip. “We’ve an ear for the music tonight, love, but thanks. Another man’s joining the party shortly. He might be of a different mind.”

She glanced at the band setting up in the corner. No electric instruments. This would be what the Americans called a jam session. Foot tapping as the fiddle player loosed a rapid flurry of notes, Ashley turned back to the men. “Enjoy yourselves, then, and I’ll check with your man when he’s here and settled.”

Behind her, the vestibule door opened with its characteristic creak followed by a short burst of crisp, cool ocean air. The chill wind whispered a silent benediction over the thin sheen of sweat that graced her skin.

That same breeze lifted her hair and whipped the long curls around her. Small crackles and pops, not unlike strong static, sparked between the strands and against her skin, and the sheen of sweat crept into her nape, dotted her upper lip and further dampened her lower back. Heat pinked her skin and arousal settled deep in her core.

A wave of alarm swept through her as the warning signs settled into place.

No. It can’t be time. Not yet. Please, not yet. I should have at least five more weeks.

Every unmated or unclaimed female phoenix dreaded the initial symptoms of her impending epithicas, the triennial fertility cycle that ruled her body for one full week. Every third May, she endured seven days of sheer physical misery. Seven days of hellish sexual cravings. Seven days during which she had to take a lover and hide herself so well no clan member could find her. By their race’s laws, any clansman who discovered her could take her without repercussion. She’d be hunted. Actively. And if found, she’d be willing enough during that seven days because the only relief she would find was in sexual contact. But once that week passed? She’d regret every action when her mind cleared and her body became her own again. Humiliation would threaten to drag her into the depths of despair while fear of pregnancy would have her terrified to look in the mirror every morning. Phoenix law held that whichever male had impregnated her could legally claim her as his chattel, tattoo the skin on her arms with his lineage and call her wife...no matter how many other wives he possessed.

After fleeing clan lands at only thirty-seven years old, she’d had three close calls—twice by poor luck, once by poor choice. The first two times had both scared and scarred her. The third time had cost her every dime of emotional currency she possessed and had left her not broken, exactly—unless she considered her heart. It had been shattered. Never, ever did she want a man to hold that much dominion over her again, be it by law or professed affection. Reason was irrelevant and emotions even more so. She would never willingly go there, or be that woman, in this or any other lifetime she claimed as her own.

So now she took precautions, kept a particular incubus-friend-with-benefits on call. He was a nonphoenix with no more interest in a relationship than she. Even the idea of a long-term affair was enough to make them both cringe. The problem? He wasn’t due to arrive for almost four more weeks. If her epithicas truly did arrive early? She was, in more ways than one, screwed.

Scowling, Ashley tucked the tray under one arm, spun on her heel and started toward the bar. She had to figure this out, had to determine whether she stayed through the end of her shift and then quietly disappeared or threw caution aside, grabbed her backpack and walked out now. She didn’t think there was a male phoenix in the room—she should have been aware of him. If he’d somehow evaded her and she discovered him? The decision was made. She wouldn’t walk out of the room. She’d leave at a dead run.

Of course, she could also hunker down here, lost in the little Irish village in County Clare, and find a bed partner to see her through the worst of things. If she could, she might just be able to keep the worst of the pheromones in check. The man would have to be willing to stay with her for the full week, able-bodied in defense should a male phoenix threaten and...well...there was that willing thing.

Lost in thought as she calculated her options, she nearly missed the man who’d swept in on the ocean breeze. Then he moved, crossing her path as he wound his way toward the same table of men she’d just left.

Standing several inches above her own six feet, his hair was the color of her favorite clover honey. Lighter and darker strands wove through the cut to make his hair appear multidimensional, even in the pub’s low light. Though he had the body of a warrior, it was his face that demanded her attention. He had a strong jaw, full lips and chiseled features, all of which gave him a near impossible appeal the fashion runways of Milan and Paris would worship. But his eyes were what commanded her complete attention. They were a light, bright blue. Faint creases at the corners said he smiled a lot and, sure enough, he did just that as several men hailed him in greeting.

Something about the man pleased her phoenix, making that part of her heat up until she was sweltering. Now wasn’t the time, though. She couldn’t afford the distraction—though a man like that would be ideal to see her through this. The problem? She could seduce the stranger for a night, maybe two, but convincing him to give up a week of his life for her as an unknown wasn’t realistic.

She slipped behind the bar and toed her backpack for reassurance before grabbing a glass, pulling a lager and then slamming it back. She dropped her chin with the last swallow and found the stranger’s gaze boring into hers. Undiluted desire slammed into her without warning, burning her from the inside out and incinerating every ounce of air in her lungs. The taste of ash on her tongue made her pull a second drink and slam it down even faster. Still, grit coated her mouth. She fought the urge to go straight up to the man and demand who, and what, he was, because he wasn’t a run-of-the-mill human. Oh, no. Too much power rolled off him for that. He also wasn’t a phoenix. If he had been, he would have arrowed straight toward her when her hair began the preliminary mating dance that was, as always, out of her control.

Thank the gods he’s not one of us. Otherwise he’d have me flat on my back in the middle of the bar, fighting for my life. She shuddered. At least until the madness claimed me.

When she shuddered a second time, her empty pint glass slipped from her fingers.

The sound of shattering glass against the stone floor had a wave of attention shifting toward her. Several men laughed and whistled, calling her out—her—out over the broken glass. She, who tossed bottles and slid drinks and juggled empties—and had never broke a one. Yet experiencing a polite, if solitary, glance from a stranger had her falling apart.

Damn hormones.

She refused to blush, instead offering the crowd a wicked grin and one-fingered salute.

Grabbing the broom and pan, she cleaned up without comment, never acknowledging the jests. She’d work, simply work, and if the man became a problem, she’d deal with him. Until that point, she wouldn’t allow herself to worry. More importantly, she’d keep her temper in check. Good rule of thumb, not killing while on the clock. So far she’d held to that little rule.

So far.


Chapter 2 (#ulink_3a93b571-abab-579b-a5a8-dc3960102c10)

“Fifteen minutes, as promised,” Gareth announced to the men gathered around the large corner table. “I trust you didn’t drink the house dry.”

His teasing was met with laughter and jests. Several men rearranged their chairs or scooted deeper along the lone bench to make room for Gareth. Instead of slipping in among the men, though, he tossed his jacket down before retrieving a vacant chair from a neighboring table. Flipping the battered and aged oak seat around, he straddled it loosely, rested his forearms along the square back and leaned forward. “Who’s buying the first round?”

“Age before beauty,” Jacob announced.

Gareth grinned. “Like that is it? Need I remind you to respect your elders lest you find yourself on indefinite kitchen duty?”

“You’ve resorted to pulling rank. That means I managed to back you into a corner in moments,” Jacob said, grinning. “That’s worth peeling potatoes for a week...hell, a month, and without a word of complaint—mostly because I’d no idea it would be so easy.”

The men laughed, Gareth included, though he was obliged to reach over and cuff the young man on the back of the head. “Mind your manners. I’m older than you, but I’m far from old. I’ll kick yer arse to the Aran Islands and see you come summertime when it’s warm enough for you to swim home.” A flash of color and the tinny sound of a cheering crowd drew Gareth’s attention to the wall-mounted television where Ireland’s national soccer team played Scotland. “So, what’s the score?”

“Two minutes into the second half. Ireland’s up by one.”

The woman’s voice was as smoky as a two-finger shot of single barrel whiskey and as smooth as the waters of Loch Mor.

A jolt of pure, sensual pleasure arrowed through Gareth and settled a solid eight inches below his navel. He closed his eyes and took a bracing breath. “Care to repeat that?” Please.

Instead of answering, she chuckled. “Sure and if anything changes, I’ll gladly shout it out for you. In the meantime, what may I get you from the bar? Guinness? Whiskey? Murphy’s?” She must have shifted because the air moved and carried with it her scent—campfire smoke, warm flannel and the faintest hint of something spicy, like cloves. “The kitchen’s only open for another half hour, so you’d best get your order in if you’re hungry.”

Gareth fought the compulsion to look at her, the pull that urged him to face her where she stood and pair the voice with the rest of her, head to toe. “Order of chips and an Irish coffee. Be generous with the Irish.”

“I’ll see that you’re not cheated a drop,” she replied, the smile in her voice an audible caress.

Again, air moved, but this time with her departure.

Gareth spun in his seat, his narrowed eyes homing in on the seductive sway of the tall woman’s hips. Narrow waist. Long, long legs clad in skintight denim and knee-high boots. A simple white T-shirt. Skin on her arms bordering on pale. And her hair... It was a red so brilliant, so vibrant, that every strand seemed to come alive as the mass tumbled to her waist. Large, soft curls swayed back and forth as she walked, and the dense mass crackled with static.

He swiveled in his seat to face the men he’d come out to celebrate with. “She’s a new face.”

Jacob snorted. “And I told ye so earlier. ‘She’ is the new bartender as of several months ago.”

Gareth leaned his heavy forearms on the worn tabletop. Once, he’d have been the man to pursue her, the man to charm her right out of her tight jeans and onto a smooth-sheeted bed for a night of unparalleled pleasure. Now?

He shivered, his near hand drifting to the persistent ache at his side.

Now, not so much. If at all.

So much for finding a means to forget.

The men bantered back and forth, the sound mixing into the mishmash of noise in the crowded pub until all Gareth heard were random words, shouts of encouragement at the telly and, below it all, the faint vibrations of both fiddle and bodhran from the corner where the musicians had begun to prepare for the show.

A fiver slid into his view, followed by Jared’s voice. “So what of it, Gareth? You in?”

Slipping the euro back into the middle of the table, he looked up and forced an approximation of a smile. “My mind’s been wandering about. I’d be a poor Regent and even poorer assassin to take a blind wager, don’t you think?”

Jacob’s smile fell a bit, and the other men went still.

Gareth wanted to yank at his hair, wanted to shout at them to just behave normally, but he knew it had taken months of his withdrawing from them to get the men to this place where he was now unfamiliar. He didn’t want them to remember him this way after he was gone, but rather they should remember him as he had been. Might as well attempt to set things to rights.

With an air of feigned casualness, he retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a hundred note, sliding it across the table with the general irreverence he’d been known for over his lifetime. “But it’s not to say I can’t sweeten the pot for the man about to dive into the seedy Shadow Realm of bloody taunts and bodily wagers.”

The men leaned in as if he was their puppeteer, the money their master.

“Go on, then,” Jacob said, eyes bright.

“I’ve a hundred that says not a one of you can get the redhead to take you home tonight.”

“That was the wager—that you could talk her out of the bar and back to her place,” Jacob said, smirking.

“I’m not favored in this one, gents. It’s not fair for me to use my gods-given charms—plural—against the lot of you.” He leaned back, hands gripping the chair back, and kicked his feet out in front of him. “Too much like taking candy from babes. So, you care to play or is it all talk with the lot of ye?”

There was a great deal of shifting in seats and casual glances left and then right to see who would be the first to man up or bow out. Finally, a lad named Alex, slapped a ten-euro note on the scarred table and grinned. “I’ll take that wager.”

Gareth chuckled. “You’re barely out of short pants, Alex. What could you possibly know about seducing a woman?”

“Far more than you think, you gobshite,” he responded, his broad shoulders squaring. “I’ll have the lass eating out of me palm before sunrise.”

Gareth grinned. “And that, right there, is why you’ll lose.”

Alex’s brow furrowed.

Leaning forward with an air of absolute seriousness, Gareth clasped the younger man’s shoulder. “The goal in spending the night with a woman has nothing to do with feeding them like a wee bird.”

The men all laughed. Several more bills were added to the pile as their group grew more boisterous.

Gareth chanced a quick glance over his shoulder at the woman in question. If he was honest, what he really wanted was another look.

She’d nearly reached the bar. From somewhere deep in the group of men she passed through, a brawny hand snaked out and grabbed her backside hard enough he imagined she’d bruise.

He was out of his chair before his mind registered that he’d responded. It turned out his intervention wasn’t at all necessary.

In what appeared to be a single move, the bartender grabbed the offending man’s hand at the same time she whipped the tray out from under her arm and swung it down, edge first, on the tender spot between wrist and hand. Before the man could properly yelp, the woman spun the tray in her hand and smacked the man over the head with it. The tray splintered and the man slumped forward. Issuing rapid apologies, two of the patron’s companions eased him to the floor.

Gareth hardly spared the downed man a look. No, he was too fascinated by the woman standing over the proverbial body and holding nothing but the metal ring of what had been a wooden serving tray. She wielded it like a weapon. And standing over the man like she was, Gareth could imagine her gladly wrapping the ring around the offender’s neck should he offer anything other than an apology following his physical set-down.

But something about the woman, something he knew he had overlooked, forced him to focus on her with more intensity.

With her shoulders thrown back, her breasts appeared fuller, her body leaner, her waist thinner and her legs impossibly longer. Her hair seemed to crackle with life. And her eyes? They conveyed competence and fury in equal measure.

The man at her feet stirred and Gareth took a step forward, intent on aiding her whether she needed it or not.

As if she’d singled out his movement among the bar crowd, her eyes met his. Fists clenched, she tossed her hair and turned back to the man at her feet. A firm nudge of her toe had his head lolling back. A partial beer she claimed from another table roused him...when she tossed it in his face.

The bar quieted so much so that the commentary from the soccer game’s announcers seemed to skate across the tension strung person to person—tension that centered wholly on the redheaded woman.

It was sexy as hell.

Behind him, Jacob stood and sighed dramatically, propping his forearm on Gareth’s shoulder for mock support. “I’d love to be trapped between those thighs, gents. I’ve an inkling she’d hurt me in the best possible way.”

Gareth knocked the young man’s arm aside with only partially feigned irritation. “Sit down, Jacob. You’re no match for the likes of her.”

He continued to watch the woman. Something about her wasn’t quite right, but damn if he could put a finger on the vibe she emitted. It was nothing he’d ever encountered before. But before any of his trainees engaged her, be it in a bit of fun or...something else, he’d know who, and what, she was.

* * *

Ashley tossed the drink tray’s metal ring over the antlers of a large Irish sika deer with the misfortune to have found itself mounted on the wall in the name of art. She’d never understand men’s minds, no matter the effort she put into it. But if her epithicas was about to occur, she would indeed spend a great deal of time considering ways to harness one of them into giving up a week of his life for bed sport. A night? Oh, that was fine. But for her to be safe, to ensure her fertility remained suppressed and as undetectable as possible, she had to have a beck-and-call lover on hand for the hormonal surges. Only regular sex would satisfy that need. It had humiliated her for years until she’d come to realize it was either take a lover or risk end up a branded wife. There was always some part of her that wondered what it would be like to stay with a man by choice versus need, to wake up to him in the morning out of love and not compulsion. The epithicas had always destroyed that, though. Until she’d met Geoffrey the Swedish incubus, befriended him and set up a routine over the last several cycles. That this one might be early? She could call him...

Stepping behind the bar, she dropped the pass-through. It landed with a loud whump. The sound reanimated the crowd. Men and women alike began to chatter. More than one looked at her with open curiosity, and she knew that wouldn’t bode well. Strangers in Ireland never stayed strangers long. People were too friendly. And curious. No, not “curious”—wicked curious. A good Irishman or Irishwoman would have your life story from you before you’d finished your first cup of tea and your hopes, dreams and heartaches before you were halfway through your second. It was part of the reason she loved the obscurity of tending bar. Patrons came in looking to talk to her or with her, not about her. Until now. She’d botched that up with a fair hand.

Toeing her backpack not unlike a child affirming her security blanket’s location, Ashley couldn’t stop her shoulders from sagging in relief when her foot made contact with the worn canvas. It was there. She had choices, and choices, no matter how limited, were always better than the alternative.

She glanced up and searched out the table of men she’d just served, the antithesis of the smaller traditional Irishmen yet Irish through and through. They tried for inconspicuous as they stared at her with a strange, almost ravenous look. It wasn’t too disconcerting. However, the man who sat at the head of the table set her back a step.

His eyes were such an intense blue, heavy-lidded but not with lust. If she read him right from this far, and she prided herself on such things, he was sizing her up more as potential trouble than potential bedmate. That she wasn’t accustomed to. At all.

Calloused hands curled in on themselves, and he gave a short nod and three-fingered swiping gesture low and to his side. Acknowledgment, then. That single move said he’d recognized her as Other, and he’d just given her the same confirmation. Whatever brotherhood that group belonged to, it wasn’t the local farmers’ collective.

She knew he wasn’t phoenix. None of her kind was built with such a thick, muscular overlay. No, they were far leaner, faster. Potentially meaner.

A second glance at him and those blue eyes narrowed.

Okay. Maybe not meaner.

Heat pulsed through her veins, hotter than molten rock. Her knees buckled. The only thing to save her arse meeting the floor was dumb luck and fast hands as she grabbed the counter. Smells intensified—the weight of the Guinness she’d pulled, the pungent yet sweet smoke from the pipe of the old man sitting closest to the taps, the hot oil in the kitchen.

Her sex ached, and she issued a small, quiet curse. Definitely the epithicas, then, and damned early at that. It had never been early. Sure, it fluctuated a couple of days either way, but it was never weeks early. Ever.

Only one choice made sense, and that was to try to talk Geoffrey into leaving Sweden now. If he’d hole up with her in her small garage apartment, he could see her through the worst of the cravings.

A quick dip below the counter and she had her cell in hand. Geoffrey was buried deep in her contacts, but she found him without trouble and placed the call.

Three rings. Four. Then a breathless, “Ashley.”

“Tell me you’re free, Geoffrey.” The slightly manic edge to her voice irritated her. She wasn’t that person, wasn’t the woman to panic in a crisis, and she’d be damned if she’d start now.

“I’m not on your rotation for five more weeks.” He groaned and, in the background, a woman gasped.

Ashley shoved a hand through her hair, little static pops pricking her skin. Oh, yeah. It was time. “Things seem to be a bit early this cycle.” And there it was again—the wobble in her voice that brought her fear into the open.

“How soon?”

She bit her bottom lip and let herself simply be aware of her body. The vibration in her blood became a steady hum, the need a constant presence, and she knew it was as bad as she feared. Worse, her subconscious whispered. She swallowed and pinched the bridge of her nose with trembling fingers. “I’m guessing, since this is the first time this has happened, but based on the way things have happened in the past? I’m thinking I have two, maybe three days at best. Tomorrow at worst. Then it’s here.”

“I can’t get there, my love. It’s simply not possible. Prior commitments and all that.” He paused. “You could join us here.”

“I’m not one of the merry harem,” she said quietly. “You know the only reason I do this at all is necessity.”

“Sure. Admit it, though. It’s been good for both of us.”

True, damn him. But she wasn’t feeding his ego. “If things change, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll manage.”

“Be safe, Ashley.”

Hanging up, she assessed the bar again. She had to do something. If it meant finding a lover among the locals, she would. But he’d have to be strong—strong enough to ensure neither of them would be at risk if one of her clan or kind came after her. Sex would diffuse the call of her epithicas to the men of her kind, but they could still find her if she didn’t handle this right.

That could never happen.

Never.

The vehemence of her denial echoed through her so loudly she instinctively shook her head in response.

“Problem, Red?” The question was delivered with quiet indifference.

Her gaze shot across the bar where the largest man from the corner table now stood. The blond Adonis with the air of wicked sin made her heart race, but his aura winked around him for a split second, an aura so dark it shrouded him like a fathomless black hole. Worrisome, but not so much as the fact she hadn’t seen him cross the room.

“Oy! Guinness down the way!”

“On the way,” she called back without looking at the patron. She couldn’t take her gaze off the man across from her. She blindly retrieved a pint glass and began to expertly build the requested stout, managing the building head without trouble.

At her silence, the stranger’s eyes darkened, and he slipped onto the only vacant barstool.

Instinct had her backing up a step at his predatory, assessing look. She reclaimed her ground, but with caution, and fumbled with the Guinness tap. At more than four centuries old, she’d spent three and a half of those defending herself from men she’d never loved and never would. Over three centuries she’d been pursued, her freedom dependent on evading her clansmen with every epithicas. All of the time factors and stresses added up to harden her heart where men were concerned, no matter how pretty the man in question might be.

Like this one.

“Problem?” she asked, repeating his question as she slid the Guinness down the slick bar top. Without taking her eyes off the man across from her, she grabbed a cherry from the setup tray and popped the little fruit in her mouth. “The problem is that you’re far too pretty for my tastes yet you keep popping up in my line of sight.”

He grinned, slow and wicked. “And here I thought a woman like you would have refined ‘tastes.’ While it’s good to know, I’m not a menu item. Play with the boys in the corner if you’re looking for some flirtation.”

The hairs on her arms stood up. “I don’t play with boys, darling. And ‘flirtation’ is the last thing I’m about.” She pulled the cherry stem out of her mouth and held it up for him to witness the double knot she’d tied it into with just her tongue. “I’m very selective when it comes to choosing the man I take to my bed.”

“In the interest of seriousness, I’ll ask you for your name and a promise.”

“Ashley. No promises. Now run along before I change my mind and decide you’re my type.”

“Good enough. For now.” He nodded and moved away from her before she realized she hadn’t obtained his name in kind.

Foolish woman.

She watched as he settled into his seat at the table amid the jests and teasing from the younger men. They ended up huddled close together over the table, each of them pretending to watch the game on the screen.

Ashley knew better.

The problem she now faced was greater than the enigma of the man, though. She had limited time to find a bed partner. Having engaged the blond, she couldn’t seem to dredge up interest in anyone else. But she’d have to. Her mouth tightened and turned down at the corners in a righteous scowl.

Good luck with that, Ashley.


Chapter 3 (#ulink_c8309e56-56d0-5008-a996-baa036776cb1)

Gareth sat quietly, the young assassins teasing him mercilessly over their perception he’d failed to convince the bartender to play bedroom Twister with him despite his assertions he wasn’t interested in the bet. He even tossed another fifty euro into the kitty and bought a round of drinks in an attempt to get one of them to make a move on the woman. He wanted to see her reaction, take her measure and determine exactly what he was dealing with. Moreover, he wanted to take the focus off him and the change in his behaviors. Time passed and the woman, Ashley, avoided the table, leaving glasses empty as she kept well away from Gareth.

Deep in their cups and wrapped up in questionable boasts and a few outright lies regarding their virility, his men hardly paid him any mind as he gathered his belongings. Nothing could have changed his sudden intent to return to the keep. The interaction with the woman had left Gareth off-center and slightly nauseous, like something moved inside him without his permission. As he worked his way to the front door, he asked familiar faces about her and was surprised to find no one knew much beyond her name with any certainty. Several had crude nicknames for her based on some of the same physical attributes he’d admired, but he wouldn’t ever address her by such. Then, on the literal threshold of leaving the pub, he ran into a bit of luck. The young barmaid, a lass who had a bit of a thing for him, pushed on the vestibule door at the same time he pulled it open. She stumbled inside leaving Gareth the choice to let her fall or catch her. Grabbing her by the shirt-clad arms, he set her on her feet and smiled with as much charm as he could muster.

She fluffed her hair, arched her back to present her breasts like twin trophies and attempted to offer a pretty pout.

Gareth offered her a small smile. “Siobhan, how are you tonight?”

“Right as rain, love.” Reaching forward, she attempted to lay a hand against his chest. “What has you in a hurry to step into the squall tonight? It’s much warmer—more welcoming—inside. I assure you.”

The smell of secondhand smoke laced through her hair and clothes was overbearing. “Nothing worth fretting over, but I’ll thank you for your concern.” Dropping her arm, he stepped out of reach. “I’ve a favor if you don’t mind.”

Her dark eyes brightened. “Anything.”

“What do you know of the bartender?”

The interest in her eyes extinguished. “What’s it to you?”

Ah, jealousy. Such a pain in the arse. “She’s running a tab for me for the boys tonight. I’d like to pay her square come tomorrow, but I need to know she’ll be fair about it.” It was an outright lie, but he had no hope of ever reaching the fertile, peaceful lands of Tir na nÓg. He was bound for the Shadow Realm and the Well of Souls, and he knew it. One lie would neither suspend nor hasten his arrival.

“You must think I’m thick. Father Francis will have you doing penance for lyin’, and rightly so seeing as your tab is with the bar and not the bartender.” Siobhan outright scowled at him. “You know I’ve fancied you, and where I’d have been good to you, Ashley’s a right terror of a woman. Runs the bar front and the floor like a dictator, she does. Thinks she’s got the right to—”

Ashley.

So she’d given him her real name.

He glanced at the bar and caught her flipping a bottle through the air, catching it and pouring a generous shot for a young man who looked as if his heart had been broken. Ashley talked to him, apparently teasing and flirting in equal measures. The lad slid a coin across the bar, she tucked it in the till and grabbed another glass to join him in a drink. By the time the lad lifted the shot glass to his lips, she’d charmed a smile out of the man. She toasted him, and Gareth read to the words to freedom on her lips.

Lucky bloke.

“Ashley what? What’s her last name?” Gareth asked, still staring at the woman in question. Siobhan stopped her little tirade long enough he was forced to turn his attention back to her.

Siobhan sighed. “Her last name’s Clement.” She brushed passed him, her elbow grazing his bare wrist.

Gareth jerked away with a hiss at the burning contact, and Siobhan glared at him. “Would it cost you so much you can’t afford to offer me the courtesy of at least pretending you’re not repulsed by me?”

“You’re a fine lass,” he started, but she waved him off.

“Save it for Ashley. Where I’d have been good to you, charming that frigid bitch will take all the skill you allegedly possess.” She stormed away, wrestled into her little apron and shot him a final scathing look before slipping into the raucous crowd to take orders and clear empties.

The first table she hit was that of his boys.

The musicians tuned up and, with a shouted four count, began to play “Rocky Road to Dublin.” Boots stomping and hands clapping in time, patrons began to sing along, near raising the roof with their off-key help for The King’s Footmen. The musicians took it all in stride. If Guinness flowed like water, then Jameson’s created every tributary. The entire village would be sodding drunk before half past eleven tonight and hung over as hell come sunup.

Gareth turned in time to watch Ashley pour all but a drop from a liquor bottle, slide the shot to the customer and then tip the bottle back to her lips. He swore he felt the burn in his throat and the fine fumes that rose in his nose as he watched her throat work to swallow. It was all nonsense, of course. Bottom line, he was craving the solitude of home, and he intended to get there fast as possible.

Catching himself lingering over the sultry sight of her, he forced his feet to carry him to the door, demanded his hands to relax. The words he intended to utter hung in his throat, fighting his desire to squash any interest in the woman at all.

Ashley. Seeing as you work with bottles, I’ll be thinking of you as my personal genie, love. I intend to bring us to an agreement that affords me my three wishes—your species, your intention and your departure date from our fine village.

He licked his lips, experiencing the last of the imagined liquor and the faint tang of salt-tinged sweat. “Ridiculous,” he muttered, shoving his hands in his pockets before shouldering the door open against the wind’s near gale force. He’d had to use the car park around the corner, and that meant a sobering walk straight into a frigid wind.

“Let it be,” he admonished himself, hands shaking wildly as he dug out the key fob for his Porsche 911. Thank both gods and goddesses alike that technology meant he only had to have the key in range for the car to start. If he’d had one more task, even had it only been to feed the key into the ignition? He’d have found himself standing in the same spot come morning.

Settled inside the driver’s seat, he flicked the vented air away from his skin and then cranked up the heater. Hands numb, he cupped his palms and, without a second thought, whispered the one word of comfort he’d managed to retain. “Ignis.” Fire.

The fingers on both hands cracked and blistered where the flame touched. Blood ran frigid but free. His focus fractured. All he could manage was to stare through the rain-splattered windshield into the unforgiving darkness. He coveted warmth the way an addict craved their next fix. It wasn’t lost on him that, as the keeper of the element of fire, the flame he’d called should have come to him as it always had. Before his death, heat had always been to him something as familiar as a lover’s caress, words whispered across the darkness, promises made, opportunities taken. Now it was a stranger to him, and he felt its absence more acutely than a sailor unable to find the North Star on a clear night.

A powerful gust of wind slammed into the car’s ultralow profile, striking metal and fiberglass hard enough to have the wide-bodied machine rock on its shocks. Shifting his attention to the dash’s muted glow, Gareth rested his least abused fingertips on the wheel. Whether he thought to steady the car or himself, he didn’t know. Both needed something he didn’t feel qualified to give. Not anymore. But to give up was to accept death with open arms, and that—the ultimate end man simply labeled death because he didn’t know the truth of its horrors—would be here for him soon enough.

Sitting there protected from the ragged downpour but still blinded by sheet after sheet of rain, the truth became the only thing he could see with any clarity at all.

The goddess queen would come for him and would find him simply by waiting for his soul’s collection, not unlike an egg in a hen’s nest.

“I’ve nothing left.” He closed his eyes. “No fight. Not anymore.”

A leaden blanket of shame settled around his shoulders.

The oppressive darkness grew heavier by the second. His breath was just warm enough to fog the car’s windows and block his view. He panicked. Failing to truly call his element had wrecked him. It had barely flickered to life, damaging his hands for the first time, his skin too cold to handle the tail of the flame.

Memories rushed him, memories he hadn’t been able to shake since he’d returned to life in October.

She came at him on the cliff side, blade raised, a goddess bent on the possession of a fine woman—a woman his brother by choice would call his own. To fight back would be to kill her. It would cost his brother everything he’d never thought to find let alone to possess, namely love.

So there would be—could be—no fight.

He braced and took the blade. With force and fury greater than any torment he’d suffered, the goddess-wielded blade ran him through, piercing and shredding and ripping. Darkness webbed across his vision. Sight fractured.

A coppery tang coated his mouth, his throat, and he choked.

He tried to scream. Pain like he’d never known, could never have imagined, rendered him mute.

Not within his head, though. Gods, not within his head. His scream ripped through his skull as his heart rate slowed, his blood cooling. He knew it was the end, heard the waves crashing against the cliffs, felt their fading reverberation through limbs grown lethargic.

Startling in its suddenness, sunlight winked out and darkness pulled at him with such force his bones shattered like fine crystal hurled against a stone wall.

Pain burned along every nerve.

His scream echoed....and echoed...and echoed. All in his mind.

But there was no one to hear him. This was a solo trip. The magnitude of his isolation, his desolation, raked at his soul.

Shards of cold shredded his skin until it hung in tatters.

He didn’t bleed.

Dead men don’t.

He knew it was the end.

Pressure gave way to a temporary vacuum, his legs, his arms, his spine—all broken. Entirely useless.

Fear choked him, stealing the last of his will. He continued to fall, his body indefensible, his sense of self splintering.

His heart stopped, and the vast depth of the silence inside him created a terror unlike anything he’d ever known.

The darkness began to gain weight, to possess a malicious awareness of him. In the heart of his growing horror, a presence began to form.

His body slammed into the ground. Cold seeped through him and his skin cracked, reformed and cracked again. And again. And again. The cycle sped even as the fissures deepened, skin to muscle to bone.

He opened his mouth and cried out, the horror of his reality skating across his mind on the finest of blades.

A face, both hideous and desirable, parted the mist above him as it moved into view. Macha, the Goddess of Phantoms and War, loomed over him. She didn’t bother to hide her vicious delight. “Welcome to the Well of Souls, Gareth Brennan.”

She swept low, gripped his hair and canted his head back at an entirely unnatural angle. Cold lips pressed against his, peeling skin away when the contact was broken. Then she produced a metal discus with the Ogham Idad on it. She blew across the face of the piece, smiled down at him and then slammed it into the pad of muscle over his heart.

Skin froze, burned, blackened and flaked off, the metal welding to bone.

Gareth roared with a combination of pain and fury.

She’d...branded him?

Bones healed with supernatural speed only to afford the cold the opportunity to break them over and over, as thoroughly as that same cold ravaged his skin, his muscle, his organs.

The goddess gripped him by the throat then and lifted him, holding him at arm’s length. “You are forever mine, but your service only begins here. Where my sister failed to release her brethren, I won’t. You’ll be my tool, my sword arm for eternity. With you as the head of my immortal army, I will release my brothers and sisters and retake every realm.”

It turned out the Druidic belief that Tir na nÓg awaited all warriors was a lie.

In the heart of eternity was eternal pain and terror.

Nothing more.

A clap of thunder sounded, the sharp sound shocking him out of the memory-induced numbness. He caught the sight of his eyes, wide and panicked, in the rearview mirror. In the ambient dash light, his lips were blue.

Digging through the glove box, he retrieved a pair of driving gloves and sheathed his hands. Then he stumbled from the car and turned toward the pub, the only thought he could grasp was that the woman, the bartender, the woman he’d dubbed “Ash,” had generated a warmth that permeated his bones. It suddenly didn’t matter what she was, what her intent was. He needed that warmth, needed that affirmation of life in the absence of his own and the damage done to his hands by his element.

He’d never been weak, never been afraid, never been one to avoid a fight. As Regent, he was more likely to seek trouble out, to get to the heart of the matter and eradicate whatever conflict existed by any means necessary. The Druidic race counted on his efficient brutality just as much as his brothers in service counted on him to retain the dregs of who he’d been as a younger man—the fun-loving lad with the sharp wit and quick smile. It had been a balance all these years, one he’d managed. No longer. His control was gone, stolen by the queen’s hand.

Dissatisfaction raced through his veins. Every second brought Beltane closer, and what did he do? Sit here waiting. He thumped his head against the headrest. There was more to life than this, more to living than waiting to die.

“Not for me,” he whispered, letting his eyes drift shut. “Never again for me.”

* * *

The music swelled, rallying the patrons. Ashley took orders and slung drinks as fast as she could. Tables were moved aside and an impromptu dance floor was created. Drunken customers spun wildly about the floor in traditional Irish dances, some in pairs and others stepping out alone.

There shouldn’t have been time to consider the strange interaction with the unknown man who, for all intents and purposes, appeared to be the leader of the group of young men still collected in the corner booth. For all that, she couldn’t get her mind off him. Twice different men from the table had hailed her, but there wasn’t time to answer their summons or put down their flirtation as more than juvenile. She’d glanced around, looking for the men’s leader as they each retreated, but she couldn’t find him. The crowd seemed to have swallowed him. Or he’d left. Dangerous, that absence, given his air of malice as well as his aura’s pitch-black, densely saturated depth.

She shivered. A man didn’t develop an aura like that from doing good works in life. Not even close. Someone as marked as he was had to have a violent history, a past that would likely keep her—her—up at night. His hands, scarred and broad, had been strong and capable, his body even more so. The air of subtle menace that surrounded him, giving depth and substance to his aura, said he had killed before—must have—and wouldn’t hesitate to do so again if necessary. That subtlety was far more terrifying than overt aggression. He was a predator who would slit a man’s throat between breaths and disappear into the night.

“Don’t be a fool,” she muttered to herself. “You served him a drink. You watched him across the room. That hardly a killer makes.”

But the truth was there in his very presence, his persona, his command of the men at the table. He was Other, had acknowledged her as such and was currently invisible to her searching gaze.

A plan took root, began to form—one that was wild and reckless and measured by levels of desperation. Hers. If the man was as wicked as all that, he could well be the one to see her through her triennial fertility cycle, to keep her safe should the proverbial wolf end up at her door. Would he use that violence to her advantage? Could she convince him to give up a week of his life, maybe a bit more, and commit to staying with her until the worst of it had passed? She could move on then, would move on so as to leave no trace of her extended stay here in the village. She took it to extremes to ensure she always stayed two steps ahead of the men of her clan who would seek to call her their own and to hell with her preferences.

She’d get through this cycle and leave not only the county but the country. Maybe she’d try Wales this time. She could settle in a little village deep in the mountains and make some sort of life until it was time to see Geoffrey and, once again, move on.

But that was years away. This epithicas had to be addressed sooner, not later.

Siobhan, the barmaid, flounced up to the bar’s edge and glared at Ashley. “The table in the corner is asking for a round of Jameson’s and three pints of Smithwick’s.”

Ashley ignored the girl’s attitude, searching the table again under the pretense of counting out the number of shot glasses needed.

“Eleven,” Siobhan snapped. “There are eleven men.”

“Seems they’re missing the leader of their merry little band,” Ashley said with as much indifference as she could summon.

“He left,” the girl snapped, flipping her hair over her shoulder. “I’ll warn you to keep your hands off that one.”

Ashley sighed. “Yeah? And why is that? You involved with him?”

Siobhan narrowed her eyes and Ashley caught her intent before she ducked under the pass-through and tried to use her rounded frame to intimidate Ashley’s height. “You know, Ashley, you’re a real bitch. I’ve had my eye on Gareth for more than a year. Keep away from him.”

Ashley leaned down and went nose to nose with the girl, ignoring the way her face paled and her toxic breath came in short, panted bursts. “Listen, you gurrier. I’m only going to say this once.” Again. “You want a man? You claim him. I won’t touch him. But if you think you can bop around here like a loose bit, stamping your claim on every good-looking man to pass through the door? You’ve another think coming, Siobhan.” From me. “Trust it will be as far from pleasant as East is from West.” Rising, she twisted her hair up into a loose knot and stabbed it through with long stir sticks to hold it in place. Then she grabbed the girl’s serving tray and loaded it with twelve shot glasses and three pints. She poured the order and, slapping her bar towel down, called to the kitchen. “Fergus! Man the bar, yeah?” Then she focused on Siobhan. “And you? Tóg go bog é.” Calm down.

Slamming the pass-through up, she stormed around the bar end. Her epithicas fueled her already volatile temper and heated her blood to the point a flush spread over her skin. She wove through the dancers and approached the table of men. But the man she sought, Gareth, wasn’t there.

One of the young men, a tall, perfect specimen of attractiveness with an undertone of violence she had to admire, stood. “Well, and if it isn’t our favorite bartender in County Clare.”

She let a seductive, suggestive smile spread over her face, forcing it to reach her eyes. “That the best you can do, lad? I’m a bit disappointed. I’d have thought Gareth would’ve taught you better than to use lame pickup lines on a woman who’s in the profession to have heard them all.”

He blinked owlishly.

“A bartender,” she said on a laugh. “Nothing more, ye bowsie.”

He blushed as the other men laughed and poked fun at him.

With deft experience, she slid drinks across the table, found homes for the Smithwick’s they’d ordered and picked up the twelfth shot glass. “Gareth?”

A dark-haired young man leaned back, considering her as he ran a fingertip around the rim of his shot glass. “He left a good half hour ago, love.”

Her stomach tightened, her breath hanging up in her chest. Gone. She’d have to go with an alternate male. The clinical part of her mind began to assess the men in front of her even as her phoenix rebelled. Loudly.

“Sure and there’s one of us as would love to give you a spin...” His grin widened. “Around the floor, of course.”

Ashley reached out and slipped his shot from under his fingertip and tossed it back. “The least you can do is buy me a drink before you proposition me.” Who to choose? Would one of these younger men be willing to defend her if she was found and incapable of defending herself?

The memory of Gareth’s hands came back to her, their calloused appearance an indicator of strength. She glanced at the younger man’s hands.

Smooth.

Not one of these men would be sufficient. They weren’t Gareth, and both her mind and body craved him.

A swift swipe and she picked up the extra shot she’d poured in the hopes of cornering Gareth. Slamming it back, she flipped the glass over and set it top down. “I’ve a bit of an issue to take up with him. How’s the best way to get in touch with him?”

To a man they went still, each doing their best to appear nonchalant and failing so miserably she almost pitied them.

Younger than I thought.

She crossed her arms over her chest and, one by one, gave them a cool stare. “C’mon, boys. How do I reach him?”

“I’ll deliver a message,” the dark-haired man muttered, his tone laced with disappointment.

“While I appreciate the offer, that’s not what I asked for,” she countered.

“Repeat the question, would you? I was out of earshot.” The chill of his breath skated across the shell of her ear as he leaned down and spoke to her and her alone. Deep and almost mocking, he pressed on. “And now you seem to have taken a shot poured for me. I’ll cover the cost out of admiration for your bravado. Once.”

Every cell in Ashley’s body threatened to divide. Half demanded she take flight and run from him; half demanded she turn and run to him. The thunderous beat of her heart was like a heavy metal band’s kick drum on a fast track. Her pulse hammered savagely at every pulse point. Heat washed through her. She closed her eyes and reveled. No man had ever affected her so physically, rendered her so full of wanting with so few words, and disdainful ones at that. She shouldn’t want a man like this, not even in her epithicas. It was the equivalent of losing herself, so similar to falling into a life of obscurity as one of a handful of wives, never cherished, never the one thing a man would give anything for. If she couldn’t have that, she didn’t want any of it. She’d watched that neglect drive her mother to Final Death when she failed to ever “breed” for her father again. No, that was no life for her.

This couldn’t be the man to see her through her epithicas. That half of her that demanded she take flight had her taking her first step away from him.

“I wouldn’t,” he said below the close of an Irish ballad.

“I...”

“Want to dance,” Gareth finished for her.

“No. I—”

He spun her round and pulled her into his body, nostrils flaring on contact. The King’s Footmen took up a traditional Irish reel. One hand on her hip, he pulled her closer still and took her hand...within his gloved hand. Eyes tight at the corners, he said nothing.

“New style, leaving your gloves on when you shed your coat?” Trying for flippant, the question emerged far closer to breathless as he spun her across the floor in time with the other dancers. His steps and spins were smooth, polished, as if he’d either been formally taught or had danced a thousand and more jigs and reels in his time.

Gareth didn’t answer her, simply spun her faster as the piece took up a more frenetic pace. Holding her hand, he moved to her side and, in time, they began a step dance that had others clearing the floor and cheering them on.

Caught in Gareth’s grasp, Ashley did the only thing she could think to do.

She danced.


Chapter 4 (#ulink_7267c3a6-1680-5768-a213-495cd74c2607)

Gareth ignored the pain in his damaged, gloved hands as he held on to Ashley. She gripped him tightly in return, having made no more comment than to question him about his new fashion accessory. That suited him just... No. No, it didn’t suit him “fine.” It didn’t suit him at all. He wanted to touch her, skin to skin. How she chased the goddess’s chill away defied logic. And he didn’t care.

The music sped up, the pace ever faster, and he had to focus to keep up.

As if her body had heard his unspoken request, the point of connection between them heated, seeping through his palm, up his arm and into his shoulder. Sensation trilled through him.

Warmth. True warmth.

Gods, he’d missed it. Having that comfort now, he wanted more. And what he wanted, he typically made sure he got.

Twirling her out and then back, he stepped into the move at the last moment so she didn’t have time to adjust her trajectory or stop her forward motion. Their bodies collided. He wrapped an arm around her trim waist and anchored her against him. Despite his heavy sweater and worn denim, the woman’s heat all but seared him.

Ashley’s chin snapped up and she gasped. Her breath was sweet and sharp on the heels of the whiskey shot she’d taken with the brokenhearted lad. She was a heady mix of alcohol’s influence and natural sultriness. The combination speared through him, the sensations so sharp he had to wonder if the gods hadn’t shown mercy on him and manipulated the experience to fit his preferences.

He knew better. The gods had abandoned him.

Gareth forced the bitterness away, focusing instead on drinking in Ashley’s gift. He fought to keep up with the dance versus simply holding her tight against his body. Reflexively, he tightened his grip. She didn’t even flinch. Whatever she was, she could handle at least his rudimentary strength. Or what was left of it.

Good to know.

Crossing their hands, he twisted her around in his embrace under the guise of the dance. He knew better. And from her quick glance over her shoulder when he pulled her against him, her back melding to his front, so did she.

He directed her across the floor, modifying the dance so she was in front of him rather than to his side.

She never missed a beat.

Apparently invasive by nature, her body temperature bled deeper into him, and he missed a step as his element surged toward her. He forced it back. The last thing he needed to do was burn her. Or reveal his gift in front of a roomful of locals who already thought him odd, no matter the respect with which they treated him. It would draw unnecessary attention.

None of the assassins or tyros needed the extra challenge of wiping memories years before it was time. The Elders were the ones to perform that general spell every six years, the spell that made locals forget their faces. It was the only way the Assassin’s Arcanum, the assassins and the rotation of trainees could stay in one place across the centuries.

“You’re lagging,” Ashley called back, reclaiming the whole of his focus. “A man of your stature should be able to dance circles around a common bartender.”

He stopped her still in the middle of the floor and leaned forward, his breath against her hair. “Is that so?”

She turned in his arms, the movement slow, almost wary. “So it would seem.”

He bent forward, into her space, their noses almost touching. Something elemental sparked in her gaze, something that looked like desire. His heart skipped a beat, and his voice dropped low, emerged gruff. “Let me assure you, bean álainn, nothing is what it seems.” He’d called her a beautiful woman. And he’d meant it.

Her eyes widened at the endearment. Obviously, she had the Irish. Reaching up, she tucked a strand of hair behind his ear, then cupped his cheek. “Nothing? I’ll ask you to prove it.”

He grinned. “Oh, I will.”

Several wolf whistles sounded, and she startled.

He didn’t give her a chance to balk.

Without forecasting his intent, he whipped her out to the end of his grasp, their arms extended. When she would have spun back to him, he twirled her again and landed her at his side. Glancing her way, he was thrilled to find a flush riding high on her cheeks. She was the picture of health, the epitome of beauty, the manifestation of his most vivid dreams. A deep well of craving opened in him, a well he’d believed capped and closed. Not so. Not if the burgeoning hunger he had for her was authentic, not manufactured. The thought irritated him. “Are you a siren, love, because you’re doing things to me that defy nature.”

She tipped her chin up and laughed. “And have I sung to you then that I don’t remember?”

His grin returned, wider than before. “No.”

Her eyes met his, the amusement in them clear. “There’s your answer, then. A siren I’m not.”

“A seductress for sure,” he murmured.

Something odd passed through her gaze, but her smile never faltered. “Only under the waxing moon every thirty-sixth month.”

“Smart-ass,” he teased. She started to respond, but he gave a short shake of his head. “Step dance in three, two, one.” Gareth started the traditional dance, setting a rapid pace.

Ashley watched for a moment and then picked up his rhythm, matching him move for move. She followed his lead beautifully, increasing her speed as The King’s Footmen sped up the tempo.

Gareth’s heart thundered in his chest, and he wondered briefly if the band was trying to kill him. It seemed possible given that they kicked the tempo up a third time.

Ashley laughed again, the sound rich and full.

Sparing her a glance, Gareth found a faint sheen of sweat covering her rosy skin. Her hair seemed to crackle. Her face was more radiant, her lips fuller.

The music stopped abruptly and the crowd’s raucous cheer nearly raised the roof. Gareth glanced over to gauge Ash’s reaction. For the first time he could recall, he gaped.

If a being could radiate robustness of, and for, life, she did. Her skin positively glowed. A faint sheen of sweat dotted her nape, and stray short curls stuck to her skin while longer strands that had come loose during their dance hung past her shoulders. Hazel eyes had taken on a burnished bronze shine. Her smile was infectious, particularly when she took a flamboyant bow and then threw her head back and laughed. Her voice was captivating. Lyrical. She was, in a word, radiant.

She grinned wider before taking another flamboyant bow.

As she rose, Gareth pulled her into his body and, without a thought beyond the need to taste those decadent lips, kissed her.

She kissed him back.

It was short and swift, and it wasn’t enough. Might not ever be enough. Not if the buzz that raced through his veins was an indication of what this woman did to him. No one had ever affected him like this. Never had a woman left him so on edge with wanting, so hungry for her he felt like a starved man given an all-he-could-eat token to the richest buffet in the country. She was vibrant. Spirited. Vivacious. And he wanted her with a desperation he’d never known.

She met his stare and the merriment in her eyes softened. Retrieving her hand, she offered a small curtsy and an almost conscientious smile. “I suppose I should thank you.”

“For?” he asked, voice a bit churlish, his heartbeat tattooing a rapid-fire rhythm against his rib cage—and it had nothing to do with exertion. The wound forever frozen on his side burned from the heat rolling off her.

One thin shoulder lifted casually, and she seemed to struggle to hold his gaze. “I didn’t realize I needed to let off a little steam.”

Gareth stepped into her space. Dancers began to spin around them with the band’s next set. She smelled of warm grass, sunshine and fresh earth. Like comfort. A refuge. Like home.

Taking a loose curl between his gloved fingers, he suddenly resented the separation between them. He wanted to feel the silk of her hair. With infinite gentleness, he tucked the curl behind her ear and uttered the only words that came to mind as she gazed up at him in undisguised confusion. “Take me home tonight, Ash.”

“Man the bar!”

The words cut through the din and sliced through the music.

Ashley glanced over her shoulder at Fergus, the bar’s giant of an owner, before again meeting Gareth’s direct stare. “I have to finish my shift.”

Blood thrummed through his veins. “That’s not a denial.”

“Neither is it acquiescence,” she retorted.

Gareth reached out and dragged a finger down her neck. “I’ll only keep asking until you say yes.”

“Persistent.” She eyed him carefully. “Care to own your heritage?”

He blinked slowly, surprised at her brazenness. Most Others were far more inclined to pass each other by giving a wide berth and an averted stare, particularly in these parts where the assassins were suspected to reside. But if she wanted to play it straight, he could check off the first of his three wishes—discovering her species. “I’ll show you mine when you show me yours.”

She leaned into him and the smell of sunshine and dry heat intensified. “Clever man. I suppose closing time will provide us both the answer I’ve not yet decided on. Stay if you will.”

Spinning on her heel, she strode across the pub, slipped behind the bar and returned to working the sticks and tossing bottles without pause.

Gareth stole a look at his watch.

Midnight.

Two hours to kill.

The common vernacular stung, but he shrugged it off. Killing time wasn’t what had earned him his damnation.

Still, it was too much time to waste on a maybe. He might not even be able to touch her without excruciating pain. Except for the warmth she’d infused him with...

One last glance at the bar and his mind was decided. He would stay. Ashley could be the only chance he had for skin-to-skin contact without excruciating pain before he was returned to the Shadow Realm and the Well of Souls. And just once more before the goddess returned for him, Gareth wanted to know warmth. If the woman behind the bar was truly his last chance? If she could give him the chance to find even a moment’s peace before an eternity of torment? There was nothing he wouldn’t do, no mountain he wouldn’t move, no army he wouldn’t slay, no sin he wouldn’t commit. And he would do any of it, all of it, without batting an eye. After all, he was already damned, a dead man.

There was nothing left to lose, only a warm woman to gain.

* * *

The clock’s hour hand rested well past 2:00 a.m. when Ashley finally closed and locked the bar door. Talented as they were as a whole, each man in The King’s Footmen was quite certain he posed a far better catch than any of the others. They’d come on to her individually, each going so far as to offer her the moon and the stars. The lead singer and guitar player had even written her an impromptu little ditty, but she’d been firm. No sex with anyone professionally affiliated with the bar. She didn’t fish from the work pool. It complicated things when the affair ended, and, with her, it would always end. Nothing good lasted in her vagabond lifestyle.

The fiddler, with his windswept hair and broad shoulders, that strong jaw and eyes as green as the fields, might have tempted her to break her rule. But the musician’s wild appeal couldn’t compete with the man who’d ignited her need earlier that evening.

Gareth Brennan.

He’d only offered his first name. It had taken little more than a couple of well-placed questions to discover his surname. Odd that no one knew much about him. He’d seemed a rather amiable fellow, popular with the ladies and well liked by the gents. His reputation at snooker and traditional pool had her itching to pit her skills against his, though it seemed unlikely the opportunity would present itself. Apparently he hadn’t been out and about much over the last few months. Shame, that. Her pride could have used the boost of beating him at his own game.

But wasn’t that exactly what this was? A game? At least to him. He was intent on seducing her, convincing her to spend the night with him.

As for her? She was intent on convincing him to spend at least the next week with her. So who was beating whom here?

She snorted as she dug out the wide dust mop, broom and dustbin. Her pride would stick this out for the win, willing to take a beating before it bowed out. Always. Such was the curse of most phoenixes. Winning equaled dominance, dominance equaled power and power was everything.

Cleaning the last of the peanut hulls out from under the bar, she repositioned the stools and dumped the pan in the bin. One final polish of the bar and she was finished. The weighted knowledge she’d be back here within hours, stocking the bar and checking kegs and bottles to make sure everything was ready for another go round, had her sighing with exhaustion. She needed to go home, needed to sleep—as much as she could possibly get.

The kitchen door whacked the wall as Fergus shoved his way through. Grease-stained apron hanging loose around his neck, he stomped across the rough-hewn oak floor on feet so large they were more suited to a draft horse than a man.

“For the love of all the gods, Fergus, spare a soul the unnecessary fright of seeing you emerge from your cooking cubby like a raging bull,” she snapped, exhaustion making her words sharper than usual. “You take a decade off my life every time you blow through that door and I don’t know you’re still here.”

“You’d have been wise to pay more attention over the last three months,” he groused. Stopping at the obscured door tucked around a blind corner, he pulled a set of keys and rifled through them. “Seeing as I live here, it shouldn’t shock you so that I come from the kitchen to go upstairs every night.”

“Smart-ass. It’s not that you emerge from the kitchen, it’s that you do so like a Pamplonian bull with the gleam of death in his eye. I’m never sure whether to run or...run.” She shrugged and grinned.

He grunted, the sound as close to a laugh as he ever issued. “Beyond your impromptu Riverdance, I both saw and heard you toyed with Gareth Brennan tonight.”

Her mouth worked like a landed trout’s—open, close...open, close—before she finally sputtered, “‘Heard?’ How in the hell could you have heard anything? You never leave the kitchen.”

“So you did.” He gave a short nod. “It would be humane—” he sneered the word “—to warn you to be wary of that one. Used to be as he was a fun sort, the type that both silly girls and jaded women alike took to like a hummingbird does nectar. Something’s changed him, though, and recent-like. But two issues impede my warning. First, I’m no’ humane. I could give a rat’s ass what happens to you that doesna benefit me and mine. Second, it’s never wise to get wrapped up with someone else’s problems when you’ve plenty of your own.”

Fear skipped down her spine faster than the denial passed through her lips. “I don’t know what you’re talking—”

“Sure and you don’t.” He stared over her shoulder, focusing on something so tangible she felt that the “thing” he stared at could only be hovering inches behind her. The sensation intensified until, casting pride aside, she had to turn, to look.

There was nothing—and no one—there.

It took her a moment to work up the nerve to face her boss. Stiff shouldered, tendons corded in his neck, a ruddy flush to his skin, the warning to stay away from the new male... Fergus knew something. His scent shifted, and suddenly she was surrounded by the wildness of the Burren, that alien landscape strewed with dolmen, ocean squalls and scrubby little wildflowers. Sea salt would have glazed her skin had she stood still long enough. Luckily, she never stood still.

Moving a bit farther out of reach under the guise of returning her cleaning supplies to the cupboard, she called over her shoulder, “Where’s this oddity coming from, Fergus?”

“It would be none so odd if you’d been paying me the attention I’m due. You and your kind have always had a superiority complex, thinking your ability to resurrect is your right.”

She froze. You and your kind... Resurrect is your right... He knew what she was. “How?” she wheezed.

“Your scent changed tonight after Brennan arrived.”

Studying him in the reflection of the bar mirror, she watched as something not unlike a rolling black-and-white television channel skipped across his appearance. He showed himself as one thing for fourteen of every fifteen seconds, but that one, lone second that rounded out every quarter minute? That one blip? Fergus became something Other.

Hunching forward, he folded in on himself before rising. When he finally stood as straight as he could, he was so tall he had to cant his head to the side to avoid bumping the ceiling rafters. His temple brushed the iron chandelier and set it swinging. He reached to still it with a hand that now sported a palm the size of her dead drink tray.

She couldn’t get her mind around what she saw and understood to be true. Both magnificent and terrifying, Fergus had changed. With a sheet of hair as brilliant as a new star and eyes that blazed a myriad of crystalline colors, skin that shone with a diamond hue and hands the size of dinner plates, she couldn’t look away. Legend said that the last of the genii—giants who could change their appearance and proportion at will—had faded, passing to the afterlife centuries ago. But that couldn’t be true. Not if what Fergus presented was a fleeting image of his true nature. And if that was the case...

Years of education rolled through her mind, flipping faster and faster as she tried to recall what it was the genii wanted with the phoenix. What was it that had rendered them friend or foe? It had all centered around one thing. What had it been? Somehow, it involved dice. Or a card game.

“Confused, little phoenix?” He huffed out a sound of genuine disdain. “I expected better of you. Turns out you’re nothing but a stupid bitch in heat. However, your cycle changes my time frame. It saves me having to pay the male I located. They’ve been looking for you, you know. This saves me having to defend my rights against any of the men of your clan should one or more of them respond to the gods-be-damned scent of you. The timing isn’t perfect, but it’ll be what it is.”

Ashley kept her gaze loosely focused, trying to take in everything around her that she could, certain she needed to find her way out of this mess before she was forced to fight her way out. But... “You called me a bitch. Do it again and I’ll be calling you a hearse.”

Fight it was.

That’s when she remembered the connecting pieces of history.

Their king had made a last stand in the final Tribal Wars, and he’d lost. Desperate, he’d challenged Daghda, the All Father, to a game of dice. Daghda had declined, asserting his right to dissolve the band of giants. The giants’ king, with nothing left to barter, wagered the giants’ immortality against the god’s ability to beat him in the game of Daghda’s choosing.

What. An. Idiot.

Daghda chose archery, and the genii’s king lost. Badly. In a final stand that had been recorded in the blood of the fallen, the last of the giants had disappeared. Only their legend remained. Those rumored to have survived had been rendered mortal, their lifespans still far greater than a human but shortened all the same. So what could a genii want from a phoenix who had to be less than half his age...

Ashes.

Horror stole over her and her skin felt as if it shrank.

A female phoenix’s ashes were the key to immortality if a being knew how to harvest them. To get to the point of harvest typically involved murder and theft—of the phoenix’s life and ashes, respectively.

To kill any phoenix was nearly impossible, but the females were far more difficult to dispense than the males. Few knew the secret to forcing a member of the secretive race into irrevocable death. The phoenix had to take her life by removing her own heart. Once that happened, the heart had to be burned to ash. Those ashes could then be harvested. If a mortal tattooed her ashes over his own heart in the constellation symbol for the phoenix? The phoenix’s immortality transferred to the mortal and gave him what so many coveted. Immortality.

She had to get out of here. Now.

Ashley shot him a hard, hot look. “Timing?” Her smile was brittle. She’d expected to defend herself from her own tribe, not a damn genii. “Your timing sucks. I have a date tonight.”

“Whore.”

“Screw you and the hearse you’re about to ride out on.”

He rocked forward on the balls of his feet, arms loose, body ready. “I’ll take that which is my due.”

“Due? The only ones ‘due’ anything are the gods, and even their claims are debatable. You? You’re not even a minor deity in my handy little Book of Mythologies and Verses, so back the hell off.” She raised her hands in front of her, not in fear but to widen the fan of flames that ran from her elbows to her fingertips.

“I’ve hunted your kind for more than six centuries, aging a fraction every day as I sought to reclaim that which my father lost. I will return to the throne and see the genii recognized as the force they were meant to be.”

“Return to what throne? And whom do you truly think to rule? Your shadow? There aren’t enough of you to reestablish any type of kingdom without serious inbreeding.”

He only stared at her.

How the hell had she missed the fact Fergus was Other? She’d been a fool.

Shaking her head, she took one step aside, angling to get a better line on the front door. Distract him. “You’re sick and sodding mad to boot.”

That gave him pause, and he stopped to consider her. “I’ll draw together all those left, those Daghda abandoned, and I will see a new reign challenge the way of things.”

Ashley arched a brow. “I’m almost sorry about this, Fergus.”

The genii’s heavy brow furrowed. “Sorry that I’ll take your life?”

“No,” she said softly, her voice fading behind the wall of flames that erupted around her. “Sorry that I’ll be taking yours.”


Chapter 5 (#ulink_1cd97abe-aec6-519c-aec0-8fcbdba190ff)

Gareth sat in his car, having moved it across the road from the pub’s front door. The hours passed and, finally, as the last patrons trickled out the front lights were turned off. Ungloving his hands, he found they had generally healed, but the cold persisted, an ache within him that simply refused to give quarter. He fought the need to lash out, to beat against the heavens’ doors, to deliver equivalent pain to those who saw fit to punish him in kind. None of it was possible, yet he believed it would happen. It had to.

Shoving free of the low-slung vehicle, his need to control something choked him. He rose and stumbled into the wild weather, raised his hands to the sky. “Ignis, I praecipio vobis!” Fire, I command you. So close to death and separation from the gods he’d served for centuries, they wouldn’t deny him this, surely.

Flames he still possessed, flames as familiar to him as his reflection, hissed in the torrential downpour, flickering erratically but refusing to wink out. He shook with the effort to control his element. Only the faintest blue of the flame he’d summoned clung to his skin, hovering in the cup of each palm with a tension that superseded the force created by the storm.

Then the tenor of the storm shifted. Rain turned to sleet, pellets of ice sliding down the neck of Gareth’s shirt. The flame he’d called winked out in the face of nature’s onslaught. Gods, he resented the cold.

Without warning, the pub door flew open. Watery light spilled into the darkness and battled it back.

Wide-eyed and moving at nearly inhuman speed, Ashley followed. Her hair whipped around her, seeming to crackle and writhe. Backlit as she was, a faint nimbus built around her until, magnified by her fury, it brightened and blazed wildly.

For a moment it had appeared she was on fire. Gareth blinked and shook his head to clear his vision.

It was the bar. The bar was on fire.

Still looking over her shoulder as she ran, Ashley plowed into him at full speed. Instinct dictated his response. Gareth caught her, hoping to steady the both of them, but her hit was brick-house solid. He grabbed her biceps and down they went, falling into a heap of tangled limbs, shouted curses and pelting rain.

They both hissed at the skin-to-skin contact, and Gareth’s first thought was that he’d burned her with his bitterly cold hands. He let her go and rolled to his feet, shocked to see her skin was clear.

Thank the gods.

An unholy roar erupted from within the bar and something enormous moved.

Sirens sounded in the distance.

Gareth grabbed Ash by the hand, ignoring the pain in his own, and yanked her to her feet. “What the hell happened?”

“Genii,” she said, breathing hard. “Have to—damn! My backpack!”

She started for the bar and Gareth grabbed her round the waist, hauling her against his side. “If you pissed the genii off that bad and then lit his bar on fire? We need to go. Now.”

“My life is in that pack! I have to go back!”

Just then, an enormous fist plowed a hole through the side of the bar building.

Ignoring her efforts to fight free, Gareth curled his body around hers to shield her from the plaster and debris falling around them. The genii was pissed, and bad things tended to happen when geniis lost their tempers.

He yanked the passenger door of his car open and dumped her unceremoniously inside with a barked order, “Buckle up!”

Ignoring the odd sensations winding through his system, he raced to the driver’s side, jumped in and sped away from the curb, engine roaring.

“What the hell happened?” he shouted, the glow of the fire lighting up his rearview mirror.

“Fergus...” She looked over her shoulder. “Gods, he’s not a man.”

Gareth’s brow furrowed. “You thought—”

“And why wouldn’t I?” she demanded. “He’s been nothing but a bar owner and fry cook since I’ve known him. Nothing said he was a...” She snapped her mouth shut, her lips forming a surgically precise line across her lower face.

“A what, Ash?” Gareth pressed. He needed to know how much she knew, how Other she was.

“You ask what Fergus was when you’ve already referred to what he was.” She glanced back once more, gripping the door handle so hard her knuckles appeared skeletal beneath her fine skin. “Is. No, definitely was.”

The fire had grown to a raging inferno, and the giant had collapsed inside the building. Nothing beyond flames moved inside the bar now. That meant there would be nothing left of him by the time the brigade arrived. No body meant there would be no questions the Arcanum couldn’t answer, even if a bit of magickal manipulation was required. Had there been bodies? Or, in this particular case, a body? That tended to complicate things.

Gareth quietly considered what little he could be certain of. That certainty was based on that fact that, in all the years the genii had been in County Clare, the creature hadn’t behaved rashly or in a manner that would draw unnecessary attention its way. Had he been violent? At times, yes. But the genii had never been reckless in a way that would endanger himself. That meant that, whatever Ashley was, Fergus had wanted her badly enough to give up everything he was to take the woman out.

That decided things.

Retrieving his cell, Gareth dialed the Nest. A young man answered on the second ring. At this point, niceties were obsolete. “This is the Regent. Put the Assassin on.”

“Yes, Regent.”

Seconds later, Dylan O’Shea’s voice came across the line, a trace of humor underlying the man’s typically serious nature. “Heard you were finally out for a bit of sport tonight, Gareth. She done with you already?”

“We’ve got a problem.”

Dylan’s voice changed in an instant. “Tell me.” All teasing was gone, replaced with a well-earned and accurately described deadly seriousness.

How much to say in front of the woman? Gareth glanced at her and found her staring at him, her slim face paler than a full moon’s blaze on a clear night, her eyes wide.

“Assassin?” she asked on a shaky breath.

“You have her with you and you’re speaking in front of her, Gareth?” Dylan bit out. “There better be a good reason.”

No help for it. He’d either have to have this conversation with her in the car or set her on the side of the road. He wanted her warmth more than he wanted privacy, so talk in front of her it was. “Aye. She and Fergus had a wee bit of a mash-up at the pub.”

“The genii did what, exactly?” Dylan asked.

“Well, exposed his true nature and apparently threatened her, though I’ve not got the whole of it out of her yet. But I will,” he added harshly, steering with his knee as he raked his fingers through his hair and pushed the wet mass off his face. “End result was that the bar burned down and Fergus with it.”

Dylan’s silence lasted several heartbeats. “She’s Other?”

Gareth glanced at her. “Yes, though I’ve no more information than that.”

The Assassin’s curse was long, low and colored the air blue. “You can’t bring her here without knowing the danger she poses. Not with Kennedy’s lifeline tied to mine. If your woman—”

“I’m aware of that,” Gareth said between gritted teeth. “And she’s not ‘my woman.’”

“She’s in your possession, she’s yours,” Dylan countered.

“And if I’d said the same to you about Kennedy?” he asked so low he hoped Ash didn’t hear him.

“I’d have knocked your teeth out,” Dylan said, unexpected amusement winding through his words. “But only because I knew they’d grow back.”

Gareth huffed out a humorless laugh. “You’re a right thicko. I’ll hole up tonight and find a way to get her out of the area before I return. We’ll need to renegotiate the treaty with the genii as they’ll discover I’m the one who drove off with her.”

Dylan’s silence reined the moment, then he did the unthinkable. “I’m sending Rowan to handle her. If you have to kill the woman—”

“Spare him that.” The minimal warmth he’d been able to steal from the brief contact with Ashley fled as if chased by the monsters that haunted him. “I’m already damned, and well you know it.”

“I don’t accept that.”

“I’ve seen the end, Dylan.” The words were barely a breath. “It’s inevitable.”

“I’m sending Rowan. Until then, keep in mind your limitations,” Dylan said quietly. “I won’t lose you.”

Gareth wordlessly disconnected the call with a swipe of his thumb and dropped the phone in the console. Ash opened her mouth to speak, but he shook his head. “Not right now.”

I won’t lose you, Dylan had said.

The irony of the statement left Gareth aching with the brutal truth.

He was already lost.

* * *

Ashley listened to Gareth’s side of the conversation. Most women would have been offended. She’d been thrilled. He had no intent to try to lay claim to her beyond her body. He’d then promised the Assassin—surely not the famed Assassin—he’d be spending the night with her tonight.

Bottom line? He was perfect. No commitment issues. No expectations. Strength enough to defend her if her epithicas rendered her unconscious. She didn’t think that would be a problem, though. Not if she got sex and, more importantly, orgasm. It would diffuse the hormonal storm building inside her, making her harder to track. And since Gareth had picked her up off the pavement, she’d felt invigorated, her core temperature running hotter than normal. Had to be the thrill of survival. Or adrenaline. Okay, it was the fertility cycle. Whatever. What she knew for certain was that she had more energy than she’d ever had once her cycle began to crash in on her. Odd, but she wasn’t one to look a gift horse in the mouth let alone check its teeth. No, she was far more likely to mount the damn thing and spur him forward in order to gain as much ground on life as she could.

There was only one thing left to accomplish. She needed to convince Gareth to remain with her through her entire epithicas versus ditching her in the morning. If he was tied to the Druidic assassins, he was literally perfect. But how to convince him to stay? There had to be something in it for him, and she’d lost everything she’d owned when her pack burned in the bar. She couldn’t even offer to immediately replace lost wages seeing as she wouldn’t be going back for her paycheck. It would take a trip to her bank box, and she doubted he’d carry her across the country for something so mundane as money.

Panic both pushed and pulled her to act and react, respectively. She was effectively homeless, temporarily penniless and left without the few contacts she’d stored in her cell. Worse, though, was that she’d lost the only picture of her mother she’d had. An old and worn etching, it had been the only possession that mattered to her. She wanted to cry, and she never cried. It had been rule number one for so long that the urge caught her off guard.

She rubbed her clenched hands against her denim-clad thighs. She’d started over more than once. She’d do it again. And the picture of her mother? The lump in her throat thickened. Her only solace was that nothing and no one could steal her mother’s memory from her. It would have to be enough.





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