He knew. He smiled. “Ye ran. I hunted ye here,” he said as softly.
He spoke as if he meant to take her to bed, not maul her to pieces. She became still, her body tight now, quivering, while fear surged. She began shaking her head. She wouldn’t believe it. She would never believe him capable of hurting her.
She prayed that he had not fallen so far into black evil that he could do such a thing.
But, dear God, she was standing face-to-face with the man she had just spent the past year dreaming of.
Brie wet her lips and backed up.
His lust escalated dangerously, changing. It overshadowed the anger, the hatred. The need to draw blood vanished. She began to feel dizzy, hollow and faint. Her heart was pounding so hard, it hurt. His gaze was on her face now, and the tension that throbbed between them seemed so charged, Brie thought the air might blaze.
Brie closed her eyes. So much emotion and tension were swirling in the room, she was becoming confused. She had to keep a grip on her mind. She couldn’t desire him now! He was simply too dangerous.
She fought for control, and when she opened her eyes, he looked oddly satisfied, as if he sensed her internal struggles. “Aidan, please sit down.” She swallowed, knowing she’d sounded like Tabby with her first-graders. “I can stop the bleeding until the medics get here.” Keeping up the pretense, she nodded toward the sofa.
He laughed at her. “Dinna speak as if I’m a small boy. Three bullets can’t kill the son of a deamhan.”
She went rigid. He could not be the son of a demon. Was this a bad, bad joke?
“Aye,” he said, growling. “The greatest deamhan to ever walk Alba spawned me.”
More tears rose. How could this be happening? “You’re a Master!”
“Damn the gods,” he roared.
She cringed, shocked. “They’ll hear you!”
“I dinna care!”
Brie did not move, searching his furious gaze. He hated the gods. She trembled, afraid for him.
His blue eyes changed, becoming brilliant now, blinding. “Ah, Brianna,” he murmured. “Ye care so much.”
His lust for power and sex made her reel. Her body fired on every possible cylinder, but she was also sickened in her heart. The rage and hatred, the lust, the frenzy of it all was too much for her to bear. “What happened to you?”
“Come here,” he said softly.
She tensed, instantly aware of what he intended.
“Ye want to come to me, Brianna.”
She did. She wanted nothing more, and suddenly she wasn’t sure why she was hesitating.
He started.
Brie thought his surprise was a response to her hesitation until her front door blew open and Nick stood there with his gun drawn.
Brie came out of her trance. Before she could scream at Nick, Aidan seized her, his strength shocking, fury blazing through him into her. Brie gasped as he pulled her up against his rigid body, her back to his chest.
Instead of feeling terror, a shocking sense of familiarity struck her.
When he spoke to Nick, his breath feathered the side of her neck and ear, leaving her breathless. “Do ye really wish to see if ye can murder me…afore I murder her?” Aidan taunted.
Brie clung to his strong forearm, which was locked beneath her breasts. His arm hurt her ribs terribly, reminding her that the sub might have bruised or fractured one of them. It was a welcome distraction from her conflicted senses, because she was acutely aware of his heart pounding slow and thick against her shoulder blades. Worse, he was only wearing her towel. There was no mistaking what was pulsing against her hip.
But, blended with the sexual desire she felt from him, there was murderous intention.
He seemed to hate Nick.
“Brie, don’t move,” Nick ordered calmly, his blue eyes the coldest she had ever seen.
“Nick, he saved me. Don’t kill him!” she cried, terrified for them both.
Aidan jerked on her, clearly wanting her silent. “Ye seem fond o’ yer little woman,” he said to Nick mockingly. “Mayhap she should have summoned ye to her side, instead o’ me.”
“Let her go. She’s an Innocent. You and I, we need to talk, calmly and reasonably, Aidan.”
Aidan’s answer was immediate. Brie cried out as Nick was blasted with blazing, visibly silver energy. Nick was pushed back against the wall as if by a huge gale.
She felt Aidan’s focus shift entirely to Nick. “Well, well,” he said softly, with great relish.
She was surprised. Demons could hurl their power so strongly that they’d send ordinary humans across entire football fields. HadAidan withheld his power with Nick?
She knew what he meant to do before he hurled another kinetic blast at her boss. “Don’t,” she began, but it was too late.
The silver lightning blazed into Nick. To Brie’s shock, Nick seemed to absorb the impact this time, reeling but remaining upright. He pointed the .45 at them and said dangerously, “I’m trying really hard not to blow your brains out. Oh, and I’m a dead shot.”
Brie gasped, “Aidan, we’re all on the same side. Please, don’t do this.”
Aidan nuzzled her cheek, which made her body explode with urgency. “I’m enjoyin’ myself too much to cease now,” he murmured.
Brie felt her body scream for his in spite of the terrible crisis. She somehow looked at Nick. “He is good, not evil, Nick. Don’t shoot.”
“He’s turned, Brie. He turned a long time ago. If you can’t feel the black power in this room, it’s because you’ve been brainwashed.”
Brie shook her head desperately. “No.”
Nick said, “Let her go, Aidan, and I’ll let you go.”
Brie knew it was a lie. So did Aidan, because he laughed. “Ye forget, Nick, I can leap away whenever I choose. Ye canna stop me. I stay here to war with ye because it pleasures me.” More silver energy blazed.
Nick grunted, going down to his knees, but he somehow kept the gun in his hand.
And Tabby and Sam appeared on the threshold of the loft, both of them breathless. As they halted, Sam’s favorite weapon appeared in her hand, a steel Frisbee with a dozen knifelike teeth. She could sever a man’s head from his body with it—a great way to bring even the purest demons down. But she said, in disbelief, “Aidan?”
“Sam, he saved me. Don’t hurt him,” Brie cried.
Aidan jerked her closer to his hard body. “Be quiet.”
Nick was back on his feet now. “How good are you with that thing?” he asked Sam.
“Good, but I won’t risk hurting Brie, too,” Sam said, never taking her gaze from Brie and Aidan.
Tabby, who was amazing in crises, now sank to her knees and started chanting a spell. The Book of Roses had been translated long ago from Gaelic to English, but her spells were always spoken in the language of their foremothers, which gave her magic all the power the Ancients would allow.
Aidan’s body filled with a new tension. Brie glanced up, and for the first time saw wariness reflected in his eyes.
He didn’t fear Nick or Sam and their weapons, but he feared Tabby’s magic. Brie instantly guessed her cousin’s intentions. Aidan could not be