Page 20 of Dark Embrace

Aidan wrenched away from the man who had chosen him. “Written? Is that why the gods wouldna let me leap to save him? Did they block my powers so my boy would die?”

MacNeil did not answer. It was answer enough.

“Aidan?” Brianna breathed.

He jerked, shocked that such a painful memory would dare to claim him again. He had just served the damned gods, he thought, as if Ian hadn’t been taken from him.

“Aidan?”

He turned to stare into a pair of beautiful green eyes, framed with lush, dark lashes. He felt her heart now, beating against his, and he was so aware of her it was almost as if he’d never held a woman before. A vaguely familiar tension began as he stared at her, along with a flutter of anticipation. It had been so long that he could barely recognize the sensation, and he was confused.

Did he desire her sexually?

His hands were on her waist. Beneath the baggy garments, her waist was small, with no flesh to spare. Their gazes held, hers wide, and he moved his hands up her rib cage, beneath her clothes, until her heavy breasts bumped them.

She gasped.

His manhood surged between them, against her belly. His mouth felt dry. He was tempted to touch her breasts.

His blood coursed even faster now. What was he doing? Although he had been shot three times and the leap was weakening, he had the ability to heal unnaturally and quickly. In a short time, his wounds would be gone. But her power could restore him instantly. Holding her, he could almost taste her power. He could take her now; she deserved such abuse for daring to interfere in his life.

He was indifferent to sexual pleasure, indifferent to a woman’s face, her hair, her eyes. He desired no one. He lived with lust; it was entirely different. Power served him so well.

He didn’t want to be aware of the feeling of her body against his.

He should never have taken her with him.

If he took her power now, she wouldn’t look at him with any faith or hope at all. In fact, she’d be incapable of doing very much of anything for days afterward, until her body had recovered from his rampage. That knowledge served him well, because he hated hearing her thoughts; he hated her wondering about what had happened; he hated her compassion and pity—just as he hated her.

He reached for the snap on her jeans and bent her mind to his.

She moaned, long and low, eyes closing.

The sound was familiar. All women instantly succumbed. Suddenly he was even more furious—with her, with himself, with the gods, the deamhanain—with everyone. He pulled her down angrily and moved over her, and she looked up at him, her eyes glazed with the desire he had deliberately instilled in her.

Now she would not pity him or believe in him, or anything else. She would be his sexual slave until he released her from the enchantment.

Moments ago, at her home in the future, she had desired him—and he hadn’t enchanted her. But she had loved him for a long time….

He didn’t want her love, either!

For one moment he stared at her face.

She was everything he was not, everything he had once been.

He cried out, cursing, and leapt to his feet. He breathed hard. “Return to yer senses.” He whirled and strode from the tower, slamming the door so hard behind him that the wood splintered, the panels shearing apart.

His mind spun incoherently as he rushed down the corridor. When he opened his chamber door, Anna Marie sat up in the bed, clad only in a silk chemise.

“Get out,” he roared at her.

Her eyes widened in shock.

He decided he would murder her on the spot if she didn’t leave immediately. She understood and paled, slipping from the bed. Circling him, she fled.

He slammed the chamber door closed and the stone walls reverberated.

Then he leaned against the wall, and for the first time in decades, he succumbed to a moment of utter confusion.