Page 54 of Dark Embrace

“Demons destroy. You haven’t destroyed me. You don’t even want to use me. You want good, old-fashioned sex, so I guess that makes you more of a Highlander than half demon.”

“I liked ye better,” he said softly, “when ye feared me. ’Tis late. Go back to sleep.”

She trembled. “I don’t think so.”

Now she would refuse him?

“I’ll sleep when you stop staring at my legs.”

He realized he was looking at her pink undergarment again, and what he could see behind the material. He flushed. She was throbbing gently. If he did what he really wished to do, there would be nothing gentle in her body. “Ye want me to stare or ye wouldn’t stand naked in the freezin’ cold.”

“I’m haven’t noticed the cold, and I’m not naked.”

He went still. A reply escaped him now.

“And you can block whatever you choose, but what you’re feeling is really obvious.” She glanced at the hem of his leine, which remained tented. She added, her face flushed, “I don’t know whether I chose to dream of him or whether he decided to inflict himself on me in my dream, but as I said, I’m a Rose, and I know dreams are another reality.” She stared into his eyes, her gaze intense—beseeching, even. “I have never been so afraid, not in my entire life, and I have seen my share of evil. Even though I have woken up alive, I can’t go back to sleep. What if he comes back to kill me?”

He was an instant from putting his arm around her and giving her what they both wanted. “Ye need clothes,” he repeated. “An’ I will keep ye safe, as I promised ye I would do.”

She looked right into his eyes. “At first I thought I was mistaken,” she said huskily. “I thought you were oversexed, and the desire was because I’m female and anything in a skirt would do.”

He was not going to admit anything. He was having trouble speaking, in any case. “Get dressed. Now.”

She moved, but not to get dressed. Instead, she dared to touch his cheek. “I think you want me, a lot. And even better, I think you care, at least a little. I think we’re becoming friends. And I think that’s why you want me. I think you need to make love to me.” Her eyes, trained upon his, were as wide as a doe’s.

He was aghast.

He picked her jeans up from the foot of the bed and threw them at her chest, where she hugged them. “We will never be friends and we will never be lovers, Brianna,” he warned.

“Why not?”

“Because Moray has come back, and not just in dreams,” he said harshly. “He was the giant I met on the battlefield.”

DEAMHANAIN DID NOT DESIRE, they lusted. They did not protect, they destroyed.

Aidan paced outside his tent, aware that Brianna was inside, tense with fear and wide awake. Now she needed his protection, from his demonic father. If he wasn’t careful, he would slip into Brianna’s bed to comfort her, enjoy her every caress and cry and, before he knew it, she would be healing him. He would accept MacNeil’s offer and become allies with the Brotherhood, and after giving up his vengeance he would be walking with the gods again.

He shook with rage, looking up at a bright, full moon. “I’ll never walk in yer light again. Bastards,” he hissed.

But Moray was more powerful than ever, and he had to be destroyed, soon. MacNeil did not know how he could be vanquished. If anyone could defeat Moray, it was a mighty god.

But no god would show him compassion, not after all he had done. And he would not beg them for their aid, either, just as he wouldn’t beg MacNeil.

But the gods were selfish and greedy, like their children, the Highlanders. Gods liked power and wealth. He could bribe them. And why not? He needed the power and he would enjoy the blackmail.

“Ye hate me as I hate ye,” he said harshly, staring at the silent night. “Come face me now an’ admit it, so we can begin our bargain.”

The night remained blue-black, cool and silent. Only the wolves moved, panting as they lay a short distance from him.

“Let me defeat Moray,” Aidan said, thinking of Brianna, “an’ I will gladly give ye my life.”

The night changed. Stars winked at him; the moon smiled. The wind even sighed.

The wolves sat up.

These were hardly answers. “She has seen the future.” Green eyes came to his mind, at once frightened and determined. “I am to hang soon. No rope can hold me, but give me the power to defeat Moray an’ I will accept my fate.”

A gust of wind lifted the dead leaves at his feet.