Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2) (7 page)

A cool hand brushed her forehead.

“You two! Take it outside, goddamn it!” The furious half-whisper had her muddled brain whirling. Heather knew that voice, and that tone all too well.

“Lace?” She opened her eyes and struggled to sit up.

She was lying on an enormous bed, in a room lit only by a hearth dancing with flame. Aidan and the man Ronan stood in front of the fire, both having frozen sheepishly at her friend’s sharp tone.

“We canna go out,
luchóg
. 'Tis too close to sunrise…and tha’s another thing, O’Neill! Where’s the damme potion, eh? Yer thieving arse—”

“Leave Aidan’s arse out of it and get up to the big house
now
. Both of you!” Lacey’s big, gorgeous eyes were blazing as she shooed them out with a determination Heather had rarely seen in her friend. When pressed, though, Lacey could be quite a force of nature—not unlike her big sister. Kate was just far more irritating and less adorable about it.

Lacey looked ridiculously tiny shoving the two towering men towards the door.

“You have time if you make it snappy. Best to get Aidan under proper cover anyway. He can stay in the library. There’s no windows in there, so it’ll be safe enough. If you want to yell at each other then, go right ahead, but you’ll be answering to
Moiré
. She’s scarier than me.”

“No' by much,” Ronan said, cupping Lacey’s chin in an enormous hand, “Ye’re purely terrifying when yer pissed.” His face was so full of teasing love that Heather could only gape, then turn away when he kissed Lacey. It was a quick kiss but so thorough her friend was blushing before he released her.

“I need to talk to Heather without you two hulking around.” Lacey’s words were soft in the big man’s ear, but Heather caught them.

“I don’t ‘hulk’.”

“Have you looked in a mirror lately?”

“Ye want a mirror, we can get a mirror. I think a nice, big one would look right fine over the bed—”

“Ronan, fer gods' sake,” Aidan interrupted.

“He’s turning into such a bloody nag.” Ronan nuzzled Lacey’s neck as she giggled, then pushed him out the door at Aidan’s next words.

“This
nag
is going vanish in a ball of fiery ash, mate, if you donna
move
yer horny arse…”

“Well, now, why donna ye just take some more of tha' potion—ye remember, the one tha' ye
stole
from me? Ye
cábúnach
—”

“Oh shut it, ye eejit lunatic. I thought we were mates. And here yer gonna watch me burn just to steal a kiss from yer woman…”

Their voices moved off.

“They really love each other, you know.” Lacey’s voice was fond as she watched the two men walk down the white stone path that curved away into the fading night.

“Seems there’s love in the air.” Heather’s tone was accusing, but she couldn’t help it. Lacey was her best friend. She didn't understand any of this, not the least of which was what might be between Lacey and that big beast of a man.

Lacey shut the door and turned around, regarding her with those bright eyes that always saw way too much.

“I wasn’t
hiding
him from you, sweetie. I just didn’t know how to explain…to tell you…
Shit,
Heather! You have no idea what kind of crazy stuff has happened to me since I came to Ireland.”

Heather started laughing. And laughing. She couldn't stop. Tears rolled down her cheeks.

Lacey stared at her with her mouth open. A moment later, an understanding smile stretched her face and she started to giggle. “I guess Aidan has shown you some of the ‘sights’ then.”

Heather gasped for air. “You could say that! Damn it, come here and give me a hug. Then we’ll share crazies and decide who is the most certifiable.”

“I’ll win,” Lacey said confidently as she dropped to her knees by Heather and they wrapped their arms around each other.

“I doubt it,” Heather whispered in her ear, real tears threatening as she squeezed the person she loved best in the entire world. “I think I saw a…a
demon
tonight.”

“Seriously? Is that the best you can do? I've seen about a hundred of them. And I'm dating a werewolf. Former werewolf. Actually, we’re kind of getting married.”

Heather jerked back, her hands on Lacey’s shoulders, speechless. Her friend smiled that sweet, knowing smile of hers.

“Told you I’d win.”

An hour later, Heather was sitting Indian-style across from Lacey on a big, furry rug in front of the fire, inhaling and wondering if someone had snuck a few pounds of high-grade bud in with the peat. Heather tried to wrap her head around all that she’d just heard.

Her best friend had died last week. She had literally
died
in a cavern full of demons intent on using her blood to break the curse that had made her lover, Ronan, a werewolf. For centuries. Trapping both him and his family outside of time. Lacey had only been given a new lease on life because of that red-headed woman Aidan hated so much.

According to Lacey, that same woman was the Celtic goddess of death.

“That’s insane! And there are three of her?!”

“Yeah,” Lacey said, munching on some chips she had pulled from Ronan’s desk. “It's the classic goddess trilogy; maiden, mother—or in her case—
seductress
, and crone. Anu, Bav and Machu. I haven’t met the others yet, though. Only Bav.”

“She was quite enough for me.” Heather shook her head when Lacey offered her the chips. She should have been starving, but her stomach was in too many knots to try and force food into it.

My love
, the goddess had called Aidan. “I think…it seemed like her and Aidan have quite the history. Not to mention
she came off as a bit of a bitch.” Heather knew that was probably unfair but, oh well. “A whiny bitch at that.”

Lacey hesitated. “She saved my life, Heather.”

“I know.” Heather’s tone said it all.

“Yeah,” Lacey nibbled her lower lip anxiously. “I'm not saying that doesn’t make her a bitch. Ronan has said some things...”

“What things?”

“I don’t know much about it really, but I know that Aidan…. Well, he has had a terrible time. These gods of theirs—” Lacey shuddered and shook her bright coppery head. “They’re
awful
…wonderful, too. At times.” She added this last bit as if an afterthought, but Heather saw her head dart around. As if Lacey thought someone might be listening over her shoulder. That move made Heather grimace and get to her feet.

“Are we really sitting here talking about ‘gods’ for fuck’s sake? Like they're real?”

“They are real, Heather.” Lacey’s voice was quiet but firm.

Heather whirled to face her tiny friend, ready to shout or scream, but the look of sympathetic understanding on Lacey’s face made her shoulders slump.

Green fire, glowing bodies, glowing
eyes
, and dead black smiles with impossible teeth…

Either what Lacey was saying—and the evidence of her own eyes—was true, or she was losing what was left of her mind. Aidan crashing through that wall…the wall of a
building
. Surely, no man, no matter how strong—

—‘
too close to sunrise
…
no windows
…
safer
.’

“Lacey,
what
is Aidan?”

Lacey started chewing her lip again and turned away, but Heather spun her back around. “Lacey?!”

“Well, he’s…he’s a…
damn.
Aidan's a vampire, Heather. Think about everything you've seen. Carefully. And tell me, do you honestly not
feel
it when he's around?”

The room started to spin again. Lacey guided her patiently back to the bed. Heather sat down hard and put her head between her knees. A vampire.

She'd had a torrid three-ish night stand with a goddamn vampire. Holy shit. It was a moment before she could lift her head again.

“Feel what, Lace? What do
you
feel when Aidan is around?”

Lacey sighed and took a seat beside her on the mattress, running her fingers over the tangled bedspread. “Well, I don’t feel it
always
. Only when he's really angry or tired. And since he’s been that way, most of the time, since I met him… Fear, Heather. Cold fear, like someone is running ice down your bare spine. Don’t you feel it?”

Heather stared at her friend as she considered this.

Fear. Hmm…

Well, sure, maybe a little. Particularly when they had first met. She shivered as she thought of his eyes when he’d first looked down at her in that Turkish café. There had been a touch of fear then, but….

If she was brutally honest with herself, Heather knew that her defining emotion around Aidan was lust. Pure and simple.

It kinda burned away everything else, aside from the occasional burst of anger—which was often brought on by that same lust, along with Aidan’s own cocky ass attitude. She resisted the urge to laugh and then thought of something that totally didn’t make sense. Not if what Lacey had said was true.

“I saw him this morning though, outside. In the
sunlight
. Right after dawn, I kind of…hit him with my car.”

“Well, that’s another story. There’s this po…. Wait. You hit him with a
car?!”

“Yeah. He walked right out in front of me. I hit the brakes, but it was too late. I thought I’d killed him, though I didn’t really know it was
him
. Not at the time. I don’t think I wanted to know it was him.”

Lacey frowned. “Heather, where do you know Aidan from? How the hell did you two met anyway?”

Heather tried not to blush, but it was impossible. Not under the scrutiny from those blue-green eyes that knew her better than anyone else on earth.

“We, uhhh… well, we met in a bar. In Istanbul. I…got antsy, you know. I needed a break…took a couple of days from the shoot—“

“Are you okay?” Immediately dismissing anything else, those eyes went warm with concern. That old familiar concern. Lacey knew her alright.

Down to the fucking bone.

“I’m good, Lace. Really…being with Aidan, it helped…distract me from things.” She hadn’t realized until she said it how true that was. He'd pulled her back from the brink so completely that she hadn’t even noticed when the encroaching blackness had shrunk away.

Lacey’s lips twitched. “He’s that good, is he?”

Heather snorted. That hadn’t been precisely what she was driving at. Still, since she didn’t want to talk about what she had really meant, at least until she had a chance to mull it over herself, she’d go with that.

She swatted Lacey’s arm. “We can compare notes on screwing vampires and werewolves later. And seeing as we’re on that subject, what’s with you and tall, huge and handsome?”

Lacey’s cheeks pinked, but her eyes glowed with something so deep and beautiful it hurt Heather’s heart. No
way
. But Lacey’s next words confirmed it beyond all doubt.

“Ronan’s it for me, Heather. He is just…
it.
You know.”

No, she didn’t know. She’d never been in love.

Ever.

And she didn’t want to be. Trusting someone that much, letting them see that deep inside her was so
not
an option. Heather didn’t want to rain on Lacey’s parade but…

“Come on, Lace, you’ve known him, for all of... what exactly? A week?”

“Almost three.”

“Oh yeah, well then, that’s
plenty
of time. God, do you have any idea what Kate is going to say?”

Lacey’s mouth trembled, then firmed. “Since when did you give a crap what my sister thinks, Heather?”

“Since she called me terrified two days ago and begged—no,
ordered
me to go looking for you.”

“Oh shit, Katie called
you
?” Lacey’s eyes went huge.

“I know. Apparently even psychopathic sluts have their uses in times of crisis.”

Lacey winced.

The term 'psychopathic slut’ had been used by Kate in relation to Heather more than once. Most memorably when Kate had walked into their dorm room unannounced one Saturday afternoon and found Heather in bed with the Polzin twins. Sasha and Sven. It had just been a little experiment, really, one that hadn’t even gone that far, but Kate didn’t care. That scene, coupled with other incidents over the years, had ended any chance for chummy relations between Heather and Kate.

“I’m sorry, Heather.”

Heather shrugged. “I was worried, too, you know. What the hell were you thinking, not calling her?”

Lacey twisted the bed sheet in her hands. “I didn’t know what….how could I explain…Jesus, Heather! You have no idea. You think what you've seen tonight is crazy?! You should have been here a week ago. And Ronan? How the
hell
do I explain Ronan and me…to Katie? Heck, I don’t even know how to explain it to you.” Lacey’s face, that face that Heather loved so much, looked uncertain and lost.