Tormented by Darkness (11 page)

“We nobles have to stick together,” she teased.

Her lighthearted mood was catching, and Mick found himself chuckling at her bright voice. “You too, huh?”

“My mother’s ancestors once ruled the Selgovae Celt tribe.” She turned to him, pride radiating in her features. “If this were then, I would be considered of great power. My birthday falls on Mabon, the autumn equinox. My ancestors would be celebrating the rare balance of light and dark, and the Celts considered this a day of high magic.”

Oh shit—her birthday. In his hurry to get out of the house, he’d left the card on his bed. He grimaced inwardly.
Smooth, ace. Real smooth.

“Happy birthday,” he murmured as he squeezed her hand. “Tell me more about these Celts. Do you believe what your ancestors practiced?”

Rhiannon unmistakably tensed. “I celebrate the Sabots,” she answered with a little more caution in her voice than necessary.

“So you’re…pagan.” He tried the thought on, turned it around in his head until he’d analyzed it from all angles, and found it fit the rest of Rhiannon’s eccentricities.

“I am. Does that bother you?”

No. For that matter, it fascinated the hell out of him. What had she said—the rare balance of light and dark? He liked the sound of that. Liked the idea that the two could coexist. Only what little he knew about pagan practices supplied a more realistic logic. The autumn equinox split the day in half, and the dark and light Rhiannon spoke of had nothing to do with natures but hours of sunlight.

He shrugged one shoulder. “It’s your faith, Rhiannon. What I think is irrelevant.”

Mick felt her withdraw. One minute she was smiling at him, her fingers clasping his hand tenderly. The next, those elegant digits rested limply against his, and her attention pulled out the side window.

He told himself it was better this way. Better to wound her now by subtly reminding her they had no future, than to let her get more caught up in this, whatever it was. The sharp pang behind his ribs, however, had him wishing he could take back his indifferent words.

Chapter Twelve

Rhiannon had never been so glad to see the gravel road twisting through the overgrown trees that led to her family’s property. As Mick turned onto the drive, and twilight descended over the SUV, she gripped the armrest tighter. She had to get out of this car. Between the hurt swirling around in her heart, and the growing urge to avenge the injuries his words inflicted, sitting still had become almost impossible. With her hand in his, all she had to do was give the demon control. One rake of a deadly claw along the underside of his wrist, and it would all end.

He eased to a stop near the base of a thick oak, and she scrambled for the door. But as she turned toward the crumbling cabin expecting to see Dáire’s red pickup, Rhiannon’s world ground to a stop. The place where they usually parked was empty. The fire pit not even stocked.

Goddess above, where were her brothers?

Panic pressed down on her as Mick pulled their things from the back of the SUV. They had to be here. Should have been by now. With the sun setting, and the energy of the moon rising, she wouldn’t survive much more of Mick’s company. Nor would he survive hers.

Mick tossed her a puzzled look. “I thought you said your brothers were coming?”

“Ah. They are. They should have been here by now.” Pulling herself together, she smoothed her palms down her thighs and took a deep breath. “Can I use your phone? Maybe they stopped somewhere for dinner.”

He grinned as he plucked his cell phone off his hip and glanced at it. “Signal’s weak.” He tossed it to her. “I’m thinking we should pitch this tent and do exactly that. I’m starved.”

Rhiannon flipped open the phone, quickly punched in Dáire’s number. The line ran six times, then routed to his voicemail. She turned her back to Mick, sheltering her words. “Where are you? I need you here.”

Hanging up, she tried Cian’s cell, and then Miranda’s—all with the same result. Likely they were in the mountains and out of signal. Mick’s phone only showed one bar. Still, the uneasy feeling she’d been abandoned refused to let loose. She turned her face to the sky and closed her eyes, using the stirring breeze to calm her churning spirit. Dáire wouldn’t leave her alone. Not when he knew how critical tonight had become.
He’ll be here.

“Rhiannon.”

Mick’s low voice pulled her from her frantic thoughts. She slowly turned around to face him, struggling to hold on to a false smile. Arms folded across his chest, bags untouched at his feet, he leaned against a wide tree trunk. His predatory gaze seared through her sweatshirt, filling her head with fantastic images of the night they’d spent together and tightening her breasts until her nipples stood upright.
Sweet goddess above.

“Come here,” he beckoned quietly.

She crossed the browning grass, dried leaves crunching beneath her hesitant footfalls. Like he controlled her with a draw string, his dominating presence drew her in. She didn’t know what had happened to the man who kept himself at an unreachable distance. Didn’t care. This one was watching her like he had every intention of bringing them as close as two people could be. And the dark intensity in his gaze held a magnetic appeal.

When she stood before him, he fitted his hands at her waist and pulled her hips flush with his. Soft and enticing, his lips moved across her temple. “Has anyone ever told you how beautiful you are with the wind in your hair?”

“No,” she answered faintly. Her soul surged forward in a violent arc, darkness sensing satisfaction was a hairsbreadth away. She swayed in Mick’s steady grasp.

His mouth dusted down her cheek, teased across her lips. His hands slipped to her bottom, and he pressed her forward against his confined erection. Pleasure swept through her veins. “Like an angel,” he murmured huskily.

Her breath fell raggedly as a delicious shiver rolled down her spine. Somehow, she managed to push words through her closing throat. “I’m not…an angel.”

“Mm.” He nipped at the sensitive skin alongside her neck, then soothed the painful pinch with a flick of his tongue. “In my book you are.” Another clench of his fingers, and his cock stroked the sensitive nub between her legs.

Rhiannon’s knees threatened to buckle. To keep herself from falling, she braced her hands on his shoulders and curled her fingers into his cotton shirt. Her head tipped backward, and Mick’s mouth slid down her throat. Heat washed through her body in gentle, lulling waves.

Keeping one hand against her bottom to hold her in place, Mick slipped the other beneath her sweatshirt. Calloused fingers scraped pleasantly up her waist, over her ribs, to the satin of her bra. He tugged the flimsy fabric down, releasing her swollen nipple. As his thumb swirled across the tight peak, a gasp tore free.

“I can’t stop thinking about how good it feels to be inside you.” His words rasped against her skin, his breath moist, his voice like gravel. “I’ve never been there before—to that place you take me to when you come around me.” With a not so gentle twist of her nipple, he lifted his head and his gaze locked with hers. “I want it. This.” His gaze flashed to dark onyx, and he added in a hoarse whisper, “You.”

The crisp pop of branches in the forest beyond yanked Rhiannon out of the heady bubble of bliss Mick’s words created. Her spine snapped to attention, and her gaze jumped to the trees. With a chuckle, she slowly brought her stare back to his. “Maybe we should pitch that tent first. I’m not sure that kind of introduction would go over well with my brothers. You’ve got a gorgeous ass, but I don’t think they’d appreciate it quite like I do.”

A wry smirk curved one corner of Mick’s mouth as he pulled his hand from beneath her sweatshirt and tucked a thick lock of her hair behind her ear. “Point taken.” Turning her loose, he reached for the tent.

At that moment, the wind swirled, stirring up the fallen leaves. It brought with it an icy chill that snuffed the brimming heat in Rhiannon’s veins. Rubbing at the goose bumps that coursed down her arms, she scanned the trees, sensing they weren’t alone. But Dáire’s essence was far from her, and she hadn’t heard a passing car.

Closing her eyes, she turned her face to the breeze and concentrated on the stirring energy. Yet the more she tried to define the rolling vein of power, the more it faded, until at last, all that remained was the serenity of nature.

Rhiannon expelled the breath she’d been holding. Drandar wasn’t here. It was just her imagination.

She glanced at Mick, then scanned the deepening shades of purple in the sky. Before long it would be dark. They’d be lost without a fire. “I’m going to get some firewood.”

A frown creased Mick’s brow as he looked over his shoulder. “Be careful.”

Laughing, she headed for the trees. “Relax. I’ve been coming here for years. I know these woods like the back of my hand. There’s no boogeyman out here. Just a few foxes, squirrels, and rabbits.”

****

Rhiannon’s confidence was exactly what worried Mick the most. People who took safety for granted were always the ones who turned up dead. They never stopped to consider the street they walked daily might be more dangerous than it seemed. Never considered the dumpster they passed every evening might make the perfect hiding place for a man bent on rape and murder.

Grumbling to himself, Mick cursed his ever-present suspicion. Rhiannon’s laughter told him loud and clear what she thought of his over-protective nature. She didn’t want his worry.

All the more reason to focus on the ways they differed instead of forgetting them and allowing confessions to slip free. That independent streak of hers would never accept his need to hold what was his close. Too close sometimes.

Yet for a minute, when he’d turned around and found her gazing at the sky, her long hair swaying in the breeze, he’d lost himself to the fantasy. It gripped hard, grew roots, and sucked him down until all that mattered was returning to that perfect place being with her created. Where he was whole, and Rhiannon made him that way.

Son of a bitch.
He jammed the tent supports into the ground.

Coming here had been a terrible idea. He couldn’t pretend to be something he wasn’t, and the next several hours would reveal things he didn’t want Rhiannon to see. Last night he’d escaped the nightmares by turning to her when the faceless victims rose behind his eyelids. But tonight, with her brothers nearby, he couldn’t screw her senseless. If he woke up in a cold sweat, she’d want to know why. And the last thing he could afford was to have Rhiannon pry him open.

Though if he were honest with himself, he’d admit she was already peeling away the layers.

As the subconscious thought registered, Mick’s hands came to a halt over a tent stake, and his gaze tracked to the forest. She hadn’t laughed at his tears. Hadn’t dismissed his grief with the trite assurance everything would be okay. She’d taken his vulnerabilities and protected them by sharing her own ongoing sorrow over her mother’s death.

Uncomfortable feeling cinched his ribs together. Rhiannon understood him. Impossible as it might be, she knew exactly what he needed right down to telling him what he wanted to hear when he’d told her there couldn’t be a future between them, despite the feeling that radiated in her eyes.

Maybe he wasn’t giving her enough credit. Maybe if he let her pummel all the way through—

A sharp feminine cry jerked Mick out of his reverie. Too many years on the force had ingrained the sound of inflicted pain into his memory. He dropped the tent stake, made a mad dash for his bag, and pulled out his pistol. Heart lodged in his throat, he bolted for the trees.

Chapter Thirteen

Rhiannon hauled herself to her hands and knees, her sharp cry fading into a pained whimper. She looked up through the mass of hair that gathered around her face and spit bits of forest matter off her tongue. Where her father had struck her, pain arced through her ribs. Her glare connected with his.

“You can’t kill me, Drandar.” The effort of talking set off a dull, agonizing throb, and she grimaced. “I’m still immortal.”

His low, lifeless laugh echoed off the high canopy of leaves. “I have no desire to kill you, daughter. What purpose would that serve? You are no use to me dead.”

“Then why are you here?” Standing, she glanced around the narrow clearing in the trees in search of a weapon. She couldn’t kill him either, but in his mortal form, he was susceptible to injury.

How had he snuck up on her?

Mick. She’d been preoccupied with thoughts of Mick. Damn.

He took two steps closer and grasped her chin between thumb and forefinger. With a fierce jerk, Drandar brought Rhiannon’s gaze back to his. “To remind you what you are. You have killed before, Rhiannon. Do not assume the piousness of light like your sister Isolde. It is a disgusting farce.”

Rhiannon’s gaze narrowed. Yes, she had killed, but only out of necessity. Only when sustaining life affected the balance of nature. She would not let her sire accuse her of the dark bloodlust his favorite children, Taran and Brigid, shared.

“This man you seek to protect is a weak mortal. He does not even care for you, and yet you are willing to forfeit the sacred gift I gave you to protect him.” His mouth pulled into a wicked sneer, and his muddy brown eyes mocked her. “Pathetic.”

Jerking free from her father’s punishing hold, Rhiannon spit in his face. Before she could take a step backward, his hand lashed across her face. Her head snapped to the side. Agony erupted, his knuckles striking bone. Rhiannon cried out and clutched at her cheek, the harsh blow threatening to send her back to her knees.

Power emanated from the man before her. His long black hair whipped about his face as the negative energies he commanded stirred up a frigid breeze. Rooted in place by the dizzying effect of his strike, she watched as he called that energy into him, amassing it until the clearing pulsed with evil.

Though it wasn’t the first time she’d witnessed her father in full rage, Rhiannon had never stood on the receiving end. Fear fingered the base of her spine. Instinctively, she took a step backward. He couldn’t kill her, but he could make her wish she were dead. And if he incapacitated her, Mick’s fate would be sealed.