Blood In Fire (Celtic Elementals Book 2) by Heather R. Blair Page A

mug carefully, his crystal eyes narrowing like steel darts at the man across the table.
    “What the hell are ye meaning by tha'? An unattached woman’s got just as much right to enjoy a good fucking as a man, ye damme relic. Donna be thinking ill of her for tha'.”
    Ronan sent a slow, satisfied smile into his mug.
    Aidan cursed, scrubbing his face with one hand. Baited and trapped. Neat as could be. Gods, Ronan was getting slick in his old age or Aidan was getting damme slow.
    “It’s nae like tha'! Love has addled your brains. This is no' ye and Lacey here, Fitzpatrick! There’s nae attachment between me and Heather. Beyond a bit of mutual fun, is all.”
    “I didna say there was and tha's as we both know it should be." He shrugged. “But ye donna want the lass held in a bad light. Tha’s something.”
    “Oh, just because I am no' a complete arsehole—”
    Ronan laughed outright. “Since when?”
    Aidan sighed again.
    Ronan had a point. It had been a very long time since he retained any semblance of that type of chivalrous behavior. Except when it suited his own ends, of course. He’d had a habit for awhile now of not only being cavalier with women, but maybe a bit cruel. Though, to be fair, that was not just with women, but pretty much the whole world.
    Save for one small corner of it, the one that held the Fitzpatrick family.
    Even them, he’d avoided for years and years.
    Almost a millennium, in fact.
    The reason for his avoidance chose that exact moment to enter the kitchen. Blurry-eyed and rubbing an unshaven chin, Daire Fitzpatrick, Ronan’s youngest brother, fell into a seat at the table across from Aidan.
    “If yer gonna wake a man in the middle of the night, 'tis only good manners to make him a cuppa. Wet the tea, will ye?”
    “It’s damme near dawn, no' the middle of the night, ye blubbering eejit.” Ronan grumbled but got to his feet to get the tea on again.
    “Too near dawn to suit me.” Aidan eyed the blush creeping down the far hill outside the sliding glass doors, feeling the burn in his bones flare up again. And the longing. Had it only been twenty-four hours since he’d seen the sun again? It felt like a lifetime and more. “I better hie off to the library then.”
    Belying his rumpled, sleepy appearance, Daire’s hand shot across the table and locked on Aidan’s forearm. “I donna expect yer forgiveness so easily, Aidan. But surely we can share the same room without yer back going up.”
    “'Tis the dawn tha’s got my back up, Daire, no' ye.” Which was true enough, but there was a bad taste in the back of Aidan’s throat as he pulled out of Daire’s grip and slipped down the hall.
    Being wrongly accused of the murder of Daire’s former fiancé had cost Aidan more than a thousand years of being separated from his only friend in the world. That had not been nearly as bitter as the realization that even Ronan’s family could so easily see him as a monster, capable of betraying their trust in a heartbeat.
    Aidan smiled coldly to himself as he wrenched open the door to the library and eased into the quiet, familiar darkness. But really…what right did he have to expect any different?
    He was a monster, after all.
    People could hardly be blamed for expecting him to act like one.

Chapter 4
     
    Bav stumbled against a gleaming column of silvery marble as she materialized in Ti'rna No'g. One, long-fingered white hand clung shaking to the cold stone as she pushed herself upright.
    How dare he!
    Her breath plumed out in the black night as she tried to control her fury, and the pain that twisted her heart. The way Aidan had looked at her, bordering on revulsion . Why must he reject her so harshly?
    And why must she always go back for more?
    She knew why. She always had, from that first night, so very long ago.
    How could she not?
    After all, just look at him.
     
    Uí Néill 
    892 A.D.
     
    Look at him.
    That was all Bav could think as she watched the battle rage below.
    She'd been