by Kiki Howell
But, everyone had their problems, right?
He knew without a shadow of a doubt, no danger would come to her by his hands, his monster. He had to hope, against all hope, that being with him would not put her in danger of anyone else, though. His father was dead. He ran his own life now. Well, to a greater degree than he had at any other time in his life. What would his brothers care who he dated? They never had before. Unless his father had left some sort of instructions where she was concerned, but that had to be mere paranoia sneaking in. He hadn't seen her or spoken of her in over thirteen years.
As they slid into the tub, he feigned normal. He let himself be just a man who ached all over to be against this angelic creature in a small, yet, of course, not skimpy enough, bathing suit. Too close for any sort of comfort, he watched as the warm water covered her. A smile grew on her face with each inch, as his faded in conjunction with the loss of her body to view.
"What luxury," she exclaimed. "I have a big whirlpool bathtub in my place. I like to make the bathroom all spa like and soak. But this! It's something else. The sound of the falling water. The sights of the room and outside. I'm in heaven."
"Me, too, but only because you are here."
"Oh, man, you never were smooth with the lines were you, lady killer?" She giggled, granting him a brief glimpse at the young girl she used to be when he'd first met her: carefree, hopeful, and determined. "Of course, with your looks, you wouldn't have to be."
"I'm just trying to be honest here. Not a line if you mean it. And, I do. To be with you again, there are no words, no lines, to explain it. I wouldn't even bother to try."
"I'll admit, it is nice, to let oneself be carried away by the memories; well, the good ones. Reminiscing, catching up, is all well and good. But, us, I'm not sure if it is... I have to go back to New York... I..."
"Stop. I know you have to go back soon. I just need to live here in the moment with you, if that is okay. The future, I'll worry about that later. Deal?"
"Sure. Deal. Just, we need to watch, the interaction that is."
"What do you think I have in mind?"
"I don't know, or don't want to, I guess. I just know it's more than we should engage in."
"You're not thinking of it? How it used to be between us?"
"Of course I am. But, we can't. I can't. Not again, and then leave. It's already going to be hard enough. Old feelings, not letting them surface to much, it's proving an impossible challenge already. I'm trying to live in the moment here without making future ones in New York miserable. Do you know what I mean?"
"More than you know. I will follow your lead," he promised, telling her as much truth as he could.
He meant it. The demon voted only for devouring her now, encouraged by his desire for her, but following her lead, that had been a warning to the thing to behave. He needed to say out loud that he was in control, if only to encourage himself as well.
"Oh, don't do that. One of us has to be sane. Please tell me it will be you. I'm not sure I have it in me at the moment."
As she looked him up and down with obvious admiration, a hint of that heated girlish twinkle in her eye he remembered all too well with every cell of his body. The demon, never to be ignored, surged through him with each shot of lust. At the same time, the thing from hell battled every flash of what he knew love to be, forcing him to refocus his concentration moment to moment. He sat up straight, pushed his back against the wall of the hot tub, forcing water to slosh over the edge behind him.
"Did I say something wrong? I can't tell. I mean, your body language is stay away, but you have something like fear etching your face, and I don't believe a man like you even knows that emotion. You didn't before, so why would you now?" She asked, her concern genuine.
"I know fear," Ciaran said, holding onto the scream of frustration he wanted to let out. "Fear is why I let you go. Fear for you. For your safety. What I fear now, though, is holding back. Keeping my distance enough that you will stay longer. Come back again. Maybe even let me visit you in New York, and see you there. I'm probably pushing too hard, too fast, already right there. I want to be honest with you. I really do, but there is so much about me, so many things I've done, have been. Those around me..."
"Those around you? You mean your brothers? Do I have something to fear from them? Will they take up where your father left off? I mean, I have money now. Surely I am no longer a poor girl unworthy of you. Wait, are you afraid for me now, in this moment?"
He watched her back up, take a quick look around her. It cut him right to his core. The pain, a stab in the gut, quickened his breathing. He'd frightened her.
The demon surged again to the surface, threatening a shift. Jaw tight, every muscle tighter, he held it in with everything in him even though the electricity of the change threatened, churning in his veins, chilling his heated skin. The urge grew so strong, the threat of the agony of it grew almost palatable. This had never happened before with a woman, but, then again, he'd never had feelings for another. He'd never thought he'd have to protect Allanah from his own evil. Had the damn thing been programmed by his father, or was this just the demon thing to do, cursing the man it lived within from ever having anything true, anyone or anything pure and good in his life? The malignant imp hated love.
"No. Yes! Maybe. I just need a minute. Know, I will always do everything in my power to protect you. I love you." He'd let the words foremost in his turbulent thoughts rush out, as if he'd never see her again, never again get the chance to say so.
His eyes flashed red, and she gasped. He couldn't stick around to comfort her. Moving as quickly as he could out of the water, he half ran, half slid to his bedroom, grasping the walls, doorknobs, anything he could to keep moving forward. When his feet, luckily still human, hit the plush carpet of his bedroom, he slammed the door and locked it.
Catching his breath, away from her smell, he closed his eyes. Even though he couldn't see her anymore, he focused on the calm, the water, the ocean. Oddly, the demon had its own rage that crashed like his own, which called to the damn thing. The irony or paradox, whatever the roundabout of the twisted situation was, clawed at him, like the demon did inside him, making him double over, clutch his stomach, hold his breath. Holding back the demon, the shift into his horrible beast, by the skin of his teeth, he ground them together. The thunder came, then, as he knew it would. Lightning ripped through the sky, illuminating his reflection in the full length mirror on one wall. In his mind, though, he didn't see the man he still remained; he saw only the beast.
From the red, glowing eyes centered in a misshapen head, to a pointed jaw covered in fur, the mouth within it riddled with sharp, hideously decaying teeth of uneven lengths. While bits of him in beast form remained humanesque, from his hands and feet, though larger, more bony, covered with thin brownish-black skin. Still, his monster form reeked of hell and towered to the point it needed to hunch over even with his high ceilings. Manly abs shown a better cut six pack than he had, though again, he worked his body hard, so this version was grotesquely cut within the dark skin. As for the rest of its body, all he could see was the hair. The fur, if one could call it that, as he'd no idea if his beast was truly animal, grew short only on the face. However, the fur slash hair stood, rather than hung, at least a good foot long all over his back, arms and legs, ratted into waves that stuck up straight. Something like static electricity sizzled through it, keeping it out as far as it could be.
She could never see this. Never!
Just as a semblance of control flirted within his reach, he heard her scream. The beast within him leapt up as if for joy at the shrill vibration of terror. Its idea of pleasure followed sick and twisted lines. His head threatened a possible aneurysm as he trapped the evil inside and ran to her aid, hoping, doing something akin to praying, it was only the storm that frightened her. Though the sickness coursing through him knew otherwise, as his demon practically rejoiced. He felt their magick, his magick, before he even got the door open.
> While the coven remained outside, unseen, chaos ensued in the room by the time he got there. The demon granted some dark magick to each man, but when joined together they could control elements to their advantage. Right now, they were playing with them all to scare her. Air currents, rushing at dangerous speeds, lifted her up. The water from the hot tub went from slow flow to furious waves beneath her. Candles burned beyond what was possible, flames several feet tall, hissing with their struggle to stay lit despite the wind and water. Furniture blew to pieces, crumbling to bits around her as they swirled into the wind and water tornado forming with her safe, for the moment, suspended in the middle, in the eye, essentially trapping her within a storm. You could see sparks, hear a thunderous roar, but above it all, he heard her angry scream for them to knock it off.
He stood there shocked, to say the least, his mouth open. His own demon somehow suddenly satisfied by the mischief, maybe his anger, maybe hers, the place calmed to a pile of rubble. She fell onto the mass with a thump.
Before he could rush to her aid, in his head he heard all of their voices, their demons speaking to his. Your demon warned us of her. She is a threat. Love is a threat. To you. To the coven. Destroy her or we will.
"No," he roared, his demon behind his anger as he went to her, scooped her up in his arms, only to find her fighting him, clawing, kicking to get away until he couldn't hold onto her cute, little squirming body.
"Don't fucking touch me," she said, her tone nothing but a hiss as she stood up, and brushed herself off, to no avail. "I knew this was a bad idea. Why did I lie to myself that it wasn't? Just to touch you again? To fuck you one more time?"
His own building anger shook his confusion over her reaction off. He stood tense, yet immobile, searching for words safe to say, despite the fact she didn't seem at all surprised by the magickal doings.
"You're not at all scared. You're pissed. Why?" he bellowed, accusing her of something he couldn't define until she did for him, and therefore demanding those answers.
His fingers clenched. His demon danced.
"Why do you think? Your asshole brothers, I assume, are to thank for all of this destruction. Or, maybe your whole coven thought they could scare me with such childish antics? Why would I think that only your father would be threatened by my presence? No one around you wants you with me. Wants you happy, I guess, since you claim to love me. Is that what this is about? You can't have any true feelings for a woman, or what, you might do something she wants instead of what they want? What the fucking hell is that about? Testosterone? Control? Small dick? They just want you obedient to the cause, whatever the hell that cause may be. Money? Status? And who the hell knows what else your kind wants. How am I such a fucking danger to it anyway? I ask nothing of you!"
"You know?" At that point she could have breathed and knocked him down, but only for a second before the realization turned to a full blown flood of anger. "You know!"
"Yes, I know about your magick. Your coven."
She hadn't said demon or beast, but how much she knew took a back seat to finding out how and when she'd found out.
"Who? How? When?" He grunted out the monosyllables like a caveman.
"Seriously?"
"Yes. Fucking seriously. Answer the damn questions!" He raged. His eyes flashed red but he didn't conceal them. With his demon frolicking, he found it easier to control, to remain a man somehow, or at least for the moment. Maybe his desire to know trumped all. Who knew? Who cared? When the demon was happy, he could contain it, apparently. Threaten it, and his control grew iffy at best. Threaten his brothers investment into him, having him under their control, well, apparently, then one got a whole magickal shit show.
"My mother told me, as for the who. You seriously think that with all she did for your father she didn't know his legacy? Didn't know about the coven he ran, planned to turn over to you? She was as scared as she was loyal to the fuckin' bastard. Not sure what you mean by how, but I can tell you when. Not that you deserve the answers for putting me through this, but I feel the need to keep yelling at you, so I will answer. Right after they broke us up. That's when. My mother hoped the truth would send me packing for sure. For good. Maybe ease my pain, too."
"And it did."
"No. It didn't ease any pain, make it any easier. But, I didn't leave for them. I'm stronger than that. I left for you. I left because I knew... I knew what they would do to you if you tried to stay with me. They would kill me to destroy you. And I couldn't hurt you, so I let them hurt us both in another way. Am I wrong? I better not be wrong or I will hate you forever. There would be no other excuse for you not coming after me than if they threatened to kill me. You hinted at it the other night at the party. I think that was what I came for, to know that only for me, for my safety, would you not come after me."
"I can't believe this. And you kept my secret, all this time?"
"Only a fool with a death wish would tell. But, regardless of that terrifying fact, I wouldn't hurt you or my mother. But, your family will still hurt me. Obviously," she said gesturing to the rubble that had once been an amazing room. "Guess you have the funds to rebuild. Just an inconvenience to have to. I should be going."
"No. You won't. I'm not done with you."
"Oh, sweetheart, I don't think you have a choice. Still!"
"Sweetheart. Really? That's what I called you when I was pissed."
"Yes, obviously I remember. Come on. Snap out of it. I know your secret, and this date, if it could ever be called that, is over."
"My magick. The coven. That is all you know?"
"All? That isn't enough? If it isn't don't tell me. I would rather not know. I have to go, Ciaran. I'd love to say it's been fun, but you know, being tossed around by a magick storm isn't really my idea of a good time. Before that, though... That brief moment in time was good." She spat out each word, the anger dripping from each one.
He could see her hands shaking with her rage. He stiffened more, if that was even possible, as she walked to him. Her wild, multi-colored curls wet, dirty, and tangled but he hoped not singed, absorbed his interest. Her face, softening slightly now, dirty, too, he found too much to bear.
"In a different life maybe," she said, her tone suddenly light, her timbre low. "In a different life, maybe we could've been soul mates instead of star-crossed lovers. But, it isn't to be. I do love you, though. You must always know that. They can't take that painful reality away from us."
He looked up into her eyes as her voice cracked over the words. Tears had formed in her eyes, and were now creating clean streaks down her face. He shook his head, raised his hand, then clenched his fingers into a fist, deciding it best not to touch her.
"Yes," she continued. "I will always love you. Sadly, maybe only you. But, if it's to be my fate, to be alone and in love with a man I can never have, I've long ago accepted it. We know we can't see each other again, no matter how much we want it. I just needed to tell you that I loved you, too, and to say goodbye. So, goodbye, farewell, Ciaran Byrne."
She moved against him, then. Both still only in bathing suits, she pressed her body against his, reached up to trail her fingers through his hair, grabbed and pulled his mouth down toward hers, as she lifted up onto her toes. Her hard nipples scorched his chest. She kissed him, then, as if her life depended on it. Her mouth opened for him, for his tongue, letting him taste her as she swallowed back a sob.
"No," he said with his lips against hers, the sound of the word muffled within her mouth.
"Yes. We just can't be. Don't make it harder than it has to be. Let me go knowing that I love you. Still. Always."
"This can't end on some sappy line that sounds like it came from some damn romance book."
"It will. It has to."
She made the fatal mistake of groaning, low in her throat, as he gripped her harder. Their mouths came together again, fiercely. Their bodies pressed against each other until his rapidly growing erection strained to press through the two thin layers of fabric separa
ting him from her. His stomach tightened as he grabbed her ass, lifting her up. Pleasure enveloped him like a warm blanket as she jumped up to wrap her legs around his waist. He ignored the demon. Cursed it actually, wanting to only be a man against her for a moment, rather than an evil entity thanks to the plague of some malignant spirit.
This time, she groaned, "No."
"Yes. If I'm going to say goodbye, I'm going to have you first. I'm going to make this one last memory one we can live off of forever."
"You know. That isn't. How that works. You will just. Want more. Make it harder." She'd gotten out a few words in between his savage kisses. "Besides, they won't allow it."
He wouldn't hear of her protests. Instead, he carried her into his bathroom, sliding them into his shower, one large enough to accommodate them both and then some. He hit a button as they passed through the door, and water poured down from a large round spout in the middle of the ceiling, creating a basic small rain shower just for them.
He pushed her against a wall, his demon taking pleasure in the way her lungs released a large amount of air when her back hit the stone. He'd been quiet a moment, as quiet as it could be. The savage beast soothed, if you could use such a term in accordance with such a thing, by Ciaran's savage lust for this woman. He took off her bathing suit with a deft sweep of his hands, pulling the straps off her shoulders and down her body so the rest of the material followed. She stepped out as if automatic, her eyes wide, oddly unblinking, as he removed his own in the same fashion.
"We can't," she managed, on almost a sob, which damaged his heart like a sharp arrow while his demon laughed.
They would have her.
In fact, his demon demanded of the others to leave them alone. They'd know what for, and of that they wouldn't deny him. He'd been warned. They'd assume it a goodbye screw. As long as he kept the sex rough enough to keep the demon happy, no one would bother them again for a bit. They'd stay, though, ensuring the fuck short and sweet. A lecture he'd have after on the dangers of love.
