Fated for Sacrifice

by Claire Ashgrove

  “So you’ve done this then for yourself? For your driving desire to be mortal? Dáire, it is sacrilegious!” Isolde’s silence broke with another angry rush of words.

  True. It was. Only Dáire couldn’t be certain whether he’d truly broken the laws of nature just to become mortal, or because a deeper part of his soul needed the stronger link to Reese. If perhaps he hadn’t connected them because he couldn’t stand the thought of separating from her. At the time he hadn’t been thinking that clearly. She’d had more of an effect on him than the damn scroll.

  “If you go through with this now, after what you’ve done, you might not come back, brother.” Isolde continued to scold. “You’ve deliberately broken the laws of nature for your own personal gain.”

  Indeed he had. True, he’d found a way to justify it, talked himself through every connection with the rationale this was for the greater good. In the end, he’d been selfish, and Isolde was right. The ancestors just might judge him unworthy to return.

  Rhiannon broke in, changing the subject, her voice full of quiet concern. “Taran attacked her?”

  Dáire cleared his throat to ward off rising emotion. “Yes. Just before we came here.”

  Isolde threw up her hands. “You’ve got to tell her.”

  As Dáire studied the sister that was the living embodiment of their mother, a heavy weight settled into the space behind his ribs. This was futile. No way could he tell Reese the truth and have her understand enough to not walk out the door and out of his life. Not with less than twenty-four hours before the sabot. There was only one way. One that he’d already begun.

  Rhiannon’s energy blended with his, offering peace that Isolde’s sharp frown could never give. He grabbed at the steady ebb and flow of understanding, needing reassurance in whatever form he could find it.

  “Isolde, Dáire’s right,” she murmured. “You both are, and fighting will get us nowhere. He should have told her, but it’s true—when you know you’re dangerously close to fulfilling the curse, you become desperate.”

  Isolde’s frown darkened, but to her credit, she remained silent.

  “Now. With Taran involved, we’ve got to act,” Rhiannon continued. “We can’t sit around and wait. You’ve got to decide, Dáire, how to handle this. Pull back from her mind and tell her, or do what it takes to keep her alive. As long as Drandar knows she has the scroll—and you can guarantee he does—she’s in danger.”

  “I know,” Dáire admitted.

  Letting out a sigh of resignation, Isolde turned to the counter and bowed her head. “Tell me how to help.”

  “No.” Dáire set a hand on her shoulder. “No, I won’t compromise your integrity. Just be alert while I get this over with.”

  She nodded. Rhiannon fitted her hand into Dáire’s elbow and steered him to the door. “Where did you get the wise idea that now is a good time to quit smoking? I mean I’m all for it, but really? Now? Did your brain melt in an orgasm?”

  With a glimpse of his twin’s brighter spirits, Dáire found the ability to crack a wry smile. He gave her upper arm a pinch, determined not to think about what lay in wait beyond the kitchen. He couldn’t think about the rightness or wrongness of his actions, couldn’t dwell on what might happen to him for choosing this course. Right now all that mattered was doing whatever necessary to insure no harm came to Reese.

  Something Dáire knew Rhiannon understood.

  ****

  Reese sipped from her wine, listening to the banter between Faith, Belen, and Mick. No three people could be more different. Belen with his wild dark hair and the glint of wickedness that shone in his eyes every once in a while when he and Faith shared some inside joke. Mick with his close-cropped dark hair, his serious expression—and yet he laughed from the bottom of his heart. Then there was Faith, whose wholesome goodness radiated off her like sunlight, a stark contrast to both men. Still, they meshed smoothly. Belen and Mick joked, Faith listened; Belen dished out grief to Faith about her pregnancy quirks; Mick falsely groaned about the day he’d have to suffer the same.

  Family. One that didn’t share the false appearances of kinship only to whisper snidely behind backs like Tom’s. A family who knew the meaning of accepting each other on the merits they possessed.

  More importantly, they’d accepted her. Laughed at her stories about the classroom, teased about Dáire keeping her locked in a cabin in the woods. Even while she sat beside them wearing day-old clothing that likely smelled like campfire, her hair unwashed, tangles likely still gathered in the ends.

  Tom’s family would have taken one look at her and turned up their noses. That is, if Tom let her leave the house without showering and a change of clothes. He couldn’t stand it when she went off on weekend excursions in the woods by herself, and not because he was worried about her well-being. She’d come home with dirt under her nails once, and he’d refused to touch her until she took a bath.

  God, she’d been so stupid, so spineless to stay with that jerk.

  Laughter from the hall pulled Reese’s attention off the three she sat with. She turned toward the sound, her heart kicking up as Dáire’s shadow approached the doorway. Instantaneous heat crept into her cheeks. This was bad. He’d been away only a few minutes. She shouldn’t be reacting like they’d spent months apart.

  But as he stepped into the room, and his azure gaze landed on her, her heart tumbled into freefall. In the spellbinding moment where she witnessed the natural way he interacted with the sibling he was closest to, he became more handsome than she’d ever believed possible. Laughter danced on the upturned corner of his mouth, animated the corners of his eyes and the fascinating tattoos he bore across his face.

  It was the darkly intense way he regarded her, however, that made it impossible to breathe. For the span of a second, at most, she felt him, truly felt the connection they shared. Like an invisible tether spanned between them, binding them in a way she couldn’t logically explain.

  Her gaze flicked down his body as he crossed the room. Long muscular legs ate up the distance, as graceful as they were powerful. When he leaned over her to kiss her cheek, the woodsy scent that clung to his skin went straight to her head. All she wanted was a few minutes alone, time enough to feel his body against hers, even if just for a few glorious moments in a simple hug.

  Her throat turned dry as he nuzzled her cheek, his mouth teasing closer to the lobe of her ear as he settled into the seat beside her. Excitement rushed through her veins. Heat followed, leaving her uncomfortably warm in the spacious room.

  When she lifted her gaze to give him a smile, however, his somber expression turned that gush of pleasantness into apprehension. Had Rhiannon said something? Had they argued about what happened with Taran?

  “Bout time you stopped gossiping with the hens.” Belen clapped a hand on Dáire’s shoulder. “Reese says you locked her up in the old cabin and wouldn’t let her leave.”

  Reese gasped. “I didn’t—”

  Dáire’s chuckle told her she didn’t need to protest. She clamped her mouth shut and shot Belen a good-natured frown.

  “Reese,” Dáire said quietly. “We need to talk with everyone for a bit. About that scroll you found. Would you get it from your coat?”

  “Sure.” Something about the way he didn’t crack a smile, the sobriety of his voice, lifted the hair on the back of her neck. Anxious to get whatever had him in such drastically different spirits over with, she rose from the couch too quickly. The headache she’d been fighting drummed into the base of her skull, making its presence known all over again. Wincing against the sudden pressure she pressed a hand against the tender spot, crossed the room and withdrew the rolled up runic document from her inside coat pocket. She returned to the sofa carefully, taking pains to not aggravate the dull thud into a full-out throb.

  “Here.” She passed it to Dáire as she sat. “What is it about that thing?”

  “Well, that’s what we have to talk about.” He took the scroll and passed it to Belen with
a grimace.

  “Unpleasant?” Belen chuckled as he took it from Dáire’s hands. “That’d be the darkness. It’s not so fond of these. Let’s see what it says.”

  Darkness? Reese looked between both brothers, lost. What on earth were they talking about? Confused, she peered at Belen. “You can read that?”

  Dáire’s hand slipped into hers. With a gentle squeeze, he murmured, “We all can, sweetheart. It’s our first language.”

  First language? Reese blinked. Then, before she could ask him to explain, the question of why that seemed unnatural disappeared. She didn’t know why he could read runes, or how—just that he could. And somehow, she suspected she’d always known that interesting fact. That he’d told her sometime previous, and she’d only just recalled it now.

  “Okay.” She nodded. “So what does it say?”

  Chapter Thirteen

  Dáire held in a relieved exhale as the first of his subconscious manipulations settled into Reese’s realm of belief. It had been the easiest of the truths to convey—that his entire family was fluent in ancient Selgovae runes. She’d embraced the thought with only a moment’s hesitation.

  Now…to accomplish the rest.

  He glanced over Reese’s head at Rhiannon. Ever so slightly, she dipped her head, encouraging him to continue however he felt best. Their bond flared as his nerves warred with Rhiannon’s strength, and then she won over, soothing his fears with her unfaltering faith in him.

  If she only knew how incredibly difficult it was to keep his mind on the scroll while Reese’s subconscious lambasted him with gut-wrenching emotion. All directed toward him. Her deep-seated attraction to him, the way her thoughts swayed dangerously when he touched her. How she ached as much as he did for some time alone, though it had been only an hour or so since they’d been immersed in company.

  If he could focus on the task at hand, it would be a miracle. As it was, his dark half roiled, hungry for satisfaction in one form or the other, be it death or be it lust. Only the centuries he’d spent maintaining the balance, learning how to keep both light and dark halves of his soul in unison, made it moderately possible to put the scroll above the rise of fierce desire.

  We are Celt, Reese. His mouth echoed the thought he pushed toward her. “Our roots are with the Selgovae, a tribe that was cursed.” With each statement he uttered, he focused his energy into hers, morphing and shifting her thoughts until the push of disbelief blended into the smooth rhythm of quiet acceptance. Perspiration dampened his forehead. One wrong step, one failure to concentrate on both speaking and projecting, and she’d rear out of the sofa and dash for the door.

  Mick reached over the back of the couch to take Rhiannon’s hand. Belen leaned back, one arm curled around Faith’s shoulder as she looked on, watching Reese’s face with concern.

  “My father is an incubus demon.”

  Reese’s mind revolted, pulling back fast. He scrambled to maintain the contact, to draw her in once more and quell the instantaneous dismissal of what she couldn’t bring herself to believe. Dáire remained silent, focused on that mountainous task, weaving his way through her mind once more. When he had locked around her again, he took a moment to ground her further with insight from their shared past. You’ve always suspected I’m different. My tattoos. You asked about them. You knew then that they weren’t just tribal art even though I told you they were done downtown. The pigment isn’t modern.

  To his overwhelming relief, her agitation settled, allowing him to continue when she nodded.

  He drew in a deep breath. “My mother, Nyamah, was the Selgovae’s last High Priestess. She was truly versed in the ways of magic, of manipulating the energies and gaining their cooperation in many things. The scroll you found is a portion of the last spell she wrote after she discovered what my sire had done, and the death he brought to the tribe.”

  So far so good. Once she got over the hurdle of believing Drandar was a demon, she readily accepted his mother’s history. Encouraged, Dáire gave her a half smile. “There were sixteen of us, all told. Eight Drandar killed hours after they were born in his quest for ultimate power over our people.”

  Ugh—that had her retreating again. Once more, he pulled in a tempering breath and directed his focus on immersing her in the truth. The Celts were considered barbarians once. They and many other native tribes. Sacrifice was part of many cultures. You know this. It’s written in history.

  “Sacrifice was part of your tribe’s ways?” she asked.

  Dáire shook his head. “Not until Drandar. Blood rites were not uncommon, but life was never taken.”

  “I see.”

  Reese leaned back, staring straight ahead, her expression thoughtful. He used her temporary quiet to delve on ahead, glad his siblings remained silent and allowed him to handle this conversation.

  Or so he believed until another jolt of Reese’s natural thoughts sideswiped him into momentary silence. He drew in a shuddering breath as a vision of her moonlight-kissed skin sliding against his burst to life inside his own mind. That she could still be entertaining such thoughts while he was telling her the horrific truths of his parentage left him dumbfounded.

  “Reese,” Rhiannon broke in, no doubt attuned to Dáire’s inability to move beyond the staggering rush of aching want. “The eight of us who survived were hidden by our mother. Drandar imprisoned and subsequently killed her when he discovered she’d betrayed him by hiding us. The scroll holds a portion of the spell that will eternally destroy him and put our mother’s spirit at rest.”

  Dáire would have preferred to go a little slower, but he could hardly object to Rhiannon’s interference when he’d lost his own ability to function. If she hadn’t interjected, dragging him out of fantasy, he wasn’t certain he could have continued the detrimental conversation. At least not until he’d satisfied the hungry need of his soul and Reese’s unfettered desire.

  To his utter surprise, her thoughts were so entangled with him, she didn’t hesitate in accepting Rhiannon’s truths. She didn’t necessarily believe but she wasn’t fighting. Her subconscious yielded as if she were listening to someone relay an encounter with a ghost—open to the possibility, unconvinced without proof.

  He could live with that.

  Dáire gave her hand another squeeze. “That’s why Taran attacked you.” He choked down a gasp as her thoughts spiraled to the places where they connected—their interlaced fingers, their knees, the spot where his elbow touched her ribs. Ancestors above, she was going to tear him into pieces.

  “Taran…” He swallowed with effort. In centuries of existence, he had never felt such complete acceptance, such utter affection from another person. Not even Rhiannon could come close to the emotion that poured off Reese. That she felt such for him left him stunned to the core of his being.

  That his own subconscious mirrored the intensity of feeling she expressed, shocked him even more.

  He cleared his throat, desperate to steer his mind away from all the wicked indulgences he wanted to experience with Reese. “Taran is the embodiment of our sire. He wants the scroll to stop Drandar’s destruction.”

  Son of a hellhound’s bitch—he couldn’t do this. Not right now. Not with his body attuned to hers, aware of every slight movement, every shallow breath. Amusement prickled his awareness as Rhiannon sensed the riot going on inside him. She was probably loving this. Particularly given the way he’d reacted to her churning emotions when she fell for Mick.

  Dáire stood up abruptly, tugging Reese to her feet as well. “I need to finish this in private.”

  He didn’t dare look at Rhiannon for fear her barely contained laughter would burst free if he met her knowing gaze. Instead, he tucked Reese’s hand against the small of his back and led her out of the family room, down the hall, and through the first door he encountered. It opened into an office, though without the desk it could have passed for a library given the floor to ceiling bookshelves.

  Inside, he pulled Reese into his arms and gave over to the
calling of her mouth. Tangling his hands in her hair, he framed her face between both palms and captured her in a hungry kiss. With a throaty sound of delight, she met the tangle of his tongue eagerly. That small sound unraveled the last vestiges of Dáire’s control. The darker half of his soul arced to the surface, shattering through all his carefully constructed barriers of lightness. It demanded satisfaction. Now.

  “Reese,” Dáire murmured as he slid his lips across her porcelain cheek. “Ah, sweetheart, you don’t know what you do to me.” He curled one hand into the thick hair at the nape of her neck and tipped her head where he wanted it. With the tip of his tongue, he traced the hollow beneath her ear, the thick vein that bounded with her elevated pulse.

  A tremble rolled down her spine, into him. He wound his free arm around her waist and pulled her into his embrace, steadying her. But all that accomplished was to meld every delectable curve against his body and taunt him with the promise of sweet surrender. When her subconscious rushed into his like an out of control freight engine, Dáire’s own balance waivered. Reese surrounded him. Body, mind, and soul.

  It was more than he could handle. More than he’d ever encountered before. Too much. If he didn’t pull back somehow, he would become hers completely and his dark soul would have its wish.

  Doing the only thing he knew to try and maintain some control over his radically shifting emotions, he released the mental link that bound them together. For a moment, as her thoughts retreated, he’d have sworn she recognized the absence. She held on more tightly, pressed her body even closer, as if she sought to keep them somehow intertwined. Then, as he found her mouth once more and drank in all of Reese’s sweetness, blessed silence filled his head.

  Reese’s reaction, however, made it impossible to temper the dark calling of his blood. She dropped her hands to his buttocks, squeezed as she arched her hips against his cock. Another murmur of pleasure bubbled in the back of her throat. Before the sound died completely, she pulled away and lifted her smoldering gaze to his. “This isn’t like me,” she confessed with a laugh. “But I’ve never wanted someone the way I want you.” She leaned in and pressed a tantalizing kiss to the base of his throat. “I can’t get close enough.” Her palms slid around his waist, up his abdomen, across his chest. “Will they miss us?”