He didn’t respond, except to dart to the living room and fetch her a glass. Then he sat down with a beer and dug into his sandwich with gusto.
“When did you come back from South America?”
“A few weeks ago. Went to Cardiff first, then Dublin.”
Her ears perked up. “Dublin?”
Carwyn nodded. “Saw Murphy while I was there. Angie says hello, by the way. Sounds like you’re greatly missed.”
A soft smile stole over her face when he mentioned Angie. She had to confess she had been worried what the older woman’s reaction would be to her new immortality. She should have known. “Angie’s a good friend.”
“And I asked Murphy about your friend Emily’s boyfriend.”
“Axel? What did Murphy say?”
“He doesn’t appear to be taking it as seriously as you do. Seems to put more faith in his boys.”
“Declan and Jack.”
“Aye.” He frowned and took a drink from the bottle of beer he’d pulled from the fridge. “Why are you so certain that Lorenzo had a local connection? Murphy seems quite sure that this Axel was not involved.”
“He might not have been, but I’m surprised Jack hasn’t looked into it more. He was with me. We worked the streets together on the dealer thing. We both thought Lorenzo had to be the one funneling the new drugs into Dublin, because they died off quickly once he was gone. It was only weeks and the dealers were scrambling to get more. With him gone, the supplies had dried up. Lorenzo had to be the connection.”
“Then why would a local be necessary?”
“The drops they were making. The meeting points and the dealer network? According to your American friends, Lorenzo had been underground for years, not in Dublin. And it was too smooth to be someone new. There was no violence when the purer drugs first started showing up. No change in employees. The same people were getting the drugs out; they just had stronger stuff.”
“So you think Lorenzo made a local contact that he started supplying and that’s who helped him abduct Ioan. Maybe it was the Irish boy he’d turned?”
She shook her head. “No one knew him in the scene. I asked around. If he’d been the one, someone would have told me or Jack, especially after he was dead. No, it was someone else, and I think they’re still there.”
“Still selling drugs?”
“Why would they stop? They still have to make money. They still have to supply their dealers. They just have to be more desperate now since their supplies have dried up.”
Carwyn paused for a moment, staring at her as if deliberating something. Finally, he said, “Axel is the one who was selling Emily the drugs she gave you, Brigid.”
She blinked. “What? Axel?”
“Are you surprised?”
She thought. Was she? “A little. But I suppose it makes sense that she’d get them from him. I always figured he was shady in some way, but the drugs surprise me a little. He must have been dealing on a smaller level from someone—”
“Why are you so sure he’s not the connection?”
“I just…” She sipped her drink. “He’s not smart enough, Carwyn. I mean, you don’t have to be smart to use drugs, or even to deal. But to organize a network like what was in Dublin when I first got there? There were so few arrests by the human police. It was so carefully structured to keep the lower level—even the upper level—dealers in the dark. Someone smart was fixing it. Someone far smarter than Axel, anyway.”
He nodded and leaned back. “Fair enough. You’ll keep looking when you get back. If there are more people who were involved in Ioan’s death, I want to know who. And if Murphy is not following through, I know you will.”
“Count on it.”
“I’ll be following up with Gio and B, so I may have to leave again. According to them, we have far bigger things to worry about from Lorenzo. He’s acquired a book, a very dangerous one if the stories are true. One that might contain the formula to an elixir that makes vampires stronger and quells bloodlust.”
Brigid’s heart beat faster. “What? An elixir? Like a drug? A vampire drug?”
He paused and took a sip of his beer. “Ioan was right. You were right. Apparently, it is possible. It’s an elixir for humans, but vampires who drink from them are affected as well. We still don’t know exactly how.”
Thoughts tumbled through her head. A drug that affected vampires. It had been a mad kind of ‘what if’ she had spoken aloud. Then Ioan had taken off with the idea…
“Is that why he was killed? Is that why Ioan was murdered? Because he found this?”
Carwyn shook his head. “I don’t know. There’s no way of knowing. It might have been something he discovered after you’d asked him about it, but it might have been some of his earlier research, too. He was well known for his studies into vampire biology. An authority in our world. Or it might have been retaliation at me and had nothing to do with this drug. It might have been a coincidence.”
“And it might not have been.”
“Brigid, I won’t have you feeling guilty for this. The only ones responsible for Ioan’s death are the vampires who killed him and those who funded them.”
Her eyes hardened and rose to meet his. “I know that. It just means that my list of people to kill got a bit longer.”
When Brigid finally made her way up to her bedroom, she was almost stumbling into walls. Carwyn had offered to help her to her room, but Brigid made excuses, knowing that once he was there, the urge to pull him in with her might be too much to resist. She wanted to curl up against him and purr.
She was definitely going to hell.
Madoc trailed after her. He had gone back and forth between the two vampires in the hall like a conflicted child, until Carwyn had shooed the dog in her direction. He nosed open the door to Brigid’s room a moment before she stumbled in. Brigid carefully latched the door, then collapsed in bed. Just before she fell asleep, she pulled the silk scarf from beneath her pillow. She tucked it under her cheek and closed her eyes, but the last image she had was not the colorful blooms of the exotic silk. It was the warmth of a pair of vivid blue eyes the color of the summer sky.
Chapter Nineteen
Scotland
June 2011
“What happened to the pinball machine?” Carwyn scowled at the rectangular box that used to light up. He checked the plug, but it still wouldn’t turn on.
“Brigid got to it,” Tavish said as he lounged in the den in the basement. “Fire vampires. Burn out everything.”
“Hey.” The fire vampire in question walked past Tavish and knocked the back of his head before she grabbed a book from the pile on the coffee table. “Not my fault it had faulty wiring. And Carwyn, consider it payback for you cheating at cards last night.”
Max and Cathy had returned home the night before, happy to see Carwyn. The family had played poker late into the night, Cathy finally throwing up her hands at Max and Carwyn’s obvious tricks.
Tavish grunted. “Cathy says she won’t play cards with you anymore, Father.”
Carwyn only shrugged. “She says that every year.”
“Why do you cheat so badly?” Brigid asked.
“He likes cheating. Makes him and Max feel clever.”
Brigid rolled her eyes, and Carwyn grinned. “I know that, old man. I just meant, why does he cheat so badly? You’d think, after a thousand years, he’d have learned better tricks.”
“Oh…” Carwyn chuckled. “I have plenty of good tricks.” You just haven’t seen them yet.
He had been at Castle Mackenzie for two weeks and had found particular enjoyment flustering the usually very controlled Brigid. He could only hope that he was flustering her as much as she was getting to him. She seemed nervous around him. Joking like normal one moment, silent and squirming the next. And he had yet to hear the girl give him a single real laugh, which irked him to no end.
But she looked… mouthwatering. When he’d emerged from the earth, he saw her rushing toward him, fire blazing,
eyes lit with protective fury at whatever appeared to be attacking the dog. Then she’d halted in her tracks and given him a rare smile. She had never looked more beautiful. Carwyn’s heart actually pounded.
The dark cap of velvet brown hair covered her head, highlighting her pixie features and eerily beautiful eyes. Her body was strong and compact in the tight black T-shirt and leggings she wore as she walked along the lake. He thought she’d been practicing her element, because the smell of smoke still hung in the air. He’d thrown himself into the freezing cold water of the lake before his reaction gave him away.
It was useless fighting his attraction to Brigid Connor. And foolish. If God had placed the right woman in his path after a thousand years, then he wasn’t going to argue with providence. Besides, he was having fun ruffling the young woman’s very orderly feathers. Brigid was still cautious around him, and Carwyn had to know whether she felt any real attraction for him before he pressed further. He couldn’t afford to lose the precious friendship they already shared if she wasn’t interested in more.
Carwyn heard Max and Cathy chase each other down the stairs, laughing. They turned the corner and Cathy rushed to Brigid’s side.
“Have you shown him yet?”
Brigid looked up in surprise. “Shown who what?”
“The high and mighty father, of course. Have you shown him what you can do?”
“Oh.” Carwyn cocked his head. This had the potential to be very interesting. “Shown me what?”
Brigid squirmed, and he resisted the simultaneous urge to comfort and needle her just to provoke a reaction. Sometimes, he really was an overgrown child. He could admit it.
“It’s fantastic!” Cathy turned to Carwyn with a grin. “She’s a total freak show. And I mean that in the best way possible.”
“Hideous American harpy,” Tavish muttered. “She’s not a trained seal.”
“Shut up, you old bag. Brigid does great tricks. And very handy ones, I might add. And I’m curious whether his ancient-ness has ever seen anything like it.”
Now Carwyn was just intrigued. “Seen anything like what?”
Cathy grinned and poked at Brigid’s arm. “Come on.”
“Cathy,” Brigid said. “I really don’t—”
“Come on, get your lazy ass up to the lake and show him your trick!”
The smoke had already started on Brigid’s collar as she curled her lip. “I’m not lazy. Leave me alone. I don’t want to—”
“Damn it,” Tavish shouted. “She’s smoking already. If you burn my den again—”
“It wouldn’t be a problem if Brigid would just move her ass!”
The shouting grew as Carwyn looked on. Max, he noticed, had stepped back from the two vampires surrounding Brigid, and Carwyn’s senses were starting to go haywire at the smoke drifting through the room. Oak and hawthorne. Brigid and Cathy’s elemental natures were quickly making themselves known.
What was Cathy doing? Carwyn could see the heat waves shimmer around Brigid, as if the fire could burst forth at any moment. As the three shouted over each other, the energy in the room only mounted. He stepped forward, hoping to calm them just before Brigid finally burst.
“Will all of you just shut the feck up!” she screamed a moment before a quick burst of fire shot out in all directions. Instead of burning her where she stood, it pulsed away from Brigid, tearing off her clothes in a furious wave that knocked Tavish and Cathy to the ground and left Brigid angry and panting in the middle of the burned circle.
And naked. Rather gloriously and beautifully naked.
“Oh…” His imagination hadn’t done her justice.
Carwyn’s eyes lingered only a moment before the cloud from the fire extinguisher filled the room from the corner Max had hidden in. Shock gave way to confusion as everyone began talking at once.
Brigid shouted, “I hate it when you two do that!”
“You had to do it in my den, didn’t you? You’re paying for a new couch if she’s ruined this one, too.”
“I tried to get her outside; she’s just so damn uncooperative.”
“I hate all of you! Now will someone hand me a blanket?”
He heard Cathy say, “That was phenomenal, Brigid! You’re exhibiting more control even when you let the fire loose. So well done.”
“I still hate you.”
Max calmly walked over and threw a blanket over Brigid’s shoulders, shooting a stream from the extinguisher at a pile of newspapers that were still lit. Luckily—or probably by design—Cathy had drawn Brigid to the most empty space in the room, so not much was burned beyond a small end table, Tavish’s eyebrows, and the rug that Brigid had been standing on.
And her clothes. Carwyn was still thinking about the clothes.
He finally shouted over the tumult of voices, “Will someone tell me what the hell that was?”
“For most fire vampires,” Cathy said, “the flames are both our greatest weapon and our greatest threat. We control them, to an extent, but the fire can sometimes have a mind of its own. And since fire is one of the few ways vampires can be killed, it can be deadly to the one who wields it. It’s why so many of us die when we’re first sired. There’s no way to predict a vampire turning to fire, so it often causes our death and the death of anyone close to us when we first manifest.”
Carwyn nodded as the five sat at the large dining table. Brigid was sitting next to him, sipping a whiskey, still glaring at her teacher. “I know all this, Cathy. One of my best friends in the world is a fire vampire. But that didn’t look like anything I’ve ever seen Gio do before. Or you, for that matter.”
Cathy sat back and smiled. “I wondered. I haven’t either, but you’re a lot older than me.”
“I’ll ask again—what was that?”
“Brigid’s fire always moves away from her. She controls it well, but everyone has slips, which are the most dangerous times. Especially when you’re young. But when Brigid loses control, it shoots out in a radius around her body. It never seems to turn on her.”
Carwyn reached out and put a hand over Brigid’s where it lay on the table. “So, it isn’t a danger to her?”
Max shook his head. “No. Every time she’s lost control, it rolls away from her, almost like an electromagnetic pulse. I think that may even be part of it. She’s knocked out numerous pieces of electronic equipment from far away when she lights up.”
Brigid muttered, “Well, if you three would stop provoking me in the house—”
“Whatever the cause,” Cathy continued, “whether it’s her natural defensiveness, her self-control, instinctive shields—whatever it is—it’s unique, as far as I know. And good news for her, in the long run, though she still needs practice to learn more control.”
Brigid lay her head down on the table, seemingly exhausted. Her eyes were weary when they met his. “One thing,” she whispered. “Is it too much to hope that one thing would be like everyone else?”
He leaned down and stroked her hair. “Do you remember the library in Wicklow, love? When you first woke up?”
She shook her head and Carwyn continued, ignoring the curious faces around him as he spoke softly to the tired girl. “It was just as they say. All the furniture had been pushed back against the walls, as if an explosion had gone off. I didn’t think about it until now, but I remember. And there you were, right in the middle of the flames, curled up with not a mark on you. No hair, but no burns either.”
Brigid reached out a hand and placed it over his heart. “There were burns.”
He shook his head. “Not important, remember?”
She closed her eyes and he could almost feel her drooping. “I’m so tired, Carwyn.”
He didn’t spare a glance for Max, Cathy, or Tavish. He didn’t stop to ask. He just stood, scooped Brigid up where she sat, and left the room. He carried her down the hall and toward the tower where he knew she rested, Madoc following them.
Her small voice tore at his heart. “Sometimes I’m tired of being stron
g.”
“So don’t be,” he said hoarsely. “Just for a little while. We’ll do something fun and silly tomorrow night when you wake. Maybe I’ll even get you to laugh.”
“I know you consider it a personal challenge at this point, but I wouldn’t hold your breath.”
“I’m a vampire. Don’t really need to breathe, do I?”
“So you’re just going to wait forever?”
If I have to.
He followed Madoc, who sat waiting by one door. Carwyn pushed it open and looked around the room. Simple. Spartan. A few pictures on the dresser were all the decoration she allowed. One of Brigid and her Aunt Sinead. One of her as a child, sitting next to Ioan in the library. The only art was a poster of a sunset over Loch Torridon, the sky painted vivid red, purple, and gold. It was taped over her bed where she would see it when she woke. He smiled as he laid her down and stroked a hand over her cheek. One hand came up to touch his chest and his heart gave a quick thump under her fingers.
“Going to hell for sure,” she murmured.
“What are you talking about?” But before she closed her eyes, he caught it. The look she would never have allowed if she weren’t so exhausted: pure, feminine hunger. Want. For him. Carwyn almost threw his head back and howled in triumph.
“Nothing. I’m talking about nothing. Let’s do something fun tomorrow night, like you said. Even if I don’t laugh, you will.”
He knelt down and whispered a kiss over her cheek, fighting back the urge to crawl in next to her. “I bet you’re gorgeous when you laugh.” Brigid opened her mouth to speak, but her eyes fluttered closed again, and she let out a soft sigh before she slipped into sleep.
“Why… why is he tapping out? He could easily get out of that! Oh, it’s so obvious that was a set up.”
Tavish rolled his eyes. “Of course it was a set up. It’s all set up. It’s professional wrestling.”
“Shut up, Tavish,” Max said.
Cathy shook her head. “Look at his manager. He’s up to something.”
Carwyn grunted. “You know he broke up with his girlfriend last month. I wonder if that’s thrown him off.”