Embrace of the Damned (16 page)

He was in hell.

He was in hell and unable to relieve the ache in his balls from touching her. Over the centuries he’d been able to manage his sexual desires—he’d had to learn how or go insane. But Jessa had unraveled every bit of the control he’d managed to amass.

“How can one tiny little woman have that much power?” he growled as he guided his motorcycle into a narrow space between two hatchbacks on a street in Inverness. He kept a bike here as well as in the States.

He found motorcycles gave him speed and maneuverability and that could be a big advantage when chasing down Blight. Of course, a motorcycle wasn’t very practical in a place like the Scottish Highlands, where the weather was unpredictable and it was chilly for so much of the year, but such things bothered the members of the Brotherhood little.

He cut the bike’s engine, drawing appreciative looks from passersby, and got off to enter the Quill and Dragon, one of his favorite pubs.

The scents of pipe smoke, alcohol, and polished wood enveloped him as he entered, soothing a little of the tumult in his soul.

How the hell was he supposed to know the woman had been sleep talking? She’d been more than willing back in the States
and
in the airplane. It wasn’t such a big leap for him to have assumed she’d been willing again, was it?

Women
. Apparently they were just as complex and perplexing in this century as they had been ten centuries ago.

He headed to the bar, letting the soft sounds of the place—casual conversation and laughter—filter through the noise in his head and quiet him. He signaled the bartender. “Johnnie Walker Black.” The bartender gave him the glass, which he downed in one gulp. “Leave the bottle.”

The bartender slid the bottle over to him and Broder tossed him a few bills and a nice tip. He grabbed the bottle and walked back out of the pub with it in hand, ignoring the call of the man behind the bar. The bartender could try to stop him from leaving with an open bottle, but it wouldn’t get him far.

He needed to kill Blight and a lot of them.

On his way out, he pushed past a well-built man with dark hair who gave off a tingle of something supernatural through the runes in his coat. Broder ignored it. There were all kinds of supernatural beings in the world, but the only ones who had his attention tonight were the ones who’d been created in Hel.

Inverness teemed with demons and they were nocturnal. It wouldn’t be hard to find low-level Blight prowling the streets, preying on the humans who had gone out to party
on Saturday night. It was what the low-level Blight had been expelled from Hel to do—create terror and havoc on a base level. They had free rein—well, almost free rein—to feed from whoever they wished as long as they didn’t reveal their presence to the masses. That little revelation was meant for later, when Ragnarök grew nigh.

Taking pulls from his bottle, he walked the streets around the pub, tuned into the area, searching for the sensation of the hair rising on his neck—a sure sign an agent was somewhere close—or the little pulse the runes in his coat gave off.

He found his first one dressed in a pair of jeans and a sweatshirt, its hair cut in a swoopy long emo-boy style that made Broder grit his teeth. The cold scent of ice caught his nose and told him more than the unmistakable sensation in his gut that the guy was a demon. He was busy stalking a drunk woman who was trying to make her way to her car.

Soon Broder was busy stalking him.

Waiting for the moment before the agent leapt from the shadows, Broder smashed the now-empty bottle over the agent’s head. The demon turned and hissed at him, fangs bared. Broder wasted no time, yanking his dagger from the base of his spine and slamming the blade to the hilt in the agent’s gut. He exploded into a shower of ice pellets.

One down. More to go.

The woman being stalked had run at the sound of the bottle breaking in the shadows behind her and had now sped away from the curb in her car, tires squealing. She probably wasn’t fit to drive, but that wasn’t his problem.

Several figures rushed him from behind. The demon hadn’t been alone.

Broder turned and laughed, a cold sound that made the three hesitate. This was what he needed tonight, a fight to help him deal with Jessa’s rejection.

The first agent met him with a snarl and Broder laughed again, a frigid, joyless sound, the ecstasy of the fight rising hot and hard within him.

Bring it on.

•  •  •

Roan watched from the shadows as Broder Calderson cut an ice-scattered swath through the alleys and streets of Inverness. He fought like a wild thing, almost like a dancer. Broder made killing an art form, in holding with his reputation. No agent of the Blight could stand against this man and survive. That was the impression he gave, anyway. He seemed to revel in the destruction and the chaos that the Blight brought, his laughter making the hair on the back of Roan’s neck stand up.

But then, he was Brotherhood. Broder hadn’t been made for this—but he’d certainly been molded, just as all the Brotherhood had been. Killing the Blight was their
raison d’être
, unlike the seidhr, who had their magick to develop and pass down through the generations.

The continuation of those generations was why Roan was here.

Magick had drawn him to this location tonight, magick put to the use of finding Abigail’s daughter. That was his
raison d’être
right now, tasked to him by Thorgest. So he had created runes using birch bark, his chosen element. The scattering of those runes had pointed him in this direction, told him to come here, come now.

It was a risk to use magick this way. The blatant scattering of runes outside the safety of the compound tended to draw Blight. It may very well have drawn the Blight that Broder Calderson now fought with such joyous abandon. It was ironic that he had such a man to thank for his safety.

Following the trail the runes had marked for him, he’d ended up outside the Quill and Dragon when Broder left. He’d been confused about why the runes had led him there until he’d caught the faint peppermint and rose scent, with a hint of fresh lemon, that lingered in the air as Broder passed.
The scent of a witch.
More specifically, that hint of lemon combined with the rest had been the scent of Abigail; Roan would recognize it anywhere.

So it appeared it may be true. It was possible Abigail’s
daughter was alive and the lass was with Broder. That was what the runes seemed to be telling him, anyway. Roan’s jaw locked as he watched Broder slide his blade into a hulking black-haired agent that poofed into ice pellets.

Thorgest wasn’t going to like that Abigail’s daughter was in Broder’s care.
He
didn’t like it, either.

The Brotherhood and the seidhr were uneasy, chilly allies in this war. The Brotherhood kept vulnerable witches and shamans safe when they needed protection and the seidhr provided them with certain types of protective magick in return. It was good that Thorgest’s great-granddaughter was in the Brotherhood’s care because she would be a huge target of the Blight. However,
Broder Calderson
was not an acceptable choice to be guarding Thorgest’s daughter.

Not an acceptable choice by far.

Roan melted back into the shadows. He had unpleasant news to deliver. Then would come the task of extricating Thorgest’s kin from the grips of a monster.

Jessa slammed her fist into a punching bag in the training room and pain exploded through her hand. “Damn it!” She cradled her fist and stepped away from the barely swinging bag with a look of righteous anger on her face.

Okay, she was no hard-ass.

After that disturbing encounter with Broder, she’d thought coming in here to work out might help her get into a better frame of mind. All she’d done back in her room was replay the events over and over and that wasn’t helping the delicious tingle in her body that still lingered from his touch.

A very unwelcome tingle from very unwelcome touching. Or so her mind told her. Her body was saying something else entirely. She wanted to tell her body to shut up.

Giving the punching bag one last look of doom—as if she could actually deliver doom with her wimpy punching skills—she headed to the bank of cardio machines. She couldn’t handle the punching bag and she definitely couldn’t
handle Broder, but at least she could handle the StairMaster … for a few minutes, anyway.

Why did the man have to be so luscious? And why did she shudder every time she thought about the way he looked at her—like she was something he wanted to eat. Yet there was something else in his eyes, something … guilty. Whatever that guilt sprang from, it wasn’t stopping him from pursuing her.

But no matter how delectable a man like Broder was, or how starved her libido, she shouldn’t indulge. Well … she shouldn’t indulge any more than she already had, anyway. Why? She would illuminate the reasons.

Number one, she had no firm footing here and her life was in free fall. Right now was not the time for her to engage in an affair, no matter how transitory. Number two, she didn’t do affairs. Never had. She might want Broder’s body and he might want hers, but she needed more than that. It might be fun for a night or two, but in the end she’d just end up feeling like trash. She’d been down that road before; she knew.

Mostly she’d been a good girl. She’d followed her rule of no meaningless flings even though, as a blonde with curves where men seemed to like them best, she’d had plenty of opportunity. There had been only one time she’d broken her rule—Brandon White. She still remembered that horrible feeling when they’d parted after only a few nights together. He’d tossed her away like a used condom wrapper.

So, no Broder. No matter how gorgeous he was.

She felt bad about it. After all, she was well aware that Broder hadn’t had sex in a thousand years. But was that any reason to just jump into bed with the man? Wouldn’t that be a little like pity sex? Broder deserved better than that. Perhaps since Loki had suddenly decided to allow him a woman, Broder needed to pick a different one. Not her. Not someone who put such a heavy weight on physical relations.

Maybe Broder needed to go find himself a hooker. Or, hell, almost any woman would do. Most females would fight
each other for a chance to spend the night with a man like him.

In that exact moment, Broder burst in. He stood in the doorway of the room, looking as though he wanted to fight someone. His clothes were damp, so she assumed he’d been fighting plenty that night—demons. Blood marked the bare skin of his upper arms, his face, and his neck. Clearly he’d sustained more than a few injuries tonight.

His gaze caught hers and she stilled, letting the machine go silent. “It’s four in the morning,” he grumbled. “Halla starts your training today. What are you doing in here? You should be resting up.”

“I couldn’t sleep.” Her voice came out way threadier and uncertain than she wanted. She cleared her voice and spoke louder, even put a hint of accusation in her voice. “Where were you?” Her gaze flicked over his shirt. Funny how melted ice looked like blood to her these days.

“I needed some distraction.” He stalked into the room, full of testosterone and aggression. Apparently spending the night killing things hadn’t improved his mood. Wow. Big surprise there.

She walked toward him. “What did you need distraction from?”

He bared his teeth at her, which made her stop dead in her tracks. “You.”

“Oh.” Even from a distance—which she was keeping—she could smell the alcohol on him. She wrinkled her brow. “Have you been drinking?”

“Yes,” he drawled as though annoyed by having to answer her question.

She raised one eyebrow. “Are you drunk?”

“Woman, a man in the Brotherhood can drink all he wants and never get drunk. Alcohol has no effect on us.” He touched his chest. “It’s the touch of the demon inside us, you see. That thin icy pick in the center of our hearts. I am a black hole. Pour bottles of alcohol down my gullet and the stream will never hit bottom.”

His expression was as cold as his tone, but his eyes held
incredible warmth. The heat was dark in nature and undeniable. All she’d done tonight was whet his appetite. In his gaze she saw that clearly.

He wanted her and he was going to have her. It was only a question of time.

She stared at him for a long moment, perfect understanding without words passing between them. Licking her lips, she tried and failed to quell the electric surge of lust through her veins. Broder’s pupils widened and blackened, almost as if he could sense her sudden arousal—like an animal scenting wounded prey.

Broder
did
remind her of an animal. She guessed that his life had made him that way, had taught him to live by his instincts and focus on his survival. It had made him strong—primal. Feral. The man had a lot of control, but it couldn’t be endless. She wondered for a moment what an out-of-control Broder would be like. Would that experience be sexy and exhilarating, or would it be frightening?

She responded to that feral component of his personality. Perhaps more dangerous, she responded to the flicker of vulnerability he showed only the barest flashes of occasionally.