Haunting Embrace Read Free Page B

felt horribly real . . . was, in fact, as real as the cold that seeped into his skin now. The world of Fennore was a nightmare that had the power to follow the dreamer into the light.
    Áedán knew this better than anyone.
    He narrowed his eyes at the female on the cavern floor. Could she be the reason he’d felt compelled to come here today? A mere human? Had she lured him here to trap him?
    She looked frail and defenseless, yet he knew better than to forget that beneath that pallor lurked a feisty woman who’d almost broken his nose the first time he’d met her.
    His gaze shifted to the full curves, the soft slope of her belly, bared where her T-shirt rucked up around her ribs. Dark, greenish bruises covered her arms, and a particularly nasty one spread upward from her hip bone, black and purple above the waist of her jeans. For a moment, the sight of her battered flesh touched off something inside of him. Sympathy? Compassion? Concern?
    The alien emotions mocked him. He did not care about others, especially those who weren’t of some use to him. For eons he’d been an entity, a thing that did not experience, did not rejoice, did not mourn. He’d lived to siphon the emotions of others, to drain them dry, make them so empty that they’d choose death over their hollow existence. But he’d felt nothing for them, for their plight, for their demise.
    And he felt nothing for this woman either.
    He cupped her cheek and let his thumb trace the soft bow of her lips. She stirred and he jerked his hand away. Her pale blue eyes opened in the darkness. She looked frightened, and with a groan, she tried to lift her head. It seemed the effort would take more than she had, but after a moment’s struggle, she sat. She hadn’t seen him yet, but her hands moved to tug her T-shirt back in place and smooth her hair in a self-conscious manner so unguarded that it made him pause.
    She was not aware. Not of him. Not of the cavern. Not of the danger.
    Leave, a voice inside him urged.
    As if hearing his thoughts, she turned that clear, bewildered gaze to his face.
    “Áedán,” she breathed, and in the moment it took for the sound to whisper over his skin, he saw her expression change from puzzlement to recognition and then to something darker, sweeter. It surprised him even as it shocked a response from him. Her eyes widened and took on a shade of lavender that teased something in his ancient memories.
    How long had it been since he’d known a woman as a man was meant to?
    The stark answer filled his head. An eternity without end.
    “What are you doing here?” he demanded, his confusion making his voice harsh, his infuriating fear still riding him.
    Her eyes widened, wounded, and like a fool, he felt another wave of compassion. Feck, he thought, using one of Mickey Ballagh’s words.
    He leaned closer and she flinched, the small reaction like a flame held to his bare skin. “I’m not going to hurt you,” he snapped. “How did you get here?”
    She shook her head, and Áedán noted that her eyes seemed glazed and unfocused as she searched his features. Instead of answering his question, she placed one palm against the roughened stubble on his cheek and the other over his pounding heart. He found his own hands against the soft, rounded curves of her shoulders and told himself he meant to push her away.
    He didn’t, though. Instead he stood, gently pulling her to her feet with him.
    When he would have stepped back, Meaghan held on to him and rose to her tiptoes, leaning into his body and brushing her lips against his in a caress as fleeting as it was riveting. Áedán froze, unprepared for the heat that licked his nerves and burned with his blood. A beast within him lifted its head and growled with satisfaction at the hot thoughts that filled him. Perhaps this woman did have use.
    But he didn’t understand what motivated her to touch him, kiss him, any more than he understood how she’d come to be here in the first place. When