Brenda Joyce - Dark Embrace

They had guns and they started firing at the wolf as it drove another teen to the ground, savagely ripping him apart the way dogs shred stuffed toys. Brie was frozen in horror, but only for a single breath. She turned to run.

But as she did, the wolf raised his head, bleeding from its shoulder and its chest. It looked right at Brie with its eerily human eyes. Brie backed up, terrified. It leapt at one of the other boys and she did not think twice. As the sub-demon screamed, she fled.

She ran up the block as hard and as fast as she could, acutely aware of the snarling wolf behind her on the city street, making sounds she wished she could not hear. She somehow unlocked the front door of her building and ran inside. She didn’t even think to lock that door or use the elevator. She ran up the three flights of stairs to her loft and somehow unlocked her door, her hand shaking as if with Parkinson’s disease. Slamming the door closed, she speed-dialed Nick. Tears blinding her, she spoke before he could even answer.

“I think he’s here. He’s shot. He needs medical help, Nick!” She wept into the phone.

“Don’t fucking move,” Nick said, and the line went dead.

She dropped the phone, images of the vicious wolf as it destroyed the boys filling her mind. Subs or not, they were human. Sometimes, souls could be reclaimed when evil was exorcized.

Instead of calling Tabby and Sam, she silently begged them to hurry to her. And then she went still, paralyzed.

A huge power filled her loft behind her.

Brie began to shake uncontrollably. Slowly, she turned.

Aidan of Awe stood there.

HE WAS A MAN, NOT A WOLF, and he was bleeding from his gunshot wounds. His blue eyes blazed with rage and fury.

Brie cried out, pressing her back into her door. This man bore no resemblance to the Master she’d met last year and she couldn’t breathe, choking on fear. She looked from his beautiful, furious and ravaged face to his bloody body, utterly naked, and then at the gold chain he wore, the fang hanging on it. She inhaled. He was all hard, rippling muscle and his entire body throbbed with tension.

She tore her gaze upward. “You’re alive,” she gasped. “You’re hurt!”

His blue eyes were livid. “ Never summon me again.”

His anger enveloped her. It was terrifying, for there was so much hatred in it. Brie shuddered. The power of his hatred made her begin to feel sick. She tried to shake her head. She hadn’t summoned him!

He was the Wolf of Awe .

What had happened to him?

The Wolf wanted blood and death. Brie felt the bloodlust. And she had seen the evil.

Her mind was reeling. “You’ve been shot.” She realized she was whispering. “Let me help you…Aidan.”

He snarled at her. “Come closer an’ see how ye can really help me, Brianna.”

He remembered her .

His mouth curled unpleasantly.

She exhaled harshly. She didn’t move, not convinced that he wouldn’t turn into that wolf and rip her to death. But he had saved her from the gang. If he was going to hurt her, wouldn’t he have done so already?

Her temples pounded with the pain of having taken in so much of his rage and hatred. Feeling faint, perhaps from uncertainty, she met his glittering blue gaze. His hard stare was cold, menacing. How could a man change so much in a single year?

She was terrified of him, but she was supposed to help him, wasn’t she? “You’re bleeding,” she whispered. “You could bleed to death.”

He barked at her, a dark, bitter laugh. “I willna die. Not yet.”

She tried to feel past the hatred and anger, the lust for more blood, but if he was weakened or in pain, it eluded her. He was probably too full of adrenaline just then.

She pushed the fear aside. She would not risk him bleeding to death. She turned and opened the linen closet, not far from the kitchen. She took several towels out and faced him. His gaze moved from the towels in her hands to her face.

The distance of a small kitchenette separated them. She started forward slowly, in case he tried to seize her, or worse, turned into the Wolf and leapt at her.

“Dinna!”

She faltered by the kitchen counter. “Here.” She held out the largest towel.

He looked even angrier.

Brie tossed it at him.

She thought he meant to catch it. Instead, he batted it away with one hand. Her gaze dropped of its own accord and she knew she flushed. “You need clothes—and medical attention,” she whispered, dragging her eyes upward. Their gazes locked.

“I need power,” he said dangerously.

Demons lusted for power. All evil did. Brie felt tears of fear and despair well. She somehow shook her head. “No.” That Wolf had been evil. That Wolf had destroyed those teenagers. How could this be her Aidan?

He suddenly turned and picked up the towel, his every movement filled with raw fury. He wrapped it around his waist. When he looked at her with his blazing eyes, he said, “They were lost.”

She trembled. He had just read her thoughts. “You don’t know that their souls couldn’t be reclaimed.”

He snarled at her.

“Are they all dead?”

“Every last one,” he said savagely, as if triumphant.

She wiped at her tears.

“Ye cry for the deamhan boys?”

She was crying for him. “No. I’m sorry. You saved me, and I’m judging you.”

It was a moment before he spoke. “I hardly saved ye, Brianna,” he said, so softly that her heart skipped.

Brie found her gaze fixed on his. Her tension changed. Desire charged through her body in response to his blatantly seductive tone.

He knew. He smiled. “Ye ran. I hunted ye here,” he said as softly.

He spoke as if he meant to take her to bed, not maul her to pieces. She became still, her body tight now, quivering, while fear surged. She began shaking her head. She wouldn’t believe it. She would never believe him capable of hurting her .

She prayed that he had not fallen so far into black evil that he could do such a thing.

But, dear God, she was standing face-to-face with the man she had just spent the past year dreaming of.

Brie wet her lips and backed up.

His lust escalated dangerously, changing. It overshadowed the anger, the hatred. The need to draw blood vanished. She began to feel dizzy, hollow and faint. Her heart was pounding so hard, it hurt. His gaze was on her face now, and the tension that throbbed between them seemed so charged, Brie thought the air might blaze.

Brie closed her eyes. So much emotion and tension were swirling in the room, she was becoming confused. She had to keep a grip on her mind. She couldn’t desire him now! He was simply too dangerous.

She fought for control, and when she opened her eyes, he looked oddly satisfied, as if he sensed her internal struggles. “Aidan, please sit down.” She swallowed, knowing she’d sounded like Tabby with her first-graders. “I can stop the bleeding until the medics get here.” Keeping up the pretense, she nodded toward the sofa.

He laughed at her. “Dinna speak as if I’m a small boy. Three bullets can’t kill the son of a deamhan.”

She went rigid. He could not be the son of a demon . Was this a bad, bad joke?

“Aye,” he said, growling. “The greatest deamhan to ever walk Alba spawned me.”

More tears rose. How could this be happening? “You’re a Master!”

“Damn the gods,” he roared.

She cringed, shocked. “They’ll hear you!”

“I dinna care!”

Brie did not move, searching his furious gaze. He hated the gods . She trembled, afraid for him.

His blue eyes changed, becoming brilliant now, blinding. “Ah, Brianna,” he murmured. “Ye care so much.”