surges. Only regular sex would satisfy that need. It had humiliated her for years until she’d come to realize it was either take a lover or risk end up a branded wife. There was always some part of her that wondered what it would be like to stay with a man by choice versus need, to wake up to him in the morning out of love and not compulsion. The epithicas had always destroyed that, though. Until she’d met Geoffrey the Swedish incubus, befriended him and set up a routine over the last several cycles. That this one might be early? She could call him...
Stepping behind the bar, she dropped the pass-through. It landed with a loud whump. The sound reanimated the crowd. Men and women alike began to chatter. More than one looked at her with open curiosity, and she knew that wouldn’t bode well. Strangers in Ireland never stayed strangers long. People were too friendly. And curious. No, not “curious”—wicked curious. A good Irishman or Irishwoman would have your life story from you before you’d finished your first cup of tea and your hopes, dreams and heartaches before you were halfway through your second. It was part of the reason she loved the obscurity of tending bar. Patrons came in looking to talk to her or with her, not about her. Until now. She’d botched that up with a fair hand.
Toeing her backpack not unlike a child affirming her security blanket’s location, Ashley couldn’t stop her shoulders from sagging in relief when her foot made contact with the worn canvas. It was there. She had choices, and choices, no matter how limited, were always better than the alternative.
She glanced up and searched out the table of men she’d just served, the antithesis of the smaller traditional Irishmen yet Irish through and through. They tried for inconspicuous as they stared at her with a strange, almost ravenous look. It wasn’t too disconcerting. However, the man who sat at the head of the table set her back a step.
His eyes were such an intense blue, heavy-lidded but not with lust. If she read him right from this far, and she prided herself on such things, he was sizing her up more as potential trouble than potential bedmate. That she wasn’t accustomed to. At all.
Calloused hands curled in on themselves, and he gave a short nod and three-fingered swiping gesture low and to his side. Acknowledgment, then. That single move said he’d recognized her as Other, and he’d just given her the same confirmation. Whatever brotherhood that group belonged to, it wasn’t the local farmers’ collective.
She knew he wasn’t phoenix. None of her kind was built with such a thick, muscular overlay. No, they were far leaner, faster. Potentially meaner.
A second glance at him and those blue eyes narrowed.
Okay. Maybe not meaner.
Heat pulsed through her veins, hotter than molten rock. Her knees buckled. The only thing to save her arse meeting the floor was dumb luck and fast hands as she grabbed the counter. Smells intensified—the weight of the Guinness she’d pulled, the pungent yet sweet smoke from the pipe of the old man sitting closest to the taps, the hot oil in the kitchen.
Her sex ached, and she issued a small, quiet curse. Definitely the epithicas, then, and damned early at that. It had never been early. Sure, it fluctuated a couple of days either way, but it was never weeks early. Ever.
Only one choice made sense, and that was to try to talk Geoffrey into leaving Sweden now. If he’d hole up with her in her small garage apartment, he could see her through the worst of the cravings.
A quick dip below the counter and she had her cell in hand. Geoffrey was buried deep in her contacts, but she found him without trouble and placed the call.
Three rings. Four. Then a breathless, “Ashley.”
“Tell me you’re free, Geoffrey.” The slightly manic edge to her voice irritated her. She wasn’t that person, wasn’t the woman to panic in a crisis, and she’d be damned if she’d start now.
“I’m not on your rotation for five more weeks.” He groaned and, in the background, a woman gasped.
Ashley shoved a hand through her hair, little static pops pricking her skin. Oh, yeah. It was time. “Things seem to be a bit early this cycle.” And there it was again—the wobble in her voice that brought her fear into the open.
“How soon?”
She bit her bottom lip and let herself simply be aware of her body. The vibration in her blood became a steady hum, the need a constant presence, and she knew it was as bad as she feared. Worse, her subconscious whispered. She swallowed and pinched the bridge of her nose with trembling fingers. “I’m guessing, since this is the first time this has happened, but based on the way things have happened in the past? I’m thinking I have two, maybe three days at best. Tomorrow at worst. Then it’s here.”
“I can’t get there, my love. It’s simply not possible. Prior commitments and all that.” He paused. “You could join us here.”
“I’m not one of the merry harem,” she said quietly. “You know the only reason I do this at all is necessity.”
“Sure. Admit it, though. It’s been good for both of us.”
True, damn him. But she wasn’t feeding his ego. “If things change, let me know. Otherwise, I’ll manage.”
“Be safe, Ashley.”
Hanging up, she assessed the bar again. She had to do something. If it meant finding a lover among the locals, she would. But he’d have to be strong—strong enough to ensure neither of them would be at risk if one of her clan or kind came after her. Sex would diffuse the call of her epithicas to the men of her kind, but they could still find her if she didn’t handle this right.
That could never happen.
Never.
The vehemence of her denial echoed through her so loudly she instinctively shook her head in response.
“Problem, Red?” The question was delivered with quiet indifference.
Her gaze shot across the bar where the largest man from the corner table now stood. The blond Adonis with the air of wicked sin made her heart race, but his aura winked around him for a split second, an aura so dark it shrouded him like a fathomless black hole. Worrisome, but not so much as the fact she hadn’t seen him cross the room.
“Oy! Guinness down the way!”
“On the way,” she called back without looking at the patron. She couldn’t take her gaze off the man across from her. She blindly retrieved a pint glass and began to expertly build the requested stout, managing the building head without trouble.
At her silence, the stranger’s eyes darkened, and he slipped onto the only vacant barstool.
Instinct had her backing up a step at his predatory, assessing look. She reclaimed her ground, but with caution, and fumbled with the Guinness tap. At more than four centuries old, she’d spent three and a half of those defending herself from men she’d never loved and never would. Over three centuries she’d been pursued, her freedom dependent on evading her clansmen with every epithicas. All of the time factors and stresses added up to harden her heart where men were concerned, no matter how pretty the man in question might be.
Like this one.
“Problem?” she asked, repeating his question as she slid the Guinness down the slick bar top. Without taking her eyes off the man across from her, she grabbed a cherry from the setup tray and popped the little fruit in her mouth. “The problem is that you’re far too pretty for my tastes yet you keep popping up in my line of sight.”
He grinned, slow and wicked. “And here I thought a woman like you would have refined ‘tastes.’ While it’s good to know, I’m not a menu item. Play with the boys in the corner if you’re looking for some flirtation.”
The hairs on her arms stood up. “I don’t play with boys, darling. And ‘flirtation’ is the last thing I’m about.” She pulled the cherry stem out of her mouth and held it up for him to witness the double knot she’d tied it into with just her tongue. “I’m very selective when it comes to choosing the man I take to my