The Immortal's Hunger

There’d be live music tonight from the traveling group, The King’s Footmen. They would play everything from contemporary hits to old favorites and traditional Irish ballads, pulling in a more diverse crowd as the band had a sound both young and old could appreciate. Tonight’s festivities alone ensured she would more than double her average take.

Fergus, the bar’s owner and short-order cook, emerged from the small kitchen. The man was huge, his white apron appearing more like a dainty dishtowel banded round his waist. His gaze roved over the patrons, searching.

Ashley knew he was looking for her, but something made her hesitate to raise a hand and wave. His behavior had been odd of late. Odd enough, actually, that she was considering moving on.

He finally found her watching him, and his face darkened. “Stop yer lollygagging. Orders up!”

She offered a jaunty salute. “Soon as these fine men are served, I’ll retrieve as commanded.” He ducked back into the kitchen and she added softly, “Jackass.”

Laughter wove through the crowd nearest her.

“He’ll have yer head should he hear ye,” said a regular who’d overheard her.

“And a fine trophy it would be to join the others,” his tablemate answered.

Others. It had to be a coincidence. Neither mortal man knew what she was.

Ashley shifted her tray as she turned her attention to the table of attractive men who’d shoved into the largest booth nearest the telly. Distributing their drink order with care, she watched them under lowered lashes. To a body, they were larger than most Irishmen in both height and muscle, and instead of harboring the general spirit of goodwill inherent to the Irish, they seemed to blend with the shadows even as they appeared weighed down by some invisible onus. Their auras ranged from the palest shade of early morning fog to a gray so dark it appeared inky. Then there was the way their gazes continually roamed the room, all but announcing that, even in their cups, these men never found their ease. All in all, it had been a lot for Ashley to pick up on in the fifteen minutes they’d been here, but she could relate. And that she’d taken it all in was proof that living the last four centuries on the run had helped her develop a few survival skills. Nondeadly ones, anyway. The deadly stuff? Well, that part of her couldn’t be turned off any more than the sun could be commanded to rise in the west come morning. So she’d watch the men as she pulled taps, built Guinness after Guinness and poured the hard liquor with flourish. Should push come to shove and she discovered they represented a threat she hadn’t yet sniffed out, she’d be out the back door in seconds and with nothing more than the backpack she always kept within reach.

Flipping her hair over her shoulder, she smiled at the group as she set the last of the drinks down. “You gents fancy some crisps or chicken gujons tonight? Clearly I’m headed to the kitchen and would be happy to deliver your order.”

One of the men lifted his pint and tipped his chin toward her before taking his first sip. “We’ve an ear for the music tonight, love, but thanks. Another man’s joining the party shortly. He might be of a different mind.”

She glanced at the band setting up in the corner. No electric instruments. This would be what the Americans called a jam session. Foot tapping as the fiddle player loosed a rapid flurry of notes, Ashley turned back to the men. “Enjoy yourselves, then, and I’ll check with your man when he’s here and settled.”

Behind her, the vestibule door opened with its characteristic creak followed by a short burst of crisp, cool ocean air. The chill wind whispered a silent benediction over the thin sheen of sweat that graced her skin.

That same breeze lifted her hair and whipped the long curls around her. Small crackles and pops, not unlike strong static, sparked between the strands and against her skin, and the sheen of sweat crept into her nape, dotted her upper lip and further dampened her lower back. Heat pinked her skin and arousal settled deep in her core.

A wave of alarm swept through her as the warning signs settled into place.

No. It can’t be time. Not yet. Please, not yet. I should have at least five more weeks.

Every unmated or unclaimed female phoenix dreaded the initial symptoms of her impending epithicas, the triennial fertility cycle that ruled her body for one full week. Every third May, she endured seven days of sheer physical misery. Seven days of hellish sexual cravings. Seven days during which she had to take a lover and hide herself so well no clan member could find her. By their race’s laws, any clansman who discovered her could take her without repercussion. She’d be hunted. Actively. And if found, she’d be willing enough during that seven days because the only relief she would find was in sexual contact. But once that week passed? She’d regret every action when her mind cleared and her body became her own again. Humiliation would threaten to drag her into the depths of despair while fear of pregnancy would have her terrified to look in the mirror every morning. Phoenix law held that whichever male had impregnated her could legally claim her as his chattel, tattoo the skin on her arms with his lineage and call her wife...no matter how many other wives he possessed.

After fleeing clan lands at only thirty-seven years old, she’d had three close calls—twice by poor luck, once by poor choice. The first two times had both scared and scarred her. The third time had cost her every dime of emotional currency she possessed and had left her not broken, exactly—unless she considered her heart. It had been shattered. Never, ever did she want a man to hold that much dominion over her again, be it by law or professed affection. Reason was irrelevant and emotions even more so. She would never willingly go there, or be that woman, in this or any other lifetime she claimed as her own.

So now she took precautions, kept a particular incubus-friend-with-benefits on call. He was a nonphoenix with no more interest in a relationship than she. Even the idea of a long-term affair was enough to make them both cringe. The problem? He wasn’t due to arrive for almost four more weeks. If her epithicas truly did arrive early? She was, in more ways than one, screwed.

Scowling, Ashley tucked the tray under one arm, spun on her heel and started toward the bar. She had to figure this out, had to determine whether she stayed through the end of her shift and then quietly disappeared or threw caution aside, grabbed her backpack and walked out now. She didn’t think there was a male phoenix in the room—she should have been aware of him. If he’d somehow evaded her and she discovered him? The decision was made. She wouldn’t walk out of the room. She’d leave at a dead run.

Of course, she could also hunker down here, lost in the little Irish village in County Clare, and find a bed partner to see her through the worst of things. If she could, she might just be able to keep the worst of the pheromones in check. The man would have to be willing to stay with her for the full week, able-bodied in defense should a male phoenix threaten and...well...there was that willing thing.

Lost in thought as she calculated her options, she nearly missed the man who’d swept in on the ocean breeze. Then he moved, crossing her path as he wound his way toward the same table of men she’d just left.

Standing several inches above her own six feet, his hair was the color of her favorite clover honey. Lighter and darker strands wove through the cut to make his hair appear multidimensional, even in the pub’s low light. Though he had the body of a warrior, it was his face that demanded her attention. He had a strong jaw, full lips and chiseled features, all of which gave him a near impossible appeal the fashion runways of Milan and Paris would worship. But his eyes were what commanded her complete attention. They were a light, bright blue. Faint creases at the corners said he smiled a lot and, sure enough, he did just that as several men hailed him in greeting.

Something about the man pleased her phoenix, making that part of her heat up until she was sweltering. Now wasn’t the time, though. She couldn’t afford the distraction—though a man like that would be ideal to see her through this. The problem? She could seduce the stranger for a night, maybe two, but convincing him to give up a week of his life for her as an unknown wasn’t realistic.

She slipped behind the bar and toed her backpack for reassurance before grabbing a glass, pulling a lager and then slamming it back. She dropped her chin with the last swallow and found the stranger’s gaze boring into hers. Undiluted desire slammed into her without warning, burning her from the inside out and incinerating every ounce of air in her lungs. The taste of ash on her tongue made her pull a second drink and slam it down even faster. Still, grit coated her mouth. She fought the urge to go straight up to the man and demand who, and what, he was, because he wasn’t a run-of-the-mill human. Oh, no. Too much power rolled off him for that. He also wasn’t a phoenix. If he had been, he would have arrowed straight toward her when her hair began the preliminary mating dance that was, as always, out of her control.

Thank the gods he’s not one of us. Otherwise he’d have me flat on my back in the middle of the bar, fighting for my life. She shuddered. At least until the madness claimed me.

When she shuddered a second time, her empty pint glass slipped from her fingers.

The sound of shattering glass against the stone floor had a wave of attention shifting toward her. Several men laughed and whistled, calling her out—her—out over the broken glass. She, who tossed bottles and slid drinks and juggled empties—and had never broke a one. Yet experiencing a polite, if solitary, glance from a stranger had her falling apart.

Damn hormones.

She refused to blush, instead offering the crowd a wicked grin and one-fingered salute.

Grabbing the broom and pan, she cleaned up without comment, never acknowledging the jests. She’d work, simply work, and if the man became a problem, she’d deal with him. Until that point, she wouldn’t allow herself to worry. More importantly, she’d keep her temper in check. Good rule of thumb, not killing while on the clock. So far she’d held to that little rule.

So far.

Chapter 2

“Fifteen minutes, as promised,” Gareth announced to the men gathered around the large corner table. “I trust you didn’t drink the house dry.”

His teasing was met with laughter and jests. Several men rearranged their chairs or scooted deeper along the lone bench to make room for Gareth. Instead of slipping in among the men, though, he tossed his jacket down before retrieving a vacant chair from a neighboring table. Flipping the battered and aged oak seat around, he straddled it loosely, rested his forearms along the square back and leaned forward. “Who’s buying the first round?”

“Age before beauty,” Jacob announced.

Gareth grinned. “Like that is it? Need I remind you to respect your elders lest you find yourself on indefinite kitchen duty?”

“You’ve resorted to pulling rank. That means I managed to back you into a corner in moments,” Jacob said, grinning. “That’s worth peeling potatoes for a week...hell, a month, and without a word of complaint—mostly because I’d no idea it would be so easy.”

The men laughed, Gareth included, though he was obliged to reach over and cuff the young man on the back of the head. “Mind your manners. I’m older than you, but I’m far from old. I’ll kick yer arse to the Aran Islands and see you come summertime when it’s warm enough for you to swim home.” A flash of color and the tinny sound of a cheering crowd drew Gareth’s attention to the wall-mounted television where Ireland’s national soccer team played Scotland. “So, what’s the score?”

“Two minutes into the second half. Ireland’s up by one.”

The woman’s voice was as smoky as a two-finger shot of single barrel whiskey and as smooth as the waters of Loch Mor.

A jolt of pure, sensual pleasure arrowed through Gareth and settled a solid eight inches below his navel. He closed his eyes and took a bracing breath. “Care to repeat that?” Please.

Instead of answering, she chuckled. “Sure and if anything changes, I’ll gladly shout it out for you. In the meantime, what may I get you from the bar? Guinness? Whiskey? Murphy’s?” She must have shifted because the air moved and carried with it her scent—campfire smoke, warm flannel and the faintest hint of something spicy, like cloves. “The kitchen’s only open for another half hour, so you’d best get your order in if you’re hungry.”

Gareth fought the compulsion to look at her, the pull that urged him to face her where she stood and pair the voice with the rest of her, head to toe. “Order of chips and an Irish coffee. Be generous with the Irish.”

“I’ll see that you’re not cheated a drop,” she replied, the smile in her voice an audible caress.

Again, air moved, but this time with her departure.

Gareth spun in his seat, his narrowed eyes homing in on the seductive sway of the tall woman’s hips. Narrow waist. Long, long legs clad in skintight denim and knee-high boots. A simple white T-shirt. Skin on her arms bordering on pale. And her hair... It was a red so brilliant, so vibrant, that every strand seemed to come alive as the mass tumbled to her waist. Large, soft curls swayed back and forth as she walked, and the dense mass crackled with static.

He swiveled in his seat to face the men he’d come out to celebrate with. “She’s a new face.”

Jacob snorted. “And I told ye so earlier. ‘She’ is the new bartender as of several months ago.”

Gareth leaned his heavy forearms on the worn tabletop. Once, he’d have been the man to pursue her, the man to charm her right out of her tight jeans and onto a smooth-sheeted bed for a night of unparalleled pleasure. Now?

He shivered, his near hand drifting to the persistent ache at his side.

Now, not so much. If at all.

So much for finding a means to forget.

The men bantered back and forth, the sound mixing into the mishmash of noise in the crowded pub until all Gareth heard were random words, shouts of encouragement at the telly and, below it all, the faint vibrations of both fiddle and bodhran from the corner where the musicians had begun to prepare for the show.

A fiver slid into his view, followed by Jared’s voice. “So what of it, Gareth? You in?”

Slipping the euro back into the middle of the table, he looked up and forced an approximation of a smile. “My mind’s been wandering about. I’d be a poor Regent and even poorer assassin to take a blind wager, don’t you think?”

Jacob’s smile fell a bit, and the other men went still.

Gareth wanted to yank at his hair, wanted to shout at them to just behave normally, but he knew it had taken months of his withdrawing from them to get the men to this place where he was now unfamiliar. He didn’t want them to remember him this way after he was gone, but rather they should remember him as he had been. Might as well attempt to set things to rights.

With an air of feigned casualness, he retrieved his wallet from his back pocket and pulled out a hundred note, sliding it across the table with the general irreverence he’d been known for over his lifetime. “But it’s not to say I can’t sweeten the pot for the man about to dive into the seedy Shadow Realm of bloody taunts and bodily wagers.”

The men leaned in as if he was their puppeteer, the money their master.

“Go on, then,” Jacob said, eyes bright.

“I’ve a hundred that says not a one of you can get the redhead to take you home tonight.”

“That was the wager—that you could talk her out of the bar and back to her place,” Jacob said, smirking.

“I’m not favored in this one, gents. It’s not fair for me to use my gods-given charms—plural—against the lot of you.” He leaned back, hands gripping the chair back, and kicked his feet out in front of him. “Too much like taking candy from babes. So, you care to play or is it all talk with the lot of ye?”

There was a great deal of shifting in seats and casual glances left and then right to see who would be the first to man up or bow out. Finally, a lad named Alex, slapped a ten-euro note on the scarred table and grinned. “I’ll take that wager.”

Gareth chuckled. “You’re barely out of short pants, Alex. What could you possibly know about seducing a woman?”

“Far more than you think, you gobshite,” he responded, his broad shoulders squaring. “I’ll have the lass eating out of me palm before sunrise.”

Gareth grinned. “And that, right there, is why you’ll lose.”

Alex’s brow furrowed.

Leaning forward with an air of absolute seriousness, Gareth clasped the younger man’s shoulder. “The goal in spending the night with a woman has nothing to do with feeding them like a wee bird.”

The men all laughed. Several more bills were added to the pile as their group grew more boisterous.

Gareth chanced a quick glance over his shoulder at the woman in question. If he was honest, what he really wanted was another look.

She’d nearly reached the bar. From somewhere deep in the group of men she passed through, a brawny hand snaked out and grabbed her backside hard enough he imagined she’d bruise.

He was out of his chair before his mind registered that he’d responded. It turned out his intervention wasn’t at all necessary.

In what appeared to be a single move, the bartender grabbed the offending man’s hand at the same time she whipped the tray out from under her arm and swung it down, edge first, on the tender spot between wrist and hand. Before the man could properly yelp, the woman spun the tray in her hand and smacked the man over the head with it. The tray splintered and the man slumped forward. Issuing rapid apologies, two of the patron’s companions eased him to the floor.

Gareth hardly spared the downed man a look. No, he was too fascinated by the woman standing over the proverbial body and holding nothing but the metal ring of what had been a wooden serving tray. She wielded it like a weapon. And standing over the man like she was, Gareth could imagine her gladly wrapping the ring around the offender’s neck should he offer anything other than an apology following his physical set-down.

But something about the woman, something he knew he had overlooked, forced him to focus on her with more intensity.

With her shoulders thrown back, her breasts appeared fuller, her body leaner, her waist thinner and her legs impossibly longer. Her hair seemed to crackle with life. And her eyes? They conveyed competence and fury in equal measure.

The man at her feet stirred and Gareth took a step forward, intent on aiding her whether she needed it or not.

As if she’d singled out his movement among the bar crowd, her eyes met his. Fists clenched, she tossed her hair and turned back to the man at her feet. A firm nudge of her toe had his head lolling back. A partial beer she claimed from another table roused him...when she tossed it in his face.

The bar quieted so much so that the commentary from the soccer game’s announcers seemed to skate across the tension strung person to person—tension that centered wholly on the redheaded woman.

It was sexy as hell.

Behind him, Jacob stood and sighed dramatically, propping his forearm on Gareth’s shoulder for mock support. “I’d love to be trapped between those thighs, gents. I’ve an inkling she’d hurt me in the best possible way.”

Gareth knocked the young man’s arm aside with only partially feigned irritation. “Sit down, Jacob. You’re no match for the likes of her.”

He continued to watch the woman. Something about her wasn’t quite right, but damn if he could put a finger on the vibe she emitted. It was nothing he’d ever encountered before. But before any of his trainees engaged her, be it in a bit of fun or...something else, he’d know who, and what, she was.

* * *

Ashley tossed the drink tray’s metal ring over the antlers of a large Irish sika deer with the misfortune to have found itself mounted on the wall in the name of art. She’d never understand men’s minds, no matter the effort she put into it. But if her epithicas was about to occur, she would indeed spend a great deal of time considering ways to harness one of them into giving up a week of his life for bed sport. A night? Oh, that was fine. But for her to be safe, to ensure her fertility remained suppressed and as undetectable as possible, she had to have a beck-and-call lover on hand for the hormonal 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.