Primal Heat 04 - Forever in Darkness

mind.
    Swearing, he stepped away from the
wall and strode across the room toward the one empty seat at the bar. He took
over the vacant stool, and downed the shot that the bartender slammed down in
front of him. The liquid burned through him, streaking its way down his throat,
but the pain wasn't enough.
    Shit.
    Nothing was enough.
    Scowling, he turned and surveyed
the room, the brands on his arms burning with the need to call out his weapons.
The darkness pulsed at him, like a miasma of doom and decay, trying to pull him
down. He gripped the bar, swearing as the darkness closed in around him.
    It was worse this time. Worse than
the first time she'd died, when he'd been so screwed up that his teammates had
chained him down for months to keep him from snapping. He could feel the
insidious poison crawling through him. He was losing it. Losing his shit.
    Swearing, he braced his hands on
the polished wood of the bar, bowing his head as he sucked the thick, damp air
into his lungs.
    A deep breath.
    Another.
    And another—
    His internal alarms suddenly exploded
through him, his head snapped up, and he went rigid. He spun around, searching
the bar, his heart crashing through his chest. He saw nothing amiss. Just the
same people who'd been there when he walked in. What had he just sensed?
    He searched the room with his
senses again. He inhaled deeply, carefully sifting through the scents and then
he found it: the same fragrance of lilac and lavender that he'd scented on both
Catherine Taylor and the woman he'd just buried.
    Again.
    She was here.
    Adrenaline roared through Ian and
he leapt to his feet, frantically scenting the air, but the scent had already dissipated.
Shit! He bolted into the crowd, searching for her, for that shock of auburn
hair, for another whiff of that scent, for the curve of her shoulder. Here.
There. He grabbed a woman, she turned, and he saw it wasn't her. Another woman
with red hair…not her. And another. And another.
    It seemed like there were women
with auburn hair everywhere, surrounding him, taunting him, but none of them
were Catherine. The scent grew stronger, and he raced toward the corner where
it seemed to be coming from, but it was empty. Then the smell was gone again,
leaving him with an aching sense of loss so severe he felt like he couldn't
take another step…and that's when he realized what was happening.
    It wasn't Catherine he was sensing.
It was the curse gnawing away at him, fabricating her scent just to torment
him. Or was it? Or was she really there?
    Ian stood in the shadowed corner,
his breath heaving in his chest, sweat cascading down his temples. He stared
out at the crowd, at the undulating couples on the dance floor. He listened to
the thud of darts against the targets, the crack of balls from the pool tables.
He could smell the stale beer. He could taste the sweat and stench of too many
bodies in too small an area.
    But he could not see the woman he
was looking for.
    He couldn’t find her scent.
    It was as if she'd never been
there. Had she been?
    Grimly, he surveyed the club. Had
it been his imagination? Or had it been real? Confusion warred at his mind, and
Ian cursed, no longer certain about any of it, other than the fact that Elijah
had killed his sheva eight months ago. He knew that had really happened,
because other members of the Order had been there and witnessed it. Had all the
rest been his imagination? The curse trying to eat away at him? Was he finally
losing it entirely?
    Ian laced his hands through his
hair and braced them on his head, fighting to catch his breath, to clear his
mind, to finally grasp the truth.
    There was no way that his sheva had returned to his life twice within eight months. She was dead, and all that
other crap was simply the curse trying to derail him.
    Catherine was gone.
    It was over.
    He had to accept it.

CHAPTER THREE
    Alice ducked through the crowd, her
heart racing as she glanced over her shoulder once again. But no one had
followed her in through the rear door. No one had noticed she was there. She
was still safe.
    She hurried up to the bar and
leaned on it. "James!"
    The bartender glanced over at her
and raised his eyebrows in greeting. He was wearing the same jeans and tie-dyed
tee shirt he always did, and his bald head gleamed in the fluorescent lighting
above the bar. It was weird to see him like that, still the same, still making
drinks, after all she'd just been through. She felt like her head was spinning
and hell was