Embrace Me At Dawn (50 page)

She squirmed in his arms until he set her on her feet, carefully keeping her near in case she needed his support. Anka hesitated in answering him for such a long time, Lucan feared that she’d refuse to speak at all. Yeah, so much for honesty. Finally, she drew in a resigned breath.

“
I can’t tell you that. And I’m sorry, truly. He’s kept my secret since my childhood. In exchange, I agreed to keep his. I chose to tell you and the others mine so that I was no longer deceiving you and I could be helpful to the Doomsday Brethren. But I can’t divulge his, not even to you. I owe him too much. If you’re angry with me and can’t accept that, I’m sorry.”

The speech stunned him, and he watched, open-mouthed, as she headed for the stairs on wobbling legs. Jolted into action by her unsteady gait, he jogged to her and made her hold the rail with one hand. He gripped her other arm.

He tried not to feel shut out, betrayed. It didn’t work. Instead, he focused on getting her downstairs safely.
Then
they’d have a nice row.

“
You’re not steady enough to fight tonight.”

She didn’t look at him, didn’t pause. “I’ll be all right. Surely Shock told you that.”

And he was simply supposed to trust Shock? Lucan scrubbed a hand down his face. “Yes. But Anka, after everything that’s happened, you’re asking me to just…believe him?”

Anka paused, her pale curls swinging over her breasts, still tightly encased in a T-shirt. “No. I’m asking you to believe me. And to trust that I know I’m going to be perfectly well to fight. You want me to trust you, but you have to do the same in return. If you can’t trust me to be truthful about that …” She blinked up at him with such regret in her eyes, his heart lurched. “I love you, but maybe it’s best that I didn’t speak the Binding.”

~ ~ ~ ~

Bram called everyone back to the dining room to await Mathias so they could ostensibly share the plan with him. Anka fidgeted in her seat. Lucan sat beside her in silence, scowling at his former best friend—before turning his silent glower on her. Clearly he didn’t like what she’d said earlier, but she couldn’t take it back. She wouldn’t even if she could. She owed Shock too much, and Lucan had to understand that. If he didn’t…God, she couldn’t be caught between them again, forced to choose. It hurt too much.

The more Bram talked—Anka wasn’t listening as she should—the more Shock looked ready to crawl across the table and throttle him. In fact, Shock and Lucan might not agree about much, but it was clear they both violently hated Bram’s insistence that Mathias go with them to the site where Merlin had hidden Morganna’s killing potion. But Bram overruled them. Without Mathias, there was no way to know if the potion was still in its place.

Lucan turned to her during a lull in the conversation around the table. “Are you truly all right to fight tonight?”

“
Of course.” She was nervous, but she refused to burden him with that. But she had fully recovered from her few minutes with Shock.

“
Anka…” The warning in his voice couldn’t be mistaken. “Don’t lie.”

Honesty. Right. She couldn’t forget that. “I’m worried. Every time Mathias comes near me, I break out in a cold sweat and freeze. I fear that I won’t remember my part in time. Or that he’ll know he can take advantage of my fright. I don’t want to be the weak link.”

“
I’ll be there with you. I won’t let you falter.”

“
I’d give my life, Anka.” Shock’s voice was a low rumble across the table. Clearly, he didn’t give a shit who heard him. “You know that.”

She gave them both smiles that she meant to be reassuring. She did feel loads better knowing they would be nearby. But she also knew that she had to stand on her own two feet and not let Mathias intimidate her. She would not be the one to deliver him any blows once he double-crossed them, but she’d get to play a role. That would have to be enough. Lucan and the others would carry through with the plan, and if it went off without a hitch, they would hopefully rid magickind of its worst villains and they could live safely and happily ever after.

“
Any other questions about the plan?” Bram demanded.

No one said a word.

“
Perfect. Does everyone remember what to—”

A chilling magical chime rang over the room. Anka gasped. She knew exactly who that belonged to.

“
Mathias?” Sabelle asked.

Bram grimaced. “The arsehole is early. Why?”

Good question
. She looked over at Shock, who merely shrugged.

“
Can’t you read his mind?” Lucan demanded.

“
Not without him knowing. He’s adept. There are consequences.”

In other words, Shock would be exposed as a Brethren sympathizer? Anka frowned, wishing for once that she could read Shock’s mind herself. He’d let her in on most of his deepest secrets…but he’d kept more than a few for himself.

At her thought, he raised a brow over his shades, but didn’t say a word.

Pushing back his chair with a curse, Bram rose to admit Mathias. Anka wanted to tackle the unscrupulous bastard, scratch and scream and punch him with her bare fists until she beat him to a bloody pulp. Her rage at his atrocities hadn’t gone away, and she didn’t know how to make the searing pool of acid in her soul stop boiling, how to look forward, rather than back. The youngling in her belly was months away. It hadn’t yet made her sick or kicked in her womb to serve as a physical reminder of her “delicate” state. But Mathias and her need for vengeance were right here, right now. She felt that pounding strongly inside her.

Lucan caressed her arm, the sweep of his palm soothing. “Relax. Don’t let him know that he bothers you or he’ll only use it to get under your skin.”

“
I can’t help it,” she whispered. “I want to kill him!”

“
You think I don’t?” he challenged. “I’d love to cut off his balls, shove them down his throat, and watch him slowly choke to death. But the time will come. You will not go unavenged. Trust me.”

Bram returned with Mathias, and Anka wanted to slap the smarmy smile off of his deceivingly handsome face. He gave a jaunty wave to the gathering as a whole, seemingly amused when every mated male dragged his female a bit closer, Lucan included.

Mathias sent a questioning stare Shock’s way. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“
Imagine that,” Shock quipped.

Then Mathias’s gaze settled on her, following Lucan’s arms wrapped around her.

“
I see congratulations are in order. You and MacTavish are going to have a youngling. Isn’t that fortunate?”

Anka bristled. Mathias had some trick up his sleeve. He always did.

“
You’re early,” Bram said.

“
You’ll understand that I’d like to know a bit more about our mission here today before we go.”

“
We’re going to retrieve the potion. I suspect Morganna is watching that location, waiting for us to make a move. We have all the necessary elements now, so we’ll venture there together. I’ll be bringing Marrok, Caden, Ice, Sabelle, and Lucan for backup. They’ll watch over us as we retrieve the potion.”

“
Sabelle?” Mathias slid his gaze over to Ice. “Teaching your mate to fight, then? She’s so delicate. Aren’t you worried that she can be easily broken?”

Ice’s scowl shouted that he was ready to crawl across the table and rip off the wicked wizard’s head. “I’ll have her back, rest assured.”

“
And I’ll have Anarki at the ready.” Mathias smiled, as if he knew that provided no comfort whatsoever and he liked that fact.

“
Once we’ve retrieved the potion, we must make sure Morganna imbibes it. We’ve no idea when and where she will be,” Bram lied. “But when we find her, we’ll have to do what we must to force it down her throat.”

No one breathed a word about Bram’s vision, about Morganna awaiting them at the site.

“
Of course. Since we’ll be retrieving the potion today, does that mean the lovely Anka has finally confessed her true origins? You were all daft not to see it before, you know.”

“
Excuse us for not having any experience with banshees.” Bram bristled. “And if you knew, you might have given us a clue.”

Mathias shrugged. “That was my test, to see if you would figure out all the clues and keep up your end of the bargain.”

“
We couldn’t do anything without you,” Anka pointed out. “There are no more children of Nimue, just as there are almost no washerwomen left in existence. We must work together.”

“
That is true. And Bram, being a most noble Rion of the great Merlin’s bloodline, did as promised and contacted me. We’ll work together well, I’m sure. Under one condition.”

Anka longed to tell Mathias to shove his condition and go straight back to hell, but they still needed him. And this plan might seal the evil bastard’s fate. That would be worth any discomfort she might endure now.

“
What?” Bram snapped.

“
When we retrieve the potion, I think you should give it to me.”

Marrok snorted. “’Tis far too convenient to leave such with you. Why should we do something so daft, you swag-bellied miscreant?”

“
Because Morganna does not trust you at all. She wants to kill your leader. But she considers me something of a pet since I’m the one who resurrected her. I’ve let her believe that I’m helping her find the potion.”

At the end of the table, Marrok visibly shuddered, no doubt remembering his repugnant time in Morganna’s bed.

“
Sorry,” Bram said without a hint of apology. “I’m not giving it to you.”

“
How will you catch her off guard to give her the potion, then? Do you have another plan? I can do it in bed, as she sleeps unaware. I have ways of compelling her to swallow it.” He glanced at Shock. “If you have a better idea, let’s hear it.”

Anka didn’t understand the dangerous role Shock played as Mathias’s right-hand man or even whose side he was genuinely on, but she knew better than to dig too deep, especially now. Both he and Lucan would heartily object, and she didn’t dare do more to attract Mathias’s attention now that she was pregnant.

“
I’ll concede, but I’ve got a condition of my own,” Bram grumbled. “You must follow all my rules and directives as we retrieve and administer the potion, or the deal is off. Otherwise, how do I know this isn’t simply a ruse?”

Mathias narrowed his eyes in warning. “I came to you for help, if you’ll recall. I want the bitch gone.”

No one could argue with that.

“
All right. I’ll give you the potion,” Bram grumbled, as if conceding against his better judgment and will.

Anka watched, almost certain that Mathias had just fallen into some trap of Bram’s.

“
Lovely. Where are we going?”

“
Well, Nimue was the Lady of the Lake. We’ll start there.”

With that, everyone in the group stood. There was nothing left to negotiate. The only thing left to do was teleport to the site where Merlin had likely hidden the potion an eon ago and hope that they managed to end Morganna, contain Mathias, and all make it back alive.

Chapter Eighteen

The wizards all bid a tense good-bye to their mates, except for Sabelle, who ventured out into the twilight with them. Anka teleported with everyone to a quiet district in Somerset, near Glastonbury. The body of water looked placid, surrounded by tall willows weeping into the lush grass. An old stone bridge with three arches sat in the distance as the setting sun skipped its last few rays across the water’s glassy surface. In the distance, fog clung to the sea’s shoreline to their west.