Pleasure of a Dark Prince (36 page)

Garreth could go back to his clan, see his kinsmen for the first time in a year. He could play a bluidy game of rugby and shag nymphs without cease.

He reached the pile of rocks against one of the levee walls, began climbing. As he ascended, his mind was a riot of conflicting thoughts.

How easy it would be if his feelings could turn to hate—as hers obviously had. Hate would have to be less painful than this obsession with her. To
not
feel this gnawing lack each minute of the day….

Yet then he frowned. Lucia might be acting as if she despised him now. But before, she’d shown she cared for him again and again. He recalled her worry as he’d been preparing to swim to the
Barão
or when she’d been about to dive into the water after him. Even her own words:
“…the more I like you, the less I want you to know my secrets.”

At the top of the levee wall, unable to help himself, he glanced back down. In the far distance, he spied Lucia on her knees crying. Exhaling a breath, he rubbed his aching chest. He never could stand the sight of her tears.

Damn that female!
It seemed that when he’d told her he was done, he’d just been talking a big game. Because the truth was…

“She’s my lass,” he muttered.

For better or worse. I could never leave her.

His heart heavy with regret, he began making his way back to her—not seeing the movement in the brush until it was too late.

FORTY-ONE

Still in shock, unable to stop shuddering, Lucia stared at her bow as if she were staring at her severed arm, knowing it would
never
grow back.

Sorrow suffused her, despair ripping at her.
I’m nothing. I have nothing to offer the world. Nothing that makes me different.
Earlier, Lucia had feared that she’d go from being the Archer to the Lykae’s Mate. Now she wasn’t even that!

When MacRieve had left her, she’d sunk to the ground, putting her head in her hands to cry. Twelve months ago, she’d predicted he would be the key to her ruin. She’d been right.

Is he really leaving me?
Yes, he’d meant it. They’d just had incredible, mind-blowing sex, and then she’d started attacking him.

But she’d never been so furious, had never felt so used. Because of him, she was altered forever, yet she couldn’t say the same about him. He’d claimed her— had fulfilled at least that primal Lykae need—so it was possible that he could content himself with others now. And since his brother had reclaimed the throne, Garreth could go back to being the Dark Prince, a womanizing brawler.

For Lucia, there was no going back to her life before MacRieve.

And now I’ve lost him.
He’d warned her that one day he’d hit his limit. Today, he had. Reasonable, rational Lucia cried harder.

What was worse? Knowing that she’d lost him? Or that she might miss him more than her archery…?

Suddenly her ears twitched. She heard a curt yell, jerked her face up. It sounded like MacRieve.

But it had also sounded like he’d been
cut off
.

Darting to her feet, Lucia ran her arm over her face and peered around. Sunlight pricked the canopy above, casting strange shadows from the tomb and the lofty statues.

She gazed up, far off in the distance, and saw movement. Yes, up on the levee, perhaps a mile away.

Wait…
At first, Lucia didn’t believe what she was seeing. Tears made her vision blurry, and the sight was so distant. But her mind vaguely comprehended that the biggest snake she had ever imagined had its rippling green coils wrapped around MacRieve, its face bobbing mere inches from his own.

On its meaty body, black spots looked melted on, like scorched wax dripped over daubs of yellow. Boned ridges flared from its nose, past its slitted eyes, back over its skull.

Anaconda.

Panic jolted through her. MacRieve was in the grip of one of those
things
. It’d pinned his arms at his sides, squeezing the life from him. Every time he exhaled…

No way for Lucia to climb the rocky rise to the levee in time. Not before the anaconda began…
feeding
.

Without thought, she dove for her bow and quiver. Nocking two arrows, she aimed—
a mile away, into the breeze, have to pierce its eyes or it won’t make a dent in a creature that large.

If she missed, she might hit MacRieve, putting him out, taking away any hope he had of fighting.

She swallowed, pulled the string, and tried to slow her heart. Concentrate….
But this is MacRieve!
She blinked through tears.

I’m so in love with him.

His head slumped forward. Oh, gods, he wasn’t conscious.
Release the string, release it!

When the snake began distending its lower jaw—to swallow its prey whole—her fingers relaxed; the bowstring sang. She exhaled in a rush, going weak with fear—

The snake reared up, two arrows jutting from its eye sockets. Then the head collapsed to the ground.

Lucia had… nailed it.

Disbelief.
No time to succumb to her shock. With a cry, she sprinted for MacRieve, climbing up the terrain. As she ran, she inwardly chanted,
How, how, how? How did I do that?

Once she reached him, she saw the dead creature was still squeezing! Heart racing with panic for MacRieve, she dropped her bow, trying to lift the snake away, but she couldn’t budge it. Tractor trailers with Regin were one thing—lifting a snake’s dead weight by herself was another.

“MacRieve, wake up!” she cried. Nothing. Peeling off her backpack, she rushed to a young tree, then kicked it at the base, snapping it to the ground. Returning to the snake with it, she jabbed the wood in between its hefty coils, using it as a lever.

She gritted her teeth with effort, hanging bodily from the tree. Again and again, she jabbed and levered. Finally, she heaved the last coil away with a
thunk.

After dragging MacRieve far away from the creature, she sank down beside him, cradling his head in her lap. He was unconscious, rattling his breaths, a fine bloody mist spraying from his lips with each exhalation.

“Please, wake up!” His torso was mottled with blood under his skin.
Internal injuries.
She lifted one of his eyelids. His eye was filled with burst vessels, as red as a vampire’s.

But her Scot was an immortal. He’d live through this—he just needed to regenerate. She gingerly eased out from under him, making a pillow of leaves for him.

Once he was resting more comfortably, she started a fire to keep other creatures away, gazing around warily. She was on edge. Yes, she had her bow to protect them— but she scarcely trusted her abilities. Maybe they were gradually
fading
?

“I’ve got to know,” she muttered. She collected her pack, drawing out her sat-phone. Surprised it was still working, she dialed Nïx.

The soothsayer answered right away. “Lucia! How’s your vacay?”

“Eventful. Nïx, you know how you told me I’d have to restrain myself? I… didn’t. MacRieve and I—”

“You tagged him? You marked his teeth with your neck?”

“Uh, yeah. But here’s the thing. I think I can still shoot.”

Nïx said, “
Of course
you can. Are you fishing for compliments? Fine.” As if reciting, she said, “Lucia the Archer, you are the best. You are unmatched in skill, peerless in all of the world—”

“Nïx! I had sex. Skathi vowed she’d revoke my powers.”

The soothsayer made a dismissive sound. “Oh, that? She took them back weeks ago.”

“What are you talking about?”

“Didn’t I tell you? Yes, it seems Skathi wasn’t on board with your mission to unearth the god killer.”

“You mean I’ve had… no ability
this entire time
?”

“No mystical ability.”

“That can’t be right. For the last two weeks, I’ve made incredible shots. Now I can still shoot as well as I ever could.”

“Well, naturally.” Nïx sounded puzzled. “You practiced for over a millennium.”

“Practice wouldn’t make me
peerless in all the world
! Look how hard Tera the Fey trains, and I still outshoot her.”

“Maybe you got the talent genetically? Your mom could’ve been Robina Hood for all we know, you impish wittle mutt.”

“Robina Hood?”

“Or it could be—hey, here’s an idea—the fact that your other two parents are gods. Hello? You’re a
Valkyrie
, the daughter of Freya and Wóden. The last I checked, we don’t suck at anything.”

“This ability is all mine?”

“It wasn’t in the beginning. But it is now. The pain Skathi ‘gifted’ you with to make you remember was actually
teaching
you. Teaching you
all
of her tricks.”

Just as everyone had always assumed. “I can’t believe this. Are you sure?”

“Skathi didn’t teach you to track or give you that ability, yet you’re an expert at that as well.”

I am. I learned to be.
“And Skathi couldn’t have told me this would happen?” Lucia felt as if she’d been slapped.

“Oh, she didn’t know what an apt pupil you’d be. Had no idea you could grow to be as good as she is.”

“No idea?” Yes, slapped—bitchslapped by the goddess of the hunt. “Then she believed I was going on a quest with no defense?”

“What a whore!” Nïx agreed. “She’s one of the gods who thought you should offer yourself up to Cruach to appease him, rather than uncover the dieumort.”

Appease Cruach.
Despite the fact that Skathi had witnessed how Lucia had suffered at his hands. “I’m going to kill her.”

“Now, Lucia, you can’t go offing gods willy-nilly. Unless you find some more dieumorts!” she cried. “Regrettably each one only has a single shot before the power is extinguished.”

“Skathi had to know I would never abuse the weapon, would never harm anyone but Cruach with it.”

“Yes, but to find the dieumort, you have to open a tomb, and there’s an evil deep inside it.”

Exactly what Damiãno had said. “I think I’ve already found the tomb.”

“Within it is a being so powerful that if loosed, it would change the world forever. Even the gods fear its awakening.”

“What evil being?”

“The Gilded One,” Nïx breathed.

El Dorado.
“Can I get the dieumort without waking the evil?”

“There’re house rules at the tomb door. You break them, and you’ll have to leave the party.”

“Damn it, what do you mean? This is no time to withhold… Wait!
You
couldn’t have told me all this earlier, Nïx?” she asked, her aggravation spiking. “You advised me to
restrain myself
for nothing!”

“I’d totally forgotten about this until I found a Post-it note to myself stuck to the underside of Annika’s bed.”

“What were you doing under her— Never mind, I don’t want to know.” Yet her irritation with Nïx soon dwindled when Lucia comprehended all that had happened.

Lucia was no longer a Skathian, a slave to the goddess’s whims. No longer a celibate in plainclothes.

No longer a victim.
I broke an altar with my werewolf lover.
How fitting, how utterly empowering.

Broke that bitch!

Lucia swallowed as a sudden thought struck her. She could even have…
children
.

She cast a smile down at MacRieve, but it quickly faded. He was leaving her! Had made up his mind.

One of these days, Lucia…

When Garreth coughed, waking, Lucia was right beside him, gazing down, her eyes swollen from tears. “Nice nap?” she asked.

“What… what happened?” His body was a mass of aches, his head and wounds throbbing.

“Big snake got peckish?”

“You killed it?” When she nodded, he frowned, recalling more with each second, his ire toward her returning. “You told me you couldn’t shoot anymore.”

“I believed that. But clearly I was mistaken.”

“Aye, clearly. You must’ve shot it from down below.” He tried to rise, then coughed, flinching as pain radiated through every inch of him. All his goddamned ribs were cracked.

“Is the pain bad?” she asked.

“What do you bluidy think?”

Her eyes narrowed. “I think that’ll teach you to leave me!”

“I was coming back.”

Her expression unreadable, she asked, “For me?” Before he could answer, she added, “Probably to convince me to continue on the mission.”

“I was coming back
for you
! Though you dinna deserve me to, stubborn Valkyrie.”

She didn’t deny that. “Why? I thought you were done.”

“I’ll
never
be done!” he snapped, wincing again as his ribs screamed in protest. “You’re my woman, Lousha. Damn you, I’ll never want another!”

At that, she leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to his forehead. “Good.”

“What?”
Was this an olive branch—from her? Just when he’d thought she couldn’t confuse him more, she put them into completely unfamiliar territory. “I thought you hated me.”