Pleasure of a Dark Prince (41 page)

“The great evil. Gilded One. Ringing a bell?”

“We’ll worry about that later,” Nïx said. “For now, let’s stop at least one apocalypse. Aren’t you on the books for an attempted assassination soon? Where
is
that Post-it… ?”

“Yes, Nïx, I’ll be back to port in four days. I need transportation, warmer clothes, jeans, and boots.”

“I’ll have a helicopter standing by in Iquitos, then a jet to the Northlands fueled and waiting with clothes and gear for you. Assuming I remember any of this.”

“Nïx!”

“Oh, oh, I do remember this one bit. You have to get the dieumort and get away from MacRieve.”

“I was already planning on ditching him, but why do you say so?”

“Because he’s intending to do just that to you. To go face Cruach—without you.”

“No, he wouldn’t!” He didn’t even know of her involvement. She’d thought if she could keep it hidden, she’d prevent something like this.

“Oh, but he would.”

Probably for some stupid noble reason like keeping her safe! Bastard! Besides the fact that this was
her
fight—and she’d waited a
long
time to destroy the Broken Bloody One—Cruach could infect MacRieve.

A plan arose for how to deal with the Scot. In fact, he’d been the one who’d given her the idea.
I just have to break into Schecter’s cabin in the next four days….

“Nïx, put Regin at the ready,” Lucia said. As per usual, it would be Regin with the assist and Lucia shooting for the goal.

Not some werewolf with high-minded ideals. When all this was over, Lucia would come back to him and explain…
something
.

“Sadly, Regin’s going to have to rain-check the god killing and after party,” Nïx said. “Seems she’s just been abducted.”

“What?”
Lucia stumbled. “Who would—who
could
—take her?”

“The details are unclear, but I’ve narrowed it down to about fifteen suspects, among them: aliens, a boy band, the CIA, and a berserker.”

As the rain poured outside the
Contessa
, Garreth dragged Lucia across his chest, her body relaxed from hours of sex. “It’s hard to believe we’re nearly to Iquitos,” he murmured. He’d gotten all his strength back—just in time. They’d arrive in port at first light.

“I’m almost sad to leave this ship, even after all we’ve been through.” She lazily traced her fingers over his mended chest. “And I already miss my butterfly.”

Though he’d assured her he could figure out a way to keep it, she’d gotten a strange look on her face.
“I think Lucia Incantata needs her freedom.”

“I’m partial to this ship, too, lass,” he said. “I’ve spent some of the best nights of my life on this boat. And in this bed.”

She nodded against him. “Most definitely in this bed.”

He sifted his fingers through her hair, so wrapped up in her that he almost forgot his plan. Garreth intended to take her so long and hard this night that she’d pass out toward dawn, slipping deep into that near comatose state. Then he’d go to take care of business. “But you’ve been pensive for the last four days.” And the nightmares had been as bad as ever. He needed to help her and couldn’t.

She shrugged. “Probably just nerves over the upcoming battle. Plus, I’ll rest easier once we use the dieumort. I worry that more will come after it.”

In their hands was an archaic secret—kept hidden for millennia in a previously impenetrable site, guarded by creatures of legend—and now they’d brought it forth out into the world.

Each Lore faction had its own seers to direct them to a weapon like this, not to mention the assassins sent by the gods.

Garreth was more than ready to use it, too. This afternoon, he’d called Lachlain to make sure Bowen’s witch could scry for this god. Lachlain had been thrilled that Garreth had finally claimed his mate after so long, and had found the dieumort as well. Lachlain had been less thrilled that his younger brother had nearly been eaten by a snake.

“Oh, for fuck’s sake, Garreth!” he’d bellowed. “I’m goin’ with you on this mission. Bowen, as well.”

“No’ a chance.” After all the two of them had been through in the last year, Garreth refused to lay more trouble on their doorsteps. “Can the witch find my target, or no’?”

“Aye, she can still do many of the easier magicks. But you doona plan to deprive Bowen and me of a fight?”

Garreth had answered, “So as to no’ piss off a vampire queen and the most powerful witch ever to live? Oh, aye.”

“What are you planning?”

“Steal the arrow from Lousha, sneak off, shoot the god. Then I’ll come back with a present and an apology, promising she can shoot the next god.” Garreth had sounded far more confident than he actually was. He couldn’t predict if she’d forgive him—or if she’d disappear again.

But he didn’t feel like he had much of a choice. He could never risk her. Just having the weapon in their possession was a danger. He had to go, and he had to hope. Maybe if he could get some kind of commitment out of her….

“Things will change when we return, Lousha,” he said now. “But I trust no’ too much.” Cupping her face, he pressed kisses to her forehead, her eyelids, the tips of her ears. “I know you Valkyrie fancy marriages and such. So if you wanted to be my wife…” When she stiffened against him, he added in a surly tone, “Or no’, then. Only asked because my brother wed his mate.”

“Can we table this for now? And talk about it as soon as this killing is done—”

A man’s scream ripped through the air.

Lucia said, “I recognize that scream.”

Schecter.
“He must’ve found another lizard in his cabin,” Garreth said. “He’s terrified of anything cold-blooded now. Almost as much as he’s afraid of Rossiter.”

The mortal Rossiter had seemed stoically resolved to his fate until Garreth had mentioned that another crew would likely go right back out to salvage the rich
Barão
and retrieve the bodies. If the doctor could hitch a ride, he’d only lose a month total.
Only
. For a mortal, a month was a long span. For a dying mortal, it was eternity.

Lucia sighed. “Okay, so maybe there are some things I won’t miss about the
Contessa
.” She leaned forward and kissed Garreth’s chin. “But I meant what I said, Scot. I want to talk with you about the future, just not yet.”

Hell, that was more than he’d expected. He relaxed once more, drawing her over his body. “I can wait.
For now
,” he said, talking a big game; Lucia was worth
any
wait.

She felt him hard against her and gasped. “Again?”

“Again.”
The things I do for the sake of the world.
“As many times as you’ll have me. I canna get enough of you, love.”

“MacRieve?” she murmured.

“Aye?”

Her hand shot forward, an oversized syringe in her fist.

Before he could react, he felt the sting in his neck as she injected him. “Lousha! Why?”

As he fought to keep his eyes open, she whispered,
“I’m choosing you.”

FORTY-SEVEN

“Bluidy hell,” Garreth muttered. “No’ again.”

Moments before, he’d awakened, barely, and found Lucia was gone. Memories from last night flooded him. She’d
tranqued
him—likely with Schecter’s stash. She’d been plotting against him the whole time Garreth had been making love to her—as part of his plot against her.

He sniffed the air. This ship was in port. But she was long gone, departed maybe two hours ago. He snatched up his phone, calling Bowen. “Need a favor from your witch.”

“Good to talk to you, too, Dark Prince. Hold on.”

As he waited for Mariketa to get on the line, Garreth dressed and loaded his pack, intending to set out at once.

“Yello?”

“I need you to scry for Lousha,” he said. “You told me once that you could.”

“Yeah, I can get you in her vicinity.”

Garreth had taken Lucia’s scent into him and could find her from miles away. “That’ll work.” Witches could come in handy, he supposed.

“But I don’t do gratis.”

Garreth bluidy hated witches! “Charge me what you will! Just give me the fucking coordinates.”

In the background, he heard Bowen say, “Mari, never let it be said that I doona support your extortion—”

“Entrepreneurial-ness,” she corrected.

“But a family discount, love, would no’ be amiss.”

“The
whole
family? Fine,” she said. “I’m scrying.” While Garreth waited, she groused about how extended the “MacRieve pack” was.

Suddenly she sucked in a breath. “Garreth, I don’t know why Lucia’s going to this particular place, but it’s a confluence of evil. Great evil.”

“Aye, I ken that,” he snapped, then added impatiently, “Home of an evil god I’m off to murder. So be quick with the details, witch!”

A woman’s severed leg.

It’d been left at the entrance to Cruach’s lair—as if in greeting.

Yet when Lucia had arrived at twilight two hours ago, she’d found no Cromites there to battle, and everything about the situation had screamed, “Trap!”

Now as she awaited Cruach’s rising, pacing in front of the cave with her bow strapped over her shoulder, her mind raced, flitting from memory to memory: the look on MacRieve’s face just before the tranquilizer took hold, her mad dash out of Iquitos, the interminable plane ride to these cold Northlands.

All of that had culminated in her hike through these barren woods to Cruach’s lair. The forest here was a fitting precursor to his cave. Filled with shadows and petrified trees, it was separated forever from the cleansing ocean by Cruach’s foul mountain.

She’d never had difficulties finding this place even after so much time had passed. Nothing ever grew around the yawning opening, and old, bleached bones were perpetually strewn before it.

Pacing, thoughts flitting…
Lucia was beset with worry about Regin, who was still missing after five days. After unsuccessfully calling Nïx again and again, Lucia had begun harassing Annika.

Annika had already warped past aneurismal straight into action, dispatching search parties and hiring witches to scry. Neither had turned up a trace of Regin.

Who’d abducted her? Surely it was the berserker, Aidan the Fierce, reincarnated once more. But Aidan had never
taken
Regin before.

Well, at least not without witnesses.

Lucia needed to get this killing over with and return to locate her sister. She
yearned
for this to end. And yet she knew how risky it would be to do anything before Cruach made his move….

In the past, the longest they’d had to wait for him to emerge was two days—Lucia’s nightmares had proved chillingly accurate. So as bad as they’d been the last few nights, why was he not coming forth?

Trap.

From her thigh quiver, she drew the dieumort out once more, gazing at the wooden shaft and ancient feathers. It was so unlike Skathi’s perfect golden arrows, and yet Lucia was more confident in her weapon than she’d ever been. On the plane ride here, she’d noticed the finest inscriptions near the arrowhead and had again sensed the latent power.

She’d begun to suspect the arrow had been carved from an enchanted world tree,
a tree of life
. There were fewer than a dozen in number scattered all over the earth, but one was rumored to grow in the Amazon.

What better way to defeat a being that reveled in carnage and death?

And what better way to get myself killed?
she thought as she replaced the dieumort amid her regular arrows. She was uneasy safeguarding such a weapon—one of the most powerful ever to exist. It was only a matter of time before some enemy came after her, and after this prize. She wanted to use the arrow as soon as possible, to extinguish it—and Cruach—forever.

A chill wind blew, and she pulled her jacket closer, wishing she was back in the sultry warmth of the Amazon with MacRieve. Instead of waiting at the gates of hell. Which was no exaggeration.

She couldn’t imagine a more gruesome place. Decorated with piles of rotting bodies and infested with vermin, the cavern was a fitting hovel for the monster within. She remembered how Cruach would drink from a goblet and blood would dribble down his chin and out from his rotting cheeks. She remembered how he would
feed
.

But the smell was the worst. Right now, the stench oozing out from the lair was so thick, it seemed visible, diffusing into the cleaner air outside.

Damn it, how much longer could she wait? Eventually, MacRieve would find her, somehow; that was what his kind did. Regin needed to be located and then rescued from her obsessed berserker. And with each hour Lucia remained, she risked Cromites returning, or enemies seeking the dieumort.

If she faced Cruach, he’d be no match for her speed, not with his hunched and broken body. She had a weapon in her quiver that would exterminate him. The sooner she completed this kill, the sooner she could return to MacRieve.

I want to start our life together.
She could ask the Scot to help her find Regin—