Pleasure of a Dark Prince (7 page)

She blinked in confusion, backing away.

“Doona walk away,” he growled. “You think I will no’ follow?”

“You don’t understand!”

Her eyes are… haunted?
“Then make me understand! Is it because of what I am?”

“If you try to follow me, I-I’ll hate you forever.”

Damn it! What was happening here? She looked like she was about to flee for her life.

Suddenly thoughts of his cousin Bowen’s tragic history arose in his mind. Deadened Bowen was a cautionary tale to all Lykae males of what happened when a mate—who was
other
—ran.

Bowen’s female had perished as she’d fled from him, dying gruesomely.

Cold fear suffused Garreth at the thought of Lucia hurt. He inhaled sharply, wrestling for control, even as he watched what he coveted most in the world slipping from his grasp.

SIX

What just happened? How?

Lucia had almost been… unchaste, about to lose her purity—and therefore her abilities—right before the Accession!

One misstep had nearly cost Lucia her powers. Because Skathi hadn’t
gifted
her with anything. Lucia’s archery skills were on loan—and conditional.

How close she’d been. How close…

Yet even now her body was still thrumming for his touch—for more.

Lucia made it really simple for herself. The Accession meant Cruach. Succumbing to this Lykae meant no archery. She’d be defenseless if the Broken Bloody One escaped his prison and returned for her.
Returned to make me pay…

Whatever MacRieve saw in her expression had him backing away with his palms raised. “There, lass. Doona be afraid. You’ve nothing to fear from me.”

She knew her eyes were wild, her heart racing with dread. “I-I’m not afraid of you!”
I’m afraid of
him—
afraid of being trapped back in his corpse-ridden lair.
She put the back of her hand against her mouth as she retched.

Lucia, I gave you meat and wine….

“Now, Valkyrie, just wait. I dinna mean to upset you.” MacRieve absently swiped a hand over his still-engorged shaft, as if it pained him—even now her body responded to the sight.

“If you’re bent on leaving, then meet me here this weekend,” he said tightly, as if this was a great concession. “Saturday at noon, we’ll return. That’ll give us both time to cool off, to think about this.”

His offer did surprise her. “I… I don’t know.” He’d told her that she wasn’t his mate, but she thought he’d lied since his reaction had been so fierce. Now she began to believe again, because otherwise he’d have been thumping his chest and snarling, “Mine!” as he slung her over his shoulder. “All right. I agree to it,” she lied, feeling something she hadn’t in a long time with a male. Five hundred years to be exact.

Terror.

There was no rain in the bayou Saturday night. Only quiet.

Garreth had been waiting here since quarter past ten this morning. He’d risen at dawn, too anxious to remain abed, and begun to get ready. He’d intended to take care with his dress, to present himself as a male of worth, like the leader that he was. Not like the hard-drinking, foulmouthed brawler Lucia likely thought him.

Then he’d realized he owned nothing but hole-ridden jeans, broken-in boots, and pullover shirts.

Hardly a fitting match for a lass with her delicate beauty. Hell, it hadn’t mattered anyway.
She’s no’ coming.
What he didn’t know was
why
. Yes, the Valkyrie hated the Lykae, considered them animals. But she’d responded to him.

Gods, how she’d responded. She’d taken her release and left him stranded and aching for his. He’d witnessed Lucia in the grip of passion, and she’d been like no female he’d ever imagined.

At the memory of her lust, his cock swelled in his worn jeans, and he rubbed the heel of his palm down his raging erection. All week, he’d been like this, randy as a lad in his first brothel, no matter how many times he took release. He’d hoped to be inside her this day, imagining it in a thousand different ways.

But she’s no’ meeting me.
He checked the clock on his sat-phone. Ten at night. Clearly, he needed to call this. Lucia, it seemed, was in no way
easy
. He’d gotten his wish, and wished he hadn’t.

As soon as she’d left him here that night, Garreth had dragged Munro and Uilleam out of the still-going game and told them, “We need to find out everything we can on our new neighbors, the Valkyrie. All of them.” He’d been amazed at how little the Lykae knew about that faction of the Lore. And again he’d sworn his friends to secrecy. “Say nothing about this to
anyone
.” If word got back to the clan elders that they were about to have a Valkyrie for a queen…

He and the twins had agreed that no one could know about Lucia until she was bearing Garreth’s bite mark upon her neck. The beast inside any Lykae would recognize the claim as Garreth’s, would know she was forever under his protection.

Then the three of them had combed the streets of New Orleans, a city they hadn’t visited often, and all the while, Garreth impatiently counted down the hours till this day.

Finding information had proved difficult. Big Easy Loreans were suspicious of the Lykae newcomers to their city and on guard with the Accession approaching. Garreth had come up empty in his search, but the twins had charmed a voodoo shopkeeper who’d told them much.

Now as Garreth waited in the swamp, he thought back over all they’d learned about Lucia….

“She’s legendary for her archery skills,” Munro had said. “Nothing else unique about her.”

That was all she was known for? “There must be more. What does she like to do? What are her interests?”

“No one knows,” Uilleam had answered. “She’s just the Archer.” As if nothing more needed to be said about her. It was how she was identified.

Munro had added, “But it’s rumored that she feels agonizing pain whenever she misses a target.”

Luckily, Garreth couldn’t see that happening too often with her skill. But then his chest had grown heavy.

Was that how she’d gotten to be so good?

Above all, they’d learned the Valkyrie were peculiar creatures. Their origin alone fascinated him. Each Valkyrie had
three
parents. Whenever a maiden faced death with uncommon bravery, the Norse gods Freya and Wóden struck her with lightning, rescuing her to Valhalla. The maiden would wake there—healed, safe, and pregnant with a Valkyrie daughter.

The birth mothers hailed from all Lorekind—furies, witches, shifters, even humans. So the daughters would each possess the unique coloring and characteristics of the mother, but they all inherited Freya’s fey features and her notorious acquisitiveness—in fact, they could be mesmerized by shining jewels, diamonds especially.

The Valkyrie were rumored to have glass-shattering shrieks, preternatural speed, and no need to eat or drink. Instead they consumed electrical energy from the earth and produced lightning when they experienced sharp emotions.

That had been a legend about Valkyrie he’d never quite believed until he’d been in the throes with one. Lightning had speared the night, and not only from the storm.

Garreth had learned about various individual Valkyrie as well. Nïx was their soothsayer, rumored to be three thousand years old and mad as a hatter. Regin was the last of the Radiant Ones and had skin that glowed. Annika was the dauntless leader of the New Orleans coven, a master strategist who lived to war with vampires.

No one knew who Lucia’s birth mother was—or
what
she’d been—but the shopkeeper had said this Accession would be Lucia’s third. Which meant that she was over a millennium old—near his own age.

In the end, Garreth had more questions about her than answers….

She’s no’ coming.
Damn it, why? He’d shown her passion—and patience. But she’d been skittish toward the end. Wild-eyed and spooked. Perhaps she feared the intensity of her own reaction? Or of
his
?

He recalled what Bowen had once told him. “We doona understand our own ferocity.” His cousin’s deadened eyes had been filled with loss. “What’s normal to us is no’ to others.” Bowen’s own mate had loved him, until she’d seen him turned. Then she’d fled.

Lucia too had fled—yet she hadn’t even seen a glimpse of the beast.

The Lykae called their transformation
letting the beast out of its cage
. Garreth would grow taller, his muscles extending, his fangs and black claws lengthening. The brutal and menacing shadow of his beast would flicker over him.

No, Lucia dinna see me like that.
He scowled at the waxing moon.
But she soon will.

She would run far, if he wasn’t careful. Another glance at the moon, and he knew what he would have to do on that night. “Ah, Lousha, my lass. It’s going to hurt. But there’s no getting around it.”

For now, she wasn’t coming to him, so again he’d go to her. He stood and turned for the Valkyrie’s home of Val Hall. Since he’d met her, he’d staked out the bizarre place. Lightning bombarded the property, flashing constantly above the antebellum manor. All over the grounds, lightning rods jutted up. Smoking moss dangled from burned oaks. From within, Valkyrie shrieks sounded.

None of that mattered but for the fact that Lucia would be within. He strides took him closer and closer to her.

SEVEN

“Lykae in our backyards. Horde vampires seeking out Valkyries all over the world. Happy Accession!” Regin cried from her “command center,” also known as the dining room table, which now stood covered with maps and papers—all lit by her glowing face.

The more excited Regin became, the more she glowed. Yet that wasn’t the only reason she was called the Radiant One….

Lucia made a noncommittal sound, only half listening. She’d thought she’d spotted something outside the manor. She was curled up in a window seat, bow in her lap, peering out at the night. The gaslights flickered outside Val Hall, like tentative steps into the blackness.

On this day, she was supposed to have met the werewolf. All week she’d been in a daze, knowing she couldn’t meet him, yet tempted to so badly. She wanted to know if she’d imagined the addictive taste of his lips. She wanted to discover why she hadn’t been able to shoot him between the eyes. Why had everything in her rebelled against the idea?

And why had he taken her underwear?

That had confused her as much as anything from that night. Unlike her sisters, who were all obsessed with lingerie, Lucia wore athletic underwear—seamless, utilitarian. She didn’t buy sexy silks like Agent Provocateur, instead favoring brands like Under Armour— the kind sold in a pack. She’d never expected anyone to see them, yet he’d stolen them. Why?

She sighed. Surely MacRieve would leave her alone now that he’d been stood up. Even as she thought this, she half expected to see him advancing on the manor, pissed off, his gorgeous face creased in a scowl.

But nothing was out there now. She relaxed a touch.

Ultimately, the choice of whether to meet MacRieve or not had been taken out of Lucia’s hands. Her day planner had gotten filled to the gills when their coven had learned that Horde vampires were hunting for a particular Valkyrie, though they didn’t know who.

Vampires were the Valkyrie’s most hated enemies. They could
trace
—or teleport—from one location to another, disappearing and reappearing at will, making them difficult to slay. When the Valkyrie’s mighty queen Furie had gone to face the Horde leader Demestriu, she’d never returned….

Worse, Ivo the Cruel, second in command to Demestriu, and his men were searching
here
. Rumor held that Ivo was up to something even more nefarious than usual—and that he’d teamed up with the vampire Lothaire, the Enemy of Old, an ancient foe of theirs as well.

“If I had to guess,” Regin said, “I’d bet the leeches are looking for me. Because I glow and I’m wicked smart. They probably want to breed with me.”

Lucia sighed, hoping Regin was kidding. “Doubtless.”