Pleasure of a Dark Prince (29 page)

“I’m here to protect my mate. I’ll do it to the death. Count yourself warned. In the meantime, you’ve got fish to clean,
gato
,” Garreth said, turning away to look for Lucia.

What’s new there?

She was hanging over the rickety rail, watching the pink dolphins that swam alongside the ship. Her short shorts rode up until he could almost glimpse the cleft of her generous arse. He gave a low growl at the sight. Then his gaze fell on the slender column of her neck. His mouth watered for her, his fangs aching to mark the tender flesh there.

Now I understand why my brother marked his mate so hard.
When Garreth finally got to do it to Lucia…
I’ll mark the living hell out of her.

He was pleasuring her—hard and continually—but Garreth hadn’t gained any ground with her, was no closer to claiming her. She’d made no request that he take her completely. At least not
out
of bed.

And the full moon was tonight. He’d hoped to have convinced her to forgo her vows before now. So he could take off the cuff and claim her.

Added to that, he couldn’t shake the feeling of some impending threat. Something more than the nearing apocalypse and the full moon. He felt as if he were running out of time on all fronts….

A dolphin sprayed water from its blowhole, making Lucia laugh. She’d begun laughing more often. Whenever he let himself believe it was because of him, he stood a little taller.

The gift of a butterfly had been a stroke of genius. “You named it after me?” she’d asked, her expression growing soft, her eyes flickering silver.

That was what the wolf in him had been craving. Her approval, her delight. He’d soaked it up. Like a besotted fool, he tended that damned butterfly morning and night, feeding it with a sponge full of sugar water.

And the quiver he’d swiped from the fey? He inwardly grinned. That hadn’t gone unappreciated either.

For nearly two weeks, Garreth had made Lucia his study, continuing to dig into her past. And every day he turned up something new and surprising.

She’d revealed more about the foe Nïx had dispatched her to kill, this Crom Cruach. “Those infected with his influence feel compelled to sacrifice whoever they love, in the most ghastly ways. The more they love something, the more they want to annihilate it. Cruach can control their minds, forcing his victims to see whatever he wills them to. Their eyes turn milky white—that’s when you know they’re lost.”

“How does he do this?”

“His powers as a god. And he grows stronger with each sacrifice in his name. Whenever Cruach’s human followers from the Cult of Death—the Cromites— invoke him, they pray:
To him we sacrifice, for him our cherished.”
She’d said she couldn’t imagine a worse apocalypse—because this one would sweep the world, perverting the purest love and turning it into evil and death.

Lucia was convinced that the dieumort had to be an arrow. Now he’d become convinced as well. If one could be infected by Cruach, then it made sense to strike at him from afar.

Garreth planned to. Alone. The more she told him of Cruach, the more Garreth resolved never to let her anywhere near him. But she’d yet to tell him
where
to find the god.

One night after much coaxing, Garreth had gotten her to admit she’d only been with one man. “If you’ve only had sex with one bloke in all this time,” he’d said, “then you must’ve loved him verra much.”

She’d turned away, her face paling.
So that’s the way of it
. The man had hurt her.

“Or you hated sex so much you would join a celibate order and forgo it for over ten centuries.”

She’d sighed, looking tired, with faint smudges under her eyes. Between her continuing nightmares and his attentions, she hadn’t been enjoying much restful sleep. In fact, it was only toward dawn, once her nightmares had ebbed, that she’d fall into a deeper, nearly comatose slumber. “MacRieve, will you just let it go?”

He’d said he would drop it, but of course he hadn’t. He needed to figure out exactly how bad it’d been for her. And who the male was.
So I can slaughter him—

His phone rang then. It was Lachlain, no doubt calling to see what progress Garreth had made before the looming full moon.
In a word: none.
Still, the call was a welcome distraction.

Garreth answered with, “How goes it with you and the queen?”

“She took me to a mall yesterday.” Lachlain sounded as if he’d just stifled a shudder. “And she pointed to a boy and said, ‘I think I want one.’ So naturally, I start thinking,
Where can I get a wee mortal
? But she meant… she meant a bairn—
our
bairn.”

“You still fear getting a babe on your mate? Again, brother, how delicate can she be if she beheaded Demestriu?”

“Ach! No’ you, too!”

Actually, Garreth couldn’t talk. Before he’d found out the Valkyrie couldn’t get pregnant unless they ate regular meals, he’d planned to take precautions.

“In any case, I dinna call to talk about me. How goes it with your Valkyrie?”

Garreth rubbed his palm over the back of his neck. “I’d been so busy chasing her down that I never stopped to see if I truly
liked
her, had never had the opportunity to discover if I could.”

“And now that you’ve had the opportunity?”

Hesitation. Then he admitted in a low tone, “I
like
her.”
Everything about her.
Each day, he fell deeper under her spell, his graceful, exquisite mate with her dark flashing eyes. “She’s so clever.” The speed with which she was learning Gaelic was uncanny. “And I like that she’s proud.” He’d never thought he would desire such a prideful woman, but now that he’d had a taste of Lucia, he could never settle for less. “And she’s… passionate,” he said in the ultimate understatement.

Lucia was the best bedmate he’d ever conceived of—and they hadn’t even had sex. She brought him greater pleasure than he’d ever known, but released only the worst of the pressure—because she stoked his need beyond imagining.

“And does the Valkyrie return the sentiment?” Lachlain asked.

“I want her more than I’ve ever coveted anything—but I know she’s no’ mine. She holds herself away from me, keeps secrets. I fear she always will.”

Garreth had told her, “We need to talk about what will happen once we complete this mission.” She’d given him a cagey look and said, “Can’t we just keep our focus on that for now?” He’d asked her to confide in him, asked her what her nightmares were about. She’d refused to tell him.

“You’ve got to give her a free rein,” Lachlain said. “She’s made up her own mind about things for over a millennium—she will no’ take kindly to an overbearing male.”

“Aye, I ken that.” He exhaled. “If Lousha and I are fated, then why is this so difficult?”

“Everybody says the mate phenomenon makes the bonding easier. In my mind, it usually only brings grief, at least at first. Especially if a mate is
other
. Bowen and I could no’ be more content with our mates, but we each went through hell to get her.”

Hell.
I’m there right now.
Restlessness weighed on him. He wasn’t running at night, wasn’t providing for his mate, and could find no threat to protect her from.

“You’re still no’ bedding her?” Lachlain asked.

“Nay,” he said, then added in a mutter, “Everything but.” With each storm, he was taking her back to their cabin. But even when it hadn’t been raining, he was tempted, barely stopping himself from it.

He’d grown so desperate he wouldn’t have cared if Lucia’s lightning struck all around them on a cloudless day.

And when they were in bed together, he was only just keeping his promise to her. Claw marks riddled the cabin wall from the times he’d struggled not to take her, when his shaft had prodded right at her tight core—and instead of fighting him, she’d moaned,
“Please…”

Each time he somehow found the strength to deny her, he resented her vows more and more. “I’m trying to be patient,” he told Lachlain now, “trying to respect her beliefs, but I doona know how much longer I can do this.”

“What will happen tonight?”

“Unless I can get her to accept me, I’ll be praying the cuff holds true…” His voice trailed off. Garreth scented her desire. And rain on the air. He turned to Lucia, found her gazing at him with expectation. “I’ve got to go!”

“Why, what’s happening?”

Garreth said, “Ah, brother, a storm’s coming!”

By midafternoon, once they were both spent, Garreth petted her hair, gently sifting his fingers through it, watching fascinated as the lamp light played off the strands.

“Your eyes turned completely blue,” she said, her voice drowsy. “Is it because the full moon is tonight?”

When he nodded, she said, “The cuff will work?”

“Aye. It’s working.” Because already his reaction would’ve been much stronger.

“Tell me more about the beast inside you, about turning.”

“It’s like a possession. When we turn, we call the transformation
saorachadh ainmhidh bho a cliabhan
—letting the beast out of its cage. Think of it as four different levels of turning. Say I got into a heated dispute. I’d feel the beast stirring inside me—like it’s waking. If I felt rage, it’d make my claws flare, my fangs sharpen. And lust to mark a mate?” He raked his gaze over her. “It’d take over my body. I’d still be there, still remembering all, comprehending everything, but the beast is definitely in control. To fight it would take a will that few are known to possess.”

“What’s the fourth level?”

“It’s the worst—turning so much that you canna come back. If one of our kind canna handle some experience, something that’s too hard to take, the beast rises too much, maddening its Lykae host forever. He’d never revert from his animal state.”

“What happens then?”

“He’d have to be locked away in our dungeons,” Garreth said. They should have known something was amiss with Bowen’s first “mate”—since he’d still been able to carry on after he thought she’d died…. “That’s why we doona change others into our kind—anyone newly made would have to learn to control the beast, a process that takes decades, if it works at all. We’d be forced to imprison them for all that time before we could even think of freeing them.”

“Change others, like Rossiter.”

“Exactly,” Garreth said, not
un
moved by the mortal’s plight. “He’s no’ out of the game yet. Maybe he’ll find his orchid—or a pretty immortal who does no’ follow Lore rules….”

As the rain poured outside, they talked of other things, plotting what would happen tomorrow night when they arrived at Rio Labyrinto. With each stroke of her hair, her lids grew heavier, her expression soft and sleepy, until she finally drifted off.

Now he lay beside her with his head propped in his hand, lightly grazing his fingers up and down her sleek back. He exhaled, simply savoring the luxury of having her with him, in his bed, in his life.

But she didn’t trust him. And that pained him.

When she whimpered, his brows drew together. Again, she suffered nightmares, her low cries building with the tempest brewing outside.

She was of a warrior race, and yet she was terrified, speaking in some old Norse tongue he didn’t understand.

Who the hell had hurt his woman? Why did she refuse to tell him? His claws dug into his palms as he fought to control the beast within him, the beast that needed to punish any fuck who’d given her pain.

THIRTY-TWO

When Crom had asked Lucia to come with him and leave Valhalla, she’d eagerly agreed, though she’d known that once a Valkyrie left that plane, she could never return.

Lucia was sixteen and in love. Nothing, not her godparents’ warnings or Regin’s pleading, could dissuade her. She’d wedded Crom with no reservations, despite his strange customs—they couldn’t touch whatsoever until after they’d been married, and they had to wed in a bizarre stone temple with robed strangers all around.

At the altar, after they’d been joined forever, she’d turned to her beloved. And he’d vanished. In his place was one of the strangers with a raised club. He’d struck, knocking her unconscious.

Too late, Lucia had learned that Crom Cruach had never even been at the portal. Instead, he’d been trapped in a fetid lair in the earth, projecting the image of the fair-haired young man.

For as long as she’d been watching the sky, Cruach had been watching her. He’d needed a bride born of gods to beget heirs on, and like so many deities, he could project illusions for women he wanted to seduce.

When Lucia had awakened, she’d been trapped in his prison with her fair-haired man standing over her. Only then had Cruach unveiled his true self to her. His beautiful face had fallen away, revealing the Broken Bloody One.

A cloven-footed monster, Cruach clad himself in scraps of metal strung together, taken from his slaughtered victims’ proud shields or armor. On his massive head, stringy white hair hung sparsely around horns that jutted up like giant splayed fingers. His face was ghoulish, his eyes yellow, slitted with red and running with pus.