Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night (19 page)

“It looked like you.” In a diabolical way. “If you doona know what it is, then how do you know it will no' harm you?”

She attempted a shrug.

He exhaled. “How am I to protect you if you do things like this?” That was one of the reasons he detested magick so much—it was an enemy he couldn't see, couldn't understand, and couldn't defend against. He comprehended nothing about that rhyme, or why he himself had reacted so strongly to it. “I doona suppose you have any idea about what you canna know?”

“No. No idea.” Her gaze flickered over his face.

When her eyes didn't appear witchy, they were so damned lovely. Fringed with thick black lashes, they were gray like fierce storm clouds—and as intense as everything else about her. He felt as if she was
supposed
to look up at him like this. The pull of the Instinct was strong, making him feel he'd done right to protect her and now was rewarded by having her safe in his arms.

The need to kiss her suddenly became critical. . . .

“Oh, not again!” She tried to wriggle out from under
him, which only made his erection grow harder. When her lips parted on a breath, he knew she'd felt it pulse against her.

“I'll put you across the cave, MacRieve.”

In a flash, he pinned her wrists behind her back. “I doona believe you can, no' with your hands like this.” He eased to her side and used his free hand to begin slowly unbuttoning the shirt.

“What do you think you're do—” She broke off with a little moan when he raised his knee and firmly pressed his thigh between hers, languidly moving it against her sex.

With an openmouthed kiss on her collarbone, he pulled the shirt open, one side then the other, but he fumbled at unclasping her transparent bra from the front. This was partly because he had no experience with modern female undergarments, but also because he couldn't stop staring as her nipples budded right before his eyes, jutting against the gauzy material.

He finally sliced the front clasp with his claw. By the time he brushed the material over the tight peaks, her breathing had grown hectic, making that bared flesh rise and fall so temptingly.

Just when he was about to touch her, she struggled again, and her breasts quivered. His voice rough, he said, “Ah, beauty, now you're just showin' off.”

She stilled, her face and chest flushing hotly.

Leaning down to her nipple, he said, “I've heard rumors about bedding witches, heard that if you can close your lips around one of these, the witch will be slave to your hands.”

“I'm not a sla— oooh.” She arched her back sharply when he licked and sucked at her.

He moved to her other breast, flicking the tip with his
tongue. When he saw she hadn't closed her eyes but was raptly watching him, he groaned against her.

Though he burned to rip off her panties and plunge between her thighs, he forced himself to slow his touch, gentling her. Her piercing caught his eye, and he brushed the backs of his fingers over it, making her jerk in reaction. “I've thought of this often over the past weeks. Kissing you all around it, flicking it with my tongue.” He knew his words were arousing her even more, could scent how wet she was for him.

“I don't want this,” she said with a shiver, her eyes heavy-lidded.

He rubbed his hand up her side and she flexed to it. “You're saying these words, but your body's telling me something altogether different.”

“You're wrong.”

“I have no' had sex in nearly two centuries, nor any kind of release in three weeks. And the last time I handled myself, I was dreaming about your body beneath mine in just this way. This would be enough to madden a male, but then to know you're aroused for me, too?”

“I am
so
not turned on for you.”

“Lie about other things, but no' about this. You forget I'm a Lykae—I can scent you're aroused, and it's making me crazed. If I stroked you between your thighs, I'd find you wet, would I no'? You
ache
to be sated.”

“Maybe. But not by you, MacRieve.” She shook her head hard, and her eyes narrowed. “
Never
by you.” She appeared utterly unflinching. “Get off me, or I'll scream.”

Apparently, the young witch could deny her desire for her enemy.

At that moment, he wished he had that talent.

M
acRieve ran his hand over his mouth. At length, he drew away from her, sitting back against the cavern wall, one knee raised.

Pulling the shirt back together, she sat up as well, then waited long moments until he finally said, “I am weary, Mariketa. So damned weary. I've suffered for long enough without this added torment from you.”

“Oh, I'm tormenting you because I won't sleep with you?”

“I've got a force inside me—a strong one—screaming that you're mine. Just tell me, are you making me want you like this?”

She bit her lip—she didn't know! “You really think there's a chance I could be your . . . mate? You only get one.”

“There might be ways around that,” he said in an impassive tone. “I will no' be angry if you admit to any trickery now.” At her expression, he amended, “I'll be ireful, but it will blow over. I doona hold grudges.”

When she looked away without answering, he exhaled. “Mariketa, have you ever felt your way was lost? So bewildered you dinna know up from down any longer?”

Right now.
She was bewildered by this sudden change in his demeanor, and found herself nodding.

“I have no'.
Ever
. My path has always been clear to me. Everything in black or white. Now, nothing is as it was.”

“Like what?”

“Like how I was dreaming of you every night and fantasizing about you in the days I was out there fighting to get my mate back.” Seeming ashamed, he glanced away, and the firelight cast his profile in shadow. “The pain from my injuries was nothing compared to my guilt.” He gave a bitter laugh. “
Always
the bloody guilt. You canna understand what it's like to feel
nothing
—nothing but that.”

He stood and paced. Almost to himself, he said, “Or what it's like to know you're no' whole and never will be.” He ran his fingers through his hair, then stopped to meet her eyes. “Then with you, everything looks different—feels different—and I . . . damn it, Mariketa, I
want
it. So bloody much.”

He crossed to her, clasped her upper arms, and pulled her to her feet. Gazing down at her, his voice breaking low, he said, “Doona bring me back to life only to destroy me once more.”

The depth of pain and confusion in his expression shook her. And even after everything, she felt sympathy for him. “Look, what if I tell you everything that I know—only the truth—and you can decide what's going on? I'll lay it all out there for you, because I don't understand it.”

He gave her a quick nod, then released her arms to lead her back by the fire. As if he was her host, he waved her to sit on the pallet. When she did, he eased his towering frame down, sitting to face her.

“Okay, MacRieve, I can vow to the Lore that I did not consciously set out to make you believe I'm your mate. I
have
never
enchanted anyone. My friends could work over their teachers from the first grade on, but I never had that ability.”

He began to have a hopeful light in his eyes, so she hastily added, “But then I was never a seeress until the tomb either.” At his questioning look, she explained, “In any coven, there are members from each of the five castes of witches. That's why we stick together, because the collective whole is so strong. Well, I'm supposed to have powers from all five castes—the powers of a warrior, conjurer, seeress, enchantress, and healer—but I haven't been able to tap into or harness any of them. Then tonight, I somehow knew you were coming. So there's the seeress part. When I attacked you and killed the incubi, there was the warrior. Just now, I conjured that reflection.”

“And you healed yourself as well. If you enchanted me, you've done five out of five.”

When she nodded, the obvious hope in him grew dimmer. “Then what about the night of the Hie assembly?”

She frowned. “I did
nothing
that night.”

“If you did nothing, then why could I no' take my eyes from you? There was a bloody vampire in the area, one I'd fought, and still I was struggling with everything I was to keep an eye on him and no' to stare at you.”
And he's up . . .

When he crossed his arms over his chest with a knowing nod, she blurted out, “The night we kissed, I did will you to want me as fiercely as I wanted you—I consciously did it, and even then I worried that I was
enthralling
you!”

Instead of looking discouraged, he appeared pleased with her. “So you wanted me
fiercely
?”

She felt her cheeks heating. “That was then, and this is now, MacRieve. And think about it, if I was ever going to
successfully spellbind anyone, it'd be you—you're like a lightning rod for my powers.”

“So I'm unique to you, too. Maybe I'm to help you in some way?”

She ignored that and heedlessly continued. “It might not even have been you I truly wanted. The night that you saw me without my cloak, the damage was done. Maybe I was just taking advantage of the situation—”

“What do you mean by
damage
? And why
did
you wear the cloak and glamour?”

Tell him everything. Let him make sense of it.
She exhaled and muttered, “It was predicted that a warrior from the Lore would recognize me as his mate—”

“A
warrior
from the
Lore
?”
And he's up again!
“Then it's me!”

Gods, he has the sexiest grin.
He always appeared so bitter, so grim, yet then, with one heart-stopping curl of his lips, his entire countenance changed, his amber eyes growing warm.

“It must be me, lass.”

“But this could merely be a trick! You do recognize me as your mate, true, but that doesn't mean you should or even that it's real. I could very well have enthralled you. Some witches only have to recognize that they want something, and then, all of a sudden, it's theirs. That could have happened.”

“And yet you believe that you could have left behind that enthrallment when you took the mortality curse away? You were weak and nigh out of your head with fatigue and injuries. You canna look me in the eyes and say you would be capable of removing one without the other.”

When she pursed her lips, he raised his eyebrows.

She looked away and said, “Maybe not in the past—”

“Did you feel another of your hexes?”

After a moment, she shook her head.

“And you dinna do anything to me at the Hie. If you had no' had your glamour on that night, I would have recognized your scent then.”
Way up.

“You're reaching, because you want something definite. You want your black and white. And that's not what you're going to get with me.”

He had a self-satisfied look on his face, a relieved one, that made her want to groan with frustration. “If you're telling me the truth, Mariketa, then there's a chance you truly are my mate.”

“Why would you get two? Are you special?”

“You might be . . . you might be reincarnated.” He frowned. “You doona look shocked.”

“No. My friend Regin has a reincarnate, a berserker who's mad for her and keeps coming back. And he never misses an Accession.”

“Aye, it makes sense that the Accession could fuel these events—
your
reincarnation as well.”

She didn't feel that this was round two for her—wouldn't she sense it in some way? “Was your mate like me? Do we resemble each other? Act alike?”

“You're nothing alike, other than your names and ears. She was fey as well.”

“How did you meet her—by entombing?”

He ignored the last and answered, “I'd known her all her life. After a five-year absence I'd returned to her father's kingdom, and she'd grown into a woman.”

“Wouldn't you have known what she was the minute you met her?”

He shook his head. “No' always. Females of different species often need to reach maturity to trigger the Instinct.”

“I just don't sense this about myself. And that berserker always gets his memories of his previous lives. I don't remember anything like that.”

“You're young still.”

“Say all this is true—”

“It's true.”

“—the fact remains that I don't want you. Even if fate decreed that we had a bond, I definitely don't recognize it. I don't even like you.”

“If we had no bad blood between us, would you . . . like me?”