by Kresley Cole
When she'd made love in the past, Mari had felt that something vital was missing, something she'd feared she couldn't do without for much longer. Now she knew what she'd missed. Intensity. That hectic passion so strong it made good sense—made thought itself—fade to nothing but feeling. He could give that to her.
With the hand gripping her waist, he rubbed his thumb up and down her torso. When he made contact with the small ring at her navel, he drew a quick, surprised breath against her lips.
His shaking hand finally trailed lower...
Aching to touch him as well, she ran her fingers down his broad chest. Just as she reached the waist of his jeans, he began working his fingers into her shorts. Their kiss grew more desperate.
When she thought about them touching each other like this, pleasuring each other, she couldn't prevent her hips from rocking up to his hand. But when her curious fingertips dipped down, and she brushed the broad, slick head of his erection, he jerked as if in shock at the touch, as if she'd seared him.
He grabbed her wrist, seeming to decide if he should pull her hand away or press it against him. "Need this," he finally rasped, forcing her hand into the heat of his jeans to grip his thick shaft. "So damned much."
"Yes!" she cried, feeling him stroking at the lace edge of her panties.
He groaned and reached lower. When he cupped the wet flesh between her legs, he shuddered, thrusting himself into her fist.
Just when she had no doubt they were about indulge in each other, he stilled. Even as his erection throbbed in her grip, and his breaths were ragged, he withdrew his hand from her and shook his head hard. "But canna have it."
Suddenly, he snatched her hand from him, squeezing her wrist so tightly, magick began building in her palm in reflex. His ghostly blue eyes flickered over the light. Then, as if reminded of what she was, he looked disgusted with her. His voice low, he said, "Quit the Hie, witch."
She slowly shook her head. "Not on your life, MacRieve." Not after everything she'd done to get here. And not when the next Hie wouldn't be for another two hundred and fifty years.
His lips were subtly drawing back to bare his lengthening fangs. "Vow you'll quit, or I swear I will make it so you do no' distract me again."
"I wasn't trying to distract you—"
"Bullshite!" He shoved aside the sarcophagus cover she was perched on, jarring her. His hand rooted down, and he plucked out the headdress—a stunning gold and jade piece. "You could almost make me forget what I really want." Fisting his fingers around it, he cast her a menacing smile. They both knew that all he had to do was lift the prize above his heart, and it would travel to Riora, the goddess of the Hie. He raised it, and the headdress disappeared; for a second afterward, Mari felt the magick, clear and true, and smelled the goddess's forest temple halfway around the world.
So easily, Mari had just lost those points—or had had them taken from her.
"Do you really think you can defeat me?" he demanded. "And if no' me, then the Valkyrie or the vampire?"
"A seer predicted Kaderin will lose the Hie for once. This is anyone's game."
He eyed her. "You know why I will win. What do you seek?"
To show everyone! "It's personal," she said instead. "Look, we could team up. The key works twice."
"Team with you? What could you possibly offer me?" The expression he gave her said he was amused by her statement. Her eyes narrowed. He shouldn't be amused.
"I'm not without skills, MacRieve. I won the first two tasks I undertook." Mari could be surprisingly effective for someone who rarely put herself in challenging situations. When she did decide to work for something, she worked hard. In the Hie, she had to work harder merely because she was a mortal. "And I do believe I beat you here."
"Do you have any idea how much I despise witches?"
Many Lorekind did. Witches were feared and mistrusted, used only for their purchased spells. And that disdain had never bothered her so much as it did now. "No, that fact escaped me when you were sticking your tongue in my mouth."
The reminder seemed to enrage him. "You will no' take yourself from the hunt? Then I'll take the hunt from you." He twisted away from her, then charged for the tunnel.
Suspecting what he planned to do, she felt panic—and magick—rising up within her. After a sharp shake of her head, she hurried after him. "Wait, MacRieve!" When she got to the tunnel, he was already climbing out the other end. A concentration of magick built in her palm, and she threw a beam of it at him. Didn't know what she expected...
Though it shot straight as a laser, it just missed him. Once the tunnel was cleared of everything but aftersparks and residual power flares, he leaned down to give her a black look, then disappeared.
Snatching up her lantern, she crawled through that awful space, breaths panicked and sharp, magick cloying about her. Once freed of the tunnel, she dashed down corridors, finally reaching the first anteroom.
The tomb's entryway was at least twelve feet above this chamber's floor. She arrived in time to see him leap the distance, easily clearing it.
As he gazed down at her from the opening, his eyes looked crazed, and she saw he was turning more fully. An image of a furious beast flickered over him. He ducked down, positioning himself under the portcullis. When he raised his hands above him to grip it, she said, "Don't do this, MacRieve."
He hefted the weight—with difficulty, but by himself. Two demons had labored with that feat. And the colossal stone that the three archers had struggled to shove under it? MacRieve simply kicked it away, toppling it from the ledge into the space near Mari.
As if her thoughts of them brought the other competitors, the archers entered the outer chamber, their easy smiles lit in the glow of their lanterns. When the three saw her, they appeared shocked that she wasn't in her cloak. Each gaze locked on her pointed ears. "Mariketa, you're fey, like us?" Tera, the female asked. "It was rumored at the assembly... "
Tera trailed off when Mari nervously jerked her chin in MacRieve's direction. The archers eased farther inside. In a heartbeat, they'd swung three nocked bows up at him, yet they knew if they shot, he'd drop his burden, sealing them in.
But he's going to do it anyway.
The demons arrived then, quickly comprehending the situation. Their fangs lengthened as they began to turn into their own enraged demon shape.
Their eyes grew black as their skin darkened into a deep red. Their elegantly turned horns, which usually curved out from just past their temples to run along the sides of their heads, now straightened and sharpened into deadly points, the normally shell-like color blackening.
Rydstrom, the older demon grated, "Bowen, think on what you plan." The two obviously knew each other.
Tera murmured to Mari, "Can you get a call out, Mariketa?"
Mari raised her right palm, intending to send a psychic message to her coven. Nothing came. She shoved her palm out again.
When she failed once more, MacRieve laughed at her. His voice sounding like a beast's, he grated, "No' quite so powerful, witch."
Enough. Fury churned in her like she'd rarely known before. She wanted to hurt him, needed to, and suddenly a rare focus came to her wrath, control to her power.
She put her left hand behind her back, and a spine of red light rose up from her palm, taking shape like a dagger. Tera must have seen what she was doing because she sidled up to her and raised her lantern to camouflage the magick's glow.
Building... building...
In a flash, Mari threw the dagger of light overhand. MacRieve appeared shocked at the speed and twisted to dodge it, but it exploded into painless fragments over his heart.
Bull's-eye. Subtle-like.
With a glance down, he smirked, thinking himself safe. "Keep your daggers to yourself, witchling, till they get some bite."
He calmly took one step back... then dropped the stone. As it slammed shut with a deafening boom, a volley of arrows sank into it, too late. Air, rock, and sand rushed over Mari's face, gritting
into her eyes. She heard the elven males yelling with rage as they rushed forward and banged on the wall.
When Mari wiped the sand from her eyes, she blinked, disbelieving what she saw. The elves backed away in silence. Once, long ago, something had leapt up, desperately seeking release from this place.
Deep claw marks scored the back of the portcullis in frenzied stripes.
3
As Bowe slowly backed from the tomb, he was met with silence. He knew that inside they were cursing him, but he wouldn't be able to hear. Much of the pyramidal steps were coated with thick soil and draped with roots and towering trees.
Yet even the jungles surrounding this square perimeter of ruins were quiet.
He continued to gaze at the edifice, finding himself unaccountably reluctant to leave. Part of him wanted to charge back in there and vent more of his rancor at the witch. To his shame, part of him was burning to retrieve her and finish what they'd started together.
He thought back to that moment when the witch had comprehended he was going to seal them in. She'd seemed hurt, and her glamour had flickered.
In that instant, Cade's predatory gaze had darted to her, even in the midst of his killing rage. Divested of her cloak, comely Mariketa had seized the demon's attention. His brother Rydstrom, too, had done a double take.
Bowe had been surprised to find that the two demons Mariketa had mentioned were ones he knew. He had a history with the brothers—they'd fought side by side centuries ago—and had noticed them at the assembly, vaguely, when he could drag his eyes from the witch.
He recalled that the demons had been extremely popular with females.
Why in the hell did the idea of either brother with her sit so ill with him? They can have her... With a final look, he turned, loping away to his truck.
Bowe was not immune to a Lykae's marked sense of curiosity, and when he came across the line of the others' vehicles, he decided to investigate the interiors.
Empty bottles of a local beer and crushed cans of Red Bull littered the demons' truck. The archers had water bottles, protein bars, and electronic gadgetry in theirs.
Then came the witch's Jeep. She'd driven these demanding mountain roads—mud coated all the way up to the soft top—alone. And she'd driven them through a hotbed of political unrest and danger. This densely jungled region had been simmering with the threat of war between two human armies—a turf war between an established drug cartel and a sizable band of narco-terrorists. The conflict surely would erupt soon.
What in the hell had she been thinking? The fact that she'd somehow arrived at the same time as the others—and before Bowe himself—didn't matter.
She'd left two maps spread over the passenger seat, both with highlights and copious notes scrawled on them. Four research books lay in the backseat—among them Pyramids & Palaces, Monsters & Masks: The Golden Age of Maya Architecture. Many of the pages were systematically flagged with colored paper clips.
Beside the books, she had a well-worn camouflage backpack. A muddy machete hung from one side of the pack with an incongruous bright pink iPod on the other.
A pink iPod with stickers of cats on it, for all the gods' sakes.
Exactly how young was she? It was possible she'd only recently become immortal, possibly wasn't even over a hundred.
Whatever her age, she obviously was too young and too foolish not to know better than to toy with a powerful, twelve-hundred-year-old Lykae.
And she had toyed with him, had enthralled him to kiss her. Bowen MacRieve despised witches; he did not go out of his mind with desire for them.
His own father had been a victim of one's machinations. Bowe remembered his father's eyes were haunted, even centuries later, as he'd recounted his meeting with a raven-haired witch of incredible beauty—and unspeakable evil.
Angus MacRieve had come upon her at a snowy crossroads in the old country. She'd been wearing a jet black ermine stole and a white gown and had been the most lovely female he'd ever imagined. She'd told him that she'd grant him a wish if he would direct her to a neighboring town. Angus was just seventeen and had wished what he always did: to be the strongest of his older brothers, who picked on him good-naturedly but unmercifully.
The next day, three of them had been crossing a frozen lake they traversed daily. In the dead of winter, the ice had broken and they'd drowned. The day after that, two more brothers had fallen ill with some kind of fever. They'd quickly passed away, though they'd been hale, braw lads.
In the end, the evil witch had granted his wish. Angus was indeed the strongest of them.
Bowe's father would never outlive his debilitating guilt. Because of his actions—inadvertent though they might have been—only two of the Lykae king's seven sons would survive, Angus, and a much younger brother.
Worse, Angus had been sickened to realize he was now the heir, and readily abdicated the position.
That witch had delighted in ruining a mere lad who was not an enemy and hadn't yet raised a sword in anger or aggression.
Witches had no purpose but to spread discord, to engender hatred. To plant destructive seeds in a once-proud family.
To enthrall a male to be untrue for the first time.
Rage engulfed Bowe when he comprehended what he'd just done—with a bloody witch.
He roared, the sound echoing through the jungle, then stabbed his claws into the side of her Jeep, slashing down the length. After puncturing the thick tires and plucking the engine from the chassis, Bowe set to all of their trucks, mangling them until they were useless.
Out of breath, covered in metal slivers, he scowled down at his hands. He could claw through a half-foot plate of steel like it was tinfoil without feeling it.
Yet now he felt... pain. Unfathomable pain.
4
"Witch, he's not coming back," the demon Rydstrom told Mari. "Don't waste your time waiting for him."
The others had been casing the perimeter of the antechamber, testing the strength of the stone floor and walls, but Mari continued to stare at the entrance, bewildered, unable to believe that MacRieve had sealed her in this forbidding place—or that she'd retaliated with one of the cruelest spells a witch could cast on an immortal.
Cade asked Mari, "What did you do to the Lykae anyway?"
She absently murmured, "I've killed him."
Mari glanced away from the entrance when met with silence. "He won't regenerate from injuries," she explained. "Unless he returns to me to have it reversed, the hex will eventually destroy him."
Tierney, who looked to be Tera's younger brother, said, "You made him mortal?"
They all seemed shocked at her viciousness, except for Cade, who as far as she could tell from his demonic countenance, appeared admiring. "Remind me not to piss you off, witch," he said.
She'd heard of Cade the Kingmaker before and knew he was a ruthless mercenary. The soldier of fortune had waged so much war that it was said he could take any throne.
Except the one his older brother had lost.
"So you are as powerful as rumored," Rydstrom said, his features beginning to lose their demon sharpness, returning to normal—yet normal for him was a handsome face marred by a long scar carving across his forehead and down his temple to his cheek. His black irises reverted to a green so intense they'd startled her the first time she'd seen them. Though he was across the room, she still had to raise her head to meet his gaze. Rydstrom was nearing seven feet tall—with all the muscle to match.
"Powerful," Cade said, "and a mercenary like me." He looked her up and down with eyes as green as his brother's, alerting her to the fact that not only was she bare of her cloak, her glamour was faltering. But she just didn't have the energy or desire to resume it. Being recognized as an immortal warrior's mate right now might not be a bad thing. "Fascinating," Cade added in a rough voice.
The two brothers resembled each other very much, except for Rydstrom's scar, and his horns, which had been damaged somehow. Yet their accents were dissimilar. Both h
ad degrees of a British colonial accent, but Cade's sounded lower class. And his bearing was altogether different from Rydstrom's—as if he hadn't been raised a demon royal, or even a noble.
In short, Rydstrom acted like a stalwart king but looked like a ruthless mercenary, and Cade was just the opposite.
Tera angrily adjusted the bow and quiver at her back. "MacRieve must have known Mariketa would use magick to escape, and that you demons would just teleport yourselves outside. With the entryway so high, the three of us can't even try to lift the slab."
Without the ability to lever themselves against the ground, there was no way even the demons, much less the elves, could raise it. As it was, they couldn't even reach it without leaping up.
Tierney looked enraged, his pointed ears flattening back against his blond head. "He must have sought to trap only our kind!"
Rydstrom said, "If I could trace, I would take you from this tomb—I would make sure you were out of the Hie for good, but not by leaving you in this place."
Cade unsheathed and studied his sword—clearly he wouldn't have done the same.
Hild, the quiet third archer, asked, "Why did you say if you could trace?"
"There's a binding placed on Cade and me that makes it impossible to teleport."
Just as Mari decided she shouldn't ask why they'd been bound, Rydstrom smiled gravely. "A coup that didn't quite take, as it were. We were reprimanded for it." His eyes flickered black as he shot a glance at Cade. "Severely."
So that was what they sought in this competition—to go back in time and keep Rydstrom's crown.
"My brother might have been willing to help others," Cade began, "but after seeing what Mariketa did to the Lykae, I bet the witchling will leave us here to rot."
"Is that true?" Rydstrom asked Mari.
Possibly.
"Of course it's not," Tera answered for her. "Mariketa wouldn't leave us any more than we would desert her. She's part fey. Look at her ears. The Hie be damned—somewhere in time, her ancestors are our ancestors."
