by Kresley Cole
"I doona like that you have your secrets."
"Secrets?" Her tone was innocent, but she did keep secrets from him—many of them.
For instance, she couldn't seem to give up going to the mirror, no matter that he'd told her how much it bothered him or how happy he made her. She'd figured out that if the reflection answered only so many questions in a session, then she needed to have as many sessions as possible.
And she hadn't told him that night after night she'd experienced bizarre dreams, so vivid and realistic that when she woke she had trouble differentiating between what was real and what was not.
In one dream, she stood in a shapeless plane of unbroken black. Mari saw her mother, weeping with the palms of her hands pressed against her eyes. Her father was lying on a stone slab, motionless, his eyes closed, his hands in fists.
Other times, she dreamed of a thousand voices begging her to hurry—but to do what, she didn't know. And sometimes, on this balmy, breeze-kissed island, she dreamed of a snow-covered forest with no leaves, the limbs thick with ravens...
Yet even with her misgivings and her secrets, Mari continued to fall for her strong, proud werewolf more and more each day. She had a good feeling about Bowen.
So why don't I get a good feeling about us?
"You're holding back from me, too," she finally said.
He was. Bowe hated that she'd had a first love, and feared she'd never be completely his because of it. And always there was the apprehension that he would somehow lose his mate again. She couldn't turn immortal quickly enough to suit him.
"Maybe I'm suspicious of this because it is so good," he answered honestly. "I suppose I'm so used to being miserable that any deviation unsettles me."
"Is it so good?" she asked quietly.
Even with lingering doubts, he'd never known contentment like this before her—hadn't known it existed. "Aye, lass. It is for me."
Aside from the witchery, he liked everything about his new mate. He liked the fact that, for some reason, when they went lobster fishing, she would exclaim, "We are on the crab, baby!" He liked that she ate, drank, and played with gusto. Her sense of humor had him laughing every day.
Making love to her fulfilled him in ways he'd never imagined.
He was even growing used to her small magicks. When she slept, if she was content, light thrummed in her wee palms as though she purred, and sometime during their stay here the sight had gone from unnerving him to... charming him, making him grin down at her.
And occasionally bizarre things occurred. Last night he'd woken to find that everything in the room, from curtain to wall clock, had briefly turned blue. He'd shrugged, tucked her close, and gone back to sleep.
Yet though she'd promised not to chant to the mirror, his Instinct continued to warn him.
—Her power is unstable. Be watchful.—
He shook off his misgivings. "It is good. And I think it will only get better. For instance, I believe you'll like visiting"—living in—"Scotland." He hoped she would approve of their home, but if not, he'd buy her whatever she needed to be happy. And he hoped she would get along with his cousins and the clan—though if anyone so much as contemplated slighting her because of what she was, he'd throttle them.
"What's your place there like?"
"It's a renovated hunting lodge with oversize fireplaces and immense beams in the ceiling. In the winter the snow comes, and it's surreal. Some nights it falls in silence, and some nights the storms howl and throw down blankets."
"It sounds wonderful. I've never seen snow."
"What?" he bit out, astounded. "Never?"
"There's not much snowfall in Nola. And the only time I've been out of the country before this was to Cancún for spring break. Guatemala was the first time I'd ever seen mountains."
"Do you want to see other countries?"
"If I can get there by big plane, with proper sedation, then I'd love to."
"I could take you places I've been. Show you things."
"Like where?"
"We could drink wine across Italy and go diving off the islands of Greece. We could watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean."
Eyes wide with excitement, she nodded up at him.
"I want to show you everything, watch your expression with each new sight." Over the last two weeks, when he'd realized how many things he wanted to do with her, he'd found that the need to have bairns was dimmed. Now he had a thousand places to take her before they settled down. "I'd be an excellent guide for you."
She grinned. "My man's so modest."
"But in the winter, I want to take you home to Scotland." He gazed at her and he knew he would see her in his country, walking the land beside him. And his heart was glad. "Snow would become you, lass."
45
"Do you remember where I put the cast net?" Bowe called to Mariketa. He wanted to catch her favorite fish for tonight. If she was to turn soon, he had to keep her well fed, ensuring she didn't lose a single ounce of her curves. He could admit that he was developing a wee obsession with her shapely little body.
She always knew where he put everything, from his boat keys to his wallet to his favorite lure. He was beginning to wonder what he'd done without her for the last millennium.
Just as she rushed around the corner and said, "Not in there!" he opened the hallway closet door.
Inside, a garbage bag turned over; apples thudded to the floor, the area thick with them.
He backed away, chilled to his bones. "What's the meaning of this, Mariketa?"
She rubbed her foot against the back of her other ankle. "I wish I could say this isn't what it looks like, but... it is."
"How many times have you gone to the mirror?"
She shrugged. "Count the apples if you want to know."
"You lied to me. You hid this, sneaking around."
"You forced me to."
"What does that mean?"
"You want me to give up magick, but it's a part of me that I can't deny."
"No, you can shed yourself of it if you try. Practicing is a choice."
"Then sacrifice something dear for me," she said, a challenge in her tone.
"Like what?"
"Like... hunting. Never hunt and run the night again."
"You're mad."
"It's equivalent!"
"No, it's no'. Hunting does no' harm other people."
"Yet you assume I'm going to?" She narrowed her eyes. "I know Lykae are mistrustful of witches, but there must be more to this deep a prejudice."
"Aye, there is." He ran his fingers through his hair. "Long ago, a witch... killed five of my uncles. The guilt of their deaths destroyed my father. He was never right, no' up to the day he died."
She gasped, her face paling.
"My da was just a lad at the time and wished that he was stronger than his brothers. She killed them all, granting his wish."
Oh, great Hekate.
"Bowen, I am so sorry that happened to your family. But you should have told me this sooner."
"Why?"
"Because you're not going to just get past this." After this revelation, she had to question if she'd ever had a shot with him. "And we dance around the issue, but now I know you will never tolerate my coven. And they won't accept you because you won't respect the responsibilities that I have."
"Let someone else bloody take care of them."
Oh, the idea of surrendering all that responsibility was tempting. When Bowen acted as if the sun and moon revolved around her, Mari caught herself dreaming about doing nothing but traveling the world with him.
Why should she have to be saddled with something she never asked for—and had displayed no talent for?
Yet now, seeing Bowen like this, she recalled Cade's words: "If you turn your back on your destiny—maybe to be a Lykae's browbeaten mate and wife—Fate will not just slight you. She will punish you, over and over."
Mari thought of the prediction once more. Maybe the warrior's seeking to keep her away
from the House wasn't physically. Perhaps she would be so afraid of losing yet another person she cared about that she would sacrifice anything—taking herself out of her coven, away from her calling, from her old life...
"I might like to relinquish them, but I can't turn my back on my destiny. And it's not like I'm saying 'Look at me, I'm such an important badass.' It's more like I'm scared not to assume the mantle. Either way, it has to be done."
"Damn it, what you do is a choice! And I will abide it no longer."
Browbeaten. Her outrage building, she snapped, "Who the hell are you to order me around? Or to make me doubt what I am and what I was put here to do? It's obvious to me that if you can't accept what I am, then I can't be with you."
"Verra well, witch," he grated, his own anger flaring. "You will no' pressure me to change my mind in this!"
"I understand that!" With perfect clarity. He would never change. And she'd be damned if she'd fight a losing battle. "That's why I won't even try," she cried, storming to the bedroom.
Long after she'd passed by them, the pictures in the hallways rocked on the walls from her turbulent emotions.
With a vile oath, he stomped down the stairs, outside to the beach, then ran for hours, until sweat dripped and the sun had set. Could magick possibly be this integral to her? Was it as critical as hunting and running was to him?
When he returned she was deeply asleep, but her palms were dark, and she looked as if she'd been crying. Brows drawn, he felt her pillow. When he found it still damp, he might as well have had a sword plunged through his chest.
Was he doomed to hurt his female again and again? To make her miserable because he was so unlike her—and so resistant to change?
Maybe this entire experience, this reincarnation, was to teach him to be more tolerant. That night in the jungle Bowe had recognized that he would have to change to have Mariketa, and had wondered if he could accept such a haunting female, fully—to learn everything about her, about her kind, and even go among them.
Tonight, he determined that he was going to... try.
He showered, then joined her in bed, pulling her close. In sleep, he dreamed that the field adjacent to the lodge in Scotland had been planted with an orchard of apple trees.
When he woke, Mariketa was up and rushing around the bedroom, though it was still early morning. He rubbed his eyes. "What're you doing?"
"Leaving. I need to get back."
"The hell you are." He shot out of the bed. "Not without me!"
She always ogled him when he was unclothed. Now she turned away as if impatient with him.
When a horn honked outside, Bowe crossed to the window. A water taxi awaited her. The boat driver picked up the bag she'd already set at the end of the pier.
She truly intended to leave him?
"Just give me five minutes to get dressed." He hastily slung on his jeans, then glanced around for his shoes. She always knew where he'd put them.
At the bedroom doorway, she said, "This really is for the best. It's obvious that neither of us can change, and I don't want to spend eternity hiding what I am just to please you."
"Five goddamned minutes, Mariketa!"
"Toxic goddamned relationship, Bowen!" She whirled around, darting from the room. As he charged after her, he spied her flick her hand in his direction. When he reached the threshold of the door, he ran directly into an invisible barrier that shot him back on his arse. "Little bloody witch!" He scrambled to his feet, lunging from one window to another. But she'd sealed all of them and all the doors as well.
Leaving him? He sank to his knees and stabbed his claws into the wood floor. Never. As he ripped, he smiled menacingly. "Ah, witchling, you underestimated your male."
46
Mariketa rolled her eyes when Bowe ducked inside the cabin after taking the steps to the plane two at a time.
The pilot, a short, nondescript—nonhuman—male, drew the door closed behind him, then promptly readied for takeoff. Apparently, they were to be the only passengers.
Bowe loped down the aisle to where she sat, then dropped into a seat beside her. "You ken the pilot's a demon?"
"Yeah, so? Oh, wait, you're prejudiced against them as well."
"With demons you have a fifty-fifty chance of them being rogue."
"He's the one who was supposed to take me back two weeks ago—when I should have returned." Her demeanor was icy. "I thought I made myself clear earlier. Nothing's changed since I left you behind."
"Maybe no' with you."
"What does that mean?"
When the pilot lined up on the runway and revved the twin propeller engines, the plane began to rattle.
"There's something I need to tell you... " Bowe trailed off with a frown at her death grip on the armrest. "Mari, I can hear your heart's going wild—you've got to relax. The noise is normal." This was a typical Carib aircraft—a puddle jumper, and likely, in some runway instances, a goat dodger. "There's nothing to be scared of."
As they gained speed down the runway, the rattling and the whine of the engines increased. "They put wings on a lawn mower," she muttered.
"The trip will only be two or so hours, a mere jaunt." He made his tone confident, but the fact that a demon was in the cockpit vexed him. Perhaps he was prejudiced.
During takeoff she squeezed her eyes tight. He took her hand, and she let him.
Once they'd reached altitude and leveled off, Bowe reluctantly peeled her hand from his and rose. "I'll be right back."
He could tell she wanted him to stay, which heartened him. Maybe he hadn't blown his chances with her. He crossed to the cockpit, opening the cabin door. "Everything all right up here?" he asked the pilot.
"Yessir." His manner was casual, even bored.
"What breed of demon are you? Aye, doona look surprised. I can tell."
"I'm a Ferine."
They weren't the least peaceable demons.
Bowe returned to Mariketa. "Do you have that sat-phone we got on the mainland?"
She took it from the purse at her feet and handed it to him with a questioning glance.
He dialed his cousin. When Lachlain answered, Bowe spoke in Gaelic, expressing his unease about their current situation. "Can you have some men meet us at the executive airport?" he asked. "We could be flying into trouble. Better yet, can you get Emma to help you track this phone? The pilot might not be planning to land in New Orleans at all."
"Why no' take the controls?" Lachlain asked.
"I canna fly a plane—but believe me I'll be able to within a week."
"We'll be there, ready for anything."
Bowe said, "It might be nothing." But if something was happening, he could think of no one he'd rather have in his corner than Lachlain.
"If so, then the worst that happens is that I'll get to meet your witch. I canna wait to regale her with embarrassing stories about you."
Bowe frowned. Lachlain had never offered the same with Mariah.
When he hung up, he saw Mariketa had closed her eyes. She seemed to be doing her damnedest to block out the situation, so he put the phone back and let her be...
Other than a minor squall cropping up, the next hour was uneventful and passed with the same heading. They were closing in on the mainland, yet still he couldn't stem this sense of apprehension.
"Mariketa, I need you to help me with something." When she opened her eyes, he continued, "I dinna want to scare you for no cause, but I canna get past the feeling that the pilot means one or both of us harm."
"Are you trying to push me over the edge?" At that moment, lightning struck just off the port wing, and she jerked with fright.
"No, no, it's probably nothing."
"Then wh-what do you want me to do?"
"I canna believe I'm saying this, but ask that witch of yours, the one in your mirror, if the pilot intends us harm."
"Oh, now you want me to use magick?" she asked, nervously glancing out the cabin window as the storm intensified.
"Just d
o it."
With shaking hands, she drew a compact from her purse. Once she began whispering to the glass—"Must not pass... red mouth to whisper low... "—the reflection turned dark. Bowe just stifled a shudder.
"Does the pilot mean us harm?" she finally asked it.
A moment later, the blood drained from her face; the compact cracked in her grip.
"Mariketa, tell me! What's the answer?"
Eyes blank, she whispered, "The pilot's... gone."
Bowe stormed to the cabin, tearing down the now locked door. Empty inside. The bastard had traced, leaving the yoke mangled and the instrument panel shredded—everything except the fuel gauge.
He'd dumped the gas. demons!
"Wh-why would he leave us?" Mariketa cried from her seat. "Can you drive a plane?"
Bowe ran his fingers through his hair. Think! He searched through every compartment but found no parachutes, which meant there were no alternatives. They were going down unless she could do something.
Bowe could do nothing.
Making his demeanor calm, he returned to her, and in as even a tone as he could manage, he said, "He's bailed on us, lass. And, no, I canna pilot this plane."
Her eyes were glinting, her body trembling. "We're gonna crash?"
"No, no, it does no' have to be," he said, even as rain pounded the windshield when they began to lose altitude in the storm. "You said the reflection teaches you things? Spells and conjuring?" When she nodded, he said, "Somehow we've got to get you off this plane. Do you think you could ask that mirror how to teleport yourself out of here?"
"What about you?" she cried, having to raise her voice over the growing whine of the engines.
As an immortal, he might live. She didn't have a chance. "Worry only for yourself—"
She cried out when the plane dipped sharply, flinging him across the aisle. Her seat belt was the only thing keeping her in place. He scrambled back to her. "Focus, Mari, and ask it how you get off this plane."
"I'm trying!" Tears began streaming down her face, each one a knife to the heart.
He rubbed her arm. "Come on, lass, focus for me."
"I can't hear her whisper over the engines! I don't know what she's saying!" When Mariketa gazed up at him, her pupils were dilated beyond anything he'd seen. "Bowen, I can't hear her."
