Embrace Me at Dawn (Doomsday Brethren #5)

Storming over to the pair, his gaze darted between Shock and Anka, the kick in his gut reminding him that because Anka hadn’t spoken the Binding to him, she was free to do anything she wanted with Shock. Anything at all. Succumb to every lascivious, raunchy, wicked demand the wankstain had.

Fuck, Lucan felt sick to his stomach. Anka claimed to love him. He was the mate of her heart. She would give birth to his youngling. And yet…she’d disappeared into a bedroom with her former lover.

“What’s this?” He stared at Anka, willing her to speak some truth that wasn’t going to kill him. Instead, her legs crumpled under her, and Lucan lunged to catch her in his arms as she fell to the floor. He turned to Shock with an accusing glare. “What the fuck did you do?”

The other wizard’s face closed up immediately. “Don’t panic, Sir Galahad. She’s all right. I told her to lie down. Stubborn witch doesn’t listen.”

“How do you know she’s fine? What did you do to her, damn it?”

Shock growled. “I said she’s all right already.”

“I don’t care what you said. This whole ‘he who must not be fucked with’ persona might scare others. Me? I don’t give a shit what you think you can do to me. If you threaten her—”

“After everything I’ve done for her, you can accuse me of that with a straight face?”

Lucan unclenched his fists. Slowly, he backed away. Shock would never harm Anka. He cared. He might even need her in some odd way. Or at least Bram had hinted as much. Bram might be a scheming prat, but he was a smart one. But Anka’s safety wasn’t Lucan’s only concern.

“That doesn’t mean you didn’t slide her between your sheets,” he snapped.

But Sabelle had mentioned just minutes ago that Shock arrived at the manor brimming with energy. Lucan saw no hint of Anka’s energy in Shock’s signature now.

“I wish.” Shock hadn’t touched her, and his expression said that he sorely wished otherwise. “Don’t I fucking wish. But you won that battle, so back the fuck off.”

“Sorry.” Lucan was forced to admit he’d been wrong. He sighed, cradling Anka against his chest. “What’s wrong with her, then? Did something happen?”

Shock grimaced. “No. Really, give her ten. She’ll be right as rain. Where’s Bram been? I need to talk to him. Mathias is getting antsy.”

Before Lucan could stop it, his memory flashed a picture of heading down to the dungeon with Bram to talk to Rhea.

The other wizard snarled in his face. “What did they discuss?”

Lucan intentionally blanked his mind. “Does Mathias care about Rhea much?”

“Mathias doesn’t give a piss about anyone.”

As he’d suspected. “Then there are no worries.”

“Fucking wanker,” Shock muttered and stalked off, jogging down the stairs in his leathers.

Lucan watched him go with mixed feelings. He didn’t like Shock, or trust him much, but the way he’d behaved with Anka proved that when he was loyal, he was loyal to the core. Too bad they couldn’t transfer some of that allegiance to the Doomsday Brethren. They could use someone fearless and reliable with connections to both sides.

There would probably be a month of full moons before that happened.

Anka roused in his arms, her dark lashes fluttering up over her amber eyes. When she realized where she was, or more precisely who was holding her, she gasped. “Where’s Shock?”

“Gone downstairs. What were you doing with him?” Lucan tried to keep the accusation out of his voice, but feared that he was falling miserably short.

She squirmed in his arms until he set her on her feet, carefully keeping her near in case she needed his support. Anka hesitated in answering him for such a long time, Lucan feared that she’d refuse to speak at all. Yeah, so much for honesty. Finally, she drew in a resigned breath.

“I can’t tell you that. And I’m sorry, truly. He’s kept my secret since my childhood. In exchange, I agreed to keep his. I chose to tell you and the others mine so that I was no longer deceiving you and I could be helpful to the Doomsday Brethren. But I can’t divulge his, not even to you. I owe him too much. If you’re angry with me and can’t accept that, I’m sorry.”

The speech stunned him, and he watched, open-mouthed, as she headed for the stairs on wobbling legs. Jolted into action by her unsteady gait, he jogged to her and made her hold the rail with one hand. He gripped her other arm.

He tried not to feel shut out, betrayed. It didn’t work. Instead, he focused on getting her downstairs safely. Then they’d have a nice row.

“You’re not steady enough to fight tonight.”

She didn’t look at him, didn’t pause. “I’ll be all right. Surely Shock told you that.”

And he was simply supposed to trust Shock? Lucan scrubbed a hand down his face. “Yes. But Anka, after everything that’s happened, you’re asking me to just…believe him?”

Anka paused, her pale curls swinging over her breasts, still tightly encased in a T-shirt. “No. I’m asking you to believe me. And to trust that I know I’m going to be perfectly well to fight. You want me to trust you, but you have to do the same in return. If you can’t trust me to be truthful about that …” She blinked up at him with such regret in her eyes, his heart lurched. “I love you, but maybe it’s best that I didn’t speak the Binding.”

Bram called everyone back to the dining room to await Mathias so they could ostensibly share the plan with him. Anka fidgeted in her seat. Lucan sat beside her in silence, scowling at his former best friend—before turning his silent glower on her. Clearly he didn’t like what she’d said earlier, but she couldn’t take it back. She wouldn’t even if she could. She owed Shock too much, and Lucan had to understand that. If he didn’t…God, she couldn’t be caught between them again, forced to choose. It hurt too much.

The more Bram talked—Anka wasn’t listening as she should—the more Shock looked ready to crawl across the table and throttle him. In fact, Shock and Lucan might not agree about much, but it was clear they both violently hated Bram’s insistence that Mathias go with them to the site where Merlin had hidden Morganna’s killing potion. But Bram overruled them. Without Mathias, there was no way to know if the potion was still in its place.

Lucan turned to her during a lull in the conversation around the table. “Are you truly all right to fight tonight?”

“Of course.” She was nervous, but she refused to burden him with that. But she had fully recovered from her few minutes with Shock.

“Anka…” The warning in his voice couldn’t be mistaken. “Don’t lie.”

Honesty. Right. She couldn’t forget that. “I’m worried. Every time Mathias comes near me, I break out in a cold sweat and freeze. I fear that I won’t remember my part in time. Or that he’ll know he can take advantage of my fright. I don’t want to be the weak link.”

“I’ll be there with you. I won’t let you falter.”

“I’d give my life, Anka.” Shock’s voice was a low rumble across the table. Clearly, he didn’t give a shit who heard him. “You know that.”

She gave them both smiles that she meant to be reassuring. She did feel loads better knowing they would be nearby. But she also knew that she had to stand on her own two feet and not let Mathias intimidate her. She would not be the one to deliver him any blows once he double-crossed them, but she’d get to play a role. That would have to be enough. Lucan and the others would carry through with the plan, and if it went off without a hitch, they would hopefully rid magickind of its worst villains and they could live safely and happily ever after.

“Any other questions about the plan?” Bram demanded.

No one said a word.

“Perfect. Does everyone remember what to—”

A chilling magical chime rang over the room. Anka gasped. She knew exactly who that belonged to.

“Mathias?” Sabelle asked.

Bram grimaced. “The arsehole is early. Why?”

Good question. She looked over at Shock, who merely shrugged.

“Can’t you read his mind?” Lucan demanded.

“Not without him knowing. He’s adept. There are consequences.”

In other words, Shock would be exposed as a Brethren sympathizer? Anka frowned, wishing for once that she could read Shock’s mind herself. He’d let her in on most of his deepest secrets…but he’d kept more than a few for himself.

At her thought, he raised a brow over his shades, but didn’t say a word.

Pushing back his chair with a curse, Bram rose to admit Mathias. Anka wanted to tackle the unscrupulous bastard, scratch and scream and punch him with her bare fists until she beat him to a bloody pulp. Her rage at his atrocities hadn’t gone away, and she didn’t know how to make the searing pool of acid in her soul stop boiling, how to look forward, rather than back. The youngling in her belly was months away. It hadn’t yet made her sick or kicked in her womb to serve as a physical reminder of her “delicate” state. But Mathias and her need for vengeance were right here, right now. She felt that pounding strongly inside her.

Lucan caressed her arm, the sweep of his palm soothing. “Relax. Don’t let him know that he bothers you or he’ll only use it to get under your skin.”

“I can’t help it,” she whispered. “I want to kill him!”

“You think I don’t?” he challenged. “I’d love to cut off his balls, shove them down his throat, and watch him slowly choke to death. But the time will come. You will not go unavenged. Trust me.”

Bram returned with Mathias, and Anka wanted to slap the smarmy smile off of his deceivingly handsome face. He gave a jaunty wave to the gathering as a whole, seemingly amused when every mated male dragged his female a bit closer, Lucan included.

Mathias sent a questioning stare Shock’s way. “Fancy meeting you here.”

“Imagine that,” Shock quipped.

Then Mathias’s gaze settled on her, following Lucan’s arms wrapped around her.

“I see congratulations are in order. You and MacTavish are going to have a youngling. Isn’t that fortunate?”

Anka bristled. Mathias had some trick up his sleeve. He always did.

“You’re early,” Bram said.

“You’ll understand that I’d like to know a bit more about our mission here today before we go.”

“We’re going to retrieve the potion. I suspect Morganna is watching that location, waiting for us to make a move. We have all the necessary elements now, so we’ll venture there together. I’ll be bringing Marrok, Caden, Ice, Sabelle, and Lucan for backup. They’ll watch over us as we retrieve the potion.”

“Sabelle?” Mathias slid his gaze over to Ice. “Teaching your mate to fight, then? She’s so delicate. Aren’t you worried that she can be easily broken?”

Ice’s scowl shouted that he was ready to crawl across the table and rip off the wicked wizard’s head. “I’ll have her back, rest assured.”

“And I’ll have Anarki at the ready.” Mathias smiled, as if he knew that provided no comfort whatsoever and he liked that fact.

“Once we’ve retrieved the potion, we must make sure Morganna imbibes it. We’ve no idea when and where she will be,” Bram lied. “But when we find her, we’ll have to do what we must to force it down her throat.”

No one breathed a word about Bram’s vision, about Morganna awaiting them at the site.

“Of course. Since we’ll be retrieving the potion today, does that mean the lovely Anka has finally confessed her true origins? You were all daft not to see it before, you know.”

“Excuse us for not having any experience with banshees.” Bram bristled. “And if you knew, you might have given us a clue.”

Mathias shrugged. “That was my test, to see if you would figure out all the clues and keep up your end of the bargain.”

“We couldn’t do anything without you,” Anka pointed out. “There are no more children of Nimue, just as there are almost no washerwomen left in existence. We must work together.”

“That is true. And Bram, being a most noble Rion of the great Merlin’s bloodline, did as promised and contacted me. We’ll work together well, I’m sure. Under one condition.”

Anka longed to tell Mathias to shove his condition and go straight back to hell, but they still needed him. And this plan might seal the evil bastard’s fate. That would be worth any discomfort she might endure now.

“What?” Bram snapped.

“When we retrieve the potion, I think you should give it to me.”

Marrok snorted. “’Tis far too convenient to leave such with you. Why should we do something so daft, you swag-bellied miscreant?”