Pleasure of a Dark Prince

But it had also sounded like he'd been cut off.

Darting to her feet, Lucia ran her arm over her face and peered around. Sunlight pricked the canopy above, casting strange shadows from the tomb and the lofty statues.

She gazed up, far off in the distance, and saw movement. Yes, up on the levee, perhaps a mile away.

Wait... At first, Lucia didn't believe what she was seeing. Tears made her vision blurry, and the sight was so distant. But her mind vaguely comprehended that the biggest snake she had ever imagined had its rippling green coils wrapped around MacRieve, its face bobbing mere inches from his own.

On its meaty body, black spots looked melted on, like scorched wax dripped over daubs of yellow. Boned ridges flared from its nose, past its slitted eyes, back over its skull.

Anaconda.

Panic jolted through her. MacRieve was in the grip of one of those things. It'd pinned his arms at his sides, squeezing the life from him. Every time he exhaled...

No way for Lucia to climb the rocky rise to the levee in time. Not before the anaconda began... feeding.

Without thought, she dove for her bow and quiver. Nocking two arrows, she aimed - a mile away, into the breeze, have to pierce its eyes or it won't make a dent in a creature that large.

If she missed, she might hit MacRieve, putting him out, taking away any hope he had of fighting.

She swallowed, pulled the string, and tried to slow her heart. Concentrate.... But this is MacRieve! She blinked through tears.

I'm so in love with him.

His head slumped forward. Oh, gods, he wasn't conscious. Release the string, release it!

When the snake began distending its lower jaw - to swallow its prey whole - her fingers relaxed; the bowstring sang. She exhaled in a rush, going weak with fear -

The snake reared up, two arrows jutting from its eye sockets. Then the head collapsed to the ground.

Lucia had... nailed it.

Disbelief. No time to succumb to her shock. With a cry, she sprinted for MacRieve, climbing up the terrain. As she ran, she inwardly chanted, How, how, how? How did I do that?

Once she reached him, she saw the dead creature was still squeezing! Heart racing with panic for MacRieve, she dropped her bow, trying to lift the snake away, but she couldn't budge it. Tractor trailers with Regin were one thing - lifting a snake's dead weight by herself was another.

"MacRieve, wake up!" she cried. Nothing. Peeling off her backpack, she rushed to a young tree, then kicked it at the base, snapping it to the ground. Returning to the snake with it, she jabbed the wood in between its hefty coils, using it as a lever.

She gritted her teeth with effort, hanging bodily from the tree. Again and again, she jabbed and levered. Finally, she heaved the last coil away with a thunk.

After dragging MacRieve far away from the creature, she sank down beside him, cradling his head in her lap. He was unconscious, rattling his breaths, a fine bloody mist spraying from his lips with each exhalation.

"Please, wake up!" His torso was mottled with blood under his skin. Internal injuries. She lifted one of his eyelids. His eye was filled with burst vessels, as red as a vampire's.

But her Scot was an immortal. He'd live through this - he just needed to regenerate. She gingerly eased out from under him, making a pillow of leaves for him.

Once he was resting more comfortably, she started a fire to keep other creatures away, gazing around warily. She was on edge. Yes, she had her bow to protect them - but she scarcely trusted her abilities. Maybe they were gradually fading?

"I've got to know," she muttered. She collected her pack, drawing out her sat-phone. Surprised it was still working, she dialed Nïx.

The soothsayer answered right away. "Lucia! How's your vacay?"

"Eventful. Nïx, you know how you told me I'd have to restrain myself? I... didn't. MacRieve and I - "

"You tagged him? You marked his teeth with your neck?"

"Uh, yeah. But here's the thing. I think I can still shoot."

Nïx said, "Of course you can. Are you fishing for compliments? Fine." As if reciting, she said, "Lucia the Archer, you are the best. You are unmatched in skill, peerless in all of the world - "

"Nïx! I had sex. Skathi vowed she'd revoke my powers."

The soothsayer made a dismissive sound. "Oh, that? She took them back weeks ago."

"What are you talking about?"

"Didn't I tell you? Yes, it seems Skathi wasn't on board with your mission to unearth the god killer."

"You mean I've had... no ability this entire time?"

"No mystical ability."

"That can't be right. For the last two weeks, I've made incredible shots. Now I can still shoot as well as I ever could."

"Well, naturally." Nïx sounded puzzled. "You practiced for over a millennium."

"Practice wouldn't make me peerless in all the world! Look how hard Tera the Fey trains, and I still outshoot her."

"Maybe you got the talent genetically? Your mom could've been Robina Hood for all we know, you impish wittle mutt."

"Robina Hood?"

"Or it could be - hey, here's an idea - the fact that your other two parents are gods. Hello? You're a Valkyrie, the daughter of Freya and WȮden. The last I checked, we don't suck at anything."

"This ability is all mine?"

"It wasn't in the beginning. But it is now. The pain Skathi 'gifted' you with to make you remember was actually teaching you. Teaching you all of her tricks."

Just as everyone had always assumed. "I can't believe this. Are you sure?"

"Skathi didn't teach you to track or give you that ability, yet you're an expert at that as well."

I am. I learned to be. "And Skathi couldn't have told me this would happen?" Lucia felt as if she'd been slapped.

"Oh, she didn't know what an apt pupil you'd be. Had no idea you could grow to be as good as she is."

"No idea?" Yes, slapped - bitchslapped by the goddess of the hunt. "Then she believed I was going on a quest with no defense?"

"What a whore!" Nïx agreed. "She's one of the gods who thought you should offer yourself up to Cruach to appease him, rather than uncover the dieumort."

Appease Cruach. Despite the fact that Skathi had witnessed how Lucia had suffered at his hands. "I'm going to kill her."

"Now, Lucia, you can't go offing gods willy-nilly. Unless you find some more dieumorts!" she cried. "Regrettably each one only has a single shot before the power is extinguished."

"Skathi had to know I would never abuse the weapon, would never harm anyone but Cruach with it."

"Yes, but to find the dieumort, you have to open a tomb, and there's an evil deep inside it."

Exactly what Damiãno had said. "I think I've already found the tomb."

"Within it is a being so powerful that if loosed, it would change the world forever. Even the gods fear its awakening."

"What evil being?"

"The Gilded One," Nïx breathed.

El Dorado. "Can I get the dieumort without waking the evil?"

"There're house rules at the tomb door. You break them, and you'll have to leave the party."

"Damn it, what do you mean? This is no time to withhold... Wait! You couldn't have told me all this earlier, Nïx?" she asked, her aggravation spiking. "You advised me to restrain myself for nothing!"

"I'd totally forgotten about this until I found a Post-it note to myself stuck to the underside of Annika's bed."

"What were you doing under her - Never mind, I don't want to know." Yet her irritation with Nïx soon dwindled when Lucia comprehended all that had happened.

Lucia was no longer a Skathian, a slave to the goddess's whims. No longer a celibate in plainclothes.

No longer a victim. I broke an altar with my werewolf lover. How fitting, how utterly empowering.

Broke that bitch!

Lucia swallowed as a sudden thought struck her. She could even have... children.

She cast a smile down at MacRieve, but it quickly faded. He was leaving her! Had made up his mind.

One of these days, Lucia...

When Garreth coughed, waking, Lucia was right beside him, gazing down, her eyes swollen from tears. "Nice nap?" she asked.

"What... what happened?" His body was a mass of aches, his head and wounds throbbing.

"Big snake got peckish?"

"You killed it?" When she nodded, he frowned, recalling more with each second, his ire toward her returning. "You told me you couldn't shoot anymore."

"I believed that. But clearly I was mistaken."

"Aye, clearly. You must've shot it from down below." He tried to rise, then coughed, flinching as pain radiated through every inch of him. All his goddamned ribs were cracked.

"Is the pain bad?" she asked.

"What do you bluidy think?"

Her eyes narrowed. "I think that'll teach you to leave me!"

"I was coming back."

Her expression unreadable, she asked, "For me?" Before he could answer, she added, "Probably to convince me to continue on the mission."

"I was coming back for you! Though you dinna deserve me to, stubborn Valkyrie."

She didn't deny that. "Why? I thought you were done."

"I'll never be done!" he snapped, wincing again as his ribs screamed in protest. "You're my woman, Lousha. Damn you, I'll never want another!"

At that, she leaned down and pressed a tender kiss to his forehead. "Good."

"What?" Was this an olive branch - from her? Just when he'd thought she couldn't confuse him more, she put them into completely unfamiliar territory. "I thought you hated me."

"I hated the consequences of what we'd done - or at least what I'd thought they were. I took out all my anger and fear on you. I'm sorry."

"Ah, bluidy hell, lass." Never would he have thought an apology from her would be as sweet to hear as her laughter. "For what it's worth, I am sorry to have lost the cuff. I bollixed that up."

She stroked his hair from his forehead. "Things are going to be different, MacRieve. With me. If you want them to be. Once we save the world, that is."

He could tell things were already different. Garreth had claimed her, yet she could still shoot - and she looked more at peace than he'd ever seen her. "What happened to you while I was out?"

"I have no more ties to Skathi. None. Any talent I possess is my own."

"Will you finally confide in me, then?"

"I... can't. Not yet. I'm asking you for time." At his scowl, she said, "Look, I wasn't ready for two things: sex and sharing secrets. Now, we both know how the first of those turned out. Can't you accept one out of two for now?"

He scowled deeper. "Sex or secrets?"

Lucia jutted her chin. "If that's how you want to look at it."

She'd played the sex card - as in the promise of more of it. More of what they'd shared the night before. And o' course, he'd do just about anything for that. "You keep your secrets for now. As for the other, I have been getting my way with you. Tis true. And I'll be getting it again as soon as I'm able."

Chapter 42

"So we're no' to wake a big evil," MacRieve said as they gradually made their way back to the necropolis. Though she could tell he was still in a great deal of pain, he'd insisted that they gear up and set out by noon.

On the way down, she'd filled him in on everything Nïx had said and they'd speculated on everything she hadn't said. For instance, though the soothsayer had never actually confirmed the panteȮn was the tomb in question, they'd still grown convinced that the dieumort was there. It had to be in the tomb Damiãno had been talking about - the one that had hieroglyphs of gold.

"Who do you think Damiãno worked for?" Lucia asked. "If he was the guardian of this place, then who hired him?"

"Doona know. Maybe he's a descendant of the people who lived here."

"Do you really think he hacked up those passengers?" She kept recalling the look on his face when MacRieve had accused him. Had there been a brief flicker of surprise?

"If no' him, then who? He wanted to prevent anyone from getting close to this place, and the Barão was right behind us."

"That's true," she said, seeing MacRieve's reasoning. So why was she unconvinced...?

Just as they reached the central expanse and started on the cobblestone walk, a new text message arrived.

RegRad: BTW, that "darkness" Skathi went on about w/ U = UR being a Valkyrie, DUMBASS!

"Regin is texting you?" MacRieve shook his head. "Now?"

"She doesn't know this is a... momentous time."

He sputtered, "Aye, but why're you texting her back?"

"Have to. This has been a long time coming." Lucia replied: I'm about 2 go play Tomb Raider... but it's REAL. Bet U wish U were here. HOOKER!

She finished with a satisfied grin - that lasted until Regin responded. RegRad: Why're U being so mean? I wanna play TR, too.

Lucia sighed, deciding then to make all this up to her sister. When she returned to New Orleans, she'd buy Regin something nice. Maybe a gaming chair, or a new sword.

MacRieve said, "My brother told me that to win you, I'd have to... deal with Regin."

Win me? Lucia had thought it impossible for so long that she was taken aback now. He could win her. But Lachlain was right - Regin was a part of her life and always would be. "Well, she and I had planned to live out our immortality in adjacent mansions on some seashore. Since we were kids. But I'm sure anyone would think she's a fine neighbor."

"Neighbor, then?" He almost stifled his grimace.

Yes, there was bad blood between him and her sister. But Lucia now knew that MacRieve could be remarkably forgiving....

Once they reached the tomb, he hacked at the cloaking vines with his claws, tearing them away until they found what appeared to be an entranceway - a slab of unbroken stone, probably eight feet square.

A smoothed knob of rock jutted out beside it. "Check that out," she said. "It looks like a dial." Carved all around it were more hieroglyphs, expanding out in a circular pattern.

"So which way do we turn it?" MacRieve asked. "Seems to me this could go really bad. Go the wrong way..."

"I saw a movie once where someone's hand got trapped around a knob, then sliced off. How attached are you to your paws?"

He gave her ass a quick squeeze. "No' as much as you were last night."

"Werewolf! Wait, I've got an idea." She took out her phone, scrolling through her address book.

"Who are you calling?"

"Language specialist."

He stepped back, gazing at the scene. "Doona think this is Mayan or Incan."

"I know someone who's omnilingual."

"Omni?"

"She knows every language in the world and adjoining planes."

He raised his brows as if he were impressed, until she added, "A female called Tera the Fey." When he glowered, she said, "What is it?"

"Nothing. How do you know her?"

"We were competitors in the immortal tournaments of old."

Lucia's half sister Atalanta would compete in the foot races, Kaderin the Coldhearted at swords, and Lucia at the bow. They'd dominated.

And Lucia had smack-talked Tera unmercifully.

Still, with nothing to lose, she rang the number.

"Valkyrie," Tera said in a cool greeting.

"Tera, I need a favor. I need you to translate something."

"Indeed. And why should I help you?"

Lucia said, "To stop an apocalypse." Then she explained where she and MacRieve were and the highlights of the threat.

Once she'd finished, Tera sighed. "Can you take a picture of the symbols and e-mail them?"

"What's your e-mail addy?" Lucia asked.

"Hmm. Thegreatestarcherever at gmail dot com."

"Surely the greatest archer ever had already taken that one?"

Tera said tightly, "Terafey at thenoblefey dot com."

"Pics are on their way." After she'd hung up, Lucia used her phone to snap photographs of the hieroglyphs, then e-mailed them.

Tera wrote back directly. I'll call shortly. P.S.: Tell werewolf I want my quiver back.

Lucia faced MacRieve with raised brows. "Tera says she wants her quiver back."

He cast her an innocent expression. "Huh? What? Bluidy daft fey..."

The phone rang within five minutes. Lucia turned on the speaker feature.

"Congratulations. You've discovered a previously unidentified language," Tera said. "It's logosyllabic, combining about three hundred syllabograms, which represent syllables, and eight hundred logograms - whole words."

"Right, whatever. What does it say?"

"There are three warnings. First, you're not to get any kind of moisture upon the watchers'... husks. Second, do not disturb the Gilded One's rest. And third, no gold leaves the confines of the tomb. Basically, be dry, don't take any gold, and hands-off the important dead person inside."

The Gilded One was within!

"Or what?" MacReive asked. "How are these enforced?"

"Or tragedy awaits," Tera said. "We're likely talking ancient loss-prevention technology - booby traps. So essentially, the fate of the world rests in the hands of a sticky-fingered Lykae and an avaricious Valkyrie about to enter a tomb of off-limits gold. I believe I'll be going out tonight - "

"Just tell us how to get in," he interrupted.

"Turn the dial to the right, then immediately left, then back to the right."

"How sure are you?" he asked.

"As certain as I am that Lucia's wearing my quiver strapped to her leg right now."

With raised brows, MacRieve followed her instructions. At once, the stone slab rumbled, inching to the side, revealing a downward-sloping tunnel. Air released, as though the ruins had gasped.

He narrowed his eyes. "This place was airtight."

"They meant what they said about moisture," Lucia observed. Then she told Tera, "Hey, we're in. Thanks for your help - "

"What about my quiver?"

Lucia gazed at MacRieve who'd raised his stubborn chin, as if to say stolen fair and square. To Tera, she said, "I guarantee nothing."

After she hung up, Lucia and MacRieve prepared to head inside. She shrugged from her pack and took her bow in hand, while his dark claws flared in readiness.

"Let me go first." He took her free hand. "I can scent traps - or enemies."

As they began journeying down the dim tunnel, she could feel his excitement, sharing it in spades. Yet then he paused to say, "Probably should've addressed this before, but Valkyrie are notoriously... acquisitive, and I'm taking one directly to what might be El Dorado. Are you going to be able to handle this?"

"I'm not as bad as some of my sisters." And I want something far more precious than treasure. "I can handle it."

Slanting her an undecided look, he finally gave a halfhearted nod, then continued on, farther down the passageway. From the ceiling, spiderwebs dangled. A warm draft blew, whisking the dust on the floor and fluttering the webs.

Though the tunnel had to be subterranean by now, all the walls were dry, the temperature stifling.

"I can barely imagine what this arrow will be like," she said in a hushed voice. Skathi's had been a sight to behold, but this dieumort... "I bet it's beautiful. And solid gold, only more perfectly weighted and aerodynamic than any I've ever seen."

"Whatever it is, let's be cautious about this." When the webs grew increasingly thick, he used his claws to slice through them. "I doona relish facing loss-prevention technology."

"Agreed." Five minutes later: "MacRieve," she murmured urgently. "Do you see something glimmering ahead?"

"Aye, we're coming upon a chamber."

When they entered it, Lucia breathed, "My gods, it's El Dorado."

The "chamber" was the size of a warehouse, and its floor, ceiling, and walls were each tiled with solid gold. All along the perimeter, treasures were stacked high - gold bricks, chalices, and jewelry.

"How are we doing, lass?"

"Wowed." She released his hand to turn in a circle. "But not tempted." Yet.

As they neared the center of the chamber, she spied a mammoth gold sarcophagus atop a stone pediment. Exhilaration surging within her, she said, "MacRieve, look! The resting place of the Gilded One. It has to be."

Desiccated bodies lay around it, husks of some kind of humanlike creature. Must be the watchers. There was something familiar about their long, withered faces. Just as she remembered what it was, MacRieve muttered, "Wendigos?"

Wendigos were flesh eaters like zombies, but fast. They had elongated faces and dripping fangs. "But I thought they're only found in the northern forests."

"I'd believed so as well. No' anymore."

The Wendigos were spread around the pediment like a pack of animals at their master's feet, as if they'd fallen asleep like this and had never woken.

"How did they dry up like this?" Lucia asked.

"I doona know - " Suddenly, he lunged forward with his hand outstretched, palm up above one of the bodies. "Careful, woman!" He'd caught a bead of sweat that had dripped from her chin.

"Sorry," she whispered, briefly turning away to wipe her face on her sleeve.

Cautiously stepping around the creatures, they made their way to the sarcophagus. The top was uncovered, as if for a wake viewing. After wiping her face again, she leaned forward, heart in her throat.

Under the cover of the finest gold netting lay a mummy.... The body was decorated with elaborate jewels, a gold breastplate and crown, and rings on every finger. Stunning.

Lucia peered over the sarcophagus, her eyes widening with awe.

Though he was keen only on finding the dieumort, Garreth's curiosity got the better of him, and he briefly glanced down at the jewel-covered mummy. "No' tempted to swipe a gem or two?"

"I'm not staring at them. Look at the mummy."

"It should no' be so preserved," he said absently, his attention back to locating the weapon.

"No kidding," Lucia said.

"What does the paleopathologist in you think?" he asked, scanning the room.

"That something else isn't right."

He glanced down again. "Yeah, El Dorado has breasts. Big ones."

Lucia cast him a glare. "Try to be serious."

"So El Dorado is no' a man."

In a soft tone, Lucia said, "She's La Dorada, the Gilded Woman. History had it wrong. Really wrong."

"Makes sense."

"What do you mean?"

"Say you were a conquistador, hunting for the Gilded One's gold, yet the native was clever enough to keep a tomb full of it hidden. A native - a woman native - somehow outwits you?" He shook his head. "Back in the day, I met a few gold-hungry conquistadors, and let's put it this way - the fragility of conquistador ego canna be overstated."

"She was smart and kept her gold." Lucia gazed down almost fondly. "How evil could she be?"

"Does no' matter. Let's get what we came for."

With that, they began scouring every inch of the chamber, passing by more riches than he could ever have imagined. But they found no weapons.

Finally, in a shadowy corner, he spied an archery quiver, coated with dust. Inside was a single arrow. Not gold. Not beautiful. But something about it drew him. He sensed... power. "Come, Lousha. I think I've found your dieumort." He collected the battered quiver, brushing away the accumulated layers of dust.

With a look of breathless excitement, she hurried to his side. Then her face fell. "No, this can't be right. Wood? No way!"

"Maybe you're to fight an old evil with an old arrow?"