Garreth had stopped struggling. After all, he was a Lykae - no cage could hold him and she was taking him into her home. He'd thought this would prove to be a fortuitous turn. He'd be closer to her, better able to protect her. Now he was trapped. Bluidy witches!
Taking a seat on the floor, he leaned back against the wall, drawing a knee up. "Sit," he commanded, adding in a softer tone, "It's the least you can do."
With a glare, she drew a chair in front of the cage and gingerly sat. She's hurting still. He hardened himself against the concern he felt. "Why were you in agony the night of the vampire attack? I scented no blood on you, saw no injury."
"It's not your concern."
"So you do feel pain when you miss a shot?"
She looked startled, distinctly on edge, letting her hair fall over her face again. She was wearing thick braids over her pointed ears, but the rest of her shining mane flowed freely, locks tumbling over her forehead. "What could you possibly know about me?"
"More than you think. Made you my subject of study. Dinna find out all I'd aimed to, though. Most folks just know you're the Archer."
Seeming relieved, she said, "That's me. All there is to know."
"What about your family, your birth mother? Who were her people?"
She glanced over her shoulder at the stairs before facing him again. "I don't know who she was. I don't even know what she was."
"She could've been a Lykae?"
Lucia shrugged her slim shoulders. "For all I know."
"Ah, so that's why you're more reasonable with other factions. You could be related to them," he observed. "In any case, if your intent was to be mysterious, you've succeeded."
"Oh, I'm mysterious? You showed up out of nowhere to decapitate two vampires in my living room."
"Ask me anything, and I'll answer."
She raised her brows in challenge. "Really, Dark Prince?"
"Aye. That's what I was called." Garreth had never thought he'd be king, not with an immortal older brother, and he'd behaved accordingly, saying and doing things Lachlain never could have. Garreth had been a wild one, dubbed the Dark Prince before he'd reached twenty. And yes, the association with Lucifer was on purpose. Responsible Lachlain used to bail him out of scrape after scrape. "You've been digging for background on me?"
"Digging? Your background's pretty notorious."
"Maybe. I've doubtless made mistakes." Big ones. If he'd been more involved with the clan, and less involved with himself, perhaps his brother wouldn't have set off alone that fateful night. "But at least I own my actions when I bollix things up." Unlike you, little mate.
Ignoring his pointed comment, she asked, "Why have you brought your people here? To Louisiana?"
"After my brother went missing, many of the Lykae wanted to be as far away from the Horde as possible. This was no' the first place we picked, believe me." Once he'd inherited the crown, he'd cleaned his act up, then begun scouring the earth for a new home for them, wanting to do at least that for his people. "But in the end, it made sense."
After another glance over her shoulder, she said, "It made sense to trespass in Valkyrie territory?"
Aye, or I might no' ever have found you. "We're no' so bad as neighbors, lass. And the Valkyrie and Lykae are no' enemies."
"Except at the Accession. When we're all forced to fight."
Every five hundred years, pivotal events in the Lore began to take place, each one forcing conflicts between factions. Some said this concentration of incidents was a mystical mechanism to cull an ever-growing population of immortals.
There was no grand war to decide it all - at least there hadn't been in the past - but the battles and confrontations made for a war of attrition. Once the Accession had swept through, the faction with the most players still alive won. "The Lykae will no' be fighting any Valkyrie this Accession."
"You know what's driving all this. You won't have any control over it," she said with another glance over her shoulder.
"Would your sisters frown on the fact that you're attracted to me?"
She faced him at once. "I'm not!"
"Lie to yourself, Lousha. No' to me. I was there with you that night, remember? You might be trying no' to recall it, but it's seared into my head."
"No, actually I want to recall it - I like to remember my mistakes. So I don't repeat them."
"A mistake then? Is that what Valkyrie call scream-wrenching orgasms?"
Between gritted teeth, she said, "I asked you not to do certain things, and you just ignored me."
"Like what?"
"Like not taking off my underwear. You ripped them from me, then stole them! Why would you ever?"
He cast her a shameless grin. "To do unseemly things with them."
She held up her hand. "I don't want to hear more. Again, MacRieve, why did you come to Val Hall that night?"
"Because you were screaming like a banshee? I saw scattered arrows on the floor. No' a one bloodied. Did you pay for missing? Maybe you did make a deal with the devil to shoot like that."
Her eyes flashed silver. "You know nothing!" She shot to her feet and ran, climbing the stairs without looking back.
"Come back here, Lousha!" The charade was over; he wanted out of the cage. Clenching his jaw, he tried to bend the bars - nothing. "Damn you, Valkyrie."
Once he got loose... all the witches in the world couldn't protect her.
12
Lucia had told MacRieve that she wasn't bound by his animalistic needs. And in that deep rasp, he'd replied, "After one night with me, Lousha, you will be."
He'd been right. She couldn't stop thinking about him, recalling how he'd touched her.
Now in the dead of night, she lay in her bed - a single bed because she was never supposed to be sharing it - puzzling over the male trapped downstairs. Desperate to determine his power over her, she stared up at the ceiling fan, as if it would have all the answers to the conundrum that was Garreth MacRieve.
Granted, the Lykae had obvious attributes: his golden eyes, his muscular body, his broad shoulders that seemed made for her to hold on to.
His firm lips. Not a minute passed without her remembering how they'd felt on hers. She didn't know how she'd gone so long without kissing. Or how she could ever go back.
Lucia even appreciated the ferocity she'd witnessed when he'd bitten that vampire's throat out. But something more was at work, some connection to him. Even during their exchange earlier tonight, he'd affected her. But he hadn't given her that look - the one that said he was about to do wicked things to her body - which was probably the only reason her mind hadn't gone blank.