Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night

14

"That little, bloody witch!" Bowe snapped as he stormed to the plateau. What was she thinking to scream at him like that? To bloody throw him?

Just as Bowe put his fist through a tree, Rydstrom appeared. "Got under your skin, then?"

"What do you want?"

"To tell you what we've decided to do."

"What you've decided? The witch is my charge."

Rydstrom ignored him. "Hild will begin the journey tonight, heading back into the conflict. He'll move more quickly alone and will be able to sneak past the armies to get the word to the factions as soon as possible. Cade, Tera, Tierney, and myself will travel east with her and get her back to the States."

Bowe flexed his bloody fist. "And what do you propose for me?"

"We want you gone. Your presence is obviously upsetting for her."

"Oh, aye, the poor, wee lass—who tossed me like a skipping stone. You want me gone, and believe me, I want to be as well. But you forget—it's my head if she does no' arrive in one piece. Considering that this just turned into a game of 'protect the mortal' through the jungle, I think I'll stay and ensure that she lives."

"Your job's over. Hild will inform everyone that I take full responsibility for Mariketa. If anything happens to her, it's my problem, not yours." When Bowe was unmoved, Rydstrom said, "We think that if you stay, the two of you will kill each other."

Likely. "I canna leave until she undoes this second curse. Understand me, I will no'."

"And I'm sure she's keen to do anything you ask right now. Bowen, what were you thinking?"

"Was no'."

"You know women better than this."

"I know women—no' witches. And believe me, demon, there's a difference."

"I've never seen you lose your temper like that. And I've seen your wrath many a time," Rydstrom said, his tone becoming musing. "I hope you're certain she's not your mate reincarnated."

Bowe froze. The thought had crossed his mind, of course, but there were dozens of reasons to discount the idea. Still... "Why do you say that?"

Rydstrom limped to a fallen tree and dropped his giant frame down onto the trunk. "What if Mariketa didn't enchant you? If you accept the belief that no one in the Lore gets a second mate, then reincarnation is the only other explanation for you to think of her as yours."

Bowe knew Rydstrom's curiosity could rival any Lykae's, and he enjoyed solving mysteries and fixing problems. Rydstrom had obviously deemed this situation one or the other, or both. He got that analytical air about him, so contrary to his demon state when reason was lost—even worse than Bowe in his werewolf form.

And therein resided the problem with Rydstrom. When he went demonic, he really went.

He continued, "Reincarnates are extremely rare, true, but they do exist."

"No, the witch did enchant me," Bowe insisted. "The Valkyrie soothsayer confirmed what I'd already felt. She even told me Mariketa would eventually remove it for me."

"Valkyrie soothsayer?" Rydstrom's brows drew together. "You don't mean Nïx? What was it that they called her?"

Nucking Futs Nïx.

"Shame a beauty like that is so soft in the head. But why would you trust that mad creature on something this important?"

"Everyone I trust in the world trusts her," Bowe said. "That's good enough for me." But was it, really? Damn it, Mariah and Mariketa, aside from the similar fey names and pointed ears, were complete opposites. Mariah had been so ethereal and innocent, the witch so sensual and devious, and so... brave. No. Mariketa could not be her. Simply impossible.

Rydstrom studied Bowe. "Wouldn't matter now if Mariketa was her anyway."

"What does that mean?"

"Animosity has probably already turned to hatred in that one. And there's nothing like boiling hatred to dampen a female's acceptance of her mate. Especially when he's not of her kind." Rydstrom ignored Bowe's scowl and said, "I just wonder if the witch actually could have cast such an intricate spell on you. Think about it—this couldn't be a simple love spell to trigger this kind of reaction in you."

One thing Bowe was unequivocally certain of was that he didn't love her. He desired her, had overriding urges to protect her—and to bed her. Gods, how I want to bed her.

But he didn't even like her. Which followed. Considering that she'd just attacked him. Twice.

"Though her power's great," Rydstrom continued, "it's volatile, and she's clumsy with magicks. Yet to do this to you, she would have had to affect the Lykae's Instinct in you. And not merely to tamper with it. Somehow she would have had to trick a force that has been honed over hundreds of thousands of years. Then, say she'd managed that, instead of accidentally blowing you up—which she admitted to us that she does ninety-nine out of a hundred times. Do you think she could have removed just one of her spells from you tonight, leaving the other? And in her condition?"

Bowe felt sweat dotting his brow. What if... what if Mariketa the Awaited actually was... his? His female, returned to him? His to claim, to protect—to claim. He felt a savage thrill at the idea of possessing her and bending her strong will to his.

What if fate had finally taken pity on him after all these wretched years?

He shook his head hard. "My ability to heal was honed over the same amount of time as well, but she managed to tamper with that."

"Someone would have taught her that mortality spell, but do you think they'd have taught her how to affect a Lykae's Instinct?" Rydstrom said. "Let me ask you, isn't there some way you can prove without a doubt that she's yours?"

Bowe hesitated to answer before muttering, "If I can get her with bairns."

"Are you bloody jesting?" Rydstrom snapped, then narrowing his eyes, he added, "That's right! I recall this now."

Bowe ran his palm over the back of his neck.

"Since that's how to get the proof you need, I know what I'd be aiming for, and a pleasanter endeavor I can't imagine."

"Doona be imagining that at all, or I'll be tearing your throat out!"

Rydstrom raised his brows.

"So if you were me, you'd just go along with the Instinct, treat her as yours for possibly years until you decided for certain?"

"If it meant I got to enjoy the curvy redhead in that cave for possibly years, then yes."

"Damn it, doona bloody talk about her like that!"

Rydstrom gave him an expression that said Bowe was proving his point. Again.

"And then say I eventually determined it was an enchantment?" Bowe asked. "What if after so long, I canna quit her?"

"If she couldn't quit you either, then would it be so bad?" Rydstrom said. "Some men would take happiness where they found it." There was something like sympathy in his eyes. Rydstrom, too, had gone long without finding his destined demoness. "Especially when they have absolutely no promise of it anywhere else." He rose to leave. "Whatever you do, make a decision about her, Bowen, one way or the other, and stick to it."

"You're helping me with her? Though Cade wants her? Do you do this because of an old friendship or to thwart him?"

If the latter, Cade had it coming.

The relationship between the two demons was complicated. Not only were their personalities averse—if Rydstrom would take a scalpel to a problem to systematically cut through it, Cade would take a hammer and swing wildly—there was also the matter of Cade's losing Rydstrom's crown.

Rydstrom answered, "Either would work for you, would it not?"

"True." If the demons' history was complicated, Bowe and Cade's was contentious. They were too much alike—both killers in service to kings, leaders compelled by fortune to follow another. Bowe followed Lachlain because he was like a brother and was worthy to serve. Cade followed Rydstrom because, in his own violent, misguided way, he strived to make up for the loss. "So which is it?"

"My brother thinks he wants Mariketa because she's beautiful—"

"Did he find her so when she was in that bloodthirsty witch state, strangling me?" Bowe snapped. "Or when she was blowing up that tomb and all its occupants."

"The girl was merely doing her job with the latter."

"What does that mean?"

"Witches are mercenaries—that's just a fact of life—and I think the incubi wanted her to kill them. I believe that's why they were shaking her when she was unconscious outside the entrance and why they were trying to give her that gold headdress. They wanted to pay her. Desperately."

To pay her with the gold piece that Bowe currently had in his pack.

"Anyway, Cade probably did think her beautiful in that state. Unlike you, he likes that there's something dangerous about her and that she has the potential for some serious destruction. Still, she's not the one for him. Cade's already seen the female that will be his, yet is in denial. Long story, but suffice it to say that the first time he spied her, he lost the power of speech for some moments."

"Cade will seize on the witch just to get even with me," Bowe said.

Seven hundred years ago, Cade had decided to attempt a bonny barmaid. He'd been hopeful. Instead, she'd crawled into Bowe's bed. After a night of mead, Bowe hadn't recalled that she was the prospective barmaid.

In a dry tone, Rydstrom said, "Yes, naturally to get even. Obviously there could be no other enticement to want Mariketa." Before he turned to go, he said, "Remember, make a decision. You would begin things with her with far fewer chances at forgiveness. And something tells me your witch isn't the type to abide the indecision of a Lykae, one who can't seem to conclude if he wants her or not."

When Bowe was alone once more, he found his heart pounding. Could he give himself up to the Instinct? To let his body and soul guide him, while ignoring what his mind told him?

Could he ignore his past with Mariketa's kind?

What if he wasn't contemplating giving up his will to the witch, but merely investigating every possibility as he had tirelessly for eighteen decades? Aside from Nïx's prediction about the Hie, this was the most promising lead he'd ever had.

His brows drew together as he recalled exactly what the Valkyrie had told him. "Through the Hie, you'll have your mate." Not that his mate would be returned to him or that Bowe would retrieve her. And she'd never actually said that Mariketa had cast an enchantment—only that she would remove it.

Bowe swallowed. It was... possible.

Hell, Rydstrom could be right—it could be too late. What if too much damage had already been done?

No, Bowe knew females could be forgiving creatures. Lachlain had admitted to Bowe that in the crazed days after he'd been freed from torture, he'd treated Emma badly, and she'd been able to forgive him.

Of course Lachlain had never entombed Emma.

But Bowe had to believe that Mariketa could be coaxed to move past that. After all, she wasn't immune to him, or she hadn't been during their first encounter. When he remembered her body's response to him, how wet she'd been as her hips rocked to his hand, he hissed an oath and palmed the front of his jeans.

So how to exploit her weakness? He was sorely out of practice wooing. Since Mariah's death, his only interaction with available females had been a sneer if they'd had the nerve to approach him. Yet he'd used to be called charming by females. Hadn't he? He could scarcely remember women before Mariah.

The sense of urgency that lashed him constantly over these long years now redoubled. He couldn't quite wrap his mind around the idea that there was even the remotest chance that his mate was less than a mile from him—though in the form of an enemy who wanted him dead.

Now that he had his strength back after weeks of being weakened, he wanted to run the night, but would never stray far from the prize he intended to take. Instead, he climbed to the mountain's peak, surveying the surrounding area.

From this vantage, he spied river after river unfolding to the east, then caught the scent of salt water. The Belizean coast wasn't too far out of reach in that direction. To the west, he could see humans in fatigues swarming over the land like ants, continuing to riddle the countryside with mines.

Mariketa definitely had to travel east. Bowe had been able to survive a mine blast, but he knew he couldn't risk a mortal's being within a mile of one—a mortal who was possibly his. The trek would be longer, but it would prove safer for her in the end.

Unless they didn't make it out before the full moon...

He immediately stifled that thought. No, they'd reach the coast by Friday.

Directly below him lay the bomb blast site, reminding him of what Mariketa was and the power she possessed, filling him with doubt about her. Even if he knew for certain that she was his mate, could he accept a witch as his own? Present her to the clan as his female?

Again he imagined her trembling and wanton beneath him, and his body quickened for her.

I'll bloody figure something out.

A few miles away from the new crater, Bowe spied the line of their ruined vehicles. Her belongings would likely still be within. And in her present situation, even the smallest comfort would be treasured.

He could go out into this night, retrieve her things, and hunt for her. He could use his strength and skill to provide for a female, a female who needed him. The idea made him shake with anticipation.

—Protect. Provide.—

The Instinct was guiding him once more. Ready to obey, Bowe plunged into the jungle.

For the next hour, he hunted in the intermittent rain, hitting the mountainside and streams with a renewed ferocity. At last, after a lifetime of waiting, he was doing what he'd been born to do, and he wanted to howl to the sky with satisfaction.

Yes, Bowe knew all this could be false. With his body and soul, he felt one thing, even as his mind feared the truth. But for so long, he'd known nothing but misery and yearning.

Even Mariah would have understood the witch's pull was just too great to resist—

The clouds briefly dissipated then, revealing the waxing moon. He raised his face to the light that commanded his kind alone, and the power of it filled him with awe, just as it had over all his years. Yet now the coming moon made both dread and eagerness war within him as well.

When he lowered his face, he narrowed his eyes in Mariketa's direction.

If she truly belonged to him... the witch would do well to fear what he was.