"Oh, for f**k's sake, Garreth!" he'd bellowed. "I'm goin' with you on this mission. Bowen, as well."
"No' a chance." After all the two of them had been through in the last year, Garreth refused to lay more trouble on their doorsteps. "Can the witch find my target, or no'?"
"Aye, she can still do many of the easier magicks. But you doona plan to deprive Bowen and me of a fight?"
Garreth had answered, "So as to no' piss off a vampire queen and the most powerful witch ever to live? Oh, aye."
"What are you planning?"
"Steal the arrow from Lousha, sneak off, shoot the god. Then I'll come back with a present and an apology, promising she can shoot the next god." Garreth had sounded far more confident than he actually was. He couldn't predict if she'd forgive him - or if she'd disappear again.
But he didn't feel like he had much of a choice. He could never risk her. Just having the weapon in their possession was a danger. He had to go, and he had to hope. Maybe if he could get some kind of commitment out of her....
"Things will change when we return, Lousha," he said now. "But I trust no' too much." Cupping her face, he pressed kisses to her forehead, her eyelids, the tips of her ears. "I know you Valkyrie fancy marriages and such. So if you wanted to be my wife..." When she stiffened against him, he added in a surly tone, "Or no', then. Only asked because my brother wed his mate."
"Can we table this for now? And talk about it as soon as this killing is done - "
A man's scream ripped through the air.
Lucia said, "I recognize that scream."
Schecter. "He must've found another lizard in his cabin," Garreth said. "He's terrified of anything cold-blooded now. Almost as much as he's afraid of Rossiter."
The mortal Rossiter had seemed stoically resolved to his fate until Garreth had mentioned that another crew would likely go right back out to salvage the rich Barão and retrieve the bodies. If the doctor could hitch a ride, he'd only lose a month total. Only. For a mortal, a month was a long span. For a dying mortal, it was eternity.
Lucia sighed. "Okay, so maybe there are some things I won't miss about the Contessa." She leaned forward and kissed Garreth's chin. "But I meant what I said, Scot. I want to talk with you about the future, just not yet."
Hell, that was more than he'd expected. He relaxed once more, drawing her over his body. "I can wait. For now," he said, talking a big game; Lucia was worth any wait.
She felt him hard against her and gasped. "Again?"
"Again." The things I do for the sake of the world. "As many times as you'll have me. I canna get enough of you, love."
"MacRieve?" she murmured.
"Aye?"
Her hand shot forward, an oversized syringe in her fist.
Before he could react, he felt the sting in his neck as she injected him. "Lousha! Why?"
As he fought to keep his eyes open, she whispered, "I'm choosing you."
47
"Bluidy hell," Garreth muttered. "No' again."
Moments before, he'd awakened, barely, and found Lucia was gone. Memories from last night flooded him. She'd tranqued him - likely with Schecter's stash. She'd been plotting against him the whole time Garreth had been making love to her - as part of his plot against her.
He sniffed the air. This ship was in port. But she was long gone, departed maybe two hours ago. He snatched up his phone, calling Bowen. "Need a favor from your witch."
"Good to talk to you, too, Dark Prince. Hold on."
As he waited for Mariketa to get on the line, Garreth dressed and loaded his pack, intending to set out at once.
"Yello?"
"I need you to scry for Lousha," he said. "You told me once that you could."
"Yeah, I can get you in her vicinity."
Garreth had taken Lucia's scent into him and could find her from miles away. "That'll work." Witches could come in handy, he supposed.
"But I don't do gratis."
Garreth bluidy hated witches! "Charge me what you will! Just give me the f**king coordinates."
In the background, he heard Bowen say, "Mari, never let it be said that I doona support your extortion - "
"Entrepreneurial-ness," she corrected.
"But a family discount, love, would no' be amiss."
"The whole family? Fine," she said. "I'm scrying." While Garreth waited, she groused about how extended the "MacRieve pack" was.
Suddenly she sucked in a breath. "Garreth, I don't know why Lucia's going to this particular place, but it's a confluence of evil. Great evil."
"Aye, I ken that," he snapped, then added impatiently, "Home of an evil god I'm off to murder. So be quick with the details, witch!"
A woman's severed leg.
It'd been left at the entrance to Cruach's lair - as if in greeting.
Yet when Lucia had arrived at twilight two hours ago, she'd found no Cromites there to battle, and everything about the situation had screamed, "Trap!"
Now as she awaited Cruach's rising, pacing in front of the cave with her bow strapped over her shoulder, her mind raced, flitting from memory to memory: the look on MacRieve's face just before the tranquilizer took hold, her mad dash out of Iquitos, the interminable plane ride to these cold Northlands.
All of that had culminated in her hike through these barren woods to Cruach's lair. The forest here was a fitting precursor to his cave. Filled with shadows and petrified trees, it was separated forever from the cleansing ocean by Cruach's foul mountain.
She'd never had difficulties finding this place even after so much time had passed. Nothing ever grew around the yawning opening, and old, bleached bones were perpetually strewn before it.
Pacing, thoughts flitting... Lucia was beset with worry about Regin, who was still missing after five days. After unsuccessfully calling Nïx again and again, Lucia had begun harassing Annika.
Annika had already warped past aneurismal straight into action, dispatching search parties and hiring witches to scry. Neither had turned up a trace of Regin.
Who'd abducted her? Surely it was the berserker, Aidan the Fierce, reincarnated once more. But Aidan had never taken Regin before.
Well, at least not without witnesses.
Lucia needed to get this killing over with and return to locate her sister. She yearned for this to end. And yet she knew how risky it would be to do anything before Cruach made his move....
In the past, the longest they'd had to wait for him to emerge was two days - Lucia's nightmares had proved chillingly accurate. So as bad as they'd been the last few nights, why was he not coming forth?