Pleasure of a Dark Prince

Chapter 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 fucking 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?

Trap.

From her thigh quiver, she drew the dieumort out once more, gazing at the wooden shaft and ancient feathers. It was so unlike Skathi’s perfect golden arrows, and yet Lucia was more confident in her weapon than she’d ever been. On the plane ride here, she’d noticed the finest inscriptions near the arrowhead and had again sensed the latent power.

She’d begun to suspect the arrow had been carved from an enchanted world tree, a tree of life. There were fewer than a dozen in number scattered all over the earth, but one was rumored to grow in the Amazon.

What better way to defeat a being that reveled in carnage and death?

And what better way to get myself killed? she thought as she replaced the dieumort amid her regular arrows. She was uneasy safeguarding such a weapon—one of the most powerful ever to exist. It was only a matter of time before some enemy came after her, and after this prize. She wanted to use the arrow as soon as possible, to extinguish it—and Cruach—forever.

A chill wind blew, and she pulled her jacket closer, wishing she was back in the sultry warmth of the Amazon with MacRieve. Instead of waiting at the gates of hell. Which was no exaggeration.

She couldn’t imagine a more gruesome place. Decorated with piles of rotting bodies and infested with vermin, the cavern was a fitting hovel for the monster within. She remembered how Cruach would drink from a goblet and blood would dribble down his chin and out from his rotting cheeks. She remembered how he would feed.

But the smell was the worst. Right now, the stench oozing out from the lair was so thick, it seemed visible, diffusing into the cleaner air outside.

Damn it, how much longer could she wait? Eventually, MacRieve would find her, somehow; that was what his kind did. Regin needed to be located and then rescued from her obsessed berserker. And with each hour Lucia remained, she risked Cromites returning, or enemies seeking the dieumort.

If she faced Cruach, he’d be no match for her speed, not with his hunched and broken body. She had a weapon in her quiver that would exterminate him. The sooner she completed this kill, the sooner she could return to MacRieve.

I want to start our life together. She could ask the Scot to help her find Regin—

Cruach’s voice rang out then, echoing through the tunnel. “Come to me, fair Lucia. For I was soon to come to you.”

Her fists clenched. Fair Lucia. More memories bombarded her. The gristle-covered altar, the lecherous robed ones, the… pain. Her rage toward him had always been seething, buried deep within her. Now it welled like a font; she needed raw violence, wanted to mete out her wrath.

After a thousand years, she craved destroying the Broken Bloody One.

The huntress would slay the bear—in his cave.

Taking a deep breath, she readied her bow, prepared to pull either the dieumort for Cruach or a regular arrow for one of his guards, then started into the passageway. As she went deeper within, the ground grew soggier, making a sucking sound with each step. It was a pulp of decomposing flesh and blood. Dotting the walls were torch lights made from the bones and clothing of his victims.

She hadn’t been back inside here since the first time. And it was so much worse than she remembered. How could I have been fooled by this fiend? Thank the gods that MacRieve would never find out she’d wed this monster—

“Imagine running into you here,” a voice said behind her.

Lucia whirled around, gasping. “What are you doing? H-how did you find this place?”

“I have ways,” he answered with a choked cough. “Gods, the smell.”

“Mariketa scried, didn’t she?”

“Oh, aye.” The witch had gotten him in the vicinity, but still Garreth could scarcely believe he’d found this tunnel. The stench coming from within had made scenting Lucia difficult—and paining. “For a price, witches can be accommodating.”

Yet he feared there’d be a downside to asking the witch for this. Bowen and Lachlain might meet up and follow Garreth here.

“How are you still standing?” he asked. “The smell nearly felled me coming in. Next time, get Nïx to find you a less revolting god to off.” He wiped his sleeve over his face. “I mean, have you ever smelled anything this bluidy awful before?”

At that, Lucia’s face seemed to pale even more. “You have to leave!” She kept glancing over her shoulder.

“I’m no’ leaving you—as you did me. Why did you take off again?”

“This is too dangerous. You d-don’t understand.” She looked like she was about to hyperventilate, the closest to panic that he’d ever seen her.

“If it’s so dangerous, do you think I’m just going to let you go in there?”

She shook her head hard. “You can become infected!”

“No more than you could be.”

“MacRieve, I will never ask you for another thing as long as we live. But right now, I’m beseeching you to leave this place.”

“In what universe would you think I’d be leaving without you?”

“I’ve told you—Cruach can make you see things that aren’t so, can make you feel things. He will take over your mind! The longer you’re in here, the greater your chance of infection.”

Garreth curled his finger under her chin. “Lousha, do you think there’s any power on earth that can make me harm you?”

“You’re not strong enough to fight it.” She shrugged from him, backing up a step. “No one is!”

“That right? Then worry more about your own reaction—”

“MacRieve, I’m… immune to him.”

“How? Why?”

Her eyes darted, tears wetting them. “P-please, you have to leave!”

Was he finally going to learn her secrets? “Why are you immune, Lousha?”

Seeming to bite back a sob, she whispered, “Because… because I’m his wife.”