Immortals After Dark 04 - Wicked Deeds on a Winters Night

the competitors.”
    “I’m told the goddess Riora erased them with each round,” Lachlain explained. “No one took note of that location if they dinna plan to journey there. You trapped anyone who did.”
    Bowe scowled at that. “I was sure they’d eventually escape.”
    “And what is the witch to you?” Emma actually knew this Mariketa fairly well because the witch often visited the more rowdy Valkyrie at Val Hall. That didn’t surprise Lachlain—nearly every time he’d been to Val Hall he’d spotted intoxicated witches laughing and staggering about the place.
    Bowe hesitated, then said, “She put another spell on me besides the weakening one. A spell to make me feel things for her. I think it’s triggered me to think of her as... my mate.”
    “You are sure it’s a spell?” Lachlain hastily asked. “What if it’s real?” He could only hope. Emma had told him that aside from a bit of a wild streak and a pinch of a witch’s natural deviousness, Mariketa had a good heart.
    Lachlain didn’t know if he could say the same for Bowe’s mate from before. He’d met Mariah on occasion when he and Bowe had traveled to convene with her father, the king of a large faction of fey. Lachlain had always found Mariah to be a spoiled sort, and though she’d been beautiful, tall and blond, she’d seemed to show disdain for all the elementals that the Lykae celebrated—food, touch, sex. But Bowe had been content with her, so Lachlain had remained silent about his misgivings. Yet now... “Bowe, it could be that you were given two.”
    “Have you ever heard of that happening?” he asked, his tone growing frustrated.
    “Well, no, but—”
    “In five thousand years of the clan’s record keeping, there’s never been an instance of it. Five millennia, Lachlain. I know because I took half a decade to comb through every line of every single record. Every bloody one.”
    Lachlain knew Bowe had been dogged in finding a way to have Mariah back, but he hadn’t realized he’d sifted through all those records.
    Bowe added, “The witch put one spell on me—why would I no’ think she’d hex me twice?”
    “But why would she do it?”
    He ran his remaining hand over the back of his neck. “There was a short window of time when she... when she wanted me for herself. She made me kiss her—”
    “Made you?” Lachlain raised his eyebrows.
    “ Enthralled me to do it.”
    “How can you be sure you didn’t merely desire her?”
    “Because I could feel it happening. And I have been true to Mariah all these years... until that witch toyed with me.”
    The fact that Bowe hadn’t bedded another for so long didn’t shock Lachlain. Though the Lykae were notorious for their insatiable appetites, their kind revered few things above loyalty. “Emma knows the witch and has seen her without her cloak. She says Mariketa is a beautiful girl. Did you no’ find her so?”
    “She had a glamour on. I canna recall her looks clearly.”
    “What did the Instinct tell you?” A guiding force with which all Lykae are born, the Instinct was like a voice in the mind directing the individual toward what would be best for him, as well as for the collective clan.
    Bowe hesitated before admitting, “The Instinct has long been quiet in me.”
    Lachlain glanced away. The idea that his cousin had been denied the comforting presence of the Instinct was painful for Lachlain, but he didn’t want Bowe to think he pitied him. Even when Lachlain had been tortured, the Instinct had never forsaken him.
    Bowe added, “The bottom line is that the gods could no’ be so cruel as to pair me with a witch.”
    This was a good point. All Lykae mistrusted witches—the Instinct cautioned continually—but Bowe’s dislike had always been more marked than others’. Ever since he was a lad he’d had a pronounced aversion to them, even before Bowe had learned of his father’s tragic encounter with one.
    Still Lachlain said, “I was given a half-vampire, half-Valkyrie as mate, and I could no’ cherish her more.”
    “I could handle anything... just no’ a bloody witch, Lachlain.”
    Lachlain let that rest for now. “You canna travel until you’ve built up some strength. And think, if you do in fact recognize her as your mate, for whatever reason, you canna go for her yet. Today’s Wednesday—the full moon’s on Friday night.” And all mated Lykae turned in the heat of the moon.
    “Christ. When I change I might pursue her as my mate and