Immortals After Dark 04 - Wicked Deeds on a Winters Night

at its chest with wild sorrow.

1

    Present day
Tomb of the Incubi, the jungles of Guatemala
Day 3 of the Talisman’s Hie
Prize: Four Mayan sacrificial headdresses, each worth seven points
    “Stalking me, Mr. MacRieve?” Mariketa the Awaited asked the Lykae behind her without turning around. In the dark of a corridor leading to a burial chamber, Bowen MacRieve had been following her silently. But she’d felt him staring at her—just as she had at the Talisman’s Hie assembly three nights ago.
    “No’ likely, witch.” How could such a rumbling Scots’ burr sound so menacing? “I only stalk what I want to catch.”
    Mari did turn to slant him a glance at that, even knowing he couldn’t see her face under the hood of the scarlet cloak she always wore. But by the light of her lantern hanging over her shoulder, she could see his, and used the cover to disguise her long, appreciative look.
    She inwardly sighed. Lykae males were notoriously good-looking, and the few she’d seen had lived up to their reputation, but this one was heart-poundingly sexy.
    He had black hair, stick straight and thick, reaching to the collar of his obviously expensive shirt. His body—which she’d found herself thinking about frequently over the past few days—was sublime. He stood a good bit over six feet tall, and though the corridor was wide enough for two normal-size people to pass, his broad shoulders and big, rangy build filled the space.
    But even with all his many attractions, his eyes were what made him so unique. They were the color of rich, warm amber, and yet there was a kind of sinister light to them, which she liked.
    She was a little sinister, too.
    “Look your fill?” he asked, his tone scathing. Yes, he was sexy, but unfortunately, his dislike of witches was well known.
    “I’m done with you,” she answered, and meant it. She didn’t have time to pine after brusque werewolf warriors if she planned to be the first of her kind ever to win the Hie, an immortal scavenger hunt à la The Amazing Race .
    With an inward shrug, she continued on toward yet another burial chamber. This was the tenth she’d investigated over the hours she and several other competitors had been down deep inside this never-ending Mayan tomb.
    She might have surprised him with her curt dismissal because a moment passed before he followed her. The only sounds in the echoing space were his heavy footfalls, which he no longer bothered to muffle. The silence between them was grueling.
    “Who opened the stone slab to the tomb?” he finally asked, trailing far too closely behind her.
    “The three elven archers and a couple of demons.” The archers, two males and a female, were deadly shooters with lightning-quick speed, and the male rage demons were incredibly powerful—second in physical strength only to the Lykae. Yet even for them, the stone portcullis sealing the tomb’s entrance had been nearly impossible to budge.
    They’d realized the entire pyramidal structure had shifted from time and earthquakes and now rested on the portcullis, making it weigh tons. Raising it had taken all of the others cooperating—with the two demons lifting it and the archers shoving an enormous boulder under it to prop it open.
    “And they just let you enter after their effort?”
    She stopped and faced him again. “What should they have done, Mr. MacRieve?” The others had not only allowed her to enter. Though she barely knew any of them, they had wanted to work together since there were four prizes. Cade, one of the demons, had even helped her climb down the dozen feet from the outer entrance into the first anteroom. Then they’d all split up to cover the maze of chambers and vowed to the Lore to alert the others of a find.
    MacRieve’s smile was a cruel twist of his lips. “I know exactly what I would have done.”
    “I know exactly how I would have retaliated.” He seemed surprised that she didn’t fear him, but the truth was that she didn’t spook easily—when not faced with heights or unnecessarily large insects. And she was well aware of how vicious the Hie competitors could be as they raced around the world for prizes.
    This ruthlessness in the Hie was why Mari had been sent by the House of Witches to compete, even though she was only twenty-three and hailed from the shady New Orleans coven, the slacker Animal House of witches. And even though she had not yet made the turn from mortal to immortal.
    But Mari was not above trickery, and