Immortals After Dark 04 - Wicked Deeds on a Winters Night

will figure out what is happening.”
    She couldn’t say she’d done it, but she certainly couldn’t deny it outright either.
    “You’re probably too weak to remove the second spell right now. I ken that. But I press for this for your own good as well. The need to treat you as my mate is strong in me. Nigh overwhelming.”
    “You have got to be kidding!” She scrambled away from him, casting him a horrified look.
    “No, no, it’s no’ like that.” He raised his palms when she still edged away from him.
    “I wouldn’t have sex with you if you were the last immortal on earth!”
    He scowled. “There’s far more to being a mate than just that.”
    She gave him a disbelieving expression.
    “Just tell me you’ll remove it after you rest. Then I will no’ even have to explain my meaning.” He stood and began pacing again. “We will no’ ever have to speak to each other again. I know you want that as much as I do.”
    “You have no idea.”
    “I am grasping for patience when I’m no’ known for it whatsoever. I ken you’ve been through hell, but I dinna intend to harm you so badly. You did intend to with me. Now, do I have to put us in a similar situation as during the first spell removal?”
    “ Similar situation? ” she cried. “Like the one where you put me in fear for my life, then let go of that damned vine to heartlessly build my fear?” The callous bastard! “MacRieve, I hope I enthralled you. Then you can rot wanting me to be yours.”
    Something frightening flashed in his eyes. “You say that so easily when you’ve no comprehension of the damage you’ve already done with your tricks.”
    “Like what?”
    “I was inches from the means to go back for my true mate—to prevent her death—and believed it would be so. Yet because I was so injured and no’ regenerating, I was forced to make a decision that cost me the Hie. Because of you, Mariketa, I canna save an innocent young woman’s life. I will never have her—which means you’ve robbed her of life and me of a future, a family, or any kind of meaningful existence.”
    Mari realized the others outside had fallen silent and were likely eavesdropping.
    “So are you still glad that you’ll continue to torment me with your spell? Because you canna hurt me worse than when I lost my mate—no’ once, but two goddamned times!”
    Fury suffused her, and she stood as well. “And what about how you’ve hurt me?” she asked in a low, seething tone. “Day after day I was forced to lie amid the incubi’s putrid corpses, where I went without seeing daylight for three weeks. And each time they seized me in the dark and forced me to swallow blood to keep me alive, I got through it by imagining how I would make you pay.” His jaws and fists clenched as his anger built, but she was beyond caring. “You sealed me in that vile place to die without a backward glance and only returned because you wanted something from me!”
    He stalked closer, forcing her to crane her neck up to face him. “You convinced me that you could open the tomb, and I believed you would escape eventually. And I dinna know that the crypt was occupied —or that you were a bloody mortal !” He clutched her shoulders.
    She tried to twist from his grip, but he held firm. Gods, she wanted to throw him across the cave—and with the same strength as when she’d pinned him earlier!
    “What in the hell were you thinking to enter a competition like the Hie?” He gave her shoulders a jostle. “You knew what you were getting into, and you still signed up. You could have died !” he roared, shaking her hard.
    She raised her hands to shove against his chest; he flew across the cavern, as though tossed against the far wall.
    When he landed, he looked as dumbfounded as she felt. MacRieve was like a lightning rod for her powers. Whenever she wanted to use them against him, they worked perfectly .
    As he made it back to his feet, an expression of such pure menace twisted his face that she thought he could kill her.
    Fitting—since she was about to kill him. “By that same token, MacRieve, you knew what you were getting into as well!” she yelled. “So quit whining about any curse I put on you! If you enter a deadly competition against a witch, you should expect I’ll use the weapons allotted me.”
    He pointed at her, opening his mouth and then closing it, knowing she was right. “I dinna intend this to happen to you! You struck out at me with malice.”
    “Only