Immortals After Dark 04 - Wicked Deeds on a Winters Night

ethereal and innocent, the witch so sensual and devious, and so... brave . No. Mariketa could not be her. Simply impossible.
    Rydstrom studied Bowe. “Wouldn’t matter now if Mariketa was her anyway.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “Animosity has probably already turned to hatred in that one. And there’s nothing like boiling hatred to dampen a female’s acceptance of her mate. Especially when he’s not of her kind.” Rydstrom ignored Bowe’s scowl and said, “I just wonder if the witch actually could have cast such an intricate spell on you. Think about it—this couldn’t be a simple love spell to trigger this kind of reaction in you.”
    One thing Bowe was unequivocally certain of was that he didn’t love her. He desired her, had overriding urges to protect her—and to bed her. Gods, how I want to bed her.
    But he didn’t even like her. Which followed. Considering that she’d just attacked him. Twice.
    “Though her power’s great,” Rydstrom continued, “it’s volatile, and she’s clumsy with magicks. Yet to do this to you, she would have had to affect the Lykae’s Instinct in you. And not merely to tamper with it. Somehow she would have had to trick a force that has been honed over hundreds of thousands of years. Then, say she’d managed that, instead of accidentally blowing you up—which she admitted to us that she does ninety-nine out of a hundred times. Do you think she could have removed just one of her spells from you tonight, leaving the other? And in her condition?”
    Bowe felt sweat dotting his brow. What if... what if Mariketa the Awaited actually was... his ? His female, returned to him? His to claim, to protect—to claim . He felt a savage thrill at the idea of possessing her and bending her strong will to his.
    What if fate had finally taken pity on him after all these wretched years?
    He shook his head hard. “My ability to heal was honed over the same amount of time as well, but she managed to tamper with that .”
    “Someone would have taught her that mortality spell, but do you think they’d have taught her how to affect a Lykae’s Instinct?” Rydstrom said. “Let me ask you, isn’t there some way you can prove without a doubt that she’s yours?”
    Bowe hesitated to answer before muttering, “If I can get her with bairns.”
    “Are you bloody jesting?” Rydstrom snapped, then narrowing his eyes, he added, “That’s right! I recall this now.”
    Bowe ran his palm over the back of his neck.
    “Since that’s how to get the proof you need, I know what I’d be aiming for, and a pleasanter endeavor I can’t imagine.”
    “Doona be imagining that at all, or I’ll be tearing your throat out!”
    Rydstrom raised his brows.
    “So if you were me, you’d just go along with the Instinct, treat her as yours for possibly years until you decided for certain?”
    “If it meant I got to enjoy the curvy redhead in that cave for possibly years, then yes.”
    “Damn it, doona bloody talk about her like that!”
    Rydstrom gave him an expression that said Bowe was proving his point. Again.
    “And then say I eventually determined it was an enchantment?” Bowe asked. “What if after so long, I canna quit her?”
    “If she couldn’t quit you either, then would it be so bad?” Rydstrom said. “Some men would take happiness where they found it.” There was something like sympathy in his eyes. Rydstrom, too, had gone long without finding his destined demoness. “Especially when they have absolutely no promise of it anywhere else.” He rose to leave. “Whatever you do, make a decision about her, Bowen, one way or the other, and stick to it.”
    “You’re helping me with her? Though Cade wants her? Do you do this because of an old friendship or to thwart him?”
    If the latter, Cade had it coming.
    The relationship between the two demons was complicated. Not only were their personalities averse—if Rydstrom would take a scalpel to a problem to systematically cut through it, Cade would take a hammer and swing wildly—there was also the matter of Cade’s losing Rydstrom’s crown.
    Rydstrom answered, “Either would work for you, would it not?”
    “True.” If the demons’ history was complicated, Bowe and Cade’s was contentious. They were too much alike—both killers in service to kings, leaders compelled by fortune to follow another. Bowe followed Lachlain because he was like a brother and was worthy to serve. Cade followed Rydstrom because, in his own