Immortals After Dark 04 - Wicked Deeds on a Winters Night

plane, with proper sedation, then I’d love to.”
    “I could take you places I’ve been. Show you things.”
    “Like where?”
    “We could drink wine across Italy and go diving off the islands of Greece. We could watch the sun rise over the Indian Ocean.”
    Eyes wide with excitement, she nodded up at him.
    “I want to show you everything, watch your expression with each new sight.” Over the last two weeks, when he’d realized how many things he wanted to do with her, he’d found that the need to have bairns was dimmed. Now he had a thousand places to take her before they settled down. “I’d be an excellent guide for you.”
    She grinned. “My man’s so modest .”
    “But in the winter, I want to take you home to Scotland.” He gazed at her and he knew he would see her in his country, walking the land beside him. And his heart was glad. “Snow would become you, lass.”

45

    “Do you remember where I put the cast net?” Bowe called to Mariketa. He wanted to catch her favorite fish for tonight. If she was to turn soon, he had to keep her well fed, ensuring she didn’t lose a single ounce of her curves. He could admit that he was developing a wee obsession with her shapely little body.
    She always knew where he put everything, from his boat keys to his wallet to his favorite lure. He was beginning to wonder what he’d done without her for the last millennium.
    Just as she rushed around the corner and said, “Not in there!” he opened the hallway closet door.
    Inside, a garbage bag turned over; apples thudded to the floor, the area thick with them.
    He backed away, chilled to his bones. “What’s the meaning of this, Mariketa?”
    She rubbed her foot against the back of her other ankle. “I wish I could say this isn’t what it looks like, but... it is.”
    “How many times have you gone to the mirror?”
    She shrugged. “Count the apples if you want to know.”
    “You lied to me. You hid this, sneaking around.”
    “You forced me to.”
    “What does that mean?”
    “You want me to give up magick, but it’s a part of me that I can’t deny.”
    “No, you can shed yourself of it if you try. Practicing is a choice.”
    “Then sacrifice something dear for me,” she said, a challenge in her tone.
    “Like what?”
    “Like... hunting . Never hunt and run the night again.”
    “You’re mad.”
    “It’s equivalent!”
    “No, it’s no’. Hunting does no’ harm other people.”
    “Yet you assume I’m going to?” She narrowed her eyes. “I know Lykae are mistrustful of witches, but there must be more to this deep a prejudice.”
    “Aye, there is.” He ran his fingers through his hair. “Long ago, a witch... killed five of my uncles. The guilt of their deaths destroyed my father. He was never right, no’ up to the day he died.”
    She gasped, her face paling.
    “My da was just a lad at the time and wished that he was stronger than his brothers. She killed them all, granting his wish.”

    Oh, great Hekate.
    “Bowen, I am so sorry that happened to your family. But you should have told me this sooner.”
    “Why?”
    “Because you’re not going to just get past this .” After this revelation, she had to question if she’d ever had a shot with him. “And we dance around the issue, but now I know you will never tolerate my coven. And they won’t accept you because you won’t respect the responsibilities that I have.”
    “Let someone else bloody take care of them.”
    Oh, the idea of surrendering all that responsibility was tempting. When Bowen acted as if the sun and moon revolved around her, Mari caught herself dreaming about doing nothing but traveling the world with him.
    Why should she have to be saddled with something she never asked for—and had displayed no talent for?
    Yet now, seeing Bowen like this, she recalled Cade’s words: “If you turn your back on your destiny—maybe to be a Lykae’s browbeaten mate and wife—Fate will not just slight you. She will punish you, over and over.”
    Mari thought of the prediction once more. Maybe the warrior’s seeking to keep her away from the House wasn’t physically . Perhaps she would be so afraid of losing yet another person she cared about that she would sacrifice anything— taking herself out of her coven, away from her calling, from her old life...
    “I might like to relinquish them, but I can’t turn my back on my destiny. And it’s not like I’m saying ‘Look at me, I’m such an important badass.’