Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

practitioners of good and evil.”
    ♦ Mystical mercenaries who sell their spells.
    ♦ Separated into five castes: warrior, healer, enchantress, conjurer, and seeress.
    ♦ Led by Mariketa the Awaited.
    THE WRAITHS
    “…their origin unknown, their presence chilling.”
    ♦Spectral, howling beings. Undefeatable and, for the most part, uncontrollable.
    ♦ Also called the Ancient Scourge.
    THE TURNING
    “Only through death can one become an ‘other.’ ”
    ♦ Some beings, such as the Lykae, vampires, and demons, can turn a human or even other Lore creatures into their kind through differing means, but the catalyst for change is always death, and success is not guaranteed.
    THE ACCESSION
    “And a time shall come to pass when all immortal beings in the Lore, from the Valkyrie, vampire, Lykae, and demon factions to the phantoms, shifters, fey, and sirens…must fight and destroy each other.”
    ♦ A kind of mystical checks-and-balances system for an ever-growing population of immortals.
    ♦ Occurs every five hundred years. Or right now…

♦ ♦ ♦
    Some secrets can never be known. They go to
the grave with you like children never born.
    —L UCIA THE H UNTRESS,
    Valkyrie of mysterious origin,
world’s most skilled archeress
    If I have to scour the entire earth, I’ll hunt her
down. I will no’ falter. One day I will bring
my female back to my home—back to my
bed…. She was born to be found by me.
    —G ARRETH M AC R IEVE,
king of all Lykae

PROLOGUE

    Thrymheim Hold, the Northlands
Home of Skathi, goddess of the hunt
In ages long past…
    Lucia the Maiden cracked open her eyes and found herself atop an altar, staring up at a furious goddess. Somehow her younger sister, Regin the Radiant, had found Skathi’s temple and had brought Lucia here.
    From one altar to the next
, she thought deliriously as her fever raged. Pain roiled inside her broken body. Her fractured limbs… never had she imagined such agony.
    “You deliver this into my sacred place,” Skathi the Huntress of the Great North said to Regin, “and desecrate my altar? You court my wrath, young Valkyrie.”
    Regin—all of twelve years old, with Lucia’s blood covering her glowing skin—said, “What can you do? Torture my sister? Murder her? She has already survived the first and is about to succumb to the second without your aid.”
    “I could murder
both
of you.”
    In answer, Regin pursed her lips, looking as if she were sizing up Skathi’s shins for a good kicking.
    Lucia struggled for consciousness, labored to speak. “Don’t hurt her, please… my fault, my fault…” But her words were drowned out by a rumbling boom. This hold was carved into the heights of Godsbellow Mountain, shaken continually by thunder.
    Skathi asked Regin, “Why bring her here?”
    “Because you’re both neighbor and nemesis to the one who did this.”
    Had interest flickered in the goddess’s eyes? “The Broken Bloody One?”
    “Aye.”
    Canting her head at Regin in an appraising way, Skathi said, “You’re not even old enough to be a true immortal yet. For one so powerless and insignificant, you dare much, Valkyrie.”
    “For Lucia, I dare this and more,” Regin answered proudly. “Best be forewarned.”
    “Regin!” Lucia gasped. The girl had lost her mind.
    “What?”
She stomped her foot. “What’d I say?”
    Instead of smiting Regin, the goddess impatiently gestured for her guards, the legendary Skathians. They were renowned archers, all females who underwent grueling training rituals to serve the goddess. “Take the glowing one down the mountain. Make sure she does not remember the way back.”
    When Regin charged toward her, Lucia cried, “Nay, Regin… leave me!”
    The Skathians snagged Regin around the waist, forcing her out as she flailed and shrieked, biting them.
    Lucia heard one of them say,
“Ow! You little ratling!”
And then they were gone.
    Skathi regarded Lucia’s battered face impassively. “You worry for her? When she has been spared? You, however, will not last the hour.”
    “I know,” Lucia whispered. “Unless you help me.” She caught Skathi’s gaze as she pleaded—a mistake to look directly upon the great and terrible goddess. Meeting her fathomless eyes brought on the sorrow and fear of all her prey over the ages. It sank over Lucia like a bitter frost.
“Please….”
When Lucia held up her crimson-stained hand in supplication, the wound across her torso she’d been holding welled with blood,