Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

burnished gold color with rakish laugh lines fanning out from them. At one time, he’d been happy; he clearly wasn’t now. Tension radiated from his body, anger blazing off him.
    When those golden irises flickered a bright ice blue, she confirmed what he was. A Lykae. A werewolf.
    An
animal
. His handsome face masked a beast, literally.
    “You call that a hit, you bluidy ponce!” he yelled at one of the demons, the muscles in his neck and chest standing out in strain as he bowed up and bared his fangs. His accent was Scottish, but then most of the Lykae were Highlanders—or they used to be, before homesteading southern Louisiana.
“Aye, Caliban! Go fook yerself!”
    Others were drawing him back from a particularly large demon, seeming exasperated, as if the male had been picking fights all night. Probably had. The Lykae were considered a menace in the Lore, with little control over their ferocity. In fact, they seemed to revel in it.
    One hundred percent unadulterated male, alpha to the core. And still he was making her… lust. As the game continued, Lucia waited for revulsion to drown out her attraction. And waited.
    Yet with each pitiless blow the male gave—andtook—and with each of his growled threats and taunts, it burned hotter. Her breaths shallowed and her small claws went from straight to curling, aching to clutch a warm body to her own.
    But when she remembered the last time she’d felt like this, a chill swept over her. She dragged her gaze from his antics and surveyed the nymphs frolicking on the sidelines. Lucia had once been like them—hedonistic, serving no higher purpose.
    Am I
still
to be like them?
No, she was disciplined now; she had a code.
I’m a Skathian—by right of pain and the blood I’ve spilled.
    With a hard shake of her head, she forced herself to focus on her mission—dispatching the kobolds. To the naked eye, they appeared cherubic, but they were actually ground dwellers with reptilian features. And when their populations went unchecked they tended to snatch human young, which jeopardized all of Lorekind.
    The pair had split up, one of them fleeing deeper into the swamps, while the other hid behind the wall of nymph spectators, assuming itself safe in this crowd.
    Lucia absently fingered the flights of the barbed arrows strapped to her thigh and savored the comforting weight of her bow over her shoulder.
    Her prey assumed wrong. The Archer never missed.

TWO

    Garreth swiftly broke away from the pack of demons at his heels, gaining more and more ground toward the goal. Rain pelted him as his speed increased.
    This would be an easy score, taking him nearly the entire length of the field. Finally the demons pursuing him gave up, slowing one by one, hailing curses.
    Yet then, in the most bewildering moment of his life, Garreth’s lids grew heavy and his dark claws bit into the ball he carried, puncturing it. As he inhaled deeply, he isolated a new, exquisite scent from a thousand threads of them—the coppery smell of lightning, cut blades of grass, the swampy bayous all around them. Sensations overwhelmed him, racking his muscles as he slowed.
    Her. My mate. She’s near….
She was downwind but close enough that he detected her. He didn’t know what she looked like, what her name was, or even her species. Yet he’d been waiting a millennium—his entire existence—for her. His head swung around in the direction of the scent.
    A small female stood alone off to the side of the field.
    At his first sight of her, his breath was lost, his Lykae Instinct roaring to life within him.
    —Yours. Take her.—
    She was half a mile or so away, but he saw her clearly through the rain, could make out every detail. She had pouting pink lips and flashing amber eyes. A black bow was strapped over her petite body, and she’d tied a leather quiver full of arrows to her thigh. Wee pointed ears poked out through her mane of long, wet hair.
Yes, mine.
    Gods, she was as exquisite as her scent—
    Wham!
The demons tackled him with the force of a freight train, flattening him on the field, piling on top of him. His left shoulder popped from its joint. A knee to his jaw wrenched three back teeth loose. He growled, not with pain but with frustration, punching the still-hitting demons with his one good arm. As he battled to free himself, he sucked his teeth into his windpipe.
    The twins ran to help him, finally peeling the demons off him. Garreth struggled to his knees, futilely coughing, hacking