Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

considered her
his woman
—and the idea only aroused her more.
    The first night on board, he’d told her that she’d pray for him to be inside her. Again, he’d been right. When he spread her thighs wide, then lazily petted her sex, it drove her wild. Especially when he stroked just at her core while rasping in her ear, “One day I’m goin’ tae be wedged so deep right in here. You’ll be hot and wet and fit me like a glove.”
    Again and again, she tried to imagine how his shaft would feel plunging into her body. Most women in her situation would fear his size. But after his onslaught of teasing and petting…
    Yesterday, she’d nearly begged, murmuring how much she needed him inside her.
    He’d gnashed his teeth, puncturing the paneled wallabove their bed with his claws. “Gods, woman! No’ till you ask me. Out o’ bed!”
    Every night after they were sated—or as much as they could be with their limitations—he held her in his arms. They watched her butterfly dance in the lamplight, talking for hours.
    They’d speculated as to why Nïx had warned her about the
Barão
and why its captain kept returning to remote tributaries if some of his passengers didn’t make it back to port. “Maybe Captain Malaquí’s been finding demons out there,” Lucia had said. “He could be sacrificing unwitting cryzos to them in exchange for power.”
    “We’ve heard of crazier things in the Lore….”
    And MacRieve told her more about the necropolis. If they could locate Rio Labyrinto, they could find the city of the dead. In that place were depictions of gold, possibly directing them to “the mythical” El Dorado—which, MacRieve had told her, might or might not even be a
place
.
    “Everyone thinks it’s a location, a lost city,” he’d said, “but the phrase is actually based on a legend of a native chieftain. He was so rich that he ridiculed anyone who wore the same jewelry twice. Instead, he had his gold ground into a mist, then painted on his body. At the end of the day, he’d wash it away, and it’d be lost forever. El Dorado means ‘the Gilded Man.’”
    If El Dorado had merely been a man, then he probably would’ve been buried in a
necropolis
. Had he been buried with his gold? If he were surrounded by his golden treasures—
like arrows?
—then maybe El Dorado could still be a man
and
a place.
    Lucia didn’t expect a neon sign pointing to the dieumort, but she and MacRieve had enough clues to… get them to the next set of clues. In truth, she’d never been on such an ill-defined mission. But if it were easy to find a dieumort, then it would’ve been found before.
    And Lucia sensed they were getting closer, daydreaming incessantly about that perfect golden arrow, imagining how it would hiss through the air once she shot it.
    She pictured the look on Cruach’s hideous visage when he realized she’d just dealt a death blow….
    At other times, Lucia would read to MacRieve from an Amazon guide book that Izabel had given her. As Lucia discovered more about the perils they’d face in Rio Labyrinto—the anacondas and those creepy caimans—MacRieve carved arrows for her new quiver. With that sly look, he’d said, “If I canna fill your quiver in one way, I will in another.”
    She’d chuckled. “Good one, werewolf.”
    He’d grown quiet, seeming startled. “First time I’ve heard your laugh.”
    “And?”
    “And now I canna rest until I hear it again.” He’d leapt atop her, tickling her till she’d squealed with laughter….
    She was so tempted to tell him everything. Especially when he held her against his chest, warm in the circle of his muscular arms, murmuring, “Let me in, Lousha. Confide your secrets in me.”
    She knew he wanted her to reveal what her nightmareswere about. But Lucia didn’t believe in confiding, had never comprehended why others sought to unburden themselves—thereby
burdening another
. No, she’d never understood the act of transferring misery, but especially not with a secret like this.
    A fact-of-life secret, something that simply couldn’t be changed.
    How would MacRieve react if he knew his mate was married? The rage would have to overwhelm him. And when she explained who her husband was and how she’d come to be wed, nothing would stop MacRieve from confronting Cruach. Which would be tantamount to suicide. Or worse.
    Sometimes Cruach didn’t kill victims. Sometimes he
kept
them.
    So she continued putting MacRieve off. Yet she felt he was