Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

only biding his time, as if he had no doubt she’d ultimately open up to him.
    Which will never happen.
Lucia had decided she would do whatever it took to keep her involvement with Cruach concealed from MacRieve. But on other matters, she was less resolved….
    Regin always asked herself,
Is the cake worth the bake?
Invariably, for Regin, it was. Now Lucia had caught herself wondering if having a life with MacRieve might be. When all this was over, if she could truly kill Cruach…
    No! What the hell am I thinking?
Even if she didn’t have to stop an apocalypse, she couldn’t surrender her archery. It would be like erasing her identity.
    You get off on being known as the Archer,
he’d said.
    Yes. Yes, I do.
She’d go from being the Archer to being the Lykae’s Mate.
    Never
, she decided.
    Then she went to go catch dinner.

THIRTY-ONE

    A three-foot-long fish plopped onto the deck in front of Garreth and Damiãno. Jutting from its head was an arrow with a line attached. Bow fishing.
    From behind them, Lucia said, “Please put your penises away, gentlemen. Dinner is procured. By a woman.”
    Garreth twisted around, found her slinging her bow over her shoulder, brushing off her unsullied hands. As she sauntered away, the lass said over her shoulder, “I caught, you boys can clean.”
    Gods, that female. Drives me crazy.
When Garreth glanced back, he saw Damiãno was gazing after her as well. “Look at her again like that, Damiãno!” He stepped in front of the man. “Do it, and let’s end this
now
.”
    The man’s eyes flashed to a glowing green.
    In a low tone, Garreth said, “You’re a goddamned shifter!”
    “And you’re an
escocês
dog.”
    That raised his hackles. “Scottish dog?” Revealing a good look of the beast within him, Garreth growled, “I’ve got your number, shifter. So stay out of my bluidy way.”
    In turn, Damiãno revealed a hint of his own beast—a black jaguar with fangs as long as Garreth’s fingers. “Don’t get in mine,
escocês
.”
    No fear of me—interesting.
“You better truly be here as a doc and for no other reason.” Jaguar shifters were rumored to be exceptionally powerful.
Might actually be a worthy opponent.
    “I’m here to protect the Amazon. Don’t ever forget that.”
    “I’m here to protect my mate. I’ll do it to the death. Count yourself warned. In the meantime, you’ve got fish to clean,
gato
,” Garreth said, turning away to look for Lucia.
    What’s new there?
    She was hanging over the rickety rail, watching the pink dolphins that swam alongside the ship. Her short shorts rode up until he could almost glimpse the cleft of her generous arse. He gave a low growl at the sight. Then his gaze fell on the slender column of her neck. His mouth watered for her, his fangs aching to mark the tender flesh there.
    Now I understand why my brother marked his mate so hard.
When Garreth finally got to do it to Lucia…
I’ll mark the living hell out of her.
    He was pleasuring her—hard and continually—but Garreth hadn’t gained any ground with her, was no closer to claiming her. She’d made no request that he take her completely. At least not
out
of bed.
    And the full moon was tonight. He’d hoped to have convinced her to forgo her vows before now. So he could take off the cuff and claim her.
    Added to that, he couldn’t shake the feeling of someimpending threat. Something more than the nearing apocalypse and the full moon. He felt as if he were running out of time on all fronts….
    A dolphin sprayed water from its blowhole, making Lucia laugh. She’d begun laughing more often. Whenever he let himself believe it was because of him, he stood a little taller.
    The gift of a butterfly had been a stroke of genius. “You named it after me?” she’d asked, her expression growing soft, her eyes flickering silver.
    That was what the wolf in him had been craving. Her approval, her delight. He’d soaked it up. Like a besotted fool, he tended that damned butterfly morning and night, feeding it with a sponge full of sugar water.
    And the quiver he’d swiped from the fey? He inwardly grinned. That hadn’t gone unappreciated either.
    For nearly two weeks, Garreth had made Lucia his study, continuing to dig into her past. And every day he turned up something new and surprising.
    She’d revealed more about the foe Nïx had dispatched her to kill, this Crom Cruach. “Those infected with his influence feel compelled to sacrifice whoever they love, in the