Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

most ghastly ways. The more they love something, the more they want to annihilate it. Cruach can control their minds, forcing his victims to see whatever he wills them to. Their eyes turn milky white—that’s when you know they’re lost.”
    “How does he do this?”
    “His powers as a god. And he grows stronger with each sacrifice in his name. Whenever Cruach’s human followers from the Cult of Death—the Cromites—invoke him, they pray:
To him we sacrifice, for him our cherished.”
She’d said she couldn’t imagine a worse apocalypse—because this one would sweep the world, perverting the purest love and turning it into evil and death.
    Lucia was convinced that the dieumort had to be an arrow. Now he’d become convinced as well. If one could be infected by Cruach, then it made sense to strike at him from afar.
    Garreth planned to. Alone. The more she told him of Cruach, the more Garreth resolved never to let her anywhere near him. But she’d yet to tell him
where
to find the god.
    One night after much coaxing, Garreth had gotten her to admit she’d only been with one man. “If you’ve only had sex with one bloke in all this time,” he’d said, “then you must’ve loved him verra much.”
    She’d turned away, her face paling.
So that’s the way of it
. The man had hurt her.
    “Or you hated sex so much you would join a celibate order and forgo it for over ten centuries.”
    She’d sighed, looking tired, with faint smudges under her eyes. Between her continuing nightmares and his attentions, she hadn’t been enjoying much restful sleep. In fact, it was only toward dawn, once her nightmares had ebbed, that she’d fall into a deeper, nearly comatose slumber. “MacRieve, will you just let it go?”
    He’d said he would drop it, but of course he hadn’t. He needed to figure out exactly how bad it’d been for her. And who the male was.
So I can slaughter him—
    His phone rang then. It was Lachlain, no doubt callingto see what progress Garreth had made before the looming full moon.
In a word: none.
Still, the call was a welcome distraction.
    Garreth answered with, “How goes it with you and the queen?”
    “She took me to a mall yesterday.” Lachlain sounded as if he’d just stifled a shudder. “And she pointed to a boy and said, ‘I think I want one.’ So naturally, I start thinking,
Where can I get a wee mortal
? But she meant… she meant a bairn—
our
bairn.”
    “You still fear getting a babe on your mate? Again, brother, how delicate can she be if she beheaded Demestriu?”
    “Ach! No’ you, too!”
    Actually, Garreth couldn’t talk. Before he’d found out the Valkyrie couldn’t get pregnant unless they ate regular meals, he’d planned to take precautions.
    “In any case, I dinna call to talk about me. How goes it with your Valkyrie?”
    Garreth rubbed his palm over the back of his neck. “I’d been so busy chasing her down that I never stopped to see if I truly
liked
her, had never had the opportunity to discover if I could.”
    “And now that you’ve had the opportunity?”
    Hesitation. Then he admitted in a low tone, “I
like
her.”
Everything about her.
Each day, he fell deeper under her spell, his graceful, exquisite mate with her dark flashing eyes. “She’s so clever.” The speed with which she was learning Gaelic was uncanny. “And I like that she’s proud.” He’d never thought he would desire such a prideful woman, but now that he’d had a taste of Lucia,he could never settle for less. “And she’s… passionate,” he said in the ultimate understatement.
    Lucia was the best bedmate he’d ever conceived of—and they hadn’t even had sex. She brought him greater pleasure than he’d ever known, but released only the worst of the pressure—because she stoked his need beyond imagining.
    “And does the Valkyrie return the sentiment?” Lachlain asked.
    “I want her more than I’ve ever coveted anything—but I know she’s no’ mine. She holds herself away from me, keeps secrets. I fear she always will.”
    Garreth had told her, “We need to talk about what will happen once we complete this mission.” She’d given him a cagey look and said, “Can’t we just keep our focus on that for now?” He’d asked her to confide in him, asked her what her nightmares were about. She’d refused to tell him.
    “You’ve got to give her a free rein,” Lachlain said. “She’s made up her own mind about things for over a millennium—she will