Immortals After Dark 09 - Pleasure of a Dark Prince

aboard. “A mite foggy on the details.”
    Eyes watering with relief, she clutched him. “Look! It’s going away.” The giant caiman was following in the direction of the trap, along with the other hold-outs as well.
    “You were divin’ in for me? Does
nothing
scare you?” MacRieve wrapped his arms around her, cupping her head to his heaving chest.
    The downpour was still so loud, she had to scream over it. “What happened?”
    “When the creature got Damiãno, he tried to drag me down with him. Till the thing swallowed him whole.”
    “The shifter’s… dead?”
    “Aye. And if he’s no’, he’s wishing he is. Let’s no’ speak of this. We’ve got to secure this ship…” He trailed off, because she’d stiffened against him.
    “MacRieve, wh-where’s your cuff?”
    Their eyes met, his widening. “Oh, bluidy hell.” Before she could stop him, he dove back in.
    “Nooo!”
She knew there was no way he could find it. Again and again, he swam down. Finally, he hauled his body up once more, looking utterly defeated.
    Side by side, they stood on the remnants of the platform, both of them staring at the water and pelted with rain. Now the cuff was gone, and Lucia was trapped on a boat with a werewolf about to go crazy. “What are we going to do?”
    “I’m just fine, Lousha, doona fash yerself over me.”
    “But it’s
gone
!”
    “Oh, aye, and we canna break your vows. Nothing’s more important than that. Even the fact that I could’ve been killed!”
    “You couldn’t have bought a backup cuff?” she demanded in a yell. “Had a spare in your bag?”
    He bellowed back, “It never crossed my mind that I’d be battling a shape-shifter in the Amazon”—with an angry jab, he pointed out Damiãno’s deep bite on his arm—“and then wrestling with him underwater. Or that a giant caiman would drag him down, and he’d be snatching at me to take down with him. I barely got back to you! Maybe you’re wishing I dinna?”
    “Don’t be ridiculous!” No matter how incensed she was at him for putting her in this position, she didn’twant him hurt. And fighting with him was changing nothing—their situation wasn’t altering.
Think… think. This isn’t happening tonight.
    Fate has a way of getting what she wants, no matter how we try to avoid it.
    Ah, gods, unless she could get off this boat, it
would
be happening.
    “Damn it, lass, I will try to be gentle.” Garreth reached for her shoulder. “Maybe if we started now, I could get you accustomed. I could make sure you were crazed with needing, too….”
    But she flinched from him, clearly furious.
Rightly
furious with him.
I’d promised her that she had nothing to fear.
And Lucia had promised that she’d hate him forever if she broke her vows.
    “It will no’ be like your last time, Lousha.”
    “What do you know about my last time?”
    “Does no’ take a genius to realize you had a bad experience.”
    “Y-you have no idea.” She shuddered, her wee ears peeking out from her soaked mane.
    “The man hurt you?”
Wanting to kill some faceless male, needing to… Keep it together, Garreth.
    She nodded. And she hadn’t had sex in a millennium because of it.
    “I’m not ready, MacRieve. I’m just
not
. I don’t want this.” Her eyes were bleak.
    Over the last ten days, Garreth hadn’t eased her mind about sex. Or
changed
it. Either because of her vows or because she’d been scarred from the last time,Lucia wasn’t ready for this night—couldn’t endure a moon-crazed Lykae taking her untried body.
    Without mercy.
    “Listen, we can fix this.”
    “H-how? Nothing will stop you. No cage can hold you.”
    “You can put me out of commission, make it so I canna chase you,” he said.
    “And how exactly am I supposed to do that?”
    Garreth answered, “Shoot me between the eyes.”
    “I-I can’t do that!” Lucia cried.
    “Then you’ll do to me as my kinsmen did.”
    “What?”
    “They beat me within an inch of my life, then tied me up in a dungeon,” MacRieve said. “Broke a leg or two. Worked like a charm those times. We doona have a dungeon, but if you—”
    “No, no, you had other women. I found condoms in your bag!”
    He frowned. “I bought those for you, so I would no’ get a babe on you too soon. Had no’ found out your diet, or lack of one, would work just as well.”
    She was still shaking her head in disbelief.
    “Lousha, I have no’ been with another since I met you.”
    At that, the worst of her