Wicked Deeds on a Winter's Night (28 page)

*  *  *

Bowe's jaw slackened. When the air cleared, he saw the bridge on the other side was . . . gone.

“Do you see them?”

“They're fine. They made it across,” he told her. Not necessarily a lie. They might have leapt up before the bridge was lost—no matter how much more likely it was that they'd fallen.

Still, unless they lost their heads, a fall couldn't kill them. And until he got Mariketa down from this mountain, and safe from their present predicament, he didn't think it wise to tell her that her friends might have plunged hundreds of feet.

“Now, we've got to get ourselves to safe ground, too. I can use the bridge's wood slats as rungs. We'll just climb up. Verra well, Mari?”

“B-Bowen, wait! If you d-don't drop me on the climb up, I'll be nicer to you, and . . . and I'll sleep with you! I really will.”

“Well, in that case, I'll be sure to hold you tight,” he said, reaching above him.

“You're laughing at me.”

“Nothing on earth could make me drop you.” Almost to the top. “Even if you've been cruel to me.”

“
I've
been cruel?”

“Aye, and toying with me.”

“What are you talking about?” she demanded.

“About leading me to think you were going to ‘give it up' then reneging.”

“I never led you on!”

“Did you no'
jump me
?”

“You're trying to distract me again—” Her words ended in a shriek directly in his ear when he leapt from the bridge over the edge.

“There, we're on solid ground again. See, everything's fine.” As soon as he'd gotten them back down under the trees, he set her on her feet, holding her shoulders until she was steady enough to stand on her own. But she launched herself right back at him, wrapping her arms around his waist, like she'd hug a tree.

He stared down at her. “Mariketa?”

“Th-thanks for not letting me die.”

He dragged her arms up around his neck, then pressed her head to his chest, drawing her close. “I will never let anything happen to you.” As she clutched him, he felt needed and strong—finally the protector he'd been born to be.

She whispered, “Bowen, I think you're quite possibly my favorite person in the world right now.”

—
Yours.
—

I know.
He did. For weeks he'd thought of her, dreamed of her. Her passion had awed him. Her bravery and beauty amazed him. Now he simply allowed himself to accept what he'd wanted so desperately.

She was his.

Her for him. Period.

“I can't believe you could hold on like that,” she said. “You're really, uh, strong.”

“I'm supposed to be, to protect you.”

They both fell silent.

“Not
me,
MacRieve.”

“I've made a decision, lass.” He drew back and cupped her face. “If given the chance I would
no'
go back. You're mine. And I'm going to do whatever it takes, till I'm yours as well.”

She made a frustrated sound. “Typical male! Because of what happened in the cave?”

“Aye, some. But also because of what happened after. We fit, you and me, and could make a life together. And, witch”—his gaze held hers—“we're going to have a bloody good time of it.”

A
s they continued on, MacRieve grew quiet, seeming to carry the weight of the world on his shoulders. Mari couldn't read him and had begun to fear he regretted his earlier declaration.

To break the silence, she said, “You must be missing your clan. I've heard you're a tight-knit group.”

He shrugged. “I'm no' much part of that—or I have no' been for some time.” At her quizzical look, he said, “They question why I have no' found a way to die after my loss. I want to take you among them and say ‘
This
is why I kept going, you sods. And look at my reward.' ”

Mari
—
alert
—
over your head!

“Have you been around my kind much before?” he asked.

“I've seen a couple of Lykae out on Bourbon Street—twins—but I've never met them.”

“Ah, the infamous Uilliam and Munro. I wonder that they weren't all over you. Were you still with your
demon
?” He grated the word.

“No, we'd stopped seeing each other by then.”

“Why did you break things off with him? Did he hurt you?”

“
He
left
me
.”

“Doona lie—”

“I'm not! He broke up with me.”

When MacRieve nodded slowly, she said, “What? You can easily see that?”

“No, I was just thinking about a saying my clan has: ‘Enjoy a bounty if one falls in your lap. Savor it if it was lost by a careless man.' ”

Over my head.
Maybe she
was
too young to resist. Maybe he was working her over like dough. Because right now, his prediction that he'd take her tonight was spot-on. “You see me as a bounty?”

“Aye.” His eyes were so focused and sincere. “One I'm eager to partake of.”

She grew flustered, and to break the moment, she said, “So, MacRieve, tell me five things about you that I didn't know.”

He seemed strangely uncomfortable with her suggestion and said, “Why do you want this?”

“To break up the time while we're hiking.”

“You first, lass.”

“Well, I like to spin in office chairs till I'm nearly sick. My best friend thinks “
Laissez les bons temps rouler”
means “Plastic beads replace attire.” I was a cheerleader—I know, the anti-establishment witch cheerleader. But it was the best way for me to get a scholarship.” She sighed. “Until the cloak years.”

He raised his brows. “A
football
cheerleader?”

“And some basketball, but mainly football.”

“Happens to be my favorite sport.”

“Mine, too! So how many is that?”

“Three. Go on, then. This is fascinatin' stuff.”

“I like to play poker for cash, and pool-shark naive frat boys. Five things from you now.”

“What about your family?” he asked. “Parents? Siblings?”

“Are you stalling?”

“I'm curious about you. Indulge me.” He gave her a half grin. “Since I dinna drop you earlier.”

Glancing away, she said, “Both my parents abandoned me at different times when I was a kid. Pops was a warlock—he ditched early and died soon after. My mother is a fey druidess—that's where I get the ears. She left me when I was twelve to go off and study druidry, or whatever it's called.” Mari gave a self-conscious wince. “Wow. And I was really trying not to sound resentful.”

“I'm sorry, Mariketa. I canna understand how any parent could leave a child behind.”

For some reason, she didn't want Bowen thinking ill about her parents. “They must have had their reasons. They did care about me when they were with me.” That, at least, she knew for certain.

When he didn't look wholly convinced, she said, “I remember when I was four, my parents took me to Disney World. My dad used magick to make sure I won all the prizes in the ring toss, even though he would raise his hands with an innocent expression every time I frowned at him. Both my mom and dad saw every mind-numbing musical and rode every ride, and all the while, they were weighted down with stuffed animals.

“By noon my dad had started carrying me on his shoulders. At the end of the day, the two of them had that bomb-blast look you see on parents in the final hours of an amusement park sentence. Even so, they'd stopped for one last treat for me. My mom was nearly cross-eyed with fatigue and almost tendered druid coins for ice cream. Then,
when we were eating our ice cream in a plaza, my dad jerked up from a bench. ‘Jill!' he yelled. ‘Where's Mari? Ah, gods! I've lost our daughter!' Then my mother pointed out that I was on his shoulders.”

The three of them had laughed until they'd cried.

Bowen cocked his head at her. “They sound like they doted.”

Doted.
What a fitting word. “I guess they did.” After Mari's father had left, her mother continued to lavish her with attention—though Jillian would always appear saddened if they'd enjoyed themselves too much. Even at the end of that incredible day the two of them had spent on the beach, she'd seemed preoccupied—

Mari felt a sudden odd bite in the air and gazed up. She spied ravens circling overhead, making chills trip up her spine.

“What?” MacRieve asked, gently clasping her shoulders. “What is it?”

“I don't know. Probably nothing,” she said, yet continued to peer around her.

“If you're having a gut feeling about something, I want to know. I should have listened to you about the bridge and will from now on.”

But she couldn't voice what she was feeling, because she didn't understand it. “No, I'm fine,” she insisted, forcing a smile. “You still owe me five things.”

He rubbed his hand over the back of his neck, looking as if he'd rather deal with a mysterious threat than reveal five things about himself.

B
owe opened his mouth to answer her, but again drew a blank. Not surprising. He was on edge that she'd sensed a threat when he still scented nothing. Plus there was the fact that there was naught for Bowe to tell her.

Over the last many decades, his life had centered around his aim of bringing Mariah back. He wanted to steer clear of that subject—as well as that of the Hie. Yet aside from those pursuits, he hadn't had a real life in memory.

Bowe had known his existence was soulless and barren, but that fact had never been hit home like this.

He could tell her that he used to lead an army, a stalwart one. Yet the Horde had decimated it in the same war that Rydstrom had lost his, and Bowe would rather her not know of his failure. Today she'd begun regarding him differently, and he didn't want that to change.

He was good at killing. Also not helping his efforts with her.

And friends? Bowe didn't have many—or, rather, any—that he saw regularly. He'd let friendships wane, because it was always so uncomfortable for others to try to convey their sympathies to him. He'd rather save them the trouble—and besides, too often sympathy crossed over the line and became pity. Or they studied him like Lachlain
did. Bowe put up with Lachlain's scrutiny because he was like a brother, but he didn't suffer it from others.

Christ, he was a cipher.

For the first time, he worried if he could be worthy enough for Mariketa. Did he even deserve her? Yes, she was a witch, but she was also stunningly beautiful and brave and clever.

“I like football, too,” he finally said.

“You've already told me, so that doesn't count.”

“I love the color of your eyes.”

She tucked a curl behind her pointed ear, sliding him the bewitching smile that made his heart punch the insides of his chest. “What's your favorite place to visit?”

He absently answered, “Wherever you are.”

“Bowen, five things about you can't all be about me.”

But you're the only good thing that I've got.
“Why no'?”

“Where's your home? I don't even know where you live.”

“I have a place in Louisiana, but my real home is in the north of Scotland.” Though he said
my
home, in his mind the large hunting lodge he'd had restored was already
their
home—but he didn't want to spook her further.

“What about your family? I bet you have a huge one, being a Lykae and all.”

“My family was unusual. I'm an only child.” Except for his male cousins, he had no one left.

Maybe that was why he wanted children so much, to grow his own family. Soon, he would reveal to Mariketa that he
wanted
that bomb-blast look parents had at an amusement park. And he and Mariketa would have brave children together—fearless even. He began to resent that patch of hers as a barrier to a prize he'd wanted for so
long . . . a prize he now believed was within his grasp.