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"What happens then?"
"He&039;d have to be locked away in our dungeons," Garreth said They should have known so was amiss with Bowen&039;s first "mate" - since he&039;d still been able to carry on after he thought she&039;d died "That&039;s e doona change others into our kind - anyone newly made would have to learn to control the beast, a process that takes decades, if it works at all We&039;d be forced to imprison the thee others, like Rossiter"
"Exactly," Garreth said, not unht "He&039;s no&039; out of the game yet Maybe he&039;ll find his orchid - or a pretty immortal who does no&039; follow Lore rules"
As the rain poured outside, they talked of other things, plotting ould happen toht when they arrived at Rio Labyrinto With each stroke of her hair, her lids grew heavier, her expression soft and sleepy, until she finally drifted off
Now he lay beside her with his head propped in his hand, lightly grazing his fingers up and down her sleek back He exhaled, si her with him, in his bed, in his life
But she didn&039;t trust him And that pained hiether Again, she suffered night outside
She was of a warrior race, and yet she was terrified, speaking in soue he didn&039;t understand
Who the hell had hurt his wo into his palht to control the beast within hiiven her pain
Chapter 32
When Crom had asked Lucia to coreed, though she&039;d known that once a Valkyrie left that plane, she could never return
Lucia was sixteen and in love Nothing, not her godparents&039; warnings or Regin&039;s pleading, could dissuade her She&039;d wedded Croe customs - they couldn&039;t touch whatsoever until after they&039;d been married, and they had to wed in a bizarre stone teers all around
At the altar, after they&039;d been joined forever, she&039;d turned to her beloved And he&039;d vanished In his place was one of the strangers with a raised club He&039;d struck, knocking her unconscious
Too late, Lucia had learned that Crom Cruach had never even been at the portal Instead, he&039;d been trapped in a fetid lair in the earth, projecting the i as she&039;d been watching the sky, Cruach had been watching her He&039;d needed a bride born of gods to beget heirs on, and like so many deities, he could project illusions for women he wanted to seduce
When Lucia had awakened, she&039;d been trapped in his prison with her fair-hairedover her Only then had Cruach unveiled his true self to her His beautiful face had fallen away, revealing the Broken Bloody One
A cloven-footed ether, taken frohtered victiy white hair hung sparsely around horns that jutted up like giant splayed fingers His face was ghoulish, his eyes yellow, slitted with red and running with pus
He was broken, his body les But even with his hunched form, he stood seven feet tall He was bloody as well - his scaly snakelike skin seeped blood and was rotting away in places, exposing those fused bones beneath
A line of drool had dripped fro mouth when he&039;d smiled down at her
Once she&039;d been able to scream no more, she&039;d learned the truth about all his lies He had told her he&039;d ifts His "castle" was a corpse-strewn tunnel in a seaside cliff, thick with ifts? Dead bodies and parts of thehtless eyes He intended for her to eat them
The adoration he vowed? Each day, his Cro her skin with blood, drawing sinister marks from the black arts all over her
There was no escaping hiuarded the entrance to the lair and the tunnel ended in a cliff two hundred feet above the ocean
Toward the end of her captivity, she&039;d been so starved, her story?" Cruach had said, waving at the pools of oily blood and gruesoive you un to sicken with fever, she&039;d heard so her naht it a deliriuin - who&039;d sensed Cruach&039;s deception and had begged Lucia not to leave - had followed her out of Valhalla Never to return, cast out forever Lucia had wept to hear her sister&039;s plaintive cries for her
"How do I reach you, Lucia? I don&039;t I don&039;t kno to get up there!"
Never would she have let Regin enter that place - even before Lucia&039;s eventual wedding night
As she weakly screa her down When he heaved hiritted teeth, pouring over her face, into her eyes His organ would rip her in two - she&039;d known he would kill her like this
So long without food, with her heart racing with horror, she&039;d lost consciousness
When she woke, he was roaring with fury,an eye Beneath her claere chunks of scaly skin The Cro thehs, she rolled off the altar into a pile of bodies Flies erupted fros and , tears blinding her as she tried to stagger away through the line of Croo, snarling with rage at his pain, then laughing because he&039;d caused her more "Do you think that was pain, wife? That was a mere hint! I&039;ll teach you what misery is!"
She followed the tunnel to the very end At the cliff&039;s edge, she gazed out over the horizon, over the ocean The first clean air she&039;d breathed in days
Pure peace awaited her He couldn&039;t pass this barrier, could never follow her down When he yelled for her, she closed her eyes, and she leapt -
Hands snatched her shoulders, jerking her back
No, no! That&039;s not how it happened! She&039;d gotten free Now he had her again!
She swiped out with her claws, desperate to jump to die
Chapter 33
"Lousha! Wake up!" Garreth reached to co her shoulders At the contact, electrical energy seared his fingertips just as her claws shot out, raking down his chest
"What the hell?" He leapt back "Lousha?"
When she opened her eyes, they were fully silver, glinting with tears
"Shh, doona be afraid" He put his hands up as he neared her once more "It&039;s just me"
She collapsed back on the bed onceWhen she closed her eyes, tear-drops tracked down her face,his chest ache
He could never stand the sight of the lass&039;s tears "Your drea worse" She&039;d only been asleep for an hour, a brief afternoon nap, and yet it&039;d been enough to affect her like this
"I I&039; still flared outside
He sat at the foot of the bed "You must tell me what you dream of"
"We&039;ve discussed this already," she said, running her arm over her face "I don&039;t want to talk about it"
"Is it me?" When she frowned at hihtmares like this over the last year, have you? But now, every day we&039;re together, they get worse"
She rose up, drawing her knees to her chest "No, you&039;re ?" He pointed out the bloody tracks across his chest "You attacked me!"
"I&039;m so sorry" She dropped her head in her hands "I didn&039;t realize it was you"
"I doona care about that! I just want them to end"
"So do I," she murmured "They will Soon, I&039;m sure"
He swooped up his jeans and yanked theet"
She gazed up at hi about?"
"Just as I need to claiive me your body to pleasure, and then you suffer" He raked his fingers through his hair "Maybe the dreaht&039;s the full moon? And deep down you fear me?"
Gods, thisher, but when experiencing anything MacRieve felt things so intensely "I don&039;t fear you" He was generous, protective, thoughtful All the things my husband isn&039;t
"Then what do you fear? Give ht, Lousha!"
That was exactly what she couldn&039;t do "Lots of ihtmares The years build up - "
"Bullshite! Doona lie toon her underwear "Just drop it, MacRieve"
"Damn you, Valkyrie, it just should no&039; be this complicated between us You want me, and I want you The end"
"Well, I&039; about you is easy"
"My life is complicated, whether I want it to be or not" She hastily donned a halter top and shorts and began braiding her hair over her ears
"So ht?"
She slowed her plaiting "What does thatup with me?
"It means you need to tell lanced aith a shrug "I don&039;t rerabbed her upper ar flashed as her own anger grew "It&039;s not in rave "Did you never think that the more I like you, the less I want to tell you my secrets? And how do you really know that you want to hear them, MacRieve?"
He drew his head back, wolflike, as though he&039;d been presented a trap he couldn&039;t determine the mechanics of "I doona understand you That&039;s no reason to hide things fro herself away from him "Gods, I hate it when you say that!" Easy to say for so life!
"One of these days, wo up on you I had no&039; before, but now"
"Now?"
"You have toyou And when I do, you&039;ll regret the loss"
I know this!
"Will you tell ht he was in deadly earnest He&039;s giving me a choice and I don&039;t want to lose hione from enemy, to necessary evil, to someone she didn&039;t think she could live without? "MacRieve, I - " She sed, i how she&039;d tell him I have a husband I married the devil I&039;m his wife Lucia av Cruach Shame made it nearly iun to care what he thought of her, and his knowing the truth wouldn&039;t make a difference anyway! Her fate oven -
"We&039;ve got company!" Schecter cried froines slowed to idling They could hear running on the deck above them
"Oh, bluidy hell," MacRieve ? Couldn&039;t it just be another research vessel?"
"This far out? No&039; a chance" He yanked on a T-shirt "Pirates, mercenaries, or worse"
"Worse?"
Seizing her hand, he dragged her out of the cabin into the rain Over his shoulder he said, "This is no&039; over, Lousha!"
When they reached the observation deck, four of thethe river Schecter stood under an ulasses Travis peered out with his weary gaze un in his hands Rossiter was at the rail, unshaven, his light brown hair disheveled
Charlie&039;s hazel eyes were fierce as he stood by his captain, and ato see, nothing but a curtain of rain and the jungle closing in all around them
MacRieve turned to Schecter "What the hell, man?"
"Give it a second There&039;s a ship co around the bend about aus"
Everyone fell silent as they waited Then Charlie quietly said, "It&039;s Captain Malaqu��&039;s ship"
Indeed, sailing up through the rain was the Barão da Borracha The ship that potentially carried a vampire and supposedly sailed the other way
The one Nïx warned me about
When Malaqu�� decreased his speed just after that bend, Lucia said, "Why are they slowing?"
"Did they make a find?" Rossiter asked in an overly innocent tone
MacRieve turned to Travis "Does Malaqu�� ever go this route?"
The Texan looked like he had murder on his o the same way"
Like the Contessa, the Barão was a restored rubber boom ship That here the similarities ended Malaqu��&039;s ship was spotless,smokestack jutted proudly, fresh with black paint Even the lines were coiled at even lengths on the deck
But no passengers were stirring in the dwindling rain Only the captain could be seen, hanging out from the wheelhouse
My first look at Malaqu�� He was above average height with slick black hair and a glaring red tattoo covering his forearht side of his face had been maimed - four deep scars sliced across his cheek, as if he&039;d been attacked by an aniave her chills Here was a ain they didn&039;t return What was he doing with - or to - the tourists to an insatiable jungle demon
When Travis and Charlie hastened to the wheel-house to get the Contessa going once more, MacRieve muttered to Lucia, "Malaqu��&039;s pure evil Whatever we&039;ve suspected of him - he&039;s more than capable of it"