by Kresley Cole
“Fuck your peril! Beat feet, MacRieve!” she yelled at the top of her lungs, flinging her arm away, which surprised him enough to release her. “Get out of my face!”
“You have no idea what you provoke! Doona forget your fear when you saw my beast revealed.”
Reminded of that horror, she would cast her eyes down, attempt to placate him—
Her chin went up and her shoulders went back. “For the record, asshole, I wasn’t scared. I was startled. There’s a difference. And now that I know what’s lurking inside you, I won’t be startled again.” She turned toward the house.
Filled with fury, he stormed after her. When he snatched her arm again, she whirled around, kicking the side of his knee.
She’d definitely gotten stronger. Because she was a goddamned succubus.
Perhaps all the Lore needed to know what she really was. He turned toward the wall, his grip on her tightening until she cried out.
“Where are you taking me?”
“You were so keen to leave, mayhap I’ll toss your arse over the wall.”
Her heart pounded with fear, like a drum sounding within him. He might be the first Lykae to purposely frighten his mate; his Instinct was not having it.
—You harm what you’ve been given?—
—PROTECT.—
Munro chased after them. In Gaelic, he said, “Are you insane? Treating her like this? I just got through assuring her that you would never hurt her.”
Will answered in the same language, “Then you’re a bluidy liar!” He swung her forward as she flailed against his hold.
“What are you going to do to her?” Munro dogged his heels. “She’s no’ as you think her.”
“We’re going to go have a peek at the wall. Mayhap I’ll lob her over to the other side where she belongs!”
“Have you lost your mind? She’s your mate, brother.”
Over his shoulder, Will said, “I doona recognize her as such! Do you remember what Mam’s last words were to me? ‘Never one like her, my Uilleam.’ ”
Chloe thrashed harder.
“But this girl’s no’ a full succubus,” Munro said. “She’s a halfling.”
“Aye,” Will grated, “and her other half is WEBB!”
“I thought you were going to get past that.”
“Canna. No’ now. Just another example of how wrong she is.”
“I heard your wish at Loa’s. You wanted your mate to be made immortal. You’ve got your wish—her wounds regenerate. I saw them. You can claim her, man!”
“I’d rather she be mortal with a day left to live!”
“You speak so easily of a human dying? To me?” Munro snapped, past pain tingeing his words. “I’ll no’ let you harm my sister. You might no’ want her, but I do.” Then in a clearly desperate move, Munro said, “You owe her to me.”
Will bared his fangs at his brother. “You bring that up now? Here?”
Munro was resolute. “I’ve waited a long time for her too, Will. And I like her, think she would make you a fine mate if you would only give her a chance.”
Will gazed down at her struggling to keep up with his strides. Her eyes glowed succubus green. “Never. Happening.”
Munro stopped. Just when Will thought he’d given up, Munro called, “She was discarded like trash by her father. That’s why she was searching for him. She told him something was wrong, but the bastard revealed nothing to her, leaving her in misery for weeks—with no idea how to live as an immortal. Your young mate was abandoned by her only family.”
Will’s beast howled with rage. She’d been defenseless, vulnerable to the entire Lore. Kidnapped by witches! That this had happened to his mate—
Nay, nay, I should do worse to her! She deserved nothing less.
He slowed as realization dawned. There’d be no revenge. Webb wouldn’t give a shite about who was defiling his daughter—because he didn’t give a shite about his succubus offspring.
Chloe used the opportunity to resume kicking him. When she stomped her shoe directly atop his bare foot, he gave her a shake.
With a “You prick!” she kicked harder.
“Look at her!” Munro jogged up to them, still speaking in Gaelic. “She’s no’ like any succubus I’ve ever seen. She’s no’ changed. Like you said, she’s fierce as a Lykae.”
She had seemed fierce. But then, she’d also seemed human.
When Chloe sank her teeth into his arm, Will growled, “She has no’ settled into her new role.” He gave her another shake, loosing her bite. “Give her time, and she’ll become the devious, selfish succubus she was born to be.”
“You’re no’ thinking clearly.”
“Nay, you are no’. You truly want me to be mated to a female who will take over my body and poison me? Who fed from me this verra morning?” He drew his lips back from his fangs. “She could be related to Ruelle, could be her granddaughter or niece or cousin! There are no’ that many of them on this plane. Did you think of that possibility?”
That shut Munro up.
Will couldn’t catch his breath. Ruelle laughing from beyond.
When they neared the wall, Chloe fought even harder. “Don’t, MacRieve! I’m warning you!”
Switching back to English, he sneered, “Do you no’ want to see your new allies—”
Suddenly a sharp pain pierced his flank.
He gaped down at a shard of glass protruding from his side. Chloe’s green eyes were slitted, her teeth bared.
“You stabbed me?” He yanked the shard out, tossing it away. “I should return that to you in kind! Mayhap you’re more like your father than your mother.”
Munro snapped in Gaelic, “If she’s harmed, you and I will no’ come back from it! Do you want my hatred?”
“Brother, I’ve been awaiting it for centuries.” Will clasped the back of her neck, forcing her up the stairs toward the watchtower.
She twisted back to cast Munro a look. Seeking Munro’s goddamned protection? His brother told her in English, “He will no’ harm you. I trust this.”
Then Munro was vastly more confident than Will.
Atop the tower, he and Chloe passed a shocked Madadh. “What are you about, MacRieve?”
“Out of my way!” Will dragged her onto a platform overlooking the wall. Beings teemed directly below them, like a cesspool.
They fell silent at the sight of Chloe. She’d stopped struggling, gaze darting over the crowd. Though her heart skipped with fear, she put her shoulders back, as bold as a queen.
So much fire. How much he’d already come to crave it. How out of place in a simpering succubus.
Her looks had already been altered; her personality would transform as well.
That fire in her would soon ebb to ash.
“You all wait here,” MacRieve addressed the mass of creatures, “for the chance to take this female from me. Yet she knows nothing about the Lore. She has no idea how to find her father or the other Order prisons.”
His grip on Chloe’s nape was like a vise. She was trapped here in front of these beings. Munro might trust MacRieve, but she didn’t.
A centaur called, “Don’t give a damn. She’ll make good bait.”
MacRieve cast him a cruel smile, flashing white fangs. “You all assume Webb will want his darling daughter back. He might have. Except for the fact that she’s turned into a succubus.”
That got the crowd talking. Then a female with cold eyes and golden antlers cried, “You seek to deceive deceivers? Her scent was human at the auction!”
“But it’s no’ now, is it? Looks like the commander got a succubus pregnant. His daughter seemed human, so Webb accepted her. Up until the minute she began to turn. Then he disposed of her like garbage.”
Chloe was about to yell that that wasn’t true. Surely it wasn’t. But she knew she’d be safer if these creatures believed it.
Was MacRieve telling them this to get rid of this gathering—or simply to humiliate her?
“He will no’ want the
refuse he’s discarded, much less risk capture to rescue her. Just be glad you saved yourselves a Bridefinder.”
Hisses and mutters sounded as the monsters discussed this new turn of events.
“Why should we believe you?” asked one woman who looked human, although she was dressed in a scanty outfit made mostly of metal pieces and an elaborate mask.
“I vow to the Lore that she was betrayed by her own father. I vow to you that she’s worthless in regard to him. And I vow that you could no’ be more disappointed than me.”
Chloe stiffened against him, muttering, “And I couldn’t hate you more.”
The masked woman laid her hand flat against the wall. Smoke rose as she burned her handprint into it. “If Daughter of Webb crosses this boundary, we’ll know it.”
MacRieve ignored her, telling the crowd: “Go away, you sodding fools. Do you really think he’ll fight to reclaim a creature he’s ashamed of?”
At that, some did start to depart. Others remained, unconvinced, or perhaps out of spite.
Two females toward the back of the crowd caught Chloe’s attention. They stood in the shadows of a distant tree. One had black hair, the other chestnut brown; both were clad in flowing gowns, their shining locks intricately styled. The brunette spoke, hardly above a whisper, yet Chloe could hear her say, “She’s of our kind, Lykae. You’ve no claim to her. Send her past the wall.”
Their kind! Chloe was drawn to the women, wanting to go to them, wanting to be anywhere but here. They didn’t look malicious or evil. They appeared concerned for her. She thrashed against MacRieve, reaching her hand toward the two. Would they have known Fiore?
He grated at her ear, “Look at them all you like. Long for them. But you will never, never be with them.”
TWENTY-SIX
The succubus was pacing inside the adjoining guest room. Will could hear her, could sense her anger. She was angry with him?
Her scent was still that luscious, ethereal smell, but now it was underscored with the faint scent of her species, the one other males found irresistible.
Will was at once attracted to her scent—and plagued by it.
Earlier when he’d taken her from the wall, he’d shoved her into that room. “Your new accommodations.”
“Why do I have to stay so close to you?” she’d asked. “Clearly I disgust you, and you repulse me. So why keep me nearby?”
He’d had no ready answer, still shocked by her attack with the shard—and shocked by the appearance of those succubae, the first two he’d encountered that he hadn’t killed. Twenty-four had died by his hand—the same number as Chloe’s age. “I dinna repulse you this morning when you were sucking my rod like a straw,” he’d told her.
Face gone red, she’d answered, “That was before I saw what you really are.”
Now questions arose within Will, one after the other. Had she known what she was turning into? What was she thinking as she paced? Plotting an escape, no doubt.
When would she grow hungry again? A day or two? Some twisted part of him could hardly wait. He’d make her plead to be fed.
She’d be at his mercy.
Unless she could strew. Then he’d be at hers. The self-control he’d celebrated yesterday would be wrested from him yet again.
He had responded nigh violently to the scent of her arousal; he could only imagine what her strew would do to him. . . .
Munro had been trying to talk to him all afternoon. Light raps on his door had turned to open-palmed hits. In Gaelic, he’d said, “Mayhap succubae are taught to behave the way they do. Mayhap it’s no’ innate. I remember that night too, Will. I remember Ruelle eyeing that sword, thinking about seizing it, then begging for your help instead. Chloe would’ve dived for the sword and bared it along with her teeth. She stabbed you today. Which means she is no’ like the others.”
Munro’s words had set Will to prowling his room, aching for that to be true, like a drowning man who thought he’d glimpsed land. But just because Chloe was one way now didn’t mean she wouldn’t transform, becoming more like her kind.
Toadying, ingratiating, seductive.
Weak.
Downstairs, Will could hear Munro and the lads watching TV, what sounded like a ball game. How nice life must be for them, drinking beer and watching sports without a care in the world.
Then he frowned. He could have sworn he’d just heard spectators yelling, “Chloe!”
He bounded down the stairs into the great room, stopping short when he saw his mate in a clip splashed across the big-screen TV. She was in a blue jersey, running down the field in front of an audience of thousands. “What the hell is this?”
“Seattle Reign clips of Chloe,” Munro said. “Rónan found them on a site run by some fanboys.”
Fanboys?
The website background was a collage of still shots of her in action. Her stats were listed on the side of the screen, along with a section for “Chloe Todd Trivia.” Nickname: Baby T-Rex. Soccer style: Misdirection and sheer ferocity. School: Stanford. Likes: Eighties music and movies. Dislikes: Pushy fanboys.
Ferocity? And they’d never seen her with a shiv! He turned toward the liquor cabinet, grabbed a fifth. Doona give a shite about her. The last thing he’d be doing was checking out her games.
But why hadn’t she told him she’d gone to Stanford? Not that he cared—
Rónan, Ben, and Munro simultaneously groaned, as if they’d all been kneed in the ballocks.
Despite himself, Will turned to the TV. Chloe had just gotten steamrolled by a six-foot-tall player.
He despised the succubus; he should be enjoying this. “If the runtling plays with the big girls, she’s going to get hurt.”
In a pissy tone, Rónan said, “We’re trying to watch here.”
When Chloe got to her feet and dusted herself off, the much larger Amazon shoved her again. Chloe shoved back, not giving up an inch.
When the Amazon yanked Chloe’s ponytail so hard it looked like her neck had snapped, Will found himself growling. The others glanced over at him.
No wonder she’d shorn her hair. Yet now it had grown out with her change.
He drank his whiskey, but damn if he could take his eyes off the screen. The site had clip after clip of her exploiting weak coverage and scoring with clever, unexpected shots.
He casually sank down on one of the couches. “Playing against humans? Where’s the sport in that?” he asked, even while he knew she’d been mortal during those games. There were clips of her limping as she ran for a penalty kick or spitting blood after being kneed in the mouth.
Which meant she’d been that good because of training—not because she’d been on the cusp of immortality. She appeared to have earned her skill.
When she had the ball, it was like a part of her; her body was constantly moving, as if in a dance of misdirection.
She would use her arms to telegraph a strike to the right, only to tuck the ball in to her left, slipping past a flummoxed player. He could never predict whether she’d push the ball with her inner left foot or outer right or vice versa. Always something different.
It was dizzying—jaw-dropping. When he could momentarily forget what she was, she spellbound him.
In one game in the cold, her breasts had pressed against her sweat-dampened jersey, her nipples hard against the material. Had the others noticed that? He recalled how those tight points had tasted—of rain and cherries.
He drew deep of his bottle, seeking numbness.
One clip showed her taking the ball down the field, sprinting all-out, leaving her guard in the dust—until another player clotheslined her, sending Chloe crashing to her back.
Will shot to his feet. —PROTECT.—
Had any Lykae ever sat back and watched his mate get beaten like this? His Instinct didn’t know the difference between televised history and the present.
But Chloe hadn’t needed any protection. She’d waited until later in the game, spotting her chance. The one who’d clotheslined he
r had been sidelined. Rónan cheered. “I think I’m in love!”
Will sat back down. She was like a mouse with a lion’s roar, a wee warrioress.
Munro flashed him an I told you so look.
A succubus warrior? There was no such thing. Even the ones who’d attacked him in the prison had behaved out of character by using force.
Chloe didn’t seem to communicate in any language other than force. But now she would begin changing, transitioning into a good little succubus. The ones he’d encountered before her had all been physically flawless, possessing innate talents to lure males into their clutches. Singing, dancing, cooking, and so forth.
Chloe had already become physically flawless. Thinking back, he realized that the scars on her ankle and knee had disappeared. Her new mane of tawny hair would draw male gazes like a flame amid moths.
Soon she’d be using her newly acquired arsenal of skills. The female in these games was gone forever. . . .
His claws sank into his palms when he realized some of the clips weren’t even of her playing. In one, she did nothing but wipe her face with her jersey, exposing her flat stomach and the bottom of her bra. Who were these pricks who’d put together this site?
—Males covet your unmarked mate.—
As if she’d been conjured, he heard her emerge from her room. She appeared at the top of the stairs, her shoulders squared, eyes narrowed and watchful.
Will now recognized that look. It was the same one she wore in the seconds before kickoff.
As she descended the stairs, his predator’s gaze was locked on her. Forever she would look this way. He allowed himself to stare, to assess the changes in her.
She’d already sheared off the length of her hair, leaving curling tousles jutting all about her face. From the looks of it, she’d used a knife or even another mirror shard. He wondered if she knew it would grow back in a day.
Though her scars had disappeared, her skin remained tanned, and she still had those freckles on her nose. Her figure was a touch curvier, but she’d retained her athletic shape. Anyone who saw her would know she’d been honed by sports.
For Will, she was a fantasy made flesh—and a nightmare.