Angus MacRieve had come upon her at a snowy crossroads in the old country. She'd been wearing a jet black ermine stole and a white gown and had been the most lovely female he'd ever imagined. She'd told him that she'd grant him a wish if he would direct her to a neighboring town. Angus was just seventeen and had wished what he always did: to be the strongest of his older brothers, who picked on him good-naturedly but unmercifully.
The next day, three of them had been crossing a frozen lake they traversed daily. In the dead of winter, the ice had broken and they'd drowned. The day after that, two more brothers had fallen ill with some kind of fever. They'd quickly passed away, though they'd been hale, braw lads.
In the end, the evil witch had granted his wish. Angus was indeed the strongest of them.
Bowe's father would never outlive his debilitating guilt. Because of his actions - inadvertent though they might have been - only two of the Lykae king's seven sons would survive, Angus, and a much younger brother.
Worse, Angus had been sickened to realize he was now the heir, and readily abdicated the position.
That witch had delighted in ruining a mere lad who was not an enemy and hadn't yet raised a sword in anger or aggression.
Witches had no purpose but to spread discord, to engender hatred. To plant destructive seeds in a once-proud family.
To enthrall a male to be untrue for the first time.
Rage engulfed Bowe when he comprehended what he'd just done - with a bloody witch.
He roared, the sound echoing through the jungle, then stabbed his claws into the side of her Jeep, slashing down the length. After puncturing the thick tires and plucking the engine from the chassis, Bowe set to all of their trucks, mangling them until they were useless.
Out of breath, covered in metal slivers, he scowled down at his hands. He could claw through a half-foot plate of steel like it was tinfoil without feeling it.
Yet now he felt... pain. Unfathomable pain.
4
"Witch, he's not coming back," the demon Rydstrom told Mari. "Don't waste your time waiting for him."
The others had been casing the perimeter of the antechamber, testing the strength of the stone floor and walls, but Mari continued to stare at the entrance, bewildered, unable to believe that MacRieve had sealed her in this forbidding place - or that she'd retaliated with one of the cruelest spells a witch could cast on an immortal.
Cade asked Mari, "What did you do to the Lykae anyway?"
She absently murmured, "I've killed him."
Mari glanced away from the entrance when met with silence. "He won't regenerate from injuries," she explained. "Unless he returns to me to have it reversed, the hex will eventually destroy him."
Tierney, who looked to be Tera's younger brother, said, "You made him mortal?"
They all seemed shocked at her viciousness, except for Cade, who as far as she could tell from his demonic countenance, appeared admiring. "Remind me not to piss you off, witch," he said.
She'd heard of Cade the Kingmaker before and knew he was a ruthless mercenary. The soldier of fortune had waged so much war that it was said he could take any throne.
Except the one his older brother had lost.
"So you are as powerful as rumored," Rydstrom said, his features beginning to lose their demon sharpness, returning to normal - yet normal for him was a handsome face marred by a long scar carving across his forehead and down his temple to his cheek. His black irises reverted to a green so intense they'd startled her the first time she'd seen them. Though he was across the room, she still had to raise her head to meet his gaze. Rydstrom was nearing seven feet tall - with all the muscle to match.
"Powerful," Cade said, "and a mercenary like me." He looked her up and down with eyes as green as his brother's, alerting her to the fact that not only was she bare of her cloak, her glamour was faltering. But she just didn't have the energy or desire to resume it. Being recognized as an immortal warrior's mate right now might not be a bad thing. "Fascinating," Cade added in a rough voice.
The two brothers resembled each other very much, except for Rydstrom's scar, and his horns, which had been damaged somehow. Yet their accents were dissimilar. Both had degrees of a British colonial accent, but Cade's sounded lower class. And his bearing was altogether different from Rydstrom's - as if he hadn't been raised a demon royal, or even a noble.
In short, Rydstrom acted like a stalwart king but looked like a ruthless mercenary, and Cade was just the opposite.
Tera angrily adjusted the bow and quiver at her back. "MacRieve must have known Mariketa would use magick to escape, and that you demons would just teleport yourselves outside. With the entryway so high, the three of us can't even try to lift the slab."
Without the ability to lever themselves against the ground, there was no way even the demons, much less the elves, could raise it. As it was, they couldn't even reach it without leaping up.
Tierney looked enraged, his pointed ears flattening back against his blond head. "He must have sought to trap only our kind!"
Rydstrom said, "If I could trace, I would take you from this tomb - I would make sure you were out of the Hie for good, but not by leaving you in this place."
Cade unsheathed and studied his sword - clearly he wouldn't have done the same.
Hild, the quiet third archer, asked, "Why did you say if you could trace?"
"There's a binding placed on Cade and me that makes it impossible to teleport."
Just as Mari decided she shouldn't ask why they'd been bound, Rydstrom smiled gravely. "A coup that didn't quite take, as it were. We were reprimanded for it." His eyes flickered black as he shot a glance at Cade. "Severely."