“Release me, or I will make you pay.” He thrashed fruitlessly in a mad dive for his wand.

Lucan kicked it away. “I’ll keep that in mind. Answer my questions, and I’ll let you keep your stones attached.”

Under the bluish shadows of moonlight, the dark wizard visibly steeled himself. “Eat shit.”

“No, thanks.” Lucan knew he could make the man not just spill his information but sing it in three-part harmony. “Let’s start simple. What was your mission here tonight?”

The man glanced at the other four hooded figures. “I have nothing to say.”

With a jerk of his fist, Lucan yanked on the invisible bonds—hard. “Do you really want to lose your family jewels over such a simple question?”

Even in the moonlight, Lucan could see his captive sweating. He glanced again at the other Anarki members. Looking for help?

Duke knelt beside the man. “You’re keeping him from his mate, and that makes him cranky. Perhaps you could simply cooperate. We’ll all be much happier.”

“Go to…hell,” he let out, despite his pain.

“We’re not making progress,” Lucan said in mock concern. “I have a knife. Since the bindings aren’t getting his attention…”

“Good thinking.” Duke watched Lucan extract a long blade. Wicked and serrated. About ten inches long. Unforgiving.

The Anarki’s eyes threatened to pop from his skull.

Lucan smiled and began to clean under his nails with the blade’s point. “Let’s try again. What exactly was your mission tonight?”

The dark wizard cast wary glances at the other Anarki members. Some were staring back. Ah, if he talked he didn’t want anyone squealing to Mathias. Now Lucan understood.

With a flick of his fingers, Lucan rendered the two nearest him unconscious. Duke followed suit with the last two, just to make certain all stayed out.

“Now answer the question,” Lucan prompted.

Still, the wizard hesitated. Lucan yanked on the invisible rope around his balls again. They had to be blue and painful as hell. Stubborn bastard.

Their captive panted. “Break into the house and search it.”

Lucan had a sinking feeling there was more. “And?”

Again, the man hesitated. “I can’t say more.”

“I’m afraid I’m going to insist.”

Duke piped in again. “Mathias sent you?”

The wizard’s gaze blazed with panic. “He’ll kill me…”

True. Mathias was ruthless to those who had crossed him.

“We can always keep him captive until we defeat Mathias,” Duke suggested to Lucan.

“Last time, vanquishing him took decades. And it was only temporary,” the wizard pointed out.

“Your name?” Lucan prompted.

“Zain.”

“If we make Mathias believe you’re dead, he won’t kill your family for betraying him.”

“Are you planning to kill me?”

Lucan tried not to roll his eyes. “We’re the good guys here, so no. But we’ll make your death look convincing. Mathias will chalk it up to your ineptitude and you’ll keep breathing. We’ll keep you with us until this blows over. We’ll try to step up the timetable, but mind you, there’s only so much we can do. The Anarki is growing again, correct?”

Zain nodded. “You’re not going to kill me?”

“Your information is more valuable to us than your running blood at the moment. So if you were a dead man, what would you be willing to divulge?”

Struggling against the bonds, Zain sneered. “Why should I trust you?”

“Listen up.” Lucan leaned over Zain again. “We want to spare lives, especially innocents like the MacKinnetts. More blood will be shed if we fail to stop Mathias. Unless your idea of a bright future is pushing up daisies, he will not deliver on his promises. If you help us, we’ll help you.”

“The MacKinnetts were Privileged.”

“What did they do to you? Did they really deserve their fate?”

Zain flinched and closed his eyes.

“Maybe you should pull tighter on those bonds ’round his balls,” Duke suggested.

The supine wizard stiffened but remained mute.

“It hasn’t worked well thus far. Are you any good with a knife?” Lucan asked.

“Terrible.”

“Perfect.” Lucan handed the blade to Duke.

“No. God no!” Zain pleaded.

“Then talk,” Duke snarled, gripping the wicked blade by the handle. “What did Mathias plan to do with the man and woman inside? Why does he want the house searched?”

Zain looked in panic between the blade and Duke’s face.

“Yes, I will cut you. And yes, it will hurt like the devil,” Duke vowed. “You leave me little choice.”

The guy was now clammy and sweating and looked half-ready to wet his pants. Good. They’d be in a bloody pickle if Zain called their bluff.

Their captive tensed, swallowed. His frenetic gaze bounced from Lucan to Duke, then back. “The man we were to kill.”

Lucan snorted. “Kill an immortal who’s been trying to off himself for centuries? Did Mathias fail to do his homework? How sloppy of him.”

At his side, Duke merely raised a dark brow to acknowledge the irony.

With eyes narrowed, Zain glared at Lucan. “I would find some way to carry out my order.”

“Unless your magic is stronger than Morgan le Fay’s, your task is impossible,” Duke pointed out. “I do not believe Mathias was unaware that he ordered you to kill an immortal. He’s many things—”

“Manipulative, ruthless, evil—” Lucan cut in.

“Backstabbing, bloodthirsty, maniacal, and power-hungry. What Mathias is not, is stupid.”

Lucan agreed. Did Zain see that he’d been set up to fail? Set up to die?

The dark wizard exhaled. His defiant expression collapsed. “I’ll say no more until you take me someplace safe. More Anarki will arrive if we do not return soon.”

The last thing they wanted was more Anarki all over Olivia and Marrok, who, Lucan supposed, were sleeping peacefully inside.

He quickly zapped the four unconscious Anarki back to their last location. Presumably, they would reach Mathias. With a quick swish, Lucan unwound the invisible rope around Zain’s balls, removed his robes and puddled them next to his mask. Beneath, the wizard had on a pair of shorts and a T-shirt that said Can You Hear Me Now? and showed a picture of a Tibetan monk giving the one-fingered salute.

“Someone needs to give you wardrobe tips,” Duke commented dryly.

Quickly, Lucan grabbed the knife from Duke and sliced into his own hand. Zain gasped as Lucan smeared a little blood on his robes before zapping them back to their last location.

Zain glared. “You were never going to cut me, were you?”

“Not unless you proved uncooperative.” Lucan shrugged. “Now, we’d like that information.”

“The woman we were supposed to abduct and take to Mathias.”

Lucan winced. “You do know what he would have done to her?”

Zain shook his head violently. “Not her. He insisted she was valuable. Priceless. And was not to be touched.”

Duke shot him a glance, and Lucan wondered if he was thinking the same thing: valuable in what way?

“And the house?”

“We were to secure and search it.”

“For what?”

A lick of his lips, a shifting of his gaze. Zain hesitated for a long moment, as if he knew that whatever he said next could not be retracted. It would betray Mathias as nothing else had. Lucan’s heart pounded as he waited for the guy to gather his courage.

He was about to give up and resort to empty threats again when Zain confessed, “Mathias received word last night that the Book of Doomsday is inside this cottage.”

Bloody hell. “Who told him?”

“Don’t know.” At Lucan’s skeptical stare, Zain added, “I swear!”

He shot a glance to Duke. “We must stash him somewhere out of sight immediately.”

“And get Bram here, along with another guard detail.”

Nodding, Lucan sent a grim stare at Marrok’s cottage. “Before it’s too late.”

Olivia jolted fiercely with pleasure, contracting around Marrok’s cock, filling his ears with her ecstasy. As it should be.

He stroked her skin, like sun-warmed silk, with one hand and pressed right against her clit with the other. Beneath her, he stroked into her deep and slow, prolonging the climax until she clawed at him. Until she moaned her throat raw.

Until she begged. Then he gave her what she wanted.

Now, he gathered her body against his and rolled her to her back, still buried deep inside her. Tears wet his shoulders. Sobs shook her body as he stroked her hair in silence, easing farther into her, covering her completely, trying to absorb more of her inside him.

With quiet words, he soothed her. How amazing to have a woman who felt so deeply. After being alive, yet dead inside for centuries, experiencing Olivia’s emotions, even secondhand, was like basking in life again. He suddenly saw the world through her human sense of mortality, fear, wonder, and worry. He gloried in the gamut of feelings between her yearning and uncertainty that spilled over her barriers and into the connection between them.

That, along with their ever-growing bond, made his eternal life less hellish. At moments like this, she was a miracle.

At the realization, he held her tighter, adjusting her body to curl around his. He nuzzled her neck, kissed her cheek, whispered in her ear.

But her sobs did not stop. Or slow.

Marrok frowned. These tears, they weren’t all from the pent-up power of release. They weren’t due to being overwrought from pleasure. Now that he was paying attention to the sounds…they were fraught with despair.

What was happening? She’d felt desire but tried to deny her orgasm while forcing his. Her surrender seemed to be ripped from her soul. Yet it was clear she sought not just to refuse her own climax, but their very bond.

This was more than leftover anger from Bram’s party.

“Love, do not cry.”

A jagged inhalation led to a wail that pierced his chest like a claymore. Pain and remorse sliced his gut. What had he done to her?

In her eyes, he’d taken her from the parent she had waited a lifetime to meet. Marrok did not trust Richard Gray or his explanations, and his every protective instinct had risen when the wizard talked about parting him from Olivia. Marrok would fight her father on that for eternity.

That he had not been honest with Olivia about their mating was an enormous sin in her eyes. Did she now regret their union? Zounds, after seeing her in that small red dress, he had nearly begged to have her. She had been anything but eager. So why had she come to him tonight if not for pleasure?

Because she had to. Nothing more.

He winced as Olivia continued to sob as if she would never again find solace. The truth hurt—almost as much as her tears. How she must resent her dependence on him, a man she had met but a handful of days ago. Naturally, Olivia had tried to do what she must without giving in to her desire.

Marrok took her cheeks in his hands and looked down into her wet, reddened face. She squeezed her eyes shut, refusing to look at him. No matter, he thought, melding his lips against hers, taking her mouth in a long, slow penetration—exactly as he did with her body. He pressed inside her, gliding slowly over the spot that made her gasp.

In his arms, Olivia stiffened. Marrok eased back in, stroking her sensitive tissues as if he had no other purpose in life than to please her.

She whimpered, then softened in his embrace.

Marrok praised her with kisses across her jaw, down her neck—and unhurried thrusts that soon had her lifting her hips to him and clawing his back. He’d have scratches all over him. The thought made him smile, until he realized they would heal as quickly as she made them. Damn immortality! Her nail marks in his back was something he yearned to feel later as a reminder of their passion. Morganna had denied him that, as well.

“Aye, love. Feel me.”

“No,” she sobbed, her eyes tightly shut again. “I can’t—”

He captured her mouth in a slow kiss saturated with his longing to reach her heart and claim her for always. God, who would have thought he, of all men, would become so infatuated with someone of Morganna’s blood?

“You just want release from your curse.”

“I want release with you.” He shifted his hands beneath her, lifting her into the rhythm of his body melting with hers. “I want you.”

“You’re using me.” Her accusation ended with a moan when he pushed deep inside her again.

“As you tried to use me?”

At that, her eyes flew open. Red-rimmed, bloodshot, and so full of emotions, he could hardly discern them all. Except pride.

“If I did, it would only make us even.”

Marrok didn’t answer. He used the silence to slide deep into her again, where he belonged, and dust fresh kisses onto the corner of her lips. God, she tasted so sweet. He felt as if he’d waited an eternity to have this with her.