“I could have—”
Her mouth closed over his, cutting him off. Fast and hot and wild, she kissed him as though he might be snatched away at any moment. “You didn’t,” she breathed against his lips.
He buried his hands in her hair, taking another drugging taste of her. He couldn’t have pushed her away if he tried. She was in his blood, a part of him for better or worse. “The wraith,” he began, compelled to give her one more chance to change her mind, although the darkness inside him was the least of the obstacles facing them.
“Has always known.” Her eyes widened. “That’s why he takes control. To keep you from pulling away. Because he’s always known what you’ve refused to admit.”
Lucan held his breath, afraid he knew what she was going to say, afraid he might never voice the words if she didn’t.
The same tentative smile as the night by the lake curved her lips. “That you love me as much as I love you.”
He buried his face against her throat, holding onto her. Rhiannon had never possessed the ability to destroy him, but Briana could tear him down and he would never be able to come back from that.
She stroked the back of his head. “I don’t care what you are now or that your homicidal other half has the sparkling personality of a pet rock. It’s you and me.”
He would have laughed if not for the growl that rose up inside him.
“We’ll find a way.” She touched her forehead to his. “Say it,” she coaxed. “We’ll find a way.”
He felt the words rise to his lips, but how could he promise her what still seemed impossible? Even winning Excalibur didn’t guarantee his freedom. It was easy to believe Rhiannon would give anything for a chance to awaken her son, even release a wraith from service, but the goddess had proven over and over how fickle and cruel she could be.
What if she released Lucan and lashed out at Briana instead, a final reminder of the power Rhiannon had held over him? Could he take that chance? The thought of losing her to Rhiannon’s wrath was nearly as crippling as losing her to the animal that would take over if Briana couldn’t be with her mate.
He wouldn’t allow either to happen to her.
“Luc?”
He cupped Briana’s cheek. Over and over she’d trusted him when he was sure he hadn’t deserved it, put her faith in him when he’d tried so hard to push her away, and he refused to let her down again. “I’ll do everything in my power to keep us together.”
The vow didn’t feel like enough, but nothing would until they were free of both the Gauntlet and Rhiannon.
Then, if they were lucky, there would only be her brothers to contend with.
“It’ll come to you.” Over an hour later Lucan watched her stuff the map back in her pocket. He’d lost track of the number of times she studied the image and encrypted code as they made their way across the valley and into the trees so thick it would have taken a dozen men to circle the towering trunks.
“And if it doesn’t?”
He took the map away from her, stuffing it in his own pocket. “You’re going to make yourself cross-eyed.” If anything was going to mystify her, it should be him. He was pretty sure two minutes of his mouth on hers, and he could have both their minds spinning.
“We’re almost there and we still have no idea what we’ll have to face.” She stopped. “You’re thinking about kissing me again.”
“Maybe.” Admitting it was the fastest way to talk himself into reaching for her, and as much as he wanted that—badly—they didn’t have time for it now.
She shot him a shy smile over her shoulder, and he took three steps in her direction. One more and he’d be close enough to pull her into his arms. Knowing that he still wasn’t free to be with her did nothing to stop him from wanting to be with her, and this time the latter was winning.
And he had never felt more at home in his own skin.
Her lips parted, and he knew she was thinking about kissing him too. Kissing, touching—
She dropped into a crouch, her fingers hovering over marks in the earth. “Someone’s been here recently. “Seva or Elena. If it was Nessa the tracks would be deeper. Her weapons,” she explained.
Neither of them spoke as Briana rose, scouting the area before confirming the tracks were headed in the same direction. Another hour passed, maybe two as they closed in on the center of the map.
Briana occasionally glanced at his pocket, but didn’t ask to look at the paper and the scrambled letters at the bottom of the page. He knew she would have already memorized them by now, just as he knew she continued to puzzle it out when she wasn’t watching for more tracks and pausing to listen for anyone coming along behind them.
Having tracked countless immortals over the centuries, although not by foot the way Briana did, he admired her skills and knew that it gave them an advantage.
The ground shook beneath their feet. The first sounds of a fight rose above the wind that howled with arctic intensity, rattling the branches above them. He moved with Briana in the direction of the confrontation.
Trees to the right shook, a booming crack as loud as thunder rent the air. Through the foliage, sparks of blue flame burst toward the sky. Definitely Elena.
An angry roar followed, the trees ahead bending as something large brushed against them. Kel.
“I don’t think they’re getting along,” Briana said under her breath, edging close enough they could glimpse Kel’s dragon form, glossy black scales appearing almost to change color with the angle of light.
Knowing she wanted to judge how close they were to the center of the map, he pulled it from his pocket and handed it to her. She moved to the left, staying out of the other two immortals’ path. She pointed to a rock formation on the other side of Kel.
The dragon shot a burst of fire at Elena.
Holding up a hand, the sorceress deflected the fire, but staggered under the force of flames. “I was here first.”
Kel answered with a slash of his tail, taking out every tree and plant between him and the sorceress. The side of a destroyed trunk clipped her side and she hit the ground. Kel pounced, but Elena was already back on her feet, some kind of glowing barrier keeping the black dragon from crushing her.
Lucan crouched, pulling Briana down with him.
“Are we just supposed to wait them out?” Her gaze went back to the map, snapping up moments later. She scanned the clearing for something.
“What is it?”
“I don’t know.” She glanced back and forth between the trees opposite them, the rock formation and something on the ground between Kel and Elena. He thought it was only a scorch mark at first glance, but the mark seemed too perfect.
“What do you see in the middle of the rock formation, near the bottom?” She scribbled something into the ground near her feet.
He spotted the letter “m” carved into the rock. He opened his mouth to answer her, changed his mind. “A three. A sideways three.”
Her fingers moved across the earth. Was she writing the alphabet? “And in the ground and the tree at an eighty degree angle from here?”
It took him a minute to find the three in the trees, but it matched the mark in the center of the clearing. “They’re all the same.”
“Which letter is the key?” She studied two lines of the alphabet she’d written in the dirt, glancing back at the code at the bottom of the letter.
Even if he knew what she was talking about, he didn’t have the chance to answer her. The ground in the middle of the clearing split open, tossing Elena and Kel apart on opposite sides of the divide.
“Briana!” She needed to see the fountain of water spouting from the crack and rushing toward them.
She crossed something out in the dirt and scribbled faster. “I need more time.”