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
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.”
“We don’t have it.” The water was only a few feet away.
Briana’s response was cut off by a screeching howl. White and blinding, something erupted from the divide, streaking over the top of Kel and Elena.
“Who foolishly disturbs me?”
The voice, a whisper that came from everywhere and nowhere, sent a chill ripping up Lucan’s spine. Water rushed over his feet, rapidly climbing as high as his knees. The frigid temperature cut into his bloodstream.
Briana stood next to him with her eyes closed. Kel and Elena retreated from the opening that continued to flood the clearing, the water waist-high on the other two immortals all but pointing the finger at each other.
“I summoned you.” Briana took a step forward from the trees hiding them from immediate sight.
He reached out to stop Briana. A wall of water knocked him away from her. He regained his footing easily, but letting go of his human form didn’t allow the next six-foot wave to pass right through him. Once more he was on his ass and Briana even further away from him.
Briana dropped to her knees, and the water rode up to her chest. “I apologize for the intrusion, Lady of the Lake.”
Lady of the Lake. The four words at the bottom of the map.
The white form made up of threads of light and menacing shadows, dispersed, revealing a woman who looked no older than her early twenties and dressed entirely in white. Waves of long black hair fell halfway down her back, her narrowed eyes so dark they reminded Lucan of the wraith’s.
“And you are?”
“Late to the show,” Elena put in.
A wave nearly twice the size of the sorceress slammed into her, knocking her back in the water. She came up sputtering.
“Briana Callaghan.”
The Lady of the Lake, an immortal shrouded in more mystery than the gods, tipped her head, regarding Briana with interest. “Another gargoyle?” She glanced at Kel, dismissing the dragon who didn’t move except for the flaring of his nostrils. “And your business with me?”
“We’re competing in the Gauntlet.” Again Elena answered.
This time the water came from behind the sorceress, lifting her off her feet and holding her immobile as the Lady of the Lake turned in her direction. “I know well who you are fledgling, but unless you wish to die in this competition here and now, you will be silent.” She faced Briana once more. “Show me.”
Briana rose, tugging at her pants and revealing the mark of the Gauntlet branded on her hip.
