She put her left hand behind her back, and a spine of red light rose up from her palm, taking shape like a dagger. Tera must have seen what she was doing because she sidled up to her and raised her lantern to camouflage the magick's glow.

Building... building...

In a flash, Mari threw the dagger of light overhand. MacRieve appeared shocked at the speed and twisted to dodge it, but it exploded into painless fragments over his heart.

Bull's-eye. Subtle-like.

With a glance down, he smirked, thinking himself safe. "Keep your daggers to yourself, witchling, till they get some bite."

He calmly took one step back... then dropped the stone. As it slammed shut with a deafening boom, a volley of arrows sank into it, too late. Air, rock, and sand rushed over Mari's face, gritting into her eyes. She heard the elven males yelling with rage as they rushed forward and banged on the wall.

When Mari wiped the sand from her eyes, she blinked, disbelieving what she saw. The elves backed away in silence. Once, long ago, something had leapt up, desperately seeking release from this place.

Deep claw marks scored the back of the portcullis in frenzied stripes.

3

As Bowe slowly backed from the tomb, he was met with silence. He knew that inside they were cursing him, but he wouldn't be able to hear. Much of the pyramidal steps were coated with thick soil and draped with roots and towering trees.

Yet even the jungles surrounding this square perimeter of ruins were quiet.

He continued to gaze at the edifice, finding himself unaccountably reluctant to leave. Part of him wanted to charge back in there and vent more of his rancor at the witch. To his shame, part of him was burning to retrieve her and finish what they'd started together.

He thought back to that moment when the witch had comprehended he was going to seal them in. She'd seemed hurt, and her glamour had flickered.

In that instant, Cade's predatory gaze had darted to her, even in the midst of his killing rage. Divested of her cloak, comely Mariketa had seized the demon's attention. His brother Rydstrom, too, had done a double take.

Bowe had been surprised to find that the two demons Mariketa had mentioned were ones he knew. He had a history with the brothers - they'd fought side by side centuries ago - and had noticed them at the assembly, vaguely, when he could drag his eyes from the witch.

He recalled that the demons had been extremely popular with females.

Why in the hell did the idea of either brother with her sit so ill with him? They can have her... With a final look, he turned, loping away to his truck.

Bowe was not immune to a Lykae's marked sense of curiosity, and when he came across the line of the others' vehicles, he decided to investigate the interiors.

Empty bottles of a local beer and crushed cans of Red Bull littered the demons' truck. The archers had water bottles, protein bars, and electronic gadgetry in theirs.

Then came the witch's Jeep. She'd driven these demanding mountain roads - mud coated all the way up to the soft top - alone. And she'd driven them through a hotbed of political unrest and danger. This densely jungled region had been simmering with the threat of war between two human armies - a turf war between an established drug cartel and a sizable band of narco-terrorists. The conflict surely would erupt soon.

What in the hell had she been thinking? The fact that she'd somehow arrived at the same time as the others - and before Bowe himself - didn't matter.

She'd left two maps spread over the passenger seat, both with highlights and copious notes scrawled on them. Four research books lay in the backseat - among them Pyramids & Palaces, Monsters & Masks: The Golden Age of Maya Architecture. Many of the pages were systematically flagged with colored paper clips.

Beside the books, she had a well-worn camouflage backpack. A muddy machete hung from one side of the pack with an incongruous bright pink iPod on the other.

A pink iPod with stickers of cats on it, for all the gods' sakes.

Exactly how young was she? It was possible she'd only recently become immortal, possibly wasn't even over a hundred.

Whatever her age, she obviously was too young and too foolish not to know better than to toy with a powerful, twelve-hundred-year-old Lykae.

And she had toyed with him, had enthralled him to kiss her. Bowen MacRieve despised witches; he did not go out of his mind with desire for them.

His own father had been a victim of one's machinations. Bowe remembered his father's eyes were haunted, even centuries later, as he'd recounted his meeting with a raven-haired witch of incredible beauty - and unspeakable evil.

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."

So that was what they sought in this competition - to go back in time and keep Rydstrom's crown.

"My brother might have been willing to help others," Cade began, "but after seeing what Mariketa did to the Lykae, I bet the witchling will leave us here to rot."

"Is that true?" Rydstrom asked Mari.

Possibly.

"Of course it's not," Tera answered for her. "Mariketa wouldn't leave us any more than we would desert her. She's part fey. Look at her ears. The Hie be damned - somewhere in time, her ancestors are our ancestors."

"Oh, then by that reasoning, she won't leave me either," Cade said, sarcasm in his voice. "She and I are both mercenaries. There's a code there."

"It's incidental if I would leave anyone behind," Mari finally said. "I don't know that I could lift it."

"What do you mean?" Rydstrom said. "You're strong. I can feel your power even now."

"I... I blow things up," she admitted. "And I mostly don't mean to. Mostly."

Cade shook his head. "The entire structure's resting on the portcullis. If you explode that stone, the tomb would come down like a house of cards."

Rydstrom said, "Let's look at odds and make a rational decision - exactly how often do you accidentally blow things up?"

"The times I can get my magick to work?" she said. "Ninety-nine out of a hundred."

As Tierney swore under his breath, Cade said, "So we look for another way out. Did anyone find an exit in any of the chambers?"

"There aren't going to be any exits," Tera said, her attention riveted to a frieze above the portcullis. Intricate animal signs and hieroglyphics were carved into the stone.

"Why do you say that?" Rydstrom asked.

Tera squinted up at the carvings, seeming to somehow make sense of the animal and geometrically shaped glyphs. "Because this is... a jail."

"You've deciphered those marks?" Mari asked Tera.

Tierney answered for her, "She knows all languages."

Tera translated for them. "It says this tomb is a jail holding six demon essence stealers - incubi - for their unnatural crimes against the daughter of a powerful sorcerer."

"They probably all seduced her, then pops gets pissed," Tierney said. "Locks them away here."

Tera nodded. "The Mayans were custodians for them, of a sort. Kept them locked up - and fed periodically."

"That explains the sacrificial headdresses," Cade said. "Mayan females were offered up."

Tera continued, "They're cursed never to leave this place - short of death. According to these calendrics, they have been here for eleven hundred and eleven years."

"Well, that can't be right," Mari said. "No one's home - "

Claws scrabbled over stone somewhere in the shadows. Everyone glanced around uneasily.

They weren't alone...

"We left the front door open for hours," Tierney said. "Why would they remain here?"

Tera said, "They probably are bound to the tomb, unable to cross the threshold."

"If they are still here, it shouldn't be a problem," Mari said, even as she backed her way to Rydstrom and Cade. "Right? Especially if Tera can speak their language."

The incubi that Mari had known were all charming and hot. Finding one in your bed was supposed to be a good problem to have.

So why were the tiny hairs of her nape standing up? Gazing up at Rydstrom, she murmured, "Mind if I stick around you, big guy?"

In answer, he briefly laid his massive hand on the top of her head in a strangely comforting way.

Suddenly, the scent of rotting flesh pervaded the crypt. Mari felt evil all around them - old evil - circling.

As her eyes darted around, she unconsciously began to build magick again.

A drop of something... viscous hit her bare shoulder. In the unnatural lantern light, she slowly raised her face. Her lips parted, her mind unable to comprehend.

"Mariketa," Tera whispered, as she crossed to her. "Your face has gone white. What could - ?" Her words died in her throat as she followed Mari's gaze. Tera's bow and arrow shot up again.

But arrows couldn't kill what was already dead.

"The incubi!" one of the others yelled as shadowy beings swarmed the area, diving and flying all around them. Cade and Rydstrom drew their swords. Just when Mari was praying to Hekate that these people she hardly knew would protect her, Rydstrom used one hand to shove her behind him.

At the first crazed attack, the demons' swords struck and deflected. The archers shot wildly. The twang of bow and the clash of steel were deafening in the echoing space.

Yet the incubi seemed to be focusing their attacks on Rydstrom - and trying to get to her.

All at once, Rydstrom was besieged. Without his guard, Mari was knocked down, landing on her front so hard her teeth clattered. Blood from a wound somewhere on her head tracked down her cheeks. Power-laden blue light cast erratically from her hands and eyes but struck nothing.

"Cade!" Rydstrom yelled, struggling to ward off the onslaught. "Over here!"

His brother battled his way over.

"They want the witch - "

With a cry, she scrambled up only to be knocked to the ground once more. When she dimly realized the incubi were steadily separating her from the group, she stayed down.

"Why her?" Cade looked from Mari to Rydstrom. In the back of her mind, she recognized that Cade probably wouldn't have any interest in helping her - especially not at the expense of helping himself and his brother.

"Why do you think?" Rydstrom snapped, even as his sword slashed up.

Cade's eyes narrowed. "Oh, that!" he roared, redoubling his fight -

Fangs sank into Mari's ankles. As she cried out in pain, her body began to... move.

Cade was closest to her and lunged for her, yelling, "Tierney!" With supernatural speed, the archer covered him with a torrent of arrows, but there were too many incubi diving right at them.

Blood sprayed up from Cade's body, and he bellowed with fury.

As she screamed, something dragged her back in frenzied yanks. Mari clawed at the stones, shrieking as it snatched her into the darkness.

5

Pit of the Fyre Drag��n, Y��ls��rk, Hungary

Finale of the Talisman's Hie

Prize: The blade of the blind mystic Honorius to win

Tonight he would have Mariah back.

One last contest. One last struggle to put his wasted body through. Then his reward.

As he loped through a sweltering tunnel toward the Fyre Drag��n's pit of flames, Bowe felt a sense of expectation, an almost light-headed anticipation that warred with the pain from his many injuries - injuries that weren't healing.

The Hie had been as cutthroat as he'd expected - and as he'd been prepared to be - but the witch had had the last laugh.

The spell from the tomb that he'd believed was harmless had actually taken hold of his body. Creeping through him like the strongest roots, day by day it leached away his immortality. No longer did he have the ability to regenerate, and for the first time in twelve hundred years, he felt that he was aging. In fact, he'd barely made it to the finals of this competition.

There could be no worse timing to lose his strength than in the Hie.

When the prize would bring back his Mariah.

For one hundred and eighty years, since the night he'd found her - with her thin body gored and her green cloak spread out in the blood-soaked snow - he'd searched relentlessly for a way to resurrect her.

Lingering on in a kind of half life, not dying but not really living, he'd continued to believe he could bring her back to him, when most Lykae would have found a way to die if they'd lost their mates. Others in his clan thought him mad, wondering why he continued to exist in that miserable twilight. Even his cousins, Lachlain and Garreth, who were like brothers to him, couldn't understand him.

But he would show them all, because after searching so long, a mad Valkyrie soothsayer, of all people, had alerted him to this competition - and had told him it was the means of reaching his mate. Desperate to try anything, he'd entered. When he'd learned the ultimate prize of the Hie was a key to go back in time, everything had made sense.

Bowe hadn't foolishly been hoping for something that could never be. The chance to bring Mariah back was within his grasp, and he'd fought mercilessly for that key.

Yet so had his two main competitors: the Valkyrie Kaderin the Coldhearted and Sebastian Wroth, a vampire soldier. Just two nights ago in a minefield in Cambodia, they'd forced Bowe into an explosion that had threaded a rusted length of shrapnel between his ribs and had blown away his left eye and part of his forehead.

Because of the witch's curse, those gruesome injuries remained.

Now, half blind and weak beyond measure, Bowe was only confident of winning because just two competitors vied in this last round, and the other finalist was Kaderin. Yes, the Valkyrie was a single-minded competitor, but in the end she was still a female.

He slowed, struggling to detect if she was already here. During this final part of the Hie, killing was allowed. On this night, would Bowe kill a female to bring Mariah back? He had no doubts that if given the chance, the Valkyrie would take her assassin's sword and slice him crotch to collar without blinking her cold, emotionless eyes.

One thing Bowe did know was that if he lost, he would definitely kill the witch for weakening him so much.

A roar sounded deeper in the earth, and the cavern quaked, sending rock and dust falling over him. The Fyre Drag��n - rumored to be a serpentlike beast, as large as a basilisk but with a body of fire - must be sensing Bowe's trespass.

This place was known in the Lore as where immortals go to die. Most immortals could die only by beheading - an unwieldy suicide option - or by total immolation in a pit of otherworldly heat like this. Yet in the ages that had passed, the location of this place had become virtually lost in the Lore. Until now...

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