Today he'd learned that she didn't proffer blood sacrifices at an altar - always a gratifying detail to learn about a potential mate.
Not to mention that the witch looked like she'd been plucked from his most fevered fantasy of a woman. Hell, she was a waking wet dream.
As if to illustrate his thoughts at that moment, she paused to wind up her hair and knead her neck. Each time she did this, he tensed in anticipation, rubbing his palm over his mouth, knowing she was about to draw up her shirt to wipe sweat from her brow. Once again she did, displaying for him the delicate marking at her back. Just below it, he spied the low edge of her black silk panties, which were visible enough for him to know she wore a thong - even if he hadn't picked it out this morning.
And with that teasing hint of a sight came an unwelcome realization. He was going to traverse the country of Guatemala with a raging cockstand the entire way.
Unless he could get her to relieve him of it.
When they began ascending a particularly steep trail, and she seemed to be flagging, he decided to cup her arse and push her up. Just as he reached for her, she said, "A fine way to lose a paw, MacRieve."
He grinned. "I have, and I doona recommend it."
"Then try keeping them to yourself."
Once they'd arrived at the trailhead, they came across a picturesque gorge. A slow-moving river flowed into terraced, limestone waterfalls. The water was aqua blue and clear.
Mariketa gasped at the sight, then turned to Rydstrom. "Can we stop here?"
He shook his head. "We need to keep going. You still have to make that call in time."
She looked so crestfallen, glancing out over the murky jungle they'd just emerged from, that Bowe found himself telling Rydstrom, "I need to boil water for her for the rest of the day anyway." He surveyed the area but found no dry wood, nor dry ground for that matter. He'd have to go back down into the forest. He scanned for Cade, and when Bowe didn't scent or see him or Tierney, he told Mariketa, "You've as long here as it takes for me to get your water ready."
She smiled brightly - the first real smile she'd ever cast his way.
Oh, bloody hell. She had a bewitching smile. Aye, no shite.
Then she dashed to the water's edge, raising her face to the sun. For three weeks she hadn't felt that light. Because of him. Trying to shake off his regret, he approached Tera. "I'm going to dry ground to make a fire, and I... I would ask you to keep an eye on Mariketa."
"I'll do it, but not as a favor to you," Tera answered shortly. Bowe had noticed the archers weren't as irate with him since they'd heard he hadn't meant to trap them so long. But they weren't eager to be buddies with a Lykae either.
He dropped his pack. "Her towel and belongings are in there if she needs anything." Then he lowered his voice. "But you canna let the witch go anywhere else. Just have her stay by the water. And doona let her touch anything. She'll likely get curious about something and wander off, so you canna take your eyes - "
"Lykae, enough! I won't let her get killed in the time it takes to boil water, okay?"
Mari nearly trembled with excitement. This place was... Eden.
Flowers with blooms as big as plates basked in the sun. Their scarlet and yellow petals were so bright and flawless, they looked fake. Shallow pools cascaded softly down, one after the other. The water was turquoise, and each basin was surrounded by ferns or had islands of flowers dotting it.
She wondered if anyone had ever hoped for an oasis - not from the sun, but of the sun - and then been rewarded like this.
After MacRieve and Rydstrom had started off to make a fire, she and Tera had torn into the pack - Tera for soap and shampoo and a borrowed change of clothes, and Mari for her bathing suit.
Just before she'd lain out in her suit - a black string bikini - she'd had a moment of uncharacteristic wavering. Aside from MacRieve, no one had seen her dressed in so little in years. The triangles on top were narrow, and though the back was not quite a thong, it was close.
And she wasn't exactly svelte.
Before, she'd never been ashamed of the curves most women would aspire to aerobicize away. She'd made a deal with herself her senior year in high school. She'd diet the minute her bikini-clad body failed to stir the shorts of at least one of the hot guys at the beach.
If it ain't broke...
When the sun beckoned, she'd recalled MacRieve's reaction to spying her naked and shucked her towel.
Now as Tera lay out with her hair coated in conditioner, Mari unbraided her own hair, listened to her iPod, and enjoyed rays. In this place, her entire outlook from the morning shifted.
She still couldn't believe she'd been so worried about the prediction. Seek to lock her away? Nothing could hold her! Not an immortal warrior or a tomb of incubi.
Here she was free, when she'd thought she'd die in that place. Soon she'd see her friends again. She'd sing more really bad karaoke with Regin and Carrow at the Cat's Meow - and she'd do it without her cloak. Anonymous, cloaked karaoke just didn't hold the same thrill.
And on this trip, she had accomplished something monumental by taking out the incubi. She might not have won, or even finaled, in the Hie, but when she returned to New Orleans she wouldn't walk, she'd strut.
Everyone had been awaiting? Well, Mari had just annihilated a thousand-year-old source of evil. Boo-yah for the captromancer!
No one could ever take that away from her. She'd destroyed ancient evil; her regret for the incomplete in that Civics 101 class just didn't have the same bite.
Then, the best part of this whole scenario - she'd been paid for it. Many factions in the Lore shared collective property, but the witches were the opposite - everything in the covens was about private ownership. "Share and share alike" might be the Valkyrie's motto, but the witches' was "Mine is mine." Mari was expected to carry her own weight.