The Dark-Hunters (101 page)

“Is something wrong?” Sunshine asked as she noted his sudden discomfort.

He shook his head.

Ceara drew up short as she caught sight of Sunshine. Her eyes widened. “You have company?”

He didn’t answer. He couldn’t without clueing Sunshine into the fact that Ceara was with them.

“Is there a problem?” he asked.

“No,” Sunshine said.

“Yes,” Ceara responded. “Did you know Acheron is looking for you?”

Talon scowled. He grabbed his cell phone from the nightstand and dialed Acheron’s number.

No one answered.

“Is his phone turned off?” he asked.

Sunshine’s scowl matched his. “Whose phone?”

Ceara shook her head. “He’s been trying to reach you all night.”

His frown deepened. Looking down, he dialed Nick.

Again, no answer.

“This is weird,” Talon said. “No one answers.”

Sunshine shrugged the matter away. “Not really. It’s almost two
A.M
. Maybe they’re asleep.”

“Trust me,” he said, “these guys are wide awake right now.” He turned back toward his sister. “Ceara, where’s Acheron?”

“Ceara?” Sunshine asked. “Acheron? What are you talking about?”

Ceara ignored her interruption. “He’s with Artemis at the moment, but he’s been worried about you.”

“Why did you wait so long to come?” Talon asked.

“I couldn’t get here any earlier. Something kept me blocked from you.”

“Since when?”

“I don’t know. Something has its power cocooned around you. Something dark and evil.”

“Who are you talking to?” Sunshine asked.

“Sunshine, please, I’ll explain in a minute. First, I need a few answers.” He looked back at Ceara.

Ceara was staring at Sunshine curiously. She walked over to her and placed a hand on her shoulder.

Sunshine shivered. “What was that?”

Ceara jumped back as if the contact had shocked her. “Nynia,” she breathed, looking up at him with a startled frown.

Something inside him screamed out a denial. This time when he spoke to Ceara, he spoke in their native Celt.
“Nae,
she’s not. It’s not possible.”

“Possible or not,
bràthair,
it is her. She has Nynia’s soul. Can you not feel it?”

Talon stared at Sunshine, his heart hammering.

Could it really be?

Wrapping the blanket around his hips, he moved over to where Sunshine stood and placed his hands on each side of her face. He tilted her head up so that he could look into her dark eyes.

In spite of his denials, he felt her. He had felt her the first moment he had looked at her under the lamplight.

From the deepest corner inside him, he’d known all along she was his Nynia. Known the first instant he had tasted her.

His hands shook from the truth of it.

“How can this be?” he asked.

But in his heart, he already knew. Camulus had sent her to him.

She was here to destroy him all over again.

His chest tightened to the point he couldn’t breathe.

That was why he had been so attracted to her. Why he didn’t want to leave her. Camulus wanted her to seduce him so that he would have to watch her die once again. In his arms.

Closing his eyes, Talon pulled Sunshine against him and held her tight, torn between wanting to fight heaven and earth to keep her and knowing in the end he would invariably lose.

No one ever defeated a god.

Sunshine struggled to breathe inside his crushing embrace. “Talon, you’re scaring me. What’s going on?”

“It’s nothing. I just need to get you home.”

Away from me before the gods realize that you’re here and decide to punish you for it.

“Speirr?” Ceara asked, her voice sounding distant. “I can’t stay here. I’m being pulled away again.”

“Ceara?”

She was gone.

Talon clamped down hard on his emotions. He couldn’t afford to have them right now. He had too many things to do and he needed all of his powers to face the challenge of keeping Sunshine safe.

Not to mention, he needed to find out what was interfering with Ceara’s powers and Acheron’s phone.

Sunshine’s life was in his hands. This time, he wouldn’t fail her.

Talon ground his teeth, wishing he could change history.

“Stay with me, Speirr, please don’t ride out with vengeance in your heart.”

Had he listened to Nynia the day his uncle was killed, his life would have taken an entirely different course.

But overwrought with grief and rage, he had denied Nynia’s request and she hadn’t argued the matter.

As always, Nynia had stepped aside and let him have his way. He’d gone straight to the northern Gaul tribe and had laid waste to them, never knowing that both he and the Gauls had been set up.

By the time he’d learned the truth, it had been too late to apologize.

The Gauls had been under the protection of the war god Camulus and under the leadership of Camulus’s human son. The war god’s wrath still resonated through Talon’s life.

“I will exist only to see you suffer…”

It was a promise Camulus had delivered well on.

No, he couldn’t fight Camulus and win. As a Dark-Hunter, he was strong and powerful, but not to the point he could kill a god.

Basically, he was screwed unless he got Sunshine back to her life and out of his, pronto.

*   *   *

Once they were dressed and Sunshine had her things, which she’d had to go back for three different times, Talon helped her into his boat and headed back toward New Orleans. The sooner he put distance between them, the safer she would be.

He would contact Acheron once they were in the city and see if maybe Acheron could call in another Dark-Hunter or Squire to watch over her until Mardi Gras. Someone whose presence wouldn’t endanger her even more than the Daimons who were after her.

Once they reached his garage, Talon decided to leave his motorcycle behind and use the Viper tonight. He needed speed and had no desire to put Sunshine in any more jeopardy.

Breaking more speeding laws than he wanted to contemplate, Talon took her to her loft and then used her wall phone to call Acheron.

“What are you doing in the city?” Acheron demanded.

“I was told you were trying to reach me.”

“Told by whom? I thought my directions were clear. You were to stay at your cabin with the woman.”

Talon frowned. This was peculiar. Ceara had never been wrong before, nor had she ever lied to him. “You did, but then…” He paused as he tried to sort it out.

What was going on here?

“Yes?”

“Nothing, T-Rex. I guess I misunderstood.”

“So why are you still on the phone with me?” Ash asked. “You need to get her back to the cabin. Now.”

Talon didn’t care for his haughty tone at all. Ash could be evasive and annoying, but he’d never before been an authoritative dick. “I can’t, T-Rex. Something weird is going down. I have to leave her here.”

“Why?”

Talon glanced around to make sure Sunshine couldn’t overhear his conversation. She hadn’t said a word to him the whole way back to her loft and now she was sitting on the sofa sketching and appeared completely oblivious to him.

He wanted to keep it that way.

Just to be safe, he lowered his voice. “She’s my wife.”

“Excuse me?”

Talon lowered his voice even more. “I think Sunshine is Nynia reincarnated.”

“Well, isn’t this interesting?”

“Yeah, and I can’t protect her any more. I need someone else to watch her, okay?”

“Yes, I can see your dilemma.”

Talon frowned. Dilemma? That wasn’t an Acheron kind of word. “Is something wrong with you, T-Rex?”

“No. I’m just concerned about this situation. Are you leaving her now?”

“I need to.”

“Perhaps you should wait until tomorrow night.”

“What?”

“I can’t get anyone there tonight. Why don’t you continue to protect her until I can get someone else to take over? I don’t really trust Zarek to watch her, do you?”

“Hell no. You’re right. I definitely don’t want to leave her here unprotected.”

“Yes. It could be a problem. You spend the day there, and tomorrow I will take care of the matter.”

The phone went dead.

Talon hung up with a weird feeling in his stomach. Something about that conversation just didn’t seem right.

But as he looked across the room, his concerns were overshadowed by the vision of Sunshine.

She was still sitting on her sofa, sketching on her pad and humming a light tune.

It was Nynia’s lullaby. The same song she used to sing while she worked.

Longing and pain tore through him so powerfully that he could barely move.

But it was the love he felt for her that overwhelmed him.

Against his will, he found himself approaching her. He knelt before her, laid his head in her lap and held her tight, grateful to have her with him, no matter how different she looked or acted.

His Nynia was back.

Sunshine was stunned by the familiarity of his actions. Instinctively, she ran her hand through the softness of his golden hair as she remembered even more about their past life together. He’d done this before. Many times.

“What is going on, Talon?”

“I wish I could tell you.” He lifted his head up to look at her. The torment in those jet eyes reached out to her and made her heart pound for him.

Talon pulled back.

Now that he knew who she was, it made leaving her almost impossible.

But there was nothing else he could do. She would have to live out this life with someone else.

What choice did he have? He would never do anything to hurt her. Not again.

He’d killed her once, he wouldn’t kill her again.

There was no way they could be together while the curse still bound him.

*   *   *

Styxx toyed with his cell phone as he thought over his conversation with Talon.

He smiled.

Oh, this was sweet. Talon already knew Sunshine was his dead wife reincarnated.

Perfect. Just perfect. He couldn’t have hoped for better timing. Everything was going along according to their plans.

Zarek had swallowed the bait and allowed himself to be framed. Talon was now adequately distracted by his wife. Valerius was under the control of Dionysus.

And Acheron …

Well, he had something very special planned for that one.

As the Cajun French people of New Orleans would say,
Laissez les jeux commencer
 … Let the games begin.

Chapter 9

“I guess you’ll be leaving now,” Sunshine said quietly even though part of her didn’t want him to go. Her large loft suddenly seemed a bit desolate as she thought of him leaving.

They’d had a lot of fun at his cabin, creating their platter of food, making love to each other.

But now her sexcapade with him was over. It was time for them to go their separate ways.

Why, then, did it hurt so much to think of never seeing him again?

Talon nodded. “Yeah, I guess so.”

He let go of her hand and started for the door. He could find someplace to sleep in the abandoned building next door to her. Find a floor that wasn’t too far from this one so that he could keep watch over her until dawn. Then he could sleep in the building until tomorrow night.

It would be easier that way. Easier for both of them if he just broke off the relationship now.

There was no point in spending another day with her. Not when he knew he couldn’t give her anything more of himself.

Not so long as he posed a danger to her.

Sunshine ached as he reached for her doorknob.

He was going.

It was over.

She couldn’t breathe. A vicious pain stabbed her in the stomach at the thought of not seeing him anymore.

She couldn’t just sit here and let him leave like this. “Talon?”

He paused and looked back at her.

“Why don’t you stay the night? I know you can’t get back home before sunup.”

“No, I better not.”

“But where will you go?”

He shrugged.

Let him go …

She couldn’t. Not like this. It just didn’t seem right. “C’mon. I’ll be out of the loft early tomorrow morning and you’ll have the place all to yourself while I work. No one will disturb you. I promise.”

Talon hesitated.

Leave.

The command echoed in his head. He needed to.

He couldn’t.

“You sure you don’t mind?” he asked.

“Not at all.”

Talon took a deep breath and headed back toward her.

His wife.

His ultimate salvation.

His ultimate destruction.

Nynia had been everything to him. He’d thought all these centuries that he was safe from his emotions. Safe from the pain that came with the memories of his wife.

Now it was all back. Even more painful than before.

“Is something wrong?” Sunshine asked.

“I’m just tired, I guess,” he said, pulling his jacket off and setting it down.

Sunshine swallowed at the sight of his tight T-shirt that displayed his well-developed body. She was riveted by his impressive form. The man had the best butt leather had ever cupped. His legs were long, well shaped, and gorgeous, and all too well she remembered what they felt like when they were entangled with hers.

The feel of all his masculine power and beauty lying in her arms … thrusting between her legs …

She almost moaned aloud at imagining it.

But there was a wall between them now. As if he had closed part of himself off from her.

Gone was the tender man who had shared his body and laughter with her. Now she saw the powerful beast who had clobbered her attackers and sent them running in terror.

How she missed the gentler side of him.

“You’ve gone all stiff on me, haven’t you?”

He arched a puzzled brow at her and looked baffled by her question. “Lady, I get stiff every time you come near me.”

Heat rose in her cheeks and she scoffed. “I don’t mean that kind of stiff. Though that kind of stiff is much better than the other one. At least with that one I know you like me.”