The Dark-Hunters (136 page)

What would it be like to kiss a woman?

What would it be like to kiss
her?

He’d never before had the inclination. Every time a woman had tried, he’d moved his lips away from hers. It was an intimacy he had no wish to experience with anyone.

And yet he felt the yearning for it now. Felt a hunger to sample the moist, rosy lips of Astrid.

What are you? Mental?

Yes, he was.

He had no place in his life for a woman, no place for a friend or companion. He’d learned from the hour of his birth that he had but one destiny.

Isolation.

Even when he tried to belong, it didn’t work. He was an outsider. That was all he knew.

He pulled the towel away from her hair and stared at her, wanting to run his hand through those damp strands and comb them. Her skin was still ashen and gray from the cold. But she was no less lovely. No less inviting.

Before he could stop himself, he laid his bare hand against her chilled cheek and let the softness of her skin pierce him.

Gods, but it felt so good just to touch her.

She didn’t pull away from his touch or cringe. She sat there and let him touch her like a man.

Like a lover …

“Zarek?” Her voice was full of uncertainty.

“You feel like ice,” he growled, then left her. He had to get away from her and the strange feelings she stirred inside him. He didn’t want to be around her.

He didn’t want to be tamed.

Every time he had allowed himself to be tied to another human, he’d been betrayed.

By everyone.

Even Jess, who had seemed safe because he lived so far away.

An echo pain stabbed his back.

Apparently Jess hadn’t lived far enough away.

Zarek glanced out the kitchen window where the snow continued to fall. Sooner or later, Astrid would sleep and then he would leave.

Then she couldn’t stop him.

*   *   *

Astrid started to go after Zarek, but stopped herself. She wanted to see what he would do. What he intended.

Sasha, what is he doing?

She held herself still and used Sasha’s sight. Zarek was unbuttoning his coat. Her breath caught at the sight of his bare chest. Every muscle on his body rippled as he removed the coat and draped it over the back of her ladder-back chair.

The man was simply gorgeous. His tawny, bare back and wide shoulders inviting. Delectable.

But what stunned her was his right arm and shoulder, which were a total mess from Sasha’s attack.

Astrid gasped at the sight of what her companion had done. Zarek on the other hand didn’t seem to be the least bit bothered by his vicious wounds. He went about his business as if nothing had happened.

“Do I have to look at this?”
Sasha whined in her head.
“I’m going to go blind looking at a naked man.”

“You’re not going to go blind and he’s not naked.” Unfortunately.

Astrid was a bit taken aback by that uncharacteristic thought. She’d never ogled a man before, but she found herself transfixed by Zarek.

“Yes I am, and yes he is. Naked enough to make me lose my lunch anyway.”
Sasha started out of the kitchen.

“Sasha, stay.”

“I’m not a dog, Astrid, and I don’t care for that commanding tone. I stay with you by my choice, not by yours.”

“I know, Sasha. I’m sorry. Please, stay for me.”

Growling in a manner very reminiscent of Zarek, Sasha loped back into the kitchen and sat down to watch him.

Zarek paid no attention to Sasha while he moved about the kitchen looking for something.

She frowned at him pulling out a small pan. As he moved toward her fridge, her breath caught at the sight of a stylized dragon tattooed onto the small of his back. And right above it was the fierce-looking wound where someone had shot him.

She cringed in unexpected sympathy. For the first time in a long while she actually felt sorry for someone. It looked vicious and painful.

Zarek moved as if he barely noticed it.

He went to the fridge and pulled out her milk and the big Hershey candy bar she’d bought on impulse. He poured the milk into the saucepan and then added pieces of the chocolate to it.

How strange. He’d bit her head off and intimidated her, then tended her, and now he was making hot chocolate.

“It’s not for you,”
Sasha said to her.

“Hush, Sasha.”

“It’s not. Wanna bet he tries to poison me with the chocolate?”

“Well, then don’t eat it.”

Zarek turned around and leveled a sinister sneer at Sasha. “Here, Lassie, want to go find Timmy in the well? C’mon, girl, I’ll even open the door for you and toss you a biscuit.”

“Here psycho-Hunter, wanna find my teeth in your—”

“Sasha!”

“I can’t help it. He bothers me. A lot.”

Zarek looked over at the water and food bowls that Astrid had placed on a small tray that was about four inches off the floor for Sasha.

Sasha bared his teeth.
“Not my food, man. You contaminate it and so help me I
will
bite the shit out of you.”

“Sasha, please.”

Zarek approached the stainless steel bowls.

“I told you, Astrid, the bastard is going to poison me. He’s going to spit in my water or do something worse to it.”

Zarek did the most unexpected thing of all. He bent down, picked up the almost empty water bowl, washed it out in the sink and refilled it with water, then carefully returned it to the tray.

Astrid wasn’t sure which of them was the most shocked by his actions. Her or Sasha.

Sasha moved to his bowl and sniffed it suspiciously.

Zarek returned to the sink to wash his hands. Once the chocolate milk was warmed up, he poured it into a mug and brought it to her.

“Here,” he said, his voice ringing with its usual rude, hostile note. He took her hand and led it to the cup.

“What is it?” she asked.

“Arsenic and vomit.”

She screwed her face up in disgust at the thought. “Really? And yet you managed to hack that up so quietly. Who knew? Thanks. I’ve never had vomit before. I’m sure it’s
extra
special.”

Well, so much for thinking Zarek had a kinder, gentler side.

“Drink it or don’t,” he growled. “I don’t care.”

She heard him leave the room again.

Astrid held the cup. Even though she had watched him make it through Sasha’s eyes and knew he hadn’t done anything to contaminate it, she was still reluctant to taste it after his off-putting comment.

“He’s watching you,”
Sasha told her.

She cocked her head very slowly.
“How so?”

“Like he’s daring you to taste it.”

Astrid held her breath, debating what to do. Was it a test of his own? Was he asking her to trust him?

Taking a deep breath, she drank the chocolate, which was a perfect temperature and very tasty.

Zarek was amazed at her bravery. So, she had called his bluff and trusted him. He would never have drunk anything a stranger handed him and it surprised him that she had.

He felt a grudging respect for her. The woman had a lot of guts, he’d give her that.

But at the end of the day, guts didn’t account for much, and all they would do is get her killed if Thanatos found them before he had a chance to leave.

His gaze turned dull as he remembered the demon or Daimon or whatever he was who had been sent to kill him.

All this time, the Dark-Hunters had assumed Acheron was the bloodhound Artemis used to track and kill rogue Dark-Hunters.

All the men who knew the truth were now roaming the earth as Shades. Soulless, bodiless entities who could feel hunger and thirst and yet were never allowed to sate it.

They could feel and sense the world, but no one could feel or sense them.

He understood that existence. For the twenty-six years he had lived as a mortal human, he’d been one himself.

Only then, a world that didn’t know he existed would have been preferable. Because when people had realized he was around, they had gone out of their way to increase his pain.

Gone out of their way to hurt and humiliate him.

Rage flooded him as his gaze sharpened once more. He looked around the immaculate cabin where every detail showed Astrid’s wealth. In his human existence a woman like her would have spat in his face for no other reason than that he dared to cross her path. He would have been so far beneath her that he would have been beaten for even daring to lift his gaze to her face.

To look her in the eyes would have been his death.

“Is this slave bothering you, mistress?”

He winced as the memory ran through his mind.

At age twelve he had been foolish enough to listen to his brothers as they pointed out a woman who was in the marketplace.

“She’s your mother, slave. Didn’t you know? Uncle freed her just last year.”

“Why not go to her, Zarek? Maybe she’ll take pity on you and have you freed, too.”

Too young and too stupid to know better, he had stared at the woman they showed him. She had hair as black as his and perfect blue eyes. He’d never seen his mother before. Had never known she was so beautiful.

But in his heart, she had always been more beautiful than Venus. He had envisioned her as a slave like himself who had no choice but to do as her master said. He’d built up a whole dream of how he’d been ripped from her arms after birth. How she had wept for him to be returned to her.

How she had pined every day for her lost son.

Meanwhile, he had been given to his merciless father who had vengefully kept him away from her caring arms.

Zarek was sure she would love him. All mothers loved their children. It was why the other female slaves had no use for him. They were saving all their rations and affections for their own.

But this woman … she was his.

And she would love him.

Zarek had run to her and embraced her, telling her who he was and how much he loved her.

But there had been no warm welcome. No motherly affection.

She had looked at him with abject disgust and horror. Her lips had curled cruelly as she hissed to him,
“I paid that whore good money to see you dead.”

His brothers had laughed at him.

Zarek had been too crushed by her rejection to move or breathe. He had been devastated to learn that his mother had bribed another slave to kill him.

When a soldier approached them to ask if he were disturbing her, she had said coldly,
“This worthless slave touched me. I want him beaten for it.”

Even after two thousand years those words resonated through him. As did the pitiless look on her face as she turned and left him to the soldiers, who had gleefully carried out her order …

“You are worthless, slave. Good for nothing at all. You’re not even worth the scraps it takes to keep you alive. If we’re lucky mayhap you’ll die and save us the winter rations for a slave who has some value.”

Zarek growled as his memories took hold of him. Unable to deal with the pain they caused, he lashed out with his powers. Every lightbulb in the den shattered, the fire roared in the hearth, narrowly missing Sasha, who had been lying before it. Pictures fell from the walls.

All he wanted was for the pain to stop …

Astrid screamed as her ears were assailed with foreign sounds.
“Sasha, what’s happening?”

“The bastard tried to kill me.”

“How?”

“He shot a fireball from the fireplace into my hindquarters. Man, my fur is singed. He’s having a fit of some kind and using his powers.”

“Zarek?”

The entire cabin shook with such ferocity that she half-expected it to burst apart.

“Zarek!”

Total silence descended.

All Astrid could hear was her heart pounding.

“What’s happening?”
she asked Sasha.

“I don’t know. The fire went out and I can’t see anything. It’s totally black. He shattered the lights.”

“Zarek?” she tried again.

Again no one answered. Her panic tripled. He could kill her and neither she nor Sasha would see him coming.

He could do anything to her.

“Why did you save me?”

She jumped at the sound of his voice right beside her ear as she sat on the couch. He was so close to her that she could feel his warm breath on her skin.

“You were hurt.”

“How did you know I was hurt?”

“I didn’t until after I got you inside. I … I thought you might be drunk.”

“Only an absolute idiot would bring a strange man into her home when she’s blind and lives alone. You don’t strike me as an idiot.”

She swallowed. He was a lot smarter than she had given him credit for.

And a lot scarier.

“Why am I here?” he demanded.

“I told you.”

He shoved the couch so hard that it skidded forward several inches. Then he was in front of her, pinning her to the cushions. Making her tremble from his fierce presence. “How did you get me inside?”

“I dragged you.”

“Alone?”

“Of course.”

“You don’t look strong enough.”

She gasped in terror. What was he going for? What did he intend to do to her? “I’m stronger than I look.”

“Prove it.” He grabbed her wrists.

She wrestled with him for several seconds. “Let me go.”

“Why? Do I repulse you?”

Sasha growled. Loudly.

She stopped moving and glared at where she hoped his face was.

“Zarek,” she said firmly. “You’re hurting me. Let me go.”

To her shock, he did. He moved back ever so slightly but his angry presence was still tangible. Oppressive. Frightening.

“Do something smart, princess,” he growled in her ear. “Stay far away from me.”

She heard him walk away from her.

“He’s guilty,”
Sasha snapped.
“Astrid. Judge him.”