The Dark-Hunters (182 page)

There was no hope of having a relationship with him or any other man. Her life was all but over now. So where did that leave them?

Nowhere.

So she resorted to the humor that had seen her through the tragedies of her life. It was all she had. “Tell me, if I get lost in this place, do you have a search party available to find me again?”

He didn’t laugh. There was a solid wall between them now. He had completely closed himself off from her. It was just as well.

“I’ll go get you something to sleep in.” He started away from her.

“You won’t even trust me to see where you sleep, huh?”

His look was piercing. “You’ve already seen where I sleep.”

Her face turned red as she remembered the most erotic of her dreams. The one where she had watched his tawny body sliding against hers in the mirrors while he made slow, passionate love to her. “The black iron bed?”

He nodded, then left her.

Alone, Cassandra sat on the mattress and pushed her thoughts away. “What am I doing here?” Part of her said to screw it and just take her chances with Stryker.

But another part of her wanted to go back to her dreams and just pretend this day hadn’t happened.

No, what she wanted was the one thing she knew she could never have …

She wanted a forbidden fantasy—a man of her own to have and to hold. One she could grow old with. One who could hold her hand as she brought his baby into the world.

It was so impossible that she had buried those dreams years and years ago.

Up until now, she’d never met anyone who made her ache for the things that were denied her. Not until she had stared into a pair of black eyes and listened to a Viking warrior talk about keeping a boy safe.

A man who felt guilt for his past.

She yearned now. And it was an impossible desire.

Wulf could never be hers, and even if he was, she would be dead in a matter of months.

Hanging her head in her hands, she wept.

Chapter 7

“Take me to Cassandra,” Kat snarled at the auburn-haired Dark-Huntress in the car beside her. It wasn’t in her nature to let anyone have control of her or her environment. “I’m the only one who can protect her.”

“Yeah,” Corbin said as she pulled into the driveway of her mansion. “You did a great job protecting her from what … the garbage, was it?”

Kat saw red at that. The urge to blast the Huntress into dust went through her—a byproduct of her mother’s nasty temper that she had inherited. Luckily for Corbin, Kat had more of her father in her and had learned long ago to take deep breaths and not give in to her childish impulses.

Getting angry wouldn’t accomplish anything. She had to find Cassandra, and if she used her powers to do it, Stryker would be able to locate Cass as well. That prick had learned long ago how to follow the subtle nuances of Kat’s powers and use them against her. It was why she hadn’t fought him in the bar. Like it or not, Stryker was more powerful than she was. Mostly because he didn’t care who he hurt to get his way.

Which meant she needed the Huntress to take her to Cass.

Kat had teleported out of their apartment for no more than five minutes so that she could go to the Destroyer and tell her to leave Cassandra alone.

How was she to know the Destroyer would use that distraction to send in Stryker and his men while she was away?

She felt so betrayed she couldn’t breathe. After all these centuries, she had dutifully served both Apollymi and Artemis. Now the two of them were using her against each other and she didn’t like it in the least.

And they both wondered why her father didn’t want to play their reindeer games. He was far wiser than Kat since he had always managed to keep himself out of these situations. Only he seemed to understand both goddesses.

How she wished she could call him. He could probably end this in a matter of seconds. But involving him would only make things worse.

No, she had to handle this on her own.

Besides, she no longer cared what either goddess wanted. She had grown extremely fond of Cassandra these last five years and she didn’t want to see her friend used, let alone hurt.

It was time for all of them to just leave Cassandra alone.

Corbin got out of the car.

Kat followed her into the garage, then stopped as Corbin unlocked the door to her house. “Look, we’re all on the same team.”

The Huntress looked at her as if she were insane. “Sure we are, hon. Now come inside so I can keep an eye on you and make sure you don’t do anything like leave Cassandra to her enemies again.”

Kat used enough of her powers to hold the door shut. Corbin rattled the knob and smacked the wood with her hand.

“You know,” Kat said angrily, “if I wanted Cassandra dead, don’t you think in the last five years I could have killed her? Why would I wait until now?”

Corbin turned away from the door. “How do I know you’ve known her for five years?”

Kat laughed sarcastically at that. “Ask her and you’ll see.”

Corbin looked at her thoughtfully. “Then why did you leave her unprotected tonight?”

Kat locked gazes with her so that Corbin could see her sincerity. “I swear to you, had I known those homicidal loons were going to show up, I wouldn’t have stepped one foot out of that apartment.”

Still, Corbin’s gaze doubted her. On the one hand, Kat admired the woman’s protectiveness. On the other, she wanted to strangle her.

“I don’t know,” Corbin said slowly. “Maybe you’re being honest and maybe you’re full of shit.”

“Fine.” Kat threw her hands up in frustration. “You want proof?”

“You got any?”

Turning around, Kat lifted the hem of her shirt and showed Corbin the skin just above her left hip where her own double bow-and-arrow mark resided. That brand was the mark of Artemis.

Corbin’s eyes widened. “I know you’re not a Dark-Hunter. What are you?”

“I’m one of Artemis’s handmaidens, and just like you, I’ve been charged with seeing Cassandra safe. Now take me to her.”

*   *   *

Wulf knocked briefly, then pushed the door open to find Cassandra wiping her eyes. He froze at the sight. “Are you crying?”

“No,” she said, clearing her throat. “I had something in my eye.”

He knew she was lying, but he respected her strength. It was nice to find a woman who didn’t use tears to manipulate men.

He entered the room hesitantly. The thought of her crying made his own chest ache. Worse, he felt an insane need to pull her into his arms and comfort her.

He couldn’t. He needed to keep his distance from her.

“I … um … I borrowed these from Chris.” He handed her the sweatpants and T-shirt in his hand.

“Thanks.”

Wulf couldn’t tear his gaze away from her. Her long strawberry-blond hair was pulled back from her face. Something about her reminded him of a scared little girl and at the same time there was something that was rock-solid and determined.

He cupped her cool cheek in his hand and tilted her head so that she was looking up at him. In his dreams, he would be laying her back on her bed and tasting her lips.

Unbuttoning her shirt …

“Have you been fighting like this all your life?”

She nodded. “Both Daimons and Apollites hunt my family. At one time, there were hundreds of us and now it’s down to me. My mother always told us that we must have more children. That it was up to us to continue the line.”

“Why didn’t you?”

She sniffed daintily. “Why should I? If I die, then they will see that there is no truth to the myth that says our death will free them.”

“So you’ve never thought of going Daimon then?”

She pulled away from him and he saw the truth in her eyes.

“Could you do it?” he asked her. “Could you kill an innocent person to live?”

“I don’t know,” she said, moving away from the bed to place the shirt and pants on the dresser. “They say it gets easier after the first one. And once you have a foreign soul in you, it changes everything about you. You become something else. Something evil and uncaring. My mother had a brother who turned. I was only six when he came to her and tried to make her a Daimon as well. When she refused, he tried to kill her. In the end, her bodyguard killed him while my sisters and I hid in a closet. It was terrifying. Uncle Demos had always been so good to us.”

The sadness in her eyes as she spoke wrapped around his heart and squeezed it tightly. He couldn’t imagine how much horror she had seen in her young life.

But then his childhood hadn’t been easy either. The shame, the humiliation. Even after all these centuries, he could still feel the sting of it.

Some pains never eased.

“What about you?” she asked, looking at him over her shoulder since he didn’t cast a reflection in the mirror. “Did you find it was easier to kill a man after you took your first life?”

Her question angered him. “I never murdered anyone. I only protected myself and my brother.”

“Ah, I see,” she said quietly. “So you don’t think it’s murder when you barge into someone’s home to rob them and they fight you rather than submit to your brutality?”

Shame filled him as he remembered a few of his early raids. Back then, his people had traveled far and wide, attacking villages in the middle of the night to raid other people, other lands. They weren’t after the kill, but rather wanted to leave as many alive as they could. Especially when they were after slaves they could sell in foreign markets.

His mother had been horrified when she learned that he and Erik had started raiding with the other sons of their neighbors.

“My sons are dead to me,”
she had snarled before she threw them out of their squalid home.
“I never want to see either of you again.”

And she hadn’t. She’d died the following spring of a fever. His sister had paid one of the young village men to find them and deliver the news.

Three years passed before they were able to return home to pay their respects. By then his father had been slain and his sister taken by invaders. Wulf had gone to England to free her and it had been there that Erik had died after they left her village.

Brynhild had refused to leave with them.
“I reap what you and Erik have sown. It is God’s will that I be a slave to serve as those whom you and Erik have sold are forced to do. And for what, Wulf? For profit and glory? Leave me, brother. I want no more of your warring ways.”

Like a fool, he had left her and she too had been slain a year later when the Angles invaded her small village. Life was death. It was the only thing that was inevitable.

As a human, he’d been well acquainted with it. As a Dark-Hunter he was an expert.

He turned away from Cassandra. “Times were different then.”

“Really?” she asked. “I never heard before that people in the Dark Ages were supposed to be sheep to be butchered.”

Cassandra cringed as Wulf turned on her with a fierce growl. “If you are looking for me to apologize for what I did, I will not. I was born to a race that respected nothing but the strength of one’s sword arm. I grew up mocked and ridiculed because my father wouldn’t fight. So when I was old enough to prove to them that I wasn’t like him, that I could and
would
stand by them in battle, I took it.

“Yes, I did things I regret. What person hasn’t? But I never once killed or raped a woman. I never hurt a child, nor a man who couldn’t defend himself.
Your
people prize the death of a child or pregnant woman above all else. They stalk them for no other purpose than to elongate their putrid lives. So don’t you dare preach to me.”

She swallowed, but admirably held her ground. “Some do. Just as some of
your
people lived to rape and pillage. Didn’t you tell me your own mother was a slave who had been captured by your father? It may come as a surprise to you, Wulf Tryggvason, but some of my people only prey on people like yours. Murderers. Rapists. There is an entire branch of Daimons called the Akelos who have all taken an oath to kill only the humans who deserve it.”

“You lie.”

“No,” she said, her tone sincere, “I don’t. Funny, when I first met you, I thought you might know more about my people than I do since you hunt us. But you don’t, do you? We’re just animals to all of you. Not even worth the trouble of talking to one of us to find out the truth.”

It was true. He had never given any thought to the Daimons other than the fact that they were killers who needed to die.

As for Apollites …

He hadn’t thought of them at all.

Now he had a “human” face to go with the term “Apollite.”

Not just a face … he had a touch.

A lover’s gentle whisper.

But what did it change?

Nothing. At the end of the day, he was still a Dark-Hunter and he would still pursue the Daimons and slay any of them he found.

There was nothing more to be said between them. This was one obstacle neither of them could ever overcome.

So, he withdrew from the conflict. “You have free run of the house at night and the grounds during daylight.”

“And if I want to leave?”

He scoffed. “Ask Chris how easy that is.”

That familiar light came into her emerald eyes. The one that challenged him and told him he didn’t have any real power over her. It was one of the things he admired most in her—that fire and strong will. “You know, I’m used to getting out of impossible situations.”

“And I’m used to tracking and finding Apollites and Daimons.”

She arched one brow. “Are you challenging me?”

He shook his head. “I’m only stating fact. You leave and I will bring you back here. In chains if need be.”

She gave him a suddenly droll look that reminded him of Chris. “Will you punish me too?”

“I think you’re a little old for that. I also think you’re smart enough to know how stupid it would be for you to leave here while Stryker and his men are salivating to find you again.”

Cassandra hated the fact that he was right. “Can I at least call my father and tell him where I am so he won’t worry?”

He pulled the cell phone off his belt and handed it to her. “You can leave it in the living room when you finish.”