The Dark-Hunters (244 page)

Tabitha laughed. “Ah, it’s a goof on my brother-in-law, the self-righteous, proselytizing schlemiel.”

He gave her an arch look. “I take it you don’t care for the man.”

“Actually, I love him to death. He’s really good to my sister and niece, and is a real sweetheart in his own way. But, much like you, he takes himself entirely too seriously. You guys need to lighten up and enjoy yourselves more. Life’s too short … well, maybe not for you, but for the rest of us mortals it is.”

Valerius was fascinated by this woman who should repulse him. She was tacky and uncouth and yet she was amusing and charming in a most unexpected way.

She plunked a small red can on the table that had a plastic spoon sticking out of what appeared to be some sort of elbow macaroni and marinara.

Valerius frowned. “What is that?”

“Ravioli.”

He arched a brow at that. “
That
is not ravioli.”

She looked down at it. “Well, okay. It’s Beefaroni. My niece calls anything that comes in these small microwavable cans ravioli.” She pulled a chair out for him. “Eat up.”

Valerius was aghast at what she was offering him. “I beg your pardon? You don’t actually expect me to eat that, do you?”

“Well, yeah. You said you wanted Italian. It’s Italian.” She picked the can up and indicated the label. “See. Chef Boyardee. He makes only the best stuff.”

Valerius had never been more appalled in his life. Surely she was joking. “I don’t eat out of paper cups with plastic cutlery.”

“Well, la-di-da, Mr. Fancy Pants. Sorry if I offended you, but here on Planet Earth the rest of us plebeians tend to eat whatever’s handy, and when something is given to us, we don’t question it.”

Tabitha crossed her arms over her chest as he went ramrod stiff. If looks could kill, her poor cup of Beefaroni would be splintered.

“I shall withdraw until nightfall.” He gave her an imperious nod of his head before he headed back toward the stairs.

Tabitha gaped as he left her. He really was offended and deep inside, hurt. The latter made no sense whatsoever to her. She was the one who should be insulted. Picking up the Beefaroni, she sighed, took a bite, and headed back into the kitchen with it.

*   *   *

Valerius carefully closed the door to her room when what he really wanted to do was slam it. But then, nobility didn’t slam through the house. That was for commoners.

Nobility held their emotions under careful restraint. Nor were they wounded by the opinion of crass women with no couth who insulted them.

He’d been foolish to think for even a moment that she …

“I don’t need anyone to like me,” he muttered under his breath. He’d lived all his life without anyone giving a damn about him. Why should it change now?

And yet he couldn’t squelch that tiny part of him that yearned for someone to pass along a note of kindness to him. A simple, “Tell Valerius I said hi.”

Just
once
in his life …

“You’re being foolish,” he growled at himself.

Better to be feared than liked.
His father’s words rang in his ears.
People will always betray someone they like, but never someone they truly fear.

It was true. Fear kept people in line. He more than anyone knew that.

Had his brothers feared him …

Valerius winced at the memory and moved to sit in the director’s chair in the corner of the room.

It was set next to a bookcase that held a wide assortment of novels. He frowned as he scanned the titles, which went from
The Last Days of Pompeii
and
The Life and Times of Alexander the Great
to Jim Butcher’s Dresden novels.

What a peculiar woman Tabitha was.

As Valerius reached for a book about ancient Rome, his gaze fell to the trash can beside the chair. It was large like the kind that most people kept in the kitchen, but what caught his attention was the piece of black sleeve that peeped out from the closed top. Opening it, he found his shirt and coat.

His frown deepened as he pulled them out. They were still covered in blood and torn. He fingered the slash in the back of them from where the Daimon had cut him with a sword.

But he was wearing his …

Valerius stood up and pulled his silk turtleneck off. It was Ralph Lauren, identical to the one he’d worn last night. There was only one explanation.

Tabitha had bought him new clothes.

He went to the closet and examined the coat. It wasn’t until then that he realized the buttons were a slightly different color of brass. Other than that, it was an exact copy.

He couldn’t believe it. His coat alone had cost fifteen hundred dollars. Why would she do such a thing?

Wanting an answer, he headed back downstairs where he found her alone in the kitchen, cooking.

Valerius hesitated in the doorway. She stood sideways from him, a perfectly serene profile. She was truly a beautiful woman.

Her faded black jeans hugged long legs and an extremely attractive rear. She wore a short-sleeved, buttoned-up black sweater that rode high, leaving a large amount of tanned flesh exposed between the low-riding jeans and her navel, which, if he wasn’t mistaken, was pierced.

Her long auburn hair was pulled back and she looked strangely tranquil standing over the stove in her bare feet; a silver toe ring twinkled on her right foot. The radio was turned on, low, playing Martin Briley’s “Salt in My Tears.” Tabitha’s hips moved in time to the music in an erotic rhythm that was far more alluring than he wanted to admit.

Indeed, it was all he could do to not move toward her so that he could dip his head down and sample some of the succulent skin that beckoned him.

She was a spitfire who would surely ride him well.

He took a step forward and she jumped, then kicked her foot out. Valerius cursed as said foot made contact with his groin and he doubled over with the pain of it.

“Oh my God!” Tabitha gasped as she realized she’d just racked her houseguest. “I’m so sorry! Are you okay?”

He gave her a menacing glare. “No,” he growled, limping away from her.

Tabitha helped him toward the step stool chair that she kept in the small kitchen. “I’m really, really sorry,” she repeated as he sat down and held the heel of his hand against himself. “I should have warned you not to sneak up behind me.”

“I wasn’t sneaking,” he said from between clenched teeth. “I was walking.”

“Here, let me get you some ice.”

“I don’t need ice. I just need a minute to breathe and not talk.”

She held her hands up in surrender. “Take your time.”

After he turned several interesting shades, he finally recovered himself. “Thank Jupiter you didn’t have another knife in your hands,” he muttered, then said louder, “Do you kick every man who comes into the house like this?”

“Oh, Lord, not another one!” Marla said as she entered the room. “Tabby, I swear it’s a wonder you have a personal life at all the way you treat men.”

“Oh, hush, Marla. I didn’t do it on purpose … this time.”

Marla rolled her eyes as she grabbed two Diet Cokes from the fridge. She handed one to Valerius. “Hold that to your wound, sweetie. It’ll help. Just be grateful you’re not Phil. I heard they had to perform a testicle retrieval operation after Tabby caught him two-timing on her.” Then she popped the top on her drink and went back upstairs.

“He deserved it,” Tabitha called after Marla. “He’s lucky I didn’t cut it off.”

Valerius really didn’t want to pursue that conversation. He stood up and set the Coke on the countertop. “Why are you cooking?”

Tabitha shrugged. “You said you didn’t want something out of a can so I’m making you pasta.”

“But you said—”

“I say a lot of things I don’t mean.”

He watched her as she turned the stove off, then took the pot of boiling pasta toward the sink. A bell sounded.

“Wanna get that for me?”

“Get what?” he asked.

“The microwave.”

Valerius looked around the kitchen. In all his life, he’d seldom seen a kitchen and knew very little about the appliances that one cooked with. He had servants for such things.

The bell chimed again.

Assuming that was the microwave, he went to it and pulled the handle. Inside was a bowl of marinara. He took the fish-shaped potholder that was lying in front of the microwave and pulled the bowl out. “Where should I put this?”

“The stove, please.”

He did as she said.

She brought a small bowl over to where he stood, then covered the pasta with sauce.

“Better?” she asked, handing it to him.

Valerius nodded, until his gaze dropped to the noodles. He blinked in disbelief as the shape of the pasta hit him.

No. Surely he was seeing things.

Was that a…?

His jaw went slack as he realized that it was what it appeared. Little tiny pasta penises were swimming in the red marinara.

“Oh, come on,” Tabitha said in an irritable voice. “Don’t tell me a Roman general is having trouble with penironi.”

“You don’t honestly expect me to eat this?” he asked, aghast.

She huffed at him. “Don’t you dare cop that superior attitude with me, buddy. I happen to know exactly how you Romans lived. How you decorated your houses. You come from the land of the phallus, so don’t act so shocked that I gave you a bowl of them to eat. It’s not like I have the flying phallus wind chime hanging in my house to ward off evil or something, but I’ll bet you did when you were human.”

It was true, but it had been centuries since … come to think of it, he’d never seen anything like
this.

She handed him a fork. “It’s not silver, but it is stainless steel. I’m sure you can make do.”

He was still mesmerized by the pasta. “Where did you get this?”

“I sell it and boobaroni in my shop.”

“Boobaroni?”

“I think you can figure that one out.”

Valerius didn’t know what to say to that. He’d never eaten obscene food before—and just what kind of shop did she own that she sold such commodities inside it?

“House of Vetti,” Tabitha said, arms akimbo. “Need I say more?”

Valerius was well-versed about the Roman house she spoke of, as well as its risqué murals. True, his people had been rather overt with their sexuality, but he most certainly hadn’t expected to come face to face with it in this modern age.

“Non sana est puella,”
Valerius said under his breath, which was Latin for
This girl is insane.

“Quin tu istanc orationem hinc veterem antque antiquam amoves, vervex?”
Tabitha shot back.

Would you stop using that obsolete language, you sheep-head?

Never before had Valerius been both insulted and amused at the same time. “How is it you speak Latin so perfectly?”

She pulled a piece of toast from her oven. “I have a master’s degree in Ancient Civ. My sister, Selena, has her Ph.D. in it. We thought it was a goof in college to insult each other in Latin.”

“Selena Laurens? The lunatic with a tarot-card table in the Square?”

She gave him a fierce glare. “That loon happens to be my beloved big sister and if you insult her again, you’ll be limping … more.”

Valerius bit his tongue as he made his way to her table in the dining room. He’d met Selena several times over the last three years, and none of those encounters had gone well. When Acheron had first mentioned her, Valerius had been delighted at the prospect of having someone to talk to who knew his culture and language.

But as soon as Acheron had introduced them, Selena had tossed her drink into Valerius’s face. She had called him every insult known to mankind and had even made up quite a few new ones.

He didn’t know why Selena hated him so much. All she would say is that it was a shame he hadn’t died under a barbarian stampede, ripped into pieces.

And that was one of her kinder wishes for his death.

It would most likely please her a great deal to know his real death had been far more humiliating and painful than any of her rants.

Every time he ventured into the Square to patrol for Daimons, she hurled curses at him, as well as anything else she had handy to throw in his direction.

No doubt she would be thrilled to find out her sister had stabbed him. Her only regret would be that he was still living and not lying dead in some gutter.

Tabitha paused in the doorway and watched as Valerius actually ate his pasta in silence. He held himself rigidly upright and his manners were impeccable. He appeared calm and composed.

But then he also looked so incredibly uncomfortable in her house. Not to mention out of place.

“Here,” she said, moving forward to hand him the bread.

“Thank you,” he said as he took it. He frowned as if looking for a bread plate. Finally, he set the bread down on the table and returned to his offbeat pasta.

There was an awkward silence between them. She didn’t know what to say to him. It was weird to have this man in her presence when she’d heard so much about him.

None of which was good.

Her brother-in-law and his best friend Julian spent hours at family parties, ranting about Valerius and his family and the fact that Artemis had transferred Valerius to New Orleans for pure spite because she hadn’t wanted to let Kyrian go. Maybe that was true. Or maybe the goddess had only wanted Kyrian to face his past and put it firmly to rest.

Either way, the person who seemed to be punished most by Artemis’s decision was Valerius, who was constantly reminded of Kyrian and Julian’s hatred.

Funny how he didn’t seem so bad to her.

True, he was arrogant and formal, but …

There was something more to him. She could feel it.

She went to the kitchen to get him something to drink. Her first thought was to give him water, but then, she’d already been vicious in giving him the penironi. It had been a childish impulse that she now felt extremely guilty over.

So she decided to break open her wine cabinet and get him something he would no doubt appreciate.

*   *   *

Valerius looked up as Tabitha handed him a glass of red wine. He half-expected it to be a harsh, cheap Ripple and was pleasantly surprised at the rich, full-bodied taste of it.