The Dark-Hunters (252 page)

Like Kyrian, he had been crucified.

“I’m so sorry.”

Stiff and formal, he withdrew his arm and straightened out his sleeve. “Don’t be. I find it oddly fitting given my family history. He who lives by the sword…”

“How many people did you crucify?”

She felt his shame before he turned and headed away from her. Unwilling to let him go, she rushed after him and pulled him to a stop. “Tell me, Valerius. I want to know.”

The agony on his face tore through her. His jaw ticced. “None,” he said after a long pause. “I refused to ever kill a man like that.”

Tears pricked her eyes as she stared up at him.

He wasn’t what Kyrian and the others thought. He wasn’t.

The man they described wouldn’t have hesitated to humiliate or kill someone. And yet Valerius had.

He cleared his throat and looked as if the words pained him. “When I was a young boy, I saw a man executed. He was one of the greatest generals of his time.”

Tabitha’s heart paused its beating as she realized he was talking about Kyrian.

“My grandfather tricked him and then spent weeks interrogating him.” His breathing was labored, his entire body tense. “My father and grandfather insisted my brothers and I be brought in to witness it. They wanted us to learn how to break a man. How to strip the dignity from him until there’s nothing left. And all I saw was blood and horror. No one should suffer like that. I looked into that man’s eyes and I saw his soul. His strength. His pain. I tried to run and they beat for me for it, then brought me back in and forced me to watch.”

He gave her a fierce, tormented stare. “I hated them for that. Two thousand years later and I can still hear his screams as they raised his broken body up and carried the once-proud prince out to the square to die like a common criminal.”

Tabitha covered her own ears as she imagined what it must have been like for Kyrian to die that way. She knew from her sister that his death still haunted him, too. Though Kyrian’s nightmares were much fewer now than they had been when he and Amanda had first married, he still had them. He still woke up in the middle of the night to make sure his wife and child were safe.

Some nights, he didn’t sleep at all for fear that someone would come and take it all away from him again.

And he hated Valerius with an unreasoning vengeance.

Valerius took a deep breath as he saw the way Tabitha cringed. He cringed too, just not openly.

His heart had carried the guilt and horrors of his childhood throughout time. If he could go back in time, he never would have sold his soul to Artemis. Better to die and silence the resonance of his father’s cruelty than to live interminably with all of their voices echoing in his mind.

He was sure Tabitha hated him now, just like the others. She had every right to. What his family had done was inexcusable. It was why he made a point to avoid Kyrian and Julian.

There was no need in reminding either one of them of their past lives in ancient Greece. It would be even crueler now that both of them had happiness in the modern world.

He’d never understood why Artemis had moved him into New Orleans. It was something his father would have done to ensure that the two Greeks had no peace whatsoever.

But that was something he would never speak of. And should he ever cross paths with Kyrian and Julian, he knew better than to apologize. He’d tried that once centuries past with Zoe, who had been killed by his brother Marius. The Amazon had run him through, trying her best to kill him.

Valerius had been forced to overpower her.

She had spat on him.
“Roman filth! I’ll never understand why Artemis allows you to live when you should be gutted like a squealing pig.”

Over the centuries, he’d learned to just hold his head high and carry on regardless of what the other Dark-Hunters thought. He couldn’t give them peace from their pasts any more than he could have peace from his own.

Some ghosts refused to be exorcized.

Now Tabitha knew the truth and she would hate him as well. So be it.

Valerius turned to leave.

“Val?”

He paused.

Tabitha wasn’t sure what to say to him. So she didn’t speak with words. She reached up and pulled his head down to hers, then kissed him soundly.

Valerius was stunned by her actions. He crushed her to him as he tasted the warmth of her mouth. The warmth of her embrace.

He pulled back. “You know what I am, Tabitha … why are you still here?”

She looked up at him, her blue eyes searing with tenderness. “Because I know what you are, Valerius Magnus. Believe me, I know. And I want to take you home with me, right now, and make love to you.”

Chapter 6

Valerius would never understand this woman or her strangeness. In the back of his mind was an image of Tabitha in the slinky black negligee he’d found under her pillow.

The image haunted him.

“I would love to go home with you, Tabitha,” he said. “But I can’t right now. I have to do my job.”

She smiled, then kissed him again so passionately that it made his entire body sizzle.

Pulling back, she breathed in his ear. “And that makes me want you even more.” He shivered as she delivered one long, sensuous lick to his lobe. “When the dawn comes, I’m going to make you scream in pleasure.”

His groin jerked in eager anticipation.

“Promise?” The word was out before he could stop it.

She took a step back and let her hand fall from his face to his chest where she traced a path to his belt. He burned in the wake of her touch.

“Oh yeah, baby,” she said teasingly. “I intend to squeeze you until you pop.”

That thought alone was enough to turn his blood into lava. He couldn’t suppress the fantasy of Tabitha’s long legs wrapped around his hips, her body warm and wet as she welcomed him in.

He pulled her close to him so that he could kiss her even though they stood in the middle of the street. He’d never done anything so lowborn. Nor had he ever enjoyed anything more than the taste of her lips.

Her spicy-sweet scent invaded his senses and made his entire body burn for her.

This was going to be the longest night of his life.

Taking a deep breath, he reluctantly stepped away from her. “So where should we start patrolling?”

“You’re not going to try and force me home?”

“Could I?”

“Not bloody likely.”

“Then where should we start patrolling?”

Tabitha laughed. “Aren’t you a little overdressed for stalking the undead?”

“Not really. It’s rather fitting, don’t you think, that I should look like I’m going to a funeral?”

She laughed at his morbid sense of humor. “I suppose. Do you always wear a suit?”

“I’m most comfortable in one. I’m not really a jeans and T-shirt sort of man.”

“Yeah, I imagine you look like I do whenever I have to wear a suit. Itchy.” Tabitha indicated the street with a tilt of her head. “Shall we?”

“Do we have to do Bourbon? Can’t we go down Chartres or Royal?”

“Bourbon’s where the crowd is.”

“But the Daimons like to kill over by the Cathedral.” He was suddenly very uncomfortable.

“What’s wrong with Bourbon Street?”

“There are lots of unsavory people there.”

Now that offended her. “Excuse me, I live on Bourbon. So you’re calling me unsavory?”

“No. Not exactly. But you do own a sex shop.”

That set off her hackles even more. “Oh! That’s it. Nothing for you tonight, Count Penicula. You can go roast your own—”

“Tabitha, please. I don’t like Bourbon Street.”

“Fine,” she said sharply as she stalked away from him. “You go that way. I’m headed this way.”

Valerius clenched his teeth as she left him standing there. He truly hated to step one foot into this area. It was bright, loud, and filled with people who hated his guts.

Just go. Forget her.

He should. He
really
should, but he couldn’t.

Before he could stop himself, he headed off after Tabitha. By the time he caught up to her, she was already on Bourbon Street.

“What are you doing here?” she asked as he came up beside her. “I would hate to sully you.”

“Tabitha, please stay with me. I didn’t mean to offend you.”

She turned on him with a curled lip.

The instant Tabitha opened her mouth to let him have it, someone tossed a bucket of foul-smelling water from over a balcony and doused Valerius.

He went ramrod stiff while she frowned, then looked up to see Charlie, one of the doormen for the Belle Queen strip club, laughing. He set the bucket up and high-fived another man standing beside him.

“Charlie Laroux, what the hell are you doing?” Tabitha yelled up at them.

“Me?” he asked indignantly. “Since when are you hanging out with enemies? Nick done told us all about that ass-wipe and I promised Nick that if I ever caught Dick on our street again, I’d make him regret it.”

Tabitha couldn’t have been more stunned had Charlie slapped her. She looked at Valerius, who’d taken a handkerchief out of his pocket to wipe his face while that angry tic worked in his jaw.

“I swear, Charlie, if you were down here, I’d wring your neck.”

“Why? You know our code, Tabby. Why you violating it?”

“Because there’s nothing wrong with Val other than the fact that Nick needs to get a life. Just you wait, Charlie. I’m going to have a nice long talk with Brandy and when I finish with her, you’ll be lucky if she lets you park your car in her driveway to sleep in it.”

Brandy was Charlie’s girlfriend, a regular customer in Tabitha’s shop.

Charlie went pale while she reached to take Valerius’s arm. She pulled him across the street, toward her store.

“I can’t believe them!” she snarled.

“It’s why I hate this street,” he said in an emotionless voice. “Every time I come here, I end up walking the gauntlet through Nick’s friends.”

“That asshole!”

Tabitha had never been more furious in her life. She led him into her store and didn’t even stop to chitchat with her employee. She took him upstairs to her bathroom and grabbed a towel and washcloth from the closet.

“Go ahead and take a bath. I’ll borrow some clothes from my roomie.”

He went pale. “No offense, but silver sequins and pastels are not my style.”

She smiled in spite of herself. “I won’t borrow from Marla, I’ll borrow from Marlon.”

“Marlon?”

“Her alter ego. He doesn’t visit here much, but she keeps a few of his things for whenever he feels the need to come out.”

“I don’t think I quite understand.”

“Go bathe,” she said, urging him into the room.

Valerius didn’t argue. The fetid stench of the water was truly unbearable. He was just grateful that Tabitha was willing to tolerate him long enough to allow him to clean up.

He’d barely stripped his clothes off and entered the shower before the door opened.

Valerius froze.

“It’s just me,” Tabitha said from the other side of the shower curtain. “I found a pair of black slacks and sedate black shirt for you. The pants are probably a little too big in the waist, but they should be long enough. I’m not sure about the shirt. You might end up wearing one of my tees.”

“Thank you,” he said.

Before he realized what she was doing, the curtain opened to show her standing outside with a hungry look on her face. “You’re welcome.”

Valerius didn’t move as he stood facing her with the hot water sliding down his spine. Her bold, intense stare made his body harden against his will.

She didn’t seem to mind at all. Indeed, a small smile spread across her face.

“Do you always spy on your guests?” he asked quietly.

“Never, but I couldn’t resist getting a peek at what I intend to savor later.”

“Are you always this brazen?”

“Honestly?”

He nodded.

“No, I’m not normally quite this obnoxious and you’re the last man on the planet I should be considering. But I can’t seem to help myself.”

Valerius reached out to touch her. She really was too good to be true. “I’ve never known anyone like you.”

She covered his hand with hers, then turned her face to kiss his palm. “Hurry and shower. We have work to do.”

She pulled away and he felt her absence immediately. What was it about her?

Unwilling to think about it, he quickly bathed, then dressed. He found Tabitha in her bedroom, sitting in the chair and flipping through one of her books.

Tabitha looked up as she felt Valerius’s presence. He stood silently in the doorway. He appeared to be completely in his element, except for the clothes that didn’t quite fit.

Getting up, she offered him a kind smile. Once she reached him, she unbuttoned the cuffs of the sleeves that were a little too short for his arms and rolled them back on his forearms.

Then she untucked his shirt.

“I know it’s not your style, but it looks much better this way.”

“Are you certain?”

He looked delectable. “Oh yeah.”

He held a long, retractable sword in his hand. “The only problem is if I don’t have long sleeves, I can’t wear this.”

Tabitha sucked her breath in at the quality of his weapon. “Very nice piece of work. Is it Kell’s?” she asked. Kell was a Dark-Hunter stationed out in Dallas who made a lot of the heavy weapons the Dark-Hunters used.

“No,” he said with a deep breath. “Kell doesn’t deal with anyone from Rome.”

“Excuse me?”

He took the weapon from her. “He’s from Dacia and his people waged war against mine. He and his brothers were captured and taken to Rome to be gladiators. Two thousand years later, he’s still rather upset at all of us.”

“Okay, I’ve had it with this. Why doesn’t Ash stop them from treating all of you like dirt?”

“How can he stop it?”

“Beat some sense into them?”

“It wouldn’t work. My brethren and I have learned to just leave the rest of them alone. We’re few in number and there’s no need in even arguing.”

Tabitha growled. “Fine, let them all rot then.”

Valerius placed his sword on her dresser and left it there before the two of them went back outside.