The Dark-Hunters (255 page)

Aggravated, she headed toward the door that led to her apartment. Upstairs, she heard Valerius in the shower.

Tabitha went ahead and called to have a pizza delivered in case he was hungry.

By the time he was finished and dressed, the pizza arrived. Tabitha paid for it and set it on the table as she waited for Valerius to come down.

She still had the sickest feeling her stomach. “There really needs to be a do-over button for days that suck this much,” she muttered as she set out two paper plates.

Valerius was buttoning the last button on his shirt as he came down the stairs, looking for Tabitha. She was standing with her back to him.

He paused on the stairs to admire her there. She was leaning over the table to give him one nice view of her derriere. A small smile played at the edges of his lips as he remembered what that rear had looked like last night naked against him as she danced in her room.

He hardened instantly.

Getting a little hold on his treacherous body, he walked into the room and frowned as he saw a large white box on Tabitha’s kitchen table. It smelled good, but …

“What is that?” he asked.

“Pizza,” she said, turning to face him.

He scowled in revulsion.

“Oh, c’mon,” she said irritably. “It’s Italian.”

“It’s pizza.”

“Have you ever had pizza?”

“No.”

“Then sit down and hush while I get us some wine. You’ll like it, I promise. It was handmade by an Italian named Bubba.”

Valerius arched a doubtful brow at her words. “There are no Italians named Bubba.”

“Sure there are,” she said saucily. “It’s more Italian than Valerius is. At least Bubba’s name actually ends with a vowel.”

Valerius opened his mouth to contradict her, then stopped. There was no reasoning with Tabitha when she was in this saucy mood. “Are you testy because you didn’t get enough sleep or do you wish for me to leave?”

“I didn’t get enough sleep and if you know what’s good for you, you’ll sit down and eat.” She headed to the kitchen.

Valerius didn’t listen. He went into the kitchen, picked her up, and tossed her over his shoulder.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her tone angry.

He sat her down in a chair and braced his hands on its arms so that she was pinned there. “Good evening, Tabitha. I’m fine tonight. How are you?”

“Irritated at you.”

“I’m sorry to hear that,” he said, lifting one hand up to caress her cheek. “I woke up to the smell of you on my skin and I have to say that it put me in a rather good mood that I don’t want you to destroy.”

Tabitha melted at those words and the tender look on his face. Not to mention that the fresh, clean scent of his skin could undo even the worst mood imaginable. His lips were so close to hers that she could already taste them.

And those dark eyes …

They were beguiling.

“You really know how to be aggravating, don’t you?” she asked him. She forced her ire aside and offered him a smile. “Okay, I’ll play nice.” She pulled his head to hers so that she could kiss him.

She was just getting into that kiss when her phone rang. Cursing at the ill timing, she got up to answer it.

It was Amanda. Again.

Tabitha wasn’t really paying attention to her as her sister rambled on about Marissa and Kyrian and another dream she’d had.

At least not until she mentioned Desiderius and her.

“What?” she said, forcing herself not to watch Valerius who was poking at the pizza as if it were a UFO.

“I said I’m scared, Tabby. Really scared. I dreamed during my nap that Kyrian and I were killed by Desiderius.”

Chapter 8

Tabitha hung up the phone, terrified. She’d never heard so much fear in Amanda’s voice. Worse, she knew her sister’s powers—if Amanda had foreseen her own death.…

Without hesitation, Tabitha called Acheron.

“Hey, Ash,” she said, noting the way Valerius’s attention turned from his pizza to her. “I have a problem. Amanda just called and said that she had dreamed her own death and last night I ran across something really spooky. It—”

Ash appeared before her. “What?” he asked.

Tabitha froze for a second as she realized what Ash had just done. He really was scary at times.

She hung up the phone again and repeated everything, including details about the ghost they’d seen the night before.

Ash got a faraway look in his eyes, tilting his head as if listening to someone.

“Can you see her death?” she asked him.

Ash stood there, his heart thumping wildly as he tried to clear the mist that surrounded Amanda and Kyrian’s future.

He saw nothing.

He heard nothing.

Dammit. It was why he did his best never to let anyone too close to him. Anytime he allowed himself to care about someone or they were a part of his own future, he was blind to their destinies.

There was nothing but blackness where Kyrian and Amanda were concerned and he hated that most of all.

“Talk to me, Ash.”

He looked back at Tabitha and heard and felt the fear and panic in her mind. Her thoughts that rambled as she sought a comfort he couldn’t give.

Even her future was forbidden to him now.

“Her destiny was to be happy,” he said quietly. But the key word to that statement was
was.
Free will could, and often did, alter fate.

What had changed?

Something must have and Amanda had glimpsed it in her sleep.

He held enough belief in Amanda’s powers not to doubt her in the least. If she foresaw their deaths, then it was a likely outcome unless he could find the cause and change it before it was too late.

Ash closed his eyes as he let himself feel the minds of the humans. He searched for what could possibly change Amanda’s fate, but he found nothing.

Nothing.

Dammit!

Valerius was behind him now. Ash stepped aside so that his back wasn’t exposed to the Roman.

“Tell me exactly what happened last night,” Ash said to Tabitha.

Tabitha related the whole scene with the ghost while Valerius filled in a few details.

“Urian!” Ash called, summoning his Spathi contact.

Tabitha frowned. Ash was acting very strange and she could sense his worry. “Who’s Urian?”

Before she finished the question another tall, insanely handsome man appeared in her kitchen. Dressed in black leather pants and a black shirt, he had white-blond hair and blue eyes.

He looked less than pleased as he narrowed those baby blues on Ash. “Don’t take that tone of voice with me, Ash. I don’t care who you are, I don’t like it.”

“Like it or not, I need to know what the Spathis are up to. More precisely, I need to know if Desiderius is back on the playing field.”

Horror filled her.

Urian curled his lip. “Why are you worried about him? Des is a punk.”

“Desiderius is dead,” Tabitha said emphatically. “Kyrian killed him.”

Urian scoffed. “Yeah, and I’m the Easter Bunny—see my fluffy tail? You don’t just kill a Spathi, little girl. All you do is take him out of commission for awhile.”

“Bullshit!” Tabitha snarled.

“No, Tabitha,” Ash said, gentling his voice. “Desiderius’s essence was released. But if one of his brethren or children wanted to bring him back, they could. It’s not easy to do, but it is possible.”

She was aghast that Ash had kept something this important from them. “Why didn’t you ever tell us this?”

“Because I was hoping it wouldn’t happen.”

“Hoping?” Tabitha shrieked. “Please tell me you weren’t pinning my sister’s life and Kyrian’s on a hope.”

Ash didn’t answer.

Meanwhile the true significance of the last few days settled fully on her shoulders. “So those really were Spathis I fought the night I met Valerius.”

Urian snorted. “Trust me, little girl, you must have faced the neophytes. Had those been true Spathis, you’d both be dead now.”

His arrogance was seriously starting to piss her off. Just who was this jerk anyway? “How do you know so much about them, Dr. Intellect?”

“I used to be one.”

Her fury breaking, Tabitha rushed him.

Ash caught her and pulled her back. He lifted her up off the floor. Tabitha kicked and cursed as she struggled to reach Urian, who watched her with a smirk.

“Stop it, Tabby,” Ash breathed in her ear. “Urian is on our side now. Believe me, he has paid for his allegiance to the other side more than you will ever know.”

Yeah, right.

“How could you bring a Daimon into my house after what they did to me? To my family?” she demanded.

“Oh, I’m not a Daimon anymore, little girl,” Urian said, his eyes flashing dangerously. “If I were—”

“You’d be dead,” Valerius said, cutting him off with a sinister tone. “By
my
hand.”

Urian laughed. “Yeah, right.” He looked at Ash. “The arrogance of your Hunters truly knows no bounds. You should spend more time educating them about us, Ash.”

Ash released Tabitha, then spoke to Urian. “I need you to go in and find out what’s going on. Are there any left who might still be loyal to you?”

The Daimon shrugged. “I can probably dredge up a flunky or two. But…” Urian’s gaze went to Tabitha. “If Des really is back, he’ll want to finish what he started. May the gods help you all if he has been reincarnated. It’s going to get bloody in New Orleans.”

“Who would want to bring that monster back?” Tabitha asked.

“His children,” Urian and Ash said simultaneously.

Tabitha still couldn’t believe what she was hearing. But as she seethed, Urian’s face finally looked compassionate.

Haunted.

When he spoke, the arrogance was gone from his voice. “Trust me, it’s hard to let go of the loyalty you feel to a father who saved you from dying a horrible death at twenty-seven.” Something in his tone said he spoke from experience.

“Is your loyalty to your father?” she asked.

Urian’s face turned to stone. “I would have done
anything
for my father until the day he killed me and took from me the only thing that meant more to me than my life. Any bonds I felt for that man were shattered instantly.” He looked at Ash. “I’ll see what I can find out.”

A bright orange engulfed Urian an instant before he flashed out of her kitchen. Even so, his malevolence still clung to the air around them.

“Damn,” Ash muttered. “Urian and his dramatics. I have got to remind him to lay off the pyrotechnics when he comes and goes.”

“That is one angry man,” Tabitha said.

“You’ve no idea, Tab,” Ash said. “And he has every right to his hatred.” He shook his head as if to clear it, then spoke to them quietly. “While Urian is busy, I need for the two of you to stay together and watch each other’s backs. Desiderius is the son of Dionysus, and Dionysus is still upset at me over what happened at Mardi Gras three years ago. I don’t think he’s stupid enough to help Desiderius, but I wouldn’t put anything past either one of them.”

He looked meaningfully at Tabitha. “Even if Daddy doesn’t help him, Desiderius still has a lot of god powers that can be deadly, as you no doubt remember.”

“Yeah,” she said sarcastically as she recalled the way he and his Daimons had cut through her and her friends as if they were straw. “I remember.”

He looked at Valerius. “Desiderius can manipulate people. Possess them, if you will. Tabitha is stubborn enough that the only thing that can possess her is the spirit of chocolate. We’re lucky there. But Marla could be swayed. Otto
should
be safe. But the rest of your staff … you might want to think about giving them some time off.”

By the look on Valerius’s face, Tabitha could tell he’d rather be dead. “I can handle them.”

“You have to sleep sometime. One of the servants could easily break into your bedroom and kill you. I don’t think any of them love you so much that they will hesitate over Desiderius’s orders the way Kyrian’s cook did.”

Valerius’s nostrils flared.

Ash ignored the pain that Tabitha felt from Valerius. “I need you two together on this. I have to go warn Janice and Jean-Luc about what’s up.” He turned to face her. “Tabitha, pack a bag and move in with Valerius for awhile.”

“What about my store?”

“Have Marla watch over it for a couple of weeks.”

“Yeah, but—”

Ash’s features hardened. “Don’t argue with me, Tabitha. Desiderius is a major power with one hell of a grudge against you, your sister, and Kyrian. He’s not going to be playing with the three of you this time. He’s going to kill you.”

Normally, she would argue with him just for spite. But she knew that tone of voice. No one argued with Ash for long. “Fine.”

“You have your orders, General,” Ash said sternly to Valerius.

Valerius gave him a rather sarcastic Roman salute.

Rolling his eyes, Ash flashed out of the room.

Now that they were alone, Valerius stared at her without speaking. Fury was burning so raw inside him that it actually hurt her.

“What?” she asked.

Without a word, he went to the picture on her buffet of Amanda’s wedding and pulled the Russell Crowe picture off Kyrian’s face.

He cursed. “I should have known when you told me her name was Amanda.”

The look of repugnance on his face set her off. “Yeah, and my name is Tabitha, not Amanda. What has that got to do with anything?”

But he didn’t hear her. She knew it.

He stalked quietly from the room and went back upstairs. She jumped at the sound of her bedroom door slamming.

“Fine,” she said out loud. “Be a baby. I don’t care.”

*   *   *

Valerius sat motionless on the edge of the bed as his mind ranted over who Tabitha really was.

The twin of Kyrian’s wife had saved him. This was priceless, truly priceless. Here he’d spent the last two thousand years avoiding the Greek so as not to hurt him by reminding him what Valerius’s family had done to him, and now this …

He clenched his teeth as he felt for Kyrian’s betrayal. Valerius’s grandfather, an exact look-alike for Valerius, had seduced Kyrian’s beloved wife Theone centuries ago and used her to betray her husband. Kyrian hadn’t been captured on the battlefield as befitted a man of his stature. He’d been drugged by the hand of his wife in his own home as he tried to save her, and then handed over to his mortal enemy.