The Dark-Hunters (278 page)

It all sounded so preposterous.

Truth is stranger than fiction …

That was true enough, and she couldn’t get past the eyes. No one had those mystical, swirling silver eyes except for Acheron … and Stryker. They both had black hair, which Stryker had turned blond before her eyes.

“Why do you think you never see Acheron with blond hair? He’s afraid that you’ll see it and then you’ll know him for the Daimon that he is.”

Danger turned her car down the street to head home. Everything she had ever believed about the Dark-Hunter world and her place in it was now uncertain. She hated Kyros for that. As a human, she’d allowed one man to lie to her and destroy everything she held dear.

Had she allowed another man to do the same thing?

Just who could she trust? Who wasn’t lying to her?

“Why didn’t you have Stryker try to kill me for betraying you?”
she’d asked Kyros after he told her that they knew she had called Acheron to report his questionable activities with the Daimons.

He’d laughed at her.
“I wanted you to tell him. That’s why I had my Squire tell your Squire about my going Rogue. Trust me, Danger,”
Kyros had said.
“Acheron won’t come here and face us himself. He’ll be too afraid to.”

Stryker had agreed.
“He’s right. You called Acheron because you were concerned about the fact that you’d heard Kyros was working with Daimons and not killing them. Now Acheron will send in his pawn to supposedly ‘investigate.’ The blond man will be someone claiming to be Acheron’s Squire, even though everyone knows Acheron doesn’t have one. Instead of a Squire, he’s Acheron’s assassin. You’ll know him instantly. He’ll show up wearing a white coat.”

She had rolled her eyes at them.
“White coat? Yeah, right. That’s not only tacky, that’s stupid.”

“No,”
Kyros had said.
“White is the Greek and Atlantean color for mourning.”

Stryker nodded.
“This so-called Squire is essentially Acheron’s angel of death and he will kill all of you who know the truth about Acheron unless we kill both of them first.”

Kill Acheron.

That had made her gut tighten to the point of pain. Acheron had never been anything but friendly to her. He’d been the one who had come to her after she’d sold her soul to Artemis for vengeance against her husband. He had taught her how to fight and how to survive. Acheron had introduced her into this world with a great deal of care.

Or so it seemed.

“How do you know it was Artemis you sold your soul to?”
Stryker had asked.
“Acheron could pass off any redheaded bitch as the goddess and who would know? It’s not like any of you have met her before or since the moment you sold your soul. Trust me. Artemis is long dead and the woman who comes to the Dark-Hunters is whatever whore Acheron is currently doing at the time.”

But if Stryker was right, Acheron was behind it all. Acheron had designed them so that he would have his own army to fight the Daimons who were out to kill him for declaring war on them.

That just didn’t seem like the Acheron she knew.

But then the Acheron she knew was extremely secretive to the point of being paranoid. No one knew anything at all about him. No one.

He wouldn’t even give his true age when she asked it.

Then Kyros had disclosed the one bit that couldn’t be argued with.

The piece of evidence that was the most damning …

“In all the centuries I have lived I’ve only known Acheron to have one friend—that New Orleans Squire Nick Gautier who used to serve Kyrian of Thrace before Kyrian became human again. Everyone assumed that because of his friendship with Acheron, Nick was completely untouchable. Then a few months ago, out of the blue, some Daimon brutally kills Nick’s mother and Nick vanishes without a trace never to be seen or heard from again. I know it was Acheron who did it, Danger. Nick must have found out about him and Ash killed them both to cover his tracks.”

It was hard to refute that. Nick’s disappearance had gone through their community like a death knell. He’d been well known and well liked for the most part.

And the way his mother had died …

It had been brutal and harsh, as if someone were trying to get back at someone.

Danger shook her head, trying to make sense of everything. “What do I believe?” she asked herself.

The problem was, she didn’t know. And it wasn’t exactly something she could call Acheron up and ask.
“Hi, Ash, this is Danger. I was wondering if you had sucked the soul out of Cherise Gautier and then murdered Nick out of spite? You don’t mind answering me, eh?”

Yeah, even if Acheron was innocent, he might get just a tad upset over that one.

Kyros was already sending out calls to Dark-Hunters he thought were trustworthy. He and Stryker planned on gathering them here in Mississippi to train them to take souls of evil humans, which according to Stryker was what the true Daimon mandate was.

“We never killed innocent humans until Acheron forced us to it. In the beginning, we preyed solely on the dregs of society. Men and women who destroyed or plagued their own kind and who deserved to die. Now there are many times when we have no choice except to kill whoever we can get to, regardless of who or what they are.

“As soon as we show ourselves, one of Acheron’s people comes in and tries to shove a knife in our hearts. We have to move fast to feed before one of you kills us. We don’t want to hurt anyone, especially not the innocent Dark-Hunters. Why do you think we run most of the time when we see you, instead of fighting you? We know that the Dark-Hunters are innocent in this and none of us want to kill you for being blind and foolish. It’s Acheron we’re after, not his hapless minions.

“All of you have been programmed by him to ask no questions about us. You blindly kill on the assumption that we deserve it, and yet here I stand before you, not a monster trying to kill you. I’m only a person, same as you. I love and I need. All I want is to live in peace and to not be forced to kill the innocent.

“And why has Acheron lied to you? He’s afraid one day that you’ll all figure out the truth about him. The truth about being a Dark-Hunter. If you kill humans and ingest their souls, you can have the same powers that Acheron does. You can have the powers of a god.”

Surely he was lying. It just couldn’t be that easy.

Sighing, Danger pulled into her driveway and did her best to clear her thoughts. There wouldn’t be a clear cut answer tonight. Most likely there wouldn’t be one tomorrow either.

She saw Keller’s green SUV in the garage. Damn. She really wasn’t in the mood for his five thousand questions tonight. Not while she was trying to sort through this.

After getting out of the car, she made her way into her house and dropped her keys on the counter. It was eerily quiet. How unlike Keller not to have a radio blasting or be in the middle of a boisterous phone conversation with a friend.

“Keller?” she called, feeling a little nervous as she headed for the living room.

She paused in the doorway to find her Squire sitting in an uneasy slump on the couch across from an unknown man who was seated in her armchair. All she could see was the back of his blond head. Even so, she could tell he was sitting very stiff and formal. It was a pose of command.

“Hey, Danger,” Keller said in a nervous greeting as he saw her in the doorway. “We have a guest. He’s, um … he’s Ash’s Squire.”

She went cold at his words. Her heart started thumping as adrenaline rushed through her.

The man stood up slowly and turned to face her. Danger’s gaze quickly fell to the white coat he wore over his solid black clothes. To the way he stood there in all his arrogance as if he dared her or anyone else to question him.

Everything he wore was black, except the coat … and it belonged to Ash’s Squire who was blond like a Daimon …

Chapter 4

Danger’s reaction to her “guest” was swift and automatic, and it happened without any premeditation on her part. She pulled out her dagger and threw it straight into the man’s heart.

To her shock, he burst apart into a golden dust just like any good Daimon would.

“Mère de Dieu,”
she breathed.

Kyros had been right. The man was …

Entering the room from the doorway on her right!

Her jaw dropped as he sauntered into the room with an arrogant swagger and a less-than-amused smirk. He pinned her with a droll stare as he moved to stand in front of her. Her dagger shot from the floor, where it had fallen after he exploded into dust, and into his hand.

He held it out to her, hilt first. It was painfully obvious that he wasn’t the least bit afraid she’d use it on him again. “Could you please refrain from the theatrics? I really hate doing that. It seriously pisses me off and it ruins a perfectly good shirt.”

Danger continued to gape as she stared at the hole in his black turtleneck where the dagger had gone in. There was no blood. No wound. Nothing. Not even a red mark. It was as if he hadn’t been stabbed at all.

I’m dreaming …

“What are you?” she breathed.

He gave her a dry, almost bored stare. “Well, had you listened before you stabbed me, you would have heard the ‘I’m Acheron’s Squire’ part. Apparently that somehow escaped your hearing and you mistook me for a pin cushion.”

He was certainly a snotty bastard. Not that she didn’t deserve a degree of snottiness seeing how she’d just tried to kill him. Still, he could be a little more understanding, especially since, if Stryker and Kyros were to be believed, he’d been sent here to kill her.

“He has some really sweet talents, Danger,” Keller said from the couch. “He made all the Daimons explode without touching them, but he won’t tell me how he did it.”

Danger took her dagger from Alexion’s hand, then, without thought, touched the ragged tear in his black turtleneck. He felt solid underneath. Real. There was cold skin beneath the silk and wool fabric and it was hard and masculine.

Yet human beings didn’t shatter like Daimons and no Daimon reappeared after death …

In that moment, she was terrified of him and terror wasn’t something Danger St. Richard felt. Ever.

Alexion ground his teeth at the sensation of her soft fingers on his flesh. His body roared to life as he watched her examine him like a scientist with a lab experiment that had gone tragically wrong. She was very short for a Dark-Hunter which meant Artemis must have taken an unusual liking for the woman. The goddess preferred to create Dark-Hunters who were equal in height to the Daimons they fought.

No more than five two or three, Dangereuse was petite and athletic. He’d seen her many times lately in the sfora as he kept watch on what the Mississippi Dark-Hunters were up to.

There had been something about her that caught his interest. An innocence that still seemed to be inside her. Most Dark-Hunters were jaded by their human betrayals and deaths, and by their duties. But this one … She appeared to have avoided the cynicism that eternal life often brought.

Of course, she was young by Dark-Hunter years.

Still, it would be a shame to see her lose that inner glow that continued to allow her to enjoy her immortality. How he wished he could feel it too. But too much time and lack of hope had long robbed him of it.

Her dark, chestnut-colored hair was worn in a long braid, hanging down her back, but pieces of it had escaped to curl becomingly around her pale face. Her features were angelic and delicate. If not for her carriage and self-assuredness, she would have appeared fragile.

And yet there was nothing fragile about her. Dangereuse could more than take care of herself and well he knew it. As one of the newer Dark-Hunters, she was only a couple of hundred years old and had died while trying to save the noble half of her family from the guillotine in France during their revolution. It had been a monumental task she had set for herself, and had she not been betrayed, she would have succeeded.

Not to mention that the woman had the most kissable mouth he’d ever seen. Full and lush, her lips were the kind that a man dreamed of tasting at night. That mouth beckoned him now with temptation and the promise of pure unadulterated heaven.

She also smelled of sweet magnolias and woman.

It had been over two hundred years since he’d last had the pleasure of a woman’s body. And it was all he could do not to bend his head and bury his face against her soft, tender neck and inhale the scent of her. Feel the softness of her skin against his hungry lips as he tasted the supple flesh there.

Oh, to have her lithe body pressed up against his, preferably while they were both naked …

But then—given her first reaction to his presence—he didn’t think she’d react much better to being mauled by him.

Pity.

Danger swallowed in sudden trepidation as she looked at the man before her. He was just as Stryker had foretold … right down to the white cashmere coat.

It’s all true. All of it.

He was Acheron’s personal destroyer who had come to kill them for questioning Acheron’s authority. She felt the sudden need to cross herself, but caught herself just in time. The last thing she needed to do was to let him know she feared him.

Her extremely superstitious and Catholic mother had always told her as a child that the devil wore the face of an angel. In this case, it was most certainly true. The man before her was without a doubt one of the choicest examples of his gender. His dark blond hair held golden highlights and brushed the top of his collar. He wore it in a casual style that was swept back from a perfectly masculine face. His well-sculpted cheeks were covered with two days’ growth of whiskers that added a savage, fierce look to him.

Like hers, his eyes were the midnight-black of a Dark-Hunter and yet she sensed that he wasn’t one of them. For one thing, he didn’t drain her Dark-Hunter abilities.

There was an aura of extreme power and lethal danger emanating from him. It rippled and sizzled in the air around them and made the hair on the back of her neck rise.