The Dark-Hunters (293 page)

Maybe you need mind-blowing sex more often?

Well, that went without saying.

Yawning, she sat up slowly, clutching the sheet to her to find a nice dinner laid out on the small table by the window. This was just too good to be true—a man who could be terrifyingly powerful and protective, awesome in bed, and still be considerate enough to feed her a decent meal the next day.

No guy was this perfect.

She cringed as that thought went through her. Oh, yeah, he did have one serious drawback. He was rather dead and “other.” But for an eternity of this kind of pampering, she just might be willing to overlook that one disturbing flaw. After all, she was no picnic herself.

Alexion turned a lamp on by the table. “I hope you like Chinese.”

“As a matter of fact, I do.” For some reason that made no sense whatsoever, she had a sudden case of shyness about leaving the bed buck naked while he stood there with that intense stare. She looked about the room awkwardly, wondering how she could dress without him seeing her.

Blind him?

That might be a problem, not to mention … rude.

He scratched his chin before he indicated the door with his thumb. “You want a Coke to drink? I can go get you one.”

She smiled, relieved that he was a little more intuitive than most men. He really was “other.” No mere mortal man would do such a thing. “Yes, please. That would be great.”

He nodded, then left her alone.

Picking up the rose to inhale its fragrance, Danger took the time to lie back in the bed and remember the way they had spent the early morning hours.

To be awakened like this was something wonderful indeed.

“A woman could get used to this.” She sighed dreamily as a foreign sensation of warmth and happiness rippled through her. “I think I like ‘other.’”

“Other” gave her a satisfaction the likes of which she’d never known before. He made her feel things that she had never thought to feel again. She was actually giddy with the idea of spending another night with him.

Giddy? Me?

It was inconceivable that she would feel that. Yet she did. There was no way to deny it.

If only it could last. But she knew better. Their time together was all too limited.

Sighing, she got up and went to take a quick shower.

*   *   *

Alexion hesitated inside the room as he heard the water running in the bathroom. He had a perfect image in his mind of the water running over Danger’s naked body. Of her soaping herself … Touching her flesh intimately.

An image of her in there running her hands over her breasts with her legs slightly parted.

His cock hardened immediately.

It was more than he could stand. His mouth dry, he set the drink down and went to push open the door to the bathroom. “Need someone to scrub your back?”

She made a squeak as if he’d startled her. “What are you doing in here?” she snapped.

“Wanting to see you naked in the shower,” he said without embarrassment or hesitation.

She opened the curtain to stare at him. Her hair was plastered to her body, but the strands parted over her breasts, leaving the tips of them bare to his hungry gaze. “You need to learn control.”

“That I have in spades.”

She ran an equally hot look over his clothed body. “I am tempted, but I slept too late. We need to get back out there and see what’s up with Kyros and crew.”

She was right.

“Fine,” he said, hating the fact that he had a job to do that didn’t include more naked time with her. “Hormones leashed.” He let out a tired breath, then started away.

She caught his hand to stop him. “There’s always the dawn, you know?”

He lifted her hand so that he could place a kiss to the back of her knuckles. “Is that a promise?”

She nodded.

He closed his eyes and savored the softness of her skin before he released her and allowed her to finish her bath. But it was hard.

Not as hard as I am.

That was certainly true enough. He was having a difficult time sitting with the erection that wouldn’t be denied.

While she finished showering, he distracted himself by preparing her food. Impulsively, he picked up a piece of the chicken to taste it.

His heart clenched as he tasted nothing. It was like the popcorn. There was no difference whatsoever. Only the texture differentiated one from the other.

“I miss eating,” he breathed, moving away from the white containers of food. As a man, he had liked nothing better than that long feast at the end of a battle. The roasted lamb and beef that had been marinated in wine and spices. Goblets of rich, red wine and mead.

His mother had made the best honeyed bread he’d ever tasted.

Of all the things he’d lost by being reincarnated, he hated losing the ability to taste the most.

No, that wasn’t true, he hated losing his soul, but the food was a close second.

He heard the door open. Turning, he saw Danger leaving the bathroom, fully dressed. She had a white towel wound round her head. “How is it?”

“Still warm.” That was all he could tell about it.

“Are you eating?”

“I ate already,” he lied. She was suspicious enough about what sustained him. The last thing he needed to do was confide in her how Acheron kept him alive. There were some things she didn’t need to know.

Just as she sat down, her cell phone rang. Picking it up, Danger looked at the caller ID. “It’s Kyros.”

She opened the phone, then answered it.

“Yeah,” she said after a brief pause. “We’re still in Starkville. Where are you?”

Alexion closed his eyes and concentrated so that he could hear Kyros through the phone.

“Where are you staying?” Kyros asked.

“In a hotel.”

“Is Ias with you?”

Danger cleared her throat before she answered. “Why do you want to know?”

“I’ve been thinking about what he said and I wanted to talk to him again.”

“Hang on.” She handed the phone to him.

Hoping his friend had come to his senses, Alexion placed it to his ear. “Yes?”

“How close are you to Acheron?”

“Very. Why?”

“Is it true that he has his own demon?”

Alexion decided to play vague. Simi’s existence was something Acheron only shared with a few Dark-Hunters, and Kyros wasn’t one of the privileged few. “What demon?”

“Be honest with me, Ias,” he snarled. “Dammit, you owe me that much.”

Alexion ground his teeth. What harm could there be in answering that one question? It wasn’t as if Simi couldn’t protect herself, especially against a Dark-Hunter. “Yes, he has a demon.”

“Then, if I were you, I’d summon it.”

“Why?”

No sooner was the question out of his mouth than someone knocked on their door.

Kyros hung up on him.

“That’s weird,” he said, pushing the button to turn the phone off while Danger got up to open the door.

Before she reached it, a small ball of light came through the wood as if it were nothing tangible. The door itself was left intact while the ball twirled to the center of the room where it grew larger and larger until it was the size and shape of a grown woman.

Two seconds later, a bright burst of light flashed into the room and the shape became that of a tall, fanged female demon.

She had black horns, black lips, red wings, black hair, and yellow eyes. Her skin was marbled with red and black.

But what caught him by surprise was the fact that he knew her face as well as he knew his own.

“Simi?”

She hissed at him, then attacked. She grabbed his arm and slung him into the wall.

Alexion rebounded off it, but caught himself. What the hell was going on here? Simi would never hurt him. Not like this.

She moved to hit him again.

He jumped back, out of her reach. “What is wrong with you, Sim?” he asked in Charonte.

“Do not defile my language, human scum,” she snarled angrily.

At least that’s what he thought she said. Her words and pronunciation were different from the Charonte that Simi spoke. It was like another dialect.

Danger started for her.

“No!” he snapped. He had to understand this. How could this demon look so much like Acheron’s?

“Who are you?” he asked her.

She cocked her head and glared at him with absolute hatred. Her white fangs flashed against her much darker skin tone. “I am death and destruction and I am here to claim your life, worm.”

Danger actually growled at him. “Alexion…”

“Please, Danger, trust me.”

The words were barely out of his mouth before the demon grabbed him by the throat and slung him to the ground.

“Protula akri gonatizum, vlaza!”

The demon curled her lip at him. “You are no god to command me, servant. Xirena bows before no one.”

He would have made a comment to that, but the grip on his throat made it impossible to speak. She tore open his shirt as if she were about to rip his heart out.

“I think I need to interfere, Alexion,” Danger said, inching closer to them. “From where I’m standing, you’re losing big time.”

“No!” he choked out, afraid the demon would tear her apart if she tried anything.

The demon pulled a dagger from her waist. Alexion struggled with all his might. It was what he feared most—a dagger from the Destroyer.

That would kill him.

But in spite of his struggling, he couldn’t get her to budge off him or her grip to loosen even a tiny bit.

Until her eyes fell to his shoulder where he bore Acheron’s mark.

Her eyes flashed red. She let go of his throat to pull the fabric back so that she could study the mark more closely.

Still he couldn’t get her off him.

She cocked her head as she studied the tattoo intently. “You serve the one who is cursed?”

“Yes.”

She looked even more puzzled by that. “You called me Simi in a child’s language. Do you know my Simi?”

Alexion drew deep, ragged breaths in through his bruised esophagus. It burned and ached. He wasn’t sure if the pain would ever cease.

“Simi’s mother is dead. We were told all the Charontes were gone. Who the hell are you?”

Her gaze narrowed threateningly at him, as if she were offended that he didn’t know of her. “I am Xirena, the eldest hatchling of Xiamara and Pistriphe—the supreme guardians of the hall of the gods. I was the protector of my mother’s simi … her baby. My simi was taken from me by the bitch-goddess Apollymi, after my mother’s death, to be a gift for the cursed god. Do you know where my simi is?”

Alexion couldn’t think as he stared up at the demon on his chest.

Simi meant “baby” in Charonte?

Sonovabitch. He wondered if Acheron knew that. “
You
are Simi’s sister?”

Xirena hissed at him in anger. “She is named Xiamara after our mother.”

“She doesn’t know that. Believe me.”

She pulled back from him ever so slightly. Her face showed her confusion. “You know her?”

“I take care of her.”

To his complete shock, bloodred tears filled her eyes. “You care for my sister?”

He nodded. “Always. She’s like my daughter.”

A single red tear streaked down her cheek. “My simi lives? She thrives?”

“Like a queen on a throne.”

She threw her head back and let out an inhuman cry that sounded like a bizarre mixture of anguish and joy. She got off him and squatted by his side. Her wings curled around her body, forming a cloak. “Summon her for me, please.”

He met Danger’s gaze. She looked as confused as he felt.

Simi wasn’t alone in the world? There were two of them? He wasn’t sure if that was good news or bad. “I would summon her for you, but that’s not exactly something that’s done.”

“Yes it is,” she said in a very Simi-like tone. “You tell her to come and she must obey you.”

“Yeah,” he said in a tone that was a mixture of nervous humor and doubt. “Simi doesn’t obey anyone but Simi.”

Xirena shook her head. “She obeys her
akri.
She must.”

“Well,” Alexion said slowly, still afraid the Charonte might go back into attack mode. “In her case, her
akri
obeys her. And neither one of them is listening to me at present.”

She scowled at him. “That is not natural. Once a Charonte is bound, it must obey. I refused the bond and am free, but my simi was bound as a small one to the cursed god. She must obey him. She has no choice.”

Yeah, right. Never once had Alexion seen it work that way.

“In the case of Simi, I think it’s more Acheron is bound to her, not the other way around.”

She didn’t seem to understand that. “But you can take me to my simi?”

“Yes.”

She threw her arms around him and held him close. It lasted for about two heartbeats, before she pulled back and glared at him again. She grabbed him by the throat. “If you are lying to me, worm, I will rip out your brains and eat them all.”

Alexion screwed up his face at the thought. Yeah, she was Simi’s sister all right. Some things must run in their family. “That is really disgusting and no, I wouldn’t lie to you. Not about this.”

She turned to look at Danger. “Is she your female?”

“No.”

“I’ll kill her anyway if you are lying to Xirena.”

“I’m not lying.”

Danger didn’t understand a single word of what they were saying, other than the name Acheron. She watched apprehensively as the demon got up, then helped Alexion to his feet.

“What’s going on?” she asked him.

Alexion still looked a bit nervous and shaken. “It appears we have a new friend. Danger, meet Xirena.”

Xirena came over to sniff her. She moved much like a bird, cocking her head at strange angles and with jerking movements.

“You are not human,” the demon announced. “You have no soul.”

“Thank you for the obvious. Did you know you have horns on your head?”

The sarcasm appeared to be lost on the demon.

“Actually, she brings up a good point. Xirena, can you make yourself appear human?”

The demon snarled as if the very thought disgusted her. “Why would Xirena wish to do that?”

“So as not to cause a panic with the other humans,” Alexion explained. “Simi does it all the time.”