The Dark-Hunters (342 page)
Authors: Sherrilyn Kenyon
Tags: #Literature & Fiction, #Romance, #Paranormal, #Vampires, #Science Fiction & Fantasy, #Fantasy, #Paranormal & Urban
Tree of Life:
Supernatural tree that blooms only in the garden of the Atlantean Destroyer. Its leaves alone can break the ypnsi.
Trelosa:
A disease similar to rabies that can strike Were-Hunters at the time of puberty. It causes a madness that leads to the infected Arcadian or Katagarian becoming an indiscriminate killer. There is no cure.
T-Rex:
Talon’s favorite irreverent nickname for Acheron.
Tryggvason, Erik:
Son of Cassandra and Wulf and a direct descendant of Apollo. Guarded carefully and loved by too many protective males: Wulf, Chris, and Urian.
Tryggvason, Wulf:
A Dark-Hunter Viking warrior whose recklessness brought him into contact with Morginne, a powerful Dark-Huntress. She tricked him into trading souls with her. He is the only Dark-Hunter who was never granted an Act of Vengeance. And since he was wrongfully brought over by another Dark-Hunter, his powers are very different from those of the rest of his brethren. The most curious power of all is that of amnesia. No human or animal is capable of remembering him five minutes after they leave his presence. The only exceptions to that are those who bear his blood. Hero of
Kiss of the Night,
husband of Cassandra Peters, and father of Erik Tryggvason. His soul is held by Loki.
Urian:
A reincarnated Spathi Daimon, formerly Stryker’s eldest and last surviving son, a former member of the Illuminati, and husband to Phoebe Peters. Stryker killed Phoebe and cut Urian’s throat for helping Cassandra Peters, and since then, Urian has been an occasional and prickly ally of Acheron and the Dark-Hunters.
V’aiden:
A Dream-Hunter who longs to feel. Hero of “Phantom Lover (
Midnight Pleasures
).”
Villkatt:
An old Norse endearment meaning “wild cat.”
Were-Hunters:
An ancient Greek king (Lycaon) unknowingly married an Apollite. She hid what she was from him until her twenty-seventh birthday, when she perished painfully. When the king realized what she was, he also realized that their two sons would follow in their mother’s footsteps and die horribly at age twenty-seven.
To prevent this, the king rounded up Apollites and began experimenting on them. He magically spliced their life forces with those of various animals (lions, dragons, birds of prey, tigers, wolves, bears, panthers, jackals, leopards, jaguars, and cheetahs) to create hybrid beings.
The splicing created two classes of beings: Arcadians, those who held human hearts and could shapeshift into animals, and Katagaria, those who had animal hearts and could become human.
Once the king was done experimenting, he chose the two most powerful creatures (wolves and dragons) and merged them with his own children. When the Greek Fates saw this, they were angered that he would dare to try to thwart them. They demanded he kill his sons and all the others he had created.
He refused.
As punishment, the Fates decreed that the two species would always war against each other. The Arcadians and the Katagaria would never know peace. To this day and beyond, they hunt each other and wage their war.
Unlike their Apollite cousins, they live for hundreds of years. They share the same psychic abilities as the Apollites, plus they have a few extra abilities such as time travel and the ability to shapeshift.
Were-Hunter patrias are: Litarian (lions); Drakos (dragons); Gerakian (hawks, falcons, and eagles); Tigarian (tigers); Lykos (wolves); Ursulan (bears); Panthiras (panthers); Tsakalis (jackals); Niphetos Pardalia (snow leopards); Pardalia (leopards); Balios (jaguars); Helikias (cheetahs).
Were-Hunter Mate:
Each Were-Hunter has a mate who is chosen, usually against their wills, by the Fates. Mates are indicated by a special matching tattoo that appears on the hand of both partners a few hours after they have sex. They then have three weeks to accept or reject the pairing. There is no way to force one partner to accept the other. If the mating is mutually accepted, they can have children together. If not, both will be sterile for the rest of their lives. After finding his mate, a male Were-Hunter will never be able to have sex with anyone else again. A female Were-Hunter will be able to have sex, but won’t be able to have children with anyone else. (See also
Thirio.
)
Whitethunder, Carson:
An Arcadian Were-Hunter who changes into a hawk, Carson is the resident vet and medical doctor at Sanctuary. He goes to Dr. Paul McTierney for advice on particularly tricky animal cases.
Wink:
A minor Greek god of sleep, son of Nyx and Erebus. His mist can be used by a Dream-Hunter to make a human drowsy or to exert control over one, V’aiden’s great-uncle.
Ydor:
Atlantean ocean god.
Ypnsi:
Sacred sleep that Orasia had once dispensed from the sacred halls of Katoteros, back in the days when the ancient Atlantean gods ruled the earth.
Zarek of Moesia:
A Dark-Hunter who was born the unwanted son of a Greek slave and a Roman senator. Moments after his birth, his mother gave him to a servant with orders to kill the infant. The servant took mercy on the child and took him to his father, who had no more use for the baby than his mother. Thus Zarek became the whipping boy of a noble Roman family. He trusts no one. He seldom interacts with other Dark-Hunters, and when he does, it is always grudgingly and with the utmost disdain for them. Because of his steadfast refusal to follow any orders (even those of Artemis) and his lack of regard for anyone other than himself, he is kept in isolation in Alaska where his activity is seriously limited and closely monitored. There are many who fear he will one day unleash his powers against humans as well as Daimons. He is the hero of
Dance with the Devil
and married to Astrid.
Zurvan:
Ancient Persian god of time and space. Also known as Cas.
UNLEASH THE NIGHT
Copyright © 2006 by Sherrilyn Kenyon.
Excerpt from
Dark Side of the Moon
copyright © 2006 by Sherrilyn Kenyon.
Glossary copyright © 2005 by Sherrilyn Kenyon.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles or reviews. For information address St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
ISBN: 0-312-93433-5
EAN: 9780312-93433-0
St. Martin’s Paperbacks edition / January 2006
St. Martin’s Paperbacks are published by St. Martin’s Press, 175 Fifth Avenue, New York, NY 10010.
eISBN 9780312362010
First eBook edition: February 2014
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DARK SIDE OF THE MOON
SHERRILYN KENYON
Contents
For the most important person in any writer’s life … you, the reader. Thank you for taking this trip into the Dark-Hunter realm with me.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
For the entire team at SMP for all the hard work you guys do on my books. I have no idea what I’d do without you, and I don’t want to find out.
For Monique, who definitely needs an award for going above and beyond the call of duty. Thank you. And for Merrilee, who had no idea what she was getting herself into.
Most of all, I want to thank all the readers and fans who visit the
Dark-Hunter.com
bbs and loops. You guys are always a joy to see. To my RBL women, who never fail to entertain and inspire. And to my personal friends, who give me encouragement and strength when I need it most: Janet, Brynna, Lo, Carl, Loretta, and Christine.
And last, but most definitely not least, my family, and that includes my brother Steve, who wanted to be named. I love all of you. Thank you so much for making my life what it is and for taking this journey with me.
He [the ravyn] is the warrior’s bird of battle, exults in slaughter and carnage …
—
BEOWULF
PROLOGUE
WALES, 1673
The air whispered with psychic electricity. It was a sensation that could only be felt by a particular nonhuman sect or by humans with highly developed senses.
Ravyn Kontis was most definitely
not
human. He’d been born into the world of nocturnal predators who commanded the hidden magicks of the earth—who ruled its darker arts—and he had died as one of their toughest warriors.…
By the hand of his own brother.
Now Ravyn walked the earth as something else. Something soulless. Something ferocious and even deadlier than what he’d been before. There was no heart left inside him. No pity or compassion. Nothing but a pain so deep, so profound, that it lacerated what little humanity he had until there was nothing left but a beast so feral that he knew it would never be tamed again.
Leaning his head back, he roared the cry of the angry beast that snarled inside him. The stench of death encircled him just as the blood of his enemies coated every inch of his human flesh. It dripped from his hair and his fingertips in slick rivulets that dappled the battle-trampled earth at his feet.
Still it wasn’t enough to appease the rage that lived inside him.
Vengeance was a dish best served cold.…
He’d foolishly expected it to ease some of the crippling grief that haunted him. It hadn’t. It only left him even colder than the betrayal that had caused his death.
Ravyn winced as he saw Isabeau’s beautiful face in his mind. Even though she’d been fully human, they had been chosen as mates. Thinking that she loved him, he’d trusted her with the secret of his world.
And how had she repaid him? She’d told the humans of his small clan of brethren and they had attacked the women and children while he and the men had been out on patrol.
No one had been left alive.
No one.
The males of his clan had returned to find the smoldering remains of their village … the scattered bodies of their children and women.
They had turned on him then, not that he blamed them. It was the only time in his life he hadn’t fought back. At least not until his last breath had come.
As it had rattled in his chest, his fetid rage had taken root and grown into a monster, feeding the darkest part of his nonhuman being. His human soul had screamed out for vengeance against those who had destroyed his people. The anguished cry of both man and beast had echoed in the sacred temple of Artemis far away on Mount Olympus—so loud and demanding, it had summoned the goddess herself to him. And there in the faint light of the waning moon, he’d taken her bargain and sold his soul to her for the one chance to return the favor to Isabeau and her people.
They were dead now, by his hand … all of them. Just as he was. Just as his family had been.
It was over.…
Ravyn laughed bitterly at that thought as he clenched his bloodied fists. No, it wasn’t over. It was only beginning.
CHAPTER ONE
SEATTLE, 2006
BOY EATEN BY KILLER MOTHS.
Susan Michaels groaned as she read the headline for her latest story. She knew better than to read the rest of the article, but something inside her just wanted to feel kicked this afternoon. God forbid that she ever took pride in her work again.…
Bred in a lab in South America, these top secret moths are the next generation of military assassins. They are genetically engineered to think their way into an enemy’s lair where they bite the neck of the target and infect them with a concentrated poison that is completely undetectable and that will render the victim dead within an hour.
Now they have escaped the lab and were last seen heading north, straight for the central U.S. Be on guard. They could be in your neighborhood within the month.…