The Dark-Hunters (363 page)

Phoenix had pulled his mate into his arms and roared with pain-filled horror. Until he’d turned on Ravyn.

“You did this!”

Overwrought with his own guilt and grief, he hadn’t been able to move or to speak. His gaze had been morbidly caught by his mother’s remains. By the look of terror that was permanently frozen on her beautiful face.

“Tell Isabeau the truth about us. About you. Ravyn, tell her what we are. Even if she is human, the Fates have chosen her to be your mate … surely, they know what they’re doing. You must trust in the gods, my son. Always.”

His mother’s words had echoed in his ears that night as he stared at her through the tears that burned his cheeks.

And then Phoenix had lunged at him. At first, he’d thought nothing of it, until he felt the sharp, hot pain in his side. It was followed by another and another as Phoenix stabbed him repeatedly while Ravyn merely stood there, taking each blow without even raising his arms in defense.

“Die, you bloody bastard. I hope you spend eternity in Tartarus paying for what you’ve done!”

Dorian had grabbed Phoenix and pulled him back, but it was too late. The damage had been done.

Ravyn had staggered back as he coughed up his own blood. He’d looked down to see the lifeblood as it coated his hands and fled from his body to drip down his clothes, to the floor to blend in with the rest. He’d slipped on a pool of it and fallen to the floor.

The last sight that had carried him out of his human existence had been his own father coming forward to spit on him, then kick and curse him as his last breath had rattled painfully in his chest. It was a sight that haunted him still. A sight that came to him often in the light of day while he tried to sleep and tormented him anew.

But he was through being haunted by his guilt. Being hated for something he’d had no part in. His only mistake had been to trust a woman who’d told him that she loved him. He’d had no way of knowing she would betray him by calling down the wrath of her people before they formally mated.

And he was tired now. Tired of the hatred and the blame. It was time to put the past to rest.

Ravyn raked his brother with a sneer. “You want me dead, Phoenix, then let’s go outside and end it once and for all. But I warn you now, I’m not feeling guilty anymore and I won’t stand there and let you stab me again. You got your one shot in. That’s it.”

Phoenix moved to stand just before him. He narrowed his eyes. “You should have stayed dead.”

Ravyn didn’t flinch or blink. “No, I should never have let you kill me to begin with. I should have slapped your stupid ass down and gone for Isabeau and her people without losing my life over it. Or better yet, I should have killed you the night I took my vengeance for being such a selfish bastard. But I didn’t. I forgave you for killing me, just as I forgave Dad for kicking me. But I’m tired of taking the high road while the rest of you spit at me. So stop crying, little boy, and suck it up like I’ve had to do.”

He gave Phoenix a disgusted look. “You think you had it so bad? Trust me, you didn’t. I lost everything that night, too, including
my
mate and my
entire
family. You and the rest at least had each other to console yourselves. What the fuck did I have? Not a damn thing. And now I’m sick of tiptoeing around you and I’m sick of being blamed for something I couldn’t help. Had you been half the man you think you are, you’d have bonded yourself to Georgette and died with her.”

Phoenix lunged at Ravyn only to have Dorian catch him and pull him back. “No, Nix, you know the law.”

“Screw the law! Let me go, Dori!”

Dorian refused.

Ravyn shook his head at his brother while he struggled against Dorian. “Instead of bitching about what you lost, little boy, you should be damned grateful for what you had. You had almost a hundred years with Georgette. One. Hundred. Years. I didn’t even get a day with Isabeau as my true mate and I’ve had nothing since then. So screw you, crybaby.”

Phoenix lunged again, only to have Dorian catch him and pin him to the wall.

“Get out, Ravyn,” Dorian said, his voice thick.

Ravyn stared at the twins. At one time in his life, he’d have died for them. Growing up, they had been more than just his brothers, they had been his best friends. The loss of that friendship still bothered him, but he’d learned to stop caring. Obviously he had never meant as much to them as they had to him.

“I’m going, Dorian, but I will be back.”

Phoenix cursed as Dorian’s face hardened. “You’ll have to find someplace else to stay.”

Ravyn shook his head. “There is nowhere else until I get this settled and you know it. By the Omegrion’s law, you have to welcome me even if it sticks in your craw.”

“I hate you!” Phoenix shouted. “You come back here and I’ll kill you, you bastard.”

“Take a number.”

Dorian let out a tired breath as Ravyn took Susan’s hand and led her to the door.

Susan didn’t know what to say or do as they left the building and headed to the alley in the back. She could sense the pain inside Ravyn even though he was trying hard to hide it with an angry facade. Not that she blamed him. Given what she’d heard, she couldn’t imagine how betrayed he must feel over his family’s actions. How could they have turned on him like that?

Without breaking stride, Ravyn headed straight for a gray Porsche with tinted windows. Susan frowned as he opened his palm, waved it in a circle, and the door popped open.

“This may be an odd question, but whose car are we stealing?”

He didn’t look up as he got into the car. “Phoenix’s.”

“How do you know it’s his?”

“Look at the plate.”

She did and sure enough, it had his name on it along with a bumper sticker for the club. Strangely amused, she got in. “Don’t you think this is going to piss him off?”

“God, I hope so,” Ravyn said in a sincere tone. “Otherwise it defeats the purpose of taking it.”

“Won’t he call the cops?”

“Nope. It would violate sanctuary. So let him simmer, we have a place to visit. Besides the cops won’t recognize the car and the tinted windows will keep us hidden.”

She shook her head at him as they buckled up. “I know it’s a bit nosy—”

“A reporter being nosy? Damn, there’s something you never see.”

She ignored his sarcasm as he started the car without a key. That man had some eerie powers when they were working properly. “Yeah, back to my question. Why is your family in Seattle when it’s obvious they don’t want to be around you?”

Okay, that hadn’t come out the way she meant for it to. Funny, it’d sounded much nicer in her head.

Ravyn cut an aggravated stare at her before he pulled out of the alley. “The Omegrion dictates where sanctuaries are to be set up, which means they didn’t have a choice. If they wanted to be a sanctuary it was Seattle or nothing since this is where one was needed.”

She considered that. “Why did they want to be a sanctuary?”

“I imagine it had to do with seeing most of our clan annihilated. A lot of my people tend to set them up whenever they’re on the brink of extinction. It’s a way of keeping our enemies at bay long enough for us to regain our numbers.”

That made sense to her. “What about you? How did you end up here?”

“I was already here when they arrived. They just didn’t know it. Acheron assigned me to this region almost two hundred years ago because it had enough open land to let me take on my cat form whenever I wanted, and Cael requested I get transferred with him. He didn’t like the idea of coming out here solo.”

“So the two of you have been friends a long time?”

He nodded. “He was the first Dark-Hunter I met after Acheron trained me. We were both stationed in London for a while and then later transferred to France, then Munich.”

“Wow. You guys have been around.”

“We had to move around a lot in the past because humans tended to get suspicious easier than they do now. Now most people are so absorbed by their own lives that they don’t even bother to learn who’s living next door to them, especially in a city.”

She started to argue that until she realized just how right he was. She still didn’t know the names of the couple who lived to the right of her, and they’d moved in almost two years ago.

The man had a vicious point.

“So where are we headed?” Ravyn asked.

“Hell in a handbasket.”

He laughed. The sound of it was rich and deep. Gah, the man was so incredibly sexy. Especially with the moonlight shadowing the planes of his face. “Seriously.”

“I was serious. It’s exactly where we’re headed,” she said under her breath, but then louder, she added, “Forty-three thirty-five Twenty-ninth Avenue West.”

“Nice area.”

“Yeah, I know. Angie always had great taste in everything.”

Wanting to distract herself, she focused on what Ravyn and his brothers had been talking about earlier. “So explain something to me. What is this mating thing you guys keep talking about?”

A dark shadow fell over his face, and she wasn’t talking about the one from the moonlight. It was a strange light, as if her question bothered him on a deep, personal level. “Were-Hunters are different from humans.”

No shit, Sherlock …
But she kept that exact sarcasm to herself. “You mean other than the fact that you live for several hundred years, can turn into animals, time travel, and wave your hand to make freaky stuff happen?”

The corners of his lips turned up as if he was holding back a laugh. “Yeah, that, too. But unlike humans, we don’t get the leisure of picking out our mates. The Moirae—”

“The who?”

“Greek Fates. They choose who we’re mated to.”

“Uh-huh…” she said, stretching the sound out. “Why am I suddenly channeling a cheesy Leo headline for this? Oh wait, I think I know. Maybe ’cause they’re myths and not real?”

He gave her a peeved stare. “And neither are vampires, right?”

“Good point. Okay, they’re real, too, and?”

“And they choose our mates.”

If not for the ludicrousness of this day, she would recommend him for treatment. But there had to be truth in this even though it didn’t make sense to her. “So what do they do? Jump here on earth, tap you on the shoulder, and say, ‘Hey, bub, marry her’?”

“No. A matching symbol appears on the palms of the two people to let them know they’re supposed to be mated.”

“Intrusive and rude, but I’ll go with it. So that’s all there is?”

“Not exactly. Once the mark appears, we have three weeks to decide if we want to abide by it. If we do, then we sleep together and are mated. If not, then the symbol vanishes and we can never be mated to anyone else so long as we both live, and we can’t have children.”

She really didn’t like the sound of that. “That sucks.”

“You have no idea. The female can continue to have sex, but the male of the species is impotent until the day one of them dies.”

“What if you’re mated and one of you dies? Are you still bound to each other, or can the survivor go on to mate again?”

“Technically yes, but that rarely happens. One shot for a mate is pretty much all the Fates allow. They’re bitchy that way. But at least death does free the survivor of the binding, which is why I can still have sex, even though I never finished the ritual with Isabeau.”

“But you have no chance of being mated again?”

“Let’s just say, I have a better chance of dying from grapefruit poisoning.”

She laughed at that. “Oh, yeah, the Fates are definitely women. I love it.”

“I’m glad you do, but I have to say it doesn’t appeal to me. The idea of being impotent rather blows.”

She could understand that. “So what makes the mark appear? You reach a certain age? You cross the street?”

“We have sex.” He gave her a wicked grin.

“Yeah, right.”

“No, seriously. The mark only appears after you’ve had sex with your predestined mate. Within a few hours it’ll show up.”

“And if you never have sex with your mate?”

“Then you never find your mate. You go the whole of your life without the chance of having children.”

And she thought being human was hard. At least she had a choice about marriage and procreation. “You really have no control over the mating?”

“None whatsoever. Believe me, if we did, I would have never chosen a human for mine.”

She didn’t know why, but those words stung her. “You know, we’re not all so bad.”

He made a rude noise. “Pardon me if I reserve judgment on that.”

Well, honestly, she couldn’t blame him for his feelings. He’d been damaged rather badly by the actions of a single human. And it made her wonder what kind of woman would toss away a chance to have a man like Ravyn in her life. “So did you and Isabeau do the deed to finish off the mating?”

“No, I stupidly chose to be noble and to tell her what I was before I finished the ritual with her. Since she was human and it was the Renaissance period, she got a little … wiggy on me.”

To say the least. “And the rest is history.”

He nodded.

Man, she felt for him. How awful to lay himself bare before someone and have her betray him so badly. It made Alex leaving her because he didn’t want to be tainted by her soiled reputation seem mild by comparison. His actions had been insensitive, but Isabeau’s had been downright cruel.

“So what was the bonding thing you mentioned to Phoenix?” she asked.

“It’s a special bond that we can make with our mates if both parties choose it. It combines our life forces together so that if one of us dies, the other dies, too. Instantly.”

“Romantic and scary.”

“Yes, it is. On the night our village was attacked, it was how we knew what was happening. Several members of our clan who were with us just keeled over. One minute they were with us and the next, they were dead at our feet for no known reason. Since so many of them fell, we knew someone was killing our families.”

She let out a long breath as she tried to imagine the horror of that. “I’m really sorry, Ravyn.”

“Thanks.” But still she noted the way his grip tightened on the steering wheel and it made her ache for him.