The Dark-Hunters (580 page)

And Nick’s soul that he’d traded to Artemis, that Artemis had then given to Acheron.

He pulled out Ryssa’s journal and handed it to Tory. “Can you read it without your glasses?”

She sighed irritably. “Not a single word. I hate being blind. Any chance I can talk you into going to my house and getting my spare pair?”

“I can’t leave you unattended. You know that.”

“Then will you read it to me?”

Ash looked down at the leather as a sharp pain pierced his chest. It was hard to read Ryssa’s words because with each one, he saw her clearly in his mind and heard her sweet, calm voice speaking to him.

And it cut him deep in his heart.

Tory touched his arm again. “Please, Achimou?”

A muscle worked in his jaw as her tender voice worked magic on his resolve. “You are the only being who’s ever called me that.”

“Well, I’d call you babycakes, but I think that might offend you even more.”

He smiled. “All right, stop the torture. I’ll read.”

Tory watched the blurry shadow that was Ash as he took a seat near her bed and opened the book. When he started reading, she closed her eyes and listened to the deep resonant tone of his voice. From the ease with which he translated as he read, one would have thought it was written in English. He didn’t even hesitate with the words.

“Today I spoke to my father about visiting Atlantis.”

Tory straightened up in the bed. “Atlantis?”

Ash cringed as he realized what he’d said. He’d actually forgotten he was reading to an outsider. Tory had become such a part of him that he actually wanted to confide in her. “Yeah, that’s what it says.”

“See! I told you it was real!”

He had to calm her down. “It doesn’t mean anything. For all you know this is an ancient
Bridget Jones’s Diary.
”

She scoffed. “They didn’t have novels back then.”

“History says they didn’t have books, yet what’s this thing in my hand? It’s square, bound paper that’s been written on. Looks like a book to me.”

“Thank you, Captain Sarcasm. How nice of you to join us again. Can we get back to the story?”

“Just don’t throw another hammer at me,” he mumbled under his breath before he returned to the book. “Today I spoke to my father about visiting Atlantis and as usual it made him angry. Our negotiations with them aren’t going well. Uncle sent word that war could break out again at any moment. But I don’t understand why it’s too dangerous for me to visit there while my brother and uncle live there. Surely it’s not safe for…” Ash paused as he saw his name mentioned, “my brother. I can’t stand not seeing him. The letters he sends aren’t enough for me. I want—” Ash choked on the words on the page as pain hit him hard in his chest. —
my brother home with me. Someone needs to make sure Acheron is kept safe from harm and though Uncle swears he’s fine, I wish I could make sure of it for myself.

“She wants what?” Tory prompted.

“My eyes are hurting,” he lied. “I think it’s the lighting. Can we pick this up later?”

Tory frowned at the odd note in his voice. It sounded like he was choking on tears, but that didn’t make sense. “If you wish.”

“Cool. I’ll just return it to my backpack.” He got up and rustled around in it.

“Ash?” she asked after a couple of seconds.

“What?”

“Did anyone call my family?”

“I don’t know. You want me to ask?”

“Please. I don’t want my family invading when I feel fine. Especially not while we have insane people chasing us. I would die if one of them got caught in the crossfire.”

“Okay. I’ll go get Kim and find out. If you need anyone…” He put the hospital buzzer in her hand. “I know you can’t see well so if you get scared at all, buzz the nurse and I’ll be right back.”

His concern touched her. “Got it.”

Tory sat in the silence, processing everything that’d happened today. The things she’d learned and those she still only suspected about Ash. Not to mention the fact that she now knew she had people out to end her life any way they could over something she didn’t even possess.

What was she going to do?

Ash returned a few minutes later. “Kim spoke to your grandfather and Aunt Del. She said they want you to call them as soon as you can.” Ash stepped close enough that she could see him.

“Thank you, Ash.”

“You’re welcome. Kim also said she’d have Pam bring your spare glasses over to you just as soon as she can.”

She put her hand over the one Ash had resting on her railing and gave a light squeeze. “Thank you for remembering to ask about them, too.” She picked his hand up and placed hers against it. She’d always thought of her hands as mannish since they were so much bigger than most women’s, but compared to his hand, hers were dainty. His fingers were long and graceful with calluses that also marred his palms. They were manly hands and she couldn’t help wondering what they’d feel like skimming her body …

“Your hands are so huge.”

“Yours are soft and little.” She didn’t miss the catch in his voice before he moved his hand away. “Mine are also really rough.” He said it as if it embarrassed him.

“I like your hands. I think they’re beautiful.”

“I don’t know about that, but they do what they’re supposed to most times I guess.”

She shook her head. “You hate compliments, don’t you?”

Ash’s gut tightened at the unwanted memories her question provoked. As a human, compliments had been followed by either unwanted gropings or all-out beatings from the people who didn’t want to be attracted to him. As a god they’d become extinct, which, given his former experiences, was fine by him.

“You want me to get you something to eat?”

Tory nodded. “I’m always hungry.”

“I’ll be back.”

She didn’t move as she watched him leave again. He was so strange and so seductive. Protective, arrogant and at the same time unsure of himself. Which really made no sense to her. How could he ever be uncertain?

She lay there for several minutes as she pondered the dichotomy.

“Hey, girl.”

She smiled at the blur that was Pam. “Hey, hon.”

Pam came forward and put Tory’s glasses on her face. Tory breathed a sigh of relief as the world came into focus again. “Bless you.”

“Anytime. How are you feeling?”

“Pretty good considering I just got hit by a car and died.”

Pam growled at her. “You’re not funny. And where’s your delectable bodyguard?”

“He went to find food for me.”

“Ooo, good-looking
and
he quests for food when you’re hungry. He’s a keeper. So when are you going to sleep with him?”

Ash paused outside the door as he heard Pam’s question to Tory.

Tory made a very undignified snort. “Sleep with him … pah-lease. Like I don’t have better things to do with my day. I swear the way you have sex on the brain, you should have been born a guy.”

“Oh, yeah, right, Tor, look at the man. They don’t make a finer model than that one. Trust me. Unlike you, I look a lot. He’s without a doubt the finest thing on two legs, or three if you play your cards right.”

Tory let out a sound of utter shock. “Stop talking about him like that. He’d die of embarrassment if he heard you.”

Pam tsked at her. “I’m telling you right now, Tory, if you let that one get away without sleeping with him, you’ll regret it for the rest of your life.”

“And given my history with men, if I tried to sleep with him I’d kill him. The last guy I tried to sleep with ended up in a body cast.”

Pam laughed. “Look at me and tell me honestly you haven’t thought about it.”

“I’m not
that
blind, but I don’t think of Ash that way. I’m much more interested in him for his brains than his body. Now move on to the next topic before I push the button and tell the nurses I’m being harassed by an insane stalker friend.”

“You would, too.”

Deciding it was now safe to make an appearance, Ash walked in. Pam’s face turned instantly red as she moved to the other side of the bed.

He set his bag down on Tory’s tray table and moved it closer to her. “I wasn’t sure what you’d like, so I got some of everything.”

Tory smiled. “There’s not much I don’t eat. Curse of my Aunt Del always telling me about the poor children who have to eat dirt just to keep from going hungry.”

Ash adjusted the tray for her, then opened her soda.

“Um, guys,” Pam said as Tory unwrapped a hamburger. “I don’t think you’re supposed to eat that right after surgery. Don’t they put patients on clear liquid diets or something?” She looked uneasily out the door. “Where’s Kim when I need her?”

Tory waved her words away. “I feel fine.”

Ash pulled the fries out for her and set them down. “I wouldn’t have gotten anything for her that would cause her more pain.”

Tory held the burger up toward him. “You want a bite?”

“No, thanks.”

Looking at Pam, she gestured at him with the burger. “I swear he’s living proof that air has calories. Otherwise he’d shrivel up to nothing.”

“Oh, like you have room to talk. If there was any justice in this world, you’d be bigger than my house. You eat like a man and you’re skinny as a rail.” Pam smirked at Ash. “My mother used to call her Jack Sprat when we were kids. Thank God her aunt owned a deli, though I swear Tory ate up all the profits whenever she worked there.”

Ash laughed.

“Only ’cause Del makes the best koulourakias, kourabiethes and melomacarinas ever.”

Pam smirked at Ash. “Did you understand a single word of what she just said?”

“Of course he does, he’s Greek. Even if he doesn’t eat, he knows the cookies. I’ll bet his mother stuffed him full as a kid.”

Ash snorted at the image of his mother cooking anything, other than world destruction. “Not really. My mom wasn’t the Betty Crocker kind.” Not unless it involved napalm or plagues.

A sharp gasp at the door made them all look to see Kim in the doorway. “What are you doing eating that!”

Tory and Pam pointed at him. “He brought it.”

Making a sound of distress, Kim rushed to the bed to take the burger from Tory’s hands.

Tory pulled it away. “Not on your life, Kim, and I mean that literally.”

“You can’t eat that right after surgery. It’ll make you sick.”

“Better the cow than your hand, which I’m going to take a chunk of if you reach for it again. I’m hungry. You of all people know better than to come between me and food.”

Kim whirled on Ash with a malevolent glare. “How could you bring this to her?”

“She said she was hungry.”

Kim popped him hard on his butt. “Don’t do it again! You clear her diet through her doctor or a nurse. You don’t just bring food to someone in a hospital. Are you out of your mind?”

Ash was too stunned to even react as Kim went back to the sack on the tray and rifled through it.

“You two are awful, just awful.” Kim started to roll the top down.

Tory glared at her like a feral lion. “You take that bag, Kim, and I’ll make you regret it.”

“Tory, be reasonable.”

“My stomach wants food.”

Kim held her hand up. “And when you’re being attacked by vicious gastric pain later, remember I tried to stop you.” She turned back to Ash, who made sure his ass was covered. Literally. “If you two weren’t being chased by homicidal loons, I’d order you out of here.”

Ash backed up another step. “You’re not going to hit me again, are you?”

“I ought to. If you were a couple of feet shorter, I’d take you over my knee.” Kim made one last sound of disgust before she left them alone again.

Pam shook her head as she met Ash’s gaze. “Want me to kiss your boo-boo and make it better?”

“Pam!” Tory snapped.

“Oh, like you didn’t have that thought, too. Relax, both of you, I’m only kidding. Let me go calm down Nursezilla before she gets you two in trouble with your doctor.”

Tory sighed as Pam left. “I am so sorry about my friends, Ash. I really did attempt to give them some home training growing up, but obviously it didn’t take.”

Ash laughed at her words. Truthfully, he found the ease they had in his company refreshing. Most people were either intimidated or frightened by him. Only kids seemed indifferent and treated him like anyone else on the street. “It’s okay. I like them.”

She took one last bite of her burger before she wrapped it up. “I better stop before I hurt myself. But it is good. Thank you so much for getting this for me.”

“There’s a ham sandwich, pickles, chips and yogurt also in the bag.”

“What a sweetie you are. You really did get some of everything. You sure you don’t want a bite?”

“I’m fine.”

She handed him the bag. “All right then. How about I swap you the food for the journal?”

Ash hesitated. Since his name was all over it …
I could tell her it’s another name.
True. She didn’t know what the letters were. If he could convince her it was something like Archon and not Acheron, that would work.

Shrugging his backpack off, he unzipped the top and pulled the journal out. “Here.”

She opened it where they’d left off. “Now where were we?”

“Ryssa was talking about her brother in Atlantis.”

She drew her brow together in confusion. “Ryssa? How do you know her name was Ryssa?”

Ash tensed as he realized that his sister hadn’t written her name anywhere in it. “Uh … I don’t. I just gave her a name. It seemed more polite than calling her ‘hey, you, ancient chick.’”

She wrinkled her nose up at him. “FYI, I hate the word chick.”

“Then I shall delete it from my vocabulary.”

Smiling, she put her hand on his arm and leaned against him. “You’re so accommodating. Was this the spot?”

It took him a full second to catch his breath at the casual way she touched him. At the way her lips looked so inviting and sweet.

“Yeah,” he said, forcing himself to look at the page.

She pointed to a line a few down from where he’d been reading. “I miss him?”

“Yes.”

Her finger went to the next sentence. “He was sent away?”

“You’re an incredibly fast learner.”

“That’s what my father used to say. His nickname for me was Athena.”