The Dark-Hunters (598 page)

“It’s the same catch Artemis used on Apostolos. Once you feed from him, you will always have to feed from him.”

Tory cringed as she remembered the pain of Ash biting her. “Blood?”

Reluctantly, she nodded. “Please, Soteria. Do what I can’t. Save my son from that monster who willfully hurts him. Apostolos will never willingly take the blood of another and bind that person to him. Not after the violent way Artemis tricked him into bondage. But if you return and you feed him and he feeds you, he will be free from that bitch forever.”

She looked away as she considered what would come. “I can stay with Ash?”

“Yes, and I will give you enough of my powers to make sure that neither Artemis nor any other enemy of Apostolos will ever be able to harm you again.”

The depths to which Apollymi would go for Ash touched her and it reminded her of her own mother—a mother she missed every day of her life. “But what about you? Won’t that weaken you?”

“It will, but I don’t care. I want my son free and I want him happy, no matter the cost to me. I’m tired of seeing the weariness in his eyes when we speak. Of seeing the pain that I can’t soothe. Will you help him? Please?”

Tory tightened her grip on the goddess’s hand, wanting her to know how sincere she was. “I would do anything for that man.”

Apollymi smiled. “I thought your cousin Geary would be the one to free my baby. But the moment I first saw you when you were only ten, poking around the ruins of my temple under the Aegean, I knew you were the one. It was why I never allowed any other man to touch you.”

She covered Tory’s hand with her other and held it tight. “Soteria. The keeper of Atlantis who stood at her post even against my anger, and who went down fighting to protect what she loved most. You do your namesake proud.”

Apollymi pulled the necklace from around her neck and then folded it into Tory’s palm. “When you are ready to fight for him, press that to your heart and you’ll have the powers of a goddess. Forever.”

Tory held the necklace in her hand and studied the red swirling mist inside a translucent stone. Grateful for the gift, she embraced Apollymi.

Apollymi was stunned by the hug—no one had touched her with so much affection since the night she’d conceived Apostolos. Closing her eyes, she held the girl close. “So long as you’re kind to him, you will always be my daughter. If you ever need anything, call for me and I will answer.”

“I won’t let anything happen to him again. I promise.”

Apollymi kissed her cheek before she pulled back. “Then go to him, Soteria. He needs you.”

Nodding, Tory stepped back and pressed the stone to her heart. The moment she did, a searing pain ripped through her. “Ow! You didn’t tell me it’d hurt.”

Apollymi shrugged. “Birth is never painless and especially not a rebirth.”

She wasn’t kidding. Tory felt like something was shredding her from the inside out. Nauseated and dizzy, she blinked at the darkness that was so oppressive it was blinding.

The next thing she knew, she was in Ash’s arms again. He sat on the floor, holding her to him, cheek to cheek, as he rocked her and whispered to her, “Please, Tory, please don’t be dead. Please don’t leave me alone. I don’t want to live without you…”

Those heartfelt words choked her, but what stunned her the most was the wetness of his cheeks.

He was crying.

For her.

Lifting her hand, she brushed her fingers against the whiskers of his jaw. He pulled back with a startled gasp. “Soteria?”

She nodded, then she felt the hunger his mother had mentioned. It burned through her with an unbelievable ferocity that lengthened her incisors. Determined, she met his gaze. “Let me stay with you, Ash.”

Ash couldn’t breathe as he understood what she was asking. What she needed. And for the first time in eternity, he was willing to bleed in order to give her life. “Are you sure?”

She nodded.

He brushed his hair aside and tilted his neck for her. Closing his eyes, he braced himself for the pain of her bite. For the hated sensation of breath on his neck while she fed.

Tory paused as she felt him go rigid. It took her a second to realize why. Ash couldn’t stand to have anyone breathe on his neck and yet there he sat, offering himself to her without complaint or comment. In that moment she loved him all the more.

And with her newfound senses, she knew his neck wasn’t the only place she could feed from …

Ash opened his eyes as she moved away from him. Frowning, he watched as she dipped down and bit into his inner thigh. He sucked his breath in sharply as a wave of desire blinded him and hardened his cock, which was only a few inches from her mouth. But greater than that was the shock that she hadn’t grabbed his hair and hurt him while she fed from his neck. She was being gentle and considerate, and when she looked up at him, her eyes matched his.

That deep swirling silver that he hated so much was beautiful on her. They were bound together now. His powers. His blood. They were hers too. But even so, he wanted her as she’d been. Kissing her lips, he turned her eyes back to the brown color that had stolen his heart the first time she’d looked around the room in nervous panic.

This was the woman he loved. The one he couldn’t live without.

Tory felt a raw unimagined power deep inside her. She could hear everything now. See the most minute color changes in every object. “Is this how you see the world?”

“Yes.”

It was all so vivid. Overwhelming. At the same time her body was hot and needy. She looked at him and he actually blushed before he clothed himself.

Clearing his throat, he indicated the door with a tilt of his head. “We can’t do that here.”

“Artemis,” she growled the name.

He nodded. “We’re still locked in her temple.”

“Not for long.” Rising to her feet, she went to the door.

Ash scowled as Tory closed her eyes and held her hands out by her sides. He felt the wind of his grandmother stirring around them. His jaw went slack as he realized what was happening—his mother had surrendered part of her powers to Tory. She didn’t just have his inside her.

And the combination of his powers with his mother’s …

Scary stuff, that.

The thought had barely finished before the door splintered into a thousand fragments.

Artemis shrieked from the other side, then ran to her throne room.

Ash stood up and went to Tory. “Let’s go home.”

She shook her head. “You go on ahead. I’ll be there in a minute.”

He paused at the odd note in her voice. “Tory…”

She gave him an impish smile, cutting his words off. “I’m just going to talk with her. Don’t worry.”

Yeah, right. Don’t worry? Was she insane? And for once, he wasn’t sure which of them was in the most danger.

Ash hesitated, but ultimately he trusted Tory. “Remind her that I’ll know if she hurts you and if she does, there’s not enough power on Olympus to protect her.”

She kissed the tip of her finger and pressed it to the tip of his nose. “Don’t be such a worrywart. We’re just having girl talk.”

Ash somehow doubted that. Knowing Tory, it would be more like a cat fight. But he wouldn’t interfere. It was time someone took the goddess down. “All right, baby. I’ll be waiting at my apartment.”

Tory didn’t move until Ash was gone. The moment she sensed his powers safely back in the human realm, she headed in the direction Artemis had run off to.

Her new powers surging, she went to have a long overdue Come-to-Jesus talk with the goddess.

CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

Artemis kept waiting for all of the powers to fade from her temple.

They didn’t. She felt Acheron’s primary ones leave, but there was more still here. Powerful. Cold. Calculating.

That wasn’t Acheron.

And when Soteria came through the doors of her bathing chamber and into her throne room with a deadly lope, the blood completely drained from Artemis’s face. There was no denying the woman wanted a piece of her and was ready to fight for it.

Still she refused to let the girl see her panic. “You’re nothing to me, human.”

Tory scoffed, and spoke to her in perfect Greek. “Oh, you’re wrong about that, Artemis. I’m not nothing. I’m the one who’s going to kick your butt if you ever go near Acheron again.”

Artemis flung her hand out and sent Tory flying across the room. “You don’t threaten me.”

Tory lifted her hands and just as she would have hit the wall, she stopped moving. Opening her eyes, she was stunned to find herself floating over the ground a few inches from the stone that Artemis had intended to slam her into.

Artemis shrieked in outrage while Tory laughed in relief. These powers were very cool.

Holding her hands out, she centered herself back on the ground.

Artemis ran at her and caught her about the neck. Tory slid out of her grasp, then shoved her away. “Oh, bitch, please.” She threw her hand out and pinned Artemis to the wall.

“Let me go!”

Tory tightened the hold on her. “For all the times you’ve hurt Ash, you’re lucky I’m not ripping the heart out of your chest right now. How could you?”

Tears formed in Artemis’s green eyes as she struggled to free herself. “I love him.”

Tory shook her head. “How can you say that? You don’t even understand what love means. Love isn’t being ashamed to be seen with the one you care about. It isn’t about punishment or hurt.”

Feeling sorry for the goddess, Tory let her go. “Love is what gives you the strength you need to face anything no matter how brutal or frightening. It’s what allowed Ash to be beaten rather than tell his father about you. It’s what allowed him to be gutted on the floor at your feet rather than publicly shame you. And you spat on him for that love and tore him apart. For a goddess, you’re pathetic.”

Artemis sneered at her. “You’re human. No one cares if
you
sleep with a whore.”

Tory did something she’d never in her life done before. She slapped another person.

Artemis shrieked and tried to claw her, but Tory caught her wrists in her hands and pushed her back. She leveled a murderous look on the goddess to let her know she meant business. “You ever insult Acheron again and so help me, I’ll do to you what you allowed your brother to do to him. I’ll cut your tongue out for it. Acheron is the man I love and no one, ever, takes issue with him without having issues with me.”

Artemis snatched one hand free and tried to backhand her, but Tory caught her wrist again. “You’re no better than I am,” Artemis snarled. “You would sacrifice him in an instant to save yourself and I know it.”

Tory shook her head in denial. “You’re wrong. There is nothing on this earth, above or below, that I value more than Acheron. And we’re both done with you. Have a great eternity and if you want to continue having an eternity, stay out of my way and leave Acheron alone.”

Artemis curled her lip. “You’re not done with me entirely, human. I’m the mother of his daughter.”

That turned her stomach. “You’re right. You are Katra’s mother, poor her. But you’re wrong about one thing.”

“And that is?”

Tory let the Destroyer’s power unite with Ash’s inside her. One minute, she was normal and in the next, she felt her hair turn white-blond and fan out around her as lightning engulfed her and flew out of her fingertips. “I’m no longer human,” she said in a demonic voice. “I’m the Atlantia Kedemonia Theony—the guardian of the Atlantean gods. And right now there’s only one of them walking about and to save him from one more bad memory created by you, I’d bathe in your entrails, bitch. As for Kat, she’s a big girl—I know, I used to live with her. She’ll survive the death of her mother. Trust me, I have firsthand experience with the subject.”

Artemis gaped at her. “You would destroy the entire world for him?”

“Yes, I would. Would you?”

Artemis looked away.

“And that is why you’re going to wish him well and get out of our lives. The next time I see you, Goddess, you better be bringing presents that make me smile, otherwise the Greek pantheon will be looking around for a new goddess of the hunt. Do you understand me?”

“I understand.” But her eyes said she was already plotting some way to get back at them.

So be it. Enemies were an unfortunate part of life. There was nothing Tory could do about that except make good on her promise should Artemis ever discover enough backbone to come after her again.

No one took from her without a fight, and for Ash she’d lay down her life.

“Good-bye, Artemis, and for your own sake, should you ever find someone who loves you the way Ash once did, take better care of him.”

With those words spoken, Tory returned to New Orleans where she found Ash waiting on the couch of his apartment. He shot to his feet before he inspected her body for damage—it was actually quite adorable. “Are you all right?”

“I told you I’d be fine.”

His gaze was filled with doubt. “She didn’t hurt you?”

“Nope.” She held her hands up to show him exactly how undamaged she was. “I’m all hunky-dory.”

The relief in his eyes touched her deeply as he bent down to place a light kiss on her lips. Oh, how she loved this man.

“I’m so sorry for what I did to you,” he breathed. “I never meant to hurt you.”

“I know, sweetie.” She smiled up at him. “What was it Wulf quoted from you? Sometimes things have to go wrong in order to go right? Had you not fed on me, I wouldn’t have the powers I need to be with you. So don’t be sorry, Ash. I’m not.”

He winced as if she’d struck him and that made her ache for him. “I never wanted you to see me like that.”

“See you like what?”

“A monster. I despise my true form.”

She shook her head at him as he put his arms around her waist. “I can’t imagine why. Other than killing me, you were actually cute in a very Papa Smurf kind of way.”

“Papa Smurf?” He made a sound of ultimate suffering and scowled at her. “I don’t look like Papa Smurf.”

“No, baby,” she said in a feigned patronizing tone as she playfully patted his cheek, “you don’t at all. You look like sex on a stick. Now is your ego all better?”