The Dark-Hunters (611 page)

“If you really didn’t care, you wouldn’t remember them.”

“Don’t flatter yourself. I wrote you off the same way you wrote me off. Unlike Medea, I don’t need closure. I just need you dead.”

“So we’re back to that.”

“We will always come back to that.”

Stryker would curse and rail, but honestly, it was what he deserved. She was right. He’d walked out and never looked back.

No, that wasn’t true. He had looked back. Often. He’d remembered their time together. Remembered the way she looked first thing in the morning when she’d been snuggled up beside him. The way she’d shyly glance at him as if she could eat him alive.

He’d hated himself for giving that up. For giving
her
up.

Sighing, he moved toward the door. “I have duties to attend. Should you need anything, call for Davyn.” Without another word, he was gone.

Zephyra watched as he left her alone in his room. The look of hurt in his silver eyes had made her ache, and she hated herself for that weakness. Why did she still want to hold him after what he’d done to her?

Yes, she wanted to claw out his eyes and stab him until he was dead.

But underneath that anger and hurt was the part of her that still loved him. The part of her that she tried so hard to bury and ignore. He was a beast and a coward.

He’s the father of your daughter.

So what? A biological donor who’d left them. That didn’t make him a father. It made him an asshole. Her fury renewed, she glanced about the room that he slept in. It was rather plain. Burgundy coverings on the bed. No windows. A small chest of drawers and nothing hanging on the walls.

“You live like a bear in a cave.”

There wasn’t even a book on the nightstand. Which begged the question of why he had one. Then again, the top drawer was slightly cracked open. Perhaps there was one inside. Curious, she walked over to it and opened it.

Her breath caught in her throat.

In the bottom of that drawer was the last thing she had ever expected to see again. It was the hand-painted tile that he’d commissioned of her as a wedding present. Memories slammed into her as she stared at the faded image of her in ancient Greek clothing, her blond hair bound up as curls fell around her face. Large green eyes were set in the countenance of utter innocence. She’d forgotten all about this tile’s existence.

But Stryker hadn’t. In spite of everything, he’d kept it. And underneath it was another tile and pictures of men who bore a striking resemblance to him. One picture in particular caught her attention. It was three men, similar in face and form, dressed in clothes from the 1930s. They had their arms slung over each other’s shoulders as they smiled happily.

His sons.

Over and over, she found pictures of them.

The only other tile in the drawer was that of a girl who looked almost identical to Medea. A chill went down her spine as she ran her finger over the faded writing in the lower right hand corner.
Tannis.
She must have been his daughter, too.

She flipped it aside to find the most recent photo in the drawer. From the looks of the quality of the picture and the black clothing, she would guess it was no more than ten years old. It was of a young man with white-blond hair that was pulled back into a ponytail—the middle of the same three brothers from the 1930s. Even though his features were masculine, they were so close to Medea’s as to be eerie. And as Zephyra tilted the photo in the light she realized something.

The stains on it were from tears.

“No,” she breathed, unable to imagine Stryker crying over anything. He’d always been rigidly unsentimental. She’d seen him brutally wounded in sword practice and his eyes hadn’t even misted.

The only time she’d known them to cloud was …

The night he’d left her.

And yet as she ran her hand over the stains, she knew nothing else would have caused them. Who, other than him, would have held this photograph in his room and cried? No one. They were his and he’d kept all of this in a place where he thought no one would find it.

“Dear gods.” The bastard had a heart. Who knew?

“I will love you forever, Phyra. Never doubt that or me.”

Her throat tightened as she looked down at the tile of herself that she’d put on the tabletop. Had he really missed her? Pined for her?

Don’t be ridiculous. He probably planned this for you to find.

Planned it? He’d thought her dead. Why would he hang on to her image all these centuries unless she meant something to him? She certainly had kept nothing of his.

“Don’t you dare weaken,” she snarled at herself. “He’s nothing.” Determined to stay hard, she put the pictures back, then froze as she saw something she’d missed earlier. It was a small green frayed ribbon.

The same ribbon she’d worn twined through her hair on the tile. And there, tied in the middle of it, was the wedding ring she’d thrown in his face when he’d told her he was leaving.

Her eyes teared as she saw the ancient carving on the band.
S’agapo.
“I love you” in Greek.

“Damn you,” she growled as she weakened even more in the face of his obvious love. He had cared about her. Through all these centuries, he’d kept her as close to him as he could.

Unable to stand it, she left his room and went in search of his study. She hadn’t gone far when Davyn appeared.

“Can I help you?”

“I want to see Stryker. Now.”

“He doesn’t like to be disturbed when he’s in his study.”

“I really don’t care.” She stepped past him.

Davyn sighed heavily before he passed her and then led her to the correct destination. He knocked on the door. “My lord?”

“What!” Stryker barked.

Zephyra stepped around Davyn and threw open the door to find Stryker sitting at his desk, looking into a small round ball. No, not just looking, he was fixated by it.

“What are you doing?” she asked, her voice rife with her agitation that she used to cover the tender feelings inside her.

He glanced up. “Trying to find Gautier. What are you doing here?”

Truthfully, she wasn’t sure. She didn’t want to be here and yet … “I wanted to see you.”

“Leave,” he ordered Davyn, who obeyed instantly. As soon as they were alone, he looked back at her. “I thought you’d seen more than your fair share of me.”

She had and …

He’d kept a tile of her. How could something so insipidly stupid weaken her? She’d always thought herself above such petty sentimentality.

Apparently she was wrong.

Before she could stop herself, she moved to his side. “Why didn’t you go after Gautier yourself?”

“I tried. The little bastard is fast and extremely resourceful. Not to mention his powers aren’t anything to laugh at. I stupidly thought he received most of that from our blood exchange. Now that I know what he is, it makes even more sense why I was having such a hard time controlling him. I should have been feeding from him and taking
his
powers.”

“You couldn’t tell?”

“No. Whoever bound his powers did one hell of a job. Case in point, I can’t find him anywhere. Even though we’re supposed to share sight, he’s off my radar completely.”

“That’s impossible.”

He gave her a dry “duh” stare. “I know that. Yet here I am, completely blind to him.”

She stepped around his desk to look into the sfora. “When was the last time you had a visual?”

He looked aghast at her. “Are you helping me?”

She refused to give him the satisfaction. “Shut up and answer my question.”

A slow smile spread over his face and the teasing gleam in his eyes set her ire off. “You
are
helping me.”

“Don’t get used to it. I’m a woman of my word, and since I can’t kill you it’s not in my nature to crochet and do nothing. Why are we going to kill this man anyway?”

“He murdered my sister.”

That was a good reason. “Bastard scum.”

Stryker nodded in approval. “I had him in my sights a couple of hours ago before War went after him.”

“Then he’s probably in hiding.”

“My thoughts exactly. But where?”

“The best place to hide is in plain sight. The bugger is there. We just have to figure it out.”

*   *   *

Nick raked his hands through his hair as he stared at the tiny African-American woman before him. She was a woman he’d thought he’d known his entire life and here in the last few minutes he’d learned that he had never really known her at all.

“I don’t understand this. My father was a psychotic criminal who beat the hell out of my mom whenever she was dumb enough to let him into our apartment between his unfortunate incarcerations.”

Menyara shook her head. “Your father was a demon who preferred prison because it was the last place the people who would kill him would think to look for him. Not to mention it allowed him to feed off their evil energy. He drew power from all their negativity.”

Nick refused to believe it. It just wasn’t possible. “You’re wrong. My father was human.” A corrupt, mean, and vicious man, but human through and through.

She shook her head again. “Listen to me, Ambrosius. I was there when you were born. I’m the one who delivered you and used my powers to keep you hidden from the rest of the worlds—those seen and those unknown. I knew the power you would one day wield and it terrified me even then. Why do you think I’ve watched over you so closely all these years?”

“I thought it was because you loved me and my mother.”

“I do love you and I did love Cherise. She was a good woman with the heart of an angel. Never did she harm or think ill of a single person. It was why Adarian was able to seduce her. Why he was so attracted to her even when he shouldn’t have been. He chose her for the sacred honor of being the mother to his legacy. What he never counted on was me and the degree to which your mother’s purity would affect you.”

“You’re so full of shit, Menyara, you ought to be a cow pasture.”

She angled one bony finger at him. “You better check that tone, boy. You’re not so big I can’t spank you like I did when you were young.”

“I’m all-powerful. Isn’t that what you told me?”

“And I bound your powers once. Don’t think I can’t do it again. Believe me, you’re not the most powerful creature in this universe. There are many who can take you down.”

Nick pulled back. Attacking her was pointless and it made him feel like his father—something he’d always despised. She was right. She’d been there all of his life, like a second mother to him. “I’m sorry, Mennie. I’m just having a hard time with all this. No offense, but it’s a little hard to swallow.”

She placed her hand against the bow and arrow mark of Artemis on his cheek. “You tried to sell your soul to a goddess for vengeance. How ludicrous is that?”

“Point taken, and I might add it turned out really bad. I just wish I understood more about all of this.”

She dropped her hand to his shoulder. “What do you remember of your father?”

“Only the back of his hand as it fell across my face. He had ‘hate’ tattooed on the fingers of his right hand and ‘kill’ on those of his left. I don’t even really remember what he looked like. All I see is a mountain of a man with eyes filled with hatred.”

She sighed gently. “The Malachai. Corrupt. Angry. Bitter. Demons all. They were created from the worst of the universe to fight against those who were pure and caring. In spite of his flaws, your father survived longer than any Malachai before him. But he knew his time was growing short, which is why he fathered you. Each Malachai is allowed only one single son to carry on his legacy. You are it.”

“And I killed myself, so it’s all over.”

She shook her head. “You have a means to return from the dead. You can reclaim your soul and be reborn.”

“To what purpose?”

She smiled at him. “Only you can answer that question. Only we, ourselves, can define our purpose in this world. Your father’s was to hurt and punish. Mine has been to protect you. Your goal…?”

“To kill Acheron Parthenopaeus.”

“And will that truly fill the bitter hole you’ve placed in your heart?”

Nick snarled at her, “I didn’t put that hole there.
He
did.”

“Look at me,” she barked. “You tell Menyara the truth, boy.”

Nick ground his teeth as bitter emotions swelled inside him. “Ash killed my mother.”

“A Daimon killed your mother because you came late to her job to walk her home. You know the truth, Ambrosius. Admit it to yourself. Ash would have never allowed her to die had he been able to get there. He was under brutal attack that night. Even though he was angry at you, he would have given his life to protect hers. To this day, he visits her grave to honor her even more than you do.”

Tears stung his eyes as pain tore through him. He wanted his mother back. To see her one more time. To feel her hand on his cheek as she smiled at him with pride in her kind eyes. He wanted to go back in time and save her from the vicious murder. She’d been the best mother anyone could have and she’d died brutally in the hands of his enemies.

She hadn’t deserved that.

And she hadn’t deserved a son like him, who’d been unable to protect her from harm.

Still Menyara goaded him. “You’re the one who put her in danger. Not Acheron. It was you who failed her. You who killed yourself.”

Nick roared as fury flowed through his veins. Throwing his head back, he let out the pain in what shook the room like a sonic boom. His vision changed.… No longer could he see colors. Rather he saw the universe for what it was. Heard the fabric of life that surrounded and bound every living creature.

He’d never known such power. Such rage and hatred. He could taste it on his tongue.

Menyara looked at him without fear or trepidation. “You now have the power to kill Acheron. Will you?”

He bared his fangs at Menyara as fire emanated from his hands and ran up the length of both his arms. “Hell yes.”

At long last, Acheron Parthenopaeus was about to die.

CHAPTER 7

Stryker sucked his breath in sharply as Zephyra leaned down to look into the sfora. She smelled so good, it literally made his mouth water. She traced the clouds with one long fingernail. Chills rose on his body as he imagined her running it over his skin. He was so hard and needy that it was all he could do not to grab her and pull her close.