The Dark-Hunters (704 page)

She traced the pattern of his Sentinel markings with her fingertips. “They’re beautiful. Why do you hide them?”

Dev glanced away as old memories surged. Because his mother had been Kattagaria and had despised the Arcadian branch of their people, he’d chosen at puberty to hide his true nature from her as well as the rest of the world.

Now that she was dead …

“Habit. Everyone assumes all the Peltiers are Kattagaria. I let them have their delusions. Far be it from me to attempt to educate the ever shortsighted, small-minded morons who happen into our bar.”

Sam frowned as she heard the undercurrent in his voice. For the first time, she wished she could see inside him to find what had hurt him about that. “Do you count me in that group?”

“Not at all. You haven’t tried to kill me for being something I’m not … at least not yet.”

She ran her hungry gaze over his tawny body. Every muscle was a study of sinewy grace and perfection. All man and all hot. His chest was dusted by golden hairs. Not too thick, just enough to be manly and appealing. Goodness, how she’d missed touching a man and being close to one like this.

A part of her was still timid to touch him for fear that her powers would kick in, but the other part of her was desperate to be held. Just for a little while.

“You don’t like false people, do you?”

He narrowed his gaze at her. “Are you reading my mind?”

“No. It’s strictly from what you’ve said. I told you, I can’t read your thoughts right now and I don’t know why.”

He gave her a cocky grin. “It doesn’t take much to read them right now.” He gave her a scorching once-over.

Sam laughed until he dipped his fingers into the part of her that craved him most. Her legs turned to Jell-O. “I haven’t had anyone touch me there in centuries.” She gasped as she realized she’d said that out loud.

Dev didn’t blink or stop as he stared down at her. A wicked light came into his eyes as he kissed his way down her body. He paused to lave her breasts. Ribbons of heated pleasure burned through her while his fingers continued to tease her.

Then ever so slowly, he continued south until he replaced his hand with his lips.

Sam had to lean one hand against the wall for support as her body twitched and ached in response to his masterful touch. Before she could draw another breath, her body shattered as one of the most intense orgasms of her life claimed her.

Still he continued to please her until he wrung another one from her spasming body. She sank her hand into his soft hair, tugging at it as he continued to tease her.

Dev growled at how good she tasted. It’d been way too long since he’d last had a woman. Hell, he’d had so little interest in them lately that he’d been begun to fear he was broken. But there were no inhibitions or hesitations with her even though he should have them in spades.

He was sleeping with a Dark-Hunter. Who would have ever thought?

Unable to stand it anymore, he pulled back from her. He lifted her hips to brace her against the black marble-topped table in her foyer before he drove himself deep inside her body. She cried out his name.

Smiling, he thrust against her, seeking solace in her softness.

Sam balled her fist in Dev’s hair as she buried her face in his neck to inhale the warm masculine scent of his skin. There was so much power in him, so much skill in the way he filled her and touched her. It was like he knew every way to wring as much pleasure from every thrust as he could. And to be able to have him and not have his emotions overwhelm hers … it was incredible.

For the first time in centuries, she felt human.

“Harder, baby,” she purred in his ear, wanting him to love her with everything he had. This was the most incredible moment of her life, and when he finally came, she joined him.

Completely spent and sated, she leaned back onto the table while he was still inside her. Her breathing ragged, she kept her legs wrapped around his waist while he stared into her eyes and toyed with her belly button. “That was incredible.”

He flashed a devilish grin. “Glad I could oblige.” He ran his hand around her breast, traced the line of her bow-and-arrow mark, then gave it a light squeeze as he brushed her hardened nipple with his thumb.

She picked his hand up and lifted it to her lips so that she could nip his fingertips.

Dev shivered as her tongue darted between his fingers. He didn’t know why, but it brought out a tenderness inside him. Something protective and scary.

What the hell was that? It was like the animal in him wanted to claim her and kill anyone who came near her. Anyone who hurt her or even looked at her wrong. It was feral and powerful.

Right now all of his paranormal powers were charged to their fullest. He felt like his entire body was made of thrumming electricity that needed to ignite and explode. Sex for Were-Hunters always heightened and strengthened their psychic abilities, but this was different.

He’d never felt anything like it before.

She nibbled his knuckle. “Is what I heard about Were-Hunters true?”

“Yes, it’s true. We all have a third eye hidden in our shoulder blade.”

She laughed out loud. “Where did that come from?”

“The bowels of my imagination and my desire to hear your laughter. You have an amazing laugh and I have a feeling you don’t do that much.”

Sam swallowed hard. He was right. She very seldom found anything amusing. Life was hard and she was hit with the reality of that fact every time she went near another person who was suffering. Which some days seemed to be everyone she came into contact with.

But Dev was different. He saw beauty and humor even when he had to dig it out of crap.

Or demon snot.

That, too, made her smile. “I meant that you guys can go all night and have multiple orgasms.”

He pressed himself deeper inside her so that she could tell he was already hard again and ready for more. “Oh, yes, ma’am. Definite perk for my species.”

She tightened her thighs around him. “You telling me you’re at ready?”

He kissed her lightly on the lips. “Baby, I’m ready to go until neither of us can walk.”

She sucked her breath in sharply as he teased her nipple with his tongue. Oh, he felt so good. That tongue of his should be bronzed. “I intend to hold you to that.”

“Then let the marathon begin.…”

Over the next few hours, he more than made good on that promise. Sam’s head swam from exhaustion and endorphins.

After starting in the foyer and working their way through the downstairs and staircase, they’d finally made it to her bedroom where they lay entwined in her light yellow silk sheets.

She was so sated and sore, she didn’t want to move at least for a week. “I think you’ve killed me.”

Dev laughed as he peeled the wax shell away from a mini Babybel piece of cheese—she didn’t know why she’d bought them since she normally couldn’t eat cheese without having farm flashbacks, which weren’t bad, just annoying to listen to cows mooing while she ate. But it’d looked so good on the commercials and in the store that she hadn’t been able to resist it. He offered her the first bite.

She hesitated, but as she sank her teeth in, she realized that it, too, was safe. It amazed her that she could eat it. There was just something about Dev … if he touched it first, it was like he cleansed it and removed whatever funk would attack her.

“You could have sent me away at any time,” he said as he ate his own little Babybel.

“True. But I’m just as bad and horny as you are.”

“Nah, you’re not…” A wicked light came into his beautiful blue eyes. “You’re worse.”

Laughing, she choked on the cheese.

Dev quickly handed her his glass of wine so that she could clear her esophagus. “Sorry about that.”

Sam froze as the domesticity … the normality of this moment hit her hard. It was like the realization knocked her out of her body and she floated above them, looking down. Dev was lying on his back with the sheet pooled at his waist while she lay beside him on her stomach. They were relaxed and enjoying each other’s company—like two old friends. She hadn’t been this way with a man since the night Ioel died.

Grief racked her entire being.
How could I do this to him? How could I ever be so comfortable with another man after all he did for me? Gave me?
Ioel had been loyal to her from the first moment they’d met. He’d never even looked at another woman. More than that, he’d almost caused a war within his own clan when he’d refused to marry the woman he was betrothed to so that he could marry Sam instead.

And he’d died protecting her and their children.

Images of that night ripped through her, shredding what little sanity she had as she saw him die in front of her eyes. Even after all these centuries, she still wanted him back. Still missed everything about him. The way he smelled. Felt. Kissed …

Oh God, Ioel
 …

How could he be gone?

Dev frowned as he saw the terrified look in Sam’s dark eyes. It was like she was reliving a nightmare. “You okay, baby?” He reached out to touch her.

She pulled away instantly. “I need you to leave.”

“Yeah, but—”

“Now!” she barked.

Dev held his hands up in surrender. “Fine. But if you need me—”

“I won’t. Now get out.”

Her tone offended him to the core of his being and it took everything he had not to lash back at her. If it wasn’t for the fact that he knew something inside her was hurting, he would have. But he wouldn’t be that cold. He didn’t believe in kicking anyone when they were down.

If there was one thing in life he understood, it was concealed pain. That core part of the soul that hurt so bad all it knew to do was lash out against anyone unlucky enough to be there when it snapped out of control.

Guess I was nothing but a booty call after all.
He didn’t know why that thought cut him, but it did. He felt used. How weird.

Whatever. He wasn’t about to sit around here and beg. It wasn’t in him.

Sam watched as Dev vanished from her bed. Part of her wanted to call him back and apologize. The other part wished she could return to the night Ioel died and have stayed dead instead of making her bargain with Artemis.

Yes, it’d given her vengeance against the ones who’d killed those she loved. But her family was still dead. And eternity without them was brutal. Their pain had ended. Hers went on to infinity. There was no hope of it ever ending and that was what had made her a Dog of War. That rage and fury over the injustice of it all that screamed out for some semblance of solace when there was none to be had.

Trust no one. Not even blood.

In the end, everyone had a price and for the right amount, anyone would betray even those they loved most. It was harsh, but true.

Dev had been a nice distraction for a few hours. Now real work began and he wasn’t part of her world. Her life was her job. She didn’t want any kind of emotional attachment. She didn’t want to be normal or have anything like other people.

She was a Dog and she bled their spirit.

A fronte praecipitium a tergo lupi.

Age. Fac ut gaudeam.

Between a rock and a hard place.

Go ahead. Make my day.
Loosely translated, but the meaning was the same. When cornered, the Dogs fought until they died. No one touched them.

They were the ultimate killing machine. The ultimate protectors of the world. She would stand and she would fight.

Forever alone. To the death.

Ή Тάν Ή Eπί Тάς—either with her shield or upon it.

Those words resonated deep inside her as she went to shower. But as she let her mind wander, she saw a new enemy appear. One far deadlier than any they’d ever faced before.

And this particular one would be coming for
her.

Things were about to get bloody and she would be in the very center of it.

Chapter Four

“We have a problem.”

Sitting in his leather chair in front of the fire in his study, Stryker looked up from the book he was reading to find his newest High General and second-in-command standing in front of him. He didn’t like for his soldiers to materialize without warning. If she wasn’t his daughter and if she didn’t look so much like her mother whom he loved more than anything, he’d kill her for the intrusion.

Irritated at her, he turned the page slowly before he responded to her emotional outburst. “I don’t have a problem, Medea. Care to tell me yours?”

With an annoyed expression that twisted her beautiful features into a fierce scowl, Medea glared furiously at him—another trait she shared with her fiery mother. “The demon who escaped your party that Phrix blasted with your latest toy? He went from here to Sanctuary where he exploded all over one of the bears.”

He had to keep one corner of his mouth from quirking up in amusement. Too bad he’d missed seeing the bear doused with demon entrails. That had to have been entertaining. “And that concerns me how?”

“The Dark-Hunters now not only know for a fact, but
believe
we walk in daylight. The proverbial cat has escaped his bag and taken a dump all over your carefully laid plans … Father.”

Oh, now that was truly upsetting and it made him want to rip out someone’s heart. Lucky for Medea, he loved her enough to curb that impulse.

For the moment.

Stryker cursed at their lost advantage against their enemies. It was one they really couldn’t afford. “And you know this how?”

“I have a spy in the club who heard the bears and wolves talking about it. Congratulations, Father. We’re officially screwed.”

He ignored her sarcasm. “
You
have a spy in Sanctuary?” He was impressed by her drive and resourcefulness. That was one of many reasons he’d replaced Davyn with her. Davyn had yet to say a word about being replaced. Of course, he had no choice except to live with it.

If not, Stryker would kill him for daring to protest. Though to be honest, Davyn had seemed rather relieved to be removed from command. But that was neither here nor there.