The Dark-Hunters (707 page)

Before she could think to protest, Dev laid her down on the bed while he called out for someone named Carson. The moment her skin touched the sheets, other people’s emotions ripped through her. Someone had died on this bed … recently. She could feel his panic as he desperately sought to stay alive and the tears of his mate when he’d lost that fight.

Someone else had been badly wounded while another had been sick … one of the bear cubs. Dozens of images and emotions hit her and, being wounded, she had no defense against it. Her head felt like it was going to explode. She couldn’t breathe. Couldn’t think. Couldn’t escape.

Help me!

Dev winced as Sam started screaming. She curled into a fetal ball where she trembled and shook. It was like she was being tortured.

What should I do?

Carson flashed into the room beside him, then took a step back, his eyes wide as he took in her hysterical condition. Dev had never seen anything rattle the Native American shapeshifter before, but Carson was definitely wary over this. “What’s going on?”

Dev held his hands up. “She was wounded.… I-I don’t know why she’s screaming.” For once he hadn’t done anything to cause it.

Then he remembered her powers.…

Shit.

Dev picked her up and held her close, pulling her as far away from the bed as he could. “Shh, Sam,” he whispered in her ear in an attempt to calm her. “I’ve got you. I’m so sorry I forgot.”

Sam tensed as the emotions fell away so fast that it left her weak. One moment she’d been in absolute agony.

In the next …

Total peace. It was like being in a sensory dep cocoon where nothing intruded. There were no thoughts. No feelings. It was just her and her alone inside her head. Astonished, she looked up at Dev, who watched her with concern creasing his handsome brow.

“You okay?”

She nodded slowly, still waiting for the assault on her senses to return. But it didn’t. Whatever Dev had, it was still holding. Thank the gods. She laid her forehead against his right cheek and cupped his left one with her hand, so grateful for the silence that she could weep.

Carson approached her cautiously. His long black hair was pulled into a braid that fell down his back. Extremely handsome, his features were sharp and something about them reminded her of a bird. He reached his hand out to touch her.

Sam cringed and wrapped herself tightly around Dev. “Don’t.”

His features offended, Carson pulled up short. “Beg pardon?”

“You can’t touch me. It’ll open a conduit between us and I’ll see everything about you, and I do mean
everything.
Any instrument you touch me with and I’ll know things about everyone you’ve ever used it on. No offense, but I don’t want to be that intimate with you.”

Carson let out a low whistle as he held his hands up in surrender. “No offense taken. I don’t want to be that intimate with you either. No wonder you went crazy a second ago.”

He had no idea.

Dev scoffed as he shifted her weight. “Yeah, and I don’t want to know what she’s getting from me right now. I cringe at the mere thought.”

Sam met his gaze. “We both know what a perv you are.”

He actually blushed, which made her wonder what
was
on his mind.

Deciding to alleviate his embarrassment, she wrinkled her nose. “Relax, Grizzly Adams. I’m still getting nothing from you.”

Carson laughed. “Damn, Dev. Remi’s right. There
is
nothing going on inside your head.”

Dev cut him a vicious glare. “You better be glad I’m holding her, Birdman, else you and I’d be going ’round right about now.”

Carson ignored him as he returned his attention to Sam. “How are you feeling right now?”

“Aside from the gaping hole in my heart and the pain it’s causing, I’m strangely okay.”

Dev looked less than convinced. “So what do we do about this, Doc? You have to have something to fix it.”

Sam shook her head. “It won’t kill me. Take me home and I—”

“No,” Dev cut her off before she could finish her thought. “You can’t go home. The Daimons could come back through the hole they made or be there waiting for you and you’re in no shape to fight them. Why the hell did you invite them into your house to begin with? What were you thinking?”

His accusing tone seriously offended her. “You think I’m insane? I did not invite them in. I…”

They both fell silent as the reality of that thought went through them simultaneously. Daimons couldn’t enter a private residence without an invitation—that had been part of Apollo’s curse that was designed to protect humans from them. If a place was public domain, they could enter.

But her private residence should have been completely off-limits.…

“How did they get in?” she whispered, trying to think of something she might have done. But there was nothing. She’d been extremely careful about setting up her home and no one other than her had been in it.

Oh, crap.

Dev shifted his weight before he spoke again. “You really didn’t invite them in?”

She shook her head.

Carson stepped closer. “Maybe they came in as pizza delivery or something and you forgot.”

That was a ludicrous thought. How could she forget something so intrinsic to her sanity? “No one comes inside my house. No one. Not for any reason. I know better. If they touch something, even briefly, it contaminates it and I have to throw it out.” Another valuable lesson she’d learned from her one-night stand with Ethon.

Dev met her gaze. “Then how did they get in? You leave a window open with a note on it or something?”

She gave him an irritated smirk. “Yes, yes I did. I told them to come in and make themselves at home and while they were at it, to immobilize me and stab me straight through the heart ’cause I’m just that effing bored.”

Carson laughed. “Wow, someone who has your knack for sarcasm.”

Dev glared at him.

Sam sighed before she continued with only a tiny bit less venom. “I don’t know how they got in. I happened to have been asleep at the time they entered. Maybe whatever’s allowing them to walk in daylight is also allowing them to come into a house uninvited.”

Carson’s face paled as if the thought of that horrified him. “This can’t be good.”

“Oh, I don’t know.” Dev’s voice was saturated with his own sarcasm this time. “I think it’s great that they can come in and suck us dry. Remind me to leave my window unlatched tonight. Oh, wait. It don’t matter anymore. Day. Night. Whatever. Come steal my soul, you worthless bastards. I’m open like a twenty-four-hour blood-diner donor.”

Carson didn’t respond to that in the least as he kept his attention on Sam. “If they can come into any home anytime they please and we can’t stop them … we have skidded off the hell ramp into Shitsville.” He indicated Sam’s injury with a jerk of his chin. “We need to get that tended before you weaken any more.”

“No. I’ll be all right.” She had no intention of anyone touching her if she could help it.

Dev notwithstanding. And she definitely didn’t even want to think about Dev and the fact that he held her like she was petite—something she most certainly was not. Nor did she want to think about how feminine and dainty he made her feel.

Or how great it’d been to make love to him …

Forcing those thoughts away, she focused on the matter at hand. “What we have to do is tell Acheron they can get into homes and let the other Dark-Hunters know before they’re attacked like I was.”

Dev arched one brow. “I can’t do anything if I’m holding you. Not that I mind. I’m just saying.”

She looked down at the floor, wishing she could stand on her own two feet. “I need some of
my
shoes.”

Carson frowned. “You can’t even touch the ground?”

“No.”

“Dang,” Dev breathed. “Artemis got her jollies with you, didn’t she?”

“Yeah. I definitely didn’t get one of the better powers. Now could you please get my shoes for me?”

Carson stepped back to give them room. “I have a thought. If you’re immune to Dev … would his room work for you?”

Dev looked down at her. “Want to try?”

She wasn’t so sure about that. The last thing she needed as bad as she currently felt was another assault on her senses. But she couldn’t stay in his arms all day either and if she couldn’t go home …

“Let’s try it.”

Dev heard the reluctance in her voice. “Just because I’m a bear doesn’t mean I live in a cave, you know.”

She frowned up at him. “Pardon?”

“My room’s not gross. You don’t have to have that I-am-so-disgusted-by-the-mere-thought tone.”

“That wasn’t what I meant. And do we have to argue this while I’m in pain and bleeding?”

Dev flashed her into his room, then cringed as he realized he was a bear in a cave.
Why didn’t I make up my bed before I left?
And for that matter, pick up a few of the dozen car and motorcycle magazines on the floor. The bag of potato chips … and the three pairs of dirty socks. Good thing he didn’t wear underwear or there would probably be a pair or two on the floor to mortify him even more.

His mom had been right. He’d finally lived long enough to be embarrassed by his messy ways.

When he started to put her on the bed, she clamped around his neck so tight, it strangled him.

“Um, Sam … you’re killing me. I’m not immortal. I really do need to breathe.”

She loosened her hold. But only by a little bit. “Sorry. Reflexive habit.” She swallowed. “Let me try this before you set me down completely.”

“Try what?”

She reached out with one hand and gingerly touched his pillow.

Sam held her breath as she waited for the pain to start and his memories to surge through her.

But just like touching him, they didn’t. There was nothing in her head but her own thoughts.

She wanted to shout in relief. “Set me down.”

He hesitated. “You sure?”

“I think so.”

“All right.” Dev very carefully lowered her to the bed, then stepped back. He didn’t go far, though. He hovered near, just in case.

Sam didn’t move for several minutes as she waited for the images to come. Not until she was sure she was safe. At least in a manner of speaking. The warm masculine scent of Dev was all around her. That conjured images, but they were fantasies of what she wanted to do to him and had nothing to do with his memories or thoughts.

She leaned back on the bed, still free of his emotions. It was so amazing. “I think I’m good.”

Dev gave her a cocky grin. “Cool. Let me go get something to clean you up and—”

“No!” She rudely barked the word, then regretted the sharpness of her tone. “I mean … if anyone other than you has touched whatever you bring…”

He rubbed his jaw as he considered that. “Maybe it’s not just me. I’m an identical quad. You think whatever immunity I have spreads to my brothers too?”

Oh, now that would be nice. But it was too much to hope for. Still, it was worth a shot. “We could test it.”

Dev searched the room with his gaze until he spied Remi’s book he’d borrowed a week ago. By now the stench of his brother should be off it. He picked it up from his nightstand and handed it to her.

She barely touched it before she withdrew her hand and hissed as if it’d burned her. “Did you know Remi listens to the Indigo Girls when he’s alone in his room and that his favorite movie is
Just Like Heaven
?”

He burst out laughing at the idea of his surly brother watching such a chick flick. Gah, he’d rather have both eyes gouged out and force-fed to him than watch that. “Really?”

She nodded. “Yeah. He’d die if you knew that. And whatever weirdness you have seems to be yours alone.”

Good, ’cause he definitely didn’t want her picking up on his embarrassing habits. Though to be honest, they weren’t nearly as bad as Remi’s. And he liked the idea that what he had with her was special and wasn’t shared with other people. “We still need to tend that wound. If nothing else, it needs to be bandaged so that you’re not leaking blood all over my sheets.”

“No offense, I’d rather keep bleeding.”

He gave her a sharp look before he headed to his chest of drawers and pulled out a T-shirt. “No lip from you, Amazon. We’re going to stop that bleeding. I know it won’t kill you, but it does weaken you.”

Sam watched as he tore up his shirt to make a bandage for her. She didn’t know why, but it touched her that he’d do such a thing. It’d been a long time since anyone was so kind to her. He returned to the bed and carefully tended her wound. “You’re not bad for a nurse, Bear.”

Dev smiled. “I have my moments … few and far between, I will grant you, but on rare occasions I can almost pass for a human.” He paused as he had another thought. “If you’re this sensitive to everything, how do you wear clothes? I mean, they’d have the same property as a bandage, right?”

“Acheron conjures them for me.”

“Well, why didn’t you say that before I tore up my favorite shirt?”

Before she could ask him what he meant, he’d conjured a bowl of water and a washcloth.

Sam backed away as he reached for her with that cloth. “Test. Test!” she shouted when he didn’t get the hint. “Don’t stick that on me until we know for a fact that you have the same power Acheron does to keep cooties off that stuff.”

“Cooties? You did not go there. Now who’s being the big baby, huh?” He put one corner of the cloth on her arm. “There. You hallucinating yet?”

She took a minute to make sure before she answered. “No, and you’re lucky I’m not or I’d skin you and turn you into a rug.”

Smirking at her, he wrung out the excess water and gently cleaned her injury while she lay on his bed.

Sam didn’t speak as she let the heat of his skin soothe her. His hands were large and calloused, his knuckles scarred from centuries of fighting, yet at the same time his touch was gentle, soothing, as he pushed up her shirt, baring her completely to his gaze. She didn’t know why it made her feel vulnerable, but it did. He traced the cloth over her breasts, removing the blood before he bandaged her.

It seemed incongruous that a man so tough could be like this. That he’d been so tender earlier when he made love to her.