Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter #5)(15)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

It had been a bonus that Kat had said she was a martial arts expert with a knack for using explosives. Cassandra had explained to her that she was looking for a new bodyguard to replace her old one and Kat had signed on with her immediately.

"I just love to put a hurt on evil things," Kat had confessed.

Wulf sighed. "I don’t know either. Okay. You go look for Kat and I’ll take Cassandra home with me. Let me know what you find. Thanks." He hung up, then returned his phone to his belt.

"What did she say?"

He didn’t answer her question. Not exactly anyway. "She said Agrotera is one of the Greek names for Artemis. It means ‘strength’ or ‘wild hunter.’ Did you know that?"

"Sort of." A drop of hope welled inside her. If that were true, maybe the gods hadn’t abandoned her family after all. Maybe there was some hope for her and for her future. "Do you two think Artemis sent Kat to protect me?"

His grip tightened on the steering wheel. "I don’t know what to think at this point. I was told by Artemis’s mouth-piece that you are the key to the end of the world and that I had to protect you and-"

"What do you mean, ‘key to the end of the world’?" she asked, interrupting him.

He looked as surprised as she felt. "You mean you don’t know that?"

Okay, so it was obvious Dark-Hunters could get high and delusional.

"No. In fact, I’m thinking right now that one, if not both of us, needs to put down the crack pipe and start this night over."

Wulf gave a light laugh at her comment. "If it wasn’t for the fact I can’t get high, I might agree with that."

Cassandra’s mind raced. Was there any truth to what he had just said? "Well, if you’re right and I’m key to the world’s destruction, then if I were you I’d be making out a will."

"Why?"

"Because in less than eight months, I turn twenty-seven."

Wulf heard the catch in her voice as she spoke those words and he more than understood the doom she was facing. "You said you were only half-Apollite."

"Yeah, but I’ve never known a half-Apollite to survive the curse, have you?"

He shook his head. "Only the Were-Hunters seem immune to the Apollite curse."

Cassandra sat silently, watching the traffic out the window while she contemplated what had happened tonight.

"Wait," she said as she remembered the Daimons coming into her apartment. "How did that guy get into my house? I thought Daimons were forbidden to enter your home without an invitation."

Wulf’s answer was far from comforting. "Loophole."

"Excuse me?" she asked, arching both brows. "What do you mean, ‘loophole’?"

He turned off the expressway onto an exit ramp. "Got to love those gods. The same loophole that allows Daimons to enter malls and public areas allows them to enter condos and apartments."

"How so?"

"Malls, apartments, and such are owned by one entity. When that person or company allows their building to openly serve for multiple groups of people, they essentially put out a cosmic welcome mat to everything, including Daimons."

Oh, this was un-friggin-believable! She blinked in shock. "Now you tell me this? Why didn’t someone tell me this before? I thought I was safe all this time."

"Your bodyguard should have known better. If she really is tied to Artemis."

"Then maybe she’s not. You know, she could just be a normal person."

"Yeah, one who holds her arms out and scares off Spathi Daimons?"

He had a point there. Sort of. "She said she didn’t know why they ran."

"And later she left you there alone to face them…"

Cassandra rubbed her hand over her eyes as she caught his implication. Could Kat be working with the Daimons? Did Artemis want her dead or alive?

"Oh, God, I can’t trust anyone, can I?" Cassandra breathed tiredly.

"Welcome to the real world, duchess. The only person any of us can trust is ourselves."

She didn’t want to believe that, but after tonight, it seemed to be the only real truth she had.

Could Kat really be a traitor after all they had been through together?

"Lovely, just lovely," she breathed. "Tell me something, can I go back to bed and have this entire day be a do-over?"

He let out a short laugh. "Sorry, no do-overs."

She gave him a peeved glare. "Boy, you’re just all chock-full of comfort, aren’t you?"

He didn’t respond.

Cassandra watched the oncoming cars as she tried to think of what she should do. Where she should even begin to try to understand what had happened tonight.

Wulf drove them out of the city to a massive estate outside of Minnetonka. All the homes in the area were owned by some of the richest people in the country.

Wulf turned into a driveway that was so long, she couldn’t see where it ended. Of course the five-foot-high snowbanks didn’t help with that.

He pressed a tiny button in his visor.

The iron gates opened wide.

Cassandra let out a slow, appreciative breath as they proceeded down the driveway and she caught sight of his "house." "Palace" would be much more apropos, and given the fact that her father’s house wasn’t exactly small potatoes, that said a lot.

It looked very turn-of-the-century with large Greek columns and gardens that still appeared sculpted even in the deep winter snow and frost.

He drove them up the winding driveway to a five-car garage that was designed to look like a stable. Inside, it held Chris’s Hummer (it was hard to miss his vanity plate, VIKING), two vintage Harleys, a sleek Ferrari, and one really cool Excalibur. The garage was so clean inside that it reminded her of a showroom. Everything from the ornate crown moldings to the marble floor said "wealthy beyond your wildest dreams."

She arched a brow at that. "You’ve come a long way from your little stone cottage by the fjord. You must have decided riches weren’t so bad after all."

Parking the SUV, Wulf turned to face her with a scowl. "You remember that?"

She ran her gaze from the top of his gorgeous head to the toe of his black biker boots. Even though she was still angry at him, she couldn’t suppress the warm tingle of sexual awareness she felt at being so close to such a hot man. He really was scrumptious, for an ass.

And speaking of that, he had a mighty fine one of those too.

"I remember all the dreams about us."

His scowl darkened. "Then you really were screwing with my head."

"Hardly!" she snapped, offended by his tone and the accusation. "I didn’t have anything to do with it. For all I know, it was you messing with me."

Wulf got out of the truck and slammed the door.

Cassandra followed suit.

"D’Aria!" he shouted up at the ceiling. "Get your butt down here. Now!"

Cassandra was stunned when a light blue mist shimmered beside Wulf and a beautiful young woman appeared. With jet-black hair and pale blue eyes, she looked almost like an angel.

Her face emotionless, D’Aria stared eye to eye with him. "I have been told that that was rude, Wulf. If I had feelings, you would have hurt them."

"I’m sorry," he said contritely. "I didn’t mean to be curt, but I needed to ask you something about my dreams."

D’Aria looked from him to Cassandra and it was then Cassandra understood. This was one of the Dream-Hunters she had read about on the Dream-Hunter.com Web site. All of the Dream-Hunters possessed black hair and pale eyes. These Greek gods of sleep had once been cursed by Zeus so that none of them were capable of feeling emotions.

They really were beautiful. Ethereal. And even though D’Aria was solid, there was something about her that was also shimmery. Something that let you know she wasn’t as real as everything else in the room.

Cassandra felt a sudden, almost childish impulse to reach out and touch the dream goddess to see if D’Aria was made of flesh or something else.

"You two met in your dreams?" D’Aria asked Wulf.

Wulf nodded. "Was it real?"

D’Aria cocked her head slightly as she thought about that. Her pale eyes held a faraway, fragile look to them. "If you both recall it, then yes." Her gaze sharpened as she looked up at Wulf. "But it wasn’t from any of us. Since you are under my care, none of the other Oneroi would have interfered with your dreams without telling me."

"Are you sure?" he asked emphatically.

"Yes. It’s the one code we are all careful to follow. When a Dark-Hunter is given over to one of us to care for, we never trespass without a direct invitation."

That all too familiar frown creased Wulf’s brow. Cassandra was beginning to wonder if the "real" Wulf was capable of any other expression than that sinister, intense look. "Since I’m under your care, how is it that you didn’t know about the dreams I’ve had with her?"

D’Aria shrugged in a gesture that looked rather awkward for her. It was obvious the shrug was a practiced expression. "You didn’t summon me to your dreams, nor were you hurt or in need of my healing. I don’t spy on your unconscious mind without cause, Wulf. Dreams are private matters and only the evil Skoti go where they’re not invited."

D’Aria turned to look at her. She held her hand out. "You may touch me, Cassandra."

"How do you know my name?"

"She knows all about you," Wulf said. "Dream-Hunters can see right through us."

Cassandra tentatively touched D’Aria’s hand. It was soft and warm. Human. Yet there was a strange electrical field around it that was similar to static electricity, only different. It was oddly soothing.

"We are not so different in this realm," D’Aria said quietly.

Cassandra withdrew her hand. "But you have no emotions?"

"At times we can, if we have been recently inside a human’s dream. It’s possible to continue to syphon emotions for a brief time."

"Skoti can syphon for longer periods," Wulf added. "They’re similar to Daimons that way. Instead of feeding off your soul, the Skoti feed off your emotions."

"Energy vampires," Cassandra said.

D’Aria nodded.

Cassandra had read about the Dream-Hunters extensively. Unlike the Dark-Hunters, there was a ton of ancient literature that survived about the Oneroi. The gods of sleep appeared throughout Greek literature, but there was seldom a mention of the evil Skoti who preyed on people while they slept.

All Cassandra knew about them was that they were highly feared in ancient civilizations. So much so that many ancient humans were afraid to even mention the Skoti by name lest they incur a midnight visit from the sleep demons.

"Would Artemis have done this to us?" Wulf asked D’Aria.

"Why would she?" D’Aria countered.

Wulf shifted slightly. "Artemis seems to be protecting the princess. Could she have sent her into my dreams for that purpose?"

"I suppose most anything is possible."

Cassandra seized on D’Aria’s words with zeal and a rare glimmer of hope. "Is it possible that I don’t have to die on my next birthday?"

D’Aria’s emotionless gaze held no more promise than her words. "If you are asking me for prophecy, child, that I cannot give you. The future is something each of us must meet on his or her own. What I say now may or may not be truth."

"But do all half-Apollites have to die at twenty-seven?" Cassandra asked again, desperate for an answer.

"That, too, is an Oracle question."

Cassandra closed her eyes in frustration. All she wanted was some hope. A little guidance.

One more year of life.

Something. But apparently she was asking too much.

"Thank you, D’Aria," Wulf said, his voice deep and strong.

The Dream-Hunter inclined her head to them, then vanished. There was no trace of her. No sign.

Cassandra looked around the elegant garage of a man who had lived for untold centuries. Then she looked at the small signet ring she wore on her right hand that her mother had given her just days before she died. A ring that had been handed down through her family since their first ancestor had prematurely crumbled to dust.

All of a sudden, Cassandra burst out laughing.

Wulf appeared bemused by her humor. "Are you all right?"

"No," she said, trying to sober. "I think I snapped a wheel at some point tonight. Or at the very least stepped over into the realm of Rod Serling’s Twilight Zone."

His frown deepened. "How do you mean?"

"Well, let’s see…" She looked at her gold Harry Winston watch. "It’s only eleven o’clock and tonight I have gone to a club that seems to be owned by shape-shifting panthers, where a group of vampire hit men and one possible god attacked me. Went home only to be attacked again by said hit men, god, and then a dragon. Had a Dark-Hunter save me. My bodyguard may or may not be in the service of a goddess and now I just met a sleep spirit. Hell of a day, huh?"

For the first time since meeting him in the flesh, she saw a hint of a smile on Wulf’s roguishly handsome face. "Just a typical day in the life from where I’m standing," he said.

He moved closer to her and examined her neck where Stryker had bitten her. His fingers were warm against her skin. Soothing and gentle. The scent of him filled her head and made her wish for a moment where they could go back and just be friends again.