Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter #5)(16)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

There was very little blood on her shirt. "It looks like it’s closed up already."

"I know," she said quietly. There was a coagulating gel in Apollite saliva, which was why they had to continually suck for blood once they opened a wound. Otherwise the wound would close before they had a chance to eat. The gel they secreted could also blind humans if an Apollite spat in their eyes.

She was just grateful that the bite didn’t unite her with Stryker in any way. Only Were-Hunters had that ability.

Wulf stepped back from her and led her into his house. He wasn’t sure why he had been given the task of seeing to her safety, but until Acheron told him otherwise, he would do his duty. Feelings be damned.

As he opened the door, his cell phone rang.

Wulf answered it to find Corbin on the other end. "Hey, did you find Kat?"

"Yeah," Corbin said. "She told me she only went to take out the garbage and came back to find Cassandra gone."

He relayed the information to Cassandra, who looked confused by it.

"What do you want me to do with Kat?" he asked Cassandra.

"Can she come here?"

Yeah. When the equator freezes. He wasn’t about to let Kat near Chris or his home until he knew more about her and her loyalties. "Hey, Bin, can she stay with you?"

Cassandra narrowed her green eyes at him with malice. "That’s not what I said."

He held his hand up to silence her. "Yeah, okay. I’ll call you once we get settled." He hung up.

Cassandra bristled at his high-handed manner. "I don’t like being shushed."

"Look," he said, clipping his phone back on his belt. "Until I know more about your friend, I’m not inviting her into my home, where Christopher lives. I don’t mind wagering with my life, but I’ll be damned again before I wager with his. Got it?"

Cassandra hesitated as she remembered what he had told her in their dreams about Chris and how much Chris meant to him. "I’m sorry. I didn’t think about that. So he lives here too?"

He nodded as he turned on a light in the back hallway. To her right was a staircase and on the left was a small bathroom. Farther down the hallway was the kitchen. Large and airy, it was scrupulously clean and very modern in design.

Wulf hung his keys on a small rack by the stove. "Make yourself at home. There’s beer, wine, milk, juice, and soda in the fridge."

He showed her where the glasses and plates were kept above the dishwasher.

They left the kitchen and he turned the lights off before leading her into an open, inviting living room. There were two black leather sofas, a matching armchair, and an ornate silver box of medieval design for a coffee table. One wall held an entertainment center, complete with large-screen TV, stereo, DVD and VHS players, along with every game system known to mankind.

She cocked her head at the sight as she imagined the large, cumbersome Viking warrior playing games. It seemed completely out of character for him and his overly serious attitude. "You play?"

"Sometimes," he said, his voice low. "Chris plays mostly. I prefer to veg in front of my computer."

She refrained from laughing at the image she had of that. Wulf was far too intense to simply "veg."

Wulf shrugged off his coat and draped it over his couch. Cassandra heard someone coming down the hallway toward the living room.

"Hey, Big Guy, did you see…" Chris’s voice trailed off as he entered the room wearing navy flannel pajama bottoms and a white T-shirt.

His mouth fell open.

"Hi, Chris," Cassandra said.

Chris didn’t speak for several minutes while he looked back and forth between them.

When he finally spoke, his voice was a cross between aggravation and anger. "No, no, no. This ain’t right. I finally find a woman who’ll actually let me into her place and you bring her home for you?"

Chris’s face went pale as if he had another thought. "Oh, please tell me you brought her home for you and not for me. You didn’t pimp me out again, Wulf, did you? I swear I’ll stake you in your sleep if you did."

"Excuse me," Cassandra said, interrupting Chris’s tirade, which appeared to amuse Wulf. "I happen to be standing right here. Just what kind of woman do you think I am?"

"A very nice one," Chris said, instantly redeeming himself, "but Wulf is extremely overbearing and tends to bully people into doing what he wants them to."

Wulf snorted at that. "Then why can’t I bully you into procreating?"

"See!" Chris said, raising his hand in triumph. "I’m the only human in history to have a Viking yenta of his very own. God, how I wish my father had been a fertile man."

Cassandra laughed at the image Chris’s words conjured in her mind. "Viking yenta, huh?"

Chris let out a disgusted breath. "You’ve no idea…" He paused and then frowned at the two of them. "And why is she here, Wulf?"

"I’m protecting her."

"From?"

"Daimons."

"Big bad ones," Cassandra added.

Chris took that better than she would have imagined. "She knows about us?"

Wulf nodded. "She knows pretty much everything."

"Is that why you were asking about Dark-Hunter.com?" Chris asked Cassandra.

"Yes. I wanted to find Wulf."

Chris was immediately suspicious.

"It’s okay, Chris," Wulf explained. "She’ll be staying with us a while. You don’t have to hide anything from her."

"You swear?"

"Yes."

Chris looked very pleased by that. "So you guys fought some Daimons, huh? Wish I could. Wulf goes nuts if I even pick up a butter knife."

Cassandra laughed.

"Really," Chris said sincerely. "He’s worse than a mother hen. So how many Daimons did you two kill?"

"None," Wulf muttered. "These were a lot stronger than the average soul-sucker."

"Well, that ought to make you happy," Chris said to Wulf. "You finally have someone who can fight you until you’re bloody and blue from it." He turned back toward Cassandra. "Has Wulf explained his little problem to you?"

Cassandra’s eyes widened as she tried to think of what "little" problem Wulf could possible have.

Unconsciously, her gaze dropped to his groin.

"Hey!" Wulf snapped. "That has never been my problem. That’s his problem."

"Bullshit!" Chris snapped. "I haven’t got any problems there either. My only problem is you yenting at me all the time to go get laid."

Oh, Cassandra really didn’t want to go where this conversation was leading. It was way too much information about both men.

"Well, then, what problem were you talking about?" she asked Chris.

"The fact that if you walk out of the room, by the time you get to the end of the hallway, you won’t remember him."

"Oh," she said in understanding. "That."

"Yeah, that."

"It’s not a problem," Wulf said as he crossed his arms over his chest. "She remembers me."

"Ah, man," Chris said, his face contorted by disgust. "I’ve been making moves on a relative? That’s so sick."

Wulf rolled his eyes. "She’s not related to us."

Chris looked relieved for about half a second, then he looked ill again. "Well, then, that sucks even more. I finally find a woman who doesn’t think I’m a total loser and she’s here for you? What is wrong with this picture?"

Chris paused. The light came back to his face as if he’d had an even better thought. "Oh, wait, what am I saying? If she remembers you, I’m off the hook! Wahoo!" Chris started dancing around the couch.

Cassandra stared at his chaotic, off-rhythm movements. Wulf really needed to let the boy out more.

"Don’t get too excited, Christopher," Wulf said, dodging him as he came around the couch and tried to include Wulf in the dance. "She happens to be an Apollite."

Chris froze, then settled down. "She can’t be, I’ve seen her in the daylight and she has no fangs."

"I’m half-Apollite."

Chris stepped behind Wulf as if suddenly afraid she might start feeding on him. "So what are you going to do with her?"

"She’s my house guest for a while. You, on the other hand, need to get your bags packed." Wulf pushed him toward the hallway, but Chris refused to budge. "I’m calling the Council to evacuate you."

"Why?"

"Because we have a nasty Daimon after her who has some unusual powers. I don’t want you caught in the cross fire."

Chris gave him a droll look. "I’m not a baby, Wulf. You don’t have to hide me at the first sign of something not boring."

In spite of Chris’s words, Wulf held the look of a patient parent dealing with a toddler. "I’m not taking a chance with your life, so go pack."

Chris let out a disgusted growl. "I curse the day Morginne gave you the soul of an old woman and made you worse than any mother could ever be."

"Christopher Lars Eriksson, move!" Wulf barked in a tone so commanding that Cassandra actually jumped.

Chris just gave him a bored, blank stare. Sighing heavily, he turned and walked back down the hallway he’d emerged from.

"I swear," Wulf growled in a tone so low she barely heard him, "there are times when I could choke the life out of him."

"Well, you do talk to him like he’s four."

Wulf turned on her with a glare so menacing that she actually stepped back from his wrath. "That is none of your business."

Cassandra held her hands up and returned his glare with one of her own. "Excuse me, Mr. Bad-Ass, but you will take another tone to me. I’m not your bitch to heel when you snap. I don’t have to stay here."

"Yes you do."

She gave him an arch look. "I don’t think so, and unless you take that anger out of your voice when you speak to me, all you’re going to see is my heinie as it goes out that door." She pointed to the front door.

The smile he gave her was wicked and cold. "Have you ever tried to run from a Viking? There’s a damned good reason why the western Europeans wet themselves whenever our names were mentioned."

His words made her shiver. "You wouldn’t dare."

"Feel free to try me."

Cassandra swallowed. Maybe she shouldn’t be so cocksure.

Oh, screw that. If he wanted a fight, she was more than ready. A woman who had spent her life fighting Daimons was more than apt to take on any Dark-Hunter.

"Let me remind you of this, Mr. Viking-Warrior-Barbarian-Hoodlum, while your ancestors were scrounging for fire and food, mine were commanding the elements and building an empire that not even the modern world can touch. So don’t you dare threaten me with what you’re capable of. I’m not about to take that from you or anyone else. Got that?"

To her surprise he laughed at her words and moved to stand in front of her. His eyes were dark, dangerous, and they made her hot in spite of how angry she was at him. The heat of his body incinerated hers.

She was even more breathless now.

More aware of him and that raw, unsettling masculinity that made every feminine part of her pant.

He placed his hand on her cheek. One corner of his mouth was turned up in amusement. The look of him watching her was totally devastating. "In my day, you would have been worth more than your weight in gold."

Then he did the most unexpected thing of all, he dipped his head down and kissed her.

Cassandra moaned at the feral taste of him. His breath mixed with hers as he plundered her mouth, making her hot and throbbing for him.

But then, that wasn’t hard. Not when he was so scrumptiously perfect. So manly and fierce.

Her entire body sizzled at his nearness. At the taste of his tongue dancing with hers as he growled low in his throat.

He pulled her closer to him. So close that she could feel the bulge of his c**k against her hip. He was hard already and she knew firsthand just how capable a lover he was. That knowledge made her even more breathless. Needy. He ran his hands down her back until he could cup her bottom and press her even closer to him.

Her anger melted under the desire she felt for this man.

"You taste even sweeter now than before," he breathed against her lips.

She couldn’t speak. It was true. This was far more intense. Far more scintillating than anything in her dreams. All she wanted to do was strip his clothes off, throw him on the ground, and ride him until they both were sweaty and sated.

Every part of her cried out for her to make that fantasy real.

Wulf couldn’t breathe as he felt her womanly curves against him and in his hands.

He wanted her madly. Desperately. Worse, he had taken her enough times in their dreams to know exactly how passionate she was.

She’s an Apollite. The highest form of forbidden fruit.

The voice of sanity rushed through his mind.

He didn’t want to listen.

But he had no choice.

Releasing her, he forced himself to step away from her and the need she created inside him.

To his surprise, she didn’t let him go. She pulled him back to her lips and ravished his mouth with hers. He closed his eyes and hissed in pleasure as she permeated every sense he possessed. Her scent of roses and powder made him drunk.