Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter #5)(23)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

"Talon got his soul back."

"No friggin’ way," Chris blurted out, sitting back on the floor in shock. "How’d he do that?"

Wulf’s face was impassive, but Cassandra had grown to know him well enough to see the tenseness of his features. He was happy for his friend, but she could tell he was also a bit envious. Not that she blamed him.

"He met an artist and they fell in love," Wulf said as he sat back down beside her and adjusted his play money. "On Mardi Gras, she got his soul back and freed him."

Chris made a disgusted noise at Wulf’s announcement. "Oh man, that sucks. Now he’s going to have to join Kyrian on the geriatric patrol."

"Chris!" Cassandra gasped with an inappropriate laugh. "That’s a horrible thing to say."

"Yeah but it’s true. I can’t imagine trading immortality for a woman. No offense, ladies, but something ain’t right with that."

Wulf kept his attention on the game board. "Talon didn’t trade his immortality. Unlike Kyrian, he got to keep his."

"Oh," Chris said. "That’s cool then. Good for him. Man, must be nice to have your cake and eat it, huh?"

Chris’s face flushed as he looked back and forth between them and realized what he’d just said. "I mean-"

"It’s okay, Chris," Wulf said charitably. But his eyes betrayed the hurt he felt.

Kat took her turn.

Cassandra reached over and laced her fingers with Wulf’s. "I didn’t know Dark-Hunters could go free."

"It’s rare," Wulf said, tightening his grip on her hand. "At least it was up until this last year. Talon and Kyrian make two we know."

"Three," Kat added as she moved her piece on the board.

"Three?" Wulf asked. He looked shocked.

Kat nodded. "Three Dark-Hunters have been freed. I heard the other handmaidens talking about it last night when I went to check in with Artemis."

"I thought you didn’t get a chance to talk to her," Cassandra said, remembering what Kat had told them after her return last night.

"Oh, I didn’t. She has the big Do Not Disturb sign on her temple door. There are definite times when no one but Apollo dares to barge into her domain. But I did hear the other Icons gossiping about it. Apparently, Artemis wasn’t real happy over the matter."

"Hmm…" Cassandra said as she thought about that.

"Who else was freed?" Wulf asked.

"Zarek of Moesia."

Wulf’s jaw went slack as Chris looked at Kat as if she’d sprouted a new head.

Chris snorted. "Now I know you’re full of it, Kat. Zarek is marked for death. There’s no way."

Kat looked over at him. "Yeah, well, he didn’t die and ended up going free instead. Artemis has threatened everyone’s head if she loses another Hunter."

Those words weren’t comforting to Cassandra. She could only imagine how much less so they were for Wulf.

"I never thought I’d see the day when they would set Zarek free," Wulf said under his breath. "He’s so psychotic they’ve had him under exile for almost as long as I’ve been a Dark-Hunter."

Cassandra took a deep breath at that. It didn’t seem right that someone like this Zarek could be free while Wulf was cursed the way he was.

"I wonder what Nick’ll be doing for a Dark-Hunter now that Talon’s free," Chris said as he grabbed the canister of Pringles from Kat. "I can’t imagine he’d ever serve Valerius."

"No doubt," Wulf said. He explained to Cassandra that Valerius was the grandson of the man who had ruined Kyrian’s family and crucified the Greek general. Since Nick was Kyrian’s former Squire and a personal friend, Nick would never serve the man whose family had done that to Kyrian.

Wulf, Kat, and Chris continued to discuss the Dark-Hunters, while Cassandra thought over what she’d learned tonight.

"Could I free you?" Cassandra asked Wulf.

A strange look darkened his eyes. "No. Unlike the other Dark-Hunters, I don’t have an out-clause."

"Why?"

Wulf let out a tired breath as he spun the wheel for his turn. "I was tricked into serving Artemis. Everyone else volunteered."

"Tricked how?"

"That was you?" Kat interrupted before Wulf could answer her question.

Cassandra turned toward Kat. "You know about it?"

"Well, yeah, there was a big brouhaha at the time it happened. Artemis is still steamed that Morginne beat her out. The goddess doesn’t like anyone getting the better of her and most especially not when it’s a mortal she owns."

"How did she do it?" Cassandra asked.

Kat took the Pringles back from Chris before he could polish them off. That boy liked to eat. They had yet to figure out how he managed to stay so skinny eating the way he did.

Grousing, he got up and headed to the kitchen, no doubt to get more snacks.

Kat set the canister down by her leg. "Morginne made a pact with the Norse god Loki. He used a thistle from the Norns that is said to be able to let someone swap places with someone else for a day."

Wulf frowned at her words. "Then how did they make it last?"

"Loki’s blood. The Norse gods have some weird rules and he wanted Morginne for himself, so he swapped her soul for yours in order to keep her. Artemis didn’t feel like going to war with him to get Morginne back. She figured you would be a better Hunter anyway."

Wulf’s eyes narrowed.

Kat gave him a sympathetic pat on the arm. "If it makes you feel any better, he’s still torturing Morginne for it and with him she has no out-clause either. Even if she did, Artemis would kill her. The only reason she hasn’t is because Loki still protects her."

"It doesn’t make me feel any better."

"No. I guess it wouldn’t."

Stryker paced the floor of the dimly lit banquet hall, wanting blood. For three weeks now they hadn’t been able to find a trace of Wulf or Cassandra.

They couldn’t even get to her father to help draw her out.

Damn it all.

He had his son Urian working on it now, but it seemed useless.

"How hard can it be to find where a Dark-Hunter lives?"

"They are crafty, kyrios," Zolan said, using the respectful Atlantean term for "lord."

Zolan was his third in command and one of Stryker’s most trusted soldiers. He’d been promoted through the Spathi ranks for his ability to murder ruthlessly and show no mercy to anyone. He’d reached the coveted "general" status more than ten thousand years ago.

Like Stryker, he chose to dye his hair black and wore the Spathi symbol of a yellow sun with a dragon in its center-the emblem of the Destroyer.

"If they weren’t," Zolan continued, "we’d be able to track and kill them through our servants while they slept."

Stryker turned on Zolan with a glare so malevolent that the Daimon shrank away from him. Only his son held enough courage to not flinch from his anger. Urian’s bravery knew no equal.

The demon Xedrix appeared before him in the hall. Unlike the Daimons, Xedrix didn’t bow or acknowledge Stryker’s elevated stature in their world. Most of the time, Xedrix treated him as more of a servant than a master. It was something that angered Stryker even more.

No doubt the demon thought his place in the Destroyer’s esteem was enough to protect him, but Stryker knew the truth. His mother loved him absolutely.

"Her Benevolent Grace wishes a word with you," the demon said in a low, even tone.

Benevolent Grace. Every time Stryker heard that title, he wanted to laugh, but knew better. His mother didn’t really have a sense of humor.

He pushed himself up from his throne and willed himself into her private chambers.

His mother stood over a pool where water flowed backward up a glittering pipe from this world into the human realm. There was a fine rainbow mist and vapors around the water. It was here the goddess could scry so that she knew what was happening on earth.

"She is pregnant," the goddess announced without turning around.

Stryker knew the "she" that the goddess referred to was Cassandra.

"How can that be?"

The goddess lifted her hands and drew a circle in the air. Water from the pool formed like a crystal ball. Even though nothing but air held it, it swirled about until it held an image of the woman they both wanted dead. There was nothing in the ball to give him any indication of how to find Cassandra.

Apollymi dragged one fingernail through the image, causing it to shake and distort. "Artemis is interfering with us."

"There is still time to kill both mother and child."

She smiled at that. "Yes, there is." She opened her hands and the water arced from the ball, back into her pool. "Now is the time to strike. The Elekti is being held by Artemis. He can’t stop you. He won’t even know when you attack."

Stryker flinched at the mention of the Elekti. Like the Abadonna, Stryker was forbidden to attack him.

He hated restrictions.

"We don’t know where to attack," he told his mother. "We’ve been searching-"

"Take one of the ceredons. My pets can find them."

"I thought they were forbidden to leave this realm."

A cruel half-smile curved his mother’s lips. "Artemis broke the rules; so shall I. Now go, m’gios, and do me proud."

Stryker nodded and turned about sharply. He took three steps before the Destroyer’s voice made him pause.

"Remember, Strykerius, kill the heiress before the Elekti returns. You are not to engage him. Ever."

He stopped but didn’t look back. "Why have I always been forbidden to touch him?"

"Ours is not to question why. Ours is but to live or to die."

He ground his teeth as she gave him the distorted human quote.

When she spoke again, the coldness in her tone only angered him more. "The answer to that is how much do you value your life, Strykerius? I have kept you close all these centuries and I have no desire to see you dead."

"The Elekti can’t kill me. I am a god."

"And greater gods than you have fallen. Many of them to my wrath. Heed my words, boy. Heed them well."

Stryker continued on his way, pausing only long enough to unleash Kyklonas, whose name meant "tornado." Once unleashed, the ceredon was a deadly menace. Much like Stryker.

It was close to midnight when Wulf’s phone rang again. Answering it, he heard a gruff Greek accent that he didn’t recognize.

"This is Spawn, Viking. You rang a few hundred times while I was gone?"

Wulf ignored the man’s aggravated tone. "Where have you been?"

Spawn’s response came out as a low growling challenge. "Since when the hell do I answer to you? I don’t even know you, hence it’s none of your damned business."

Well, someone hadn’t taken his personality pills for the night. "Look, I don’t personally have a beef with you, Daimon-"

"I’m an Apollite, Viking. Big difference."

Yeah, right. "Sorry. Didn’t mean to offend."

"To quote you, Viking, yeah, right."

Holy shit!

"And yes, I heard that too."

Wulf tamped down his anger and blanked out his mind. The last thing he wanted was to betray himself to a stranger who could be every bit as lethal as the Daimons after Cassandra. "If you know so much, then you should know why I was calling."

Silence answered him.

After a brief pause, Spawn laughed deep in his throat.

"You can’t blank your thoughts from me, Wulf. There’s no way to shield yourself from me so long as I have direct contact with you, such as the phone you’re holding. But don’t worry. I’m not your problem. I’m just surprised Apollo really does have an heiress to protect. Congratulations on the baby."

"Thanks," Wulf said less than sincerely.

"And to answer your question, I don’t know."

"Know what?"

"If halflings live past twenty-seven. But then anything is possible. I say in a few months we should pop us some Orville Redenbacher’s, then sit back and enjoy the show."

It enraged him that the Apollite would make light of something so tragic. "Shut up, Spawn. I don’t find you funny at all."

"More’s the pity then. I happen to think I’m quite the comedian."

Wulf wanted nothing more than to tear the Apollite Dark-Hunter apart.

"Then it’s a good thing I live in Alaska where you can’t reach me, huh?"

"How can you do that?"

"I’m a telepath. I know your thoughts even before you do."

"Then why are you being such an ass**le?"

"Because I’m a telepath, not an empath. I couldn’t care less how you feel, only what you think. But since I also had a message from Ash telling me to help you two, I suppose I will."

"Mighty big of you," Wulf said sarcastically.

"Yes, it is, especially given how much I detest most of you. But since Cassandra is one of my people, I’ll try and play nice. If I were you, I’d go find her an Apollite midwife to help birth your son."

Wulf’s heart clenched at his words. "It’s a boy?"

"Not quite yet, but he will be when he forms a little more."

Wulf smiled at the thought, though to be honest, a small part of him wished for a daughter. One who could remind him of her mother once Cassandra was gone.