Seize the Night (Dark-Hunter #7)(30)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

"Val?" she prompted.

She wasn’t going to let him escape. Taking a deep breath, he paused his hand over her belly ring. "I killed my brothers."

Tabitha traced the line of his jaw as she felt his pain and guilt.

"They were drinking and wenching with their slaves when I arrived. I will never forget the look of terror on their faces when they saw me and realized what I was there for. I should have let them go, but I couldn’t." He moved away from her with eyes that were filled with torment and pain. "What kind of man kills his own brothers?"

Tabitha sat up and caught his arm as he left the bed. "They killed you first."

"And as the old saying goes, two wrongs don’t make a right. We were family and I cut them down like they were enemy strangers." He raked his hand through his hair. "I even killed my own father."

"No," she said earnestly, tightening the grip on his arm. "Zarek killed your father, not you."

He frowned at her. "How do you know that?"

"Ash told me."

His face turned to stone as he glared at her. "And did he tell you how Zarek killed him? He ran my father through with my sword. A sword I handed to him after my father begged for me to save him."

She felt his ache and wanted to give him peace. "No offense, but your father was a bastard who deserved to be butchered."

"No," he said, shaking his head. "No one deserves what happened to him. He was my father and I betrayed him. What I did was wrong. So wrong. It was just like the night when…"

Tabitha couldn’t breathe as a terrible wave of guilt sliced through her. She sat up on the bed. "What, baby? What night?"

Valerius clenched his fists as he tried to block out the memories of his childhood. It was impossible.

Over and over he saw the violence, heard the screams that echoed across the centuries even now.

He had never been able to block it out.

Before he realized what he was doing, he told her what he had never told another single soul. "I was five when Kyrian died and I was there the night he came for his vengeance against my grandfather. That was how I knew what Zarek was the night he came for my father. How I knew to call out Artemis when I died. I…"

He shook his head to clear it. But it was hard. The images of the past were still crystal clear and haunting. "My grandfather had kept me up late that night to tell me how glorious it was to triumph over a worthy adversary even if it’s by treachery. I was in the hall with him when we heard the horses outside reacting to something. You could feel that something evil was there. It clung to the air. Then we heard the guards shouting and dying. My grandfather pushed me into a cabinet to hide while he grabbed his sword."

Valerius winced. "There was a crack in the wood and I could see straight into the hall. I saw Kyrian come in. He was completely wild as he and my grandfather fought. My grandfather was no match for his fury. But Kyrian wasn’t content to just kill him. He butchered him. Piece by piece. Inch by inch, until there was nothing left that resembled a human being at all. I kept my ears covered and choked on my sobs. I wanted to be sick, but I was terrified that Kyrian would hear me and butcher me, too.

"So I sat there like a coward in the darkness until there was complete silence in the hall. I looked and saw nothing but the red-stained floor and walls."

He raked his hand over his eyes as if to blot out the images that still tormented him. "I crept from the cabinet and remember staring at the way my grandfather’s blood coated my sandals. And then I screamed until I lost my voice from the terror of it. For years, I kept thinking that if I had run for help maybe I could have saved him. That if I’d left the cabinet, I could have done something."

"You were just a child."

He refused her comfort. He knew better. "I wasn’t a child when I walked away and left my father to die."

Valerius cupped her cheek in his hand. She was so beautiful. Courageous.

Unlike him, she had morals and kindness.

He had no right to touch something so precious, so priceless. "I am not a decent man, Tabitha. I have destroyed everyone I’ve ever touched and you… you are goodness. You have to leave while you can. Please. You can’t stay with me. I’ll destroy you, too. I know I will."

"Valerius," she said, taking his hand into hers. She felt his aching need to touch her. Felt his desire to keep her safe and protect her.

Pulling him into her arms, she held him quietly in the darkness. "You are a good man, Valerius Magnus. You are honor and decency, and I’ll hurt anyone who says otherwise… even you."

Valerius closed his eyes as he held her. He cupped her head in his hand and savored her warmth and kindness.

And in that moment, he realized something that terrified him more than anything else.

He was falling in love with Tabitha Devereaux. Brazen temptress, vampire slayer, complete uncouth lunatic woman that she was, he loved her.

And there was no way he could have her. None.

What was he going to do?

How could he give up the only thing he’d ever had that was worth anything? Yet it was because he loved her that he understood why he had to do this.

She belonged with her family and he belonged to Artemis.

He’d sworn himself to the goddess’s service centuries ago. The only way for a Dark-Hunter to be free of that oath was for someone to love them enough to survive Artemis’s test.

Amanda had loved Kyrian enough. Sunshine had loved Talon, and Astrid had loved Zarek.

Tabitha was certainly strong enough to survive the test. But could a woman like her ever love someone like him enough to free him?

Even as the thought went through his head, he realized just how stupid he was.

Artemis wasn’t about to let another Dark-Hunter go free, and even if she was, Tabitha would never be his. He refused to ever come between her and her family.

He might need her, but in the end, she needed them a lot more. He was used to surviving alone. She wasn’t.

He wasn’t cruel enough to ask her to choose the impossible when the impossible would cost her everything she held dear.

Chapter 13

The next two weeks were truly hell on earth after dark. It seemed as if the Daimons lived only to play with and torment them.

No one was safe. The city had even tried to implement a curfew at Acheron’s behest, but since New Orleans was a twenty-four-hour party town, they hadn’t been able to enforce it.

The body count was unlike anything Tabitha had ever heard of outside of a Hollywood Movie, and the Squire’s Council and Acheron were having a hard time hiding all the deaths from the police and news agencies. But what scared her most was the fact that what few Daimons they caught were damn near impossible to kill.

Every night she came back to Valerius’s house in pain from the abuse to her body. She knew he didn’t want her to go out with him to patrol and yet he never said anything.

Valerius merely spent an hour or two after they returned home massaging Icy Hot into her pains and bandaging up her wounds.

It was unfair that he never had aches and pains, and what few scuffs his body suffered were always gone after a few hours.

Tabitha now lay nak*d in the shelter of his arms. He was asleep and yet he held her firmly tucked in beside him as if he were afraid of losing her.

That warmed her more than anything else ever had. She should have gotten up hours ago. It was already after four in the afternoon, but since she’d moved in with Valerius she’d become a certified night owl.

Her head lay against his biceps and his right arm was thrown over her waist. She ran her hand over his forearm as she studied that tawny masculine skin.

Valerius had beautiful hands. Long and tapered, they were strong and well-shaped. These last few weeks they had given her so much comfort and pleasure that she could barely breathe from the happiness that consumed her whenever she thought of him.

Her phone rang.

Tabitha scooted out from under him to answer it.

It was Amanda.

"Hey, sis," she said a little hesitantly. Over the last two weeks, there had been a major strain on their relationship.

"Hi, Tabby, I was wondering if I could come over for a little while and talk to you."

Tabitha rolled her eyes at the idea. "I don’t need another lecture, Mandy."

"I swear it’s not a lecture. It’s one sister to another. Please."

"Okay," she said quietly after a brief internal debate, then gave Val’s address.

"I’ll see you in a few minutes."

Tabitha hung up the phone, then crept toward the bed. Valerius lay on his side with his hair fanned out around him. Stubble shadowed his face and yet he looked almost boyish as he lay there.

Even asleep the muscles of his body were evident and defined. Dark hairs lightly dusted every perfect dip and curve, making the terrain of his skin all the more masculine and alluring.

But it wasn’t just his handsomeness that appealed to her. It was his heart. The way he could take care of her without taking over her. She knew he didn’t like it when she fought beside him and yet he never said one word against it. He merely stood by and let her fight her own battles. The only time he interfered was whenever she was in over her head.

Then he would charge in and save her without making her feel incompetent or weak.

Tabitha smiled at the sleeping image of him.

How could someone come to mean so much to her in such a short period of time?

Shaking her head, she reached to dress and thought about the first time Valerius had seen the tattoo on the small of her back, a small Celtic triangle.

"Why would you mark yourself intentionally?" he’d asked as if aghast at the very idea.

"It’s sexy."

He’d curled his lip at that and yet now he took a great deal of pleasure kissing and massaging the tattoo in the mornings when they returned from their patrols.

Impulsively, she picked up his black silk shirt from the floor and put it on. She loved the way his spicy male scent clung to the fabric. The way it clung to her skin.

She pulled on her pants, then went downstairs to wait for Amanda.

"Hey, Tab."

She turned to the left at the bottom of the stairs to spy Otto using the computer in Valerius’s study. It was the only piece of technology she’d been able to find in Val’s entire house except for the massive DVD collection that he kept hidden in a vault in his office, which explained his knowledge of pop culture.

"Hey, Otto, whatcha working on?"

"Trying to track the Daimon menace as always. I’m using Brax’s program to see if there’s a pattern we can follow to predict where they might be tonight."

She nodded. Otto had slowly warmed up to her, and since the Daimon attacks had started, he’d reverted to his basic black wardrobe.

Today he had on a black turtleneck, charcoal sweater, and black slacks. She had to admit he was a good-looking man when he wasn’t trying to be a tasteless slob.

He’d even given up the IROC and now drove his Jag, claiming that it was no longer fun to antagonize Valerius since the Roman was so distracted by Tabitha that he never reacted to Otto’s ribbings anymore. Nor was Gilbert there to react to him either.

She moved into the study to look over his shoulder. "Have you found anything?"

"No. There isn’t a pattern, yet. I just don’t understand what has caused this. If they want Kyrian, why haven’t they moved on him?"

She sighed irritably. "They’re playing with us. You weren’t here for Round One with Desiderius. He gets off on making us afraid of him and on toying with our heads."

"Yeah, but I’m getting sick of the escalating body count. Ten people died last night and the Council is having a hard time hiding all this from the authorities. The public is freaking and they’ve only heard about a percentage of the actual total."

Tabitha cringed. "How many Daimons were killed last night?"

"Only a dozen. The four you and Val took out, Ash killed five, and then Janice, Jean-Luc, and Zoe killed one each. The rest of the bastards got away."

"Damn."

"Yeah, I don’t like being on the losing side of anything. This really sucks."

Tabitha scowled as his list ran through her head. "You know, it’s pretty sad when I’m human and I can take out more Daimons than a Dark-Hunter."

Otto gave her a droll stare. "You’re not out there on your own."

She blew him a raspberry. "For the record, Valerius helps me, not the other way around."

"Riiiight."

Tabitha laughed at his playful scoffing until another thought occurred to her. "What about Ulric?"

"What about him?"

"How many did he kill?"

"None, why?"

None? That wasn’t right. "He didn’t kill any the night before, either, did he?"

"No."

A bad feeling went through her. No, surely she was wrong.

It wouldn’t be possible, would it?

"Where did most of the kills occur last night?" she asked.

Otto punched a key and changed the monitor screen to a map of the French Quarter. She saw the areas highlighted in red wherever someone had died. There was a heavy concentration of red marks in the northeast quadrant.

"Who was assigned that area?"

Otto checked another screen. "Ulric."