Sins of the Night (Dark-Hunter #8)(25)
Author: Sherrilyn Kenyon

His eerie green eyes were dull and as cold as his skin. "I’m writing him off."

She shook her head in disbelief. "You can’t do that. You were friends."

"Yes, we were friends. Now we’re enemies."

She was aghast at his words. "How could you-"

"I don’t have anyone in this world I can trust," he said harshly, cutting her deeply that she was included on the list after everything she had done for him. Dear Lord, she had even given him her trust and that was something she did for no man.

"I should never have tried to save him," Alexion said. "Artemis is right, compassion is for the weak."

"So that’s it?" she asked, disgusted by his sudden turnaround. "You’re going to give up on your best friend?"

"I’m not giving up. I’m dying. I have a soul inside me that will have to be freed in-"

Danger narrowed her eyes two seconds before she pulled the dagger out of her boot and plunged it straight into Alexion’s heart.

He burst apart.

Chapter 17

Two seconds later, Alexion was back in human form, standing before Danger, who waited with her hands on her hips.

He patted his chest as if he couldn’t believe he’d returned. He reached out and placed a hand on her desk.

"Soul inside you all gone now?" she asked.

He nodded slowly.

"Good. Now you can stop being a total jerk." She turned to leave.

Alexion grabbed her and pulled her to a stop. He couldn’t believe that he had his body back. "How did you know to do that?"

"I didn’t. I was only guessing. But it was something I thought of while I was downstairs talking to Rafe. The first rule of being a Dark-Hunter is to stab the soul’s host to free it. Stryker said that you had to kill yourself, which would cause you to die permanently-he conveniently left out what would happen if anyone else ‘killed’ you."

Alexion was still aghast. It was true. Whenever a Dark-Hunter stabbed a Daimon and their body burst apart, the stolen souls always returned to their resting places.

She laughed bitterly. "I’m a staunch Catholic. My mother used to excel at sins of omission. Growing up with her, I learned early on to listen to what she said, not what I heard. And most of all, to pay attention to what she didn’t say. Since Stryker put the soul into you during your mid-poofing, I was betting that another poof such as the one caused by an outside person stabbing you would release it. Why else would he have said you had to stab yourself?"

Alexion was completely stunned on so many levels that he didn’t even know where to begin. Part of him wanted to choke her, but another was impressed by the fact that she had correctly deduced Stryker’s logic.

"I wasn’t being a jerk," he said sullenly, returning to her earlier insult.

She stared at him dryly. "Yes you were."

"No," he said honestly, "I’m only being what I am. I’m here to-"

"What you are, Alexion," she said, interrupting him, "is a caring man."

He shook his head in denial. "I’m the Alexion. My only goal is to protect Acheron."

She placed her hand to his cheek. "It wasn’t a cold, unfeeling entity that slept with me last night and it wasn’t an unfeeling ‘other’ that looked hurt when Kyros betrayed him. You are still human."

"No," he insisted emphatically, "I’m not."

She stood up on her tiptoes and pulled his head down so that she could kiss him. The coldness of his skin immediately vanished as he cupped her face in his hands and kissed her blind.

She could feel his heartbeat increase as his tongue swept against hers.

Danger pulled back. "You’re not unfeeling or uncaring. I doubt if you ever have been."

Alexion’s head spun at her words and his reaction to her kiss. It was true. Around her he was completely different. He found himself feeling things that he hadn’t felt in untold centuries. Until the moment she had entered his life, he’d begun to doubt he could ever really feel again.

With her, he did.

How could this be?

"There can never be anything between us, Danger."

"I know." He heard the pain in her voice. "I’m a big girl, Ias, and I can take care of myself. But you… you need to can the destroyer act around me. I don’t like it."

He frowned at her words. "Why did you call me Ias?"

"Because Ias is the man who considers a demon his daughter and it was Ias who woke me up tonight with a rose tickling my cheek."

"But I’m also the Alexion."

She offered him a smile that melted the iciness of his entire existence. "There’s a tough side to all of us. Be grateful; it was my tough side that nailed you with the dagger a few minutes ago."

He laughed at that, then sobered. "I don’t know what to feel when I’m around you."

"Yeah, I’m confused too. I can’t believe that I’m about to help you hang my friends."

"I’m not trying to hang anyone, Danger."

"No? Then what’s with the list of hopeless you have over there?"

He glanced to the paper where he’d been writing. "That’s not a list of names. It’s a list of rules for Keller so that the demon doesn’t eat him."

She laughed at him. Leave it to Alexion to think of that one. "I knew I should have studied Greek in school."

Grateful that he was almost back to "normal," she took his hand in hers. It was still warm. "Are we friends again?"

"Yeah, I think we are."

"Akri!"

Ash rolled over in his bed as he heard Simi running down the hallway outside his room in Katoteros. She burst through the door, then launched herself at his bed.

He woofed as she landed on him then sat heavily on his chest. "I was sleeping, Sim."

"I know, but I heard Alexion calling out again. The Simi wants to go see him, akri. Lemme go! Please."

Ash felt the all too familiar knot in his gut as he fought himself not to allow her that wish. But he couldn’t.

The last two times he’d let Simi out without him had been disastrous. In Alaska, she’d almost died, and in New Orleans…

That was something he still couldn’t think about without his temper erupting.

"I can’t, Simi."

"Why not?"

He sighed heavily. "I can’t tamper with his fate. You know that. This is his time and if I answer him I will probably do whatever it is he asks. So for all our sakes, I’ve turned his voice off in my head and I would advise you to do the same."

She pouted as she pulled the sfora out of her pink coffin-shaped purse. "At least make this work so’s I can see him."

"No."

She growled at him. "But what if he gets hurt? What if he dies?" Her face blanched. "You can’t let him die, akri. You can’t. The Simi loves her Alexion."

He reached up to brush her long black hair back from her face. "I know, edera," he said, using the Atlantean endearment for "precious baby." "But his fate is in his hands, not mine. I won’t alter it."

Her pout increased. "You control fate. All fate. You can make everything all right. Please do it for your Simi?"

That was easier said than done. He was a living example of the disaster that came from trying to interfere with someone’s destiny. His entire life both as a man and a god had been destroyed because of people who meddled with his "fate." He would never do such a thing to someone else. "Sim, that’s not fair and you know it."

"Not fair is hearing Alexion in my head and not being able to help him. He don’t sound right, akri. I think them peoples is being mean to him. Let the Simi go eat them."

Ash closed his eyes and tried to see the future for Alexion so that he could give Simi some peace.

But there was nothing to be seen except black mist. Damn. He hated that he couldn’t see the fates of his loved ones, any more than he could see his own.

He considered calling Atropos, who was the Greek goddess in charge of cutting the thread of life that governed humans. She would be able to tell him if Alexion would die. But he knew better than to summon her. She hated him passionately.

None of the Greek Fates would ever tell him anything of the future. They had turned their backs on him centuries ago. To them, he was long dead and forgotten.

"We will just have to wait and see what happens."

Simi blew him a raspberry, then got up to leave.

She slammed the door on her way out.

Ash rubbed his head as the sound echoed in the room. Since his emotions weren’t tied to the Mississippi Hunters, he knew which of them would live and who would die. That saddened him greatly, and all he could do was hope that Alexion was able to sway them away from their destinies in time.

Only their free will could alter what he saw for them.

That was why he’d sent Alexion to Danger. Since the day he’d started training her, he’d had a soft spot for her. The small Frenchwoman covered her tender heart with a coat of arsenic to keep others away, but he knew what she hid from others. She was a good woman who’d been dealt a bad hand. The last thing he wanted was to see her dead. And yet he knew in his heart the futility of wishing for what could have been.

Danger’s days were extremely numbered, and unless a miracle happened, there was nothing any of them could do to help her.

Chapter 18

They were seriously batting absolute zero with no pinch hitter in sight. Danger sighed heavily as they returned to her house. They’d spent the last few hours seeking out the Dark-Hunters in the area only to find out that most of them had an ax to grind with Acheron.

Granted, there were times she got a little annoyed with his vagueness too, but this was ridiculous.

They blamed him for being stuck in Mississippi (which she personally loved). It really wasn’t a bad place to live. Granted it was hot in the summer, but there was a lot of beauty to be found here.

They also blamed him for not making their immortality better. Blamed him for all kinds of stuff that was basically their decision, not his.

Worse was the fact that she knew Acheron could read their minds. No wonder he didn’t visit here more often. How could he continue to let Artemis use the Dark-Hunters against him while they cursed everything about him? That man had more fortitude than anyone she’d ever known.

Personally, she’d tell them all adios, and go find her own private paradise.

The fact that he didn’t…

He was either a saint or a masochist.

Perhaps a little of both.

"I can’t believe their gall," she said to Alexion as he shut her back door. "Who knew Squid had a death wish?"

Unlike her, he took it all with nihilistic stoicism. It was true, around others he was ice-cold and without any emotion at all. Their words didn’t anger him the way they did her. He just stood there and listened while they railed.

Alexion shrugged as he turned the hall light on for her. "It happens more than you’d think. If I can save ten percent, it’s a good night."

She didn’t want a ten percent survival rate. She wanted one hundred percent. But Squid had thrown them out the minute they’d started talking about Acheron.

Thank God she’d been able to convince Alexion not to wear his white coat over there. There was no telling what the angry ex-pirate would have done to them if he’d suspected Alexion was the destroyer Kyros prophesied him to be.

Squid had completely refused to listen. Damn him for his stubbornness.

"You know, I think we need to work on your speech."

Alexion arched a brow. "What’s wrong with my speech?"

She led the way into her living room. "Well, I think it was the ‘or else’ part that lost us Tyrell. Have you ever noticed that Dark-Hunters aren’t exactly the ‘or else’ kind of guys? They’re the kind who will do the opposite of what you want or bust a gut trying. They’ll doom themselves just to spite you because you told them not to."

He frowned. "What would you have me say to them? ‘Hi, I’m here to be your friend? Let’s sit, have a cup of coffee, and chat?’"

She laughed at that image. Yeah, Alexion was definitely not the type to sit and "chat."

Then again, neither were the others. For the most part, the Dark-Hunters were beer-drinking, bar-brawling kind of men. They were far more likely to slug it out than talk.

"No," she said, sobering. "But you could try to be nicer to them."

That familiar droll look came over his face. "I don’t need to be nicer to them. I just need to feel them out to see what side of the fence they’re going to fall on. The only ones we need to worry about are the ones who are undecided. Tyrell may yet come around."

"I don’t know. He had some very creative use of the language as he told you to go blow."

"Then again, he might be a tough sell."

She shook her head at him as she went upstairs to the media room to find Xirena asleep on the couch. There was no sign of Keller.

Danger pulled the cell phone out of her pocket and called him only to discover that he’d left a couple of hours ago and gone home to bed.

"Sorry to wake you. I was just worried. Night, Keller."

He wished her good night, then hung up.

Alexion moved to stand behind her. He leaned down ever so slightly so that he could just inhale her scent of magnolias and woman. His body jerked and fired in reaction, but then he tended to keep an erection in her presence. Everything about her fired his hormones.