DH 05 Kiss Of The Night (37 page)

Wulf laughed at the way the ex-Dark-Hunter was squirming.

“Yeah, okay, wil do. Love you too. Bye.” Kyrian hung up the phone and let his gaze go to everyone. “Jeez, never marry a psychic woman.” He looked at Talon, then Julian. “Guys, we’re so screwed. The women know we didn’t go hunting.”

Zarek made a rude noise at that. “You think? What idiot came up with that lie?”

“I’m not an idiot,” Talon snapped. “And it’s not like I lied. I just omitted what exactly we were hunting and where we were doing it.”

Zarek made another noise of disagreement. “Like your wives wouldn’t know better?” He glanced to Kyrian.

“When was the last time Mr. Armani hunted something that didn’t have a price tag on it?” His gaze then went to Julian. “Oh, and the loafers and trousers are perfect camouflage.”

“Shut up, Zarek,” Talon snapped.

As Zarek opened his mouth to retort, a knock sounded on the door.

Grumbling, Chris went to open it and let Acheron and Urian into the room. Wulf rose to his feet as they entered.

Urian looked bad. He was pale, his clothes stil covered in blood. But the worst was the restrained fury and pain in his pale eyes.

Wulf didn’t know what to say to the man. He’d lost everything and gained nothing.

“We were getting worried about you, Ash,” Kyrian said.

“I wasn’t,” Zarek said. “But now that you’re here, do you need me for anything else?”

“No, Z,” Ash said quietly. “Thanks for coming.”

Zarek inclined his head. “Any time you want me to help rip something apart, just give me cal . But in the future, could you pick somewhere warmer to do it?” Zarek flashed out of the room before anyone could respond.

“You know,” Talon said. “It real y pisses me off that he’s a god now.”

“Just make sure you don’t piss
him
off,” Ash said in warning. “Or he might turn you into a toad.”

“He wouldn’t dare.”

Kyrian snorted. “We are talking about Zarek, right?”

“Oh, yeah,” Talon said. “Never mind.”

Kyrian stood up with a groan. “Wel , since I’m one of the few nonimmortals in the room, I think I’m going to head to bed and rest.”

Talon flexed his bandaged arm. “Sleep sounds like a plan to me.” Chris threw the medical supplies back in the plastic box. “C’mon, guys, and I’l show you where you can crash.”

Cassandra stood up with Erik. “I guess I should—”

“Wait,” Urian said, stopping her.

Wulf tensed as the Daimon approached his wife and son. Ash put his hand on his arm to keep him from interfering.

“Can I hold him?” Urian asked.

Both Cassandra and Wulf frowned. Urian had barely looked at the baby before this.

Cassandra glanced to Ash who nodded.

Reluctantly, she handed Erik over to him. It was obvious Urian had never held a baby before. Cassandra put her hands on his and showed him how to support Erik’s head and hold him so as not to hurt him.

“You’re so fragile,” Urian breathed at the baby who eyed him sweetly. “And yet you’re stil alive while my Phoebe isn’t.”

Wulf took a step forward. Ash tightened his grip.

“Wil you stay and guard your family?” Acheron asked quietly.

“My family is dead,” Urian snarled, casting a heated glare toward Ash.

“No, Urian, it’s not. Phoebe’s blood is in that baby. Erik carries her immortality with him.” Urian closed his eyes as if hearing those words was more than he could bear. “She loved this baby,” he said after a brief time. “I could tel how much she wanted her own whenever she spoke of him. I only wish I could have given her one.”

“You gave her everything else, Urian,” Cassandra said, her own eyes fil ing with tears as she spoke of her sister. “She knew that and she loved you for it.”

Urian wrapped an arm around Cassandra and pul ed her close. He laid his head down on her shoulder and silently cried. Cassandra joined him as she final y let out the pain she, too, had been holding back.

Wulf felt uncomfortable with their grief. Cassandra was so incredibly strong. He felt Phoebe’s loss too, but not nearly as much as the two of them did.

But he would know Urian’s grief al too soon.

After a time, Urian let go and handed her Erik. “I won’t let your baby die, Cassandra. I swear it. No one wil ever hurt him. Not as long as I live.”

Cassandra kissed him on the cheek. “Thank you.”

Urian nodded and withdrew from her.

“What an al iance, huh?” Wulf said after Cassandra had left them. “A Dark-Hunter and a Spathi united to guard an Apol ite. Who would have ever imagined?”

“Love makes strange bedfel ows,” Ash said.

“I thought that was politics.”

“It’s both.”

Urian folded his arms over his chest. “Would you mind if I slept in the boathouse?”

“Sure,” Wulf said, knowing Urian wanted to be someplace where he had memories of Phoebe. “Consider it yours for as long as you want it.”

Urian drifted out of the house like a silent phantom.

“Is that what I have to look forward to?” Wulf asked Ash.

“Life is a tapestry woven by the decisions we make.”

“Don’t give me that pseudo quasi psychobabble bul shit, Ash. I’m tired, I had my ass kicked, I’m stil worried about Cassandra, Erik, and Chris, and I real y feel like shit. Just once in eternity, answer one fucking question.”

Ash’s eyes flashed to red so fast that for a moment, Wulf thought he might have imagined it. “I
will not
tamper with free wil or fate, Wulf. Not for you, not for anything. There is no power on this earth or beyond that could make me do such a thing.”

“What has that got to do with Cassandra?”

“Everything. Whether she lives or dies depends on what both of you do or don’t do.”

“Meaning?”

He was whol y unprepared for Ash’s next statement. “If you want to save her life, you have to bond her life force to yours.”

That didn’t sound too hard. For the first time in months, he felt some hope. “Great. Any chance you’re going to give me a clue on how to do that?”

“You feed from her and she feeds from you.”

A feeling of dread shrank Wulf’s stomach. “Feed how?”

Ash’s swirling silver eyes met his and the look in them chil ed Wulf to his soul. “You already know that answer. It’s the first thought that went through your mind just now.” How he hated it when Acheron did that.

“Have you any idea how disgusting the thought of drinking blood is to me?” Acheron shrugged. “It’s real y not so bad.”

The words stunned Wulf. “Excuse me?”

Acheron didn’t elaborate. “It’s al up to you, Viking. Wil you at least try it?” What the Atlantean suggested was impossible. “She doesn’t have fangs.”

“She wil if she needs them.”

“Are you sure?”

Ash nodded. “It’s real y simple and yet it’s real y not. You drink from her neck and she drinks from yours.” The ancient Dark-Hunter was right. It sounded so simple at first. But could he and Cassandra real y do that when everything they both believed in forbade it?

“Won’t my blood kil her? I thought Dark-Hunter blood—”

“You’re not a Dark-Hunter, Wulf. Not real y.
You
never died. You have always been different from the others.”

Wulf snorted in derision. “Yet again you tel me something that should have been made known to me years ago. Thanks, Ash.”

“Things are always given to us when we need them.”

“That’s so not true,” Wulf said.

“Actual y it is. You just have to decide if you’re strong enough, brave enough, to seize it and make it yours.” Ordinarily, Wulf would have had no doubt whatsoever about his strength or courage.

But this…

This required both of them.

And it required a lot of faith that Wulf wasn’t sure he had anymore.

Cassandra sat there in stunned silence after Wulf had told her of the possible out.

“Are you sure it’l work?”

Wulf took a deep breath. “I don’t know what I believe anymore, but if there’s a chance, shouldn’t we try it?”

“And you’re sure this Acheron isn’t trying to kil me too?” Wulf offered her a smal smile and refrained from laughing at the idea. “That is probably the only thing that I am certain about. I trust Ash, at least most of the time.”

“Okay, then, let’s do it.”

Wulf cocked his brow. “You sure?”

She nodded.

“Okay then.” He moved to stand just in front of her. She tilted her head to the side and pul ed her hair off her neck.

Wulf put his hands on her waist.

He hesitated.

“Wel ?” she prompted.

He opened his mouth and placed his lips on the warm skin of her neck. Wulf closed his eyes as he felt her heartbeat in the vein and he grazed her skin with his teeth.

Mmm, she tasted good. He loved the way her skin teased his lips.

Cassandra cupped the back of his head with her hands. “Hmmm,” she breathed, “you’re giving me chil s.” His body erupted at her words and the image he had of her naked in his arms.

Bite her…

He added pressure with his teeth.

She tightened her grip in his hair.

Do it!

“I can’t,” he said, pul ing back. “I’m not a Daimon or an Apol ite.” She looked up at him from underneath her lashes. “Now you understand what I meant when I told you that I couldn’t cross over.”

Yes, he understood.

But so long as neither of them was wil ing to do this, Cassandra was destined to die.

Wulf was in the nursery with Erik. He sat in the antique rocking chair with his son asleep on his shoulder while he stared idly at the wal in front of him. It was covered with pictures of babies who had been born to his family over the last two hundred years.

Memories poured through him.

He glanced down at the baby he held. The thatch of black hair and the serene, tiny face. Erik’s mouth worked in his sleep and the baby smiled as if in the midst of a happy dream.

“Are you talking to him, D’Aria?” Wulf asked, wondering if the Dream-Huntress would watch over his son as wel as him.

He touched the tip of Erik’s nose. Even while asleep, the baby turned to suckle his finger.

Wulf smiled, until he caught the faint scent of roses and powder on the baby’s skin.

Cassandra’s scent.

He tried to imagine a world without her. A day when she wasn’t there to brighten everything. To place her silken hand on his skin, to run her long graceful fingers through his hair.

Pain lacerated his chest. His sight dimmed.

You’re a wandering soul, looking for a peace that doesn’t exist. Lost you will be until you find the one
inner truth. We can never hide from what we are. The only hope is to embrace it.

At last, he understood the seer’s words.

“This is bul shit,” he said in a low tone.

There was no way he would let go of the best thing that had ever happened to him.

Wulf Tryggvason was only one thing in life.

He was a barbarian.

Cassandra was in Wulf’s bedroom, looking for her box, when she heard the door open behind her.

She was mostly lost in thought when she felt two strong, powerful arms wrap around her and turn her to face a man she had only glimpsed one time before.

The first night they had met.

This was the dangerous warrior capable of shredding Daimons apart with his bare hands.

Wulf cupped her face in his hands and kissed her desperately. That kiss reached deep inside her and set fire to her blood.

“You are mine,
villkat,”
he breathed. His tone possessive. “Forever.” He pul ed her close to him, tight. She expected him to take her. He didn’t. Instead, he sank his fangs into her neck.

Cassandra couldn’t breathe as she felt the momentary pain that was quickly fol owed by the most erotic sensation she had ever known.

Her mouth fel open as she breathed raggedly, her head spinning. She saw colors swirling before her eyes, felt her heartbeat synchronize to his as everything around her became hazy, dizzy. Pleasure erupted through her body with an orgasm so strong she cried out from it.

As she cried out, she felt her incisors growing. Felt her fangs returning…

Wulf growled deep in his throat as he tasted her. He’d never felt so close to anyone in his life. It was as if they were one person sharing one single heartbeat.

He felt everything she did. Every hope, every fear. Her entire mind was laid open before him and it overwhelmed him.

And then he felt her bite into his shoulder. Wulf gasped at the unexpected sensation. His cock swel ed, making him wish he were inside her.

She reached down between their bodies as she drank from him, and unzipped his pants. Wulf moaned deep in his throat as she guided him straight into her.

With no control over himself, he took her wildly, fiercely, as they bonded their life forces together.

They came together in a furious orgasm that slammed through them both at the same exact moment.

Weak and spent, Wulf pul ed away from her neck. She looked up at him, her eyes glazed as she licked her lips and her teeth receded.

Wulf kissed her deeply, holding her tight.

“Wow,” she breathed. “I’m stil seeing stars.”

He laughed at that. He was too.

“Do you think it real y worked?” she asked.

“If it doesn’t, I vote we fol ow Zarek’s advice of taking Acheron out and beating him.” Cassandra laughed nervously. “I guess in a few weeks, we’l know.” Only it didn’t take that long. Cassandra’s eyes widened as she started gasping for air.

“Cassandra?” Wulf asked. She couldn’t respond.

“Baby?” he asked again.

Her gaze was fil ed with pain as she reached up, laid her hand against his whiskered cheek, and shuddered. In less than three seconds, she was dead.

“Acheron!”

Ash jerked awake at the shril pitch that rattled through his head. He was lying naked in his bed with his black silk sheets wrapped around his lean body.

I’m tired, Artie, and I’m sleeping
. He sent the mental note through the cosmos to her temple on Olympus in a much calmer tone.

“Then get up and come here. Now!”

Ash let out a long sigh.
No
.

“Don’t you dare rol over and go back to sleep after what you’ve done.”
And that is?