“Ours is not to question why. Ours is but to live or to die.”
He ground his teeth as she gave him the 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’m a god.”
“And greater gods than you have fallen. Many of them to my wrath. Heed my words, boy. Heed them well.”
Irritated by that, Stryker continued on his way, pausing only long enough to unleash Kyklonas, whose name meant “tornado.” Once unleashed, the ceredon, like him and Urian, was a deadly menace.
March 10, 2004
“Keep hitting them with everything!”
Urian cringed at his father’s orders. They were blasting Wulf’s mansion like the final round of Call of Duty. It was a wonder someone hadn’t called in the National Guard on them.
This is ridiculous!
But he didn’t dare speak reason to his father when he was in this mood. It would be the same as trying to reason with King Leonides, and he had no desire to be kicked into a spiked pit or fed to lions.
And he was equally shocked when Kat appeared in the guardhouse with them. She winced as her gaze went to the two dead men on the floor that his father had slaughtered on arrival. Not to mention the dozen Daimons his father had on the lawn preparing for another round of attacks.
Only four Daimons were inside the guardhouse. Him, his father, Icarus, and Trates.
Trates looked up from the monitors and went pale at the appearance of the one person none of them could harm.
“How did you get in here?” Kat demanded.
Urian gave her a droll stare. “We walked.”
Stryker turned slowly, methodically around to face her with a sardonic grin. There was no fear in him, only wry amusement. Unlike Urian, he wasn’t quite as sarcastic. “The guards came outside when we ate the pizza deliveryman and tried to stop us. We dragged them inside after they were dead.”
“You are so evil.”
Urian snorted. “Judgmental much?”
Ignoring his comment, his father took pride in Kat’s insults. “Thank you, love, I pride myself on that.”
Kat opened the portal back to Kalosis. “It’s time for you to all go home.”
Stryker looked at the opening, then laughed. “’Fraid not, sweetie. Mama likes me better at the moment. So you can shove that portal up your very attractive ass. Me and my boys have work to do. Either join us or leave.”
Urian didn’t miss the light of fear in Kat’s eyes that those words wrought. He couldn’t blame her. His father was terrifying. “You have to go. Those are the rules. The portal opens and you have to walk through it.”
Stryker came forward, his eyes sinister and cold. “No, we don’t.”
The portal closed.
She gasped. The Destroyer had given him a key too and placed him in control.
Stryker cupped her face with his hand. “It’s a pity she protects you so. Otherwise I would have had a taste of you centuries ago.”
She glared her fury at him. “Get your hand off me or lose it.”
To her surprise, he obeyed, but not before he kissed her rudely.
Kat shrieked and slapped him.
He laughed. “Go home, little girl. If you stay here, you might get hurt.”
Her body shaking, Kat flashed back into the house.
Urian shook his head. “You shouldn’t treat her like that.” The words came out before he could stop himself.
His father passed a disbelieving stare toward him. “Pardon?”
“You taught us better and if we’d ever grabbed a woman or spoken to one like you just did, you’d have torn our asses up.”
“I know. There’s just something about her that makes me insane.”
Not wanting to argue, Urian went back to watching the monitors.
A few minutes later, he saw a bright flash and heard his father’s violent curse.
“Careful,” his father warned his men as they fired another round at the house. “Not that it’s likely, but give them a chance to come out before you blow the house apart.”
“Why?” Trates asked. “I thought the objective was to kill the heiress.”
Urian gave the man an irritated stare that said, Are you totally stupid? “Yes, but if we hurt the Abadonna in the process, we’re going to find out what it feels like to be turned inside out. Literally. Like most beings, I actually like the fact that my skin is outside my body.”
“She’s immortal,” Trates argued. “What’s a bomb to her?”
“Immortal like us, bonehead.” Urian snatched the rocket launcher from Trates’s hand and handed it off to Icarus. “Blow her body apart and she will die. None of you want to know what the Destroyer would do to us if that happens.”
Icarus aimed more carefully.
Stryker nodded his approval to his son, then projected his thoughts to the rest of his team. “Watch the exits. I know the Dark-Hunter will have a back way out of this place. When they run, you’d better catch them. Stand ready.”
Stryker studied the security cameras closely. He knew the heiress and her guards wouldn’t stay inside much longer. His men had already blown up the entire garage and were now slowly shooting into the house, section by section. There was a lot of exterior damage, but he couldn’t really tell how much was being done internally.
Not that it mattered. If this didn’t work, they’d burn it down. He already had the flamethrowers on standby.
Anyone worth his salt would have exit tunnels. And Wulf was certainly worth his salt.
Urian had found several exits so far.
His son just had to make sure they had found them all before their prey left the premises.
Urian? He projected his thoughts out to his son. Are you in position?
Yes. We have all of the exits covered.
Where are you?
The back lawn. Why? Is something going wrong?
No, I just want to make sure we can get to them.
They’re ours, Solren. Relax.
I will after she’s dead.
Urian cursed at the madness in his skull that was giving him a migraine. It was bad enough to have the human souls in his head screaming at him all the time. Now his father was a raging lunatic while he silently shouted orders at everyone as he sought to micromanage every single nanobit of this night.
Not to mention, Trates was so terrified of making a mistake that his current adrenaline level was running at scared Chihuahua on steroids with double espresso shots every ten and a half seconds.
Factor in all the other Daimons on the property who were shitting their pants and …
No wonder he kept getting nosebleeds.
“Are you all right, baby?”
He melted as Phoebe placed her soft hand to his forehead. “No. I’m a dumb sonofabitch for letting you talk me into this.”
She rose up on her tiptoes to kiss his lips. “It’s the only way. My sister would never trust you without me. And I don’t want to risk a Dark-Hunter killing you.”
Funny, he didn’t want to risk her, at all. “He lays one hand on you and so help me—”
“Shh—” She placed her fingers over his lips to silence his protests. “We have to hurry, right?”
He hated whenever she used his words against him. Phoebe was the most potent weapon the universe had ever devised to lay him low. And honestly? He was hoping to delay long enough that they might screw up and capture her sister, kill the bitch, and he wouldn’t have to risk his wife. That would suit him fine.
Better Cassandra die than Phoebe, and if the curse ended in the process …
Even fucking better.
“Urian,” Phoebe said calmly, “we’re not moving forward.”
He growled low in his throat. “All right.” Hating himself for the fact that this had disaster written all over it and he
The boathouse.
Of all the exits for the house that he’d found, Urian figured this was the most likely escape route. For four people, it would have the most cover and be the quietest means to get past an enemy without being seen. Especially one who kept carpet bombing them.
Besides, who would expect a boat? And what were the odds that your enemy would just happen to have a boat on them to pursue you with?
Yeah, a boat escape made the most sense. Plus the bastard was a Viking. Taking off on water would be his first thought. Not the thought of a normal well-adjusted modern person, but for a Viking raider …
Boat.
So here they were.
Urian pressed Phoebe back into the shadows. “You wait here and don’t move. Let me secure the perimeter.”
“Aye, sir.” She gave him a mock salute.
Rolling his eyes, he headed for the back door.
Phoebe pressed her lips together as she admired the sweetest ass and deadliest walk any man had ever had in the history of mankind. Really, no one could surpass Urian’s. Even Davyn agreed and he’d been married to the man’s twin brother.
That said a lot.
Though there were times when she wondered if she should be jealous that Davyn was so preoccupied by her husband’s hindquarters. Or even worried, given the way Davyn joked.
Thankfully, she knew her husband was loyal to a fault. Otherwise, she would be a little nervous given how much time they were forced to spend apart. It took a lot of trust to let a man that hot live away from her for the majority of their marriage. Likewise, it took a lot of trust for Urian to leave her alone, too. Because the loneliness was hard to bear.
Not wanting to think about that, Phoebe glanced around the humongous building she was in. It was larger and more elegant than most houses, and given the extreme wealth she’d known growing up, it took a lot to impress her.
This place did that in spades. All around her was an impressive collection of high-end, high-tech boats that even her dad would have drooled over. You could tell the Dark-Hunter who owned this place had been a Viking in his mortal life. He obviously was still drawn to the sea and all things nautical.
Earlier, she’d gone exploring through the second floor, which had four bedrooms, a kitchen, and living, dining, and game rooms. Which was weird that he’d have it set up that way given how huge his main house was … or had been before Stryker had bombed half of it into oblivion trying to kill her sister.
Urian hadn’t been kidding about his father. That man was insane. He truly wouldn’t stop at anything to kill them. The car bomb he’d used on her and her sister and mother should have told her that, but she barely remembered that night. It was as if her mind had been unable to handle it and so she’d blocked it out.
All she really recalled was Urian waving as they drove by, and then waking up in Elysia, with him telling her everything would be okay.
She didn’t know what she’d do without him. How she could cope.
But damn, his father was a special level of hell that made no sense whatsoever. How could Urian have come from that whackadoodle?
And speaking of that …
Urian appeared with not one but two bodies.
Phoebe gasped at the sight and the irritated look on his face. She knew they couldn’t be Daimons because they were actual bodies. “What happened?”
“Two of our men got in the way.”
“Those aren’t Daimons.”
“Worse … Apollites. But I couldn’t risk them telling my father about the boathouse.” He placed them on the floor, near the rear of the building. With a disgusted look he wiped at his nose. “Stay here. Let me make sure there’s not any more. Be right back.”
Phoebe covered her face, as she felt terrible for having caused this. Though Urian didn’t say anything, she knew the hell she was putting him through. All these centuries, he’d fought and risked his life for the Apollymians. They were his family.
And she’d pitted him against them.
Pitted him against the father he adored. For her.
I suck as a human being.
She hated that it came to this. That she was forcing him to compromise everything he held dear to be with her and risk his life. It was so unfair.
Yet he never said a word.
She looked at the bodies and cringed. How could he not hate her? That was her worst fear. That one day he’d wake up and realize she wasn’t worth this.
In that moment, Phoebe was truly humbled by what she had. It was rare to find anyone in life who would be loyal to you. Brother. Sister. Parent. Friend. Even a spouse or child. Betrayal was a natural part of life.
To find someone who would actually kill to protect you? Who would risk and sacrifice their life every single day to keep you safe, without question, and without asking anything in return, and to never, ever throw it in your face? Not even on those days when she was bitchy for no reason …
She wasn’t worthy of a love so pure, and in her heart she knew that. As much as she loved him, she didn’t know if she could do what he did with the courage he showed.
Damn.
Suddenly, she heard whispering and the sound of feet shuffling in the darkness.
Terrified it might be her psycho father-in-law, she darted into a small closet to hide. Thus proving to herself just what a coward she was and why if anything ever happened to Urian, she’d be lost.
Worse? She’d be dead.
Slowly, she heard something scraping and moving around like some kind of giant sewer rat that brought up images of Willard in her head. For that matter, every horror movie with giant rodents she’d ever seen. So help her God, if anything furry with whiskers came scurrying out, she was going to scream like a B movie actress and cause an avalanche! She’d break the sound barrier. She would!
There better not be rats in this place …
Then all of a sudden, there was no more motion or sound.
Still panicking, Phoebe held her breath. Was it a trick? Had the little bastards frozen to death? It was cold out here.
Or maybe it was a trap to lure her out? Stryker could be treacherous that way. She’d heard all kinds of stories from Urian about things his father had done to people over the centuries. She wouldn’t put anything past him.
Still there was no motion in the room. No sound of someone or something walking about. She bit her nails in nervousness as she scanned the shadows with her sharp Daimon eyes, trying to detect anything at all.
Yet the only thing she could hear was the creaking of the ice and the howling wind outside the building. And of course, the stupid human voice in her head whining about being trapped there. That made her want to scream! But she was kind of used to that going on.
Just as she was about to leave her closet to find Urian, she heard someone moving just in front of her again.
Oh holy crap, they were coming up through the floor only a few feet from where she was hiding!
If that was Stryker or one of his Illuminati, she was dead!
Terrified, she tried to think of what to do, but unlike Urian, she didn’t know how to teleport. Crap, crap, crap! Trying to control her breathing, she pressed herself as far back into the shadows as she could and prayed they didn’t see her.
To her absolute horror, the hole opened and sure enough something furry and whiskered came out. Only this bastard was six and a half feet tall. Well muscled. And he was the mortal enemy of her people. Christ almighty! He looked like Sasquatch!
Phoebe felt her eyes bugging out of her head at the lumbering sight of him. Scared and furious, she looked around for a harpoon gun to spear the whale. Just as she was about to grab a flare, she realized he was pulling her sister up to stand beside him.
Joy replaced her fear as tears blinded her and froze in her eyelashes. She hadn’t seen Cassie in years. She was so fixated on her that she barely registered the other two people who came up behind her sister. She was tempted to rush forward, but the giant with Cassie terrified her.
“Okay,” Sasquatch whispered. “It looks good so far. I want you”—he said to Cassandra—“and Chris to stay back. If anything happens, you two dodge back into the tunnels and press the red button to lock the door behind you.”
“What about you and Kat?” Cassandra indicated Sasquatch and the tall blond woman who’d climbed out with them.
“We’ll take care of ourselves. You and Chris are the important things.” Phoebe frowned. So this was the Muppet Dark-Hunter. Now that she heard his accent, Urian’s nickname for him totally made sense.
He gestured at the boats that were trapped in chains, suspended over the ice. “It’ll take a couple of minutes to lower the airboat from its harness down to the ice.” He glanced around. “Let’s hope the Daimons don’t hear it.”
Cassandra nodded and kissed him lightly. “Be careful.”
Phoebe gaped at her sister’s lack of taste. Sure, Muppet was cute and all, but seriously?
He was a Dark-Hunter! How disgusting was that? What kind of Apollite could even think of crawling into bed with one of those animals who’d been hunting and stalking their race for thousands and thousands of years? One who’d been heartlessly slaughtering them for generations!
Gah! Her sister was an idiot! If their mother were still alive, she’d be the first to beat her!
Wulf hugged her sister gently, then opened the door. He took a step out, then acted weird.
Ah, crap, he must have found the bodies Urian had dumped there. Which meant he’d panic and do something stupid. Because that was what Dark-Hunters did.
Something stupid that got her kind killed.
I have to do something. And quick before he exposed them and caused Urian to be harmed.
She was running through her options when he pulled his retractable sword from his boot. Now or never, Pheebs …
With a deep breath for courage, she came out of the shadows and moved toward him. He prepared to attack.
“It’s okay,” Phoebe said quickly, praying he didn’t stab her. “I’m a friend.”
The look on his face said he wasn’t buying it at all.
-->
