Grateful to the gods, Phoebe finally let out a relieved breath. “Thank you!”
“You’re not welcome.”
Ignoring Sasquatch’s dig, Phoebe clapped Shanus on the arm while the two councilmen led him inside. Then she and Kat went to get her sister and Chris.
The expression on Cassandra’s face said that her sister wanted to claw out her eyes for letting them take her large hairy boyfriend. “What’s going on?”
Kat let out a tired breath. “They’re taking Wulf into custody to make sure he doesn’t hurt any of them. Come on, they have a doctor inside waiting for you.”
Cassandra hesitated as she looked in the direction where they’d vanished. “Do you really trust them?”
“I don’t know. Do you?”
“I trust Phoebe. I think.”
Kat laughed at that.
Phoebe didn’t find it funny at all.
Cassandra scooted out of the truck and let Kat lead her and Chris into the cave while Phoebe stewed over her sister’s response, especially given the fact that it was her husband who’d just put his life on the line to save them all. How dare they!
Ungrateful bastards all!
But she managed to be a little compassionate. After all, her sister was pregnant and she was the last surviving member of her family. “Don’t be afraid, Cassie. We all know how important you and your baby are. No one here will hurt either of you. I swear it.”
“Who are we?”
“This is an Apollite community.” Phoebe led them deeper into the cave, past the hired human contract mercenaries who guarded the entrance during the daylight hours. “One of the older ones in North America.”
Making sure everyone was inside and it was safe, Phoebe placed her hand against the Coil Stone, where a spring release opened the elevator door.
Chris gave an exaggerated gape. “Holy hand grenade, Batman, it’s a bat cave!”
Phoebe smirked at the college-aged guy with dark hair who looked like the Dark-Hunter’s much smaller kid brother. He was actually really cute in a very wholesome, innocent kind of way. Oddly enough, he was growing on Phoebe.
Had he not been a Squire to her enemy, and if they’d met under another set of circumstances, she could have seen them being friends. He was likable and friendly. Even funny at times.
Sasquatch, on the other hand, she wanted to stab every time she glanced in his direction. And it took everything she had not to cut his head off.
Gah, Cassandra! Just … damn!
“Oh, come on!” Chris glanced around their group like an exuberant kid. “Someone other than me has to see the humor in this?” He looked around their unamused three faces, then deflated. “Guess not.”
Cassandra entered the elevator first. “What about the men I saw outside? Who are they?”
Phoebe tried her best not to think about the group who’d met them. “Those are our ruling council. Nothing can be done here without their direct approval.”
Kat and Chris joined them. The door to the elevator closed.
“Are there any Daimons here?” Chris asked as Phoebe pressed a button to start the elevator on its long descent to the facility where she lived.
“The only Daimon in this community is me. They allow me to live here because they owe Urian for his help. So long as I don’t draw attention to myself or their existence, I’m allowed to stay.” She waited for one of them to make a nasty comment about that, but wisely, they kept their mouths shut.
However, she knew her sister well enough to see the mistrust in Cassandra’s eyes. Her sister was afraid of her.
So be it. She’d risked everything for Cassie. Everything.
And she hadn’t even had the decency to say, Thank you. You and your husband might be Daimons, but how kind and generous of you to risk your lives, for your husband to kill people he considers family, and for you to hand your throats over so that I and my baby and idiot Dark-Hunter Sasquatch can survive tonight. Really, was that too much to ask? A basic, simple thank-you?
Figured, right? Phoebe had forgotten how selfish her sister could be.
When the doors opened, Cassie gasped at something Phoebe had gotten used to long ago. But she remembered the first time Urian had brought her here in 1990. It did look like something out of some science fiction movie. Everything was fashioned like some Isaac Asimov or Larry Niven future city. Made of steel and concrete, the walls were painted with brilliant murals of bright landscapes awash in sunshine that their kind had never seen except in pictures.
Urian spent a lot of time when he was here staring at this one piece in particular. And going through her old photos of her with her family, asking her what sunshine felt like.
That was when it hurt most.
Because she was part human, up until she’d become a Daimon, she had some tolerance to sunshine. She couldn’t sunbathe or swim. But she could take a few minutes outside without becoming dust.
Urian couldn’t. And so Phoebe had done her best to make him understand what used to piss her off because she’d never realized how lucky she had it. Not until she met the boy who had never seen daylight at all. To this day, his story about trying to see a glimpse of the sun with his brother Paris brought tears to her eyes.
Damn her sister if anything had happened to him.
Wiping at her eyes, Phoebe stepped out of the elevator, into the central area that was roughly the size of a football field. From the center atrium, there were corridors that led to the other areas and centers of the facility.
This main part was the hub of Elysia and held most of their shops and vendors, with the exception of restaurants. Being Apollites, they didn’t need any.
“The city is named Elysia.” Without slowing her gait, Phoebe led them through a handful of residents who had paused to stare at them. “Most of the Apollites here live their entire lives below ground. They’ve no desire to go topside and see the humans and their violence. Nor do they wish to see their kind hunted.”
Once they’d passed through her people, Chris cleared his throat to get her attention. “What do they do with the Daimons?”
“No Daimons are tolerated here since they require a steady diet of human or Apollite souls. If an Apollite decides to go Daimon, they’re allowed to leave, but they can never return here. Ever.”
Kat arched a brow at that. “Yet you live here. Why?”
“I told you, Urian protects them. He was the one who showed them how to build this place.”
“Why?” Kat pressed.
Phoebe stopped and turned to give Kat a measuring stare as she fought the urge to slap her and Cassandra both for their continued mistrust, which was ridiculous at this point. What more did she have to do to prove herself to them? Light herself on fire? “In spite of what you might think of him, my husband is a good man. He only wants what’s best for his people.” Phoebe’s gaze went to Cassandra. “Urian was the first child to ever be born a cursed Apollite.”
Technically second, since his twin was the firstborn, but close enough. And as psycho as Stryker was, it was a fact that he’d tried his best to keep from Urian for years. He’d even lied to both of his sons about when they were really born so that they wouldn’t know.
Until their brother Archie had cruelly told him the truth one day when they’d been fighting as boys. At least I wasn’t the first one born cursed, Uri! That tells you how bad even our own grandfather must hate you!
The news had hit Urian like a sledgehammer and he’d never told a soul that he knew the truth.
Not until Phoebe. He’d only shared his shame with her.
Cassandra gasped. “That would make him—”
“Over eleven thousand years old.” Phoebe finished the sentence for her. “Yes. Most of the warriors who travel with him are that old. They go back to the very beginning of our history.”
Chris whistled low. “How is that possible?”
“The Destroyer protects them,” Kat said. “Just as the Dark-Hunters serve Artemis, the true Spathis serve her.” Sh
Cassandra frowned. “Why does the Destroyer hate Artemis?”
“Love. Why else?” Kat said simply. “Love, hatred, and revenge are the most powerful emotions on earth. Apollymi wants revenge on Artemis for killing the one thing she loved most in the universe.”
“And that is?”
“I would never betray either one by saying it.”
“Would you write it down?” Chris asked.
Kat rolled her eyes.
Cassandra and Phoebe shook their heads.
Chris scoffed at their reaction. “Oh yeah, like the two of you weren’t thinking the same thing.”
No, but Kat’s words made her think of Urian’s snarky pessimism whenever she made him watch a romcom instead of the horror movies he preferred—Love doesn’t conquer all. Only a quick sword does that.
And with that thought in mind, Phoebe took them to the residential area. “These are apartments. You’ll be given a large unit with four bedrooms. Mine is down a separate hallway. I would have liked to have you closer, but this was the only one available that was big enough to accommodate all of you.”
The last thing Shanus and the others wanted, or would agree to, was the four of them spread out. Not only would it make them harder to guard, it made them harder to watch. This was much easier and safer all the way around.
Cassandra hesitated at the door. “Is Wulf already there?”
“No. He was taken to a holding cell.”
Aghast, then angry, her sister gaped. “Excuse me?”
Phoebe had to ride herd on her own temper. She really wasn’t in the mood right then. She would have liked to go and verify the safety of her own husband, who was in a much, much worse situation at the moment than Sasquatch was. “He’s our enemy, Cassie. What would you expect us to do?”
“I expect you to release him. Now!”
“I can’t.”
Cassandra stopped dead in her tracks. “Then show me the door out of here.”
Was she fucking kidding? After everything Urian had gone through for her? After everything they’d risked to save her life? Never had Phoebe wanted to hurt someone any more than she wanted to slap her sister right then and there. Cass better be grateful she was pregnant. “What?”
“You heard me. I will not stay here unless he’s welcomed. He has risked his life for me. His home was destroyed because of me and I will not live comfortably while the father of my baby is treated like a convict.”
Someone behind them started clapping.
Phoebe looked past her sister to see that Shanus had joined them.
Standing at almost seven feet in height, he was gorgeous and lithe. Very graceful, and fast approaching the age when he’d need to find his replacement because he would be decaying into dust courtesy of Apollo.
He smirked at Cassandra. “Nice speech, princess. It changes nothing.”
She narrowed her gaze on him. “Then how about a good ass-kicking?” He laughed at the threat. “You’re pregnant.”
“Not that pregnant.” She shot one of the daggers from her wrist at the man. It embedded in the wall just past his head.
His face lost all humor and Phoebe couldn’t blame him. She was mortified and embarrassed by her sister’s lack of gratitude.
“The next one goes into your heart.”
“Cassie, stop!” Phoebe commanded, grabbing her arm.
Cassandra shrugged her hold off. “No. I’ve spent the whole of my adulthood putting any Daimon or Apollite who made the mistake of coming after me out of his misery. If you think for one minute Kat and I can’t tear down this place to free Wulf, then you need to think again.”
“And if you die?” the man asked.
“Then we all lose.”
He gazed at her thoughtfully. “You’re bluffing.”
Cassandra exchanged a determined look with Kat.
“You know I’m always itching for a good fight.” Kat pulled her fighting staff out of her coat pocket and extended it.
The man’s nostrils flared as he saw them preparing to engage him. “This is how you repay my kindness for sheltering you?”
Cassandra lifted her chin like the spoiled, ungrateful little bitch their father had made her. “No, this is how I repay the man who protects me. I won’t see Wulf kept like this after all he’s done.”
Shanus stepped back and bowed his head respectfully toward her. “She does have the courage of a Spathi.”
No, she had all the spunk of a brat wanting a cookie, with no care about how it affected anyone else around her. And Phoebe felt her face heat up with her embarrassment. She’d warned them that Cass could be difficult whenever she didn’t get her way, so in an effort to be diplomatic, she inclined her head. “I told you so.”
Shanus offered them a slight smile. “Go inside with Phoebe, princess, and I will have your Dark-Hunter brought to you.”
Even then, Cassandra eyed him suspiciously. “Promise?”
“Yes.”
Still skeptical, Cassandra looked at Phoebe, who at this point was about at her end with her. “Can I put any faith in that?”
Hold me back … Counting to three, she smiled through her anger. “You can. Shanus is our Supreme Counselor. He never lies.”
“Phoebe, look at me.”
Don’t take that tone with me, bitch. I’m about to slap you!
“Tell me the truth. Are we safe here?”
With them? “Yes, I swear it by everything I hold dear—even Urian’s life. You are here because Stryker will never think to look in an Apollite commune for you. Every one of us here knows that if your baby dies, so does our world. And our lives, such as they are, are still precious to us. Twenty-seven years to the people here is better than none at all.”
But if you don’t shut your hole and get in that room so that I can check on my husband, I’m going to beat your ass.
Finally, Cassandra took a deep breath and nodded. “Okay.”
Passing an annoyed look behind her back to Shanus, Phoebe opened the door.
Shanus choked on a laugh and excused himself.
Furious, Phoebe followed them into their new home. Like all the units here, the main living room was about five hundred square feet and had everything a regular human home had. An oversized, stuffed sofa and love seat, and an entertainment center complete with television, stereo, and DVD player.
Chris headed straight for the entertainment center. “Does that stuff work?”
“Yes. We have relays and uplinks that can bring the human world down to us.”
Kat opened the doors to the bedrooms and bathroom, which were off the main living area. “Where’s the kitchen?”
Phoebe gave her a droll stare for the stupidity of that question. “We don’t have kitchens,” she reminded her. “But the counselors are working on getting a microwave and refrigerator brought in for you since you do actually eat. Along with groceries. There should be something here very soon for all of you.”
Since they didn’t have phones, Phoebe showed them the small dark green box on an end table. “If you need anything, the intercom is here. Just press the button and one of the operators will help you. If you want to buzz me, tell them you need Urian’s wife and they’ll know which Phoebe to put you through to.”
A knock sounded on the door.
Phoebe went to answer it while Cassandra stood back with Kat and Chris. “What do you guys think?”
Chris shrugged. “It seems okay. I’m not picking up any evil vibes, what about you two?”
Kat looked around. “I agree with Chris. But there’s still a part of me that doesn’t trust them. No offense, Cass, but Apollites aren’t known for being honest.”
“Tell me about it.”
Phoebe snorted at that comment, especially given the track record of human honesty. Um, yeah … Last article she read said the average person lied thirty times an hour. Average human. Thirty times an hour. Didn’t speak well for what a pathological or “unaverage” human did, did it? And they dared to call Apollites dishonest?
Yeah …
Irritated to the extreme, Phoebe exchanged a peeved smirk with Dr. Lakis, who was even in height to her and dressed in a light pink sweater and jeans. Since she was on duty, she had her shoulder-length blond hair pulled up into a loose bun.
Lucky for her sister, Dr. Lakis was better at hiding her irritation. “Cassandra?”
She waited for Cass to look at her.
“I’m Dr. Lakis.” She extended her hand to Cassandra. “If you don’t mind, I would like to examine you and see how the baby is doing.”
The two of them headed off.
Phoebe took a moment to check in with Kat and Chris. “You two need anything?”
Katra cocked her head at her. “Stryker’s not going to hurt Urian. Why are you so worried?”
Phoebe let out a bitter laugh. “You don’t know him at all, do you?”
“I’ve known them both a lot longer than you have.”
“Then you should know how violent Stryker gets and how often he lashes out.”
Kat passed a smug look to Chris. “But not against Urian.”
“Really? On the night Urian left his brother, who was a trained soldier, to save the life of a blind Apollite woman and her children, his father almost beat him to death. But for Apollymi’s intervention, he probably would have.”
Kat gaped. “He told you this?”
“No, a friend of his did as a warning to me to never make the mistake of putting him in the crosshairs of his father’s wrath. He wanted to stress to me that while Urian constantly assures me that he’s okay and that everything will be all right, Urian is not okay and he’s playing an extremely stupid game with his life. For me.”
Damn it! How did they get to that boat?”
With his arms crossed over his chest, Urian stood in the council room stoically and listened to his father’s tirade. Which had to be a record for the longest rant ever. He would yawn, but in the mood his father was in, he’d probably cut his throat.
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