And she could be the one to gift him with that oh, so not pleasant existence.
Still Rafael's gaze burned into her. "I want to be with you, Celena. As a man."
How could she argue with that? What's more, she wanted it, too. So long as he remained a Dark-Hunter, they couldn't have children. But if she freed him...
They could have a family. They could be married and grow old together. It was all she wanted.
"Okay," she breathed. "Tell me what to do."
Acheron pulled a long, evil-looking dagger from his boot and handed it to her. "Pierce his heart and leave the dagger in until he goes limp." He shrugged his black backpack off his shoulder and took out a black box that was about the size of a softball. He opened the lid to show her a vibrant blue stone that was chiseled with intricate markings. It was a strange, compelling object that seemed to hum with life.
She reached for it only to have Acheron move it away.
"Remember, it burns. I'll hand it to you and then you press it to Artemis's mark."
She gulped as she stared at the stone. It was hard to fathom that was Rafael's human soul in there. "Are you sure this works?"
"Kyrian, Talon, Valerius - "
"Okay," she said as Acheron listed off the Dark-Hunters she knew had gone free. "Let's do it."
Rafael pulled his shirt off so that she could see the double bow and arrow mark on his left shoulder.
Her heart pounding, she gripped the dagger tight in her hand and met his obsidian gaze. The love there scorched her.
"You can do it," he whispered. "Just pretend I'm Jeff."
She wanted to laugh at his joke, but she couldn't even muster it. Instead, she ground her teeth and did the hardest thing she'd ever done in her life.
She tried to stab him, but the dagger didn't so much as pierce his skin. Stunned, she tried harder, but still it wouldn't budge. "What's wrong?" she asked.
Acheron grimaced. "Damn. We forgot to drain his Dark-Hunter powers out of him. You can't kill him while he's immortal... at least not and leave his body whole."
"Then what do we do?"
Acheron scratched the back of his neck. "I'm not supposed to interfere, but what the hell? For you two, I'll make an exception."
He took the dagger from her hand and plunged it into Rafael's heart, up to its hilt.
Rafael staggered back before he slid slowly to the floor.
"Oh God," she cried, horrified by what Acheron had done, as she knelt down beside him.
Rafael's face was contorted by pain as a small trickle of blood left the corner of his mouth.
Instinctively, she reached for the dagger to pull it out.
"Not yet," Acheron said, pulling her back. "He has to die or he can't go free."
Tears filled her eyes as she panted along with Rafael. He cupped her cheek in his palm as he offered her a small smile. "It's okay, Celena."
She only hoped he was right.
Covering his hand with hers, she held it tight as she watched the light fade from his eyes. And she gave a small cry as the last breath was expelled from his body.
Acheron took the stone from the box and held it out to her. His swirling silver eyes bore into hers. "Don't drop it."
Nodding, she took it from him only to scream out as a furious pain seared her skin. It burned worse than any imaginable fire and it was all she could do to maintain her hold. The only thing that kept her from releasing it was the knowledge that Rafael would die if she did.
She ground her teeth as Acheron helped her place the stone over the mark. Tears flowed down her cheeks from the pain and fear as she waited for Rafael to open his eyes.
It seemed an eternity had passed before Acheron pulled the dagger out of his chest.
An instant later, Rafael took a deep breath and blinked his eyes open to look at her.
Celena laughed in giddiness as she saw eyes that were no longer black. Now his eyes were a light amber brown that sparkled with human life. He was even more handsome than he'd been before.
Biting her lip, she pulled him into her arms and held him close.
Acheron moved away and returned the dagger to his boot.
"Thanks, boss," Rafael said as he pushed himself to his feet.
Acheron gave him a kind grin. "I'm not your boss anymore, Rafael. She is."
Rafael laughed. "That doesn't bother me."
Acheron snorted. "Yeah, be glad you're human now. Nothing like answering to one single woman for eleven thousand years to make you wish for the end of time."
Celena laughed again. "Thank you, Acheron."
He inclined his head to them. "You kids have fun."
Rafael looked down at the woman in his arms and tightened his hold on her. "Trust me, we will."
And as soon as Acheron was gone, Celena pulled him down for a fierce kiss. Rafael's head swam at the taste of her. It was a taste he would now spend the rest of his life savoring.
SHADOW OF THE MOON
1
New Orleans
Fury Kattalakis was about to walk straight into the dragon's lair. Well, not exactly. There was a dragon in the attic of the building he was headed toward, but that dragon wasn't nearly as dangerous to Fury as the bear guarding the door.
That nasty sonofabitch hated his guts.
Not that he cared. Most people and animals hated his guts which was fine by him. He didn't have much use for the world anyway.
"The things you do for family," Fury said under his breath. Though to be honest, this whole family concept was still new to him. He was more used to being screwed over by everyone around him. It wasn't until his brother Vane had taken him in during the summer of '04 that he'd realized not everyone in the universe was out to kill him.
The bear, however, still was...
Dev Peltier tensed as soon as he saw Fury step out of the shadows near the door of Sanctuary - a rough biker bar and dance club that stood at 688 Ursulines. Like that address hadn't been chosen intentionally by the bear clan who owned it. They were nothing if not ironic.
Dressed in a black Sanctuary staff t-shirt and jeans, the bear looked human at present, complete with long curly blond hair, black biker boots, and a pair of sharp eyes that missed no detail or weakness, not that Fury had a weakness. But for all of Dev's human appearance, to those lycanthropes such as Fury, Dev's alternate form was like a thrumming beacon that warned all otherworldly types that Dev was ferocious.
Then again, so was Fury. What he lacked in magick abilities, he more than made up for in sheer strength...
And FU attitude and anger.
No one got the better of him. Ever.
"What are you doing here?" Dev growled.
Fury shrugged nonchalantly and decided that a fight wouldn't get him inside - which was what he'd promised to do. Him... keeping a promise to someone other than himself... yeah. Right. Hell was freezing over. He still wasn't really sure how he'd allowed his brother Fang to talk him into this act of blatant suicide.
The bastard owed him.
Big time.
"Peace, brother." Fury held his hands up in mock surrender. "I'm just here to see Sasha."
Dev bared his teeth threateningly as he raked a glare over Fury's body that normally would have caused Fury to slug him for the insult. Damn, his brother Vane was rubbing off on him. "The Kattalakis patria isn't welcome here and you know it."
Fury arched a brow as he looked up at the sign over Dev's head. Flat black with electric blue and brown, it held a motorcycle on a hill that was silhouetted by a full moon. It also proclaimed Sanctuary to be the home of the Howlers, the house band. To the unobservant, it looked like any other club sign. But to those born cursed, like them, the shadows in the moon formed the outline of a dragon rising - a hidden symbol to the preternatural beings the world over.
This club wasn't just named Sanctuary, it was one. And all paranormal entities were allowed inside where no one could harm them. At least so long as they obeyed the first rule of a limani. No spill blood.
&nb
"Fuck you," Dev snarled.
Fury shook his head as he bit back his natural caustic retort. Instead, he decided to handle it with biting sarcasm. "Thank you so much for the offer, but while you do have a certain feminine quality in your demeanor and a remarkable head of hair that any woman would envy, you're far too hairy for my tastes. No offense."
Dev curled his lip. "Since when does a dog care about what it humps?"
Fury sucked his breath in sharply. "I could go so low with that that even the gutter would envy us, but... I know what you're trying to do. You're trying to provoke a fight with me so that you can legally turn me away."
He clenched his fists, and he made a show of struggling with what he wanted to do and what he'd promised to do. "I really, really want to give you that fight, too, but I have to see Sasha and it can't wait. Sorry. We'll have to hump and fight later."
Dev growled threateningly, a pure grizzly sound. "You're on thin ice, Wolf."
Fury sobered and narrowed his gaze to that of his wolf form. When he spoke, his voice was low and feral and filled with the promise of whup-ass that was waiting if Dev wanted to continue this game. "Shut up, sod off, and let me in."
Dev took a step toward him.
Faster than Fury could even tense in expectation of the hit Dev was about to deliver, Colt was there. A head taller than both of them, Colt had short, jet-black hair and lethal eyes. He put one large paw of a tattooed hand on Dev's chest and held him back.
"Don't do it, Dev," Colt said in a low, even tone. "He's not worth it."
Fury should probably have been insulted, but the truth had never bothered him. "He's right. I'm a worthless bastard fathered by a bastard even more worthless than I am. You definitely don't want to have your sanctuary license pulled over the likes of me."
Dev shrugged away Colt's touch, which caused the sleeve of his shirt to pull up and expose the double bow and arrow tattoo on his arm. "Whatever. But we're watching you, Wolf."
Fury gave him a one-finger salute. "Then I'll try not to piss on the floor or hump the furniture..." He glanced down at Dev's black, silver-studded boot. "Your leg, though, might be another matter."
Dev growled again while Colt laughed and tightened his hold.
Colt indicated the door with a jerk of his chin. "Get your ass inside, Fury, before I decide to feed you to him."
"I'm seriously not worth the indigestion." With an antagonistic wink at Dev, Fury sauntered past them to enter the bar where the music was loud and pumping, something that made the wolf in him want to whine in protest as it assaulted his heightened hearing.
Since Colt was one of the Howlers, they weren't on stage yet. But there was already a good-sized crowd gathered. Tourists and regulars were dancing or milling about on the first level of the three-story bar. No doubt it was just as crowded on the second floor, too. The third floor, however, was reserved for their kind only.
Fury tucked his hands into his back pockets as he moved through the people. It was easy to spot the bikers from the others since many of them were old school and covered in leather. The younger, hipper crowd wore nylon or Aerostitch suits like his while the tourists and college kids wore everything from short skirts to khaki pants to jeans.
As Fury passed the tables where customers could sit down and eat, he caught the gaze of the beautiful blond waitress who just happened to be the sister of the asshole outside.
Aimee Peltier.
Like her brother Dev, her long hair was blond, and she was tall and thin. Lithe. All in all, very attractive except for the fact that when she went to bed at night, she turned into a bear. He shuddered at the thought. His brother's taste in women left a lot to be desired.
Aimee froze the moment she saw him.
He subtly indicated the bar with his eyes to let her know he had a message for her. She was the real reason he was here, but if any of her numerous brothers found that out, they'd both be dead.
So he continued on his way to the bar where three bartenders were making drinks. Since Dev was one of a set of identical quads, Fury felt like he was seeing double as another werebear came over to him. The only reason he could pick out Dev from his other three identical brothers was from the tattoo on his arm. With the other three, well, he really didn't give a rat's ass about who it was.
The quad narrowed his eyes threateningly. "What you want, Wolf?"
Nonchalant, Fury sat down. "Tell Sasha I need to see him."
"Why you need to see him?"
Fury gave him a droll stare. "Wolf business, and the last time I sniffed, which I'm trying real hard not to do 'cause the stench of you assholes is rough on my heightened sense of smell, you're a bear. Grab his hide and send it over."
"Do you have to piss off everyone you meet?" That soft voice went down his spine like a caress.
He turned to find Margarite Neely standing beside him. Tiny and human, Margery had one of the finest posteriors he'd ever seen on a woman. But therein was the problem. She was human, and he had a hard time relating to that breed, or any breed for that matter. Social skills were so not his forte. Like Margery had pointed out, he tended to piss off anyone dumb enough to come near him. Even when he didn't mean to.
"It's a congenital habit that serves me well most days."
Laughing, she held a bottle of beer out toward him.
Fury shook his head, declining the offer. That stuff on his tastebuds... nasty. He frowned at her. "I'm surprised to see you down here." She was the nurse for the Peltiers, and he normally only saw her when he was injured and in need of care. As a rule, she avoided the bar area and stayed in the hidden hospital that was attached to it.
She took a swig of beer. "Yeah, but there's some bad mojo going down. I had to have a drink to steady my nerves."
Since he'd never known her to drink, that intrigued him. "What kind of bad mojo?"
Sasha joined them and answered for her. "There's a Litarian in Carson's office."
Fury scowled at Sasha, whose face was pale. If he didn't know better, he'd think the wolf was shaken. "Yeah, so? There's a lot of shit in his office most days." Carson was the resident doctor and veterinarian that all the Were-Hunters in New Orleans went to when they were in need of medical services. The fact that he had a lion in his hospital shouldn't even cause an eyebrow to raise.
Margery shook her head at him. "Not like this, Fury. He can't turn human or use his magick."
Now that was shocking. "What did you say?"
"The Arcadians hit him with something," she said in a low tone as if afraid of being overheard. "We don't know what. But it drained his powers instantly. He can't even project his thoughts to his mate."
Fury couldn't breathe at the thought of that happening. Even though his base and primary form was that of a wolf and he lacked a lot of magick control, he still couldn't imagine what it would be like to live entirely as an animal. "And you're sure he's not a regular lion?" It was a stupid question, but one that had to be stated.
They both gave him a "duh" stare.
Fury held his hands up in surrender. "Just checking. You guys could have had an aneurysm or something."
Margery took a deep draught of her beer. "It's been a bad day."
"Yeah," Sasha agreed, taking the bottle from her and duplicating the gesture. "We're all rattled by it. Imagine minding your own business and having a tessera come out of nowhere, pop your ass with something we can't identify, and then losing yourself forever."
Fury let out a long breath. "I saw that movie once. It sucked."
Sasha bowed his head sheepishly as he remembered Fury's past. "Sorry, man. I didn't mean anything by it."
No one ever did. Yet it stung regardless of intent.
"You needed to see me?" Sasha asked, changing the subject.
Fury checked his peripheral vision to make sure none of the bear clan were nearby. Then he gave a pointed look at Margery. "We have a bit of Wolf business, if you don't mind."
"It's all right. I need to get back upstairs anyway. The Litarian's mate had to be tranqed earlier and she should be coming out of it any moment." She stepped past him to slap the bar to get the Bear's attention. "Remi, give me one more bottle and I'm back to work."
Fury choked at her words. "Glad I'm not the patient."
Margery gave him a chiding glare. "It's for Carson."
He snorted. "And I repeat what I said. Just what I need, a bunch of drunk fucks working on me." He met Sasha's amused expression. "Remind me not to do anything stupid tonight. Oh wait, I'm here. Too late for that warning, huh?"
Sasha ignored that question as he crossed his arms over his chest and shifted his weight to one leg. "What do you need, Fury? We're not exactly friendly."
Fury led him a few feet away from where Remi was handing off another bottle of beer to Margery. "I know, but you're the only wolf the Peltiers aren't suspicious of and the only one I could trust to get this to Aimee." He palmed the small note into Sasha's hand. "Make sure you wipe your ass with it or something to get the stench of Fang off it. I did what I could, but he's pretty fragrant."
Sasha looked less than pleased by the request. "You know the last time I involved myself in subterfuge, I was mortally wounded and branded, and saw my entire clan put down over it. Take my advice and don't let your brother drag you down with him."
"Yeah, but I'm not stepping in between two gods." Which was what had almost gotten Sasha killed. "I'm just doing a favor for my brother."
"That's what I told myself, too. But the problem with family, they get you into shit and then abandon you to it. Or worse, get themselves killed off."
It was true, and he knew it. But he owed Vane and Fang for welcoming him in when no one else ever had.
For his brothers alone, he was willing to die.
"So will you give her the note?"
Sasha ground his teeth. "I'll do it. But you owe me."
Actually Fang owed him, but... they were brothers, and for the first time in his life, he understood what that meant. "I know and I really appreciate it."
Sasha slid the paper into his back pocket. "You know what really kills me over this is that I've never seen two animals act more human. What kind of Romeo-Juliet bullshit are they playing anyway?"
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