by J. S. Scott
“Humans are never destined to be Sentinels. It’s a conscious choice,” Hunter scoffed.
“Not for you,” Athena replied regretfully. “You’re the only Sentinel I know who was actually destined for his fate and who could see Evils when they didn’t want to be seen when you were a human. You were an amazing demon hunter even before you became a Sentinel.”
“Everyone thought I was a crazy drunk,” Hunter confessed, remembering the taunts from his younger days as a human. He’d loathed himself back then just as much as he did now. Still, his instincts to hunt demons had always been stronger than his desire for a normal life. It was for that very reason that his father, mother, and brothers had been trapped and killed by Evils. If he hadn’t been a demon hunter, most likely his only family would never even gained the attention of the Evils.
Athena put a gentle hand on his shoulder. “That’s not true, Hunter. The Evils didn’t even know they were your relatives until you showed up the day they were taken.”
“Bullshit. The Evils hated me and they targeted my family,” Hunter grunted, refusing to release the blame he’d carried for over a century.
“I don’t do bullshit, Sentinel,” Athena snapped back at him. “I have no reason to not tell you the truth. I’m a goddess of wisdom, intelligence, and knowledge, and that doesn’t involved deception. Your father was a very good man, but when his crops failed, he was willing to do a deal with the Evils. Unfortunately, he included your entire family. They all agreed to it, even your mother. None of them heeded your warnings about the demons. And you did try to warn them. Don’t keep carrying the blame for something that wasn’t your fault. Your entire family made a fatal mistake, but you didn’t cause their death. Your father was desperate, and you know the Evils sense that desolation to find victims.”
Everything Athena was saying was true, but Hunter still shook his head. He had tried to warn his family about the existence of Evils, but they did nothing more than humor him. His family had loved him, but they had been convinced he was more than a little touched in the head. “The Evils were celebrating even more about taking my family because I was a demon hunter.”
“Maybe,” Athena agreed. “But you didn’t cause their demise. They did it themselves.”
He couldn’t exonerate himself from blame. Hunter could still picture his mother’s face the moment she realized that the Evils weren’t going to save the family farm like they promised. Greedy claws had sunk into her skin as they dragged her away screaming, exactly the same way they took his brothers and his father. Hunter had been helpless, unable to save any of them. He’d walked into the house just as the Evils had sealed their bargain with every one of his living relatives. He’d been held captive, taken unaware by several sets of razor-sharp claws as they took his family away. He had been going to his childhood home for a visit. While his two brothers had stayed and worked the family farm with his father, Hunter had left to chase demons. He hadn’t had any of his equipment that he used to battle Evils. He never did when he visited the farm because it worried his mother when she saw him carrying weapons. It was the last time he’d allowed himself to feel safe and let his guard down…until he entered Athena’s domain unprepared. How the hell was he to know he’d lose his powers again?
The Evils had crackled happily when they realized they had Hunter’s family. They despised him. He’d steadily worked his way up on the Evils’ shit list with every one of their kind that he slayed. By the time his family had been taken, he’d been close to enemy number one on the Evils’ list, probably second only to the Sentinels.
“I should have been able to save them,” Hunter growled. “What good was it to be a demon hunter if I couldn’t save my own family?” He’d wanted to die after he’d been unsuccessful in tracking the demons who’d taken his only relatives on Earth, knowing in his heart that they were gone soon after the Evils had taken them to the demon realm.
Kristoff had saved him a few months after Hunter had lost his family, stepping in when Hunter had been aggressively slaying demons in an act of revenge, his usual hunting skills not up to par because of his grief. He’d failed to see an Evil behind him as he cut through a mass of the little bastards during a confrontation. He had made one stupid mistake that should have cost him his human life. Kristoff had come out of nowhere, moving behind the Evil and beheading it just as the demon was about to deal Hunter a death blow that would have killed him instantly.
“Why me? Why did Kristoff save me?” he questioned aloud in a husky voice.
“Because he was drawn to you, just like he was drawn to Zachary and Andrew,” Athena answered quietly. “Although your Winston brothers weren’t hunters when they were human or fated to be Sentinels, you’re all special because your radiants have extraordinary powers. They have talents that can help us have stasis again in the battle between good and evil. Kristoff didn’t completely understand why he needed to recruit all of you. He just knew it was important.”
“How do you know?” Hunter questioned irritably. “Did you make me the way I am? Was I one of your personal creations?”
“No. It was prophesized and you were destined to be born a hunter thousands of years ago. It was fated.”
“The demon prophecies are a bunch of garbage that no one can decipher,” Hunter rumbled unhappily. “Talia and Kat are working on them, but I think Drew and Zach humor them. None of us believe in the demon prophecies.”
“Every word in the documents is true. They’re just written in ancient metaphors that nobody can understand until it’s time for them to know.”
“So even you don’t know the future, Princess?” he asked cantankerously.
“I’m a goddess, not a princess.” She corrected him patiently, like he was a child. “And no…I don’t always know the things I want to know when I want to know them. The oracles reveal only the information I need when I supposedly need it.” She frowned as she met his gaze, obviously unhappy with that particular part of her existence.
“So when did you realize that you were my radiant? And how in the hell did that happen anyway? How does a goddess become a mate to a Sentinel?”
She might be a little naïve to the current generation, but she’s brave, strong, wise, and beautiful. He was inside her mind, and Athena was a goddess with a conscience, integrity. No woman deserves to be mated to me, and certainly not a goddess.
Athena reached out her hand and gently cupped his whiskered jaw, her eyes boring into his as she replied, “Because you’re worthy. Because whether you know it or not…you’ve kept me in existence for all these years by slaying Evils, even when you were severely punished and ridiculed for doing so.” She lowered her hand back to her lap but kept her gaze locked with his. “I didn’t know you were my fated mate until I saw you and you tried to kill me. I saw everything then. I thought I’d just cease to exist some day when I was no longer needed.”
Hunter missed her gentle touch immediately.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
“I thought you were a demon,” he rationalized, cringing as he remembered how he’d attacked her. He could have killed his own mate in his ignorance—not that he was actually planning on making her his radiant. But it was pretty sad that he’d been blinded by the flash of red in her eyes. He knew now why the change in color happened, how the creation of the Sentinels had occurred. It was one of the first bits of information he pulled from their shared thoughts.
“I know. I don’t blame you for it. And you couldn’t have killed me. I’m a goddess. We don’t die easily,” she told him arrogantly.
But Hunter had caused her pain, and he hated himself for that. He broke contact with her unnerving stare and looked at the space around him for the first time. The room looked like a purple fairy had vomited the color all over the entire space of the enormous bedroom. Purple curtains, purple walls, purple loungers in the sitting area…hell, even the bedspread they were sitting on was a nauseatingly br
ight purple. He was willing to bet the sheets were the same repugnant color.
“It’s not purple,” Athena said in annoyed tone. “The curtains are mulberry. The carpet is violet and so is the furniture. The carpet is thistle.”
“They’re all purple, Princess,” Hunter answered, amused at her explanation.
“Purple is so common. These are specific tints. I picked them out and coordinated the items myself,” she answered defensively.
“So that’s what you do in your spare time? Decorate this mausoleum in ugly colors?” Hunter asked just to provoke her, beginning to get a kick out of her rationalizations and the flash of red in her eyes when she was irritated. He turned his head just to see what he already knew would be her passionate response.
He wasn’t disappointed. She looked entirely peeved by his words, her eyes flashing briefly to red before returning to icy blue.
“What would you do if you were literally a prisoner for thousands of years inside a house this large that’s in a different dimension that nobody knows exists?” she asked irately. “A goddess does what she can to entertain herself. And I happen to be an excellent decorator.” She shot him a furious look before looking straight ahead again, ignoring him.
“I think I’d downsize,” Hunter answered in an amused voice.
Shortly after, he started to feel her pain, the agony of thousands of years of isolation and emptiness pressing on his chest. It was only then that he began to realize how very alone she’d been for so long. “Thousands of years?”
She ignored him.
“How many thousands of years?” he persisted, calculating how long it should be that she’d been imprisoned here. It should have been a few thousand years judging by the beginning of the Sentinel’s existence, but he saw something different in her thoughts.
“A lot,” she finally answered reluctantly. “Time passes differently in this dimension. One week here is only a day in the human realm.”
Holy shit! A few thousand years was bad…but spending seven times that amount of time here alone was almost unthinkable. Hunter isolated himself by choice, because his main goal was to kill Evils. But he’d still had his family for most of his human life, even if they had thought he wasn’t right in the head. And now he had Zach, Drew, and Kristoff. “You were lonely for all those years,” he suggested huskily.
“Of course I wasn’t lonely. I chose this life for myself when I created the Sentinels. I was simply bored.” She tilted a stubborn chin as she continued to stare at the purple wall on the other side of the room, avoiding eye contact.
She was lying. Hunter could sense her profound loneliness, read it in her thoughts. “You can never be free?”
“Only if I fade from existence and enter the Elysian Fields, or you decide to bond me to you as your radiant,” she answered flatly. “I’ve never been able to leave this house, even to wander outside, without pain since I was sent here after creating the first Sentinel—Kristoff.”
Not just pain…excruciating, agonizing physical and mental pain that would keep any being on Earth inside this prison to avoid experiencing it. Hunter saw mental images of Athena trying to step outside only to be broadsided by the penalty of leaving the confines of the mansion. And she’d stubbornly tried over and over again. The punishment he’d received for wasting Evils without provocation was nothing compared to what Athena suffered if she tried to leave the front step of her house.
“So if we mate?” Hunter questioned hoarsely.
“I’ll be free to leave. I’ll regain my power and help in the fight to regain the balance between the Sentinels and Evils. It’s the only way, Hunter. You and I are part of the puzzle to regain stasis. The Sentinels need us now.”
I need you. Mine. Mine. Mine.
Primal instinct was beginning to take over Hunter’s brain, and his unstoppable need to make this woman his was beginning to beat at him painfully. “I can’t,” he rasped. He couldn’t make any woman his radiant.
“I know you aren’t thrilled about having me as your mate, but I’m inside your head, Hunter. You’d give your life for your brothers or Kristoff, and they won’t win this battle without us being mated. I need to be at full power. I need to leave this place and join the fight. It’s time. Every piece of the puzzle needs to be in place for us to claim victory. We can go our separate ways or something if we regain balance. I promise you won’t be stuck with me forever.” Her voice was pleading, a tone that Hunter had yet to hear. He had a feeling that begging wasn’t a practice she did often…or ever.
“You think I don’t want you?” Hunter answered, a low growl of protest forming in the back of his throat.
“I know you don’t. We’re mismatched, but for some reason we need to…do it for the Sentinels.” Athena swallowed hard and started fidgeting next to him.
Hunter realized that she was picking up the negatives in his thoughts, but wasn’t looking at the reason why he couldn’t mate with her. He was a drunk, a loser. His entire human and Sentinel lives had been spent with only one purpose:
Kill. Kill. Kill.
He heard the faint words in his head, a previously loud mantra he’d lived with for as long as he could remember.
Strangely, a louder chant was drowning out those three words, replacing the need to slay Evils with an even greater urgency:
Mine. Mine. Mine.
His head fell back against the headboard with a loud thump as he thought about his brothers and Kristoff. If Athena was right, he would do anything to save them.
I’m so screwed.
His mating instinct steadily growing stronger, Hunter closed his eyes and tried to fight his primordial demon instinct to take his radiant, brand her as his. “I’ll do it,” he said stoically, knowing damn good and well that once she belonged to him, he’d probably never be able to let her go. She’d be stuck with him forever, and he wasn’t a pleasant man or demon. “You’ll end up hating me eventually. Most people do,” he warned her ominously, disliking the thought of her despising him more than he wanted to admit.
“I won’t hate you. Thank you for making the sacrifice for the Sentinels,” she said solemnly.
“Is it different than a normal bonding?” Hunter asked, realizing that when a goddess was involved, things were altered.
“I don’t know,” Athena admitted softly. “I guess we’ll have to try it and find out once you’re healed. I’m sorry you have to do this.”
“Don’t be sorry,” Hunter demanded. “It’s my choice.” Although she might not realize it, she was the sacrificial lamb in this particular scenario. As Hunter clenched his fists tightly by the side of his body to stop himself from touching her, he expelled a harsh breath, deciding he’d let her figure that out for herself.
“You’re a what?” Hunter bellowed a few days later, sitting in Athena’s kitchen and eating an enormous breakfast Athena had manifested.
She glared at him from across the table, hating the fact that her body reacted to Hunter’s blatant masculinity so readily. He was healed completely now, and his rugged handsomeness was difficult to ignore. The guy was definitely ripped, and his darkness drew her in ways she’d never experienced before. Maybe it was just the mating instinct, but she had the inexplicable desire to lighten his darkness, make him happy for the first time in his life. Hunter deserved that and more for the sacrifices he’d made in both his human and Sentinel lives.
However, she’d had ample time to experience his irritating sarcasm and growly exterior. He might very well be a hard man to like if she wasn’t sharing his mind. Hunter was exactly the way he was because he had to be. He’d isolated himself with bitterness, anger, and sarcasm, but there was so much more to him than what came out of his mouth or his general attitude.
“I said…I’m a virgin. I was always a virgin goddess. You’ll have to help me with the mating.” She had never known sexual desire until she met Hunter. Now, it s
eemed like her body wanted to make up for lost time. “I’ve read about sex and I’ve even seen it on television, but I don’t understand the benefit of getting sweaty and messy. What’s the point unless you’re trying to procreate?” That had always been her opinion, but she was beginning to think that there might be more than a little pleasure involved. Her entire body was clamoring for Hunter. Honestly, it was a little unsettling. Restlessly, her female core clenched and her nipples grew painfully hard as she met Hunter’s dark, brooding gaze. She speared a piece of her pancake nervously as she saw the heat in Hunter’s eyes.
“You’ve existed for thousands of years and you’ve never—”
“Never,” she confirmed, cutting off his words.
Hunter stared at her incredulously. “I thought the Greek gods liked to get around.”
Athena shrugged, hating the fact that there was something that she had very little knowledge of. “Some did. But there were a lot of virgin goddesses. We had more important things to do. We didn’t have time to cavort around naked for no reason,” she answered defensively.
“There’s plenty of reason, Princess,” Hunter rasped.
“And what would that be?” She snapped the question at him, looking away from him as she pushed the slice of pancake into her mouth. Normally, she adored the sweet, sugary taste of maple syrup, but her mouth had gone suddenly dry and it tasted like sawdust in her mouth. As a goddess, she didn’t have to eat, but she did it because it was a pleasurable experience.
“Sex is much more pleasurable than eating,” Hunter said huskily after hearing her thoughts.
If there was one important thing she’d learned about Hunter in the last few days of his recovery—and she’d learned plenty—it was that he was blunt. No subject was taboo…and obviously she could add sex as a subject he’d readily discuss. “I doubt that.” She stood up, her food suddenly not very appealing. “And I thought we made a deal to try not to read each other’s personal thoughts.” Neither one of them was really comfortable having the other inside their heads. They had made a deal to try not to intrude on personal thoughts. While it was impossible to completely block each other, they could attempt to not to read each other’s private musings.
