She wept against his chest. Kyrian closed his eyes and leaned his cheek against the top of her head as she clutched at him. It had been centuries since he'd comforted a woman. Centuries since he felt this way. And it shook him deeply.
"Can Desiderius get to Tabitha?"
"No," he whispered against her hair, trying not to inhale the sweet rose scent. He failed and his body reacted instantly as his groin tightened and burned for her. "As long as she stays in a private, human dwelling he can't get to her. It's one of the limitations Apollo put on them when he cursed them so that humans would have some protection."
Amanda took a ragged breath and stepped away from him. "I'm sorry," she said, wiping the tears from her face.
He clenched his teeth as he noted the way her hand shook. He could kill Desiderius for hurting her like this.
"I don't normally cry in front of people."
"Don't apologize," he whispered, cupping her face in his hands. "You're actually holding up a lot better than anyone should under the circumstances."
She looked up at him from under those long, dark, wet eyelashes. His heart hammered at the vulnerability he saw. A vulnerability that touched him on a level he didn't want to think about.
He wanted her. Desperately.
He hadn't felt this in so long, no, he corrected himself, he had never felt this way about another woman, not even Theone. This wasn't just lust or love, he felt a bond with her. They were like two parts of a single heart.
But it was a lie. It had to be. He didn't believe in love anymore. Didn't believe in much of anything.
And yet ...
She made him want to believe again. Made him long for things he had forgotten. Things like a tender hand in his hair when he woke up. The feel of a warm body lying next to him while he slept.
He was almost powerless before it.
His cell phone rang. Kyrian pulled it off his belt and answered it.
It was Talon.
"Is the woman with you?" Talon asked.
"Yes, why?"
"Because you have one big problem. The Apollite told me the fires were set from an electronic timer that was hidden inside the houses."
Kyrian frowned, then went cold as he remembered something else Amanda had said to him yesterday. "Amanda?" he asked, drawing her attention to him. "Didn't you say Desiderius had captured you while you were inside Tabitha's house?"
She nodded. "In her living room."
His stomach settled into a cold knot of dread. "Did you hear that?" he asked Talon.
Talon cursed. "How is that possible?"
"Someone must have invited Desiderius in, which means there's a human running around working with or for him. My money says Tabitha wouldn't be so stupid."
"Neither would Allison," Amanda inserted. "She knows to watch out for anyone suspicious."
Kyrian thought it over. "Any ideas?" he asked Talon.
"I don't know."
"What does your guide say?"
"Ceara knows nothing. And the next tiny problem, my back isn't healing."
If his stomach drew any tighter, it would make a diamond. "Not healing how?"
"I was hit with an astral blast. The same kind a god wields."
Kyrian went cold. "I didn't kill a god, I killed a Daimon."
"I know."
Kyrian cursed under his breath. "What have we gotten into?"
"Beats me, but until we know more, I suggest you sit tight on her. With the untapped powers she has, Desiderius will be after her full force. I'm sure by now he'd rather have her than her sister."
Kyrian shifted the phone as he watched Amanda take a seat at his table. Gods, he couldn't stand the thought of her being hurt. The pain of the idea racked him. "Do you need me to do anything for your back?"
"No. It just hurts like hell."
Kyrian knew the feeling. His shoulder was still stinging from Aphrodite. "I'm beginning to understand how Desiderius killed the last eight Dark-Hunters who went up against him."
"Yeah," Talon agreed. "And I don't want us to be nine and ten."
"Me, neither. Okay, I'll keep Amanda safe with me, but we still have the problem of her sister out there."
"I can have Eric put a leash on Tabitha for the time being. You just make sure Amanda stays in touch with her or she's likely to make our lives even more difficult."
"Will do." Kyrian hung up and tossed his phone onto his counter.
"Is something wrong?" Amanda asked.
He laughed in spite of himself. "I think a better question would be, is anything not wrong?"
"And that means?"
"It means your boring life has just ended. And for the next few days, it looks as if you're going to find out exactly how dangerous mine is."
CHAPTER 7
"Oh no," Amanda said, rising on her tiptoes to stand nose to nose with Kyrian. She arched a brow and dared him with her eyes to deny her words. As she spoke, each word was short and clipped. "You are so wrong. I want my life back. I want it boring and I want it long."
Her spirit amused him as she emphasized the last word. She was spectacular when riled and he wondered just how long he could keep that color high in her cheeks. The fire in those lush blue eyes.
Better still, as her breasts rose and fell with the weight of her conviction, images of other things that would make her breathless flashed though his mind.
He wanted to keep her breathless. Wanted to taste her passion fully.
Kyrian's lips itched to kiss hers, his hands ached to touch her body until she cried out with pleasure.
Gods, but this woman tempted him as he'd never been tempted before. And he had once loved temptation in a way that defied explanation. Over the centuries, he'd forgotten that small personality flaw, but ever since he had awakened with her next to him, he had been painfully reminded of the mortal man he used to be.
Slowly, bit by bit, he could feel her breaking down the barriers he had built around himself, the numbness. He had distanced himself from his feelings for centuries. And though he'd had mortals he cared about during that time, none of them had ever touched him as she did.
It was so strange to him.
Why her?
Why now? Now when he needed clarity of thought to deal with Desiderius.
The Fates were once again toying with him and he didn't like it in the least.
He could feel his blood pounding through his veins as he stared at those moist, full lips. Already he could taste them. Feel her. Dear gods, how he craved her.
She, alone, awoke the hungry beast in him. The part of him that wanted to growl and devour her body inch by slow, studied inch, all night long.
But Amanda was human and he could offer her nothing of himself. His soul and loyalty belonged to Artemis.
Besides, Amanda had a right to her dream of normality. Her dreams of a home and family with an average man.
After having his own dreams so cruelly, vengefully stripped from him, he refused to do that to her now.
She deserved to have her long, full, and boring life. Everyone deserved a chance to obtain their heart's wishes.
He swallowed the lump in his throat that ached with desire for her and knew, in that moment, he had to banish her from his thoughts.
She could never be his.
Her destiny was to return to a family who loved her and to find a mortal man who could ...
He didn't finish that thought. It was too painful to even contemplate.
"For your sake," he whispered, resisting the urge to touch her hair, "I hope that's true, but I'm afraid with the raw, untapped powers you have and with the vampire-hunting Tabitha does, it's not going to be possible to live your boring life for the next few days."
She broke eye contact with him. "I have no powers." Her voice was sharp, yet it lacked her earlier conviction.
He reached out and fingered her chin, seeking to comfort the trouble he saw on her face, the fears he didn't understand. Why wouldn't she acknowledge the gifts she had been given?
The vivid sapphire returned to her eyes. "You're lying to me."
Her accusation surprised him. "Why would I do that?"
She swallowed. "I don't know. I just know that I have no powers."
"Why are you so afraid of them?"
"Because..."
He cocked his head as her voice trailed off and she didn't finish her sentence.
"Because?" he prompted.
She looked up at him and the grief in her eyes took his breath. "When I was fifteen," she said in a hushed tone, "I had a dream." She blinked back tears as she gripped the counter beside her. "I used to have a lot of them back then. They always came true. In this one, my best friend was killed in a car wreck. I saw her. I felt her panic and I heard the last thoughts that went through her mind before she died."
Kyrian clenched his teeth at the pain he heard in her voice. Reaching out, he took her hand in his. Her icy fingers were shaking.
"When I saw her at school, I did everything I could to keep her from going home that day with Bobby Thibideaux. I even told her about my dream." Tears fell again. "She didn't listen. She told me I was stupid and mean and jealous because he liked her and not me."
She shook her head as she relived that day. "I wasn't jealous, Hunter, I just didn't want her to die."
He stroked her fingers, trying to warm her hand. "I know, Amanda."
"She got in the car with me screaming at her to get out. Everyone at school was staring at me, but I didn't care. Tabitha pulled me away so they could leave and everyone was laughing."
She licked her dry lips. "They weren't laughing the next morning when they found out the two of them had died on the way home. They called me a freak. For the next three years, no one wanted to be near me. I was that weirdo girl who saw things."
Anger flashed in her eyes as she looked up at him. "Tell me, what good are these so-called powers when they make people afraid of me? Why can I see things I can't change? What good is that?"
Kyrian had no answer for her. All he could do was feel her inner pain and turmoil.
"Don't you understand?" she continued. "I don't want to know the future when I can't stop it. I want to be normal," she insisted, her voice cracking on the last word. "I don't want to be like Talon or my grandmother and have dead people talking to me. I don't want to know what you're feeling. I just want to live my life like other people. Don't you ever want that?"
Closing his eyes against the unfounded agony that clenched his heart, Kyrian let go of the softness of her skin and stepped back from her. "It wouldn't matter if I did."
Amanda started at the look on his face. She'd wounded him somehow. "I'm sorry, Hunter, I didn't mean--"
"It's okay," he said slowly. He moved to stand by a chair and she watched the way he gripped the edge of it. Though he was trying hard to hide it, she could sense his pain.
"You're right," he said at last. "There are times when I do miss being able to feel the sunshine on my face. I miss so many things that I can't even begin to count them all. I have learned the best thing to do is to not torture myself with the memory of it." He looked up at her and the heat in his eyes scorched her. "But people like us have special gifts. We can't be normal."
Amanda didn't want to hear that. Her heart couldn't take that news. "Maybe you can't. But I can. I don't let myself feel those powers anymore. They are dead to me."
He laughed bitterly. "And you think I'm stubborn."
"Hunter, please," she said, hating the agony she heard in her tone. "I just wish it were the day before yesterday. I wish I could wake up and have all this be a nightmare."
In that moment, she felt something that scared her. It was just a quick twinge of the powers he referred to. And the sensation of it sliced through her as she heard his thoughts.
Wish you had never met me, you mean.
She moved toward him. "Hunter..."
He dodged her touch and went to the counter where the phone was. He picked the phone up and handed it to her. "Call Tabitha and tell her to stay at your mother's until Friday. She can come and go in the daytime, but after dark it is imperative that she stay indoors."
"She won't like that."
Aggravated fury smoldered in his midnight eyes. "Then have your mother tie her down. We're not dealing with regular vampires here. These Daimons have unlocked some exceedingly dangerous powers, and until Talon and I figure out what we're dealing with, she needs to lie low."
"Okay. I'll do my best."
He nodded. "While you talk to her, I'm going to change clothes."
Amanda watched as he walked out of the kitchen, her heart heavy. She didn't want him to leave her even long enough to change. She felt a peculiar urge to follow after him and help him shed those clothes ...
Instead, she dialed Tabitha's cell phone.
"Oh, thank God you're all right," Tabitha said, her voice filled with tears. "The police just told me about the houses and I knew it was past time for you to be home."
Amanda's own eyes teared up, but she forced them back. Crying wouldn't accomplish anything. The houses were gone and all the tears in the world wouldn't bring them back. What she needed to focus on now was for all of them to survive Desiderius's wrath.
"How's Allison?" she asked, trying to distract herself from the fear.
"She's fine. Her mother's already at the hospital. I'm in the car on my way to see her even as we speak. No one knows what happened to Terminator."
"I have him."
Tabitha breathed a sigh of relief. "Thank you, sis. I owe you big time. So, where are you now?"
It was the question Amanda dreaded answering. Tabitha was bound to go ballistic when she found out. "I'd rather not say," she hedged.
Silence.
It stretched for several minutes and all Amanda heard from the other end was the noise of traffic.
Tabitha was trying to read her.
Damn!
Tabitha said the word at the same moment Amanda thought it. "You're with that vampire again, aren't you?"
Amanda cringed. How did someone tell her sister, the vampire hunter, that she had a crush on a vampire and planned on spending the night in his home?
There was no easy way around that one.
Sighing, she tried to think of some way to explain it. "He's not a vampire ... Exactly. He's more like you."
"Uh-huh," Tabitha said. "Like me how? He has breasts? He has a boyfriend? Or he just likes to kill things?"
Amanda ground her teeth. "Tabitha Lane Devereaux, don't be such a bitch. I know you don't like to kill things, either, and I don't want to play Twenty Questions with you. The guy who attacked me in your place is really scary, and not like the other scary things you play with. This is different. Hunter wants you to lie low and I agree."
"Hunter? Is that the same bloodsucking ghoul who threatened your life to me earlier?"
"He didn't mean that."
"Oh no? So you're willing to bet your life on it?"
"I'm willing to bet both our lives on it."
"You're friggin' crazy, you know that?"
"Watch your mouth, little girl. Unlike you, I know what I'm doing. I trust Hunter. And this guy Desiderius is seriously evil. Like Hannibal Lecter evil."
Amanda could just imagine Tabitha rolling her eyes as she made a disgusted snort. "I'm not afraid of either one of them."
"Maybe you need to learn a little fear. I for one am terrified."
"Then why don't you come home where we can protect you?"
Because I want to stay with Hunter. Amanda didn't know where the thought came from. But there was no denying it. She felt safe and protected with him.
He had yet to offer to take her anywhere else. She had no doubt that if she asked, he would let her leave, and yet ...
She didn't want to.
But she didn't dare tell Tabitha that. Things were bad enough between them, so she offered her sister the only excuse she could think of. "I can't do that. Not while this thing is after me."
Tabitha cursed again. "How do I know this Hunter guy doesn't have you under some kind of mind spell?"
Amanda laughed at that as she recalled Hunter's words to her in the factory. "Because, much like you, I'm too stubborn for it to work. Besides, he's a friend of Julian Alexander. You trust Julian and Grace, don't you?"
"Well, yeah. Of course."
"Then trust their friend."
"Okay," Tabitha said reluctantly. "But my trust is wearing thin. I want you safe."
"And I want the same for you. Hunter said you're safe so long as it's daylight, but make sure you're in Mom's house once the sun sets and stay there. In fact, I don't think you should go to the hospital. You should probably go to Mom's right now."
"Allison is my best friend, I need to see her."
"What if you lead them to her? For all you know they're watching you already."
Tabitha growled low in her throat. "I don't like this. Not at all, but okay. You're right. I don't want to draw them to Allison. Mom can handle anything. I'll turn around at the next street and head to Mom's for the night. You call if you need me."
"Will do."
Amanda set the phone down and picked up her plate from the counter where Hunter had left it. She carried it to the small breakfast table that was set next to a large picture window. It looked out onto a beautiful, old-fashioned courtyard behind the house, complete with a rose trellis, Greek statuary, and sculpted shrubs. The area was lit by antique oil lamps that cast an eerie glow against the white stucco walls.
Amanda sat alone for several minutes until Hunter returned. He'd changed into a long-sleeved, black T-shirt that hugged his broad shoulders. He had the sleeves pulled up on his forearms and she saw the vicious cut that ran along his arm.
"Did the Daimon bite you or is that a knife wound?"
Hunter glanced at it as he sat down across from her. "Bite wound."
She went cold. "You need that tended, don't you?"
"No, the entire wound will be gone by tomorrow."
"Yeah, but don't such things turn you into a vampire?"
He laughed and gave her a droll stare. "Technically, I already am a vampire. As for turning, it's impossible unless you're an Apollite."
"So they can't bite humans and make them into vampires?"
"Bedtime story."
She thought about that a minute. "So where do all these misconceptions about vampires come from?"
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