DH 05 Kiss Of The Night (11 page)

He growled in response. “You have very talented feet,
villkatt.”

“Al the better to stroke you with,” she said, her voice light as she thought about the fact that she felt like Little Red Riding Hood being eaten by the Big Bad Wulf.

His laughter joined hers. She buried her hands in the soft waves of his hair and let him have his way with her. His tongue was the most incredible thing she’d ever known as he swirled it around her. Licking, teasing, tasting.

Just when she didn’t think she could feel any better, he slid two fingers deep inside her.

Cassandra came immediately.

Stil he continued caressing her until she was on fire and weak from the bliss.

“Mmm,” he breathed, pul ing away from her. “I think my kitten is hungry.”

“Famished,” she said, pul ing him up her body so that she could feast on his skin the way he had feasted on hers.

She buried her lips against his neck and nibbled with every part of her that was desperately hungry for him.

What was it about this man that drove her wild with desire? He was magnificent. Hot. Sexy. She’d never wanted anyone like this.

Wulf couldn’t stand the way she grabbed at him. It made him insane for her. It heightened his need until he was practical y dizzy.

Unable to tolerate any more, he rol ed her onto her side and entered her.

Cassandra cried out at the unexpected pleasure that fil ed her. Lying completely on her side, she’d never had a man inside her in this position. Wulf was so deep that she swore she could feel him al the way to her womb.

She watched him in the mirrored wal as he thrust into her over and over, deeper and deeper, until she wanted to scream with pleasure.

The power and strength of him was unlike anything she’d ever known. Every forceful stroke made her weak, breathless.

She came again an instant before he did.

Wulf pul ed back from her and lay down beside her.

His heart was pounding from the fury of their passion. But stil he wasn’t sated. Reaching for her, he pul ed her across his chest so that he could feel her with every inch of his body.

“You are spectacular,
villkat
.”

She nuzzled his chest with her face. “You’re not too bad either,
villwulf
.” He laughed at her made-up endearment. He real y liked this woman and her wit.

Cassandra lay in the peace of Wulf’s arms. For the first time in her life, she felt completely safe. As if nothing or no one could touch her. She’d never felt this way. Not even as a child. She’d grown up always afraid whenever someone unknown had knocked on the door.

Every stranger was under suspicion. At night, it could easily be a Daimon or Apol ite out to see her dead.

During the day, it could be a Doulos after her.

But something told her that Wulf wouldn’t let them threaten her at al .

“Cassandra?”

She frowned at the sound of a woman’s voice intruding into her dream.

“Cassandra?”

Against her wil , she was pul ed out of her dream only to find herself asleep in her own bed.

The knocking continued.

“Cass? Are you al right?”

She recognized Michel e’s voice. It was a struggle to awaken enough so that she could sit up in bed.

She was naked once more.

Frowning, Cassandra saw her clothes in a crumpled heap. What the hel was this? Had she been sleepwalking or something?

“I’m here, Chel,” she said as she got up and pul ed on her red bathrobe. She opened the door to find her friend and Kat on the other side.

“Are you okay?” Michel e asked.

Yawning, Cassandra rubbed her eyes. “I’m fine. Just taking a nap.” But she didn’t real y feel fine. She felt much more like some sort of narcoleptic.

“What time is it?”

“It’s eight-thirty, hon,” Kat supplied.

Michel e looked back and forth between them. “You said you guys would go back to the Inferno with me, but if you don’t feel like it…”

Cassandra caught the disappointment in Michel e’s voice. “No, no, it’s okay. Let me get dressed and we’l go.”

Michel e beamed.

Kat looked at her suspiciously. “Are you sure you feel up to it?”

“I’m fine, real y. I didn’t sleep wel last night and I just needed a nap.” Kat made a rude noise. “It’s al that
Beowulf
you and Chris were reading. It sucked al the energy right out of you. Beowulf… incubus… same thing.”

Now that was just a little too close to home for Cassandra’s comfort.

She laughed nervously. “Yeah. I’l be out in a few minutes.” Cassandra shut the door and turned back toward her crumpled clothes.

What was going on here?

Was Beowulf real y an incubus?

Maybe…

Brushing the ridiculous thought aside, she picked up her clothes and added them to the laundry hamper, then dressed herself in a pair of jeans and a dark blue sweater.

As she prepared to leave, a strange tingle ran through her. Something was going to happen tonight. She knew it. She didn’t have her mother’s psychic powers, but she did get strong feelings whenever something good or bad was going to happen.

Unfortunately, she just couldn’t tel which one it would be until it was too late.

But something was definitely up tonight.

“Welcome to
kolasi
,” Stryker said under his breath, speaking the Atlantean word for hel as he surveyed the leaders of his Daimon army that was ever ready to attack at his command.

For eleven thousand years, he, as the son of the Atlantean Destroyer, had led them.

Handpicked by the Destroyer herself and trained by Stryker, these Daimons were al elite kil ers. Their own brethren referred to them as Spathi Daimons. A term that had been bastardized by both the Apol ites and Dark-Hunters who didn’t understand what a true Spathi was.

Instead they applied the term to any Daimon who fought them. But that wasn’t right. The true Spathi were something else entirely.

They weren’t the children of Apol o. They were Apol o’s enemies, just as they were the enemies of the Dark-Hunters and humans. The Spathis had long ago forsaken whatever Greek or Apol ite heritage they might have had.

They were the last of the Atlanteans and were proud of it.

Unbeknownst to the Dark-Hunters and humans, there were thousands of them. Thousands. Al far older than any pathetic human, Apol ite, or Dark-Hunter dared dream. While the weaker Daimons lived in hiding on earth, the Spathis used
laminas
or bolt-holes to travel from this realm to the human one.

Their homes existed in another dimension. In Kalosis, where the Destroyer herself resided under imprisonment and where the lethal light of Apol o never shone. They were her soldiers.

Her sons and daughters.

Only a very select few of them could summon the
laminas
on their own—it was a gift the Destroyer didn’t bequeath often. As her son, Stryker could come and go at wil , but he chose to stay near his mother’s side.

As he had for the last eleven thousand years…

Al this time, they had planned wel for this night. After his father Apol o had cursed them and left Stryker and his children to die horribly, Stryker had embraced his mother wil ingly.

It was Apol ymi who had shown him the way. She who had taught them to take the souls of humans into their bodies so that they could survive even though his father had damned them al to die at twenty-seven.

“
You are my chosen ones
,” she had told him. “
Fight with me and the world shall belong to the Atlantean
gods once more
.”

Since that day, they had recruited their army with care. The three dozen generals who lounged around him in the “banquet” hal were the best fighters among them. They al waited for word from their spy as to when the missing heiress would reappear.

She’d been out of their reach al day. But now that the sun had set, she was within reach once more.

Any moment now and they would be free to ran the night and rip her heart out of her.

It was a precious thought Stryker cherished.

The doors to the hal opened and from the darkness outside came Stryker’s last surviving son, Urian.

Dressed al in black like his father, Urian had long blond hair that he wore in a queue secured by a black leather cord.

His son was more handsome than any other, but then al of their race were beautiful.

Urian’s deep blue eyes flashed as he walked with the pride and grace of a lethal predator. When Stryker had first brought his eldest son over, it had been strange to play father to a man who was physical y the same age as him, but that aside, they were father and son.

More than that, they were al ies.

And Stryker would kil anyone who threatened his child.

“Any word?” he asked his son.

“Not yet. The Were-Hunter said he has lost her scent, but that he wil pick her up again.” Stryker nodded. It had been their Were-Hunter spy who had brought the news to them last night of the fight where a group of Daimons had died in the bar.

Normal y such a fight would be meaningless to them, but the Were-Hunter had told them that the Daimons had cal ed their victim “the heiress.”

Stryker had been searching the earth for her. Five years ago, in Belgium, they had almost kil ed her, but her bodyguard had sacrificed himself to them and al owed her to escape.

Since then, there had been no sightings of her. No tel tale encounters with any of their people. The heiress had proved herself to be every bit as crafty as her mother.

So they had played the game.

Tonight, that game would end. Between the patrols Stryker had out in St. Paul and the Were-Hunter who served him, he was sure she would be found tonight.

He clapped his son on the back. “I want at least twenty of us standing by. There’s no way she’l escape us al .”

“I’l summon the Il uminati.”

Stryker inclined his head in approval. The Il uminati comprised him and his son, as wel as thirty others who were the bodyguards of the Destroyer. Each of them had taken a blood oath to his mother to see to it that she would be free of her netherworld so that she could rule the earth once again.

When that day came, they would be the princes of the world. Answerable only to her.

That day was final y upon them.

Wulf didn’t know why he was headed for the Inferno tonight, other than he felt a compulsion inside him that wouldn’t listen to reason.

He suspected it was from his insane need to feel closer to the woman who haunted his dreams. Even now he could see the beauty of her smile, feel her body welcoming his.

Or better yet, taste her.

Thoughts of her tormented him. They opened up feelings and needs that he had cast aside centuries ago without ever looking back.

Who needed it? Yet there wasn’t anything he wanted more than to see her again.

It didn’t make sense.

The chances of her being in the same place tonight were next to impossible.

Stil , he went. He couldn’t help it. It was as if he had no control over himself, but was being driven by some unseen force.

After parking his car, he walked down the quiet street like a silent phantom in the cold frigid night. The winter winds whipped around him, biting his exposed skin.

It had been a night much like this one that had brought him into service for Artemis. He’d been on a quest then too. Only then the nature of the quest had been different.

Or had it?

You’re a wandering soul, looking for a peace that doesn’t exist. Lost you will be until you find the one
inner truth. We can never hide from what we are. The only hope is to embrace it.

To this day, he didn’t real y understand what it was the old seer had tried to tel him the night he’d sought her out, wanting her to explain to him how Morginne and Loki had swapped their souls.

Perhaps there was no real explanation. After al , it was a freaky world he lived in and it seemed to get stranger by the minute.

Wulf entered the Inferno. Painted black inside and out, it had iridescent flames painted inside and out, as wel , that sparkled eerily under the muted, dancing lights of the club.

The club’s owner, Dante Pontis, met him at the door where he and two other “men” were taking cover charges and checking IDs. In human form, the Katagari panther was ironical y dressed like a “vampire.” But then Dante thought such things were funny—hence the name of the club.

Dante wore black leather pants, biker boots that sported red and orange flames, and a black poet’s shirt.

The panther had left his shirt unlaced and the ruffled col ar curled around his neck while the silk laces fel down his chest. His long black leather coat had a nineteenth-century look to it as wel , but Wulf knew it to be a copy—one of the advantages to having been alive then was that he wel remembered the fashions of that time period.

Dante’s long black hair fel freely about his shoulders. “Wulf,” he said, flashing a set of fangs Wulf knew weren’t real.

The panther only had teeth like that in his true animal form.

Wulf cocked his head at the sight. “What the hel are those?” Dante smiled wider, displaying his teeth. “Women love them. I’d tel you to get a set, but you already come wel equipped.”

Wulf laughed at that. “I’m not going there.”

“Please don’t.”

Stil , bad double entendres aside, it always felt good to come to the Inferno, even if the Were-Hunters didn’t real y want him there. It was one of the few places where someone remembered his name. Yeah, okay, so he felt like Sam Malone on
Cheers
, but there was no Norm or Cliff sitting at the bar here. More like Spike and Switchblade.

The “man” beside Dante leaned over. “Is he a DH?”

Dante’s eyes narrowed. He grabbed the man beside him and shoved him toward the other bouncer. “Take the friggin’ Arcadian spy out back and deal with him.”

The man’s face went pale. “What? I’m not Arcadian.”

“Bul shit,” Dante snarled. “You met Wulf two weeks ago and if you were real y Katagaria, you’d remember him. Only a fucking were-panther can’t.”

Wulf arched a brow at the insult that none of the Katagaria used lightly. The root of the term “were” meant human. To place that term before their animal name was a gross insult to the Katagaria, who prided themselves on the fact that they were animals who could take human form, not the other way around.