DH 05 Kiss Of The Night (14 page)

She secured the sheath to her waist and hid it at the base of her spine. Her death might be imminent in a few months, but she had no intention of dying one day sooner than she had to.

A knock sounded on her front door.

Cautiously, she left her room and walked into the living room, expecting to see Kat in there curious about their unannounced visitor too.

Kat wasn’t there.

“Kat?” she cal ed, taking a step toward Kat’s room.

No one answered.

“Kat?”

The knocking continued, more demanding than it had been before.

Scared now, she went to Kat’s room and pushed open the door. The room was empty. Completely. There was no sign that Kat had ever been in there.

Her heart hammered. Maybe Kat had gone out to the car for something and gotten locked out?

She went back to the door. “Kat, is that you?”

“Yeah, let me in.”

Cassandra laughed nervously at her stupid behavior and swung open the door.

It wasn’t Kat outside.

The dark-haired Daimon smiled at her. “Did you miss me, princess?” he said in a voice identical to Kat’s.

She couldn’t believe this. It couldn’t be real. This kind of stuff happened in movies, not in real life.

“What are you, the friggin’ Terminator?”

“No,” he said calmly in his own voice. “I’m the Harbinger who is merely preparing the way for the Destroyer.”

He reached for her.

Cassandra stepped back. He couldn’t enter the house without an invitation. Reaching behind her, she pul ed out her dagger and sliced his arm.

He drew back with a hiss.

She spun as she saw someone behind her.

It was another Daimon. She caught him in the chest with her dagger.

He evaporated into a golden-black cloud.

Another shadow passed over her.

Spinning around, she kicked Stryker back, but he didn’t go completely out the door. Instead, he only blocked it more.

“You’re quick,” he said as his arm healed instantly before her eyes. “I’l give you that.”

“You don’t know the half of it.”

Daimons came at her from al directions. How the hel had they gotten into her home? But she didn’t have time to contemplate that. Right now, al she could focus on was survival.

She kneed the next Daimon who reached her and fought a second one. Stryker stayed back as if the fight amused him.

Another Daimon, this one with a long blond ponytail, attacked. Cassandra flipped him over. As she went to stab him, Stryker came out of nowhere to grab her arm.

“No one attacks Urian.”

She shrieked as he wrenched the dagger from her hand. Cassandra moved to strike him, but the instant her gaze met his, al thoughts scattered.

His eyes turned to a strange, swirling silver. They moved in a hypnotic dance that held her spel bound and turned her thoughts to oatmeal.

Al the fight inside her instantly vanished. A sly, seductive smile curved Stryker’s lips. “See how easy it is when you don’t fight?” She felt his breath against her throat.

Some unseen force tilted her head to the side to give him access to her neck and to the throbbing carotid artery she could feel pounding in terror.

Inside, Cassandra was screaming at herself to fight.

Her body refused to obey.

Stryker’s laughter rumbled a moment before he sank his long teeth into her neck. She hissed as pain sliced her.

“Am I interrupting?”

Cassandra could only vaguely recognize Wulf’s voice through the numbed haze of her mind.

Something jerked Stryker away from her. It was a few seconds before she realized it was Wulf knocking the Daimon back.

Wulf whisked her up into his arms and ran with her. Cassandra could barely keep her head from lol ing back as he headed for a large dark green Expedition and tossed her inside it.

The instant Wulf was in the car, something struck it hard. Out of the darkness, a large, black dragon appeared on the hood.

“Let her out and you can live,” the dragon said in Stryker’s voice.

Wulf answered by putting his SUV in reverse and gunning it. He turned the wheel and sent the beast flying.

The dragon shrieked and blew a blast of fire at them. Wulf kept going. The dragon took flight and dove at them, then arced up, high into the sky, before it vanished into a shimmery cloud of gold.

“What the hel was that?” Wulf asked.

“He’s Apostolos,” Cassandra murmured as she struggled to snap herself out of her daze. “He’s the son of the Atlantean Destroyer and a god in his own right. We’re so screwed.” Wulf let out a disgusted sound. “Yeah, wel , I don’t let anyone screw me until they kiss me, and since there’s not even a snowbal ’s chance in hel of me kissing that bastard, we’re not screwed.” But as his Expedition was suddenly surrounded by eight Daimons on motorcycles, he reconsidered that.

For three seconds at least.

Wulf laughed as he surveyed the Daimons. “You know the beauty of driving one of these?”

“No.”

He swerved his Expedition into three of the bikes and knocked them from the road. “You can swat a Daimon like a mosquito.”

“Wel , since they’re both bloodsucking insects, I say go for it.” Wulf glanced sideways at her. A woman who could keep her humor even in the midst of death. He liked that.

The remaining Daimons must have rethought acting out Mad Max with him and dropped back from his SUV. He watched as they faded out of sight in his rearview mirror.

Cassandra let out a relieved breath as she pushed herself up more in the seat. She turned her head and tried to see where the Daimons had vanished. There was no sight of them.

“What a night,” she said quietly as her thoughts cleared and she remembered everything that had happened in the apartment. Once more, panic consumed her as she remembered Kat hadn’t shown up.

“Wait! We have to go back.”

“Why?”

“My bodyguard,” she said, gripping his arm. “I don’t know what happened to her.” He kept his gaze on the road ahead of them. “Was she in the apartment?”

“Yes… maybe.” Cassandra paused while she thought it over. “I’m not exactly sure. She went to make a phone cal in her room and then she wasn’t in there when I went to see if she’d go with me to the door.” She released his arm. Fear and grief warred inside her heart. What if something had happened to Kat after al these years they’d been together? “Do you think they kil ed her?” He glanced at her, then changed lanes. “I don’t know. Was she the blond woman in the bar?”

“Yes.”

He pul ed his cel phone off his belt and made a cal .

Cassandra chewed her nails as she waited.

She heard someone’s faint voice on the phone.

“Hey, Binny,” Wulf said. “I need a favor. I just left the Sherwood student apartments over by the University of Minnesota and we may or may not have a casualty there…” He glanced at Cassandra, but his eyes betrayed no clue as to what he was thinking or feeling. “Yeah, I know tonight’s been a real freakfest. You don’t even know the half of it.” He switched hands with the phone.

“What’s your friend’s name?” he asked Cassandra.

“Kat Agrotera.”

He frowned. “Why do I know that name?” He relayed it to whomever he was speaking to.

“Shit,” he said after a brief pause. “Do you think they might be related to her?” Once again, he glanced in Cassandra’s direction. Only this time, his scowl was most sinister. “I don’t know.

Ash told me to guard her and now her bodyguard holds a last name that ties her to Artemis. Could it be a weird coincidence?”

Cassandra cocked her head at that. She’d never before thought about the fact that Kat’s last name was also one of the many epithets the ancient Greeks had used for Artemis.

She’d met Kat in Greece after she had fled from Belgium with a load of Daimons hot on her heels. After helping her out in a fight one night, Kat had told her she was an American come to touch base with her Greek heritage that summer.

It had been a bonus that Kat had said she was a martial arts expert with a knack for using explosives.

Cassandra had explained to her that she was looking for a new bodyguard to replace her old one and Kat had signed on with her immediately.

“
I just love to put a hurt on evil things
,” Kat had confessed.

Wulf sighed. “I don’t know either. Okay. You go look for Kat and I’l take Cassandra home with me. Let me know what you find. Thanks.” He hung up, then returned his phone to his belt.

“What did she say?”

He didn’t answer her question. Not exactly anyway. “She said Agrotera is one of the Greek names for Artemis. It means ‘strength’ or ‘wild hunter.’ Did you know that?”

“Sort of.” A drop of hope wel ed inside her. If that were true, maybe the gods hadn’t abandoned her family after al . Maybe there was some hope for her and for her future. “Do you two think Artemis sent Kat to protect me?”

His grip tightened on the steering wheel. “I don’t know what to think at this point. I was told by Artemis’s mouth-piece that you are the key to the end of the world and that I had to protect you and—”

“What do you mean, ‘key to the end of the world’?” she asked, interrupting him.

He looked as surprised as she felt. “You mean you don’t know that?” Okay, so it was obvious Dark-Hunters could get high and delusional.

“No. In fact, I’m thinking right now that one, if not both of us, needs to put down the crack pipe and start this night over.”

Wulf gave a light laugh at her comment. “If it wasn’t for the fact I can’t get high, I might agree with that.” Cassandra’s mind raced. Was there any truth to what he had just said? “Wel , if you’re right and I’m key to the world’s destruction, then if I were you I’d be making out a wil .”

“Why?”

“Because in less than eight months, I turn twenty-seven.” Wulf heard the catch in her voice as she spoke those words and he more than understood the doom she was facing. “You said you were only half-Apol ite.”

“Yeah, but I’ve never known a half-Apol ite to survive the curse, have you?” He shook his head. “Only the Were-Hunters seem immune to the Apol ite curse.” Cassandra sat silently, watching the traffic out the window while she contemplated what had happened tonight.

“Wait,” she said as she remembered the Daimons coming into her apartment. “How did that guy get into my house? I thought Daimons were forbidden to enter your home without an invitation.” Wulf’s answer was far from comforting. “Loophole.”

“Excuse me?” she asked, arching both brows. “What do you mean, ‘loophole’?” He turned off the expressway onto an exit ramp. “Got to love those gods. The same loophole that al ows Daimons to enter mal s and public areas al ows them to enter condos and apartments.”

“How so?”

“Mal s, apartments, and such are owned by one entity. When that person or company al ows their building to openly serve for multiple groups of people, they essential y put out a cosmic welcome mat to everything, including Daimons.”

Oh, this was un-friggin-believable! She blinked in shock. “
Now
you tel me this? Why didn’t someone tel me this before? I thought I was safe al this time.”

“Your bodyguard should have known better. If she real y is tied to Artemis.”

“Then maybe she’s not. You know, she could just be a normal person.”

“Yeah, one who holds her arms out and scares off Spathi Daimons?” He had a point there. Sort of. “She said she didn’t know why they ran.”

“And later she left you there alone to face them…”

Cassandra rubbed her hand over her eyes as she caught his implication. Could Kat be working with the Daimons? Did Artemis want her dead or alive?

“Oh, God, I can’t trust anyone, can I?” Cassandra breathed tiredly.

“Welcome to the real world, duchess. The only person any of us can trust is ourselves.” She didn’t want to believe that, but after tonight, it seemed to be the only real truth she had.

Could Kat real y be a traitor after al they had been through together?

“Lovely, just lovely,” she breathed. “Tel me something, can I go back to bed and have this entire day be a do-over?”

He let out a short laugh. “Sorry, no do-overs.”

She gave him a peeved glare. “Boy, you’re just al chock-ful of comfort, aren’t you?” He didn’t respond.

Cassandra watched the oncoming cars as she tried to think of what she should do. Where she should even begin to try to understand what had happened tonight.

Wulf drove them out of the city to a massive estate outside of Minnetonka. Al the homes in the area were owned by some of the richest people in the country.

Wulf turned into a driveway that was so long, she couldn’t see where it ended. Of course the five-foot-high snowbanks didn’t help with that.

He pressed a tiny button in his visor.

The iron gates opened wide.

Cassandra let out a slow, appreciative breath as they proceeded down the driveway and she caught sight of his “house.” “Palace” would be much more apropos, and given the fact that her father’s house wasn’t exactly smal potatoes, that said a lot.

It looked very turn-of-the-century with large Greek columns and gardens that stil appeared sculpted even in the deep winter snow and frost.

He drove them up the winding driveway to a five-car garage that was designed to look like a stable. Inside, it held Chris’s Hummer (it was hard to miss his vanity plate, VIKING), two vintage Harleys, a sleek Ferrari, and one real y cool Excalibur. The garage was so clean inside that it reminded her of a showroom.

Everything from the ornate crown moldings to the marble floor said “wealthy beyond your wildest dreams.” She arched a brow at that. “You’ve come a long way from your little stone cottage by the fjord. You must have decided riches weren’t so bad after al .”

Parking the SUV, Wulf turned to face her with a scowl. “You remember that?” She ran her gaze from the top of his gorgeous head to the toe of his black biker boots. Even though she was stil angry at him, she couldn’t suppress the warm tingle of sexual awareness she felt at being so close to such a hot man. He real y was scrumptious, for an ass.

And speaking of that, he had a mighty fine one of those too.

“I remember al the dreams about us.”