DH 05 Kiss Of The Night (18 page)

“No,” Chris said earnestly. “You might actual y break in or out of Knox. The only way out of here is with at least two guards trailing you at al times.”

“You sound like you’ve tried to go over the wal .”

“More times than you can count.”

She laughed as she remembered what Wulf had told her in her room. “Wulf said it was useless.”

“It is. Believe me, if there was a way out of here, I’d have found it and used it by now.” Wulf hung up and rose to his feet.

“Is it for me?” Chris asked.

“No, it’s Corbin.”

“She’s the one with Kat?” Cassandra asked Wulf.

He nodded as he went to the front door.

Cassandra fol owed after him in time to see a sleek red Lotus Esprit pul ing up in front of the house. The passenger door opened to show her Kat, who got out of the car and rushed up to the house.

“Hey, kid, you al right?”

Cassandra smiled. “I’m not sure.”

“Why is she here?” Wulf asked Corbin as the Dark-Huntress drew near him.

The Huntress tucked her hands in her pockets as she drew closer to Wulf. “She’s in Artemis’s service too.

Her job is to protect Cassandra, and I thought it wise to let her help you.” Wulf looked suspiciously at Kat. “I don’t need any help.” Kat bristled. “Relax, Mr. Macho, I won’t rain on your parade. But you do need me. I happen to know Stryker personal y. I’m the only shot you have at deflecting him.” Wulf wasn’t sure if he should put any faith in those words. “You said you didn’t know him at the club.”

“I didn’t want to blow my cover, but that was before you guys separated us and I had to convince Corbin to return me to Cassandra before Stryker finds her again.”

“Do you trust her?” he asked Corbin.

“About as much as I trust anyone. But she pointed out that she’s been with Cassandra for five years and Cassandra ain’t dead yet.”

“It’s true,” Cassandra said. “I’ve trusted her implicitly al this time.”

“Al right,” Wulf said reluctantly. He met Corbin’s gaze. “Keep your phone on and I’l be in touch.” Corbin nodded, then headed back to her car.

“We haven’t met formal y,” Kat said, holding out her hand to Wulf as Corbin drove off. “I’m Katra.” He shook her hand. “Wulf.”

“Yes, I know.” Kat led them into the house, back to the living room where Chris was stil sitting on the sofa.

Wulf locked and bolted the door behind them.

“By the way, Wulf,” Kat said as she paused by Chris’s backpack. “If you’re thinking of sending Christopher away in order to protect him, I’d urge you to reconsider it.”

“Why?”

She indicated the TV with her thumb. “How many times have you seen the ‘let’s kidnap the good guy’s sidekick and hold him for ransom’ episode?”

Wulf snorted at that. “Trust me, no one would be able to get him free of the Squire’s Council.”

“
Au contraire
,” Kat said sarcastical y. “Stryker won’t have a bit of a problem finding him. The minute you let him out of this house, Stryker and his Il uminati wil be on him like white on snow. He’l never make it into another protected area without them having him. Literal y.”

“They wouldn’t dare, kil him, would they?” Cassandra asked.

“No,” Kat said. “That’s not Stryker’s style. He’s into punishment and hitting people where it hurts the most.

He’l send Chris back, al right. The kid just won’t be intact any longer.”

“Intact how?” Chris asked nervously.

Kat lowered her gaze to his groin.

Chris immediately covered himself with his hands. “Bul shit.”

“Oh, no, baby dol . Stryker knows how much Wulf values your ability to procreate. It’s the one thing he’d take from both of you.”

“Chris,” Wulf said sternly, “go to your room and lock the door.” Chris ran from the room without hesitation.

Wulf and Kat glared at each other. “If you know this Stryker so wel , then how do I know you’re not working for him?”

Kat snorted at that. “I don’t even like him. He and I have a mutual friend who has caused us to run into each other a few times over the centuries.”

“Centuries?” Cassandra asked. “As in
centuries
! What are you, Kat?” Kat patted her comfortingly on the arm. “I’m sorry, Cass. I should have told you before, but was afraid you wouldn’t trust me if I did. Five years ago when Stryker almost kil ed you, Artemis sent me in to make sure he didn’t get that close to you again.”

Cassandra’s head swirled at the disclosure. “So you
were
the one who opened the portal in the club?” She nodded. “I’m breaching nine kinds of oaths here, but the last thing I want is to see you hurt. I swear it.” Wulf moved forward. “Why al this trouble to keep her safe when she’s only going to die in a few months anyway?”

Kat took a deep breath and stepped back. She looked at each of them in turn before she final y spoke. “I’m no longer here to keep
her
safe.”

Wulf put himself between Kat and Cassandra. He tensed as if ready to do battle. “What do you mean by that?”

Kat tilted her head so that she could meet Cassandra’s gaze behind Wulf’s back. “I’m here now to make sure the baby she carries is born healthy.”

“M-m-my what?” Cassandra asked, floored by Kat’s words. She couldn’t have heard that correctly. There was no way she was pregnant.

“Your baby.”

Obviously her hearing was fine. “What baby?”

Kat took a deep breath and spoke slowly, which was a good thing since Cassandra was having a hard time fol owing al this. “You’re pregnant, Cass. Only just, but the baby wil survive. I’l make double damn sure of that.”

Cassandra honestly felt as if someone had slugged her with a stunning blow. Her mind could barely conceive of what Kat was tel ing her. “I can’t be pregnant. I haven’t been with anyone.” Kat’s gaze went to Wulf.

“What?” he asked defensively.

“You’re the father,” Kat said.

“Oh, like hel . I hate to break it to you, baby, but Dark-Hunters can’t have children. We’re sterile.” Kat nodded. “True, but you’re not real y a Dark-Hunter now, are you?”

“Then what the hel am I?”

“Immortal, but unlike the other Dark-Hunters you didn’t die. Ever. The others become sterile because their bodies were dead for a time. Yours, on the other hand, is every bit as intact now as it was twelve hundred years ago.”

“But I didn’t touch her,” Wulf insisted.

Kat arched a brow at that. “Oh, yes you did.”

“That was a dream,” Wulf and Cassandra said in unison.

“A dream you both remember? No, you were put together so that you could renew Cassandra’s bloodline, and I ought to know since I was the one who drugged Cassandra earlier so that she could be with you.”

“Oh, I’m going to be sick,” Cassandra said, stepping back to lean on the sofa arm. “This can’t be happening. It’s just not possible.”

“Oh, wel ,” Kat said sarcastical y, “let’s not have reality intrude now, shal we? I mean, hey, you’re a mythological being descended from mythological beings and you’re in the house of an immortal guardian no human can remember five minutes after they leave his presence. Who’s to say that you can’t get pregnant in a dream by him? What? We’re jumping into the realm of reality now?” She gave Cassandra a penetrating stare. “Tel you what, I’l believe in the laws of nature when Wulf here can go out in the daylight and not spontaneously combust into flames, or better yet, when you, Cass, can actual y go to a beach and get a tan.”

Wulf was so stunned that he couldn’t move as Kat continued to rail. Cassandra was pregnant with his child? This was something he had never, ever even dared to think about or hope for.

No, he couldn’t believe it. He just couldn’t.

“How could I have made her pregnant in a dream?” he asked, interrupting Kat.

She calmed down a bit and actual y explained it to them. “There are different kinds of dreams. Different realms for them. Artemis had one of the Dream-Hunters pul both of you into a semiconscious state so that you could, shal we say, get together.”

Wulf frowned at that. “But why would she do that?”

Kat indicated Cassandra with her hand. “She wouldn’t sleep with anyone else. In the five years I’ve been with her, she hasn’t so much as even looked at a guy with lust in her eyes. Not until the night you stepped into the club to kil the Daimons. She lighted up like a firefly. After she ran out after you, I thought we’d final y found her someone she would happily sleep with.

“But did you two do the normal, natural thing and go back to your place and mate like bunnies? No. She comes strutting back in like nothing had happened. Sheez. You are both hopeless.” Kat sighed. “So Artemis figured she could use that momentary connection you two had on the street to put Cass into your dreams so that you could impregnate her that way.”

“But why?” Cassandra asked. “Why is it so important that I be pregnant?”

“Because the myth you laugh at is true. If the last of Apol o’s direct bloodline dies, the curse is lifted.”

“Then let me die and free the Apol ites.”

Kat’s face turned dark with warning. “I never said they would be free. See, the fun thing with the Fates is that nothing is ever easy. The curse is lifted because Apol o wil die with you. Your blood and life are linked to his. When he dies, the sun dies with him as does Artemis and the moon. Once they are gone, there is no world left. Al of us are dead.
All
of us.”

“No, no, no,” Cassandra breathed. “This can’t be right.”

There was no reprieve in Kat’s expression. “It’s right, hon. Believe me. I wouldn’t be here otherwise.” Cassandra looked at her while inside she struggled to make sense of it al . It was so overwhelming. “Why didn’t you tel me before?”

“I did and you freaked out so badly that Artemis and I decided to erase it from your memory and start over more slowly.”

Fury lanced through her. “You did what?”

Kat turned defensive. “It was for your own good. You were so angry at the prospect of being forced into pregnancy that Artemis decided you would need a father and a baby in order to cope with the reality of it.

When I explained it to you, you were gung-ho to toss yourself under a bus rather than use a man and leave behind a baby to be hunted down. So it’s great now that you found Wulf, right? With his powers, the Apol ites and Daimons can’t come near him without dying.” Cassandra started for Kat only to find Wulf pul ing her back so that she couldn’t reach her. “Don’t, Cassandra.”

“Oh, please,” Cassandra begged him. “I just want to choke her for a few minutes.” She raked an angry glare over the woman she had mistakenly thought of as a friend. “I trusted you and you used me and lied to me. No wonder you kept trying to set me up with guys.”

“I know and I’m sorry.” Her eyes said Kat meant that, but Cassandra had a hard time believing it at the moment. “But don’t you see how it al works out for the best? Wulf is afraid of losing his last blood link to the world. Through you he has another line that wil remember him while you have someone immortal who can tel your child and grandchildren about you and your family. He can watch over them and keep them al safe.

No more running, Cass. Think about it.”

Cassandra didn’t move as Kat’s words sank in. She would be remembered and her children would be safe. It was al she had wanted. It was why she’d never considered having children before now.

But dare she believe in this?

Apol ites gestated their babies in a little over twenty weeks. Half the time of humans. Since they had such an abbreviated life span, there were several weird physiological differences. Apol ites reached adulthood at age eleven and often married between the ages of twelve to fifteen.

Her mother had only been fourteen when she married her father, but her mother had looked like any human woman in her mid-twenties.

Cassandra looked at Wulf, whose face was unreadable. “What do you think about al this?”

“Honestly, I don’t know what to think. Yesterday my number one concern was getting Chris laid. Now it’s the fact that if Kat isn’t on drugs or delusional, you are carrying a part of me that holds in his or her hand the fate of the entire world.”

“If you doubt any of this, cal Acheron,” Kat said.

Wulf narrowed his gaze on her. “He knows?”

Kat hedged a bit and appeared nervous for the first time. “I seriously doubt Artemis told him any of this particular plan to put you two together and make a baby. He tends to get rather upset at her whenever she interferes with free wil , but he can easily verify everything I’ve told you about the prophecy.” Cassandra let out a bitterly amused half-laugh upon hearing that her “friend” actual y knew one of the men they had read about on the Web site. Not to mention the fact that Kat also knew Stryker and his men. “Just out of curiosity, is there anyone you don’t know?”

“No, not real y,” Kat said a bit uneasily. “I’ve been with Artemis a 1-o-n-g time.”

“And just how long is that?” Cassandra asked.

Kat didn’t answer. Instead, she stepped back and clapped her hands together. “You know what? I think I should give you two a few minutes to talk to each other alone. I think I’l go scope out Cass’s room.” Without another word, Kat bolted for the hal way that led to Cassandra’s wing. Though how she knew that was the right way to go, Cassandra couldn’t imagine. Then again, Kat wasn’t exactly human either.

Wulf didn’t move until Kat had vanished. He was stil trying to come to terms with everything Kat had told them.

“I didn’t know about any of this, Wulf. I swear it.”

“I know.”

He stared at her, the mother of his child. It was incredible, and despite the confusion he felt, the one truth he knew was that a part of him wanted to shout out in delight. “Do you feel al right? Do I need to get you anything?”

She shook her head, then looked up at him. Her green eyes scorched him with need. “Actual y, I don’t know about you, but I could use a hug right now.”

Mental y, he didn’t think that it would be wise to get attached to her. To open himself up to a woman who came with a short expiration date, but he found himself pul ing her into his arms anyway, and he had to tense to keep himself from fal ing victim to the sensation of her body against his. Her breath tickled the skin on his neck as she wrapped her arms around his waist.