The Dark-Hunters (104 page)

“Die how?”

“They disintegrate and decay slowly over a twenty-four-hour period.”

Sunshine gaped. “Oh, how horrible.”

Selena agreed as she picked up her card and returned it to the deck. “They avoid that fate one of two ways. They either kill themselves the day before their birthday or they turn Daimon and start killing humans and gathering their souls into their own bodies to prolong their lives.”

“How?”

Selena shrugged. “I’m not sure exactly. I just know that they drain the blood out of us until we die, then they take our souls into their bodies. So long as the soul is alive, they can live longer. But the problem is, the human soul starts to die as soon as they capture it. So it’s a constant quest to gather new souls to maintain their lives.”

“And this gathering of souls is what makes them vampires?”

“Daimons, vampires, ghouls, whatever you want to call them. They suck your blood and your soul and leave you with nothing. Kind of like lawyers.” Selena smiled. “Oh wait, I just insulted my husband.”

Sunshine appreciated the attempt at humor, but she was still trying to digest all this. “And the Dark-Hunters? Where do they come from? Are they Apollites too?”

“No, they’re ancient warriors. After Atlantis sank into the ocean, the Greek gods were angry that Apollo had created and then unleashed the Daimons on us, so his sister Artemis created an army to hunt and destroy them. The Dark-Hunters. Talon is one of her soldiers.”

“She created them how?”

“I don’t know. She does something to capture their souls and then returns the Hunter to life. Once they’re brought back, the Hunters are given servants and money so they can concentrate on hunting and killing the Daimons. Their only job is to free the stolen souls before the souls die.”

Sunshine breathed deeply as she absorbed all this information. It wasn’t looking good for her or for Talon. “So Talon is sworn into Artemis’s service forever, then.” Sunshine let out a ragged breath. “Jeez, I can really pick them. Talk about a go-nowhere, hopeless relationship.”

“Not necessarily.”

Sunshine looked up and caught the sneaky look on Selena’s face. “What?”

Selena shuffled her cards. “You know, Kyrian was once a Dark-Hunter…”

Sunshine’s heart leapt at the words. “Really?”

Selena nodded. “They do come with an out clause. True love can restore their souls to them and free them from Artemis’s service.”

“So there’s hope?”

“Honey, there’s always hope.”

Chapter 10

After gleaning every juicy detail she could from Selena, Sunshine packed up her stand early and decided to go back to her loft. When she got there, Talon was still sleeping on the sofa.

Her lips twitched as she watched him. He looked so adorable and uncomfortable. He was really much too large for the pink and white couch, and his arms and legs dangled off into nothingness.

He’d pulled his shirt and jacket off and left them folded neatly on her coffee table, and his large Harley boots were on the floor underneath it.

His blond hair was tousled and his features relaxed while his sinfully long lashes were nestled against his cheeks. His two thin braids lay on the pillow as he breathed in blissful slumber.

He had one large, tanned masculine hand up by his face.

Looking at him now, she found it hard to believe he was an ancient immortal warrior whose very name was synonymous with death. But one who made her heart soften and her pulse race.

He was scrumptious.

Sunshine stared at the intricate tribal tattoo on his body. So, he really was a Celt. A real live, breathing, run-naked-through-the-heather-and-moors Celt.

Her grandmother would love it.

Closing her eyes, Sunshine let her memories as Nynia wash over her. But those memories weren’t really
hers.
They were like memories of a movie she had once watched.

They were real to her and, at the same time, they weren’t. She was no longer Nynia, and Talon …

He wasn’t the same man he’d been then either.

Speirr had been full of fury and volatile emotions. Talon had bursts of emotion, but for the most part, he was calm and detached from his feelings.

Neither one of them was the same and yet she couldn’t shake the feeling that they were somehow meant to be together.

But if what Selena had said was true, then he had a much higher calling than being her lover.

Not to mention that she was no longer Nynia. Parts of Nynia lived inside her, but she was a whole new and other person.

Did she love Talon because she was Sunshine or was it something left over from her previous life?

Would she ever know for sure?

“I will never love anyone but you, Nyn.”
His Celtic words echoed in her head.

Bit by bit, all her memories of their former life together were coming back to her. It was as if someone had opened a sealed door and the memories came pouring out.

She knew about his sister, his mother, his father. Even his uncle and aunt and bastard cousin.

She remembered the way he had looked as a young boy the first time the two of them had sneaked off together to play by the lake.

She remembered the way the clan had treated him. The scandal of his queenly mother being seduced by his Druid father. How Talon’s parents had run off in the middle of the night to keep the clan from killing his father and beating his mother for their forbidden affair.

Everyone had hated Talon because of it. They had blamed him for his mother’s weakness, for the fact that she had seduced their High Priest and left them without leadership.

They had blamed him for the fact that his mother had put her needs and wants above those of her people.

To atone for her actions, Talon had put everyone’s needs and wants above his own.

Sunshine’s throat tightened as she remembered everything he had suffered.

Nynia had been there that cold, snowy night when Talon had stumbled, frozen, into the hall, holding a screaming baby in his arms. His cloak had been wrapped around his sister to keep her warm. His shoes had been sold to buy Ceara milk that she had refused to drink.

Talon had stood defiantly before them all. His young body braced to take whatever malice they offered. Even now she could see the raw determination that had made his young amber eyes blaze.

“Your mother?” King Idiag had asked. “Where is she?”

“She has been dead almost two weeks now.”

“And your father?”

“Six months past he was killed during an attack, protecting us from the Saxons.”
Talon had looked down at the screaming baby he held, then back up at his uncle. His face had softened and betrayed his fear. It was the only chink in his brave façade.
“Please, Your Majesty, please have mercy on my baby sister. Don’t let her die too.”

Idiag had eyed him curiously.
“And what of you, boy? Do you ask for mercy for yourself?”

Talon had shaken his head.
“No, Majesty. I ask nothing for me.”

His uncle had adopted Ceara as his daughter, but he had never really acknowledged Talon. He had scorned him just as everyone else did.

Idiag had never protected him from the clan’s malice or blows.

Instead, he had told Talon to take it like a man because he deserved it and to never snivel.

And so Talon had.

Sunshine couldn’t count the times she had found Talon by the lake practicing with his sword.

“I will make them accept me, Nyn. I will be the best warrior ever born and they’ll never dare to speak to me with anything less than respect.”

She had watched the angry, hurt boy grow into an embittered, fierce man. He had walked with a deadly swagger and a scowl so stern that even the stoutest of heart shrank at his approach.

He had fought his way into his uncle’s heart. Fought until even the clan that hated him knew he was the only one capable of leading them against their enemies.

No one had dared meet Talon’s gaze and only in fearful whispers did they dare to disparage his mother or him.

His uncle had had no choice but to accept him. It was either acknowledge Talon or lose his throne to him in war.

Talon had been invincible. Strong. Unyielding.

A man of power.

Until she was alone with him. Only then did his features soften.

Only then did he dare to laugh and smile.

And what haunted her most was the memory of Talon whispering his love to her as she died in his arms …

Her throat tight, Sunshine set her bag and thermos of coffee on the table, then knelt on the floor by his head. Tenderness flooded her.

She really did love this man.

She had changed in many ways.

In many ways, Talon had not.

He was still the same fierce warrior who walked alone. The same man who put others before him.

She traced the line of his brows with her fingertip. Then she leaned forward and kissed his cheek.

Startled, he jerked awake so fast, he actually fell off the couch.

Sunshine stifled her laughter. “I’m sorry.”

Talon looked around groggily as he slid back on the couch, upright. It took him a few seconds to remember where he was. Clearing his throat, he frowned at Sunshine who was sitting back on her legs and watching him with an odd, weepy kind of look on her face.

“What were you doing?” he asked.

“I was kissing Sleeping Beauty awake.”

He frowned at her words until he smelled something almost as enticing as her patchouli scent. “Coffee?”

She handed him the thermos from the coffee table. “And beignets. I thought you’d rather have those than my guava juice and cranberry muffins.”

Talon looked at her suspiciously and wondered if a pod person had kidnapped her and was using her body. This couldn’t be the same woman who had scavenged his cabin for hours looking for something “nontoxic” to eat. Nor the angry temptress who had banished him to a miserable day spent alone on her couch. “You’re not mad at me anymore?”

“I want you to trust me, Talon. That hasn’t changed.”

Talon glanced away, unable to stand the pain in her eyes. He didn’t want to hurt her, didn’t want to keep anything from her. But he had no choice.

In so many ways she was his wife and in so many more she wasn’t. He was having to learn her all over again.

But what surprised him most was how much he enjoyed getting to know her.

Sunshine was an incredibly sexy, entertaining and fun woman to be around.

She pulled a sugar-coated beignet out of the sack. “Hungry?”

Yes, he was, and not just for food. He was hungry for her body, hungry for her company.

Most of all, he was hungry for her eyes to laugh at him again and not be shadowed by hurt.

She lifted her hand toward his lips, offering him the pastry. He didn’t take it from her hand. Instead, he leaned forward and took a bite of it, all the while watching her watch him.

Sunshine shivered as he nibbled the pastry, then he moved to kiss her lips. She moaned at the sugary taste of him.

Sighing in contentment, she forced him to sit back on the couch so that she could straddle his hips.

“Mmm,” he breathed. “I like waking up like this.”

She set the beignet aside and carefully poured him a cup of coffee from the thermos.

He looked a bit nervous as he watched her. “Please don’t spill that on me.”

She gave him an arch look. “I’m forgetful, Talon, not clumsy.”

Still, he took the cup from her hand as soon as he could, and drank the chicory-flavored coffee. She screwed the top back on the thermos and set it aside.

Sunshine ran her hand through his tousled hair while he drank, letting the golden waves wrap around her fingers. His muscles rippled with his movements, making her burn with desire. He really was a gorgeous, irresistible man.

“Just think how much nicer I would be if you told me something personal about yourself.”

He clenched his teeth. “You are relentless.”

She ran her finger down the line of his whiskered jaw and watched his eyes darken as he hardened underneath her. “Only when I see something I want.”

Talon pulled another beignet from the sack and held it up for her to eat.

She pulled back with a grimace. “That stuff is hazardous to your health.”

“Baby, life is hazardous to your health. Now take a little bite and I’ll answer a question.”

Skeptical, but willing to try, she took a bite, then groaned at how decadent and good it tasted. It reminded her a lot of Talon.

Talon smiled as he watched her savor her beignet. Until he noticed the sugar that had fallen from the pastry to her breasts. His body hardened even more.

She took another bite and more sugar fell over the tops of her breasts.

His throat went dry.

Before he could stop himself, he dipped his head and licked the powdered sugar from the flesh in the deep V of her sweater.

She moaned in pleasure as she cupped his head to her. She laid her head on his and spoke. “So, how long have you known Wulf?”

Distracted by her taste and scent, he answered without thinking. “A hundred years.”

He went rigid as soon as the words registered. “I mean, I um…”

“It’s okay,” she whispered before licking his ear and sending chills over him. “I know you’re a Dark-Hunter.”

He pulled back and frowned. “How do you know that?”

“A friend told me.”

“Who?”

“Does it matter?” She slid herself against him and placed her hands on his shoulders so that she could stare at him. Her dark brown eyes scorched him with sincerity. “I told you I would never betray you. I meant that.”

“You’re not supposed to know that term.”

“I know.”

Talon glanced away as he feared what would happen to her if anyone found out she knew about the Dark-Hunters and their world. “What else did your friend tell you?”

“That you’re immortal. She didn’t know how old you were, but said that you sold your soul for vengeance against your clan.”

He narrowed his eyes. “Did she tell you why?”

“She didn’t know why.”