The Dark-Hunters (174 page)

He felt like such an alien species, he wished he could find someplace where he wouldn’t be a complete freak.

But it was impossible. There was no escaping his destiny.

No escaping what he was …

The last heir.

Without Chris and his children, Wulf would be alone for eternity because only a human born of Wulf’s blood could ever remember him.

The only problem with that was finding a mother for those kids, and no one wanted to volunteer.

His ears still rang with Belinda’s rejection from ten minutes ago.

“Go out with you? Pah-lease. Call me when you grow up and learn to dress right.”

Grinding his teeth, he tried not to think about her harsh words. He’d put on his best khaki pants and navy sweater just to ask her out. But he knew he wasn’t suave or cool.

He had the social graces of an idiot. The average face of the boy next door and the confidence of a snail.

God, he
was
pathetic.

Chris paused at the door of his classroom to see the two male Theti Squires trailing him at a “discreet” distance. In their mid-thirties, both of them were over six feet tall, with dark hair and stern faces. Assigned to him by the Squires’ Council, their sole duty was to watch over him and make sure nothing happened to him until he spawned enough kids to make Wulf happy.

Not that there was any big threat during the daylight. On rare occasions a Doulos—human servants for the Apollites—might attack a Squire, but those were so rare these days as to be worthy of national news coverage.

At night, Chris was forbidden to leave the property unless he was on a date. Which seemed impossible after his one-and-only girlfriend had dumped him.

He sighed at the prospect of trying to find someone else to go out with him. Why would they when they would have to be subjected to blood tests and physicals?

He groaned under his breath.

While he was in class, the Thetis would take up stations outside the door, thus guaranteeing Chris’s freak status even more than his solitary nature.

And who could blame him for being solitary? Jeez, he’d grown up in a house where he wasn’t allowed to run in case he hurt himself. If he ever got a cold of any sort, the Squires’ Council called in specialists from the Mayo Clinic to treat him. What few children his father had imported to play with him from other Squire families had been given strict orders that they were never to touch him, or make him angry, or do anything to make Wulf angry at them.

So his “friends” would come over, sit and watch television with him. They seldom spoke for fear of getting into trouble and no one dared to even bring a present or share so much as a potato chip. Everything had to be thoroughly searched and detoxed before Chris was allowed to play with it. After all, one little germ and he might become sterile or, God forbid, die.

The burden of civilization was upon him, or more to the point, the burden of Wulf’s lineage was upon him.

The only real friend Chris had in his life was Nick Gautier, a Squire recruit he’d met online a couple of years ago. Too new to their world to understand Chris’s gilded status, Nick had treated him like a human being and the Cajun agreed that Chris’s life seriously sucked in spite of the benefits that came along with it.

Hell, the only reason he’d been able to convince Wulf to let him go to college, instead of hiring professors to come to the house and teach him, was the fact that here he might actually meet an eligible ovary donor. Wulf had been giddy at the prospect and interrogated him every night on whether or not he met a new woman.

More to the point, had he scored with her?

Sighing again, Chris entered the room and kept his gaze lowered so that he wouldn’t see the glares or sneers most of the students directed at him. If they didn’t hate him for being Dr. Mitchell’s pet, they hated him for being an overprivileged geek. He was used to it.

He flopped down in a vacant chair in the back corner and dug out his notebook and text.

“Hi, Chris.”

He started at the friendly feminine voice.

Looking up, he saw Cassandra’s beaming smile.

Totally dumbstruck, it was a full minute before he could respond to her. “Hi,” he answered back lamely.

He hated himself for being so damned stupid. Nick could probably have had her eating out of his hand.

She sat down next to him.

He broke out into a sweat. Clearing his throat, he did his best to ignore her and the light scent of roses that drifted from her over to him. She always smelled incredible.

Cassandra opened her book to the assignment and watched Chris. He seemed even more nervous now than he had at the coffee shop.

She glanced down at his backpack, hoping to see another glimpse of the shield, but he’d concealed it completely.

Damn.

“So, Chris,” she said softly, leaning a little closer to him. “I was wondering if I might be able to study with you later.”

He blanched and looked like he was almost ready to bolt. “Study? With me?”

“Yeah. You said you knew this stuff really well and I’d like to make an A on the test. What do you think?”

He rubbed the back of his neck nervously—clearly a habit since he seemed to do it so frequently. “You sure you want
me
to study with
you?
”

“Yes.”

He smiled sheepishly, but refused to meet her gaze. “Sure, I guess that would be okay.”

Cassandra sat back with a satisfied smile as Dr. Mitchell came in and commanded everyone to silence.

She’d spent hours on the Dark-Hunter.com Web site after her last class, going through every part of it. On the surface, it appeared to be some kind of role-playing group or book site.

But there were entire sections of it that were password protected. Secret loops and areas that she couldn’t access no matter how hard she tried. There were many things about it that reminded her of the Apollite site.

No, this wasn’t a gaming group. She had stumbled upon the real Dark-Hunters. She knew it.

They were the last great mystery of the modern world. Living myths that no one knew about.

But she knew they were there. And she was going to find a way into their society and find some answers even if it killed her.

Sitting through that class while the professor droned on about Hrothgar and Shield was the hardest thing she’d ever done in her life. As soon as it ended, she packed up and waited for Chris.

As they neared the door, she saw the two men dressed in black who immediately flanked them while eyeballing her.

Chris let out a disgusted sound.

Cassandra laughed in spite of herself. “Are they with you?”

“I really wish I could say no.”

She patted his arm in sympathy. She jerked her chin to indicate down the hall where Kat was standing up and tucking away her book. “I got one myself.”

Chris smiled at that. “Thank God, I’m not the only one.”

“Nah, don’t worry about it. I told you I understand completely.”

The relief on his face was tangible. “So when would you like to study?”

“How about now?”

“Okay, where?”

There was only one place Cassandra was dying to get into. She hoped it would hold more clues about the man she’d met last night. “Your place?”

His nervousness was back instantly, confirming her suspicions. “I don’t know if that’s a good idea.”

“Why?”

“I just … it’s just … I, um, I just don’t think it’s a good idea, okay?”

Stymied already. Cassandra forced herself to hide her irritation. She’d have to tread carefully if she was to get past his defenses. But then she understood that. She had her own secrets to hide.

“Okay, you pick the place.”

“The library?”

She bristled. “I can’t ever get comfy there. I’m always afraid of being told to hush. Want to come back to my apartment?”

He looked totally stunned by her offer. “Really?”

“Sure. I mean, I don’t usually bite or anything.”

He laughed. “Yeah, me either.” He took two steps off with her, then turned to the men trailing them. “We are just going to her place, okay? Why don’t you guys go get a doughnut or something?”

They didn’t acknowledge him in the least.

Kat laughed.

Cassandra led the way to the students’ parking lot and then gave Chris directions to her apartment. “See you there?”

He nodded and made his way toward a red Hummer.

Cassandra dashed to her gray Mercedes, where Kat was waiting in the driver’s seat. They headed home, while Cassandra hoped Chris didn’t wait too long or, worse, change his mind.

Not until she had a chance to search his backpack, anyway.

*   *   *

It took her two hours of boring
Beowulf
study and a pot of coffee before Chris left her alone with his backpack while he went to the bathroom. Kat had long since retired to her bedroom, claiming the dead language and Chris’s enthusiasm for it was giving her a migraine.

As soon as Chris vanished, Cassandra went searching.

Luckily, it didn’t take long to find what she was looking for …

She found the day planner in his backpack where she had seen it earlier. The binder of it was hand-tooled leather with a strange emblem on the front: a double bow and arrow that was tilted up with the arrow pointing to the right.

Just like the one she had seen on Wulf’s shoulder in her dream …

She ran her hand over the brown leather, then opened it to find that everything was written in Runic. The language was similar to Old English, but she couldn’t read it.

Old Norse, perhaps?

“What are you doing?”

She jumped at Chris’s sharp question. It took a few seconds for her to think of anything to say that wouldn’t make him even more suspicious. “You’re one of those gamers, aren’t you?”

His blue gaze narrowed on her and turned sharp. “What are you talking about?”

“I … um, I went to this site called Dark-Hunter and found all these teasers about a book series and game. Since I had seen your book earlier, I was wondering if you were one of the members who plays there.”

She could tell he was searching his mind and her face to see what, if anything, he should say.

“Yeah, my friend Nick runs the site,” he said after a long pause. “We have a lot of interesting people who play there.”

“I saw that. Do you have one of those names like Hellion or Rogue that you play under?”

He came forward and took the day planner from her. “No, I just use ‘Chris.’”

“Ah. So what goes on in the private areas?”

“Nothing,” he said a little too fast. “Just a bunch of us BSing each other.”

“Then why is it private?”

“It just is.” He grabbed the book from her hand and shoved it back into his backpack. “Look, I have to go now. Good luck on the test.”

Cassandra wanted to stop him and ask more questions, but it was painfully obvious he had no intention of letting her know anything else about them or him.

“Thanks, Chris. I appreciate the help.”

He nodded and made a hasty exit.

Alone in her kitchen, Cassandra sat in the chair, chewing her thumbnail as she debated how to proceed. She thought about tailing Chris to his house, but that wouldn’t do much good. No doubt his bodyguards would catch her, even with Kat’s cockamamie driving.

Getting up, she went to the laptop in her room and booted it up.

Okay, the Dark-Hunter site was designed as if the Dark-Hunters were characters in a book. Most people would accept that, but what if she reviewed it again from the angle that nothing on the site was false?

She’d spent her life in hiding and one thing she had learned … the best place to hide was out in the open. People had a tendency to not see what was right before them.

And even if they saw it, they came up with ways to explain it away. They would say it was a figment of their imagination or youthful pranks.

No doubt the Dark-Hunters thought the same thing. After all, in this modern world where everyone knew about vampires and demons and thought them a Hollywood myth, they wouldn’t even necessarily have to hide. Most people would write them off as eccentrics.

She watched the intro to the site, then switched to the profile pages of the individual Hunters who were listed.

There was one there for a character named Wulf Tryggvason whose Squire was named Chris Eriksson. Supposedly, Wulf was a Viking warrior who had been cursed …

Cassandra copied Wulf’s name and then searched the Nillstrom—an Old Norse legend-and-history search engine.

“Bingo,” she whispered as several entries popped up.

Born of a Christian mother from Gaul and a Norse father, Wulf Tryggvason had been a renowned adventurer and raider of the mid-eighth century whose death was unrecorded. In fact, it only said that he had vanished one day after he had won a battle against a Mercian warlord who had been trying to kill him. Popular belief had it that one of the warlord’s sons had vengefully slain him that night.

Cassandra heard her bedroom door open. Looking up, she saw Kat standing in the doorway.

“You busy?” Kat asked.

“I was just doing some more research.”

“Ah.” Kat moved forward to read over her shoulder. “‘Wulf Tryggvason. Pirate, risk-taker, and warrior, he fought his way across Europe, hiring himself out to both Christian and pagan alike. It was once written that his only loyalty was to his sword and to his brother Erik who traveled with him…’ Interesting. You think this might be the guy you saw at the Inferno?”

“Maybe. You ever heard of him?”

“Not at all. You want me to ask Jimmy? He’s all into Viking history.”

Cassandra considered it for a second. Kat’s friend was in the Society of Creative Anachronism and lived to study Viking culture.

But it wasn’t Wulf’s past that interested her at the moment. It was his present, and what she wanted most was a modern-day address for him.

“It’s okay.”

“You sure?’

“Yeah.”

Kat nodded. “Fine then, I’ll just head back to my room and finish my book. You want me to bring you something to munch on or drink?”

Cassandra smiled at the offer. “A soda would be great.”