The Dark-Hunters (764 page)

“I can die now.”

She shook her head. “Not as easily and you know that.”

“I’ll still have my powers, though.”

True, but she wasn’t sure it would be enough. There was no telling what tricks Coyote might come up with next. “It’s not the same. Do we have to do this?”

“No. I have my soul back. Technically, I’m out of Artemis’s service. As far as I know, there’s nothing that says I have to restore my soul once I have it again. But we won’t be able to start a family without it.”

“We already have a family. You, me … and one irritated Squire.”

He laughed at that. “Yeah, I guess Andy is our ill-mannered adopted son.”

Abigail closed the box. She had a bad feeling deep inside that wouldn’t ease. Something more was out there and it would be coming for them. “I don’t want to take a chance on losing you, Jess. Not again. Let’s wait on this.”

He took the box from her hand. “All right. We’ll wait.”

That was one of the things she loved most about him. He never pushed his will onto hers. The decisions they made, they made as a team. Together.

She looked down at the simple wedding band that rested on her left hand. Even though Dark-Hunters couldn’t marry, they’d eloped six nights ago. It was Vegas, after all. And Sin had a small chapel inside his casino that had provided a perfect setting. Zarek had been the best man and Hannah her maid of honor. Kat, Sin, Sasha, Choo Co La Tah, Ren, and Andy had also been there as witnesses.

Yes, they’d jumped the gun, but given everything that had happened to them, it’d seemed most appropriate. And neither of them had wanted to take a chance on anything else going wrong.

Carpe Noctem.
Seize the night. That was exactly what they’d done.

“You sure you don’t want a diamond to go with that?” Jess had been nagging her about that since she’d declined an engagement ring. But that wasn’t her style.

“I have everything I need and he’s standing right in front of me.”

Jess savored those words that had been her wedding vow. Even with her in front of him, he couldn’t believe she was here and that they were finally together. That it was her face he now carried in the watch she’d returned to him. “I will spend the rest of my life, however long it is, making damn sure you always feel that way.”

In the deepest part of himself, he sensed that Coyote would be coming for them again. He didn’t know what tomorrow would hold, but today he knew what he would be holding.

Her.

And that was all he needed.

BONUS SCENE

New Orleans

April 16, 2011

Holding on to her husband’s huge, strong hand for dear life while they were surrounded by their closest friends and family in the bedroom of their home, Soteria Parthenopaeus leaned her head against the stacked pillows behind her and pushed with everything she had.

Ah, gah, it hurt.

It really,
really
hurt!

And it hadn’t stopped for hours, or was it days or weeks? Funny thing about labor, it made time slow down so that one minute in human time equaled three hours to a laboring mom. Maybe longer.

Yeah, definitely longer.

She reverted to her breathing techniques that all three (because her husband’s paranoia feared one might not be good enough) of her midwives had taught her, but that was about as useful as all the pushing she’d been doing.

And the breathing was making her feel like a hyperventilating dog after a long race. Not to mention dizzy. She glanced at her husband, who was coated in as much sweat as she was. He hadn’t left her side for a single second since it started. His long black hair was pulled back into a sleek ponytail and his swirling silver eyes stared at her with pride and love.

She adored, loved, and worshiped him so incredibly much, would crawl naked over broken glass just to see him smile, but right now in the throes of ten hours of hard labor pains, she really wanted to grab the most tender part of his body in a set of pliers and squeeze his junk until he could fully understand how much childbirth sucked. “I swear if that’s a pair of demon horns digging into my belly and stabbing me right now, Ash, I’m going to beat you after it’s born.”

’Cause face it, horns on the head didn’t come from
my
side of the family or genetic code.

He actually had the nerve to laugh at her threat. Was he out of his mind? Just because he was an eleven-thousand-year-old Atlantean god with omnipotent powers didn’t mean she couldn’t make him suffer. Not that she ever would, but still. The least he could do was pretend to be afraid of her.

He kissed her cheek and brushed her hair back from her face. “It’s all right, Sota. I have you.”

“Apostolos, adjust her pillows higher,” her mother-in-law snapped at her husband. “She doesn’t look comfortable. I don’t want my daughter in any more pain than necessary. You men have no idea what you put us through.” While Apollymi couldn’t physically leave her prison realm, her astral projection could travel without her. And it’d been pacing near Ash’s oldest daughter, Simi, since the labor had started.

Simi rolled back and forth and spun around on Ash’s wheeled desk chair. Dressed in a neon pink lab coat and black-and-white striped leggings with thigh-high laced platform boots that went all the way up to her black lace miniskirt, she was adorable. Her face was mostly covered by a black surgical mask with a matching pink skull and crossbones on the right side of it. Her glowing red eyes were emphasized by her solid jet black pigtails and dark purple eyeliner. She’d been so excited about the impending birth of the baby that she’d been dressing that way for a month and shadowing Tory’s every step. If Tory so much as hiccuped, Simi had whipped out a black baseball glove and asked, “Is it time yet? The Simi’s gots her glove all ready to catch it if it is, ’cause sometimes they come out flying.”

Simi couldn’t wait to be a big sister again.

Kat, Ash’s other daughter, who was married to Sin Nana, sat in the window seat, holding her sleeping daughter on her lap. Her long, flowing blue jersey dress was as serene as she was. “Grandma, please. It’s okay. Dad’s doing a great job. I give him kudos for at least being calm and rational, and not losing his temper with everyone around him who isn’t in childbirth. And he has yet to start shooting lightning bolts at people. Poor Damien still has a burn scar.”

That thought actually made Soteria laugh as she pictured it. Sin did have a temper where his wife was concerned.

Breathtaking, blond, and statuesque as the daughter of two gods should be, Kat smiled at Tory. “If it makes you feel any better, Tory, they were just as bad when Mia was born. At least you don’t have Sin, Kish,
and
Damien running around, trying to boil water for no other reason than that’s what someone had told Sin husbands are supposed to do, and since Sin doesn’t know how to boil water, he had to micromanage the other two incompetents who’d never done it, either. I’m amazed they didn’t band together to kill him during it or burn down the casino. And don’t get me started on my mother trying to murder my husband in the middle of it or her fighting with Grandma over whose labors were more painful. Or,” she cast a meaningful glance to Simi, “someone setting my mother’s hair on fire and trying to barbecue her to celebrate the birth.”

Simi stopped rolling and pulled her black surgical mask down to show them her proud fanged grin. “That an old Charonte custom that go back forever ’cause we a really old race of demons who go back even before forever.” She looked over to where Danger’s shade glittered in the opposite corner while the former Dark-Huntress was assisting Pam and Kim with the birth, and explained the custom to her. “When a new baby is born, you kill off an old annoying family member who gets on everyone’s nerves, which for all of us would be the heifer-goddess ’cause the only person who like her be you, Akra-Kat. I know she you mother and all, but sometimes you just gotta say no thank you. You a mean old heifer-goddess who need to go play in traffic and get run over by something big like a steamroller or bus or something else really painful that would hurt a lot and make the rest of us laugh.” She put her mask back on. “Not to mention the Simi barbecue would have been fun, too, if someone, Akra-Kat, hadn’t stopped the Simi from it. I personally think it would have been a most magnificent gift for the baby. Barbecued heifer-goddess Artemis. Yum! No better meal. Oh, then again, baby got a delicate constitution and that might give the poor thing indigestion. Artemis definitely give the Simi indigestion and I ain’t even ate her yet.”

Kat let out an exaggerated sigh as she passed a bemused stare to Tory. “There’s a reason Mia is currently an only child. Family drama takes on a whole new meaning when they’re feuding gods who can’t stand the sight of each other and always try to kill one another whenever they’re in the same room.”

Tory laughed, knowing just how right Kat was. It was why Xirena was downstairs with Alexian and Urian, eating her out of house and home. Simi’s older sister couldn’t stand Apollymi and the two of them had been fighting so badly that Alexian had volunteered to babysit the demon downstairs until the birth.

Tory loved her huge family, quirks, thorns, fangs, horns and all. She only wished her cousin, Geary, who was like a sister to her, could have been here, too. But Geary was about to give birth herself and was on bed rest for it.

She couldn’t wait. Their babies would be like twins.

Acheron brushed her damp hair back from her face and started massaging her temples. “Is there anything I can do for you?”

She grimaced as more agony lacerated her abdomen. “Stop the pain.”

He pressed his cheek against hers and gave her a gentle squeeze. “You know I can’t.”

Because they weren’t sure what it might do to the baby or how it might unknowingly affect it, they’d decided together, as a family, that no one was going to lay a preternatural hand on the infant no matter what.

Not after what had been done to Acheron when he’d been born.

“Fine,” she breathed. “But next time you’re the one who’s doing labor duty. I get to sit there and hold
your
hand.”

And again he laughed.

She glared at him. “You have no sense of self-preservation, do you?”

“Not really.”

“Akra-Tory want some of my barbecue sauce to use on akri if he don’t behave?”

Tory laughed again. “It’s all right, Simi. I’ll…” She screamed as something twisted inside her that felt like a broken bottle scraping her stomach lining.

Ash went pale. “Tory? Is something wrong?”

She couldn’t answer. All she could do was try to breathe.

Ash looked at Tory’s best friend, Kim, who was their lead midwife. Her features were drawn tight as she and Tory’s other best friend, Pam, talked in a low whisper.

“What’s going on?” Ash demanded.

Kim turned to Danger. “Hon, can you go get Essie from downstairs?” Esmerelda Deveraux was another friend who was practically family. While Kim was a medical practitioner and experienced midwife, Essie was a medical doctor with an additional twelve years of experience with delivering babies at home.

Danger left immediately.

Tory screamed as the pain worsened.

Acheron’s skin turned from olive to mottled blue as his panic rose. “Answer me, Kim. What’s happening?” Oh yeah, the god tone came out. It was so deep a growl that it vibrated the room.

Luckily, Kim knew he was a god and she never panicked over anything. “I don’t know, sweetie. I’ve never delivered a nonhuman infant before. I don’t know if this is normal or not. That’s why I want a second opinion.”

“How about a third?” Menyara asked as she, Essie, and Danger spilled into the room.

Ash stood up. “Don’t touch the baby, Mennie.”

Menyara cocked her hip and head at his concern. Dressed in a flowing orange skirt and cream peasant blouse, she had her sisterlocks held back from her face by a striped red scarf. “Now I know you didn’t just come at me with your attitude, Mr. High And Mighty Atlantean God. Believe you me, if there’s one thing I know how to do, it’s birth nonhuman infants. Been doing it since before even your old ass was born.”

“Men—”

She held up her hand, cutting him off. “You know me better than that. I would never do
anything
to harm your baby and I’m not about to curse or mark it. Now let me take a look and see what’s going on.”

Ash stood down. “I’m sorry, Mennie.”

“It’s all right. I know where you’re coming from and I know you’re stressed. But don’t worry. We’ll take care of it.”

Ash returned to Tory’s side.

Tory took his hand again and did her best not to scream anymore. Her poor baby. From the moment she’d told him she was pregnant, he’d been terrified. He didn’t say it, but she knew. His childhood had been made so violent and traumatic by those who sought to destroy him that it’d left scars inside him that not even eleven thousand years could ease.

And all because his goddess aunt had touched his skin when she delivered him.

“It’s okay, baby,” she said to him.

But still she saw the fear in his eyes.
I can’t lose you, Sota. I can’t.
He sent those words to her and her alone.

She smiled at him through her pain as she used the powers he’d given her to respond.
I have no intention of leaving you. Ever.

“Is it supposed to do that?” Kim asked Menyara.

Menyara swallowed. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

“What’s wrong?” Tory’s heart pounded as her panic rose. For Menyara to say something like that …

It was bad.

“We need to do a C-section.” Menyara directed the others as they scrambled to make preparations.

Ash went to look, then stepped back.

Tory panicked even more. “What is it?”

“Stay calm,” Apollymi said. “It’s fine.”

But it wasn’t fine and she knew it. That fact was etched in the horror on all their faces. More pain stabbed at her.

Within minutes, they had her prepped. But when Essie went to make the cut, the blade snapped in two.

The room began to shake.