Cassandra's eyes fluttered open as she felt strong, hot hands unbuttoning her flannel gown. Startled, she stared up at the Dark-Hunter who had saved her life at the club.
His midnight eyes were hungry with desire as he looked down at her.
"It's you," she breathed, her head fuzzy from her dreams.
He smiled at that and appeared delighted by her words. "You remember me?"
"Of course. How could I ever forget the way you kiss?"
His smile widened wickedly as he parted her gown and ran his hand over her bared skin. She moaned at the warmth of his palm on her flesh. Against her will, a stab of desire tore through her as her breasts tingled from his fiery touch. The calluses of his rough fingers lightly, gently scraped her swollen nipples. It made her stomach contract even more. Made her throb as moisture pooled itself between her legs, making her want even more to take his entire strength into her body.
She realized her Viking savior was completely naked in her bed. Well, maybe not completely. He did wear a silver necklace of Thor's hammer and a small crucifix.
Okay, that was pushing it. But he wore the necklace well against his tawny skin.
The dim light caressed every contour of his magnificent body. His shoulders were wide and well muscled, his chest a perfect sculpting of male proportions.
And his rear...
It was the stuff of legends!
His chest and legs were lightly covered by dark hair. His strong, lightly whiskered chin begged for a woman to lick her way down it until she could tilt his head back and continue on to his luscious neck.
But what fascinated her was the intricate Norse tattoo that covered his entire right shoulder and ended in a highly stylized band that encircled his biceps. It was beautiful.
And yet it didn't hold a candle to the man in her arms.
He was gorgeous. Mouthwateringly so.
"What are you doing?" she asked as he traced circles around her breasts with his hot tongue.
"I'm making love to you."
Had she not been asleep, those words would have terrified her. But all thoughts of fear and everything else scattered as he cupped her breast in his hand.
She hissed in pleasure and expectation.
Gently, he massaged her, rubbing his callused palm against her taut nipple until it was so tight that she wanted to beg him to kiss her. Beg him to suckle her.
"So soft," he whispered against her lips before he claimed them as well.
Cassandra sighed. Her body burned with an astounding intensity as she ran her hands over his bare, broad shoulders. She'd never felt the likes of them. Well formed and perfect, they rippled with his power and strength.
And she wanted to feel more of him.
He moved his hand away from her and reached for her braid. She watched him study her hair as he loosened it. "Why do you wear your hair like this?" he asked in that intoxicatingly deep, accented voice.
"The curls tangle if I don't."
His eyes snapped fire as if he thought her braid were some kind of abomination. "I don't like it. Your hair is too beautiful to be bound."
He ran his hands through her freed curls and his gaze instantly turned tender. Soft. He brushed her hair with his fingers until it covered her bared breasts. His breath fell against her skin while he teased her nipples with her curls and his touch.
"There now," he said, his Norse accent smooth and lilting. "A more beautiful woman, I've never seen."
Her body molten, Cassandra could do nothing but watch him watch her.
He was stunningly handsome. Masculine in a barbaric way that made the woman in her thrum with primal need.
It was obvious this was a dangerous man. Basic. Hard. Unyielding.
"What is your name?" she asked as he dipped his head to nibble her neck. His whiskered cheeks prickled her flesh, raising chills all over her as he tasted her.
"Wulf."
She shivered as she realized the source of this midnight fantasy. "Like Beowulf?"
He smiled hungrily, flashing her a brief glimpse of his long, canine teeth. "Actually, I'm more like Grendel. I come out only at night to devour you."
She shivered again as he gave one long, deliciously wicked lick to the underside of her breast.
Now this was a man who knew well how to pleasure a woman. And better yet, he didn't seem to be in a hurry to finish, but rather took his time with her.
If there was any doubt before, that alone told her this was a dream!
Wulf ran his tongue over her soft skin and delighted in her murmurs of pleasure as he tasted her salty-sweet flesh. He loved the warm, soothing feel and smell of this woman.
She was delectable.
He hadn't had a dream like this in centuries. It was so real, and yet he knew it wasn't.
She was only a figment of his starving imagination.
Even so, she touched him in a way he'd never before known. And she smelled so good... like fresh roses and powder.
Womanly. Soft.
A tender morsel just waiting for him to sample her. Or better still, devour.
Pulling back, he returned to her hair that reminded him of the color of sunshine. The fiery gold strands captivated him as the curls wrapped themselves around his fingers and tugged at the edges of his stone heart. "You have such beautiful hair."
"So do you," she said as she brushed his hair back from his face.
She scraped his whiskers with her fingernail as she traced the curve of his jaw. Gods, how long had it been since he'd last had a woman?
Three, four months?
Three, four decades?
It was hard to keep track of time when it stretched out interminably. All he knew was that he had long ago given up the dream of having a woman like this under him.
Since no woman could remember him, he refused to take decent women into his bed.
All too well, he knew what it was like to wake up after sex and have no idea what had been done to him. To lie there wondering how much of it had been real and how much had been a dream.
So, he had relegated his encounters to women he could pay for their services, and then only when he absolutely could stand his celibacy no more.
But this one had remembered his kiss.
She had remembered him.
The thought made his heart soar. He liked this dream, and if he could, he'd stay in it forever.
"Tell me your name, villkat."
"Cassandra."
He felt the word rumble under his lips as he kissed the column of her throat. She trembled in response to his tongue stroking her flesh.
And he loved it. Loved the sounds she made as she returned his caresses. She ran her hot, eager hands over his naked back and paused her right hand over the brand on his left shoulder.
"What is this?" she asked curiously.
He glanced down at the sign of a bow and arrow. "It's the mark of Artemis, the goddess of the hunt and of the moon."
"Do all Dark-Hunters have it?"
"Yes."
"How strange..."
Wulf couldn't stand the flannel barrier anymore. He wanted to see more of her.
Wulf lifted the hem of her gown. "This should be burned."
She frowned. "Why?"
"Because it keeps me from you."
With one tug, he pulled it over her head.
Her eyes widened for an instant, then turned dark with her own passion.
"Now, that's better," he whispered, feasting on the sight of her taut breasts, her narrow waist, and best of all, the strawberry-blond curls at the juncture of her thighs.
He skimmed his hand between her breasts, down over her stomach, and around her hip.
Cassandra reached out and ran her hand over the glorious skin of his chest, delighting in the rocky terrain of his muscles. He felt so wonderful. His body rippled with every move he made.
The deadly power of him was undeniable, and yet he was as gentle as a tamed lion in her bed. She couldn't believe the tenderness in his hot, masterful touch.
His dark, moody features stirred her deeply, and his eyes held such a vital intelligence as they took in the world around him.
She wanted to tame this wild beast.
To feed him from her hand.
With that thought, Cassandra reached down between their bodies and took his hard cock into her palm.
He growled low in his throat, then kissed her senseless.
Like some sleek, muscled predator, he moved over her mouth, burning her with his kisses.
"Yes," he gasped as she sheathed him with her hands. His breathing ragged, he stared at her with a hunger so raw that it made her shiver with anticipation.
"Touch me, Cassandra," he whispered, covering her hand with his.
She watched as he closed his eyes and showed her how to stroke him. Cassandra bit her lip at the feel of him between her hands. He was a large man. Large and thick and powerful.
His jaw steely, he opened his eyes and singed her with a hot stare. She knew playtime was over.
Like an unleashed predator, he rolled her onto her back and separated her thighs with his knees. He lowered his long, lean body over hers and, like he had promised, devoured her.
Cassandra gasped as his hands and lips sought out every inch of her body with a furious intensity. And when he buried his hand between her legs, she shook all over. His long fingers stroked and delved deep inside her, teasing her until she was weak from it.
"You're so wet," he growled in her ear as he pulled back from her.
Cassandra trembled as he spread her legs wider.
"Look at me," he commanded. "I want to see your pleasure when I take you."
She looked up at him.
The moment their gazes locked, he buried himself deep inside her.
She moaned in pleasure. He was so hard and thick, and he felt wonderful as he thrust against her hips.
Wulf pulled back so that he could watch her face while he took his time making love to her and savoring the feel of her warm, wet body beneath his. He bit his lip as she ran her hand down his spine, then scored his back with her nails.
He growled in response, wanting her wildness.
Her passion.
She placed her hands against his lower back, urging him faster. He obliged her more than willingly. She lifted her hips to him and he laughed.
If she wanted to be in control, he was certainly in the mood to let her. Rolling over, he pulled her on top of him without leaving her body.
She gasped as she looked down at him.
"Ride me, elskling," he breathed.
Her eyes dark and untamed, she leaned forward, spilling her hair across his chest as she slid herself down the length of him until he was barely still sheathed by her body, then fell back, pulling him into her all the way to his hilt.
He shook from the force of it.
He cupped her breasts and squeezed gently as she took control of their pleasure.
Cassandra couldn't believe the way he felt underneath her. It had been a long time since she'd made love to a man and she had never had one like this.
One who was so innately masculine. So virile and wild.
One she knew nothing about except that he made her mother's people tremble in terror.
And he had saved her life.
It must be her repressed sexuality that had summoned him into her dreams. Her need to make contact with someone before she died.
That was her biggest regret. Due to the curse of her mother's family, she had been fearful of approaching other Apollites. Like her mother before her, she had been forced to live in the human world as one of them.
But she had never been one of them. Not really.
All she had ever wanted was to be accepted. To find someone who could understand her past and not think her mental when she told tales of a cursed lineage.
And monsters who stalked the night.
Now she had a Dark-Hunter for her own.
At least for tonight.
Grateful for that, she laid herself over him and let the heat of his body soothe hers.
Wulf cupped her face and watched as she experienced the height of pleasure. He rolled over with her then, and took control. He thrust deep inside her as her body convulsed around him. Her gasp punctuated his motions in a way that sounded like she was singing.
He laughed.
Until he felt his own body explode.
Cassandra wrapped her entire body around him as she felt his release. He collapsed on top of her.
His weight felt so good there. So wonderful.
"That was incredible," he said, lifting his head up to smile at her while they were still joined intimately. "Thank you."
She returned his smile.
Just as she reached up to cup his face, she heard her alarm clock go off.
Cassandra jerked awake.
Her heart was still pounding as she reached to turn the clock off. And it was only then she realized her hair was no longer braided and her gown was lying on the floor in a crumpled heap...
Wulf came awake with a start. His heart pounding, he looked over at his clock. It was just after six and by the activity upstairs he could tell it was morning.
Frowning, he glanced around in the darkness. There was nothing unusual.
But the dream...
It had seemed so incredibly real.
He rolled over, onto his side, and clutched his pillow in his fist. "Damn psychic powers," he growled. They never left him any peace. And now they tortured him with things he knew he couldn't have.
As he drifted back to sleep, he could almost swear he smelled the faint scent of roses and powder on his skin.
"Hey, Cass," Kat greeted as Cassandra took a seat at the breakfast table.
Cassandra didn't respond. Over and over she kept seeing Wulf. Kept feeling his hands on her body.
If she didn't know better, she would swear he was still with her.
But she didn't know who her dream lover was. Why he haunted her.
It was so weird.
"Are you okay?" Kat asked.
"Yeah, I guess. I just didn't sleep well last night."
Kat placed her hand against Cassandra's forehead. "You look feverish, but you're not."
She was feverish all right, but not from illness. There was a part of her that wanted nothing more than to go back to sleep, find her mysterious man, and continue making love with him for the rest of the day.
Kat handed her the cornflakes.
"By the way, Michelle called and told me to thank you for introducing her to Tom last night. He wants her to meet him back at the Inferno tonight and she wanted to know if we could go with her."
Cassandra flinched as Kat's words jogged something loose in her memory.
All of a sudden, she saw the Inferno the night before. Saw the Daimons.
She remembered the terror she'd felt.
But most of all, she remembered Wulf.
Not the tender lover of her dreams, but the dark, terrifying man who had killed the Daimons in front of her.
"Oh, my God," she breathed as every detail became crystal clear.
"In five minutes no one in that bar will ever remember they saw me." His words tore through her mind.
But she did remember him.
Well.
Had he come home with her?
No. Cassandra calmed a degree as she clearly remembered him leaving her. Of her going back inside and rejoining her friends in the club.
She had gone to bed alone.
But she had awakened naked. Her body damp and sated...
"Cass, I'm starting to get worried."
Cassandra took a deep breath and shook everything off. It was a dream. It had to have been. Nothing else made sense. But then when dealing with such supernatural things as Daimons and Dark-Hunters things seldom made sense.
"I'm fine, but I'm not going to my morning class. I think we need to do some research and run an errand."
Kat looked even more worried than before. "You sure? It's not like you to miss class for anything."
"Yeah," she said, offering her a smile. "Just go grab the laptop and let's see what we can find out about Dark-Hunters."
Kat arched a brow at that. "Why?"
In all the years Cassandra had been chased by her mother's people, she had only confided the truth of her world to two bodyguards.
One who had died when Cassandra was only thirteen, in a fight that had almost killed her.
The other had been Kat, who had taken the truth a lot easier than the first bodyguard. Kat had merely looked at her, blinked, and said, "Cool. Can I kill them and not go to prison?"
Since then, Cassandra had never kept anything secret from Kat. Her friend and bodyguard knew as much about the Apollites and their customs as Cassandra did.
Which wasn't much. Apollites had a nasty habit of not letting anyone know they existed.
Still, it had been such a relief to find someone who didn't think she was insane or delusional. But then in the course of the last five years, Kat had seen enough Daimons and Apollites come after them to know the truth of it.
Over the last few months as Cassandra neared the end of her life, the Daimon attacks had backed off enough so that she had a small semblance of normality. But Cassandra wasn't foolish enough to think that she was safe. She would never be safe.
Not until the day she died.
"I think we met a Dark-Hunter last night."
Kat frowned. "When?"
"At the club."
"When?" she repeated.
Cassandra hesitated to tell her. Several details were still sketchy even to her, and until she remembered more of them, she didn't want to worry Kat.
"I saw him in the crowd."
"Then how do you know he was a Dark-Hunter? I thought you told me they were fables."
"I don't really know. He could have just been some weird guy with dark hair and fangs, but if I'm right and he's here in town, I want to know because he might be able to tell me whether or not I'm about to drop dead in eight months."
"Okay, points well taken. But you know, he could have also been one of the fake Goth vamps who hang at the Inferno." Kat went to her bedroom to retrieve the laptop and set it up on the kitchen table while Cassandra finished eating.
As soon as it was ready, Cassandra signed online and headed to Katoteros.com. It was an online community that she had found a little over a year ago where Apollites could talk to each other. On the public side, it looked like a Greek-history site, but there were password-protected areas.
There was nothing on the site about Dark-Hunters. So she and Kat spent some time trying to hack into the private areas, which proved to be even more impossible than breaking into the government's servers.
What was it about preternatural beings that they didn't want others to discover their whereabouts?
Okay, so she understood the need for secrecy. Still, it was a major pain in the ass for a woman who needed some answers.
The closest thing she could find for help was an "Ask the Oracle" link. Clicking it, Cassandra typed in a simple e-mail. "Are Dark-Hunters real?"
After that, she did a search for Dark-Hunters and came up with bubkes. It was as if they didn't exist anywhere.
Before she signed off, her e-mail came back from the Oracle with only two words for a response.
Are you?
"Maybe they are just legends," Kat said again.
"Maybe." But legends didn't kiss women the way Wulf had kissed her, nor did they find their way into her dreams.
Two hours later, Cassandra decided to utilize her last resort... her father.
Kat drove her to her father's high-rise office in downtown St. Paul. All things considered, the late-morning traffic was light and Kat only managed to give her one small heart attack with her dodge-car style of driving.
No matter the time of day or how bad the traffic congestion, Kat always drove as if the Daimons were after them.
Kat whisked the car into the parking garage, clipping the automatic gate on her way in before she whipped around a slow-moving Toyota and beat it into a good spot.
The driver flipped them off, then kept going.
"I swear, Kat, you drive like you're playing a video game."
"Yeah, yeah. Wanna see the ray gun I have under the hood to zap them if they don't get out of my way?"
Cassandra laughed, even though part of her wondered if maybe Kat really had something hidden there. Knowing her friend, it was possible.
As soon as they left the car in the parking lot and entered the building, they attracted a lot of attention. But they always did. It wasn't every day people saw two women who were both over six feet tall. Not to mention that Kat was so strikingly beautiful, Cassandra would have to cut the woman's head off to make her blend in anywhere not Hollywood.
Since a headless bodyguard was rather useless, Cassandra was forced to tolerate a woman who should be working for LA Models.
The company guards greeted them at the door with a nod and waved them inside.
Cassandra's father was the infamous Jefferson T. Peters of Peters, Briggs, and Smith Pharmaceuticals, one of the world's largest drug research and development companies.
Many of the people she passed as she walked through the building cast a jealous eye toward her. They knew she was her father's sole heir, and they all thought she had it made.
If they only knew...
"Good day, Miss Peters," his administrative assistant greeted her when she finally made it to the twenty-second floor. "Should I buzz your father?"
Cassandra smiled at the extremely attractive, skinny woman who was very sweet, but always made her feel like she should lose ten pounds and brush her hand selfconsciously through her hair to straighten it. Tina was one of those scrupulously well dressed people who never had a molecule out of place.
Dressed in an impeccable Ralph Lauren suit, Tina was the total antithesis to Cassandra, who was dressed in her college sweatshirt and jeans.
"Is he alone?"
Tina nodded.
"I'll just go in and surprise him."
"You'll definitely do that. I know he'll be glad to see you."
Leaving Tina to her work and Kat waiting in a chair near Tina's desk, Cassandra entered her father's sacred workaholic domain.
Contemporary in design, his office had a "cool" feel to it, but her father was anything but a cold man. He'd loved her mother passionately and since the hour of Cassandra's birth, he had doted on her with everything he had.
Her father was an exceptionally handsome man with dark auburn hair that was laced with distinguished gray. At fifty-nine, he was fit and trim and looked closer to his early forties.
Even though she'd been forced to grow up away from him, for fear of the Apollites or Daimons finding her if she stayed anywhere too long, he had never been far away from her even when she'd been halfway around the world. Only a phone call or even a plane ride away.
Over the years, he'd turned up unexpectedly on her doorstep with gifts and hugs-sometimes in the middle of the night. Sometimes in the middle of the day.
As children, she and her sisters used to make bets on when he'd turn up again to see them. He had never let any of them down, nor had he ever missed a single birthday.
Cassandra loved this man more than anything else in the world and it terrified her what would happen to him if she were to die in eight months like other Apollites. Too many times, she had witnessed his grief and sorrow as he buried her mother and four older sisters.
Every death had torn apart his heart, especially the car bomb that had killed her mother and her last two sisters.
Would he even be able to stand another blow such as that?
Pushing that terrifying thought aside, she approached his steel-and-glass desk.
He was on the phone, but he hung up the minute he looked up from his stack of papers and saw her.
His face lighting instantly, he got up and hugged her, then pulled back with a worried frown. "What are you doing here, baby? Shouldn't you be in class?"
She patted his arm and urged him back to his side of the desk as she flopped into one of the comfy chairs in front. "Probably."
"Then why are you here? It's not like you to cut class to come see me."
She laughed as he echoed Kat's earlier sentiments. Maybe she needed to alter her habits a bit. In her position, predictable behavior was a dangerous liability. "I wanted to talk to you."
"About?"
"The Dark-Hunters."
He paled, making her wonder just how much he knew and how much he was going to share. He had a nasty tendency to overprotect her, hence her long legacy of bodyguards.
"Why do you want to know about them?" he asked cautiously.
"Because I was attacked by Daimons last night and a Dark-Hunter saved my life."
He shot to his feet and rushed over to her side of the desk. "Were you hurt?"
"No, Daddy," she hastened to assure him as he tried to inspect her body for damage. "Just scared."
He pulled back with a stern frown, but kept his hands on her arm. "All right, listen. You need to withdraw from school, we'll-"
"Daddy," she said firmly, "I'm not going to withdraw less than a year from graduation. I'm through running."
Even though she might not live past eight months, there was a possibility that she would. Until she knew for certain, she had vowed to live her life as normally as possible.
She saw the horror on his face. "This is not something debatable, Cassandra. I swore to your mother that I would keep you safe from the Apollites and I will. I'll not let them kill you too."
She clenched her teeth at the reminder of an oath he took as sacred as he did this office and company. She knew the legacy she had inherited from her mother's family all too well.
Centuries past, it had been her ancestor who had caused the Apollites to be cursed.
Out of jealousy, her great-great-whatever had sent out soldiers to murder the son and mistress of the god Apollo. In retaliation, the Greek sun god had banished all Apollites from his favor.
Since the Apollite queen had ordered her men to make it appear as if a beast had destroyed the mother and child, Apollo gave all the Apollites the features of beasts-long canine teeth, speed, strength, and predator's eyes. They were forced to feed off each other's blood in order to survive.
He had banished them from the daylight so that the angry god would never again have to see them.
But the crudest blow of all, he had cursed them to a life span of only twenty-seven years-the same age his mistress had been when she'd been slain by the Apollites.
On his or her twenty-seventh birthday, an Apollite spent the entire day slowly, painfully decaying. It was so awful a death that most of them committed ritual suicide the day before their birthday to escape it.
The only hope an Apollite had was to slay a human and take the human soul into their own body. There was no other way to prolong their short lives. But the minute they turned Daimon, they crossed over and invoked the wrath of the gods.
It was then the Dark-Hunters were called in to kill them and free the stolen human souls before the souls that were trapped withered and died.
In eight short months, Cassandra would turn twenty-seven.
It was something that terrified her.
She was part human and because of that she could walk in daylight, but she had to stay covered up and couldn't be out too long without burning severely.
Her long canine teeth had been filed down by a dentist when she was ten, and though she was anemic, her need for blood was satisfied by bimonthly transfusions.
She was lucky. The handful of other half-Apollite, half-humans she had met over the years had leaned mostly toward their Apollite heritage.
All of them had died at twenty-seven.
All of them.
But Cassandra had always held on to the hope that she had enough human in her to make it past her birthday.
Ultimately, though, she didn't know, and she'd never been able to find anyone who knew more about her "condition" than she did.
Cassandra didn't want to die. Not now when there was so much living she had left. She wanted what most everyone else did. A husband. A family.
Most of all, a future.
"Maybe this Dark-Hunter knows something about my mixed blood. Maybe he-"
"Your mother would fly into a panic if their name ever came up," he said as he stroked her cheek. "I know very little about the Apollites, but I know they all hate the Dark-Hunters. Your mother called them evil, soulless killers that no one could reason with."
"They're not the Terminator, Daddy."
"The way your mother spoke of them, they are."
Well, that was true. Her mother had spent hours warning her and her sisters to stay away from three things: Dark-Hunters, Daimons, and Apollites-in that order.
"Mom never even met one. All she knew was what her parents had told her and I'll wager they never met one either. Besides, what if this Dark-Hunter is the key to helping me find a way to live longer?"
His grip tightened on her hand. "What if he was sent to kill you just like the Daimons and Apollites who killed your mother? You know what the myth says. Kill you, and the curse is lifted from them."
She thought about that for a second. "What if they're right? What if my death would allow all the other Apollites to live normally? Maybe I should die."
His face flushed with rage. His gaze burned into hers as he tightened his grip on her hand. "Cassandra Elaine Peters, I better never hear you say that again. Do you understand me?"
Cassandra nodded, contrite for having raised his blood pressure when that was the last thing she wanted to do. "I know, Daddy. I'm just upset."
He kissed her forehead. "I know, baby. I know."
She saw the torment on his face as he got up and returned to his chair.
He didn't say what they both thought. Long ago he'd entrusted a small group of researchers with the duty of finding a "cure" for her rare disease only to learn modern science was helpless before the wrath of an ancient god.
Maybe he was right, maybe Wulf was as dangerous to her as everyone else. She knew the Dark-Hunters were sworn to kill Daimons, but she didn't know how they would deal with Apollites.
Her mother had said to trust no one, most especially not the ones who made their living by killing their people.
Still, her gut told her that a race that had spent eternity hunting hers would know everything about them.
Then again, why would a Dark-Hunter ever help an Apollite when they were sworn enemies?
"It was a stupid idea, wasn't it?"
"No, Cassie," her father said gently. "It wasn't stupid at all. I just don't want to see you hurt."
She got up and went to hug and kiss him. "I'll go on to class and forget about it."
"I still wish you'd think about leaving for a while. If those Daimons saw you, they might have told someone else you were here."
"Trust me, Daddy, they didn't have time. No one knows I'm here and I don't want to leave."
Ever.
The word hung unspoken between them. She saw her father's lips quiver as they both thought about the fact that the clock was ticking for her.
"Why don't you come over for dinner tonight?" her father asked. "I'll leave work early and-"
"I promised Michelle we could do something. Catch you tomorrow?"
He nodded and gave her a squeeze so strong that she winced from the pressure of his arms around her waist. "You be careful."
"I will."
By the look on his face, she could tell he didn't want her to go any more than she wanted to leave. "I love you, Cassandra."
"I know. I love you too, Daddy." She offered him a smile and left him to his work.
Cassandra made her way from his office and out of the building, while her thoughts drifted back toward her dreams of Wulf and the way he'd felt in her arms.
Kat fell in behind her and remained completely silent, giving her the space she needed. It was what she loved most about her bodyguard.
Sometimes it seemed as if Kat were psychically linked to her.
"I need some Starbucks," Cassandra said to Kat over her shoulder. "What about you?"
"Always game for java. Give me ground-up beans or give me death."
As she walked down the street toward the coffee shop, Cassandra started thinking more and more about the Dark-Hunters.
Since she had discounted them before as myths her mother had used to frighten her, she'd never really researched them while she'd studied ancient Greece. Ever since she was a child, she'd spent her spare time looking into her mother's history, and ancient legends.
She couldn't recall ever finding a mention in her readings about the Dark-Hunters, which only confirmed in her mind that her mother was relaying stories of bogeymen and not real people.
But maybe she'd overlooked-
"Hey, Cassandra!"
She looked up from her musings to see one of the guys from school waving at her as she drew near Starbucks. He was a couple of inches shorter than her and was cute in a very Boy Scout kind of way. His short black hair was curly and he had friendly blue eyes.
Something about him reminded her of Opie Taylor from The Andy Griffith Show and she half-expected him to call her "ma'am."
"Chris Eriksson," Kat whispered under her breath as he came over.
"Thanks," Cassandra said in an equally low tone, grateful Kat's name recall was much better than her own. She could always remember faces, but names often eluded her.
He stopped before them.
"Hi, Chris," she said, smiling at him. He was really nice and always tried to help anyone who needed it. "What brings you here?"
He looked instantly uncomfortable. "I... uh... I was picking up something for someone."
Kat exchanged an interested look with her. "Sounds kind of dubious. I hope it's not illegal."
He blushed profusely. "No, not illegal. Just kind of personal."
For some reason, Cassandra liked the sound of it being illegal better. She waited a minute or two while he looked rather awkward.
Chris was an undergraduate student in her Old English class. They hadn't really spoken to each other much except to compare notes whenever she'd had trouble translating something. Chris was the professor's pet and maintained a perfect score on all the tests.
Everyone in the class wanted to hang him for blowing the curve.
"Did you do the assignment for class this afternoon?" he asked finally.
She nodded.
"It was great, wasn't it? Really exciting stuff." By his face, she could tell he truly meant that.
"Like having my teeth drilled without Novocain," she said, intending it to be funny and playful.
He didn't take it that way.
His features fell. "I'm sorry. I'm being a geek again." He pulled nervously at his ear and dropped his gaze to the ground. "I better go. I have some other things I need to do."
As he started away from her, she called out to him, "Hey, Chris?"
He stopped and looked back at her.
"Overprotected Child Syndrome?"
"Excuse me?"
"You're an overprotected child too, aren't you?"
He scratched the back of his neck. "How'd you know?"
"Trust me, you have the classic symptoms. I used to have them too, but after years of intensive therapy, I learned to hide them and can almost function normally now."
He laughed at that. "Got the name of that therapist handy?"
She smiled. "Sure." Cassandra inclined her head toward the coffee shop. "You got time to join us for a cup of coffee?"
He looked as if she had just handed him the keys to Fort Knox. "Yeah, thanks."
She and Kat led the way into Starbucks with Chris right behind them like a happy puppy whose owner had just come home.
After they had their drinks, they sat down in the back, away from the windows where the light couldn't burn her.
"So why are you taking Old English?" Chris asked after Kat had excused herself to go to the restroom. "You don't seem like the type who volunteers for that kind of punishment."
"I'm always trying to research old... things," she said for lack of a better term. It was hard to explain to a stranger that she researched ancient curses and spells in hopes of elongating her life. "What about you? You seem like you'd be more at home in a computer class."
He shrugged. "I was after the easy As this semester. I wanted something I could coast through."
"Yeah, but Old English? What kind of home do you have?"
"One where they actually speak it."
"Get out!" she said in disbelief. "Who in the world actually speaks that?"
"We do. Really." Then he said something to her that she couldn't understand.
"Did you just insult me?"
"No," he said earnestly. "I would never do anything like that."
She smiled as she glanced down to his backpack where she did a double take. There was a distressed brown day planner exposed by an unzipped pouch. The planner held a burgundy ribbon hanging out with an interesting badge attached to it. The badge had the picture of a round shield with two swords crossed and over the swords were the initials D.H.
How strange to see that today when she had her mind on a whole other kind of D.H.
Maybe it was an omen...
"D.H.?" she asked, touching the emblem. She turned it over and her heart stopped as she saw the words "Dark-Hunter.com" engraved into it.
"Huh?" Chris looked to her hand. "Oh... Oh!" he said, getting instantly nervous again. He took it from her and tucked it back into his backpack, then zipped it closed. "That's just something I play with sometimes."
Why did it make him so tense? So obviously uncomfortable? "You sure you're not doing anything illegal, Chris?"
"Yeah, trust me. If I even had an illegal thought, I'd get busted and get my tail kicked."
Cassandra wasn't so sure about that as Kat rejoined them.
Dark-Hunter.com...
She hadn't tried to search them out with a hyphen between the words. And now she had a Web address to try.
They chatted a few more minutes about class and school, then parted ways so Chris could finish his errands before their late-afternoon Old English class and she could get back to campus before her next one.
She might blow off one class a day, but two classes...
Nah. Cassandra was nothing if not dedicated.
Before long, she was safely ensconced at her desk and waiting for her Classics professor to show while other students talked around her. Kat was just down the hall in a small waiting area where she was reading a Kinley MacGregor novel.
While Cassandra waited for the professor, she opened up her Palm Pilot and decided to do a little Web surfing. She typed in Dark-Hunter.com.
She waited as the page loaded.
The minute it did, she gasped.
Oh, this was getting good...
