Fantasy Lover (Dark-Hunter .5)

Ben laughed. Until he realized Julian wasn't joking. "Really?"

"Named for your Macedonian general, you might say."

"Your father must have been like mine. In love with all things Greek."

"His allegiance was actually to Sparta."

Ben laughed even harder. He glanced back at Selena. "Why don't you bring him to our next Socrates club meeting? I'd love for the guys to meet him. It's not often I find someone who knows Greek history almost as well as I do."

He turned his attention back to Julian. "It's been a pleasure."

"Later," Ben said, waving to Selena.

"Well," Selena said to Julian once Ben had vanished into the crowd. "You, my friend, have accomplished the impossible. You have just impressed one of the leading ancient Greek scholars in this country."

Julian didn't seem to care, but Grace did. "Lanie, do you think it's possible that Julian could be a professor once he breaks the curse? I was thinking he'd-"

"Don't, Grace," Julian said, interrupting her.

"Don't what? You're going to need something-"

"I'm not staying here."

The cold, emotionless gaze was the same one he had worn the first night she'd conjured him. And it sliced through her.

"What do you mean?" Grace asked.

He averted his gaze. "Athena has offered me a way to return home. Once the curse is broken, she'll send me back to Macedonia."

Grace struggled to breathe. "I see," she said, even though inside she was dying. "You'll just use my body, then leave." Her throat constricted. "At least I won't need Selena to drive me home afterward."

Julian flinched as if she'd slapped him. "What do you want from me, Grace? Why would you want me to stay here?"

She didn't know the answer to that. All she knew was that she didn't want him to leave. She wanted him to stay.

But not if he didn't want to.

"You know what," she said, growing angry at the thought of his leaving her. "I don't want you to stay here. In fact, why don't you go home with Selena for a few days?" She looked at Selena. "Would you mind?"

Selena's mouth opened and closed like a fish gulping for air.

Julian reached for her. "Grace-"

"Don't touch me," she said, wringing her arm away from him. "It makes my skin crawl."

"Grace!" Selena snapped. "I can't believe you-"

"It's all right," Julian said, his voice empty and cold. "At least she didn't spit in my face with her dying breath."

She'd hurt him. Grace could see it in his eyes, but then he had hurt her, too. Terribly.

"I'll see you later," she said to Selena, then left Julian standing there.

Selena let out a long, slow breath as she looked up at Julian while he watched Grace walk away from them. His entire body was rigidly still, and she saw the fierce tic in his jaw.

"They shoot, they score. A direct hit straight through the heart and into the raw nerves."

Julian pinned her with a hostile glare. "Tell me, Oracle. What should I have said?"

Selena shuffled her cards. "I don't know," she said wistfully. "I guess you can never go wrong with honesty."

Julian rubbed his eyes as he sat down in the chair before Selena's table. He hadn't meant to hurt Grace.

And he would never forget the look on her face as she spat those words at him. "Don't touch me. It makes my skin crawl."

He struggled to breathe through the agony in his chest. The Fates were still mocking him.

It must be a boring day for them up on Olympus.

"You want me to do a reading for you?" Selena asked, dragging his thoughts away from the past.

"Sure," he said. "Why not?" She couldn't tell him anything he didn't already know.

"What's your question?"

"Will I ever..." Julian paused before he asked her the same question he'd once asked the Oracle at Delphi.

"Will I ever break the curse?" he asked quietly.

Selena shuffled her cards, then laid three of them out. Her eyes widened.

He didn't need her to read them. He could see for himself, a card with a tower being struck by lightning, a card of three swords piercing a heart, and a demon holding the chains of two people.

"It's all right," he said to Selena. "I never really thought it would come to pass."

"That's not what they say," she whispered. "But you have one hell of a battle to come."

He laughed bitterly. "Battles I can handle." It was the ache in his heart that was going to kill him.

Grace wiped the tears from her face as she pulled into the driveway. She clenched her teeth as she got out and slammed the door shut.

To hell with Julian. He could just stay trapped in that book for eternity. She wasn't some piece of meat to serve his needs.

How could he-

She fumbled with the key to her door.

"How could he not?" she whispered as she found the right key and opened the door.

Her anger drained out of her. She was being unreasonable, and she knew it. It wasn't Julian's fault Paul had been a selfish pig. And it wasn't his fault that she had a fear of being used.

She was blaming Julian for something he had no part in, and yet...

She just wanted someone who loved her. Someone who wanted to stay with her.

She'd hoped that by helping Julian, he would stay around and...

Closing the door, she shook her head. No matter how much she wanted it to be different, it wasn't meant to be. She'd heard what Ben had said about Julian's life. The story Julian, himself, had told the children about his battle.

She remembered the way he had darted across the street and saved that child's life.

Julian had been born and bred to lead armies. He didn't belong in her world.

He belonged in his own.

It was selfish of her to try and keep him like some pet she'd rescued.

Grace trudged up the stairs, her heart heavy. She would just have to guard herself from him. That was all she could do. Because deep inside she knew the more she learned about him, the more she cared for him. And if Julian had no intention of staying, then she would end up getting hurt.

She was halfway up the stairs when someone knocked on her front door. For an instant, her spirits lifted as she thought it might be Julian-Until she got to the front door and saw the outline of a small man on her porch.

She cracked open the door, then gaped.

It was Rodney Carmichael.

He wore a dark brown suit with a yellow shirt and red tie. His short, black hair was slicked back and he offered her a beaming smile. "Hi, Grace."

"Mr. Carmichael," she said coldly, even though her heart was pounding. There was something indefinably creepy about this little, wiry man. "What are you doing here?"

"I just wanted to stop by and say hi. I thought we could-"

"You need to leave."

He frowned at her. "Why? I just want to talk to you."

"Because I don't see patients in my home."

"Yeah, but I'm not-"

"Mr. Carmichael," she said sternly. "I really need you to leave. If you don't, I'm calling the police."

Unaffected by the anger in her voice, he nodded with saintly patience. "Oh, so you must be busy. I can relate. I have a lot of stuff to do, too. How 'bout I come by later? We could have dinner tonight."

Dumbfounded, she stared at him. "No."

He smiled at that. "C'mon, Grace. Don't be that way. You know we're meant for each other. If you'd just let me-"

"Leave!"

"Okay, but I'll be back. We have a lot of things to talk about." He turned around and headed across her porch.

Her heart hammering, Grace shut and locked the door.

"I'm going to kill you, Luanne," she said as she made her way to the kitchen. As she passed through the living room, a shape in her window caught her attention.

It was Rodney.

Aghast, Grace picked up the phone and called the police.

It was almost an hour later before they came. Rodney stayed outside the entire time, moving from window to window to watch her through the closed slits of her blinds, and it wasn't until he saw the police car pulling into the driveway that he ran across her backyard and vanished.

Grace took a deep breath to calm her raw nerves, then went to let the officers in.

They stayed only long enough to tell her there was nothing they could do to keep Rodney permanently away from her. The best she could do would be to swear out a restraining order, but since she was required to treat Rodney until Luanne returned, that was useless.

"I'm sorry," the officer said in the doorway as she showed them out. "But he didn't break any laws that would allow us to really get him out of your hair. You could swear out a warrant for trespassing, but unless he has priors, there's not a whole lot they're going to do to him."

The young officer gave her a sympathetic look. "I know it's not much comfort. We can try to patrol the area a little more, but the summer is a really busy time of year for us. Personally, I'd advise you to stay with a friend for a while."

"All right, thanks." As soon as they were gone, she rushed through the house making sure all the doors and windows were locked tight.

Apprehensive, Grace looked around the house, half expecting Rodney to enter through a crack in the wall like a cockroach.

If only she knew whether or not Rodney was dangerous. His report from the state hospital mentioned his routine deviant behavior of butting into women's lives, but he'd never harmed anyone physically. He'd just terrified his victims with his blind persistence, which was why he'd been sent to the hospital for evaluation to begin with.

The psychologist in Grace said there was nothing particularly dangerous about Rodney, but the woman in her was scared anyway.

The last thing she wanted was to become a statistic.

No, she couldn't stay here waiting for him to come back and find her alone.

Rushing upstairs, she went to pack.