Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter 4)

Kat triple-locked the door and pulled the gun from her purse. "Put our heads between our knees and kiss our butts good-bye."

Cassandra was stunned by the unexpected words. "Excuse me?"

"Nothing." Kat offered her an encouraging smile that didn't quite reach her eyes. "I'm going to go make a call, okay?"

"Sure."

Cassandra went to her room, and did her best not to relive the night her mother had died. There had been a bad feeling in the pit of her stomach all day long. Just like she had now.

She wasn't safe. No Daimon had ever attacked the way they did tonight.

The Daimons at the club hadn't come out to feed or to play. They had been specially trained and had come out as if they had known exactly where she was.

Who she was.

But how?

Could they find her even now?

Terror filled her. She went to her dresser and pulled open the top drawer. In it was a small arsenal of weapons, including the dagger of her mother's people that had been handed down to her.

She didn't know how many people had a dagger for a security blanket, but then there weren't many people who grew up the way she had either.

She secured the sheath to her waist and hid it at the base of her spine. Her death might be imminent in a few months, but she had no intention of dying one day sooner than she had to.

A knock sounded on her front door.

Cautiously, she left her room and walked into the living room, expecting to see Kat in there curious about their unannounced visitor too.

Kat wasn't there.

"Kat?" she called, taking a step toward Kat's room.

No one answered.

"Kat?"

The knocking continued, more demanding than it had been before.

Scared now, she went to Kat's room and pushed open the door. The room was empty. Completely. There was no sign that Kat had ever been in there.

Her heart hammered. Maybe Kat had gone out to the car for something and gotten locked out?

She went back to the door. "Kat, is that you?"

"Yeah, let me in."

Cassandra laughed nervously at her stupid behavior and swung open the door.

It wasn't Kat outside.

The dark-haired Daimon smiled at her. "Did you miss me, princess?" he said in a voice identical to Kat's.

She couldn't believe this. It couldn't be real. This kind of stuff happened in movies, not in real life.

"What are you, the friggin' Terminator?"

"No," he said calmly in his own voice. "I'm the Harbinger who is merely preparing the way for the Destroyer."

He reached for her.

Cassandra stepped back. He couldn't enter the house without an invitation. Reaching behind her, she pulled out her dagger and sliced his arm.

He drew back with a hiss.

She spun as she saw someone behind her.

It was another Daimon. She caught him in the chest with her dagger.

He evaporated into a golden-black cloud.

Another shadow passed over her.

Spinning around, she kicked Stryker back, but he didn't go completely out the door. Instead, he only blocked it more.

"You're quick," he said as his arm healed instantly before her eyes. "I'll give you that."

"You don't know the half of it."

Daimons came at her from all directions. How the hell had they gotten into her home? But she didn't have time to contemplate that. Right now, all she could focus on was survival.

She kneed the next Daimon who reached her and fought a second one. Stryker stayed back as if the fight amused him.

Another Daimon, this one with a long blond ponytail, attacked. Cassandra flipped him over. As she went to stab him, Stryker came out of nowhere to grab her arm.

"No one attacks Urian."

She shrieked as he wrenched the dagger from her hand. Cassandra moved to strike him, but the instant her gaze met his, all thoughts scattered.

His eyes turned to a strange, swirling silver. They moved in a hypnotic dance that held her spellbound and turned her thoughts to oatmeal.

All the fight inside her instantly vanished. A sly, seductive smile curved Stryker's lips. "See how easy it is when you don't fight?" She felt his breath against her throat.

Some unseen force tilted her head to the side to give him access to her neck and to the throbbing carotid artery she could feel pounding in terror.

Inside, Cassandra was screaming at herself to fight.

Her body refused to obey.

Stryker's laughter rumbled a moment before he sank his long teeth into her neck. She hissed as pain sliced her.

"Am I interrupting?"

Cassandra could only vaguely recognize Wulf's voice through the numbed haze of her mind.

Something jerked Stryker away from her. It was a few seconds before she realized it was Wulf knocking the Daimon back.

Wulf whisked her up into his arms and ran with her. Cassandra could barely keep her head from lolling back as he headed for a large dark green Expedition and tossed her inside it.

The instant Wulf was in the car, something struck it hard. Out of the darkness, a large, black dragon appeared on the hood.

"Let her out and you can live," the dragon said in Stryker's voice.

Wulf answered by putting his SUV in reverse and gunning it. He turned the wheel and sent the beast flying.

The dragon shrieked and blew a blast of fire at them. Wulf kept going. The dragon took flight and dove at them, then arced up, high into the sky, before it vanished into a shimmery cloud of gold.

"What the hell was that?" Wulf asked.

"He's Apostolos," Cassandra murmured as she struggled to snap herself out of her daze. "He's the son of the Atlantean Destroyer and a god in his own right. We're so screwed."

Wulf let out a disgusted sound. "Yeah, well, I don't let anyone screw me until they kiss me, and since there's not even a snowball's chance in hell of me kissing that bastard, we're not screwed."

But as his Expedition was suddenly surrounded by eight Daimons on motorcycles, he reconsidered that.

For three seconds at least.

Wulf laughed as he surveyed the Daimons. "You know the beauty of driving one of these?"

"No."

He swerved his Expedition into three of the bikes and knocked them from the road. "You can swat a Daimon like a mosquito."

"Well, since they're both bloodsucking insects, I say go for it."

Wulf glanced sideways at her. A woman who could keep her humor even in the midst of death. He liked that.

The remaining Daimons must have rethought acting out Mad Max with him and dropped back from his SUV. He watched as they faded out of sight in his rearview mirror.

Cassandra let out a relieved breath as she pushed herself up more in the seat. She turned her head and tried to see where the Daimons had vanished. There was no sight of them.