Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter 4)

Chapter 12

Cassandra didn't wake up until almost six o'clock in the evening. She was completely alone in the room. Getting up, she dressed in a pair of black wool maternity pants and a large gray sweater Phoebe had given her.

She opened the door and found Chris, Wulf, and Kat eating on the floor in the living room. Her jaw went slack at the feast they were consuming.

"Hungry?" Chris asked as he saw her hesitating in the doorway. "Jump in. Wulf said he hasn't seen anything like this since his days in a Norse mead hall."

Cassandra joined them at the coffee table that was set with dozens of dishes. She was amazed at the variety of foods the Apollites had provided for them. They had steak, fish, roasted chicken. Eggs, potatoes, bananas, apples, roasted and sliced. You name it.

Kat licked her fingers. "Shanus said they didn't know what or how much humans ate so they went a little overboard."

"A little?" Cassandra asked with a short laugh. There was enough food there for an entire Dark-Hunter army.

"Yeah, I know," Kat said with a smile, "but it's all really good."

Cassandra agreed as soon as she bit into a succulent leg of roasted lamb.

"Here's the mint jelly," Kat said, passing it over. "Wait until you taste that."

Wulf reached over and wiped at Cassandra's chin. "You have a bit of grease."

"Thank you."

He nodded warmly.

As soon as Cassandra was finished and stuffed, she wanted to go for a walk to help combat her overconsumption of food. Wulf walked with her, not wanting her to go alone just in case something happened.

They left the apartment and headed back toward the merchant part of the underground city so that she could window-shop. But as they walked past the Apollite townspeople, the animosity they directed toward Wulf was tangible.

And it wasn't like he could blend in among the tall, golden-blond race. There was no doubt Wulf didn't belong to them.

She was looking in one window at baby clothes when a young man who appeared the human age of sixteen, but was probably only eleven or twelve by real Apollite years, passed by.

"Excuse me," Wulf said, stopping him.

The boy's eyes were panicked.

"Don't worry, kid, I'm not going to hurt you," Wulf said, his voice gentle. "I just wanted to ask you about that emblem on your sweatshirt."

Cassandra turned to see the interlocking circle pattern in the center of his shirt.

The boy swallowed nervously as if he were terrified Wulf was one step away from hurting him. "It's the emblem for the Cult of Pollux."

Wulf's eyes darkened dangerously. "So you do hide Daimons here."

"No," the boy said, his face even more panicked.

"Is there a problem?"

Cassandra looked past the boy to see a woman her age approaching. She was dressed in a cream uniform that denoted an off-duty Apollite police officer. Though the term "police" didn't have quite the same meaning to them as it did to humans. Apollite police were only used to manage Daimons since Apollites rarely fought and never broke the laws of their people.

Phoebe had told her the Elysian police were paid to escort any Apollite about to go Daimon out of the city and to give them money and transportation for the human world.

"No problem," Cassandra said to the officer, who was eyeing Wulf coldly.

The boy ran off while the woman raked a sneer over Wulf. "I'm not a child to live in fear of you, Dark-Hunter. After tonight, there's nothing you can do to me anyway."

"Meaning?"

"I die tomorrow."

Cassandra's heart shrank at her words. "I'm sorry."

The woman ignored her. "So why were you scaring my son?"

Wulf's face was impassive, but Cassandra knew him well enough to know he hurt for the woman as much as she did. She saw the sympathy in his dark eyes, heard it in the tone of his voice when he spoke. "I only wanted to know about the emblem on his shirt."

"It's our emblem," she said, her lips still curled. "Every Apollite here takes an oath at their majority to uphold the Code of Pollux. Just like the ancient god, we are all bound to each other. We won't ever betray our community or our brethren. Nor will we be cowards. Unlike other Apollites, we don't practice ritual suicide the night before our birthdays. Apollo meant us to die painfully and so we don't argue with his decree. My son, along with all my relatives, is wearing the badge to honor me and the fact that I refuse to run from my heritage."

There was a suspicious glint in Wulf's eyes. "But I've seen that emblem outside of here. It was on a particularly vicious Daimon I killed about a year ago."

The officer's sneer faded into remorse. She closed her eyes and winced as if the news pained her. "Jason." She whispered the name. "I always wondered what became of him. Did he go quickly?"

"Yes."

The officer sighed raggedly at that. "I'm glad. He was a good man, but the night before he was to die, he ran from here, scared. His family tried to stop him, but he wouldn't listen. He said he refused to die when he had never even seen the surface world. My husband was the one who took him out and let him go. He must have been terrified up there alone."

Wulf scoffed. "He didn't seem terrified to me. Rather, he burned that emblem on every human he killed."

The officer tapped her chin three times with her first two fingers-an Apollite holy gesture. "Gods grant him peace. He must have been preying on evil souls."

"What do you mean?" Wulf asked.

"He's one of the Daimons who refuse to kill innocent humans," Cassandra explained, "And who prey on criminals instead. After all, criminal souls are full of power fueled by anger and hatred. The only problem is their souls are corrupted, and if the Daimon isn't strong enough, their venom can overtake them and make the Daimon every bit as evil as they were."

The officer nodded. "It sounds like Jason fell victim to that. By the time you killed him, he was probably wanting to die. It's sheer torture when the souls begin to possess and control you. Or at least that's what I've been told." She sighed. "Now if you'll excuse me, I'd like to spend as much time as possible with my family."

Cassandra wished her well.

With a nod, the officer left them and headed off after her son.

Wulf watched the woman leave, his eyes dark and sad. "So you weren't kidding me about the Daimons."

"Of course not."

Wulf thought about that. There was so much about them that the Dark-Hunters didn't know. It actually amazed him.

She'd been right. Since Dark-Hunters spent so much time annihilating the Daimons, they should have a better understanding of them.

Then again, maybe not. It was much easier to kill someone you didn't feel sorry for. Easier to think of things in terms of black and white.

Good and evil.