Seize the Night (Dark-Hunter 6)

Tabitha sighed as he took another step away from her. "How old are you, anyway?"

"Two thousand, one hundred-"

"No," she interrupted. "Not Dark-Hunter years. How old were you when you died?"

She felt a profound wave of pain go through him at the thought. "Thirty."

"Thirty? Jeez, you act like an old, wrinkled-up prune. Did no one laugh where you came from?"

"No," he said simply. "Laughter was not tolerated or indulged."

Tabitha couldn't breathe as his words sank in and she remembered the sight of the scars on his back. "Never?"

He didn't respond. Instead, he continued up her stairs. "I should retire now."

"Wait," she said, rushing up the stairs to sneak around him so that she could keep him still. She turned to face him.

She could feel turmoil inside him. Pain. Confusion. She knew just how hated this man was. Maybe he deserved it, but deep inside she wasn't so sure.

People didn't close themselves off from the world without reason. No one was happily this stoic.

And in that moment, she realized something. It was his defense mechanism. She got brash and wild whenever she was out of sorts or uncomfortable.

He turned cold. Formal.

That was his facade.

"I'm sorry if I said anything that offended you. My sisters often tell me that I've made offending people an art form."

A smile tugged at the edges of his lips and, if she didn't miss her guess, his eyes softened ever so slightly. "I wasn't offended."

"Good."

Valerius was tempted to stay here and talk to her, but he felt uncomfortable with the thought of it. He'd never been the kind of person other people chatted with. Even as a man, his conversations had revolved around battle tactics, philosophy, and politics. Never chit-chat.

His conversations with women had been even fewer than his conversations with men. Not even Agrippina had ever truly spoken to him. They had passed comments, but she had never shared her opinions with him. Merely agreed with him and did as he asked.

He had a feeling Tabitha would never agree with anyone, even if she knew they were right. It seemed a matter of principle that she had to disagree with everything.

"Are you always so outspoken?" he asked.

She smiled widely. "I know no other way."

Suddenly Lynyrd Skynyrd's "Gimme Three Steps" started playing on the radio.

Tabitha let out a small squeak of happiness and dashed down the stairs. Valerius barely had time to blink before she cranked the volume up, then ran back toward him.

"I love this song," she said as she danced to it. Valerius found it hard to focus on much of anything except the sway of her hips as she danced and sang to the song.

"C'mon, dance with me!" she said at the first guitar solo. She ran up the stairs to take his hand.

"This isn't really dancing music."

"Sure it is," she said before she broke into the chorus. In spite of himself, he was greatly amused by her. In all his lifetime, he'd never known anyone who enjoyed life so much, who took such pleasure from something so simple.

"C'mon," she tried again when the singing paused. "It's a great song. You have to admire anyone who can rhyme 'feller' with 'the head color yeller.'" She winked at him.

Valerius laughed.

Tabitha paused. "Oh, my God, he does know how to laugh."

"I know how to laugh," he said lightly.

She pulled him from the stairs and two-stepped around him before she used him as a maypole and continued dancing.

She let go, snapped her fingers and twisted down, then rose back up. "One day, I think you're going to bust out of those hand-polished loafers and actually cut loose."

Valerius cleared his throat and tried to imagine such a thing. It wasn't possible. There had been a time once, back when he'd been human, when he might have attempted it.

But those days were long gone.

Anytime he'd ever tried to be anything other than what he was, someone else had paid a terrible price for it. So he'd learned to stay as he was and to leave everyone else alone.

It was for the best.

Tabitha watched as his face turned to stone once again. She sighed. What would it take to reach this guy? For someone who was immortal, he certainly didn't seem to enjoy life very much.

In spite of all of Kyrian's faults, she had to give him credit. The former Greek general did enjoy every breath he took. He lived his life to its fullest.

Meanwhile, Valerius just seemed to exist

"What do you do for fun?" she asked.

"I read."

"Literature?"

"Science fiction."

"Really?" she asked, surprised. "Heinlein?"

"Yes. Harry Harrison is one of my favorites, as are Jim Butcher, Gordon Dickson, and C. J. Cherryh."

"Wow," she said, amazed. "I'm impressed. Go, Dorsai."

"Actually, I rather like Dickson's The Right to Arm Bears and Wolfling novels better."

Now that she found surprising. "I don't know, Soldier, Ask Not seems more your style to me."

"It is a classic, but the other two spoke to me more."

Hmmm... Wolfling was about a man alone in an alien world with no friends or allies. That further confirmed her suspicions about his life. "Have you ever read Hammer's Slammers?"

"David Drake. Another favorite."

"Yeah, you have to love the military stuff. Burt Cole wrote a book years ago called The Quick."

"Shaman. He was quite the complex hero."

"Yeah, strangely amoral and yet moral at the same time. Never sure what side of the fence he's on. Kind of reminds me of a few friends I've had over the years."

Valerius couldn't keep from smiling. It was so nice to have someone who was familiar with his guilty secret. The only other person he knew who read science fiction was Acheron, but the two of them seldom ever talked about it.

"You're a remarkable woman, Tabitha."

She smiled up at him. "Thanks. Now, I'll let you go on to bed," she said gently. "I'm sure you could use the rest."

She ached to give him a tender, friendly kiss on the cheek, but thought better of it. Instead, she watched as he headed out of the room, up the stairs.

Valerius made his way silently back to Tabitha's room. She had such a powerful presence that he literally felt drained just from having been around her.

He removed his clothes and hung them back up so that he wouldn't wrinkle them, then returned to bed to sleep.

But sleep was something that didn't come to him. For the first time, he smelled the perfume on her sheets.

It was Tabitha's scent. Warm, vivacious. Seductive.

And it made him instantly hard for her. He covered his eyes with his hand and ground his teeth. What was he doing? The last thing he could do as a Dark-Hunter was have a relationship with a woman. Even if he could, Tabitha Devereaux was the last woman on the planet he could have.

As a friend to Acheron, she was so far off limits to him that he should call Acheron again and demand he find some way for Valerius to leave.

But Acheron had left them together.

Rolling over, he did his best not to breathe in deeply or to imagine what Tabitha might look like in this bed. Her bare limbs entwined...

He cursed, then pulled a second pillow over toward him. As he did so, he saw a small black silk gown. An image of Tabitha in it seared him.

He couldn't breathe. Before he could think better of it, he pulled it close and let the cool silk caress his skin. He held it to his nose and inhaled her scent.

She is not for you.

It was true. He'd already killed one woman because he'd been foolish. He had no desire to retread that path.

He tucked the gown back beneath his pillow and forced himself to close his eyes.

But even then, he was haunted by images of a woman who should, by all reason, repel him and yet completely captivated and beguiled him.

Tabitha spent the rest of the day between her store and walking to the foot of the stairs where she forced herself to reverse direction and go back to business.

But she felt a horrible pull toward the Dark-Hunter who slept in her bed. It was stupid. He was an ancient warrior who didn't seem to even like her.

Yet his kiss had said something else. There for a few minutes, he had been as eager for her as she had been for him. He wasn't completely repulsed by her.

She waited until four, then went to wake him.

Opening the door slowly, she paused as she caught sight of him asleep. He lay with his back to her, but what made her stop was the fierce scars that crisscrossed his flesh. Those weren't battle scars. They were the kind of marks you would find on someone who had been beaten with a whip. Many times.