Seize the Night (Dark-Hunter 6)

"It's Ash's demon."

"Simi is making that godawful sound?" Kyrian asked as he and Julian ran down the stairs.

"Looks like," Tabitha said as she headed toward the door.

Kyrian beat her to it. "No!" he snarled. "It could be a trick."

"Trick my ass," she muttered. "Simi? Is it you outside?"

"Tabitha, let me in. I can't help akri if I can't see him. I gots to help my akri. Lemme in or the Simi will barbecue this door, so help me."

"You can't, Simi. The shield would hurt you if you tried to. They have to invite you in."

Tabitha froze as she heard the unfamiliar, gentle feminine voice on the other side of the door. It held just a faint hint of a foreign accent. "Who's with you, Sim?"

"One of the bitch-goddess's koris, they them people who serve her in her temple on Olympus. Katra good quality people who gonna help my akri. Now let the Simi in!"

"It's okay," Tabitha said to Kyrian. "I know Simi well enough to vouch that it's really her out there."

Kyrian gave her a menacing stare. "Yeah, and you know Valerius, too. That gives me so much faith in your judgment-not."

Tabitha went rigid. "Amanda, if your husband's balls have any meaning to you, I suggest you move him out of my way or he's going to be singing in soprano."

"Let her open the door, Kyrian."

"Like hell," he snarled. "My daughter is asleep upstairs."

"Her niece is asleep upstairs," Amanda reminded him. "Tabitha would never endanger Marissa. Now move."

Kyrian made a gesture as if he'd like to choke both of them, then stepped aside.

Tabitha swung open the door to see Simi outside with an extremely tall, robed woman.

Neither woman asked where Ash was, they seemed to know instinctively.

"Don't worry, Tabby," Simi said as the unbelievably tall woman headed toward the stairs. "Katra will never hurt my akri. She loves him like us."

Katra didn't listen to Simi as she made her way up the stairs of the unfamiliar house. Then again, there was no such thing as an unfamiliar house to her. She'd inherited great powers from both her father and mother, including the ability to feel the essence and layout of buildings.

This house echoed warmth, respect, and love. No wonder Acheron liked to stay here whenever he visited New Orleans. This was a wonderful home and Marissa was a lucky child to live here. How she wished she'd known such a place as a little girl.

She opened the last door on the hallway to find Acheron lying prone on a large, four-poster bed.

Kat paused at the sight of Acheron there. Never in all these centuries had she been so close to him. As a young woman, she'd often tried to catch glimpses of him as he came and went on Olympus to see Artemis. Like all of the goddess' servants, Kat was banished from the temple whenever he visited.

She more than any other was forbidden to ever be near him. And now...

She'd waited all her life for this one, single moment. For one chance to touch him. Know him.

To feel his arms around her, just once.

Her heart pounding, she crossed the room to stand beside the bed that didn't really accommodate his tall, lean frame. The pallor and odd color of his skin did nothing to detract from the fact that he was without a doubt the most handsome man who had ever been born.

But he was so much more than external beauty.

Even in stasis, he was commanding and frightening. She could feel his powers reaching out to her. Calling to her.

He was power incarnate.

More than that, he was invaluable to the order of the universe. If Acheron should ever die...

It didn't bear thinking on.

Using her own powers, which were second only to his, Kat shut and locked the bedroom door with her thoughts before she lowered her cowl and sat beside him. She wanted a few minutes alone with him where no one could observe them.

"You are so handsome," she breathed as she traced the line of his eyebrows.

Since the moment she had first glimpsed him when she was a young child, she'd yearned to touch his hand. Yearned to have him call her by name.

Or better yet, yearned just to have him know she existed at all.

But it wasn't meant to be.

Artemis would always stand between them. She had ordained centuries ago that no one, especially not Kat, could ever touch the sacred Acheron.

Yet here she sat, alone with him, far away from the goddess's watchful stare.

Deep-seated emotions engulfed her. Unable to stand the tide of them, Kat lay against him and hugged him close, wishing he were awake to know her. To feel her.

But he wasn't.

He would never know she'd been here. That she had been the one to help him. Simi was forbidden to tell him and as soon as she vanished, the others below would forget they had ever seen her, too.

"I love you," she whispered against his ear. "I always will." She placed a chaste kiss on his cheek before she pulled back and took his large hand into hers.

Tears streaked her face as she brushed his fingers against her cheek. "One day," she breathed, "we will' know each other. I promise."

Kat unlocked the door with her powers, then pulled a small satchel out of her pocket. It held three leaves from the Tree of Life that only bloomed in the garden of the Destroyer, deep in the halls of her temple in Kalosis. It alone could break the ypnsi, the sacred sleep that Orasia had once dispensed from the sacred halls of Katoteros back in the days when the ancient Atlantean gods had ruled the earth.

This alone could restore Acheron to his full strength.

Kat wrung the leaves until they were moist. Holding them over Acheron's lips, she twisted, more until they were able to drip nine drops into his mouth.

She watched as the color spread from his lips, slowly, over the rest of his body.

He took a deep breath, then opened his eyes.

She vanished instantly.

Ash felt the air stir around him. He sat up quickly, then wished he hadn't as pain swept through his body.

Wiping his lips, he grimaced at the bitter, nasty taste in his mouth.

"Akri?"

His heart stopped beating as he heard Simi's hesitant voice an instant before she burst into the room and leapt onto the bed beside him.

Suddenly, everything came back to him. The Daimons.

The blow...

What the hell had hit him?

"Simi, what am I doing here?"

She tackled him with a hug that left him flat on his back with her wrapped around his upper torso. "You scared the Simi, akri. She didn't know what was wrong with you. You turned all gray and nasty like one of them statues or something. You not supposed to do that! You said so."

"I'm okay, Sim," he said, cradling her. "I think. Why am I in Kyrian's house... with you in human form?"

"We brought you here."

Ash tensed at the sound of Kyrian's voice. He sat up slowly with Simi still hugging him.

With his arms folded over his chest, Kyrian stood in the doorway with Julian and Amanda.

"You okay?" Kyrian asked.

Ash nodded. "I think so. Still a little fuzzy, but breathing." Or at least trying to given the fact Simi was latched onto him like a protective mother bear.