Seize the Night (Dark-Hunter 6)

Chapter 16

Ash entered Artemis's temple on Olympus without any preamble. In the middle of the large main room, which was surrounded by columns, she reclined on a white throne that looked more like a chaise longue.

Her koris, who had been singing and playing lutes, immediately rushed from the room and as one rather tall blond kori ran past him, he paused and turned to look after her.

"What are you doing here?" Artemis asked, and for once her tone was hesitant.

He turned back toward her and shifted the backpack on his shoulder. "I wanted to thank you for what you did tonight, but as I considered that, it dawned on me that you have never once in eleven thousand years done anything for me for free. The sheer fear factor of that realization alone has made me come seeking you. So what gives?"

Artemis wrapped her arms around herself as she sat on her white throne. "I was worried about you."

He laughed bitterly at that. "You never worry about me."

"I do, too. I called and you didn't answer me."

"I almost never answer you."

She looked away, reminding him of a cringing child who had been caught doing something wrong.

"Spill it, Artemis. I have a lot of crap to clean up tonight and don't want you on top of it."

She took a deep breath. "Very well, it's not like I can keep it from you."

"Keep what from me?"

"A new Dark-Hunter was born tonight."

His blood ran cold at that. Literally. "Damn you, Artemis! How could you do this?"

She came off her throne ready to battle. "I had no choice."

"Yeah, right."

"No, Acheron. I had no choice."

As she spoke, his mind connected with hers and the images of her and Nick went through him.

"Nick?" he breathed, his heart shattering.

What had he done?

"You cursed him," Artemis said quietly. "I'm so sorry."

Ash ground his teeth as guilt consumed him. He knew better than to speak in anger.

His will, even when not thought out, made reality. One wrong word...

He had damned his best friend.

"Where is he?"

"The bower room."

Ash started to leave, but Artemis stopped him. "I didn't know what else to do, Acheron. I didn't."

She held her hand out and a dark green amulet appeared. She handed it to him.

"How many lashes?" he asked bitterly, thinking it was Valerius's soul she offered him.

A single tear fled down her cheek. "None. It's Nick's soul, and I have no right to it." She pressed it into his hand.

Ash was so stunned he didn't know what to say.

He placed it into his backpack.

Artemis swallowed as she watched him tuck it carefully away. "Now you're going to learn."

"Learn what?"

"Just how heavy a burden a soul is."

He gave her a dry stare. "That I learned a long time ago, Artie."

And with that, he stepped back and willed himself to Nick's prison. He opened the door slowly to find his friend in a fetal position on the floor.

"Nick?"

Nick looked up, his black eyes rimmed in red. The anger and pain Ash saw and felt from Nick tore through him. "They killed my mother, Ash."

A new wave of guilt slammed through him. In one fit of anger and with nothing more than a single sentence, he had altered their fates and had stolen from Nick and Tabitha the two people that neither of them should have lost.

It was all his fault.

"I know, Nick, and I'm sorry." He was sorrier than Nick would ever know. "Cherise was one of the few decent people in this world. I loved her, too."

He loved the New Orleans crew a lot more than he should. Love was a worthless emotion that had never served him anything but misery.

Even Simi...

Ash ran his hand over her tattoo as he fought back his emotions.

He made himself numb, then reached out to Nick. "C'mon."

"Where are we going?"

"I'm taking you home. You have a lot to learn."

"About what?"

"How to be a Dark-Hunter. Everything you think you know about fighting, surviving, it's nothing. I have to show you how to use your new powers and to see correctly with those eyes."

"And if I don't want to learn?"

"Then you'll die and there won't be any coming back from it this time."

Nick took his hand and allowed him to pull him to his feet.

Ash closed his eyes and took Nick home.

He'd never looked forward to training a new Dark-Hunter, but this one...

This one hurt most of all.

Valerius slipped out of the Devereaux house an hour before dawn. Tabitha had finally fallen asleep, and he had carried her upstairs to the room that she had shared with Amanda when they were children.

After placing her on the bed, he'd spent longer than he should have looking over the old photos on the wall of the two of them together.

Of them with their sisters.

His poor Tabitha. He didn't know if she'd ever heal.

He called a taxi and had it drop him at his house. The place was completely dark. There was no one there now, and he realized just how reliant he'd become on Tabitha.