Sins of the Night (Dark-Hunter 7)

Danger gave him a hostile glare. "What was I supposed to think? I come into my house to see my normally ebullient Squire cowed on my couch, looking beat up, and my TV blown to kingdom come. Then this blond man, and I use the term 'man' loosely, who I was told would come to kill me, stands up wearing the exact white coat that I was told he'd have on. What would you have done?"

"I would have said, hello, can I help you?"

She rolled her eyes at him. "Sure, you would."

Actually, he would have, but then he had one distinct advantage over her. He couldn't die. At least not from something born of this earth.

"Look, Danger, I know you have absolutely no reason to trust me. Before tonight you'd never even heard of me. But you know Acheron. Have you ever seen him hurt a Dark-Hunter? Think about it. If Ash really were a Daimon, why would he be helping and protecting the Dark-Hunters?"

"Because he uses us to fight his own kind so that his mother doesn't kill him."

Alexion went cold at that. Where the hell had these lies come from?

Acheron would lose his mind if he heard those words. More to the point, there would be no salvation for any Dark-Hunter here. Acheron would destroy them all without blinking. When it came to the existence of his mother, Acheron didn't take chances.

And he showed no mercy.

"What do you know of his supposed mother?" he asked, and hoped that Acheron didn't choose this particular moment to spy on him.

"That she cast him out of the Daimon realm and now he uses us to get back at her and his people."

He snorted in derision. "Now that has to be the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard, and believe me, I've heard a lot of bullshit in my existence. Trust me, it's a complete lie."

She duplicated his snort. "The problem is, I don't trust you. At all."

"But do you trust Kyros?"

He saw the answer in her dark eyes. No, she didn't. But it spoke a lot for her that she hadn't turned on her Dark-Hunter brother. She was still protecting Kyros. He could admire her for that.

"Look, Danger. Open your heart and listen with your feelings. What does your gut tell you to do?"

"Run for the hills with my Squire and let you guys duke it out for yourselves."

He laughed darkly at that.

Danger only wished she could laugh about it too, but it wasn't funny in the least to her. "However, I can't do that, can I? So I don't know who to believe and I'm woman enough to admit it. There are great gaping holes in both your stories. So the question I have to answer is, who is leaving out the 'I serve evil' part."

Alexion was amused. "Then let me put it to you this way. There is seldom black and white in our world. Sometimes the things we perceive as good have moments of profound evil, but profound evil will always tell you that it's always good. It never admits that it could, in any way, be evil."

Danger cocked her head. He sounded just like Father Anthony, her priest when she was a young woman in Paris. "So if I were to ask you if you are on the good side?"

"I am. But I won't hesitate to do whatever is necessary to protect the humans and Acheron. I'm here to save those of you who can be saved."

"And the rest?"

He looked away from her.

"You will kill us." It was a statement of fact.

His gaze met hers and this time his eyes were glowing a deep, vibrant green. They were unearthly, chilling, and in no way appeared human. "No. You damn yourselves by your own stupidity. I admit that I could not care less who lives or dies-that really isn't my concern. I'm here to do what must be done to protect the order of things."

"The order of what things?"

"Our existence. Our universe. Call it whatever you want, but in the end, those who turn on Acheron and who prey on humanity will die and yes, it will be by my hand."

This was unbelievable. He was admitting that he was, indeed, the one who would kill them all. "So you are our judge?"

His face was grim, sincere. "Judge, jury, and executioner."

Those words set fire to her temper as she moved to stand toe to toe with him. "What makes you so wise that you can blithely decide who lives and who dies? How do you know what's right?"

He scoffed. "All of you know what's right. You don't need me for that. On the night you became Dark-Hunters you pledged your eternal oath to serve Artemis and to combat the Daimons for her. Every one of you was given wealth, privilege, and servants. All you have to do in return for it is to protect the humans and stay alive. So long as you keep your mandate, you're left alone to find whatever happiness you can. You all know the rules. I'm just here to enforce them whenever one of your kind thinks that he or she is immune to them."

That did it. She didn't want anyone or anything this callous in her home. He truly didn't care who he killed. The Dark-Hunters were nothing to him. But her brethren were everything to her.

He would kill or die to protect Acheron and she would kill or die to protect her Dark-Hunter family.

It was that simple and that complicated.

"Then you can get out of my house."

He shook his head. "That's not how this works. When Acheron sends me in, he places me with a Dark-Hunter he would like to see saved. Unfortunately, it doesn't always work out that way, but in theory, if you cooperate, you should survive this latest uprising. I use you as a friendly, trustworthy face to introduce me to the traitors so that I can decide who among them is worth saving."

"And if I refuse?"

"You die." There was no more emotion in his tone than there was in his face. He really didn't care if he killed her or not.

Danger glared at him as her heart pounded in rage. "Then I hope you come with an army because it's going to take more than you to kill me."

She lunged at him only to run into what appeared to be an invisible wall that surrounded him. She struck out at it, but it didn't budge.

"I can't die, Danger," he said ominously as he watched her from behind his force field. "But you can, and believe me when I say that dying as a Dark-Hunter seriously sucks."

She slammed her hand against the invisible wall, curling her lip at him. "You're asking me to betray my brethren for personal salvation? Forget it. Fuck you and Acheron."

"No," he said in a sincere tone as he shook his head. "I'm asking you to save them. If we can convince them to trust you and believe me, and accept that Kyros is lying, then they can go home and all of this will be nothing more than a bad dream."

"And if we don't?"

"They're history."

Disgusted with him, she pulled back. "You know, you could show a little more compassion when you say that. Don't we mean anything to you? To Acheron?"

She felt a slight shift in the air, as if the wall were gone now. Alexion stared at her with those eerie green eyes.

"Acheron most definitely cares. If he didn't, I wouldn't be here now, and all of you would be dead already. He doesn't need me to kill them. He can do it without breaking a sweat. Believe me, I gain no personal pleasure in the killing either. Likewise, I'm ambivalent as to who survives and who doesn't. This isn't a game to me. Nor is it the end of the world."

She swallowed against the painful lump in her throat that had appeared at the thought of her friends dying. "They are all worth saving. All of them. You have no idea how hard it is to be one of us. We are created and then abandoned. Some of us go decades, even longer, without a single word from Acheron. None of us ever see Artemis again-"

He snorted evilly, interrupting her. "Count your blessings there."

She paused at his rancor as Stryker's words about Artemis's death came back to her. "Artemis is still alive?"

"Oh, yeah. Believe me, she's alive and well and in Acheron's face daily."

For some reason, that made her feel better-provided Alexion wasn't lying. "Then she does care about us."

"No," he said bitterly. "She cares about Acheron. The rest of you are here so that she can control him. It's why she continues to create new Dark-Hunters to replace those who go free. The day Acheron stops caring about the lot of you is the day Artemis will turn her back on you and most likely you'll all drop. So don't ever tell me that Acheron doesn't give a damn about you, when I see the toll the lot of you take on him every day."

His words hung in her mind. Could it be true?

Knowing Ash, it seemed a lot more plausible than him being a Daimon.

Well, sort of. But then again the Daimon theory was remarkably sound too.

If only she knew who to trust.

Alexion moved to stand just before her, so close that she could feel his breath falling against her cheek. "You have a decision to make, Danger. Are you going to help me save a few Dark-Hunters or do I kill them all now and go home?"