"So what made you go with Artemis instead?"
The old pain lanced through him. It was weird that after so many centuries it would still hurt to remember the wife he'd once loved so much and the callous way she'd allowed him to die. But as Acheron so often said, there were some wounds that not even time could heal. Humans learned from their pain. It was a necessary evil for growth.
Yeah, right. He sometimes wondered if Acheron was a sadist or masochist. But he knew better. Acheron understood pain in a way very few did. Like Alexion, he lived with it constantly and if he could he'd banish it forever.
He looked at Danger, and watched as the streetlights illuminated her fragile face. With the exception of Kyros, Brax, and Acheron, no one knew much more about him than his name. He was a vague legend who was held up as the first of their crew to become a Shade.
He was essentially their bogeyman. An example of what happened if the wrong person tried to restore their soul back into their body. But that was the extent of what they'd been told.
They knew nothing about the shame of his trust in his wife, or the fact she'd had a lover. They knew nothing about the fact that he'd been a blind, trusting fool.
Kyros and Brax had held their silence on the matter all these centuries. It was one of the reasons why Alexion had wanted to come back and save Kyros if he could.
Even in death, the man had been his friend.
Alexion took a deep breath before he spoke. "The first time I died, I was murdered," he said simply. "Like you, betrayed by someone I trusted."
Her brow wrinkled in sympathetic pain. "Who killed you?"
"My wife's lover."
She grimaced. "Ouch."
"Yeah."
"And then your wife dropped the medallion instead of freeing your soul," she said, her voice filled with anger. "I can't believe she'd do that to you."
Alexion appreciated her rage on his behalf. "Hell of a way to find out that the children you thought were yours weren't."
To his amazement, she reached over and placed her hand soothingly against his. The unexpected kindness of that single action sent chills over him. It meant a lot to him that she treated him like a normal man when they both knew he wasn't. "I'm really sorry."
He covered her hand with his other one and gave a light squeeze. The delicate bones under her skin belied the strength he knew she carried within her.
"Thanks. I'm sorry your husband was a dirtbag."
Danger laughed at his unexpected use of that slang word. Against her will, she felt her guard softening toward him. It'd been too long since she'd spent time with a man chatting like this. Most of the people she talked to were other female Dark-Hunters, and all of them she'd known for decades. This was a nice change of pace. "Did you go back and kill your wife?"
"No." He gave a short, bitter laugh. "I have to say, it was truly one of the finer moments of my life... or death. I felt like a complete and utter asshole, lying there, looking at her as she watched me die. There wasn't even pity or the smallest amount of regret in her eyes. If anything, she was glad to see me go."
Poor guy. She knew firsthand that it was not only painful but humiliating to have misjudged someone so badly. "So what happened to her?"
One corner of his mouth quirked up in wry humor. "Acheron turned her to stone. She's now a statue that stands in the hallway outside my room."
Danger widened her eyes. "Are you serious?"
"Absolutely. I blow her a sarcastic kiss every morning when I walk past her."
"Man," she said, shaking her head, "that's cold."
"You think so?"
"Honestly? Not at all. I'd have been much cruder."
Alexion was curious as to what would be a worse punishment than the one he had meted out for her. "How so?"
"I'd have put her in a park somewhere so the birds could crap all over her."
He laughed. Okay, that really would be much worse. "Remind me to stay on your good side."
"Yeah, well, my mother used to have a saying, 'hell hath no fury as a woman angered.'"
"I thought it was 'as a woman scorned.'"
"Angered, scorned, either one. I come from a long line of vengeful women. My grandmother would have given Madame Defarge a run for her money any day."
He nodded. "Then I'll make sure I don't tweak that portion of your personality. The gods know I've had my fill of vengeful women."
Danger sighed at his light tone about a matter she was sure he didn't find amusing. In fact, his words made her heart catch. "I guess you have."
She squeezed his hand. "So what happened to the kids after Ash turned their mother into stone?"
"Acheron found them a good home. He's not the type of person who would leave a child to suffer over something he did."
"Yeah, I've noticed that about him."
Neither of them spoke again while they rode the rest of the way to the MSU campus. It was an overcast night without much moonlight. But what little light there was reflected against the trees, forming eerie, monsterlike shadows.
Danger had always liked to drive at night. There was something very peaceful about it. Well, except for when the occasional deer turned suicidal and decided to play "chicken" with her on the highway. That she could leave behind.
But at least she didn't have to worry about that in Starkville. It'd grown so much over the last few years that until they headed back toward Tupelo, deer dodgers wouldn't be a problem.
Alexion looked out the car window as Danger drove them past the sorority houses toward central campus. It looked as if a party of some sort were going on at one house. He could see cars parked in the lot with kids hanging out of the windows while others leaned up against the frame, talking to the ones inside. Groups of college students were milling about on the porch and in the yard while more could be seen inside, dancing.
"Look at them," he said quietly. "Do you remember being human and that age?"