CHAPTER SEVEN
His jaw dropping, Ravyn stood in the doorway in total stupefaction as he saw Cael entwined on his bed with an Apollite woman. Completely flagrante delicto. "I so did not need to see that hairy full moon tonight," Ravyn said as he turned around to give them his back. "Gawd, I think I've gone blind."
Susan gasped as Otto and Leo laughed, then stepped back into the hallway, out of sight range for the naked couple.
Cael snarled a fetid curse. "What the hell is this shit?" he demanded angrily in a thick brogue that was an odd Scot-Irish mix. Ravyn could hear the two of them shuffling about on the bed, no doubt trying to cover themselves. "And for the record, I'm not the one with the hairy arse. That would be you. Don't you people knock?"
"Usually yes," Ravyn said snidely. "But not when I think you're being attacked."
"I was being attacked... in a most desirable way. You should try it once in a while, Rave, and maybe you wouldn't be such a bastard."
Ravyn rolled his eyes. "I don't know. You're the one who seems obsessed with my hairy ass. What's that say about you, bud?"
A shoe struck the wall not far from Ravyn's head. "Your aim's off, Cael."
"That wasn't Cael," a soft, venomous voice said in an agitated tone. "And next time I won't miss."
Before Ravyn could comment, Cael cleared his throat. "Why are you here anyway, Catboy?"
"That's Catman to you, and I need a word with you."
Cael let out an aggravated sigh. "Wait outside while Amaranda and I get dressed."
Ravyn cast a glance over his shoulder to see Cael and Amaranda wrapped in a sheet before he joined the others in the hallway and shut the door.
"I think I'll go wait upstairs," Leo said, heading down the hallway. "Call me if you need any more help busting up horny couples."
"Shut up, Leo," Ravyn snarled. "You're not so necessary to my world that you can lip off and not get hurt."
"Yeah, yeah," he said dismissively as he headed back up the stairs and disappeared from sight.
"Well, that was certainly embarrassing," Susan said in a tone that should be entered in the Sarcastic Hall of Fame. Looking up at him with those clear blue eyes, she folded her arms over her chest. "Now that I've seen the mating rituals of the Dark-Hunters up close and personal, got any more fun places to take me tonight? You know, I haven't been this embarrassed since the elastic broke in my gym shorts in high school and I learned the hard way that I had a hole in the back of my panties."
And for some reason that made no sense whatsoever to him, the thought of her butt peeking out from a tear in her panties actually turned him on... yeah, he was losing it.
Before he could comment on her causticity, the door opened to show Cael wearing nothing but a red and black plaid kilt wrapped low around his lean hips. Raking his hands through his wavy black hair to settle it into place, he glared at them before he wrapped his arms around his bare chest, which bore a number of red scratches. "To what do I owe this extreme displeasure and interruption? The answer better be 'Armageddon' if you want to live."
Susan tried not to gawk, but it was hard. Like Ravyn, the man had the build of a taut gymnast... with a full eight-pack of abs. He, too, had a bow and arrow tattoo, only his was low on his left hip while another tattoo of a heart pierced by a dagger went down one arm. Vines rose up from it to twine over one shoulder and down to his right pecs. His thick black hair fell to his shoulders in waves of masculine perfection. At least one day of beard covered his handsome face, and he had dark eyes ringed by eyelashes so long, they should be illegal.
Ravyn had a tic in his jaw as he faced his friend. "Close. I came to tell you that the Apollites are going to try and kill you."
Cael gave an evil smirk at that. "You're too late. Amaranda's been trying all day, but I won't go down." He wagged his eyebrows.
Susan cringed at his bad double entendre.
Ravyn's nostrils flared as he directed a heated glare toward the closed door. "This isn't a joke, Cael. This is serious. I can't believe you're shacked up, shagging the enemy. What the hell are you thinking?"
All the humor fled Cael's face as he tightened his grip on his arms. "Caution, braither. You'll put respect in your tone when you speak of her, you ken?"
The bedroom door opened to show Amaranda. Tall and ethereally beautiful, she was the kind of woman Susan had spent her entire life envying. There wasn't an ounce of fat on her, and it was obvious, since she wore a pair of skintight jeans that barely came up over her pubic area and a slinky red halter top that left most of her upper body bare. Her slender upper left arm was encircled by a gold snake slave bracelet that matched a pair of gold earrings, and a ruby red moon hung from the loop she had pierced in her belly button. As she turned toward Susan, she noted that Amaranda also had a small red stud in her right nostril.
Susan started to mention the fact that it was a bit nippy outside for the outfit but held her tongue. Maybe the woman would get a cold and gain some weight... At the very least, she'd cover up that perfect body so that Susan wouldn't feel quite so inadequate.
Note to self: Start a new diet tomorrow.
Tossing her waist-length, perfectly white-blond hair over her shoulder, Amaranda glanced quickly at them before she looked up at Cael. There was no mistaking the deep, adoring love in that gaze. It was only matched by the one Cael gave her back before he smiled at her. He said something in a language Susan didn't recognize.
Amaranda responded in kind. Like Cael, she also flashed a bit of fang as she spoke.
Ravyn curled his lip as Amaranda withdrew from them. "You even speak their language?"
Tilting his head down, Cael rubbed at his eyebrow with his middle finger.
"Fine," Ravyn snarled. "But let me tell you what's been going on while you were making nice with your little girlfriend."
Cael gave him a peeved glare.
"At dawn, I was picked up by the Apollites and taken to an animal shelter where they came dangerously close to killing me. After I got out of that by the skin of my teeth, they sent a group of humans and a half-Apollite out to kill me during the daylight hours. They've already killed one as yet unidentified Dark-Hunter and then tonight they attacked the Addamses at their base. Patricia might not even survive the night."
With every word Ravyn spoke, Cael's face turned more deadly serious. "What?"
"It's true," Susan said in Ravyn's defense. "The police and Apollites are working with the Daimons and they're out to hunt all of you down." Even as those words left her lips, they sounded ludicrous. How she wished they really were.
"Yeah," Otto added. "We sent a Squire over here three hours ago, before the attack on the Addamses, to warn you."
Cael scowled at that. "No Squire came over here. Kerri would have told me."
"Kerri?" Ravyn asked.
Cael hesitated as he cast his dark gaze toward the stairway that led to the club upstairs. By his face she could tell he was debating something extremely important. He looked highly uncomfortable before he finally answered. "My sister-in-law."