Dark Side of the Moon (Dark-Hunter 9)

She ignored his sarcasm as he started the car without a key. That man had some eerie powers when they were working properly. "Yeah, back to my question. Why is your family in Seattle when it's obvious they don't want to be around you?"

Okay, that hadn't come out the way she meant for it to. Funny, it'd sounded much nicer in her head.

Ravyn cut an aggravated stare at her before he pulled out of the alley. "The Omegrion dictates where sanctuaries are to be set up, which means they didn't have a choice. If they wanted to be a sanctuary it was Seattle or nothing since this is where one was needed."

She considered that. "Why did they want to be a sanctuary?"

"I imagine it had to do with seeing most of our clan annihilated. A lot of my people tend to set them up whenever they're on the brink of extinction. It's a way of keeping our enemies at bay long enough for us to regain our numbers."

That made sense to her. "What about you? How did you end up here?"

"I was already here when they arrived. They just didn't know it. Acheron assigned me to this region almost two hundred years ago because it had enough open land to let me take on my cat form whenever I wanted, and Cael requested I get transferred with him. He didn't like the idea of coming out here solo."

"So the two of you have been friends a long time?"

He nodded. "He was the first Dark-Hunter I met after Acheron trained me. We were both stationed in London for a while and then later transferred to France, then Munich."

"Wow. You guys have been around."

"We had to move around a lot in the past because humans tended to get suspicious easier than they do now. Now most people are so absorbed by their own lives that they don't even bother to learn who's living next door to them, especially in a city."

She started to argue that until she realized just how right he was. She still didn't know the names of the couple who lived to the right of her, and they'd moved in almost two years ago.

The man had a vicious point.

"So where are we headed?" Ravyn asked.

"Hell in a handbasket."

He laughed. The sound of it was rich and deep. Gah, the man was so incredibly sexy. Especially with the moonlight shadowing the planes of his face. "Seriously."

"I was serious. It's exactly where we're headed," she said under her breath, but then louder, she added, "Forty-three thirty-five Twenty-ninth Avenue West. "

"Nice area."

"Yeah, I know. Angie always had great taste in everything."

Wanting to distract herself, she focused on what Ravyn and his brothers had been talking about earlier. "So explain something to me. What is this mating thing you guys keep talking about?"

A dark shadow fell over his face, and she wasn't talking about the one from the moonlight. It was a strange light, as if her question bothered him on a deep, personal level. "Were-Hunters are different from humans."

No shit, Sherlock... But she kept that exact sarcasm to herself. "You mean other than the fact that you live for several hundred years, can turn into animals, time travel, and wave your hand to make freaky stuff happen?"

The corners of his lips turned up as if he was holding back a laugh. "Yeah, that, too. But unlike humans, we don't get the leisure of picking out our mates. The Moirae-"

"The who?"

"Greek Fates. They choose who we're mated to."

"Uh-huh..." she said, stretching the sound out. "Why am I suddenly channeling a cheesy Leo headline for this? Oh wait, I think I know. Maybe 'cause they're myths and not real?"

He gave her a peeved stare. "And neither are vampires, right?"

"Good point. Okay, they're real, too, and?"

"And they choose our mates."

If not for the ludicrousness of this day, she would recommend him for treatment. But there had to be truth in this even though it didn't make sense to her. "So what do they do? Jump here on earth, tap you on the shoulder, and say, 'Hey, bub, marry her.' "

"No. A matching symbol appears on the palms of the two people to let them know they're supposed to be mated."

"Intrusive and rude, but I'll go with it. So that's all there is?"

"Not exactly. Once the mark appears, we have three weeks to decide if we want to abide by it. If we do, then we sleep together and are mated. If not, then the symbol vanishes and we can never be mated to anyone else so long as we both live, and we can't have children."

She really didn't like the sound of that. "That sucks."

"You have no idea. The female can continue to have sex, but the male of the species is impotent until the day one of them dies."

"What if you're mated and one of you dies? Are you still bound to each other, or can the survivor go on to mate again?"

"Technically yes, but that rarely happens. One shot for a mate is pretty much all the Fates allow. They're bitchy that way. But at least death does free the survivor of the binding, which is why I can still have sex, even though I never finished the ritual with Isabeau."

"But you have no chance of being mated again?"

"Let's just say, I have a better chance of dying from grapefruit poisoning."

She laughed at that. "Oh, yeah, the Fates are definitely women. I love it."

"I'm glad you do, but I have to say it doesn't appeal to me. The idea of being impotent rather blows."

She could understand that. "So what makes the mark appear? You reach a certain age? You cross the street?"

"We have sex." He gave her a wicked grin.

"Yeah, right."

"No, seriously. The mark only appears after you've had sex with your predestined mate. Within a few hours it'll show up."

"And if you never have sex with your mate?"

"Then you never find your mate. You go the whole of your life without the chance of having children."