No Mercy (Dark-Hunter 18)

Chapter 5

Sam stifled a yawn as she sat at her computer. She'd posted notes to every Dark-Hunter and Squire message board, loop, Twitter, MySpace, and Facebook account she could think of. Even the sites that on the surface appeared to be role-playing games but in reality were their people hiding in plain sight. She'd been texting and leaving messages for hours, warning her brethren and their employees what was brewing.

The Daimons would be coming for them. And they were pissed off.

On the one hand, she could understand their anger. The Daimons were born as Apollites--a race of superhumans that had been created by the god Apollo. Then, because of the actions of their jealous queen who'd ordered the death of Apollo's human mistress and son, they'd been cursed by him to die horribly at age twenty-seven--the same age his mistress had been when the queen had her killed. Their only hope to live past that date was to start sucking human souls into their bodies, but the problem with that was that souls weren't meant to live in them. As soon as a Daimon took the soul, it started to wither and die and if a Dark-Hunter didn't find and kill a Daimon before that soul expired, it would cease to exist.

Forever.

But on the other hand, having watched the Daimons slaughter her entire family, Sam wanted them completely wiped from the earth. They were disgusting animals with no regard for human life and for that they deserved total extermination. And if it was by her own hands, then all the better.

"You want a war, Stryker...I'm ready to give you one."

Just not until the sun went down. Damn the gods for that restriction on the Dark-Hunters and Daimons alike. For the next few hours, there was nothing she could do except wait.

Sam ground her teeth as she saw the tiny rays peeking in through the slats in her blinds. She was on the other side of the room, safe from their reach.

For now. But one well-placed brick or baseball and those dangerous rays could pose the ultimate threat to her. If they touched her skin, she'd burn up like a B-grade movie vampire.

Not wanting to think about that, she glanced at her clock, and sighed. It was just after noon. Way past her bedtime.

You can't kill Daimons if you're too tired to think. Go to bed, Sam. There's nothing more you can do until dark.

She hated that. It wasn't in her to withdraw. As a soldier, her mentor had beaten that into her. Amazons don't back down. Sometimes you might want to. Sometimes you ought to. But Amazons never backed down.

Except for sunlight.

Aggravated, she glared up at her ceiling. "You know, Apollo, if you wanted us to keep humanity safe, you shouldn't have banned us from the daylight too." Then the advantage would be with them, not with his cursed race.

Why are you wasting breath? Even if the Greek god heard her, he didn't care. She knew that better than anyone. The gods had more important things to do than listen to human complaints.

Still, she felt better for having said it.

She reached for her glass of water and headed to the stairs that would take her up to her bedroom on the third floor of her house. The only thing she really hated about living in New Orleans was that you couldn't have a basement, which was much safer than an upstairs bedroom. Unfortunately the sea level here was such that a basement would flood constantly. Since she lived alone, if a fire or hurricane struck, she'd be at its mercy.

For that reason most Dark-Hunters had a human Squire who stayed in their house as a personal secretary and guardian during the day.

Sam didn't.

You should have let Dev stay with you.

That would have been a mistake in more ways than one. Plus she didn't know if his shield--whatever it was--would hold the same if she was asleep. Since the moment she'd become a Dark-Hunter, she couldn't allow anyone near her while she slept. Once she was unconscious, she had no way to block them. Her dreams tangled with their thoughts and she'd spend a restless day seeing and hearing everything they did.

She'd tried once to have a pet dog and then a cat, but their thoughts were even stranger than the humans'. So she was relegated to eternal solitude. Not that it mattered. After all these centuries, she was used to it.

At least that's what she told herself.

Yawning again, she entered her room and dropped her robe. A few hours of sleep and she'd be as good as new.

And if that damn bird that kept thinking about eating worms parked its butt on her windowsill again today while she was sleeping, she was going to shoot it even if it did flood sunlight into her room.

Dev woke up with a start. His heart pounding, he used his heightened hearing to listen carefully and see what had awakened him. He heard Aimee's soft snore from her room down the hall. The normal house activity of the day crew working...

Nothing out of the ordinary. Just another typical day.

After one hell of an incredible morning that had ended with him getting mentally bitch-slapped at the end.

Not wanting to think about that, he turned to look at the clock. It was just after two P.M. He cursed. He'd only had three hours of sleep.

Go back to bed.

He rolled over and closed his eyes. But no matter how hard he tried, he couldn't manage to go back to sleep. Worse, he was being haunted by the scent of a certain Amazon frustration.

"What is wrong with me?"

Sam had made it clear that she was done with him. Her play toy had been shoved back in the drawer and she didn't want to see it again. And yet he couldn't get the thought of her out of his head.

She's aggravating. Frustrating. Off-limits.

And sexy as hell.

I should never have imagined her naked.... Never gone to her house and spent the best damned morning of my life with her.

That was like willing himself not to breathe. Some things a guy just did automatically and when a woman like her offered him a full morning of rampant sex, he took her up on it.

Groaning, he pulled the pillow out from under his head and laid it over his face. Go back to sleep.