Kiss of the Night (Dark-Hunter 4)

"Is he alone?"

Tina nodded.

"I'll just go in and surprise him."

"You'll definitely do that. I know he'll be glad to see you."

Leaving Tina to her work and Kat waiting in a chair near Tina's desk, Cassandra entered her father's sacred workaholic domain.

Contemporary in design, his office had a "cool" feel to it, but her father was anything but a cold man. He'd loved her mother passionately and since the hour of Cassandra's birth, he had doted on her with everything he had.

Her father was an exceptionally handsome man with dark auburn hair that was laced with distinguished gray. At fifty-nine, he was fit and trim and looked closer to his early forties.

Even though she'd been forced to grow up away from him, for fear of the Apollites or Daimons finding her if she stayed anywhere too long, he had never been far away from her even when she'd been halfway around the world. Only a phone call or even a plane ride away.

Over the years, he'd turned up unexpectedly on her doorstep with gifts and hugs-sometimes in the middle of the night. Sometimes in the middle of the day.

As children, she and her sisters used to make bets on when he'd turn up again to see them. He had never let any of them down, nor had he ever missed a single birthday.

Cassandra loved this man more than anything else in the world and it terrified her what would happen to him if she were to die in eight months like other Apollites. Too many times, she had witnessed his grief and sorrow as he buried her mother and four older sisters.

Every death had torn apart his heart, especially the car bomb that had killed her mother and her last two sisters.

Would he even be able to stand another blow such as that?

Pushing that terrifying thought aside, she approached his steel-and-glass desk.

He was on the phone, but he hung up the minute he looked up from his stack of papers and saw her.

His face lighting instantly, he got up and hugged her, then pulled back with a worried frown. "What are you doing here, baby? Shouldn't you be in class?"

She patted his arm and urged him back to his side of the desk as she flopped into one of the comfy chairs in front. "Probably."

"Then why are you here? It's not like you to cut class to come see me."

She laughed as he echoed Kat's earlier sentiments. Maybe she needed to alter her habits a bit. In her position, predictable behavior was a dangerous liability. "I wanted to talk to you."

"About?"

"The Dark-Hunters."

He paled, making her wonder just how much he knew and how much he was going to share. He had a nasty tendency to overprotect her, hence her long legacy of bodyguards.

"Why do you want to know about them?" he asked cautiously.

"Because I was attacked by Daimons last night and a Dark-Hunter saved my life."

He shot to his feet and rushed over to her side of the desk. "Were you hurt?"

"No, Daddy," she hastened to assure him as he tried to inspect her body for damage. "Just scared."

He pulled back with a stern frown, but kept his hands on her arm. "All right, listen. You need to withdraw from school, we'll-"

"Daddy," she said firmly, "I'm not going to withdraw less than a year from graduation. I'm through running."

Even though she might not live past eight months, there was a possibility that she would. Until she knew for certain, she had vowed to live her life as normally as possible.

She saw the horror on his face. "This is not something debatable, Cassandra. I swore to your mother that I would keep you safe from the Apollites and I will. I'll not let them kill you too."

She clenched her teeth at the reminder of an oath he took as sacred as he did this office and company. She knew the legacy she had inherited from her mother's family all too well.

Centuries past, it had been her ancestor who had caused the Apollites to be cursed.

Out of jealousy, her great-great-whatever had sent out soldiers to murder the son and mistress of the god Apollo. In retaliation, the Greek sun god had banished all Apollites from his favor.

Since the Apollite queen had ordered her men to make it appear as if a beast had destroyed the mother and child, Apollo gave all the Apollites the features of beasts-long canine teeth, speed, strength, and predator's eyes. They were forced to feed off each other's blood in order to survive.

He had banished them from the daylight so that the angry god would never again have to see them.

But the crudest blow of all, he had cursed them to a life span of only twenty-seven years-the same age his mistress had been when she'd been slain by the Apollites.

On his or her twenty-seventh birthday, an Apollite spent the entire day slowly, painfully decaying. It was so awful a death that most of them committed ritual suicide the day before their birthday to escape it.

The only hope an Apollite had was to slay a human and take the human soul into their own body. There was no other way to prolong their short lives. But the minute they turned Daimon, they crossed over and invoked the wrath of the gods.

It was then the Dark-Hunters were called in to kill them and free the stolen human souls before the souls that were trapped withered and died.

In eight short months, Cassandra would turn twenty-seven.

It was something that terrified her.

She was part human and because of that she could walk in daylight, but she had to stay covered up and couldn't be out too long without burning severely.

Her long canine teeth had been filed down by a dentist when she was ten, and though she was anemic, her need for blood was satisfied by bimonthly transfusions.

She was lucky. The handful of other half-Apollite, half-humans she had met over the years had leaned mostly toward their Apollite heritage.

All of them had died at twenty-seven.

All of them.

But Cassandra had always held on to the hope that she had enough human in her to make it past her birthday.

Ultimately, though, she didn't know, and she'd never been able to find anyone who knew more about her "condition" than she did.

Cassandra didn't want to die. Not now when there was so much living she had left. She wanted what most everyone else did. A husband. A family.

Most of all, a future.

"Maybe this Dark-Hunter knows something about my mixed blood. Maybe he-"

"Your mother would fly into a panic if their name ever came up," he said as he stroked her cheek. "I know very little about the Apollites, but I know they all hate the Dark-Hunters. Your mother called them evil, soulless killers that no one could reason with."

"They're not the Terminator, Daddy."

"The way your mother spoke of them, they are."

Well, that was true. Her mother had spent hours warning her and her sisters to stay away from three things: Dark-Hunters, Daimons, and Apollites-in that order.

"Mom never even met one. All she knew was what her parents had told her and I'll wager they never met one either. Besides, what if this Dark-Hunter is the key to helping me find a way to live longer?"

His grip tightened on her hand. "What if he was sent to kill you just like the Daimons and Apollites who killed your mother? You know what the myth says. Kill you, and the curse is lifted from them."