Dark Side of the Moon (Dark-Hunter 9)

He took a second to make sure she was okay before he cut the rope on her hands then kicked the second Daimon away from them. Growling, Cael reached for the one he'd tackled only to hear a gun firing.

He recoiled as the bullets ripped through his body in rapid succession. The pain of it stole his breath as he bled all over the floor.

The Daimon picked him up and slugged him hard in the jaw. The impact knocked him back into the wall so that the other Daimon could kick him in the stomach.

As the Daimon moved to kick Cael again, he grabbed his leg and shoved him back. The Daimon slipped on Cael's blood and hit the floor with a thud. He kicked the Daimon in the ribs and turned to grab the other one.

"Freeze, asshole, or I give your little playmate here a bullet in her brain. And since she's an Apollite, it'll cut her short life even shorter."

Cael froze instantly.

"Turn around."

He did and saw that the older man had Amaranda in front of him with his gun angled at her head. Cael's heart pounded at the sight of her fear as anger clouded his vision. Damn this bastard for scaring her.

"It'll be okay, baby."

"Not if you don't answer my question." He cocked the snub-nosed .38 against her temple.

Cael heard Amaranda praying in Atlantean under her breath.

If he gave up Ravyn's location, they would kill him. If he didn't, they'd kill Amaranda.

His best friend or his wife. How could he make that call?

"Fine," the man snarled. "Have it your way." He started to squeeze the trigger.

"No!" Cael shouted, taking a step forward. "He's..." He couldn't say it. He just couldn't. Having been betrayed, how could he betray someone else?

"Don't play with me, boy."

Cael took a deep breath and leveled a sincere look of hatred on the bastard. "He's at the Last Supper Club in Pioneer Square."

The man narrowed a doubting gaze on him.

One of the Daimons grabbed Cael by the hair and pulled his head back. "Are you lying to us, Dark-Hunter?"

"No," he lied with conviction. "I wouldn't dare."

"What do you think, Dad?" the Daimon holding him asked the man with the gun.

"He's either telling the truth or he's a damn good liar. Since I don't know which, I think we should keep them alive, just in case."

Images of his family dying while he'd been powerless to stop their torture ripped through his mind. He looked at Amaranda and her sister and saw the terror in their eyes.

There was no way in hell he would relive that moment. He wasn't about to let them be tortured in front of him while he was powerless to stop it. And with that thought, the last of his Dark-Hunter powers seeped out of him.

The man tossed a pair of handcuffs at the Daimon, who caught them and snapped one over Cael's wrist. He swung about and elbowed the Daimon straight in the face.

"Derrick!" the man shouted before he opened fire on Cael again.

Cael refused to stop. He pulled his dagger out and turned to kill the Daimon.

Another gunshot rang out, an instant before Cael felt something sharp and hot pierce his back. It was the knife the man had used to threaten Kerri. Cael knew it the instant the blade didn't protrude out of the front of his chest. The man twisted the blade sideways and then snapped it off at the hilt to leave the blade buried deep in Cael's heart.

Cael's ears buzzed as he tasted his own blood. He heard Amaranda's screams through the haze as his vision dimmed.

He was dying...

Unable to breathe for the pain, he fell to his knees.

Amaranda screamed out loud at the sight of Cael falling. Agony and grief assailed her and it awoke the fighter inside her. Her rage taking root, she ran at the man who'd stabbed him. Before she could reach him, his Daimon son turned to fight her. He grabbed her and slapped her hard. She spun around to face him again and then acted on pure Apollite instinct.

She launched herself at his throat and sank her fangs into his flesh. His father cursed as he tore her away from his son, but by doing so he caused her to sever the Daimon's jugular. Instead of dying quickly, he fell to the floor and lay there as his blood ran over him and he shook uncontrollably.

His father let out an anguished cry before he shot Amaranda and her sister.

Her vision dimming in pain, Amaranda fell to the floor and couldn't move. It was as if she were completely paralyzed.

"So help me," the man shouted, "I will see all of you dead. Dead!" He stomped her hard on the small of her back before the other Daimon pulled him away from her.

"C'mon, Dad, we'll mourn Derrick later. We have to get out of here before the Apollites realize we're here and what we've done."

"I have a search warrant."

"And you just killed two members of their family. Search warrants are for your people, not mine. They'll kill us both."

He stomped her one last time before they left.

Amaranda could barely see for the tears in her eyes. She'd never known physical or mental pain like she felt right now.

"Cael," she whimpered, needing to touch him. Even though all she wanted was to close her eyes and let death carry her away from the agony of her body, she refused to go without holding his hand.

It was what he'd promised her on the night they'd married.

"I won't leave you alone to die. I'll be there with you, hand in hand, until the end. "

She wouldn't let him die without knowing she was there for him. Hand in hand.

Her limbs shaking, she pulled herself across the slick floor until she reached him. To her shock, he was still alive, but only barely. There were tears in his eyes as he breathed in shallow gasps. No longer the black of a Dark-Hunter, his eyes were a beautiful amber.

"Cael?"

She saw the fire in his eyes as he stared at her. "Sunshine," he breathed.

She choked on a sob as he called her the nickname he'd given her during their wedding vows... vows he'd written just for her. "Even though I walk only at night, I will never know darkness as long as you, my sunshine, are by my side. "

He swallowed as he reached out to touch her cheek. "I'm sorry I didn't listen to you."

Amaranda licked her lips, retasting the Daimon's blood. "It's okay, baby." She laid her head down on his chest and held him while he played with her hair.

She fully expected to die like that. Closing her eyes, she waited for death to take her.

Or so she thought. But as the seconds ticked by and Cael's breathing grew more shallow, hers only grew stronger.

And stronger.

The pain of her body receded as something started to burn in the center of her chest. It wasn't overly painful, but it wasn't comfortable.

It was...

She felt her vision turning more sensitive, her hearing sharper. Gasping, she lifted herself up as she realized what was happening.

She was turning Daimon.

But how? She hadn't...

Her gaze went to the Daimon she'd killed. "Oh God," she breathed as full knowledge assailed her. She'd drunk the blood of a Daimon and in that blood was the human souls he'd taken. Now it was converting her body.

And it was saving her life...

She looked down at her chest to see the small black stain over her heart-the place where the human souls gathered so that they could nourish her Daimon's blood and keep her Apollite body from decaying. And as she watched, her body expelled the bullets out of her flesh and then healed itself.

Her heart raced. She looked to the Daimon whose blood was still pouring out of him. There were only three ways to kill a Daimon. Sunlight, piercing their Daimon mark over their heart, and tearing out their jugular.

The Daimon wasn't quite dead. Once his blood was completely expelled from his body, he would crumble into dust.

But she could save Cael...

He'll never forgive you.

Maybe, but if he died, he'd become a Shade and spend eternity suffering in perpetual hell. There would be no goddess to offer him clemency. No more bargains with Artemis to get his life back. His body would crumble to dust and he would be trapped without his soul. Forever. No way to rest. No way to regenerate or reincarnate.

Just an eternity of pain.

Most of all, he'd be alone.

"Forgive me, Cael," she whispered, laying her lips over his to kiss him gently.

Without another thought, she grabbed the Daimon's arm and pulled him to her. Grabbing a knife from the Daimon's belt, she sliced open his wrist. She hesitated. Dark-Hunter blood was poisonous to Daimons, was Daimon blood also poisonous to Dark-Hunters? By trying to save Cael would she destroy him? But what choice did she have? If she did nothing, he would certainly die. Deciding she would have to take the risk, she held the Daimon's wrist over Cael's lips.

Too weak to turn away, he had no choice but to let the blood flow into his body.

His eyes flew open as he cried out in pain. He writhed on the floor as if in utter agony.

Amaranda pulled back, dropping the Daimon's arm.

He rolled to his side, cursing and jerking as if something were trying to tear him to pieces.

"No, " she breathed, terrified that she'd only hurt him more. She pulled his head into her lap and held him close as he gripped her shirt so tightly that the bones of his knuckles protruded.

And then she saw it...

The knife was working its way out of his back. Slowly, painfully, inch by inch, it crept out until it landed on the floor with a sharp clatter.

Amaranda stared at it as she felt Cael's breathing steady itself. He loosened his grip on her.

She looked down and saw something that according to Dark-Hunter laws was not supposed to happen. Cael's eyes were now an unnatural shade of amber with black streaks running through them.

"What have you done to me, Amaranda?" he asked in a ragged, demonic tone.

"I saved you, Cael. " But even as those words left her lips, she knew the truth. She hadn't saved him.

She'd damned them both straight to hell.