The Dream-Hunter (Dark-Hunter 10)

She leaned up on one arm to stare down at him as she tucked a piece of hair behind her ear. Never had he seen a more beautiful woman.

Arik cupped her cheek in his palm, looking up at her as he laughed from his exhaustion. Megeara's eyes glowed in the moonlight as she kissed the line of his jaw.

"Now if I could only get you to do this while we're awake..."

She laughed, which caused her breasts to brush against his chest. "Never. I can't afford to be like this awake. No one respects a woman of easy virtue."

"Oh, I assure you that's not true. I would always respect you."

"Yeah, right." She pulled back to sit up.

Arik couldn't breathe at the sight of her resting on his hips as the moonlight cast shadows over her bare body. He reached up to trace the outline of her nipple as she glanced off into the ocean.

He watched her face as she began to frown. "What's wrong?"

"The sea..."

He turned his head to look and went instantly cold. The surf was rolling against the shore, but what made him pay attention was the strange motion of it. The whitecaps began to slowly form faces, and those faces started rising out of the water in liquid forms that became solid.

The Dolophoni.

Children of the Furies, the Dolophoni were essentially the assassins of the gods. And they'd been the ones who'd rounded up the Oneroi centuries ago for Zeus to punish.

Now someone had unleashed the Dolophoni against Arik. He knew it. There was no other reason for them to be here. They weren't something Megeara would have conjured, and he could feel inside that they weren't from her dreams.

They were here to kill him.

"You need to go, Megeara." He slid out from under her.

Geary was frozen to the spot as ten people emerged from the waves, completely dry. Two women and eight men. As tall as or taller than Arik, they left the sea like a pack of rabid dogs ready to attack.

Their heads were bent low as they headed straight for Arik with a deadly swagger. Not a word or sound could be heard. Not even the surf. The air no longer moved. It was static and charged with the coming conflict.

Arik stood his ground as skintight black leather armor appeared over his body and his hair magically pulled itself back into a ponytail. Spikes grew out of his forearms and one out of his left knee.

One of the men, who was at least six inches taller than Arik, had a bald head with a phoenix tattoo on one side of his face, the tail of which coiled down and around his neck. He wore a sleeveless black T-shirt that accentuated the bulging muscles of his arms, black leather pants, and a studded neck collar.

Metal vambraces covered his forearms, and he carried an ax over one shoulder.

Another man was two inches shorter and much leaner and had short bright green hair that he had spiked on top of his head and over his eyes. He wore a pair of black wraparound sunglasses and carried a black staff with silver spikes poking out of both ends. His bare arms were covered with colorful tattoos, and a row of nine hoops hung from his left ear. He had two more hoops on his bottom lip.

The next man had short-cropped dark auburn hair that framed a face of perfect masculine beauty. His brown eyes flashed red as he drew an AK-47 out of the folds of his long leather coat.

The man beside him had the entire right side of his torso bare. His long black hair was pulled back in a ponytail while his left shoulder and arm were covered by black plate armor. There were scars all over his cheeks, and his black eyes were deep set into his face.

Two more appeared to be twins. They were equal in height to Arik, with short brown hair, and where one had three hoops in his right ear the other wore them in his left. Unlike the others, they were each dressed in slacks and a button-down shirt, with black leather overcoats that flowed around their booted feet. They moved slow and easy, with a fluid grace, as if synched to each other. Their faces were perfectly sculpted.

Two steps behind them was a man who had to be a minimum of seven feet tall. His blond hair was short and he was built like the Terminator, with a demeanor that would make the cyborg look weak. This man's face was rugged and harsh, and it was obvious he lived to bathe in the blood of others.

The last man was lean and wiry. Steel spikes were wrapped around his arms and over his hands. He wore tall biker boots with flames rising up from the toes to meet at the skulls at the top of them. Shirtless, he had the body of a ripped gymnast.

All of them wore an expression that said they were here for war.

One of the two women was even taller than Geary, with black hair streaked with bright green. Her hair was pulled back into a ponytail, and the green seemed to be snakes. They slithered around her shoulders, coiling about her neck as they hissed and snapped.

The other woman was much shorter but no less lethal. Trim and lean, she was corded with muscles and had bright red hair and sharp features.

Geary scrambled for her clothes, not that the others even seemed to know she was there. Their attention

was only on Arik.

"Who sent you?" Arik asked defiantly.

The man with the gun answered by firing it straight at Arik. He recoiled before he backflipped to the left and threw his hand out. It functioned as a gun and returned the bullets to them. He "fired" more bullets with his other hand.

The group dodged them before the woman with red hair threw out a circle that exploded all over Arik. It knocked him flat on his back and sent shooting sparks into the air around them.

Arik hit the sand with a force so lethal it shook him to his bones. Damn them. His senses were rattled, but he'd battled enough in dreams to know that this was his domain. He might be mortal while awake, but in here he was still a god.

And they were fucking the wrong Skotos.

No one took him out in his realm.

Growling, he flipped himself back to his feet and manifested a whip. He slung it out for the woman who'd stunned him and caught her about the waist. The cord bit into her and would have cut her in half had she been anyone but a Dolophonos.

As it was, it only cut deep and sent her to the ground.

The green-haired man paused to look at her as she writhed.

"You're strong," he said, betraying a set of vicious fangs. "Not many people get a shot off on Alera."

Arik swung the whip again, causing them to dodge it. "First mistake. I'm not a person. I'm a god. You want to fight in this realm, you need reinforcements."

The bald one dove at him so fast all Arik could see was the vapor trail. He caught Arik about the waist and they went down hard. Arik rolled with him, slugging him before he kicked him away. Before Arik could regain his feet, the other woman was on his back. He flipped her over his head and punched her in the chest. Without missing a beat, she sliced at him with a dagger that narrowly missed him.

The one bad thing about the weapons the Dolophoni used was that they were made by Hephaestus and that was one god who knew how to forge a weapon that hurt.

More to the point, he forged weapons that killed other gods.