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."
She thought about that for a second. "What if they're right? What if my death would allow all the other Apollites to live normally? Maybe I should die."
His face flushed with rage. His gaze burned into hers as he tightened his grip on her hand. "Cassandra Elaine Peters, I better never hear you say that again. Do you understand me?"
Cassandra nodded, contrite for having raised his blood pressure when that was the last thing she wanted to do. "I know, Daddy. I'm just upset."
He kissed her forehead. "I know, baby. I know."