The sadness in her eyes as she spoke wrapped around his heart and squeezed it tightly. He couldn't imagine how much horror she had seen in her young life. But then his childhood hadn't been easy either. The shame, the humiliation. Even after all these centuries, he could still feel the sting of it. Some pains never eased.
"What about you?" she asked, looking at him over her shoulder since he didn't cast a reflection in the mirror. "Did you find it was easier to kill a man after you took your first life?"
Her question angered him. "I never murdered anyone. I only protected myself and my brother."
"Ah, I see," she said quietly. "So you don't think it's murder when you barge into someone's home to rob them and they fight you rather than submit to your brutality?"
Shame filled him as he remembered a few of his early raids. Back then, his people had traveled far and wide, attacking villages in the middle of the night to raid other people, other lands. They weren't after the kill, but rather wanted to leave as many alive as they could. Especially when they were after slaves they could sell in foreign markets. His mother had been horrified when she learned that he and Erik had started raiding with the other sons of their neighbors.
"My sons are dead to me," she had snarled before she threw them out of their squalid home. "I never want to see either of you again."
And she hadn't. She'd died the following spring of a fever. His sister had paid one of the young village men to find them and deliver the news. Three years passed before they were able to return home to pay their respects. By then his father had been slain and his sister taken by invaders. Wulf had gone to England to free her and it had been there that Erik had died after they left her village.
Brynhild had refused to leave with them. "I reap what you and Erik have sown. It is God's will that I be a slave to serve as those whom you and Erik have sold are forced to do. And for what, Wulf? For profit and glory? Leave me, brother. I want no more of your warring ways."
Like a fool, he had left her and she too had been slain a year later when the Angles invaded her small village. Life was death. It was the only thing that was inevitable. As a human, he'd been well acquainted with it. As a Dark-Hunter he was an expert. He turned away from Cassandra. "Times were different then."
"Really?" she asked. "I never heard before that people in the Dark Ages were supposed to be sheep to be butchered."
Cassandra cringed as Wulf turned on her with a fierce growl. "If you are looking for me to apologize for what I did, I will not. I was born to a race that respected nothing but the strength of one's sword arm. I grew up mocked and ridiculed because my father wouldn't fight. So when I was old enough to prove to them that I wasn't like him, that I could and would stand by them in battle, I took it.
"Yes, I did things I regret. What person hasn't? But I never once killed or raped a woman. I never hurt a child, nor a man who couldn't defend himself. Your people prize the death of a child or pregnant woman above all else. They stalk them for no other purpose than to elongate their putrid lives. So don't you dare preach to me. "
She swallowed, but admirably held her ground. "Some do. Just as some of your people lived to rape and pillage. Didn't you tell me your own mother was a slave who had been captured by your father? It may come as a surprise to you, Wulf Tryggvason, but some of my people only prey on people like yours. Murderers. Rapists. There is an entire branch of Daimons called the Akelos who have all taken an oath to kill only the humans who deserve it."
"You lie."
"No," she said, her tone sincere, "I don't. Funny, when I first met you, I thought you might know more about my people than I do since you hunt us. But you don't, do you? We're just animals to all of you. Not even worth the trouble of talking to one of us to find out the truth."
It was true. He had never given any thought to the Daimons other than the fact that they were killers who needed to die.
As for Apollites…He hadn't thought of them at all.
Now he had a "human" face to go with the term "Apollite."
Not just a face… he had a touch. A lover's gentle whisper. But what did it change? Nothing. At the end of the day, he was still a Dark-Hunter and he would still pursue the Daimons and slay any of them he found.
There was nothing more to be said between them. This was one obstacle neither of them could ever overcome. So, he withdrew from the conflict. "You have free run of the house at night and the grounds during daylight."
"And if I want to leave?"
He scoffed. "Ask Chris how easy that is."
That familiar light came into her emerald eyes. The one that challenged him and told him he didn't have any real power over her. It was one of the things he admired most in her—that fire and strong will. "You know, I'm used to getting out of impossible situations."
"And I'm used to tracking and finding Apollites and Daimons."
She arched one brow. "Are you challenging me?"