"If he survives the punishment his mother ran away from, then he will be allowed to stay here as well."
Grinding his teeth, Talon remembered the grueling torture they had meted out. The days of beatings and starvation.
The only thing that kept him alive was the fear that should he die, Ceara would be turned out after all.
He had lived solely for her.
Now he lived for nothing at all.
Talon forced his feet to carry him down the street away from Sunshine's club and her comfort. Away from these memories that had somehow been set loose.
He had to find his peace.
He had to forget the past. To bury it.
But as he walked, repressed thoughts and memories tumbled through his mind.
Against his will, he remembered the day he had discovered his wife…
Nynia.
Even now, the mere mention of her name was enough to bring him to his knees. She had been everything to him. His best friend. His heart. His soul.
She, alone, had given him solace.
In her arms, he hadn't cared what the others thought of him. Only the two of them had existed in the world.
Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) As a mortal man, he had taken her as his first and only lover.
"How could I ever lay hands to another woman, Nyn, when I have you?"
Those words haunted him now along with the memory of how many women he'd slept with since his death. Women who had never meant anything to him. They had merely been passing flings designed to ease a physical craving.
He had never wanted to know anything about them.
Never really wanted to know any woman except his wife.
Nynia and the perfect love she had given him had touched something inside him and given it wings.
She'd
shown him things in the world that he'd never seen before.
Kindness.
Comfort.
Acceptance.
She had confused him, aggravated him, and made him deliriously happy.
When she had died, she had taken him with her. He had survived physically, but not his heart.
It had died that day too.
And he'd never thought to desire a woman that way again. Not until he had felt the warmth of a graceful artist's hand on his skin.
The mere thought of Sunshine was enough to make him feel sucker-punched.
"Get her out of my head," he said between clenched teeth. He would never again let himself be open to so much excruciating pain. He would never again hold someone he cared for in his arms and watch her die.
Never.
He had been hurt enough in his life. He couldn't stand any more.
Sunshine was a stranger to him and she would remain that way. He didn't need anyone.
He never had.
Talon froze as an odd noise on the wind intruded on his thoughts. It sounded vaguely like a Daimon feeding…
He pulled his Palm Pilot out of his jacket pocket and opened up his tracking program. Designed to pick up traces of the Daimons' elevated neuron activity that came from their psychic abilities, the tracking program allowed Dark-Hunters to pinpoint any concentration of Daimons after dark. During the daylight hours while the Daimons rested, their brain activity was too human for the trackers to be of any use.
But once the sun set…
Those little brains of theirs started snapping and humming.
Talon frowned at his findings.
Create PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com) It showed nothing and his Dark-Hunter senses didn't pick up a Daimon either, but his gut instinct was off the radar.
He headed toward a dark alley. A woman stumbled out, falling against him. Her eyes were glazed as she glanced up at him. There was a small bite wound on her neck that was healing even as he looked at it and the collar of her blouse held traces of blood.
"Are you okay?" he asked as he righted her.
She smiled a smile that was delirious and vague. "I'm fine. Never better." She stumbled away from him and headed into the building to his right.
In that instant, he knew what had happened.
Unmitigated rage descended on him as he stalked farther into the alley where she'd been. He saw the dark shadow and knew it in a heartbeat.
"Damn you, Zarek. You better lay off the feeding crap while you're in this city."
Zarek wiped the blood away from his lips with his hand. "Or what, Celt? You going to hit me?"
"I'll rip your throat out."
He laughed at that. "And kill yourself in the process? You don't have it in you."
"You have no idea what I'm capable of. And you better pray to whatever god you worship that you never find out."
His expression pure evil, Zarek smacked his lips in a way Talon knew was designed to piss him off thoroughly.
It worked.
"I didn't hurt her. She won't even remember it in three minutes. They never do."
Talon moved to grab him, but Zarek caught his hand. "I warned you not to touch me, Celt. No one touches me.Ever."
Talon shrugged off his hold. "You swore an oath, just like the rest of us. I won't have you preying on innocents in my town."