"Nick doesn't mind?"
He laughed at that. "Nick minds everything. I don't think I've ever asked him to do something he didn't complain about it."
"Then why do you keep him around?"
"I'm a glutton for punishment."
Now it was her turn to laugh. "I would really like to meet this Nick."
"No doubt you will tomorrow."
"Really?"
He nodded. "Anything you need, you tell him and he'll get it for you. If he offends you in any way, let me know and I'll kill him when I get up."
There was a note in his voice that told her it might not be an empty threat. Hunter opened the large French doors and led her into a glass-enclosed atrium. The ceiling was clear and showed a million stars flickering overhead and their shoes clicked idly on the tile floor.
"It's beautiful in here."
"Thanks."
She walked up to a large statue of three women in the center of the room. The piece was absolutely breathtaking. The youngest of them was lying on her side with a scroll while the other two were sitting with their backs to each other. One held a lyre while the other appeared to sing. But what amazed her most was the way they were painted. Each one looked real, and they bore a striking resemblance to Hunter.
"Is this from Greece?" she asked.
A painful look crossed his face as he nodded. "They were my sisters." Her heart heavy, she studied them closely.
Hunter gently touched the arm of the one with a scroll. His brow furrowed ever so slightly while he gazed up at the life-sized statue of a girl in her late teens. The blue toga like dress matched her eyes perfectly.
"Althea was the youngest of us," he said, his voice a full octave deeper. "She was quiet and bashful, and she had a quaint stutter when she got nervous. Gods, how she hated it, but I thought it was sweet. Diana"—he indicated the one with a lyre who was dressed in red—"was two years older than me and had the temperament of a shrew. My father said we were too much alike and that is why we could never get along. And Phaedra was a year younger than me and had the voice of an angel."
Amanda looked up at the young woman dressed in yellow. There was such delicate grace to his sisters. The sculptor had captured them as if they were in mid-movement. Even the folds of their clothes were realistic and dainty. She'd never seen such craftsmanship. They looked so real she half expected them to talk to her.
No wonder it hurt him so. "You loved them a lot."
He nodded.
"What happened to them?"
He moved away. "They married and had long, happy lives. Diana named her first son after me."
A tenuous smile curved her lips that the one who had fought most with him had done such a thing. It spoke a lot for their relationship. While she looked at the women, she remembered what he had said about Althea in the car. She had shorn off all her long, wavy blond hair when she learned her brother was gone. They must have loved him as much as he loved them.
"What did they think of your transition into a Dark-Hunter?"
He cleared his throat. "They never knew. To them, I was dead."
"Then how do you know so much about—"
"I could hear them while they lived. Feel them, the same way you can open your heart to Tabitha and tell when she's troubled."
She stiffened at his words. "How did you know about that?"
"I told you, I can feel your powers."
A shiver went down her spine and she wondered if she could hide anything from him.
"You are one scary man."
A strange light darkened his eyes. "I'm not a man. I gave up my humanity when I crossed over."
He said that, but she knew better. He might not have a soul, but the man had a good heart and was nothing if not humane. "Why did you agree to be a Dark-Hunter even though you never took your revenge against Theone?"
"It seemed like a good idea at the time."
With those few words something inside her melted. Perhaps it was the loneliness in his voice, the calm acceptance of his fate in his eyes. She didn't know exactly what it was, but she knew she couldn't just walk back into her old life and forget this man.
She'd seen too much of his goodness. Too much of his pain. And God help her, the more she learned about him the more she wanted him. Wanted him in a way that defied explanation. They'd barely met and yet there was something that bound them together.
Amanda looked up at those tormented eyes that studied her with hunger and heat. He was what her mother had called the "missing half." It was the term her mother used to describe her father. The term Selena used when she spoke of Bill.