"What are you?" she breathed.
He gave her a dry, almost bored stare. "Well, had you listened before you stabbed me, you would have heard the 'I'm Acheron's Squire' part. Apparently that somehow escaped your hearing and you mistook me for a pin cushion."
He was certainly a snotty bastard. Not that she didn't deserve a degree of snottiness seeing how she'd just tried to kill him. Still, he could be a little more understanding, especially since, if Stryker and Kyros were to be believed, he'd been sent here to kill her.
"He has some really sweet talents, Danger," Keller said from the couch. "He made all the Daimons explode without touching them, but he won't tell me how he did it."
Danger took her dagger from Alexion's hand, then, without thought, touched the ragged tear in his black turtleneck. He felt solid underneath. Real. There was cold skin beneath the silk and wool fabric and it was hard and masculine.
Yet human beings didn't shatter like Daimons and no Daimon reappeared after death…
In that moment, she was terrified of him and terror wasn't something Danger St. Richard felt. Ever.
Alexion ground his teeth at the sensation of her soft fingers on his flesh. His body roared to life as he watched her examine him like a scientist with a lab experiment that had gone tragically wrong. She was very short for a DarkHunter which meant Artemis must have taken an unusual liking for the woman. The goddess preferred to create DarkHunters who were equal in height to the Daimons they fought.
No more than five two or three, Dangereuse was petite and athletic. He'd seen her many times lately in the sfora as he kept watch on what the Mississippi DarkHunters were up to.
There had been something about her that caught his interest. An innocence that still seemed to be inside her. Most DarkHunters were jaded by their human betrayals and deaths, and by their duties. But this one… She appeared to have avoided the cynicism that eternal life often brought.
Of course, she was young by DarkHunter years.
Still, it would be a shame to see her lose that inner glow that continued to allow her to enjoy her immortality. How he wished he could feel it too. But too much time and lack of hope had long robbed him of it.
Her dark, chestnut-colored hair was worn in a long braid, hanging down her back, but pieces of it had escaped to curl becomingly around her pale face. Her features were angelic and delicate. If not for her carriage and self-assuredness, she would have appeared fragile.
And yet there was nothing fragile about her. Dangereuse could more than take care of herself and well he knew it. As one of the newer DarkHunters, she was only a couple of hundred years old and had died while trying to save the noble half of her family from the guillotine in France during their revolution. It had been a monumental task she had set for herself, and had she not been betrayed, she would have succeeded.
Not to mention that the woman had the most kissable mouth he'd ever seen. Full and lush, her lips were the kind that a man dreamed of tasting at night. That mouth beckoned him now with temptation and the promise of pure unadulterated heaven.
She also smelled of sweet magnolias and woman.
It had been over two hundred years since he'd last had the pleasure of a woman's body. And it was all he could do not to bend his head and bury his face against her soft, tender neck and inhale the scent of her. Feel the softness of her skin against his hungry lips as he tasted the supple flesh there.
Oh, to have her lithe body pressed up against his, preferably while they were both naked…
But then—given her first reaction to his presence—he didn't think she'd react much better to being mauled by him.
Pity.
Danger swallowed in sudden trepidation as she looked at the man before her. He was just as Stryker had foretold… right down to the white cashmere coat.
It's all true. All of it.
He was Acheron's personal destroyer who had come to kill them for questioning Acheron's authority. She felt the sudden need to cross herself, but caught herself just in time. The last thing she needed to do was to let him know she feared him.
Her extremely superstitious and Catholic mother had always told her as a child that the devil wore the face of an angel. In this case, it was most certainly true. The man before her was without a doubt one of the choicest examples of his gender. His dark blond hair held golden highlights and brushed the top of his collar. He wore it in a casual style that was swept back from a perfectly masculine face. His well-sculpted cheeks were covered with two days' growth of whiskers that added a savage, fierce look to him.
Like hers, his eyes were the midnight-black of a DarkHunter and yet she sensed that he wasn't one of them. For one thing, he didn't drain her DarkHunter abilities.