But it could never be.
All too soon, he would return to what he'd been.
And she wouldn't even know that she'd ever met him. He wouldn't even be a faint memory of a dream. All knowledge of the time they were together would be removed from her mind.
But he would remember, and he would miss her always. Strange how that had never happened before. He thought of the DarkHunter men he'd spent time with in the past while he judged the others, but there was no regret in not keeping in touch with them.
He'd only just met Danger and already he knew he'd miss her.
How peculiar.
He watched as she handled the car with total precision. For the first time ever, he found himself completely curious about her.
What did she like? What did she hate?
Normally, he asked no personal questions of anyone. After living so long with Acheron, he knew the futility of it. Not to mention, he didn't like getting to know someone he'd have to leave and never see again.
Don't get personal. It would be a mistake of grand proportions.
Still he couldn't listen. "Do you like being a DarkHunter?" he asked her before he could stop himself.
Her answer was automatic. "Most days."
"And on the others?" Stop it. But that was easier thought than done. He really did want to know what she thought about everything.
She gave him a winsome smile that made his groin jerk in reaction. She was truly lovely and it wasn't just her looks. There was something infectious about her. It drew him in, making him want something he knew he couldn't have.
"Like with any life," she said, "some days are wonderful and some stink. It gets really lonely late at night when there's really no one around. Sometimes you wonder if you made the right choice. If maybe you reacted in anger too soon and made a pact you shouldn't have. I don't know. I wasn't completely dead long enough to remember it or to know if death would be preferable to this life, so maybe I did choose rightly."
She glanced at him. "So, Mr. All-Knowledge, you want to clue me in on what the alternative is like? Do you remember being dead?"
He thought it over. "Yeah, I do. When you're not a Shade, it's peaceful. I always thought as a mortal man that I'd spend eternity in the Elysian Fields with my family gathered around me."
"So what made you go with Artemis instead?"
The old pain lanced through him. It was weird that after so many centuries it would still hurt to remember the wife he'd once loved so much and the callous way she'd allowed him to die. But as Acheron so often said, there were some wounds that not even time could heal. Humans learned from their pain. It was a necessary evil for growth.
Yeah, right. He sometimes wondered if Acheron was a sadist or masochist. But he knew better. Acheron understood pain in a way very few did. Like Alexion, he lived with it constantly and if he could he'd banish it forever.
He looked at Danger, and watched as the streetlights illuminated her fragile face. With the exception of Kyros, Brax, and Acheron, no one knew much more about him than his name. He was a vague legend who was held up as the first of their crew to become a Shade.
He was essentially their bogeyman. An example of what happened if the wrong person tried to restore their soul back into their body. But that was the extent of what they'd been told.
They knew nothing about the shame of his trust in his wife, or the fact she'd had a lover. They knew nothing about the fact that he'd been a blind, trusting fool.
Kyros and Brax had held their silence on the matter all these centuries. It was one of the reasons why Alexion had wanted to come back and save Kyros if he could.
Even in death, the man had been his friend.
Alexion took a deep breath before he spoke. "The first time I died, I was murdered," he said simply. "Like you, betrayed by someone I trusted."
Her brow wrinkled in sympathetic pain. "Who killed you?"
"My wife's lover."
She grimaced. "Ouch."
"Yeah."
"And then your wife dropped the medallion instead of freeing your soul," she said, her voice filled with anger. "I can't believe she'd do that to you."
Alexion appreciated her rage on his behalf. "Hell of a way to find out that the children you thought were yours weren't."
To his amazement, she reached over and placed her hand soothingly against his. The unexpected kindness of that single action sent chills over him. It meant a lot to him that she treated him like a normal man when they both knew he wasn't. "I'm really sorry."
He covered her hand with his other one and gave a light squeeze. The delicate bones under her skin belied the strength he knew she carried within her.
"Thanks. I'm sorry your husband was a dirtbag."