The Squire snorted. "You hungry? You want something to eat or drink?"
Alexion sighed at the man's repetition. Keller tended to ask everything at least twice.
"No." Alexion looked about the dark yellow kitchen. There was a lot to be done and he needed Danger to return home so that he could begin this. Kyros was already following the usual game plan of the DarkHunters in the past. About a week ago, he'd started calling for DarkHunters to congregate in and around his Aberdeen, Mississippi, location so that he could convince them to his way of thinking.
It was a familiar cycle. Every few centuries a lot of DarkHunters would find love and go free from their service to Artemis. Inevitably, one of the older remaining DarkHunters would think he had figured out why and somehow Acheron always got blamed for tricking them. Jealousy and boredom were a lethal mixture that could cause the most bizarre delusions. Convinced of his reasoning, the DarkHunter would contact the others, trying to lead them to freedom too, which meant they would all turn on Acheron.
Alexion would be sent in to either save them or judge them Rogue and kill them.
In the beginning, while he was in a human body in this realm, he'd felt like a traitor to his own kind, and yet he understood why it was necessary. Order must be maintained at all costs. The DarkHunters had way too much power over humanity for them to start abusing it.
There were few beings in the universe who could battle a DarkHunter and live, and humans weren't one of them.
But this time… this time something was different. He could feel it deep inside him, and it wasn't just because Kyros was involved. There was something else here.
Something evil.
Keller was still talking, though to be honest, Alexion wasn't listening. His thoughts were on other things. He paused as he walked into the living room and saw an old painting above the mantel. It was a family portrait of an older man, a young woman, and two small children—a boy and an infant girl. Painted outdoors in what appeared to be a courtyard very similar to the one he'd seen beside this house, it was obvious the portrait was from the late eighteenth century.
It must have been Danger's human family.
Dangereuse had become a DarkHunter during the French Revolution. Her husband had betrayed her father and her father's noble children to the Committee. She had been trying to smuggle them out of Paris, to Germany, when they had all been captured. He shuddered at the fate that had befallen all of them.
"What are you going to do for clothes tomorrow?" Keller asked as he moved to stand in front of him. "You don't got none, do you?"
Arching a brow, Alexion looked down at the clothes on his body.
"I mean other clothes," Keller snapped. "Jeez. Don't be so literal."
Alexion met the Squire's gaze. Keller was an odd but likable man. For a nuisance. "They'll be delivered."
"By who? You got you a Squire or something? Now that'd be something, wouldn't it? A Squire for a Squire?"
One corner of Alexion's mouth quirked up as he thought of Simi, who constantly brought things to him because she thought he might want or need them. "I definitely have something."
Keller frowned at him. "Yeah, okay. If you'll follow me, I'll show you to a room upstairs where you can sleep. It's real nice. Acheron has used it a few times whenever he was here in the past, but it's been a while since we last saw him. Well, okay, I've never seen him here, personally, but I know from Danger that he's been here before. I think the last time was before I was born. Or maybe not. Sometimes I get Danger's stories mixed up. Do you ever do that with Acheron? I bet he has a lot of stories to tell, being that he's older than dirt. His house must be really cool, huh?"
Rolling his eyes, Alexion rubbed his thumb against his temple while Keller rambled on.
As they left the living room and headed toward the stairs, Alexion caught a faint trace of magnolias in the air. It was mixed with something else… something definitely feminine. It must be the Dark-Huntress's scent and his body reacted to it instantly.
He was hot and heavy with sudden need. At his home in Katoteros, there was no one to have sex with. Nothing but long lonely nights that left him edgy and hard. The only benefit to being sent in to judge was that he usually had a day or two to find himself a woman and ease the deep-seated ache.
You have much more pressing concerns than getting laid.
That was one theory anyway, but judging by the throbbing erection he had at the moment, he would definitely argue it.
"How long have you served Dangereuse?" he asked the Squire. It was unusual for a male to be Squired to a female. Usually the humans who made up the Squires' Council forbade a Squire to serve a DarkHunter if the Squire might be sexually attractive to the DarkHunter. Since DarkHunters and Squires were supposed to have a platonic relationship, the Council always tried to give the DarkHunter a Squire who was the opposite of what sexually attracted him or her.