"No," she said immediately. "The Simi don't share her room, akri. Ever. I don't care that she is my sister. My room has all my special mementos in there. I think you should make her one of her own."
Ash knew better than to argue with his demon. Not to mention the fact that it didn't bother him to humor her. He actually enjoyed spoiling her. "Okay. Where do you want it?"
"Kind of next to mine, but not so close that she blocks the view to my Travis Fimmel billboard that the Simi has on the great wall."
"Your what?" Xirena asked. "What's a Travis Fimmel?"
Simi's jaw dropped as she looked stunned. "You don't know about Travis Fimmel? Oh, sister, you are deprived. He the finest man alive."
Xirena shuddered. "You lust for men?"
"Well, I certainly don't lust for women."
"No," Xirena corrected, "I mean, you lust for humans?" The way she said that you could tell it was the most disgusting thing the demon could imagine.
"Well, don't you?" Simi asked.
"Ew!" Xirena looked at Ash. "What have you done to her? You have corrupted a good demon!" She looked back at Simi. "You need to see Drakus."
"Who that?"
"He the finest demon to ever live. He can breathe fire out his nose and mouth at the same time."
Simi's face beamed. "Ooo!"
Ash cringed as he saw where this was going. "Simi's too young for that."
"No she's not," they said in unison.
"I think you're outnumbered, boss."
Ash turned to see Alexion behind him. Danger was entering the room just behind him. Her eyes widened as she took in the opulence of the Atlantean throne room.
He sighed as Alexion stopped beside him. "Forget Armageddon, this is the scariest thing I've ever seen." Ash watched in horror as the two demons sat down and started comparing notes on "hot" men and male demons.
Alexion turned to Danger and smiled. "I think it's a good thing we have a woman in the house now. Maybe she can talk some sense into them."
Danger snorted. "The demons are your domain, not mine. I'm not even going there."
Ash actually whimpered as Xirena began telling Simi the correct mating habits of the Charontes. "This is going to get ugly. Thanks, Lex."
Alexion smiled as he pulled Danger in his arms and held her close. "No, boss, thank you."
Ash glanced at the two of them and saw the love that they had for each other.
It went a long way in soothing the part of him that hated to have strangers in his home.
And as he looked into Danger's future, he saw absolutely nothing. For the first time in his long life, he found it comforting.
It meant only one thing.
Danger would definitely be an integral part of their future lives.
Turn the page to see how it all began…
THE BEGINNING
A Dark Hunter Story
By
Sherrilyn Kenyon
Greece, 7382 BCE
Acheron felt a presence behind him. He spun around, staff ready to strike, expecting it to be another Daimon attacking him.
It wasn't.
Instead, he found Simi hanging upside down in a tree, her long, burgundy batlike wings folded in against her childlike body. She wore a loose black chiton and himation that rippled gently with the night's breeze. No doubt Simi was using her powers to keep them in place so that they wouldn't fall over her head and expose her body. Her bloodred eyes glowed eerily in the darkness while her long black braid dangled from her head down to the ground.
Acheron relaxed and set one end of his staff against the damp grass as he watched her.
"Where have you been, Simi?" he asked sharply. He'd been calling for the Charonte demon for the last half hour.
"Oh, just hanging about, akri," she said, smiling as she swung herself back and forth on the limb. Her eyes changed to a glowing yellow shade. "Did akri miss me?"
Acheron sighed wearily. He liked Simi a great deal, but he wished he had a mature demon as his companion—not one that even at three thousand years functioned on the level of a five-year-old child.
It would be centuries before Simi was fully grown.
"Did you deliver my message?" he asked.
"Yes, akri," she said, using the Atlantean term for "my lord and master." "I delivered it just as you said, akri."
The skin on the back of Acheron's neck crawled. There was something in her tone that concerned him. "What did you do, Sim?"
"The Simi did nothing, akri. But…"
He waited as she looked about nervously.
"But?" he prompted.
"The Simi was hungry on her way back."
He went cold with dread. "Who did you eat this time?"
"It wasn't a who, akri. It was something that had hornies on its head like me. There were a bunch of them actually. All of them had hornies and they made a strange moo-moo sound."
"Do you mean cows? You ate cattle?"
"That's it, akri. I ate cattle."
"That's not so bad."
"No," she said with the sweet innocence of a human child, "it was actually rather good, akri. Why didn't you tell the Simi about the cows? They are very tasty when roasted. The Simi liked them a lot."