Stygian (Dark-Hunter #27)

March 12, 2004

Phoebe was in tears. She’d been trying to be strong and hide them, but this silence was shredding her.

Closing the door to her apartment, she felt someone standing right behind her.

“What’s wrong, agapi mou? Did the Muppet offend you? I’ll rip out his tongue if he did.”

Her breath left her with a rush as she recognized Urian’s thick accent and then realized that he’d already lit candles for them all around her room. Turning, she threw herself against him and rained kisses all over his face and neck. “I thought you were dead!”

He tsked at her. “You know me better than that. I just had to wait for it to calm a little.”

She was already peeling his clothes off his body.

Laughing, he helped her with his powers. “Take it you’re hungry?”

“Starving, and not just for blood and soul. Se hriazome!”

Urian’s eyes widened as she said “I need you” in Greek. In all this time, she’d only picked up a word here or there. Never had she ever said a whole phrase before. “You must have missed me.”

“More than you can imagine.” She sank her fangs into his neck and sent him reeling.

Urian barely made it to the couch with her. She was absolutely wild tonight. So much so that she immediately slid herself onto him and took control with wanton abandon.

She ravaged his neck and tore at his arms and chest with her nails as she rode him with fury. There was a strange kind of pleasure with the pain, while his head spun from her insistent hunger. Her emotions overrode his until he lost himself completely.

He lost all sense of time as her body milked his and all he felt was Phoebe. He didn’t care about anything or anyone else. His life began and ended with her.

Suddenly, the door slid open.

Phoebe jerked up, clutching at Urian, who was too weak to even turn his head to see who was there.

The door closed again.

Panting and weak, Urian tried to focus his gaze. “Who was that?”

“My sister,” she hissed, climbing off him to rush to the bathroom.

Urian attempted to get up and go after her, but he fell back onto the sofa. “I’m going to wait here.”

If Phoebe heard, she didn’t pause or say anything. She merely ran out of the apartment to catch up to her sister.

After a few seconds she came back in and sat down primly by his side.

“You okay?”

“That was embarrassing.”

“Let me guess? Your sister and Muppet had a little PMS meltdown over what they saw?”

“I call him Sasquatch, but yes. Yes, they did.”

He laughed. “Remind me later to kill him … and I won’t be calling him Sasquatch.”

“Why? I think it’s quite fitting.”

Urian scoffed. “Not really. That implies he’s intimidating and scary. Trust me, he’s not.”

“Maybe not to your hulking, almost-seven-foot-tall ass he isn’t, but from my vantage point, he’s terrifying.”

He snorted. “Trust me, don’t feed Muppet’s ego. If it gets any bigger, we’re going to have to put in for a larger apartment for them. I think it’s why his mansion was so big. They needed it just to house his inflated self-image.”

Phoebe laughed. Until they heard a loud commotion from outside.

“Ah shit…” Urian used his powers to summon clothes. Without being told, he knew Wulf had pissed off the natives and trouble was brewing. Because that out there was the sound of hell’s wrath, and only a Dark-Hunter in the middle of an Apollite commune could cause that much ruckus.

Teleporting into the middle of it, Urian took one second to get the lay of the drama before he grabbed Wulf and inserted himself between the Dark-Hunter and the Apollite who wanted his head. Still weak from Phoebe’s feeding, he kept one hand on each of them to make sure they kept a safe distance from each other.

“Enough!” Urian roared at the two of them.

Wulf frowned at him. “Are you all right?”

Not really. He felt rather queasy and he definitely didn’t need this shit.

Urian released both men. The Apollite was taken off by some of Shanus’s watchmen, but he cast a parting malevolent glare at them.

Grateful it was over, he wiped a hand over his sweat-covered brow. “You need to stay out of sight, Dark-Hunter.”

“You really don’t look good. Do you need something?”

Urian shook his head to clear it. “I just need to rest for a while.” He curled his lip at Wulf. “Can you stay out of trouble long enough for that?”

“Uri?” Phoebe came up behind him and placed her hand on his forehead. “Did I take too much, baby?”

Wanting to reassure her, Urian pulled her against his side and kissed her cheek. “No, love. I’m just tired. I’ll be fine.”

He pulled away and had just started back for their apartment when his legs buckled.

“Bullshit!”

Much to Urian’s absolute horror, the Muppet came up and slung his arm over his shoulder to help him back to Wulf’s apartment.

“What are you doing?” Urian asked angrily.

“I’m taking you to Kat before you pass out.”

Urian hissed at the very thought of being with her. “Why? She hates me.” Artemis’s handmaiden was more likely to gut him than help him.

“So do I, but we both owe you.”

Chris and Kat sat on the floor playing cards when they entered.

Kat shot to her feet as soon as she saw Urian’s condition. “Oh jeez, what happened?”

Phoebe rushed in behind them. “I think I took too much blood from him.”

Wulf laid Urian down on the couch. “Can you help him, Kat?”

Kat pushed Wulf out of the way. She held up two fingers in front of Urian’s face. “How many fingers do you see?”

“Six.”

She popped him on the side. “Stop that. This is serious.”

Urian widened his eyes and tried to focus his gaze on her hand. “Three … I think.”

Kat shook her head. “We’ll be back.”

Cassandra watched in awe as Kat flashed them out of the room.

“Now why didn’t she do that when we were being chased by Stryker?” Chris asked.

Phoebe scoffed at the clueless human. “She’s taking him to Kalosis, Chris. I doubt any of you want to go into a realm ruled by nothing but Spathi Daimons and one really pissed-off ancient goddess who is bent on destroying the entire world.”

He nodded like a clucking chicken. “You know, I really like it here. Not to mention, I can now look at Kat’s hand.” He picked up her cards and cursed. “I should have known she wasn’t bluffing.”

Her face turning bright pink, Cassandra moved closer to her. “I’m so sorry I interrupted you two.”

“Please don’t be. I mean, don’t make it a habit, mind you, but if you hadn’t come in, I might have killed him. He has a bad tendency to not tell me when I’ve taken too much blood. It scares me sometimes.” Actually, it scared her a lot, as she wondered if Urian didn’t have a death wish.

There was something about him. A darkness inside that she’d catch a glimpse of from time to time that never quite went away. Whenever she asked about it, he’d tell her that she was imagining things. But she knew what she saw.

He’d lived a long time and lost a lot of people he cared about. That kind of tragedy left its mark.

Whether he owned up to it or not, her husband was very shattered.

Wulf crossed his arms over his chest. “So Daimons can die from blood loss?”

Phoebe gave him an arched stare. “Are you planning on using that against us?”

Wulf shook his head. “I’d rather die myself than suck on another man’s neck. That’s disgusting. Besides, didn’t you tell me that’s how Apollites can be changed to Daimons? It begs the question of whether a Dark-Hunter could be made a Daimon, too.”

“Yeah, but DH blood is poisonous to them.” Chris shuffled the deck of cards. “Isn’t the point of that so that no Daimon can feed off or convert you guys?”

“Perhaps…” Phoebe watched Chris cut the deck again. “But then disembodied souls can possess a Dark-Hunter and since Uri and I share souls, it makes you wonder if perhaps a Daimon and Dark-Hunter could share one too.”

“Let’s hope we never find that one out.” Wulf moved to sit on the couch in front of Chris.