Valerius looked up at the statue as Tabitha's words rang in his ears. As always Agrippina's face stared out into nothingness. Blank. Cold.
Unfeeling.
His chest ached from the harsh reality of the past and his own particular stupidity of trying to hang on to something good from his human life.
"Honestly, I didn't even know her," he said quietly. "I most likely never spoke more than a handful of words to her during her lifetime and yet if I could have had a woman to love me, I would have been grateful for it to have been her."
Tabitha was stunned by his confession. "I don't understand. Why do you take care of a statue of a woman you didn't know?"
"I'm pathetic." He gave a bitter laugh. "No, actually I'm too pathetic for even the average pathetic. I take care of her statue because I wasn't able to take care of her." His anger and pain reached out to her and seized her heart.
"What are you talking about?"
His entire body rigid, he stared off to the side of the room. "Do you want the truth of me, Tabitha? Really?"
"Yes, I do."
Folding his arms over his chest, he moved away from her so that he could stare out the dark windows of the room, into the elegant courtyard in back. "I was a genetic screw-up of titanic proportions and I've never understood why. I've spent my entire life trying to understand why I give a single shit about anyone when no one ever gave a damn about me."
His profanity shocked her. It wasn't like him to speak that way and that alone told her how volatile his mood was. "There's nothing wrong about caring for other people."
"Yes, there is. Why should I care? If I died right now, no one would miss me. Most of the people who know me would openly rejoice."
Her throat tightened at the truth of his statement and yet the thought of him dying...
It hurt to an unfathomable level. "I would care, Valerius."
He shook his head at her. "How could you? You barely know me. I'm not stupid. I've seen the people who are your friends. None of them look like me. None of them act or speak like me. All of you mock anyone you see who looks or acts like I do. Your kind hates us. You dismiss us. I'm rich and cultured, I come from a noble Roman family, therefore I must think myself above everyone else, so it's okay to be vicious and cold whenever I'm around. We have no feelings to hurt. How could a Roman nobleman give a single rat's ass for a slave? And yet two thousand years later, there she stands and here I am, a noble watchdog for a humble slave because she was afraid of the dark as a child, and I once made a promise to her that she wouldn't have to sleep in darkness."
His words touched her so deeply that it tightened her chest and almost succeeded in bringing tears to her eyes.
The mere fact that he'd kept his vow to a simple slave...
"Why was she afraid of the dark?"
A muscle worked in his jaw. "She'd been the daughter of a wealthy merchant in a town my father had destroyed. He'd brought her back to Rome intending to sell her at market when my grandmother saw her and thought she'd make a good companion. My father made her a gift to my grandmother, and Agrippina lived in terror all her life that someone else would come for her in the dark of night and destroy her world again."
His gaze turned haunted. "She found out the hard way that the light can never keep the real monsters away. They could care less who sees them."
Tabitha frowned. "I don't understand."
He turned to face her with a menacing glare. "Do you know what asterosum is?"
"No."
"It's an ancient drug that completely paralyzes your body, but leaves you completely able to see, hear, and feel. Roman physicians used it whenever they needed to amputate."
He winced as if something painful went through him. She felt the agony of it in her own chest.
Valerius wrapped his arms around himself as if that could protect him somehow from the horror of his past. "It was the drug my brothers gave me the night they came to my villa. I had just taken over the Celtic city of Angaracia. Instead of razing it to the ground and killing everyone as any other male in my family would have done, I negotiated a surrender with the Celts. I thought it would be better if their children didn't grow up to hate Rome and strive to avenge their people as so many had done before them." He laughed bitterly. "It was my fatal flaw."
"How could mercy be a flaw?" she asked, aghast.
And even as the words came out, she remembered the sight of his father. In Valerius's world, it would have been a crime.
Valerius cleared his throat. "Most of my assignments were in the outer provinces, fighting the Celts. I was the only Roman of my time who had ever been truly successful against them, mostly because I understood them. My brothers hated me for that. To them, the only way to conquer a people was to destroy them."
"So they thought to kill you?"
He nodded. "They came into my house and drugged me. I lay on the floor completely helpless as they destroyed everything around me. After they had ransacked my hall, they took me out into the back courtyard to kill me. It was there they discovered Agrippina's statue."
Tabitha looked up at the white marble face from his past. "Why did you have her statue there?"
"Like my grandmother, I thought she deserved to be saved. To be preserved. So, I commissioned the piece for my private garden not long after she came to live with me."
A vicious stab of unwarranted jealousy went through her. He might not have loved the woman, but he obviously felt deeply for her. Especially since he'd spent thousands of years keeping a promise to her.
"How did she end up with you?" she asked quietly.
He drew a deep, ragged breath. "My grandmother had summoned me home from the battlefield because she knew she was dying and she was afraid for Agrippina. She knew the temperament of her sons and grandsons, and Agrippina was a very beautiful and delicate woman who had grown to mean a lot to her. I was the only one who had ever come to call on her that she didn't have to keep from Agrippina's bed. So she asked me to take Agrippina into my house and to keep her safe from the others."
Tabitha's throat tightened at his kindness. "You fell in love with her?"
"I loved the idea of her, she was beauty incarnate. Soft and kind. Things that had never existed in my world before. Whenever I was home, I spent hours watching her from afar as she went about her duties. And I often wondered if someone so beautiful could ever love something as vile as me. Then I would castigate myself for wanting the love of a slave. I was a noble Roman general. What did I need with a slave's regard?"
Yet he had craved it. She knew that. She could feel it.
Valerius grew silent. If she didn't know better, she'd swear she saw tears in his eyes.
"They raped her in front of me and I couldn't help her."
"Oh, Val," she breathed.
He moved away from her as she sought to touch him. "I couldn't even close my eyes or turn my head. I lay there completely helpless as they took pleasure violating her. The more she screamed, the more they laughed, right up until the end when Markus ran her through with my sword." The words were torn from his throat as tears welled in his eyes.
"What good was I?" he asked between clenched teeth, his nostrils flared by impotent rage. "What good did I do her in the end? Had I never taken her into my home, they would have at least allowed her to live."
Tabitha choked on her own tears as he finally allowed her to pull him into her arms. She tried to blot out what must have happened after they killed Agrippina.
She'd seen the scars on his wrist and knew from him that they had crucified him. The horror that must have been that night! No wonder he didn't want to remember the past.
And she would never again ask him anything about it.
He was rigid for several seconds before he relaxed. Then he wrapped his arms tightly around her and held her close.
"What kind of man am I that every act of kindness I ever attempt ends up hurting the very people I seek to help?"
"You didn't hurt me or Marla or Gilbert."
"Yet," he breathed. "Agrippina lived in my home almost ten years before the Parcae hurt her."
"No one's going to hurt me, Valerius, trust me."
He brushed his hand lovingly over her scarred cheek. "You have so much fire inside you. It warms me every time you near me."
"Warms you? Most people are consumed by it. My ex used to say that I was completely exhausting to be around. He'd tell me that I wore him out and that he needed at least two to three days to recoup for every hour he spent with me."
He offered her a small smile. "I don't find you exhausting."
"And I don't find you pathetic."
That succeeded in bringing out a laugh from him. "What is it about you, Tabitha? I've only known you a few days and I feel as if I could tell you anything."
"I don't know, but I feel the same way about you." She reached up and pulled his head down so that she could kiss him.
Valerius moaned at the taste of her. At the feel of her. In her arms, he didn't feel pathetic or rigid. She allowed him to laugh and to feel joy again.
No, she allowed him to feel joy for the first time in his life. No one but Tabitha had ever reached out and embraced him.
She knew he was stodgy and she accepted it. Instead of turning him away, she poked gentle fun at him and then worked around it.
She didn't write him off.
In all of history, she alone had befriended him. And that made her the most precious woman on earth.
Tabitha pulled back. "How much time do we have before Otto gets here with food?"
He checked his watch. "Probably twenty to thirty minutes. Why?"
She smiled. 'That'll do."
Before he could ask her more, she pulled her shirt off and wrapped it around his neck, then crooked her finger for him to follow her.
"Come with me, General. I'm going to rock your world."
Little did she know, she'd done that the minute he'd first seen her fighting the Daimons, and she'd been doing it steadily ever since.
Stryker had finally managed to calm himself. At least on the outside.
Inside he was still seething.
Damn the Destroyer and her lies and damn Acheron Parthenopaeus for his honesty.
If it was the last thing he did, he would rid the world of both of them. But he had to move carefully.
Strategically.
If the Destroyer ever learned that he'd been the one to give Aima to Desiderius so that the Spathi could wound Acheron, his life would be meaningless. No, he'd have to move with great skill to defeat them both, and he would.
Eventually.
The air around him sizzled with a request from Desiderius for a bolt hole so that the Spathi could return from New Orleans to the realm of Kalosis, the Atlantean hell realm.
Here there was no light. It was perpetually dark and dismal. Up until the night he had slain his own son, that hadn't bothered him.
Now it did.
Stryker held his hand out and opened the portal.
Desiderius returned, still a bodiless mist.
Stryker curled his lip at the incompetent Daimon. There had been a time once when he'd held the Daimon in regard, but Desiderius's failure against a simple Dark-Hunter and his human paramour had left Stryker completely disgusted with the being.
If it wasn't for the fact that he didn't want to bring himself under the fire of the Destroyer, he wouldn't have even allowed Desiderius this one chance to return to corporeal form. But in exchange for Desiderius wounding Acheron, Stryker was willing to reincarnate the Daimon.
"I thought you were going to-"
"What am I up against?" Desiderius asked as his faceless, formless essence flickered in the dimly lit chamber.
"You know what you're up against."
"No," Desiderius said. "What was that substance you gave me that took down the Dark-Hunter leader?"
"It's of no concern to you. Your only concern is to bring me the child."
"I don't understand why."
Stryker laughed. "And you never will. Bring me the child or I will blast you into oblivion."
If he didn't know better, he'd swear the ghost actually sneered at him.
"I was blasted out of the bitch's body by Acheron. They are now guarded. I need another body."
Stryker paused as he heard Daimons shrieking from outside his hall. No doubt Apollymi's Charontes were still seeking the one who had stolen the Aima from her.
None of them would look to him for it. They wouldn't dare.
In truth, he was in no mood to play any longer. His mother, the Destroyer, had said to wait.
He was through waiting.
The day he had spilled his own son's blood to appease the Destroyer was the day he had started to notice some things.
And when his mother had bade him to bring her the little child of a former Dark-Hunter and a human sorceress, he had realized something. That child, known as Marissa Hunter, held in her hands the very balance of the universe.
Whoever possessed her, possessed the key to control the most primal, ancient power of all time.
She was the fate of the entire world.
The Destroyer sought to have the child for her own so that she would be in control.
Stryker bit back his bitter laughter. She would have Marissa over his own dead body. In the end, it would be he who controlled the Final Fate. Not Apollymi.
"Arod, Tiber, Sirus, Allegra!" he called.
The four Spathi commanders appeared before him. Three men and one woman. Stryker took a minute to scan their perfect, beautiful bodies. All four Daimons appeared physically to be no older than twenty-seven... just like him. And just like him, they had been around since time immemorial. Allegra was the youngest of their group, but even she was a staggering nine thousand years old.
Trained to kill and to take and possess human souls to live, his army had no equal.
It was time mankind met them.
"You called us, akri?" Tiber asked.
Stryker nodded. "Desiderius is in need of a body to do my bidding."
The four Daimons looked at each other nervously.
"Relax," Stryker said. "I'm not asking any of you to volunteer yourselves. Oh, no. Far from it. The four of you are to be his bodyguards."
"But, akri," Allegra said quietly, "he has no body to guard."
Stryker laughed maniacally. "Yes, he does." He splayed his hand out and an image appeared in the center of the room. Dressed all in black, the Dark-Hunter was walking alone on the streets of New Orleans.
"There's your body, Desiderius," he said. "And there's your ticket into the Hunter household. Now you bring me that baby or all of you will die... permanently."
As they started to shimmer out of the room, Stryker stopped them with one last order. "Acheron took from me the only thing I have ever loved. In memory of my son he stole from me, I command you to make the humans Acheron loves pay. I want to see blood flowing in the streets of New Orleans. Do you understand?"
Desiderius smiled wickedly. "Understood, akri. Definitely understood."
Valerius growled at how good Tabitha felt against him. Completely naked in his arms, she kissed him fiercely as her hand gently stroked his hard cock from tip to hilt.
His black shirt hung open. Unlike her, he was still mostly dressed.
"Otto is on his way," he said raggedly as she dipped her head down to suckle his hard nipple.
It was difficult to think straight while her hand massaged him so expertly.
"Then we better get down to business," she said with a laugh as she climbed up on his bed.
Valerius couldn't breathe at the sight of her naked on his black duvet.
He watched as she spread her legs open in invitation.
She hooked her ankles around his hips and pulled him forward.
He hissed as she reached between their bodies and lowered his pants enough so that she could slide herself onto him.
Arching her back, she drew him in deep as she moaned and writhed against him. Valerius leaned forward onto one arm as he stared down at her naked body moving underneath him. With both feet still on the floor, he thrust deep inside her warm, wet body.
"That's it, baby," she panted as she met him equally.
Valerius thrust harder as he let her touch soothe him. He cupped her breast with his hand, delighting in the soft, supple texture of it. His mouth watered for a taste of her.
Tabitha groaned as Valerius dipped his head down and took her breast into his mouth while he continued to thrust against her hips. She loved the way this man felt when he was inside her. The way he looked, primal and savage.
There was something seriously erotic about a man this controlled losing it all whenever he touched her. She liked the fact that he could drop his guard when they were alone.
That he didn't judge her.
Closing her eyes, she clutched his head to her as he moved even faster against her. There was nothing better than him pounding himself into her over and over again. Than his tongue working its magic on her breast.
Unable to stand it, she pulled his lips away from her breast so that she could kiss him. His eyes were dark with his passion, his face a bit flushed from their exertion.
She ground herself against him as she sank her hands into his long hair and nipped his lips with her teeth.
Valerius growled in his throat as Tabitha licked her way to his ear where her tongue swirled around his lobe and made chills spread all over his body.
It drove him past his control. He wanted to be even deeper inside her.
Pulling out of her, he rolled her over, onto her stomach and positioned her so that she was bent over the bed with her buttocks exposed.
"Val?"
He brushed the hair away from her neck as he drove himself back into her body. She cried out in pleasure as he buried himself all the way to the hilt.
Some inner, wild part of him roared to life. He cupped her breasts in his hands while the scent of their passion filled his head.
Tabitha couldn't breathe as Valerius took control. He left one hand cupping her breast while the other trailed down her body, past her belly ring to bury it between her legs.
"Oh, Val," she sobbed, aching from the pleasure of his touch. His fingers delved deep in her cleft as he stroked her in time to his thrusts.
Her head spun.
She'd never felt so strangely desirable. So needed.
"I love the way you smell, Tabitha," Valerius breathed in her ear.
She felt him brush his fangs against her throat. "Are you going to bite me, Val?"
She felt him hesitate as one fang hovered dangerously close to her jugular.
"I've never wanted to bite anyone before," he said raggedly.
"And now?"
He moved even faster against her. "I want to devour you."
Tabitha cried out as she came instantly.
Valerius clenched his teeth as he felt her shuddering. The foreign part of him still begged to taste her. It begged to possess her.
It was wild and frightening.
He nipped her throat, but forced himself not to break her skin. But it was hard.
It was damn near impossible.
And when he climaxed a minute later, he heard that alien part of himself roar in triumph.
He held her close until the last tremor shook him. Completely drained, he turned her around and then sank to his knees in front of her.
Tabitha was awed by the sight of the proud Roman warrior kneeling before her. He wrapped his arms around her waist and laid his head carefully against her stomach.
Gently, she ran her hands through his hair.
He pulled back to look up at her with a searching gaze that seared her. "I don't know why you're here, Tabitha, but I'm glad that you are."
She smiled down at him.
His gaze locked on hers, he nibbled the sensitive flesh of her stomach, just below her belly ring. Biting her lip, she moaned as he tongued the moon that dangled from her hoop, Then he licked in and around her navel, making her body burn even more.
And when he sank two fingers inside her, she thought she might actually collapse.
"You are so beautiful, Tabitha," he said, spreading her open so that he could stare at the most intimate part of her body.
She couldn't breathe as he took her into his mouth and used that incredible tongue to taste her intimately. She spread her legs even wider, to give him more access as he slid his tongue through the tender folds.
Tabitha stared down at him. He seemed to enjoy tasting her as much as she enjoyed being tasted.
And he took his time exploring her.
"Hey, Valerius?"
He jerked away at the sound of Otto in the hallway. Still he left one finger inside her that continued to pleasure and probe her.
Rising slowly to his feet, he slid another finger into her body. "What have you done to me, Tabitha?" he breamed raggedly in her ear. "Otto's in the hallway and all I can think of is being inside you again. Of licking you until I can taste your climax."
His unexpected comment made her moan deep in her throat at the thought of what he described. "Get rid of Otto and I'm yours for the night."
He kissed her passionately, then squeezed her butt in his hands. "Stay naked. I want to eat my dinner off you."
Tabitha bit her lip as a shudder went through her. "You got it."
Valerius pulled away and quickly buttoned his shirt and fastened his pants. He cast one hot, promising look at her before he slipped out of the bedroom and left her alone.
Tabitha pulled down his bedcovers and slid herself between the dark silk sheets that held his spicy mascuhne scent.
Wrapping her arms around his pillow, she inhaled deeply.
"What am I doing?" she asked herself. She was literally sleeping with the enemy and she was enjoying it way too much.
Worse, she didn't want to leave.
Ever.
"My gift in life," she said under her breath. She seemed to be forever drawn to the men she could never have.
She should leave here and go bunk with Amanda and Kyrian, but she couldn't bring herself to leave Valerius. What would he do without her?
More importantly, what would she do without him?
