Page 19 of Dance With the Devil (Dark-Hunter 3)
"Zarek?" Her voice was full of uncertainty.
"You feel like ice," he growled, then left her. He had to get away from her and the strange feelings she stirred inside him. He didn't want to be around her.
He didn't want to be tamed.
Every time he had allowed himself to be tied to another human, he'd been betrayed.
By everyone.
Even Jess, who had seemed safe because he lived so far away.
An echo pain stabbed his back.
Apparently Jess hadn't lived far enough away.
Zarek glanced out the kitchen window where the snow continued to fall. Sooner or later, Astrid would sleep and then he would leave.
Then she couldn't stop him.
Astrid started to go after Zarek, but stopped herself. She wanted to see what he would do. What he intended.
Sasha, what is he doing?
She held herself still and used Sasha's sight. Zarek was unbuttoning his coat. Her breath caught at the sight of his bare chest. Every muscle on his body rippled as he removed the coat and draped it over the back of her ladder-back chair.
The man was simply gorgeous. His tawny, bare back and wide shoulders inviting. Delectable.
But what stunned her was his right arm and shoulder, which were a total mess from Sasha's attack.
Astrid gasped at the sight of what her companion had done. Zarek on the other hand didn't seem to be the least bit bothered by his vicious wounds. He went about his business as if nothing had happened.
"Do I have to look at this?" Sasha whined in her head. "I'm going to go blind looking at a naked man."
"You're not going to go blind and he's not naked." Unfortunately.
Astrid was a bit taken aback by that uncharacteristic thought. She'd never ogled a man before, but she found herself transfixed by Zarek.
"Yes I am, and yes he is. Naked enough to make me lose my lunch anyway." Sasha started out of the kitchen.
"Sasha, stay."
"I'm not a dog, Astrid, and I don't care for that commanding tone. I stay with you by my choice, not by yours."
"I know, Sasha. I'm sorry. Please, stay for me." Growling in a manner very reminiscent of Zarek, Sasha loped back into the kitchen and sat down to watch him.
Zarek paid no attention to Sasha while he moved about the kitchen looking for something.
She frowned at him pulling out a small pan. As he moved toward her fridge, her breath caught at the sight of a stylized dragon tattooed onto the small of his back. And right above it was the fierce-looking wound where someone had shot him.
She cringed in unexpected sympathy. For the first time in a long while she actually felt sorry for someone. It looked vicious and painful.
Zarek moved as if he barely noticed it.
He went to the fridge and pulled out her milk and the big Hershey candy bar she'd bought on impulse. He poured the milk into the saucepan and then added pieces of the chocolate to it.
How strange. He'd bit her head off and intimidated her, then tended her, and now he was making hot chocolate.
"It's not for you," Sasha said to her.
"Hush, Sasha."
"It's not. Wanna bet he tries to poison me with the chocolate?"
"Well, then don't eat it."
Zarek turned around and leveled a sinister sneer at Sasha. "Here, Lassie, want to go find Timmy in the well? C'mon, girl, I'll even open the door for you and toss you a biscuit."
"Here psycho-Hunter, wanna find my teeth in your-"
"Sasha!"
"I can't help it. He bothers me. A lot."
Zarek looked over at the water and food bowls that Astrid had placed on a small tray that was about four inches off the floor for Sasha.
Sasha bared his teeth. "Not my food, man. You contaminate it and so help me I will bite the shit out of you."
"Sasha, please."
Zarek approached the stainless steel bowls.
"I told you, Astrid, the bastard is going to poison me. He's going to spit in my water or do something worse to it."
Zarek did the most unexpected thing of all. He bent down, picked up the almost empty water bowl, washed it out in the sink and refilled it with water, then carefully returned it to the tray.
Astrid wasn't sure which of them was the most shocked by his actions. Her or Sasha.
Sasha moved to his bowl and sniffed it suspiciously.
Zarek returned to the sink to wash his hands. Once the chocolate milk was warmed up, he poured it into a mug and brought it to her.
"Here," he said, his voice ringing with its usual rude, hostile note. He took her hand and led it to the cup.
"What is it?" she asked.
"Arsenic and vomit."
She screwed her face up in disgust at the thought. "Really? And yet you managed to hack that up so quietly. Who knew? Thanks. I've never had vomit before. I'm sure it's extra special."
Well, so much for thinking Zarek had a kinder, gentler side.
"Drink it or don't," he growled. "I don't care."
She heard him leave the room again.
Astrid held the cup. Even though she had watched him make it through Sasha's eyes and knew he hadn't done anything to contaminate it, she was still reluctant to taste it after his off-putting comment.
"He's watching you," Sasha told her.
She cocked her head very slowly. "How so?"
"Like he's daring you to taste it."
Astrid held her breath, debating what to do. Was it a test of his own? Was he asking her to trust him?
Taking a deep breath, she drank the chocolate, which was a perfect temperature and very tasty.
Zarek was amazed at her bravery. So, she had called his bluff and trusted him. He would never have drunk anything a stranger handed him and it surprised him that she had.
He felt a grudging respect for her. The woman had a lot of guts, he'd give her that.
But at the end of the day, guts didn't account for much, and all they would do is get her killed if Thanatos found them before he had a chance to leave.
His gaze turned dull as he remembered the demon or Daimon or whatever he was who had been sent to kill him.
All this time, the Dark-Hunters had assumed Acheron was the bloodhound Artemis used to track and kill rogue Dark-Hunters.
All the men who knew the truth were now roaming the earth as Shades. Soulless, bodiless entities who could feel hunger and thirst and yet were never allowed to sate it.
They could feel and sense the world, but no one could feel or sense them.
He understood that existence. For the twenty-six years he had lived as a mortal human, he'd been one himself.
Only then, a world that didn't know he existed would have been preferable. Because when people had realized he was around, they had gone out of their way to increase his pain.
