by J. S. Scott
“Demon,” he growled murderously, wrapping his large hand around her neck.
My eyes! Hunter is only looking at my eyes.
As Athena struggled to speak through Hunter’s stranglehold on her throat, she realized he was seeing her eyes flash bright red because she was annoyed and angry about being attacked, mistaking her for some type of demon.
When she’d created the Sentinels, it had been necessary for her to take a small part of the Evil’s essence into her soul to make a Sentinel that could actually combat the disgusting creatures. Because of Hunter’s sensitivity to Evils, he could see that flash of red in her eyes; could sense the tiny portion of an Evil in her soul.
Kristoff was a demigod and he never saw her as anything other than what she really was: a goddess. However, any other magical entity or human would see the occasional flash of crimson in her irises when she was emotional, and Hunter could obviously sense the tiny fraction of demon in her soul.
“I’m…not…demon,” Athena gasped, trying to loosen Hunter’s grip before she used the precious amount of magic she still possessed. Good Lord…how was Hunter even managing to grasp her neck? His grip was brutal, his eyes furious and determined. He wanted her dead.
“Liar. Demon,” he rumbled, his only intent obviously to see her die, watch any sort of light leave her eyes.
Not happening, big guy. I didn’t summon you here so you could hurt me.
Hunter only had the use of one arm, the other completely mangled and broken. Still, he was strong, and Athena admired his tenacious power even as she struggled to pry his fingers from her neck with both hands.
Kill. Kill. Kill!
She startled as she heard Hunter’s voice in her head, not completely sure at first if she was hallucinating. She continued to try to remove his grip from her body as she stared at him, stunned. He couldn’t kill her, but the death manacle he had on her throat was starting to become uncomfortable, making it difficult to talk, and she could definitely be injured. She couldn’t afford for that to happen. She needed every bit of power she had left right now.
“Get. Off.” Athena glared back at Hunter, his heavy body imprisoning her, and their eyes clashing in a battle of wills.
Voices whispered in her head: some Hunter’s thoughts, and others the voices of oracles. Athena listened as she kept eye contact with Hunter, her hands loosening as she realized exactly what was happening.
Oh. Crap.
Athena shook her head in denial of the information being relayed to her as Hunter tightened his grasp.
It can’t be true.
Yet, deep in her soul, Athena already knew that every bit of the information that had been revealed to her was correct and very, very real.
“Demon,” Hunter repeated, but he was starting to look confused, and he shook his head slightly, spraying blood across the foyer.
He knows. He can sense it.
Athena knew she could never explain aloud while Hunter still had her in his grasp. Gathering her thoughts, she began to speak to him telepathically through a pathway that hadn’t existed moments ago.
Hunter, if I was really a demon…which I’m not…you can’t kill me by asphyxiation. I’m not your enemy. I’m not a demon. I’m the creator of the Sentinels, the goddess Athena. Please stop. I don’t want to hurt you. I want to help you. Kristoff wouldn’t have sent you here if I was a danger to you. You don’t have to trust me. Trust Kristoff.
His mangled face and eyes formed into what Athena could only assume was a scowl, and visions of his journey to her flashed through her mind.
Blood.
Pain.
Anger.
Battles.
More pain.
He’d been brutally attacked by her guardians as he’d made his way to her, his skin torn from his body piece by piece, fighting foes that were designed to protect her. Too late, she realized that even though he had been destined and commanded to come to her, her protective wards had challenged him every inch of the way.
“Oh, God. I’m sorry,” she choked out, tears filling her eyes as she saw vision after vision of Hunter being tortured and hurt to get to her as Kristoff had requested. Her warding hadn’t allowed him through easily, even though she had wanted him here. Unlike her days as a goddess, her will didn’t make the wards stand down for someone she wanted in her mansion. Maybe because she had little of the power she’d had when she’d put them in place after being sent here. She’d had the power back for the ward to sense her wishes. Now…they apparently didn’t.
You’re no damn goddess. What. Are. You? Athena heard Hunter’s voice clearly in her mind.
She replied instantly, feeling Hunter’s death grip on her neck begin to loosen. I am the goddess Athena, the creator of the Sentinels.
He replied telepathically, his tone still angry as his hand completely let go of her and simply rested on her chest. Why am I here?
Athena swallowed hard, and gently pushed his now unresisting body from hers, trying to move him gently to his back before replying. Because I can help you.
She sat up carefully, her white gown now completely saturated with blood. Kneeling beside his battered form, Athena couldn’t help but stare as she lowered her head and started looking at his injuries. They were massive and numerous, and she wasn’t certain exactly which one of the many bleeding parts of his body to start checking.
Hunter reached out and clasped her wrist tightly as she reached out to tear off what was left of his t-shirt. His eyes bored into her as he communicated soundlessly. I don’t need help. Even if I did, nobody can help me. I am what I am…a bastard beyond redemption. I live to kill. I always have.
Athena shook off his hold, and Hunter let her. What he said wasn’t necessarily true. Hunter was what he was for a reason…and none of it was his fault. He was simply a victim of fate. “I can help you and I will. The future of the Earth depends on it,” Athena told him calmly as she tore off the remnants of his garments with her bare hands. She may not have a lot of magic, but she was still a goddess, and she was elementally much physically stronger than a human. She flinched as she noticed she was causing Hunter even more pain, but she needed to get to his injuries.
“Why?” Hunter choked out, his eyes beginning to flutter closed.
“You need to survive if there is any future for my Sentinels.” She hesitated before adding, “And because I’m your radiant, Hunter,” she admitted, keeping her eyes focused on his.
“Fuck. No,” he groaned, a bewildered expression drifting through his eyes.
Athena wasn’t certain whether to be offended or amused as she started to tend to Hunter’s injuries. She was just as dumbfounded as he was, but nevertheless, they were mates. “I’m afraid so. It’s not like I’m exactly thrilled either, you know. You’re not exactly a great catch, and you have an attitude problem.” A little indignant about the look of disgust in his eyes, Athena probed at him a little less gently.
“Just kill me,” Hunter grunted as his eyes closed.
Athena glowered at him as she continued to do the best she could with his injuries. She closed her mouth, which had been open and ready to snap an angry retort at him, but it was too late. Hunter wouldn’t hear her.
Her fated mate-from-Hell was out cold.
Hunter swallowed a groan as he opened his eyes, his vision foggy and his recollection all screwed up. His head was pounding, and every inch of his body felt like it really had been eaten away by the flesh-eating creatures he remembered from what had to be a very bad dream. “Damn nightmares,” he grumbled as he tried to clear his vision. He’d had nightmares for decades, but most of them revolved around the death of his father, mother, and brothers. He didn’t usually dream about homicidal feathered, flying animals with enormous, razor-sharp teeth.
“You’re awake,” a feminine voice observed right beside Hunter’s head.
Even as hi
s vision cleared, Hunter stuck to his denial. Any other action would be unthinkable.
She’s not real. I don’t have a mate. Everything I remember was just a really fucked-up dream.
He slammed his eyes closed again, pretending he’d never heard the female voice.
“I’m not going away,” the woman said rationally, tenaciously. “You’re not dreaming, but I’m more than a little insulted that you see being mated to me as a fate worse than death. If anyone should be appalled, it’s me,” she informed him matter-of-factly, but there was a tremor of hurt buried in her dry tone.
Hunter opened his eyes and turned his head painfully. “Shit. You are real. Everything I remember actually happened.” Hunter knew he was screwed in more ways than he could count as he looked up at the self-proclaimed goddess, her back propped against the headboard, her arms crossed, and her brow wrinkled irritably as she stared at him without blinking.
At least her eyes are blue and not demon red like I remember.
Hunter grudgingly admitted to himself that the woman sitting next to him was beautiful. She had the lightest blonde tumble of hair he’d ever seen now that she wore it unbraided, and her face was angelic…all except for the frown she was shooting at him and the glacial expression in a pair of piercing blue eyes. He broke their uncomfortable gaze and focused on the rest of her. She looked perfectly comfortable in the blue t-shirt and jeans she was wearing. His eyes moved over the denim encasing a pair of legs that looked like they were never-ending, the limbs stretching out in front of her and crossed at the ankles. Her toenails were painted a deep red with tiny silver swords decorating the nail polish on her big toes. Overall, the woman was perfection, and Hunter hated that.
“Don’t you wear a bra, woman?” he growled, his stare going back to her chest. Her arms were crossed over her breasts, but he could see what was probably a perfect nipple peeking through the blue cotton of her shirt as her arms shifted positions. For some reason, he didn’t like the fact that anyone—anyone but him, of course—could see any part of those ample breasts.
She shook her head adamantly. “Torture devices,” she mumbled unhappily. “I’ve never understood why women in this century wear them. I tried one on after I saw the commercials. They cut into my skin. It’s an unnecessary garment if you ask me.” Athena lowered her arms to her side. “My breasts aren’t big enough to need support,” she added unhappily.
Hunter’s breath caught painfully as he stared up at the perfect orbs, her distended nipples showing clearly now through the fabric of her lightweight t-shirt. They were a perfect handful, and that was enough for him. “They wear them to be decently covered,” he argued hoarsely.
“I am decent,” she answered with a scowl.
She was flawless as far as Hunter was concerned, his ideal: from her flowing blonde curls to her polished toes. Athena was curvy in all the right places, and the combination of innocence and strength attracted him more than he wanted to admit.
Mine.
His body was clamoring to possess her, while his brain was telling him that this was all a big mistake. He wanted to keep denying that she belonged to him, but his primal instincts wouldn’t allow him to do that.
Ripping his hungry stare from Athena, Hunter flinched as he tried to sit up. He felt vulnerable in his current position.
“Don’t,” Athena warned him as she put a light but persistent hand on his shoulder. “You aren’t completely healed.”
He ignored her and forced himself into an upright position, using the arm that was already healed to heft himself against the headboard beside her. He wasn’t completely mended, but he was a hell of a lot better than he’d been when he’d arrived. “How long have I been out?”
Athena shrugged and let her hand drop from his shoulder. “You got here the day before yesterday.”
He looked at the window and noticed that the sun was slowly setting. “I should be healed by now.” He put a hand to his throat, feeling the deep wounds on his neck that weren’t quite repaired yet.
“The damage was severe, and things are a little different in this dimension,” Athena explained calmly. “You’re doing well.”
“If your attack birds had their way, I’d be headless and dead by now.” There had been more than just the birds that had seemed determined to eat away his flesh, and every murderous foe in Athena’s forest had been focused on taking his head off.
“I’m sorry,” she murmured softly. “I didn’t realize that my wards would keep working if I actually commanded you to be here. I’ve never actually wanted somebody here except Kristoff. And I’ve never summoned one of my Sentinels.”
Hunter experienced her sorrow as if it were his own. He could hear her sincere, apologetic thoughts now that he was listening, and he didn’t like her blaming herself. “It doesn’t matter. I lived,” he rasped, trying to actually mask his pain from her.
Hunter watched as she wrung her hands on her lap nervously. “It matters. I’m your radiant. I’m supposed to watch your back. Of course, I didn’t actually know I was your mate until I saw you,” she said distractedly.
Opening his mind to her thoughts, Hunter was bombarded with thousands of years of information to process all at once. Athena had always been strong and confident of her powers as a goddess. She’d never shied away from what she had to do once the Evils were out of control. Sacrificing her own existence to create and lead the Sentinels had never even fazed her. But thousands of years of isolation had drained her strength, and her power wasn’t what it used to be. “You’re weakened by the change in the balance of power,” Hunter said, her images and thoughts coming at him so rapidly that he could barely decipher them.
“I’m not weak,” Athena huffed indignantly as she crossed her arms again. “I’ve just had a…temporary lessening of power resources while the balance is off. My Sentinels will equalize everything again.”
She sounded so insulted that Hunter nearly smiled, something he hadn’t done since he was a human. Instead, he shrugged. “Have it your way, Princess. But the Sentinels are losing this battle right now.” Knowing the tilt toward the Evils affected her this way annoyed the hell out of him. “What will happen if we do lose?”
Athena tilted her chin up. “We won’t.”
Her complete faith in the Sentinels was like a knife to Hunter’s gut, and it made him want to go out and continue wasting Evils until every single one of them was gone. He could read her thoughts, and he knew her entire existence was tied to the fate of both him and his brethren. “Did you know that Kristoff has been taken to the demon realm?” If the demon king was her only contact, it made sense that she wouldn’t know exactly how dire the situation was at the moment.
Athena gasped harshly. “Goran captured him? How? I knew something was wrong when he didn’t answer my summons, but how can he be a prisoner of the Evils? He’s a demigod, too powerful to be taken easily.”
“He gave himself up to save his daughter and Drew,” Hunter answered abruptly, still pissed that the Evils had managed to catch any of them off-guard.
Athena listened intently as Hunter caught her up on what was happening in the human dimension, not sugar-coating anything. She deserved to know exactly what was happening since her fate depended on the success of the Sentinels. Unfortunately, the news was pretty grim.
“We need to nail those slimy bastards,” Athena said menacingly as Hunter finished relating what was happening with the Sentinels.
Hunter choked back a laugh, knowing that everything Athena knew of the current language, slang, and customs came directly from a television and books she’d manifested for herself. Her statement and tone sounded like something straight out of a cheesy sci-fi movie.
Mine. Mine. Mine.
Hunter shook himself, trying to banish thoughts of claiming Athena from his brain. He was a demon, but unlike Zach and Drew, he’d developed very little humanity after becoming a Sentin
el. Hell, he had been a poor excuse of a human being when he’d been human.
“You’re exactly as you’re supposed to be, Hunter,” Athena informed him in a serious tone.
“I’m supposed to be an asshole?” He turned his head to look at her, which turned out to be a mistake. Healed or not, his cock hardened impossibly more than it was already just from being in the same room with her. “And how in the hell are you reading my thoughts? You shouldn’t be able to do that.” He’d been through the mating of his two brothers, and their mates couldn’t read their thoughts before they were bonded.
Athena sighed. “I’m a goddess. Everything is a little bit different than a typical mating for us. And yes…you were born as you were supposed to be as a human and have continued your duty after you became a Sentinel.”
Hunter shook his head in confusion, perplexed by Athena’s words and her jumbled thoughts. “What the hell are you saying?” Yes…he’d been a demon hunter even as a human, but it hadn’t been a duty. It had been his obsession.
“Didn’t you ever wonder why you could see Evils when no other human could?” Athena questioned curiously.
“Hell, no. I just wanted to kill the little power-sucking pricks,” Hunter grumbled, knowing his obsession usually overrode any reasoning on his part. Back when he was a human, he hadn’t cared about anything except exterminating demons and getting his next shot of whiskey to keep him from thinking much. He’d had no friends, and everybody he knew as a human thought he was a crazy drunk…including his family. Luckily, his father, mother, and two brothers had humored him because they thought he was lacking intelligence. “I was a worthless, whore-chasing drunk,” he admitted in a graveled voice.
“Never say that,” Athena told him in an annoyed voice. “Your life had purpose, Hunter. If you drank and had sex, it was to escape a fate that you never asked for. You were born to be a stabilizer, destined to eventually become a Sentinel. You saw demons because you were supposed to see them and kill them. It helped keep the balance.”