Sherrilyn Kenyon - Night Embrace

Oh yeah, insanity ran deep in the roots of that family tree.

Sunshine lowered the shade for the other window.

Wrapping the blanket around him, Talon carefully stepped through the room and was relieved to find a rather bare, open loft on the other side of the drapes.

There was another row of windows on his left where Sunshine had sectioned off a small drawing studio. But the rest of the loft was blissfully dark and devoid of sunlight. Keeping the blanket wrapped around his hips, he made his way toward the phone in the kitchen.

"Well, Sunshine, now that he's awake and I agree he's not threatening—"

Talon arched a brow at that comment. There had never been a time in his life he hadn't been threatening! He was a Dark-Hunter. That term alone inspired terror in the things that gave evil a bad name.

"—I'm going to go down to the club and pay some bills, make some orders, and do real work."

"Okay, Starla, I'll see you later."

He had to get out of this place. These women not only lacked sense, but they were too weird for words.

Starla kissed Sunshine's cheek and left.

After several minutes of looking, Talon found the phone cord in the wall and trailed it to the old-fashioned dial phone, which was hiding in a kitchen drawer that also contained a wide assortment of dry paintbrushes and tubes of acrylics.

He pulled the phone, painted with wild fluorescent colors, out of the drawer and placed it on the counter next to a pink pig-shaped cookie jar that held small cinnamon-scented rice cakes.

Picking up the receiver, he dialed Nick Gautier, who had once been the Squire, or human helper, for Kyrian of Thrace. Since Kyrian had married Amanda Devereaux a few months ago and had left behind his official Dark-Hunter status, Nick had become Talon's unofficial, part-time Squire. Not that Talon wanted a Squire. Humans had a nasty way of dying around him, and Nick had a mouth on him that was guaranteed to get the boy killed one day.

Still, there were times when a Squire came in handy. Now was definitely one of them.

The phone rang until the message came on that the cellular customer was unavailable.

Damn. That meant making the one call he'd rather be killed again than make. If the other Dark-Hunters ever found out about this, he'd never hear the end of it. Squires were sworn to an oath of secrecy. They were forbidden to ever reveal anything that was embarrassing about a Dark-Hunter or anything that could endanger them.

Unfortunately, other non-Squired human helpers didn't make such an oath.

Oh yeah, Nick Gautier was a dead man when he got his hands on him.

Preparing himself mentally for what was to come, he called Kyrian of Thrace who answered on the first ring.

"Talon?" Kyrian said as soon as he recognized his voice. "It's noon, what's wrong?"

Talon slid a glance to Sunshine, who was singing "Puff the Magic Dragon" as she passed him to enter the kitchen. "I… uh… I need a favor."

"Anything."

"I need you to go to my place and get my spare keys, another cell phone and some money."

"Yeah, okay. Did you have to ditch your bike?"

"Yeah, she's in the Brewery parking lot so I need you to bring her to me for tonight."

"Okay, where do I bring her?"

"Hang on." Talon pulled the phone away from his ear. "Sunshine?"

She turned to look at him.

"Where the hell am I?" Even with the phone on his shoulder, he heard Kyrian's mocking laughter.

"You know the nightclub Runningwolf's that's on Canal Street?"

He nodded.

"We're directly over it."

"Thanks." He relayed the information to Kyrian.

"Talon, I swear, your hormones are going to get you killed someday."

He didn't bother to correct Kyrian. They'd known each other for over a thousand years and Talon had never before been caught out like this. Kyrian wouldn't believe the truth of how he came to be in this loft. Hell, he barely believed it himself. "I also need you to bring me some clothes."

The silence in his ear was deafening.

Oh yeah, Nick was such a dead man when Talon got his hands on him.

"What?" Kyrian asked hesitantly.

"I lost my clothes."

Kyrian laughed. Hard.

"Shut up, Kyrian, it's not funny."

"Hey, from where I'm standing it's funny as hell."

Yeah, well, from where Talon was standing, with a pink blanket wrapped around his hips, it wasn't.

"Okay," Kyrian said, sobering. "We'll be over there as soon as we can."

"We?"

"Me and Julian."

Talon cringed again. An ex-Dark-Hunter and an Oracle. Great. Just great. They would never let him live this down and by nightfall one of them would be guaranteed to post this on the Dark-Hunter.com Web site for everyone to laugh about.

"All right," Talon said, tamping down his ire. "See you in a little while."

"You know," Sunshine said as soon as he hung up. "I could just go buy you some clothes. I do owe you."

Talon glanced around the loft. It looked as if a bottle of Pepto-Bismol had exploded, or the Cat in the Hat had come for a visit. There was pink everywhere. But what struck him most was the dilapidated condition of her furniture and her piecemeal decorations. Definitely a starving artist, the last thing this woman could afford was a pair of two-thousand-dollar pants, and the earth would stand still and shatter before Talon ever put denim on his body.

"It's all right," he told her. "My friends will take care of it."

She brought him a plate of muffins and what appeared to be grass. "What's this?"

"Breakfast… or lunch." When he didn't take it, she added, "You need to eat. It's good for you. It's a cranberry bran muffin with flaxseed and alfalfa sprouts."

There was nothing on that plate that came close to resembling food. Especially to a man who was born and bred to be a Celtic chieftain.

Okay, Talon, you can cope with this . "Do you have any coffee?"

"Ew! No, that stuff will kill you. I have herbal teas, though."

"Herbal teas? That's mulch, not a beverage."

"Oooo, Mr. Picky woke up on the wrong side of the bed."

No human had ever been so flippant with him. Even Nick knew better. Feeling totally out of his element, Talon gave up.

"Fine. Where's your bathroom?"

Then right behind that came the thought, Please tell me you have one inside this loft and not out back in a parking lot .

She pointed to a dark corner of the loft. "Right there."

It was another area sectioned off by a hanging curtain. How wonderful was this?

And he'd mistakenly thought the Middle Ages were over.

Oh, what fond memories… not.

Talon walked over to it and had just pulled the curtain closed and dropped the blanket to the floor when Sunshine joined him. She held a pink towel and washcloth in her hands and stopped dead in her tracks when she caught sight of him standing there naked.

She put the towel on the sink and moved around him, looking him up and down. "You are just simply male perfection, you know that?"

He would have felt flattered had she not looked like someone sizing up a car. It wasn't desire for him that made her say that. Her tone was detached, the way her mother's had been.

She ran her warm, smooth hand down his back, over his tattoo. "Whoever gave you this tattoo was a very talented artist."

Chills spread over him as her hand glided down his spine to his hip. "My uncle did it," he said before he could stop himself. He hadn't spoken of his uncle with anyone in centuries.

"Really? Wow." She slid her hand up across his shoulders to the Dark-Hunter bow-and-arrow brand on his right shoulder blade. "Where did this come from?"

Talon shrugged her touch away. That was one mark he would never talk about to an uninitiated human. "It's nothing."

It was then her gaze fell to his erection. Her face turned as pink as the towel. "Sorry," she said quickly. "I tend to not think before I act."