"Do not raise your voice to me, Strykerius. I will not take insubordination."
He forced himself to level his voice even while his blood simmered in fury. "Why did you interfere?"
She pulled her black pillow into her lap and toyed with a corner of it. "You cannot win against the Elekti. I told you that."
"I could have beaten him," Stryker insisted. No one could stop him. He was sure of that.
"No you couldn't," she said firmly. She dropped her gaze again and ran her hand elegantly over the black satin. "There is no pain worse than a son who betrays your cause, is there, Strykerius? You give them everything, and do they listen? No. Do they respect? No. Instead they shred your heart and spit on the kindness you would show to them."
Stryker clenched his eyes shut as she voiced the very thoughts inside him. He had given Urian everything and his son had repaid him with a betrayal so profound that it had taken him days to come to grips with it.
Part of him hated Apollymi for telling him the truth. The other part thanked her.
He had never been the kind of man to cradle a snake to his bosom.
Stryker would never do to his mother what had been done to him. "I will listen to you, Mother."
She cradled the pillow to her breast and sighed wearily. "Good."
"So what do we do now?"
She gazed at him with a small, beautiful smile. When she spoke, her words were simple, but her tone was purely evil. "We wait."
Wulf sat on the couch with Cassandra beside him. Erik slept peacefully in his mother's arms, oblivious to the violence and deaths that had occurred tonight.
Oblivious to the fact that the world the baby was just coming to know had almost ended.
Since they had returned home, Wulf had refused to let either one of them out of his sight.
Chris was helping Talon bandage his arm, which had gotten shredded by one of the Daimons. Julian sat with an ice pack on the back of his head while Kyrian poured peroxide over his bloodied knuckles, into a bowl.
Zarek stood like a statue against the wall by the hallway that led to the kitchen. He, alone, appeared unscathed by the fighting.
"You know," Kyrian said, pausing long enough to hiss as he poured alcohol over the peroxide. "The fighting was a lot easier when I was immortal."
Talon snorted. "I still am immortal and I'm pretty banged up. That was a hell of a fight."
The phone rang.
Chris got up to answer it.
"That better not be Stryker," Cassandra said breathlessly.
It wasn't. It was her father.
Chris handed the phone off to her and her hand shook. "Daddy? Are you all right?"
Wulf held her against his chest as she wept and talked for a few minutes, then hung up.
"It was what you said," she breathed to Wulf. "They never had him. Stryker had used the same trick to get you to leave the city that he used on me to open the apartment door. Damn that bastard!"
The phone rang again.
"What is it?" Chris snapped. "A full moon?"
"Yes," all the men said at once.
"Oh." Chris answered it, then handed it over to Kyrian.