He drew back with a hiss.
She spun as she saw someone behind her.
It was another Daimon. She caught him in the chest with her dagger.
He evaporated into a golden-black cloud.
Another shadow passed over her.
Spinning around, she kicked Stryker back, but he didn't go completely out the door. Instead, he only blocked it more.
"You're quick," he said as his arm healed instantly before her eyes. "I'll give you that."
"You don't know the half of it."
Daimons came at her from all directions. How the hell had they gotten into her home? But she didn't have time to contemplate that. Right now, all she could focus on was survival.
She kneed the next Daimon who reached her and fought a second one. Stryker stayed back as if the fight amused him.
Another Daimon, this one with a long blond ponytail, attacked. Cassandra flipped him over. As she went to stab him, Stryker came out of nowhere to grab her arm.
"No one attacks Urian."
She shrieked as he wrenched the dagger from her hand. Cassandra moved to strike him, but the instant her gaze met his, all thoughts scattered.
His eyes turned to a strange, swirling silver. They moved in a hypnotic dance that held her spellbound and turned her thoughts to oatmeal.
All the fight inside her instantly vanished. A sly, seductive smile curved Stryker's lips. "See how easy it is when you don't fight?" She felt his breath against her throat.
Some unseen force tilted her head to the side to give him access to her neck and to the throbbing carotid artery she could feel pounding in terror.
Inside, Cassandra was screaming at herself to fight.
Her body refused to obey.
Stryker's laughter rumbled a moment before he sank his long teeth into her neck. She hissed as pain sliced her.
"Am I interrupting?"
Cassandra could only vaguely recognize Wulf's voice through the numbed haze of her mind.
Something jerked Stryker away from her. It was a few seconds before she realized it was Wulf knocking the Daimon back.
Wulf whisked her up into his arms and ran with her. Cassandra could barely keep her head from lolling back as he headed for a large dark green Expedition and tossed her inside it.
The instant Wulf was in the car, something struck it hard. Out of the darkness, a large, black dragon appeared on the hood.
"Let her out and you can live," the dragon said in Stryker's voice.
Wulf answered by putting his SUV in reverse and gunning it. He turned the wheel and sent the beast flying.
The dragon shrieked and blew a blast of fire at them. Wulf kept going. The dragon took flight and dove at them, then arced up, high into the sky, before it vanished into a shimmery cloud of gold.
"What the hell was that?" Wulf asked.
"He's Apostolos," Cassandra murmured as she struggled to snap herself out of her daze. "He's the son of the Atlantean Destroyer and a god in his own right. We're so screwed."
Wulf let out a disgusted sound. "Yeah, well, I don't let anyone screw me until they kiss me, and since there's not even a snowball's chance in hell of me kissing that bastard, we're not screwed."