Not that he needed that threat. The truth was, he didn't want to see Sunshine hurt. He liked her a lot more than he should.
Worst of all, he liked spending time with her. It had been so long since he'd just shared an evening with someone. And she was so easy to talk to. So funny and warm.
"Would you stay the night if I asked you to?"
He saw the sadness in her eyes. "I would like to, but what about tomorrow? You can't exactly take me home then, and if I use your boat, you won't have a way to leave your cabin."
"I could take you home tomorrow night."
She reached out and toyed with his small braids. Her smile was gentle and filled with regret. "No, Talon. As much as I would like to, I need to get back home. I have a job to do and I'm not independently wealthy. Every day I'm not in the Square, it's a day I'm not making money. I have to eat, you know. Wheat germ isn't cheap."
"If it's just the money-"
"It's not, Talon. I have to get back to my life."
He knew she was right. Sooner or later they would have to part company.
He would take her back as she wanted and then he could still protect her after dark, hidden in the shadows.
"Be a part of the world, but never in it."
He remembered the long-ago night Acheron had said those words to him.
"Because of what we do, we have to interact with people. But we must be unseen shadows who move among them.
"Never let anyone know you. Never give them a chance to realize you don't age. Move through the darkness ever watchful, ever alert. We are all that stands between the humans and slavery. Without us, they all die and their souls are lost forever.
"Our responsibilities are great. Our battles numerous and legendary.
"But at the end of the night, you go home alone where no one knows what it is you have done to save the world that fears you. You can never bask in your glory. You can never know love or family.
"We are Dark-Hunters.
"We are forever powerful.
"We are forever alone."
Talon drew a deep breath. His time with her was over. "All right," he said. "I'll take you back."
He cupped her face in his hands and kissed her deeply. And as he tasted her, his thoughts drifted back into the past.
"Speirr?" his uncle's irate voice called from the other side of his door. "Can you please tear yourself away from your wife's embrace for one afternoon to actually attend business with me? My troth, the way you two carry on I can't imagine why you don't have five dozen children by now."
Nynia laughed from above him as she gently rode him. "You're in trouble again."
"Aye, but you're worth it, Nyn."
As she so often did, Nynia leaned over and rubbed noses with him before she kissed him passionately and slid off him. "You'd best be going or your uncle will have both our heads."
Talon winced at the memory and the pain it awoke inside him.
Sunshine pulled back and rubbed her nose against his just like Nynia had always done.
He went cold.
Something wasn't right. These memories, her actions...
The way she awoke his emotions.