Talon growled at him. "Why? I'm going back to bed. Take what you need and lock the door behind you." He paused at his futon in the back corner and raked a hungry look over Amanda. "Of course, if you want to leave Amanda, I might be persuaded to stay up for a bit and be sociable."
Nick scoffed. "Damn, Talon, can't you go an hour without a woman?"
"One is no problem. It's when I get to two or three that I get antsy." Talon returned to lie down on the black futon. He rolled over on his side and closed his eyes.
At least until his phone rang. Talon cursed, rolled over, and answered it while Nick went to the huge weapon cabinet and picked up two nasty-looking round dagger things.
"Wulf, I'm not even awake yet," Talon growled. "And I don't really care, and why would you ask me something about ancient Greece anyway? Did I live there? The answer is hell no... Don't know, don't care... Hang on." He turned over and looked at Nick. "Nick, ever heard of Cult of Pollux?"
Nick looked over at him. "You'd have to call Kyrian or one of the other Greeks."
"Did you hear that?" Talon listened a sec, then turned back to Nick. "Ash is walkabout, Brax, Jayce, and Kyros are MIA, and Kyrian isn't answering his phone. Wulf says it's really important."
The significance of that sentence seemed to hit both men at once.
Talon spoke into the phone. "When did you last try to reach Kyrian?"
Nick pulled his cell phone out and dialed.
"He might be in the shower," Amanda suggested.
Nick shook his head. "Even if he was, Rosa would answer."
After a minute, Nick turned off the cell phone. "Something's seriously wrong."
Kyrian woke up the instant his bedroom door opened.
Not fully conscious, he sensed Rosa entering his room and wondered why she would disturb him. She'd never done so before.
He rolled onto his back. "Is something..."
The sentence died when a light, shimmering web covered him, pinning him to the bed. Kyrian froze as fury welled up inside him. He couldn't stand being trapped, especially flat on his back. Blood lust surged through him with a murderous frenzy.
Until he saw Rosa.
She stood by his bed, her brow covered in sweat as she stared at him with lost, dazed eyes. Over and over, she whispered the Spanish words, "Debe matarle, debe matarle."
Must kill him, must kill him...
She raised the cleaver in her hand.
"Rosa," Kyrian said as calmly as possible. "Put the cleaver down."
"Debe matarle ..." She stepped closer to the bed.
"Rosa, no haga esto. Don't do this. Let me up. Dejeme para arriba, por favor."
She was shaking so badly, Kyrian feared she'd have a stroke or coronary at any moment. Her frail body couldn't sustain this amount of stress.
"Desiderius say you are bad, m'ijo. You must die."
Kyrian tried to think of some way to reach through her hazy madness and bring her back to reality. "Rosa, you know me better than that."
She lifted the cleaver higher.
Helpless beneath the net, Kyrian stared at the shining steel, waiting for it to slice into him. He wanted to implore her, to shout at her until she listened, but he didn't dare for fear of what it might do to the older woman. She was under enough stress without his adding to it. He would die before he harmed her.
His cell phone rang.