Alexion was curious as to what would be a worse punishment than the one he had meted out for her. "How so?"
"I'd have put her in a park somewhere so the birds could crap all over her."
He laughed. Okay, that really would be much worse. "Remind me to stay on your good side."
"Yeah, well, my mother used to have a saying, 'hell hath no fury as a woman angered.'"
"I thought it was 'as a woman scorned.'"
"Angered, scorned, either one. I come from a long line of vengeful women. My grandmother would have given Madame Defarge a run for her money any day."
He nodded. "Then I'll make sure I don't tweak that portion of your personality. The gods know I've had my fill of vengeful women."
Danger sighed at his light tone about a matter she was sure he didn't find amusing. In fact, his words made her heart catch. "I guess you have."
She squeezed his hand. "So what happened to the kids after Ash turned their mother into stone?"
"Acheron found them a good home. He's not the type of person who would leave a child to suffer over something he did."
"Yeah, I've noticed that about him."
Neither of them spoke again while they rode the rest of the way to the MSU campus. It was an overcast night without much moonlight. But what little light there was reflected against the trees, forming eerie, monsterlike shadows.
Danger had always liked to drive at night. There was something very peaceful about it. Well, except for when the occasional deer turned suicidal and decided to play "chicken" with her on the highway. That she could leave behind.
But at least she didn't have to worry about that in Starkville. It'd grown so much over the last few years that until they headed back toward Tupelo, deer dodgers wouldn't be a problem.
Alexion looked out the car window as Danger drove them past the sorority houses toward central campus. It looked as if a party of some sort were going on at one house. He could see cars parked in the lot with kids hanging out of the windows while others leaned up against the frame, talking to the ones inside. Groups of college students were milling about on the porch and in the yard while more could be seen inside, dancing.
"Look at them," he said quietly. "Do you remember being human and that age?"
She glanced over at the partying co-eds. "Yeah, I do. At that time in my life, I thought I was going to be one of the greatest actresses in France, like my mother. I thought Michel and I would retire wealthy, to the countryside, to raise our multitude of children and to watch our grandchildren play." She sighed as if the memory were too painful to dwell on for long. "What about you?"
Alexion let his mind drift back all those countless centuries ago. It wasn't something he did often, for many reasons. But old dreams never really died. They were always there, living as regrets for what might have been.
"I wanted to retire from the army. I never really wanted to join in the first place. But my father insisted on it. When they came to our village for boys, he grabbed my older brother and I, and literally threw us at the recruiters. He wanted us to be more than just simple farmers trying to eke out a living from a stingy soil that would rather see us starved than fed. He thought a soldier's calling would be our chance for a much better life."
"What happened to your brother?"
Alexion paused as he remembered Darius's face. His brother had been full of life and had never wanted anything more than to be a farmer with a good wife by his side. All he'd ever talked about was going home again, seeing the cattle and tending the fields.
His heart ached at what had happened to both of them. "He died about a year before I did. I would have, too, had I not been in a regiment with Kyros. For some reason I never understood, he took me under his wing."
"He was older?"
"By only three years, but at the time it seemed like he was an adult while I was just a terrified kid."
Danger could hear the admiration in his voice. It was obvious he'd once worshiped his friend. No wonder he wanted to save him.
"The other boys didn't think much of me," he confided. "Like Kyros, they came from a long line of soldiers and thought that I should go back to the farm. They didn't want to waste time training or supplying someone they figured would die soon anyway. Better to save the food for someone who could earn his keep."
She didn't need his sfora to see how they'd made their displeasure known. Nine thousand years later, she could still hear the pain in his voice.
"But you hung in there."
"As Nietzsche said, 'that which doesn't kill you-'"
"Will only require brief hospitalization. And if you're a Dark-Hunter, just a good day's sleep."