The Dark Side of the Moon(111)

And he wasn't alone. There were half a dozen Daimons, male and female, sprawled all over him and his bed. That wasn't counting the two who were making out on the floor in front of her.

She didn't know what stunned her most, the fact that it was an orgy or the fact that Stryker was actually having sex with someone. Given his coldness, she honestly hadn't thought he'd bother.

Then again, he didn't seem to be particularly involved with the two women and one man who were trying to please him. Rather, he looked bored and preoccupied.

"Excuse me," Satara called. All of them froze at the sound of her voice. "I really hate to interrupt this, but I have a situation I think Stryker will be very interested in and I don't have time to wait until you're through."

Stryker pushed the woman on top of him off and sat up. "Leave us."

Without a single word, they quickly gathered their clothes and walked past Satara, out the door.

Stryker was a bit more leisurely as he pulled on a robe but let it hang open as he moved from the bed.

Fine. If his nudity didn't bother him, it certainly didn't bother her.

Facing her, he wiped away the bit of blood at the corner of his mouth with his finger before he licked the digit clean. "Since you interrupted my dinner and I'm still hungry, could you make this quick?"

Satara was amazed by his words. "That was dinner?"

He gave her a bored stare as he closed the distance between them. "Yes. I like to play with my food before I eat it."

That sounded more like the vicious Daimon she knew. But that wasn't what had her here.

"Acheron is free of Olympus and I've been recalled to Artemis's temple. I thought you'd want to know that he's in Seattle with his Dark-Hunters now."

Stryker let out a long, aggravated breath. "I guess it was too much to hope that she'd actually keep him this time." He paused before he looked back at her. "Is that all?"

"No. I was at the Serengeti a few minutes ago and learned something very intriguing."

Susan winced as Ravyn held an ice pack to her eye.

"For a woman who can handle herself so well in a fight, I can't believe you got taken out by a defenseless doorjamb."

She narrowed her eyes on him. "Given the size of my goose egg, I would argue the defenseless part. That doorjamb has a mean left hook. Besides, it's not my fault. I was distracted."

"By what?"

His butt, if the truth were told, but she wasn't about to give him the satisfaction of knowing she'd been so preoccupied by his body that she wasn't paying attention to where she was going. "I don't remember."

"Uh-huh."

"I don't."

He brushed her hair back from her forehead with a gentle touch while he kept the ice over her brow. "You were amazing tonight by the way. "

"Thanks, but not half as much as you guys were." Her heart clenched as she inadvertently thought about Belle and right behind that thought was another, even more disturbing one. It was an image of Ravyn down on the ground... being executed in the same way.

Looking up at him now, she couldn't get that out of her mind. Belle's death had been way too easy to accomplish. To be so powerful, the Dark-Hunters had an awful Achilles' heel.

Then again, most beings, supernatural or otherwise, usually died once their head was removed. There really was no way back from that unless you were a character on a soap opera or in a horror movie.

Suddenly, someone screamed from upstairs, causing Susan to jump and scrape her brow against the ice bag. It was followed by running feet and something very heavy hitting the floor.

"What now?" she breathed, tired of the constant fighting for their lives. Honestly, she just wanted a few minutes of quiet.

"I don't know." Ravyn handed her the ice bag before he went to check it out.

Susan left the bag on the mattress before she followed after him. They rushed up the stairs to the hallway.