"Don't make promises you can't keep."
"I can keep this one. And if I'm wrong, I'll go down alone with my error. But if we're right..."
"Jimmy's avenged."
Cael had just reached the back door of the Happy Hunting Ground when his cell phone started ringing. He pulled it off his belt to see it listing Amaranda's number. Flipping it open, he held it to his ear. "Yeah, babe?"
"Don't come home."
"What?" he said, not sure he'd heard her right with the loud music that was drowning out her voice. He reached for the doorknob.
"Don't. Come. Home," she repeated only slightly louder than the last time.
"Is this a joke?" he asked angrily. Amaranda would never tell him not to come home. "If this is you, Stryker, go fuck yourself." He slammed the phone shut, then opened the door.
As usual, the club was thumping and loud with college kids gyrating on the dance floor and guzzling alcohol at the tables that surrounded it. He inclined his head at Amaranda's cousin who was waiting tables as he passed by.
Nothing seemed out of the ordinary.
Cael closed his eyes and searched the building mentally for any telltale sensation of a Daimon. Nothing set off his radar. Wanting to double-check in case he was still unnerved by the earlier fight, he pulled out his phone and ran the Daimon trace program that was in it.
It, too, came back negative.
Cool, there was nothing here that needed his attention... except his wife.
Cael pulled his thin jacket off and slung it over his shoulder as he descended the stairs to the basement. Looking forward to spending some quality time with Amaranda, he began whistling while he headed for his room.
Until he opened the door.
His whistling stopped mid-tune. Kerri was in his room, bound and gagged. Her eyes were large and terror-filled as she begged him with her gaze to set her free.
And in that instant, he came face-to-face with his past. The pain of it was almost crippling. And most of all, he could feel his Dark-Hunter powers wane.
Was it some kind of joke? If it was, he damn sure didn't find it funny.
"What the hell's going on, Kerri?" He'd only taken one step toward her when the door slammed shut behind him.
He jerked around to find a human male there, glaring at him. In his mid-fifties, the pudgy little man had shifty gray eyes that re-fleeted his insanity. "What the hell's the meaning of this?" Cael demanded.
"Where's Ravyn Kontis?"
Cael forced himself to betray nothing. "Who?"
"Don't play stupid with me," the man snarled, spewing spittle in his rage. "Answer the question."
"I can't. I don't know anyone named Ravyn."
Disbelief twisted his features. "No?"
"No."
The man tsked as he moved forward toward Kerri's chair. "Too bad. I guess I'll have to kill you and your whore then." He headed for Kerri, whose eyes widened even more as she started squealing through her gag.
"She's innocent."
The man gave him a vicious glare. "No one's innocent. And even if she was, I don't give a damn." He pulled a hunting knife out from his jacket and angled it at Kerri's throat. "Tell me where that bastard is or watch her die."
"But I don't-" He broke off as the man pressed his knife so close that it pricked Kerri's neck.