"Why do you keep calling me that? Are you mocking me?"

She shrugged. "You call me 'princess,' I call you 'Prince Charming.' I figure turnabout is fair play."

Giving her a grudging amount of respect, he reached for the bacon that was lying on a saucer by the stove. "How do you fry this when you can't see it?" "The microwave. I just push the timer for it."

The wolf came over and started sniffing at his leg. It looked up at him as if it were offended and started barking at him.

"Shut up, Benji," he snarled. "I don't want to hear about my hygiene from someone who licks his own balls."

"Zarek!" Astrid gasped. "I can't believe you just said that."

He clenched his teeth. Fine, he wouldn't speak anymore. Silence was what he was best at anyway.

The wolf whined and yapped.

"Shh," she soothed. "If he doesn't want to bathe, it's none of our business."

His appetite gone, Zarek set his plate on the table and returned to his room where he couldn't offend them anymore.

Astrid felt her way to the table, expecting to find Zarek there. All she found was his plate of uneaten food.

"What happened?" she asked Sasha.

"If he had feelings, I would say you hurt them. Like as not, he went back to the room to find a weapon so he can kill us."

"Sasha! Tell me what happened just now."

"Okay, he put the plate down and left."

"What did he look like?"

"Nothing. He didn't show any kind of emotion."

That didn't help her at all.

She went after Zarek.

"Go away," he snapped after she knocked on his door and pushed it open.

Astrid stood in the doorway, wishing she could see him. "What do you want, Zarek?"

"I..." his voice trailed off.

"You what?"

Zarek couldn't speak the truth. He wanted to be warm. Just once in his life, he wanted warmth. Not just physical but mental warmth. "I want to leave."

She sighed at his words. "You'll die if you go out there."

"So what if I do?"

"Does your life truly have no value or meaning to you?"

"No, it doesn't."

"Then why haven't you killed yourself?"

He snorted at that. "Why should I? The only enjoyment I have in my life is knowing I piss off everyone around me. If I were dead, it would make them all happy. God forbid I should ever do that."

To his surprise, she laughed. "I wish I could see your face to know if you were joking or not."

"Trust me, I'm not."

"Then I'm sorry for you. I wish you had something that made you happy."

Zarek looked away from her. Happy. He didn't even understand that word. It was as alien to him as kindness. Compassion.

Love.

Now there was a word that never entered his vocabulary. He couldn't imagine what others must feel.

For love, Talon had almost died so that Sunshine could live. For love, Sunshine had bartered her soul to free Talon.

All he knew was hatred, anger. It was the only thing that kept him warm. The only thing that kept him living.

So long as he hated, he had a reason to live.

"Why do you want to live here in this cabin alone?"

She shrugged. "I like having my own place. My family visits me often, but I'd rather be alone."

"Why?"

"Because I hate to be babied. My mother and sisters act as if I'm helpless. They want to do everything for me."

Astrid waited for him to say something more.

He didn't.

"Would you like to take a bath?" she asked after a brief wait. "Do I bother you?"

She shook her head. "Not at all. It's entirely up to you."

Zarek had never really had to be concerned with things such as bathing. When he was a slave, no one cared whether or not he was clean, and in truth he'd stayed dirty so that no one would want to approach him any more than was necessary.

As a Dark-Hunter, he'd been completely alone even before his banishment toAlaska . And once here it had been so difficult to do anything as simple as bathe that he had all but forsaken it.

It had only been afterFairbanks had started being settled that he had bought a large tub that he used only when he knew he was going into town.

His brief stay inNew Orleans had been a treasured delight of running hot and cold water and showers that could last for an entire hour before the water turned cold on him.

Had Astrid ordered him to bathe, he wouldn't have considered it. Because she had offered him a choice, he headed for the bathroom.

"The towels are in the hall closet."

Zarek paused at the closet right outside the bathroom and opened the door. Like everything in the house, it was well kept. All the towels were folded up neatly.

Hell, they were even color coordinated to match the rest of the house.

He grabbed a large fluffy green one and went to bathe.

Astrid heard the water come on. She took a deep, fortifying breath.

Strange, until Sasha had mentioned it, she hadn't realized Zarek hadn't had a bath. He hadn't smelled or anything and he washed his hands so much that she just assumed the rest of him was clean, too.

She returned to the kitchen to find Sasha eating Zarek's pancakes.

"What are you doing?"

"He didn't want them. They were getting cold."

"Sasha!"

"What? It's not nice to waste food."

She shook her head at the wolf as she moved to make another batch for Zarek.

Maybe he would be more sociable when he left the shower.

He wasn't. If anything he was even surlier as he gulped down the pancakes.

"He's disgusting," Sasha said to her. "He eats like an animal. Be thankful you're blind."

"Sasha, lay off the man."

"Lay off, my ass. He uses his fork like a shovel and I swear he shoved one entire pancake in his mouth at once."

Astrid would have been disgusted had she not been in his dreams. No one had ever taught him even the most basic form of manners. He had been relegated to a corner on the floor just like the animal Sasha called him.

In his human life, food had been scarce. And on the heels of that thought came another startling realization. Food when he was a Dark-Hunter would have been scarce, as well.

Unlike the others of his kind, Zarek didn't have a Squire to plant and grow his food in the daytime. To tend animals and make his meals. For centuries, he'd lived inAlaska 's harsh climate where winter sources of food were seriously limited.

She felt suddenly sick at the thought. No doubt he would have starved to death as a human.

Dark-Hunters couldn't die of malnutrition. But they could suffer from it every bit as much as a human being.

She made another plate of pancakes for him.

"What's this?" he asked as she set it down near him.

"In case you're still hungry."

He didn't say anything, but she listened to him slide the plate across the table an instant before she heard him snap open the lid on the syrup.

"I can't stand watching him make pancake soup with the syrup again," Sasha said. "I'll be in the den if you need me."

Astrid ignored him as she listened to Zarek eating. How she wished she could see him.

"No you don't,"Sasha said.

She had a feeling Sasha was overreacting. She knew the wolf well enough to know Zarek could have impeccable manners and Sasha would complain.

After Zarek finished eating, he got up from the table and rinsed his plate off.

No, he wasn't a pig. He was a lonely, hurt man who didn't know how to cope in a world that had turned its back on him.

She saw in him what Acheron did and her respect for the Atlantean grew immensely to realize that he could see what no one else did.

Now she just had to find some way to save Zarek from a goddess who was through with him.

If she didn't, Artemis would order him dead.

She listened to him tear a paper towel off the rack.

"I heard on the news that it's still storming. They have no idea when the storm will break. They said it was the worst snowstorm in centuries."

Zarek let out a long tired breath. "I have to leave tonight."

"You can't."

"I have no choice."

"We all have choices."

"No we don't, princess. Only people with money and influence have choices. For the rest of us, basic necessity dictates what we have to do to survive." He crossed the floor. "I have to go."

Astrid panicked. Since he was a Dark-Hunter he really could leave. Unlike the humans she'd judged, Zarek's life wouldn't be endangered if he left the cabin tonight. It would be cold and harsh, but he was used to that.

What was she going to do?

If she followed him, he would figure out very quickly that she was immortal, too.

For a second she considered calling on her sisters, then stopped herself. If she did that, they'd never let her forget it. She needed to handle this alone.

But what would keep him here when he was so determined to leave?