For a second, he thought maybe the Squires had found him, but that was ridiculous. No one knew aboutSharon . Zarek wasn't exactly on speaking terms with the Squires' Council or other Dark-Hunters.

"Hey,Sharon ?" he called. "Everything okay?"

She walked slowly down the hall from the direction of the kitchen. "You're back."

A bad feeling settled over him. Something wasn't right. He could sense it. She seemed nervous.

"Yeah. Is something up? I didn't crash a date or anything, did I?"

And then he heard it. It was the sound of a man breathing, of heavy footsteps leaving the kitchen.

The man came down the hall with a slow, methodical walk-like a predator taking its time getting the lay of the landscape while it patiently watched its prey.

Zarek frowned as the man stopped in the hallway behindSharon . Standing only about an inch shorter than Zarek, he had long dark brown hair pulled back into a ponytail and he wore a Western-style outback duster. There was a deadly quick aura around the man and as soon as their eyes met, Zarek knew he'd been betrayed.

This was another Dark-Hunter.

And there was only one out of the thousands of Dark-Hunters who knew about Sharon and him...

Zarek cursed his own stupidity.

The Dark-Hunter inclined his head toward him. "Z," he drawled in a thick Southern accent Zarek knew only too well. "Me and you need to talk."

Zarek couldn't breathe as he stared atSharon and Sundown together. Sundown was the only person he had ever opened himself up to in his entire two thousand plus years of living.

And he knew why Sundown was here.

Sundown alone knew Zarek. Knew his haunts, his habits.

Who better to hunt him down and kill him than his own best friend?

"Talk about what?" he asked gruffly, narrowing his eyes. Sundown moved to stand in front ofSharon as if to protect her. That he would think for even an instant that Zarek would threaten her hurt most of all. "I think you know why I'm here, Z."

Yeah, he knew all right. He knew exactly what Sundown wanted with him. A nice, quick death so that Sundown could report back to Artemis and Acheron that everything was right again in the world, and then the cowboy would return home toReno .

But Zarek had gone quietly to his execution once before. This time, he intended to fight for his life, such as it was.

"Forget it, Jess," he said, using Sundown's real name.

He turned and ran for the door.

Zarek made it back into the yard before Sundown caught him and pulled him to a stop. He bared his fangs at him, but Jess didn't seem to notice.

Zarek punched him hard in the stomach. It was a powerful strike that made Jess stagger back and it brought Zarek to his knees. Any time one Dark-Hunter attacked another one, the Dark-Hunter who attacked felt the blow ten times worse than the one who received it. There was only one way to avoid this-for Artemis to lift her ban. He just hoped she hadn't lifted it from Jess.

Zarek struggled to breathe from the pain of it and forced himself to his feet.

Unlike Jess, physical pain was something he was used to.

But before he could go far, he saw Mike and three other Squires in the shadows.

They were walking toward them with determined strides that said they were armed for Dark-Hunter.

"Leave him to me," Sundown ordered.

They ignored him and kept on coming.

Spinning about, Zarek headed for his snowmachine only to find its engine in pieces. Obviously they had been busy while he was at Frank's.

Damn it. How could he have been so stupid?

They must have destroyed his generators to force him into town. They'd flushed him out of the woods like hunters with a wild animal.

Fine. If they wanted an animal to track, he would be one.

He slung his hand out and used his telekinesis to knock the Squires off their feet.

Unwilling to hurt himself again, Zarek dodged Jess and ran for town.

He didn't make it far before more Squires fell in and opened fire on him. Bullets tore through his body, shredding his skin. Zarek hissed and staggered from the pain of it.

Still, he kept running.

He had no choice.

If he stayed down, they would dismember him, and though his life seriously sucked, he had no intention of becoming a Shade. Nor would he give them the satisfaction of killing him.

Zarek rounded the side of a building.

Something hard hit his middle.

Agony exploded through him as he was flipped head over heels onto the ground.

He came to rest on his back in the snow with the breath knocked completely out of him.

A shadow with cold, merciless eyes moved to stand over him.

At least six eight, the man held an unearthly masculine perfection. He had pale blond hair and dark brown eyes, and when he smiled, he revealed the same pair of fangs as Zarek.

"What are you?" Zarek asked, knowing the stranger wasn't a Daimon or Apollite even though he looked like one.

"I am Thanatos, Dark-Hunter," he said in Classic Greek, using the name that meant "death." "And I'm here to kill you."

He seized Zarek by his coat and threw him against the far building as if he were nothing more than a rag doll.

Zarek hit the wall hard and slid to the street. His body hurt so badly that his limbs shook as he tried to crawl away from the beast.

Zarek stopped. "I won't die like this again," he snarled. Not on his belly like some fearful animal waiting for slaughter.

Like a worthless slave being beaten.

His body fortified by his rage, he forced himself to his feet and swung around to face Thanatos.

The creature smiled. "Backbone. How I love it. But not as much as I love sucking the marrow from it."

Zarek caught his arm as he reached for him. "You know what I love?" Zarek snapped the creature's arm and seized him by his neck. "The sound of a Daimon breathing his last breath." Thanatos laughed. The sound was evil and cold. "You can't kill me, Dark- Hunter. I'm even more immortal than you are."

Zarek gaped as Thanatos's arm healed instantly.

"What are you?" Zarek asked again.

"I told you. I am Death and no one defeats or escapes Death."

Oh, shit. He was screwed now.

But he was far from defeated. Death might take him, but the bastard was going to have to work for it.

"You know," Zarek said, falling into the surreal calmness that had allowed him as a whipping boy to suffer through untold beatings. "I'll bet most people shit their pants in terror when you hand them that line. But you know what, Mr. I-want-to- be-scary-and-am-failing-miserably? I'm not a person. I'm a Dark-Hunter and in the grand scheme of things you don't mean shit to me."

He concentrated all of his powers into his hand, then delivered a powerful blow straight to Thanatos's solar plexus. The creature stumbled back.

"Now I can sit here and play with you." He delivered another staggering blow to Thanatos. "But I'd rather just put you out of both our miseries."

Before he could strike again, a shotgun blast hit him square in the back. Zarek felt the shrapnel ripping through his body, narrowly missing his heart.

Police sirens sounded in the distance.

Thanatos grabbed him by his throat and lifted him up until he was forced to stand on his tiptoes. "Better yet, why don't I just put you out of yours?"

Struggling to breathe, Zarek smiled grimly as he felt a trail of blood run out from the corner of his lips. The metallic taste of it suffused his mouth. He was hurt, but not daunted.

Smiling snidely at the Daimon, he kneed the bastard in the jewels.

The Daimon crumpled. Zarek took off running again, away from the Daimon, the Squires, and the cops, only he was nowhere near as fast as he'd been.

The pain made his eyesight blurry and the more he ran the more he hurt.

The agony of his body was unbearable.

Not in all his beatings as a child had he hurt this much. He didn't know how he managed to keep going. Only that some part of him refused to lie down and let them have him. He wasn't sure when he lost them, or maybe they were right behind him. Zarek couldn't really tell due to the buzzing in his ears.

Disoriented, he slowed, stumbling forward until he couldn't go any farther.

He fell into the snow.

Zarek lay there waiting for the others to grab him. Waiting for Thanatos to finish what they had started, but as the seconds ticked by, he realized he must have escaped them.

Relieved, he tried to rise.

He couldn't. His body just wouldn't cooperate anymore. The best he could manage was to crawl forward three more feet where he caught sight of a large cabin-style house in front of him.

It looked warm and cozy and in the back of his mind was the thought that if he could just make it to the door the person inside might help him.

He laughed bitterly at the thought.

No one had ever helped him.

Not once.

No, this was his fate. There was no use fighting it, and in truth, he was tired of struggling alone in the world.

Closing his eyes, he drew a long, ragged breath and waited for what was inevitable.

Chapter 3

Astrid sat on the edge of the bed as she checked the wounds of her "guest." For four days now, he had lain in her bed unconscious while she watched over him.

The tight muscles under her hands were firm and strong, but she couldn't see them.

She couldn't seehim .

Her eyesight was always forfeit when she was sent to judge someone. Eyes could deceive. They judged things very differently from the other senses.

Astrid must always be impartial even though at the moment she didn't truly feel that way. How many times had she gone in with an open heart only to be fooled?

The worst case had been Miles. A rogue Dark-Hunter, he had been charming and amusing. He had dazzled her with his vibrancy and ability to make everything a game. Whenever she had tried to push him to his limits, he had laughed off her tests and shown himself to be a good sport about everything.

He had appeared the perfect, well-balanced man.

For a time, she had even fancied herself in love with him.

In the end, he had tried to kill her. He had been completely amoral and ruthless.

Cold. Unfeeling. The only person he had been able to love was himself, and while he was nothing but scum, in his mind, he had been wronged by mankind so it was okay to do whatever he wanted to them.

And that was Astrid's biggest problem with Dark-Hunters. They were humans who were usually recruited from the sewers. Spat upon by others from the cradle to the grave, they were hostile to the world. Artemis never took that into consideration when she converted them. All she wanted was a soldier under Acheron's command.

Once they were created, Artemis washed her hands of them and left them for others to monitor and maintain.

At least until they crossed whatever line Artemis had drawn. Then the goddess rushed to have them judged and executed, and though she had no proof, Astrid suspected Artemis only followed that protocol to keep Acheron from being angry at her.