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GEARY STOOD IN FRONT OF THE FULL-LENGTH MIRROR, exhausted by her day and yet strangely thrilled at the prospect of being with Arik She hadn&039;t been on a date in over a year, and the last one had been particularly bad She&039;dan offer for dinner from a man she&039;d reat deal of time in Europe, she was used to the differences in culture But this guy

He&039;d been co, and worst of all had monopolized the entire dinner conversation-which had reat he was and how he&039;d make the world a better place if he were eh the streets and stoned fifteen minutes after he took that office

She should have been so lucky-it was a pity the man hadn&039;t been crowned emperor before their dinner

It&039;d been the only ti out of the bathroomto escape an obnoxious date

If only she hadn&039;t been in a low-cut dress and high heels

Tonight she had on pants and low-heeled Clarks-just in case

"Geary, Mr Arik is here for your date"

She sh-pitched ratitude that no one had been hurt today Geary honestly wouldn&039;t be able to survive knowing she&039;d killed so a huht away before she became completely maudlin, Geary checked her makeup oneit and hoped that she hadn&039;t applied it too darkly

Or, more to the point, that she didn&039;t look like a Kabuki actor

"You can do this," she said to her reflection, trying to bolster her confidence It was only dinner She could survive that There were no strings attached Just two huood conversation

Which she hoped wouldn&039;t end with Arik thinking he was an all-powerful god of the known universe

She pulled her light crocheted sweater out fro her hand with an indignant paw, then headed to the living roo with a copy of Plato&039;s Republic in ancient Greek on her lap Geary laughed "Don&039;t you ever get bored reading that?"

"Not really There&039;s always so in it that I missed the last time The man is really, really deep"

Geary shook her head "You&039;re a sick girl, Tor Sick, sick, sick"

"I know I coful look over the top of her glasses

"It&039;s true," Geary agreed "We co texts-I think itCoue out at her

Geary paused as she saw Arik waiting by the door He was positively striking in a black suit with a white silk shirt that had the top two buttons undone to show a delectably tanned neck His black hair curled becoly around his face and shoulders while those crystal blue eyes radiated heat and intensity For the first time since they&039;d met, he was clean shaven, which made him appear somewhat more tamed and cultured But only a tiny bit There was still that aura of raer that emanated from him

As she drew near, he handed her a bouquet of white roses Geary sesture as she took them and cupped them to her nose so that she could inhale their sweet scent "Thank you"

"My pleasure" Then he crossed the room and handed a smaller bouquet off to Tory, who actually put her book down and beamed happily

"For me, too?"

He nodded "Least I could do for the woe Pop-Tarts"

Tory squeaked as she took them and buried her face in their soft petals "I love roses Thank you"

"Anytime"

Geary kissed his cheek before she handed her roses to Tory to take care of "Are you sure you&039;re going to be all right by yourself?"

Tory scoffed "You&039;re the one wigging out over today, not o and have fun I have plenty of stuff here to entertain lanced to the mountain of ancient Greek books on the coffee table and knew that Tory would be up all night reading The girl really was insane "Okay But if you need anything, call Teddy He said he was staying hoht"

"Will do, Captain"

Arik opened the door for Geary to walk through She paused as she saw Solin&039;s li for them "Should I be afraid?"

He offered her his arm "Not at all Solin has already prepped s no matter how much you turn me on He even showed me how to use cutlery so that I wouldn&039;t e He didn&039;t seehts drifted as she entered the car with Arik behind her A weird sense of deja vu went through her, along with the scent of his aftershave and the strength of his body He was a choice speci for attention

How she wished she hadnaughty and naked in the back of the li blind from their raucous play But she wasn&039;t that type of woman All she could do was dreaeara slid over the seat to the oppositeThe way sheover his body If this were a dream he&039;d be able to pull her to him and kiss her until they were naked and blind with pleasure

His swollen cock burned with need But unfortunately, this wasn&039;t a dream and she would probably have his head if he tried and he didn&039;t mean the one on his shoulders

"You look incredible," he said as George shut the door

Her cheeks pinkened "Thank you You look pretty good yourself"

He smiled "Good Solin can live another day"

"What do you ht I didn&039;t know if I should trust hih He&039;s not the most reliable of people"

Her eyes softened as if she understood "You two have an odd relationship, don&039;t you?"

"You could say that It often rey So which one is you and which is Solin?"

He winked at her "I&039;ll leave that for you to decide"

Not sure ould least insult him, Geary didn&039;t speak while they drove to a small seaside cafe Her heart clenched as they left the car and she realized where they were

Arik paused as he noticed her hesitancy "Are you all right?"

She had to force herself to respond over the lu about so"

"What?"

She pointed to an old brick wall across the street that was beside a set of stone stairs that had been

worn by intensive foot traffic over time, and the elements "My brother and I used to climb over that e were kids We&039;d pretend it was the wall of Troy" She gave hie children Jason would play Hector and I was always Achilles We&039;d lob dirt clods and rocks at each other until either one of us was bleeding or my father would yell at us to stop

Then we&039;d sneak attack each other and plot our revenge"

She took a deep breath to stave off the pain "God, hoe&039;d play Then ere older, Jason used to coht this whole area would have looked like centuries ago" The corner table that he would always lay claim to because it had the best vieas still there just as it had always beer The table looked as if it aiting for the young , she looked up at Arik as all thoseher his concepts for his drawings He&039;d been so precise and detailed in his descriptions that there were times when she would have sworn he had to have lived back then to know them all How she wondered what he&039;d have been like now What he&039;d think of her

Shaking her head, she tried to dispel her bittersweet ine what the island o? Two thousand?" she asked Arik

Arik wished he had his powers If he did, he would have granted her that wish In one heartbeat, he could have shown her exactly what this place had looked like-firsthand

Then again, he did have that power in another realht you&039;ll see it"

He saw the doubt in her eyes before she answered "Sure Why not? I dreah other weird stuff"

"Such as?"

She blinked before she stepped away "Nothing Shall we eat?"

He hated whenever she closed herself off fro But then he&039;d known her for a while now

In her ers

Regretting the necessity of that, Arik directed her toward the cafe Solin had prepped hireet the hostess and request a seat, but it was still very strange It was odd how people left such trivial matters out of dreams They simply cut to the chase and didn&039;t waste valuable time with incidentals If so There was none of this getting to it and requesting tables or waiting

Dreams really were superior to reality

After a bit of a wait, Arik and Megeara were seated at a table that overlooked the sea Even though it was dark, they could still hear the surf and see the whitecaps as they rolled onto shore Lights fros in the distance twinkled like stars that had fallen to earth, while the srumble and cramp

Arik was surprised by the sensation He&039;d never been really hungry before And the sights and sounds were overwhelht a peculiar ache to his chest He didn&039;t understand the source of it He felt sad and happy for no apparent reason, and when he looked at Megeara all he wanted to do was reach out and touch her To ask her if the sight and sounds made her feel the saeara said as she skimmed her menu "What do you recommend?"

He frowned as he looked at his est "I don&039;t know I didn&039;t think to ask that of Solin Is that soave him an arch stare "Only if the date has eaten at the restaurant before" Then she chided him,

"Don&039;t tell me you&039;ve never been on a date"

Arik realized he&039;d already made another mistake She would never believe that he&039;d reached whatever age he appeared to be without having taken out a woical for a human male to have kept to himself "No, I have just not like this"

She still wasn&039;t buying it "Not like this how?"

Think, Arik, think "With a woave him an amused smile "So you&039;ve been on dates with ht He was a moron "No, no What I mean is that I&039;ve never asked a wo or tith them and then leave" There, that sounded better and it was the truth

"Then you what?" she asked, her voice tinged by anger "You leave the by the phone for a call that never comes? Hoonderfully kind of you"

Why the sarcas?

"No, that&039;s not what I et himself into so much trouble with just words? But he could tell froe and the fury in her eyes that he wasn&039;t helping hi so hostile toto understand you and the things you keep telling e in Nashville with such a lis work?"

Nashville? What was she talking about now? He&039;d never heard of such a thing before He was constantly baffled by her "What is Nashville?"

She gave him a "duh" stare "Where you claim to have met me Remember?"

He shook his head "No That was Vanderbilt where we met"

"Yes, and Vanderbilt is located in Nashville, Tennessee"

Arik froze as he realized what he&039;d just done In her dreams she&039;d never made mention of what town the

school was in, and since he wasn&039;t from this plane there was no way for hiain, to cover his blunder "Oh, it&039;s been a long ti comforted, she looked even o, especially not for a man who remembered me so well And I don&039;t see how aA on, Arik?" She narrowed her eyes on him "You didn&039;t meet me there, did you?"

"Of course I did," he said defensively He had no choice except to try to brazen this out "Why would I lie about that?"

Geary didn&039;t knohat to think But soht with all of this She could feel it in her gut and she could see it on his face He was hiding so "How should I knohy you&039;d lie? But you&039;re not who you say you are, are you?"

"I aht "Be honest with me, Arik Who the hell are you?"

"I&039;ve told you I&039; that, but why don&039;t I believe it?"

"I can&039;t iut warned her to put distance between them Had they been alone, she would have But they had plenty of people around them and she wanted some answers "Tell me the truth, Arik Why are you here withanswer "You keep saying that"

"Because it&039;s true I swear it"

She clenched her teeth as a wave of anger went over her Why couldn&039;t he tell her as going on?

Honestly, she was getting tired of his cryptic ways and things about him that just didn&039;t add up "I don&039;t believe you"

"Then what do you believe?"

She didn&039;t know, but the ht it over, the less any of it ht with this With hi her feel as if she were losing her ht of an incredibly intense ht at them At least six six and with an aura of "don&039;t look atblack leather coat and dark sunglasses even though it was nighttioatee and short black hair There was so for soaze from him, back to Arik "Do you know him?"

He followed her line of vision to see thehis way toward the smile on the man&039;s sardonic lips as he paused at the table next to them The "killer" whisked his coat off with a flourish, and as he moved, a tattoo of a double bow and arrow on his biceps peeked out fro, folks," he said to the," she answered

Arikhis tenseness He didn&039;t like the newcomer and it was obvious

"Is he a friend of yours?" she asked in a low tone

Arik cursed silently at the presence of the Dark-Hunter Immortal warriors in the service of Artes that would prey on them No doubt the Dark-Hunter could sense the essence of Arik&039;s soul Even though he was technically human at this time, he still had the soul of an immortal, and since Dark-Hunters were the protectors of human souls the Dark-Hunter would know that Arik wasn&039;t hu have been any worse? Megeara was already suspicious enough The last thing Arik needed was her asking questions about immortal vaainst his soul A touch

A threat

The Dolophoni had found him Their presence on this plane was unht He glanced around the restaurant and street but couldn&039;t find anything out of place Everyone around hi wrong?" Megeara asked as she noticed Arik&039;s fidgeting

He knew the s"

"You don&039;t look like nothing&039;s wrong You look really nervous all of a sudden What? You owe the guy next to us ?"

Hoished it were that siod a human soul and a dozen more his life Yeah well, it was time to put a stop to at least one side of that statement "I just need a ht back"

Geary frowned as Arik got up and left her alone She didn&039;t knohat concerned her eover as if he knew a secret she didn&039;t or Arik&039;s peculiar behavior

"You have an interesting friend there," the ht brogue in his Greek "Are you Scottish?"

He laughed before he answered her in English "I used to be so like that"

Geary frowned at his words What? So of one of their ancient breed Yeah, right That would only make him a couple of thousand years old

She buried her sarcasain "Do you know Arik?"

The man nodded before he looked off into the direction where Arik had vanished "I o He helped me out of a bad situation He&039;s helped a lot of people over the years"

There was an odd note in his voice, Dubious And itdealer or some other criueness was really starting to wear on her and it made her suspicions cliht and it was soal? Maybe they were arms dealers-Solin had never answered her question about what he did for a living Ah jeez, that would be her luck Hooking up anted fugitives

Great

She lifted her water glass up in aever so helpful"

He took her salute in stride "My pleasure really Have a good night"

Have a good night Why did that not see dinner with an arms dealer

Or soht in favor of another one Where was Arik? He should have come back by now

As if he heard her question, theto the air around theot up and jumped over the small chain that separated the cafe area from the street He quicklyand vanished without even looking back at his coat

What was that not so stealth action?

Geary knew that where he was going and what he intended was none of her business and yet she felt a deep compulsion to follow after him

Don&039;t be stupid He could be an undercover cop of some sort Hell, he could even be CIA Interpol

Scotland Yard Even an assassin or space alien Her iination ith possibilities

But before she could stop herself, her curiosity won out and she got up and headed in the same direction where he&039;d disappeared

Even as she went, she called herself every name she could think of How stupid was this? What kind of idiot chased after aoff into who knehat? I&039;ll stick to the shadows and if it gets bad, or looks scary, I&039;ll run right back

You&039;re an i stopped the instant she entered the alley to find Arik in the hting in her forgotten drea back to her

Geary froze as she gaped at the i This could not be happening

The man she&039;d followed approached the twins sloith purpose Arik was bleeding as he kicked one twin back and the other backed up to confront the newcomer

"Stay out of this, Dark-Hunter," the tarned the man she&039;d followed "This doesn&039;t concern you"

He shook his head "Arikos and I go way back You want to fight him it involves me"

The twin started for him, but Arik ran at the twin and knocked hiaze eara," he snarled at the one called Dark-Hunter "Keep her safe"

The other twin literally ripped Arik away from his brother before he twisted open a butterfly knife and plunged it into Arik&039;s side Blood instantly soaked his shirt and poured over the man&039;s hand

Geary choked on a screaasped an instant before his eyes narrowed in anger

"We&039;re not in the dream realm now," the twin snarled into his ear, "and you&039;re not so tough here, are you, Skotos?"

Arik hissed before he head-butted the twin and knocked him away Then Arik jerked the knife from his side and held it in a bloodied fist "Don&039;t dismiss me, asshole Here or there, I can still kick your ass" He e at hiht Arik&039;s attacker and kicked hio for the police and instead ran into a huge man who had a demeanor so lethal and a body so solid that he should rent hi ball His face bore the wrath of hell as he pushed past her and threw his hand out

All four round hard, as if they&039;d been struck by so Arik, who lay on his back