As she neared the crib, her heart stopped.
It was empty.
At only three weeks of age, there was no chance Marissa had gotten up and walked away.
Oh God, it was Desiderius!
He'd come back for them!
Terror gripped her at the thought. Ever since she and Kyrian had defeated that monster, she'd had recurring nightmares of him returning from the dead for vengeance against them.
"Kyrian!" She raced back to the bed and woke her husband.
"What is it?" he asked grumpily.
"It's Marissa. She's gone."
Kyrian sat up, fully alert now. "Gone where?"
"She's not in her crib. I don't know where she is."
He sprang from bed and grabbed his pants from the floor. Without waiting for Kyrian, Amanda ran through the upstairs, her heart pounding.
Where could her baby be?
The thought of losing her child was her worst nightmare.
She dashed down the stairs to see if the front door was open. If maybe someone had come in and taken her..
As she started into the living room, Amanda pulled up short. Shocked to the core of her being, she focused her gaze on the most unbelievable sight she'd ever beheld.
Acheron lay on the leather couch with Marissa cuddled contentedly on top of his muscular chest, up under his chin.
A pack of diapers was on the coffin-shaped coffee table along with an empty bottle of formula.
Relief and disbelief flooded her simultaneously.
When she had first met Acheron a little over a year ago, he had been the most terrifying thing she'd ever seen. A man possessed of incredible powers and contradictions, she had no doubt he could wish all of them into oblivion and yet there he lay with her infant daughter cradled tenderly in his huge hands.
"Is something..." Kyrian's voice trailed off as he, too, saw them.
She looked up at him over her shoulder. "I didn't know Ash liked babies."
"Neither did I. The uncomfortable way he's been behaving with Marissa in the house, I just assumed he had no use for them."
Kyrian was right. Ash had done nothing but avoid being around Marissa as much as possible. Every time she cried, he actually cringed and made a hasty exit. Amanda would never have guessed that he would actually tend her daughter.
Crossing the room, she reached for the baby.
Ash came awake with a look so feral and fierce that she stepped back with an audible gasp.
He sat up on the couch, but didn't move farther.
He blinked as he saw her and Kyrian.
"Sorry," Ash breathed. "I didn't realize it was you."
"I was just going to take her off you."
He glanced down at Marissa who was still sleeping within the shelter of his hands. "Oh. I must have fallen asleep while I was burping her."
He handed her to Amanda and the way he did it told her a lot. Acheron had an expertise that said he'd handled a baby more than just a few times.
"I hope I didn't scare you," he said apologetically. "She was crying when I came in and I went upstairs to make sure she was okay." He looked strangely pale, as if the thought of a baby crying was somehow painful for him. "Since the two of you were still sleeping and I was up, I figured I'd give you guys a break."
Amanda bent over and kissed him on the cheek. "You're a good man, Ash. Thanks."
A pain-filled look crossed his face as he pulled back from her. He got up from the couch and picked his backpack up from the floor. "I'll go on up to bed."
Kyrian stopped him as he started for the hallway. "You okay, Acheron? You look kind of shaken."
Ash laughed at that. "When have I ever been shaken?"
"Good point."
He clapped Kyrian on the shoulder. "I'm just tired."
"Yeah, I was wondering where you spent yesterday. You never came back here to sleep."
"I had something to take care of. Something that wouldn't wait."
Amanda sighed. "You know, Ash, one day you're going to have to learn to confide in someone."
"Good night, Amanda," Ash said. He inclined his head to Kyrian and headed for the stairs.
Amanda joined her husband as Acheron vanished upstairs. "I can't believe you've known him for twenty-one hundred years and you know so little about him that you can't even tell me his real hair color."
He shrugged. "Ash is so self-contained and -controlled that I doubt if anyone will ever know anything about him other than his name."
Sunshine lay in her bed long into the morning, remembering the sound of Talon's deep, even breaths while he slept. She remembered the way he liked to keep his knee snuggled high between her thighs and his arm draped possessively over her chest with his left hand buried in her hair.
How she missed him.
Then, her thoughts drifted into the past. Far into her other life...
"Don't go, Speirr. There is evil in this. I know it."
Angry, he'd jerked his arm free of her grasp. "They murdered my uncle, Nynia. Cut him down before my eyes. I will not rest until I have vengeance."
As Nynia, she had been too afraid of losing him to press the matter. She'd always deferred to him in all things. He was her husband. But in her heart, she'd known he was about to set matters into motion that could never be reversed.
And she had been right.
Just as she knew somehow tonight would settle everything one way or another.
What if she lost Talon?
She couldn't bear the thought of it any more than she could bear the thought of living out her life without him.
She glanced around her loft, at all the familiar things.
Since the day she'd divorced Jerry, all she had wanted was her career, her art.
Now, alone with her stuff, it just didn't seem quite so important to her.
Her art didn't hold her at night. It didn't make her laugh or seduce her. It didn't make her body burn with desire or shiver with orgasms.
It didn't punch Jerry in the nose for being a jerk.
Only Talon did that.
Only Talon could do that.
Her eyes fell to the Snoopy dispenser as tears welled up. "I can't let him go."
If only she knew how to keep him.
Zarek sat in the darkened corner of the living room, listening to the city outside awaken. He should be sleeping, resting up for the night that was to come, but he couldn't seem to find the peace he needed.