The Dark-Hunters Read Free

body.”
    Selena’s face fell. Grabbing the book from her and slamming it shut, Selena glared at her. “You know the weirdest people.”
    Grace cocked an eyebrow.
    “Don’t say it,” Selena said as she took her usual seat behind her table. She placed the book down beside her. “I’m telling you, this ”—she tapped the center of the book twice—“is the answer for you.”
    Grace stared at her friend, thinking how true to form Madam Selene, self-proclaimed Moon Mistress, looked sitting behind her tarot cards and purple table with the arcane book beneath her hand. At that moment, she could almost believe Selena was a mystical Gypsy.
    If she believed in such things.
    “Okay,” Grace said, giving in. “Quit stalling and tell me what that book and picture have to do with my sex life.”
    Selena’s face became gravely earnest. “That guy I showed you … Julian … is a Greek love-slave who is completely controlled by, and devoted to, whoever summons him.”
    Grace laughed out loud. She knew it was rude, but she couldn’t help it. How in the world could a Rhodes scholar with a Ph.D. in both ancient history and physics, even one with Selena’s idiosyncrasies, believe in something so ludicrous?
    “Don’t laugh. I’m serious.”
    “I know you are, that’s what makes this so funny.” Clearing her throat, Grace sobered. “Okay. What do I have to do? Strip off my clothes and dance by the Pontchartrain at midnight?” The corners of her mouth lifted even as Selena’s eyes darkened in warning. “You’re right, I’d get sex all right, but I don’t think it’d be from some gorgeous Greek love-slave.”
    The book fell from the table.
    Selena jumped with a shriek and scooted her chair back.
    Grace gasped. “You pushed that with your elbow, didn’t you?”
    Her eyes as round as saucers, Selena slowly shook her head no.
    “’Fess up, Lanie.”
    “I didn’t do it,” she said, her face deadly serious. “I think you offended him.”
    Shaking her head at that nonsense, Grace fished her sunglasses and keys out of her purse. Yeah, right, this was just like the time in college when Lanie had talked her into using a Ouija board and Lanie had made it say that Grace would marry a Greek god by the time she was thirty and have six kids by him.
    To this day, Selena refused to admit that she’d been pushing the planchette.
    And right now it was too hot under the August sun to argue. “Look, I need to get back to the office. I have a two o’clock and I don’t want to get caught in traffic.” She pulled her Ray-Bans on. “Are you still coming over tonight?”
    “Wouldn’t miss it for the world. I’ll bring the wine.”
    “All right then, I’ll see you at eight.” Grace paused long enough to say, “Tell Bill I said hi and thanks for letting you come over for my birthday.”
    Selena watched her walk off and smiled. “Just wait until you see your birthday present,” she whispered, picking the book up from where it had fallen. She trailed her hand over the soft tooled leather, brushing away a few grains of dirt.
    Opening it back up, Selena stared at the gorgeous picture, and at eyes that were drawn in black and yet somehow gave the impression of a deep, cobalt blue.
    For once, her spell would work. She was sure of it.
    “You’ll like her, Julian,” Selena whispered to him as she traced her finger over his perfect body. “But I should warn you, she’d try the patience of a saint. And getting inside her defenses will be as hard as breaching the walls of Troy. Still, I think if anyone can help her find herself, it’s you.”
    Underneath her hand, she felt the book grow warm and instinctively she knew it was his way of agreeing with her.
    Grace thought her crazy for her beliefs, but as the seventh daughter of a seventh daughter and with the blood of Gypsies flowing thick through her veins, Selena knew that there were certain things in life that defied explanation. Certain arcane energies that ebbed and flowed