Acheron

teach me how and I'll leave you alone. If it helps, I'm a really quick learner.'

He ground his teeth in frustration. 'I don't like arguing. I don't like conflicts. I basically like to be left alone to do my thing and that doesn't include teaching you anything. Now do you mind?'

'Please…' her expression was the hottest mixture of cute pleading and raw seduction that he'd ever seen. 'I'll be your baklava slave until I die.'

He scowled. 'My what?'

'Baklava slave. I make the best you've ever tasted and I'll keep you supplied in it until you're fat and old.'

'I don't eat baklava.'

'That's because you've never had mine. Unless you're allergic to nuts, you'll love it.'

He tried to pry her loose from the ladder, but true to her words, she wouldn't be moved. His anger snapped. How could he be one of the most powerful beings in the universe and not be able to move a single frail women out of his way?

She made her eyes look like a sad puppy. 'Please, Acheron,' she said in Greek. Then she switched to English. 'Three days and then you'll never have to see me again. Tell me what you want in exchange and I'll do it.'

Karl laughed as he overheard them. 'Why don't you ask her to be your sex slave? For that I'd teach her whatever she wants.'

Her jaw dropped as if that was the most nauseating thought she'd ever had. 'Ew!'

That one single sound caught him off guard. 'Ew?' Ash repeated. 'You can't be serious?'

'Yeah, ew! I don't even know you really and here the two of you think I'm just going to jump in bed with you. No thanks! God, you're such an arrogant man pig.'

Arrogant man pig?

She screwed her face up in distaste and left the ladder. 'Fine, I'll research without you.' She shivered. 'Sleep with him for a translation, disgusting,' she said under her breath as she walked off.

Ash hung his arm on the ladder while watching her head for her car. He was completely stunned.

She didn't want to sleep with him…

She thought sleeping with him was disgusting.

Everybody over puberty wanted in his bed. Everybody.

Except Tory. A burst of hope went through him as he realized that she might be one of the exceptionally rare people who was immune to his Aunt Epithymia's curse. Even women who didn't find men attractive looked at him.

There had only been a handful of them throughout history and up until now they'd always been men who were immune… or those who were blind.

To find a human female who didn't want him…

He could be normal around her. Let his guard down and not have to be worried that she was going to start grabbing at his crotch. The novelty of that alone made him crave being around her.

Before he could stop himself, he went to her car and stopped her. 'I'll teach you.'

She turned angrily and pressed her index finger into his chest. 'I'm not sleeping with you, buddy.'

He smiled at her. 'I'm not asking you to. I swear it. I would never ask that of you.'

Her jaw fell open before she raked him with an offended snarl. 'What? You think sleeping with me would be repugnant? Oh you're such a jerk!'

Ash held his hands up in frustration. 'Why can't I ever win with you? If I want to sleep with you I'm a pig and if I don't I'm a jerk. What do you want from me?'

She stood in the open door of her car and stared up at him with those soulful eyes that seared him all the way to his gut. 'I want you to translate the journal and to keep your hands to yourself.'

'And yet still be attracted to you?'

She let out an evil laugh. 'Exactly. Now you're getting the hang of it.' She clapped him on the arm. 'I'll see you tonight at seven.'

He couldn't wait, he thought sarcastically. Maybe he ought to have Simi come with him. Every time he was around Tory, he felt the deep need for protection. At the very least he should make sure he wore a cup tonight so she couldn't cold-cock him when he wasn't looking.

What kind of masochistic bastard was he that he kept getting involved with women who loathed him?

You should forget about teaching her anything.

Yeah, but she held a part of his past and if he didn't get her away from Atlantis and Didymos, there was going to be even bigger problems. May the primal source take mercy on him if she happened on another of Ryssa's journals. He had what he thought were the most damning of them. But he didn't know what else his sister had written about. Tory and her obssesive quest had to be dealt with.

The last thing he needed was for the Dark-Hunters to find out that his mother was the one who'd created the Daimons they spent eternity fighting against and that they were being led by a tsoulos who was still selling himself to protect them. It would be disastrous for him.

No, he had to help her enough to get her sidetracked off this quest. Maybe he should find something Lemurian and get her on that topic. After all, its past had nothing to do with his.

You could just kill her.

That would be Savitar's answer. But Ash couldn't do that either. Theo had buried most of his family already and if he knew anything about his old friend it was how much Theo loved his family.

No, he'd have to find another way to move the inert mass that was Tory's obstinacy before it was too late…

Scylla and Charybdis. Like Odysseus, he was stuck between a rock and a hard place.

Tory had everything laid out perfectly. Her notebook, the journal and a beer on ice for her prickly tall guest. She was on the couch, nibbling on a cheese cube when there was a knock on the door at the precise minute the clock struck seven.

Dang… how punctual could one person be?

Getting up, she went to the door and opened it to find Mr. Goth all decked out in a long pirate-styled leather jacket, black pants and a pair of black boots with neon green skulls painted on them. His hair was damp as if he'd recently bathed and he smelled like strawberries. He was also still in those dark sunglasses.

'Come in,' she said, stepping back to let him enter.

He bent his head down so as not to bump her doorframe and went to the armchair where he dropped his backpack on the floor and then took his coat off. He laid it over the backpack and kept the fingerless black gloves on his hands.

She frowned at the tattoo on his muscled biceps that peeked out from under his black T-shirt. 'I thought that was on your forearm.'

He glanced down at the tattoo and shrugged. 'Should we get started?'

Before she could shut the door, his cell phone rang.

He let out a tired sigh before he flipped it open. 'It's Ash. Go.'

She went to open the beer and handed it to him while he listened.

He gave her a grateful smile as he took the beer. 'Uh, no. That would be really unwise. Trust me, she has no known sense of humor about anything male… Okay I'll see what I can do.' He hung up and dialed the phone at the same time he took a swig of beer.

'I'll be right with you,' he told her, then he spoke to someone else on the phone. 'Hey, Urian, I need you to ride herd on Zoe in Seattle. She's one step away from running afoul of Ravyn who's threatening to behead her… No, I won't be able to get up there for a few days.' He took another swig. 'Thanks.' Hanging up, he put the phone in his back pocket.

Tory frowned at him. 'So what exactly is it that you do?'

'I'm a wrangler.'

'A wrangler?' she asked, amused by the mere thought of him on horseback with a black cowboy hat decked out with skulls. 'Like a cowhand?'

He laughed. 'Yeah, only I wrangle people with nasty attitudes. You'd like them. Most are real jerks.'

'Ah, a true meeting of the minds then.'

'Something like that.' His phone rang again. Growling, he pulled it out and looked at the number before he opened it. 'No… You don't have to ask it, I know what you want. The answer is no. Hell, no, since it's coming from