Sherrilyn Kenyon - Dark Side of the Moon by Sherrilyn Kenyon Page B

could step away, she heard a faint voice through the door. “It’s her and he’s here in human form. She won’t hand him over, so what do you want us to do?”
    Susan scowled as she heard a voice answer him, but she couldn’t make out any of the words.
    “Yes, sir.” There was a brief pause until she heard footsteps on her porch. At first, she thought it was the police leaving. But the sound was getting closer, not farther away.
    “He said to kill the Dark-Hunter and take the woman back to the shelter for questioning. If she gives us any problems, kill her, too.”
    Her heart shrank at those words. They had to be joking… right? This wasn’t real. It couldn’t be.
    “I told you not to answer it, didn’t I?” Ravyn snarled as he pulled her away from the door.
    Two seconds later the front door flew open. The two uniformed officers angled guns at them. “Don’t move.”
    She raised her hands up as fear gripped her hard. They were going way out of line on this one. “What’s the meaning of this?”
    They didn’t answer as she saw two more men in street clothes coming in behind them. Large and tough, they each looked like they had a rap sheet to make Scar face proud.
    Ravyn silently debated on how to handle this. The tall blond was half-Apollite without a doubt, but the other three were humans. By Dark-Hunter code, he wasn’t allowed to harm humans. Then again he’d never lived by anyone’s code but his own.
    For now, he had to move quickly to keep Susan safe and himself alive. “Susan…”
    She looked at him as he reacted instinctively.
    He dove for her at the same time the cops opened fire on him. Ravyn cursed as the bullets sliced into his flesh. They wouldn’t kill him, but it didn’t mean they didn’t hurt.
    Susan was momentarily stunned by what was happening. This wasn’t a practical joke. They were trying to kill him and take her. The horror of it all held her immobile as she stared at the blood pouring out of Ravyn’s body while he shielded her from the gunfire.
    “He’s still moving,” one of the thugs said to the blond officer.
    “The bullets won’t kill him. Tear down the blinds.”
    She heard Ravyn’s curse before he breathed in her ear, “Run for the back door while I distract them.”
    He rolled from her as the men started ripping her blinds from their tracks, causing the afternoon sun to spill through her living room.
    That’s my house, you assholes
, she wanted to shout at them, but thought better of it. They didn’t seem to be in the most reasonable of moods as they riddled her home with more bullets while tearing it apart. She was amazed that they hadn’t shot her in the chaos.
    Ravyn hissed as a ray of sunlight cut across his skin. But what stunned her most was that his skin blistered and began smoking.
    That wasn’t normal and that wasn’t fake, especially not the stench of it… what was going on?
    “Kill him!”
    Ravyn dropped the blanket and shoved her toward the back of her house. “Go!”
    “What about you?”
    He recoiled as they opened fire on him again. “Go, Susan. Run!”
    She did but she didn’t go far. She ran to her closet and pulled out her baseball bat that she kept there just in case of intruders. And this definitely qualified as that. Too bad she hadn’t had time to get to her gun before all this started.
    Susan ran back to the fray. Ravyn went down hard on the floor as she swung at the thug closest to her.
    She caught him against the arm with enough force that it caused him to drop his gun. Then she swung another blow at him with all her strength, catching him against the head. He hit the ground hard. The brunette officer turned toward her and took aim. She ducked as he unloaded his clip into her wall.
    Ravyn was dazed as his body burned. Daylight was now all around him so much so that he could barely move for it.
    He saw Susan swinging at the other thug as the halfblood officer grabbed him by the ankle and tried to pull him toward the light on the