He saw eyes of intense and burning green. Eyes, he thought wearily, that he'd been dreaming of moments before he'd awakened with a head the size of Nebraska.

There was an instant of recognition, a strange and intimate knowledge, and with it a bone-deep longing. Then there was nothing but shock.

He had time to blink, a split second to admire what he was certain was a very creative hallucination, before the very sharp and very real point of a dagger pressed against his carotid artery.

"I am Kadra," the mostly naked and well-armed hallucination stated in a throaty voice as oddly familiar as her eyes. "Slayer of Demons."

"Okay, that's really interesting." If he'd been drunk and stupid enough the night before to bring a crazy woman back to his apartment, and couldn't even remember heating up the sheets with her, he deserved to get his throat cut.

But it really wasn't the way he wanted to start the day.

"Would you mind getting that pig-sticker away from my jugular? You're spoiling a perfectly good hangover."

Frowning, she sniffed at him, then used her free hand to pull up his top lip and study his teeth. Satisfied, she drew back the dagger, slid it handily into its wrist sheath.

"You are not a demon. You may live."

"Appreciate it." Going with instinct rather than sanity, Harper shoved her, snatched at the dagger. The next thing he knew, she'd executed a neat back flip off the bed, landed on her feet beside it. With a very big sword raised over her head.

"You win." He tossed the dagger aside, held up both hands.

"You yield?"

"Damn right. Why don't you put that thing down before somebody—especially me—gets hurt? Then we can go call the nice people at the asylum. They'll come pick you up and take you for a little ride."

Disgusted that she'd landed on a coward, she shook her head. But she lowered the sword. "Are you the harper called Doyle?"

"I'm Harper Doyle."

"We have to hunt."

"Sure, no problem." Smiling at her, he eased toward the far side of the bed. Whatever that feeling had been when he'd first looked into her eyes, he was sure now he hadn't been drunk enough, hadn't been stupid enough to bring her home with him. "Just let me get my hunting gear and we'll be off."

Using his body to block her view, he slid open the drawer in the nightstand and drew out his Glock. "Now, put that goddamn sword down, Xena."

"I am Kadra," she corrected and studied the object in his hand. "This is a gun." The name, the purpose of it were floating in her head, in the maze of knowledge Rhee had given her. The fascination for it, this new weapon, made her yearn. "I would like to have one."

She looked at him, studying his face for the first time, and found herself shocked that it brought her another kind of yearning.

"I was sent to you," she told him.