Instead, she’d been killed because of him, and that was a truth that cut to the deepest part of his being.

Unable to stand it, he forced himself to walk to the keypad on the gate and press the code. He half-expected it not to work, but it did.

Nick paused by the petunias his mother kept in a large vase next to the back door and moved it over so that he could get the spare key.

Everything was just as it’d been when he’d been human.… Only now everything was different.

Most of all, he was different.

His stomach churning, he opened the door and stepped into his house.

His friend, Kyl Poitiers, had told him that there had been some damage to the place during Katrina, but that the house had been restored. Nick had to give them credit—it was pristine. Nothing, other than his mother’s spirited presence, was out of place.

“Oh, Nicky, look! It has one of them garbage disposals! I never thought I’d own something so fancy and look at them tiles on the wall. Is that Italian marble?”

Dropping his duffle on the kitchen floor, he glanced to the right, where the Travertine bake center was. “Only the best for you, Mom.”

He could still see her smiling as she rushed around the room for the first time. “Oh, you spoil me, baby. You’re the only thing right I’ve ever done in my life. I don’t know why God was so good to me that He sent you down from heaven, but I’m glad He did.”

Nick let out a bitter laugh. He wasn’t heaven-sent. Like the worthless bastard who’d fathered him, he was hell-born.

Literally.

He laid the key on the countertop. The last time he’d been here, he’d been calling out for his mother. Screaming her name as he ran through the house, trying to locate her.

He’d found her upstairs.

Against his will, his feet took him right to the spot where he’d last seen her. He stood in the doorway, looking at his mother’s favorite chair. In his mind, he could see her lifeless body there. But in reality, there was no trace of her death.…

Or his own.

He cringed at the memory. Just before where he now stood, he’d called out to the Greek goddess Artemis to make him a Dark-Hunter. When she’d refused and told him he’d have to be dead first, he’d blown his brains out right in front of her.

Afraid of how Acheron would react to his death, Artemis had made him immortal and marked him with the Dark-Hunter bow-and-arrow brand on his face, but he wasn’t really one of her army who protected mankind. He had powers greater than the others.

For one, he could walk in daylight while no other Dark-Hunter could.

And now he shared powers with Stryker.…