Disclaimer: I do not own any of the dark-hunter characters from the books. Sherrilyn Kenyon has all rights to the characters in this story. The only characters that I own are Mara, Sasha, and a few others.

Chapter 2

Mara' Adventurous Night

"Great! Please tell me you freaks didn't follow me from Bama!" Mara asked annoyed as she looked at about six very tall blonds, 'You guys have to be at least six feet…' she thought as she waited for Tabby and her husband. She had been waiting for Tabby out front for about an hour and a half, the sun was just setting and the air was becoming a little chilly.

"Leave her alone!" A male voice broke out over the crowd of blonds. He was followed by a shorter woman in all black, 'That has to be Tabby and her husband.' Mara thought.

"You might want to head his warning." Mara said with and obvious grin, "My names Mara, I suppose you two are my ride, Tabby and Val, I assume?" she asked looking at the blonds every moves.

"Is the little human mocking us?" one of the blonds asked, "And here I thought boss man said that she didn't know any of them." He said as all the blonds glared at the two new comers.

"Ha ha ha!" Mara started visibly laughing, "Whoever your boss is, he doesn't know a clue about me, let me guess, he told you that it would be easy to take me out? Unless you people know more types of martial arts than I do, you have no chance of even touching me." Mara said mockingly with a grin the size of a plate. One of the blonds lunged at her, just to go bounding back at his friends as if he was hit by an invisible force field, "Your looks are cheap tricks, I'm going to go ahead and warn you that if you are lucky enough to get anywhere near me or past my force field, it's instant death for you." She said with a warning glare, "That would really piss me off and I don't play nice when I'm pissed. So I'm going to ask this once, are you losers still planning on trying to capture me?"

All the blonds lunged at the 5'5 athletic built woman as Tabby and Val joined in the fight. Mara kicked the first two that reached her in the groins simultaneously and then jabbed their chests; instantaneously both men burst into a golden dust powder. "What in the world?" Mara asked as she jumped back, she almost landed completely in the shadows when she was attacked from behind. The man that attacked her was a blond by the looks of it and wouldn't let her go. She cursed at herself that she let her guard down enough so that she was captured with what could be an enemy. She looked up at the man holding her and looked at his face, she froze while Tabby and Val finished the rest of the damions.

When the couple had finished, they walked up to the man and Mara. "Put her down before you truly scare her senseless Ash." Tabby said. When Mara and the man disappeared a moment later, Val was on his phone and Tabby was cussing up a storm.

"Ash. We need you here now." Val said as Acheron appeared where the man had disappeared with Mara. "What?" he asked as Val went to hold Tabby and calm her down. Val explained what had happened as Mara came back and fell on Acheron so hard that he fell down and she was unconscious.

"Where was she headed?" Acheron asked, "I'll take her." He said as he waited for her response. "She was headed to Amanda and Kyrians'." Tabby said, "Ash, Amanda said that she was Nick's cousin." "Really?" Ash asked as he disappeared, 'I didn't see that coming,' he thought as he put Mara in the guest bedroom and popped into the kitchen, "Amanda, Mara's in the guest bedroom." He said as he looked to the stairway. "Mara?" he asked, "You were unconscious." He said as Marrissa started tugging on his pants leg, he picked her up like she wanted him to.

"I don't doubt it." Mara said,"Hello, my name is Mara. Are you Amanda?" she asked Amanda.

"Yes, I'm Amanda." She said, "Are you feeling alright?" she asked in a motherly tone.

"Yes, I'm fine now that I'm away from Stryker." Mara said, "The only reason I got knocked unconscious was that I stopped his hold on me in mid stream…" she said, not sure how to explain it to Amanda. "What's for dinner?" she asked sniffing the air "Never mind, dinner consists of pasta alfredo, green beans, corn potatoes, and pot roast, and to top off desert is blackberry cobbler. Am I correct?" she asked as she saw Amanda and Acheron with their faces looking shocked that she knew that by smell.

"Wow." A good looking blond man said as Marrissa said, "Da-da." With a grin he ruffled her hair," If you two keep your mouths open, flies are going to start calling it home. Hello and you are?" he asked as he finally noticed Mara.

"My name is Mara O' Connor, no relation to the actor or anyone else for that manner, besides Nick Gautier and his mother. O' Connor is just the name that the stupid orphanage gave me." She said as she held her hand out to him to shake. "Where's Nick?" she asked.

"Nice to meet you, Mara, my name is Kyrian Hunter. This is my wife Amanda and my daughter Marrissa. My friend here is Acheron." Kyrian said as he pointed to each in turn.

"Nice to meet you too." Mara said as she bowed, "Marrissa, may I hold you?" she asked as she held out her arms to her when she shook her head, Mara pouted a little "No? Alright then." she asked as she ruffled her hair.

"Dinner's ready." Amanda said as she recovered her composure and got Marrissas' high chair ready.

A young woman with knee length blood red hair with black highlights near the bottom and piercing emerald green eyes appeared in the doorway from the other room. "Mara!" she said happily seeing her friend Mara.