Dayhunter

NINE

We stopped at a small square flanked by some cozy restaurants and narrow shops. It was a quaint neighborhood that generally escaped the crowds of tourists, even during the high season. At night the area twinkled with guttering candles and little white lights. The air was layered with the tangy scent of spices and rich sauces with a hint of melted cheese. It almost made me miss the taste of food, but not quite.

“What are we doing here?” Danaus inquired as we came to stand in the center of the square. He turned and looked at the fountain at the opposite end, its falling water dancing in the faint yellow lights that flowed along the stone structure.

“Meeting a friend,” I replied as Alex stepped out of the entrance of one of the small bars. There was an almost hypnotic sway to her hips as she closed the distance between us, her lithe body dancing to its own natural rhythm.

The lycanthrope was strong and independent, chasing after those things she wanted most in life. She cherished her existence as a werewolf, seeing her enhanced abilities as a gift rather than a curse, like so many of her kind. But even if she hadn’t been a lycan, I think she would have reveled in all of her natural abilities as a normal human being. Life for her was a drink to be gulped, sipped, and always savored.

Alex had helped me escape myself and my past when my thoughts grew too dark. In return, I did everything within my power to foster amiable relations between her kind and mine. Not the easiest of tasks.

Her powers brushed briefly past me as she scanned the area. She was making sure we were alone. I had already checked. The closest nightwalker was stalking a tourist on the other side of the canal in San Marco. We had time. Besides, since dropping off Sadira on Guidecca, I had been cloaking Danaus and myself. We would need the privacy.

I opened my arms and was about to greet her when her fist connected with my jaw, snapping my head around. One of the benefits of being a werewolf was speed. The other was strength. I stumbled backward a step into Danaus, who tensed. I had seen her swing half a second before she hit me but was so surprised that I didn’t try to dodge it.

“Bitch!” she spat at me.

“What are you doing? We’re alone,” I said, pushing off of Danaus. But even as I said it, I noticed the second lycanthrope stepping from the entrance of the bar. His broad shoulders briefly blocked the square of golden light pouring from the open doorway. He was either a member of her pack or assigned to her as backup should she run into any problems when dealing with my kind. Either way, I wasn’t overly concerned. He was of her race and thus would protect her.

“That was for what you said,” Alex told me, giving my shoulder a little shove with her index finger. Her narrowed eyes glittered in the faint light from a nearby pub but otherwise remained brown. “That Omega comment was a low blow and you know it.”

I shrugged. “It had to be convincing. I’m not particularly popular at the moment and I didn’t want any backlash to hit you if they thought we were friends.”

“Yeah, you always had a way with people,” Alex said. Her full lips eased from a hard, angry slash to a reluctant smile. “Who’s this?” she asked, jerking her chin toward my dark shadow. I turned and put an arm around her slim shoulders.

“Alexandra Brooks, this is Danaus, the hunter,” I said, introducing her. She twisted out of my grasp so she could look up at me, her eyes widening to the point I thought I would have to catch them when they fell from their sockets.

“Are you crazy, girl?” she gasped. She looked over at Danaus then back at me. “There’ve been some rumors, but I didn’t believe them. What’s going on?”

“I’ll explain soon,” I said with a slight shake of my head. “Who’s your golden companion? Pack member?”

Alex looked at me strangely, her brows drawn together over her pert nose. “I thought you knew,” she softly said. “He belongs to Jabari.”

“What?” I gasped. “No.” The growl of frustration rumbled in my throat a second before I started moving, but my nails never made it into the lycan’s bronze throat. Danaus quickly wrapped a strong arm around my waist and held me close, keeping me from ripping the man’s throat out before a crowd of humans.

“Not here,” Danaus snapped, tightening his arm around my waist, nearly cracking a rib.

“He’s going to tell Jabari that I spoke with Alex. He’ll know…he’ll know we’re friends,” I said. Both my hands gripped the arm around my waist but I’d stopped struggling, my eyes never wavering from the lycan’s face. He stared at me with a look of such sympathy and compassion that I could almost believe he cared for my plight.

“I don’t understand,” Alex interjected, drawing my gaze back to her troubled features. “I thought you and Jabari…Well, you’ve never made any secret of your—”

“Jabari wants me dead,” I said in a rush. “He wants my head on a pike and my heart on his mantel.” Saying the words out loud suddenly made me feel very tired. My body went extremely still, as if I were made of stone, and I leaned back into Danaus, letting his warmth seep into me, calm my mind. Jabari had been my beloved mentor and guide through the night for nearly five centuries. He had been a companion when the emptiness threatened to consume me. And now he accused me of betrayal while he stank of it. I had been his puppet, his toy, his own personal assassin and servant. I had believed he would protect nightwalkers and that he would do what was right for our race.

But I’d been wrong about him; about a lot of things. Unfortunately, my blindness and ignorance were getting people killed. It couldn’t continue.

“I won’t say anything to the Coven about your meeting with Ms. Brooks,” the man said, his deep voice like a distant drum beat waking me from my growing lethargy. “I may belong to the vampire, but my loyalty will always be to my own kind.”

“Thank you…”

“Nico,” he supplied.

“Nico?” I repeated, crinkling my nose at him. He definitely didn’t look like a Nico. He was more like a John or Bruce. Maybe even Adonis, but that was guessing he looked as delicious naked as he did standing there in his cotton slacks and soft, hunter green button-up shirt. The sleeves of his shirt were rolled up past his elbows, revealing strong tanned arms covered in light blond hairs. I was willing to bet naked was better.

“Nicolai Gromenko,” he replied, crushing the name with his clenched teeth.

“You’re not Russian,” I snapped, sounding equally irritated.

“Fourth generation. Nicolai is a family name. I’m from Phoenix. Anything else? Shoe size? Boxers versus briefs?”

“Don’t worry,” I purred, a grin slinking across my mouth. “There’s always time to find out.” The comment instantly erased the irritation from Nicolai’s expression, causing a surprised smile to brighten his handsome features.

Danaus suddenly released me, a snort of disgust escaping him while Alexandra laughed. My attention snapped back to my companions and I winked at my old friend. I couldn’t help myself.

“Lord! You had me worried for a minute,” Alex said as she gave me a quick hug. “Between the hunter and Jabari, I seriously thought you were losing it.”

“She has,” Danaus grumbled.

My eyes darted from Danaus back to my friend, who noticed the smile that was crumbling from my face. “We have to talk,” I said. Threading a loose strand of hair behind my ear, I swept my gaze over the area. This was going to take a while, but it would be worth it. “Hungry?” I asked, my eyes snagging on a pleasant-looking restaurant with a scattering of tables on the rim of the square.

“Starved,” Alex said with a half sigh. She tilted her head toward Danaus while plopping her hands on her hips. “He need babysitting while you hunt?”

“She’s eaten already,” Danaus interjected, oozing disapproval.

Alex arched one eyebrow at me and threw a “What’s his problem?” look my way. She had long ago adjusted to the fact that I drank of the blood of humans and thought nothing of the hunt.

Threading my arm through hers, I guided her over to the restaurant, with Danaus and Nicolai following close behind. I motioned to the maître d’ that we would be taking one of the tables in the courtyard. He nodded, then disappeared inside the building to find a server.

When we were all comfortably seated and our drink order taken, I relaxed in my chair, staring out across the quiet square. A pair of lovers walked arm in arm, whispering to each other. Three young children chased pigeons, their squeals of laughter skipping ahead of them. From inside the restaurant, loud boisterous Italian tumbled into the plaza. It was all pleasant and blissfully normal.

“Let’s start with something simple,” Alex announced as she scanned the menu. “Was that you I felt earlier?”

“I lost my temper,” I murmured, my eyes falling to the tabletop. It had been stupid and irresponsible. Now that I was calm, I could admit as much. My actions had been careless and irresponsible, just like when I convinced Tristan to help me attack the naturi in England. We had been outnumbered and outgunned. I knew that when we spotted them, but I went ahead anyway. As a result, I barely escaped with my life, endangering Danaus and Tristan unnecessarily.

I knew better than to take these stupid risks and risk the lives of those I had sworn to protect. Shame and guilt burned away in my stomach. Fear of the naturi was driving me to make one bad decision after another, and it couldn’t go on. I had already lost Michael. I refused to lose anyone else in my life because of my stupidity.

Drawing in a steadying breath, I lifted my eyes from the glass tabletop to look over at Danaus, who sat to my right with his arms folded over his chest. “Do you eat?”

“Yes,” he said, frowning at me.

“Then find something to eat,” I said, tapping his untouched menu with the index finger of my right hand. “Order something big. I’m putting it on the Coven gold card.”

“That’s petty,” he chided, but he still picked up his menu.

“I regret to say that I’m feeling very petty right now,” I said with a dramatic sigh, relaxing in my chair. Alex chuckled, shaking her head behind her menu. Her dark hair cascaded over one shoulder, caressing her cheek.

We let the conversation die while Alex, Nicolai, and Danaus perused their menus. I contented myself with twirling the stem of my glass of red wine. After what had happened to Thorne, I wasn’t going to even sip it. Ingesting anything other than human blood had effectively lost its appeal. After the server returned and the others placed their orders, I reopened the conversation.

“How did you get stuck with Coven duty? Piss off one of the big dogs?” I teased, looking at Alex. She was frowning at me but there was no real anger in her eyes.

“Just rotten luck, I guess,” she confessed with a shrug. “I had been in London on business for the past week. When news hit of the strange piles of ashes, phones calls were made and e-mails were flying. I was sent to a small town outside of London to check it out. I swear, Mira, the second I saw it I thought of you, but I’ve never seen you do anything like that. Their bodies were reduced to ash, but the ground around them was completely untouched. Some are talking warlocks and spontaneous combustion, but there are still too many holes in the theories.”

“They’ll cover it up,” I said indifferently. “In a few days they’ll think of some very simple explanation and blast it across all the news agencies. It may have holes, but people will buy it because they want to. They need everything to make sense.”

“You think?” she said skeptically. She stared down at her short but perfectly manicured nails. “I wish I had your confidence.”

I shook my head, not liking to see her so shaken. Alex exuded confidence and strength in her own pack or when on her own, but when faced with issues outside her own control, her confidence and strength wilted like a flower with too little water. “Don’t get me wrong,” I said. “You were right when you said this moves up the timetable. Too many things have been happening lately, and science has gotten too far too fast to keep hiding.”

“Damn it, Mira!” she suddenly exploded, shattering her mien of calm. “Fifty years was a nice number. I was hoping to be dead and buried before the Great Awakening. It’s going to be ugly, and I don’t want to be around for it.” She leaned her forehead on her hands, her frame tense and her teeth clenched.

“It’ll be fun!” I laughed, trying to cheer her up. “Just think of all the groupies we’ll gain. These people are completely enamored of the idea of the occult.”

“What about the Daylight Coalition?” she demanded. “What about him?” She jerked her thumb at Danaus.

“I’m not saying it’ll be easy, but I don’t think it will be that bad either. We’ve been preparing these people for a few centuries. It’s not like it’s going to come as a complete shock.”

“Preparing? What’s this Great Awakening you mentioned?” Danaus interrupted.

My gaze jerked over to the hunter and it was all I could do to keep from saying something incredibly rude, but I held back. Frowning, I shoved one hand through my hair, pushing it back from where it had fallen about my face. “You can’t stay with them,” I said in a low voice. I knew the others could hear me, but the comment was directed solely at Danaus. “Ryan should have told you a long time ago.”

I wasn’t the only one being kept in the dark by those I trusted and needed to trust. Themis was supposed to be a great society that studied the various other races, but they remained bogged down by archaic ideas and old myths that had no basis in reality. To make matter worse, the group was led by Ryan, an extremely powerful warlock who refused to set his flock straight, even if it meant the lives of my kind and the lives of members of the other races.

Danaus refused to meet my gaze, his dark blue eyes focused on the fountain at the edge of the square. But he didn’t have to say anything. I could feel his frustration bubbling below his unmovable exterior of indifference. His time with me had proven on more than one occasion that he’d been operating under some false assumptions, and Ryan—the man he relied on for correct information—hadn’t done anything to see that Danaus knew the truth.

“A few centuries ago, the various groups got together—”

“What groups?” Danaus demanded.

“Warlocks, witches, nightwalkers, lycanthropes, and a few other heavy hitters,” Alex supplied, counting off each group on her fingers.

“The naturi?”

“No!” we both shouted. I held up my hand before Alex could continue to berate him for what I’m sure Danaus thought was a valid question. After what we saw at the main hall, it was actually a valid question, but Alex didn’t know that yet.

“No,” I repeated calmly. “The leaders of the various groups met and came to the agreement that mankind isn’t as stupid as we would hope. One day, people are going to figure out that this whole other world exists. So in an attempt to control the chaos, the various groups agreed that mankind would come to this realization on our terms. A timetable was designed, with a date set for what is being called the Great Awakening—the day mankind wakes up and realizes that it’s not alone on this planet.”

“Along the timetable there are several stages where we try to prepare man for the idea that vampires and lycans are real,” Nicolai interjected. “Things have picked up in the past hundred years with stories in the tabloids, major motion pictures, books, and now a large number of Web sites.”

“Propaganda?” Danaus asked, sounding absolutely horrified by the thought.

“Of course,” I laughed. I stretched out my legs and crossed them at the ankles as I relaxed in my seat. “Nightwalkers own three major publishing companies and half a dozen small press companies. We also own more than a dozen movie production firms around the world. We are constantly churning out positive propaganda for the cause.”

Frowning, he shifted in his chair, sitting on the edge of his seat. “Promoting vampires.” Such a thing would not make his job of hunting us any easier if we succeeded in winning the support of a large portion of humans when the Great Awakening finally arrived.

“Not just nightwalkers,” Alex quickly said, drawing his glare to her. “The various groups agreed that anything put out by one of our companies would not intentionally cast another race in a negative light. We’re in this together. If one goes down, we all fall.”

But then, even that lovely idea had fallen into question following the appearance of a lycan and a witch with a member of the Daylight Coalition.

Our conversation ground to an uneasy halt as the server arrived with several plates of food. Alexandra had ordered a medley of shrimp and linguine in red sauce, while Danaus settled on manicotti and an order of veal parmesan. Nicolai ordered some kind of seafood concoction that I couldn’t identify. But that wasn’t surprising. I hadn’t eaten real food in more than six hundred years. After that long, it all started to look the same. Sometimes the smells would tantalize, but the actual appearance of food had become unappealing. It frequently reminded me of the aftermath of some of my more gruesome and bloody battles.

As my companions dug into their meals, I stared across the plaza, which had begun to empty. The night grew darker and deeper, but much of the inky blackness was held at bay by the warm glow of lamplights scattered about the square. The pigeons had left to find a roost for the night, the air filled with the bubbling murmur of conversation and the faint hint of a melancholy tune plucked on an acoustic guitar somewhere nearby.

“When is the big day?” Danaus asked between bites.

“There’s no exact date,” Alex said, cutting her food into delicate little bites. It was almost amusing. She was such a lady in public, but I’d seen her hunt. Nothing ladylike about running down and tearing the throat out of a twelve-point buck.

“It’s tentatively set for sometime in 2055,” I said, twirling my glass again. “Every once in a while a few of the groups get together and reevaluate the timetable.” It had been a while since I’d sat this long out in the open with so many people. I was continually scanning the area for anything, but we were alone. “Sometimes science or technology jumps a little faster than we anticipated and stages have to be moved up. It’s always a very liquid process with room for change, but there’s no denying that it’s coming.”

Danaus went still beside me, drawing my gaze back to his solemn face. “Were you counting on Rowe?” he asked.

“No,” I softly said, looking down at the deep red liquid in my glass. I laid my hand flat on the table, suddenly fearful I would unintentionally shatter the stem. The dark naturi with the leather eye patch was determined to free his queen and the rest of the naturi horde waiting on the other side of the seal. He was also determined to accomplish this feat with my help.

“Why do I get this horrible chill whenever someone mentions that word?” Alex said, laying a forkful of linguine back on her plate. “What’s Rowe? Does it have something to do with the reappearance of the naturi?”

With a faint sigh my gaze drifted away from my friend and back out to the plaza as I mentally sorted through the events of the past several days, even the events that had taken place more than five hundred years ago. What to tell her? So much of it would horrify her, but I also knew that keeping secrets at this stage wouldn’t protect her.

Reluctantly, I launched into the tale of the naturi, sparing her of as many of the grizzly details as possible. I stretched back to what little I knew of that horrible night more than five centuries ago and mentioned tidbits of what had happened to us during the past several days. I told her of the sacrifice at Konark and the failed sacrifice at Stonehenge. I mentioned the symbols we had found in the trees as the naturi sought to break the seal that bound them. I described the attack in Aswan, Thorne’s pain-filled death, and holding Michael in my arms as his soul fought for freedom during the final seconds of his life.

Alex sat back in her chair and blinked a few times when I spoke of my lost angel. She had met Michael a couple of times and liked his easygoing manner. I appreciated her teary eyes…I had yet to shed my own tears for the young man. There was no time, as the naturi hounded us and I attempted to outmaneuver whatever plans Jabari and the Coven were apparently cooking up for the demise of my race.

However, I purposely omitted the fact that I was not actually a member of the triad that protected the seal, but its weapon. Nor did I voice the fact that the hunter who sat beside me could wield my abilities like a sword. While Alex and I were friends, her loyalty would always be to the pack, and anything I told her could eventually fall on their ears. I was already skating on thin ice by telling her about Rowe and his attempts to free the naturi. The handling of the naturi had always fallen to the nightwalkers, and it had become a tightly kept secret. But if we failed, I didn’t want her to be blindsided.

Nicolai remained silent during my tale. I wasn’t overly fond of the idea of this outsider hearing all of these details. But I was forced to trust him since Alexandra and the lycanthropes had to know what they were facing before it was too late.

The female naturi in the main hall was also omitted from my tale. If Alex and Nicolai didn’t sense her, then it was better that they didn’t know about it. I didn’t know what was going on yet, and wasn’t about to start a panic among the other races. If the lycans thought the nightwalkers had aligned with the naturi, a horrible war would sweep across the globe before the naturi ever managed to escape their prison.

When I was finished with my tale, Alex pushed her half-eaten meal away. “I’ve lost my appetite,” she said weakly. She actually looked like she was going to be sick, her eyes taking on a glassy appearance as the scent of fear drifted from her to my nose.

“Finish eating,” I prodded, pushing her plate toward her again. “How often do you get to eat real Italian? I mean, outside of a full moon, of course.”

“That’s not funny,” she snapped. No, Alex didn’t hunt humans, though a select few of her kind did. Even in animal form there was enough of Alexandra the human left behind to restrain her from attacking humans. She hunted only animals, and even then, only on the rare occasion when she gave in to the urge. “How can you make jokes? Don’t you realize what could happen if they enter our world?”

“Trust me, Alexandra, I understand better than most,” I said in a low, even voice, my eyes narrowing as I looked anywhere but at my companions. Alex didn’t know about my captivity by the naturi—I’d left that out while recounting the events in Machu Picchu earlier—but she knew there was something dark and ugly in my past that left behind some deep emotional and physical scars. She took the hint. “There are a number of things going on that I don’t understand, but I will soon. Panicking right now isn’t going to help.”

“It gets worse.” Alex’s usually strong voice dropped down to an unexpected whisper, drawing my gaze back to her lovely face. Shadows danced across her features, thrown up by the candle flickering in the hurricane glass in the center of the table.

A part of me wanted to ask her how it could possibly be any worse. The vampires were meeting with the naturi in secret. The witches and werewolves were meeting with the Daylight Coalition. Ancient enemies were suddenly allies, and old alliances with the lycans and witches were crumbling before us.

“They’ve starting calling us,” she said.

“When?” I demanded, barely able to push the word from my constricted throat.

“About a week ago, but after last night I’ve heard that it has gotten worse. Most of the leaders have managed to hold their packs together, but a few here and there have gone missing. Most of them are younger, newer to lycanthropy. It seems like the call is worse the farther west you head,” she explained.

I looked back over at Nicolai, who was staring straight ahead, his full lips pressed tight into a hard, unyielding line. “What about your pack?”

“I don’t know. I’ve been out of contact with them for more than a month,” he said stiffly, his eyes refusing to meet mine. I left the comment alone. A member of a pack was never out of contact from its members for long. Lycanthropes also never “belonged” to a vampire. Something dark was going on and I was willing to bet that it was rather painful and horrible for Nicolai. It would explain why Alex did nothing to even acknowledge the man’s presence. She didn’t look at him, didn’t talk to him.

I frowned, turning this new bit of information over in my head. There were four different ancient holy sites in North and South America that the naturi could potentially use for their next sacrifice attempt: Old Faithful at Yellowstone Park, Mesa Verde in Colorado, Easter Island, and Machu Picchu in Peru. Would they dare to return to Machu Picchu after their horrible defeat there centuries ago? If it meant freeing Aurora, yes, without a doubt.

Turning my focus back to Alexandra, I struggled to keep my sympathy for her plight from showing on my face. It wouldn’t help her when faced with the threat of suddenly becoming servants for a vicious race bent on the total extermination of humanity.

There were a couple theories as to how lycanthropy started. Some thought it was the result of a spell or curse woven by an old Native American god. Yet, some thought the root of shapeshifters was older than that. However, the darkest of the theories was that lycans were created by the naturi as a type of servant and soldier. Because of a lycan’s close tie to nature, the naturi could call to a lycanthrope, summoning him or her across vast distances to do their bidding. Most viewed that as the future of man if the naturi entered this world—extermination or lycanthropy.

“So we’ll be faced with both the naturi and lycans if the next sacrifice is to be held in the West,” Danaus said grimly.

“Maybe even an assortment of Wiccans,” I said. It was becoming a real party, and it appeared everyone was invited.

I turned my attention back to one of my few friends. Alex was nearly fifty, though she could still easily have passed for someone in her mid-twenties. Lycanthropy gave a person an amazing ability to heal from nearly every injury, except for those caused by silver. Particularly silver bullets and knives. Her “curse” also slowed down the aging process, usually doubling or tripling a human’s average life span. I liked Alex. She had a good sense of humor and philosophy on life. I didn’t want this future for her.

“When is your flight home?” I asked, battling to keep a frown from tugging on the corners of my mouth.

“Tomorrow morning.” There was no mistaking the anxiety that crowded those two words. She lived in Portland, on the lovely West Coast. She was in danger of succumbing to the call and she knew it.

“Go back to London and stay until after the new moon,” I ordered, sitting on the edge of my chair. My eyes jumped over to Danaus, who was watching the exchange with a worried look. “Could Themis protect her?”

“Mira,” he softly said, his voice deep and weary. “Themis isn’t an organization of bodyguards. We can’t—”

“Damn it, Danaus!” I cried, hitting the heel of my palm on the table, rattling the nearly empty dishes. It was a struggle to bring my voice back under control, but I finally managed it before I continued. “I’m not asking your people to protect a pack of rabid vampires. Alex is still human—the race you’re so desperate to protect. Call Ryan. Talk to him.”

Alex shook her head, pressing her lips into a thin line. “I can’t. My pack needs me. I have to go back.”

“You have to take care of yourself. Go back to London. Your pack will manage.”

“I have to go,” she said, her smile as fragile as a cracked eggshell. “I’m an Alpha now.”

My brows furrowed at this announcement and I sat back in my chair. “And you’re still in Portland?”

“You don’t need to sound so surprised.” She stabbed her food with her fork, using enough force to cause the tines to scrape loudly across the ceramic plate.

“Forgive me,” I said with a little bow of my head as I pressed my right hand to my heart. “Congratulations on your new position.” It was quite an accomplishment. The Portland pack was large, with about forty members, last I’d heard. The packs out West were larger and there were more of them than on the East Coast in the States. Across Europe and throughout Asia, the packs had only twelve or fewer members and stuck to the rural areas.

With a shake of my head, I raised my left hand high in the air and snapped my fingers while my right hand dropped back to the arm of my chair. A server instantly appeared and placed the bill in my hand. I scratched out the name of an account on the bill and handed it back. It was the name of the Coven account and was known to all business operators across Venice. The bill would be sent to that account and immediately taken care of. I’d learned that trick when I started doing little odd jobs for the group not long after leaving Jabari. If you were going to do the dirty work of the Coven, they were willing to supply some basic perks while you were staying in Venice.

“With that said,” I continued when the server walked away, “I still believe you should go to London for the next few days.”

“You know I can’t, Mira,” she said, standing at the same time as Danaus and I.

I grabbed her elbow and squeezed it. “Don’t go to them, Alex,” I warned, dropping my voice so it was low and firm. The tone would leave my words burrowed into her brain like a swarm of ticks. I wanted those words to resonate within her mind during the coming months, hoping they would protect her against the siren song of the naturi. “I’ve enjoyed our friendship, but I won’t hesitate.”

Alex looked up at me with sad eyes. She knew that if she stood between me and the naturi, I wouldn’t hesitate to kill her. Once she answered to the call of the naturi, she would be under their complete control.

“Just promise to make it quick,” she said, a halfhearted smile lifting one corner of her mouth. “I don’t want to think about being under the control of those bastards.”

“I understand,” I whispered, and pressed a kiss to her temple. “When it’s over, come to Savannah and we’ll go hunting.”

Pausing beside the table, I looked down at Nicolai, still lounging in his chair, his glass of wine in his hand. We would meet again. Jabari might order the lycanthrope to kill me before I left Venice, and Nicolai would do it. Not because he bore any hatred for me and my kind, but because Jabari was holding something over him.

“It’s been a pleasure,” I said with a little smirk. Nicolai smiled in return and raised his glass to me. We both knew that we would meet again. It was a shame that it would be on opposite ends of the battlefield.

“Good luck, Mira,” Alex whispered, grabbing my cool hand in both of her warm hands and squeezing it tightly.

I chuckled as I walked away, my hand slowly slipping from her grasp. “I don’t need luck,” I called, turning and walking backward so I could look at her as I departed. “I’m the Fire Starter.”

I just wished I had a plan.