Dayhunter

TWENTY-SIX

I jerked upright and gasped, which sent razor blades down my throat and through my lungs before the first clear thought rang through my brain. I didn’t need to breathe, but there were some instincts that even death couldn’t kill. When I awoke each night from a nightmare, my first reaction was always to gasp for air. But this wasn’t a nightmare.

Blinking as I tried to clear my blurred vision, I felt a hand at my back and on my shoulder as someone eased me back to the ground. I coughed and tried to roll back onto my side as I pushed the unnecessary air out of my body. Something inside of me ached. My thoughts were fuzzy as I tried to remember what had happened. No one had touched me, but pain had exploded inside of me, frying every organ and brain cell.

“Rest, Mira.” Jabari’s deep voice swept over me from my right. I lay on my back and unclenched my eyes. Ryan was kneeling beside me on my left, one of his hands holding mine. Jabari was kneeling too. His clothes were torn and he was covered in blood, but a soft smile hovered on his lips. He had won. I was on the Coven, which only benefited him because he was able to control me.

“James?” I asked, fearing the answer when I looked up at Ryan. The warlock nodded over past Jabari. Twisting, I saw the young man seated against the wall, bloodied, bruised, and swollen, but still breathing.

“But Danaus—” I started, then slowly shook my head as I tried to clear the fog from my thoughts. “He said the naturi was by him. Is the seal still safe?”

“The seal was broken,” Jabari confirmed, his smile falling into a dark frown.

“How?” I demanded in a raspy voice.

“The human male I freed. He jumped through the ring of fire you created and into the waiting arms of the naturi. It took them only a second to subdue him and complete the task.”

“And the child?” I whispered.

“He sleeps,” Ryan said. “He’ll be returned to town tonight and will remember none of this.”

I pressed my right hand to the center of my chest. Was the seal breaking what I had felt? Had the seal been tied to my soul? The pain had been excruciating, as if something were being torn from me. Even now there was a hollow, ragged sensation throbbing within me.

“I…felt…pain,” I said. My voice wavered and sounded rough to my own ears.

Jabari nodded. His large hand swept over my forehead and down as he moved some hair from my face in a surprisingly comforting gesture. “You created the seal. It’s natural that you felt its destruction.”

Ryan’s hand tightened at Jabari’s words. “You created the original seal?”

I pulled my hand out of his grasp and rolled away from him. I couldn’t look at the warlock. Getting my knees beneath me, I slowly sat up. However, all thoughts of standing left me when I looked around the area. The carnage was gut-wrenching. Blood and bodies were strewn everywhere, bringing back images of the battle at the Themis Compound less than a week earlier. There was nowhere I could go. Destruction seemed to hound my every step. Chaos followed in my wake.

And now the seal was broken. The naturi would soon determine a time to open the door between our two worlds, and the war would officially begin. What lay before me was simply a minor skirmish.

“I’m a monster,” I whispered, shaking my head as tears slipped unchecked down my scratched and dirty face. Burned corpses filled the area, with smoke still rising from their bodies. “I’m a monster with this kind of power and yet still I fail.”

“The bargain has been broken. Our Liege is safe,” Jabari patiently reminded me. “We succeeded.”

“No, the seal was broken,” I moaned.

Kneeling before me, he placed his hands on either side of my face and forced me to meet his dark gaze. “We failed because we didn’t work together. We separated when our greatest strength is to work together through you. This will be for the best. This is the only way to end this permanently. We will kill Aurora and destroy the naturi for all time. No more seals and no more gateways to other worlds. We end it for all time.”

“But—”

“To protect our way of life, to protect the humans, we have to destroy the naturi. And the only way to do that is to destroy their queen.”

I wanted to believe Jabari. I couldn’t remember ever wanting anything more. And he might have been right—the only way to destroy the naturi could be through Aurora. But all I could see was this black shadow of death stretching across the earth. To get to Aurora, so many would have to die; vampire, lycanthrope, and human.

But at least now we had some time. We had time to plan. We had time to hunt.

I pulled back, removing my face from his grasp. “You had better be right.”

Painfully, I pushed to my feet. The sound of Jabari and Ryan rising as well drifted to my ears, but my attention was on the carnage around me. Danaus was slowly approaching. He was covered in blood and scrapes. A long cut ran along the right side of his face, blood dripping from the end of his chin. His deep blue eyes glittered in the fading torchlight.

“Rowe?” I asked.

“Unknown,” Danaus said with a slight shake of his head. “He was badly wounded. They carried him out of here.”

I knew better than to hope. Centuries ago I had left Nerian for dead at the top of Machu Picchu, confident the naturi would never be able to pull his intestines back into his body before he bled to death. I had been wrong. I wouldn’t believe that Rowe was actually dead until I saw his cold, lifeless body lying on the ground before me. And even then I’d incinerate him to white hot ashes just to be on the safe side.

But for now I wanted Rowe alive. He knew there was a faction within his happy family that wanted his wife-queen dead. That division within the naturi could work to our advantage in the coming nights. Rowe would be forced to conduct a witch hunt within his own people to find out who wanted Aurora dead. It would create chaos, and creating chaos was what I did best.

Turning, I looked over at one of the nightwalkers who was rumored to have created me. Something deep inside of me hated Jabari for using me, for making me his own powerful plaything. But I didn’t have the memories of those horrible moments to keep the fires of hatred burning brightly. All the memories I had of him were of loving companionship and trust. Even now, knowing the truth about my creation and past, some part of me still trusted him, needed to believe that what he’d told me was the truth.

Regardless of my feelings for Jabari, I didn’t want to be on the Coven, but for now, my presence struck a balance against Macaire and maybe even Elizabeth. And until Macaire was either broken or dead, Jabari would be content to leave me alive. I had bought myself and Our Liege some time.

“I’m leaving,” I announced.

“You’re to go back to the Coven,” Jabari ordered. “You belong with the Coven.”

I smiled at him. “No,” I simply said. “I’m going where I am needed. I’m going home. When the time comes to fight Aurora and the naturi, you know where to find me.”

I walked toward the northern entrance, but stopped after only a few feet. Looking over my shoulder, I stared at Danaus for a few seconds in silence. So many unanswered questions, confused emotions, and ugly mistakes. A bori wrapped in human trappings. A hunter who was no longer sure who the enemy really was. And a nightwalker who was no longer sure where her loyalties lay. There was only one thing I knew for sure when it came to Danaus: We weren’t finished yet.

“Are you coming?” I called.

He arched one thick black brow at me. His lips twisted and one corner of his mouth quirked in a mocking smile.

“It’ll be easier to kill you if I don’t have to hunt you down,” I said, answering his unspoken question, Why?

Without a word, Danaus slid his blood-smeared sword back into the sheath on his back and followed me out of the Minoan ruins. For now, we could both say to hell with the Coven, Themis, and the naturi. I was headed home, where Danaus and I could focus on more important things. Like trying to get back to the business of killing each other.