Pray for Dawn

TWENTY-EIGHT

There are dreams that jump from one garish image to the next, blurring together memory and fantasy into one heart-wrenching nightmare. And then there are some that are just a mesh of sensations. Sometimes good. Sometimes bad. This one started with a pair of lips. There was no image, no smiling face; just a pair of soft, moist lips kissing my neck. My muscles tensed. I couldn’t identify the temptress beyond these gentle lips moving up my neck with amazing care. These full lips paused at my earlobe, parting to draw that sensitive piece of flesh inside where it was caressed by the tip of her tongue.

I deeply exhaled, releasing a breath I hadn’t realized I had been holding. My whole body relaxed, muscles unwinding from my shoulders to my calves. At the same time, a weight settled around me, almost hesitantly coming to rest in my lap. She was light like a butterfly and just as skittish. This creature with a gentle kiss and springtime scent would flee if I moved, so I hardly breathed as she dragged her lips up to my jaw.

She paused as she reached my lips, one small hand coming to rest against my chest. The first touch was light and faint, a soft brush of flesh as if testing me. Then again with more pressure, more demanding. She was slow, trying to memorize the contours of my lips before asking for more.

She shifted slightly, pressing closer, her knees coming to hug my hips a little tighter while the hand on my chest slid up to my left shoulder. Her other hand curled around my right biceps, a hint of nails biting flesh. Her lips brushed mine, parting so that the tip of her tongue ran along the seam of my lips. I opened my mouth, welcoming the invasion. This time there was nothing hesitant. Her tongue slipped into my mouth, tasting me.

I kissed her back, wanting to drown in the pleasure she was giving me. I pulled away, capturing her bottom lip in my teeth, tugging lightly. She came back, the kiss growing hotter, rougher. She tasted like nothing I could recall; warm and sweet. I was growing hard. I wanted more, but I was still afraid to move. Any wrong move and she might disappear.

She pressed her body more into mine. Her hands gripped my arm and shoulder a little tighter as she kissed me. A soft sound escaped her, a sweet mix of a sigh and a moan. Dragging her lips back across my jaw, she whispered, “Touch me, Danaus,” in a husky voice. I knew that voice. I knew it, but I couldn’t conjure up the matching face. It didn’t matter. I lifted my hands and came in contact with her bare skin. I felt a shudder run through her and she sighed so softly I wouldn’t have heard it if her lips hadn’t been by my ear.

I moved my hands higher, over her thighs to her hips. Her skin felt like warm silk, so soft that her satin panties actually felt rough to the touch. I slid my fingers beneath the fabric, cupping her backside and pressing her tighter against my erection. She moaned my name, her lips brushing against my cheek. This time I recognized the voice. It was Mira, but it was wrong. This was a warm, vibrant woman. Mira…wasn’t. I clung to that thought as I slid my hands up her waist. My thumbs rested on her ribs, just at the edge of her bra. I turned my head, recapturing her lips in a rough kiss that she eagerly returned. My tongue plunged into her mouth, tasting her, memorizing the contours of her mouth.

A sharp pain intruded on the moment, causing me to break off the kiss. I tasted blood. And in that horrible second I realized I wasn’t dreaming. My eyes snapped open and in the dim light I found Mira watching me with hooded eyes and soft smile. Knowing now that I had been kissing Mira didn’t cure my desire. A part of me had known from the first instant. It was that same part of me that wanted her and had wanted her since the first time I had seen her. She was too human, too beautiful and enticing: most of the time it was easy to forget that she was a vampire. She was just flamboyant, outlandish Mira with her biting sarcasm and fierce determination. But then her dark otherness would bleed through, obliterating all signs of humanity.

But for now, she was Mira—half naked and once again straddling my lap. I kept my eyes locked on her face, resisting the urge to take in the rest of her.

“Good evening, sleepyhead,” she purred. The hand on my shoulder slid up to my neck. Her thumb ran along the line of my jaw in a gentle caress. She didn’t move beyond that, seeming content to just sit and touch me, returning to the task of memorizing my features. I knew hers. I had burned her lines into my brain each time I watched her sleep. I knew the slope of her nose and the stubborn turn to her chin. I knew the soft, thick texture of her hair, and that she always smelled of lilacs.

“I’m not breakfast,” I growled, desperate to remind myself that she was a vampire. A killer. And I was just food to her.

Mira’s smile widened a little, but not enough to show her fangs. She had grown very careful about that around me. She leaned closer, rubbing her cheek against mine. I could have stopped her. My hands were still holding her thin waist, but I couldn’t move them. My choices were to release her or slide them higher. Since neither was a solution I was currently comfortable with, they remained where they were.

“I wouldn’t drink from you if you begged me,” she said, her lips grazing my ear.

Had any other vampire said that I would have laughed. Yet when Mira pulled back and I gazed into her eyes, I believed her. Mira wasn’t one to lie. To her, the truth tended to be more shocking, which she in turn found amusing. Somewhere along the way, I had filled some strange niche in her existence, become something I think she was still figuring out. But it had officially moved me out of the food chain.

“What do you want?” I demanded, surprised at how steady my voice sounded.

“The same thing you want,” she replied. She pressed her hips into me, moving close enough that her breasts now brushed against my chest. There was no denying my desire—I was rock hard and holding her. I could have pushed her off the moment I opened my eyes but I hadn’t, and it was taking all my self control not to lean forward that extra inch and kiss her. Everything within me screamed for another taste of her mouth.

Instead I did the only thing I thought would snap us both out of this. “Is this how you pay everyone who protects you?”

Mira leaned forward and brushed her lips against mine as she spoke. “My relationship with Gabriel has nothing to do with his job as my guardian.”

“But you don’t love him,” I said, desperate to keep her talking.

Mira pulled back suddenly and looked at me. Her smooth brow furrowed and she cocked her head to the side in stunned puzzlement. I was grasping at straws and we both knew it.

“Can you look me in the eye and tell me that you’ve loved every woman that you’ve been with?” There was no mocking in her voice, just gentle amusement.

There had been more than one occasion where I had lied to her, but even I couldn’t convincingly lie about this. While there had not been as many women as one would expect in my 1,800-year lifespan, there had been enough. And not one of them I would be as bold as to describe using the word “love.” To make matters worse, there had been more than one that I been less emotionally involved with than Mira.

But I didn’t have to say anything. My silence was damning enough. She leaned back into me, molding her lean body against mine. Her lips returned to mine, the tip of her tongue running along my bottom lip, entreating entrance. My hands tightened on her waist and I somehow managed to turn my head. Undaunted, she kissed my cheek, drawing a trail back down to my ear.

“Please, Danaus, touch me,” she said. Her voice was like velvet, rubbing against every part of my body that she touched. “I need you.”

I was drowning and with my last breath I finally managed to cut her. “Is this how you’ve acquired all your lovers? With begging?”

For an instant, I felt her whole body stiffen and then there was the shock of cold air where her warm body had been a second ago. I turned my head to look at her, but she was moving too fast. All I felt was Mira grab the front of my shirt and then I was flying through the air. Out of sheer luck, I hit the bed and bounced once. I’m sure she would have preferred it if I had gone through the concrete wall. I jerked into a sitting position, but the door had already been thrown open and she was gone.

I fell back against the bed, covering my face with my hands. I had regretted the words the second they left my lips. I hadn’t meant it. I was drowning and desperate. If I had any real self-control, I would have pushed her away and left. I cursed Mira for pushing me and I cursed myself for wanting her more than air.

I could make excuses like she caught me off guard or that I was half asleep, or even that she got what she asked for, but it was a lie. I wanted her. I’d wanted her since our first encounter months ago in the abandoned house. Regardless of how lifeless she was during the day, at night she was more vibrant and alive than any other creature that I had ever met. She had no regrets about who or what she was. And when she was near, I wanted to wrap myself up in her energy. Her cool powers surrounded me, calming the anger and frustration that seemed to perpetually burn within me.

Reluctant, I pushed to my feet and trudged up the stairs to the first floor. I couldn’t take the words back and nothing I could say would erase the pain. I walked through the rooms, and had finally settled in a chair in the living room when I heard the shower running on the second floor. Tristan wandered in with Lily following close on his heels. Both had matching expressions of concern and confusion.

“Mira said we are to meet her at the town house,” Tristan announced when he was standing in front of me.

“I’m waiting for Mira. Will you take Lily to the town house?” I asked. I needed to talk to Mira. I needed to find some way to soothe her ego and feelings. Of course, I hadn’t a clue as to how I was going to accomplish that mean feat, but I had to try.

Lily stepped around Tristan to come stand next to me. She crossed her arms over her chest and frowned down at me. “What did you do?” she demanded. I didn’t need to know how she knew that this was my fault, though I wasn’t willing to take all the blame for this matter. Maybe it was a female thing. They could sense when another of their kind had been slighted by a man.

“Nothing. It’s a personal matter that I would rather handle privately,” I said sharply, glaring up at her. A teenager didn’t need to be involved in my personal life.

I clenched my eyes shut and gritted my teeth at that very thought. Mira wasn’t a part of my personal life. She, like all other nightwalkers, was business. Nightwalkers were a part of my professional life, as I was a hunter. Or at least, I had been at one time. Now I didn’t know what the hell was going on. Six months ago, I had hunted and killed nightwalkers with ease and a complete lack of remorse. Tonight, I’d kissed Mira and a part of me knew I would do it again if she gave me half a chance. I craved her like a vampire craved blood. She sustained me and gave me direction in a world that was growing more foreign to me with each passing night.

“I’ll take her to the town house,” Tristan confirmed, laying a hand on the teenager’s stiff shoulder. “Mira should be down in a few minutes.” With a little pressure, Tristan directed Lily away from me and back toward the kitchen. She didn’t say anything as she walked away, content to just shake her head at me.

Mira reappeared downstairs thirty minutes later, but the sight of her was like a knife twisting in my chest. She was dressed in her usual black, but it was different. Instead of her typical tight-fitting leather and flashes of skin, she wore a pair of long cotton pants and a matching turtleneck sweater. Over that was a black leather jacket that fell to her thighs and a pair of soft leather gloves. In fact, only her face was visible and even that was in the shadow of the molten waves of her hair and a pair of large dark sunglasses. Mira was hiding not only from me, but also from the eyes of the world.

“Meet me back at the town house in an hour,” she said then left, her heels clicking ominously across the hardwood floor before she slammed the front door shut. There had been no chance to apologize. No opportunity to offer up a lame explanation.

I knew where she was going. Feeding was the only thing at this point that would drown out the anger, pain, and humiliation. Normally, she wouldn’t have to feed so soon after feasting on both Ryan and Gabriel the previous night, but I had left her with no other option. She would hunt tonight and it was my fault.

Flopping down in the chair I had been seated in only moments ago, I put my elbows on my knees and dropped my head into my hands. What a fucking mess!

“Women.” A heavy voice sighed from above me. “Who understands them?”

I jerked upright, pushing out of the chair while I reached for the knife that should have been hanging at my side but was nowhere to be found. I had left it in the car last night so that I wouldn’t upset Mira when I went in to initially speak to her. A short bald man with a potbelly stood before me in a rumpled white button-up shirt and wrinkled slacks. His hands were shoved into the pockets of his trousers and he shook his head at me as the corners of his mouth curled into a wicked grin. He didn’t look particularly threatening. In fact, he looked downright pathetic with his patchy day’s growth on his jaw and bleary, red-rimmed eyes. But he was also standing in the home of one of the most powerful nightwalkers within the region and neither Mira nor I had heard him enter.

“Who the hell are you? What are you doing here?” I demanded, wishing I could back up a step, but the backs of my legs were already against the chair I had been sitting in. The living room was crowded with comfortable furniture, making this a poor choice of locations for a fight.

“I’m here to see you, Danaus,” he announced. “Surely you’ve been expecting me.”

“I have no idea who you are.” As I spoke, I sent my powers out from my body with the intent of scanning him.

“But you do!” He took a step closer. “We spoke last night.”

My brow furrowed. Last night, I met with Barrett, Gregor, and Nate. I distinctly remembered what each man looked like. I could recall the nightwalkers I had seen in the Dark Room. I had never seen this man before.

“No,” I said at last after racking my brain.

“We spoke in the park after the Fire Starter left you,” he said. A column of white mist flowered out of the man to his left and reformed into a slightly translucent image of the naturi I had seen last night. At the same time, the bald man blinked and looked slowly around as if he were coming out of a trance. The creature gave a hollow-sounding chuckle before flowing back into the man.

“Now you remember me,” the man snickered, his brown eyes once again lit by a grim red light. “I’m sorry it has taken so long for us to have these moments together, but I have to admit that it’s taken me a number of years to accumulate enough energy to push back into this world. I mean, prior to the few pathetic souls I’ve encountered in this wretched city, the last human I spoke to was your lovely mother.”

“No,” I whispered. I tried to take a step backward but hit the chair behind me and partially fell into it. I caught myself on the arm of the chair with my right hand.

“That’s right,” the man said. “Have a seat. We have a lot to talk about.” He pointed at me and a burst of energy hit my left shoulder, knocking me into the chair. I watched as the creature slid over and settled on the sofa across from me. He sighed as he settled back against the cushions and placed his right foot on his left knee.

“Bori,” I growled.

“Ahh…I didn’t think we’d really need to state the obvious, but yes. Or rather, I’m a bori that is temporarily inhabiting this rather undesirable body, but then one does not complain about one’s mode of transportation when one is desperate.” The man folded his hands over his large stomach and smiled at me. “I am rather proud of how you’ve turned out. I’ve always considered myself your godfather of sorts, watching over you from a distance.”

“You’re the one that made the deal with my mother,” I snarled as my too-slow brain finally started to function. He was the one that had held me damned in the afterlife. Pushing off the arms of the chair, I launched myself at the man, ready to wrap my hands around his meaty neck and choke the life out of him. I didn’t think it would succeed in killing the bori, but then I wasn’t thinking any longer. I just wanted the creature that had ruined my life to be gone from this earth permanently.

The bori simply chuckled as he raised his hand again. Another burst of energy hit me square in the chest, knocking me back into the chair.

“I appreciate your enthusiasm, but you really must stay seated,” he said. “We’re not done talking. Besides, you can’t kill me. We bori cannot be destroyed.”

I didn’t believe him. Anything that lived could be killed, but I knew that I wouldn’t be able to do it with my bare hands, considering that it seemed to be nothing more than a white mist. I also couldn’t kill it with my powers, as I had already proven last night. If anything, I needed Mira, but then bori had the ability to control nightwalkers, as I had seen in Spain. I was trapped and there didn’t seem to be any escape for me or the rest of Savannah.

“It really is a shame that you have to see me this way,” Gaizka continued when I finally crossed my arms over my chest and appeared as if I was willing to remain seated in the chair and listen to his speech. “For your mother, I appeared as a strong Roman warrior. Almost god-like in stature. She really seemed impressed with me.”

“In a body like that, why wouldn’t she agree to give away the soul of her unborn child?” I snidely replied, barely able to unclench my teeth so I could speak.

The creature across from me threw back his head and laughed deeply. “Your dear mother was so set in her desire for revenge, nothing could have deterred her from her course. I could have appeared as an old crone and she would have still sold you to me. Or at the very least tried to.”

“So in exchange for a little power, you got my soul,” I sneered.

“You make it sound as if you got the short end of the stick in this deal,” Gaizka said, slamming his right foot down on the floor. The bori wearing the large man shot across the room with more speed than I thought possible and grabbed me around the throat. His beefy hands crushed my windpipe, cutting off all air for a second before he threw me across the room. I slammed into a picture hanging on one wall, the glass splintering before my body and the picture crashed to the floor.

“I gave you amazing strength and powers. I extended your life more than a hundredfold. You’re a god among men! And through all these years I’ve asked for nothing from you,” Gaizka shouted.

“I never asked for any of this!” I shouted back at him, pushing to my knees. “I never wanted to be an outcast among humanity, to feel as if my very soul were damned to hell because my mother made a deal with a monster.”

The creature again darted across the short distance that separated us. He kicked me in the ribs, breaking two as I fell back against the wall with a heavy grunt. “It was a gift,” he bit out. “But we all know there’s a price for everything in this world. It’s time to pay the piper, as the saying goes.”

“I don’t owe you anything!” I snarled as my thoughts rose above the pain that beat at me. This thing was faster than any nightwalker I had encountered. I could try to use my power, but it would mean killing another innocent human being, and even then I wouldn’t be rid of Gaizka’s presence. It would still be in the house with me, able to finally crush me if it decided I wasn’t worth the effort any longer.

“You owe me for the life you’ve lived!” he screamed. This time the back of his fist crashed into my jaw, snapping my head around before I could dodge the blow. I wasn’t fast enough. I wasn’t strong enough. I didn’t have enough magical skill to defeat him.

“What do you want?” I growled, rubbing my jaw as I sat against the wall. Glass crunched against my back from the broken picture that was behind me.

“Like the naturi, I want out of my gilded cage,” he said, flashing an evil grin at me that was reminiscent of the one I had seen on the face of the fake naturi.

“You are out,” I snapped, motioning with my right hand toward the human body that he now inhabited.

“No, this is just temporary,” he said, his smile fading into a frown. “I’m nearly out of the energy you and that wonderful nightwalker have sent my way. I need more, a lot more, if I’m going to permanently break free of my bonds and reenter this world.”

“Why would I ever send you more energy?” I demanded.

“Because you can’t help yourself,” he replied with a wide grin. “You’ve done it on numerous occasions already and I have no doubt that you’ll do it again.”

“What are you talking about?” I said, shaking my head at his nonsense. I had never sent him any kind of energy. I would never willingly do such a thing.

“Come now, my boy,” Gaizka chuckled. “You’ve been so helpful ever since you fashioned an alliance with the Fire Starter. I’ll admit that creature has got me more than a little stumped as to her origin, but in the end it doesn’t matter. You and she are the perfect match. I had always wondered how you would be able to finally help me, but you’ve found a way!”

“I’ve never helped you!” I shouted, resisting the urge to push to my feet. The bori seemed content to keep me on the floor at his feet.

“But you have,” he whispered. Leaning down, he grabbed a fistful of my hair and jerked my head back so that I was forced to look him in the eye. I could now smell the horrid scent of rotting flesh that hung on him like a cologne. The bori inside of the human was slowly killing him, and he wouldn’t be able to inhabit his current body for much longer.

“Whenever you combine your power with the nightwalker and kill naturi, you’re sending their souls directly to me,” he whispered in my ear before releasing my hair. “You’re feeding me with the sweetest power that you could possibly find. I’m feasting off my enemy and they are extending my own powers.”

I sat dumbfounded, staring straight ahead as he returned to his seat on the sofa, chuckling. In London, Mira and I had combined our powers for the first time and annihilated the horde of naturi that had come to destroy us. We thought we had destroyed their souls, but we had been wrong. Because of my link to this bori, we had sent the energy directly to Gaizka to feed off of. He had found a way to escape from his prison using the energy we had been sending him.

And then everything seemed to finally fit into place. “You killed Abigail Bradford,” I murmured. I blinked a couple times, my gaze finally focusing on the bori that sat across from me. “You killed her, attempting to frame the naturi. You have been torturing Mira with images of Nerian. You’ve been pushing us to go after the naturi and wipe them out so that we’ll send the energy to you.”

“You’ve always been such a bright boy,” Gaizka proudly crowed. “I knew you’d figure it out eventually, but I had to take a chance on the idea that you’d follow the breadcrumbs back to the naturi. Unfortunately, with the addition of that little girl, you’ve been led astray from the path that I’ve laid out for you. And I’m about out of time.”

“I won’t help you,” I snapped, but he waved me off, ignoring my statement.

“I thank you for all your help, but you’re not done just quite yet,” Gaizka taunted. “You see, I’m running a bit low and I would really like to remain here. It’s a nice place to stay and with the rest of my brethren still locked away, Earth is distinctly less crowded.”

Horror filled my frame, tightening my muscles. A bori running loose in the world, able to feed off the billions of souls that filled the landscape with no other bori to compete with would quickly become a god. One would have no way of stopping it. “I won’t help you,” I repeated.

“I don’t believe you’re going to have a choice in this matter,” Gaizka said, leaning forward on the sofa so that he could rest his forearms on his knees. “I will give you one last night to make some arrangements with the nightwalker. That will give you enough time to locate and destroy some naturi for me. If you fail to do that, tomorrow night I will stand on River Street and kill every human I see. But first, I will hunt down and slowly kill that little girl that you have so sweetly promised to protect.”

“You can’t!” I shouted, coming off the floor. This time, he didn’t push me back down, but rose so that he was looking up at me from bloodshot eyes.

“I can and I will,” he threatened, clenching his teeth. “Abigail Bradford was just a taste of what I am capable of. If I have to return to my cage, then I will destroy half of this city before I go. The nightwalkers will be exposed to the world. There will be no more hiding. They will become hunted by every creature on the face of the Earth. With that much bloodshed, you and the nightwalker will have no choice but to use your unique ability in order to survive. And then I will return regardless of your wishes. Do it my way, and the only ones hurt are the naturi.”

“We won’t do it,” I said stubbornly. Mira and I wouldn’t willingly help this creature that was potentially an even greater threat than the naturi could dream of being.

“You forget, you will have no choice but to help me. Your only choice lies in whether you will do it the hard way or the easy way. Think about it, Danaus, and then abide by my wishes. Kill the naturi. It will be easier for everyone.”

Gaizka then exited the body of the bald man. He hovered in the air as a column of thick white mist before finally dissipating. The man blinked again and swayed on his feet as he shook his head to clear it from the fog that enveloped his thoughts.

“Where am I?” he said in a low, scratchy voice that was the polar opposite from the smooth, easy tones Gaizka had spoken in.

“You’re in hell,” I muttered, letting my eyes fall shut. We were all in the lower regions of hell.