Authors: Jocelynn Drake
“Who are you to lecture me about my duties, hunter? Tristan is mine and none shall harm him.” Her powers suddenly filled the room like a cool wind sweeping in laced with the scent of lilacs. We stared at each other, the tension building to the point where the muscles in my jaw began to tic. I was waiting for her to twitch first. I wouldn’t strike first.
And then just as suddenly, the energy flowed out of the room. Mira took a couple steps backward and shook her head, looking somewhat confused. I knew her thoughts had to be the same as my own. How had we pushed each other so quickly to the point of each nearly tearing the other’s heart out? She looked up at me and her grin seemed sheepish. She had almost lost control. Mira had come in here to seduce me, not kill me.
“Why are we fighting?” she softly began, one corner of her mouth quirked in a playful smile. “Let’s go back to bed. You’re tired.”
“Out, Mira!” I shouted, pointing toward the door. It was all just a game to her.
“Fine,” she sighed. “I’ll go play with James.” Mira scooped up what looked like a cloak that had been draped over one of the chairs by the door. She wrapped it around her before she strolled out of the room, her hips swaying.
“Call Tristan!” I called after her before she shut the door.
I drew in a deep breath through my nose and slowly released it as I rolled my shoulders. I didn’t completely relax until I felt Mira enter another room farther down the hall. By the thrum of power seeping from that direction, I was willing to bet it was Ryan’s room. The warlock would keep her occupied while I caught a few hours of sleep.
Placing the knife back under my pillow, I lay back down on the bed and drew the sheet up to my stomach, but Mira’s scent lingered on the pillow next to me. I closed my eyes, but her image danced there on the other side of my eyelids, her smile taunting me. I didn’t want to think about her, much less about how the tightness in my chest had instantly unraveled when I saw her lying safe and smiling next to me.
I hadn’t seen her in three months, but my body’s reaction had been instantaneous. I loved the soft touch of her hands and her deep laugh when she was amused. It had been tempting to just slip back under the sheets and press her body to mine.
Mira could appear to be just a beautiful woman full of life and laughter, but she still held that exciting edge; that cold, crisp touch of power that followed her wherever she went, a barely concealed threat of danger and uncontrollable energy like a building thunderstorm. Around her, my blood pumped and the hair on my arms stood on end with the energy that crackled between us. For the first time in more centuries than I wanted to count, I felt alive when she was near. Before Mira, I had become a shell going through the motions of living, only getting a short brief burst of adrenaline when I was hunting. Yet, when Mira was around, it was an emotional roller coaster of anger, frustration, surprise, horror, and even joy.
But she was a vampire. A monster. A heartless killer.
At least that’s what I tried to remind myself, but the longer I knew her—the more I saw of her world—the harder that was to believe. She didn’t kill humans. She might have toyed with them and played her games, but she didn’t kill. And regardless of whether she admitted it to herself, she cared about Tristan’s safety.
In my head, I could easily imagine Bodhi shaking his head at me with his knowing little smile. I had traveled with the bald, bandy-legged gypsy for less than two decades, but he and his family had become my family for a time. He was first to try to get me to forgive myself for being born. He was also the first to point out that vampires were evil, following the loss of one of his sons. He would have reminded me that there is nothing wrong in appreciating the beauty and grace of a Bengal tiger, just never think you could take one in as a pet. It would only rip your heart out despite your admiration.
Staring up at the ceiling, I sighed and laced my fingers behind my head. Maybe Mira was right and I needed sex. It had been a long while since I had been with a woman. My attraction to Mira could just be a buildup of sexual tension, but I wasn’t about to relieve that tension with her, no matter how tempting she was. I was tired of being a plaything for powerful creatures.
FIVE
M
y sleep was disturbed again less than four hours later. Lying on my back, I used my powers to discover James standing outside the door. I released the knife and shuffled across the room, wiping the sleep out of my eyes. I had managed to squeeze in close to seven hours of sleep. With both Ryan and Mira in town, I had a sick feeling that it was the best I was going to get for a while.
The young man smiled at me when I opened the door, easily ignoring my own sour expression as he stepped into the room. Early thirties, with brown hair and thin face, James had been assigned as my assistant less than a year ago and we were still adjusting to the arrangement. I always worked alone, but I depended on a specific contact within Themis to arrange for my travel, lodging, money, research information, and other odds and ends.
But for me, it was more than those basic necessities. James was my tie to the human world. He reminded me of what it meant to be human in the twenty-first century, which was not exactly the easiest thing for me to remember. I would turn 1,866 years old this year. After such a passage of time, things like polite conversation and mundane tasks tended to be forgotten under the relentless grind of life.
“You don’t look as bad as she made it sound,” James said, his sharp eyes skimming over my face.
I hit the light switch, bathing the room in warm, golden lamplight as I walked over to my bag. “She?” I asked, as I jerked the black cotton pants over my hips.
“Mira. She was worried.”
I snorted. Mira’s only concern was that someone would kill me before she had her shot. James also said nothing, but answered the door when another visitor knocked. A member of the hotel staff carried in a large tray with several covered plates, and the smell of coffee that caught my attention. The promise of warmth and caffeine wiped away the last of the fog from my brain. As James signed the bill, I started lifting covers to find a strange combination of breakfast and dinner. Scrambled eggs, sausage, steak with a baked potato, steamed legumes, lentil soup, whole-grain muffins, and a whole pot of black coffee. James was going to work out fine as my assistant.
“I wasn’t sure what you’d want,” James hedged as he came to stand on the other side of the table.
“This is fine,” I muttered, falling into a seat as I dug into the food. Coffee and food would clear out the cobwebs and cure the aches. Then I would be able to tackle the growing mess that surrounded Mira.
“Any trouble with the vampires?” James asked, unable to keep the excitement out of his voice. He was still young and enthusiastic about this dark world in which I worked, wanting to know all the secrets and desperate to dive into it. However, after meeting Mira and some other vampires last summer, he had grown a little more cautious. Of course, he had also had to clean up the multiple naturi corpses Mira and her band had left behind following their last visit. Cleaning up that many dead bodies would have been a harsh wake-up call for anyone.
“Not with the vampires,” I said with a shake of my head as I poured more coffee. “The naturi were another matter.”
James slowly fell backward into the chair opposite me, his mouth falling open and his eyes widening behind his gold-rimmed glasses. “Naturi?” he nearly choked on the words. “I thought you said that these vampires were a part of Sadira’s domain. Why would the naturi go to a known haven for a powerful nightwalker?”
“They might not have known,” I said with a wave of my fork in between bites. “They might not have cared. After the doors opened, the naturi scattered everywhere. I have a feeling that they are going to go where they want to.”
“I always assumed they would stick to wooded areas. I mean, they are nature-based creatures,” James replied.
I stared down at my half-empty plate for a moment. He had just voiced the hope I had been harboring for the past three months: that the naturi would stick to the woods and leave mankind untouched while they worked out their own little political problems. With any luck, it would take years, enough time for us to come up with some solution to the problem of them even being in this world in the first place. But it wasn’t to be.
During the past three months, I had destroyed more nightwalkers than I had naturi, but the number was steadily increasing. They were popping up on the outskirts of town, sometimes just seeming to watch me as I battled the vampires before they finally attacked. The trio in Spain had been the most I had encountered at once since leaving Mira’s presence. But then the nightwalker had a special way about her that seemed to bring out the worst in the naturi. She reminded me of a young man I had trained with in the Legion. He had the same special knack. Every time we were sent ahead as scout, he would literally trip over the enemy. It’s a wonder he lived through half as many battles as he did.
Pushing away those dark thoughts, I turned my attention back to the food that was growing cold before me and switched to a less tasteful topic. “Mira has been with Ryan for the past week?” I asked before shoving a piece of steak into my mouth. It was heaven. I tried to relax and just think about the taste, but I couldn’t. I had to know what was going on before it rose up and bit me in the ass, literally.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
James looked down at the white tablecloth, his hand jumping up to smooth his navy tie against his chest. “I can’t say.”
“And Ryan is here now?”
“Yes.”
“Why?”
This time his eyes darted back up to my face and he frowned at me. “Danaus, I…”
I held up my right hand, my fork still pressed between my thumb and index finger. “Never mind. Forget I asked.”
James slumped in his chair and pulled off his glasses so he could rub his eyes. “You know how he is,” he grumbled.
Yeah, I knew how Ryan worked. He liked to be in control of the flow of information at all times. Ryan was from the school of thought that knowledge is power and he liked knowing more than everyone else.
I pushed aside my empty plate, cleaned of the steak and vegetables, moving on to the eggs. “How did they take Mira’s presence at Themis?”
Resting his elbows on the arms of his chair, James stared at his glasses as he held them with both hands. “She’s a great source of information, assuming she’s telling the truth,” he said slowly. One corner of his mouth lifted in a half smile. “But I think they’re glad that she’s gone.” James looked up at me. I was surprised to find that his gaze was sharp, unlike the unfocused stare of someone suddenly caught without their glasses. Not for the first time I wondered if he actually needed his gold-rimmed spectacles.
“What did she do?”
“Not much.” He shrugged as he slipped his glasses back on his nose. “Just her usual mischief, I imagine. But she stopped sleeping not long after her arrival and I think most people stopped sleeping as long as she was awake and wandering the halls.”
It was on the tip of my tongue to ask how Ryan had managed that unique feat, but I swallowed the question. I doubted if James actually knew even though he doubled as Ryan’s assistant when I was out of town. And even if he did know, I doubt he would be permitted to tell me.
Reaching for the coffeepot, I poured another cup, somewhat relieved to find that Mira hadn’t caused too many problems. It was probably best that she had shaken things up back at Themis. I was learning that their understanding of vampires had little to do with reality, defying my entire reason for joining the society in the first place. “Is there anything else that I should know about?”
“Not much. Ryan has pulled back most of the hunters to Paris, London, or the Compound recently. He believes things have become too…tense at the moment and thought it best if we pulled back to guard our own for now. Last I saw, only Farkas and Collins were left in the field.”
“Doing what?” I demanded, an uneasy feeling slipping down into the pit of my stomach. My right hand slipped from my coffee cup to rest on the arm of the chair.
“Farkas is on a quick scouting mission in Turkey. Something about a shake-up in the dominant werewolf pack in the area. Collins was sent to take care of a vampire hiding out in the Ukraine.” James adjusted his glasses.
“When was Collins put on vampire duty?” I snapped, my right hand convulsively tightening on the chair so that the wood creaked softly.
James swallowed audibly and sat up straighter in his chair. “Last month.”
“He doesn’t have enough experience in the field and should never have been sent alone,” I barked. “Who put him on vampire duty?”
“I think Ryan did.” James scooted back in his chair so that he could put a little more distance between him and myself. “Collins was told to only pursue the vampire during the day. If he can’t locate its daytime resting spot, he is to call for assistance.”
“Collins is going to end up dead,” I grumbled. My grip on the chair loosened and I reached for my coffee in an effort to wash the bad taste out of my mouth.
“I heard it was a young vampire,” James countered, trying to soothe some of my anger. It wasn’t working.
“That doesn’t make them any less dangerous; just a little more careless. I have the ultimate authority over who is on vampire duty. Ryan knows that.” I sat back in my chair, glaring at my empty coffee mug.
Why hadn’t I been consulted? Derrick Collins had been with Themis for only a couple years and just served as backup on vampire hunts on a few occasions. He didn’t have enough experience in the field to handle a nightwalker, even a fledgling. I had always had complete authority over those who served on vampire duty. I was the only one who hunted alone. I was also the only one with the skill, speed, and experience to hunt them at night.
Ryan had overstepped his bounds. The warlock had put an inexperienced hunter in an extremely dangerous situation and a part of me was reluctant to ask why. And this wasn’t the first time. He had also brought James along to Crete, where the naturi were holding one of their sacrifice attempts. In this instance, I had to agree with Mira. The researcher had no business being anywhere near that dangerous situation, and Ryan had brought him along as potential bait.