“So, what’s the plan now that we are in Venice?” he inquired as he pressed a kiss to my forehead.
“Sleep,” I sighed wearily.
“And then?”
“A meeting with Our Liege. Jabari was the oldest and strongest member of the coven. I also succeeded in taking out Macaire just a few months ago. If that doesn’t catch Our Liege’s attention, I don’t know what will. We will get our meeting.”
“Are you hoping he will help you raise an army to fight the naturi and Aurora?”
A frown pulled at my lips as I turned my face against his chest. “It’s too late for that now, I think. We’re on our own. If he still stands by what Macaire told me, Our Liege will welcome the Great Awakening. I’m hoping I can get his help to get rid of Nick. I can’t do it alone.”
Danaus grasped the sides of my waist and moved me away so he could look me in the eyes. “You’re taking on Nick?”
“He’s not content with Jabari’s death. He wants you dead as well.”
“Mira—”
“It’s not just that. We can’t allow him to regain his former power. He’s the god of fucking chaos. The world simply can’t handle his presence when we still have to face the Great Awakening.”
Danaus closed his eyes and frowned as his head dipped lower. He knew I was willing to risk everything so he could live, but he didn’t want me taking those risks. I laid my hand against his cheek, and his eyes opened. “Dawn is close. We both need to sleep. Return to the main islands and get a hotel room. Sleep and eat. Return here at sunset. We will begin our search for Our Liege then. With any luck, Our Liege will come to us.”
“What about you?”
“I’ll remain here during the day. It will be safe enough.”
Danaus looked more than a little doubtful, but in the end he pressed another lingering kiss to my lips before he left the Main Hall. It felt as if a part of my heart followed him, leaving me feeling hollow and worn. I needed Danaus like the earth needed the sun and the rain. I needed him like a nightwalker craved blood. He was all the sustenance that my soul craved.
As the sun crept closer to the horizon, my feet turned toward the door in the far wall. With a shove, the door loudly creaked open like in one of those old horror movies, sending an echo down the long stone staircase that led underground. Closing the door behind me, I followed the staircase down into the darkness until I reached the ground floor. A handful of torches danced with firelight around the large room filled with stone and wooden coffins to protect us from the world like some hidden graveyard for the living dead.
A quick glance around the room revealed that more than twenty nightwalkers were either sitting up in their resting place or standing beside a coffin, watching me with intent stares. I was covered in blood, and it was widely known that I had not been in Venice earlier in the evening. Something dark had happened. To make matters even worse, I was seen trudging toward my private room, among those reserved for each Elder of the coven. I had not slept in the underground tomb of the coven in centuries, rarely even when I was on good terms with Jabari during my youth.
Leaning against the entrance to the room beside mine was Stefan. I paused in front of him, watching him emotionlessly drag his eyes from my feet to the top of my head. “So you’ve finally done it,” he announced.
“Yes, it seems the coven is once again short another Elder,” I said blandly. “I’ll leave it to you and Elizabeth to see to his replacement.” Then without further comment, I entered the room and closed the door with a hard thud.
The room contained a wash basin and a pitcher of water, as well as a large, four-poster bed. I looked down at my hands briefly and decided there wasn’t enough water to even bother trying to wash up. Besides, it seemed fitting that I would spend the daylight hours washed in Jabari’s blood.
Exhausted down to my very soul, I crawled into the bed and collapsed against the pile of pillows. I closed my eyes and wiped my mind clean of thought, brushing aside the last broken bits of worry that had plagued me over the past several nights. As the sun peeked over the horizon, I felt my soul finally fly free of my body and sleep overcame me at last.
Twenty-five
Before opening my eyes the next evening, I knew something had gone terribly wrong. I could feel the air charged with energy until I thought I could hear it crackling like a loose tension wire snapping in the wind. Keeping perfectly still, I focused on reaching out to Danaus, but felt nothing but a gaping nothingness that threatened to consume my soul. Danaus wasn’t there. I should have felt him somewhere in Venice. Of course, that was assuming I was even still in Venice.
There was no putting off the inevitable. I drew in a slow breath, taking in the soft smell of burning wood and the fake pine scent from some kind of cleaning product. Releasing the breath, I opened my eyes and soaked in my surroundings. The austere stone walls of the coven underground were replaced with a soft mauve damask wallpaper and cream-colored furniture. A fire burned brightly in a large fireplace in the far corner, warming the room in both temperature and spirit.
I sat up in bed and found myself facing a man sitting in a high-back leather chair near the foot of the king-sized bed. He wore a dark suit with a pale blue shirt, the collar open to reveal a long pale throat. Dark brown hair feathered away from his lean face and curled at the collar of his jacket. His face was expressionless except for the fathomless dark eyes that watched me with a frightening intensity, a tiger watching its prey as it took its first few steps into the open clearing.
An uneasiness settled deep into my bones. The sun had settled below the horizon less than an hour ago. I had not overslept by that much, and yet it felt as if I’d been in this room for much longer. This creature must have gone into the coven crypt during the daylight hours, but everything in my mind screamed that it wasn’t possible. Sure, there was an extra aura of power circulating around him, reminding me too much of myself, but I could still tell without pulling apart his lips to see his fangs that he was a nightwalker.
“Good evening, Mira,” he said in a deceivingly soft and gentle voice that seeped into my brain and wrapped around my thoughts. “I hope your rest was a good one.”
A shiver ran through my body before I could catch it. His voice was hypnotic. It was both terribly frightening and completely comforting in the same moment. I felt as if I were wrapped in the warmth of the summer sun while at the same time shaken down to my very soul with its awesome power. Dread gripped my stomach, twisting it into knots. I wasn’t faced with some unknown nightwalker with a few interesting parlor tricks up his sleeve. This was Our Liege.
Swinging my feet off the edge of the bed, I slowly walked over and knelt before him while placing one hand on the arm of the chair. “My Liege,” I murmured, humbled to finally be in his presence. I was faced with the most powerful nightwalker among our people. He was the one all nightwalkers answered to under all circumstances. And despite my general lack of respect for any and all authority types, I could not help but feel a quake of fear run through my body now that I was facing with him. He was the only one I had known of that both Jabari and Macaire feared.
And yet, now that was I kneeling so close to him, wrapped even tighter within his power, I could start pulling apart the various layers. He had the same ability to pull the energy that circulated naturally in the air from both the souls of all living creatures as well as the power emanating from the earth. He was in contact too with that even more ephemeral energy I could sense when I was near Nick. Below it all was his own natural power, which came from being a nightwalker. As I mentally touched it, I realized that he was even younger than me.
A light chuckle escaped him, surprising me as it rippled along my flesh like a wave across the shore. My bent head snapped up and I met that dark gaze, for a moment getting lost in the deep pit of his eyes. The smile that crossed his lips didn’t completely reach those dark eyes.
“The great Fire Starter kneeling before me,” he commented with a mocking grin. “I didn’t thin
k that such a thing would ever happen for anyone, including myself.”
“You are Our Liege,” I countered in a soft voice. I was unable to judge whether he thought I was skating on thin ice or just a passing amusement. I had suspected that my destruction of Jabari and Macaire might finally bring him out of hiding; however, I had not paused long enough in my plan to consider whether he would be pleased with my actions or angered.
“That is true. You may call me Adio,” he said, briefly laying his hand over mine on the arm of the chair. His touch was surprisingly warm, perhaps because he’d been sitting near the flickering fire. The decision to have a fire in the fireplace struck me as more than a little odd. As nightwalkers, we weren’t typically bothered by a little cold air, and none would usually brave enough to start a fire. There were just too many odd things about Adio that my brain struggled to organize.
“I am honored. I am Mira, and I am at your service.”
Again he chuckled, drawing my eyes back up to his lean face and dark gaze. “We shall see, won’t we?”
“You don’t think I would obey your wishes?”
“I know that you are one to follow your own wishes more than the wishes of others who would seem to be more powerful than you. Of course, Jabari and Macaire dearly paid the price of believing otherwise, because there is no one more powerful than you.”
At that I could not stop the soft snort that escaped me. “I think I may have finally met my match.”
“In me?” he inquired with one arched brow.
“I—I—”
“You don’t know. That’s a true and honest answer, which I can respect.” Adio smiled down at me. He waved one hand toward the second chair that sat at the foot of the bed, hidden somewhat in the shadows. “We know so little about each other, so how can we gauge each other as proper opponents?” he continued while I rose and sat in the chair, facing him again.
“Are we opponents?”
He gave a slight shrug of his slender shoulders. “That is another thing that time will only tell.”
“Where is my consort? Where is Danaus? I cannot contact him. Am I still in Venice?”
“He is safe with a friend of mine, I swear to you. You are in one of my secret sanctuaries within Venice. I wanted only a few undisturbed moments with you alone.”
I didn’t like the answer, but for now I knew it was all I would get. Safe didn’t mean that he was happy or comfortable or even uninjured. At best, it meant he was still alive, which I would just have to accept. The sooner I got through this interview with Adio, the sooner I could get back to Danaus.
Pursing my lips together, I stared at Adio as he lounged in the chair, but focused on the energy that swirled around him. He reminded me too much of myself, which only meant one frightening thing.
“You’re like me, aren’t you?” I demanded suddenly.
“How is that?”
“One of your parents wasn’t human.”
“Mother actually. Her name was Eos,” he said with a smirk.
“The Greek goddess of the dawn. Also known as Aurora to the Romans. How ironic!”
“Yes, I’ve heard of your troubles with the naturi’s queen Aurora. The coincidence is quite unfortunate.”
“But your mother was a god, just like my father. That means you were born differently.”
Adio smiled broadly at me. “Yes, but my differences were not as openly apparent as your own. I’ve heard the rumors. Born as a human with the ability to create and manipulate fire—a unique power that you carried with you into your rebirth as a nightwalker.”
“What of yourself?”
“I found that being the nephew of Helios gave me a certain invulnerability to fire, though I can’t control it like you.”
“And?”
Adio’s smile broadened. “And when I became a nightwalker, I quickly discovered that I was more appropriately called a daywalker.”
I came out of my chair, sliding it back a few inches as I tried to move away from him in shock. “What do you mean daywalker? You can be in the sun? You’re awake?”
“I sleep when I wish and I can walk about in the sun, but like any nightwalker, I am still dependent upon blood to survive.”
I stared at him a moment longer, as if frozen in place with the thought that this nightwalker had come to me during the middle of the day and stolen me away from my resting place. It was the idea that he could go to anyplace where a nightwalker rested and quickly see to their demise.
Adio motioned for me to return to my seat. “You’re looking at me much the same way that prior coven regarded me when I first appeared.”
“With horror?”
“Pretty much. One day, I swept in and killed two of their members as well as the previous liege. The remaining two were Jabari and Macaire. I took them to a place much like this and informed them that I would be taking over as liege.”
“But that was so long ago. You had to have been so young,” I said softly as I slid back into my chair.
“I was, which was why they were less than pleased with the idea, but after waving my hand through a flame a few times I think I convinced them they might have another Fire Starter on their hands. For the time being, they were unwilling to cross me. And in the end it all worked out for the best. I mostly kept to myself while the rest of the coven managed the night-to-night activities of our people.”
I shook my head in disbelief. “But there has to be more to it.”
“Why do you say that?”
“By the energy I can feel swirling around you! You’re not just drawing from the blood energy in the region, but also from the earth and the other energy that even the gods seems to be in touch with. How long have you been in touch with that?”
“Most of my life.”
“Your mother, Eos,” I whispered. “She’s been in your life. She taught you.”
“From a very early age.”
I shook my head and closed my eyes, cursing my luck. I didn’t know if Eos had been a patient, loving teacher and mother, but at least she was there to teach him exactly what he was and what he was capable of from an early age. She’d given him a distinct edge his entire life, where I had been forced to learn everything the hard way, particularly during the past few months under Nick’s painful tutelage.
“But if you always knew that you were the child of a god, why make the decision to become a nightwalker?”
“Because I believed in being in a position of power when the time came for the humans to know the truth. What my mother made clear to me was that the gods were in no position to reassert themselves as the power players in this world. It would be the nightwalkers and the lycanthropes that stepped forward as the dominant races when the Great Awakening happened.”
“Did she take into account the naturi?”
“No,” he sighed softly. “I don’t think she did, but then I didn’t think she expected the goddess of that cage to weaken so quickly without the constant contact of the earth or her mate.”
“I also don’t think she took into account the plans of my father,” I grimly admitted.
“Yes, I have to admit that I am curious as to your parentage,” Adio said, sitting forward. “I suspected that a god had a hand in your unique qualities, but I have been reluctant to let my interest be known lest it draw more attention to you than necessary.”
“You shouldn’t have worried. I’ve done a good enough job on my own drawing attention to myself,” I muttered.
“Yes, but I didn’t want Jabari or Macaire drawing any connections between you and me.”
“I’m grateful. I didn’t have the kind of training that you were lucky enough to receive.”
“I noticed.”
“You’ve been watching.”
“Through a friend and from a distance. But things have changed recently.”
“My father has suddenly stepped into my life.” I sat back in my chair and rested my head in my hand while propping my elbow on the arm of the chair. “It has not been an easy
transition.”
“And will you be kind enough to finally tell me who your illustrious father is?”
“When you bring me Danaus,” I stated firmly, narrowing my gaze on Adio. I had spent the past several minutes sizing up his powers and didn’t feel like I was at a distinct disadvantage. Eos might have spent more time training him, expanding his powers, but Nick’s training had been thorough if not life-threatening, in its own right. Adio didn’t need to have Danaus secreted away.
“You don’t trust me?”
“I don’t trust anyone. I’m sure you’ll get used to the feeling.”
Adio laughed softly as he sat back in his chair again. “And that humbleness that you were so eager to grace me with has already melted away. So fast.”
“You have something that is known to be important to me, and you are asking some very intimate questions. I will not sit here and allow my hands to be completely tied when I can start making some demands of my own.”
Adio seemed to consider my request for a moment before he finally nodded. A couple seconds later I could hear heavy footsteps in the hallway approaching the room. I knew the weight and the cadence. It was Danaus. Just before the door opened, I was able to finally sense him as if a veil had been lifted, but at the same time I could still sense a second magic user in the area beyond Adio. Danaus was not alone.
As the hunter opened the bedroom door and walked in, I jumped to my feet, but didn’t step forward because close behind him I saw Ryan. I tore my eyes from the white-haired warlock to focus on my dear companion.
Are you all right? I demanded silently, Adio and Ryan not needing to hear our conversation.
I’m fine. You?
Safe for now.
Our Liege? Danaus inquired, his eyes briefly dropping to the top of the seated Adio’s head.
Yes, and obviously in league with Ryan. Not a positive development.
Burn the Night dd-6 Page 27
