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 think 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.