Twenty-six
“You can’t be seriously considering this?” Danaus raged the second we could no longer hear Adio and Ryan’s footsteps in the hallway.
I swallowed a sigh as I crossed the distance between us and wrapped my arms around his waist, laying my head on his shoulder so my forehead was pressed into the hollow of his neck. For now, I didn’t want to think about Nick, Adio, or Ryan’s frightening demand. I just wanted to hold the hunter and know that he was safe.
“Did he harm you in any way?” I asked, avoiding his question.
Danaus heaved a deep breath before finally wrapping his arms around me and holding me tightly. “Ryan appeared a few hours before sunset and politely escorted me to a house near the outskirts of the city. I was allowed to briefly look in on you. At the time, you were alone and there wasn’t a window in the room, so I decided that he needed you alive for the time being. We simply sat in the parlor not speaking, waiting for the sun to set.”
“Sounds like fun,” I murmured against his neck before pressing a kiss against his warm flesh.
“I wanted to rip his head off the entire time, but he didn’t say anything so I held my temper.”
“Smart man.”
“I also didn’t know what kind of danger you were in or how you had been brought here, so I didn’t want to take any chances.”
“Again, smart man.”
Danaus grabbed both of my upper arms and held me out away from him so he could look me in the eye. “Then listen to this smart man and don’t agree to this. You can’t give Ryan the kind of powers you have. He would be just as great a danger as Nick.”
“Not at first. I wouldn’t make him a First Blood, but simply chum—weak and helpless for the most part. It would be centuries before he truly came into the bulk of his powers.”
“Mira, you can’t!”
“I have to consider it. Adio is a child of a god, like me. He’s the only one that might be powerful enough to help me trap Nick. I need his help.”
“You sound like you have a plan.”
“Something that I have been slowly developing.”
“How dangerous?”
“Oh, it wouldn’t be one of my brilliant plans if it wasn’t extremely dangerous and somewhat stupid,” I teased with a wide grin.
“And I won’t like it, will I?”
“You’ll probably hate it, I’m sure, but I think it’s going to be the best shot we have.”
“When do you plan on telling me about this brilliant plan?”
“Soon. I hate to even breathe the words out loud since it’s hard to guess how close Nick is at any moment. I want it to be a surprise for him.”
“Naturally.”
“For now, our main focus has to be Ryan and his request to become a nightwalker. I can understand his need to not be at the bottom of the nightwalker food chain when he is turned, but I’m not comfortable with the idea that he would have my blood flowing through his veins.”
“Beside the fact you also swore that you would never make a nightwalker of your own.”
It was a struggle not to roll my eyes at him. Yes, I had sworn that I would never make a nightwalker, and Ryan was the least of all people that I wanted to have my blood. But I also had a feeling that this was no fragile relationship between Ryan and Adio. There was a firm understanding between the two men after years of collaboration. I had been picked because of my strength and powers, but now Adio was having some doubts about the idea of another child of chaos potentially running around. The bloodline would be even further diluted when it passed from me to Ryan, but it wouldn’t be enough. There were still risks.
What worried me the most was the same vein of darkness that ran through me also plunged through Ryan. The warlock would not be able to keep his powers in a positive place, but would have to let the darkness consume him. Adio might be able to control his fledgling for a while, but that would only be a temporary solution. In the end he would have to kill Ryan or I would have to come hunting for him, assuming I survived my attempt to take out Nick.
“The only thing we have on our side at the moment is the fact that Adio and Ryan don’t completely see eye-to-eye on this matter.” I moved away from Danaus and sat on the edge of the bed, hanging my hands between my legs.
“How do we take advantage of that?”
“We try to quickly reason with Adio while we are in the process of making Ryan into a nightwalker,” I suggested.
“And if he doesn’t listen to reason?”
“Then Adio will be forced to change Ryan over himself, and then kill me for disobeying him.”
“What I don’t understand is why Adio didn’t change Ryan over himself,” Danaus said as he sat on the bed beside me.
“I have a feeling it’s for the same reason I don’t want to change him over. Ryan is already a powerful warlock, and neither of us is sure what powers he’s going to retain when he is reborn. Neither Adio nor I want to make an even bigger monster by giving him access to the blood of a god. Unfortunately, Adio didn’t realize what he was dealing with until he had me in his grasp. Now that he’s made his mistake, he has to find a way to gracefully back out of his agreement with Ryan without upsetting whatever arrangement the two men now have in place.”
Danaus scratched the dark stubble that had grown on his chin. “Could we secretly find a surrogate to take your place? Would Ryan be aware of the difference while in the process of being remade into a nightwalker?”
“That’s my hope, but we need to get Ryan drained first,” I said, rubbing my hands together. I couldn’t help but feel a little pleasure at the thought of digging my fangs back into the warlock’s neck. Not only would the revenge be sweet after he attempted to manipulate me, but the warlock’s blood carried with it an extra little bonus—I could be awake during the daylight hours as long as I was drinking his blood. I was still vulnerable to the rays of the sun, but to be awake and alive for those long hours and not vulnerable was too precious to pass up.
“You’re getting normal blood back into your system as soon as we get home,” Danaus sternly said without needed to read my thoughts.
“A few days wouldn’t hurt.”
“Yes, they would.” I looked over at his face and saw the resolve in his beautiful blue eyes. I had a feeling I would be feeding off a normal, everyday human before I had the chance to even leave Venice. The last time I’d fed off Ryan’s blood, the results had not been pretty. In fact, they nearly cost Tristan his life and me my sanity. Yes, Danaus was right. Never again.
A knock came at the door, and Danaus jumped to his feet and placed one hand on the knife at his side as he stepped in front of me. A part of me was pleased to discover that neither of us had been divested of our weapons during the day, but then, we were faced with a powerful warlock and a powerful nightwalker. They could easily find ways around a sword and knife if they wanted to.
“Come,” I called, resting a reassuring hand on Danaus’s arm for a moment as the door swung open. As the two men reentered, I let my hand drop back down into my lap. The awe I felt less than an hour earlier when I first met Adio had melted away. I had expected a nightwalker that was older than Danaus and radiated more power than I could comprehend. Instead, I was faced with someone who was something of a charlatan. He had gotten his seat as Our Liege through his special powers and then sat back, leaving the coven to protect him out of the fear that he would kill them all in their sleep. The biggest problem when I looked at Adio was that I saw myself reflected back, except I was infinitely more devious and dangerous.
“You’ve had some time to consider my request,” Adio said as he came to stand beside the chair he had occupied earlier. Ryan stood close by his shoulder, his gaze narrowed on my face. If the warlock was trying to read my thoughts, he wasn’t having much luck. After centuries of Jabari parading through my brain, and recently Nick, I had gotten better about closing people out. Now the only one that could slip in and out at will was Danaus.