The bodies of the four werewolves were badly mangled and covered with blood. No one stood next to them. The lines were already being drawn, but they were the wrong lines.
“Mira?”
My head jerked up to find Knox standing next to me. His navy shirt had been ripped in several places and there were several superficial wounds healing on his arms and chest.
“What’s the count?” I murmured, my gaze returning to the bloody scene before me.
“Six nightwalkers and five lycans, unless Barrett is—”
“No,” I said sharply, then drew in a deep breath, softening my voice. “No, he’ll recover.”
“Why?” I heard someone whisper in a broken voice.
I lurched into action, my heels clicking ominously on the cold tile floor. “You know why they did this, don’t you?” I demanded. My gaze slowly swept over the assembled mass, making sure that I briefly held the stare of every nightwalker. “They had no choice! That was the naturi,” I said, pointing over my shoulder toward the dead naturi. “Certain naturi can control the lycans. The lycans have no choice but to obey the naturi when they are close. This is not their fault.”
“But how do you stop this?” a female asked in a tremulous voice.
“Kill the werewolves,” another answered in a cold, dead voice.
I surged across the open space, grabbing him by the throat as I slammed him into a divider between two booths. “No! You kill the naturi! You kill the naturi and the lycans are free. You kill the naturi and we are free.” Releasing the nightwalker only after he gave me a faint nod, I turned to face the others again. “If you kill the lycan, you still have a naturi waiting to rip your heart out.”
Walking over to one of the booths that was still covered with a tablecloth, I pulled it off and draped it over one of the dead werewolves. Donald Moreland. He’d been the bouncer at the front door. “Spread the word. If anyone attacks a lycan after tonight, I will stake you out in the sun myself,” I said in a low voice. “No one is permitted out into the marshlands or any other known lycan territory until I give the word. You remain in the city. No one hunts alone.”
“What about the naturi?”
I looked up, my eyes locking on Knox. “I leave tomorrow to tell the Elders about what is happening. The naturi will follow me.”
While the remaining vampires disposed of the various bodies, I took Barrett to my town house a few blocks away and waited for him to awaken. Distraught and heartsick after hearing everything that had occurred, the Alpha left my town house an hour before sunrise. He and Knox would attempt to maintain peace while I was gone, but we both knew the damage was done. The memories of nightwalkers did not fade. Generations of werewolves would come and go through my territory, but the trust between the two races would never be the same again. We both knew that tempers would run high during the next few years. And despite the fact that the werewolves were as much victims in this mess as the nightwalkers, someone would use the attack at the Dark Room as an excuse to lash out.
Damn the naturi! And damn Danaus for bringing them into my domain. Intentionally or not, he had destroyed a delicate balance I had spent decades building.
Settled in my hidden lair beneath earth as the sun edged closer to the horizon, I finally allowed my mind to drift back to the thought I had been avoiding. The naturi had come looking for me. Tabor was dead and Jabari missing; dead or not, I didn’t know. Sadira was the only member of the triad I was confident was still alive. Of course, she was my maker. I was sure I would have felt it if she’d been destroyed. Outside the triad, there were only a few other nightwalkers that had survived the battle at Machu Picchu centuries ago. Were the naturi hunting them down in an effort to make sure we couldn’t stop them again?
Danaus knew about the naturi. Danaus knew about the sacrifice in India. Danaus knew that I was at Machu Picchu and how to find me. Danaus knew too much. I would take him with me. I would discover how he knew these things. And when I was sure that I knew everything he knew, I would kill him.
Eight
The black limo glided out of the flow of traffic and pulled up to the corner just after ten o’clock. We were in what I lovingly thought of as the theater district, even though there was only the Johnny Mercer Theater in the vicinity. It was an enormous building with tall arched openings that adjoined the Civic Center Arena. The whole area was lined with beautiful parks and tall oak trees draped with Spanish moss.
Beside the historic district, this narrow strip was yuppie central. All that glittered, glowed, and drove a BMW strolled through this area. And the hunter stuck out like a dirty street urchin at the queen’s diamond jubilee.
I hadn’t actually meant to make him stand out so much, though a part of me wished it had been a conscious effort. The corner of Hull and Jefferson was near the edge of the historic district, and everyone knew the Civic Center. It would be easy for him to find. That had been my only concern.
Danaus stood on the corner outside the lamplight, still in his black leather duster. It was far too hot for the jacket, but was clearly the only way he could walk around the city with his assortment of weapons. A black duffel bag lay at his feet, and I had a feeling that it held a great deal more than clothes. It was nice that I didn’t have to tell him we would be going on a journey. Of course, we both knew that the next sacrifice wouldn’t be here. We had to get moving so we could pull the triad back together.
The driver alighted from the limo and circled around to open the door for Danaus. The hunter’s eyes darted from the car to the man, his grim face expressing his confidence that the man had lost his mind.
“Mr. Smith?” the driver inquired, motioning with one hand toward the interior of the car. I had informed the poor man that we would be picking up a dark-haired gentleman by the name of Mr. Smith at the corner of Hull and Jefferson.
Struggling to keep from laughing, I called to Danaus from the shadows of the limo. “Come along, Danaus.”
The driver picked up Danaus’s bag and placed it in the trunk, all under the dark gaze of its owner. When it was carefully stowed, Danaus climbed into the limo and took the seat across from me.
When he was comfortably seated against the soft leather bench he got a good look at me. I laughed when his eyes flared and frown deepened. Anyone else’s mouth would have been hanging open, but Danaus seemed to be the king of composure. He would have made an excellent nightwalker, but I had a feeling vampirism might not actually be an option for him.
I lounged in the seat wearing a pair of black slacks and a matching black blazer over a deep purple shirt. My dark red hair had been carefully twisted and pinned to the back of my head, showing off my high cheekbones beneath pale white skin. A pair of lilac sunglasses sat balanced on my nose. In our two other meetings, I wore my usual attire of leather, and very little of it. Unfortunately, I had to make these travel arrangements through my human assistant, and she needed the reassurance that her employer was a normal, human businesswoman. Though her mouth did fall open when Danaus took a seat beside her in the limo.
As his gaze moved over me, my hand drifted up, my fingers briefly dancing over the faint scar that now stretched along my collarbone and the base of my neck on the right. Barrett’s bite had only partially healed since last night. It was rare for nightwalkers to scar, but lacking adequate rest and blood, it was possible. I’d lost too much blood during the battle and hadn’t left myself enough time after leaving Barrett to hunt. The lines on my neck weren’t the first scars I had acquired since being reborn, and considering my lifestyle, I knew they wouldn’t be the last.