Danaus let the conversation drop and stared out the window. I wondered what must be going through his head. He was willingly walking into the den of the enemy. Why? He could have left after showing me the pictures, leaving it to the nightwalkers. Of course, I doubted he trusted us to handle it. I wished I knew exactly how much he understood of this whole horrible mess. Yet, any question I asked might give the vampire hunter valuable and even deadly insight into my world.
Stretching my legs, I relaxed against the seat. I would leave it for now. If I found Jabari, he would handle it. If not, I would find Sadira. I hadn’t seen her since that night at Machu Picchu, and wasn’t particularly looking forward to the reunion. Our relationship had never been a happy one during the century we spent together. We both wanted control over me, and only one of us could win. It resulted in some ugly battles, and there were some wounds that even five centuries couldn’t heal.
“Did you encounter the naturi last night?” I asked, forcefully redirecting my thoughts away from my maker.
“No. Did you?”
My teeth clenched so tightly my jaw ached. Before I’d left the Dark Room, the final body count was seven nightwalkers, six lycans, and nine humans, against the death of only two naturi. What did we face if the naturi returned to this world en masse? “A pair attacked the Docks, killing several people. They appeared at the Dark Room later. Several nightwalkers and lycanthropes were killed.”
“I’m sorry.”
“Yes.” Surprised by his solemn comment, I finally looked over at him. “So am I.”
We traveled in silence to a nearly empty airstrip almost a half an hour outside of the city. My private jet was fueled and waiting for us. I preferred to travel this way. Items could be loaded and unloaded from the plane outside the glare of a large airport and prying eyes.
The limo stopped a few yards away from the plane and the driver hopped from the car, leaving the engine running. I was his only task of the night, and I could feel his eagerness to have it done. Picking up and dropping off strange people at deserted airfields was not a part of his normal chores. He opened the door for me and bowed his head, as if he could feel my power. I smiled and slipped a fifty dollar bill into his fingers; I liked it when my servants were quick and efficient. A brooding Danaus followed silently behind me as the driver rushed to grab our bags.
A few steps away from the limo, Danaus reached for one of the knives at his side. I laid a restraining hand on his shoulder and smiled. He had just caught sight of the two large men flanking the short staircase that led into the jet. They wore shoulder holsters with a pair of lovely guns over their tightly stretched black shirts plus a thigh sheath for a knife.
“Down, boy,” I said, patting his shoulder. “They belong to me.” He stopped walking, his hand resting on his knife. “I don’t like to travel without protection.”
He released his hold on the knife at his side and continued to walk a step behind me. I smiled at my two bodyguards and let my hand run across the chest of the one on the right as I started to climb into the jet.
“Wait,” Danaus said. “We’re being watched.”
I turned, my right foot on the first step, my hand on the shoulder of my bodyguard. Stretching out my powers, I searched the area. Deep black night stretched in all directions for several acres, hemmed in only by a thin line of trees. All the humans nearby were employees, and the closest nightwalker was almost fifteen miles away. I sensed no one else, which sent a chill up my back. Was Rowe hunting me now?
“Let them watch,” I announced. “Let’s go.” I forced myself to climb the rest of the way into the jet causally, turning my back to the darkness.
Once inside, I stripped off my blazer and tossed it over the back of one of the white leather chairs. An exquisite piece of machinery, the plane always made me wish I traveled more. The front had two long benches in soft white leather along the sides of the plane. A pair of chairs faced the benches in the same white leather. The floor was covered in thick, creamy white carpet, muffling the footsteps of the passengers. Toward the back was a bar with a fridge and microwave, along with another set of chairs. I never used it, but my bodyguards found it nice for the long trips. Behind all that was another room with a bed and a door that locked.
I stretched out on one of the benches while Danaus took the bench opposite me. It allowed him to keep an eye on my assistants and me. For the first time, he looked uneasy. I doubted it was a fear of flying. I think maybe everything was sinking in. He was in a dire situation and would have to fight his way out of it. And to make matters worse, he was forced to rely on a vampire to guide him through this maze of snarls.
After shutting the door, the pilots fired up the engine. My bodyguard, Michael, walked over and knelt before me. He was a handsome man of less than thirty with beautiful blond curls brushing his shoulders. They made him look younger than he was. He had served me as a bodyguard for the past five years.
Yet for the past three he had helped to keep the loneliness at bay. He gave me laughter and diversion when the nights seemed to stretch out before me like the vast Siberian tundra. But that’s all there was for us. No matter how I tried, I could not give my heart to a creature I knew needed protection from me and my kind. Some nightwalkers could. The tale was older than I was…a centuries-old vampire falls in love with a human, and then turns him or her so they can spend eternity together. Yeah, right. Humans can’t make a marriage last more than a few decades. Do you honestly think a pair of vampires can stay together for centuries? I’ve yet to see it happen.
Biting back a weary sigh, I smiled down at Michael, my right hand smoothing back his hair and idly touching his cheek. He reached up and pulled my hand down so my fingers rested against the pulse at his neck. My eyes drifted shut as I let its siren song beat through me for a couple of seconds. My lips parted slightly and I touched my tongue to my fangs. A hungry longing rose up in my chest, but I smothered it, lifting my hand back to his face.
“Not now, love,” I whispered, opening my eyes. “When we reach Aswan, I will need you.” Michael turned his head and pressed a kiss against the palm of my hand before rising to his feet. He turned, walked toward the back of the jet and took a seat across from my other guardian. Brown-haired Gabriel had served as one of my bodyguards for more than ten years, but he still could not keep the look of envy from his eyes. I’d fed off both men in the past and neither had uttered a complaint.
Danaus’s dark growl drew my attention back to the hunter. “A donor?”
“I thought I’d pack lunch,” I said. “It will take us nearly twenty-four hours to reach Aswan. I don’t want to walk in weak and hungry.”
“They both know?”
“They have both assisted me in the past when I was in need.” I watched Danaus as his forehead furrowed with this bit of information. He seemed genuinely surprised. “What has confused you? That any human would do such a thing?”
He sat forward, balancing on the edge of the seat, his elbows braced on his knees. “You can feed without killing?”
“Of course,”
“I thought it was necessary for you to kill for your survival.”
“If that were true, we would have completely wiped out humans long ago.” I shook my head and then threaded a loose lock of hair behind my right ear. I had thought we finally put that old superstition to rest, but apparently it still lived on in Danaus, and maybe within this group that he was a part of. “Few kill, and most of the time it’s an accident. In this day of DNA and fingerprints, it’s too hard to kill and then deal with the body. We have a secret to keep so we feed carefully.”
“But some still kill for sport.” Fresh tension seemed to hum in his frame as his hands clenched the edge of the bench.