Luckily for me, Danaus had bathed and changed into a clean set of clothes. He had rid himself of the smell of the naturi, reminding me again of a warm summer breeze dancing across the whitecaps in the Mediterranean. His chin and cheeks were free of dark stubble and he looked as if he’d actually caught a few hours of sleep.
I leaned in so my lips lightly brushed Danaus’s ear. His muscles tensed. “Does Themis know what you can do?” I whispered. His powers flared around me in response to some emotion I couldn’t quite place. I don’t think it was the question that bothered him, but some deeper thought. I could understand that. We all had something to hide.
“No.”
“So I thought,” I murmured. I started to lift my left leg from his lap when Danaus grabbed my calf with his right hand, holding me in place. His touch was warmer than I’d expected, almost burning through my leather pants. Shocked by his sudden willingness to touch me, I went completely still.
Turning his head to look at me, my lips brushed his cheek and we both froze. Danaus exhaled slowly and I found myself drawing in his breath, holding it inside me. If one of us moved less than an inch, our lips would meet. But we sat like two stone statues.
“Jabari?” he finally asked, his whispered question deep and husky.
I stared at the hunter’s chiseled profile, nearly drowning in his deep sapphire eyes. I hadn’t told Jabari. It hadn’t even occurred to me to tell the Ancient. Of course, if I had, Danaus would not have left Aswan alive. Why hadn’t I told Jabari? If he didn’t kill me over the whole Nerian fiasco, my existence was definitely forfeit for this little oversight.
Why didn’t I tell him? Was it because I didn’t like to share? Jabari would kill Danaus and that would be the end of it. He wouldn’t appreciate the challenge the hunter represented. Or was it that Danaus was like me, an outcast among his own kind? Of course, I didn’t know what he was, so that line of logic was a dead end.
“No,” I said, unable to keep from coating that single word with my obvious surprise.
Danaus arched one dark brow at me, mocking one of my favorite expressions. Yeah. I was just full of surprises.
“Lilacs,” he suddenly said. When my only reply was confused silence, he continued. “You smell like lilacs. No matter what you’ve been doing, you smell like lilacs.”
Moving my head slightly, I brushed my lips across his chin. Every fiber of my being was screaming for a kiss, just a taste of his lips and his mouth. My hand tightened on his shoulder and I pressed my body a little closer. “Like you smell of the sun and sea?”
“Yes.” His hand squeezed my calf again, but it wasn’t a warning. His strong fingers kneaded the muscle in a deep massage, keeping me pressed tightly against him.
“Is that a bad thing?” My lips rose, skimming across his jaw to the corner of his mouth.
“No. Just…unexpected.” With the speed of a glacier, Danaus turned his parted lips toward mine, his hot breath caressing my face.
A pen clattered to the hardwood floor, jerking us apart. We had forgotten about the gawking librarian. My head swung to the man behind the desk, a low growl escaping me. Danaus tightened his grip on my leg while his other arm wrapped around my waist, holding me in place.
“Let me throw him out the window,” I said in a low voice.
“Mira…”
My eyes jerked back to his face, searching his gaze for any sign of frustration. I couldn’t see it in his eyes, but the evidence pressed against my thigh, which was still draped over his lap. “I’ll be gentle.”
“With me or him?” I don’t think he meant to say it out loud because his eyes widened with surprise. I leaned in to finish the kiss that had been rudely interrupted when he said, “The naturi.” The only two words that could instantly kill my libido.
My head fell forward and I rested my forehead against his shoulder. “Bastard,” I muttered softly. Danaus rubbed his hand up and down my back once, as if trying to soften the blow. Now was not the time.
I turned my gaze back to our spectator behind the desk, my cheek grazing Danaus’s jaw. The librarian shifted in his chair, attempting to square his shoulders. I slid my hand back across Danaus’s chest as I rose from the sofa as if pulled by marionette strings.
“What are you called?” I asked, strolling back over to the desk.
“James Parker.”
“I am Mira.” Taking one of the seats in front of his desk, I put my right heel on the edge of his desk and crossed my other foot over it at the ankle. He frowned at my feet.
“The Fire Starter,” he said, dragging his eyes from my boots. His long, nimble fingers snatched up a fountain pen that had rolled off the ink blotter.
“Perhaps not all your information is bad, after all. Your group seems to be relatively well informed about the naturi—tell me what you know.”
“About the naturi?”
“Start with your opinion of them,” I commanded, inspecting my fingernails.
“Well, they are nothing like the fairy tales that are based on their race; all that nonsense about elves and fairies,” he began. Withdrawing a small square of cloth from this pocket, James removed his glasses and started to clean them. I had a feeling that this was more of a nervous habit than any actual need to remove dirt. “They are cold, ruthless, and view humans as a plague on the earth. Their power lies with the sun and the earth. We have evidence that says the naturi are the reason for several lost civilizations through time, up until about five hundred years ago.”
“What happened five hundred years ago?” I tried to keep my voice bland and uninterested, but my eyes flicked back up to his face. His hands stilled for a moment as his brown eyes met my deep violet orbs.
James licked his lips and drew in a deep breath before speaking again. “Our information is sketchy at best, but I was under the impression that you were there,” he replied. “I was hoping you would be able to tell me.”
“I want to hear what you know first,” I hedged, smiling wide enough to reveal my fangs.
“Not much.” His hands started to work over the glasses again. “We interviewed some Incan descendants a long time ago. It’s all legend and myth now. They said children of their sun god came down to Machu Picchu one day. They were holding captive a daughter of the moon god. The people of the sun were preparing to sacrifice several of the Incans in the Sacred Plaza when more than a score of the children of the moon god arrived, and freed the captured moon daughter. The Incan descendents mentioned a great battle.
“We’ve not been able to make that much sense out of it. It was obviously a battle between vampires and the naturi. After that night, the door between the naturi world and this one was closed, defeating the naturi. I was hoping that you would be able to tell me more.” James inched forward a little to sit on the edge of his chair, glasses forgotten in his hands.
“I can’t.” And it was the truth. I couldn’t tell him because I wasn’t sure. I couldn’t remember any of the other nightwalkers at Machu Picchu. I knew others had been there; the greatest gathering I had ever seen, but even now I couldn’t recall a single face beyond the triad: Jabari, Sadira, and Tabor. “The naturi were never defeated.” Putting my booted feet back on the floor, I restlessly pushed out of the chair and paced over to one of the bookcases that lined the wall. “The queen of the naturi still lives. The final battle was simply postponed.”
My eyes flitted over the various leather-bound volumes, reading the titles. They were all books on the occult. Books on vampires, lycanthropes, magic, and obscure bits of history lined these shelves. It would have taken a lifetime to accumulate this extensive a collection. I glanced over at James for a moment, taking in his clean-shaven face and eager eyes. He looked like he might be in his late twenties, early thirties at the absolute latest. This either wasn’t his house or this was a family occupation. Curious.