With the energy balled up in my hands, I threw it at the three naturi standing before me. I had to wait only a second before they stumbled back, screaming and clawing at their skin. At the same time, Danaus cried out, his grunt of unexpected pain echoing across the open park.
Mira! he called, but I ignored it. I focused the energy on my enemies, cooking them from the inside out. The energy didn’t fill me the same way as when Danaus was controlling me. I could feel it flowing out of the hunter and directly into the naturi before me. Danaus groaned, but it wasn’t a sound of pain, but of release. Over the blossoming anger and frustration coming from him, I could sense an underlying feeling of joy and pleasure. It was as if the use of this power provided him with a growing sense of relief. Regardless of what he felt, I knew that Danaus was going to strangle me when I finally released my control over him.
The trio of naturi dropped their weapons and fell to the ground, writhing in pain. Their skin blacked and finally cracked, allowing the boiling blood to ooze out. The screams were finally reduced to choked, gurgling cries of pain before they were silenced permanently.
With a wave of my hand, I released my hold on Danaus, cutting off the power that flowed to the bodies of the naturi. The hunter’s heavy breathing was the only sound that carried across the park besides the sound of the wind. Slowly, I turned to face Danaus when the sound of clapping drew my attention back toward the three naturi. A tall figure walked out of the darkness, a pair of black wings extending from his back as if he were part bat. Rowe.
The one-eyed naturi had haunted me for months, his memory chasing after me no matter where I went or what I did. He had aided Nerian in torturing me when I was first captured by the naturi more than five centuries ago. He tried to kidnap me when I was in London with Danaus only a few months ago. He fought me on Crete yet again when he broke the seal that bound the naturi in their world. Onetime consort of the queen of the naturi, he focused all of his energy on freeing his people. Now he was banished, an outcast, because he was twisting earth magic with blood magic—an act forbidden by the naturi.
“Rowe,” I snarled, tightening my grip on my sword as I stepped over the bodies of the dead naturi to close the distance between us. “I expected you sooner.”
“Healed from our last meeting?” he asked, pulling a sword from his waist as he folded his wings against his body. I swallowed back a growl that rose up in my chest. The last time I encountered the naturi, he had shoved a knife deep into my back while I stabbed his wife-queen in the chest at Machu Picchu. I barely survived, but at least Aurora had barely survived the meeting as well.
“What do you want with Budapest?” I demanded when I finally had control of my temper. “Has Aurora come to roost here, and you’re clinging to the hem of her dress, hoping for a reprieve?”
“I want nothing from Budapest. My few followers contacted me the second they discovered that you were lurking in the region. I’m more than happy to grab you and hand you over to Aurora. I have no doubt that she would be pleased to have you again after the damage you wrought in Peru,” he said with an ugly sneer.
“Buying your way back into her good graces?” My laugh sounded forced and uneven as I struggled to focus over the pain in my back. “She’s not going to take you back. You’ve dealt in blood magic, scarred your body, lost your golden glow. You’re not one of them now. Never will be!”
“She may never take me back, but I promise that you won’t survive my attempts to return to my people.” He lunged at me, sword pointed at my chest.
I stumbled a step backward, knocking his sword away with my short sword. Pain twisted in my back as I moved, threatening to swamp me. My body was healing, but too slowly for my liking, particularly while I was facing Rowe. Unfortunately, I doubted that Danaus was willing to back me up after everything that I had just put him through. Yet at the same time, I couldn’t summon up the guilt I felt that I should. The hunter had controlled me in the past to save both of our necks. How was what I had done any different?
As my footing grew firmer, I matched Rowe blow for blow with the sword, looking for an opportunity to finally relieve him of his head or his heart. The naturi was too dangerous to be left alive. He wanted to kidnap me yet again, and I would not fall back into the hands of the naturi.
Rowe smiled at me despite the fact that I was pushing him backward a step for every step that I took forward. The evil grin was enough to stop me in my tracks. I couldn’t take the time to try to scan the region for more naturi, as the distraction would leave me vulnerable to attack from him. I stopped walking forward, darting my eyes from left to right, but saw no one besides my opponent.
“Where is Cynnia?” he demanded, surprising me. I hadn’t seen the naturi princess since we left Peru, and in truth, I didn’t expect to ever see her again. I tended to kill first and ask questions later when it came to the naturi, regardless of their allegiance to Cynnia or Aurora.
“I haven’t seen her.”
“Don’t try to protect her. She needs to be killed for her betrayal of the crown,” Rowe said, his smile slipping from his face.
“Even if the crown tried to kill her. She doesn’t have the right to protect herself from her own sister?”
“Not if her sister is the queen. Aurora passed judgment on her. She needs to face her fate, and you need to stop protecting her.”
I didn’t like this. Did the naturi actually think I was protecting the rogue princess because I had stood by her earlier at Machu Picchu? The little rugrat had used me for protection. After the battle at Machu Picchu, she took those that were willing to follow her and disappeared into the coming dawn. I hadn’t heard from her, and I prayed I never would.
“I don’t know where she is. I wouldn’t protect her. She’s on her own now. Besides, Nyx seemed fully capable of protecting her little sister. Maybe you should go looking for them instead of harassing me. Hand them over to your ex-wife.”
“I will find them,” Rowe stated, the tip of his sword wavering in his growing anger.
“Fine. Just keep me out of it. I don’t want to be a part of your war,” I responded, my own grip tightening on my sword.
“You are a part of our war now. Aurora wants you and her sisters dead. I will deliver that to her.”
The sound of footsteps crunching across the snow caused me to draw my last remaining knife from my side and clench it in my fist. However, a part of me relaxed almost as quickly as I recognized the cadence of the footsteps. Danaus was drawing near. The hunter might not be happy with me, but he wouldn’t knife me in the back while I faced off against Rowe. He would at least wait until he was standing in front of me.
“Get out of here, naturi!” Danaus growled. “You’re outnumbered and we could kill you with a thought. Get out of Budapest. We’ll hunt you down another night.”
Rowe cocked his head to the side, his eyes flitting between Danaus and me before his mocking smile returned. In the same second, he threw out his wings and caught the wind that was sweeping over the land. He took to the air, disappearing in the thick black of night. I stared up at the sky for several seconds, waiting to see if the sky grew heavy with clouds, signaling that the naturi was calling up a thunderstorm. But it remained clear, sparkling with starlight.
As I lowered my head, Danaus roughly grabbed my arm and slammed me into a nearby brick wall. Pain exploded in my back as my wound hit the wall a second before the back of my head smacked into the red brick.
“What the hell—” I started, but swallowed the words when I looked at his face, twisted with rage. I stiffened and raised my chin as I prepared for this fight. The hunter had been content to let Rowe go because he was determined to take a pound of flesh out of me.