He chuckled low in his throat. “Beautiful women inspire men, but what inspires you?”
The answer came instantly. Rohkeus. She pulled away from him, but he caught her wrist before she could turn her back on him. Her gaze flicked up to meet his green eyes.
The expression seemed sad, somehow. “I’m here now,” he murmured.
He must have sensed her wavering between him and her former lover, between present and the past. It was galling to be so transparent.
“Is there a problem here?” Elsker’s voice asked from the door.
She tugged her hand out of Jaden’s grip. “No, we’re fine. What is it, Elsker?”
He wore a deep furrow between his eyes. “I hope to talk you out of this insanity.”
“It has to be done.”
“Yes, of course, but not by you.”
“Siri has to run the city; Tera has to defend it.”
Elsker spread his hands. “You’re our queen. You shouldn’t put yourself at risk. I can go instead.”
Ashra glanced over her shoulder at Jaden. She opened her mouth, on the verge of accepting Elsker’s offer, and then caught herself. If something happened to Jaden, she would blame Elsker forever. She shook her head. “It’ll be fine.”
Elsker pressed his lips together and shook his head, but did not argue further. He embraced her stiffly, and then stepped back. “Good luck.”
“We’ll be back in two hours.”
Together, Ashra and Jaden took the elevator down to the lowest level and stepped off to find Dana and Harrod waiting, each holding two empty capacitors. Ashra led the way to the eastern curve of the city and into the room dominated by steel panels set in the floor.
Tera, accompanied by two warriors, entered the room. “I’m here to bid you farewell and good luck,” she said. She leaned in to hug Ashra. “Be safe.”
“We will. When I return, we’ll discuss expanding our army to include humans.”
Tera’s eyes widened. “What?” Her single question sounded like a curse.
The low hum of the city’s engines fell silent. The city had stopped. Ashra smiled thinly. “Let’s go.” She peered into the glowing biometric scanner. After a moment, the red light flashed to green, and the heavy lock clicked. The floor panels slid apart. A hot breath of air wafted through the opening, a reminder—as if she needed one—of the inhospitable climate outside the dome.
Ashra threw a final glance over her shoulder. “Keep the city safe.”
Tera nodded in acknowledgment, but her eyes were troubled.
Ashra swooped out. The vampires and Jaden leapt from the city and landed on the baked ground. Ashra’s only reaction was an arch of the eyebrow. Jaden’s landing had been as graceful and as silent as the vampires'. His reflexes were as much from his training as a warrior as from the gift of her blood. In spite of Lucas’s dire predictions, Jaden’s back had healed from the daevas’ vicious attack. His muscles were restored, his skin unblemished.
Did Jaden realize he was no longer entirely human?
If he did, he gave no indication of it. He stared at the underside of the now-still city, his expression one of awe.
Two miles from end-to-end, protected beneath a dome, Aeternae Noctis was an engineering feat, one never to be replicated. The plans had existed only in Rohkeus’s mind and had perished with him.
“Jaden,” Dana recalled her son with a quiet word. “Take this.” She handed him one of the empty capacitors, glanced down at the tracking device she held, and then looked up at the featureless landscape. “Follow me.”
The scout leader set a brisk pace, sprinting to the west. Ashra soared overhead, searching the horizon for daevas while keeping an eye on the small team of vampires and one human who ran across the dry terrain. On her own, she could have reached the solar charging station in a fraction of the time, but it was too risky without ground support. Anxious, she watched the horizon lighten as time raced against them.
The squat frame of the solar charging station appeared in the distance, its six large panels angled to the east, in anticipation of the rising sun. Her breath shuddered; a quiet, relieved sigh escaped from her. She circled the station and allowed herself to hope.
She had completed another tight loop of the area when the vampires reached the solar charging station. She landed lightly beside them as Jaden pushed to the front. He was breathing hard, sweat glistening on his skin. His green eyes were cool and focused as he pulled tools out of his small pack. He set the screwdriver against the first of the six screws that secured the panel.
“Do you know what to do?” she asked.
“Xanthia explained it.”
Tiny flashes of light pulsed from the screwdriver in a precise sequence that matched the security code embedded in the screw. Tiny prongs emerged from the head of the screw, locking the screw onto the screwdriver. Jaden spun the screwdriver, and the screw came loose.
Minutes later, he dropped all six screws into Dana’s waiting hand, put the screwdriver away, and tugged the panel off. A grin flashed across his face. “It doesn’t look damaged.” He reached in, maneuvered one of the capacitors out of its charging dock, and handed it to Harrod, trading the full capacitor for an empty one, which he inserted in its place.
The whisper of shifting sand breathed through the canyon. Ashra glanced around sharply.
“I sense it too,” Jaden said, his voice terse. He handed the second capacitor to Dana, and then a third.
A cluster of shadows around a distant pile of rocks shifted into the shape of bat wings.
“Daevas!” Ashra took to the air.
Jaden pulled the fourth capacitor from the charging station and tossed it to Harrod. He spun around, drawing his twin blades. “Run!” he ordered Dana and Harrod, who held the fully charged capacitors. “I’ll hold them off.”
Daevas, eyes gleaming yellow and fangs bared, launched themselves at the retreating vampires in a flurry of wings and claws, but Jaden threw himself between them. He slashed out, the edges of his blades slicing through skin and flesh. Twice, he collapsed under the heavy onslaught, but reappeared beneath the tangle of limbs, his swords flashing like living weapons. Blood flowed—golden, not crimson.
Ashra tore through the daevas’ ranks, ripping wings and grounding some of them, leaving them vulnerable to Jaden’s attack. She spared a brief glance at the two vampires, already tiny in the distance. She tore the head off a daeva’s shoulders. With a malicious grin, her pale golden eyes gleaming, she hurled it at another daeva, larger than the others.
A silver ring glittered on its finger. The daeva hissed, its massive wings beating down. It must have sounded a retreat. The daevas that could still fly clustered around it, and together, they vanished into the dark night sky.
Ashra landed beside Jaden and helped him finish off the injured daevas. “Hurry. We have to catch up with the vampires.”
Jaden nodded. “Go ahead.” He leaned down and wiped clean his swords on a daeva’s rags. “I have to put the panel back.”
“Leave it.”
He grabbed the panel and searched the ground for the screws Dana had dropped. “We can’t let them access our technology. It’ll take two minutes. Go on. I’ll catch up.”
She rolled her eyes. “I fly faster than you run.”
He grinned, flashing white teeth. “I’ll make a heroic attempt to keep up.” He worked as he spoke, his fingers spinning the screws into place.
The screech of a daeva cut the silence of the night. Jaden glanced in the direction of the sound. “They’re going after Dana and Harrod. Go.”
She obeyed instinctively, but caught herself, halting after two wing flaps. How could she leave him unprotected?
He did not look at her. His brow was furrowed, his attention focused on securing the open panel in the solar charging system. “Go, Ashra.”
She turned. Her large wings beat down, and she took off after Dana. Her breath caught when she saw the cluster of daevas attacking the vampires. Harrod ran out front, crouch
ed low over his canisters. Dana brought up the rear and was the first to take on the daevas. She dropped the canisters behind a rock pile and reached for her sword.
“Run!” Ashra ordered as she dove into the cluster of daevas hovering over the scorched landscape.
Dana picked up the canisters and scrambled away.
The daevas scattered from Ashra like sparrows fleeing a hawk. They spun, freewheeling through the air in a panicked rush to stay out of the range of her claws. She was faster, stronger, and did not have to hesitate for fear of cutting down an aerial ally. Their only defense was in the organized chaos of a flock. For every one she tore from the sky, their leather wings savagely ripped, two escaped to hound Dana and Harrod.
The two vampires did not stop to attack the daevas. Their only focus was speed, their true enemy the sun. Ashra glanced up. In the distance, Aeternae Noctis shimmered against the glow of the eastern horizon.
At least seven miles—
She ground her teeth.
Dawn was less than a half hour away.
A large daeva twisted away from Ashra’s claws. Its wings beat down, carrying it away from her, and it shrieked. At its command, the remaining daevas retreated, flying south.
Ashra stamped out her predator’s instinct to pursue fleeing prey; she had to find Jaden.
The howl of an outraged daeva rent the night. Ashra spun around in midair. Her jaw dropped.
A daeva wobbled through the air toward her, bucking like a maddened horse. Jaden, gripping its bony shoulders, rode the daeva hundreds of feet in the air. Like a marionette on strings, he swayed and jerked with each jolting motion, but managed to stay on the daeva’s back until it somersaulted through the air.
She gasped. Her stomach mimicked the somersault.
Jaden held on through the first loop. The second loop sent him tumbling from the daeva’s back, but he grabbed onto a wing tip.
Two hundred and fifty feet below him, the ground beckoned. Densely packed dirt studded with sharp rocks promised a painful landing.
The daeva snarled. Its massive wings beat down as it spun into more aerial acrobatics.
She was already moving toward him when the daeva flung him off. Like a discarded rag doll, he was hurled to the ground. His scream of raw terror arced through the air.
The friction from the wind burned pinpricks of heat into her skin. The sand, whipped up from her frantic race to reach him, scored her eyes.
She snatched him up two feet from the ground, and circled twice to slow her speed before landing. Her racing heartbeat settled into a calm and steady thump the moment she held him in her arms. She suppressed a chuckle as she cradled the trembling man in her arms, a man who fearlessly rode a daeva but who had yet to uncurl from a fetal ball. “Jaden? Are you all right?”
He shook his head. His eyes remained closed, and his throat worked for several moments before he forced the shaky words out. “I hate flying.”
“Then why did you get on the daeva?” She did not even want to imagine the amount of wrestling it must have entailed to mount an angry daeva.
He laughed, the sound unsteady, but edged with humor. He opened his eyes, and for the first time, she saw Jaden and not Rohkeus in the stunning, gold-flecked green depths—a human, not an icrathari, yet as easy to love. He smiled. “I told you I would catch up.”
“Flying is easy; landing is difficult.” She dragged him to his feet. He wobbled, staggering against her. She clucked her sympathy, but the sound wavered perilously close to a giggle. “Can you run or do you want me to carry you?”
He pushed her away. “I’ll crawl before I get back up in the air.”
That time, she failed to swallow the laugh. “Fine. See if you can keep up.” It was cruel to bait him, but her lover, so daring, so stubborn, was such as easy mark.
She took to the air and circled large loops, keeping her eye on the vampires running ahead, and Jaden coming from behind. He was, she noted with a slight shiver, more than keeping up. He was gaining on the vampires—an utter impossibility for a human.
He had fought off a pack of daevas and emerged unscathed when a mere forty-eight hours earlier, five daevas had brutally bludgeoned him to his knees.
Her blood was taking hold, transforming him. Finally, he had a body that could keep up with the boldness of his spirit and the demands of his circumstances—a body that was neither human nor vampire. What was he changing into? More important, did he know, or care?
She raced past the vampires and looped back around. The heaving breaths of the vampires broke the silence as they pushed their bodies to extreme speeds.
The sliver of light on the horizon deepened into a glow. The air warmed. The curved surface of the dome glistened, sparkling like gold, as the sun inched above the horizon.
In less than five minutes, the rays of sun would penetrate Aeternae Noctis.
They were still a mile from the dome. They were almost out of time.
From the north, a low tremor rippled through the air. Ashra threw a glance over her shoulder. The sky darkened as massive bat wings blocked the sun’s nascent light. Daevas swarmed in numbers that made the prior attacks seem like scouting parties. She bared her elongated incisors; finely honed predatory instincts overrode the flutter of panic churning in her stomach. Her pearlescent fingernails extended into curved talons as she twisted around to meet them, but large numbers of daevas bypassed her and plunged after the two vampires.
In the air, Ashra ripped through the wall of daevas that tumbled toward her. Her claws slashed out indiscriminately. Screams of terror pierced the dawn. Golden blood drizzled to the ground.
The temperature climbed. Warm became sweltering. The dazzling glow of the rising sun obliterated the line of the horizon.
The city lay minutes from incineration.
Damn it! Where was Tera? They were so close to the city. Surely their battle would be observed. Surely help would come.
Harrod screamed as two daevas pulled him into the air. Ashra surged to his aid, but two other daevas reached him first. They grasped his legs. With hideous cackles and a viciously sharp tug, they ripped him into quarters. His blood splattered across Ashra’s armor.
She drew a deep breath and screamed. Her battle cry shredded the night.
The daevas recoiled and scattered from Ashra’s fury. The pieces of Harrod’s body tumbled to the ground. A dark streak shot across the sandy terrain. Jaden. He shoved past the daevas, bowling them over with his greater weight, speed, and momentum.
“Ashra!”
She instinctively caught a glowing capacitor that Jaden tossed up at her. Another capacitor followed.
“Get them to the city! Go!”
Her wings beat down, carrying her out of the murderous reach of the daevas. They raced after her, but she was faster still. One caught up with her, the silver-ringed daeva. It swiped out with its talons, ripping across Ashra’s abdomen.
Pain flashed white across her vision.
Ashra gripped the top of the capacitor with one hand and swung it around. It smashed the daeva in the face. Bone shattered at the impact. With a wail, the daeva fell away, its wings beating back in hasty retreat.
The sealed entrance of Aeternae Noctis cracked open, the fissure widening. Ashra swooped up, folding her wings to get through the narrow door. She tossed the canisters into Siri and Xanthia’s waiting hands. “Where’s Tera, damn it?”
Siri’s eyes were wide. She pushed her capacitor at Xanthia. “Load them up. Get the city moving. I’ll find Tera.” She caught Ashra’s wrist. “No, you can’t go back out. You’re hurt.”
She glanced down. Her golden blood oozed through rents in her leather armor.
Ashra pulled her hand free. “Jaden’s out there.”
She dove through the narrow opening and into a thick cluster of daevas. She did not stop to fight. Like a missile, she drove through their ranks, breaking out on the other side. Her heart caught when she saw Jaden and Dana, fighting back-to-back. Jaden skewered a daeva on the end
of his blade, and then leaned down to grab the remaining two capacitors off the ground. He tossed them to her.
The first rays of the sun burst over the horizon, burning through the thin atmosphere like death rays. The daevas screeched, their bat wings fluttering in panic as they veered away from Jaden and Dana, and shot off to the west, racing ahead of the sun.
Out in the open, with no hope of shelter, Jaden pulled Dana down to the ground and crouched over her. He threw a glance over his shoulder. Even from that distance, Ashra could see the pain etched on his face. “Go! You’re out of time.”
His command threw her into motion. The heat scorched her skin as she soared back to Aeternae Noctis with the precious capacitors. A low sound rumbled through the air, a prelude to the initial splutter of superheated jets of air blasting from the thrusters. Like a ponderous behemoth, the city shifted into motion. Its massive engines spun; it gathered speed quickly, leaving Jaden and Dana behind.
Ashra soared into the city. A swarm of faces—vampire and icrathari—were gathered at the entrance. Where had they been when she’d needed them? She flung the capacitors into the hands of the waiting vampires and spun around.
Tera seized her arm. “You can’t. It’s too late.”
The words, calmly uttered, ignited Ashra’s fury. Her vision blurred into a red haze. She slashed out. Her talons, already dripping with daeva blood, ripped across Tera’s face. She turned and launched herself out of the city.
The ground wavered in and out of focus as the scant water in the ground evaporated in waves of undulating air. Her skin was smoking by the time she reached the two huddled figures on the ground. She pulled Jaden from his knees, but he pushed Dana to her. “Take my mother,” he forced the words out through his cracked lips.
Her gaze swept over the vampire. Dana’s face was contorted with agony. The blood spilling from her injuries evaporated before it hit the ground. Desiccated chucks of charred flesh peeled off her bone. Her chest sagged with her final hissing breath.
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