“Think about it, Danaus!” I shouted back at him, wrenching my arm free of his grasp. “Was I really risking that much when I rode to their rescue? In both cases, the coven needed to keep me alive. I was in serious danger of getting my ass handed to me by Jabari or Macaire, but they weren’t going to kill me. Veyron doesn’t need me alive. He’s already proven that. Lycans and warlocks have tried to kill me in the span of just a couple nights. I don’t need to go looking for trouble. I’ve got enough.”
“You’re not going to help me?” he asked.
“Damn it!” I growled, balling both of my hands into fists as I fought the urge to light a fire. “Let her go, Danaus. She doesn’t deserve to be saved.”
“How can you say that?”
“Because she asked for what she got! She wanted to be Veyron’s plaything. Why should I risk my neck to save her because she suddenly doesn’t like what she got? What if we free her and she hooks up with another nightwalker in six months? Do you go free her later when she grows bored?”
“She’s a trapped human! She doesn’t deserve to be held prisoner by . . . by . . .”
“By what? A monster?” I supplied.
“Yes,” he hissed.
“So you’ve made your choice.” I crossed my arms over my chest, protecting myself from the words I knew were going to come next. “You’re choosing her because she’s human, regardless of what we’ve got going.”
“What? Why does this have to be about us?”
“Because if this was some guy trapped with Odelia, you wouldn’t care. But Sofia is an attractive young, helpless woman that desperately needs your help and you can’t wait to play the role of the white knight. It’s because you can’t stomach the idea of being attracted to a nightwalker and would rather be with a normal human.”
“That’s—That’s ridiculous!”
“It isn’t! Being with me terrifies you because you know that deep down you are more like me that you care to admit.”
Danaus shook his head at me, taking a step backward. “I won’t discuss this now. I want your help to free Sofia.”
“You also want me to take her back to Savannah with us and serve as her personal protector,” I cried. “I can’t do it.”
“Why? You had no problem taking responsibility for Tristan and Nicolai.”
“Because I won’t risk my life to protect another woman that you are attracted to when I’m the one who cares about you!” I screamed, shaking my hands at him. “I’ve had enough. If you want Sofia free, you fight Veyron for her. I’m leaving for Venice tomorrow night.”
Turning on my heel, I briskly walked back toward the bridge, leaving Danaus behind. A lump grew in my throat and it felt as if a hole had been ripped in my chest bigger than the wound that was healing in my stomach. I wanted Danaus for myself, but I knew deep down that I wasn’t what he wanted, and it was tearing me apart inside.
Roughly brushing aside tears that had gathered in the corners of my eyes, I crossed the bridge back to Buda, where I snagged the first two available young people that crossed my path and fed deeply. I wasn’t much in the mood for hunting, but I needed to replace the blood I had lost, particularly before I returned to Venice. I didn’t know what Macaire’s grand scheme was, and at the moment I didn’t care. I had been dispatched to Budapest to get rid of the naturi problem, and that was all. The naturi were gone, so it was time for me to go home again.
At the hotel, I put out the Do Not Disturb sign and shuffled across the room to the large window that looked down on the city. It was just a couple hours before dawn, and I was trapped in Budapest for the night. Valerio would need to feed and heal for the next few nights before he would be of any use to anyone again. Stefan would need to remain at his side for at least one night to serve as protection and to help him hunt. I had no quick escape to Vienna available to me this morning. And this time I had a dark suspicion that Danaus wouldn’t be coming back to the hotel. I had given him his choice—Sofia or me—and he was going to choose the human.
Leaning my head against the glass, I closed my eyes and tried to organize my thoughts. Danaus was determined to free Sofia, most likely leaving me to deal with Veyron since the hunter would need to focus on getting the little pet to a safe location away from Budapest. After my last run-in with Rowe, I had been hoping to avoid another encounter with Veyron and his flunkies.
The whole thing left me scratching my head. The power structure here was unlike any I had seen in any other domain. Nightwalkers didn’t play well with other powerful creatures. It just wasn’t in our nature. To make matters worse, there wasn’t just one powerful creature in Budapest, but four.
Like the coven. Cursing, I stumbled over to the desk against the far wall and brushed off some debris from the earlier fight. The room was still trashed, and I shuddered to think what Danaus had to do or say to keep things quiet with the hotel management. It wasn’t the first time a hotel room had been destroyed because of my daytime presence, and the incident was usually smoothed over with copious amounts of money.
Grabbing up a piece of blank paper, I wrote down Veyron’s name and circled it. Beside it, I wrote Ferko and Clarion’s names and circled each one individually. Reluctantly, I put down Odelia’s name as well. My experience with her had not been impressive, but according to Ferko, she was the one to actually order Michelle’s death, making her a power player in her own right.
I chewed on my bottom lip as I stared at the four names, and a knot twisted in my gut. It seemed they had formed their own coven here in Budapest, creating a powerful force for anyone to contend with.
But the fact that there were four ruling members in Budapest meant there was always the potential for deadlock, unlike the coven, which had five members. It felt like someone had to be missing. There could be only one lycanthrope pack alpha, so the chance of another lycanthrope was unlikely. Particularly since we had slaughtered most of them and there hadn’t been another half as strong as Ferko. Another warlock was a distinct possibility. Valerio had indicated that Clarion was known to work with someone else, and that other warlock could be serving in the background with the other members of Veyron’s ruling party. If I had to take on Veyron to protect Danaus and his new friend, then I would have to destroy all the members of this group in order to survive. I did not relish the opportunity to go head-to-head against not just one but two warlocks.
“If you had just used the half-breed, you could have killed that irritating naturi with little problem.”
My entire body cringed at the voice. I didn’t need to look up. I could feel Nick’s power slowly filling the room as if he were pushing out all the air and leaving it thick and stuffy. If I still breathed, I would have suffocated in that tiny enclosure. I hung my head down and clenched my eyes shut as if I could will him away, but I knew it didn’t work that way. Nick wasn’t going to leave until he had finally succeeded in pushing me in the direction he thought I should be headed. At the moment, I didn’t care what he wanted.
“I’m done using Danaus,” I said in a low, hard voice, daring him to argue with me.
He chuckled. “You’re not done by a long shot, my dear.”
I slammed my fist against the surface of the desk and twisted around to finally face him. “I’m done! Just leave me alone.”
Nick leaned against the far wall, looking like my last memory of my father, with his simple outfit and floppy hat to protect him against the harsh summer sun. The smile was all wrong, though. There was no warmth or compassion, only evil and malicious glee.
“I can’t, my sweet daughter. We need each other.”
“I don’t need you.”
Nick walked over and placed a hand on my shoulder to keep me from rising when I tried to get out of my chair. “Without me, you will never reach your full potential.”
“I don’t need any more power than I’ve already got,” I snapped.
Nick squeezed my shoulder hard enough to make me cringe and try to shrink away from his touch, but he refused to rele
ase me. “And I need you to help me once again reach my full potential. I want to reach the stars again, escape this weakened state.”
I finally jerked out of his touch, but he had me pinned so that I couldn’t get out of my chair. “I don’t care what you want.”
“You will if it means your life,” he said, a grin growing across his horribly beautiful face. “If you’re not going to help me, I will either impregnate you so you will bear me a child that can help me, or I’ll kill you and go to one of my other children for assistance.”
“I will not control Danaus again,” I said stubbornly, daring him to contradict me. When he continued to just stare at me, I finally added, “Besides, I’ve already lost him. He won’t speak to me, won’t look at me. We’re going our separate ways.”
“Yes,” he hissed. “I saw that. Not a good move. You should have just given him what he wanted so you would have his power at your disposal.” Nick paced away from me. Some of the tension drained out of my shoulders as I watched him deep in thought. After a moment he shrugged his shoulders and turned back to me. “No matter. You still have Jabari. Once you return to Venice, you are to concentrate your attention on him.”
“Jabari? Are you insane? He’ll squash me like a bug if he gets even the slightest whiff that he can’t control me any longer, let alone discovers that I can control him.”
“Are you saying you don’t want to control him?” he asked, arching one brow at me. I couldn’t ever recall seeing that particular expression on my father’s face before.
“Of course I would love to control him. He used me for a century. I would love to have the opportunity to force him to take his own medicine. I’m just not strong enough. Jabari will kill me for even trying.”
“Then I suggest that you get it right the first time,” Nick said, and then disappeared, clearly indicating that he would offer me no help whatsoever if I failed to bring Jabari under control when I attempted it.
“Nick!” I shouted, but I got no answer. But then, that’s how things were going at this point. I was alone to clean up this mess I found myself in. Nick had helped me to alienate Danaus, and now I was to stick my head in the lion’s mouth that was Jabari.
Exhausted, I pushed away from the desk and wandered into the bedroom, where I plopped down on the edge of the bed and pulled off my muddy boots. With my legs still hanging over the side, I lay back against the thick comforter and closed my eyes. I wished for the world to fade away, and that we had never come to Budapest.
Chapter Twenty-Two
Sofia sat at the small table in the far corner next to Danaus as they shared a tray of food brought up by room service. I watched her cutting dainty bites of her chicken, wishing I could shove the fork down her throat. Danaus had risked both of our lives for this woman, and unfortunately, I was beginning to see why. In the broken, dimly lit room, she seemed almost luminous. Her features were delicate and perfectly formed, from her large innocent eyes to her button nose to her little rosebud mouth. It was as if she were a fragile, blown-glass ornament resting in the wreckage of the hotel room.
It didn’t take a genius to see why Danaus was drawn to her. It was more than the fact that she was a helpless human tied to a ruthless vampire. It was that she represented the epitome of the beautiful damsel in distress. Danaus had spent a lifetime searching for good deeds, in hopes of winning his soul back from the bori. He had searched his life for just this situation. Now all he needed to do was vanquish the evil vampire and the heroic act would be complete. Then he and Sofia could ride off together into the sunset.
If it had been possible for me at that exact moment, I would have vomited with the thought. Danaus had no business with a woman like that even if her laughter sounded like jubilant little bells and her eyes sparkled when she gazed up at him. Danaus and I were a better fit. Dark, violent, and sarcastic, we could face whatever the world threw at us and still come back for more. We belonged together. But right now all he could see was a pair of wide blue eyes watching him.
Balling my hands into fists at my sides, I searched for an even, reasonable tone. “Does Veyron know you have her?” I demanded as way of greeting.
“I slipped out just before sunrise,” Sofia said. “Veyron didn’t know where I was going.” She wiped her hands on her napkin before setting it by her plate. She rose to her feet and curtsied deep to me.
Meanwhile, Danaus sat back in his chair and crossed his arms over his chest as he stared smugly at me. “There was no fight. No one was killed. Sofia has been safely hidden here all day and no one has come to retrieve her.”
“She’s not hidden,” I snarled. “She’s Veyron’s pet. The moment he wishes to know her location, he will. And then he will either come to fetch her himself or he will send some of his flunkies for her. Just because getting her was easy doesn’t mean that it will be just as easy to keep her.”
A flood of tears erupted from Sofia as she collapsed back in her chair. “Oh, she’s right. It is only a matter of time before Veyron comes after me. I’ve put your lives in horrible danger.”
I shrugged one shoulder as I shoved my hands into the back pockets of my leather pants. “Then go back. If you don’t want to selfishly risk our lives, then go back to him.”
“I can’t,” she gasped, raising her face from where she had it buried in her hands. “He’ll kill me. I know he will. Veyron will kill me.”
“I doubt that.”
“Mira, you don’t know that,” Danaus growled at me.
“No, but I truly doubt that Veyron will kill her. Her only fear is that he’s going to punish her in some way and she doesn’t want to face it.”
Danaus shoved to his feet while placing one protective hand on Sofia’s shoulder. “The only thing she’s afraid of is a lifetime of being a slave to that monster. She wants her freedom.”
“Then she shouldn’t have chosen to become Veyron’s pet in the first place.”
“Please, Mira. I need your help,” Sofia said. “I made a mistake. I didn’t realize what I was getting into when I made the deal with Veyron. At the time, he was just so powerful and mesmerizing. I wasn’t thinking clearly.”
I rolled my eyes and paced away from the woman. “And now you’re thinking clearly? You want out of your deal and you’re expecting us to protect you when it comes time to pay the piper.”
“Please, I have nowhere else to go. No one who will help me. I’m alone, and you and Danaus are the only ones strong enough to take on Veyron. Besides, he said that you’re the keeper of the domain now. Can’t you just order him to release me?”
“I can order him to release you, but if he wants to be able to show his face in this city again, he has to challenge me for you. And truth be told, I don’t want you. I’ve got enough problems on my hands already. I don’t need to add to them.”
“But I won’t be a burden to you. I will leave Budapest. I will go somewhere far from here, like Paris or London or maybe even New York. I will never come to this city again,” she promised.
I turned on my heel and shook my head at her. “Do you honestly think that it’s going to work that way? Once Veyron hears that you’re out of my direct care and supervision, he will come after you again. And then he will kill you to prove that I wasn’t able to protect something that was supposed to be mine.”
“But I don’t want to be your pet,” Sofia said in a breathless whisper.
“And I don’t want you either, but you turned to another nightwalker for help. That means I have to steal you away from Veyron to protect you.”
“But I ran away. You didn’t steal me.”
“Keeping you alive, keeping you safe, means stealing you from him.”
“We could just kill Veyron and then you wouldn’t have to worry about protecting her,” Danaus suggested.
Sofia twisted in her seat and placed a hand over Danaus’s hand. “Must you? He didn’t treat me that poorly. I don’t think he deserves to die because I made a mistake.”
“I see no reason to ki
ll Veyron,” I said. “With the naturi dead, I’m prepared to leave Budapest and not look back. The coven is a more pressing matter for us.”
“Then send her to Savannah,” Danaus suggested.
“No!”
“Mira—”
“Absolutely not. If she boards my plane, she’s going to Venice, and that’s where she’s going to stay.”
“Oh, please no,” she pleaded. At the suggestion, the woman grew considerably paler as she clenched both of her hands in her lap.
“She wouldn’t survive in Venice with the others,” Danaus said, “particularly since I know that you have no intention of remaining there.”
“I won’t take her to Savannah and she can’t remain in Budapest. That only leaves Venice,” I argued, struggling to keep the smile off my lips. There was something very appealing about sending a helpless Sofia to Venice. Deep down, I knew that I couldn’t and wouldn’t drop her off in Venice. I had moments when I could be truly cold-hearted, but there were limitations to even my vicious nature. She wouldn’t survive her first night in Venice and we all knew it.
Unfortunately, I was still stuck with trying to come up with someplace to send her where she would be out of my hair, and preferably away from Danaus. Furthermore, the place had to be secure from a potential attack from Veyron should I decide to leave the nightwalker alive. At the moment I didn’t care one way or the other. I just wanted to get home again, and now that the naturi were dead, I had no reason to remain in Budapest beyond giving Macaire a chance to kill me.
“Why not send her to Themis?” I suggested.
Danaus pushed away from the table and rose to his feet, looking far from pleased with my idea. “You want to put her in Ryan’s hands?”
“She’s a human who knows about our world. I can wipe her memory and set her free, but that’s not going to keep her safe from Veyron and anyone else who might know about her. Ryan can watch over her, while she gives the researchers some interesting little tidbits about my world. It’s a brilliant idea.”
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