Slowly, we picked our way around giant boulders and slabs that had been smoothed with ancient hammers and chisels but never taken to the monuments they were intended for. I paused beside an unfinished obelisk. Three sides had been smoothed and carved with hieroglyphics and other images. The fourth side was still unfinished after countless centuries. Abandoned.
“Why here?” Danaus said, standing beside me. “Of all the places in Egypt, why would he be here?”
My hand slid over the unfinished obelisk, images of the last time I had walked through this quarry flashing through my brain. I could recall it as if it had happened only moments ago. I’d been feeling restless then, in no mood to be around the peoples of Alexandria while memories of the naturi haunted my daylight rest, and Jabari brought me down to Aswan. We’d wandered up one side of the Nile and down the other, allowing the quiet to seep into our skin. Walking beside me, Jabari had explained all that went into creating an obelisk of this size.
“Jabari was one of the chief architects for Amenophis II. He designed parts of Karnak,” I told Danaus, pride bringing a wavering smile to my mouth as I stared into the emptiness. Jabari had told me of a trip he made to Aswan when he was human, and to two of the quarries here to inspect the stones that would be shipped back to Karnak. Though he never spoke of it, I always got the impression that he never had the chance to finish his life’s work at Karnak because his human life had ended somewhere between Aswan and Luxor.
“What are we looking for?” Danaus asked.
Holding out my left hand, I conjured up a small flame, which flickered in the breeze that begun to stir once again. “A sign.” Closing my hand around the flame, I tossed it out into the night before us. The flame split into six separate balls of fire and shot out into the deep reaches of the quarry. Shadows danced and retreated around us, revealing their secrets. If Jabari had fought the naturi here, there would be signs of a battle. The rock wall would have new scars, the earth gouged, but above all I would have been able to sense Jabari’s death. I was around when nightwalkers were destroyed, had even killed a couple Ancients myself. I knew that a ripple of magic was left in the air when a nightwalker was destroyed, and it lingered for years. The older the nightwalker, the thicker the mark. If Jabari had been destroyed here, I would see it and feel it.
“This is unexpected,” stated a deep voice from behind me. We both spun around to find Jabari standing at the top of the unfinished obelisk.
At just over six feet, he was an impressive figure in his traditional robes. Even for a vampire, his skin was still dark, midnight hair cut short on his head. His almond-shaped, mahogany eyes watched me, questioning. He hadn’t directed his gaze at Danaus yet and he wouldn’t. To recognize Danaus’s presence was to give him importance.
Despite the fact that he was standing just a few feet away from me, I still could not sense him. It was like he wasn’t really there. I hadn’t moved from the base of the obelisk, couldn’t even drag my voice past the lump that swelled in my throat. It was like staring at a ghost.
His eyes softened and he raised a hand toward me, beckoning me to his side. It was all the encouragement I needed. I scrambled up the obelisk until I nearly collapsed against him. Wrapping my arms around him, I pressed my cheek to his shoulder. My teeth were clenched so hard my jaws ached as I swallowed the sob that had knotted in my throat. He hadn’t been destroyed. He was real and right here.
For a moment my world threatened to crumble. Centuries had passed since I last stood with him in his beloved Egypt, held in his benevolent arms. He had helped me recover from horrors I thought would plague my dreams for all eternity. And then one day I left and never looked back. I stood on my own two feet. But now I stood there holding him as if he were my last tie to sanity.
“Welcome home, my little one,” Jabari whispered as he pressed a kiss to the top of my head. His beautiful accent skipped to my ears, seeming to caress my frazzled nerves. He wrapped his strong arms around me, holding me tightly against his chest. “The Old Kingdom has missed you.”
Jabari represented more than just a mentor. In many ways he was also the voice of the Coven when Our Liege deigned to remain in the background. During the past few decades, I had been absent from Europe and the Coven, preferring to direct my focus to establishing a steady, consistent balance in my own domain. While nothing negative was ever said about my choice, a dark undercurrent had started to form, strengthened by the growing silence I was receiving from Venice. I needed Jabari to protect my back.
“I feared things must be bad to drive you back here, my desert flower,” he murmured, running one hand down the back of my head, smoothing my hair.
I shuddered, struggling desperately to pull myself back together. Jabari was the only vampire in this world that I trusted. He was all I knew of safety and love among my own kind. “Why can’t I sense you?”
“I did not wish to be found.” There was no censure in his voice, just a statement of fact.
“Forgive me,” I said, reluctantly releasing him. “I had few options.”
Taking a few steps away from him, I ran a trembling hand through my hair to push it back from my face. My thoughts were coming back into focus. With a wave of my hand, I extinguished the balls of fire that flickered around the quarry. I hadn’t expected to find the Elder. Hoped and wished, but never expected it. Yet, he was here now, and he would fix everything.
“You are forgiven,” he said, bowing his head in a single, regal nod. “What has brought you to my lands?”
“The naturi.”
Those two words sounded flat and dead to my ears. Something seemed to die inside of me every time I mentioned them. I watched Jabari’s face, but there was no change in his expression. There was nothing to reveal that he was surprised by what I’d said, or that he had known the naturi was once again threatening to return.
“How?”
“Their symbols have begun to appear on trees, and there was a sacrifice at the Indian Temple of the Sun, Konark.” I paused and licked my lips, forcing myself to hold Jabari’s piercing gaze. “Nerian was also following me. The naturi attacked us—”
“How is that possible?” Jabari interrupted, though his voice remained even and calm. “You were to kill Nerian more than five hundred years ago.”
I took a hesitant step forward, holding both hands out to him. “I thought he was dead.”
“Thought?”
I never saw Jabari move. One second he was standing still more than three feet away, and in the next I was flying through the air. My back slammed into the wall of broken rocks. Stars exploded in front of my eyes as my head hit half a breath later. I slid down the wall, my left shoulder striking the ground. Blinking, I looked up to see Jabari step off the obelisk and walk toward me. His expression was still calm and emotionless, but the air tingled now with his anger.
“You were ordered to kill him.”
“His legs were broken and his intestines had spilled onto the ground. I didn’t think he would survive.” I pushed myself off the ground. In my haste, my hand slid in the dirt and rocks, tearing at my palm. Pain screamed through my shoulder and down my spine as I moved.
“The naturi held you captive for two weeks,” Jabari argued. “We never could discover all that they did to you. You were a threat to all nightwalkers and were only permitted to live because Nerian was dead. You should have made sure.”
“It was dawn!” I screamed. Panic fluttered in my stomach, begging me to run. It was only years after Machu Picchu that I discovered Jabari had defended me from the rest of the Coven, which demanded my destruction. He had saved my life not only from the naturi, but from my own kind as well.
“That’s not an excuse.” Jabari’s right hand lashed out, grabbing me around the throat. I didn’t even have enough time to claw at his hand before he tossed me against another outcropping of rocks like a rag doll. “You failed me.”
Pain slashed like lightning through my back as I hit the wall and fell to the floor. “He’s dead now,” I whispered, dou
bting I had the strength to rise before he attacked again.
“Centuries too late.” His sweet features hardened and his brown eyes had darkened to black clouds in a midnight storm.
My eyes fell closed, holding back the tears that started to gather. I had failed him. Jabari had always been able to depend on me for any request, no matter the task. He had given me so much, and I’d failed him. And now he was going to destroy me just like any other nightwalker who failed to live up to his expectations. A part of me welcomed it, an escape from the pain, but a faint brush of Danaus’s power quickly reminded me why we had traveled to Egypt; the naturi. If Jabari destroyed me, no one would be able to protect my home, my people. It was enough that I had failed Jabari, I wouldn’t fail all those who had come to rely on me.
I opened my eyes at the sound of a foot scraping in the dirt. Danaus suddenly stepped between Jabari and me, the blade of an eight-inch knife glinting in the faint starlight. My body was sore and protesting, but I pushed to my feet. This was not the wisest decision on Danaus’s part nor could I even begin to understand it. Jabari would destroy him before the poor creature could draw a breath, and I still needed Danaus alive.
“This does not solve the problem of the naturi,” Danaus said, his hard voice calm.
“Not only do you fail me, one whom I trusted above all others,” Jabari began, finally beginning to shout, “but you bring this…this human into my domain!”
Standing beside Danaus, I tried to edge in front of him and keep Jabari’s attention on me. “He was the one who captured Nerian. He showed me pictures of the symbols and the sacrifice.”
“You betrayed me!” Jabari closed the distance in a blur, grabbing Danaus by the throat. He pitched the hunter a hundred feet across the quarry as if he were tossing garbage out to the curb. Danaus crashed into a smooth wall of rock, cracking and crumbling stone. I winced, gritting my teeth. The impact alone should have shattered the man’s spine and broken at least one of his shoulders. I started to drag my eyes back to Jabari, the muscles in my body tensed and waiting for the attack, when I saw Danaus pick himself up off the ground. He rolled his shoulders as if shaking off the momentary pain.
Something in my blood froze. After that bone-crushing impact, Danaus should not have been able to move, let alone stand and prepare for yet another attack from Jabari. My thoughts tripped over themselves as I tried to understand how he was now standing. I didn’t know of any creatures other than nightwalkers that might be able to shrug off such a blow. Even a lycan would have been slow to regain his feet.
I think the realization also alarmed Jabari, because I felt the power in the area increase until it was a physical pressure weighing against my chest. The hunter had been upgraded from “bug to be squashed” to “threat that must be eliminated,” regardless of Danaus’s potential uses. I wanted the hunter dead as much as any other nightwalker, but we needed to get some information out of him first.
Jabari lunged at Danaus again, but despite the Elder’s alarming speed, Danaus managed to sidestep him so that the nightwalker’s attack was reduced to more of a glancing blow. However, it was still enough to knock Danaus back a step, sending him down on one knee, his knife clenched in one hand.
I balled my fists at my side. What the hell was going on? Danaus wasn’t using his knife. He was doing what he could to defend himself without attacking Jabari outright. I didn’t know if Jabari had noticed or if he just didn’t care. At least Danaus had realized that we needed the information from the Elder, and so wasn’t trying to kill him. Yet, if this continued, he would have no choice and one of them would end up dead.
While Danaus was still kneeling on the ground, glaring at Jabari, I rushed over and stood in front of the hunter. Rage now burned on Jabari’s face, and I knew I had only seconds to get through to him.
“Jabari, I have not betrayed you,” I said, no longer trying to keep the fear out of my voice. My hands trembled uncontrollably and my knees threatened to buckle. “I made a mistake with Nerian, and if you wish to kill me for that, I accept my fate, but bringing Danaus here was not an act of betrayal. I want you to see how desperate we are. The naturi are coming again. If the seal is broken, they will destroy not only the humans, but the nightwalkers as well.”
“Do not lecture me!” Jabari’s upper lip remained pulled back, and I fought to draw my gaze from his long fangs. He was going to tear my throat out if I didn’t think of something.
“Danaus is a hunter, and yet he came to me looking for a way to stop the naturi. I remember so little of that night, and I don’t want to remember. I came here hoping to find you, needing you to reform the triad that stopped the naturi the last time.”
Behind me Danaus had risen and took one step forward, as if trying to move around me. He apparently wasn’t the type to let anyone protect him, but he was going to get himself killed before I could get any more information out of him. I sidled so that I was standing directly in front of him. Reaching back, I grabbed a wrist in each hand. He stiffened at my touch, but I could still move his arms. I pulled his right arm around my waist, his knife still clutched in his hand. I drew up his left arm between my breasts so his left hand was holding my right shoulder. If Jabari was going to kill Danaus, he would have to go through me first. I wasn’t completely sure that it would stop him, but I was hoping to buy us a couple more seconds.
The muscles in my body spasmed for a second when Danaus’s left hand closed over my shoulder like a circuit closing, wrapping me in his powers. Between the weight of Jabari’s powers and the tense strength charging through Danaus, a hand seemed to clench around my soul. A sharp little cry broke from my throat as I struggled to pull my thoughts above the flow of power. A second later I managed to surface and blink, focusing my thoughts again.
Jabari stared at me, his lips pressed into a hard, thin line. The anger had not completely ebbed from his eyes, but something else had distracted his thoughts. He took a half step backward, his brow furrowed. I could only imagine he was shocked to find I was willing to risk my life for a hunter; someone who would cut out my heart before saving me. I couldn’t blame him. I was more than a little surprised myself, but the threat of the naturi had put us in an awkward position.
“It does not make sense to kill him when he has information that could be useful,” I said. “I came to you because you were at Machu Picchu. You have always been the strongest of the triad. I came to you because I trust no one else.”
The silence stretched and twisted in the quarry, the wind dying back down to nothing as the Ancient stared at me, his expression dark and unreadable. “You defend him as if he means more.”
Something jerked in my stomach, a new, dark fear springing to life. This was bad. Had Lucas already been whispering to the Coven about me? Were rumors spread by Lucas the reason why I had heard nothing back from the Coven during the past couple of nights?
“I defend him because it is the wise thing to do. I will not throw valuable information away because I do not like its messenger.” I definitely didn’t like where this was going. If I had learned anything in my six centuries, it was to never prick the ego of a vampire. And the older they were, the worse it would be. I had managed to calm Jabari, and I thought he might have even begun to see the wisdom of what I was saying, but that didn’t change the fact that a creature well beneath him in age and power had corrected him. He still had to exact his retribution.
“Would you turn on your own people to protect this hunter?” His deceptively calm voice wrapped around me before sliding into my brain. The peaceful tone of the question belied the underlying menace that lurked in the shadows.
“My loyalty belongs only to those who have earned it.”
“Has he? A destroyer of our kind?”
An overwhelming urge to take a step backward trembled in my limbs, but with Danaus behind me, it was difficult to move. “I protect him to save our kind from the naturi, nothing more.”
“And when the naturi are gone?” His voice had become calm
and even. So much so that we could have been discussing the weather. He had straightened from his previously aggressive stance, his thin body perfectly erect.
“Then I will deliver his life to your hands. I will deliver us both if that is what you wish.” Behind me, I felt Danaus stiffen, but he never made a sound, leaving me to my desperate pleading. “You have been both a friend and protector, Jabari. If it is my life you want, then it is yours, but I do not think it will save us from the naturi.” I wanted to reach out and cup his face with my hands, to kiss his neck and swear my complete devotion to him, but I couldn’t move. I knew I had already lost him.
Jabari approached us, each step careful and precise. He stopped less than two feet away and his voice was barely over a whisper. “It is not your life I want, my Mira.” His words were coated so thickly with ice, I shuddered and closed my eyes. Danaus tightened his arms around me, pulling me harder against his chest. His warmth seeped into me through my bare arms and the cotton material of my shirt. The panic faded, enough so I could speak.
“Do not say it, Jabari.”
“It is my right to ask.”
But that was the big joke; it wasn’t a request. When an Elder asked to make you a Companion, you had no choice but to accept. Refusal only meant death. Most would not hesitate to accept such an offer. Though the position was dangerous, it was prestigious. But it also took away all independence, all individual will and rights. This was the punishment Jabari had chosen. Not death. He would wear me down until I was a pale shadow of my former self, driving me to the point where I lay down in the dawn light.
“You know my answer,” I said in a low voice. My hands tightened on Danaus’s arm to the point of my nails digging into his flesh.
“Mira—”
My head snapped up and I knew my eyes were glowing, a strange blue-purple like bittersweet nightshade. Death in battle held its own honor, and I could face that. What Jabari offered was slavery. My power welled up inside my chest until it was pressing against the inside of my skin, desperate for release. “Do not place us on this precipice,” I warned, my tone taking on a hard edge. “I will destroy us both; to hell with the naturi.”
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