Dawnbreaker

by Jocelynn Drake

  “We’re stronger together,” Danaus said. That he would admit such a thing aloud surprised me. But there was a catch to his plan.

  “So are the naturi.” My gaze snapped back up to his face and I frowned. “Their attacks could become more violent with you here now. If they can kill us both at once, we will have no way of closing the door if it is opened.”

  “Would you rather I left?” he asked, pushing to his feet. I stepped forward and nearly laid a restraining hand against his chest, but stopped myself just before I touched him.

  His warm, vibrant energy danced across my open palm and down my bare arm. It was unbelievable that I had managed to forget what it was like to come into contact with his powers. The warm energy blanketed me, wrapping around me like a pair of flannel pajamas.

  “No,” I murmured, lowering my hand back to my side. I opened and closed my hand, flexing my fingers to rid myself of the lingering feel of his energy. “You’re right. We are stronger together.”

  “But…” he prompted.

  “You can’t hunt nightwalkers while you’re here,” I growled. “I can’t worry about protecting my kind from both you and the naturi. If you cause problems, I’ll gut you and send your charred entrails back to Ryan in a doggie bag.”

  “Mira—”

  “Non-negotiable, Danaus. Penelope’s death proves that you can’t be trusted to protect a nightwalker ally. You have to swear to me that you won’t attack another nightwalker.”

  “And if I’m attacked?” he said, narrowing his beautiful blue eyes at me.

  “Defend yourself. I’ll keep the nightwalkers here from harassing you,” I promised, leaning against the desk behind me.

  “Like Venice.” His tone sounded skeptical and his expression darkened.

  “I got you out of Venice unharmed and no humans were endangered in the process.

  What more could you ask for?”

  Danaus merely grunted at me. Unhappy with my less than enthusiastic welcome into my domain, he returned to his chair. What did he expect? Last time he was in Savannah, five nightwalkers had died and he brought news of the naturi. His appearance wasn’t exactly a good omen.

  My other concern was becoming too dependent on his presence when it came to taking on the naturi. Danaus could sense the naturi nearly as well as he could sense me. It gave us an edge in tracking them down and fighting them. I was willing to believe it was why either of us had survived as long as we had. Of course, my fire manipulation and his ability to boil blood also helped.

  Pushing off the front of the desk, I walked around, turning over one of the small hourglasses on the desktop before sitting down in the chair. I grabbed a pen and a notepad so I could quickly scratch out an address and some quick directions about the security I’d had installed.

  “Here is a place you can stay while you’re in town. Just don’t trash it. It’s my town house in the city,” I said as I ripped the paper from the pad.

  Danaus stood but didn’t take the paper. “I can find a place.”

  “This makes it easier for me to find you,” I said, throwing him a set of keys I had grabbed from the top drawer of the desk. “I’ve also written instructions for arming and disarming the security system. It’s safer than a hotel,” I added, waving the piece of paper at him.

  With obvious reluctance, he took it from me. I followed him to the front door. Dawn was approaching and I needed to get settled before the sun rose. I felt surprisingly comfortable with the idea of Danaus knowing where I spent my daylight hours. I’d felt more ill at ease letting Knox and Amanda wander around my house for a brief period of time. Of course, Danaus had proven time and time again that he never attacked a nightwalker while he or she slept. He gave the creature a chance to defend him-or herself. He and I saw eye-to-eye on few matters, but I respected his deep sense of honor.

  The hunter paused at the open door, a frown on his lips as he stared down at the paper.

  But his concern had nothing to do with brief residence I was offering him.

  What’s wrong? The question escaped me telepathically, traveling along a silent road that we used with growing frequency. Danaus was the only human I could talk telepathically with, and it was disturbing. With my bodyguard Gabriel, I could send thoughts and read his reply, but Gabriel could neither send me thoughts nor read my thoughts and emotions.

  Danaus flinched at the unexpected whisper touch of my mind, but didn’t snap at me as I had expected. Instead he replied silently, Rowe?

  The leader of the naturi had yet to show his face in my domain, as I’d expected him to. I had thought the naturi would come there directly after defeating us in Crete so he could personally claim my head and safely welcome his wife-queen back to earth.

  Not yet.

  He’ll come now, Danaus replied, confirming both my hope and my fear. If word leaked to Rowe that Danaus and I were in the same place, I had little doubt that the one-eyed naturi would pass up the opportunity to come hunting us both. We were all that was standing between him and the door opening. After endless centuries of waiting, his lifelong goal was now within his grasp. There was no way the naturi prince would allow us to stop him yet again.

  Let him come. I had no desire to have him within my domain, but I wanted this to finally be over, and the key to that was defeating Rowe.

  Three

  Tristan found me later in my private chambers in the lower levels of the house, preparing for the morning. Dawn was less than an hour away, but my mind was still whirling over thoughts of the naturi and Danaus. I had yet to come across any brilliant answers.

  As I tied the sash of my robe, I turned to look at him standing in the doorway, a smile teasing the corners of my mouth. He was wearing only a pair of black pajama bottoms with little white skulls and crossbones scattered across them. He apparently had a penchant for flannel pajama pants no matter the season.

  “You don’t seem very relieved to have Danaus back in Savannah,” Tristan commented.

  “I thought his assistance would please you.”

  To him, it was simple. With Danaus, we would be able to easily wipe the naturi from the city. And that was true. However, I never forgot that Danaus was, first and foremost, a hunter.

  He had killed five other nightwalkers within my domain a month ago while searching for me.

  Then he killed Penelope, with little warning and no real hesitation.

  The area was in turmoil. The naturi were here. The lycans were affected by the presence of the naturi. The nightwalkers were on edge because of the naturi and the lycans. Introduce the hunter into the mix, and this powder keg would blow.

  “We could have managed without the hunter,” I said, though it felt like a lie.

  “We shouldn’t have to manage.’ I saw what you and Danaus did at Themis. You destroyed those naturi. You can do it again,” Tristan pushed, taking a step into the room.

  I still didn’t want to think about what we had done at Themis. We destroyed their souls.

  No matter how much I hated the naturi, I would never do such a thing again. Kill them, definitely. Torture them, possibly. But destroying another creature’s soul was beyond evil, and that was a road that I would not willingly go down.

  “It’s not that simple,” I sighed. “Danaus is a hunter. What’s to stop him from killing nightwalkers while he’s in town? If the naturi are killing nightwalkers, do you honestly think he cares?”

  “He cares about you,” Tristan countered, to my surprise.

  A flutter in my stomach made me pause. But then I remembered that it wasn’t me that Danaus cared about, but what I could do. I was the weapon of the triad. I was the only one who could possibly reform the broken seal and keep the naturi locked in their cage.

  “Danaus is like Jabari. Both are keeping me alive until this whole naturi thing is settled,”

  I grumbled. Tightening the sash of my robe again, I collapsed into one of the comfortable chairs not far from the foot of the bed. “We just have to push on as we have been. We�
��ll find Rowe. He needs me dead, so I’m sure the bastard will come hunting for me himself soon enough.”

  “That’s not particularly reassuring, Mira.”

  Tristan wasn’t happy with my plan, but then I wasn’t happy with my plan either. I couldn’t sense the naturi, so I was looking for new ways to sniff them out that didn’t include wandering through the woods. At the same time, the naturi couldn’t sense me, so I was trying to keep a low profile. I was just trying to survive until Jabari determined when and where the next sacrifice would occur. I hated the idea of waiting until the last minute to defeat the naturi when so much was hanging in the balance, but what choice did I have?

  I watched Tristan as he stood near the door, his eyes downcast. He had something else gnawing at him and I had a feeling I knew what it was.

  “Go ahead. Spit it out,” I muttered, knowing I was asking for trouble.

  “I…what do you mean?” he stammered. His blue eyes widened with surprised innocence and I nearly laughed.

  “You’ve got something else on your mind. You can tell me or I can go digging in your brain for it.” But we both knew I was bluffing. I wouldn’t read Tristan’s mind. He deserved what little privacy I could give him. Wasn’t it enough that I was his mistress?

  “H-How free am I?” he asked after nearly a minute of silence.

  I frowned, hating his question because I hated my answer even more. “As free as I can let you be,” I replied. “I have to look out for your best interests, make sure that you are safe. I’m sorry, Tristan. I wish I could set you free, but I can’t as long as Sadira is alive. I don’t want to free you until I’ve taught you how to defend yourself a little better.”

  “I’m not looking to leave you, Mira,” he said, smiling as he finally came into the room.

  He knelt before the chair I was sitting in and placed one hand on my right knee. “The naturi might be breathing down our necks, but living here has already proven to be better than being under Sadira’s thumb. I was curious if you would permit me to become involved with someone.”

  Tristan’s presence in my life had reminded me that we were physical creatures.

  Whenever he was close, he would lay a hand on my arm or shoulder. He wasn’t coming on to me in any way. The physical contact was reassuring to him, so I permitted it as best as I could. Unfortunately, I had not been close with my own kind in a very long time. I was out of the habit, and his touch had both a calming and unnerving effect.

  A groan escaped me as I shifted in my chair, pulling my knees out from under his touch.

  “Please don’t say that it’s Amanda,” I muttered as I shoved one hand through my hair in frustration.

  “What’s wrong with Amanda?” he demanded.

  She’s dangerous, Tristan. She has a violent temper and she’ll eat you alive. She’s the Alpha among the fledglings.”

  “Then why do you keep her around if she’s so dangerous?”

  “Because she’s good at keeping the fledglings in line. She knows better than to cross me.

  I’ll stake her out in the sun.”

  “So you’re not going to let me see her,” Tristan said.

  I stared at him for a moment, frowning. I briefly wondered if he would see her behind my back if I did say no, and mentally shook my head. After surviving nearly a century at the hands of Sadira, I had no doubt that he would do exactly as I said, even if it made him miserable. Of course, I had no doubt that Sadira would have denied his request in the name of protecting him from a bad influence.

  “Has there been no one else since Violetta?” I asked, my voice barely drifting over a whisper. We had never talked about his wife, from when he was a human. She’d died more than a century ago during childbirth. Of course, we didn’t have to talk about his past because I already knew it. The moment I claimed him as my own, I took his blood and mind, drawing in his essence and all of his memories. At one time Tristan had been married to a beautiful young woman. That happy life crumbled when she died, allowing Sadira to easily move in and stake her claim over the weakened man.

  “Only Sadira. And now you,” he replied.

  “Wouldn’t you want to start with someone more…”

  “More like Violetta,” he supplied, his voice crusting over with ice. “There is no one like her. There never will be. I know that. It’s something that will always haunt me throughout this long existence.”

  “I was thinking someone more considerate, gentler. Someone more like you.”

  A tender smile lifted the worry and pain from his large eyes as he stared up at me. I got the feeling that on the inside he was chuckling at me. “I don’t think there is anyone like me either.”

  Reaching over, I ran my fingers through this brown hair, pushing it away from where it was starting to crowd his eyes. “True.”

  “If you don’t want me to see her, I won’t,” he volunteered.

  “I can’t do that. I can’t take all your freedoms away from you. I might not be happy about it, but I can’t stop you from seeing Amanda if it’s what you want,” I said, dropping my hand back to my side. Despite my reluctance, I knew that Amanda was a good person and might prove to be a valuable teacher. She knew how to take care of herself, and I secretly hoped she would pass some of that knowledge on to Tristan.

  “I may see her?” he asked, unable to hide his shock.

  “Yes, if she’s willing to put up with you,” I teased.

  Tristan leaned forward and brushed a quick kiss across my temple, his joy rushing through me in a quick burst of energy. I couldn’t help but smile as well. After more than one hundred years, he was finally getting his life back. My only hope was that I wasn’t giving it back to him in time for the naturi to steal it away.

  As he stood, he stretched his arms above his head and blinked a few times. Night was giving its last straining gasps of life as he and I prepared to settle in for the day. The nightwalker lay down on the bed and then turned on his side so he could look at me.

  “Do you think they will join the family?” he inquired.

  I frowned, releasing the warmth and happiness that had filled the room just seconds earlier. “Yes,” I whispered. “I think they will.” Establishing a family would benefit me, as it would help strengthen the control I had over the nightwalkers in the city. Of course, this came at a high price. It would put a target on the chests of both Knox and Amanda, and I was worried about my ability to protect them from the Coven and the naturi.

  Four

  Danaus found me the next night standing barefoot in my backyard with fire swirling around me. A thick bank of trees encircled my house, blocking the show I was putting on from the view of my closest neighbors. And a show it was. For the past hour I had been conjuring up balls of flames and streaks of fire so that it looked like my body had attracted its own comet. I was trying to replicate what happened on Crete, but to no avail.

  At the Palace of Knossos the swell of power from the earth had been so great it pushed into my body and I was able to use it to create fire. That had been different than my usual fire manipulation. Before, the power came from within me, and with time it became exhausting.

  On Crete, the power came from another source—the earth.

  I needed to learn to tap this power source if I was going to have any hope of defeating the naturi. Unfortunately, I was having no luck so far.

  I could feel Danaus’s eyes on me as I went through dozens of different martial art stances I had learned over the long centuries. I struggled to find a center of peace while calling on my ability at the same time. But there was no peace within the fire. It was pure energy that jumped and burned, full of passion and barely controlled excitement.

  “If you move your hand fast enough, I bet you could write your name,” Danaus said when he was only a few feet away from me.

  Smirking at him over my shoulder, I folded my hands over my chest while my name flared to life in jagged, flickering letters before me. It hovered in the air for a full five seconds before it fina
lly went out.

  “Show-off,” he muttered, threading a lock of hair behind his ear as the wind picked up.

  My long black skirt swayed in the breeze and I let all the fire I had called up dim and then finally go out, plunging the backyard into complete darkness. Only a little light drifted down to us from the house where Tristan was sitting at the computer up on the second floor.

  Last I had checked, the nightwalker was exploring the world of iTunes with my credit card.

  “Practice?” Danaus asked.

  “Not quite,” I said, looking down at my empty hands. Frustration beat at me until I was nearly clenching my teeth. I couldn’t do this alone. I needed help. “Do you remember what happened on Crete? When I used my ability?”

  “Yes, the power from the earth consumed you.” Danaus cocked his head to the side as he looked at me, taking in my bare feet for the first time. “You’re trying to replicate it. Mira, you couldn’t control—”

  “I know, but I have to learn how to. There has to be a way.”

  “I thought you said that nightwalker couldn’t do earth magic or even sense the earth because your human form died.”

  “Yeah, well, nightwalkers aren’t supposed to be able to control fire either,” I said, snapping my finger so that a little teardrop of fire hovered in the air for a second before I extinguished it. “It seems that I’m the exception to more than one rule. I’m a conduit for the powers of the triad, and I can also be a conduit for the powers of the earth. I have to learn to control one of them. As long as Jabari’s alive, I don’t see it being the powers of the triad, so that leaves me with learning how to control the power I receive from the earth.”

  “Are you getting anything now?”

  I shook my head, causing my red hair to cascade around my face. “Nothing.” It was true.

  I felt nothing whatsoever. There was only the cool grass beneath my feet. There wasn’t even the pulse of life.

  “Maybe you can only use the power when it is near its height,” Danaus said.

  I gazed out at the blackness of the yard, staring out toward the trees. For a moment I wondered if there were any naturi watching us, but then released the thought just as quickly.