Dawnbreaker (17 page)

“And controlling it will give you the edge you’re looking for to defeat Rowe?” Cynnia softly asked, a frown marring her sweet young face.

“Rowe wants Aurora free. He will do whatever it takes to see that accomplished. From what I’ve seen, he’s already mastered blood magic to find a means to his end. I have no doubt that he will kill everyone that stands in his way—human, nightwalker, and naturi alike.”

“He’s weaving blood magic?” Cynnia gasped, mindlessly taking a step backward. I roughly grabbed her arm and jerked her forward to keep her from getting burned by the fire that continued to circle us. She didn’t seem to notice. “That’s forbidden.”

“I’m willing to guess that he’s desperate and doesn’t really care what is forbidden at this point.”

“But if I’m to teach you earth magic, you’ll have to remove these,” she said, raising her manacles to me yet again.

I simply chuckled and shook my head. “Nice try. No, you’ll be instructing me through the lovely Shelly here,” I said, motioning toward the earth witch hovering on the edge of the patio, watching the entire conversation. “She was hired to help me with a little earth magic, and now we’re both going to get a crash course in how to use earth magic, naturi style. And if that doesn’t work, I’ll kill you.”

Cynnia glanced over at Shelly, who flashed her a somewhat sheepish grin while wagging her fingers at the naturi. There was nothing intimidating about Shelly, which was disheartening because I needed her to be an intimidating figure right now. Instead she came off looking like that sweet college roommate everyone loves.

“I—I don’t know,” Cynnia stammered, her gaze shifting from Shelly to me to the ground.

“You’ve got some time to think about it. We fly to Peru in two nights. We begin lessons before we leave or I kill you in Cuzco.”

I turned my attention to Shelly, who was staring at me with a stunned look on her face. She had just realized that my plan not only included her after her major screw-up on the island, but that she was now traveling to Peru to help me with the naturi. I wasn’t pleased with the plan so far, but I hoped to keep her as far from the fighting as I could. I needed a tutor, and Cynnia and Shelly would just have to do.

With a wave of my hand, the fire that had been circling Cynnia and me disappeared. “Shelly, take Cynnia inside and put her back in the sleep spell. You are not to wake her until either Danaus or I say so.”

I watched as the two walked across the patio, a new thought beginning to gnaw at the back of my brain when I caught a glimpse of Cynnia’s solemn profile.

“Wait!” I called out, stopping Cynnia at the door. “Your sister, Nyx. Is she here as well?”

“Nyx? I…I don’t think so,” she slowly replied. She paused, nibbling on her lower lip in thought before she spoke again. “I arrived here with only the spell weaver. Nyx and Aurora didn’t know anything about my coming here. Do you think she’s come for me?”

“Would she side with you or Aurora?” Danaus inquired, slipping his hands into his trouser pockets.

“Aurora,” she whispered. “My sister Nyx is the defender of our people. She would follow Aurora to the ends of the earth to protect my people and do what is best for them.”

“Does she look like you?”

“Why? Have you seen her?” Cynnia demanded, coming back down a stair toward me.

“How can I have seen her if I don’t know what she looks like? I want to know in case we meet up with her in Peru.”

Cynnia paused, a frown playing on her lips. She finally sighed and walked back toward the door into the house. “No, she doesn’t look much like me, and nothing like Aurora. Tall and thin like a willow, with perfect white skin and midnight black hair. Her eyes are slate gray like the color of storm clouds.”

“And is she of the wind clan? Like you?”

“How did you know I was—”

“Your coloring and build. It was also a guess.”

“Yes, we’re both from the wind clan. Aurora is of the light and Nerian was from the animal clan,” Cynnia tightly said, finally becoming irritated by my invasive questions. “Anything else?”

“How is it possible that four siblings were born of three different clans?” Danaus demanded. “Did you all have different parents?”

“No!” Cynnia gasped, her lovely features twisting momentarily in anger. “My father was of the earth clan and my mother was of the light clan. Which clan we are born into is not determined by our parentage. It’s determined by the need of the earth. If mother earth is in need of more wind clan members, then the next children born will be of the wind clan and so on.”

“That will do. Sweet dreams,” I taunted.

Danaus and I stood in silence outside that house as we listened to Shelly and Cynnia moving to one of the bedrooms on the second floor. I kept my focus tightly on Shelly, my mind a shadow in her thoughts, which were racing a mile a minute as she reviewed everything that had happened to her that evening. Since I couldn’t sense the naturi, this was the safest way for me to keep an eye on Cynnia while Shelly cast the spell. At the same time, I knew that Danaus was focused on Cynnia, making sure the naturi didn’t try to pull a fast one.

“Is taking either of them that good of an idea?” Danaus asked after Shelly had completed her spell, knocking Cynnia safely out for a while.

“We’ll try to keep them both in the city, out of the Sacred Valley. Shelly might be able to teach me a few things before the sacrifice. At this point, any new knowledge will help me when it comes to dealing with the power swell at Machu Picchu.”

“And the naturi?”

“Bait for Rowe.”

“You think she’s going to actually teach you anything?” he asked, shoving one hand through his shoulder-length hair, pushing it out of his face. His brilliant blue eyes reflected some of the light coming from inside the house, reminding me of the first night we met. I had not expected our association to last this long.

“Not really. Even if she does want peace for her people, she’s not going to risk making a stronger enemy for them to face.”

Danaus dropped his hand back to his side and stared up at the stars for a moment. The night was nearly done. I needed to get back to the safety of my home. As it was, I was exhausted and the blood lust was gnawing at my insides like the fires of hell.

“Do you believe her?” Danaus asked, pushing aside my thoughts of blood and sleep.

“About wanting peace?”

The hunter gave a soft grunt that I took for a yes.

“It doesn’t matter whether I believe her or not. Our plan is set for when we arrive at the sacrifice at Machu Picchu in a few nights. We stop Rowe. We stop the sacrifice. We finally reform the seal. Thoughts of peace and war—we don’t have the luxury of debating such things. We have to stop Rowe.”

“I agree, but you didn’t answer my question. Do you believe her?” he repeated.

It was my turn to stare up at the stars that were winking out above me as daylight approached. Dawn was coming. Did I believe Cynnia?

“No, I don’t,” I murmured.

But the problem wasn’t that I didn’t believe her. It was that for the first time in my life I truly wished I could believe that the naturi was telling the truth. I wished she did want peace and was seeking a way for naturi and nightwalkers to coexist on this planet without the constant fighting. I wished it were a possibility. But it wasn’t. Not so long as creatures like Aurora and Rowe existed. Not so long as I existed would there ever be peace between the nightwalkers and the naturi.

Fifteen

I
arrived at my town house the following evening to find Danaus with his various weapons spread out across my parlor coffee table. He was running a check over his equipment, which seemed to have multiplied since his arrival in Savannah. Standing in the doorway to the parlor with my hands on my hips, I stared at the spread—an unfortunate reminder that we had to fly to Peru tomorrow night.

“Don’t scratch up the table,” I said by way of announcing my arrival.

“They’re in the kitchen,” Danaus replied, not even looking up from the gun he was cleaning.

“Magic lessons begin tonight. Pack up your toys. I want you to come along.”

A smirk lifted one corner of his mouth as his eyes shifted up to me for the first time. “Wouldn’t miss it for the world.”

I shook my head at him as I continued down the hall to the kitchen. “Well, isn’t this coz—y,” I said, choking on the last syllable when my gaze fell on James, who was sitting at the table with Cynnia and Shelly, sipping iced tea.

The Themis member immediately jumped to his feet, his left hand smoothing his tie. A wobbly smile perched on his lips. James was the last person I expected to see sitting at my kitchen table. I could only guess that the warlock Ryan was up to something.

“Mira—”

“Is Ryan here as well?” I asked, rudely cutting off whatever he was going to say.

“No, I came alone.”

“With me,” I snapped, motioning for him to follow me down the hall to the office, where I shut the door behind him sharply. Turning on my heel, I quickly closed the distance between us and gripped him in a hug. I felt him flinch at my touch but ignored it.

“I’m so glad to see that you are safe. Have you healed completely from Crete?” I demanded, my hands resting on his shoulders as I held him at arm’s length from me.

“Y-Yes, I’m fine,” he said, his eyes wide with surprise behind his gold, wire-rimmed glasses. “There were no complications and I healed quickly.”

“Ryan is such a bastard,” I growled, releasing James as I paced away from him to the desk at the opposite end of the room. “He had no business bringing you along to Crete. You could have been killed.”

“I wanted to go,” James firmly said, but I just shook my head.

“Ryan knew how dangerous it was, and you’re in no way trained for such a situation.” I paced back away from the desk and plopped down in one of the chairs, motioning for James to take the seat next to me.

“It wasn’t just about the naturi,” he said, slowly taking the seat beside me. “I should have been the one to tell you about Michael.”

I shook my head, balling my fists in my lap. “You weren’t his keeper.” The thought of Michael’s dead body being taken still angered me beyond rational behavior, but I was getting control of my temper. “Least of all, you weren’t the keeper of his corpse.”

“It was my job to see to them while they were on the Compound grounds,” he said.

“You’re absolved,” I said with a wave of my hand. “My main concern is the naturi now. It is unfortunate, but as Ryan said, Michael is dead. They can’t hurt him now.”

“Thank you, Mira,” James said, straightening his glasses on his long, slender nose.

“What are you doing here anyway?” I demanded, shrugging off his comment. I didn’t deserve his thanks—the disappearance wasn’t his fault.

“I came to tell you that the next sacrifice location is going to be at Machu Picchu, Peru,” he said, leaning forward in his excitement.

“So I’ve heard,” I muttered, falling back to rest against the back of the chair while I stretched out my legs to cross them at the ankle.

“You’ve heard already?” he softly said, looking positively crestfallen.

“Two nights ago, Jabari dropped the news on me.”

“Oh.”

“Though I do appreciate the confirmation from Themis,” I said, forcing a smile. “It’s nice to know that the Coven isn’t lying to me.”

“You’re welcome,” he said, though he still looked a little disappointed that he wasn’t the bearer of important information, as he had assumed.

“Of course, you could have just called and told us this information. What’s the other reason for your appearance?”

A blush stained his cheeks as his brown eyes dropped down to his slender hands. “I also brought Danaus a fresh change of clothes as well as some additional weapons that I thought he might need for his trip to Peru. He’s been on the road for a while now. I thought he could use some fresh items.”

A smiled toyed with my lips, but I smothered it before he could see it. While James was a full-fledged researcher for Themis, his main role was assistant to both Danaus and Ryan, which included seeing to their random needs, such as fetching weapons, researching, and making travel arrangements. James was eager to be a part of the fray with Danaus, but his biggest stumbling block was that he was simply a human playing in the realm of powerful creatures out for blood. There was only so many ways he could be of assistance in our world, and right now he was limited to errand boy.

“I’m sure he’s grateful for the fresh items,” I said, hooking a stray stand of hair behind my right ear. “Is Danaus frequently away from the Themis Compound?”

“He spends more time away from it than at the Compound. He doesn’t like to be settled in one place for too long,” James admitted, sitting back in his chair as well.

“Where does he go?”

“Ryan usually has him on one mission or another,” James said with a shrug of one shoulder.

“But Danaus hasn’t been sent to kill that many nightwalkers. If he had, I would have heard about him much sooner than I did, and he would have come after me much sooner.” Unless, of course, Ryan had hidden my existence from the hunter for some reason—not that I currently found that strand of logic likely. “He must have somewhere that he goes when he’s not on a mission for Themis.”

A smile lifted James’s lips and he shook his head at me as he sat up in his chair. “If you’re trying to get some little tidbit of information regarding Danaus from me, you’re not going to get anything interesting. Danaus doesn’t talk to me. He doesn’t talk to anyone. I’m sure there is plenty of time when he’s not on a mission, but I don’t know where he goes. I’m still trying to get him to carry a cell phone so I can locate him when he’s needed.”

I sighed and stared straight ahead at the desk that rested before me. Beyond it was a large window that looked out on the square, which was filled with enormous live oaks whose leaves blocked most of the street lamps. Night had settled in around us, and I was wasting it trying to pry information out of James regarding Danaus. It was nothing more than curiosity since I was willing to bet I already knew more about Danaus than the man that sat beside me.