Dayhunter (27 page)

“Possible.”

“And wouldn’t it be a crying shame if they lost their sacrifice to me?”

A wide grin grew on my face as he turned over the idea. “You plan to steal another pet?” he asked, reminding me of how I neatly purloined Tristan while Sadira watched. If I stole Nicolai, it could turn into a full-time job keeping the werewolf alive, but that was more of a long-term worry. Right now my main concern was just getting off the island alive. Nicolai was the key to whatever bargain the Coven had set up. It explained why Jabari had sent him after me in the first place. I had the opportunity to disrupt the plan.

“Let’s go get my prize,” I announced, stepping out from behind the tree and starting up the path.

“They know we’re here,” Danaus stated, but I had a feeling that it was meant to sound more like a question.

“Without a doubt.”

“We’re never going to get through the door.”

“Getting in won’t be the problem.” I forced myself to put my foot on the first step leading up to the double doors. Getting out alive was going to be the real trick.

SEVENTEEN

T
here was no one waiting to rip our heads off when we shoved open the double doors to the Great Hall. I tried to take that as a good sign. Leaving the heavy wood and iron doors open, we turned our attention to the other set of doors that barred the way into the throne room. The candles in the iron candelabras sputtered and danced in the light breeze, with a few snapping out with a wisp of gray smoke. Absently waving my hand in their general direction, I caused the teardrop flames to steady and grow brighter as I scanned the deep, shadowy corners for potential attackers. We might have sensed only five vampires and a scattering of humans, but I wasn’t taking any chances.

We were about to proceed to the main audience chamber when one of the doors opened and Elizabeth slipped through the slim crack. She quickly shut the door behind her again before either of us could sneak a peek into the room. Her pale yellow dress with a high empire waist made her look like a spring tulip. She reminded me vaguely of Napoleon’s Josephine, composed and regal, with her long dark hair artfully piled on her head and diamonds sparkling around her neck.

I halted, resisting the urge to reach for the dagger I had put back in its sheath at my waist. This was the first time I’d seen Elizabeth since I slaughtered Gwen and left her heart on the Elder’s chair. Acts like that didn’t particularly endear you to the Ancients, and I hadn’t exactly counted on a direct confrontation with the nightwalker.

“You have no business here,” she crisply said in English with a faint accent I couldn’t quite place. French possibly, but older. She was a tiny figure, touching five feet only when her hair was piled high on her head in a series of twists and curls. Her hands were closed at her sides but not yet clenched into fists. It was on the tip of my tongue to make some comment that she had been sent like a messenger to stop me from entering the room, but I had enough trouble planned. Why go looking for a small, petty fight like that when I could thumb my nose at the whole Coven at once?

I gave her a slight bow of my head. Not quite the usual subservience I’m sure she’d grown accustomed to, but at least I didn’t try to ignore her. “I have business with Jabari,” I announced.

“And I still have business with you,” she said, lifting her chin so she could look me in the eye. “You destroyed my property.”

“Your property was warned to stay away from my property,” I bit out, taking a step closer so I loomed over her. “Your property was warned of the consequences. If you didn’t want your property damaged, you should have reined it in.” With my heels, I had close to ten inches on this woman, and regardless of the power I knew she wielded, my physical presence and maybe even my reputation were enough to make her take one step backward. Around us, I let the candlelight flicker a bit, with some of the candles going out, breathing new life into the shadows. I hated talking about Gwen like a piece of chattel. I may have despised the creature, but she had been a “living,” sentient creature.

“You owe me, Fire Starter,” Elizabeth continued. Each word escaped her lips sharp and tight, as if she ground them between her teeth before releasing them.

“Then I suggest you start a tab, because it’s going to get worse before I leave here tonight,” I replied, enjoying the smirk that lifted the left corner of my mouth.

As I tried to step around her, I saw her swing her left hand toward my back from the corner of my eye. Spinning on my right heel, I slipped the dagger from its sheath on my hip and sliced at her throat. I hadn’t expected her to directly attack me. It wasn’t the typical style of the Elders. They had flunkies around to do their dirty work. Of course, I knew absolutely nothing about Elizabeth, which made her as dangerous as Macaire and Jabari.

However, Danaus had already stepped in, grabbing the nightwalker’s wrist and holding it immobile above her head before I could even touch my blade to the Ancient’s smooth skin.

“Should I kill her now?” he asked simply, his face blank. I looked down at Elizabeth, whose wide eyes were darting between me and Danaus. If she flinched, Danaus would snap her wrist without a thought. And if I said the word, he’d boil what blood filled her veins until it blackened her skin and turned her organs into a pool of stinking goo.

I slipped the knife back into its sheath. “Later,” I said with a faint frown. If she thought we’d spared her life now, we might be able to buy her assistance later. Besides, I wasn’t convinced that Danaus could destroy her that easily.

He nodded once and released her, giving the nightwalker a slight shove to precede us toward the doors that led to the Great Hall. The Elder said nothing, but stiffly walked toward the doors, which were pulled invisibly open when she approached. It was one of the abilities I envied the most. Nightwalkers didn’t generally attain the ability of telekinesis until close to the thousand-year mark. I hoped to get it a little earlier. At the moment the best I could do was rattle a teacup and saucer—not exactly useful or intimidating.

The enormous three-story room was ablaze with candlelight, as if someone was afraid of the monsters that lurked in the dark corners. Along the east and west walls, close to twenty floor candelabras flickered, with more than a dozen large yellow candles in each. The chandeliers overhead also glowed with life, illuminating the various flags and banners that hung from the ceiling. Even the black marble floor reflected the light.

Only the dais, with the seats for the Coven and Our Liege, remained blanketed with shadows. Elizabeth returned to her seat on the dais next to Macaire. Jabari sat in the third Coven seat, and the fourth was still vacant, along with the seat of Our Liege. The three nightwalkers appeared to be alone, but Danaus sensed the presence of the naturi so they had to be lurking around somewhere. Had they left the hall when we appeared?

“I do not recall summoning your presence,” Macaire declared when Danaus and I reached the center of the room. We stopped walking, preferring to maintain a little distance between us and the Coven, not that it would keep us any safer. I was just hoping to buy an extra second or two to react.

“I came to claim something that belongs to me,” I replied, shoving my fingers into the back pockets of my pants, affecting a casual stance. I didn’t know if it worked, because I was sure everyone in the room could smell my fear.

“A vampire is here we didn’t agree on,” said a hypnotic voice from somewhere near the ceiling. The melodious sound was like a dream in the way it bounced off the walls before finally drifting down to me. “A stranger who carries no value here. Should we return with the threat of dawn when we will find no unwelcome ears?”

“The werewolf we came for is near,” countered a second voice, not far from the location of the first. This one was significantly softer, but just as seductive as its companion. “You know leaving isn’t something we’d enjoy until they speak the words we must hear, and then back home we can take the wolf boy.”

“Oh, forgive me,” I quickly replied, giving a large sweeping bow to the three members of the Coven before me. “I had no idea you had guests. I’ll be happy to leave once Jabari hands over Nicolai.”

“Why would I do such a thing?” Jabari slowly inquired, his dark eyes narrowing on me while his long fingers tightened on the arms of his throne. I half expected to hear the wood cracking and groaning under the force of his grip.

“Do you deny you sent him with the order to kill me?” I asked, my tone sweeter than sugar. My head cocked to the left and I flashed him a toothy smile. I knew when he’d figured out exactly what I was doing there because at least one of the wooden arms made a large cracking sound. Some small part of me prayed it was all an act for the rest of the Coven, or I was in serious trouble.

“He was sent for your heart,” Jabari admitted. His growing anger was causing his accent to thicken, pushing him closer to his traditional Egyptian. Sliding forward, he sat perched on his seat as if preparing to leap at me.

It was a fight for me to keep from taking a step back. The hairs on the back of my neck stood on end. Confronting Jabari was like baiting a tiger—I’d be lucky if he didn’t rip my face off if I was wrong.

“Then I have come to claim the spoils of the fight. I spared his life, so it now belongs to me,” I said, forcing a smile. It was a very old tradition of my kind and not one frequently enforced simply because we typically killed whoever attacked us.

“You can’t have him,” Jabari snarled.

“What is the meaning of this?” Macaire demanded. A frown marred his distinguished features while his eyes darted between me and the Elder.

“He sent the lycanthrope to kill Mira,” Danaus replied, stepping forward so he was directly beside me. In no way attempting to hide his antagonism for the whole group, his right hand rested casually on the handle of one of the knives at his waist.

“Mira?”
cried one of the female voices above my head. There was a sudden scrape of movement along the ceiling as if claws were scratching the stones overhead. There was a whisper of voices, words I couldn’t quite make out despite my keen hearing. I took a step backward and craned my head up in an attempt to see the creatures that lurked on the ceiling, but they remained hidden behind the scattering of flags and banners. Taking another step back, I intentionally bumped my shoulder into the hunter’s.

What the hell is up there?
I sent the question directly into his brain, struggling to keep from sounding as terrified as I felt.

No idea.

I quickly stepped away from him at the sound of wings and a blur of shadow. One of the creatures swooped down from the ceiling and landed lightly on the floor directly between me and the Coven. I had to clamp down on my tongue to keep the scream from escaping when my eyes clearly took in the monster for the first time.

At close to five feet tall, the creature looked almost like a woman, though only by a stretch of the imagination. And that’s if you erased the batlike wings that stretched from the inside of her thin arms and down along her body. At the end of the wings were three long bony fingers, tipped with black claws. Her skin was flesh-colored and appeared paperthin since it sagged on her spindly body. However, it was her crowlike feet with their long talons clicking ominously on the marble floor that finally triggered a memory in my mind. This creature was the source of the ancient harpy mythology.

After encountering the two female naturi from the wind clan in the woods in England, I had assumed they were all the fairy-tale type, with elfin features and butterfly wings. Sure, Rowe looked different, but then everything about Rowe was different, from his black hair to his scars to his black wings. I never expected to find a naturi so horrifying to look upon.

“This is the monster who tamed the flame and reduced us to dusty ash,” the naturi said, taking a hesitant step closer to me. She wrapped her wings around herself so that her hands lightly gripped her bony shoulders, concealing her naked body. “Once again fulfilling her birth name. Yet, behind her lurks a bit of trash.” The creature’s narrowed yellow eyes turned to Danaus and closely inspected him, creeping yet another step closer.

“What is he? Please, tell me,” demanded a third voice from the ceiling. This one sounded younger, almost childlike in its pitch and impatient urgency. “He smells of sweat and weak human flesh, but carries behind him no shade of death. Not human born.”

“Nor vampire made,” chimed in a second from overhead.

“Nor wolf by moonlight torn,” finished the other naturi standing a few feet away.

“And he’s not for sale, so don’t get too attached,” I snapped, their strange rhyming grating on my nerves. I took a step sideways, to stand between Danaus and the naturi. The creature glared at me and retreated a step, keeping a comfortable distance between us. I was surprised they couldn’t identify the origin of the hunter’s powers. The naturi and bori were archenemies seemingly since the birth of time. You’d think they’d have recognized the presence of a bori no matter how faint. Then again, it had been more centuries than anyone could count since the last bori wandered the earth. Maybe they forgot what one felt like.

Struggling to tear my eyes off the creature with the stringy gray hair, I looked up at the Coven and said, “Just send out Nicolai, and we’ll be on our way.”

“We cannot,” Macaire said. “We have other plans for him.”

“Time to change your plans.” I smiled, slipping my dagger from my waist. I reached my free left hand behind me to the hunter, who took it. “Or Danaus and I turn anything that stinks of naturi into ash. Send out the wolf.”

Chaos erupted. The first harpy launched herself into the air with amazing speed and grace, disappearing among the flags hanging above. Again their voices swelled as they discussed something in their own language that I couldn’t quite make out. They either didn’t care for being threatened or had just figured out that the wolf I demanded was their soon-to-be sacrifice.

As I lifted my eyes to try to locate the three naturi that clung to the ceiling like overgrown bats, my brain filled with pain. At first Jabari had been the only presence pushing against my thoughts, but Danaus quickly shoved his way inside. Energy from both creatures surged through my frame, battling for dominance. The hunter was winning the battle, but I had a feeling it was only because he actually had physical contact with me, gripping my hand, while Jabari still sat several feet away on the dais. My scream shattered the air as the pain buckled my knees beneath me. I was only vaguely aware of the sound of my knife hitting the marble floor at the same time my knees came in contact with the cool stone.