Jocelynn Drake - Dawnbreaker

I didn’t sense anyone in the graveyard with us. There was a chance that Nicolai had simply come looking for me over some matter. We’d hardly spoken since I returned from Crete. He had settled in, finding a job at the local college and a new apartment with relative ease. From what Barrett had told me, Nicolai was still struggling to find his place within the local pack, but then this was supposed to be a temporary arrangement. But with Jabari lurking around and the naturi breathing down my neck, I wasn’t sure when I would be able to allow the lycan to safely return to his own life outside of Savannah.

Digging in my heels, I changed direction again and started walking toward him. At worst, the naturi had gotten control over the lycanthrope and sent him to kill me. If it was at all possible, I would try to knock Nicolai out and kill the naturi. But my hopes weren’t high considering that I would be painfully outnumbered in this situation. I should have brought Danaus along.

I stepped onto one of the winding gravel roads when Nicolai finally came into view. He hadn’t changed since I last saw him, my Adonis with an ugly past. His golden blond hair brushed at the collar of his shirt, and his skin seemed a perfect bronze, as if he had been worshiped by the sun. I kept him in Savannah to protect him from the naturi and Jabari, but we both knew that I was only extending his life span by a matter of days.

“Long time no see,” he called to me when I stopped in the middle of the road. His pace had slowed to almost a shuffle but he was still drawing closer, his hands shoved into the pockets of his khaki pants.

“Yeah, well, I didn’t see much of a future for us,” I said, shrugging one shoulder as my eyes continued to sweep over the immediate area, searching for anyone else that might be drawing close for the ambush.

“It’s hard to compete with the hunter. He’s so determined to have your heart,” Nicolai replied, stopping when he was still several yards away from me.

A snort escaped me and I weakly smiled at my companion. “On a pike,” I replied, finishing the thought. Danaus’s only interest in me was how to finally kill me. “What are you doing here?” I demanded, ending the lighthearted banter we had forced into the tense air.

“He wants only to talk,” Nicolai murmured.

“Rowe?”

“No.”

“Shit,” I hissed, the muscles in my shoulders instantly tensing.

“Me,” Jabari said directly behind me.

Spinning around and into a crouch, my skirt flaring out around me, I snarled at Jabari, exposing my fangs to the Coven Elder. I positioned myself between the lycanthrope and the Ancient, ready for the attack. “You can’t have him,” I growled.

In Venice, Jabari had sent Nicolai to kill me. I knocked the werewolf unconscious and later claimed him as my own in an effort to protect Nicolai from Jabari and the rest of the nightwalker Coven. However, both Nicolai and I knew that I wasn’t strong enough to protect him from Jabari should the Ancient ever return to claim him. My only goal had been to extend his life for a little while.

“I can take him back at any time I should choose,” Jabari said with a smile. His pale Egyptian robes wavered in the breeze sweeping through the city that night.

“Nicolai, get out of here!” I commanded as I lifted my right hand and conjured up a fireball. The sight of the dancing flames brought a growl from the back of Jabari’s throat, forcing the Elder to realize that I was ready to take the defense of the werewolf seriously. The nightwalker seemed too tall, too strong, with his dark brown skin and fierce black eyes. I was in over my head, but I had promised to protect Nicolai with my life, and I was prepared to keep that promise.

“No! It doesn’t have to be this way,” Nicolai countered. I could hear his footsteps growing closer. I needed him out of there, but he wouldn’t leave.

I threw the fireball at the Ancient nightwalker so it landed just before his feet, forcing him to take a couple steps backward. As he moved, I launched myself at him. But he was ready for me. There was no surprising him. Jabari was constantly in my head, he knew my thoughts if he wanted. He grabbed my wrists just before my fingers could reach his neck and tossed me aside like a bag of garbage. My feet slid across the walk, sending up a spray of gravel. The second I stopped sliding, I was moving toward him again. I spun in a roundhouse kick, hoping to get him off balance again, but he caught my ankle and pushed me backward. Landing on my butt, I snarled up at him, preparing to push to my feet. But I couldn’t.

Jabari raised a single hand toward me, and I could no longer move. The nightwalker had the power to physically control me like a puppet on a string. He had just been toying with me before, allowing me to get my hopes up that I actually had a chance in defeating him. Now he was ready to crush me.

“You can’t have him,” I growled, still fighting his control over me. Jabari was too strong, though. I could feel his power sliding through my entire frame, soaking into muscle and tissue until he was a part of me.

“I could make you kill him for me if I wanted it,” he taunted, taking a couple steps closer to where I sat. “I could force you to rip his heart out and set him on fire.” As he spoke, a surge of power rushed through me, sending a wave of pain through my frame. At the same time, a voice in my head commanded that I create fire. I tried to fight it, but there was no fighting it. A ring of fire sprang up around Nicolai.

“Stop it!” I screamed, fighting his will. The flames shrank, but I couldn’t completely extinguish them no matter how hard I tried. The ring of fire closed in around Nicolai until it was only a couple feet away from him on all sides, and still he said nothing. He knew that we were both trapped by Jabari’s will. “Stop it, Jabari! Your fight is with me. Not him. Leave Nicolai out of this.”

A secretive little smile appeared on the Ancient’s full lips for a moment as he stared down at me. And then the fire disappeared, as well as his presence within my body. “I didn’t come here to take Nicolai from you,” he admitted with an indifferent shrug. “I can take him at any time, but for now my concern is with the naturi.”

“What! You came here with Nicolai to talk to me about the naturi, not to steal him back?” I demanded, shock keeping me from pushing back to my feet.

An evil smile twisted Jabari’s full lips and danced in his dark eyes. “Yes. You’re the one that started this fight. Not me.”

“You’re a real asshole, you know that,” I snapped, pushing back to my feet and dusting off my black skirt. “I’ve been under attack here since leaving Crete and then I have you pop into town with Nicolai in tow. I don’t need this kind of torment, Jabari. My hands are already full.”

“You should have returned to Venice as I commanded. You would have been protected from the naturi and had none of these worries,” he calmly stated.

“But my people in Savannah would not have been. They are my responsibility.”

“You’re on the Coven now. Your responsibility extends beyond a single city to all of our people.”

I shoved both of my hands through my hair and paced a couple steps away from Jabari in frustration before I screamed. There was no winning with him, in a fight or in a discussion. It was never enough. I didn’t want to be on the Coven, but I’d had to take the open seat in order to break the bargain that Macaire made with the naturi. Macaire struck a deal that would have the nightwalkers kill the naturi queen, Aurora, so long as the naturi killed Our Liege, stopping him from releasing the Great Awakening early.

“Besides the need to drive me insane, what do you want?” I finally demanded when I had my temper under control.