Jocelynn Drake - Dayhunter

The energy I had felt last night was nothing compared to what I felt beating against me now. Ryan had created a storm with the force to not only destroy all of Crete but also wipe out several of other islands in the region, and it hadn’t even dented the energy I now felt vibrating in the air. It pushed against my skin, determined to once again find entrance into my body. I couldn’t use my powers tonight. This energy would shred me.

“They’re here,” Danaus murmured.

My head jerked toward the hunter, forcing me from my dark thoughts. “How many?”

“About two dozen. Most are centered in the main clearing, but there are a few hanging back toward the south. Two more are in the air.”

Before shifting my weight to take the next step, I scanned the area as well, looking for the exact location where the human was being held. The naturi would wait until the night was near its peak, but they would be preparing the human. I was willing to guess that Rowe was hovering close to the human as well. But the naturi managed to surprise me again.

“Damn it,” I snarled in a low whisper. I stepped backward and lowered my gun.

“There are three,” Jabari said from behind me, stating what I’d just discovered. I walked a few feet away from the entrance to the ruins, flipping the safety of the gun back on in an effort to keep from putting a bullet in my foot in a moment of frustration. There were three humans at the center of the ruins. Not one. Three.

“Decoys?” Danaus asked, drawing my gaze to his face for a flash.

I looked away just as quickly, my eyes darting from Danaus to Ryan before finally settling on Jabari. “Yeah, maybe,” I softly said, holding the Elder’s eyes.

“And one of those decoys is James,” Ryan announced.

“What? How?” I gasped, feeling the need to point my gun at the warlock. Bringing the human along had always felt like packing live bait to me, and now the young man was caught.

“He was grabbed during the middle of the day,” Danaus answered. “He ran down to the corner store and never returned.”

I wanted to smack them both for letting James out of their sight. Hadn’t my own mistake with allowing Michael to get involved in a fight against the naturi taught them anything? Humans only ended up dead when the naturi and nightwalkers were involved.

We needed to hurry now. It had been night for more than an hour already. They could have started the process. While they might not complete the sacrifice until the peak of the night, the naturi could spend several hours in the ritual, removing the human’s various organs and burning them. They would keep James alive and conscious right up until the end. But we wouldn’t have any hope of saving him if they had already cut him open.

“New plan,” I announced, insanely hoping I could convince Danaus and Ryan to go along with my newest bout of insanity. “There are three humans but only one is the true sacrifice. I will go after Rowe and keep the bastard occupied. Danaus will focus on freeing James and getting him over to Ryan. Once Ryan has James, the two of them will return to Heraklion.”

“Mira, I think I can—” Ryan started, but I quickly cut him off.

“No, you can’t. You’re still a human, Mr. Warlock, and can be used as a sacrifice. Both you and James have to be away from the site. Jabari will focus on the other sacrifices. Ryan, I need you to hang back until James has been freed. If Rowe or any of the other naturi tap into the weather again, I need you to stop it.”

“Mira, that’s earth magic. Not my strong suit,” he argued.

“You have to try.” I flipped the safety off the gun again and took a step toward the entrance. “Do whatever you can to interfere with the spell. We’ll try to keep them away from you so you can work.”

Turning, I walked toward the entrance and up the stairs without looking back at anyone. I knew that none of the humans were decoys. Rowe wasn’t taking any chances. We had stopped him once, and now he was betting we wouldn’t be able to stop all three sacrifices.

As I reached the top of the stairs, a high-pitched screech rent the silence of the night. I cringed, lowering my head as if I expected the wrath of the heavens to fall on me at that second. Not quite. Two of the harpies from Venice had come to Knossos to help Rowe with the sacrifice. And we had obviously been spotted.

Sneaking around one of the remaining walls, a smile lifted my lips. The idea was to let me protect the seal and kill Rowe. The positive aspect to the plan was that I could kill every naturi that stood between him and me. I knew I would find a bright side somewhere within this nightmare.

We edged closer to the central courtyard. Only a handful of naturi stepped forward to harry us. With Jabari tagging along, they were quickly dispatched with little trouble before any of them could fire up their special powers. I wasn’t surprised. The main force of the naturi was pulled back to defend the sacrifices.

The wind suddenly picked up, shifting twice before it blew at my back, pushing me forward. Climbing over a low, broken wall that surrounded the courtyard, I tightened my grip on the knife and gun. Rowe stood a few yards away, legs spread and hands on his hips. He smiled at me. Behind him more than a dozen torches flickered and danced in the wind. Spread before us across the wide courtyard were the three humans; two men and one small child. They had been tied down, their bodies stretched out from east to west. Just like at Stonehenge not so long ago.

“Is this all you brought?” Rowe demanded, arching the eyebrow over his one good eye. “I thought last night was a little scouting party. But this is it?”

“Why waste the manpower when four is all we need?” I mocked. “We’re ending this tonight.”

“I agree.”

A duet of screams filled the air above me. Reluctant to take my eyes off Rowe, I looked up in time to see the two harpies plunging toward me, their fleshy wings pulling in close to their bodies to increase the speed of their fall. I lunged forward, slamming against the rock floor while Danaus and Jabari dove in opposite directions. Pain exploded in my ribs as I hit the ground, but I pushed it aside and kept moving. Rolling onto my back, I lifted my gun, searching the black skies for the mythical nightmares. But they were gone.

Rolling to my knees, my head snapped back as pain exploded in my jaw and I cried out, falling to my back. Rowe was on me in a second. His fist connected with my cheekbone, both sides of my face now throbbing in pain. The naturi straddled me, his knees pressed against my hips.

“You should have taken my offer,” he growled, and slammed his fist into my stomach. “We would be on the same side now.”

I swung my right hand up, trying to aim the gun at him. “Never,” I grunted.

Rowe easily knocked my hand away, but I was counting on it. I swung my left hand up, burying my knife up to its hilt in his side. He screamed, backhanding me as he pulled away. His blood covered my hand, causing the knife to slip out of my grip as he stumbled off.

I pushed back to my feet, the pain in my face beginning to subside. I tried to get my bearings as Rowe hurried away to heal the latest wound I had inflicted on him. But I didn’t have a chance. They attacked silently this time and I wasn’t watching the skies.

The winged naturi swooped down in a rush of wind, blotting out the meager starlight. I’d taken half a step back when impossibly long talons dug into my arms and shoulders. A scream was ripped from my throat as my feet left the ground, matched by the sweet sounds of their laughter as they carried me off.

I tried to twist from their taloned grasp, but the claws only dug deeper into my flesh and muscles until I could feel them scraping against bone. Blood streamed from my shoulders, soaking into my cotton shirt, still stained from last night’s battle. Lifting the hand that held the gun, I tried aiming it at either of my two captors as we rose higher into the night sky. I managed to get off only two shots before the gun was ripped out of my hand, and looked down in time to see it plummeting to the earth, which was steadily receding farther and farther away. The ruins were drifting away too as the pair of wind naturi carried me to the north, toward Heraklion and the sea.