Jocelynn Drake - Nightwalker

Danaus nodded and led the way out of the alley. If I had any shred of luck left in this pathetic existence, Sadira was still alive and staying out of trouble. But I wasn’t betting on it at this point.

“Mira.” A catch in Tristan’s voice stopped me from following behind Danaus. The nightwalker didn’t need to say anything. I could feel his fear. “I can’t fight them. I mean, I’ve never—”

“I need you,” I said, laying my right hand on his shoulder. I needed every spare hand I could find when it came to taking on the naturi. Right now all I had was Tristan and Danaus. “We have to stop them or they’re going to make living with Sadira look like a Sunday garden party.”

His large blue eyes darted away from my direct gaze and he stared down at the ground. I was losing him. “Stand with me now, Tristan.” I paused for a moment, searching for some words of encouragement. I knew what I needed to say, but it took a moment to finally force them out. “Stand with me now, and I swear, I will help you find a way free of Sadira.”

His gaze snapped back up to my face, questioning and distrustful. I couldn’t blame him. We both had the same manipulative maker. “I swear. I don’t know how, but I will help you,” I repeated.

Tristan nodded and turned to follow Danaus out of the alley. I was still cursing myself when I fell into step behind them. I don’t know whether he had just manipulated me, but it didn’t matter. I needed his help, and there was a good chance both of us weren’t going to survive this little escapade, making my promise moot.

Pausing at the mouth of the alley, I glanced up. The night sky was a murky midnight blue in the lights of the city. Dawn was just a few hours away. I could sense it like an old man could feel a storm brewing by the ache in his bones. From the first second we are reborn, nightwalkers can sense the night. After the sun set, I could feel the night swelling around me, oozing into every crevice and dusty corner. The burgeoning night flourishes toward its midpoint, which is so rarely midnight, and then it wilts. As the night dies, time crumbles around me. I can feel it waning like the steady flow of sand in an hourglass.

And now that I was desperate for time, I felt it slipping that much faster out of my grasp. I clenched my fist at my side and swallowed a curse for the sun. Even immortal, I was still a slave to time.

Less than two hours later I was kneeling with Tristan in the outer fringe of a thin copse of woods just northwest of London. There was a scattering of farmhouses close by, their fields outlined by spindly wooden fences and stone walls. According to Danaus, we weren’t too far from Stonehenge and less than thirty minutes from the Themis compound.

For a July evening, the air was crisp and heavy, as if the skies would soon open up with rain. Beside me, Tristan drew in a deep breath, relying on his hunting skills to track his prey, but they wouldn’t help him with the naturi. They smelled of the earth, holding none of the musky scents and pheromones found with other living creatures. I bit down on my lower lip as I watched the woods through narrowed eyes, trying not to think about Tristan’s inexperience. But that kind of inexperience was rampant among my kind. It had been five hundred years since any of us faced a serious battle against the naturi. Since Machu Picchu, we had been content to fight among ourselves, with only occasional incursions against the lycanthropes and the warlocks. But even those amounted to little more than beating chests and gnashing teeth.

“Remember what I told you,” I whispered. “Shoot them in the head or in the heart. Once they go down, take off the head as a precaution.” I looked down at the gun tightly clutched in my right hand. Danaus had supplied us both with handguns and, when we both looked lost, a quick lesson in using them. Vampires didn’t use guns. Up until now, the old ways were always more efficient…and more fun.

“Do you honestly trust the hunter?” Tristan hissed, turning his head to look at me. Danaus had dropped us off near the entrance to the woods and then drove on a couple more miles. He was going to circle around and find a perch on higher ground. He had a rifle and planned to pick off some of the naturi from a distance while Tristan and I attacked.

“No, but he’s had more than one opportunity to kill me and hasn’t taken it. It doesn’t make any sense to do so now.” I scanned the area, picking up nothing but small flashes of wildlife. Danaus was about a quarter mile away to the east, no longer moving. It was time. I couldn’t sense the naturi, but he had said he would attempt to put them directly between us. All we had to do was walk through the woods toward him and we should trip over them.

“Let’s go,” I murmured, standing and silently walking deeper into the woods, ignoring Tristan’s soft comment under his breath. Something about me pushing my luck. Yeah, that went without saying.

I wasn’t counting on the element of surprise as we moved soundlessly through the woods. While the naturi couldn’t sense us, they would know something was approaching as we unavoidably disturbed wildlife along the way. Furthermore, after our time in the pub, we smelled of smoke and human sweat, which would also give away our position. But with Danaus playing sniper, I was hoping to at least keep them confused, earning us a slight and very brief edge.

We moved in the woods, picking through the underbrush. What little noise we did make sounded like the wind running its fingers through the leaves. While nightwalkers preferred the city, we all spent a little time out in nature. It was a good way to hunt; to stretch our powers, our senses, our bodies to their limits.

And tonight we were hunting naturi.

After a few minutes we stopped at the low murmur of voices in quiet conversation. I couldn’t make out any of the words but seriously doubted they were speaking any language with which I was familiar. Their comments were quick and sharp. I had a feeling they knew we were close.

Crouched low in the dirt, Tristan and I crawled closer, sticking to the thick undergrowth in an attempt to remain hidden as we got as close as possible. I paused for a second as a branch snagged the left arm of my silk shirt. My leather pants afforded me some protection from the rocks and dirt, but this wasn’t exactly the best attire for crawling through the woods. Neither were my leather boots. My heels had sunk into the soft earth and small holes on more than one occasion.

We finally halted a few yards from a small clearing in the woods. There were ten naturi scattered before us, four from the animal clan. Other than those from the water clan, with their blue-green hair and gills, the animal clan was easiest to identify. They wore their dark brown hair long and shaggy. The structure of their faces was wider and harsher, with sharp cheekbones and a hard jaw. At least two more were from the earth clan. They seemed the exact opposite of the animal clan, with their tall, willowy frames and dark, earthy skin. Their hair color was a broad array—purple, blue, yellow, green—all the colors of the flowers.

What had me worried was the other four I couldn’t identify. Their height and build varied, as did their hair color. They could have been from the wind clan, which I had little experience dealing with, or the light clan, which would take away my special gift as an advantage.

Of course, I was coming after the naturi on their own turf. If we were going to survive this, we had to strike fast—the longer the fight lasted, the more chances the naturi had to take advantage of their surroundings.

I was also worried that I had yet to see Rowe. The pirate wannabe had been so good at finding me so far, I just assumed that he’d be with the nearest group of naturi. Or that he’d come to me.