Jocelynn Drake - Burn the Night

“We need to get moving,” I said. “You’re not the only one I need to convince to side with Cynnia.”

“Damn it, Mira!” Danaus taunted in a low whisper, a smirk pulling at one corner of his mouth. “Are you going to need a tissue or can you pull it together?”

I threw the hunter a dark look, but otherwise kept my comments to myself. The ceremony in the small clearing in the woods would start soon, and Barrett had generously allowed us to attend since we were the only people James saw as both friends and, in a twisted way, as family. I wasn’t going to be the one that started trouble.

Yet, I could understand Danaus’s teasing all too well. As we stood there in the quiet forest, a ring of werewolves around us, I tried to focus on the bare-chested James next to Barrett and the rest of the Rainer family. Unfortunately, my mind drifted too often to my recently lost Lily and Tristan. Two people I had taken into my family, into my heart, who were stolen from me through violence and treachery just a few months ago. Watching James being inducted into the Savannah pack, I tried to reassure myself that he would be safe and that no one would strike at him in an effort to get to me. He was now a part of Savannah, but there was a safe distance between me and him.

A hollow ache echoed through my chest. Months had passed and still I found myself conjuring up ways that things could have gone differently, resulting in Lily or Tristan or both of them being alive today. It was a futile act that only extended my pain, making me more vulnerable to the world around me, but I had Danaus at my side.

The hunter had returned from Venice with me, and moved into my town house in the historic district of Savannah. I had opened my house outside of the city to him, but he proclaimed that living together was a bit fast for him. But even that was said with a smile, as he tended to spend most of his evenings wrapped in my arms at my home. He had left Themis behind, and a part of me was relieved to have him out of Ryan’s grasp. The warlock leader of the so-called research society was more trouble than either of us was prepared to deal with. I had no doubt that Ryan still had more schemes that included us, but for now he seemed content to let us live in peace in Savannah.

Determined to earn his keep, Danaus took a job as a bartender and occasional bouncer down at the Dark Room. The exclusive club that catered only to nightwalkers and lycanthropes suffered a bit of a shake-up at his presence, but things had settled back into their normal routine. I didn’t have the heart to tell him that as part owner of the Dark Room, I was the one paying his salary each week. Danaus needed to feel independent and yet still connected to the dark other world that pulsed just beyond the notice of humans.

To my surprise, his fingers brushed against my hand, hanging down at my side, before he finally entwined his fingers around mine. Stop thinking about them. Let them rest, he admonished in my brain.

Will he be safe?

He will be safe.

Some of the tension finally flowed out of my shoulders and I squeezed his hand as I resisted the urge to lay my head against his hard shoulder. Danaus had become my rock, my one shining lighthouse in the storm, my last hold on sanity in this world. More darkness and evil lay just over the horizon, but I knew that I would at least have him at my side.

Keep thinking thoughts like that and I’m going to need a tissue, Danaus teased.

Asshole, I replied, mentally chuckling at him. I should have known he would be a silent specter in my thoughts. I’d been too dark lately as the world grew quiet. The naturi had left my territory and there was no word from the coven. Not even my father, Nick, had popped in recently to torment me. I paced the floor and stared out the window with my arms folded over my stomach, waiting. I didn’t know what it was, but something bad was coming.

At the other end of the circle, Barrett spoke to his pack, fewer than twenty members strong. Their number had been slashed, as they had once been controlled by the animal clan, forced to attack nightwalkers as the naturi searched for me. Barrett had lost two of his brothers, leaving only his younger brother Cooper and sister Erica at his side.

The alpha spoke of unity and family. He spoke of loyalty not only to the pack, but also to their race. He then turned to James and spoke about the young man’s accomplishments. He heralded James’s unwavering determination and his dedication to understanding the other races throughout his life, as well as James’s boundless compassion and fierce loyalty to his friends. And when the vote came down for his acceptance in the pack, it was unanimous. But then, it was rare for anyone to speak out against an applicant when the person had the alpha’s full support.

And then it was official. There were no fights. No bloody, exhausting trials in order to enter into the Savannah pack, just a pile of paperwork and a thorough interview with Barrett. James had been considerate enough to ask if I minded if he moved to Savannah before he officially petitioned Barrett. I’d simply smiled and nodded at him.

The only one ever known to skip the formal induction process into the Savannah pack stood on my right, watching the proceedings in silence. Nicolai Gromenko had been a desperate act on my part. Stuck in a bad situation with Jabari as his owner, he was about to be handed over to the naturi as a sacrifice when I finally stepped in and swore to protect him with my life.

Unfortunately, moving the shifter to my domain in Savannah meant that he also had to be accepted by the local pack to survive.

So at my request, Barrett took Nicolai in. But the arrangement couldn’t last. Nicolai needed a pack of his own, a place to call his own. He was born to be an alpha, and I knew that a part of him was chafing under Barrett’s rule.

“You’ve brought another sheep into the flock,” Nicolai said.

A broad smile finally lifted my lips. “I had nothing to do with this one.”

“No, you just look like a proud parent watching her child win his first award.”

“Just think of us as friends of the family,” Danaus interjected without taking his eyes off James. I inwardly shook my head. Danaus had never truly cared for the shapeshifter, and a small part of me thought it might have to do with my brief past with Nicolai. Of course, that was assuming Danaus was capable of feeling jealousy. I wasn’t about to get my hopes up.

At the other end of the clearing a cry of pain rose up, crashing through the air as James began the process of changing into a wolf. A quick conversation with Barrett a few nights earlier revealed that James had spent two months in the winter with the pack, learning what he could do before he briefly returned to Themis with the intention of living without the support of a pack.

While I wasn’t thoroughly versed in the lycanthrope world, it was my understanding that transition from man to wolf was painful for the first year, as the person learned muscle control and focus. I squeezed Danaus’s hand, a part of me wishing I could take away James’s pain. The sweet young man had always expected to be a spectator on the outside of the supernatural world, not a member.

Danaus squeezed my hand back. “He’s fine.”

“It will get easier,” Nicolai reassured me. “In a few months he’ll be able to shift anytime that he wants to. For now, he’ll be limited to the call of the full moon or the naturi.”

Others joined James, the clearing suddenly filled with large wolves of various color. I never took my eyes off of James as I saw the wiry young man change into a wolf with a thick black coat. When the transformation was complete, he shook himself once, as if brushing away the last of the pain, before he trotted over to me.