Jocelynn Drake - Burn the Night

“I think it’s time we did that as well,” Danaus said as he pulled me closer.

Wincing, I raised my hand to shield my eyes. “We can’t.” The sky around us was quickly turning from dark blue to slate gray as the sun rose in the east. By now the sun would already be up in Savannah, and I could not even begin to guess at what might be a suitable hiding place in the city at the moment.

“Allow me,” Adio said, placing a hand on both our shoulders. In the blink of an eye we were enveloped in darkness, only to reappear less than a second later. The ground shifted beneath my feet and the air was considerably warmer than the mountains of Peru. “Consider this a belated honeymoon,” Adio added, and then quickly disappeared again.

Danaus stood close beside me, one arm wrapped around my waist as we gazed over at our new surroundings. We stood on a white beach just at the shoreline. The air was silent except for the sound of the waves lapping against the shore, while lights lit tall buildings in the distance. At the edge of the beach was a well-lit road lined with swaying palm trees. The thick scent of flowers filled the air.

“Where are we? He had to have taken us west,” Danaus murmured.

It took only another second for it to dawn on me, as I thought about what Adio had said just before he disappeared. He had taken us to one of the honeymoon capitals of the world. “We’re in Hawaii,” I said, laughing as I leaned into Danaus. I wrapped both my arms around his waist and held him tightly. He was alive and safe. We both were. Aurora was dead and Nick was in permanent exile. For once, we were both safe and free. The world had become a vastly different place overnight, but it was a world we could attempt to live in, not a world under the shadow of Aurora and my father.

With a low chuckle, Danaus swept one arm under my legs and carried me out into the surf before dropping down to dunk us both underwater. We came up together, sputtering and laughing in the warm water.

“What was that for?” I cried.

“That was for your stupid promise! I could have helped—”

I placed my hand against his cheek as my feet searched for a bottom in the ocean. “And you could have been trapped in there with Nick and me. I didn’t want that for you. Never. I wanted you to go on living.”

Danaus reached up and moved some wet hair away from my eyes. “I would have never stopped searching for a way to get to you.”

“And I would have waited for you to come,” I whispered, my lips brushing against his.

Danaus closed the last few centimeters between us and kissed me as we bobbed weightless in the surf. His arms wrapped around my body and I could taste his love for me as it washed away the last memories of the past few nights. Together we had faced impossible odds again and again, and each time we came out alive and in each other’s arms. With Danaus, the world held no horrors for me now.

Slowly breaking off the kiss, Danaus rubbed the tip of his nose against mine before loosening one arm so he could slowly paddle back toward the shore. “I say we find a quiet hotel where we can forget about the naturi and the Great Awakening for a few weeks.”

“That sounds like the best idea I’ve heard in months.”

“You think you can stand to be alone with me for a while with no impending danger?”

Wrapping my arms around his neck, I let him carry me out of the water and back onto dry land. A deep sense of peace seeped into the marrow of my bones as he pressed a kiss to my forehead. “Together, as God intended.”

Each book proves to be its own special challenge, no matter how much you think you’ve learned from the previous books. As a result, I would like to give a special thanks to my friend Robert for giving me a quick lesson on sparring to help improve Mira and Danaus’s combat skills. In addition, I would like to thank my amazing editor Diana Gill for pushing me to be a stronger writer. I would also like to thank my wonderful agent Jennifer Schober for constantly checking on me to make sure that I was happy, healthy, and somewhat sane.

By day, JOCELYNN DRAKE is a clean-cut financial analyst writer, but in her free time she writes about a dark underworld where vampires rule. The bestselling author of Nightwalker , Dayhunter , Dawnbreaker , Pray for Dawn , and Wait for Dusk , she lives in Kentucky. Visit her website at www.jocelynndrake.com.

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The Dark Days Novels

Nightwalker

Dayhunter

Dawnbreaker

Pray for Dawn

Wait for Dusk

Burn the Night