Dawnbreaker (40 page)

“You will not touch me!” Aurora cried when I slowly closed the distance between us. She stood straight and tall, her back pressed against the nearby wall, her chin held high. “You cannot burn me.”

Overhead, wind naturi had taken to the skies and were attempting to fly over the flames, but I stopped them with another wave of my hand. Their wings of feather and leather instantly went up in flames, sending them plummeting back down to the earth. No one was going to save Aurora.

Within me, I could feel the energy from the earth gathering, preparing for a final strike against the queen of the naturi. I smirked, briefly wondering if the earth wanted her dead as badly as I did. Yet, at the same time, I could feel the energy rising within Aurora. She was ready to protect herself.

A smile lifted my lips, exposing my white fangs in the flickering firelight. I closed the distance between us in a flash, plunging the dagger I had pulled from my side deep into her stomach. She had been expecting a magical attack, leaving her completely vulnerable to a physical attack. But then, I had always been more hands-on. I wanted to feel her warm flesh in my hands, her blood flowing over my hand as I slowly pulled the knife up from her stomach toward her heart.

Aurora gasped, her mouth falling open in a silent cry as her eyes grew wide with the pain ripping through her fragile body. The power that I had felt growing within her dissipated.

“Killing you is a lot like killing your brother,” I sneered. “There’s the same look of surprise on your faces.”

Before I could reach her heart, a great stabbing pain plunged into my back, piercing my heart from behind. My focus had been so completely on Aurora that I’d let my guard down. Someone had gotten through the flames and stabbed me in the back.

“Release her and I won’t cut your heart out, little princess,” snarled an all too familiar voice. Rowe had come back.

I released the hilt of the blade and placed my right hand out to my side, away from Aurora, who was now sliding down the wall. Blood soaked into her pure white robes, and her face was quickly turning a sickly shade of gray. She was losing blood too fast, but I knew how quickly a naturi could heal with proper help.

“She banished you,” I rasped, as Rowe continued to hold the knife in my back, his left hand tightly gripping my left shoulder so I couldn’t move. “She abandoned you after all that you did. Don’t you think she deserves this?”

“She was my queen,” he bit out, twisting the knife so that I cried out in pain.

“She turned her back on you. She doesn’t deserve your loyalty.”

“Sometimes loyalty is all you have,” he said just before he ripped the knife out of my back again. He pushed me forward a few stumbling steps. I turned and fell to my knees with the intention of throwing a fireball at him, but Rowe had already taken to the air on a gush of wind. His great black wings were thrown wide like a giant raptor heading for the cover of the black clouds swirling overhead.

Kneeling on the ground, I lowered the blue flames that had surrounded Aurora and me. I was ready to die. I no longer had the strength to fight. The energy from the earth was still pumping through me, but it couldn’t heal the knife wound in my back. Blood was pouring out of my body, weakening me with each second that passed. I was beginning to think that this weapon had finally reached the end of her usefulness.

To my surprise, as the flames died down, I discovered that a great horde of naturi wasn’t waiting for me. In fact, only a handful remained. A scattering of bodies indicated that some had been killed in battle, but most were just missing.

A few feet away stood Jabari and Nyx. Both of their bodies were filled with tension, but neither was poised for the attack. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw a handful of naturi rush over to Aurora’s side and gently lift her up. They carried her toward the entrance of Machu Picchu—the closest access to the surrounding brush and nature’s bosom.

“Where?” I whispered, glancing around the now seemingly empty ruins.

“Cynnia has led many of our kind away from this place of death,” Nyx answered, her eyes slowly moving from Jabari at her side to me. “Things are changing. Some are willing to accept her as the next queen.”

“Aurora is not dead. At least not yet. She could still survive…” I said, drifting off. It was the second time in my lifetime I had failed to kill a naturi on this mountain. Five centuries ago I had left Nerian disemboweled here, assuming that he would never survive the wound. He proved me wrong. And now, I hadn’t managed to cut out Aurora’s heart before Rowe attacked me.

“Yes, she could still survive,” Nyx said with a nod. Her voice was as soft and soothing as a forest brook running over smooth stones. “And some will follow her.”

“And where does that leave us?” Jabari demanded.

To my surprise, a half smile tweaked one corner of her mouth as she looked from me to Jabari. “On hold.”

“On hold?” I gasped. I coughed once and wiped some blood from my chin. My body wasn’t healing. I was dying slowly on this wretched mountain.

“If Aurora survives, there will be two factions. The naturi will have bigger problems to worry about than nightwalkers and humans. You will not be our main concern, for now,” Nyx said. She stepped back away from Jabari a few steps and bent forward as a pair of wings with rich black feathers grew out of her back in a matter of seconds.

“What about what Cynnia said? About me being the new protector of the earth?” I shouted before she could take to the air.

A light chuckle rose from Nyx and she shook her head. “I thought that was a nice ploy as well. Struck just enough fear in Aurora. She didn’t get you caught up in that nonsense, did she?”

“It was something to consider,” I admitted.

Nyx chuckled softly again. “A nightwalker protector of the earth? What a funny thought.”

“Take my advice,” I said, leaning forward on my left hand. “Finish off Aurora and save yourself the trouble.”

Nyx again flashed me her enigmatic half smile and shook her head once. “I am the defender of our people. Not the weapon of the earth.”

And then she opened her wings, catching the wind that was sweeping across the mountain, carrying her far from here. Leaving me alone with Jabari and my looming death.

Thirty

J
abari slowly turned to face me, a grim look on his handsome face. I forced a weak laugh up past my parted lips as he approached me. I couldn’t imagine what he was thinking at that moment but I was about to find out. The wound in my back was beginning to slowly heal and the blood flood was ebbing. I’d survive the stabbing as long as I didn’t sustain any more injuries from my beloved Jabari during the next few minutes. But I had my doubts.

“Protector of the earth,” he murmured thoughtfully, scratching his chin as he looked down at me.

“Fanciful thoughts of a desperate naturi,” I said, trying to easily shrug off the title. It had been something that Cynnia made up in order to strike fear into her sister. It also gave me the confidence to pull as much energy as I could from the earth to strike at Aurora and nearly win. “She needed someone to kill her sister. I was her best choice at the moment. Cynnia would have said anything to put some fear in her sister’s eyes.”

“Yes, but your display of power does raise some interesting questions,” Jabari said. “I’ve never seen you control so much fire at once, and so deftly. One would think that you’ve finally succeeded in mastering your skill. It’s even more interesting that you managed to incinerate those naturi that would have attacked you from above. Did you ever actually look up at them or could you sense them on your own?”

“Jabari, this is all new to me,” I quickly said. I pushed my free right hand through my hair, trying to move it from in front of my eyes, but pain sliced through my body at the movement. My body was still healing. “I’m not sure what I can do.”

The Elder raised his hand above my head and I jerked to my feet instantly, like a puppet on a set of marionette strings. I hung in the air, my body trembling with his power pumping through it. A new pain wracked my frame, and it was all I could do to swallow back a whimper. I was exhausted. With Jabari’s energy flowing through my body, there was no way I could call in the power of the earth to even defend myself. It was either one or the other. The two could not coexist within my system.

“What?” I snapped at him, lifting my head so I could finally look him in the eye. “Afraid that you had lost the ability to control me? No, I’m not that lucky! I’m still a puppet on a string for you.”

“And this power from the earth you can now wield?” he inquired, almost politely.

I shook my head. “Only under special circumstances, like when they perform a sacrifice. I need there to be a lot of energy in the ground for me to access it. I also can’t control it when a member of the triad is trying to control me. Blood magic and earth magic just don’t mix.”

“Hmmm…” he softly said, cocking his head to one side as he looked me over. I was ragged with my torn, bloodstained clothes. My skin was covered in blood and dirt, while my hair was wind-blown and matted. I didn’t look like someone who had defeated Aurora and the great naturi horde. Had I finally outlived my usefulness? Or could he still find some other dirty task for me to complete that put my life and the lives of those around me at risk?

“I guess it’s lucky for you that the triad is no more.” He lowered his hand and I collapsed to the ground like a heap of garbage. I watched him walk away a couple feet and then completely disappear. I noticed then that the sky had lightened to a pale shade of gray. The dawn was coming.

I lay on the cool grass, waiting for the sun to rise. I could feel no other nightwalkers in the region. But it didn’t matter. At that moment I was ready for death. I had done my great deed; closed the doors and, if I was extremely lucky, killed Aurora. Whether I had earned Heaven or Hell, if they even existed, no longer seemed important. I just wanted to sleep, preferably forever.

“Get up, Mira,” commanded an achingly familiar voice.

I tried to smile but it came off lopsided, as I could only muster the strength to lift one corner of my mouth. “Go away, Danaus. I’m not in the mood to kill you,” I murmured, giving up on trying to open my eyes. I could feel him near me, standing a few feet away.

“The sun is going to rise soon,” he reminded me, needlessly.

I ignored his statement. Why state the obvious? Jabari had left me to burn up in the sun. It wouldn’t be that bad. I’d be asleep before the sun rose. I wouldn’t feel a thing. There were worse ways to go. I should know—I’d inflicted a number of them on my own kind.

“I thought you were killed,” I said, when I could finally speak past the lump that had grown in the back of my throat. When his presence suddenly disappeared while I was fighting the naturi, I could only assume the worst—that he had been killed. There was no time to look around for him, no time to go back and check for a pulse.

“Knocked out,” he said. He shook his head as he came into view, standing over me as I lay in the grass. “I think Jabari actually protected me a couple times,” he admitted.

“I guess he still has a use for you,” I said ominously, cracking my eyes open so I could look up at the hunter.

“I’m sure he’ll have a use for us both until he has secured his total control of the Coven,” Danaus said with a frown. “Now, get up.”

My eyes fell shut as I thought about the world that still lay ahead of me. I was still the puppet of Jabari
and
Danaus. I was a member of the nightwalker Coven, upon which I had no doubt that both Macaire and Elizabeth wanted me dead. The naturi were running loose, regardless of whether they wanted us dead or not at this exact moment. Oh, and there was still Our Liege’s plan to speed up the Great Awakening to this upcoming year, revealing to all the world that nightwalkers and lycanthropes truly did exist, creating a great war among the various races.

I felt weighed down, as if all the world were resting on my chest. I had no desire to move, no great desire to keep moving and fighting and risking death. I was tired. I was done.

“Go away, Danaus, please,” I murmured with a soft sigh.

“You can’t give up. The naturi are loose,” he said. I heard him kneel beside me in the grass, his voice sounding closer.

Exhausted, I forced my eyes open to look at the hunter. His face was haggard and his eyes were tired, but somehow he found the energy to keep moving. “Go back to Themis. Tell Ryan. Tell him everything,” I said. The warlock had to know everything before it was too late. Ryan would be able to warn everyone about the escape of Aurora and the rest of the naturi. The warlock had to be told about Our Liege’s plans for the Great Awakening. I didn’t want a war, but the lycans and all the others couldn’t be blindsided when naturi finally stopped fighting among each other and decided that it was time to attack the other races once again.

With a soft grunt, Danaus lifted me into his strong arms and stood. I cried out softly at the sudden movement and clenched my eyes shut again. I don’t know how long he carried me; time seemed to slip away as I struggled to hang onto my conscious thought. The lodge was too far away to make it before the sun rose. It was only when the air suddenly became bitterly cold and it grew dark again that I realized he had taken me to the Temple of the Moon. It was on a cliff on the side of the mountain that rose up beside Machu Picchu, with caves reaching deep into its bowels. There, I would be safe from the far-reaching rays of the sun.

Danaus laid me on the ground and then sat down, heaving a heavy sigh. I opened my eyes but had trouble making out his face in the darkness. He slid his hand down my arm and took my hand in his, squeezing it lightly. There was no rush of power threatening to peel my flesh from my bone, just his warm skin pressed to mine.

“Our battles are not completed,” he murmured. “But you’ll have to take a rain check. I’m not up for killing you right now.”

I wanted to laugh. The bastard made one of his few jokes and I didn’t have the energy to laugh. The best I could do was pass out again, holding his hand.