While Danaus was still kneeling on the ground, glaring at Jabari, I rushed over and stood in front of the hunter. Rage now burned on Jabari’s face, and I knew I had only seconds to get through to him.

“Jabari, I have not betrayed you,” I said, no longer trying to keep the fear out of my voice. My hands trembled uncontrollably and my knees threatened to buckle. “I made a mistake with Nerian, and if you wish to kill me for that, I accept my fate, but bringing Danaus here was not an act of betrayal. I want you to see how desperate we are. The naturi are coming again. If the seal is broken, they will destroy not only the humans, but the nightwalkers as well.”

“Do not lecture me!” Jabari’s upper lip remained pulled back, and I fought to draw my gaze from his long fangs. He was going to tear my throat out if I didn’t think of something.

“Danaus is a hunter, and yet he came to me looking for a way to stop the naturi. I remember so little of that night, and I don’t want to remember. I came here hoping to find you, needing you to reform the triad that stopped the naturi the last time.”

Behind me Danaus had risen and took one step forward, as if trying to move around me. He apparently wasn’t the type to let anyone protect him, but he was going to get himself killed before I could get any more information out of him. I sidled so that I was standing directly in front of him. Reaching back, I grabbed a wrist in each hand. He stiffened at my touch, but I could still move his arms. I pulled his right arm around my waist, his knife still clutched in his hand. I drew up his left arm between my breasts so his left hand was holding my right shoulder. If Jabari was going to kill Danaus, he would have to go through me first. I wasn’t completely sure that it would stop him, but I was hoping to buy us a couple more seconds.

The muscles in my body spasmed for a second when Danaus’s left hand closed over my shoulder like a circuit closing, wrapping me in his powers. Between the weight of Jabari’s powers and the tense strength charging through Danaus, a hand seemed to clench around my soul. A sharp little cry broke from my throat as I struggled to pull my thoughts above the flow of power. A second later I managed to surface and blink, focusing my thoughts again.

Jabari stared at me, his lips pressed into a hard, thin line. The anger had not completely ebbed from his eyes, but something else had distracted his thoughts. He took a half step backward, his brow furrowed. I could only imagine he was shocked to find I was willing to risk my life for a hunter; someone who would cut out my heart before saving me. I couldn’t blame him. I was more than a little surprised myself, but the threat of the naturi had put us in an awkward position.

“It does not make sense to kill him when he has information that could be useful,” I said. “I came to you because you were at Machu Picchu. You have always been the strongest of the triad. I came to you because I trust no one else.”

The silence stretched and twisted in the quarry, the wind dying back down to nothing as the Ancient stared at me, his expression dark and unreadable. “You defend him as if he means more.”

Something jerked in my stomach, a new, dark fear springing to life. This was bad. Had Lucas already been whispering to the Coven about me? Were rumors spread by Lucas the reason why I had heard nothing back from the Coven during the past couple of nights?

“I defend him because it is the wise thing to do. I will not throw valuable information away because I do not like its messenger.” I definitely didn’t like where this was going. If I had learned anything in my six centuries, it was to never prick the ego of a vampire. And the older they were, the worse it would be. I had managed to calm Jabari, and I thought he might have even begun to see the wisdom of what I was saying, but that didn’t change the fact that a creature well beneath him in age and power had corrected him. He still had to exact his retribution.

“Would you turn on your own people to protect this hunter?” His deceptively calm voice wrapped around me before sliding into my brain. The peaceful tone of the question belied the underlying menace that lurked in the shadows.

“My loyalty belongs only to those who have earned it.”

“Has he? A destroyer of our kind?”

An overwhelming urge to take a step backward trembled in my limbs, but with Danaus behind me, it was difficult to move. “I protect him to save our kind from the naturi, nothing more.”

“And when the naturi are gone?” His voice had become calm and even. So much so that we could have been discussing the weather. He had straightened from his previously aggressive stance, his thin body perfectly erect.

“Then I will deliver his life to your hands. I will deliver us both if that is what you wish.” Behind me, I felt Danaus stiffen, but he never made a sound, leaving me to my desperate pleading. “You have been both a friend and protector, Jabari. If it is my life you want, then it is yours, but I do not think it will save us from the naturi.” I wanted to reach out and cup his face with my hands, to kiss his neck and swear my complete devotion to him, but I couldn’t move. I knew I had already lost him.

Jabari approached us, each step careful and precise. He stopped less than two feet away and his voice was barely over a whisper. “It is not your life I want, my Mira.” His words were coated so thickly with ice, I shuddered and closed my eyes. Danaus tightened his arms around me, pulling me harder against his chest. His warmth seeped into me through my bare arms and the cotton material of my shirt. The panic faded, enough so I could speak.

“Do not say it, Jabari.”

“It is my right to ask.”

But that was the big joke; it wasn’t a request. When an Elder asked to make you a Companion, you had no choice but to accept. Refusal only meant death. Most would not hesitate to accept such an offer. Though the position was dangerous, it was prestigious. But it also took away all independence, all individual will and rights. This was the punishment Jabari had chosen. Not death. He would wear me down until I was a pale shadow of my former self, driving me to the point where I lay down in the dawn light.

“You know my answer,” I said in a low voice. My hands tightened on Danaus’s arm to the point of my nails digging into his flesh.

“Mira—”

My head snapped up and I knew my eyes were glowing, a strange blue-purple like bittersweet nightshade. Death in battle held its own honor, and I could face that. What Jabari offered was slavery. My power welled up inside my chest until it was pressing against the inside of my skin, desperate for release. “Do not place us on this precipice,” I warned, my tone taking on a hard edge. “I will destroy us both; to hell with the naturi.”

Without actually conjuring the thought, a deep blue flame sprang from the earth at my feet. It quickly circled Danaus and me, then rose in intensity until the flames reached my chest. Never had I created a fire against Jabari, but I would not become his slave.

He stared at me through the flickering blue flames, holding his ground. He would never forgive me for this, I knew it. Anger had made his face pale and drawn.

“Let us save our race now,” I bargained. “We have all eternity to destroy each other.”

The tension was making me a bit hysterical, and the power in the quarry was crushing my brain. My thoughts were scattered and broken at best. I needed to put some distance between these two men or it would drive me mad.

A frigid smile grew on Jabari’s face, and he bared pristine white teeth at me. “This is not over.”

“I have no doubt,” I snapped.

Jabari nodded once and then turned his back on us. He walked over to the end of the unfinished obelisk, his hand running reverently along its smooth surface. The flames shrank back down to the ground and disappeared. Danaus released his steely grip on me and I fell forward to my knees. A chill ran up my arms and I felt as if I’d been dragged through the street behind a runaway carriage.