Barely five minutes passed before Danaus finally walked past me. “Where were you?” I said, dropping the cloaking spell at the same time. I tapped down the urge to sink my teeth into his throat as I watched him skillfully spin around to face me while pulling a dagger from a sheath at his side.

“Out,” he snapped. He straightened his stance when he realized it was only me, and put the knife back in his sheath. That was a mistake, I mused.

“Where were you?” I repeated, pausing between each word. I was still lounging against the side of the mausoleum.

He stood only a few feet away, his feet wide apart and his hands hanging at his sides. Despite the fact that he’d put away his knife, tension ran through his frame; alert and ready. “Seeing the city.”

“While you were conveniently gone, attackers appeared.” I pushed off the building and stepped away from it into the open. Danaus took two steps to the right, maintaining a comfortable distance between us. “Four hunters, well trained. Just…like…you. Did you send them?”

“No.”

“Did you know they were coming?”

“No.”

I launched my body into his, and we crashed into the side of another worn mausoleum with a heavy thud. “Lies,” I snarled, my fangs bared. I might not be hungry, but I would happily drain him before ripping his heart from his chest.

Danaus pushed me away and drew his knife again, narrowing his eyes at me. We had danced this before, but now there were no more games.

“I didn’t know they would come.”

“But you know who they are, don’t you?” Kicking out with my left foot, I clipped his hand, but he held tight to his knife. I wished I had changed from the previous night. While the skirt was slit on both sides up to the knee and provided ample ease of movement, I never liked fighting in a skirt. “You know them because you’re one of them. They knew how to find me because you told them.”

“I didn’t know they would attack.” He edged away from the wall so he had more room to maneuver, but it wasn’t easy. The ground was uneven, filled with graves and large cover stones, not to mention random chunks of rock broken off from other monuments.

“You sold me out!”

I grabbed him. His knife sliced my upper right arm, but it didn’t stop me from throwing him into the wall. The impact knocked the air from his lungs, and I was there before he could suck in the next breath. My hand locked around his throat, pressing into his esophagus. He struck at me with his knife again, but I caught his wrist. With few options left open, he kicked at me. The force pushed me backward, but I used the momentum of my falling body to pull him with me to the ground. Danaus landed on his side next to me.

Frustrated, I released my hold on his throat. I needed a better approach. Rolling back to my feet before he could, I kicked him below the chin, snapping his head back as he got to his knees.

“I defended you from Jabari!” Circling him, I could barely hear the crunch of rock and sand under my feet over the pounding fury in my head. “I defended you and now I have lost him forever.” Stopping in front of him, I grabbed his shirt in both hands. I pulled him to his feet so he was staring me in the eye. “My life is forfeit because of you. My domain is lost, because of you.”

“I didn’t send them,” he repeated, his eyes narrow, glittering slits. “Why would I send someone else when I’m looking forward to cutting your heart out?”

I tensed the muscles in my arms, preparing to slam him into a nearby pile of jagged rocks, when something shot through the slim distance separating our faces. I jerked my head backward, my eyes widening. We both looked at the mausoleum wall beside us to find a small arrow shivering in the tan brick wall. A bolt from a naturi wrist crossbow.

Danaus reacted before I could, throwing his body into mine. We landed in a heap on the ground behind the tall sides of a grave cover stone. He lay on top of me as I heard three more arrows ping against the stone and bounce off. The naturi had found us. I loosened my grip on his shirt and slid out from beneath him, trying to edge around the side of the grave enough so I could see around the cemetery.

“How many are there?” I demanded, as another arrow whizzed over the top of the grave. I lay flat on my back in the dirt, straining to hear any indications that they were close. I looked back at Danaus, who was regarding me with a confused expression. “In case you haven’t caught on, I can’t sense them.”

“How has your kind survived so long?” he said with a slight shake of his head.

Glaring at him, I pulled back my lips enough to angrily expose my fangs. I was in no mood to exchange barbs when I had the damned naturi trying to kill me and I still had to kill him before the night was over.

The wind shifted and I caught a light smell of trees and water, the green smell of the rich earth after a rainstorm, all scents that had no business being in Egypt. They were close. I reached over and pulled a sword from a sheath on Danaus’s back. Facing a member of the naturi unarmed was never a wise choice.

“Seven,” Danaus said. “Four are in the cemetery, approaching fast, and three are on a rooftop outside the cemetery.”

I nodded. The three outside the graveyard were to keep us pinned down until the ones in the cemetery could reach us. I rolled to my knees at the same time I heard the ultrasoft footsteps of the approaching naturi. We had visitors.

Leaping to my feet, I raised the blade so it was in front of my heart. Two naturi stood a couple dozen yards away with their arms raised toward me. Bolts sped across the expanse, aimed at my chest. I deflected them, wishing I had something with which to return fire. I didn’t carry a gun. No nightwalker carried a gun. There had never been a need until now. With any other creature, it would have been a matter of knives or our bare hands. It had been five hundred years since we’d had a series of encounters with naturi before this, and guns hadn’t been the models of efficiency and accuracy that they were now. I was learning the hard way how to deal with the naturi. If I survived this, Gabriel would have to give me a quick lesson on how to fire a gun.

Without bothering to reload their crossbows, both naturi drew short swords and rushed me, clearly realizing that a gun would be relatively useless. The blade I held had more reach, but I knew they would waste no time coming in close to make good use of their steel.

“Nerian?” demanded the one closest to me, his hazel eyes narrowed. He had the same bushy hair and thick frame as Nerian, indicating that he was probably with the animal clan as well.

The smile grew across my face before I could stop it. It was a smile similar to one I’d seen on Jabari’s face in the past, one of peace and joy and malice. “Ashes,” I replied in a voice that could have frozen the Nile. “And you will join him soon.”

They both attacked at the same time, forcing me to dodge the blade of one while blocking the other. Across the cemetery I could hear the sound of steel clanging against steel. Apparently, Danaus had made some new friends. I kicked one of my attackers in the chest, sending him tumbling backward over a raised grave, while I blocked two more slashes from the naturi aiming to take off my head.

I would have to get rid of one of my attackers if I had any hopes of incinerating the other. Unfortunately, creating and controlling fire took a great deal of energy and concentration, particularly with the naturi. With houses, and sadly with vampires, all you had to do was start the fire. Humans took a little more work, but for some reason the naturi were the worst. Something about these creatures didn’t want to burn. That’s not to say they couldn’t, with the exception of a conscious naturi from the light clan. Overall, the naturi made nice kindling; it just required extra effort. And with one aiming to cut me into multiple pieces, I couldn’t be distracted with cremating my foes.