“The same reason you haven’t set me and every naturi you meet on fire,” he said. He shifted in his seat so he could pull his wallet out of his back pocket.

“Because it lacks style and finesse?”

Still balanced on his left hip, Danaus leaned over, his mouth hovering just a few inches above my face. “Because it’s exhausting. If you don’t kill everyone, you’re left vulnerable. In a fight, our powers are a last resort.”

As the taxi pulled over to the curb, he sat back in his seat and began to shuffle through his wallet to pay the driver. I slid out of the car, grateful to be back out in the night air. There was nothing to say. He was right. With time, I gained more strength, more endurance, but the use of my unique ability would always be exhausting.

We walked up to my hotel room, lost to our own dark thoughts. I was only vaguely aware of the looks that we were earning from the other guests. Charlotte had picked the Savoy, with its palatial elegance and gilt ornamentation. Its guests were the upper crust of society, and I was wearing leather pants, silk shirt, and blue-tinted sunglasses. I think I looked like a rock star, which was amusing. Clinging to that rationale, the observers naturally assumed that the heavily muscled, darkly handsome man at my side was either a bodyguard or a lucky lover. Danaus had wisely decided to leave the scimitars in the room, and instead had an assortment of knives concealed about his body. Walking around armed in Aswan was one thing. London at least kept up the pretense of being a little more civilized.

When we reached the double doors that led to my private suite, I stopped sharply. Something was wrong. A brief touch of Gabriel’s and Michael’s minds revealed that someone else was in the room with them. They were tense and anxious. However, a light scan of the room turned up only my two human angels.

With a playful smile, I threw open the two doors and walked in. But all playfulness was ripped out of my body as my eyes fell on Sadira. I hissed at her, my lips drawn back to reveal a perfect set of white fangs. My hands clenched into tight fists, my nails digging into my palms until I was drawing blood.

“Such manners,” she chided with a shake of her head. Her soft sweet voice was hypnotic, seeking to burrow down into my brain. She sat with her back ramrod straight and her chin up, as if she were a regal princess on her throne.

I straightened my shoulders, sending a warning look to the nightwalker. I knew my first encounter with her after all this time wouldn’t be good, but I hadn’t expected to react with such uncontrollable hostility.

“Why couldn’t I sense you?” I demanded, failing to unclench my teeth.

“Jabari contacted me. He said to hide myself, and that he was sending someone for my protection. I had no idea it would be you.” Her voice was calm and cool. Nothing seemed to ruffle her perfectly groomed feathers.

My skin crawled as I stared at her. Everything about Sadira seemed to be one great lie, and I hated her for it. At just under five feet, she looked like someone’s sweet little mother. Her long dark hair was streaked with gray and pulled up into a bun. Her features were soft and rounded, leaving nothing alluring or threatening in her appearance. She wore a long black skirt and a pale yellow shirt with pearl buttons. She looked prim and proper, safe and almost fragile.

But it was all a lie. I had seen her tear out a man’s throat while she fed, the blood dripping down her chin. I had seen her plunge her hand into a woman’s chest and pull out her heart so she could drink the blood directly from it. Yet, even when she was killing these people, she never looked like a predator. Just a hideous nightmare.

“Who is your dark shadow?” she inquired, smoothing over the silence that filled in the places where the tension had yet to reach. Her accent was haunting, an exotic flavor no longer on this earth. Ancient Persian. After more than a thousand years, Sadira had come no closer to shedding her accent. Most of us relinquished our old ties, preferring to blend in. Even Jabari’s accent faded when he was away from Egypt. But Sadira kept hers.

“He’s not your concern.” I took a step to my left so I was standing directly in front of Danaus. “The naturi are coming. They’re planning to break the seal.”

“How?” Surprise lifted her thin eyebrows and extended the wrinkles that stretched from the corners of her almond-shaped eyes. Her pale hands clenched in her lap, twisting her slender fingers.

“The usual way—blood and magic. Jabari said I am to protect you and reform the triad.”

“Has he been selected to protect you, then?” She refused to drop the issue of Danaus, intrigued by the fact that I was traveling with this stranger.

She never questioned the assistance of my daylight warriors, Gabriel and Michael. When a nightwalker acquired a certain level of power and frequently traveled into the domain of other powerful vampires, he or she would enlist the services of such guardians. Danaus, however, was distinctly different from these protectors. It wasn’t that he stood there exuding his own dark power. It was his confidence and the fact that he seemed completely at ease in a room with two nightwalkers. He had also been out with me at night, so keeping him at my side meant that he carried a different kind of importance to me. He was an equal, not a servant.

“I do not need nighttime protection,” I told her.

“Oh, my Mira,” Sadira said, her voice filled with warmth and concern. “You need protection more than me or Jabari.”

“I can take care of myself. I was never as weak as you liked to pretend.”

“I never thought you weak, my dearest child.” Pushing smoothly to her feet, she took a couple steps toward me, but I stepped away from her, the two of us circling in the small living room. I wouldn’t, couldn’t, let her lay a hand on me.

Sadira stopped, a look of patience filling her warm brown eyes. “I feared you would grow to be too confident in your powers. I didn’t want to see you hurt. I wanted to protect you.”

I blinked, and images of her castle in Spain sprung to life. She was in my head again, manipulating my thoughts like the early days. Mentally, I reached for her to shove her back out, but it was like grabbing smoke. The memories blurred, and then abruptly focused. I was back in the dark dungeon with its damp, crumbling walls. I was lying on the cold slab, hovering somewhere between life and death, with only the sound of Sadira’s voice to guide me back from madness.

Most nightwalkers are made in a night. A kiss of death, an exchange of blood, and the deed was done. But Sadira had wanted something more than when she made me. She wanted a First Blood, and thus she spent ten years—night after endless night—nursing me into her world and bringing me into the darkness. And when she was done, I was her greatest creation.

Our years together were ugly. She wanted absolute control over me; the same control she had over the other dozen vampires that resided in her castle. She had created a few others, but I was her only First Blood. They all flocked to her, clinging to her image of the caring, protective mother, but I never believed those lies, and only stayed because I thought I had no other option.

Now, however, I was free. Clutching that thought, I finally shoved Sadira from my mind and threw up as many metal barriers as I could. I pushed her back until she was just a vague shadow at the edge of my thoughts.

“I did not come here to fight with you, my Mira.” Sadness tinged her voice. “When I felt your presence, I thought you had come to talk.”

“Did you think I had come back to you?” Dragging my eyes back to my maker, I shook my head. “How could you believe such a thing?”

Sadira smiled at me, her head tilted to the side. The look a parent gave a foolish child; one of infinite patience and love. “Why do you still harbor this hatred for me?” We were circling each other like cats, waiting for an opening. “Does it chase away the nightmares? Does it help you to forget about Crete…and Calla?”