Frowning, I bit back a curse. This was all idle speculation. I knew a fair amount regarding magic because I had suffered through enough run-ins with witches and warlocks to learn a few things. I needed to talk to Ryan and get his thoughts. Unfortunately, the white-haired warlock was his own bundle of trouble, and I was in no hurry to deal with him again just yet. I would have to manage with the witch’s unconscious companions for now.

Turning to approach Tristan, my knees buckled and then I found myself kneeling on the ground. I blinked once to clear the growing fog from around my thoughts. Using fire had sapped the last of my strength, and my body was demanding that I feed again and rest. What strength I had gained from feeding off the werewolf was gone.

The young vampire appeared at my side, a firm hand resting beneath my elbow. I gazed up at him, a worried expression twisting his handsome face. “Has she done something to you?” he inquired. For the first time since meeting him, I heard a soft accent in his speech. French maybe, but different. A remnant of his human life. Slowly, he guided me back to sit on the ground, my back pressed to the brick wall.

“No,” I replied with a weary smile. “Just tired. I need to rest a minute.” I jerked my head toward the human who had pulled the gun. “Is he still alive?”

“For now,” Tristan grumbled, the hand on my elbow tightening as his eyes drifted over to the body of our gunman.

Laying my left hand beneath his chin, I forced him to look at me. “And he’ll stay that way. I need you to discover the identity of our attackers without killing him.”

Frowning, Tristan rose and returned to the man’s side. He stood over the man, his fists on his hips. I couldn’t tell whether the nightwalker was stalling out of distaste for the task or if he had begun rummaging through the man’s mind. Some nightwalkers had to physically touch their prey to enter his or her mind, especially if the person was unconscious.

“David Perry,” Tristan suddenly said, a faintly far-off quality to his voice. His mind was half with me, half with the human. “Thirty-six. Ex-marine. From Birmingham, Alabama. He’s—” His words were broken off with a harsh hiss and his eyes glowed pale blue when he looked over at me. “He’s a member of the Daylight Coalition.”

“Tristan!” I barked, lurching to my feet as the nightwalker started to reach for the unconscious man. He halted, but still growled in the back of his throat, and I couldn’t blame him. I would have been happy to rip the human’s throat out at that second too.

The Daylight Coalition was a group of humans within the United States who knew of the existence of nightwalkers and sought our total extermination. Humanity believed them to be a cult of insane fanatics and didn’t take them seriously. Of course, that didn’t erase the fact that members of the Coalition had staked a number of nightwalkers during the daylight hours. Regardless of whether you resided in the United States, all nightwalkers knew of the Coalition. We all feared they were the future we faced if we came “out of the coffin,” so to speak.

But for now my concern was not the little zealot at my feet, but the witch and lycan he traveled with. All our information said that the Daylight Coalition was exclusively human, wisely avoided by the other races. In fact it was against our law to work with the Coalition. One turncoat could result in all out war. This was not a good development when we already had a war brewing with the naturi.

“Focus,” I snapped, standing beside Tristan. “Who was the woman?”

Tristan stared down at the man, radiating a lethal mix of anger and fear. “Caroline…Caroline Buckberry, but he wondered if it was her real name…” The anger started to ebb as his focus tightened on the man’s thoughts, causing his eyes to drift closed. “He didn’t know her. He was sent by the Houston branch to fetch the woman and the man. Harold Finchley. That’s all.” Tristan opened his eyes again and looked up at me. “He was told to go to London and bring them back to Houston. I don’t think he even knew what they were.”

“He didn’t have to know,” I murmured. “Perry is just a foot soldier. He follows the orders he’s given.”

“Do you think they were to be plants by the witches and lycans?” Tristan inquired. I didn’t miss the hopeful note in his voice.

“No,” I replied with a slight shake of my head. “The witches and warlocks have no business with the Coalition. Either one of them could have said something to explain their association with the human. But instead they attacked because they know the law.”

“But—”

“Forget what you saw,” I said, cutting off his next comment. “We have bigger problems.”

“The naturi.” His hands curled into fists and the muscles in his jaw tightened.

Yes, the naturi were coming and they would destroy us all, human and nightwalker, if given half a chance. In comparison, the Daylight Coalition was nothing; a fly on a rhino’s ass.

Standing, I propped my right shoulder against the alley wall and let my eyes drift shut for a moment. I hardly recognized my world anymore. A few nights ago I had been standing in my own domain back in my beloved Savannah, the warm summer air filled with the scent of honeysuckle and lilacs. It had been five hundred years since that night on Machu Picchu. The naturi were a distant memory, a dark nightmare from my past that could no longer touch me. The Daylight Coalition was just a fringe group with no contact with the others. But now both were threatening. My world was crumbling at an alarming rate and it all started with the hunter, Danaus. But there was no need to kill the messenger…yet.

Thoughts of him brought a faint smile to my lips as I pushed off the wall and opened my eyes. Tristan was watching me intently, waiting. He needed me alive to fulfill my promise to him. There was still time.

Briefly, I looked around the alley until I located the gun the human had used. There was no hesitation. There was no gray area in this law. Standing close, I fired a single bullet into the head of the lycanthrope. He had betrayed not only his own kind, but all the other races. He endangered our secret. And now he paid the cost with his life.

But his death didn’t dissolve the cold knot in my stomach. The Daylight Coalition’s main target had always been nightwalkers, but we were all confident they would attack any nonhumans eventually. Had Harold Finchley been a wolf acting alone, or was he part of a larger movement against nightwalkers?

“Wipe the memories of both men,” I said, motioning toward the drug dealer Tristan had fed from only minutes ago. Walking over to the Coalition member, I wiped the gun off on his shirt and dropped it by his body. “Then return to my hotel room.” Danaus would already be waiting there for us. From the hotel, we would head to the airport and grab my jet to Venice. If we were to have any hope of stopping the naturi and the coming war, we would need to first go to Venice and meet with the nightwalker Coven. They would know the best way to deal with the growing threat. They were the only ones who could summon an army.

“Where are you going?” Tristan asked.

A broad smile lifted my lips, revealing a pair of long white fangs. “To hunt.”