“I can’t do this any longer. It’s not working,” Danaus said, throwing his hands up in the air as he walked away from me.

It felt as if a vise were suddenly gripping my heart, threatening to crush it. I was losing Danaus before I’d even had a chance to truly enjoy his companionship. But then, I had no doubt that everyone would have said our would-be relationship didn’t have a prayer of working. I had wanted to try, though.

“You didn’t give us a chance,” I whispered. “I may be jealous of Sofia, but you make it sound like I have every reason to be. You can’t get over the fact that you just might be attracted to a nightwalker—the evil ones. So when a pretty human crosses your path and winks, you jump on her like a dog on a bone.”

“Don’t make this about us. It’s about freeing a helpless human from a powerful nightwalker. It’s about protecting humans from your kind. That’s what I do,” Danaus said, turning to glare at me. “I’m going to free her.”

“Then you have to choose between me and Sofia,” I replied, putting my hands on my hips. “The only time you will be able to successfully free her is during the day, when Veyron and all the other nightwalkers are asleep. That will leave me unprotected, and there is a very good chance that Veyron is going to send someone to kill me in the morning now that I have taken Budapest right out from under him. You save her, you’ll be killing me.”

“I can’t leave her.”

“She’s in no danger.”

“You don’t know that,” Danaus grumbled.

“No, I don’t, but I do know that I’m in greater danger than she is at this moment. Are you really going to choose her over me?”

“My job is to protect humans, not vampires,” Danaus replied. He grabbed his coat from where it lay on the chair and jerked it on. I barely had a chance to step out of the way before he pulled open the door and stalked out into the hall, slamming it shut behind him. It was still several hours before sunrise, plenty of time for him to plan an attack on Veyron’s home and steal Sofia away. He was going to start a war that I wasn’t willing to fight. Of course, that was assuming I would survive that long.

My stomach twisted into a tight knot and I descended slowly to my knees in front of the door leading out of the hotel room. He had left me. Danaus, the one creature I’d been able to depend on to protect me during the past several months, had left me to protect someone else. Tears welled up in my eyes, but I clenched my teeth and sucked in a sharp breath as I held the tears back, refusing to let them fall. I would not cry over Danaus.

We hadn’t had a real chance at making this work. He was a hunter and I was his prey. Did I really think that he could ever come to care for me? It was impossible. Danaus longed to be a real, normal human. It was understandable that he would be attracted to the thing he wanted more than his next breath. I represented everything he didn’t want to be, everything he didn’t want to be a part of. His enemy.

If Danaus wasn’t going to help me, then I had to find a way to help myself. I wasn’t about to curl up and die just because I could no longer rely on the hunter to protect my back when I was at my most vulnerable. Closing my eyes, I reached out with my mind, seeking the one person left in the area that I felt would prefer to see me rise the next night. Valerio instantly reacted to my mental touch. I could sense his immediate concern and unease. No words had been necessary. He knew that something terrible was wrong. But then, above everyone else, Valerio knew me best. Maybe even better than Jabari.

I didn’t even have a chance to regain my feet before he appeared in the hotel suite, still wrapped in his thick coat and scarf. He looked down at me for only a second before scanning the rest of the suite with his eyes and his powers to determine that we were truly alone.

“Did I disturb you in the middle of someone?” I asked as I pushed off the floor with one hand. I was too tired to even use my powers to rise to my feet. Valerio reached out and caught my free hand, helping me.

“No one is more important to me than you,” he said smoothly, causing one corner of my mouth to quirk at the pretty lie. “Where is the vampire hunter?”

I looked down at his chest, avoiding his question with one of my own. “Can I stay with you? I am assuming that you’re flitting back and forth from Vienna each night.”

“Of course you can spend your day with me.” Valerio reached up and smoothed some hair away from the side of my face. He laid his hand under my chin and forced me to look up at him. “What has happened? Where is Danaus?”

I stepped away from Valerio and forced my shoulders to straighten as I took a couple steps over to one of the chairs in the living area. “He left.” Those two words sounded indifferent, but something inside of me fractured, leaving shards digging into my soul.

“Why?”

“He wants to free Sofia.”

Valerio’s footsteps were muffled on the thick carpet as he approached me. He laid a hand against my lower back as he came to stand beside me. “And you told him no.” I remained silent, staring blindly at the wall opposite me. “You did the right thing. Sofia is just a pet, and you can’t go interfering where it won’t benefit you.”

“He’s convinced that she wants her freedom and he is determined to help her.”

He slid his fingers up my spine in a reassuring caress. “She made her choice. If she wanted her freedom so badly, she should never have agreed to give her life over to Veyron.”

“Danaus doesn’t see it that way. She’s human and wants out. He has to protect her from us.”

Valerio reached around and gently grabbed both of my shoulders so he could turn me to face him. “Mira, dearest.” I tried to pull out of his grasp, but he refused to release me. “He’s a hunter. He’s human. Not one of us. He doesn’t understand our world, he can’t. A blind man could have seen what was happening between you two, and I hate to tell you that it just won’t work.”

I knew I wanted the impossible, and I didn’t need to hear how wrong I had been from Valerio. It was like twisting the knife in my heart a little more so that I would finally learn my lesson not to care for anyone. Others in my life had died because of their association with me. Danaus, on the other hand, had chosen to walk away from me. For a moment I couldn’t decide what was worse.

“He left. I think he went to free Sofia during the day,” I whispered, resting my forehead against Valerio’s shoulder.

“Then you stay with me. We’ll deal with the repercussions tomorrow evening,” he said. I didn’t need to tell him that Danaus had chosen to protect the human over me, or that Veyron would undoubtedly send men to kill me during the day. I didn’t need to actually say the words. Valerio knew and he was willing to take me in.

“Don’t tell Stefan,” I said, wrapping one arm around his waist.

“I won’t.” He brushed a gentle kiss across my temple. “But you have to remember that we’ve all had troubles with a human every once in a while during our long lifetimes. I’m sure Stefan has had his fair share of problems.”

“Yes, but if the others find out that there has been a . . . a falling out between Danaus and me, they may take that as a sign to start hunting him.”

Valerio pulled back so he could look me in the face. “You’re still protecting him?”

Leaning back into Valerio, I nodded. I had pulled Danaus into these dark waters, and I wasn’t about to leave him to the sharks. We might not see eye-to-eye on some matters, but that did not mean I was willing to turn my back on him. I just couldn’t. I still needed him.