Kneeling beside me, he slowly placed one hand on my shoulder, causing me to flinch. “Mira, are you all right?” I was wounded mentally and physically, and I needed time to heal and think, but I would get neither. Yet time was slipping away from me, and Valerio’s unexpected presence in my domain indicated there was a new problem that needed my unique attention.

“Bring me Danaus,” I commanded in a low voice.

“Is he the one that did this to you?” Valerio’s hand tightened on me even though there was no change in tone in his voice.

“No. Bring him to me.”

“Where is he?”

My eyes fell shut and I reached out with my senses, letting my powers wash over the entire city of Savannah and the surrounding suburbs in a great wave. To my surprise, I found Danaus exactly where I had left him—at Factors Walk. Had only a couple minutes passed when it felt like years?

Mira! came Danaus’s instant reply when he sensed my touch.

Valerio is coming for you, I simply stated and then pulled quickly away, setting up mental barriers as I went. I didn’t want the hunter in my head, didn’t want him to know about the monster that seemed to be linked to my earliest beginnings, my weak pathetic human roots.

“He’s at Factors Walk,” I said, shoving a mental image of the location into Valerio’s mind. The nightwalker jerked away at the unexpected invasion, releasing his hold on my shoulder, but I didn’t care. “Bring Danaus to me now.”

Wordlessly, my longtime friend and companion stood and disappeared from sight. I had enough time to reach out and pick up the silver hourglass that rested between my bent legs before Danaus and Valerio reappeared. With a grunt, I flung the timepiece across the room, where it to shattered into hundreds of pieces, sending out a spray of black sand like a plume of deadly smoke.

The hunter took one look at the room before grabbing a handful of Valerio’s white shirt and slamming him against the nearest wall. “What the hell have you done?” he snarled. Danaus’s powers bubbled up with his anger, filling the small, broken room with a warm haze of anger. This time, I felt as if I could reach out and touch those powers. And if I really wanted to, I could give them only the slightest shove and Danaus would boil Valerio’s blood. This new power carried with it a haunting temptation, like low-hanging fruit just waiting to be plucked.

“He didn’t do anything,” I muttered, shaking my head as if to clear it from too many dark thoughts. Energies swirled around me like ghosts, each with its own demands and desires. “He found me like this.”

Danaus released Valerio with a small shove and stepped over to me. Kneeling down, he placed one hand beneath my chin and forced me to lift my head. I knew what he saw. I was cut, battered, swollen, and bruised to the point of being barely recognizable. My clothes were shredded and I was covered in my own dried blood. From the moment that Nick had gotten me alone in my home, he had taken the time to beat me completely senseless so I didn’t have a chance at fighting back. Didn’t have a hope.

“Is Gaizka gone?” I asked, unable to stop the tremble that slipped into my voice at the mention of the bori that tried to steal Danaus away.

“It’s gone.” He cupped my face with both his hands and looked me in the eye. “You saw it. The doorway opened and Gaizka was drawn back inside. Caged. Gone forever.”

My eyes fell shut as a tear slipped down my cheek. “Forever,” I repeated, bitterness eating away at the word before it could travel much farther than my lips. Forever seemed like such a pretty concept. Aurora and the naturi were supposed to be locked away from the world forever, but they escaped. Why couldn’t the horde of bori that were waiting in their own little holding pen break free as well?

“What’s Gaizka?” Valerio asked.

I turned my head toward the nightwalker, still resting my face in Danaus’s hands. His warmth was wrapped around me in a comforting embrace, and I wasn’t ready to leave it just yet and dive back into the cold brutal world that waited for me. “A bori who escaped. We locked it away again.”

I opened my eyes to find Valerio standing with a somewhat blank expression. One hand was outstretched, with the tips of his fingers pressed to the doorjamb as if to steady himself as the room threatened to spin around him. I could easily guess that it was taking all of his strength and considerable willpower not to show the terror I knew was screaming away in his mind.

The bori, along with the naturi, were our greatest enemies. Yet where the naturi were content to simply destroy us, the bori were determined to once again control us. They were, after all, the creators of all nightwalkers. Centuries ago the nightwalkers and the lycans locked away the bori and the naturi, but recently our prisoners had been escaping their bonds.

“It’s gone?” Valerio asked in a breathless voice. “You’re sure it’s gone?”

Pulling my face out of Danaus’s grasp, I rested my head against the desk behind me and closed my eyes. “It’s gone.”

“It . . . Gaizka . . . did this?” Valerio inquired.

“Yes,” I quickly said before Danaus could speak. It was a lie, but it was something I knew Valerio would easily believe. I still had no idea what I would tell Danaus when the time finally came, but for now neither man needed to know who had been in the library with me. I was trying to come to terms with it myself. I didn’t need to think about the repercussions of other people knowing.

“But it’s gone now,” I said with a grunt as I tried to push to my feet. To my surprise, Danaus swept his arms beneath me and picked me up, cradling me against his large chest.

“You need to rest,” he said firmly, starting to walk out of the room.

“She needs to feed,” Valerio countered in a cold voice as he came to stand in front of the hunter, stopping him from taking me to whatever soft, comfortable location he had in mind. Bed sounded very nice. Feeding required more energy than I was willing to expend until the next evening.

“But I’m not going to get either, because I need to know why you’ve suddenly shown up in my domain,” I said tartly, pinning Valerio with a dark gaze. “This isn’t a pleasure visit, is it?”

“It’s always a pleasure to see you, Mira.” Valerio smiled, as some of the tension eased out of his strong shoulders. The destruction of the library, my appearance, and the mention of the bori had temporarily shaken up the nightwalker’s usual unflappable calm. But he now seemed to be settling back into his usual self of untouchable poise and charm.

Laying my head against Danaus’s chest, I listened to the steady rhythm of his heartbeat, letting the soothing sound push back the pain. Valerio and I had some kind of business to discuss, and I had a dark feeling I knew who it involved. “Danaus, either put me down or put me in the parlor. There’s no rest for the wicked in this city.”

A part of me half expected the hunter to simply drop me on my ass exactly where he stood, but I must have looked pretty damn bad because he carried me into the main parlor and gently settled me on the sofa while he took a nearby chair to my left. Valerio followed us silently into the room, which was impressive considering the creaky, hardwood floors, but then Ancients had all kinds of special skills that we younger ones could only dream about.

Valerio walked over to the marble fireplace and turned around, his hands on his hips as he looked down at his feet, a frown toying with the corners of his lips. The nightwalker was weighing his words. If he was trying to be cautious, I knew it did not bode well for me.

“Out with it,” I snapped. “You’re not here for Knox.” Yet even as I uttered the words, I felt a strange tightening in my chest at the thought of it. What if he was here to take back the nightwalker he had made centuries ago? Not only had I come to count on Knox to help me maintain the peace in my domain, but I also saw him as a good friend. I didn’t want Valerio to snatch him away from me.