Danaus’s hand slipped away from my stomach as he took a step back away from me. “What are you talking about?”

“We’re going back to Venice tomorrow. If we’re lucky, we can be headed back to Savannah in less than three nights. This matter here is settled. I’m not playing any of Macaire’s games.”

“We can’t leave.” Danaus stepped in front of me as I shifted to start walking up the path I had come down only a few minutes earlier. “What about Sofia?”

My face twisted in confusion and frustration. “We were sent here to take care of the naturi in Budapest. Unless you’re sensing some that I’m not aware of, there should only be Rowe left. And that naturi has no tie to Budapest. Hell, I wouldn’t be surprised if he followed us back to Venice. I’m his target, not world domination by the naturi.”

“What about Sofia? You said—”

“To hell with Sofia!” I snapped, finally losing my hold on my temper. “She got herself into that mess. Let her get herself out. It’s not my job to save every pathetic creature that crosses my path!”

“You said we would help her!”

“I honestly thought we would. I thought in the end that we would have to kill Veyron before we finally got to leave Budapest. I was wrong. We don’t need to kill him. What do I care about how Budapest is being run? So long as the humans aren’t being exposed to our world, it doesn’t matter what Veyron does with the other nightwalkers and the warlocks and the lycans. That’s his business.”

“They tried to kill you! You’re just going to walk away from that?” Danaus prodded, earning a dark smile from me. I took a step closer to him, laying my hand on his chest. Beneath my fingertips I could feel his heart pounding like a tribal drum, urging me on.

“Now you’re just trying to goad me,” I purred. “Isn’t it enough that I risked my neck for the coven to get rid of the naturi in Budapest? You want me to go hunting nightwalkers, warlocks, and whatever other creature that crosses my path. Anything just so long as the by-product is a free Sofia.”

“Yes,” he admitted. I clenched my teeth and attempted to push past him, but the hunter grabbed my arm, holding me in place. “You’re not walking away from me.”

“This conversation is over.”

“It’s not. We have to do something about Sofia. She’s trapped. She’s a poor human that has gotten ensnared by an extremely powerful vampire. Doesn’t that mean something to you?”

“Not really,” I said with a shrug.

“Damn it, Mira! We can’t leave her. She doesn’t have any chance of escaping on her own. Why can’t you help her? You went out of your way to save both Tristan and Nicolai.”

“Think about it, Danaus!” I shouted back at him, wrenching my arm free of his grasp. “Was I really risking that much when I rode to their rescue? In both cases, the coven needed to keep me alive. I was in serious danger of getting my ass handed to me by Jabari or Macaire, but they weren’t going to kill me. Veyron doesn’t need me alive. He’s already proven that. Lycans and warlocks have tried to kill me in the span of just a couple nights. I don’t need to go looking for trouble. I’ve got enough.”

“You’re not going to help me?” he asked.

“Damn it!” I growled, balling both of my hands into fists as I fought the urge to light a fire. “Let her go, Danaus. She doesn’t deserve to be saved.”

“How can you say that?”

“Because she asked for what she got! She wanted to be Veyron’s plaything. Why should I risk my neck to save her because she suddenly doesn’t like what she got? What if we free her and she hooks up with another nightwalker in six months? Do you go free her later when she grows bored?”

“She’s a trapped human! She doesn’t deserve to be held prisoner by . . . by . . .”

“By what? A monster?” I supplied.

“Yes,” he hissed.

“So you’ve made your choice.” I crossed my arms over my chest, protecting myself from the words I knew were going to come next. “You’re choosing her because she’s human, regardless of what we’ve got going.”

“What? Why does this have to be about us?”

“Because if this was some guy trapped with Odelia, you wouldn’t care. But Sofia is an attractive young, helpless woman that desperately needs your help and you can’t wait to play the role of the white knight. It’s because you can’t stomach the idea of being attracted to a nightwalker and would rather be with a normal human.”

“That’s—That’s ridiculous!”

“It isn’t! Being with me terrifies you because you know that deep down you are more like me that you care to admit.”

Danaus shook his head at me, taking a step backward. “I won’t discuss this now. I want your help to free Sofia.”

“You also want me to take her back to Savannah with us and serve as her personal protector,” I cried. “I can’t do it.”

“Why? You had no problem taking responsibility for Tristan and Nicolai.”

“Because I won’t risk my life to protect another woman that you are attracted to when I’m the one who cares about you!” I screamed, shaking my hands at him. “I’ve had enough. If you want Sofia free, you fight Veyron for her. I’m leaving for Venice tomorrow night.”

Turning on my heel, I briskly walked back toward the bridge, leaving Danaus behind. A lump grew in my throat and it felt as if a hole had been ripped in my chest bigger than the wound that was healing in my stomach. I wanted Danaus for myself, but I knew deep down that I wasn’t what he wanted, and it was tearing me apart inside.

Roughly brushing aside tears that had gathered in the corners of my eyes, I crossed the bridge back to Buda, where I snagged the first two available young people that crossed my path and fed deeply. I wasn’t much in the mood for hunting, but I needed to replace the blood I had lost, particularly before I returned to Venice. I didn’t know what Macaire’s grand scheme was, and at the moment I didn’t care. I had been dispatched to Budapest to get rid of the naturi problem, and that was all. The naturi were gone, so it was time for me to go home again.

At the hotel, I put out the Do Not Disturb sign and shuffled across the room to the large window that looked down on the city. It was just a couple hours before dawn, and I was trapped in Budapest for the night. Valerio would need to feed and heal for the next few nights before he would be of any use to anyone again. Stefan would need to remain at his side for at least one night to serve as protection and to help him hunt. I had no quick escape to Vienna available to me this morning. And this time I had a dark suspicion that Danaus wouldn’t be coming back to the hotel. I had given him his choice—Sofia or me—and he was going to choose the human.

Leaning my head against the glass, I closed my eyes and tried to organize my thoughts. Danaus was determined to free Sofia, most likely leaving me to deal with Veyron since the hunter would need to focus on getting the little pet to a safe location away from Budapest. After my last run-in with Rowe, I had been hoping to avoid another encounter with Veyron and his flunkies.

The whole thing left me scratching my head. The power structure here was unlike any I had seen in any other domain. Nightwalkers didn’t play well with other powerful creatures. It just wasn’t in our nature. To make matters worse, there wasn’t just one powerful creature in Budapest, but four.

Like the coven. Cursing, I stumbled over to the desk against the far wall and brushed off some debris from the earlier fight. The room was still trashed, and I shuddered to think what Danaus had to do or say to keep things quiet with the hotel management. It wasn’t the first time a hotel room had been destroyed because of my daytime presence, and the incident was usually smoothed over with copious amounts of money.

Grabbing up a piece of blank paper, I wrote down Veyron’s name and circled it. Beside it, I wrote Ferko and Clarion’s names and circled each one individually. Reluctantly, I put down Odelia’s name as well. My experience with her had not been impressive, but according to Ferko, she was the one to actually order Michelle’s death, making her a power player in her own right.