My hold on my temper finally snapped. Flames whooshed up around Sofia, burning through the carpet, drapes, and furniture. She kept the fire from consuming her but remained trapped in a tight circle. I stepped through the flames with my blade in hand. Above the crackling of the flames I heard someone shout my name, but I didn’t look up. I couldn’t take the chance. Sofia was a witch and I was sure that she still had a trick or two up her sleeve.

As I stepped into the circle of fire with her, she disappeared from my sight. I immediately extinguished the flames and scanned the room. I had felt the brush of power when she disappeared. She didn’t have enough power to go far. She wasn’t as strong a witch as I had thought, which was more than a little surprising. But then, Macaire wouldn’t have been able to control a powerful witch very easily. Regardless, she was mine for what she had done to Danaus and me.

“Where did she go?” I shouted, my eyes whipping from one end of the burned and bloody room to the other.

“I feel her outside,” Stefan replied after a second.

I darted outside, my blood-soaked stockings slipping on the hardwood floors. Gravel and snow bit into my feet as I hit the yard. With a wave of my hand the tires of the car that Sofia was climbing into exploded as the rubber melted under the fires that suddenly burned around them.

A roll of thunder rumbled in the distance, but the sound was approaching us. Rowe was outside and finally in the clear to use his own powers. The wind swirled around us, throwing up flakes of snow and the occasional dead leaf. I didn’t need to look overhead to see the black clouds beginning to pour across the sky. Rowe wanted Sofia dead as much as I did. She was one of those responsible for his imprisonment.

“She’s mine!” I shouted, pointing at Rowe.

“Not if I get her first!”

“Macaire!” Sofia screamed in terror, but it was too late. I lunged across the yard in a blur of color and grabbed her by the neck. I threw her away from the car and followed after her, narrowly missing the lightning bolt that came streaking from the sky to smash into the car. She landed in a mound of snow with a heavy rush of air expelled from her lungs. I landed on top of her and sank my fangs into her neck before she could make a sound, before she could even raise a fist to push me away.

As I drained her of blood, I pushed deep inside her mind. She felt me in her thoughts and tried to scream, but it came out as only a low gurgle. Once there, I showed her the horrors I had witnessed over the years. I convinced her of the torture that still awaited her when I was finally through feeding off of her. Her heart pounded in her chest until I was sure that it would soon explode, pumping her warm blood that much faster into my cold frame.

When I had drunk all I could, I lifted my mouth from her throat but not my presence from her mind. She stared off into oblivion, not seeing the world around her, but the horrible world of bleak terror and pain that I painted for her. After only a couple seconds longer, her heart finally gave out and she uttered a shuddering gasp. She died in the tight grasp of fear, convinced that a long existence of pain awaited her.

Wiping my mouth with the back of my hand, I rose to my feet and backed away from her corpse. Her blood still leaked from her neck, staining the white snow red. I felt both rejuvenated and disgusted simultaneously. It had been a long time since I’d last killed someone in that manner. Locked in fear, I left their mind a shattered mess of chaos and pain in their final minutes. It always left me wondering if the soul ever escaped those grim horrors when death finally came or if those same fears followed them through the rest of eternity. I didn’t like it. Killing someone was a matter of blood, violence, and hopefully a quick death. This was a slow torture that damaged both mind and soul.

I had killed Sofia like that out of hatred and pain. I hated what I’d done, but at the same time I couldn’t salvage any feelings of regret. Despite my distaste for the act, I still hated her with every fiber of my being. She had stolen Danaus from me.

“Mira?” Stefan said, drawing my gaze over to where he stood with a blade pointed at Rowe. The naturi glared at me, his hands lowered but open, showing that he held no weapon. For now he was abiding by our agreement. He had only struck at Sofia, the nightwalkers, and the lycanthropes that had attacked us. Rowe had made no move against me and mine.

“Let him go,” I said in a low, weary voice.

“Are you insane?”

“I’m beginning to think so,” I muttered. I had already heard that enough from Sofia. I was starting to question my sanity.

“Mira, he’s the one you’ve been after all these months! He’s been trying to capture you. He’s going to kill you. We won’t get another chance like this,” Stefan argued, taking a step closer to the naturi. Rowe never moved. He just stared at me with his narrowed eyes flashing in the light coming from the house.

“I know that!” I shouted back at him. “Do you seriously think I don’t know exactly who he is and what he means to do to me? I said, let him go!”

Stefan glared at the naturi for another second before he finally straightened his stance and put the knife he was holding back into a sheath up his sleeve along his wrist. He walked over toward me, partially standing between me and the naturi as if he were still determined to protect me.

Rowe arched one brow at me while the corner of his mouth tweaked in a smile. “I am . . . surprised.”

“Just go now before I change my mind,” I growled.

Rowe hunched over as a pair of massive black wings sprouted from his back. He extended them to their full length, catching the wind that was still snaking through the city. As he lifted off the ground, I took a step toward him.

“Find Cynnia!” I shouted up to him.

The naturi hovered in the air like a piñata waiting for me to take a whack at him. Rowe cocked his head to one side in thought. “You think killing her will win me back to Aurora’s side?”

“No, but I think you will find a home with Cynnia that you will never find with Aurora. Live your life, Rowe, while you can, instead of chasing after death.”

“Same to you, Mira,” he murmured before rising into the night sky. I watched after him for several seconds until he completely disappeared from sight. I knew he would leave Budapest. All the other naturi here were dead, and he knew that I wouldn’t be remaining there for long. I wasn’t sure he would actually seek out Aurora’s renegade sister Cynnia, but for him it would be a step in the right direction. I had a feeling that Cynnia would accept him, scars and all, where Aurora never could, no matter what he accomplished for her.

Closing my eyes, I buried my face in Stefan’s chest. The nightwalker wrapped his arms around me, blocking out some of the cold wind that beat against my exposed flesh. I had killed Sofia, and soon I would have to face Danaus, but I wasn’t ready. Not yet. Not tonight.

“Take me back to the hotel,” I whispered, barely getting the words past the lump in my throat. I needed to be away from this place. I had woken up to find myself locked with my mortal enemy, a pawn in an elaborate game to turn Danaus against me so he would be forced to kill me. I’d had all I could take for one evening. I needed somewhere safe where the world could touch me no longer.