“The conservatory. Why?”

“Naturi.”

The Telfair Conservatory was a large structure made almost entirely of glass and steel, housing some of the rarest flowers and plants in the world. Except for a couple of streetlamps at the top and bottom of the block, the area was completely black. Large trees and palms rose up around the conservatory like prehistoric beasts in the night, guarding the structure and its secrets.

Mira parked her car in front of the enormous greenhouse and stuffed her keys deep into her pants pocket so they wouldn’t jingle as she walked. For the first time in Savannah tonight, she looked tense. Her hands were balled into tight fists at her side and her face was carefully wiped of all expression.

Of course, I wasn’t feeling much better. There were six members of the naturi somewhere in the large structure, and I couldn’t begin to guess why. Could it have something to do with Abigail? Or had they been sent by their queen, Aurora, to collect a specific flower or plant for a spell? If so, why here? The Telfair Conservatory couldn’t be the only hothouse to have what Aurora needed. Why willingly go into Mira’s known domain unless it was with the sole purpose of taking on the Fire Starter?

Unfortunately, I hadn’t a clue as to what we were facing. I could only sense the naturi; I couldn’t tell exactly which clan we were dealing with.

“Open the trunk,” I said when Mira started to walk away from the car. With brow furrowed, the vampire pulled her keys out of her pocket and pushed a button on the remote. The latch gave a muffled click and the trunk popped open.

Lifting the lid higher, I dug through my duffel bag. In the faint yellow illumination cast by the tiny trunk lights, I quickly inspected my Browning, checking to see that the magazine was still full. Slipping it back into the holster, I clipped it to my belt at the small of my back. I shed my jacket, tossing it in the trunk. The cold night air bit through my cotton turtleneck.

“Need anything?” I asked, looking up at Mira. The nightwalker glanced over her shoulder for a second at the looming glass building then moved to stand beside me at the trunk, a dark frown pulling at her lips. She opened her own bag and withdrew what looked to be the Glock I gave her months ago when we flew to Venice. With more ease than I had expected, she slipped the magazine from her gun, briefly glanced at the bullets, and then easily replaced it. When I first gave her the weapon, she had held it like a piece of rotting garbage. Apparently, her view of guns had changed. While I had never been overly fond of guns, they were very effective when attempting to dispatch the naturi. For that reason, I adapted.

Mira shoved the gun into her jacket pocket and softly shut the trunk. The vampire led me around the side of the conservatory to a side entrance. I pulled my wallet out of my back pocket and withdrew a pair of tools to pick the lock, a skill I had picked up during my travels to the Far East and refined upon my arrival in London, though I was still struggling with some of the more sophisticated burglar alarm systems. I was about to kneel down before the door, with its curved steel handle, when Mira put a hand on my shoulder stopping me. Stepping in front of me, she pulled her wallet from her back pocket. I snorted derisively when she withdrew a credit card and returned the wallet back to her pocket.

“You’re kidding, right?” I whispered.

“Nope,” she murmured. She carefully worked the credit card into the slim crevice between the door and the doorjamb. “The conservatory is run and funded heavily by the local pack. Only idiots with a serious death wish break in.”

Yeah, idiots like us. I thought it, but didn’t say it. With Mira, it was always something.

After only a few seconds of shimmying the card, Mira had the door unlocked.

“You’ve done this before,” I said as she slipped the credit card back into her pocket.

“This is one of my favorite spots in the city, but it closes at five. I have no choice,” she hissed.

“I’m not judging you.” And I wasn’t. There were many things that Mira missed out on due to her extreme allergy to sunlight.

“Sounds like it,” she grumbled, releasing the door as she stepped inside. I barely managed to catch the heavy metal door before it could bang closed.

“Why don’t they just give you a key?” I whispered.

Mira looked over her shoulder at me, her brow furrowed in confusion. “Why? My method works just fine.”

I followed behind her, soundlessly closing the door as I inwardly cursed her grouchiness. Her sharp mood shift could be understood, though. The naturi put her on edge. Neither of us knew what we were facing. We could be entering a battle with anything from the five different clans, or even Aurora herself, though I found it doubtful that the queen of the naturi would come after Mira. After the nightwalker nearly carved out her heart, I was willing to bet that Aurora was going to give the Fire Starter a little room for now.

All moonlight was instantly blotted out by the thick overhead foliage. The air was warm and dense with the scent of plants. The faint sound of trickling water tripped from deep in the room. A dozen different floral scents assailed me, mixing with the lilac scent drifting off of the nightwalker standing before me.

Mira stopped just inside the doorway, her tense body and still as a statue. She reached back with her left hand until her fingertips brushed my arm.

Are they close? She shoved the question within my brain. With those three words came a tumble of emotions, some feelings I struggled to even put names to. But mostly, it was anger. The naturi were not only in her home, but also in the one place she regarded as a private sanctuary.

“No,” I whispered, batting her hand away. I didn’t want her in my head, cluttering up my thoughts. “Feels like at the other end of the building, larger room.”

“How many?”

“Six.”

“Can you see?”

“A little,” I hedged. I blinked my eyes a couple of times, waiting for my night vision to improve. It was better than most humans’, but from what I could tell, I still lagged behind vampires and most lycans.

Ahead of me, trees and large plants began to take shape. A break in the leaves revealed a glimpse of the windows that comprised the opposite wall. The room we were standing in wasn’t more than twenty feet across.

“The path is narrow and wraps around the room. Stick to your right or you’ll fall in the water in the center of the room,” Mira instructed.

“What room is this?” I asked, following behind her as she headed deeper into the darkness.

“Rain forest.”

That explained the overwhelming humidity. I half expected the ceiling to open up in a brief downpour. Ducking my head to miss a low-hanging palm leaf, I stumbled into Mira, who had halted in the middle of the path.

“Do you hear that?” she demanded in a harsh whisper. I paused, straining to hear anything, but there was nothing beyond the high-pitched laughter of running water and the faint brush of leaves.

“What?”

Mira gave her head a hard shake before slowly moving forward. “Nothing.” Yet even as she spoke the word, I felt her send out a wave of energy from her body. The cool pulse passed through me and rippled through the rest of the building. She was searching for something or someone, which was strange because she could not sense the naturi without me. The nightwalker had briefly gained the ability while in Peru, but from what I had gathered during our recent association, she had lost the power. The ability seemed dependent upon her having access to large amounts of energy from the earth.

“Anyone?” I inquired after a couple of seconds.

“No.” She sounded puzzled, which did not fill me with an abundance of confidence. Mira was a vampire with more than six centuries of experience. The only thing she couldn’t sense was the naturi, and the occasional Ancient vampire. I didn’t like that she sounded puzzled.