I had never heard the name before, but for some reason it caused my heart to stutter. Mira’s fear filled the room, pushing out the hunger for a moment. Whoever Calla was, she dominated Mira’s concerns. Her fear for Calla was enough to make her threaten the very people she trusted the most in the world, including myself.

“Who’s Calla?”

Mira lifted one hand to her head, which she shook as if trying to finally clear the clutter surrounding her thoughts. A couple more tears streaked down her cheeks and her other hand began to tremble. The balls of fire slowed in their course around her body.

“Who’s Calla, Mira?”

“She’s my daughter,” she whispered in a broken voice. “Please, Danaus, don’t hurt my daughter.”

I stared at the nightwalker, afraid to speak. Mira had once told me that she had had a life before she had been reborn as a nightwalker. It had never occurred to me that she might have actually had a daughter. And right now, I didn’t want to be the one to tell her that her daughter had died centuries ago.

Slowly, I crossed the room and stood before the nightwalker who had fought and protected me. Reaching above the fireballs that had stopped moving, I cupped her face with both my hands, wiping away her tears with my thumbs. She trembled at my touch, but didn’t try to move away as I forced her to look up at me. I could see the pain in her wide lavender eyes. I had to wonder if the hunger was driving her mad. It didn’t make sense that she refused to feed. My presence had never stopped her from feeding in the past. Why should it now? Unless there was some darker reason for her reluctance.

“Mira, she’s gone,” I murmured, trying to put it as gently as possible. “Calla passed on centuries ago. She was your human daughter and she has already died. She’s safely away from Nerian and the reach of any other naturi.”

“But…”

“She’s not here,” I continued. My left hand swept up and pushed some red hair from her face. “I’m sorry. It’s just you and me, alone in this room. No naturi. No Calla.”

“I saw them!”

“No, you didn’t. They were just hallucinations. You haven’t fed for days. I can feel it. You need to feed before you hurt someone or yourself.”

Mira blinked and confusion filled her gaze. The fear that had filled her seemed to be washed away and the hunger swam to the forefront again. She flinched at its sudden return, but I could feel her pushing it back. At one time, she had sworn that she would never feed off me and strangely enough I believed her when she made that vow. She was starving now, but I knew that she wouldn’t bite me if it was within her power not to. However, I think that decision was slowly slipping out of her grasp.

“Danaus?” she whispered. “What’s happening to me?”

“You need to feed. Gabriel’s here. Or you can go into the city and hunt. You have to do something before you kill someone.”

“I—I can’t,” she said before jerking out of my grasp. The fireballs were instantly extinguished, seeming to plunge the dimly lit room into darkness.

“This can’t go on,” I said, unable to believe that I was arguing for her to actually feed off of someone. However, the alternative was worse. A starved Mira was infinitely worse for this city and the world. She was hallucinating, her mind spiraling into paranoia and madness.

I took a step toward her as she stumbled over to her desk. She picked up her cell phone from the top of the desk and quickly dialed a number.

“I need you,” she said in a low voice. “I can’t wait any longer.” It didn’t seem as if she waited for a response before she hung up the phone.

I started to walk toward the nightwalker, desperate to convince her that she needed to feed when there was a soft pop in the air near the doorway. I looked up to find Ryan standing there in his usual gray suit, while his pure white hair brushed his shoulders. His gold eyes lit on me before he looked over at Mira.

“What are you doing here?” I demanded, suddenly angry at his presence in Mira’s house. The warlock was supposed to be in England already, not still lingering in Savannah. This couldn’t possibly be a good sign.

“I’m here to help Mira,” he said with a smile.

“Leave, Danaus,” Mira ordered in a firm, cold voice.

“I’m not leaving,” I replied, starting to raise my voice. “What’s going on here?”

“I believe the lady said leave,” Ryan said, his smile widening. With a slight wave of his hand, Ryan magically lifted me off my feet and threw me into the open hallway. Behind me, the double doors to the library slammed shut, sending the noise echoing through the entire house. Mira was alone with Ryan, and there was no way I could stop whatever the warlock had planned for her.

I paced like a caged tiger, my footsteps muffled by the Persian rug that ran the length of the hallway. Upon regaining my feet, I had tried to open the doors and barge back into the room, but they had been magically sealed. I was not getting back into the room until Ryan was done with Mira.

The warlock had a way of using people without their knowledge. Charismatic and deeply manipulative, Ryan always seemed to get exactly what he wanted with as little compromise on his part as possible. When he swept into Themis centuries ago, I had been content to let the researchers follow his lead. They were searching for information on the occult and nothing appeared to be more opportune than a powerful warlock offering to provide them with the inside information they sought.

In the end, what did I care who they picked as their leader? So long as I was able to hunt nightwalkers and purge the earth of their evil, I didn’t care who was running Themis. But I should have cared. For two centuries, I watched Ryan use and manipulate creatures for his own benefit, seeming to suck them dry until they were nothing more than hollowed-out shells of hate and fear. The warlock fed my own hatred for nightwalkers, never seeing fit to disillusion me of some of my more erroneous beliefs about the species. My own burning hatred only served to blind me and tighten Ryan’s hold over me. His own personal executioner.

And now the gold-eyed warlock had set his sights on the Fire Starter, one of the most powerful nightwalkers in existence. He couldn’t have her. I wouldn’t allow Ryan to use Mira in the same way he had used me. He was powerful enough alone. He didn’t need Mira fighting at his side.

Turning back to the doors, I gritted my teeth and prepared to put my shoulder into the thick wood when I heard the soft metallic click of a lock being unlatched. One of the doors swung silently open and stopped. I lurched forward and shoved both doors open. Ryan was slumped in one of the chairs, his skin a sickly shade of white. His tie had been loosened and the left side of his neck lay bare. Mira leaned against the front of the desk, a flush to her pale face. The red haze that had filled the house had finally abated, with Mira’s hunger satisfied at long last. And yet, the circles under her eyes seemed darker now, with color in her face, and her fingers were still trembling.

With a low snarl, I grabbed the lapels of Ryan’s coat and lifted him out of the chair to his feet. “Whatever you’re doing has to stop!” I shouted, giving him a hard shake.

“He’s helping me,” Mira said, placing a hand on my shoulder.

“He’s not helping you,” I snapped, my gaze never wavering from the warlock. While he was not openly smiling at me, I could see the laughter in his eyes. “Ryan doesn’t help anyone but himself.”

“Maybe helping Mira is in my best interest,” Ryan purred.

I snorted in response, my fists tightening in the material of his jacket. I was ready to pitch Ryan through the nearest window if I thought for a second I could.

“I need his help,” Mira said. Her hand squeezed my shoulder, and it was a fight to not shrug her off.