“You’re not a freak,” I said, putting my hand on her shoulder as she came to stand beside me again.

“Why would we think you’re a freak?” Mira asked, her brow furrowing as she looked from Lily to me.

“I can see auras. Didn’t he tell you?” Lily suddenly seemed to shrink in on herself. She took a step backward, starting to partially hide herself behind me.

“No, that only makes you more valuable,” Mira said, with a shrug of her shoulders. “Go upstairs and find a room to sleep in. Danaus will inspect it while I grab a bite.”

Frowning, I followed Lily up the stairs. We peeked into five different bedrooms before she finally chose one with soft yellow paint and a striped comforter on the queen-sized bed. I didn’t like where this was going. Mira was making the assumption that we would be keeping Lily indefinitely. While I had to admit that I hadn’t made any specific plans for the child after we finally managed to catch Abigail Bradford’s killer, I didn’t see how it would be possible for us to raise her. I had to return to London and Mira…Mira was a nightwalker. She couldn’t properly raise a child. In the end, Lily needed to be turned over to the authorities once we were sure that she was safe.

While Lily kicked off her shoes and hopped onto the bed, I walked over and quickly checked the windows, making sure they were shut and properly sealed. All the security measures that lined the interior of this house were properly in place. Mira was right. This house had to be one of the safest places in all of the city.

I shoved my hands into my pockets as I walked back over to the bedroom door. “It looks like there’s some pizza down in the kitchen if you’re hungry,” I said, turning and leaning my shoulder against the wooden doorjamb. “Gabriel will make sure that you have something for breakfast and lunch.”

Lily pushed up from where she had been lying in the middle of a pile of pillows and sat in the center of the bed. “You’re not going to be around?”

“I haven’t seen it yet, but I imagine that Mira sleeps in a sealed room for her protection. I’m either going to be sealed in the room or guarding the door from the outside. I won’t be able to hang out tomorrow. I’m sorry.”

Lily dropped her eyes to her hands in her lap, causing her dark hair to fall around her face. “These naturi she talked about…” she said in a low voice. “They hurt her?”

“Yes,” I sighed. “A long time ago, they did some very horrible things to her, things she can never forget. She needs to feel safe. At least for one day.”

“And you trust Gabriel and Matsui?” she said, lifting her head to look at me with a sharp, focused gaze.

“I don’t know Matsui, but I know Gabriel and I trust him,” I admitted, hoping that she wouldn’t use this as a new excuse to run. I couldn’t be in two places at once and Mira needed me. Unfortunately, if it came down to it, I wasn’t sure that Mira had the strength and control she would need to hypnotize Lily into sleeping through the day the same way she had with Shelly when we were in Peru. If I was stuck, I could always see if Tristan could do it. “Gabriel has done a very good job of protecting Mira, and he will do whatever it takes to keep you safe tomorrow.”

“All right,” Lily said, with a nod. “She got a TV around this place?”

“I have no doubt that she’s got one somewhere,” I said, fighting back a grin. “Just don’t go nosing into Tristan’s stuff unless he says you can. I’d rather not worry about a vampire taking a nip at you because you ventured into his territory.”

“Are they really territorial?” Lily asked.

“Can be.”

“Have you been hunting vampires a long time?”

“Yes, a very long time.”

“And now you’re friends with them?” she pressed. I had to crush the smile that was trying to push onto my lips, her curiosity was so amusing.

“Not really,” I hedged, pushing away from the doorjamb to stand with my legs spread. “We just have to work together on occasions to solve some bigger problems.”

“And when it’s solved, will you go back to hunting them?” she demanded.

“I don’t know. Probably.”

She shook her head at me, a frown crinkling in the corners of her eyes.

“It’s nothing that you need to worry about,” I said, wishing I could take away the concerned look on her face.

“But if you and Mira go back to being enemies, it means that I won’t get to see you both. It means that you won’t let me hang out with Tristan anymore. If Gabriel’s Mira’s bodyguard, then I probably won’t see him again,” she listed as her fears grew.

“It’s nothing you need to worry about,” I repeated, one corner of my mouth quirking in a smile. “We’ll work it all out in a few days. I think we all have bigger things to worry about. Go downstairs and get something to eat. I need to check on Gabriel and Mira.”

Lily still had a worried look on her face as she bounced off the bed and thundered down the stairs to the kitchen. I followed behind her at a slower pace, trying not to think about her questions. What were we going to do after this was all over? It was something that I had never had time to think about when I was involved with Mira before. Tomorrow was something we were never sure we were going to have, so such thoughts were never contemplated.

Now I wasn’t sure what I was going to do. I knew my time with Themis was done. I had watched Ryan use and destroy people over the long years and had never done anything about it. I could no longer turn a blind eye to his actions. It was time to move on.

And in truth, I didn’t think I had learned as much about nightwalkers as I would have hoped while I was at Themis. My short time with Mira had taught me that I was wrong about a lot of things, important things that could have easily decided whether a creature lived or died. It was time for me to move on. I had been with Themis for more than a couple of centuries, the longest I had ever bothered to stay in any one place. I had been a part of that institution before Ryan’s arrival and now I felt that it was time for me to leave. I just didn’t know where I would go next.

I followed Lily down the stairs and wandered into the kitchen to find Gabriel sitting at the table next to Lily and Matsui. The teenager was already halfway through her first slice of pizza while hammering Matsui with questions about vampires in Japan. Gabriel sat back in his chair, looking a little paler, but none the worse for wear.

“She’s expecting you downstairs,” Gabriel said when I entered the room. “The door is in the hall, under the staircase.”

“Watch over Lily tomorrow. Get her some food,” I stated as I reached over her and grabbed a slice of pizza.

“She’ll be fine,” Gabriel said with a faint smile.

“Ask Tristan’s permission before you jump back on his computer and stay out of trouble tomorrow,” I said around bites of pizza. I tapped Lily on the top of the head, getting her to look up at me.

“Gotcha,” she said with a smile. “See you tomorrow night.”

I nodded, grabbing a second slice of pizza before heading back through the house. It wasn’t the greatest pizza I had ever had. The crust was a little soggy and there didn’t seem to be enough cheese, but at that moment it was perfect. Like sleep, meals were something that were snuck in between catastrophes. Earlier today, I had managed to grab both breakfast and lunch with Lily because I knew that she needed food and it seemed to be an easy way to get her to open up a little bit to me about Abigail’s attacker. Unfortunately, once the sun set, all my attention turned to Mira. But then she seemed to fill whatever room she entered, pushing out any other thought or action.

Downstairs looked like a place to have parties, with its full bar off to one side and pool table in the center of the room. A huge flat-panel TV dominated one wall, while the opposite wall had a pair of doors. They looked as if they could lead to a bathroom or storage. However, one of the doors was left open, revealing what appeared to a somewhat austere bedroom. There was a single chair off to the side and a queen-sized bed pushed up against the far wall.