My body shook from exhaustion and a dozen aches and pains that were only now beginning to heal. Blood was dried on my back and stomach from where Mira had stabbed me. The cold stones chilled my flesh, but in a way it all felt good. I was alive and I was free.

“Danaus!” Mira screamed.

I jerked my head up to look over at the nightwalker. Mira was straining against LaVina’s hold, stretching her right hand out to me, desperate. I had seen fear reflected in Mira’s eyes when she had been faced with Nerian and when she had been touched by Gaizka. Both were just a pale shadow to the terror that gripped her now.

“Danaus!” she screamed, her voice wavering. “Please, help me!”

“Sorry, hunter,” LaVina said in a deep voice I had never heard before. A smile stretched across her face and danced in her eyes. “I’ve done my part. It’s time for this wayward child to come home.”

I pushed to my feet and started to reach for Mira, but she and LaVina disappeared before my eyes, leaving me alone in the dark. Mira was gone, grabbed by something far more powerful than any witch I had ever known, and I had no idea how to find her.

I wish to give a special thanks to my amazing agent, Jennifer Schober, for helping to keep me sane through the years. I also wish to thank my brilliant editor, Diana Gill, for constantly pushing me to be a better writer than I thought possible.

By day, Jocelynn Drake is a clean-cut financial analyst writer, but in her free time she writes about a dark underworld where vampires rule. The bestselling author of Nightwalker, Dayhunter, and Dawnbreaker, she lives in Kentucky. Visit her website at www.jocelynndrake.com.

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