“And the Coven ordered your appearance,” I said, almost flinching at the unexpected hardness that filled my tone.

“They made the request; I complied graciously,” he corrected, with a slight trace of French softening his words. His tone was still bland and bored, but something flashed briefly in his eyes. It was too easy to push his buttons, and I reluctantly relented. There was no time to play.

“What exactly was their request?”

This time a smile of genuine amusement lifted his lips and sparkled in his slumberous eyes. For a moment they seemed to glow in his delight. “To protect you.”

“Anything else?”

“Specifically, I have been asked to protect you, Sadira, Jabari, and him, no matter what,” he said, his voice hardening when he was finally forced to acknowledge Danaus.

“So I thought,” I murmured. Jabari and Sadira had yet to appear, and I had a feeling they wouldn’t until the last minute. “Would you care to join us? It seems we may have some logistics to work out.”

With a regal nod of his head, Stefan took the empty seat next to me, while a woman with short blond hair sat next to Danaus. A third nightwalker male pulled over a chair from an empty table and sat at the end of the table. I noticed that the other nightwalkers that strolled into the bar had taken up various tables around the room, but were not too far from our location. I had no doubt they would be able to hear everything we said.

“This is George,” Stefan said, introducing the vampire at the end of the table and motioning absently with his right hand. The pale, slender gentleman with the narrow face and cinnamon-colored hair nodded toward me and Danaus, sitting back in his chair as if he didn’t have a care in the world. As best as I could tell, he had at least three centuries under his belt and most likely had never seen a member of the naturi.

“And this is Bertha,” Stefan continued, waving his hand toward the pert little female vampire seated beside Danaus.

My mouth fell open; there was no controlling my reaction. After a while even someone my age will start to buy into some of the nightwalker mystique we had promoted to the humans. Vampires were not named Bertha. We had sleek, exotic names that rang of dead civilizations.

“I know,” the nightwalker cheerfully said with a giggle when I finally managed to close my mouth. “It’s a horrible name. I’ve tried to change it, but nothing ever sticks. You can just call me Bert or Bertie. Everyone does.” The little blonde had sparkling, wide blue eyes and an adorable button nose. Her cheeks were round and dimpled when she smiled. She couldn’t have been more than sixteen or seventeen when she had been reborn. I shoved back my initial reaction of sympathy at the sound of her name and smiled broadly at her. I imagined she hadn’t tried too hard to change her name. Her disguise was perfect. Who would suspect that a five-foot-nothing, little blonde called Bertie was a lethal predator?

“A pleasure,” I said with a nod of my head.

The smile in her eyes flickered for a moment as she assessed me, weighing me, before the smile widened on her cherry-colored lips. She had my measure. I doubted we would underestimate each other.

“This is Danaus,” I said, letting my eyes drift back over to the hunter’s grim visage. He didn’t move, hardly breathed as the nightwalkers looked him over. When everyone was introduced and settled at the table, I turned my focus back to Stefan. “How many have arrived?”

“Nearly forty nightwalkers, with more promised from Jabari. In addition, more than thirty human guardians have arrived.”

“Great. Cannon fodder,” I grumbled, but Stefan remained nonplussed by the idea. What did he care? Humans were easy to replace.

“We have to reach the Sanctuary Lodge tonight,” I said, folding my arms over my chest. “As soon as the sun sets tomorrow, we have to hit the mountain. I don’t know when they will attempt the sacrifice, but the sooner we take out the naturi on the mountain, the better.”

“A number of us can fly,” Bertie piped up. She sat calmly forward, her fingers threaded and resting on the table.

“How many?”

“Ten.”

“That would put only a small portion at the lodge tonight,” Danaus interjected with a grim shake of his head. “Do we want to risk making the trip during the day? They know we’re here.”

My fingers restlessly played with the knife and fork that had been wrapped in a paper napkin when I sat down. I unfolded the napkin and slowly turned the knife over with my fingertips. “A daylight trip is far too risky,” I said absently, a part of me wondering how I was going to handle Cynnia in the midst of all this chaos.

“We could double up or make a couple trips,” Bertie replied. “It takes an hour at most to reach the lodge. We could have all the nightwalkers to the mountain before dawn.”

“The humans could take the first train in the morning,” Danaus said, sitting forward so that he could lean his forearms on the table. “They’d reach the lodge well before noon,”

“Leaving us without protection deep in naturi territory for more than five hours,” George grimly said.

“We have no choice,” I quickly put in, before an argument could start. “Stefan, Bertie, organize those nightwalkers that can fly. Everyone doubles up. Nightwalkers go to the lodge first. Oldest and then the youngest. The first set secures the lodge.”

“Already done,” Stefan said, and looked down his nose at me, giving me a patronizing smile. “The lodge had been closed and emptied due to repairs.”

“Excellent. Danaus and I will take a small group in a van to Ollantaytambo. After Cuzco has been emptied, a pair of nightwalkers can come and get Danaus and me. The last of the group can take the train from Ollantaytambo to Aguas Calientes and then secure our luggage on the bus to the lodge in the morning.”

“Why are you going to Ollantaytambo?” Stefan demanded.

“There’s something I wish to check. It’s only a couple hours away by car. By the time the last group reaches the lodge, we should be done and ready to be picked up. Also, it will be a shorter distance to fly for whoever comes for us,” I argued. My hands gripped the end of the table as I fought to keep my tone even. I didn’t need a fight with Stefan.

“Bertha and George will see to the arrangements,” he stiffly said, daring me to contradict him. “I will accompany you and the hunter to Ollantaytambo.”

“As you wish,” I agreed, flashing him a brilliant smile that took him by surprise. “Select four humans to accompany us. We’ll meet you outside this hotel in a couple hours.” Pushing out of my chair, I nodded to the three nightwalkers at the table with me. I never raised my voice, but I knew all the vampires within the bar could hear me. “All possessions are to be labeled and dropped off at the train station before you leave town. Your guardians will retrieve them from the bus in the morning.”

With Danaus beside me, I walked out of the bar and through the hotel to the plaza.

The hunter didn’t speak up until we were several yards from the hostel and safe from being overhead. As we walked back toward the shabby hotel that we occupied along with Shelly and Cynnia, he grabbed my blood-streaked arm and held it up between us. “I see everything went well.”

“You’re just jealous that you aren’t the cause,” I teased, pulling my arm out of his grip.

“You could be right.” He flashed me one of his rare half smiles before it completely disappeared. “Will we be hearing more from our dark companion?”

“Undoubtedly, but I at least gave Rowe something to think about. He knows we have Cynnia. He also knows that I’ll kill her if he so much as breathes in my direction. Of course, I told him that I’d kill her if he went through with the sacrifice, so he’s already faced with an ugly dilemma.”

“How are we going to protect her during the daylight hours once we reach the lodge? The naturi could easily hit the place while all the nightwalkers are out for the count. They’d burn straight through any humans that happened to be defending the nightwalkers. Speaking of which, how are we going to protect the nightwalkers during the day?” Danaus suddenly stopped walking and shook his head. “I can’t believe I just uttered those words.”