Forcing my attention back to Danaus, I pushed those regrets aside for now. They would only distract me and get me killed. Later, I would cry bloody tears for my fallen angel. The hunter was staring toward the broken window, his expression intense and drawn. It wasn’t good.
“Here they come.”
I was already moving before the last word crossed his lips. Jabari had just ripped the arms off his final opponent and was standing in the open in the center of the room. Much like Michael had with me earlier this horrible night, I put my shoulder into Jabari, throwing us both to the ground as a barrage of arrows entered the room through the window. These bastards were starting to become predictable.
Frowning, I looked down to find Jabari staring up at me with a stunned look in his wide brown eyes. I guess I would have too, had I been in the same position. Less than an hour ago we’d tried to kill each other.
“It’s been years since we had fun like this,” I said, lying across his strong chest.
Jabari gave a weary sigh, his eyes suddenly turning sad. His face had lost its walking dead look. He looked almost human, or at least a little less like a corpse. “I still do not understand you, desert flower.” He reached up and tucked a dirty, wet strand of hair behind my ear. “But things have not changed between us.”
“I don’t expect them to. You are just one of the many people who wish to kill me right now,” I reminded him as I rolled off his chest and to my feet. I remained squatting down as another barrage of arrows soared through the room. I could smell his blood now that we were so close. He had been cut. It was impossible to tell how many times or how deep. As an Ancient, he would be able to tolerate the pain better than most, but without rest or a meal, he was going to slow down. We all were.
“Promise me something,” I continued, my eyes locked on the window.
“What do you desire?” He knelt beside me, his long body tensed and ready for the attack. His soft accent rippled across me like a soothing hand rubbing my back.
“I love it when you say that,” I teased in a dreamy voice. He said nothing, but his expression hardened in warning. I was pushing my luck. “When the time comes, let it be between us. Don’t let the Coven send one of its flunkies. I deserve better than that.” I looked over to find him smiling, white fangs peeking out beneath his lips.
“As you wish.” His voice was deep and solemn.
Not quite. I wished to walk away from this mess and go home. I wished that I could push the naturi, Themis, Danaus, and this whole nightmare to the farthest reaches of my mind. I wished for my fairy godmother, the good witch of the north, or some other bitch with a wand to glide in here and zap these arrow-shooting assholes. But I wasn’t counting on it.
“How many?” I called across the room. Danaus frowned at me, his grip tightening on the short sword in his hand. He knelt behind some broken furniture near Sadira and Tristan. The naturi blood was beginning to darken and dry on his skin. His cobalt blue eyes glittered in the weak lamp light.
“You don’t want to know.”
“Tell me.”
“Thirty—more or less.”
I nodded, my expression carefully blank. I wanted to scream that it was impossible. I didn’t think there could have been two dozen naturi on the entire island. Unfortunately, one nightwalker was already down and another was starting to weaken. Sadira could hold her own better than I’d previously thought, but Gabriel wasn’t going to last much longer. I was tempted to call for Ryan, but his own people would need him. We were on our own.
As if on cue, naturi started leaping through the open window. Danaus was nice enough to take out the first one from across the room by carefully placing his knife in the creature’s forehead. It was enough to startle the naturi standing next to him, buying me an extra second as I jumped to my feet. The first few fell quickly, but our little group was soon pushed back by their sheer number.
I was only vaguely aware of my companions. I just kept moving, blocking, and slashing. Yet, it seemed for every one I killed, I was forced back a step as two more took his place. Frustration and fatigue finally got the better of me. The naturi I faced now wasn’t a better swordsman, only lucky. I raised my sword to block a swing aimed at my neck and missed the dagger he plunged into my stomach with his free hand. I removed his head with a scream of frustration and pain, but the damage was done.
Crumpling to my knees, the naturi poison surged through my body, adding to the renewed throbbing ache in my left shoulder. Desperate, I did the only thing I could think of: I created fire. It was all I had left. The flames leapt up from the floor in front of me and quickly spread down the line until it separated the naturi from our little group. The naturi stepped back, watching us, possibly wondering what I would do next or waiting for a member of the light clan to appear so he could remove my final weapon.
“Burn them, Mira!” Sadira screamed from some distant point off to my right.
“I can’t.” The words escaped me as a hoarse whisper, but I know she heard me over the crackling flames. My sword clattered to the floor and I pulled the dagger from my stomach. The pain was already beginning to crush my thoughts, and I knew I wouldn’t be able to keep the flames going much longer. Still weak from the previous night’s battle, I had too little strength left to call upon.
“Burn them, Mira!” Jabari commanded angrily. “Destroy them all.”
I wanted to say no, but I was too tired to even form the word. I looked up to find Danaus standing beside me, his hand extended, offering to help me to my feet.
“Let’s finish this together,” he calmly said. “Your life is mine to enjoy when I choose.”
I wanted to laugh. Danaus would choose now to make a joke, repeating what I’d said about him days ago to Lucas. I think I smiled. I’m not really sure since I could no longer feel my lips over the pain in my abdomen.
But most important, he was making a deal with me; one last push with us both using our powers to destroy the naturi that stood watching their prey. If we survived, we’d both be exhausted and at the mercy of whoever was left standing. Unfortunately, we were out of options.
Slowly, I lifted my bloody right hand from my stomach and placed it in Danaus’s hand. And I screamed. Whatever pain I’d felt from the naturi poison was a mere bee sting compared to the power flowing through my body now. It surged down my arm and through my limbs, threatening to peel my flesh from my bones. It kept building, trying to rip me apart.
Burn them.
I blinked and found myself standing somehow, but the room was growing black. “I—I can’t see them,” I said in a choked voice. Panic was crowding in where the pain had yet to sink.
Yes, you can.
This time I realized the voice in my head belonged to Danaus. I wanted to curse and scream at him, but something strange caught my attention. I suddenly realized the room was more crowded now. A split-second search revealed I could now sense the naturi.
I picked through the occupants of the room as the pain built to a point where it seemed I was hanging onto consciousness by a thread. As I reached out, there was only one thought left in my brain—to kill them. I mentally tried to grab their hearts and set them on fire. It was a trick I’d used in the past that had proved effective, but something would not let me. It pushed me toward this almost wispy throb of energy in each naturi. Too weak to fight it, I gave in and wrapped the powers building in me around that bit of smoke.
Another scream ripped from my throat, louder than the first, as the energy flowed out of me. My knees buckled and I fell, still tightly clasping Danaus’s hand as if it were my last anchor to sanity. As the pain ebbed, I heard the thought again.