Burn the Night (30 page)

Rowe silently led us to the room that held the presence of a human. One well-placed kick near the doorknob sent the door flying open and banging against the wall behind it. In the center of the empty room a haggard, beaten man was taped to a metal folding chair. He was slumped over, looking as if he were barely holding onto life.

“Daniel!” Barrett cried, rushing over and kneeling beside the man. Rowe and I quickly set to work cutting the thick silver tape that bound him to the chair. He reeked of urine, sweat, and dried blood. He might have been held captive for only a couple days, but it appeared that he had spent most of that time being beaten into a bruised and bloody pulp.

“Barrett?” Daniel said in a dazed and rough voice as he tried to lift his head to look around.

“Yes, it’s me. I came to take you home.”

“How did you know?” Daniel asked, his voice cracking.

“You haven’t contacted us in days. I promised that we would come after you.”

“I didn’t tell them anything, I swear. I didn’t say anything,” he continued. Tears started to stream down his face, and I was forced to look away, focusing on the last bit of tape at his ankles.

“I know you didn’t say anything,” Barrett said, squeezing both of Daniel’s shoulders. “You would never betray us. What about the other lycans?”

“I never saw them, but I could hear them being tortured.” Daniel gave a shudder before falling forward to lean heavily on Barrett. “I could hear the screaming through the walls next to me. I think they’re from Charleston. They’re not from Savannah.”

“We’ll take care of them before we leave.”

“I’ve got it,” Rowe said, snapping my head up. The naturi disappeared from the room without a whisper of noise. We didn’t move as we listened to him kick in each door and quickly dispatch the other two lycanthropes quickly and mercifully.

“Let’s get out of here,” he commanded, sticking his head back in the doorway. “Smoke is starting to fill the hallways. The first floor may be impassible now.”

“This used to be a parking garage,” Daniel said. “They took me out a back underground entrance one night. We can use that.”

Putting one of his arms over my shoulder while Barrett took the other, we helped Daniel back to his feet. We moved as quickly as we possibly could, but he stopped us once again as we passed the room where the men had been working at the blue glowing screens.

“The computers! We need the computers!” he shouted.

“There isn’t time,” Barrett argued.

“It’s full of information on everyone,” Daniel pressed. “We need it. We need to know what they know. Otherwise, this whole mission was for nothing.”

Barrett looked over at me and Rowe for a moment in indecision. “I’ve got him,” I said. Rowe and the shifter didn’t hesitate to dart into the room. I watched as they pulled cords out of two metal containers and hefted them up on their shoulders. I didn’t know what kind of information resided with these computers, but apparently it was important enough to risk everyone’s life.

We paused one last time so Barrett could run back and grab his pants before Daniel directed us to the enclosure where Barrett and I had encountered the last group of Daylight Coalition members. At the rear, we saw a plain white van. We loaded Daniel into the back while Barrett worked on getting the van started. Rowe pushed open the gate and I slammed the back doors shut when it growled to life.

Then Rowe hopped inside as Barrett idled by the gate.

In the parking lot, Barrett stopped next to the car he’d driven up to Atlanta. Rowe hopped out with instructions to follow us back to Savannah. We were pulling out of the business complex just as giant red trucks pulled in with sirens blaring and red lights flashing. I took one last look out the back window of the van to see flames poking out of the windows of both the first and second floor. The rain had stopped but the clouds still hung black and heavy in the sky.

We’d succeeded in our rescue mission, but I had the distinct feeling that we hadn’t heard the last of the Daylight Coalition. We had merely slowed them down a bit.

Twenty-two

D
uring the next four hours, Daniel hovered between consciousness and uneasy sleep in the back of the car. We threw an old cloth tarp we found over the floor for him to lie on. It didn’t provide any cushion, but after everything he had been through, he didn’t appear to notice the hardness of the car floor.

“Thank you for coming with me,” Barrett said after we rode for more than an hour in complete silence. “I know that neither you nor Rowe wanted to help, but I am grateful that you did. Daniel would not have survived much longer in their hands.”

Sitting in the back of the van beside Daniel, I looked up to meet Barrett’s hard gaze in the mirror. “You’re welcome,” I murmured.

We fell back into another long, uncomfortable silence before the lycanthrope finally spoke again. “Does it bother you that much to be helping someone like me?”

“Someone like you?” I repeated warily, unsure of where he was headed with this conversation.

“Yes, a shifter. A lycanthrope. Mira says that at one time we were like pets to you and your kind.”

I frowned. He was determined to bring up a past that seemed ancient history, and unlike him, I’d been around to live it. Barrett was only feeling an echo of ache for his ancestors. I was reluctant to proceed, as it seemed the only outcome would be an argument.

“Soldiers, actually,” I corrected him in a soft but firm voice. “The lycanthropes were created as soldiers to fight against the nightwalkers and the bori. You were too valuable to be kept as pets, though some were kept as personal guards for elite members of the naturi clans. The better question might be how you feel about working with a creature that was born to be your natural enemy?”

“What are you talking about?” he snapped.

“During the last days of the wars, it was the nightwalkers and the lycanthropes fighting. Not the naturi and the bori. The bori created the nightwalkers to fight the naturi and the lycanthropes,” I said with a shrug. I gazed back down at Daniel, who had fallen asleep again. “Your two races have now seemed to overcome your past and are working together. You should be proud of that accomplishment.

It is something that can never be achieved between the naturi and the bori.”

“Why?”

Again I shrugged, but I didn’t think he could see it. “We want the same thing, but are unwilling to share.”

“What’s that? What thing?”

“Dominance over the world.”

“That’s not what Cynnia has been telling us,” Barrett argued, looking over his shoulder at me, the wheel of the vehicle jerking. He twisted back around and tightened his grip on it. “She promised that the naturi would leave and live a life of solitude in peace.”

“Cynnia is trying to rewrite the goal of our existence. She still desires to possess the world and strengthen the powers of the earth. The only difference between her and our ancestors is that she believes it can be done with the coexistence of humans and naturi.”

“Do you think she’s right?”

“I am willing to help her achieve her goal any way I can.”

“But do you think she’s right?”

“In all honesty, I do not know. Our people have been trapped for a very long time, and now there is a fight for the throne for the first time in our history. Things are changing rapidly for us, which is very unusual. If Cynnia is to succeed, now is the best time for that to happen.”

“If the Daylight Coalition has its way, you may never have a chance to find out if she’s right,” Daniel said, speaking up suddenly. His voice was rough and ragged from lack of use.

Squatting down in the back of the car, I edged closer to the human who lay prone before me. His eyes were still closed and his breathing was heavy due to the pain I could imagine still wracked his frail human body. I doubted he had eaten or slept much during the past couple of days. His face was swollen and bruised dark shades of blue and purple. There was a long cut along his jaw that stretched down his neck. His clothes were splattered with his blood and torn in places, revealing more cuts and bruises.

“What has the coalition planned?” I inquired.

“I’m not sure, but they’re well-informed,” he said with a soft sigh. “They seemed to know who I was and my connections to the Savannah pack almost immediately.”

“What happened?” Barrett asked, looking up in the mirror again as he tried to see his friend.

Daniel licked his lips and took another couple deep breaths, his face twisting as if the pain of the memory made it difficult to speak. “They attacked shortly after I checked in with you the first night. They sent nearly a dozen men. They gagged and tied me up before bringing me back to their headquarters. I was locked in that room almost constantly. They took me out to show off their weapons and brag about how they are going to destroy both the vampires and werewolves. I guess they never imagined I would survive long enough to escape.”

“What about the two lycans being held next to you? Do you have any sense of how long they were there?” Barrett pressed.

Daniel shook his head and then flinched at the motion. “None. Longer than me. I could hear them through the walls. The spoke mostly about the pack in Charleston, but they gave up information about Savannah. They mentioned Mira by name. Even went so far as to tell them to stay out of Savannah because of her.”

“Did they give a physical description of her?” I asked.

“No. Just a name and that she was a nightwalker that protected the city.” Daniel opened his eyes, looking at me for the first time. “We need to warn her. They’ll be coming after her next.” Oddly, I found myself taking the man’s left hand in both of mine and squeezing it reassuringly.

“We will.”

Daniel had risked his life for both the nightwalkers and the lycanthropes, and he was just a human. He could have easily been killed for a cause that was not his own, and I could not help but respect him more for his bravery and selflessness. I’d spent little time around humans in my life and even less time actually speaking to them. This one in particular surprised me.

I looked up at the back of Barrett’s head, turning my attention away from the human. “What I don’t understand is how members of the Charleston pack knew anything about the Savannah pack.

Wouldn’t that kind of information be private to each pack?” Barrett shook his head and made a sound of disgust in the back of his throat. “Because of the geographical closeness of the two packs, we have always tried to maintain a somewhat open relationship so that neither side became too territorial. We’ve even used the same hunting grounds in the past during a full moon. However, all shifters swear to the same code of silence when it comes to outsiders. The penalty is death to anyone that betrays our secret.”

“Barrett, if they know about me, then they’ll be able to find Annie and my girls!” Daniel said with sudden urgency. He tried to twist around to look at Barrett in the front, but his face contorted in pain and he slumped back onto the floor of the van.

“I’ve had people watching them very closely at all times since you left. We will continue to do so,” Barrett firmly said.

“We’re going to have to leave Savannah,” Daniel said softly, closing his eyes again. His hand slipped out of mine and he lay limp as his breathing grew more ragged. “It won’t be safe for us any longer if they know about me.”

“I understand,” Barrett replied in a low voice, sounding saddened by the loss of his friend. “I will contact the local pack wherever you go and have them extend the same protection that I am offering you now.”

“Barrett, you can’t ask—”

The lycanthrope quickly cut him off. “I can and I will. Any pack will be happy to help your family after what you have sacrificed for our people. You will be protected. In the meantime, you will call Annie when we reach Savannah so she knows you’re safe. You will then stay with my family until you’re properly healed.”

“I can’t,” Daniel argued. “I need to get home.”

“You are a mess, my friend. You haven’t the strength to protect anyone. You need time to heal or you will only terrify Annie.”

A lengthy silence settled into the car again, with everyone lost in their own thoughts. I stared down at the human, looking to see signs his wounds healing, but nothing changed as I expected. I was not accustomed to such a slow healing process. Again, I found it astounding that humans had survived for so long.

“Who is Annie?” I asked, breaking the silence.

“She’s my wife,” Daniel murmured.

“And you have girls? Are there other wives?”

“No.” Daniel gave a small chuckle and looked up at me, cocking his head to one side. “You’re not human, are you?”

“No, I’m naturi.”

“And I thought you were everyone’s enemy,” Daniel said with a slight smirk.

“Apparently not any longer.”

Daniel fell silent again, and his breathing seemed to even out for the first time as he relaxed.

When he spoke again, he sounded somewhat distant, as if falling asleep again. “I have daughters. Five daughters.”

“How?” I found myself whispering in awe.

A blush stole to Daniel’s cheeks and he cracked one eye open at me. Even Barrett chuckled at me from the front seat. “The old-fashioned way,” he uttered before closing his eye again.

“Most of our females will never hold their own child,” I said in a low voice. “Five is . . . unheard of among my people.”

Daniel blindly reached out with his left hand and squeezed one of my hands. “I’m sorry.”

“So am I,” I whispered in a voice so low I wasn’t sure that even Barrett with his keen hearing picked up my words.

Yet, even as the sad thought passed through my brain, I had to question the wisdom of ever reproducing. Despite my constant training and work as protector of my people, even I felt the occasional stirrings inside me, the longing to hold my own flesh and blood. But as I sat in the back of the dirty car with a lycanthrope and human, covered in blood of my enemies, I didn’t think it was wise to attempt to bear my own children. What kind of an influence would I be?

What’s wrong?
Rowe demanded suddenly in my brain, his voice like a gentle caress across my brow.