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.I wanted to grab up my daughter, wrap her tightly in myarms, and run from this place.I wanted to run from Sadira, the Coven, and allnightwalkers.I wanted to run back to the life I could have had centuries ago in thesunlight.But that chance was gone forever.It was shredding me on the inside, leaving metrembling.My legs shook and my knees threatened to buckle.I refused to give in toSadira.She would not have me again. I won t go with you, I growled, tensing the muscles in my legs and clenching my teeth. Calla is dead.That life I had is dead because of you.You and Jabari.I won t go back toyou. You will or I will kill Tristan now, she calmly said, switching tactics when images ofCalla couldn t make me cave. Ridiculous.You won t.Sadira laughed lightly, reminding me faintly of a bird s song. Of course I will.You are farmore valuable to me than he could ever be. Mira? The voice was soft and fragile, reaching me from beyond the nightmare I wastrapped in.It was Tristan.I had forgotten about him.We were really in the Great Hall,and for now Tristan was alive and still mine.It suddenly dawned on me to fully open my mind instead of closing everything down in aneffort to block out Sadira.Tristan s pain and fear instantly flooded in.It was more thanSadira could effectively block out.The image of my home in Greece disintegrated.Callafaded away to only a ghostly memory.I knelt on the ground beside Tristan, who was still chained to the floor.Reaching across, ICreate PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com)took his hand and gently squeezed it as I slowly reduced our mental connection.His painwas draining me and I needed to be sharp against Sadira.The rage from my earlier fight pumped in my veins again, and a new anger filled mytrembling frame.I had packed my past away and left it to collect dust in the corner of mymind, but Sadira trotted it out as a way of controlling me.She had defiled the memory ofmy daughter; she sullied those precious few moments in my life when I d felt human andwhole and happy.I didn t need the monster dwelling inside of me to fire my need forviolence.Sadira had already done that. I m free now, I said, pushing back to my feet. And Tristan belongs to me.You can t have him, she snarled in my mind.I felt her pulling another veil over my mind,so I opened my thoughts to Tristan again.Trapping my mind between two realities, itstole away my sense of balance.I had no idea where Sadira was.Desperate, I threw up aring of fire around Tristan and me.Sadira s screams rang through the hall.She had been approaching and got trapped in thefire.With her out of my mind, I extinguished the flames, but she was already blackened toa crisp.With a little effort, I broke the lock on the manacle around Tristan s neck and dropped itwith a loud clang.Tristan leaned heavily on me as we moved away, his fingers digginginto my forearm as he struggled to stay on his feet.The smell of burning flesh filled the room, overpowering the scent of the Lagoon and lushgardens that wafted in through the open front doors.Tristan struggled against my hold onhim, trying to look back at the creature that had spawned us both, but I wouldn t let himstop moving forward.Sadira didn t die that night, but every nightwalker in Venice could feel her pain.At dawnshe would fall into her deep sleep wrapped in that pain, and tomorrow when she awokewould still be drowning in it.Even if she gorged herself on blood, it would still takeseveral nights to recover from those burns.I only needed to keep her alive until wedefeated Rowe.No one had ever said anything about the condition she had to be in.Tristan and I paused at the front doors long enough for him to feed off the two doormen.Iknew they would come in handy sooner or later.Borrowing a pair of pants off one of theunconscious men, we slowly walked back to the boat.My back ached and my headthrobbed from where I d been hit with the chair.From the way my vision still blurred fromtime to time, it seemed that the nightwalker with the chair had cracked my skull.I neededto feed and sleep for a couple days, but I doubted I would get such a luxury.Tristan moved more easily as his body healed with the fresh infusion of blood, but ourprogress was slow.We were several yards from the docks when I saw Nicolai walkingtoward us up the path.I pulled Tristan to a stop, my whole body tensed.If the werewolfattacked now, I knew I would kill him.My body hummed with pent-up energy from thefight.I might not intend to, but I would still kill him. Walk away, Nicolai, I called to him.Now was not the time to resume our fight.Jabarihad ordered him to kill me, and I could only assume that Nicolai would pursue that taskuntil he finally completed it or was dead.The golden shifter had stopped in the middle ofthe path more than twenty feet away, watching me. Turn around, get back in a boat, anddrive off. Why didn t you kill me? The question was soft and reached me on the back of theCreate PDF files without this message by purchasing novaPDF printer (http://www.novapdf.com)breeze crossing the island [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]