Jocelynn Drake is the author of the New York Times Bestselling Dark Days series, with the final book, Burn the Night, scheduled to be released on Tuesday, June 28. For this guest blog to celebrate summer, she is providing a small original snippet featuring the two main characters from the Dark Days series, Mira and Danaus, taking a look at Mira’s least favorite day of the year.
Jiggling his keys absently in his hand, Danaus walked up the front steps to the town house and unlocked the door. He paused at the security keypad near the door as he was shutting it and noticed that the alarm had already been turned off. A swift check with his own powers confirmed what he had already guessed; Mira was up and about for the night. He and Mira had been living together in her town house for a couple of months and it was still taking some adjustment on both their parts. While he had lived with the members of Themis at the Compound for a couple of centuries, this was still vastly different and far more intimate, but not necessarily in a bad way.
Standing at the foot of the stairs with his hand on the banister, Danaus scanned the house once again and was surprised to find that Mira was in the basement. Once she rose for the night, she turned off the security alarm and then went to the top floor for a shower and a change of clothes before heading into her office. She almost never returned to the basement unless she was going to bed for the day. Frowning, Danaus completed one last check to make sure that no one else was in the house before he pocketed his keys and descended the stairs leading to the basement.
Mira was pacing the living area, weaving her way around chairs and the sofa. Her arms were crossed over her chest as she chewed on her bottom lip, lost in thought. Danaus paused at the bottom step, watching her.
“What’s wrong?” he demanded, silently coming toward her.
Mira’s head snapped up, surprised that she hadn’t heard his approach. She forced a smile on her lips and dropped her arms back down to her sides. “Nothing. Everything’s fine. What are you doing here? I thought you said you had to work tonight.”
Danaus’s brow furrowed slightly as he watched her. “Knox closed the place. I’ve got the night off.”
“Oh, that’s right. Full moon,” she murmured, turning back to her pacing. The Dark Room, where Danaus worked as a bouncer and bartender, catered to both the nightwalkers and lycanthropes of Savannah, but when the moon was full, the lycanthropes were absent as they retreated to a nearby stretch of woods so they could shift in peace.
“Knox has never closed on any other full moon,” Danaus countered. “Besides, when the moon is full, it’s the one night of the month that is popular among the nightwalkers. Are you honestly going to tell me that the American nightwalkers actually celebrate Fourth of July?”
Mira flinched at the question, scowling at Danaus over her shoulder. “Hardly,” she said with a snort.
“So, nightwalkers aren’t particularly patriotic.”
“It’s not that,” she snapped as she turned on heel to face him. “The nightwalkers in the United States were mostly American when they were turned. They still have a lot of patriotism and would prefer to celebrate the Fourth of July.”
“But…” Danaus prompted when she paused.
“But the night sky is filled with flaming balls of death!”
“The fireworks?” he asked, one side of his mouth crooking in a smirk.
“Yes, and don’t you dare laugh. As I’m sure you’ve noticed, nightwalkers aren’t exactly flame retardant. There are plenty of horrible things that could happen. A firework could go wild and strike someone. A house could get set on fire. Hell, after the firework explodes there’s a cascade of floating, burning ash that could fall on you. We don’t take chances. This is the one night of the year that you won’t catch a nightwalker outside.”
Danaus struggled to school his features in a vain attempt to suffocate the laughter that was bubbling to the surface, as he didn’t want to antagonize Mira much further. In all the centuries that he had hunted nightwalkers, he had never noticed that they were house-bound on the Fourth of July. Of course, he had spent very little time hunting nightwalkers within the U.S.
“What I don’t understand,” he started when he had his voice back under control, “is why you’re so upset.”
“All the reasons I just listed.”
Danaus couldn’t stop the little chuckle that escaped him as he finally stood before her. He reached for Mira, but she jerked out of his grasp and continued to glare at him. “Mira, love, you’re the Fire Starter. You’re the one person on earth who has nothing to fear from a little firework.”
“Nobody ever claimed that a phobia was rational,” she said tartly. “Besides, I’m not worried about just me. Nearly everyone I know is in danger tonight. Damn fireworks. What if something happens to Knox?”
Danaus captured her arms, holding her still when she would have started pacing again. “I’m sure this isn’t Knox’s first Fourth of July. He can take care of himself.”
“You’re an ass, you know that.”
Danaus just laughed as he bent down and dropped Mira over his shoulder. Despite her protests, he carried her into her dark, windowless bedroom and dropped her onto her bed with a bounce. As she was trying to right herself again, Danaus crawled onto the bed between her legs while placing his hands on either side of her head.
“What do you think you’re doing?” she demanded, staring up at him.
“I thought that since you’re obviously stuck in the basement for the night that we would start our own Fourth of July tradition,” he murmured as he lowered his head and nuzzled his neck. Mira relaxed against him, her hands going up to clasp the front of his polo shirt and pull it from where it had been tucked into his black slacks. “Just you and me. No fireworks.”
“No fireworks,” Mira repeated, running her hands along his chest under his shirt.
Danaus pulled slightly away from his love and stared down at her beautiful face. The earlier tension was gone and a smile toyed with her full lips. “Out of curiosity, if you hate the Fourth of July so much, what is your favorite holiday?”
“Halloween.”
Danaus threw his head back with a surprised laugh. “Halloween? With all those horrible costumes and people pretending to be vampires? I thought you’d be insulted.”
“Do you know how many drunken costume parties there are for Halloween? It’s like the city has lined up a freaking buffet. You almost never have to erase a memory because no one recognizes you in the costume and you just go with the flow of the alcohol. It’s wonderful.”
“Drunken costume parties?”
“And no fireworks.”
Danaus growled in the back of his throat as he wrapped his arms around Mira and rolled onto his back, pulling her on top of him. “I’ll show you fireworks!” he growled into her neck while Mira squirmed against him. Mira laughed, throwing her arms around his neck. She welcomed the fireworks that Danaus brought into her life. It was going to be a good summer.
The End
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