A Taste of Midnight

by Lara Adrian

  By the time she reached him, he was already in the master bedroom, already stripping off his weapons and clothing. In moments he was naked, gloriously so. Thick muscle rippled as he strode across the floor toward the adjacent bathroom. Danika reached for his hand, forcing him to pause. The copper tang of human blood was ripe on him.

  “You’ve been feeding tonight.” She looked at his fisted hand, so large and powerful, heavy in her grasp. The knuckles were tinted dark with bruises, recent contusions not quite healed over. “You’ve been fighting. What else did you do tonight?”

  He stared at her for a long minute, then drew his hand out of her hold and raked his battered fingers through his hair. “It’s a job, Dani. Don’t make me explain how I have to do it.”

  As if that was all he needed to say, he stalked into the bathroom and flipped on the shower. He stepped under the spray, began a vigorous scrub of his body.

  She watched him for a moment, stung by his dismissal. And more than that, she worried for what his need to avenge his loss was doing to him. She dreaded what it might cost him.

  “I think I have a right to be concerned about you, Mal. It’s not as if we’re strangers, after all.” He didn’t answer her, just kept up his furious scouring of his skin. He shampooed his dark hair with equal anger, then doused the suds from his head and body under the steaming hot water. “I care about you, Malcolm. I’m afraid for you.”

  “Don’t be.” His eyes blazed as he cut off the shower and pulled a towel off the wall hook outside the tiled alcove. “If you want to fear something, be afraid for yourself if Reiver realizes what I’ve done. Now more than ever, I need to bring that bastard down.”

  She shook her head, understanding only in that moment how consumed he was with the hatred he felt for Reiver. “This quest for revenge is destroying you, Mal, not him. How long can you brush up against evil and not come away stained with it yourself?”

  “My problem. Not yours.” He dried off hastily, then tossed the towel aside to step past her. “Don’t worry about my life when you have your own and your child’s to think about.”

  “You arrogant jackass.” She glared at him, hating him for his self-sacrifice as much as she loved him for it. Oh, God. Yes, loved him. Some part of her probably always had. “There was a time I considered you among my dearest friends, Malcolm MacBain. And now—”

  “Now what?” His voice shook with a tightly leashed rage as he wheeled on her, eyes blazing. “We had sex, Dani. Great sex, I’ll grant you, but your timing sucks. My life is in motion. I’m on this path, and there’s too damned much at stake here. I won’t put you any closer to the fire than you already are.”

  “And I can’t stand by and watch you burn.” She swallowed past the icy clump of lead that sat in her throat. The feeling sank as she stared up at him, the cold settling heavily on her heart. “I’ve lost one man I loved, Malcolm. I can’t put myself through that kind of pain again.”

  Only then did his face lose some of its hard line and vicious tension. A muscle ticked wildly in the grizzled side of his jaw, and now his eyes smoldered with a darker, less terrifying fury. “Danika, I …” He scowled abruptly, blew out a raw curse. When he reached out to her, his hand shook a little. His fingers found her cheek with aching tenderness, curved around gently to cup the back of her neck. He brought her to him, placed a heartbreaking kiss to her lips.

  She melted into him despite the hurt and anger that tore at her inside. His embrace was firm and warm, his mouth a soothing balm when all she wanted to do was rage at him, demand things she had no right to expect from him.

  His fangs grazed her lightly as he let his mouth drift away from hers, then lower, to the sensitive skin of her throat. She held her breath with a needful anticipation, her veins calling to him, hearing his own heartbeat—his unspoken thoughts—echoing through every electrified nerve ending in her body. Her head tilted as though pulled on invisible strings, granting him access to the throbbing of her pulse. He kissed her there, tender and sweet. Teased the delicate spot with his tongue and teeth and fangs. A moan escaped him then, guttural with denial.

  “I can’t,” he murmured against her lips. “I won’t turn the mistakes I’ve made with you into something irreparable, Dani.” He drew back, pressed his forehead to hers as he held her against his naked body. “Time was never on our side, was it? Fate gives us nothing more than a taste of what might have been.”

  She couldn’t speak. Couldn’t deny him as he kissed her once more and led her toward the bed. They made love in a breathless tangle, no promises or denials. No words at all. Only passion.

  Danika wept for the pleasure he gave her, and for the inescapable fact that these would be the last moments they had together.

  Because she’d meant what she told him: She could not stand by and watch his hatred for Reiver destroy him. Her heart couldn’t bear another loss.

  So as he slept beside her in a heavy doze, Danika slipped out of bed to make a cowardly call on his cell phone from downstairs. “Gideon,” she whispered when the scrambled number in Boston connected. “I need to get out of Scotland, and I need the Order’s help.”

  Chapter Eight

  It was harder than he cared to admit, leaving Danika that evening at sundown so he could be back at the club before Reiver showed up and wondered where his suddenly straying “Brandogge” had been all day. Malcolm bristled at the role he’d been forced to play. His collar was beginning to chafe—all the more so when he couldn’t shake the feeling that it was costing him something he hadn’t expected to crave so deeply.

  Saying good-bye to her a couple of hours ago had a queer feeling of finality to it. Her kiss had been too resigned. Her embrace had been too tender, too lacking in demand.

  He was losing her.

  Hell, he’d practically pushed her away himself.

  It should have come as a relief in many ways. Romantic entanglement was the dead last thing he needed. He’d been so careful to avoid even casual dalliances since he’d buried his innocent mate and unborn child. Months of work hammering the molten iron of his grief and rage into a resolve made of cold, unbreakable steel.

  He’d had it all under his control. Until three nights ago, when he’d chanced to spot the pale, beautiful light that was Danika MacConn, standing mere yards away from him at the Darkhaven party. If only he hadn’t seen her. If only he hadn’t made it his mission to follow her all night with his gaze, torn between wanting to avoid her notice and wanting nothing more than to place himself in front of her and see if she would remember him. If she would know him, through the mask of his scars and the shield of his false name.

  Calling her out that night through his knowledge of her talent had been a reckless move. An arrogant one that he’d known, even then, he would be unable to call back.

  Now it was much too late to wish he’d kept his distance.

  Too late to think he could go back to what things were like before she arrived in Scotland.

  Too late to try to convince himself that he didn’t care for Danika … that he couldn’t possibly have lost his heart to her all over again.

  He loved her.

  There was a part of him that always had.

  The realization hit him with such staggering force, it was all he could do not to storm out of Reiver’s damnable club and tell Danika exactly how he felt about her. Words he should have given her already today, when she was kissing him good-bye and he was trying to convince himself that he couldn’t keep her. That it wasn’t killing something inside of him to consider what he might be throwing away with Dani by holding on so tightly to the need to avenge his dead.

  Malcolm cursed roundly and sent his fist into the side of a priceless Roman urn in one of the club’s private salons. The ancient objet d’art exploded, shattering into a thousand tiny airborne shards.

  “That’s gonna cost you heavily with the boss.”

  Thane chuckled from behind him, and at the sight of the other guard, Malcolm lost it. He flew at the vampire on
a roar, fangs erupting in his rage. In truth, no one was more deserving of his fury than himself, but he was ripe for a fight and Thane was the closest target. Besides, the son of a bitch had been giving him about a hundred good reasons lately to kick his ass. Mal snarled with violent intent. “You picked the wrong damn time to be in my face, Thane.”

  “I didn’t come in here to pick a fight with you,” he snapped back. “I came to tell you Reiver’s drafted us as security for tonight’s gathering.”

  Malcolm narrowed a glare on him. “What gathering?”

  Thane gave him a shrewd, knowing look. “Reiver called from the airport. His cargo came in. He’s moving it to one of his country estates as we speak.” He shoved Mal’s arm away from him, hissing a hard curse as he straightened his rumpled dark suit coat. “Since Kerr and Packard are no longer in service, that leaves you and me to head up security tonight. Reiver’s expecting his top-tier clients at this thing, so he wants total discretion.”

  Blood club.

  Malcolm knew this moment would come one night, but it still took him aback. This was it—his shot, at last, to take out Reiver and all of his untouchable cronies in one fell swoop. “When do we leave?” he asked, hoping the tight edge of his voice would not betray his eagerness to Thane.

  “The boss wants us out there right away.”

  Mal nodded. Malice coursed through his veins like acid. He met Thane’s inscrutable look and gave the guard a cold smile. “So, what the hell are we waiting for?”

  * * *

  Half a dozen gleaming luxury vehicles sat parked outside Reiver’s hunting estate, as if their owners were gathered inside for a black-tie event, not the sick, bloody game soon to take place on the snow-covered grounds.

  And there would be blood tonight, Malcolm silently vowed, as he and Thane walked up to the front of the palatial Highlands residence. His jaw was clamped tight, veins vibrating malice as another of Reiver’s guards opened the door to permit them inside. “This way,” said the Breed thug with a jerk of his head. “Mr. Reiver has been waiting for you.”

  He was in a lavish salon, its high-ceilinged walls paneled in dark mahogany and adorned with painted masterworks depicting all manner of hunting scenes. Graceful stags being felled by medieval archers’ arrows; small red foxes on the run from a pack of brown-and-white hounds and red-jacketed gentlemen on horseback; a majestic lion snared and surrounded by spear-wielding natives before a white-skinned adventurer toting a long black rifle. The room was a celebration of slaughter, and assembled within it stood Reiver and the nearly dozen members of his privileged, secret cabal of savages.

  “Ah,” said Reiver with a thin smile. “About time you arrived. We’re just about to view the evening’s game selection.” His bloodthirsty friends exchanged eager looks, but Reiver’s gaze stayed rooted on Malcolm with cool scrutiny. “Shall we get started?”

  Reiver touched the frame on the fox hunt painting. In response, from behind the group of elegantly attired vampires, a doorway on the back wall of the salon opened into a dimly lit corridor. With a look that bade Malcolm and Thane follow him, Reiver strode through the center of the throng to lead the way.

  Inside the long corridor was still more violent art. Here the depictions of hunter and hunted became more gruesome, scene after scene showing all manner of human degradation and bloodshed. It was horrific art, a profane collection no doubt intended to inflame the basest Breed appetites. Malcolm paid it little mind. All of his focus was centered on Reiver, senses taut and at the ready, waiting for the prime opportunity to lodge his offensive strike on the vampire and his cronies.

  As they neared the end of the corridor, Reiver touched another hidden panel on the wall. Cold air gusted in as a thick wooden gate lifted, revealing a covered walkway leading to the outside grounds of the estate. Flanking both sides of the walkway were iron-barred kennel cages, but the cells did not contain animals.

  “My God,” one of Reiver’s cronies breathed from behind Malcolm. “Just look at them all. One more tempting than the next.”

  Reiver chuckled, so full of himself. “As promised, something for every taste.”

  The humans were bound and gagged inside their cages, upwards of twenty men and women, all shapes and sizes and ages. They shivered in the wintry night air, eyes wide and fearful. Bile rose in Malcolm’s throat as he glanced at the terror-stricken faces. He could not let this sick game proceed any further. Reiver and his blood club associates would die tonight—here and now.

  He started to reach for his weapons, prepared to unleash hell on the whole lot of them.

  “Oh, but there’s more,” Reiver announced, snapping his fingers at one of the other guards, dispatching him in unspoken command. “Tonight I have something very unexpected to offer you, and most certainly … exotic. Brandogge, I think you’ll have particular interest in this.”

  Malcolm went stock-still at the remark, a cold dread locking down his senses even before he glimpsed what the guard had gone to fetch.

  Danika.

  Unlike the others, she wasn’t shackled or muzzled. No, the pistol pressed to the back of her head was enough to ensure she didn’t fight or flee her captors.

  Her long blond hair hung limp over her face as she shuffled ahead of Reiver’s thug, little Connor held tight in her arms. Malcolm’s heart lurched as her stricken gaze lit on him through the crowd. There was apology in her moist blue eyes, a regretful twist to her pale lips.

  Before Malcolm could react—before he could calculate the terrible risks of wheeling on Reiver and his associates and hoping to take them out before the guard with the gun on Danika pulled the trigger—Thane and two other guards pounced on him. Dani screamed, and it nearly undid him to hear the terror and worry in her voice. Worry for him, when it was his personal need for retribution that brought them both to this awful moment.

  The cold metal nose of Thane’s loaded nine-millimeter jabbed hard and ready to fire into Mal’s temple. “Don’t do anything stupid, asshole.”

  Malcolm roared, but it was impotent rage. He couldn’t attempt to throw off his captors. He couldn’t do anything—not so long as Danika and her baby were at equal risk as he. “Thane, you goddamn bastard. I’ll kill you too, before this is over.”

  The guard seemed unfazed, keeping a steady hand on the weapon poised to blow Malcolm’s brain out of his skull. One of the other guards stripped Mal of his Glocks and pocketed them.

  While Reiver’s associates inched away, he strode forward, slowly shaking his head. “You lied to me. You betrayed my trust.” He paused in front of Malcolm, seething with thinly held malice. “You could have risen far in my service. I thought that’s what you were aiming for, Brandogge. So, the only question I have is, why would you be so fucking stupid to cross me now?”

  Malcolm growled his reply. “I’m not your dog. I’ve never been your anything, you arrogant son of a bitch.” He could see the flicker of confusion in Reiver’s dark eyes, and he kept going, glad to finally voice his intentions. “I’ve been waiting for the chance to kill you and your blood club cronies ever since your pimp in Edinburgh told me your name.”

  Reiver’s confusion deepened, turned to uncertainty and a sick look of surprise. “My pimp?”

  “Aye,” Mal ground out. “The human rubbish who’d been supplying game for your sick gatherings. The same human offal who grabbed a young woman off the street in Edinburgh seven months ago for the purpose of selling her to you.”

  Reiver scoffed. “Am I to fret over every ant that gets crushed under a boot heel? Or mourn every beast sent to the abattoir? This is no different, except it’s us on the top of the food chain, not mankind.”

  “She was a Breedmate,” Malcolm hissed. “And she was newly pregnant. She put up a fight with your supplier. He killed her. My mate, my unborn child.”

  Reiver’s bark of laughter erupted out of him. “All this for a female, Brandogge? And a dead one besides?” His cruel gaze slid to Danika. “And now this other one too? What does she mean to you?”<
br />
  “Leave her out of this,” Mal snarled. “She has nothing to do with it.”

  “Oh, but she does.” Reiver’s eyes turned brutal, sparking with amber. “She matters to you, and that means she and her brat will suffer worse than you now. Pity you won’t live to see that.” He glanced to Thane. “Kill him.”

  The icy metal of the gun bit harder into Mal’s temple, Thane’s finger on the trigger.

  Then, in a blur of movement and speed, he pivoted, firing instead on the guard holding Danika.

  The guard went down, head blasted apart. Chaos erupted. Reiver’s cronies scattered as Thane shot one of the guards on Malcolm and Mal snapped the neck of the other.

  “Dani, run!” he shouted, grabbing his weapons from the dead vampire and wheeling around to fire a hell storm of bullets into Reiver.

  Too late.

  Reiver was already on her.

  Malcolm’s vision burned amber hot as he raised both loaded Glocks and aimed them in the center of Reiver’s sneering face.

  Except it wasn’t Reiver’s face he saw down the barrels of his guns …

  Ah, Christ.

  It was Danika’s baby boy, wailing and squirming, dangling by the pudgy little arm that Reiver clutched tight in his fist. In his other hand, Reiver held a fistful of Danika’s hair. She struggled against his brutal hold, her eyes wild with horror, hands reaching for her squalling child.

  Reiver’s smile was a deadly baring of his fangs. “You lose, Brandogge.”

  Chapter Nine

  Danika could hardly breathe for the fear that gripped her as she watched Connor flailing in Reiver’s cruel grasp. Her own pain meant nothing, her own panic and regret—none of it mattered when her child’s life literally hung in the balance.

  And Malcolm.

  Oh, God … Mal.

  She’d thought things couldn’t have gotten worse when Reiver spotted her and Connor arriving at the airport earlier tonight for the flight Gideon had arranged for them back to Denmark. Reiver and his thugs had been there to pick up a live cargo shipment at a private hangar—that same cargo she’d overheard him talking about at the Darkhaven party, a night that seemed a year ago now. They’d grabbed her and Connor and tossed them into the vehicle with the rest of the people intended for Reiver’s sick hunting party.