by Adrian, Lara
Sooner than later, she would have to choose between the only family she had left and the one she was making with her friends and teammates of the Order.
She thought she had made her choice when she began training as a warrior. Now, she wasn’t certain her heart was stalwart enough to shut out either one of the things she loved.
But as conflicted as she was about devotion to her blood kin versus duty to the only people who had ever made her feel that she belonged, Kaya’s regret for the way she behaved with Aric went even deeper.
To her surprise, he was in the war room when she headed down after her shower to resume working on the photos. She had anticipated being alone to go over the images he’d reviewed while she was gone that morning. Instead, he stood facing a wall of projection glass where an array of pictures from the reception were displayed.
Kaya stood in the open doorway, her gaze more riveted to the man than to the dozens of photos illuminated in front of him. Tall, broad shouldered and hewn of pure muscle, as a Breed male Aric Chase was magnificent. Even standing still he radiated otherworldly power and strength.
As the lover who had touched and kissed and pleasured nearly every inch of her body in the small hours of last night and this morning, just the sight of him made her legs go a bit weak beneath her.
He hadn’t deserved her cool rebuff when he approached her outside the kitchen a short while ago. Nor had he deserved her lie that the intimacy they had shared meant nothing to her. She only wished it meant nothing. In truth, the hours she’d spent alone with Aric naked in his arms under the moon and stars, and then the rising sun, had been ones she would cherish for the rest of her life.
She would have to cling to those moments, because she could never give in to the temptation again.
Even if that meant pushing him away.
He glanced over his shoulder, aware of her presence even without her saying a word. “It should be easier to compare the photos here instead of at the table.”
His tone was level and professional, as if she were simply one of his comrades now. Why that didn’t give her more relief, Kaya refused to acknowledge.
The one thing they both agreed on was the fact that their partnership was temporary. When it was over, their lives would continue on separate paths. No expectations of anything more. Simple, uncomplicated.
Yet when she thought about Aric--every time she was near him--her feelings were anything but simple or uncomplicated.
It was a realization that terrified her as much as any ugly secret from her past or the threat of losing everything she’d worked for with the Order.
Aric Chase made her crave things she never imagined she would have in her life. A confidant. A protector. A lover who gave as much pleasure as he demanded.
A true partner in all the ways that mattered.
Things she could never hope to have so long as her past and the people who still tied her to it were secrets she dared not bring into the light.
How long she could keep the truth hidden from these new people she cared about, Kaya didn’t know.
More and more, it tasted like poison on her tongue.
Especially when she was looking at Aric.
“Yes, it should help,” she answered, stepping into the room as he put up more images for them to review. She drifted to his side and tried to concentrate on the hundreds of faces and profiles and nondescript backs of heads--any one of which could be the man they were looking for. Her eyes scanned the crowds and candid group shots, but all of her senses were fixed on Aric. “I thought you might be somewhere with Rafe and Mira and the rest of the team.”
“Thought, or hoped?” He didn’t look at her, not even a sidelong glance. As if he hadn’t said it at all, he reached out to rearrange the sequence of images in front of them. “The patrol team has their work to do. I’ve got mine. Unfortunately, I’m not going anywhere until we find the Opus bastard who was at that wedding reception.”
And from the steely edge in his voice, it seemed he couldn’t finish fast enough.
“What about this guy?” He pointed to a mostly obscured profile on a short, brown-haired man.
Kaya shook her head. “It’s not him. The hair is lighter and longer than that of the man I saw.”
Aric grunted and moved on. He zoomed in on a different squatty wedding guest with dark hair, pausing to look at her in question.
“Too heavy. And I believe that gentleman is wearing a toupee.”
Peering closer at it, he smirked. “Damn. You’re right.”
He discarded both images, along with several others containing alternate shots of the same men. And so it went, one photo after another, none of them netting positive results for the Order.
Kaya sighed. “At the rate we’re going here, it could be days before we find Mercier’s contact.”
“We don’t have days anymore.” Aric’s voice was sober. “If the UV bullet casing we recovered isn’t bad enough, that black scarab tattoo on Angus Mackie changes everything.”
She swallowed, her nerves jangling with dread. “What do you mean?”
“The Order isn’t about to stand by and watch Opus Nostrum or anyone with alliances to them create panic among the Breed with the threat of ultraviolet weaponry. Big Mack’s going down.”
“Goddamn right he is.”
Nikolai’s voice was a low growl behind them. Both Kaya and Aric swung around to look at the Breed elder, who was suited up in black fatigues and combat boots. Around his hips was a belt studded with all manner of weapons: guns, blades, throwing stars.
Aric flashed a cold grin and a hint of his fangs. “You heading up the team tonight, Commander?”
He gave a short nod. “Lucan wants this asshole taken alive so we can question him. And if he’s got UV on hand, we need someone to bring that shit in safely and lock it down.”
Frowning, Aric glanced at Kaya then back to Niko. “Someone who isn’t going to get ashed, you mean.”
“Ideally, yes.” Nikolai smirked. “So, consider this your official graduation to the team, both of you. Congrats on making the grade. Now, suit up and get your asses down to the weapons room. Sundown’s in two minutes. I want wheels rolling on pavement the second night falls.”
CHAPTER 18
The surprise raid on Angus Mackie was a bust. Aric sensed it even before he entered the gang leader’s seedy tavern in the armpit of Dorval. He and Kaya and Rafe had accompanied Nikolai into the vacated establishment while a few miles away, Mira and her three warrior teammates had just called in the same disappointing situation when they closed in on Big Mack’s rundown house near the river.
“Find anything back there?” Niko asked Aric as he came out with Rafe after their search of the empty rear office and store room.
“No trace of Mackie, but yeah, we found something.”
Aric held out his hand. Resting in his palm was a bullet that made even a seasoned warrior and custom-crafted munitions expert like Nikolai take a step back. This was no spent casing like the ones they had recovered from the Darkhaven murders; this was a live round. Inside the diamond-glass body of the bullet glowed a small, but lethal dose of liquefied ultraviolet light.
“It was lying near the back door that dumps out on the alley.”
“Holy hell.” Niko slowly shook his head, his gaze riveted on the milky blue color of the fluid within the small cylinder. “I guess we don’t need to wonder if any of Riordan’s UV arms and ammo made it out of Ireland anymore.”
“No,” Aric said. “The only question is, how much are we talking about? There are muddy wheel marks from a hand truck rolling over the dirt and concrete out there. Someone made a lot of trips back and forth carting something out of here in a hurry today.”
“Shit.” The commander scraped a hand over his squared jaw. “All it takes is one of these rounds to ash even the strongest of our kind. Every bullet our enemies hold is one too many.”
On that, they all agreed.
Even if Aric’s memory wasn’t as flawl
ess as his mother’s, he would never forget the sight of black ash piles that had once been living, breathing Breed civilians. Aside from a rare handful like him who’d been born impervious to sunlight, for most of their race there was no coming back from a UV assault.
Fury smoldered in Rafe’s eyes. “Mackie was tipped off that we were on to him.”
“Probably,” Nikolai muttered. “But there’s a chance he pussied out and ran after his comrade got fileted during that Darkhaven assault. It’s no secret that the Order was on scene at Mercier’s wedding where another of his longtime cronies ended up dead, so even a blunt instrument like Big Mack might’ve been able to guess we’d come knocking on his door with questions sooner or later.”
Rafe grunted. “Hell of a lucky guess, in that case. Rats like Mackie run in packs, and we all know hate is an insidious bitch that can hide in any crowd. It’ll even have the audacity to smile at you while it hides a blade behind its back.”
“Or a gun loaded with these,” Aric replied.
Nikolai gave a grim nod. “Okay, we’re done here. We don’t need anything more to know we’re on the right track with Mackie. The son of a bitch just made himself our top priority. Let’s head back to base and--”
“Commander,” Kaya said from behind the bar, her voice grave. “I found something. There’s a safe hidden down here.”
She had seemed to be doing her best to avoid Aric since the teams departed tonight. Pensive on the ride out to Dorval, she’d sat in back with him in silence while Niko drove and Rafe rode shotgun in the Order’s black SUV. In spite of the fact that she was surrounded by a team of three Breed warriors, she seemed equally solitary now, continuing her search of the establishment while Aric and their comrades conversed on the other side of the room.
Nikolai pivoted an approving glance at her. “Good eye. Let’s crack it open and have a look inside.”
She stepped back to let him move in. Aric and Rafe followed, watching as Niko hunkered down and disabled the combination lock with a mental command. He started to open the safe’s door, then paused. His cool ice-blue gaze flicked up to Aric. “Maybe you ought to do the honors. Just in case there’s any more of that shit in here.”
“Sure.” Aric returned Nikolai’s grin as he carefully laid the UV bullet on top of the bar’s scarred surface. There would be no quips about the Order elder’s caution. As one of the Breed, only an outright fool or a tragic hero would be cavalier enough to dismiss the killing power of that kind of weaponry. In the end it wouldn’t matter which category applied because either one would leave behind nothing but ashes.
Aric waited to investigate until Niko and Rafe had stepped around to the safety on the other side of the long bar. Kaya remained, and he heard her indrawn breath as he pulled open the safe’s door.
“Be careful,” she whispered, the first words she’d spoken to him since they arrived.
He nodded, struck to see true concern in her expression. It warmed him more than he wanted to admit. How had he gotten so tangled up in this female that a simple utterance of kindness from her as his fellow comrade should affect him as profoundly as her embrace?
With more effort than it should have required, he put aside his awareness of her and concentrated on doing his job. He peered inside the safe.
“Couple of handguns,” he reported as he pulled out the weapons and inspected them. “Basic nines, standard rounds. No UV.”
“Thank fuck for that,” Rafe muttered.
“There’s something else in here.” Aric reached toward the back, his fingers closing around a brick-sized block of substance that was wrapped in thick cellophane. “Narcotics. Ah, shit,” he said once he had the object out of the safe and in his hand. “It’s Red Dragon.”
Nikolai hissed a curse in his native Russian. “How much you got?”
“About a kilo,” he guessed, judging by the weight of the package in his palm. He stood up and placed it on top of the bar next to the live UV round and the pair of pistols.
“Christ.” Rafe’s mouth pressed flat as he picked up the brick and stared at the packed red powder concealed within the plastic shrink wrap. “Like with UV, it doesn’t take much of this shit to do the job.”
Kaya glanced at it, too, her fine brows pinched with confusion. “What’s Red Dragon?”
“Instant bloodbath,” Rafe replied. “If you want to turn the mildest Breed civilian into a violent killer, give him a dose of this garbage then stand back.”
“It’s a drug we’ve recently linked to Opus,” Aric explained. “When the Order took out Fineas Riordan, they blew up a large cache of ultraviolet weaponry and cartons of sealed narcotics like this one. We know some of it is already in circulation around the world for the simple fact that we’ve been seeing an uptick in Rogue activity lately. There have been Breed slayings of humans in different areas all over the world.”
“Oh, God.” Her face went a bit slack. “You’re saying this red powder is making law-abiding Breed vampires turn into bloodthirsty murderers?”
Aric nodded. “Nothing Opus would like better than to fan the flames of paranoia by creating an epidemic of Breed-on-human attacks.”
“Which usually results in retaliation from the other side,” Rafe added. “Not to mention the power it gives to hate-based gangbangers like Angus Mackie to keep bringing in fresh recruits to their cause.”
Nikolai grunted. “Vicious circle. One we’ve been fighting for a long damned time.”
Aric and Rafe agreed in unison. Although they were new to the battle, both of their fathers had been engulfed in it along with Niko and the rest of the Order since the beginning.
The Order’s work had been tremendous, as was their success, but the war was far from over. Aric had a feeling this new fight was going to get a hell of a lot uglier than anything the world had seen before. He intended to meet it on the front lines, and that was just one more reason to be glad that Kaya had slammed the brakes on whatever it was that had been taking shape between them.
Still, that didn’t keep his gaze from straying to her as she stood next to him behind the bar, her arms crossed and pretty brown eyes distant, troubled. As haunted as he’d ever seen them.
“Nikolai,” she murmured after what seemed the longest time. “Do you think I could talk to you priv--”
The commander’s sudden, sharp groan cut her question short. His expression constricted into one of agony. “Ah, Christ.” He bit off a curse and thrust out his hand, gripping the edge of the bar.
“Are you okay?” Rafe reached for his arm. “Niko, let me help you.”
“Can’t.” He shook his head, pain radiating off him.
“What’s happening?” Kaya asked, rushing around from behind the counter with Aric.
The immense Breed warrior staggered, sweat popping out on his brow. “Renata.” He uttered his mate’s name through gritted teeth and fangs. “Holy hell. It’s the baby. He’s coming. Right now.”
Aric shot an urgent glance at Rafe. “I’ll get the vehicle.”
“No time.” Niko gave a harsh shake of his head. And through his anguish, an excited grin pulled his lips away from his emerged fangs. He chuckled, wonder shining in his ice-blue eyes despite the intense physical pain he shared with his Breedmate through their blood bond. “Holy fuck, it’s really happening. I’m outta here. I’ll get home faster on foot.”
He didn’t waste another second. In a blur of movement, Nikolai bolted out of the bar and vanished into the night.
CHAPTER 19
Nikolai didn’t slow his speed until his boots hit the polished marble of the command center’s foyer. His Breed genetics had carried him in a few scant minutes across the miles of pavement between Dorval and the mansion at the top of Summit Hill; now his blood bond to Renata sent him rushing through the residence and down to the infirmary housed in the Montreal base’s nerve center below.
Kellan stood in the corridor outside the medical room, his comm unit in hand. “I just tried to call you to let you know it’s sh
owtime.” The younger Breed warrior gave him a sympathetic smile. “Should’ve known your bond would give you the heads-up before anyone else needed to. Everything happened so fast.”
“How is she?”
Kellan chuckled. “Been issuing orders like a drill sergeant since her water broke a few minutes ago. And threatening to skewer you with all four of her favorite blades if you didn’t make it back here before the baby does.”
In other words, Renata was fine. Niko heaved out the breath he hadn’t been aware he was holding. “That’s my girl.”
Kellan nodded. “As for your other girl, I called Mira right after I tried to reach you. She’s on the way back now with her team.”
“Thanks.” Niko clapped his adopted daughter’s mate on the shoulder. “Now, I’d better haul my ass inside before my female decides to carve me a new one.”
His gaze strayed past the male to halfway up the passageway. Siobhan carried a large stack of folded towels in her arms as she hurried toward Nikolai and Kellan.
“I thought these might be helpful,” she said, the petite Breedmate nearly out of breath as she approached. “Is there anything at all I can do? You’ve all been so kind to me, and I just feel a bit useless and in the way since I’ve arrived here.”
The commander in him was on the verge of informing the doe-eyed civilian that she was in an area restricted to members of the Order, but she looked so earnest with her offer of help that Nikolai checked the impulse. Barely.
Giving her a curt nod of acknowledgment, he glanced pointedly at his comrade.
Kellan smoothly stepped in. “I’ll take those for you, Siobhan. Come on, I’ll show you the way back upstairs to wait for Rafe and the others. Awfully easy to get lost down here if you don’t know where you’re going.”
Niko appreciated the diplomatic assist. Right now he didn’t have the patience for anything but getting to Renata’s side. The shared pain of another of her sharp contractions tore through him as he stepped away from Kellan and Siobhan to reach for the latch on the infirmary door.