by Lara Adrian
More important, it woke up his Hunter’s mind, put his thoughts in ruthless focus on executing the patrol ahead of him in the city tonight.
Elsewhere, in the main arena of the weapons facility, he could hear Rafe, Eli, and Jax still running one another through the paces of mock combat. A fourth voice—Aric must have joined them at some point—whooped as blades clanked and sawed together, steel meeting steel.
Nathan finished his solo maneuvers and hit the shower. He hoped to be in and gone before the other warriors wrapped up their work in the adjacent room, but no sooner had he stepped under the hot spray than footsteps falling heavy on tile and lighthearted insults sounded in the locker area outside.
Elijah’s low drawl echoed over the rest of the men. “Damn, someone tell me why I thought that fifth round of hand-to-hand and blade work was a good idea.” A moment later, the brown-haired vampire swaggered naked into the showers, slanting Nathan a casual nod of greeting.
Eli took his place across from Nathan and turned on the spray, groaning as the hot water coursed over him. Blood ran in thin, diluted rivulets down Eli’s dermaglyph-covered arms and legs from wounds he’d sustained in the practice, but already the lacerations were beginning to heal.
Minor injuries were of no consequence to their kind. Cuts and contusions vanished in minutes, sometimes less time than that.
“Don’t be such a sore loser,” Aric Chase taunted. Grinning, he strode in and took a spot two down from Elijah. Rafe and Jax followed him inside, briefly acknowledging Nathan before going to separate corners of the showers. “What’s the matter, Eli,” Aric pressed, “don’t want to admit you got trounced by a trainee?”
“Trainee,” he said, smirking as he glanced at the younger warrior and sluiced water off his face. “Daywalking, smartass punk, more like it. You’re good with a weapon, I’ll give you that. But don’t think I didn’t notice you waited to take me on until after I’d already gone four rounds with two warriors who actually know how to fight.”
Aric chuckled as he soaped up and shot a look at Rafe across the room. “You know, for a Texan, he’s sure got a fragile ego. Must be that weaker, late-generation Breed blood in him.”
“The hell you say.” Eli snorted, his drawl thicker now. “Ain’t nothin’ fragile about me. Next time you ask me to spar, I’m gonna drop you on your daywalker ass before I kick it from here to the Alamo.”
Aric laughed and rinsed off the suds. “Tell you what. If it’ll make you feel better, I’ll give you a handicap next time.”
“I’ll give you a handicap right now, sunshine.” Elijah flashed his fangs at the other vampire and made a fast swat at Aric, cuffing his flaccid dick. It was a jest and a challenge—one Aric tried to return, but wasn’t quick enough.
Both laughing now, Eli grabbed him in a headlock under the water and let him sputter for a few seconds before letting him go. Before long, Jax and Rafe joined in the skirmish, the four big males wrestling around like a close-knit wolf pack.
Like the tight band of brothers they were.
Nathan watched for a moment, detached from the camaraderie. For all his expertise in stealth and combat, game play was a concept that eluded him. It went against his nature. Against the rigid discipline that had made him a consummate killer by the time he was seven years old.
He chased.
He conquered.
He destroyed.
His training as a boy in the Hunters’ cells permitted nothing less. And although his rescue at age thirteen had saved Nathan, a part of him had never come out of Dragos’s lab and likely never would.
He was the fighting dog, rescued from the squalor and violence of the betting pits and brought into a kind, loving home to live a better life.
He had been spared, given a new chance. He had parents and friends he cared for. He had fellow warriors who would die for him, as he would for them.
Yet, like the dog removed from the ring, when a hand reached out to him—in play or in comfort—it was all he could do to keep from biting it.
The distance between who he was now and what he’d been raised to be was a thin razor’s edge that he toed with meticulous discipline each and every day. No one knew the effort it took for him to seem normal. To appear that he fit in with decent people, that he belonged.
They saw what he wanted them to see, and nothing more.
No one knew him beyond what he’d allowed them to perceive.
No one took anything from him that he wasn’t prepared to give up.
No one ever had, until Jordana Gates.
His blood ran hot at the thought of her, their conversation—and the all-too-tempting memory of her body in such close proximity to his—making his veins light up with hunger.
If he’d thought the beautiful Breedmate an unwanted distraction before, crossing paths with her this morning had only confirmed what he’d been striving so hard to deny.
Jordana Gates was going to be a problem for him.
She already was. After one brief kiss and a couple of chance encounters—all told, only a few minutes’ time in her presence—she had aroused a fierce desire in him. She was impacting his focus, diminishing his concentration.
Making him burn with the need to seek her out and take what he craved.
Nathan cursed under his breath and cut off the water.
With his squad and Aric trading insults and banter along with their punches and body checks on the other side of the showers, Nathan stalked out to dry off and dress in the other room alone.
Rafe came out as Nathan was pulling on a fresh black T-shirt. The blond vampire grabbed a white towel from a folded stack and wrapped it around his lean hips. “Something going on with you that I should know about?”
“No.” Without looking over at his comrade, Nathan rubbed his towel over the damp black spikes of his hair.
“You sure about that?” Rafe walked over to the lockers next to Nathan and leaned one beefy shoulder against the metal. “Something’s bugging you. I noticed it in the meeting this morning. Your head is somewhere else.”
Christ. Nathan wasn’t accustomed to being read by someone, let alone getting called on it. He bristled at the weakness in himself but shot his cold glare at Rafe as he slammed his locker shut. “You got issues with my leadership, take it up with Commander Chase.”
Rafe blew out a curse and scowled, studying him closer. “This isn’t about the team, you asshole. I’m asking as your friend. You’ve been wound tighter than usual all day. Actually, ever since that night we went looking for Carys and ended up at Jordana Gates’s place.”
Nathan froze, a muscle ticking in his jaw as he faced Rafe’s steady, knowing blue gaze.
“You do know she’s to be mated soon, don’t you?” Rafe pressed. “Some good ol’ boy Darkhaven lawyer who’s been sniffing around her skirts practically since she came of age, according to Carys.”
Nathan growled at the reminder. “Like I said, there’s nothing going on that you need to know about. Nothing I can’t handle. And as your friend, I’m asking you to trust me on that.”
It took a long moment before Rafe finally nodded his agreement. He turned away and started getting dressed. “Any further word from D.C. today?”
“Nothing yet,” Nathan replied, glad for the change in subjects. “They’re still arranging the meetings with Crowe’s widow and exes. When I spoke with Gideon at Headquarters today, he said they expect to have the interrogations completed within a couple of days. Which is better than I can say about our mission to bring in Cassian Gray. I’ve been digging into the bastard’s records all day and coming up empty. No personal records, no past, no kin. The man’s a fucking ghost.”
Rafe grunted. “He’s got property. La Notte.”
Nathan gave a dubious shrug. “Maybe, maybe not. I hit a wall trying to chase down the title holder of the club. Records are private, sealed. Far as I could tell, there’s about half a dozen layers of lawyers and holding companies in the way.”
“That’s a lot of
anonymity and subterfuge for a nightclub,” Rafe remarked. “Cage fighting is illegal, but it sure as hell doesn’t warrant that kind of paranoia.”
Nathan nodded. “That’s what Gideon said when I told him what I’d found. He’s running some hacks now, said he’ll report back as soon as he turns up any leads.”
As the Order’s longtime chief intelligence officer and resident genius, Gideon in D.C. hadn’t run field missions in many years, but the vampire was an absolute killer behind the keyboard.
“Gonna take a hell of a lot more than lawyers and corporate shields to keep Gideon from exposing Cass and whoever he’s hiding behind,” Rafe said. “There’s never been a database in existence that he couldn’t crack.”
Nathan agreed, but time spent waiting was time wasted. While Headquarters was hacking into Cass’s life from D.C., Nathan and his team needed to keep up the pressure locally.
“Tell Eli and Jax we’ll meet in fifteen for a review of tonight’s patrol. We may not know everything about Cassian Gray yet, but there’s one obvious constant in his life and that’s La Notte.” Nathan headed for the exit. “We need to start disrupting his business, rattle the hive, and see what it stirs up. And we start tonight.”
Jordana walked the exhibit floor at the museum, taking a slow measure of the entire collection and jotting notes on her tablet. Last night’s patron preview had been a means of thanking the various donors and community supporters, but it had also been a dry run for the exhibit in preparation for its public opening in just a few nights.
She perused the pieces and their placement, making minute adjustments to temperature and humidity settings, double-checking text cards and lighting levels for each of the displays.
Anything to keep her mind from straying to her unsettling encounter with Nathan earlier that morning.
He’d been crude and confrontational. Impolite and far too bold. He was terrifying, not because of his profession or his past but because of the way he seemed to see straight into her soul and lay her bare.
He was dangerous for so many reasons.
And yet she couldn’t stop thinking about the things he said to her. She couldn’t stop thinking about the way he made her feel. Her pulse quickened at the memory of being alone with Nathan in close quarters.
He hadn’t even touched her, yet her body had thrummed with the need to feel his hands on her.
Have you ever kissed Elliott Bentley-Squire the way you kissed me?
Nathan’s words came back to her in a heated rush, making the ache return again now. She tried to will it away, but it was already taking root deep inside her. In truth, it had never fully ebbed in all the hours since she’d seen Nathan at the mansion.
Has he ever made your cheeks flame just by looking at you, or made your pulse beat like a hammer in your veins because of the things you wish he’d do to you?
Jordana idly brought her free hand up to her lips, finding it all too easy to imagine it was Nathan’s mouth brushing against hers, not the tips of her suddenly trembling fingers. He had been right about that too—she didn’t regret kissing him. Not even after the things he said to her today.
Not even after the mortifying things she’d admitted to him about her relationship with Elliott and her lack of experience in general.
God, why had she told him that? What had possessed her to admit so much to him with so little provocation? Nathan knew more about her now than anyone besides her best friend. What more might she be willing to tell him—or willing to do—if she ever saw him again?
I’m the last kind of man you should want in your life … or in your bed.
She didn’t doubt that for a minute, yet her blood still throbbed in her veins, kindling the knot of heat that pulsed in her core. Her nape tingled beneath the loose chignon of her upswept hair, the pulse points in her neck echoing in her ears with each heavy beat of her heart. Warmth spread down her throat and across the tops of her breasts, making her light silk blouse feel as hot and confining as a winter sweater.
“Hello? Earth to Jordana.” Carys’s voice broke into Jordana’s thoughts like a splash of cold water. “Did you hear a word I said?”
“Sorry,” Jordana blurted. “I was just finishing a note on this display.”
Carys cocked her head and narrowed her eyes slightly, as if she didn’t quite buy the excuse. “I’ve got the temps and humidity readings you asked for on the French tapestry displays.” She tapped her tablet screen and sent the data to Jordana’s device.
Jordana scanned the report and nodded her approval. “This looks good, Carys, thank you. I would like to see the lighting muted a bit on the Beauvais pastoral piece. I noticed last night that we were losing some of the more subtle colors of the weaving.”
“Okay,” Carys replied. “Are you still rethinking the placement of the Roman mosaics?”
Jordana glanced over to the display of ancient tiles encased in a multi-tiered tower of Plexiglas in the center of the exhibit. She considered for a moment, then gave a nod. “Yes, let’s have that switched with something else. Sleeping Endymion would be a better focal point for that section of the exhibit, don’t you think?”
Carys smiled. “Your favorite piece. Sure, I think it’s a great idea.”
They walked over to the clear case that housed the Italian sculpture that was more than three hundred years old. The terra cotta depiction of the mortal shepherd Endymion reposed in eternal slumber where he waited for his lover, the lunar goddess Selene, had enchanted Jordana from the moment she first saw it. Donated anonymously, the sculpture had been part of the museum’s permanent collection for at least two decades.
It wasn’t the most valuable, or even among the most historically important pieces Jordana had known. But the simple beauty of the work, and the myth it represented, never failed to move something deep inside her.
Jordana stared into the display at the handsome mortal who slept forever under the delicate sliver of a crescent moon. Just looking at the piece made a sadness swell in her chest. She glanced down at the inside of her left wrist, where she bore a small scarlet birthmark in the shape of a crescent moon with a teardrop falling into its cradle.
Her Breedmate mark.
Unlike Endymion, she wasn’t fully mortal. She, like the other half-human females born with the teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol somewhere on their bodies, could live agelessly once blood-bonded with one of the Breed.
Such an incredible gift, to entwine two lives forever. And yet it could also be an inescapable shackle.
“Can you imagine sleeping through your entire existence?” Jordana murmured as Carys came to stand beside her, looking at Cornacchini’s sculpture. “Have you ever felt as though your life were taking place around you, outside of you? That everything was moving faster than you could catch it—as if you were asleep and anchored to the ground like Endymion?”
“No,” Carys replied, zero hesitation. “If I want something, I reach for it. I don’t let anything stop me.”
Her careful tone drew Jordana’s gaze to her. “Never?”
“Never.”
Jordana gave a mild nod. “It’s different for you, Carys. You’re Breed. You didn’t grow up in the Darkhavens, or with a father who’s been drumming into your head since you were a child that he expected you to be blood-bonded to a suitable mate by the time you were twenty-five.”
“True,” Carys said around a laugh. “If my father had his way, he’d have chained me to the mansion banister until I was twice that age. Life is meant to be lived, Jordana. And we only get one shot at it, whether we’re Breedmate, Breed, or basic Homo sapiens.”
Jordana smiled at her friend, loving how sure Carys always seemed about what she wanted and where she was heading. “I wish I had your bravery. You’ve never been afraid to leap, no matter how deep or dark the crevasse beneath you.”
Carys shrugged, grinning. “It’s only deep and dark if you pause first to look down. Besides, you’ve got your own kind of bravery, Jordana. I mean, look what you’re d
oing here with the exhibit.”
Jordana took in the collection she was so proud of, all the pieces she had lovingly, painstakingly, curated one by one. It was her joy, and she threw herself into her work wholeheartedly.
While she’d made a rewarding, promising career for herself, sometimes she wondered if her father and Elliott would both be happier if she’d spent her time in philanthropic or social pursuits like most of the other young Breedmates of the area Darkhavens.
But she’d been a disappointment to them there too. She wasn’t like most other Breedmates, no matter how much she or anyone else wished she were. Hell, she wasn’t even sure what her unique ESP ability might be, a gift most women like her came into by puberty or earlier.
Jordana pulled her thoughts back to the exhibit and Carys’s bolstering praise.
“This is all your vision, your work,” her friend pointed out. “No one handed this project to you—you wanted it, so you went after it and you made it happen.”
“That’s different,” Jordana demurred. Her gaze drifted back to the sculpture under the glass. “What if you don’t know what you want? What if you wake up one day and realize that you never had a clue what you wanted? That someone had always been telling you what you needed or what was expected, and now all you want to do is close your eyes again and pretend you’re still sleeping?”
Carys’s bright blue gaze softened. “You want me to tell you what I think, honestly?”
“Yes.” Jordana nodded. “Tell me, please.”
“I think you know what you don’t want. And I think that’s what you’re afraid to admit to anyone, even to yourself.”
Jordana blew out a slow sigh as she glanced away. “That’s what Nathan said to me too. Well, not in so many words. He was far less polite about it.”
“Nathan,” Carys said. “So you did see him at the mansion this morning.”
Hearing the obvious lack of surprise in her friend’s voice, Jordana shot a frown at her. “You knew?”