by Lara Adrian
Carys smiled, devilish. “I thought you might have. You came back with the packing tape looking kind of flushed and out of breath. I didn’t think it was because you’d been running around in circles down in the command center. Even though my directions to the supply room might’ve gotten you a bit turned around …”
Jordana’s eyes widened. “You did give me bad instructions! I knew it. I ended up so lost, I might never have found my way back.”
Carys grinned. “Civilians don’t go unnoticed on the warriors’ turf for long. I knew someone would help you find your way.”
“I can’t believe you deliberately sent me down there like that,” Jordana said, appalled but not angry. “You couldn’t possibly have been hoping I’d run into him?”
“I saw the way you looked at Nathan last night at the patrons’ reception. And I saw the way he looked at you. I found it … interesting. So I decided to take a little chance.” She arched a brow at Jordana. “I took a leap, thinking maybe you might need help taking one too.”
“With him?” Jordana scoffed. “Please. He’s the rudest man I’ve ever met. He has no social skills whatsoever. He’s coarse and cold and menacing.”
“And yet you kissed him a few nights ago.”
She hardly needed the reminder. Jordana felt her forehead crease harder with her deepening scowl. She’d never been particularly comfortable in her own skin, had felt practically all her life that she was different somehow. That she was merely pretending so hard to be normal—to be the good daughter, the exemplary woman, the pleasant Breedmate—goals that seemed always just out of her reach.
No matter how hard she strived to be what everyone around her expected, inside she felt she was only going through the motions. Acting, not living.
Pretending to be something she wasn’t and maybe never could be.
She’d never felt that lack so markedly as she did in Nathan’s company. He had the uncanny ability to strip her bare, to pare her down to her bones with just a glance. He had the unnerving power to unravel the tentative constructs of her life with just one uninvited touch.
“He scares me, Carys. When Nathan looks at me, I feel as if he’s seeing all my flaws, every crack in who I am. When I’m near him, it’s as though I’m standing naked in the middle of a raging storm. He makes me feel as if I’m on the steepest cliff, about to lose my footing. That if I step too close to him, I might never get back on solid ground.”
Carys stared at her. “And this is a bad thing, the way you see it?”
“Yes, it’s bad. It’s the worst thing,” Jordana said, uncertain who she needed to convince more: her friend or herself. “I’ll be better off—safer—if I stay far away from Nathan.”
“Maybe you’re right,” Carys replied after a long moment. “It would be safer for you if you steer clear of him.”
“Yes,” Jordana said, pushing out the breath she’d been holding. Having her best friend’s agreement was just the confirmation she needed. “I’m glad you understand.”
“Oh, believe me, I do,” Carys said. Her lips curved into a wry smile. “Because what you just described? That’s how Rune made me feel from the moment we first met. I stepped off that cliff with him, and so far, I haven’t missed solid ground beneath me for so much as a second.”
CASSIAN GRAY STEPPED OUT OF A TAXI AND INTO THE LATE-AFTERNOON sunlight on Commonwealth Avenue in Boston’s Back Bay. He ambled up the street at a casual pace, even though daytime was ending in less than two hours and he had every reason to hustle his ass to where he was going.
This close to dusk, it was a risk for him to be out and about. Although he hadn’t been in touch with anyone at La Notte in a couple of days, he had no doubt the Order was on his trail. He’d suspected his cover had been blown from the instant one of their warriors—an errant comrade-turned-rebel-leader named Kellan Archer—had body-blocked him during a minor confrontation in the club.
Cassian didn’t know what the Breed male’s unique psychic talent might be, but something told him the warrior’s touch had outed Cass as being other than human.
That bit of shitty luck had nearly been enough to make Cass cut and run from the life he’d made for himself in Boston, but it was the more recent bout of bad news—the death of Reginald Crowe—that had Cass skulking around the city and constantly looking over his shoulder like the fugitive he truly was.
Crowe’s attempt to disrupt the Global Nations Council summit several nights ago had made headlines all over the world. So had his slaying at the hands of the Order. As much as Cass dreaded the possibility of being captured for interrogation by Lucan and his warriors, there was another, equally lethal army of soldiers that he hoped to elude.
His Atlantean kinsmen.
Cass had been on the run from them for far longer than he had from the Order. Hiding in plain sight had worked well enough all these years, and it was that same method of concealment he employed now, as he made his way to an important appointment in the city.
As he strolled nonchalantly by a coffee shop window on the avenue, he caught his reflection and smiled to himself at how different he looked. His short crown of hair was dyed a nondescript brown and combed into an obedient side part. Dark sunglasses masked his eyes.
He’d traded his usual public camouflage of leather and metal for thrift store denim and a faded Red Sox logo T-shirt that had probably started showing its wear a decade ago. Scuffed loafers covered his feet, their soles so thin he could feel every pit and bump in the concrete of the sidewalk as he made his way toward the designated meeting spot.
He looked more than passably pedestrian, hardly distinguishable from any other civilian man in his thirties. To anyone seeing him on the street today, Cass was unremarkable, forgettable. Just as he’d intended.
No one would think that he and the platinum-haired, black-leather-clad Goth nightmare proprietor of La Notte were one and the same.
Nor would any of the humans around him on this stretch of crowded pavement ever guess that he was an immortal on the north side of a thousand years old.
Only his fellow Atlanteans might sense he was one of them, and he’d been careful to keep his head down in the time since he’d left their realm and come to Boston. He’d constructed an all-new identity, a facade he’d carefully maintained for twenty-some years, from his unsavory occupation and all the underworld connections that went along with it, to his offputting appearance and the presumed kink of his carnal proclivities.
Cassian Gray, proprietor of La Notte, was a mask he’d perfected over a long period of time. Keeping his ear to the ground, his fingers busy greasing palms and pulling various strings in the shadowy underbelly of the city were cautious necessities of his new life.
He’d had to be cautious, because he was a wanted man. A hated man. A defector.
A traitor to his queen.
He’d taken something of great value to her when he fled, and her wrath knew no limits. She’d called for his death. Then again, he’d given her little choice. His death was the only hope she had of ever getting her hands on the precious treasure he stole away from her.
If Cassian had anything to say about it, not even his death would assure the queen of that goal.
He figured it was only a matter of time before someone caught up to him—his immortal comrades or the Order’s warriors. There was nowhere completely safe for him now, and so long as he stayed in Boston, his presence alone posed an added risk to the very thing he’d worked so hard to shield and protect.
Which was the reason for his clandestine appointment today. He needed further assurances that his interests would continue to be looked after, even if he was gone from the picture altogether.
Cassian rounded a corner at the end of the block and made his way onto Newbury Street. He headed into a swanky sim lounge, bypassing the hostess before she could tell him what the current offerings were in each of the club’s experience rooms. Cass wasn’t there to spend time or money playing in the virtual reality realm with tourists looking
to become spaceship captains or fairy-tale creatures at the rate of a couple hundred an hour.
He walked to the back of the club as had been arranged earlier that day. The individual he’d come to meet was already waiting in one of the private VIP rooms.
Garbed from head to toe in dark, UV-protective clothing, the Breed male waited with his driver, a human—hired help, by the anxious look of him. No doubt the driver’s tip would come in the currency of a mind scrub once the meeting was concluded and his fare was delivered safely back to his home elsewhere in the city.
Cassian strolled in and faced the vampire’s obscured form. “My old friend,” he said, extending his hand to the vampire who knew all his secrets and had kept them faithfully. “Thank you for agreeing to meet me on such short notice.”
“What do you think?” Carys spread her arms wide and gestured around her to the display of French tapestries when Jordana sought her out a few hours later, as the museum was closing for the day. “I had the guys mix the halogens with a few low-watt LEDs. If you think it’s too dark now—”
“No.” Jordana shook her head. “No, it’s perfect like this. Good work.”
Carys beamed. “Thanks. I also picked up the interior signage from the printer. It’s in your office. They said they’ll deliver the digital placards and exterior banners in the morning.”
“Excellent. I have a placement mock-up almost finished for all of the banners and digital signs. I know it’s getting late, but it shouldn’t take me too long to wrap up. You want to wait for me? We can grab some carryout from the Thai place on the way home and a bottle of wine. Seems like we should do something to celebrate your moving in today, right?”
“Oh,” Carys said slowly, her expression wilting in apology. “Jordana, I’m sorry. I made plans with Rune earlier this week that I’d be at the club. He’s got a big match tonight and I want to see him before he goes into the cages. I hate watching him fight, but I can’t bear to not be there, you know?”
Jordana gave a mild shrug. “Sure, I understand. You should be there.”
“Come with me instead. We can celebrate and have dinner there.”
“No. That’s okay.” Jordana was disappointed, but she knew how Carys worried herself sick when Rune was in the cages, despite the fact that the brutal Breed fighter had never lost a match.
Jordana could hardly stomach the fights either. And she hated to support an establishment whose proprietor made his living off the spilled blood and broken bones of others. Besides, it wasn’t as if she didn’t have plenty of work to keep her busy anyway.
“You go on and be with Rune tonight,” she said. “We can celebrate another time.”
Carys frowned. “Are you sure?”
“Positive. I want to tie up a few loose ends before I head out anyway. I’ll order takeout instead and bring home the leftovers for you in case you’re hungry when you get in.”
“Thank you.” Carys pulled her into a quick, warm hug. “I’ll see you later, then. And when we do go out to celebrate, it’s my treat. Deal?”
Jordana nodded. “Okay. It’s a deal.”
She went back to work as Carys gathered her things and left the museum. Two hours later, Jordana had finished the signage map for the exhibit and eaten half a container of veggie pad Thai, stowing the rest in the department refrigerator down the hall. The museum was quiet, everyone but her and the twenty-four-hour security guard on post in the lobby having long since left the building.
Jordana saved the signage map on her computer and sent a copy to Carys’s tablet for the morning. She got up to stretch her legs and walk to the restroom before she would have to make the drive home across town. When she returned to her desk, she had a voicemail from Elliott.
He didn’t sound happy that she was working late again. “Apparently, I’ve missed you most of the day, darling. Did you get the message I left on your mobile a few hours ago?”
Shit. She’d been so busy, she hadn’t bothered to check the damn thing.
“I want you to call me as soon as you get home tonight, Jordana. I want to know that you’re safe.” He cleared his throat, and she thought she heard irritation in his tone. “When I didn’t hear from you today, I called your building and spoke with Seamus. Maybe you can tell me how it is that I had to find out from your doorman that Carys Chase has moved into your apart—”
Jordana disconnected from the message on a furious curse. What the hell was Elliott doing checking up on her behind her back?
She was half tempted to return his call right now and ask him that herself. But she knew if she did, she might also say something she could never take back.
Angry now, she deleted the voicemail and closed up her office for the night.
She took the elevator down to the lobby, said good-bye to Lou behind the reception desk, and walked out to the parking lot.
Hers was the only vehicle there, the pale silver compact car gleaming under the overhead lamps at the far end of the pavement. Jordana got halfway across the lot before she remembered the Thai food in the refrigerator upstairs.
“Dammit.”
She turned to go back and froze. A pair of eyes was trained on her in the dark; she could feel it.
There—a shadow near the building.
It skulked away quickly when she peered in its direction, though not soon enough to escape her notice. Someone was there, watching her. Waiting for her?
The hairs on her nape rose in a wave. Fear shot down her spine like a cold electrical current. Her heart raced, palms going damp.
Someone was there.
Hiding, but not gone.
Watching her, even now.
Who was it?
What did they want?
She wasn’t about to go back to the building and find out. Carys’s leftovers weren’t going anywhere tonight.
As for Jordana, the idea of going home alone to an empty apartment while her pulse was still jackhammering in fear didn’t sound very appealing. Of course, she could always call Elliott. He’d come over in a moment’s notice if she asked it of him. But she didn’t want Elliott.
The sad fact was, she never had wanted him.
And he deserved to know that.
But that was a problem she’d have to deal with soon enough.
Right now, Jordana just wanted to make it to her vehicle in one piece. She needed to go somewhere public, somewhere she knew she’d be safe among friends.
She hurried across the dark pavement and hopped in her car, then peeled out of the parking lot.
Her penthouse was just a few blocks away from the museum, but Jordana passed her building and kept on going, heading deeper into the city, to La Notte.
NATHAN LED HIS TEAM INTO CASSIAN GRAY’S CLUB AT THE height of the evening’s most lucrative hour. The dance floor and bar on street level were jammed with people who’d shelled out the steep cover charge just to get in, but the real commerce—Cass’s bread and butter—was taking place in the cages below.
With fearful glances and anxious murmurs rising in their wake, the heavily armed patrol squad cut a path through the crowd upstairs and headed down to La Notte’s arena.
The fights, and the sizable bets that accompanied them, were already well under way. Rune always drew the largest numbers, and tonight appeared to be no exception. The immense, dark-haired Breed male was matched against an opponent almost his equal in size and menace.
At six and a half feet tall and 300-plus pounds apiece, the two vampires dressed in little more than leather breeches and locked in brutal hand-to-hand combat inside the cage was a sight few humans would ever see in their lifetimes.
So much the better that the Breed-on-Breed blood sport could be enjoyed from the perceived safety of the club surrounding the steel-reinforced arena.
The crowd gasped as Rune drove a hard right hook into his opponent’s jaw. Bone cracked and blood spewed from the vampire’s slack mouth.
The blow was punishing, catastrophic, given that each fighter wore titanium-spike
d, fingerless leather gloves in the ring. The metal was meant to increase the savagery of the contest, but it also served to discourage the fighters from doping their performance with excessive feeding before a match.
If a Breed pushed himself into Bloodlust—the addiction only a rare few had ever beaten—the titanium of his opponent’s knuckle spikes would enter his diseased bloodstream and kill the vampire faster than any pounding he might suffer in the cages.
With the spectators cheering wildly, Rune’s opponent sank down onto his knees on a low howl of anguish. Nathan assessed the damage with a shrewd assassin’s eye. Another strike like the last one and Rune’s kill count would increase along with the stakes on him at the cashier.
Rune didn’t seem interested in beefing up his record or his worth. The big male stood back, allowing the other vampire the choice to either hit the mercy button on the cage and deliver Rune a jolt of electricity to the U-shaped steel collar each fighter wore around his neck or continue the match without the benefit of the handicap. Shouts of disapproval traveled the crowd near the cages as their champion refused to end the bout with an easy, but unnecessary, kill.
As the fight resumed, Nathan gestured to his squad to begin clearing the place out. It took only moments—and the flash of fangs from a group of combat-ready Order members—to send the bulk of the club’s clientele in the direction of the nearest exits.
But the intrusion also got the swift attention of La Notte’s security staff. Nathan and his men played rough with them tonight, no need to pretend they weren’t there to stir things up and make their presence known.
Elijah, Jax, and Rafe bounced a few Breed guards into the brick walls of the place, while Nathan soon found himself going hand to hand with a couple of the other fighters employed by Cassian Gray.
He disabled both in seconds, stopping just short of killing them. He wheeled around to face yet another of Cass’s fighters, but Syn made no move to take him on. Just shy of Nathan or Rune’s size, and handsome to the point of being pretty, the blond Breed male held his own impressive record in the cages. But he seemed to know better than to invite further problems with Nathan. All around them, the club was emptying out.