1001 Dark Nights: Bundle Twelve

by Alexandra Ivy

  But make believe doesn't last long between the sassy cowgirl and the laid-back bulldogger. When the attraction between them ignites, London learns that sexy Sutton is no Saint when that bedroom door closes; he's the red-hot lover she's always dreamed of.

  The more time they spend together, the more Sutton realizes he wouldn’t mind being roped and tied to the rough and tumble cowgirl for real…

  * * * *

  Stripped Down

  A Blacktop Cowboys® Novella

  Click here to purchase.

  Never challenge a cowboy to a little naughty competition…

  A flirty game of sexual truth or dare between best man, Wynton Grant, and maid of honor, Melissa Lockhart during their BFF’s wedding reception results in a steamy hookup.

  But their plans for a one and done change when a family crisis leaves Wyn shorthanded at the Grant Ranch. Experienced horsewoman Mel volunteers to help out and gets way more than she bargained for living under the same roof as the sexy rancher. Playing house has never appealed to Wyn…until now.

  But the feisty redhead is keeping secrets and Wyn’s not above stripping her bare—body and soul—to get to the bottom of it…

  * * * *

  Tripped Out

  A Blacktop Cowboys® Novella

  By Lorelei James

  Click here to purchase.

  Where there’s smoke…

  Stirling Gradsky abandoned the corporate rat race for a more laidback lifestyle. So it’s ironic she’s stuck working with a hard-bodied, know-it-all scientist who treats her like a stoner instead of a stone cold business woman capable of running a large scale cannabis operation. Dr. Hot and Tattooed with the big…brain needs to stop sampling their product; he’s under the half-baked idea that he’s the boss.

  Dr. Liam Argent’s doctorate isn’t in chemistry, but from the moment he meets his sexy new coworker, there’s enough heat between them to short out all the lights in the grow house. First item on his agenda? Clearing up the sassy, blunt blonde’s hazy notion that she’s in charge.

  Sparks fly as their attraction blazes. But can they weed out their differences without getting burned?

  Midnight Untamed

  A Midnight Breed Novella

  By Lara Adrian

  Also from Lara Adrian

  The 100 Series

  For 100 Days

  For 100 Nights

  For 100 Reasons

  100 Series Digital Boxed Set

  Midnight Breed Series

  A Touch of Midnight (prequel novella FREE eBook)

  Kiss of Midnight

  Kiss of Crimson

  Midnight Awakening

  Midnight Rising

  Veil of Midnight

  Ashes of Midnight

  Shades of Midnight

  Taken by Midnight

  Deeper Than Midnight

  A Taste of Midnight (ebook novella)

  Darker After Midnight

  The Midnight Breed Series Companion

  Edge of Dawn

  Marked by Midnight (novella)

  Crave the Night

  Tempted by Midnight (novella)

  Bound to Darkness

  Stroke of Midnight

  Defy the Dawn

  Midnight Untamed

  Midnight Unbound (novella)

  Claimed in Shadows

  Midnight Unleashed

  . . . and more to come!

  Hunter Legacy Series

  (Midnight Breed Spinoff)

  Born of Darkness (forthcoming)

  Dragon Chalice Series

  Heart of the Hunter (FREE eBook)

  Heart of the Flame

  Heart of the Dove

  Dragon Chalice Boxed Set

  Warrior Trilogy

  White Lion's Lady (FREE eBook)

  Black Lion's Bride

  Lady of Valor

  Warrior Trilogy Boxed Set

  Lord of Vengeance

  Acknowledgments from the Author

  I am so excited to be part of the 1001 Dark Nights collection again with this new novella in my Midnight Breed vampire romance series. Thank you to Liz Berry, MJ Rose, Jillian Stein, and the rest of the creative, marketing, and editorial teams at Evil Eye Concepts for the incredible vision and enthusiasm you bring to each release in the collection. It’s a pleasure to be working with all of you!

  To my amazing readers, thank you for your continued support and for joining me on yet another adventure within the Midnight Breed story world. I hope you enjoy Savage and Bella’s story, and all the rest still to come.

  Happy reading!

  Love, Lara

  Chapter 1

  The palatial villa two hours outside Rome glittered like a jewel beneath the starlit night sky. Lights glowed from within the sprawling mansion and along the circular drive out front, where half a dozen sleek sports cars were parked on the cobbled stones.

  From his vantage point on a tree-studded hill five hundred yards away, Ettore Selvaggio watched as a beautiful red Ferrari rolled up to the villa and took its place between a silver Bugatti Veyron and a blue Pagani Huayra. Add in the pair of Lamborghinis, the Maserati, and another Ferrari, and there was well over ten million dollars’ of automotive luxury parked outside Vito Massioni’s mansion. Plus a collection of vehicles worth twice that amount stowed inside the massive bays of the reputed drug-dealing Breed male’s private garage.

  If nothing else, Massioni and his criminal associates had impeccable taste in cars.

  “Apparently, selling your soul to Opus Nostrum pays well,” he muttered into the wireless mic that linked him to the Order’s command center back in Rome. “You getting my visual on this place?”

  “Visual acknowledged, Savage.”

  The deep gravel voice of his comrade, Trygg, was never easy to read, and tonight was no exception. Not that Savage actually expected the menacing warrior to appreciate the fleet of fine Italian machinery belonging to Massioni and his cohorts.

  And not that it mattered, anyway.

  In a few minutes, the cars, the mansion, and everyone in it would be nothing but ash and smoking rubble.

  Damned shame about the cars.

  “Status,” Trygg prompted over the earpiece as Savage hunkered down to watch the coming fireworks.

  “Packages have been delivered and the last party guest just arrived. We’re good to go.”

  “You collected the receipt?”

  “Right here in my pocket,” he said, tapping the flash drive Trygg referenced.

  Twenty minutes before Savage arrived at his observation position on the hill, he’d been inside Massioni’s villa on a covert solo mission to download key computer data, then take out the target. According to intel newly obtained by the Order’s headquarters in Washington, D.C., Vito Massioni was the European distributor of a dangerous narcotic that turned otherwise law-abiding Breed vampires into blood-obsessed, murderous Rogues.

  This new drug with the street name Red Dragon was said to be even more powerful than its predecessor, Crimson, which had cost countless Breed and human lives when it hit the streets twenty years ago. Now, thanks to Massioni and his collusion with the terror group, Opus Nostrum, Rogue outbreaks were on the rise again in the States and across Europe, creating panic among an already anxious human public. As leader of the Order, Lucan Thorne had made it clear that he wanted the problem cut off at the source, and cut off swiftly.

  Savage was more than happy to be tapped for the covert assignment. It had been a serendipitous bonus to learn that Massioni had called a private meeting with his lieutenants tonight. So, instead of a data grab and stealth assassination—one of many lethal specialties that had earned Savage his nickname in the Order—the scope of the job had expanded to mass elimination.

  To that end, four explosive devices with enough firepower to level an entire city block were now planted around Massioni’s villa. All Savage had to do was set them off by remote detonator and Opus would lose yet another key ally. The Order wasn’t about to rest until the ent
ire organization was dismantled, the cabal of members at its helm unmasked and destroyed.

  Savage lifted his field glasses to his eyes and peered at the mansion. Although his vision as one of the Breed was superhuman, the lenses allowed him to zoom in on the illuminated window of the grand salon where Massioni and his men were gathered.

  The seven Breed males evidently had plenty of cause for celebration. They greeted one another with a lot of laughter and back patting, a lot of ingratiating smiles and kowtowing for the dark-haired, hawk-nosed Vito Massioni from his underlings. No doubt the Red Dragon dealer and his cronies had been handsomely rewarded for their part in the spike of Rogue attacks the past few nights. Savage couldn’t wait to send them all to their final reward tonight.

  “Light it up at your ready,” Trygg advised.

  Savage smiled behind his binoculars. “With pleasure.”

  Glancing away from the meeting taking place inside the mansion, he reached to retrieve the remote detonator. Normally he didn’t get invested in witnessing a target’s demise, but it was hard not to take some satisfaction in crashing Massioni’s little party tonight.

  He brought the field glasses back up to his face—just in time to see that a woman had entered the room. The petite blonde wore a flashy red dress that clung to her slender body like liquid silk. The neckline plunged low in front, the slit in the skirt slicing high up her leg, baring a lot of creamy thigh with each gliding step she took toward Massioni.

  What the fuck?

  Savage hadn’t realized there was a female in the mansion. Not that he felt much sympathy for anyone who associated with a thug like Massioni. And not that it should stop him from pushing the button on the detonator. But still…

  His thumb froze, hovering over the trigger.

  “Unidentified female on the premises,” he murmured into his mic. “Stand by, base.”

  “Standing by,” Trygg said. Then he made a low, appreciative noise that might as well have been a wolf-whistle, coming from the eternally inscrutable warrior.

  Yeah, the female was hot. Savage barely contained his own primal growl at the sight of all those slender curves poured into a column of scarlet silk. He’d long avoided blondes—for personal reasons of his own—but everything male in him responded to the sight of this one like flame to gasoline.

  He stared through the lenses, watching as every head in the room turned to look at her as she approached Massioni. As soon as she was close enough, the vampire’s beefy arm snaked out to hook her around the waist, pulling her roughly against him as his buddies grinned and chuckled.

  More than one of the Breed males gathered in the room wore an expression of unabashed lust as their boss crudely cupped the young woman’s breast in front of them all.

  A jab of disgust spiked through Savage’s blood at Massioni’s manhandling of the woman.

  “There was no mention of a female in the intel,” Trygg said.

  “No, there wasn’t.” Savage’s reply was clipped, irritation combined with this unwanted element of surprise. “The report out of D.C. specifically stated that Massioni is unmated, so who the fuck is she?”

  “Collateral damage,” Trygg replied evenly. “Pop the charges and get the hell out of there.”

  Savage nodded, knowing that was sound advice.

  But his thumb didn’t move on the detonator.

  Something was starting to bother him about the woman the longer he stared at her. Something that gnawed at the perimeter of his memory.

  “I need a closer look.”

  Without waiting for confirmation from his comrade, he set the detonator down in the soft grass, then tightened the focus on his binoculars. Not on Massioni or his men, but on her. The gorgeous blonde whose heart-shaped face and pixie features seemed strangely, distantly familiar somehow.

  Which was impossible, considering this female was clearly Massioni’s plaything.

  The face that teased at the frayed edges of Savage’s mind—and his heart—had no place here. Not with criminals and killers like the ones assembled inside the villa that was wired to blow on his command.

  Holy shit.

  It couldn’t be her.

  Trygg’s voice sounded in his ear. “You got problems over there?”

  Savage couldn’t answer that. Not when his veins were filling with adrenaline and a sick feeling of apprehension was starting to take up space behind his sternum.

  He brought the woman in closer, his eyes burning from the intensity of his unblinking stare. She was still caught within the cage of Massioni’s thick arm, smiling indulgently as the Breed male showed her off like some kind of prize to his leering friends. Showing her off as if the bastard owned her.

  Fuck. Don’t let that be her.

  “Status,” Trygg demanded now. “What’s going on?”

  “I’m not sure. I think the woman is…” He drew in a breath, hoping like hell he was wrong. “Christ, I think I know her.”

  Trygg’s curse scraped across the earpiece. “Bad fucking time for a reunion with one of your many conquests, man. And if the bitch belongs to our target, you don’t know her now.”

  No, he didn’t.

  Not anymore.

  Hell, not for a very long time.

  As Savage watched, Massioni finally released the woman from his possessive hold. He said something to his colleagues, a remark that made them all chuckle. Then Massioni gestured at her dismissively. Her placid smile still in place, the beautiful blonde pivoted away from the men.

  It wasn’t until she turned around that Savage’s suspicion was confirmed.

  The proof was there on the back of her left shoulder—the scarlet mark of a Breedmate. Only the rarest of women bore the unique birthmark signifying they were something more than mortal.

  The small teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol rode this female’s shoulder in the precise spot that Savage dreaded it would.

  “Son of a bitch. I don’t believe this.”

  It was her.

  After all this time—nearly a decade.

  Arabella Genova.

  Savage snarled as Massioni playfully smacked her ass, sending her on her way. Unfazed, she glided out of the room as elegantly as she’d entered a few moments ago, Savage following her progress with the field glasses held in a grip so tight they should have shattered.

  Trygg was right. He didn’t know her now.

  How the girl he once adored had ended up in the hands of a thug like Vito Massioni, he could only guess.

  And it didn’t matter.

  Savage had a job to do.

  That’s what he told himself, even as he pulled the binoculars away from his face and hissed a sharp curse into the darkness.

  The Bella he’d known as a girl all those years ago was just a memory. This Bella was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and on the dead wrong side of the law.

  Collateral damage, just like Trygg said.

  Savage knew what he had to do. The Order might never have the chance to get this close to Massioni and his lieutenants again. Everything was in place. The mission was moments away from success. All he had to do was hit the detonator.

  He picked it up, staring at the trigger that would erase Massioni and his entire operation from the face of the Earth.

  And, now, Bella too.

  “Fuck.”

  Savage raked a hand over his tightly clamped jaw. His pulse was banging in his temples, his heart slamming against his ribs with each heavy beat.

  “Status,” Trygg said, a note of warning in the warrior’s gravel voice. “I don’t like what I’m hearing over there, Savage.”

  He didn’t answer. Nothing he said now would put his comrade or anyone else at the command center in Rome at ease.

  Savage set aside the binoculars. Then he carefully deactivated the detonator and slipped the remote into his back pocket.

  “Stand by, base. I’m going back in.”

  Chapter 2

  Arabella held her composure until she had reached her private quarters
on the villa’s second floor. Once inside, she leaned against the closed door and let her revulsion leak out of her on a shudder. At least she was getting better at the charade. There was a time when she might have had to bite back a scream.

  Her skin crawled everywhere Vito had touched her. She could still feel his hard fingers on her body, on her breast. The sting of his offensive smack to her backside burned her dignity even more than it did her ass.

  She hated being trotted out in front of his friends as his personal show pony, forced to dress and act as if she belonged to the coarse, criminal Breed male.

  Though to be fair, in many ways Massioni did own her. Her life. Her freedom. Her unique Breedmate gift for premonition—the thing that first brought her to his attention three years ago. He owned all of that, no matter how much she despised him.

  He might have owned her body, too, if she hadn’t found a way to convince him that the price of taking that part of her would cost him the one thing he couldn’t afford to lose.

  The threat had kept her out of his reach so far, but there were times when she knew he’d been tempted to test her. She only hoped she wouldn’t kill him if he tried. Because no matter how clever she wanted to think she was in dealing with him, Vito Massioni always had one final, terrible card to play.

  And so long as he held that over her head, she had no choice but to serve him.

  She could never escape him, not even in death.