Lara Adrian

by Veil of Midnight (lit)

  The Breed’s other senses were also keenly sharp, but Lex suspected that even a human would be hard-pressed to miss the combined odors of blood and sex that mingled with the tang of woodsmoke.

  “My apologies for the interruption,” Lex murmured as his father came out of an adjacent room.

  Yakut was naked, his cock still partially erect, its ruddy length bobbing obscenely with his each swaggering stride. Revolted by the sight, Lex blinked, started to look away. He quickly thought better of it, refusing to give in to a weak impulse that was sure to be counted against him. Instead he watched his father enter the room, the old vampire’s eyes glowing like amber coals set deep into his skull, pupils reduced to narrow vertical slits at their center. His fangs were huge in his mouth, points fully extended and sharp as blades.

  A sheen of sweat coated Yakut’s body, every inch of him livid with color from the pulsing hues of his dermaglyphs, the unique Breed skin markings that spread from the Gen One’s throat to his ankles. Fresh blood—unmistakably human, yet weak-scented enough to indicate a Minion source—smeared across his torso and flanks.

  Lex wasn’t surprised by the evidence of his father’s recent activity, nor by the fact that the trio of muffled voices in the other room were those of his current stock of human mind slaves. Creating and keeping Minions, something only the most powerful, purest bloodlines of the race were capable of doing, had long been an illegal practice among polite Breed society. However, that was among the least of Sergei Yakut’s offenses. He made his own rules, dispensed his own justice, and here, in this remote place, he made it clear to all that he was king. Even Lex could appreciate that kind of freedom and power. Hell, he could practically taste it.

  Yakut aimed a dismissive glance at him from across the wide space of the room. “I look at you, and I see the dead standing before me.”

  Lex frowned. “Sir?”

  “If not for the warrior’s restraint and my intervention tonight, you would be lying beside Urien on that warehouse roof back in the city, both of your corpses awaiting sunrise.” Contempt edged every syllable. Yakut picked up an iron tool from hearthside and stabbed at the logs on the grate. “I spared your life tonight, Alexei. What more do you expect I owe you this evening?”

  Lex bristled at the reminder of his earlier humiliation, but he knew anger wouldn’t serve him well, particularly not when he was facing his father. He gave a deferential bow of his head, finding it a damned hard struggle to keep the edge out of his voice. “I am your faithful servant, Father. You owe me nothing whatsoever. And I ask nothing of you but the honor of your continued trust and confidence in me.”

  Yakut grunted. “Spoken more like a politician than a soldier. I have no need for politicians in my ranks, Alexei.”

  “I am a soldier,” Lex replied quickly, raising his head and watching as his father continued to jab the iron poker into the fire. The logs broke apart, sparks shooting upward, crackling in the long, deadly silence that fell over the room. “I am a soldier,” Lex stated again. “I want to serve you as best I can, Father.”

  A scoff now, but Yakut swiveled his shaggy head to regard Lex from over his shoulder. “You give me words, boy. I put neither trust nor confidence in words. Lately I can’t see that you’ve offered me anything more.”

  “How do you expect me to be effective if you don’t keep me better informed?” When those amber-hued eyes with their slivered pupils narrowed sharply on him, Lex hurried to add “I ran into the warrior on the grounds. He told me about the recent Gen One killings. He said the Order had contacted you personally to warn you of the potential danger. I should have been made aware of that, Father. As the captain of your guard, I deserve to be informed—”

  “You deserve?” The question hissed from between Yakut’s lips. “Please, Alexei…tell me just what it is you feel that you deserve.”

  Lex remained silent.

  “Nothing to add, son?” Yakut cocked his head at an exaggerated angle, his mouth pulled into a tight sneer. “A similar charge was hurled at me some years ago from the lips of a stupid female who thought she could appeal to my sense of obligation. My mercy, perhaps.” He chuckled, turning his attention back to the fire to stab again at the incinerating logs. “No doubt you recall what that got her.”

  “I recall,” Lex answered carefully, surprised by the dry catch in his throat as he spoke.

  Memories swirled out of the undulating flames in the fireplace.

  Northern Russia, the dead of winter. Lex was a boy, barely ten years old, but the man of his meager household for as long as he could remember. His mother was all he had. The only one who knew him for what he truly was, and loved him regardless.

  He’d worried the night she told him she was taking him to meet his father for the first time. She said Lex had been a secret she’d been keeping—her little treasure. But the winter had been hard, and they were poor. The country was in turmoil, unsafe for a woman raising a child like Lex on her own. They needed shelter, someone to protect them. She prayed Lex’s father would provide for them. She promised that he would open his arms to them in welcome once he met his son.

  Sergei Yakut had welcomed them with cold fury and a terrible, unthinkable ultimatum.

  Lex remembered his mother’s pleas for Yakut to take them in…completely ignored. He remembered the proud, beautiful woman getting down on her knees before Yakut, begging that if he would not care for them both that he look to Alexei alone instead.

  The words rang in Lex’s ears, even now: He is your son! Isn’t he worth anything to you? Doesn’t he deserve something more?

  How quickly the scene had spun out of control.

  How easy it was for Sergei Yakut to draw his sword and slice that blade cleanly through the neck of Lex’s defenseless mother.

  How brutal his words, that he had room only for soldiers in his domain, and that Lex had a choice to make in that moment: serve his mother’s killer, or die along with her.

  How weak Lex’s answer had been, hiccuped through his sobs.

  I will serve you, he’d said, and felt a bit of his soul desert him as he stared down in horror at his mother’s broken, bleeding body. I will serve you, Father.

  How cold the silence that followed.

  As cold as a grave.

  “I am your servant,” Lex said aloud now, bowing his head more from the weight of old memories than out of deference to the tyrant who sired him. “My allegiance has always been to you, Father. I serve at your pleasure only.”

  A sudden heat, so intense it felt like open flame, pressed to the underside of Lex’s chin. Startled, he lifted his head, flinching away from the pain with a hissed cry. He saw smoke curl up in front of his eyes, smelled the sweet, sickly stink of seared flesh—his own.

  Sergei Yakut stood before him, holding the long iron poker in his hand. The glowing tip of the metal rod smoldered, red-hot except for the spot of ashy white skin that clung to it from where it had torn away from Lex’s face.

  Yakut grinned, baring the points of his fangs. “Yes, Alexei, you serve at my pleasure only. Remember that. Just because my blood happens to run in your veins doesn’t mean I am opposed to spilling it.”

  “Of course not,” Lex murmured, jaw clenched for the blistering agony of his burns. Hatred seethed in him for the insult he could only swallow and for his own impotence when it came to the Breed male daring him with his glower to make a move against him now.

  Yakut backed off at last. He dragged a brown linen tunic from off a chair and shrugged into it. His eyes were still lit with blood hunger and lust. He let his tongue skate across his teeth and fangs. “As you are so eager to serve me, go and fetch Renata. I have need of her now.”

  Lex gritted his teeth so hard they should have shattered in his mouth. Wordlessly he walked out of the room with his spine held rigid, his own eyes flashing with the amber light of his outrage. He didn’t miss the confused look of the guard on post at the door, the uneasy drift of the other vampire’s eyes as he took in the odor of s
corched flesh and the likely heat of Lex’s roiling fury.

  His burn would heal—in fact, it already was, his accelerated Breed metabolism mending the seared skin as Lex’s feet carried him into the main area of the lodge. Renata was just coming in from outside. She saw Lex and paused, turning around as if she meant to avoid him. Not fucking likely.

  “He wants you,” Lex barked from across the lodge, not caring how many other guards heard him. All of them knew she was Yakut’s whore, so there was no reason to pretend otherwise. “He told me to send you in. He’s waiting for you to service him.”

  Cold jade-green eyes leveled on him. “I’ve been training outdoors. I need to wash off the dirt and sweat.”

  “He said now, Renata.” A clipped command, one he knew would be obeyed. There was more than a little satisfaction in that small, rare triumph.

  “Very well.” She shrugged, padded over on bare feet.

  Her bland expression as she neared said she didn’t care what anyone thought of her, least of all Lex, and that lack of suitable humiliation only made him want to degrade her further. He sniffed in her direction, more for effect than anything else. “He won’t mind your filth. Everyone knows the best whores are the dirty ones.”

  Renata didn’t so much as blink at the vulgar remark. She could cut him down with a blast of her mental power if she chose to—in fact, Lex almost hoped she would, if just to prove that he had wounded her. But the cool flick of her gaze told him she didn’t feel he was worth the effort.

  She strode past him with a dignity Lex couldn’t even begin to fathom. He watched her—all of the guards in the immediate area watched her—as she walked toward Sergei Yakut’s chambers as calmly as a noble queen on her way to the gallows.

  It didn’t take much for Lex to imagine a day when he might be the one in control of all who served this household, including haughty Renata. Of course, the bitch wouldn’t be so haughty if her mind, will, and body belonged entirely to him. A Minion to serve his every base whim…and those of the other males at his command.

  Yes, Lex mused darkly, it would be damned good indeed to be king.

  CHAPTER

  Eight

  Nikolai pulled one of Renata’s daggers free from the thick wooden post where she’d thrown it. He had to give her credit; her aim was dead-on. If he’d been human, not Breed, cursed with a human’s sluggish reflexes, Renata’s strike would have surely skewered him.

  He chuckled at that as he placed the blade on its elegant wrapper with the other three of the set. They were beautiful weapons, sleek and perfectly balanced, obviously hand-crafted. Niko let his gaze stray over the tooling on the carved sterling silver hilts. The pattern appeared to be a flourish of vines and flowers, but as he looked closer he realized that each of the four blades also bore a single word engraved lovingly within its ornate design: Faith. Courage. Honor. Sacrifice.

  A warrior’s creed? he wondered. Or were they the tenets of Renata’s personal discipline instead?

  Nikolai thought about the kiss they’d shared. Well, to say they had shared it was a stretch, considering how he’d descended on her mouth with all the finesse of a freight train. He hadn’t meant to kiss her. Yeah, and just who was he trying to kid? He couldn’t have stopped himself from doing it if he’d tried. Not that it was any excuse. And not that Renata had given him any chance to fumble through excuses or apologies.

  Niko could still see the horror in her eyes, the unexpected yet obvious revulsion for what he had done. He could still feel the sincerity of the threat she delivered just before she hightailed it out of the building.

  The dented part of his ego tried to soothe him with the possibility that maybe she really did despise males in general. Or that maybe she was just as cold as Lex seemed to think, a sexless, frigid soldier who just happened to have the face of an angel and a body that called to mind all manner of sins. Too many sins, each more tempting than the last.

  Nikolai had an easy charm when it came to women; not a total boast, but a conclusion he’d reached based on years of experience. When it came to females, he enjoyed easy, uncomplicated conquests—the more temporary the better. Chases and struggles were amusing, but best saved for true combat, in bloody battles with Rogue vampires and other enemies of the Order. Those were the challenges he relished most.

  So why was he fighting such a wicked urge to go after Renata now and see if he couldn’t thaw some of the ice that encased her?

  Because he was an idiot, that’s why. An idiot with a raging hard-on and an apparent death wish.

  Time to get his eye back on the damned ball. It didn’t matter what his body was telling him—no more than it mattered what he saw in Mira’s gaze. He had a job to do, a mission for the Order, and that was the only reason he was here.

  Niko carefully wrapped Renata’s daggers in their silk-and-velvet case and placed the small bundle on the bale of straw to await her return for them and her discarded shoes.

  He left the kennel outbuilding and headed into the darkness to pick up his search of the lodge grounds. A crescent moon hung high in the night sky, veiled by a smattering of thin, coal-gray clouds. The midnight breeze was warm, sifting gently through the spiny firs and tall oaks of the surrounding woods. Scents mingled in that humid summer air: the tang of pine pitch, the musty stamp of shaded soil and moss, the mineral crispness of fresh, rolling water from a stream that evidently cut through the property not far from where Niko stood.

  Nothing unexpected. Nothing out of place.

  Until…

  Nikolai lifted his chin and cocked his head slightly to the west. Something very unexpected drifted across his senses. Something that could not, should not, belong here.

  It was death he smelled now.

  Subtle, old…but certain.

  He jogged in the direction his nose led him. Deeper into the forest. Some hundred yards away from the lodge, the thicket dipped sharply. Niko slowed as he reached the place where his nostrils began to burn with the stench of aging decay. At his feet, the leaf-strewn, vine-tangled ground dropped away into a steep ravine.

  Nikolai glanced down into the cleft, sickened even before his eyes settled on the carnage.

  “Holy hell,” he muttered, low under his breath.

  A pit of death lay at the bottom of the ravine. Human skeletal remains. Dozens of bodies, unburied, forgotten, simply dumped one on top of another like rubbish. So many, it would take time to count them all. Adults. Children. A slaughter that showed no discrimination or mercy in its victims. A slaughter that might have taken years to accomplish.

  The pile of bones glowed white under the scant moonlight, legs and arms tangled together wherever the dead had fallen, skulls staring up at him, mouths agape in ghoulish, silent screams.

  Nikolai had seen enough. He stepped back from the edge of the ravine and hissed another curse into the darkness. “What the fuck has been going on out here?”

  In his gut, he knew.

  Jesus Christ, there wasn’t much room for doubt.

  Blood club.

  Fury and disgust rolled through him in a black wave. He had the instant, overwhelming urge to rip the limbs from every vampire involved in the outlawed, wholesale killings of these people. Not that he had that right, even as a warrior member of the Order. He and his brethren didn’t have a lot of friends among the Breed’s governing branches, least of all the Enforcement Agency, which acted as both police and policymakers for the general vampire populations. They considered the Order and the warriors who served it to be on the far outer fringe of civilized society. Vigilantes and militants. Wild dogs just begging for an excuse to be put down.

  Nikolai knew he was out of bounds on this one, but that didn’t make the itch to dispense his own brand of justice any less tempting.

  Even though he seethed with outrage, Niko willed himself to calm. His fury wouldn’t help any of the lives that were scattered below. Too late for them. Nothing to be done, except show them some bit of respect—something they’d been denied even afte
r death.

  Solemn now, if only for a few needed moments, Nikolai knelt down at the sharp drop of the ravine. He spread his arms wide, calling upon a bright power within him, a Breed talent that was uniquely his and, in his line of work particularly, of little use to him. He felt that power kindle in his core as he summoned it. The power grew in force and in light, spreading through his shoulders and down into his arms, then into his hands, twin orbs that glowed beneath the skin at the centers of his palms.

  Nikolai touched his fingers to the earth at either side of him.

  Vines and bramble rustled around him in response, green tendrils and small forest wildflowers waking up at his beckoning. All of it growing at accelerated speed. Niko sent the burgeoning shoots into the ravine, then stood to watch as the dead were soon draped by a blanket of soft new leaves and blossoms.

  As a burial rite, it wasn’t much, but it was all he had to offer the souls who’d been left there to rot in the open.

  “Rest in peace,” he murmured.

  When the last bone was covered over, he headed back toward the lodge at a hard clip. The storage barn where he’d smelled blood earlier now drew his eye.

  Just to confirm his suspicions, Niko stalked over and willed the lock loose. He pushed open the door, looked inside. The barn was empty, just as Lex had told him. But then again, the steel cages built inside weren’t constructed for any kind of permanent storage. They were tall pens, locked holding cells designed for one purpose—human prisoners of the temporary sort.

  Live game to be released for illegal sport here in the remote woods of Sergei Yakut’s domain.

  With a growl, Nikolai left the barn and stalked into the main lodge.

  “Where is he?” he demanded of the armed guard who leapt to attention the second he flew through the door. “Where the fuck is he? Tell me now!”