Lara Adrian

by Veil of Midnight (lit)

  Carefully folded atop it and placed neatly beside the pair of shoes she’d left behind last night as well was the silk-and-velvet wrapper that contained her treasured daggers. She picked it up, just to reassure herself that the fabric sheath wasn’t empty. Its familiar weight settled into her palm and she couldn’t hold back her smile.

  Nikolai.

  He’d taken care of the blades for her. Collected them, wrapped them up, and left them here for her as if he knew how much they meant to her.

  Why would he do that? What did he expect his kindness to buy him? Did he actually think her trust might come so cheaply, or was he just hoping for another chance to force himself on her the way he had with that kiss?

  She really didn’t want to think about kissing Nikolai. If she thought about his mouth on hers, then she would have to admit to herself that as unexpected and uninvited as his kiss had been, force was hardly to blame for it happening.

  The truth was, she’d enjoyed it.

  Mother Mary, but just thinking on him now lit a slow, liquid heat in her core.

  She’d wanted more of him, despite that every survival instinct in her body had been screaming for her to get away from him, and get away fast. She hungered for him—then and now. Burned for him, in a place she’d long thought to be frozen over and dead.

  And that little admission made what he’d said about Mira—the implication that whatever he’d seen in the child’s eyes might somehow involve Renata and him intimately together—all the more unsettling.

  Thank God he was gone.

  Thank God he would likely never return after what he’d discovered here.

  It had been a long time since Renata had gone down on her knees to pray. She knelt before no one anymore, not even Yakut at his terrifying worst, but she bowed her head now and begged heaven to keep Nikolai away from this place.

  Away from her.

  No longer in the mood for training, especially when memories of what had taken place here last night were still ripe and swimming in her head, Renata grabbed her shoes and walked back to the lodge. She went inside, replaced the bar on the door, then walked the hallway leading to her room and what she hoped might be at least a few hours’ sleep.

  She sensed something out of place even before she noticed Mira’s door was unlatched.

  No lights were on in the child’s room, but she was awake. Renata heard her soft voice in the dark, complaining that she was sleepy and didn’t want to get up. More nightmares? Renata wondered, feeling a pang of sympathy for the child. But then another voice hissed over Mira’s groggy protests, this one cold and harsh, clipped with impatience.

  “Stop your sniveling and open your eyes, you little bitch.”

  Renata pressed her hand to the paneled door and pushed it wide. “What the hell do you think you’re doing, Lex?”

  He was bent over Mira’s bed, the child’s shoulders caught in a bruising hold. His head swiveled around as Renata came into the room, but he didn’t let go of Mira. “I have need of my father’s oracle. And I don’t answer to you, so kindly get the fuck out of here.”

  “Rennie, he’s hurting my arms.” Mira’s voice was tiny, pinched with pain.

  “Open your eyes,” Lex snarled at her. “Then maybe I’ll stop hurting you.”

  “Take your hands off her, Lex.” Renata stopped at the foot of the bed, her sheathed blades a tempting weight in her grasp. “Do it. Now.”

  Lex scoffed. “Not until I’m through with her.”

  When he gave Mira a hard shake, Renata let loose with a blast of mental fury.

  It was just a spurt of power, only a fraction of what she could give him, but Lex howled, his body jerking as though he’d been hit with a few thousand volts of electricity. He reeled back, dropping Mira and falling away from the bed, ass-planted on the floor.

  “You bitch!” His eyes bled amber fire, pupils tight slivers in their center. “I should kill you for that. I should kill the brat and you both!”

  Renata hit him again, another small taste of agony. He slumped, clutching his head and moaning from the debilitating second blast. She waited, watching as he worked to collect himself from his sprawl on the floor. He didn’t pose much of a threat to her like this, but in a few hours he would be recovered and she would be the vulnerable one. Then she might have a bit of hell to pay.

  But for the time being, Mira was no longer of interest to Lex, and that was all that mattered.

  Lex glared up at her as he dragged himself to his feet. “Get out of my…way…goddamn…whore.”

  The words were choked, sputtered between his gasps for breath as he clumsily moved toward the open door. When he was out of sight, his footsteps scuffing along the hallway outside, Renata went to Mira’s bedside and hushed her softly.

  “Are you all right, kiddo?”

  Mira nodded. “I don’t like him, Rennie. He scares me.”

  “I know, honey.” Renata pressed a kiss to the child’s brow. “I’m not going to let him hurt you. You’re safe with me. That’s a promise, right?”

  Another nod, weaker this time as Mira settled her head back onto her pillow and exhaled a sleepy sigh. “Rennie?” she asked quietly.

  “Yes, mouse?”

  “Don’t ever leave me, okay?”

  Renata stared down at the innocent little face in the dark, feeling her heart squeeze tightly in her breast. “I’m not going to leave you, Mira. Not ever…just like we promised.”

  CHAPTER

  Eleven

  The moon rose high, casting dappled light over Lake Wannsee in an exclusive area outside Berlin. Andreas Reichen leaned back in his cushioned chaise on the rear lawn of his private Darkhaven estate, trying to absorb some of the peace and quiet of the evening. Despite the warm, pleasant breeze and the calm of the night-dark water, his thoughts were morose, turbulent.

  The news of the latest Gen One killing, this time in France, weighed him down. It seemed to him that the world was going increasingly mad around him. Not only the world of the Breed—his world—but that of humankind as well. So much death and destruction. So much anguish everywhere one looked.

  He had the terrible feeling, deep in his gut, that this was only the beginning. Darker days were coming. Perhaps they had been coming for a long time already and he’d been too ignorant—too caught up in his own personal pleasures—to notice.

  One of those pleasures came up behind him now, her elegant stride unmistakable as she walked through the estate’s manicured gardens and down onto the grass.

  Helene’s lithe arms wrapped around his shoulders. “Hello, darling.”

  Reichen reached up to caress her warm skin as she bent over him and kissed him. Her mouth was soft, lingering, her long dark hair fragrant with the lightest trace of rose oil.

  “Your nephew told me when I arrived that you’ve been out here for the past couple of hours,” she murmured, lifting her head to gaze out at the lake. “I can see why. It’s a lovely view.”

  “It just got lovelier,” Reichen said, as he tipped his chin up and looked at her.

  She smiled without coyness, having long become accustomed to his flattery. “Something is troubling you, Andreas. It’s not like you to sit alone and brood.”

  Could she know him so well? They had been lovers for the past year, a casual dalliance that had somehow turned into something deeper if not entirely exclusive. Reichen knew Helene had other men in her life—human men—as he also occasionally took his pleasure with other women. Theirs was not a relationship plagued by jealousies or possessiveness. But that didn’t mean it was devoid of affection. They shared a mutual concern for each other, and a bond of trust that extended beyond the barriers that generally made human and Breed relationships impossible.

  Helene had become a friend and, of late, an indispensable partner in Reichen’s important remote work with the warriors back in Boston.

  Helene came around to the front of the chair and seated herself on the broad arm. “Have you relayed the news to the Order about the rec
ent assassination in Paris?”

  Reichen nodded. “I did, yes. And they tell me there was also an attempted killing in Montreal a few nights ago. At least that one failed, by some miracle of fate. But there will be others. I fear there will be many more deaths to come before the smoke finally clears. The Order is convinced they will put a stop to the madness, but there are times when I wonder if the evil at work here isn’t greater than any amount of good.”

  “You’re letting this consume you,” Helene said as she idly petted his hair off his brow. “You know, if you were looking for something to do with your time, you could have come to me instead of the Order. I could have put you to work at the club as my personal assisant. It’s not too late to change your mind. And I assure you, the fringe benefits alone would be worth it.”

  Reichen chuckled. “Tempting, indeed.”

  Helene bent down and nibbled his earlobe, her breath tickling and heated on his skin. “It would only be a temporary position, of course. Say twenty or thirty years—a blink of time to you. But by then I will be wrinkled and gray, and you will be eager for a new, more appealing plaything who can still keep up with your wicked demands.”

  Reichen was surprised to hear the twinge of wistfulness in Helene’s voice. She’d never talked about the future with him, nor he with her. It was more or less understood that there could never be a future, given that she was mortal with a finite life span and he—barring prolonged UV exposure or massive bodily harm—would continue living for something close to eternity.

  “What are you doing wasting your time with me when you could have your pick of any man?” he asked her, running his fingers along the smooth line of her shoulder. “You could be married to someone who adores you, raising a litter of clever, beautiful children.”

  Helene arched a flawlessly manicured brow. “I suppose I never was one to make the conventional choice.”

  Neither was he, in fact. Reichen acknowledged that it would be very easy to ignore everything he and the Order had discovered a few months ago. He could forget about the evil they’d tracked to that mountain cave in the Bohemian hills. He could pretend none of that existed, renege on his offer to help the warriors in whatever way he could. It would be the simplest thing in the world to retreat to his role as head of his Darkhaven household and slide back into his carefree, libertine ways.

  But the simple truth was, he’d grown tired of that lifestyle long ago. Someone years past had once accused him of being a perpetual child—selfish and irresponsible. She’d been right, even then. Especially then, when he’d been fool enough to let that woman and the love she’d given him slip through his fingers. After too many decades of self-indulgence, it felt good to be making a difference. Or trying to, as it were.

  “I don’t expect you came by tonight just to distract me with kisses and attractive offers of employment,” he said, sensing a seriousness had come over Helene.

  “No, I didn’t, unfortunately. I thought you should know that one of my girls at the club may be missing. You recall me mentioning that Gina, one of my newer girls, showed up with bite marks on her neck last week?”

  Reichen nodded. “The one who’d been talking about a rich new boyfriend she was dating.”

  “That’s right. Well, it’s not the first time she’s missed her shift at work, but her housemate told me this afternoon that Gina hasn’t been home or telephoned for more than three days. It could be nothing, but I thought you’d want to know.”

  “Yes,” he said. “Do you have any information on the male she was seeing? A description, a name, anything at all?”

  “No. The housemate had never met him, naturally, so she couldn’t tell me anything.”

  Reichen considered the numerous things that could happen to a young woman who found herself unwittingly mixed up with one of his kind. Although most of the Breed were law-abiding members of the vampire nation, there were others who reveled in their savage side. “I need you to discreetly ask around at the club tonight, see if any of the other girls heard Gina mention this boyfriend of hers. I’m looking for names, places she might have gone with him, even the smallest detail could be important.”

  Helene nodded, but there was a note of interest in her eyes. “I rather like this serious side to you, Andreas. It’s incredibly sexy.”

  Her hand trailed down the open front of his silk shirt, her long painted nails playing over the ridges of his muscled abdomen. Although his thoughts were grim, his body responded to her expert touch. His dermaglyphs began to saturate with color, and his vision sharpened with the flood of amber that was swiftly filling his irises. Lower still, his cock stiffened, swelling where it now rested beneath her palm.

  “I really shouldn’t stay,” she murmured, her voice husky and teasing. “I don’t want to be late for work.”

  When she started to get up, Reichen held her back. “Don’t worry about that. I know the woman who runs the place, I’ll make your excuses for you. I have it on good authority that she fancies me.”

  “Do you now?”

  Reichen grunted, baring the points of his fangs with his broad grin. “Poor dear is mad for me.”

  “Mad for an arrogant thing like you?” Helene teased. “Darling, don’t flatter yourself. She may want you only for your decadent body.”

  “True enough,” he replied, “but you won’t hear me complaining either way.”

  Helene smiled, not resisting in the least as he pulled her down onto his lap for a deep, hungered kiss.

  * * *

  By nightfall, Lex was fully recovered from the agony Renata had dealt him. His rage—his festering hatred for her—remained.

  He cursed her over and over in his mind as he leaned against a rotting wall of a rat-infested crack house in Montreal’s worst slum, watching as a young human male tied off his arm with an old leather belt. The loose tail caught between a smattering of broken, decayed teeth, the junkie stuck the needle of a filthy syringe into the field of scabs and bruises that tracked along his emaciated arm. He moaned as the heroin entered his bloodstream.

  “Ah, fuck, man,” he rasped around a shaky sigh as he released his tourniquet and fell back against a putrid mattress on the floor. He ran his tattooed hands over his pale, pimply face and greasy brown hair. “Ah, Christ…that right there’s some prime shit, baby.”

  “Yes,” Lex said, his voice airless in the dank, urine-soaked darkness.

  He’d spared no expense on the drugs; money was of little concern to him. No doubt the lowlife junkie he’d picked up selling his body on the street had never had such an expensive high. Lex was willing to bet the young man’s personal services had never fetched such a rich sum either. He’d all but leapt into the car when Lex pulled over and flashed a hundred dollars and a bag of heroin in front of his face.

  Lex cocked his head and watched as the human savored his fix. They were alone in the squalid room of the abandoned apartment building. The place had been overrun with vagrants and addicts when they’d first arrived, but it took Lex only a few minutes—and an irresistible mental command, courtesy of his second-generation Breed lineage—to drive the humans out so he could conduct his business in private.

  Still reclining on the floor, the junkie stripped out of his sleeveless T-shirt then began to unbutton his loose-fitting, grime-stained blue jeans. He crudely fondled himself as he worked the fly open, bleary eyes rolling in his skull, searching listlessly through the dark.

  “So, you want me to suck your dick or what, man?”

  “No,” Lex said, repulsed by the very idea.

  He stepped away from his position across the room and walked slowly toward the junkie. Where to begin with him? he wondered idly. He had to play this thing out carefully or he’d be back on the street, searching for someone else.

  Wasting precious time.

  “You like my ass instead, baby?” the human whore slurred. “If you want to fuck me, you gotta pay double. That’s my rule.”

  Lex’s laugh was low, genuinely amused. “I’m not
interested in fucking you. Bad enough I have to look at you, that I have to smell your revolting stench. Sex is not the reason you’re here.”

  “Well, what the hell then?” A note of panic edged the stale air, a sudden kick of human adrenaline that Lex’s heightened senses easily detected. “You sure as shit didn’t bring me here for a little polite conversation.”

  “No,” Lex agreed pleasantly.

  “Okay. So, what the fuck do I look like to you, asshole?”

  Lex smiled. “Bait.”

  With movements so fast not even the soberest human eye could track them, he reached out and hauled the junkie up off the floor. Lex had a knife in his hand. He stuck it into the human’s gaunt belly and ripped a slash across his midsection.

  Blood surged out of the wound, hot and wet and fragrant.

  “Oh, Jesus!” the human screamed. “Oh, my fucking God! You stabbed me!”

  Lex drew back and let the man fall back limply onto the floor. It was all he could do to keep himself from lunging after him in a blind thirst.

  Lex’s physical transformation was swift, brought on by the sudden presence of fresh, flowing blood. His vision sharpened with the narrowing of his pupils, an amber glow washing over the room as his eyes changed to that of a predator. His fangs stretched long behind his lips, saliva gushing into his mouth as the urge to feed swelled.

  The junkie was sobbing now, sputtering pathetically as he clutched at the gaping wound in his belly. “Are you crazy, you fucking asshole? You might have killed me!”

  “Not yet,” Lex replied thickly around his fangs.

  “I have to get out of here,” the man murmured. “Gotta get help—”

  “Stay,” Lex ordered him, smiling as the feeble human mind wilted under his command.

  He had to force himself to keep his distance. Let the situation play out as he intended it to. A gut wound would bleed hard, but death would come slowly. Lex needed him alive for a while, long enough for his scent to travel out onto the street and into the surrounding alleyways.