by Lara Adrian
Desire.
Hunger.
A marrow-deep need that rocked her to her core.
That need ignited her blood like flame to tinder. She couldn’t hold it back. Every cell in her body lit up, sending fire into her veins. Her fangs erupted from her gums. Underneath her clothes, her glyphs came to life, pulsing like living tattoos on her skin.
And as Rafe drew back from their kiss on a hissed curse, her glowing eyes bathed him in the hot glow of her transformed irises.
“Holy shit,” he uttered tersely, his own fangs gleaming in the darkness. “I knew it. You are Breed, a daywalker.”
His hold on her went slack now. Devony yanked out of it on a low growl.
All he’d done was kiss her, yet every fiber of her being felt electrified and raw. If she had thought having him around was dangerous before, now she understood it was something far worse.
Because now he knew unequivocally what she was.
And she wanted him in spite of what that knowledge could cost her.
He lifted his hand to her face, his expression one of disbelief . . . and potent desire.
Before his fingers had a chance to brush her cheek, the garage’s back door opened and the gang filed out dressed in head-to-toe black and armed with heavy firearms.
Cruz hailed Rafe from across the lot. “Good. You’re right on time. We’re rolling out now.”
Devony could feel Rafe’s big body tense in front of her. He was positioned to shield her face from their view, giving her the moments she needed to bring her transformation to heel.
“What’s going on?” he asked the men. “We got plans or something?”
Cruz chuckled as Ocho clicked a remote starter and a parked delivery van with a linen company logo on its side fired up. “Hop in, both of you. We can cover the logistics on the way.”
With the other men climbing into the vehicle, Rafe cast a surreptitious glance at Devony. “What’s going on?”
She didn’t answer, mostly because she couldn’t find her voice to speak. All of her energy and focus went into the effort of schooling her features back to a state of calm before she had to make the trek over to the waiting van.
That kiss had shocked her. Not only because of Rafe’s audacity in doing it. Her own response was just as jarring.
His brows furrowed as he waited for her reply. “What’s Cruz got planned tonight?”
“I guess we’re going to find out,” she told him tightly.
Part of her wanted to clue him in. After all, he had shielded her from discovery for the second time when he could have just as easily hung her out to dry. But how could she help him make inroads with the gang when her goals depended on keeping him out?
After that kiss, it wasn’t only her goals she wanted to protect.
She clutched her safe-cracking kit tight against her hammering heart, even though she was certain his acute hearing couldn’t be fooled.
As she stepped past him, she paused to level a glare on the Breed male’s maddeningly handsome face.
“If you ever try something like that with me again, vampire, I will fucking ash you.”
CHAPTER 6
Rafe tried to assure himself that the kiss he’d laid on Brinks didn’t mean anything. He sure as hell hadn’t intended it to mean anything. Just a tactic to throw her off guard, force her to let go of the fierce hold she seemed to maintain on her Breed nature.
He’d needed a weapon to combat her stubborn denial and he had reached for the first one that came to mind.
Now, it was all he could do to sit beside her in the back of the delivery van and pretend that kiss hadn’t short-circuited his brain along with the rest of his anatomy.
He wanted her.
Fuck, he’d wanted her the moment he walked into Asylum the other night and saw her running the pool table over Cruz and the others. Those luscious curves and long, lean legs. That cascade of silken, dark hair framing those big bourbon-colored eyes that made him hard no matter if she looked at him in fury or in tormented desire.
Shit. Thinking about what she did to him only made the problem worse.
And he’d be damned before he’d let himself walk right into a seductress’s trap.
Though to be fair, Brinks—or whatever her true name was—behaved less like a seductress than a combatant. He didn’t doubt for a second that she meant it when she threatened to ash him.
He would trust that more than sweetness and honey any day.
Especially after he’d barely survived the trap the Opus bitch had set for him in Montreal.
Yet as the van left Roxbury heading north onto Columbus Avenue, Rafe couldn’t help but wonder if he was being led into a different sort of trap tonight.
He leaned forward to get a better look at Cruz in the passenger seat. “You mentioned logistics back at the garage. What’s going on?”
A few moments of odd silence fell over everyone on the heels of his question. Rafe flicked a glance at Brinks, but she turned her head to stare at nothing.
“You like art, vampire?” Cruz asked, nonchalant.
Rafe grunted. “Sure. Depends what kind.”
“Fine art,” Fish said from across from him. “Monet, Renoir. Classic shit like that.”
Behind the wheel up front, Ocho snickered and shook his head. “You wouldn’t know a fucking Monet or a Renoir from an Elvis on black velvet.”
“Who cares, asshole?” Fish scowled. “I’m not planning to hang one on my wall.”
Rafe’s hackles were already up on instinct, so the idiotic back-and-forth only increased his impatience. “You told me we were going to discuss business tonight, Cruz. Lucrative business, you said. So, what is it?”
Instead of answering, he reached back to hand him a flyer for an art museum exhibit that would be opening in a couple of days in Boston.
Son of a bitch. Rafe’s veins tightened as he realized what he was seeing. “This is from the Museum of Fine Art.”
Cruz stared at him. “So, you’re familiar with the place? That’s good.”
He knew damn well Rafe was familiar. No doubt, that was the whole point of the conversation. The whole point of this entire exercise.
Ah, Christ. That explained the route Ocho was on. The MFA couldn’t be more than another five minutes across town.
“Yeah, I imagine you might’ve been there a time or two,” Cruz remarked, hardly masking his smugness. “Didn’t I read somewhere that the bitch of one of your old buddies from the Order is the curator for that place? Could swear I also heard that the daughter of the Boston commander works there on occasion too. That hot piece of daywalking ass, am I right?”
Rafe nodded tightly, his teeth set on edge at the disrespect this bastard was showing not only toward Nathan’s blood-bonded mate, Jordana, but Aric Chase’s twin sister, Carys, as well.
Beside him, he noticed Brinks had gone stock-still at the mention of daywalkers and members of the Order. Yet she didn’t seem shocked at all by the subject of the museum and its on-loan exhibit of priceless art.
If Rafe was being tested—and he was damn sure he was—then it appeared he was the only one in the vehicle who hadn’t been aware of that fact until now.
He grunted, unsure why Brinks’s participation should bother him as much as it did.
“Why don’t you just get to the fucking point, Cruz.”
The human’s grin split the center of his dark goatee. “Someone I know wants to add those paintings to his private collection. And he’s willing to pay big for them. So, we’re going to get them for him. Right now.”
Rafe didn’t have to guess where their bankroll would be coming from. Evidently, this was the business Cruz and Judah LaSalle had been discussing at the party last night.
“You want to run with us?” Cruz challenged. “You get us inside, past the guards and the security systems. We’ve got word that the art is being kept in a vault room in the basement of the building. You clear the way for Brinks here to crack it open, then make sure we all get out w
ith the art and don’t get our asses shot or arrested.”
Rafe scoffed. “Sounds like I’m the one doing all the heavy lifting.”
“You want in? This is the price.”
He held the criminal’s scrutinizing gaze. As much as it offended him to play this role, if he didn’t, his mission was over here and now. Cruz and the others were asking him to prove his loyalty, so that’s what he was going to do.
As for the art, he was certain the pieces were insured. Regardless, he would put the Order on their recovery as soon as possible.
“They keep five armed guards on the clock twenty-four-seven during business hours,” he said. “After closing, that count goes down to three. But with an exhibit of this magnitude in-house, I’d expect the full detail to be on duty at all times.”
Cruz nodded in acknowledgment. “Can you take out that many at a time?”
“Please.” Rafe smirked. He wasn’t about to kill anyone, but he could render a human unconscious and tranced in less than a second. He’d make sure the guards all stayed down as long as needed. “I’ll handle the guards and shut down the security system. Everything’s wired. There are motion and heat sensors throughout, all of them triggering silent alarms. That includes the vault room.”
As he spoke, the museum came into view up ahead, its campus illuminated by security lights in the parking lot and outside the building. Ocho drove around to the receiving docks in back and reversed the van into one of the bays.
“Grab the props,” Cruz told Axel and Fish, gesturing to the bins of folded, laundered linens on wheeled hand trucks that shared the back of the van with them. He pivoted out of the passenger seat and came into the back with them. “They’ll get the guard’s attention at the back door. Then it’s your show.”
He handed Rafe a semiauto pistol, a weapon he had no intention of using. Tucking the gun into the back of his dark jeans, he sent a cold glance at Brinks, then gave Cruz a nod.
“All right. Let’s do it.”
The gang moved in concert, as if they had done this kind of job a hundred times before. Maybe they had. Fish and Axel opened the rear of the van and climbed out, each wheeling a large supply of linens. Rafe followed close behind, and when the night watchman opened the door to tell them they must be at the wrong address, Rafe took the man down and put him in a lifeless drowse on the floor.
He acted quickly then, using the power of his Breed mind to disable the dock’s alarm system and kill the cameras for the receiving area. “Stay here until I give you the all-clear.”
Moving with preternatural speed, it took him all of two minutes to shut down the rest of the museum’s alarms, monitors, and sensors.
He had been right about the guards. Another four security men were posted inside. He disabled them all, trancing them into a heavy sleep that would last well after he and the gang were gone tonight.
Flashing back to the receiving dock, he motioned Cruz and his crew forward. “Come on. The vault room is this way.”
They fell in after him. He led them to the freight elevator and down to the basement. The huge vault was at the back, a locked, temperature-controlled storeroom for all manner of priceless pieces not currently on display in the museum.
Rafe could have gotten the gang into the heavily secured vault as easily as he got them inside the building. Being Breed, all it would take was a silent mental command and the locks would spring open.
That’s all it would take for Brinks to breach the reinforced, polished-steel door as well, but only if she wanted to out herself to her comrades. Instead, she moved in front of Rafe and hunkered down to unfasten the pack of tools she had retrieved from the back of her motorcycle a few moments before that kiss he’d stolen from her. A kiss that was still wreaking havoc on Rafe’s senses as he watched her work.
He had to give her credit for making a convincing effort to seem legit in front of the gang. She carefully laid out a set of delicate implements, compact magnetics, electronics, and listening devices. The kit looked like something off a movie set, which probably wasn’t that far off the mark.
“Impressive collection. Guess I don’t need to wonder anymore why they call you Brinks, eh?”
She slanted him a withering look and he could hardly hold back his chuckle.
Fish clapped a hand on Rafe’s shoulder. “You’re looking at the best safe-cracker you’ll ever meet, man.”
He smirked. “I don’t doubt that.”
“Shut up and let her work, both of you.” Cruz scowled, his hand fidgety where it rested on his holstered gun. “This is taking too long already. Snap to it, Brinks.”
She pretended to struggle with the lock for a few tense minutes before announcing she was in. As soon as the door was open, Cruz and the other men hurried into the vault and began raiding the crated masterpieces stored inside. With the linens dumped off the hand trucks, Fish and Axel started loading up some of the art.
They worked in silence, but even if they had been shouting to one another, Rafe’s keen hearing would not have missed the sudden shift in the air.
The elevator was moving.
Not the freight elevator they rode down in. The main lift, the one used exclusively by museum staff.
Brinks picked up the vibration too. Her head swiveled in his direction, a stark look on her face.
He nodded. “Fuck. We’ve got company. Everyone out. Now.”
“What are you talking about?” Cruz drew his pistol. “Who’s coming? I thought you said you took out all of the security detail?”
“I did. This is someone else.”
As soon as the words left his tongue, a female voice sounded from another part of the basement. “Hello? Who’s down here? Is it you, Arnie? I just wanted to let you know I’m finally wrapping up for the night and heading home.”
Ah, shit.
Jordana.
It wasn’t unusual for Nathan’s mate to put in long hours at the museum. Art was her passion, along with her devotion to the former assassin who captained the Order’s patrol team in Boston.
“I can’t find Louis or Max anywhere,” Jordana said as she approached the area of the vault. “Where is every—oh, my God.”
She stopped short on a gasp. Her beautiful face went slack with shock as her ocean-blue eyes took in the scene with one swift glance. “Rafe. What are you doing?”
“Get out of here.” He wasn’t sure if he was talking to her, or to Cruz and the rest of the thieves surrounding him. All he knew was this was the worst scenario he could’ve imagined tonight.
He was friends with Jordana. To him, she was family, the blood-bonded mate of one of his best friends. And now she was staring at him in disbelief, in utter contempt.
He glanced away from her to glare at the gang. “I said, get the fuck out of here right now!”
Fish and Axel scrambled into motion. Shoving past a stunned Jordana with the wheeled hand trucks, they sped toward the freight elevator.
She watched them, then swung her outrage back at Rafe. “This is how low you’ve sunk? I can’t believe this. What’s happened to you, Rafe?”
“Jordana, just go. Please.”
Instead of obeying, she took a step inside the vault. Her breath grew rapid as anger began to replace her confusion and fear.
“She’s prettier than I expected, vampire.” Cruz leered, swaggering toward her with his gun in hand. “Maybe we ought to take her with us too.”
Jordana lifted her hand and the weapon flew out of his grasp. It clattered onto the floor several feet away.
Ocho made the next stupid move. The big man lunged for Jordana, but another flick of her hand sent all two-hundred-plus pounds of him sailing out of the vault as if he had wings. As soon as he had gotten up from the floor, he took off running after his comrades.
Cruz was only an instant behind him.
“You too,” Rafe muttered to Brinks when it was only the two of them left. “For fuck’s sake. Go.”
She didn’t budge. And he didn’t have time to argue
with her.
The way Jordana’s fury was mounting, he was going to have a much bigger problem very soon. Not only from this female who was pure Atlantean, but from the assassin who was bonded to her by blood.
Because by now Nathan would have felt every spike in his mate’s emotional state. And there would be no stopping him from coming to her rescue, no matter where he might be.
“Jordana, calm down.”
It was a lame thing to say, but it was all he had. He wanted to explain everything, but he was still in play and unable to breach his commanders’ faith in him. And while he and the Breed female at his side had reached some kind of mutual dependence inside Cruz’s gang tonight, that didn’t mean he was ready to give her any added leverage over him.
Not that it mattered.
Jordana was looking at him like a stranger now, an enemy.
“Nathan told me you’d hooked up with some lowlife criminals. I didn’t want to believe it.”
Rafe swore under his breath, his reply tasting like bitter acid on his tongue. “Yeah, well, I’m sorry to disappoint.” He glanced at Brinks. “We need to go now.”
He took a step forward and was stopped by a pulse of powerful energy. It shoved him back on his heels.
Jordana’s hands were down at her sides, her fingers curled into loose fists. Light emanated from within her palms, growing stronger. Not merely light, Atlantean power.
Rafe grabbed Brinks by the wrist and tried to haul her past Jordana.
A bigger blast hit him, jolting his nervous system and knocking him flat on his ass.
“Rafe!” The sound of Brinks’s concerned shout penetrated the haze of his rattled skull.
He lifted his head and saw that Jordana’s hands were aglow now, her palms and fingers engulfed in bright halos of unearthly light.
Rafe tried to get up, but invisible chains held him down. He cursed, fighting to break loose from her power. It was no use. She was far stronger than he imagined. No doubt, her blood bond with Nathan had only enhanced her abilities.
He would be damn impressed if he wasn’t glued to the floor of the vault.
“Let him go.” Brinks’s cool demand shocked him. Her face was anything but calm. As she stared at Jordana, her bourbon eyes threw off amber sparks like a bonfire. The tips of her fangs gleamed like diamonds as her lip curled back on a snarl.