Break the Day: A Midnight Breed Novel (The Midnight Breed Series)

by Lara Adrian

  She didn’t need him to look after her, but he hated the idea that she was alone. She was also hurting and upset—all because of him.

  If his careless actions had driven her into harm’s way, he’d never be able to live with that.

  Rafe heaved himself up from the thin mattress, pushing past the pain. “Need to go after her. I have to . . . find her.”

  “You’re not in any shape to do that yet,” Nathan said.

  And damn it, he was right. The bed spun beneath him from just that small movement. The room wobbled in front of his face like a funhouse mirror.

  “That female of yours packs a hell of a punch. Unfortunately, I speak from experience.”

  Rafe leaned into the agony, pushing himself up to a sitting position. His limbs felt like jelly, far from functional. “How long does it last?”

  Nathan grunted. “It took about three hours before I could feel my feet under me again. Jordana recovered more quickly, so apparently the bigger the target, the harder we fall. She’s not pissed at you, but part of me still wants to kill you for having a role in putting my mate through that.”

  “I’m sorry,” Rafe said. “And I know Devony’s sorry too. She didn’t want to hurt either of you.”

  “She did it to protect you.”

  Rafe nodded, a movement that made his skull throb.

  He would have done the same thing for her if he was able. He’d still do anything to protect her. And yet, he’d deceived her and broken her heart instead.

  He had hurt her worse than anyone else possibly could. He’d felt that in the moments before she’d leveled him with her incredible power.

  “She loves you,” Nathan said. “I saw it in her face that night at the museum.”

  “Now she hates me.”

  “You really believe that?”

  He shrugged. Carefully shook his pounding head. Even though she was gone, he could feel her through their bond.

  She didn’t hate him. He could still feel her love, and that gave him some small glimmer of hope that he could fix this.

  But right now, her hurt was stronger than anything else she was feeling.

  If she couldn’t forgive him, he might lose her forever.

  “I have to go.” He swung his deadweight legs over the side of the infirmary cot. “I have to find her and bring her back.”

  A deep, sardonic voice answered from the open doorway. “Then you’re going to need wings.”

  Rafe glanced around Nathan and watched Aric Chase stroll into the open room. He paused next to the bed and exhaled a snort. “You look like shit.”

  Rafe chuckled, and fuck, that hurt. Only his best friend could pull a smile out of him when his body was a feeble lump and his heart was shredded in his chest. “Good to see you too. What do you know about Devony? Where is she?”

  “On her way to London, evidently. Gideon just sent word that she popped up on a commercial flight to Heathrow this morning. She should be on the ground there in about five hours.”

  London. She was going home, even though she hadn’t wanted to go back there ever again after losing her family.

  “I need to be there too. I need to make her listen to me.” Rafe tried to get up, but dropped right back down onto the bed. “Damn it.”

  Aric gave him an assessing look. “This female really did a number on you, eh?”

  He wasn’t talking about the fact that she had knocked him on his ass today. And Rafe wasn’t going to pretend with either one of his closest friends that he wasn’t out of his head with misery over the fact that he had lost Devony’s faith today.

  That he might have lost it for good.

  “We’re bonded. I took her blood. Fuck, I took a hell of a lot more than that from her.” He met the sober stares of both Breed males. “Then, last night after we arrived here, I let her drink from me too. I love her, and now she thinks I played her as an asset for my mission. She thinks I used her for intel. Shit. She thinks I chose the Order over her.”

  “Didn’t you?” Nathan’s logic, as usual, cut as cleanly and as coldly as a knife.

  Rafe wanted to rage at his friend, but even his anger failed him.

  Because what the former assassin said was true. He had chosen the Order over her.

  Rafe regretted that now. He had regretted it from the beginning. And he was going to regret it for the rest of his eternal life.

  Because Nathan was right. Devony was right.

  He had chosen duty over her.

  And there was no way for him to take that back now.

  CHAPTER 25

  Devony paid the taxi driver in cash as she got out at the curb in front of her family’s Darkhaven in South Kensington.

  After leaving the Order’s mansion in Boston, she’d gone straight to the airport and to a small locker there, where she had stored her passport and a few thousand dollars in multiple currencies. She hadn’t grown up in a family of spies and law enforcement officers without picking up a few professional tips along the way.

  Using her real ID and traveling in public while Opus’s goons might be on her trail had been a risk, but she’d had little choice. Now that she was away from Boston, she allowed herself to exhale some of the paranoia that had clung to her until now.

  The lovely Onslow Square stucco and brick townhouses with their black wrought-iron fences and classic, white-columned entrances had always been a welcome, comforting sight to her. Across the street, as the sun’s last rays set over the tranquil garden square, birds sang in the tree-filled park she used to play in as a child.

  Now, the peace was merely a facade.

  The familiarity provided no solace, because even though she’d fled to the only place she had left to go, she was coming here broken, with her heart in tatters. And with her family dead, this picture-perfect block in London would never be home for her again.

  The Darkhaven had been vacant for months, everything just as her parents had left it. Their lives interrupted, all of the rooms and furnishings frozen in time.

  Now that Devony was there, she wished she hadn’t come. She had regretted leaving Boston as soon as she stepped foot on the plane.

  And she had been sick with herself for what she’d done to Rafe in her desperation to preserve her pride—what little she had left where he was concerned.

  It was fear that made her run when she wanted to stay.

  That kind of cowardice had never been her style.

  Now, Rafe was thousands of miles away, in physical agony these past few hours. She knew because she felt his pain too. Her bond to him gave her his anguish the same way it connected her to his pleasure.

  She had hardly been able to endure it for the majority of her flight to London.

  Feeling the depth of his love for her had only made the thought of his pain more unbearable.

  She had hurt him, not just physically.

  God, how they had hurt each other.

  She’d thought Opus Nostrum had killed everything that mattered to her, but she had been wrong. Because Rafe Malebranche had killed her heart.

  It didn’t matter that she’d only known him for a handful of days. He’d stormed in and now her life would never be the same.

  She loved him, even though he’d hurt her. She couldn’t stop just because her heart was broken. Now, she would love him with all its shattered pieces.

  Devony walked through every room in the Darkhaven, feeling like a ghost. Her bedroom was a relic of her childhood. Still the girly pink accents and sweet, fussy furnishings her mother had surrounded her in with the hopes that her headstrong daughter would gravitate toward a softer life than her own.

  She glanced down at her dirty, battle-worn black clothing and biker boots. How disappointed her mother must have been with her.

  Devony was never going to choose the safest, softest path. She’d tried, for them. The music studies, the university classes. Although she enjoyed those pursuits, they didn’t fulfill her. She longed to make a difference in the world. She felt the need for a higher c
alling.

  She hadn’t dared to reach for it until after losing everyone she loved. She hadn’t imagined there was a way for her to truly make a difference until she began working together with Rafe on their shared quest to destroy Opus Nostrum.

  All a lie.

  They had shared that common goal, but he’d never been working with her. He had been playing her for a fool, using her information to help his true teammates in the Order.

  She was on her own in her quest now, and none of her determination to avenge her family had faded since she left Boston. Let the Order have all of her father’s notes and research, along with her reconnaissance of the past few months. She could start over. Now that she had an Opus target on her back, she would have to begin all over.

  New name. New appearance. New targets and plan of attack.

  New life.

  One that probably wouldn’t include Rafe. That last part was the one she could hardly bear to imagine.

  After a quick shower and change of clothes, Devony headed back downstairs to settle in and regroup. The spacious townhouse was cold and dark, dust collected on the furnishings and on the grand piano that sat in the spacious living room. In back of the house, her mother’s small garden patio was overgrown and strewn with dried autumn leaves.

  It broke something in her to see the place so forlorn and forgotten. And her piano. While music had been more her parents’ dream for her than her own, she had always found a measure of solace in the feel of the cool keys beneath her fingertips. It drew her now, too.

  She drifted into the living room and sat down on the cushioned bench. Her hands left prints in the fine layer of dust on the glossy black lid of the keyboard as she lifted it.

  She played a few notes, her fingers moving from memory through one of the classical compositions her parents used to love hearing her play.

  She frowned when one of the keys produced an odd, muffled chord. She hit the note again and heard something dislodge inside the instrument.

  “What the hell?”

  There had to be something blocking the strings under the old grand’s cover. She stood up and carefully lifted the heavy black lid.

  An envelope was tucked inside. She knew the vellum paper. It was from her father’s personal supply.

  Devony retrieved the envelope, then closed the piano cover and sat back down on the bench.

  Her fingers trembled as she carefully tore open the seal. A single printed photograph was all the envelope contained.

  Devony stared at the picture, her breath leaking out of her on a gasp. “Oh, my God.”

  CHAPTER 26

  Rafe knocked on the doorjamb of his commander’s office.

  Chase looked up from the scattered papers and photographs on his desk, an expression of mild surprise on his face. “You look a hell of a lot better than you did when I saw you a few hours ago.”

  “Yes, sir.” Rafe stood at attention, dressed in his black patrol uniform, his face shaved clean and hair trimmed into some semblance of control.

  He was steady on his feet now, all traces of the agony from Devony’s parting shot subsided. All except the pain that had taken up residence in his heart. He didn’t expect that would be dissipating anytime soon. As in, never.

  Not as long as he and Devony were apart.

  “Come in,” Chase said. He had patrol team plans for tonight and other mission materials on his desk, along with some of the files and photos Rafe had taken from Devony’s brownstone.

  “I just got off a call with Lucan,” Chase said. “The intel you and Devony supplied has given us multiple avenues to investigate, both from here in Boston and D.C. Gideon thinks it’ll take days to unpack it all, but we’ve got a good start on several new leads as we speak.”

  Rafe inclined his head. “I’m glad it’s proving useful. I can’t take any of the credit for it, though. That belongs solely to Devony. And to her father as well.”

  Chase nodded. “We owe them both a debt, especially if any of these new leads prove out. Gideon says Roland Winters’s handwritten notes seem to indicate he suspected his files may not be safe at JUSTIS.”

  “That’s what Devony thought too. Her father kept his research at the Boston Darkhaven, not at home in London. I think he knew if anything happened to him, his work would be safest with her. I think he wanted her to be the one to find it, because he knew she would do something about it.”

  Rafe had the past several hours to consider everything that had happened during his time with Devony. She had told him that her family pushed her away from law enforcement, tried to shelter her, but it seemed to him that her father understood what she was capable of. He knew the kind of strong, competent, determined woman she was.

  Roland Winters had to know that if he left a torch burning behind him, no matter how dim, Devony would be the best person—perhaps the only one—he trusted to pick it up and run with it to the end.

  Chase’s brows rose. “She’s a special woman. Takes courage to go after men like Ricardo Cruz and Judah LaSalle the way she did. And to think she meant to follow their trail all the way to Opus’s inner circle if it took her there? She had no idea what she was up against.”

  “She didn’t care what she was up against,” Rafe said, unable to keep the pride out of his voice when he spoke about the woman he loved. “Devony wanted justice for what was done to her family. I don’t expect she’s changed her mind about that now. What happened here—the way I hurt her—isn’t going to slow her down for a minute.”

  “She’s tenacious,” Chase remarked.

  Rafe smiled and shook his head. “She is . . . extraordinary. She’s the most incredible woman I know. And I let her go.”

  Chase grunted, a wry twist to his mouth. “Didn’t look like she gave you much choice, the way she cut your legs out from under you.”

  “I deserved it. I hurt her, and I deserved every bit of the pain she left me with. Devony said I should’ve told her about my mission, that I was working covert for the Order. She said I could’ve trusted her to keep it a secret. But to do that, I would’ve had to break my trust with you. With Lucan and my teammates. I would’ve had to choose.”

  Sterling Chase leaned back in his chair, a solemnity in his face and in his tone. “That’s a lot for anyone to ask of one of us.”

  “Yes, sir.” Rafe exhaled a heavy sigh. “But it shouldn’t have been for me.”

  He reached for the buckle on his weapons belt and unfastened it. Then he carefully laid it atop the patrol plans on his commander’s desk.

  “The Order has been my life from the time I was born. It’s my family, as important to me as my mother and father. My teammates, my commanders, everyone in the Order. I would lay down my life for any one of you, any day of the week. But I’m in love with Devony Winters. She’s my mate by blood.” He swore softly and shook his head. “She’s everything that matters to me.”

  It was the truth.

  He’d come back from Montreal with vengeance burning a hole in his belly. He’d thought going after Opus Nostrum—destroying them single-handedly—was the one thing he wanted more than anything else. He thought retribution was all he was living for.

  Now, he wanted something else even more.

  Devony’s forgiveness.

  He wanted her future, with him at her side.

  And he wasn’t going to let another second pass without going after her.

  “You know, you can’t take back what you’ve done, son.” Chase gave him a sympathetic look. “Someday, I’ll tell you all the ways I fucked up with Tavia. I know my friend Dante’s got plenty of similar stories where your mother, Tess, is concerned.”

  “But Tavia forgave you. My mother forgave my father,” Rafe said, finding some hope in those truths. “That’s all I want from Devony, too. I’ll spend the rest of my life trying to make things right between us. But first I need to find out if she’ll have me.”

  And to do that, he needed to get his ass on a flight to London as soon as possible.

&nbs
p; The commander sat forward, his fingers steepled in front of him. “I had a feeling you were going to say that. And that’s why I put Mathias Rowan’s return trip to London on standby this afternoon. He’s waiting for you in the war room.”

  Rafe didn’t even try to curb the grin that broke over his face. He reached for the elder warrior’s hand and gave it a firm shake. “Thank you, sir.”

  Chase gave him a tight nod. Then he slid the weapons belt back toward Rafe. “You keep this. I’m not about to let one of my best warriors go that easily.”

  Rafe put the belt back around his hips and fastened it, giving his commander a nod of gratitude.

  Then he left the room in a flash of motion to go catch his waiting ride to London.

  CHAPTER 27

  Propping her elbows on the desk in her father’s office, Devony held the sides of her head in her splayed fingers and blew out a tired sigh.

  Her temples throbbed. Her eyeballs felt seared to a crisp after several hours of obsessive—albeit fruitless—searching for answers about the photograph she’d found.

  Or, rather, the photograph her father had left for her to find.

  Because there could be no doubt about that. There was no other reason for him to secret something like that inside an instrument no one else would give a second look.

  She picked up the printed picture and stared at it for what had to be the hundredth time since she took it out of the envelope. No matter how many times she stared at it, the image continued to confuse her.

  It was a printed copy of a candid photograph, snapped at some type of social gathering. Within the crowd of people stood three men: her brother, Harrison; business tycoon Reginald Crowe; and another man snapped just as he’d begun to turn his face away from the camera.

  Devony recognized Crowe. Anyone would. One of the wealthiest men in the world, he had also been one of the most dangerous, as it turned out. Earlier this year, he had led Opus Nostrum’s effort to plant an ultraviolet bomb at a Global Nations Council peace summit. He would have gotten away with it, had it not been for the Order.