Tempted by Midnight 12.5
Page 6
again and the blond warrior came in. He
grinned, his hazel eyes bouncing off
Jehan for a second before fixing on
Melena. “I see Prince Jehan is already
trying to dazzle you with his long, boring
pedigree.”
Melena swung a questioning look
on the enigmatic warrior. “Prince?”
Jehan grunted under his breath, but
didn’t deny it. “What are you doing here,
Sav? You know damned well Lazaro’s
orders were that no one enter this room
or speak to Melena without his
permission.”
Melena wanted to be offended by
the news of that domineering command,
but her two visitors were a welcome
distraction from everything else going
on. Not the least of which being Lazaro
Archer’s stinging rejection of her in the
cave. A sting that hurt all the worse for
his
tenderness
when
he
touched
her...kissed her.
“We weren’t properly introduced,”
Sav said. “Ettore Roberto Selvaggio.”
His dimples deepened along with
his heart-stopping smile. His Italian
accent seemed to deepen as well, the
kind of accent that probably ensured he
never wanted for female company.
“Melena Walsh,” she replied. “I
thought I heard Lazaro call you Savage.”
“Lazaro?” he echoed.
She felt color rise to her cheeks.
“Your
commander.
Mr.
Archer.
Whatever I should call him,” she
muttered. The man who saved her life,
awoke an irresistible desire in her, but
made her feel as if he might have rather
left her behind in Anzio a few hours ago.
“I think he despises me.”
The
two
Breed
males
now
exchanged a look. Jehan was the first to
talk. “Don’t let him scare you. It’s just
his way.”
“Come on, man,” his comrade said.
“It goes a bit deeper than that.”
Melena glanced at them both.
“What do you mean?”
“The way I heard it, Archer’s never
been the same since he lost his family
back in Boston twenty years ago,” Sav
said. “He blames himself, I imagine.”
“Why would he do that?” She
couldn’t begin to guess how Lazaro
could hold himself even the least
responsible for what happened to his
kin. “The Darkhaven was attacked while
he wasn’t home. It was razed to the
ground.”
“Yes,” Jehan agreed soberly. “And
now imagine you have the incredible gift
of walking into even the most extreme
temperature
and
emerging
wholly
unscathed. But you’re not there when the
attack on your own loved ones takes
place.”
“You have the ability to save some
of them—maybe all of them,” Sav
added. “Instead, you lose them all in one
fell swoop.”
Melena couldn’t speak. She wasn’t
even sure she was breathing as the
weight of what she’d just heard settled
on her.
She hadn’t known about Lazaro’s
Breed gift. Now it made sense, of
course. His ability to search for her for so long in the frozen pond all those years
ago. The fact that he’d swum across
nearly half of the Tyrrhenian Sea to save
her tonight, impervious to the cold,
unlike her.
He’d saved her twice, but had been
unable to save the ones he loved.
Including his blood-bonded Breedmate.
“He will not be pleased if he knew
we told you,” Jehan warned grimly.
Sav gave a nod. “Probably want to
stake both of us out in the sun. Or
worse.” He glanced at Melena. “So, not
a word, yeah?”
“Okay,” she murmured woodenly.
But oh, God, her heart ached for Lazaro
now.
“Enough about him,” Sav said,
grinning as if he wanted to lighten the
grave mood. “You asked about me, if I
recall. So, to answer your question, yes.
Most people who know me call me
Savage.”
She took his bait, needing to put her
sympathy for Lazaro on a higher shelf.
He wouldn’t want it anyway. “Why do
they call you that? You seem nice enough
to me. Are you usually mean or
something?”
“Or something,” he said, the glint in
his eye and the playful, seductive hue of
his aura providing all the correction she
needed.
Jehan snorted. “He’s a legend in his
own mind. Pay no attention to him.”
Sav barked a laugh. “Envy isn’t a
good look for you, Highness.”
“And you may kiss my royal ass,
peasant.”
Melena found herself smiling with
them. She took in their banter and warm,
welcoming faces, not realizing until then
how much she needed to feel she was
among friends.
She needed her family, which was
now reduced to just one other person.
Her Breed brother, Derek, had been
living in Paris for the past year,
bouncing between England and France
on one business venture or another.
Melena hadn’t seen him since he
left, hadn’t even spoken to him for
several long weeks. She couldn’t
imagine the anguish it would cause him
to learn their father had been killed.
Before he heard it anywhere else, she
wanted to be the one to break the news
to him. She wanted to spare him the
unnecessary grief of thinking she had
died along with everyone else tonight.
“Do you think it would be possible
for me to try to reach my brother
somehow?” she asked the two warriors.
“He’s traveling and I need to let him
know—”
“Is there a reason half my team is
not where I expect them to be?” Lazaro’s
deep, furious growl interrupted the
conversation without warning. He stood
in the open doorway, looking every bit
as ferocious as a Gen One Breed male
could.
His
sapphire
eyes
were
thunderously dark, except for the flashes
of amber outrage sparking in their
depths. “Out. Both of you. Now.”
Sav
and
Jehan
departed
on
command.
Leaving Melena to face Lazaro’s
rage by herself.
She waited for him to lay into her
too, but he didn’t. He merely stared at
her, a tendon ticking hard in his jaw. His
aura was as stormy a
s his glower, back
to the gunmetal haze that she found so
difficult to read.
His animosity seemed clear enough.
He didn’t want her in his command
center any more than he’d wanted her in
his presence on the yacht or at the cave.
And she wanted to be somewhere
safe now, even if that meant returning to
her father’s empty Darkhaven in the
States. “I don’t want to be here,” she
murmured. “I need to get in touch with
my brother Derek, and I need to go
home.”
“Out of the question.” His answer
was firm, flat. Unyielding. “I’ve spoken
to Lucan Thorne. Before you go
anywhere else, he wants me to bring you
to
the
Order’s
headquarters
in
Washington, D.C. He’ll talk with you
there, debrief you.”
“I already told you everything I
know. What more can I tell him?”
Lazaro didn’t answer. “We leave
tomorrow evening, Melena.” He started
to go, then pivoted back to her. “In the meantime, I won’t have my team
distracted by the fact we have a
Breedmate underfoot. I’ll make a place
for you in the villa. You’ll stay there
until we depart for D.C.”
CHAPTER 6
Melena had been moved out of the
command center’s infirmary to the living
quarters of the mansion hours ago.
Lazaro’s team had gone back to their
business as instructed. The morning
passed with discussions of Order
objectives and priorities. Chief among
those priorities being to ensure that
reports of the tragic, “accidental”
explosion on board Paolo Turati’s yacht
didn’t brush up against the truth that it
was, in fact, a stealth missile attack.
And while no one yet had stepped
forward to publicly claim responsibility,
there wasn’t a shred of doubt among the
Order’s entire organization that the
killings were surely instigated by Opus
Nostrum.
Halfway through the afternoon in
Rome, the warriors were now dispersed
to prepare for their patrols that coming
evening, everyone focused on task and
ready to carry out their missions.
And yet the female under their roof
remained a distraction.
For Lazaro, that is.
He made his way through the
corridors in a foul mood. He didn’t want
to think about her. He didn’t want to
think about his irritation over finding
Sav and Jehan chatting her up earlier,
making her smile in spite of everything
she’d been through. He didn’t want to
think about the anger that had shot
through him in that moment—the blast of
pure male possessiveness that he had no
right to feel.
And he sure as hell did not want to
give another moment’s thought to the kiss
he stole from Melena back in the Anzio
cave. He’d had no right to take that
liberty either. But was the kiss truly
stolen if she didn’t seem to mind that he
did it?
She’d told him she enjoyed it, for
fuck’s sake.
His blood rushed a bit faster,
disturbingly hotter, at just the thought.
And a lot of that blood was making a
swift run south. It pounded through his
veins like liquid fire, settling in his groin
when he recalled how soft and inviting
her mouth had been under his.
Melena had more than liked his
kiss. She’d welcomed it. Wanted more.
Wanted him.
Christ, he couldn’t get away from
her fast enough after that kiss. He still
couldn’t put enough distance between
them for his peace of mind. How he was
going to manage the long hours between
now and their departure for D.C.
tomorrow evening, he had no damned
idea.
More than likely, he’d be spending
that stretch of time with a constant hard-
on and a fevered hunger that bordered on
madness. He needed to exorcise that
hunger, and soon. He was on his way to
the weapons room to sweat out some of
his aggression with his blades and
pistols when one of his men met him in
the corridor.
Trygg had been the only one of the
unit with sense enough to avoid their
pretty, uninvited guest. The bald,
menacing looking Breed male carried a
long, cream-colored box in his arms.
“Package you ordered this morning just
arrived.”
Lazaro grunted as he took the box
from the most intimidating member of his
team.
“You want me to deliver it to her?”
Trygg suggested.
“No.” The reply came out too
quickly, too forcefully, but there it was.
Melena had been through enough of a
scare already; she didn’t need a brutal
killer like Trygg showing up at her door,
even if he did it with an unlikely gift in
his hands.
Besides, Lazaro had placed the
order for her as something more than just
a courtesy. He supposed he’d been
hoping it would also serve as some kind
of apology. He’d been a warrior for
twenty years, but he liked to think there
was still some sense of decency in him.
Given the way he’d treated Melena so
far, she might be hard-pressed to agree.
“I’ll bring it myself,” he told Trygg.
The vampire merely stared, his shrewd
eyes unblinking, far too knowing. Lazaro
tucked the long box under his arm.
“There is something you can do. Locate
Derek Walsh. Melena said her brother’s
been spending his time between Paris
and the United Kingdom. When you’ve
got a bead on him, let me know.”
Trygg gave a slight nod. “Done.”
Lazaro
stalked
through
the
command center to the attached, four-
story residential quarters. The Roman
villa had ten bedrooms, but Melena had
been placed in the largest suite in the
estate. It was also the one place where
he knew neither of her newest admirers
would be tempted to seek her out.
Paused outside the closed door of
his private quarters on the top floor,
Lazaro noted she’d left the tray of food he’d delivered hours earlier untouched.
It didn’t appear she’d even come out to
look at it.
He listened for movement on the
other side. Hearing nothing, he rapped
his knuckles on the carved wooden door.
He waited, feeling both awkward and
annoyed.
When he knocked again and got no
response, he started to get concerned.
He opened the d
oor and peered
inside. “Melena?”
His suite spanned the entirety of the
villa’s fourth floor. He didn’t see her
anywhere, not even in the spacious
bedroom. He dropped the box on the end
of the king-sized bed, then noticed the
door to the en suite bath was cracked
open.
Through the thin wedge, he saw her
slip into a terry robe, apparently having
just stepped out of the tub. He caught an
unexpected glimpse of her bare skin—
delectable curves, lovely breasts peaked
with dusky peach nipples...the hint of
dark curls at the V of her creamy thighs.
Ah, damn, she was gorgeous.
Everything male in him responded
as
swiftly—and
as
obviously—as
everything Breed in him. His pulse
jackhammered, the drum filling his ears
with a rush of hot need. The tips of his
fangs dug into his tongue, and as he
stared at her, his gaze grew heated as his
pupils thinned with his hunger and his
cock thickened with desire.
Until he spotted the bruises that still
lingered on her. His own wounds had
healed, thanks to his
Gen
One
metabolism, but Melena still carried
numerous contusions on her ribs and
delicate belly.
“Fuck.” Lazaro’s growled reaction
made her look up sharply. Too late to
pivot around and leave. Too late to
pretend he hadn’t just crept into the room
and stood there ogling her in open lust.
Or to hope she wouldn’t notice how
powerfully she affected him.
Her expression was guarded, wary.
She opened the door wider, but he
noticed how tightly she now gripped the
edges of the robe at her chest. When
Lazaro took a step toward her, she
slipped out of the bathroom and into the
larger space of the bedroom.
With some effort, he curbed the
presence of his fangs. His vision was
still awash in amber, but he could feel
his pupils resuming a less feral state.
And as for the state of his arousal, that
was a more difficult thing to hide, let
alone suppress. But while his body was
still thrumming with awareness—and
want—of her, his primary interest in that
moment was Melena’s well being.
“Jehan was supposed to look after
your injuries when you arrived,” he
muttered angrily. “He’s skilled with
ointments and herbs. He should’ve given
you something to help you heal.”
“I told Jehan I was fine. And I
am...or at least, I can try to be, once you
and the Order allow me to go home.”
Lazaro