Lara Adrian's Midnight Breed 8-Book Bundle (170 page)

Claire
.

She stood off to the side of the group of Breed males, petite yet regal in a sleeveless ghost-gray gown that made her light brown skin look as smooth and lush as satin. Her soft black hair was swept up in a careful chignon, not a single strand out of place.

Time had not aged her so much as a year from when he’d known her—not that it would, when she was kept youthful and strong by the blood bond she shared with her chosen mate these thirty-some years. She was looking at Wilhelm Roth and his criminal friends, smiling with a perfectly schooled, perfectly unreadable expression.

A perfectly proper mate to the vampire who had proven to be Reichen’s most treacherous adversary.

Claire
.

After all this time
.

My Claire
, he thought grimly.

No, not his.

Once, perhaps. Long ago, and for merely a few months at that. A brief handful of time.

Ancient history.

Reichen stared at her image behind the silver-framed glass, surprised at how easily his fury for Wilhelm Roth could bleed over to the vampire’s Breedmate. Sweet, lovely Claire … in bed with his most hated enemy. Was she aware of Roth’s corruption? Did she condone it?

It hardly mattered.

He had a mission to fulfill. Justice to claim. A deadly, final vengeance to serve.

And nothing would stand in his way… not even her.

Reichen’s gaze bore down on the photograph, fury
smoldering in the amber light that reflected back at him from the surface of the glass. His fingers burned where his skin met the metal of the frame. He tried to cool the acid tempest swirling in his gut, but it was too late to hope for even a small measure of calm. With a snarl, he tossed the photograph to the floor and turned away from it. He stalked to one of the tall windows and willed open the pane, knowing he couldn’t trust his touch now that his rage was so close to ruling him.

Reichen stepped onto the sill in a crouch, hearing the hot spit and sizzle of melting silver and cracking glass as the framed photograph burst into flames behind him.

Then he leapt into the thick autumn night to finish what Wilhelm Roth had started.

CHAPTER
Two

C
laire Roth’s lips pursed in contemplation as she stared down at the architect’s model spread out on the table in her library. “What do you think about moving the bench away from the strolling path and closer to the koi pond, just on the other side of the cottage roses?”

“An excellent idea,” said a bright female voice over the speakerphone situated nearby. The young woman was calling from one of the region’s Darkhavens. Having seen some of her work elsewhere within the vampire community, Claire had been working with her for the past week, privately consulting on the design of a small garden park. “Have you decided about the material for the walkways,
Frau Roth? I believe initially you’d mentioned cobblestones or crushed rock—”

“Would it be possible to keep the paths natural instead?” she asked as she moved along the side of the table, perusing the rest of the scale model. “I’m thinking soft earthen walkways trimmed with something simple yet inviting. Forget-me-nots, perhaps?”

“Of course. That sounds lovely.”

“Good,” Claire said, smiling as she considered the change. “Thank you, Martina. You’ve done a wonderful job. Really, I couldn’t be more pleased with how you’ve taken my jumble of rough ideas and turned them into something so much more than I imagined.”

The young Breedmate’s voice brightened on the other end of the line. “The park is going to be beautiful, Frau Roth. It’s obvious how much time and care you’ve put into your vision of what you’d like it to be.”

Claire quietly registered the compliment, feeling less pride than relief. She wanted this slice of empty land to be turned into something beautiful. She wanted it to be perfect. Every planting, every carefully placed sculpture, bench, and strolling path was intended to be a place of total peace and tranquillity. A sanctuary meant to inspire the mind, heart, and soul. She wasn’t one to pick up the torch for a cause—well, not in a very long time, at any rate—but she had to admit this project had become something close to an obsession for her.

“I just need it to be right,” she murmured, blinking past a sudden misting of her eyes. She’d been overly emotional lately, and was grateful that there was no one in the library to see her weakness.

“Don’t worry,” Martina’s cheerful voice soothed. “I’m certain he’s going to love it.”

Claire swallowed, caught off guard. “W-what?”

“Herr Roth,” the young Breedmate replied. An awkward silence stretched out for long moments. “I, um … I’m sorry if I’m prying. You’d asked me to keep the park and its design a secret, so I suppose I assumed that you meant it to be a gift for him.”

A gift for Wilhelm? Claire had to work to contain her bemused reaction to the idea. She hadn’t even seen her mate for half a year. He came to the country only because his blood compelled him to. Claire had grown to dread those visits, expected as his mate to feed him from her veins and to take his blood in exchange. Wilhelm hardly pretended to feel differently about their coolly obligatory arrangement. They had discreetly lived apart nearly all of the three decades of their pairing—he in his Darkhaven mansion in the city, she and a handful of security staff here in the country manor a couple of hours away.

No, the garden park was not a gift for her chronically absent mate. In fact, she was sure he’d be furious if he found out that she’d undertaken the project on her own. Fortunately for her, Wilhelm Roth hadn’t taken an interest in anything she thought or felt or did for quite some time now. He was more than content to leave her to pursue her assorted philanthropic and social activities; his business with the Enforcement Agency was all that mattered to him, particularly of late. That was his obsession, and in a quiet corner of her heart, Claire was glad for her solitude. Especially these past difficult weeks.

Martina let out a small sigh over the speaker. “Please, Frau Roth… forgive me if I’ve overstepped my bounds in any way.”

“Not at all,” Claire assured her. Before she had to offer
Martina either a pleasant lie about her motivations for the park’s construction or explain her estrangement from the Breed male she saw infrequently at best, a hard rap sounded on the library door. “My thanks again for the lovely design, Martina. Let me know if you have any other questions before we proceed with the project.”

“Of course. Good night, Frau Roth.”

Claire ended the call, then stepped out of the room. She closed the door behind her, still feeling protective of her secret undertaking and seeing no reason to invite questions from Wilhelm’s loyal hounds. But now that she was standing alone with one of the half-dozen Enforcement Agents assigned to look out for her and the property she occupied, she realized that her little side project was the least of the security detail’s concern. The guard seemed agitated, uncharacteristically twitchy.

“Yes. What is it?”

“I need you to come with me, Frau Roth.”

“What for?” She could see now that the big male was visibly rattled. Considering he was Breed, in addition to being armed to his fangs with firearms and combat gear, rattling someone like him was no small thing. Something was terribly wrong.

The comm device clipped to his black bulletproof vest was crackling with intermittent static and snippets of urgent conversation among the other agents posted at the country house. “We’re evacuating the premises immediately. This way, if you would.”

“Evacuating? Why? What’s going on?”

“I’m afraid there is no time to waste.” More static sounded over his comm. More voices issuing clipped orders in the background. “We’re readying a vehicle for you now. Please. You must come with me.”

He started to reach for her arm, but Claire stepped out of his range. “I don’t understand. Why do I have to leave? I demand that you tell me what’s going on.”

“We had a situation at the Darkhaven in Hamburg a short while ago—”

“A situation?”

The guard didn’t elaborate, simply spoke right over her. “As a precaution, we’re clearing out of here and taking you to another location. A safe house in Mecklenburg.”

“Wait a minute—I have no idea what you’re talking about. What situation in Hamburg? Why do I need to be moved to a safe house? What exactly does any of this mean?”

The guard gave her an impatient look as he barked his position into his comm device. “Yes, I’m with her now. Bring the vehicles around to the front and prepare to roll out. We’re on the way to meet you.”

He made another grab for her and Claire’s patience snapped. “Goddamn it, talk to me! What the hell is going on? And where is Wilhelm? Get him on the phone. I want to talk to him before I let you haul me out of my own home with hardly an explanation.”

“Director Roth has been out of the country since July,” the agent told her, his schooled expression seeming to suggest that he didn’t notice her embarrassment over the fact that a basic security detail could know more about her mate’s whereabouts than she did. He cleared his throat. “We’re attempting to contact the director now to brief him on the attack—”

“Attack,” Claire replied, awkwardness forgotten as her skin went cold and tight. “Good lord. Was someone attacked at the Darkhaven? Has someone been injured?”

The guard stared at her for what seemed like endless
minutes before he finally hissed a curse and blurted out the details in a toneless spill of words. “The Darkhaven in Hamburg was breached less than an hour ago. We just received the call from one of the guards who managed to escape. The
only
guard who escaped,” he amended. “It was a complete annihilation. Everyone present at the mansion tonight is dead.”

“Oh, God,” Claire whispered, leaning back against the closed library doors for support. “I don’t understand … Who could do something like that?”

The guard shook his head. “We don’t have a clear count of how many attackers were involved in the strike, but the surviving agent said the assault was like nothing he’d ever seen before—fire everywhere, as though hell itself had blown down the gates and swept through the place. There’s nothing left but cinders.”

Claire stood there, stricken and voiceless, trying to process everything she was hearing. It was impossible … unbelievable. It just didn’t make sense. God, so much of what had been happening lately made no good sense at all.

So much random violence.

So much senseless death.

So much pain and loss …

“We can’t delay,” the guard was saying now. “We have to get you evacuated before this location comes under attack, as well.”

“You really believe that whoever did this will come out here? Why?”

This time the guard didn’t pause to tell her anything more. His fingers clamped down hard around her arm and he started walking—quickly. The message in his brisk stride was plain enough: Claire could hurry to keep up
with him, or he would drag her out of there. Either way, she was leaving the premises and doing so under heavily armed, grim-faced security.

There was no stopping for a coat or her purse. She fled with the guard, out of the house and into the chill of the late October evening. The cold autumn breeze bled through the fibers of her wine cashmere sweater and her gray wool pants as she ran alongside the guard to the paved drive, the soles of her suede loafers scuffing in her effort to keep up with the longer-legged gait of the agent dragging her along by the arm.

Claire was shown to the open back door of a Mercedes that idled in the center of a vanguard of four other vehicles.

“Get in,” the guard instructed her, and gently but urgently guided her inside ahead of him.

As he slid in next to her on the leather seat and closed the door, Claire tried to rub away the bone-deep chill that seemed to emanate from within her body rather than without. Everything was happening so fast. She was still trying to come to grips with the terrible news of the attack on the Darkhaven in Hamburg, let alone register the idea that not a few minutes ago her biggest worry was the proper placement of a garden bench or flower bed. Now the handful of Wilhelm’s relatives and personal guards who’d resided at the Darkhaven were dead and she was being removed from her home in the middle of the night, fleeing from an unknown, unfathomable evil.

Why?

The question wailed in her mind. It was the same thing she’d been asking herself some three months ago, when another Darkhaven had fallen to tragedy—a tragedy that also had left behind only ash and smoke in its wake. But
that had been an accident, according to the investigating Enforcement Agents. A freak explosion so fierce and total that it likely killed all of the Darkhaven’s residents instantly.

And still the question haunted her, as painfully as it had when she first heard the awful news …

Why?

“We are in and rolling,” said the guard seated behind the wheel, radioing to the other vehicles. He stepped on the accelerator, and, like a fast-moving snake, the fleet of black sedans began to speed as one down the lengthy, forest-lined driveway.