Lara Adrian's Midnight Breed 8-Book Bundle (270 page)

On the ground near the building, the snow was stained deep red where the struggle had occurred. The lifeless corpse of the slain human had now been zipped into a body bag and was being loaded into another Agency vehicle parked nearby. The blood was dead and of no temptation or use, but the coppery tang was still strong in the chill air, making Brock’s gums tingle with the emergence of his fangs.

Behind them, footsteps crunched in the snow and gravel. Freyne cleared his throat, apparently unable to let things lie. “You know, Chase, I’ll be straight with you. No one could blame you for putting the kid down.”

“Agent Freyne,” Mathias Rowan said, a warning that went unheeded.

“It’s not like he didn’t have it coming, right, Chase? I mean, shit. The kid was Rogue, and there’s only one good way to deal with that. Same way you deal with a rabid dog.”

As determined as the other Agent was to taunt, Chase seemed equally determined to tune him out. “Over there,” he said to Brock, pointing to indicate a trail of heavy spatters tracking away from the scene.

Brock nodded. He’d already spotted the path the runner
took. And as much as he personally wanted to leap on Agent Freyne and take the smug bastard down a peg or ten, if Chase was able to ignore him, Brock would do his best to do the same. “Looks like our live one ran off toward the docks.”

“Yeah,” Chase agreed. “Judging by the amount of blood he’s spilling, he’s too weak to get far. Fatigue will take him down in under a mile.”

Brock looked back at Chase. “So, if the area’s been swept and no one has found him yet—”

“He’s got to be hiding somewhere not far from here,” Chase said, finishing the thought.

They were about to head out in pursuit when Freyne’s chuckle sounded from behind them. “Putting a bullet in the kid’s brain was an act of mercy if you ask me. But you have to wonder if his mother felt the same way … seeing how you killed her son right in front of her.”

Chase froze at that. Brock glanced at him, saw a muscle ticking dangerously fast in his rigid jaw.

While the rest of the small group moved out of the immediate area, Mathias Rowan stepped in front of his Agent, fury vibrating off every inch of him. “Damn it, Freyne, I said shut the fuck up and that’s an order!”

But the son of a bitch just wouldn’t stop. He navigated around his superior, putting himself right in Chase’s face. “Elise is the one I pity in all of this. That poor, sweet woman. To have lost your brother Quentin in the line of duty all those years ago, then you take her only child before her eyes. I guess it’s no surprise she’d look for comfort somewhere—even among the thugs of the Order.” Freyne made a vulgar sound in the back of his throat. “Fine-looking female like that could have had her pick of
eager males in her bed. Hell, I would have gladly sampled some of that. Surprised you never did.”

Chase let out a roar that rattled the ground. In a blur of movement that not even Brock could fully track, Chase launched himself at Freyne. The two big males crashed down to the gravel and snow, Chase pinning the Agent beneath him, pounding his fists into his face.

Freyne fought back, but he was no match for Chase’s fury. Observing it up close, Brock wasn’t sure anyone could stand up to the feral rage that seemed to pour out of Chase as he landed one punishing blow after another.

None of the other Agents made a move to stop the altercation, least of all Mathias Rowan. He stood back, silent, stoic, the rest of his subordinates seeming to gauge their response on his. They would have let Chase kill Freyne, and whether that killing was deserved or not, Brock couldn’t allow the brutal scene to play out to its seemingly foregone conclusion.

He stepped up, put a hand on his fellow warrior’s churning shoulder. “Chase, my man. It’s enough.”

Chase kept hammering, even though Freyne was no longer fighting back. Fangs stretched huge in his mouth, eyes blazing with the amber fire of his rage, Chase seemed unwilling—or unable—to bring the beast in him to heel.

When one of those bloodied fists recoiled to strike another blow, Brock caught it in his hand. He held fast with all his strength, refusing to let the hammer fall again. Chase pivoted a wild look on him. Snarled something raw and nasty.

Brock slowly shook his head. “Come on, Harvard. Let him be now. He’s not worth killing, not like this.”

Chase glared hard into his eyes, lips curled back off his
fangs. He grunted, animalistic, then swung his head back around to look at the sputtering, bloodied male still pinned beneath him and semiconscious in the muck.

Brock felt the tight fist in his grasp begin to loosen a fraction. “That’s it, my man. You’re better than this. Better than him.”

A cell phone trilled nearby. From his periphery, Brock saw Rowan put the mobile to his ear and pivot away to take the call. Chase was still huffing and dangerous, not yet willing to let Freyne loose.

“They got him,” Agent Rowan announced, his calm statement cutting through some of the tension. “Two of my Agents found the runner hiding under a delivery truck down by the wharfs. They’ve scrubbed his memory of what he witnessed and will drop him near a hospital on the other side of the city.”

Brock gave a faint nod of acknowledgment. “You hear that, Chase? It’s over. We’re done here.” He let go of Chase’s fist, trusting him not to escalate the situation with Freyne or any of the other Agents still gathered around, watching in anxious silence. “Let him go, Chase. This shit is finished.”

“For now,” Chase finally muttered, his voice rough and dark. He snuffled, shook off the hand Brock placed on his shoulder. With rage still rolling off him, he delivered one last punishing blow to Freyne’s battered face before springing up to his feet. “Next time I see you,” he growled, “you’re a dead man.”

“Come on, Harvard.” Brock steered him away from the area, not missing the pointed look that Mathias Rowan leveled on them as they headed back toward the Rover. “So much for diplomatic relations with the Agency, my man.”

Chase said nothing. He followed behind a couple of paces, his breath sawing in and out of his lungs, his body throwing off aggression like a nuclear blast.

“I hope we didn’t need that bridge back there, because you may have just torched it,” Brock said as they reached the vehicle.

Chase didn’t answer. Nothing but quiet at Brock’s back. Too much quiet, in fact.

He pivoted around. All he found was a lot of empty space where Chase had been standing just a second ago. He was gone, vanished without excuse or explanation, into the snowy night.

A
couple hours after dinner with Alex, Jenna was seated in the Breedmates’ war room, at the very conference table where she and Brock had opened a door that likely neither one of them had been prepared to walk through. But she tried not to think about that. She tried not to think about Brock’s sensual mouth on hers, or his skilled hands, which had given such intense pleasure even as he drew away her grief and inhibitions.

Instead, she rooted her attention on the discussion taking place between the women of the Order who were gathered in the room to review the status of their mission to locate the captives being held by Dragos. Only Tess was absent from the meeting, the pregnant Breedmate having
apparently begged off to rest in her and Dante’s quarters while keeping little Mira company, as well.

“She’s not feeling ill, is she?” Alex asked. “You don’t think the baby might be coming early?”

Savannah gave a mild shake of her head as she rested her elbows on the table. “Tess says she feels great, just a little tired. It’s understandable. She’s down to just a few weeks now.”

There was the faintest hesitation in her voice, then her gaze drifted subtly toward Jenna. A silent curiosity lingered in her eyes. At that moment, Jenna noticed that Savannah’s palms were pressed against the table. Her slim black brows lifted slightly, and it was obvious from the partial quirk of her mouth that her Breedmate talent for reading objects with a touch had just told her—no doubt, in vivid detail—of the passionate kiss Jenna and Brock had shared on that very surface.

When embarrassment started to make Jenna look away, Savannah merely smiled in serene amusement and gave her a small nod as if to say she approved.

“You know, Dante’s got a pool going on the delivery date,” Dylan piped in. “Rio and I have our money on a Christmas baby.”

Renata shook her head, the blunt ends of her dark hair swinging around her chin. “New Year’s Eve, you wait and see. Dante’s son would never miss an excuse for a party.”

At the far end of the table, Gabrielle laughed. “Lucan will never admit that he’s looking forward to having a baby in the compound, but I have it on good authority that five bucks was placed on December twentieth recently.”

“Is there something special about that date?” Jenna
asked, caught up in the excitement and genuinely curious to know.

“It’s Lucan’s birthday,” Elise said, sharing Gabrielle’s humor. “And Tegan put a hundred dollars on February fourth, knowing full well it was much too late to be in the running.”

“February fourth,” Savannah said, nodding with serene understanding.

Elise’s smile was tender with memories, bittersweet. “The night that Tegan found me hunting Rogues in Boston and tried to put a stop to it.”

Dylan reached out and squeezed the other Breedmate’s hand. “And the rest, as they say, is history.”

As the chatter of small, everyday things gave way to more serious talk of pursuing leads and formulating new mission strategies, Jenna felt her respect growing for the smart, determined mates of the Order’s warriors. And despite the earlier assurances that Tess’s exhaustion was nothing to worry about, she found herself concerned about her, too, feeling as though the fabric of the gathering was missing one of its most vibrant threads.

A thought struck Jenna as she quietly observed, taking in the faces of the other women in the room: Somehow, she had begun to consider all of them her friends. These women mattered to her, and so did their goals. As adamant as she was that she didn’t belong in this place, among these people, she realized that she wanted to see them succeed.

She wanted to see the Order defeat Dragos, and there was a part of her—a very determined part—that wanted to have a hand in making that happen.

Jenna eagerly listened as Elise discussed the status of the new sketches she and Claire Reichen had been
working on with Elise’s artist contact in the local Darkhaven. “It should only be another couple of days before we have finished sketches to work with. Claire has been amazing, making sure every detail is just as she recalls it from her dreamwalk into Dragos’s lab. She’s got meticulous notes, and her memory is incredible.”

“That’s good,” Renata said. “We’re going to need all the help we can get. Unfortunately, Dylan and I have run into a slight snag on Sister Margaret.”

“She’s living in a home for retired nuns down in Gloucester,” Dylan interjected. “I spoke to the administrator, and told her that my mom and Sister Margaret used to work together at the women’s shelter in New York. I didn’t mention what we were really looking for, of course. Instead I set it up as a personal call, and asked if it would be possible to visit with the sister sometime and chat about her years of volunteer work—maybe reminisce a bit about my mom. The good news is, Sister Margaret loves having company.”

“So, what’s the snag?” Jenna asked, unable to keep from jumping on this new intel trail herself.

“Dementia,” Renata replied.

Dylan nodded. “Sister Margaret’s been suffering from it for the past couple of years. The house admin said there’s a good chance she might not remember much about my mom or her work at the shelter.”

“But it’s still worth a try, right?” Jenna glanced around at the other women. “I mean, any lead is a good one at this point. There are lives on the line here, so we have to make use of everything we can. Whatever it takes to find those women and bring them home.”

More than one head turned with surprise in her direction. If any of the Order’s women thought it strange that
she was including herself in their efforts to locate the missing Breedmates, none of them said a word about it.

Savannah’s gaze lingered on her the longest, a look of gratitude—of friendship and acceptance—shining in her gentle eyes.

It was that easy acceptance, that sense of kindness and community she’d felt from each of these special women from the first day she awoke, that put a knot of emotion in Jenna’s throat now. It overwhelmed her, nearly choking her up to feel even for a second that she could be part of something as tight knit and comfortable as the extraordinary extended family that lived and worked in this place.

“All right. Let’s get to work,” Dylan said after a moment. “There’s a lot to be done.”

One by one, they all went back to their tasks, some reviewing open file folders, others taking up positions in front of the war room’s many computer workstations. Jenna drifted over to one of the unused PCs and fired up an Internet browser.

She had almost forgotten her message to her friend in the FBI Division Office in Anchorage, but as soon as she accessed the email site, she saw the reply waiting in her in box. She clicked the message and quickly scanned what it said.