Lara Adrian's Midnight Breed 8-Book Bundle (74 page)

“The call came in to the firehouse late last night, sire. There was an explosion. Whole friggin’ warehouse went up like a Roman candle. No saving it, according to the guys who responded to the call. Initial reports say there appears to have been a gas leak—”

With a snarl, Marek jabbed the
End
button, cutting off his human servant’s useless report.

There was no way in hell the Crimson lab was destroyed by chance or faulty utilities. This bit of infuriating news had the Order written all over it. The only thing that surprised him was that it had taken this long for his brother Lucan and the warriors who fought alongside him to make their move on the place. But then, Marek had been keeping them busy fighting Rogues in the streets since last summer.

Which was exactly where he wanted the Order’s focus to remain.

Hold them off with one hand so the other could do the real work unnoticed and undisturbed.

It was the reason he’d come to Boston in the first place. The reason this particular city was experiencing an increased Rogue problem. All just part of his plan to create havoc while he pursued a bigger prize. If he could take out the warriors in the process, so much the better, but keeping them distracted would serve him just as well. Once his true goal was achieved, even the Order would be powerless against him.

And as much as the loss of the Crimson lab infuriated him, the even greater irritation was the fact that one of his other Minions had failed to report in as instructed. Marek was waiting on information—vital information—and his patience was thin even in the best of situations.

It didn’t bode well that his Minion was late. The human he’d recruited for this particular job was volatile and arrogant, but he was also reliable. All Minions were. Drained to within a bare inch of life, the human mind slaves were under the complete control of the vampire who made them. Only the most powerful among the vampire race could create Minions, and Breed law had long prohibited the practice as barbaric.

Marek scoffed with contempt at the self-imposed, bureaucratic castration of his kind.

Just one more example of why the vampire realm was overdue for change. They needed strong new leadership to usher in a new age.

The new age that would belong to him.

CHAPTER
Seven

H
e had pissed her off, probably hurt her, and even though an apology perched at the tip of his tongue most of the day, Tegan held it back. He had nothing to be sorry about, after all. He didn’t owe the female anything, least of all explanations or excuses for why he came off like the callous bastard everyone knew him to be.

And he wasn’t about to give so much as a second’s consideration to her request that he help her bring her psychic gift to heel. She’d surprised him with the suggestion. The idea that any female, particularly a sheltered Darkhaven widow like her, would think to put herself in his care for any reason was beyond his comprehension. As if he could be trusted for something like that.

Yeah. Not fucking likely.

Elise made it easy for him to avoid the issue. In the hours since he’d shut her down, she hadn’t uttered another word to him. She busied herself around the apartment, making up the futon, washing the breakfast dishes, dusting the bookshelves, going thirty minutes on the treadmill, and generally keeping as far away from him as seemed possible in the cramped quarters.

He’d heard her in the shower a while ago and had allowed himself a few minutes’ sleep where he sat on the floor, but the water was off now and he was awake, listening to Elise getting dressed behind the closed door. She came out in blue jeans and a hooded Harvard sweatshirt that fell halfway down her thighs. Her short blond hair was towel-dried and as shiny as gold, setting off the pale lavender of her eyes.

Eyes that slid to him in a chilly glare as she went to the closet in the hallway and pulled a white down vest off a hanger. She bent into the closet and took out a pair of tan suede boots.

“What are you doing?” Tegan asked her as she silently suited up for the outdoors.

“I have to go out.” She closed the closet door and zipped up the thick vest. “You probably noticed my refrigerator is practically empty. I’m hungry. I need to eat, and I need to pick up a few things.”

Tegan stood up, aware that he was scowling. “The trance won’t hold if you leave, you know.”

“Then I’ll just have to try to manage without it.”

Elise coolly walked over to the counter and picked up the MP3 player that lay there. She tucked the slim black case into the front pocket of her jeans, then threaded the earbuds under her sweatshirt and let them dangle down the front of her chest. She didn’t pick up the blade that had been left on the counter from her Minion hunting of the night before, and Tegan didn’t detect that she had any other weapons on her person either.

She wouldn’t look at him as she pulled the hood of her sweatshirt up over her head. “I don’t know how long I’ll be. If you leave before I get back, I’d appreciate it if you locked up. I have my keys.”

Damn it. She might be hungry like she said, but he could tell by the rigid line of her spine that the female had a point to prove here.

“Elise,” he said, moving toward her as she reached for the apartment door. If he wanted to stop her, all it would take was a thought. He knew it, and by the look on her face as she turned to look at him now, so did she. “I know you’re angry about what I said earlier, but it’s the truth. You’re in no shape to go on like this.”

When he took another step, concluding he might as well tell her that he’d decided to turn her over to the Darkhaven for her own safety, she closed her hand around the doorknob and sharply twisted it open.

She couldn’t have chosen a more effective weapon against him.

Bright afternoon sunlight streamed in from the vestibule and hall, driving Tegan back with a hiss. He leaped out of the path of the searing daylight, and from under the shielding arm he held up over his eyes, he watched as Elise’s pointed stare held him and she calmly strode out, closing the door behind her.

Elise took her time walking to the corner market and shopping for a few basic groceries. With a small bag of items in hand, she strolled up the sidewalk, away from her neighborhood block. The chill air was bracing against her cheeks, but she needed the cold to help clear her head.

Tegan had been right about his trance wearing off once she was gone from her apartment. Beneath the audial grate of electric guitars and screaming rock lyrics pouring into her ears from Camden’s iPod, she could feel the hum of voices, the acid growl of human corruption and abuse that was her constant companion since she’d embarked on this dark journey beyond the sanctuary of the Darkhavens.

She had to admit, Tegan’s psychic intervention had been a welcome gift. Even though he’d infuriated her—insulted her—the hours she’d spent cocooned within the trance he’d put her under had been so very needed. The break had given her a chance to think, to focus, and in her mind’s calm, under the spray of a long, hot shower, she remembered a specific detail about the Minion she’d hunted yesterday.

He had been attempting to pick up an overnight package for the one he called Master. The Minion—Raines, she thought he’d said his name was—had been quite outraged to learn that the delivery had not arrived as expected. What could be so important to him? More to the point, what could be so important to the vampire who’d made the Minion?

Elise intended to find out.

She’d been itching to leave her apartment since the moment she recalled the intriguing detail, but a rather immense, rather arrogant Breed warrior stood in her way. As Tegan didn’t think she had anything to contribute in the fight against the Rogues, Elise saw no reason to bother him with her information until she was certain what it might mean.

It took several minutes to reach the FedEx store near the train station. Elise loitered outside for a while, formulating a loose plan and waiting for the handful of customers inside to complete their transactions and leave. As the last one came toward the exit, Elise tugged her earbuds free and walked up to the counter.

The clerk on duty was the same kid who had been working yesterday. He nodded a vague greeting at her as she approached, but thankfully he didn’t seem to recognize her.

“Can I help you?”

Elise took a deep, calming breath, fighting hard to work through the cacophony that was building in her mind now that her crutch of blaring music was gone. She wouldn’t have long before she was overwhelmed.

“I need to pick up a package, please. It was due here yesterday but got delayed because of the storm.”

“Name?”

“Um, Raines,” she replied, and attempted a smile.

The young man glanced up at her as he typed something on the computer. “Yeah, it’s in. Can I see some ID?”

“Excuse me?”

“Driver’s license, credit card…gotta have signature and ID for the pickup.”

“I don’t have any of those things. Not with me, I mean.”

The clerk shook his head. “Can’t release without some form of ID. Sorry. It’s policy and I can’t afford to lose this job. No matter how bad it sucks.”

“Please,” Elise said. “This is very important. My…husband was here yesterday to pick it up, and he was very upset that it was delayed.”

She weathered the clerk’s answering rush of animosity toward the Minion. He was thinking of baseball bats, dark alleys, and broken bones. “No offense, lady, but your husband is a dick.”

Elise knew she looked anxious, but it would only serve her all the better at this moment. “He’s not going to be happy with me if I come home without that shipment today. Really, I must have it.”

“Not without ID.” The kid looked at her for a long moment, then ran his palm over his chin and the little triangular growth of whiskers below his lower lip. “Course if I happen to leave it on the counter and go back for a smoke break, there’s a good chance that box might sprout legs and walk off while I’m gone. Shit does go missing from time to time…”

Elise held the kid’s cagey stare. “You would do that?”

“Not for nothing, I won’t.” He glanced at the earbuds dangling from the collar of her sweatshirt. “That the new model? The one with video?”

“Oh, this isn’t…”

Elise started to shake her head in refusal, ready to tell the clerk that the device belonged to her son and it wasn’t hers to give away. Besides, she needed it, she thought desperately, even while reason told her she had the means to buy a hundred new ones. But this one was Camden’s. Her only tangible link to him now, through the music he’d been listening to in the days—the hours, in fact—before he left home for the very last time.

“Hey, whatever,” the clerk said, shrugging now and pulling the box back off the counter. “I shouldn’t be messing around anyway—”

“Okay,” Elise blurted before she could change her mind. “Yes, okay. It’s yours. You can have it.”

She pulled the wires out from under her sweatshirt, then wound them around the iPod and set the sleek black case down in front of the clerk. It took her a while to remove her hand from the top of the device. When she did, it was with a wince of deep regret.

And rigid resolve.

“I’ll take the package now.”

CHAPTER
Eight

T
egan came out of a brief, light doze, fully recharged, as footsteps approached the apartment door from outside. He knew the sound of Elise’s soft but determined gait even before a key slid into the lock announcing her arrival.

She’d been gone almost two hours. Another two and the sun would finally be gone, and he’d be free to get the hell out of there, back to his business as usual.

Seated on the floor with his elbows resting on his knees, his back against the foam-padded wall, he watched as the door opened cautiously and Elise slipped inside. She didn’t seem as eager to singe him with the waning light from the hall; now she was focused on her own movements, as if it took most of her concentration just to remove the key and carefully close the door behind her. A lumpy plastic grocery bag swung from her tightly fisted left hand.

“Find what you needed?” he asked her as she rested a moment with her forehead pressed against the door. Her weak nod was her only reply. “Another headache coming on?”

“I’m fine,” she answered quietly. As if marshaling her strength, she pivoted around and with her right hand up at her temple, she headed for the kitchen. “It’s not one of the bad ones…I wasn’t out very long, so it will ease soon.”

Without dropping her grocery bag or shedding her down vest, she walked past the treadmill into the narrow galley. She was out of his line of vision now, but Tegan heard the tap running, water filling a glass. He got up and moved so that he could see her, debating whether to offer her the comfort of the trance again. God knew, she looked like she needed it.

Elise drank the water greedily, her delicate throat working with every swallow. There was something fiercely basic about her thirst, her need so primal it struck him as absurdly erotic. Tegan considered how long she’d gone without blood from one of the Breed. Five years at least. Her body had begun to show the lack, muscle groups going leaner, skin less pink than pale. She would be able to better cope with her talent if she was nourished by Breed blood, but she had to know that, having lived among the vampire race for any length of time.

She drank more water, and after her third full glass, Tegan saw some of the tension drain from her shoulders. “The stereo, please…will you turn it on?”

Tegan sent a mental command across the room and music soared to fill the quiet. It wasn’t blaring like she preferred, but it seemed to help her take the edge off a bit. After a moment, Elise began putting away the supplies she’d brought home. With each second that passed, her strength renewed before his eyes. She was right; this wasn’t nearly as bad as what he’d walked in on last night.

“It’s worse when you get close to the Minions,” he observed aloud. “Being exposed to that level of evil—having to get close enough to touch it—is what brings on your migraines, and the nosebleeds.”

She didn’t try to deny it. “I do what I must. I’m making a difference. And before you tell me that I’m of no use to the Order in this fight, you might be interested to know that the Minion I killed last night was in the middle of an errand for the vampire who made him.”

Tegan froze, eyes narrowing on the petite female as she turned to look at him at last. “What kind of errand? What do you know?”

“I tracked him from the train station to a FedEx store. He was there to pick something up.”

Tegan’s brain went into instant recon mode. He started firing questions at her one after the other. “Do you know what it was? Or where it came from? What exactly did the Minion say or do? Anything you can remember might be—”

“Helpful?” Elise suggested, her tone nothing but pleasant even though her eyes flashed with the spark of challenge.

Tegan chose to ignore the slight goad. She may want to grind that tired axe with him from the morning, but this shit was too critical. He didn’t have the time or interest for playing games with the female. “Tell me everything you recall, Elise. Assume that no detail is insignificant.”

She went through a basic recap of what she observed about the Minion she’d hunted the night before, and damn if the female didn’t make an excellent tracker. She’d even gotten the Minion’s name, which might prove useful if Tegan decided to locate the dead human’s residence and dig around for further information.

“What will you do?” Elise asked as he formulated his plan for the night.

“Wait for nightfall. Hit the FedEx store. Grab that goddamn package and hope it gives up some answers.”

“It won’t be dark for a couple more hours. What if the Rogues send someone to get it before you have the chance?”

Yeah, he’d thought of that too. Damn it.

Elise cocked her head at him, like she was measuring him somehow. “They might already have it. And because you are Breed, you’re stuck here waiting for the sun to set.”

Tegan didn’t appreciate the reminder, but she was right. Fuck it. He needed to act now, because the odds were good there wouldn’t be a later.

“What street is the delivery place on?” he asked her, flipping open his cell phone and dialing 411.

Elise gave him the location and Tegan recited it to the computerized prompts on the other end of the line. As the call connected to the FedEx store, he prepared to hit whoever answered with a little mental persuasion, level the playing field while he had the chance. The line picked up on the fifth ring and the voice of a young male who announced himself as Joey offered a disinterested greeting.

Tegan latched on to the vulnerable human mind like a viper, so focused on wringing information out of the man he hardly noticed Elise coming toward him from the kitchen. Without a word, she dropped a weighted plastic grocery bag down in front of him, a rectangular box at the bottom of it clopping on the counter.

Through the yellow smiley face “Thank You” logo stamped on the bag, Tegan saw an airbill addressed to one Sheldon Raines—the same Minion that Elise had killed the day before.

Holy hell.

She couldn’t have—

He released the FedEx clerk’s mind at once and cut off the call, genuinely astonished. “You went back for this today?”

Those pale violet eyes holding his surprised gaze were clear and keen. “I thought it might be useful, and in case it was, I didn’t want to risk letting the Rogues have it.”

God. Damn.

Although she didn’t say it, Tegan could tell that Elise’s Darkhaven-bred propriety was the only thing keeping her from reminding him how not a few hours before he’d assured her there was nothing she could do to help the Order in this war. And whether it was stubborn defiance or courageous savvy that sent her out today, he had to admit—at least to himself—that the female was nothing if not surprising.

He was glad for the interception, whatever it might prove to yield, but if the Rogues—particularly their leader, Marek—were expecting the package, then it must be of some value to them. The question remained, why?

Tegan pulled the box out and sliced open the tape seals with one of the daggers at his hip. The return address appeared to be one of those shared-office corporate types. Probably bogus at that. Gideon could verify that fact, but Tegan was betting that Marek wouldn’t be so careless as to leave a legitimate paper trail.

He tipped the box and the contents—a thin, leather-bound book sealed in bubble wrap—slid into his hand. Peeling the cushioned plastic away from the antique, he scowled, perplexed. It was just an unremarkable, half-empty book. A diary of some sort. Handwritten passages scrawled in what appeared to be a mixture of German and Latin covered a few of the pages; the rest were blank except for crude symbols doodled here and there into the margins.

“How did you manage to get this, Elise? Did you have to sign for it, or leave your name, anything?”

“No. The clerk on duty wanted identification, but I don’t have any. There was never a need for anything like that when I was living in the Darkhaven.”

Tegan fanned the yellowed pages of the book, seeing more than one reference to a family called Odolf. The name wasn’t familiar, but he was willing to bet it was Breed. And most of the entries were just repetitions of some kind of poem or verse. What would Marek want with an obscure chronicle like this one? There had to be a reason.

“Did you give the delivery station any information that might identify you at all?” he asked Elise.

“No. I, um…I traded for it. The clerk agreed to give the box to me in exchange for Camden’s iPod.”

Tegan glanced up at her, realizing just now that she’d made the trip back to her apartment without the aid of music to block her talent. No wonder she had seemed out of it when she came in. But not anymore. If she felt any lingering discomfort, she didn’t let it show. Elise leaned forward to inspect the book, focused wholly on the task at hand with the same interest as him, her mind totally engaged.

“Do you think the book might be important?” she asked him, her eyes scanning the page that lay open on the counter. “What could it mean to the Rogues?”

“I don’t know. But it sure as hell means something to the one leading them.”

“He’s not a stranger to you, is he.”

Tegan thought about denying it, but allowed a vague shake of his head. “No, he isn’t a stranger. I know him. His name is Marek. He’s Lucan’s elder brother.”

“A warrior?”

“At one time he was. Lucan and I both rode into many battles with Marek at our side. We trusted him with our lives and would have given our own for him.”

“And now?”

“Now Marek has proven himself to be a traitor and a murderer. He’s our enemy—not only the Order’s, but all of the Breed’s as well. They just don’t know it yet. With any luck, we’ll take him out before he has a chance to make whatever move it is he’s been planning.”

“What if the Order fails?”

Tegan turned a hard stare on her. “Pray we don’t.”

In the answering silence, he flipped through more of the journal pages. Marek wanted the book for some reason, so there had to be a clue of some sort secreted in the damn thing somewhere.

“Wait a second. Go back,” Elise said suddenly. “Is that a
glyph
?”

Tegan had noticed it at the same time. He turned to the small symbol scribbled onto one of the pages near the back of the slim volume. The pattern of interlocking geometric arches and flourishes might have appeared merely decorative to an untrained eye, but Elise was right. They were
dermaglyphic
symbols.

“Shit,” Tegan muttered, staring at what he knew to be the mark of a very old Breed line. It didn’t belong to anyone called Odolf, but to those of another Breed name. One that had lived—and died out completely—a long time ago.

So what reason could Marek have for digging up the ancient past?

Screams carried into the drawing room of an opulent Berkshires estate, the howls of anguish emanating down from a windowed attic room on the third floor of the manor house. The chamber boasted a wraparound wall of windows with unobstructed views of the wooded valley below.

No doubt the scenery was breathtaking, bathed in the day’s last searing rays of sunlight.

The vampire being held upstairs by Minion guards certainly sounded impressed. He’d been treated to a front row seat of the UV spectacle for the past twenty-seven minutes and counting. More screams poured down the central staircase, agony giving way to the weariness of sobs.

With a bored sigh, Marek rose from a fine Louis XVI wing chair and crossed the room to the double doors of his dimly lit private suite. Other than the attic interrogation room, the rest of the mansion’s windows were shaded for the day by sun-blocking electronic blinds.

Marek moved freely into the hall outside and summoned one of his Minion attendants who waited to serve him. At Marek’s nod, the human dashed up the staircase to instruct the others that their Master was on the way and to ensure the windows were covered for his arrival.

It took only a moment for the captive vampire’s bleating to dry up. Marek climbed the wide marble steps, up and around to the second floor, then up and around again, to the smaller flight of stairs that rose to the attic. As he progressed, fury kindled to life in him again.

This was only one of several frustratingly exhaustive interrogations of the vampire in his custody the past couple of weeks. Torture was amusing, but rarely effective.

There was little amusing about the day’s developments back in Boston. The Minion courier dispatched to obtain an important overnight delivery for him had instead turned up at the city morgue—a John Doe stabbing victim, according to Marek’s contact in the coroner’s office. As he was killed in broad daylight, that ruled out the Order or any other Breed intervention, but Marek still had his suspicions.

And he was very interested to learn that the package he’d been expecting had gone missing from the FedEx store that very day. The loss was serious, but he intended to reclaim it. When he did, he would take great pleasure in personally questioning the thief who had it.

Up ahead, at the top of the attic stairwell, one of the Minions on guard opened the door to permit Marek entry into the now-darkened room. The vampire was naked, strapped to a chair by chain links and steel shackles at each ankle and wrist. His skin was smoking from head-to-toe burns, emitting the sickly sweet odors of sweat and badly seared flesh.