Veil of Midnight (10 page)

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He wanted her.

Even while she was lying beneath another male, allowing that male to drink from her, Nikolai hungered for her with a ferocity that staggered him. Bound by blood to another or not, Renata made Niko burn to have her.

Which, by even his own flexible code of honor, lowered him to something close to Yakut’s despicable level.

Niko had to mentally shake himself loose of the disturbing realization, yanking his focus back to the trouble at hand.

“You’ve got a serious problem,” he told the Gen One vampire, hardly able to contain his contempt. “Actually, I’m guessing you’ve got about three dozen of them, rotting out there in your woods.”

Yakut said nothing, but the glow of his transformed, amber gaze darkened to one of defiance. A low growl curled out of him before he turned his head back to his interrupted meal. Yakut’s tongue slid from between his lips to lick at the punctures he’d put in Renata’s neck, sealing the wounds closed.

Only then, as Yakut’s tongue swept her skin, did she look away from Niko. He thought he saw something quiet, something resigned, pass across her face in the seconds before Yakut stood up and released her. Once free, Renata moved to the corner of the room, tugging her clingy shirt back to some semblance of order. She was still dressed in her clothes from before, still barefoot as she had been outside.

She must have come straight here after what happened between Niko and her.

Had she run to Yakut for protection? Or for simple comfort?

Jesus.

Niko felt like even more of an ass when he thought about kissing her the way he had. If she was blood-bonded to Sergei Yakut, that bond was sacred, intimate…exclusive. No wonder she’d reacted as she had. Nikolai kissing her would have been insult and degradation both. But he wasn’t there to apologize now—not to Renata or her apparent mate.

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Nikolai turned a hard look on the vampire. “How long have you been hunting humans, Yakut?”

The Gen One grunted, smiling.

“I found the holding pens in the barn. I found the bodies. Men, women…children.” Nikolai hissed a curse, unable to contain his disgust.

“You’ve been running a goddamn blood club out here. From the looks of it, I’d say you’ve been at this for years.”

“What of it?” Yakut asked blithely. He didn’t even attempt a respectable show of denial.

And in the corner of the room, Renata remained silent, her eyes rooted on Niko but showing no shock at all.

Ah, Christ. So, she knew about it too.

“You sick fuck,” he said, looking back to Yakut now. “All of you are sick. You won’t be allowed to continue this. It stops right here, right now. There are laws—”

The Gen One laughed, his voice warped from the transformation to his more savage side. “I am the law here, boy. No one, not the Darkhavens and their vaunted Enforcement Agency—not even the Order—has any say in my affairs. I invite anyone to come here and try to tell me otherwise.”

The threat was clear. Despite the fact that everything honorable and just screamed for Nikolai to launch at the smug son of a bitch with weapons flying, striking to kill, this was no ordinary vampire. Sergei Yakut was Gen One. Not only gifted with strength and powers exponentially greater than Niko’s or any other later-generation Breed, but a member of a rare class of individual. There were only a few Gen Ones in existence—fewer still, following the rash of recent assassinations.

As abhorrent as the outlawed practice of blood clubs was among Breed society, attempting to kill a first-generation vampire was an even bigger offense. Nikolai couldn’t raise a hand against the bastard, no matter how badly he wanted to.

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And Yakut knew as much. He wiped his mouth with the hem of his dark tunic, dabbing at Renata’s sweet-scented blood.

“Hunting is in our nature, boy.” Yakut’s voice was deadly calm, utterly confident, as he strode toward Nikolai. “You are young, born of weaker stock than some of us. Maybe your blood is so diluted with humanity, you simply cannot understand the need in its purest form. Maybe if you had a taste of the hunt, you’d be less sanctimonious of those of us who prefer to live as we were meant to be.”

Niko gave a slow shake of his head. “Blood clubs aren’t about hunting. They’re about slaughter. You can shovel your bullshit however deep you want it, but in the end, it’s still bullshit. You’re an animal. What you really need is a muzzle and a choke collar. Someone needs to shut you down.”

“And you think that you or the Order is up for that task?”

“Do you think we’re not?” Niko challenged, some reckless part of him hoping the Gen One would give him a reason to draw his weapons. He didn’t expect he’d walk away from a confrontation with the elder vampire, but he sure as hell wouldn’t go down without a damned vicious fight.

Instead, Yakut backed off, amber eyes blazing, their elliptical pupils tiny slivers of black. His bearded chin came up, head cocked severely to the side. His lips parted with his savage, fang-baring grin. Like this, it wasn’t hard at all to see the alien part of him—the part that made him and all the rest of the Breed what they were: blood-drinking predators not quite belonging to this mortal, Earth-born world.

“I told you once that you were not welcome in my domain, warrior. I have no use for you, or for your proposed alliance with the Order. My patience is at its end, and so is your stay here.”

“Yeah,” Niko agreed. “I’m fucking gone from this place, and gladly. But don’t think this is the last you’ll hear from me.”

He couldn’t help glancing over at Renata as he said it. As contemptuous as he found Yakut to be, he couldn’t muster the same kind of fury for her. He waited for her to tell him that she didn’t know about the crimes taking place on this patch of blood-soaked land. He wanted her

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to say that—to say anything to convince him that she wasn’t actually a knowing party to Yakut’s sick practices.

She merely stared back at him, her arms crossed over her chest. One hand reached up to idly finger the healing wound on her neck, but she remained silent.

Watching as Nikolai stalked out of the open door and past Yakut’s befuddled guards.

* * *

“Return the warrior’s personal effects and see that he leaves the property without incident,” Yakut instructed the pair of armed men outside his private chamber.

When the two set off to carry out the command, Renata started to follow after them. Some unbalanced part of her hoped she might be able to catch up to Nikolai privately and…

And what?

Explain the truth of how things were for her here? Try to justify the choices she’d been forced to make?

To what end?

Nikolai was leaving. He would never have to return to this place, while she would be here to her dying breath. What good would it do to explain any of this to him, a stranger who probably wouldn’t understand, let alone care?

And still, Renata’s feet kept moving.

She didn’t even get as far as the door. Yakut’s hand clamped down on her wrist, holding her back.

“Not you, Renata. You stay.”

She glanced at him with a look she hoped was devoid of the queasiness she was trying so hard to tamp down. “I thought we had

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finished here. I thought maybe I should go along with the others, just to make sure the warrior doesn’t decide to do anything stupid on his way off the property.”

“You will stay.” Yakut’s smile chilled her to the bone. “Tread carefully, Renata. I wouldn’t want you doing anything stupid either.”

She swallowed the sudden lump of cold unease in her throat. “I’m sorry?”

“You will be,” he answered, his grip tightening on her arm. “Your emotions betray you, beauty. I can feel the rise in your heart rate, the spike of adrenaline that’s running through your veins even now. I felt the change in you from the moment the warrior entered the room. I felt it earlier as well. Care to tell me where you were tonight?”

“Training,” she replied, quickly but firmly. Giving him no reason to doubt her, since it was essentially the truth. “Before you sent Lex to call for me, I was outside, running through my training exercises in the old kennel. It was a taxing workout. If you felt anything from me, that’s all it was.”

A long silence stretched, and still that hard grip stayed latched onto her wrist. “You know how much I value loyalty, don’t you, Renata?”

She managed a brief nod.

“I value it as much as you value the life of that child sleeping in the other room,” he said coldly. “I think it would destroy you if she should end up in the boneyard.”

Renata’s blood seemed to freeze in her veins at the threat. She stared up into the evil eyes of a monster—one who grinned at her now with sick pleasure.

“Like I said, dear Renata. Tread very carefully.”

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Nine

The city of Montreal, named for the broad mount that afforded such a royal view of the Saint Lawrence River and the valley below, glittered like a bowl of gemstones under the crescent sliver of the moon. Elegant skyscrapers. Gothic church spires. Verdant parkways, and, in the distance, a shimmering ribbon of water that nestled the city in its protective embrace. It truly was a spectacular view.

No wonder the leader of the Montreal Darkhaven chose to settle his community near the summit of Mount Royal.

Standing on the baroque-style limestone balcony off the mansion’s second-floor drawing room made the old hunting lodge outside the city seem a thousand miles away. A thousand years away from this polite, civilized manner of living. Which, of course, it was.

The wait to meet with Edgar Fabien, the Breed male who oversaw the Montreal vampire population, seemed to take forever. Fabien was well known around the city and rumored to be very well connected, both within the Darkhavens and their policing arm known as the Enforcement Agency. He was the natural choice for a delicate situation like this.

Still, it was a gamble that the Darkhaven leader would be willing to cooperate. This unannounced late-night visit had been a spontaneous thing, and a very risky one at that.

Just by coming here, he was declaring himself an enemy of Sergei Yakut.

But he’d seen enough.

Endured enough.

The prince was sick and tired of licking his father’s boots. It was time for the tyrant king to fall.

Lex turned at the sound of footsteps approaching from within the drawing room. Fabien was a slim male, tall and meticulously dressed, as

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if he’d been born in his tailored suit and shiny leather loafers. His ashblond hair was slicked back from his face with some kind of perfumed oil, and when he smiled at Lex in greeting, his thin lips and narrow birdlike facial features became even more severe.

“Alexei Yakut,” he said, coming out onto the balcony and offering Lex his hand. No fewer than three rings sparkled on his long fingers, gold and diamonds to rival the glitter of the city outside. “I’m sorry to have kept you waiting so long. I’m afraid we’re not accustomed to receiving unannounced guests here at my personal residence.”

Lex gave him a tight nod and took his hand out of Fabien’s grasp. The Darkhaven leader’s private home wasn’t exactly going to turn up in any Montreal tour guides, but a few questions posed to the right people in town had led Lex there without too much trouble.

“Come in, please,” the Darkhaven male said, motioning for Lex to follow him back into the house. Fabien settled himself onto a fancy settee, leaving room for Lex on the other side. “I must admit, I was surprised when my secretary told me who had come to see me. A shame we’ve not had the opportunity to meet until now.”

Lex took a seat beside the Darkhaven male, unable to keep his eyes from traveling over the endless luxury of his surroundings. “But you know who I am?” he asked Fabien cautiously. “Do you also know the Gen One who is my father, Sergei Yakut?”

Fabien gave a mild nod. “Only by name, alas. I am remiss in not having made formal introductions when you folks first arrived in my city. However, your father’s bodyguards made it clear when my emissary inquired about a meeting that your father was something of a recluse. I understand he enjoys a quiet, rural life outside the city, communing with nature or some such.” Over the steeple of his bejeweled fingers, Fabien’s smile did not quite reach his eyes. “I suppose there is something to be said for living with that kind of…simplicity.”