Veil of Midnight (12 page)

Nikolai exhaled sharply. “Forget I said it. What time should I plan on catching a ride back to Boston tonight?”

“I’ll have to make a couple of calls to get a flight plan filed on short notice, but the private jet’s still waiting for you at the airport. I can text you the time once I have it firmed up.”

“Okay. I’ll chill and wait for your go.”

“Where are you at, anyway?”

Nikolai glanced at the coffin behind him, the other one across from him, and the bronze urn gathering dust on a pedestal against the back wall of the dark mausoleum. “I found a quiet little place to grab a rest in the north end of the city. Slept like the dead, in fact. Or with them, at any rate.”

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“Speaking of dead,” Gideon said, “we’ve got a report of another Gen One killing overseas.”

“Christ. Picking them off like flies, aren’t they?”

“Or trying to, from the looks of it. Reichen’s following up on the report from Berlin. Got an e-mail from him that he’ll be calling in later today with an update.”

“Good to know we’ve got eyes and ears that we can trust over there,” Niko said. “Shit, Gideon. Never would have thought I’d have any use for a Darkhaven civilian, but Andreas Reichen is proving to be a damn good ally. Maybe Lucan ought to officially recruit him into the Order?”

Gideon chuckled. “Don’t think he hasn’t considered it. Alas, we’re just a part-time gig for Reichen. He may have the soul of a warrior, but his heart belongs to his Berlin Darkhaven.”

And a certain human female, from what Nikolai understood. According to Tegan and Rio, the two warriors who’d spent the most time with Andreas Reichen at his Berlin headquarters, the German Darkhaven leader was romantically involved with a brothel owner named Helene.

It was unusual for a Breed male to have more than a casual, shortterm relationship with a mortal woman, but Niko wasn’t about to question it since Helene was also proving instrumental in the Order’s intelligencegathering efforts overseas.

“So, listen,” Gideon said. “Cool your heels where you are, and I’ll let you know once I have your departure info for tonight. Sound good?”

“Yeah. You know how to find me.”

The murmur of a velvety female voice, soft from sleep, carried vaguely through the receiver.

“Ah, hell, Gid. Don’t tell me you’re in bed with Savannah.”

“I was,” he replied, leaning hard on the past tense. “Now that she’s awake, she says she’s tossing me over for a hot shower and a cup of strong coffee.”

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Nikolai groaned. “Shit. Tell her I’m sorry for the interruption.”

“Hey, babe,” Gideon called to his beloved, blood-bonded mate of some thirty-odd years. “Niko says he’s sorry for being such a rude bastard and waking you up at this ungodly hour.”

“Thanks,” Niko muttered.

“You’re welcome.”

“I’ll check in with you again from the plane heading home.”

“Sounds good,” Gideon said. Then, to Savannah on the side: “Hey, love? Niko wants me to tell you that he’s hanging up now. He says you ought to come back to bed and let me ravish you slowly from your clever and beautiful head to your delectable little toes.”

Nikolai chuckled. “Sounds like fun. Put me on speaker so I can listen at least.”

Gideon snorted. “Not a chance. She’s all mine.”

“Selfish bastard,” Niko drawled wryly. “I’ll catch you later.”

“Right, later. And Niko—about the Yakut situation? Seriously. Don’t even think about being a cowboy, yeah? We’ve got bigger issues to contend with than trying to corral one loose-cannon Gen One. It’s not our area, especially not right now.”

When Niko didn’t immediately agree, Gideon cleared his throat.

“Your silence isn’t exactly giving me the warm fuzzies, my man. I need to know you’re hearing me on this.”

“Yeah,” Nikolai said. “I’m hearing you. I’ll see you in Boston later tonight.”

Niko closed his cell phone and slid it back into his pocket.

As much as it fried him to think of turning a blind eye to Yakut and his sick activities, he knew Gideon was right. What’s more, he knew that the Order’s leader, Lucan, as well as the rest of the warriors at the Boston compound would say the same thing to him.

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Forget about Sergei Yakut, at least for the time being. That was the sensible, smartest thing to do.

And while he was at it, he would be wise to forget all about Renata too. She’d made her bed, after all. The fact that she’d evidently made it with sadistic scum like Sergei Yakut was none of Nikolai’s business whatsoever. Beautiful, ice maiden Renata was not his problem, so good riddance to her.

Good riddance to the entire nest of vipers he’d uncovered in Yakut’s domain.

Just a few more hours to kill before nightfall, and then he could put it all behind him.

* * *

She never had gotten used to sleeping through the daylight hours, not in the whole two years she’d been living in service to a vampire.

Renata lay in her bed, restless, unable to relax and close her eyes even for a few minutes. She tossed and turned, flipped onto her back and blew out a sigh, staring up at the timber rafters.

Thinking about the warrior…
Nikolai.

He’d been gone for hours—nearly half an entire day—but she still felt the weight of his contempt pressing down on her. She hated that he’d seen Yakut feeding from her. It had been hard to pretend she wasn’t ashamed when he caught her gaze from across the room. She’d tried to appear unaffected, defiant. Inside she’d been shaking, her pulse jackhammering almost out of control.

She hadn’t wanted Nikolai to see her like that. Even worse that he had learned of Yakut’s brutal crimes and clearly thought her to be a part of it as well. She couldn’t get the withering, accusatory look he’d given her out of her head.

Which was ridiculous.

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Nikolai was Breed, like Yakut. He was a vampire, the same as Yakut. Like Yakut, Nikolai had to feed on humans in order to survive. Even in her limited understanding of their kind, Renata knew that drinking from human beings was the only way the Breed could obtain nourishment. No convenient vampire-friendly blood banks where they could pick up a pint of O-Negative for the road. No animal predation as a substitute for the real thing.

Sergei Yakut and all the rest of the Breed shared the same driving thirst: the need for
Homo sapiens
red cells, taken directly from an open vein.

They were deadly savages who happened to look human most of the time, but who at their core—in their soul, if they even had one—lacked all humanity. Why she should think that Nikolai was any different was beyond her.

But he had seemed different, if only a little.

When she’d sparred with him in the kennel—when he’d kissed her, for God’s sake—he had in fact seemed remarkably different from the others of his kind that she knew. Not like Yakut at all. Not like Lex either.

Which probably only proved that she was a fool.

And she was weak as well. How else could she explain the wrenching wish she’d had that Nikolai might have taken her out of this place when he’d left today? She didn’t often indulge in futile hopes, or waste time imagining things that could never come to pass. But there had been a moment…a brief, selfish moment when she pictured herself torn away from Sergei Yakut’s unbreakable hold.

For one unfettered instant, she wondered what it might feel like to be free of him, free of everything that held her there…and it had been glorious.

Shamed by her thoughts, Renata swung her legs over the side of the bed and sat up. She couldn’t lie there for another minute, not as long as her head was spinning with thoughts that would do her no good at all.

The fact of the matter was, this was her life. Yakut’s world was her world, the lodge and its many ugly secrets her unshakable reality. She

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didn’t feel sorry for herself; she never had. Not at the convent orphanage all those years as a child, nor the day she was tossed out of her home with the Sisters of Benevolent Mercy at the age of fourteen and forced to leave for good.

Not even on the night, just two summers before, when she’d been plucked off the streets in Montreal and brought with a group of other frightened humans to the locked holding pens of the barn on Sergei Yakut’s property.

She hadn’t shed a single self-pitying tear in all this time. She sure as hell wasn’t about to start now.

Renata got up and left her modest room. The main lodge was quiet at this hour, the few windows in the place shuttered tight to banish the sun’s lethal rays. Renata took the thick iron bar off the exterior door and walked out into a gloriously warm and bright summer afternoon.

She headed straight for the kennel outbuilding.

Amid all the drama that had occurred last night, both alone with Nikolai and in the time afterward, she’d completely forgotten her blades outside. The careless oversight bothered her. She never let the daggers out of her possession. They were a part of her now, as they had been the day she’d received them.

“Stupid, stupid,” she whispered to herself as she entered the old kennel and looked to the post where she expected to find the embedded blade she’d thrown at Nikolai.

It wasn’t there.

A cry slipped past her lips, disbelief and anguish.

Had the warrior taken her blades for himself? Had he fucking stolen them?

“Damn it. No.”

Renata stormed across the center aisle of the building…then came to an abrupt halt as she reached the back of the place and her eyes settled on the stout bale of straw near the scarred wooden post.

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Carefully folded atop it and placed neatly beside the pair of shoes she’d left behind last night as well was the silk-and-velvet wrapper that contained her treasured daggers. She picked it up, just to reassure herself that the fabric sheath wasn’t empty. Its familiar weight settled into her palm and she couldn’t hold back her smile.

Nikolai.

He’d taken care of the blades for her. Collected them, wrapped them up, and left them here for her as if he knew how much they meant to her.

Why would he do that? What did he expect his kindness to buy him?

Did he actually think her trust might come so cheaply, or was he just hoping for another chance to force himself on her the way he had with that kiss?

She really didn’t want to think about kissing Nikolai. If she thought about his mouth on hers, then she would have to admit to herself that as unexpected and uninvited as his kiss had been, force was hardly to blame for it happening.

The truth was, she’d enjoyed it.

Mother Mary, but just thinking on him now lit a slow, liquid heat in her core.

She’d wanted more of him, despite that every survival instinct in her body had been screaming for her to get away from him, and get away fast. She hungered for him—then and now. Burned for him, in a place she’d long thought to be frozen over and dead.

And that little admission made what he’d said about Mira—the implication that whatever he’d seen in the child’s eyes might somehow involve Renata and him intimately together—all the more unsettling.

Thank God he was gone.

Thank God he would likely never return after what he’d discovered here.

It had been a long time since Renata had gone down on her knees to pray. She knelt before no one anymore, not even Yakut at his terrifying

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worst, but she bowed her head now and begged heaven to keep Nikolai away from this place.

Away from her.

No longer in the mood for training, especially when memories of what had taken place here last night were still ripe and swimming in her head, Renata grabbed her shoes and walked back to the lodge. She went inside, replaced the bar on the door, then walked the hallway leading to her room and what she hoped might be at least a few hours’ sleep.

She sensed something out of place even before she noticed Mira’s door was unlatched.

No lights were on in the child’s room, but she was awake. Renata heard her soft voice in the dark, complaining that she was sleepy and didn’t want to get up. More nightmares? Renata wondered, feeling a pang of sympathy for the child. But then another voice hissed over Mira’s groggy protests, this one cold and harsh, clipped with impatience.

“Stop your sniveling and open your eyes, you little bitch.”

Renata pressed her hand to the paneled door and pushed it wide.

“What the hell do you think you’re doing, Lex?”

He was bent over Mira’s bed, the child’s shoulders caught in a bruising hold. His head swiveled around as Renata came into the room, but he didn’t let go of Mira. “I have need of my father’s oracle. And I don’t answer to you, so kindly get the fuck out of here.”

“Rennie, he’s hurting my arms.” Mira’s voice was tiny, pinched with pain.

“Open your eyes,” Lex snarled at her. “Then maybe I’ll stop hurting you.”

“Take your hands off her, Lex.” Renata stopped at the foot of the bed, her sheathed blades a tempting weight in her grasp. “Do it. Now.”

Lex scoffed. “Not until I’m through with her.”

When he gave Mira a hard shake, Renata let loose with a blast of mental fury.

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It was just a spurt of power, only a fraction of what she could give him, but Lex howled, his body jerking as though he’d been hit with a few thousand volts of electricity. He reeled back, dropping Mira and falling away from the bed, ass-planted on the floor.