Crave the Night: A Midnight Breed Novel (23 page)

“It could be worse,” Gideon said without looking up from the array of 3D touch-screen monitors laid out before him and illuminated with countless servers’ worth of data, which he swept through and resequenced like a deranged symphony composer. “A few nights ago at the summit, if we hadn’t stopped Reginald Crowe and Opus Nostrum’s Morningstar bomb, today we’d be engulfed in certain world war between the humans and the Breed.”

Lucan grunted. “Don’t think that’s off the table yet. If what Crowe promised—that Opus Nostrum and their plans are nothing compared to what the Atlanteans mean to do—then we stand on the brink of war every second of every day that we let Crowe’s kind elude us.”

On the video screen, Chase’s face remained sober. Lucan knew the serious warrior long enough to realize that failure didn’t sit well with him either. “Nothing to report out of Dublin yet, I take it?”

Lucan shook his head. “Rowan’s got a full squad on the ground in that city and outlying areas, searching for anything they can find on Crowe’s purported mistress. Without a name or physical description, they’re getting nowhere fast.” Lucan blew out a low curse. “It doesn’t help that Rowan’s had his hands full with JUSTIS in London recently as well.”

“How so?” Chase asked.

“They’ve been dealing with a rash of unsolved murders in that city recently. Human and Breed victims, a few of them high profile. Joint Urban Security finally got so desperate to make the killings stop, they extended an olive branch to the Order in exchange for an unofficial assist on the investigation.”

Tegan grunted. “ ‘Unofficial assist’ meaning handle it for them quietly and by any means necessary, so long as they don’t have to get their hands dirty.”

“It’s the old Enforcement Agency all over again,” Gideon said, his hands flying from one large display to another. “Except now it’s got a shiny new, politically correct name. Same old shit, but someone else is doing the shoveling.”

A onetime career Enforcement Agent himself, Chase arched a golden brow. “And there’s twice as much of it, now that the bureaucracy has been extended into both Breed and human law enforcement combined under the JUSTIS banner.”

“Their inefficacy is our advantage right now,” Hunter said, his deep voice unnervingly level, his input logical as always. “If local law enforcement decides to wash their hands of Cass’s slaying too, then the Order can investigate unimpeded by JUSTIS red tape.”

“We’d better hope for that,” Lucan said. “Hell, we’d better do more than hope. We need to run this thing down with every resource at our disposal. If Nathan and his team are right about this killing—this immortal-style execution in the middle of a city street—then we need answers, and we need them yesterday.”

“Understood and agreed,” Chase replied. He hesitated for a moment, then pointedly cleared his throat. “There was a witness … not on scene at the time of the killing, but someone who saw Cass—spoke to him—within hours of his murder.”

Lucan frowned. “You didn’t mention that a witness had been identified in the team’s reports.”

Another pause, and Chase’s mouth flattened. “Because she wasn’t included in any of the field reports that Nathan or his team filed. Rafe came to me a short while ago and personally informed me about the female. She’s a Breedmate from one of the Back Bay Darkhavens. Actually, she’s Carys’s best friend and roommate as well.”

Hunter cocked his head, eyes narrowed on Chase. “You’re saying Nathan overlooked a key detail of his investigation? He doesn’t make mistakes. That’s impossible.”

“No,” the Boston commander said carefully. “I’m saying Nathan deliberately omitted a key detail of his investigation when he sent in his report this morning.”

Lucan practically snarled his response. “Why the hell would he do something that stupid?”

Chase’s look said it all.

“Ah, Christ.” Lucan ran a hand over his jaw and barked out a humorless laugh. “He’s fucking her?”

“Nathan didn’t report back to base from patrol until just before sunrise,” Chase explained. “I don’t suppose he was out taking a long stroll.”

Lucan shot a hard look at Hunter. “You and Corinne don’t know anything about this?”

The former assassin who’d taken Nathan’s mother as his mate some twenty years ago gave a shake of his head, looking every bit as displeased as Lucan was. “Nathan is our son, but he came to us as a man, even at
his young age. He keeps his private life private. That wall has been in place for a very long time. That said, Nathan would never allow his physical urges to overrule his duty. Or his training.”

“I suspect this could be something more than just a physical urge,” Chase interjected. “He’s distracted. Maybe even a bit obsessed. He thinks he’s keeping a lid on it, but the only one he’s fooling is himself.” Tegan chuckled darkly. “He’s hardly the first of us to fit that description.”

“No, he’s not,” Chase agreed. “But if he doesn’t watch his step, he’s going to leave me no choice but to pull him off the mission.”

“Chase is right,” Lucan said. “This shit is too critical. We need every team working as a unit—no exceptions. If Nathan can’t get on board with that, then we regroup and keep moving without him.” Lucan glanced back at Chase on the video screen. “What else do we know about this witness?”

“Her name is Jordana Gates. Her father, Martin Gates, is one of Boston’s most prominent residents. Gates is unmated. He adopted Jordana as an infant.”

Lucan grunted. “Not a typical arrangement, for a single Breed male to take in a Breedmate as his child.”

“Not typical, but not unheard of,” Chase said. “My family has been friendly with Martin Gates since his arrival in Boston from Vancouver a few years before First Dawn. His reputation over those twenty-plus years has been spotless. He made his fortune in the stock market and investments in fine art. As for taking in an orphaned infant to raise on his own, I’ve personally heard Gates say more than once that without blood heirs or family to look after, he felt it a shame to have acquired so much and have no one to share it with. The man is as charitable as he is wealthy. And Martin Gates is very, very wealthy.”

“And Jordana?” Lucan asked.

“A nice girl,” Chase said. “A bright, beautiful woman. She could probably have her pick of any man in the city, Breed or human. For some time, there were rumors that she was involved with a vampire named Elliott Bentley-Squire, Martin Gates’s prominent, longtime attorney and friend. To hear Bentley-Squire talk, it was only a matter of time before they would be mated. Back Bay society rags have been speculating on the match for years.”

“Nothing like dragging a high-profile civilian into the middle of covert
Order business,” Lucan muttered under his breath. He crossed his arms over his chest. “I don’t know what Nathan thinks he’s doing with this female, or what his intentions might be where she’s concerned. So long as she’s a potential intelligence source, I don’t give a damn about any of that. Our mission is all that matters. We fuck that up, people die, wars happen.”

Lucan glanced to Hunter, who met his comment with a concurring nod. The former assassin’s tone was steady, coolly logical. “Nathan pledged himself in duty to the Order. If he can’t uphold that promise, he will expect nothing less than to have it taken from him.”

“Yeah, that ought to go over well,” Gideon remarked, furiously sifting through what looked to be thousands of digital files and sweeping them off the screen one after another. He slowed after a moment and raked his fingers through the short blond spikes of his hair.

“Holy shit.” He glanced at Lucan and the other warriors over the rims of his ever-present pale blue glasses. “My packet sniffer just encountered a remote back door on one of La Notte’s commerce account firewalls.”

Lucan, along with Chase on video and the other warriors seated in the room, all stared at Gideon in questioning silence.

A grin spread over the vampire hacker’s face. “I found a way in. Once I machete through a few more layers of tangled security and subterfuge, I’ll have all of Cassian Gray’s secrets cracked open like a walnut.”

JORDANA HAD BEEN AWAKE SINCE DAWN.

Her head was buzzing with a thousand thoughts and minutiae about the exhibit opening that evening, but it was the deep, blissful thrumming of her body that roused her from sleep hours ago.

That enlivened vibration of her limbs and core—of her very blood—was also to blame for the secret, irrepressible smile she couldn’t seem to wipe from her face no matter how hard she tried.

Making love with Nathan last night had been nothing short of spectacular.

Even now, when she closed her eyes, she could still feel his strong hands on her, his hot mouth on her. His hard body moving over her, inside her …

Jordana groaned into her teacup as she took a sip of her favorite morning blend. She’d showered a while ago and now sat in her robe on her bed, answering emails before she and Carys needed to head in to the museum for the day.

“Someone’s up early.” Carys stood in the open doorway of Jordana’s bedroom, leaning against the jamb. Her caramel-brown hair was swept up into a ponytail, baggy gray sweats hanging loosely on her athletic figure. “Everything all right?”

“Yeah.” Jordana nodded, wondering if she looked any different to her friend today. God knew she felt different. Everything seemed different today. “Just getting a jump on a few things since I couldn’t sleep.”

“No wonder,” Carys replied. “Quite a night you had.”

The ghost of a smile played at the corners of her mouth, and Jordana realized instantly that her friend wasn’t referring to the awful incident at La Notte. “You know Nathan was here?”

“I ran into him before sunrise here in the apartment. He was trying to slip out just as I was coming home.”

Jordana hadn’t really expected Nathan to be next to her when she woke up, but she couldn’t deny the pang of disappointment she’d felt when she opened her eyes earlier and found him gone.

And she had to admit, at least to herself, that she’d been hoping to hear from him by now. All she needed was some small indication that last night meant something to him too.

“How did he seem to you?” she asked, setting her tea on the nightstand to give Carys her full attention. She was hungry for every last detail her friend could provide. “What did he tell you? Did he say anything about me?”

Carys arched a slender brow. “You mean after he realized I wasn’t someone he needed to attack for coming in to harm his woman?”

“Did he say that—those exact words?” Jordana’s heart skipped a beat. “How did he say it? Did he specifically call me his woman?”

Laughing softly, Carys entered the room and took a seat on the edge of the bed. “I see this is even worse than I first suspected.” She leaned in and whispered, “If you want to write him a note, I’ll ask Rune to pass it to him after school.”

“Tell me what he said!” Jordana gave her friend’s shoulder a light shove, giggling with her now. “Come on, Car. I need details. I’m serious.”

“I know you are,” Carys relented. “And so is Nathan, I think. More serious than I’ve ever known him to be.”

Without saying any more, Carys got up from the bed and strode into Jordana’s walk-in closet. “Did you decide what you’re wearing tonight?”

Jordana hurried after her. “I’ve narrowed it down to the black tea-length or the pale rose silk cocktail dress.” It was hard to think about clothing choices, let alone discuss them when her breath had suddenly caught in her lungs. “What do you mean, Nathan is more serious than you’ve ever known him? Serious … about me?”

Carys found the two dresses Jordana mentioned and was now pulling them out of the wardrobe. She held them up, one in each hand. “I’d have to see these on you before I could decide which one is best. Here. Try the black one first.”

Jordana grabbed the dress her friend pushed toward her. “Did Nathan say he was serious about me?”

Carys waggled her hand dismissively. “Let me see the dress, then we’ll talk.”

On a grumble, Jordana twisted her long blond hair into a makeshift knot on top of her head, then shucked her robe and bra and slipped into the fitted black dress. It was her original choice, a purchase she’d been saving for months specifically for the exhibit opening. Classic, conservative, perfect.

Carys cocked her head to the side, then feigned a yawn. “Next.”

“You don’t like this one at all?” Jordana turned to one of the full-length mirrors in the massive walk-in. The portrait-collared, mid-calf-length dress was lovely.

It would have been an excellent choice for any social event … particularly if Jordana was officiating at a funeral instead of an art exhibit.

She slanted her friend’s reflection a conceding look, then crossed her arms over her breasts. “Tell me what he said.”

“He said he didn’t want anything to happen to you. He doesn’t want to see you get hurt.”

Not exactly a love song, but it made Jordana’s heart pound heavy and hopeful in her breast. “That’s it? He didn’t say anything more than that?”

Carys gestured for her to continue with the fashion show. Jordana frowned but quickly took off the black frock. When she reached for the equally uninspired rose silk dress, Carys snatched it away and pulled a different one from out of the sea of elegant attire. “Try this instead.”