Kiss of Midnight

CHAPTER Six

At midweek in the height of the summer tourist season, Boston’s parks and avenues were clotted with humanity. Commuter trains sped people in from the suburbs, to workplaces and museums, and to the countless historic sites located around the city. Camera-toting gawkers clambered onto excursion buses and horse-drawn carriages to putter around town, while others lined up to board over-priced, overcrowded charter tours that would haul them by the hundreds out to the Cape.

Not far from the daytime bustle, secreted some three-hundred feet beneath a heavily secured mansion outside the city, Lucan Thorne leaned over a flat-panel monitor in the Breed warriors’ compound and muttered a ripe curse. Vampire identification records scrolled up the screen’s display with machine-gun speed as a computer program searched a massive international database for matches against the photos Gabrielle Maxwell had taken.

“Anything yet?” he asked, slanting an impatient look at Gideon, the machine’s operator.

“Zip, so far. But my search is still clocking. IID’s got a few million records to scan.” Gideon’s sharp blue eyes flashed over the rims of sleek silver shades. “I’ll get a lock on your suckheads, don’t worry.”

“I never do,” Lucan replied, and meant it. Gideon had an IQ that was off the charts, compounded by a streak of tenacity that ran a mile wide. The vampire was as much relentless bloodhound as he was flat-out genius, and Lucan was damned glad to have him on his side. “If you can’t flush them out, Gideon, no one can.”

Beneath his crown of cropped, spiky blond hair, the Breed’s computer guru bared a cocky, confident grin. “That’s why I get the big bucks.”

“Yeah, something like that,” Lucan said, drawing away from the screen’s nonstop roll of information.

None of the Breed warriors who had signed on to protect the race from the scourge of the Rogues did so for any kind of payback. They never had, not from the first forming of their alliance in what was mankind’s medieval era to now. Each warrior had his reasons for choosing this dangerous way of life, and some of them were, admittedly, more noble than others. Like Gideon, who had worked the field independently until seeking out Lucan after his twin brothers—little more than children—were killed by Rogues outside the London Darkhaven. That was three centuries ago, give or take a few decades.

Even then, Gideon’s skill with a sword had been rivaled only by his rapier-sharp mind. He had slain many Rogues in his time, but much later, devotion and a private pledge to his Breedmate, Savannah, had made him give up combat in exchange for wielding the weapon of technology in service to the Breed.

Each of the six warriors who currently fought beside Lucan had their personal talents. They had their own personal demons as well, though none of them were the touchy-feely types looking to have Dr. Phil crawl up their ass with a flashlight. Some things were better left to the dark, and probably the only one of them who felt that more than Lucan himself was the Breed warrior called Dante.

Lucan acknowledged the young vampire as he strode into the tech lab from one of the compound’s numerous chambers. Dante, wrapped in his standard basic black attire, was wearing biker’s leathers and a fitted tank that showcased both his inked tattoos and his more elaborate Breed markings. His thick biceps were banded with intricate scrollwork, which, to human eyes would seem oddly abstract, a series of interlocking symbols and geometric designs rendered in deep henna hues. Vampire eyes would see the symbols for what they truly were: dermaglyphs, naturally occurring marks inherited from the Breeds’ forebears, whose hairless skin had been covered in the changeable, camouflaging pigments.

Glyphs typically were a source of pride for the Breed, unique indications of lineage and social rank. Gen Ones like Lucan bore the marks in greater numbers and deeper saturation. His own dermaglyphs covered his torso, front and back, stretched down onto his thighs and along his upper arms, with still more running up the back of his neck and onto his scalp. Like living tattoos, the glyphs changed hues according to a vampire’s emotional state.

Dante’s were currently deep russet-bronze, indicating satiation from a recent feeding. No doubt, once he and Lucan had parted company after hunting Rogues the night before, Dante had gone on to find the bed—and the ripe, juicy vein—of a willing female Host topside.

“How goes it?” he asked, dropping into a chair and putting one large booted foot up on the desk in front of him. “Figured you’d have those bastards bagged and tagged for us already, Gid.”

Dante’s voice held the trace accent of his eighteenth-century Italian ancestry, but tonight the cultured tone bore a rough edge that said the vampire was restless and itching for action. As if to make the point, he drew one of his ever-present signature curved blades from the sheath at his hip and began idly toying with the polished claw of steel.

Malebranche, he called the arced blades, a reference to demons inhabiting one of the nine levels of hell, though sometimes Dante wryly adopted the word as a surname for himself when he was out among humankind. That was about all the poetry the vampire had in his soul; everything else inside of him was unapologetic, cold, dark menace.

Lucan admired that about him, and had to admit watching Dante in combat with those ruthless blades was a thing of beauty, enough to put any artist to shame.

“Nice work last night,” Lucan said, well aware that praise from him was rare, even when it was deserved. “You saved my ass out there.”

He wasn’t talking about the confrontation with the Rogues, but what had happened afterward. Lucan had gone too long without feeding, starvation being something almost as dangerous to their kind as the addictive overindulgence that plagued the Rogues. Dante’s look said he understood the meaning, but he let the fact slide with his usual cool nonchalance.

“Shit,” he replied, drawing the word out around a deep chuckle. “After all the times you’ve had my back? Forget it, man. Just returning the favor.”

The lab’s glass entry doors slid open with a smooth hiss as two more of Lucan’s brethren strode in. They were quite a pair. Nikolai, tall and athletic, with sandy hair, strikingly angular features, and piercing ice-blue eyes a shade colder than the winter of his Siberian homeland. The youngest of the group by far, Niko had come of age during the height of the humans’ so-called Cold War. A gearhead right out of the cradle, he was a high-octane thrill-seeker and the Breed’s first line of defense when it came to things like guns, gadgets, and everything in between.

Conlan, by contrast, was soft-spoken and serious, a consummate tactician. He was as graceful as a big cat next to Niko’s brash swagger, a wall of bulky muscle, his copper hair shorn beneath the black triangle of silk that wrapped his skull. The vampire was late generation Breed—a youth by Lucan’s standards—his human mother the daughter of a Scottish chieftain. The warrior carried himself with a bearing that was nothing short of regal.

Hell, even his beloved Breedmate, Danika, affectionately referred to the highlander as My Lord a lot of the time, and the five-eleven female was hardly the subservient type.

“Rio’s on the way,” Nikolai announced, his mouth widening into a sly grin that put twin dimples in his lean cheeks. He gave Lucan a nod of his head. “Eva said to tell you we can have her man only after she’s done with him.”

“If there’s anything left,” Dante drawled, holding out his hand to greet the others with a smooth grazing of palms, then a knock of briefly connected knuckles.

Lucan met Niko and Conlan with like respect, but he settled in with mild annoyance at Rio’s delay. He didn’t begrudge any vampire his chosen Breedmate, but Lucan personally saw no point in strapping himself down with the demands and responsibilities of a blood-bonded female. It was expected of the general population of the Breed to take a woman to mate and bear the next generation, but for the warrior class—those select few males who willingly shunned the sanctuary of the Darkhavens in favor of a life of combat—Lucan saw the process of blood-bonding as sentimental at best.

At its worst, it was an invitation to disaster if a warrior was tempted to put feelings for his mate above his duty to the Breed.

“Where’s Tegan?” he asked, his thoughts leading naturally to the last of their number at the compound.

“Not yet returned,” Conlan answered.

“Has he called in his location?”

Conlan exchanged a look with Niko, then gave a slight shake of his head. “No word.”

“This is the longest he’s been MIA,” Dante remarked to no one in particular, running his thumb over the curved edge of his blade. “What’s it been—three, four days?”

Four days, going on five.

But who the hell was counting?

Answer: they all were, but no one spoke up to voice the concern that had been running through their ranks of late. As it was, Lucan had to work hard to stifle a surge of venom that rose in him when he thought about the most reclusive member of their cadre.

Tegan had always preferred to hunt alone, but his secretive nature was beginning to wear on the others. He was a wild card, more and more lately, and Lucan, frankly, was finding it hard to trust the guy, not that mistrust was anything new when it came to Tegan. There was bad blood between the two of them, no question, but that was ancient history. It had to be. The war they had both pledged themselves to so long ago was more important than any animosity they held for each other.

Still, the vampire bore close watching. Lucan knew Tegan’s weaknesses better than any of the others could; he wouldn’t hesitate to make a move if the male stepped so much as a toe out of line.

The lab’s doors whisked open again and in came Rio at last, tucking the loose tail of a sleek, white, designer shirt into tailored black pants. Some of the buttons were missing from the crisp silk, but Rio wore his postsex dishevelment with the same air of cool that hung over him in everything he did. Under the hank of thick dark hair that swung over his brow, the Spaniard’s topaz-colored eyes danced. When he smiled, the tips of his fangs glimmered, not yet receded after the passion with his lady had drawn them out. “I hope you saved a few Rogues for me, my friends.” He rubbed his hands together. “I’m feeling good, ready to party.”

“Have a seat,” Lucan drawled, “and try not to bleed all over Gideon’s computers.”

Rio’s long fingers went up to the crimson rosebud mark at his throat where Eva had apparently bitten him with her blunt human teeth and sipped from his vein. Even though she was a Breedmate, she was still genetically Homo sapiens. Despite the long years that she and others like her would share through the blood-bond with a mate, none of her kind would grow fangs or take on any other traits of the vampire males. It was a widely accepted practice that a vampire would feed his mate from a self-inflicted gash on his wrist or forearm, but passions ran wild in the ranks of the Breed warriors. And in their chosen women. Sex and blood were a potent combination—sometimes, too much so.

Grinning, unrepentant, Rio threw himself into a loose sprawl in one of the swivel chairs and leaned back, propping his big bare feet on the clear Lucite console. He and the other warriors began reviewing the previous night’s tallies, exchanging laughs as they one-upped one another and discussed the finer techniques of their profession.

While hunting their enemies gave some of the Breed pleasure, Lucan’s own drive was based in hatred, pure and simple. He didn’t try to hide it. He despised everything that the Rogues were and had vowed, long ago, that he would eradicate their kind, or die trying. Some days, he didn’t really care what came first.

“Here we go,” Gideon said finally, when the records scrolling on his monitor came to a stop. “Looks like we hit pay dirt.”

“What’ve you got?”

Lucan and the others turned their attention to an oversized flat-screen panel above the lab’s bank of microprocessors. The faces of the four Rogues slain by Lucan outside the nightclub came up on the display next to those of Gabrielle’s cell phone images of the same individuals.

“IID records have all of these down as missing persons. Two from the Connecticut Darkhaven last month, another out of Fall River, and the last one is local. They’re all current generation, the youngest wasn’t even thirty years old.”

“Shit,” Rio said, whistling low. “Stupid kids.”

Lucan said nothing, felt nothing, for the loss of young lives gone Rogue. They weren’t the first, and they sure as hell wouldn’t be the last. Living in the Darkhavens could seem pretty dull to an immature male with something to prove. The allure of blood and conquest was deeply in-grained, even in the later generations, who were the furthest removed from their savage forebears. If a vampire went looking for trouble, particularly in a city the size of Boston, he generally found it in spades.

Gideon punched a quick series of commands on his computer keyboard, bringing up more photos from the database. “Here are the last two records. This first individual is a known Rogue, repeat offender here in Boston, although he’s apparently been keeping low under the radar for more than three months. That is, he was, until Lucan smoked him in the alley over the weekend.”

“And what about him?” Lucan asked, eyeing the last remaining image, that of the only Rogue who’d managed to elude him outside the club. His photo record came up in the form of a video still, presumably captured during some sort of interrogation session, based on the restraints and electrodes the vampire was wearing. “How old is this image?”

“About six months,” Gideon replied, calling up the date stamp. “Came out of one of the West Coast operations.”

“L.A.?”

“Seattle. But according to the file, L.A.’s got a warrant for him, too.”

“Warrants,” Dante scoffed. “Fucking waste of time.”

Lucan had to agree. For most of the vampire nation in the United States and abroad, enforcement of the law and apprehension of individuals gone Rogue was governed by specific rules and procedures. Warrants were written, arrests were made, interrogations were conducted, and, given ample evidence and due process, convictions were handed down. It was all very civilized. And rarely effective.

While the Breed and its Darkhaven populations were organized, motivated, and mired in layers of bureaucracy, their enemies were rash and unpredictable. And unless Lucan’s gut was wrong, after centuries of anarchy and general chaos, the Rogues were gearing up to recruit.

If they weren’t already months into the process.

Lucan stared at the image on screen. In the video still, the captured Rogue was strapped to an upright metal table, stripped naked, his head shaved bald to better accommodate the currents that were likely being sent into his skull during his questioning. Lucan felt no sympathy for the torture the Rogue had undergone. Interrogations of that nature were often necessary, and like a human jacked up on heroin, a vampire afflicted with Bloodlust could take ten times the pain of his Breed brethren without breaking.

This Rogue was big, with a heavy brow and thick, primitive features. He was snarling in the video frame, his long fangs gleaming, his amber eyes wild around the elliptical slashes of his fixed pupils. He was draped with wires from the top of his huge head and corded neck to his muscle-girded chest and hammerlike arms.

“Assuming ugly’s not a crime, what did Seattle bust him for?”

“Let’s see what we’ve got.” Gideon spun back to his bank of computers and brought a record up on another screen. “Picked him up for trafficking—weapons, explosives, chemicals. Oh, this guy’s a bloody charmer. Into some real nasty shit.”

“Any idea whose arms he’s been running?”

“Nothing listed here. They didn’t get that far with him, evidently. The record states he broke out of containment right after these images were taken. He killed two of his guards during the escape.”

And now he’d escaped again, Lucan thought grimly, wishing to hell he had popped the SOB when he had him in his sights. He didn’t tolerate failure well, least of all in himself.

Lucan glanced to Niko. “You ever run across this guy?”

“No,” said the Russian, “but I’ll check him out with my contacts, see what I can find.”

“Get on it.”

Nikolai gave a curt nod and headed out of the tech lab, already dialing someone on his cell phone.

“These are damning pictures,” Conlan said, peering over Gideon’s shoulder at the photos Gabrielle had taken during the slaying outside the nightclub. The warrior blew out a curse. “Bad enough humans have witnessed some of these Rogue slayings over the years, but now they’re pausing to take snapshots?”

Dante put his feet down with a thump, stood up, and started pacing, as if he was growing restless with the inactivity of the meeting. “Whole world up there thinks they’re friggin’ paparazzi.”

“The guy who took these shots must’ve pissed himself real good when he saw two-hundred pounds of Breed warrior gunning for him,” Rio added. Grinning, he looked at Lucan. “Did you bother to scrub his memory first, or did you just take the sucker out on the spot?”

“The human who witnessed the attack that night was female.” Lucan stared into the faces of his brethren, revealing none of his feelings about the news he was about to impart. “Turns out she’s a Breedmate.”

“Madre de Dios,” Rio swore, raking his fingers through his dark hair. “Breedmate—you’re sure?”

“She bears the mark. I saw it with my own eyes.”

“What did you do with her? Cristo, you didn’t…”

“No,” Lucan replied sharply, agitated by the implication in the Spaniard’s hedging tone. “I didn’t harm the woman. There is a line that even I won’t cross.”

He hadn’t claimed Gabrielle as his own, either, although he’d come damned close to it that night in her apartment. Lucan clamped his teeth together, a wave of dark hunger hitting him when he thought about how tempting Gabrielle had looked, curled up and dreaming in her bed. How bloody sweet she had tasted against his tongue…

“What will you do with her, Lucan?” This time the concern was coming from Gideon’s direction. “We can’t very well leave her topside for the Rogues to find her. She’s certain to have gotten their attention when she snapped these pictures.”

“And if the Rogues should realize she’s a Breedmate…” Dante added, his trailing comment drawing grim nods from the other warriors.

“She’ll be safest here,” Gideon said, “under Breed protection. Better still, she should officially be admitted to one of the Darkhavens.”

“I know the protocol,” Lucan growled. He felt too much anger at the thought of Gabrielle in the hands of the Rogues, or those of another member of the Breed if he were to do the right thing and send her off to one of the nation’s Darkhaven sanctuaries. Neither option seemed acceptable to him at the moment, thanks to the streak of possessiveness that was burning through his veins, unbidden and unwanted.

He delivered a cold stare to his warrior brethren. “The female is my responsibility for now. I will decide how best to proceed in this.”

None of the others spoke up to contradict him, nor did he expect they would. As Gen One, he was elder; as the founder of the warrior class within the Breed, he was the most proven, by blood and by steel. His word was law, and all in the room respected that.

Dante got to his feet, flipping the malebranche blade between long, nimble fingers, and sheathing it in one fluid motion. “Four hours to sunset. I’m outta here.” He shot an arch look over at Rio and Conlan. “Anyone game to spar before things get interesting topside?”

Both males rose eagerly to the idea, and with respectful nods in Lucan’s direction the three big warriors strode out of the tech lab and into the corridor leading to the compound’s weapons training area.

“You got anything more on this Rogue out of Seattle?” Lucan asked Gideon, as the glass doors slid closed and just the two of them remained in the lab.

“I’m running a cross-check of all record sources right now. Should only take a minute to come back one way or the other.” The keys clacked as he typed a flurry of strokes, then, “Bingo. Got a hit from a West Coast GPS feed. Looks like intel gathered prior to our boy’s arrest. Have a look.”

The monitor screen filled with a series of nighttime satellite images homed in on a commercial fishing wharf off Puget Sound. The surveillance focused on a long black sedan that sat idling behind a dilapidated building at the end of the docks. Leaning into the back passenger window of the car was the Rogue who had managed to escape Lucan a few days ago. Gideon scrolled through the next few frames of feed that showed an apparently lengthy conversation between the Rogue and whoever was concealed behind the vehicle’s darkened windows. As the images advanced, they showed the rear door opening from within to admit the Rogue inside.

“Hold up,” Lucan said, his gaze narrowing on the hand of the hidden passenger. “Can you tighten this frame at all? Zoom in on the open car door.”

“Let me try.”

The image magnified incrementally, although Lucan hardly needed a better visual to confirm what he was seeing. Barely discernible, but there it was. In the slice of exposed skin between the passenger’s big hand and the French cuff of his long-sleeved shirt was an impressive array of Gen One dermaglyphs.

Gideon saw them now, too. “I’ll be damned, will you look at that,” he said, staring at the monitor. “Our Seattle suckhead was keeping some interesting company.”

“Maybe still is,” Lucan replied.

They didn’t come more badass than a Rogue with first generation vampire blood in its veins. Gen Ones fell to Bloodlust faster and harder than the later Breeds, and they made deadly vicious enemies. If one of them had designs on leading the Rogues in an uprising, it would be the start of a hellacious war. Lucan had fought that battle once before, long ago. He had no wish to do so again.

“Print everything you’ve got, including some zooms of those glyphs.”

“You got it.”

“Anything else you dig up on these two individuals, bring it directly to me. I’ll handle it personally.”

Gideon nodded, but the glance he flicked over the tops of his silver shades was hesitant. “You can’t expect to take them all out single-handedly, you know.”

Lucan pinned him with a dark look. “Says who?”

No doubt the vampire had a dissertation on probability and the law of averages perched at the tip of his genius tongue, but Lucan wasn’t in the mood to hear it. Night was coming, and with it another chance to hunt his enemies. He needed to use the remaining hours to clear his mind, prepare his weapons, and decide where best to strike. The predator in him was pacing and hungry, but not for the battle he should be craving with the Rogues.

Instead, Lucan found his thoughts drifting to a quiet Beacon Hill apartment, back to a midnight visit that never should have happened. Like her jasmine scent, the memory of Gabrielle’s soft skin and warm, willing body coiled itself around him. He tensed, his sex rousing at the very thought of her.

Damn it.

This was the reason he hadn’t already brought her under Breed protection here at the compound. At a distance, she was distracting. In close quarters, she would prove a bloody disaster.

“You all right?” Gideon asked, his chair spun around, so that he faced Lucan. “That’s some major fury you’re wearing, buddy.”

Lucan snapped out of his dark musings long enough to realize that his fangs had begun to lengthen in his mouth, his vision sharpened by the slivering of his pupils. But it wasn’t rage that transformed him. It was lust, and he was going to have to slake it, sooner than later. With that thought pounding in his veins, Lucan grabbed Gabrielle’s cell phone from the desktop where it lay, and stalked out of the lab.