by Lara Adrian
Niko shrugged. “About twenty minutes, I’d guess.”
“Long enough,” Rio said, turning a hungry look on his woman.
She laughed and even blushed a little, but there was a definite spark of interest in her eyes. As Nikolai made a hasty exit and closed the door behind him, Rio took Dylan by the hand.
“Just twenty minutes,” he said, soberly shaking his head. “I’m not sure where to begin.”
Dylan arched a brow at him as she started inching toward the bedroom. “Oh, I think you’ll figure it out.”
Dylan was amazed at just how thoroughly Rio used those twenty minutes.
And when he returned from patrol much later that night, he’d set out to amaze her even more. He’d made love to her for hours, then wrapped her in his strong arms as she drifted off to sleep. She wasn’t sure exactly when Rio had left their bed, but it was his absence that woke her about an hour before dawn. She drew on his thick terry robe and padded out of the apartment, following the buzzing in her veins that would lead her to her blood-bonded mate.
He wasn’t in the compound or the mansion that sat above it on ground level. He was outside, in the garden courtyard behind the estate. Dressed in just a pair of black warm-ups, Rio was seated on the wide marble steps that spread out to the manicured lawn, watching a small bonfire a few yards out on the grass. Next to him was a box of framed photographs and a couple of the bright abstract paintings taken from the walls of his quarters.
Dylan looked out at the fire and saw the distorted shapes of more of his belongings slowly being consumed by the flames.
“Hey,” he said, obviously sensing her as she approached him from behind. He didn’t look back at her, just stretched his arm out to the side, waiting for her to take his hand. “I’m sorry if I woke you.”
“It’s okay.” Dylan wrapped her fingers around his. “I don’t mind being up. I missed your warmth.”
As she spoke, he pulled her into a tender hold next to him. He circled her thighs with his arm and simply held her there, his gaze still fixed on the fire. Dylan glanced down into the box beside him, seeing the pictures of Eva and a few of the two of them together in happier times. Eva’s artwork was in the container, as were some of her clothes.
“I woke up a while ago and realized I needed to clear out a few things that no longer belong in my life,” he said.
His voice was calm, not angry or bitter. Just … resolved.
Rio seemed to be in a state of true peace; her sense of it registered all the way into her veins as he embraced her in silence, watching the fire dance on the lawn.
“For the past year, I’ve hated her,” he said. “With every breath in my body, I prayed she was burning in hell for what she did to me. I think my hatred for Eva was the only thing that kept me alive. For a long time, it was the only thing I could feel.”
“I know,” Dylan said softly. She tunneled her fingers into his thick hair, caressing his head as he rested his cheek against her hip. “But it was Eva who led me to you on that mountain. She cared about you, Rio. I think in her own misguided way, she loved you very much. In life, she made some terrible mistakes trying to keep you all to herself. She did some terrible things, but I think she wishes she could correct them in death.”
Rio slowly stood up, still keeping a hold on her as he rose to his feet beside her. “I can’t hate her anymore, because she brought me to you. And not just that day up there in the cave. Eva was in my car the night Dragos took you.”
Dylan frowned. “You saw her?”
“I was still hours outside of New York, knowing that if Dragos had you, I’d never be able to reach you in time. Cristo, the fear that went through me at the very thought—” He broke off and pulled her closer to him. “I was on the highway, driving as fast as I could, praying like hell for some kind of miracle. Anything to give me hope that I wasn’t going to lose you. That’s when I heard her voice beside me. I looked over and there she was—Eva, in the car with me. She told me where Dragos had taken you. She gave me the location of the dam, told me to trust her. I didn’t know if I could—not ever again—but I also knew that it could be my only hope of finding you. Without her, I would have lost you. She could have told me I’d find you in the middle of a raging inferno and I would have gone in after you. She could have betrayed me again, led me into another ambush, and I would have gone, just for the hope of finding you alive.”
“But she didn’t,” Dylan said. “She told you the truth.”
“Yes. Thank God.”
“Oh, Rio.” Dylan rested her cheek against his chest, hearing the heavy pound of his heart as if it were her own. She felt his love pour into her as warm as sunshine, a love she sent back to him tenfold. “I love you so much.”
“I love you too,” he said, then tipped her chin up and kissed her, long and slow and sweet. “I’m going to love you forever, Dylan. If you’ll have me, there’s nothing I want more than to spend every day—and night—of my life loving you.”
“Of course I’ll have you,” she told him, reaching up to smooth her fingertips over his cheek. She smiled slowly and with seductive promise. “I’ll have you every day and night of my life … and in every way imaginable.”
Rio growled deep in his throat, a spark of amber lighting in his gaze. “I like the sound of that.”
“I hoped you would.” She smiled up into his face, a face she would never tire of seeing, especially when he was looking at her with so much tender devotion in his eyes it left her breathless.
She glanced down at the box of Eva’s personal effects, then out at the bonfire. “You know you don’t have to do this. Not for me.”
Rio shook his head. “I’m doing it for both of us. Maybe I’m doing it for her too. It’s time to let go of everything that happened before. I’m ready to do that now … because of you. Because of the future I see with you. I’m done looking back.”
Dylan nodded gently. “Okay.”
Rio picked up the box and looked to her to accompany him to the fire. They walked together, silent as they neared the undulating flames.
With a soft push, Rio sent the box of pictures, art, and clothing into the middle of the bonfire. It roared to life for a brief moment, shooting a spray of sparks and smoke high into the dusky periwinkle sky.
In a thoughtful silence, Dylan and Rio watched the fire burn for a while, until the flames grew less hungry, their fuel spent. When it was just smoke and embers, Rio turned to Dylan and brought her into his arms. He held her close, whispering a quiet prayer of gratitude next to her ear.
And in the rising smoke from the dying bonfire behind him, Dylan watched over his broad shoulder as an ethereal, feminine shape took form between the flurry of floating ash.
Eva.
She smiled a bit sadly as she watched the two of them embrace. But then she gave a slow nod to Dylan and gradually faded away.
Dylan closed her eyes as she wrapped her arms around Rio and buried her face in the solid warmth of his chest. After a little while, her cheek rumbled with the vibration of his voice.
“About that ‘having me every way imaginable’ promise of yours,” he said, clearing his throat. “You want to explain some of what you had in mind?”
Dylan looked up at him and smiled, her heart overflowing with love. “Why don’t I show you instead?”
He chuckled, the tips of his fangs already starting to emerge. “I thought you’d never ask.”
About the Author
With family roots stretching back to the Mayflower, author LARA ADRIAN lives with her husband in coastal New England, surrounded by centuries-old graveyards, hip urban comforts, and the endless inspiration of the broody Atlantic Ocean. To learn more about Lara and her novels, please visit www.LaraAdrian.com.
THE MIDNIGHT BREED SERIES
By Lara Adrian
“Evocative, enticing, erotic … Enter Lara Adrian’s vampire world and be enchanted!”
—J. R. Ward, bestselling author
KISS OF MIDNIGHT
Lucan Thorne despises the violence carried out by his lawless brethren. A vampire himself, Lucan is a Breed warrior, sworn to protect his kind—and the unwitting humans existing alongside them—from the mounting threat of the Rogues. Lucan cannot risk binding himself to a mortal woman, but when Gabrielle is targeted by his enemies, he has no choice but to bring her into the dark underworld he commands.
Here, in the arms of the Breed’s formidable leader, Gabrielle will confront an extraordinary destiny of danger, seduction, and the darkest pleasures of all.…
Take a sneak peek inside …
It was wrong to pursue the woman.
Lucan knew this, even as he had waited on Gabrielle Maxwell’s apartment steps that evening, showing her a detective’s badge and photo ID card. It wasn’t his. It wasn’t real, in fact, only a hypnotic manipulation that made her human mind believe he was who he had presented himself to be.
A simple trick for elders of his kind, like himself, but one he seldom stooped to use.
Yet now, here he was again, some time past midnight, stretching his slim personal code of honor even thinner as he tried the latch on her front door and found it unlocked. He knew it would be; he’d given her the suggestion while he had talked with her that evening, when he had shown her what he wanted to do with her and read the surprised, but receptive, response in her soft brown eyes.
He could have taken her then. She would have Hosted him willingly, he was certain, and knowing the intense pleasure they would have shared in the process had nearly been his undoing.
KISS OF CRIMSON
He comes to her more dead than alive, a towering black-clad stranger riddled with bullets and rapidly losing blood. As she struggles to save him, veterinarian Tess Culver is unaware that the man calling himself Dante is no man at all, but one of the Breed, vampire warriors engaged in a desperate battle. In a single erotically charged moment Tess is plunged into his world—a shifting, shadowed place where bands of Rogue vampires stalk the night, cutting a swath of terror.
Haunted by visions of a dark future, Dante lives and fights like there is no tomorrow. Tess is a complication he does not need—but now, with his brethren under attack, he must shield Tess from a growing threat that includes Dante himself. For with one reckless, irresistible kiss, she has become an inextricable part of his underworld realm … and his touch awakens her to hidden gifts, desires, and hungers she never knew she possessed. Bonded by blood, Dante and Tess must work together to thwart deadly enemies, even as they discover a passion that transcends the boundaries of life itself.…
Take a sneak peek inside …
“Hello?” Tess called into the empty space. “Is someone here? Ben, is that you? Nora?”
Nobody answered. And now the noises she’d heard before had gone still as well.
Great. She’d just announced her presence to an intruder. Brilliant, Culver. Absolutely frigging brilliant.
She tried to console herself with some fast logic. Maybe it was just a homeless person looking for shelter who’d found his or her way into the clinic from the back alley. Not an intruder. Nothing dangerous at all.
Yeah? So why were the hairs on the back of her neck tingling with dread?
Tess shoved her hands into the pockets of her lab coat, feeling suddenly very vulnerable. She felt her ballpoint pen knock against her fingers. Something else was in there as well.
Ph, that’s right. The tranq syringe, full of enough anesthetic to knock a four-hundred-pound animal out cold.
“Is someone back there?” she asked, trying to keep her voice firm and steady. She paused at the reception station and reached for the phone. The damn thing wasn’t cordless—she’d gotten it cheap on closeout—and the receiver barely reached her ear over the counter. Tess went around the big U-shaped desk, glancing nervously over her shoulder as she started punching 911 on the key pad. “You’d better get out of here right now, because I’m calling the cops.”
“No … please … don’t be afraid …”
The deep voice was so quiet, it shouldn’t have reached her ears, but it did. She heard it as surely as if the words had been whispered right up next to her head. Inside her head, strange as that seemed.
MIDNIGHT AWAKENING
With a dagger in her hand and vengeance on her mind, Darkhaven beauty Elise Chase prowls Boston’s streets in search of retribution against the Rogue vampires who took from her everything she cherished. Using an extraordinary psychic gift, she tracks her prey, well aware that the power she possesses is destroying her. She must learn to harness this gift, and for that she can turn to only one man—the deadliest of the Breed warriors, Tegan.
No stranger to loss, Tegan knows Elise’s pain. He knows fury, but when he slays his enemies it is with ice in his veins. He is perfect in his self-control, until Elise seeks his aid in her personal war. An unholy alliance is forged—a bond that will link them by blood and vow—and plunge them into a tempest of danger, desire, and the darkest passions of the heart….
Take a sneak peek inside …
She swam to the steps and came out of the water, evidently too piqued to care that Tegan was staring openly at her wet body. His eyes honed in on the birthmark riding the inner edge of her thigh, drawn there unerringly like a heat-seeking missile locked on a target.
Saliva surged into his mouth as he watched rivulets of water slide down her smooth, bare thighs. His skin felt tights all over, heat moving in his veins, and in the dermaglyph markings that covered his body and declared him one of the Breed. His gums ached with the sudden press of his fangs. He clamped his jaws together, curbing the startling jolt of hunger.
He didn’t want to look at the female, but damned if he could tear his eyes away from her now.
“Sterling hasn’t convinced me of anything,” she said as she grabbed her towel and covered herself with it. “He won’t even speak to me, if you want to know the truth. I think he must hate me after what happened last fall.”
Tegan studied her smart lavender eyes. “Is that really what you think—that he hates you?”
“Sterling was my mate’s brother—by marriage, he is my brother. It would be completely improper—”
Tegan scoffed. “Men have gone to war with their own brothers for the want of the same woman. Desire could give a damn about propriety.”
Elise held the towel closed between her breasts and paced from him. “I don’t like where this conversation is heading.”
“Do you have feelings for him?”
“Of course not.” She looked at Tegan, clearly, rightfully, appalled. “And what right have you to ask me that?”
Thirsty for more?
Read on for a sneak peak
of the next novel in Lara Adrian’s
Midnight Breed series
Veil of Midnight
Coming from Dell in December 2008
Veil of Midnight
On sale December 2008
On stage in the cavernous jazz club below Montreal’s street level, a crimson-lipped singer drawled into the microphone about the cruelty of love. Although her sultry voice was pleasant enough, the lyrics about blood and pain and pleasure clearly heartfelt, Nikolai wasn’t listening. He wondered if she knew—if any of the dozens of humans packed into the intimate club knew—that they were sharing breathing space with vampires.
The two young females sucking down pink martinis in the dark corner banquette sure as hell didn’t know it.
They were sandwiched between four such individuals, a group of slick, leather-clad males who were chatting them up—without much success—and tryin
g to act like their bloodthirsty eyes hadn’t been permanently fixed on the women’s jugulars for the past fifteen minutes straight. Even though it was clear that the vampires were negotiating hard to get the humans out of the club with them, they weren’t making much progress with their prospective blood Hosts.
Nikolai scoffed under his breath.
Amateurs.
He paid for the beer he’d left untouched on the bar and headed at an easy stroll toward the corner table. As he approached, he watched the two human females scoot out of the booth on unsteady legs. Giggling, they stumbled for the restrooms together, disappearing down a dim, crowded hallway off the main room.
Nikolai sat down at the table in a negligent sprawl.
“Evening, ladies.”
The four vampires stared at him in silence, instantly recognizing their own kind. Niko lifted one of the tall, lipstick-stained martini glasses to his nose and sniffed at the dregs of the fruity concoction. He winced, pushing the offending drink aside.
“Humans,” he drawled in a low voice. “How can they stomach that shit?”
A wary silence fell over the table as Nikolai’s glance traveled among the obviously young, obviously civilian Breed males. The largest of the four cleared his throat as he looked up at Niko, his instincts no doubt picking up on the fact that Niko wasn’t local, and he was a far cry from civilized.
The youth adopted something he probably thought was a hardass look and jerked his soul-patched chin toward the restroom corridor. “We saw them first,” he murmured. “The women. We saw them first.” He cleared his throat again, like he was waiting for his trio of wingmen to back him up. None did. “We got here first, man. When the females come back to the table, they’re gonna be leaving with us.”
Nikolai chuckled at the young male’s shaky attempt to stake his territory. “You really think there’d be any contest if I was here to poach your game? Relax. I’m not interested in that. I’m looking for information.”