A Touch of Midnight (Midnight Breed 0.5)

"I don't remember seeing this on the collection's inventory list." Rachel frowned. "I'm gonna go show it to Bill. I can't believe he would've missed this."

"Bill?"

Rachel rolled her eyes. "Professor Keaton. But I can't very well call him that tonight on our date, now, can I?"

Savannah knew she was gaping, but she didn't care. Besides, it was nice having something else to think about for a moment. "You're going out with Professor Keaton?"

"Dinner and a movie," Rachel replied, practically singing the words. "He's gonna take me to that scary new one that just came out. The Chainsaw Massacre."

Savannah snorted. "Sounds romantic."

Rachel's answering smile was coy. "I'm sure it will be. So, don't wait up for me at the apartment tonight. If I have anything to say about it, I'm gonna be late. If I come home at all. Now, hand me the case for this thing, will you?"

Savannah obliged, giving a slow shake of her head as Rachel donned a pair of curator's gloves and gently placed the awful weapon back inside the slim wooden box. Tossing Savannah a sly grin, the girl turned and left.

When she had gone, Savannah exhaled a pent-up breath, realizing only then how rattled she was. She reached for her own pair of gloves and the notebook she'd filed on the shelf the day before. Her hands were still unsteady. Her heart was still beating around her breast like a caged bird.

She'd seen a lot of incredible things with her gift before, but never something like this.

Never something as brutal or horrific as the slaughter of those two children.

And never something that seemed so utterly unreal as the glimpse the sword had given her at a group of creatures that could not possibly exist. Not then, or now.

She couldn't summon the courage to give a name to what she witnessed, but the cold, dark word was pounding through her veins with every frantic beat of her heart.

Vampires.

Chapter 4

For almost a hundred years, the city of Boston had played unwitting host to a cadre of Breed warriors who'd sworn to preserve the peace with humans and keep the existence of the vampire nation--its feral, Bloodlust-afflicted members in particular--a secret from mankind. The Order had begun in Europe in the mid-1300s with eight founding members, only two of which remained: Lucan, the Order's formidable leader, and Tegan, a stone-cold fighter who played by his own rules and answered to no one.

They, along with the rest of the cadre's current membership--Gideon, Dante, Conlan and Rio--sat gathered at a conference table in the war room of the Order's underground headquarters late that afternoon. Gideon had just reported on his team's raid of the Rogue lair the night before, and now Rio was relaying the results of his solo recon mission on a suspected nest located in Southie.

At the head of the long table to Gideon's left, the Order's black-haired Gen One leader sat in unreadable silence, his fingers steepled beneath his dark-stubbled chin as he heard the warriors' reports.

Gideon's hands were not so idle. Although his mind was fully present for the meeting, his fingers were busy tinkering with a new microcomputer prototype he'd just gotten a hold of a few days ago. The machine didn't look like much, just a briefcase-sized metal box with small toggle switches and red LED lights on the front of it, but damn if it didn't get his blood racing a bit faster through his veins. Almost as good as ashing a Rogue. Hell, it was almost as good as sex.

Not that he should remember what that was, considering how long it had been since he'd allowed himself to crave a woman. Years, at least. Decades, probably, if he really wanted to do the math. And he didn't.

While Rio wrapped up his recon report, Gideon executed a quick binary code program, using the flip toggles to load the instructions into the processor. The machine's capacity was limited, its functions even more so, but the technology of it all fascinated him and his mind was forever thirsty for new knowledge, no matter the subject.

"Good work, everyone," Lucan said, as the meeting started to wrap up. He glanced at Tegan, the big, tawny-haired warrior at the opposite end of the table. "If Rio's intel shakes out, we could be looking at a nest of upwards of a dozen suckheads. Gonna need all hands on deck down there tonight to clear the place out."

Tegan stared for a moment, green eyes as hard as gemstones. "You want me to go in, take the nest out, say so. It'll be done. But you know I work alone."

Lucan glowered back, anger flashing amber in the cool gray of his gaze. "You clear the nest, but you do it with backup. You got a death wish, deal with it on your own time."

For several long moments, the war room held an uneasy silence. Tegan's mouth twisted, his lips parting to bare just the tips of his fangs. He growled low in his throat, but he didn't escalate the power struggle any further. Good thing, because God knew if the two Gen One warriors ever went at each other in a true contest, there would be no easy victor.

Like the rest of the warriors gathered around the table, Gideon knew about the bad blood between Lucan and Tegan. It centered on a female--Tegan's long-dead Breedmate, Sorcha, who'd been taken from him back in the Order's early days. Tegan lost her first, tragically, to an enemy who turned her Minion and left her worse than dead. But it was by Lucan's hand that Sorcha perished, an act of mercy for which Tegan might never forgive him.

It was a grim but potent reminder of why most of the warriors refused to take a mate. Of those currently serving the Order, only Rio and Conlan had Breedmates. Eva and Danika were strong females; they had to be. Although the Breed was close to immortal and very hard to kill, death was a risk on every mission. And worry for Breedmates being left behind to grieve was a responsibility few of the warriors wanted to accept.

Duty permitted no distractions.

It was a tenet Gideon had learned the hard way. A mistake he couldn't take back, no matter how much he wished he could.

No matter how many Rogues he ashed, his guilt stayed with him.