A Touch of Midnight (Midnight Breed 0.5)

Savannah registered the statement, knew she'd heard it in class somewhere before. "Plutarch?" she guessed.

She was rewarded with a sidelong grin from the gorgeous non-punk standing next to her. "A student of philosophy, I take it."

"It's not my strongest subject, but I get by all right in most of my classes."

His smile quirked a bit at that, as if he mentally scored a point in her favor. He had a nice smile. Straight white teeth framed by full, lush lips that made her pulse kick a little. And that English accent was doing funny things to her heart rate too. "Let me guess," he said, studying her in that unnerving way again. "Wellesley? Or maybe Radcliffe?"

She shook her head at the mention of the two prestigious, private women's colleges. "BU. I'm a freshman in the Art History program."

"Art History. An unusual choice. Most of the colleges are turning out high-priced doctors and lawyers these days. Or mathematics whiz kids hoping to be the Einsteins of the future."

Savannah shrugged. "I suppose you could say I'm more comfortable with the past."

Normally, that would be one hundred percent true. But not lately. Not after what she'd seen reflected in the sword's history yesterday. Now, she wished she could go back in time and undo the touch that showed her the horrors inflicted on the pair of young boys from the past. She wished should could deny the other horror she witnessed in the blade's history too--the monsters that simply could not exist, except in the darkest kind of fiction.

She wished she could turn back the clock to the moment Rachel told her about her date with Professor Keaton, so she could warn her not to go.

Right now, after everything that had happened recently, Savannah could find no comfort in the past.

"I'm Gideon, by the way." The deep, rich voice pulled her back to the present, a welcome life line, even offered by a stranger. He held out his hand, but she couldn't muster the courage to take it.

"Savannah," she replied quietly, clasping her bare hands behind her back to resist the temptation to reach out to him, even though her gift didn't work on living things. The idea of touching him was both compelling and unsettling. She felt as if she should know him somehow, perhaps saw him at the library or around the city somewhere, yet she was certain she'd never seen him there before. "People don't generally spend a lot of time in this area of the library. The Bates Reading Room and Sargent Hall are more popular with patrons."

She was rambling, but he didn't seem to notice or care. Those arresting blue eyes watched her, studied her. She could almost sense the machinery of his mind analyzing everything she said and did. Searching for something.

"And what about you, Savannah?"

"Me?"

"Which room is your favorite?"

"Oh." She exhaled a nervous laugh, feeling stupid around him, a feeling she wasn't accustomed to. As if none of her studies or schooling could have ever prepared her for encountering someone like him. It was crazy to think it. Made no logical sense. And yet she felt it. This man--Gideon, she thought, testing the name with her mind--seemed ageless and somehow ancient at the same time. He held himself with a confidence that seemed to say little to nothing could surprise him. "This room is my favorite," she murmured dully. "I've always liked hero stories."

His mouth quirked. "Men who slay dragons? Rescue the princess in the tower?"

Savannah slanted him an arch look. "No, the quest for truth by someone who isn't afraid to pursue it, no matter the cost."

He acknowledged her parry with a slight lift of his chin. "Even if it means risking the Seat Perilous?">She stood up and approached numbly, walked into the darkened room.

And even through her fog of shock and grief, she realized immediately that something wasn't right.

"It's not here."

She pivoted, a sudden surge of adrenaline sending her back to Professor Keaton's office at a near run. She made a quick visual search of the room, looking past the disheveled desk and well-worn sofa. Past all the blood.

"It's gone." The police officers and news crew went silent, everyone turning to look at her now. "Something was taken from here last night."

Eva had set off the compound's kitchen smoke alarm again.

The high-pitched beeping brought every warrior in the place running at full tilt to shut the bloody thing off.

Gideon abandoned his morning's work on the microcomputer--his new obsession--and hot-footed it up the serpentine corridor of the underground headquarters to the kitchen installed specifically for Eva and Danika, the only two residents biologically capable of eating anything that came out of it. Even that was questionable, when it was Rio's Breedmate's turn at the stove.

The Spaniard arrived in the kitchen mere seconds before Gideon got there. Rio had silenced the alarm and was pulling Eva into an affectionate embrace, chuckling good-naturedly as she tried to make excuses for what happened.

"I only turned away for a minute to watch something on the news," she protested, waving her hand toward the small television set on the counter as Lucan, Dante and Tegan shook their heads and returned to what they'd been doing. Conlan stayed, going over to put an arm around his mate, Danika, who stood nearby, trying to hide her smile behind her hand.

"Besides," Eva went on, "there was only a little bit of smoke this time. I swear that alarm hates me."