Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

Jesus. There it was again - the deliberate reference to his kind . And now he was talking about sex and breeding?

Dylan stared at him, reminded swiftly and vividly of just how easily he'd been able to pin her beneath his powerful, fully aroused body in that hotel in Prague. It didn't take much to recall the heat of all that muscle pressed against her, though why the thought should make her heart beat faster, breath come harder, she really didn't want to know.

Was he setting her up here for a repeat performance? Or did he actually think she was gullible enough to be seduced into believing any of this stuff about being different, about belonging to some mysterious other world she knew nothing about until now?

And why should she believe it? Because of that tiny birthmark on the back of her neck?

One that still felt kind of warm and electric against her palm. She brought her hand down and tucked her arms around herself.

Rio tracked her movements with his keen, too-sharp gaze. "I think you've noticed that I'm not quite like other men either. There is a reason for that as well."

A heavy silence filled the room as he seemed to take his time measuring his words.

"It's because I'm not just a man. I'm something more than that."

Dylan had to admit he was more man than any other she'd known before. His size and power alone seemed to put him in a separate class. But he was all male, that she knew by the way he looked at her, his eyes hot as they traveled over her face and down her body.

He stared at her, unblinking, heatedly intense. "I am one of the Breed, Dylan. In your lexicon, for lack of a better term, I am a vampire."

For one stunned second, she thought she had misunderstood him. Then, all the unease and tension that she had been feeling since Rio had walked into the room vanished in a great rush of relief.

"Oh, my God!" She couldn't hold back her laughter. It barked out of her almost hysterically, a flood of disbelief and amusement washing away all her anxiety in an instant. "A vampire. Really? Because, you know, that makes so much more sense than everything I was guessing you might be. Not military, not a government spy, or a terrorist operative, but a vampire!"

He wasn't laughing.

No, he simply stood there, unmoving. Watching her. Waiting until she looked up and met his unsmiling eyes.

"Oh, come on," she chided him. "You can't possibly expect me to believe that."

"I realize it must be difficult to grasp. But it's the truth. That's what you asked for, Dylan. What you've been asking for since the moment you and I first saw each other - the truth. Now you have it."

Good Lord, he seemed so serious about all of this. "What about the other people living here? And don't try to tell me that there's no one else in this huge estate because I've heard them walking the hallways, and I've heard muffled conversations. So, what about them? Are they vampires too?"

"Some," he said quietly. "The males are Breed. The females living here in this Darkhaven are human. Breedmates...like you."

Dylan recoiled internally. "Stop saying that. Stop trying to pretend that I'm a passenger on this crazy train with you. You don't know anything about me."

"I know enough." He cocked his head at her, a move that seemed almost animalistic. Unconsciously so. "The mark on you is all I need to know about you, Dylan. You are a part of this now, an inextricable part. Whether or not either of us like that fact."

"Well, I don't like it," she blurted out, getting anxious again. "I want you to let me out of this room. I want to go back to my home, back to my family and my job. I want to forget all about that fucking cave and you."

He gave a slow shake of his dark head. "It's too late for that. There's no going back, Dylan. I'm sorry."

"You're sorry," she hissed. "I'll tell you what you are. You're insane! You're sick in your goddamn head - "

With a smooth flex of muscle, he came out of his lean near the wall and within one instant he was standing in front of her. Not even a bare inch separated them. He reached out as if he was going to touch her cheek, his fingers hovering so near, yet resisting.>"We track down those inpiduals she's been in contact with, and we obtain the images by whatever means necessary."

"Mind-scrub them all?" Rio asked.

The set of Lucan's mouth was grave. "Whatever it takes."

"And the woman?" Rio wanted to be clear. "As a Breedmate, we can't just scrub her arbitrarily. She would be given some choice in this, wouldn't she?"

"Yes," Lucan said. "She does have a choice. Once she knows about the existence of the Breed and the mark she bears that links her to us, she can decide whether she wants to be a part of our world, or return to her own and give up all knowledge of our kind. That's the way it has always been done. It's the only way."

Rio nodded. "I'll take care of it, Lucan."

"I know you will," he said, no challenge or doubt in the statement, just pure trust. "And, Rio?"