Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

Bars of highly concentrated ultraviolet light caged the cell in two-inch increments, more effective than the strongest steel. The Ancient would not test them; he'd already done that years ago and nearly lost his right arm from the resulting solar burns. He was masked to keep him calm, and to protect his eyes from the intensity of his UV prison. He was naked because there was no need for modesty here, and because it was crucial that his keeper be able to monitor even the most subtle changes in the dermaglyphs that covered every inch of his alien skin.

As for the robotic restraints on the creature's neck, limbs, and torso, they were in place as preparation for the day's assorted fluid and tissue extractions.

"Hello, Grandfather," drawled the one who held the Ancient prisoner for the past fifty-odd years. He himself was very old by human standards - easily four hundred if he was a day. Not that he kept track anymore, and not that it mattered in the least. As one of the Breed, he appeared in the prime of his youth. With the Ancient kept secretly, and successfully, under his control all this time, he felt like a god.

"Yesterday's test results, Master."

One of the humans who served him handed him a file of reports. They didn't call him by name; no one did. There were none around who knew who he truly was.

He'd been born the son of Dragos, his sire a first generation Breed male fathered by the very creature contained within the UV prison cell built in this underground lair. Birthed in secret and sent away to be raised by strangers, it had taken him many long years to finally understand his purpose.

Longer still to get his hands on the prize that would lift him to greatness.

"Did you have a pleasant rest?" he idly asked his prisoner, as he closed the file of test results and readings.

The creature didn't answer, just peeled its lips back and breathed in slowly, air hissing through the large, elongated fangs.

He'd stopped speaking about a decade ago, whether from madness, anger, or defeat, his keeper didn't know. Nor did he particularly care. There was no love between them. The Ancient, despite being close kin, was primarily a means to an end.

"We'll begin now," the keeper told his prisoner.

He entered a code into the computer that would command the robotics in the cell to commence with the extractions. The tests were painful, plentiful, and prolonged...but all necessary. Body fluids were collected, tissue samples harvested. So far, the experiments had yielded only minor successes. But there was promise, and that was enough.

By the time the last specimen was retrieved and catalogued, the Ancient slumped with exhaustion in the cell. Its huge body quivered and spasmed as its advanced physiology worked to heal the damage inflicted by the procedure.

"Just one more process left to complete," the keeper said.

It was this last one that was most crucial - and most primal - for the vampire recuperating behind the UV light bars of his cell.

Locked within another, more rudimentary prison, was a heavily sedated human female, recently captured off the streets. She too was naked, her dyed black goth-styled hair cut away entirely to better expose her neck. Her eyes were unfocused, pupils dilated from the drugs injected into her system a short while ago.

She didn't scream or struggle as she was led out of her confinement by two Minions and into the main holding area of the laboratory. Her small breasts jiggled with each shuffling step she took, and her head lolled back on her shoulders, revealing the little teardrop-and-crescent-moon birthmark she bore underneath her chin. Her bare feet moved listlessly as she was placed into stirrups on an automated seat that would carry her past the UV barrier and directly into the center of the Ancient's cell.

She hardly flinched as the chair tipped back, positioning her for what was to come. Inside the cell, the restraints on the huge male loosened slightly, freeing him to move in on her like the predator he was.

"You will feed now," the keeper told him. "And then you will breed on her."

Chapter Fourteen

It felt goddamn strange to be in the compound again. But as strange as it was, Rio found it even more surreal to be entering his private apartments within the Order's subterranean headquarters just outside Boston proper.

Dante and Chase had gone off to the tech lab as soon as they arrived, leaving Rio to contend with Dylan on his own. He supposed the warriors were also giving him a chance to reacquaint himself privately with his old life - the one Eva had stolen from him a year ago with her betrayal. He hadn't been in his quarters at the compound for a long time, but the place looked exactly as he remembered it. Exactly as he'd left it, following the warehouse explosion that had sent him into the compound's infirmary for several months of hard recuperation.

The apartments he'd once shared with Eva were like a time capsule. Everything was frozen in its place from that hellish night, when he and his brethren had gone topside to take out a lair of Rogue vampires only to walk headlong into a deadly ambush.

An ambush orchestrated by the female who'd been his Breedmate.

And it was here in the compound, after Eva's deception had been uncovered and Rio denounced her, that she put a blade to her own throat.

She killed herself over his bed in the infirmary, but it was here in their living quarters where Rio felt her presence the most. Eva's personal touches were everywhere, from the flamboyant artwork he'd reluctantly agreed to let her hang on the walls, to the large mirrors positioned near the walk-in closet and across the room from the foot of the huge bed.

Rio carried Dylan past the elegant sitting room and through the curtained French doors that led to the bedroom suite. He caught his reflection in the glass as he brought her over to the four-poster bed and carefully placed her on the dark plum bedding.

He cringed at the swarthy, ruined face of the stranger peering back at him. Even dressed in the fine clothes Reichen had given him, he still looked like a monster - all the more so when he saw the limp beauty asleep in his arms and totally at his mercy.

He was a monster, and he couldn't lay the blame for that solely at Eva's feet. He'd been born a beast and a killer; now he just happened to look the part as well.

Dylan stirred a bit as he settled her on the mattress and tucked one of the plump pillows under her head.