Veil of Midnight (Midnight Breed 5)

Lex smiled, gave her a vague shrug of admission.

"You bastard! You disgusting pig!" The total, ugly reality of all that Lex had done crashed down on her. Not only what he'd done to Mira, but to his own father, and, as she saw with awful clarity now, what he'd done to Nikolai too. "My God. Everything he said about you was the truth, wasn't it? You were the one responsible for Sergei's death, not Nikolai. It was you who brought in the Rogue. You planned the whole thing - "

"Be careful with your accusations, female." Lex's voice was a brittle snarl. "I am the one in command here now. Make no mistake, your life belongs to me. Piss me off and I can have you erased from existence as easily as I sent that warrior to his death." Oh, God...no. Shock blew through her chest in a chill ache. "He is dead?"

"He will be soon enough," Lex said. "Or wishing he was, once the good doctors in Terrabonne have their fun with him." "What are you talking about? What doctors? I thought you had him arrested."

Lex chuckled. "The warrior is on his way to a containment facility run by the Enforcement Agency. Safe to say that no one will hear from him ever again."

Contempt boiled up in Renata for all that she was hearing, and for her own role in seeing Nikolai wrongfully charged. Now both he and Mira were gone, and Lex stood there grinning with smug vanity for the deception he'd orchestrated. "You disgust me. You're a fucking monster, Lex. You are a sickening coward."

She took a step toward him and Lex gave the guards a jerk of his chin. They blocked her, two huge vampires glowering at her. Daring her to make a reckless move.

Renata eyed them, seeing in those hard gazes the years of animosity that this group of Breed males felt for her - animosity coming most intensely from Lex himself. They hated her. Hated her strength, and it was clear that any one of them would welcome the opportunity to put a bullet in her head.

"Get her out of my sight," Lex ordered. "Take the bitch to her room and lock her in for the rest of the day. She can provide our night's entertainment."

Renata didn't let the guards within arm's reach of her. As they moved to grab her, she swept them each with a sharp mental jolt. They shouted and leapt away, recoiling from the pain.

But no sooner had they dropped back did Lex spring on her, fully transformed and spitting with fury. Hard fingers curled into her shoulders. His body weight slammed her backward, up off her feet. He was furious, pushing her like she was nothing but feathers. His strength and speed propelled her with him across the floor and into the shuttered window on the far wall. Solid, unmovable logs crashed against her spine and thighs. Renata's head cracked back against the thick shutters with the impact. Her breath left her on a broken gasp. When she opened her eyes, Lex's face loomed right up against hers, his thin pupils seething outrage from within the center of his fiery amber irises. He brought one hand up and caught her jaw in a bruising grasp. Forced her head to the side. His fangs were enormous, sharp as daggers and bared dangerously near her throat.

"That was a very stupid thing to do," he growled, letting those pointed teeth graze her skin as he spoke. "I should bleed you out for that. In fact, I think I will - "

Renata summoned every ounce of power she had and turned it loose on him, blasting Lex's mind in a long, ruthless wave of anguish.

"Aaagh!" His scream rang out like a banshee's wail.

And still Renata kept blasting him. Pouring pain into his head until he released her and crumbled to the floor in a boneless sprawl.

"Se-seize her!" he sputtered to his guards, who were recovering now from the smaller strikes Renata had dealt them. One of them raised his gun on her. She blasted him, then gave the second guard another dose as well.

Damn it, she had to get out of there. Couldn't risk using any more of her power when she'd pay dearly for every strike once her reverb hit. And she wouldn't have long before the crippling wave roared up on her.

Renata spun around, broken glass crunching under her boots from last night's chaos. She felt a small breeze cutting through the locked shutters. Realization dawned: There was no window behind her, only freedom. She took hold of the sturdy wood panels and gave a hard yank. The hinges groaned but didn't quite give way.

"Kill her, you fucking imbeciles!" Lex gasped from behind her. "Shoot the bitch!"

No, Renata thought, desperate as she pulled on the stubborn wood.

She couldn't let him stop her. She had to get out of there. She had to find Mira, take her somewhere safe. She'd promised her, after all. She'd made a promise to that child and God help her, she would not fail.

With a cry, Renata put all her muscle and weight into tearing down the shutters. Finally they loosened. Adrenaline coursing through her, she ripped them free completely and threw the shutters aside.

Sunlight poured over her. Blinding, brilliant, it washed into the great room of the lodge. Lex and the other vampires shrieked, hissing as they scrambled to shield their sensitive eyes and move out of the scorching path of the light.

Renata climbed out and hit the ground running. Lex's car sat on the gravel drive, doors unlocked, keys dangling from the ignition. She hopped in, turned over the engine, and gunned it into the certain - but temporary - safety of daylight.

Chapter Fifteen

The most recent round of torture had ended a couple of hours ago, but Nikolai's body tensed in reflex when he heard the soft click of the electronic lock on the door of his room. He didn't have to guess where he was - the clinical white walls and the fleet of medical apparatus flanking his wheeled bed was clue enough to tell him that he'd been taken to one of the Enforcement Agency's containment facilities.

The industrial-grade steel restraints clamped tight at his wrists, chest, and ankles told him that his current personal accommodations were courtesy of the Rogue treatment and rehabilitation wing of the facility. Which, in case there had been any question before, meant that he was as good as dead. Like the Breed equivalent of a Roach Motel, once you strolled through these doors, you never came back.

Not that his captors intended to let him enjoy his stay for any length of time. Nikolai got the distinct impression that their patience with him was near its end. They'd beaten him nearly unconscious after the tranqs wore off, working him over to get his confession to having killed Sergei Yakut. When that didn't get them anywhere, they started in with tasers and other creative electronics, all the while keeping him drugged enough that he could feel every jolt and prod yet too sedated to fight back.

The worst of his tormentors was the Breed male coming into the room now. Niko had heard one of the Enforcement Agents call him Fabien, spoken with enough deference to indicate the vampire ranked fairly high up on the chain of command. Tall and lanky, with narrow features and small, darting eyes under his slicked-back fair hair, Fabien had a nasty sadistic streak barely hidden behind the veneer of his elegant suit and pleasant civilian demeanor. The fact that he had come in alone this time couldn't be a good sign.

"How was your rest?" he asked Niko with a polite smile. "Perhaps you're ready to chat with me now. Just the two of us this time, what do you say?"