Defy the Dawn (Midnight Breed 14)

And to accomplish that, the Order was prepared to utilize every advantage they had over the Atlanteans and their mad queen.

As Lucan contemplated all of the grave work ahead of him and his warriors, his comm unit vibrated with an incoming call on his private, encrypted line.

He could count on one hand the number of people who had direct access to him—most of them gathered in the war room with him now.

Except for one recent addition.

He put the phone to his ear and heard a deep voice of an individual he’d only come to know a few days ago. A man the Order had little choice but to trust as a much-needed ally.

“Lucan, it’s Zael.” Sirens screamed in the background, punctuated by the low, distant percussions of explosive aftershocks. “I’m in London with Brynne. We need help.”

CHAPTER 5

Brynne wanted to pretend the humiliation of having propositioned Zael—and been rejected—hadn’t actually happened. She wanted to pretend a lot of things hadn’t truly happened tonight, chief among them the heinous attack on her colleagues at JUSTIS.

But it was impossible to ignore anything that had occurred these past several hours as she sat alone with Zael inside the luxury cabin of the Order’s private jet en route to Washington, D.C.

Opus Nostrum had destroyed the entire London headquarters in one fell swoop.

No survivors. Nearly a hundred JUSTIS officers and officials incinerated in the blast, all but a dozen or so of the victims Breed. Men and women Brynne had worked with for the bulk of her career with the organization. People she liked, simply gone in an instant.

The rubble from the explosion was burning as the jet had taken off from outside the city. It would likely take days before the two-block diameter pyre finally cooled.

Her city would never be the same.

Around the whole world, nothing would ever be the same now.

Opus had made that point clear tonight.

Brynne jiggled the ice in her glass then took a long drink of the cold liquid. Water this time, even though her grief and fury called for something stronger. Witnessing the inferno that had devoured her longtime workplace—former workplace, she reminded herself grimly—had been enough to sober her on the spot. The way she felt after tonight, she might never touch another drop.

Zael was watching her from his seat across the cabin. He’d been uncharacteristically reserved since they boarded the jet. Even now, he kept his tongue and his distance, allowing her much needed space to process and reflect.

She set her empty glass on the console next to her. “I keep picturing myself walking those networks of corridors,” she murmured softly. “I keep seeing their faces—the other officers and investigators I worked with on a daily basis at that building. I can’t stop running through their names in my mind, doing a mental body count.”

Zael nodded gravely, but didn’t say anything. He got up and slowly walked over to take the leather seat facing her. His copper-threaded blond hair had gotten tousled from their race across London to view the destruction firsthand.

He raked the thick waves back from his brow and leaned forward, resting his elbows on his bent knees as he gave her time to get all of the words out. His oceanic blue eyes held her gaze, solemn in his sculpted, sun-bronzed face.

And while she was certain she must reek of smoke and death, his scent was fresh and clean, as crisp as a sea breeze. Its presence calmed her.

In this moment, with everything she once knew now blown to bits a thousand miles behind them, he calmed her.

More than she’d ever stoop to admit.

“I stayed late at headquarters most nights,” she said. “Sometimes, if I finished one case earlier than expected, I’d start right away on another. Sometimes I worked all night.”

Being a daywalker, a very rare thing among her kind, she didn’t have to work at night like her Breed colleagues. But more often than not, she chose to. Why wouldn’t she? It wasn’t as if she had anyone waiting at home.

And she’d loved her work. It had been the one constant in her life, her purpose. The one thing she could call her own.

Until today.