Defy the Dawn (Midnight Breed 14)

The stoic warrior had once been a stone-cold killer in his own right. If Lucan trusted anyone to stand between danger and the people he cared about, he could find no better guardian than Hunter.

“What about the lead I dug up in Ireland?” Gideon asked.

Lucan raked a hand over his head. “Shit. I don’t want to let it go cold, but we’ve got several fires to put out here.”

“What lead?” Brynne asked.

Gideon explained. “Just before the situation went all to hell today, I managed to crack through the first layer of encryption on Opus’s secured network. I followed a hunch down a rabbit hole and I found a name, one we haven’t run across before.”

“You mean an Opus member?”

“Possibly. It’s also possible we just got a hit on the woman Crowe had been visiting frequently for the past few years.”

tly stepping out of his embrace, she smoothed the front of her blouse feeling awkward as hell. “It’s all right, Carys. We were just…talking.”

She tried to ignore Zael’s disapproving growl as she walked to the open doorway and drew Carys back inside.

“Please forgive me for interrupting like this,” the young Breed female said. Her discomfort went deeper than chagrin. There was something troubling about the set of her mouth. And her face seemed paler than normal, stricken. “My mother sent me to find you both. There’s been another attack.”

Brynne’s stomach clenched. “In London?”

“No. Right here in D.C.” Carys swallowed. “The Global Nations Council building has been attacked in broad daylight.”

“Not another explosion,” Zael said. “We would’ve heard it. This close to the government center, we would have felt it.”

“No, nothing like that.” Carys gravely shook her head. “Assassins opened fire inside the building a few minutes ago. Every high-ranking member on site today was killed.”

CHAPTER 10

Although there had been little question as to who had been responsible for the slaughter that took place in the Global Nations Council office, it was still a shock to see the brazen claim of responsibility by Opus Nostrum spread across the Internet and social media mere moments after the attack took place. Unsatisfied to simply issue a statement after the fact, Opus’s boasting claims were accompanied by live bodycam video footage recorded by the perpetrators as the killings took place.

Lucan had already seen the footage once, but that didn’t make his blood boil any less as he watched again with the Order and everyone else present in the D.C. compound.

Acting in unison, three men posted on the GNC building security detail had abruptly stepped out of rank and mowed down an entire office wing full of high-ranking council members and diplomats before turning their weapons on themselves. Every horrific second had been captured on video and streamed across the Web.

The victims of the attack were all humans, representatives from around the world. Many of the men and women were colleagues Lucan knew personally in his role as chairman of the GNC.

All of them executed in cold blood at the hands of Opus and their followers.

“First JUSTIS, now the GNC,” Gabrielle said quietly from beside Lucan. There was fear in her voice, and in the blood bond that connected him to her. “Will the Order be next on Opus’s hit list?”

Lucan gently stroked her worried face. “Make no mistake, both of these attacks have been strikes against the Order.” He met the grim gazes of his fellow warriors. “Opus hasn’t come for us directly, and they don’t want to. They tried that at the GNC peace summit and failed, which cost them their leader when we killed Reginald Crowe.”

Sterling Chase nodded in agreement. “Each time they’ve come up against us, we’ve shut them down, weakened their foundation.”

“Opus doesn’t need to risk taking us on in a true contest,” Lucan said. “What they want is chaos. They want fear and mistrust between Breed and man.”

“To what end?”

Lucan turned to see Brynne standing behind him alongside Zael. The former JUSTIS investigator’s cheeks were flushed with color, though whether in reaction to the bloody attack playing on the monitors or from some other cause, he couldn’t be sure.

“We’ve seen that Opus has both Breed and human members,” she said. “How can they do this? Why unite with the purpose of killing innocent people from both of their races?”