Stroke of Midnight (Midnight Breed 13.5)

The realization tore his heart from his chest. He couldn’t let her be harmed. He couldn’t lose her.

He never wanted to lose her.

On a roar, Jehan rolled out to his feet to face the bastard. Karsten had a pistol on her, held against the back of her head. And Jehan had dropped his gun somewhere in the sand.

“Let her go.”

Karsten sneered. “Let her go so you can have her? She deserves better than you, vampire. Better than anything you can ever give her.”

Jehan wasn’t going to argue when he was thinking the same thing now, miserable as he drank in the sight of her terrified face and her tender brown eyes pleading for him to help her.

“Let her go, Karsten. If you do, maybe I’ll let you live. But only if Seraphina wants me to.”

The human chuckled. “No, I don’t think so. We’re going to leave now. I’m going to make my drop and collect my money. Then Sera and I are going to get out of this godforsaken hellhole and enjoy our spoils.” He nestled his open mouth against her cheek, the nose of the gun still pressed against her skull. “You’ll see, my love. I can give you everything you need.”

She winced and closed her eyes, a miserable sound curling up from her throat.

Jehan couldn’t bear another second of her torment. He had to act. He had one chance to end this, but he couldn’t do it without her total faith in him.

“Seraphina.” He spoke her name softly, reverently. Hoping she could hear how much she meant to him. “Look at me, sweetheart.”

Her eyes opened and found his gaze through the dark.

He couldn’t say the words out loud without betraying his plan, but he needed her to understand. He needed her to trust him.

Do you trust me, Seraphina?

He said it with his eyes. With his heart.

Trust me, baby. Please...

She gave him a nearly imperceptible nod.

It was enough. It was all the permission he needed.

Moving with every ounce of Breed agility and speed he possessed, Jehan reached around to his back and pulled out the dagger he’d stashed there. He let it fly from his fingertips.

An instant later, Karsten Hemmings dropped to the ground, Jehan’s blade protruding from the space between his wide-open eyes.

Jehan ran to Seraphina and pulled her into his arms.

In that moment, nothing else mattered.

Not Karsten Hemmings. Not the Jeep full of UV grenades, or Opus Nostrum.

Not even the Order mattered as he drew Seraphina close and kissed her with all the relief and emotion—all the love—he felt for her.

He stroked her beautiful face and stared down into the soft brown eyes that now owned his heart and his soul. “Come on,” he said, drawing her under the protection of his arm. “Let’s get out of here.”

CHAPTER 13

Sera was still numb with shock and disbelief several hours later, after Jehan had driven them back to the villa.

Karsten’s betrayal cut deep. That he had used her to free up the supplies containing his hidden cargo was bad enough. But the idea that greed and hatred had poisoned his humanity so much that he was willing to kill—willing to traffic in weaponry designed for the wholesale slaughter of the Breed—was unthinkable. It was unforgivable.

Countless innocent lives were saved today, now that the UV grenades had been diverted from their buyer and stowed safely inside the villa.

As for Karsten and Massoud, when the other camp workers and residents came upon the scene and heard what the two men had been up to, there had been no shortage of volunteers offering to dispose of their bodies in the desert so that Sera and Jehan could get on the road as quickly as possible to beat the sunrise.