Midnight Awakening (Midnight Breed 3)

I know that mountain range, Lucan said as he inspected the weaving.

Tegan nodded, also recognizing the distinctive formation that lay northeast of Prague. It's not far from the region where most of the Breed was living at the time.

So, this is meant to be some kind of map? Rio asked. If so, what are we looking for?

It's not what, but who. Savannah's soft voice drew everyone's attention. The tapestry points to a location where Dragos helped hide someone. The vampire who fathered him.

Jesus Christ.

Tegan didn't know which of the warriors muttered the curse, but each one of them had to understand the weight of what Savannah had just said.

Dragos's Breedmate wove this piece specifically for me, Lucan put in with a dark scowl. Are you saying Kassia deliberately hid this message in here? Why? And why the hell wouldn't she come to me and tell me about this?

Because she was afraid, Savannah said. She'd been entrusted with a terrible secret, and she feared what might happen if she let it out.

Gideon glanced over at his mate. You felt all that in the cloth, babe?

Savannah nodded. There's more too. And it's not good.

Tell us, Lucan said grimly. Whatever you can read in this thing, we need to know. The room went still as Savannah reached out and put her hands on the tapestry. The Breedmate's unique gift of psychometry had been useful to the Order in the past, but everyone watching as she began to absorb the emotional history of the piece fell into total silence, well aware that they'd never needed Savannah's special talent more than now.

Kassia was tormented by what she knew, but Dragos kept a close eye on her and she knew that if she told the secret, her mate would find out. He might move what he was hiding, and then there would be no hope of fixing what he had done. Savannah closed her eyes in concentration. Kassia had no one to share her burden with--not even her dearest friend, Sorcha.

Tegan felt his jaw go rigid at the mention of the sweet girl who met such a terrible end because of his failings. As if to say she understood what he was feeling, Elise's hand came to rest gently on his arm. Her touch was caring and compassionate, her soft gaze tender.

Savannah went on. When Lucan asked Kassia to make this tapestry, she realized that maybe there was a way to warn him of what Dragos had done. So, as she stitched the remembrance for Lucan, she added clues and prayed one day he'd discover them before it was too late.

What did Dragos do? Lucan asked, his deep voice booming in the quiet of the lab. How the hell did he begin this deception?

For a long time, Savannah didn't speak. She slowly withdrew her hands, and when she turned to face the Order's leader, her pretty features were bleak.

When you declared war on the last of the Ancients--only a few months before this tapestry was made--Dragos and the alien creature who fathered him forged a pact. Dragos helped his father escape into the mountains rather than stand and fight you and the rest of the Order.

Lucan's scowl was dark, anger building in his tense stance. Dragos and several others battled the one who sired him. Dragos was the only one to come out of the skirmish alive. He was severely wounded--

All part of his ruse, Savannah said. After they killed the others, Dragos helped hide his father in a protective crypt he'd built specifically for him in the mountains outside Prague. Dragos's wounds were from his father, but only to help conceal the truth of what actually happened. The plan had been to leave the Ancient in a state of hibernation until things settled down with the Order. Then the Ancient would be awakened to feed again, and to start a new generation of his Breed offspring.

Holy hell, Gideon muttered, ripping off his pale-blue glasses and rubbing his eyes. Did Kassia know if Dragos ever got the chance to go back and free the bastard?

Savannah shook her head. I don't think so. I'm not picking up anything to indicate that she knew the outcome. Dragos told her where the crypt was located, and that's what she stitched into the tapestry. She wanted Lucan to have the clues in case anything were to happen to her.

Oh, Lucan, Gabrielle said, wrapping her arms around him.

There is...something more, Savannah said. There was a child. Kassia was pregnant when she made this tapestry. Dragos was away on a mission for nearly a year--so long that she had her son in secret and sent him away to live with another Breed family before Dragos returned. She refused to let her only child be a victim of her mate's dangerous alliance, so she took steps to protect the baby and give him a safer future.

Let me take a wild-ass guess about the name of the family Kassia turned to, Gideon drawled.

Savannah nodded. Odolf.>Elise let herself sink into the peaceful sensation that swept over her as Tess drew her hand away. Your skill is amazing.

The pretty female shrugged her shoulder as if uncomfortable with the praise. There are some things that are beyond my ability. I can't take away scars or correct wounds that have already healed on their own. Some damage is irreversible. I'm learning that with Rio.

Savannah reached over to squeeze Tess's hand. He's doing a lot better since you've been working with him. The fact that he's even out of bed at all is due mostly to you. No, it's pure rage that drives him, Tess said. My being able to heal some of his physical wounds is only incidental.

Rio was injured in a Rogue ambush last summer, Gabrielle explained to Elise. He got pretty messed up from exploding shrapnel, but the worst of it was when he found out that his Breedmate had set the Order up for the attack.

Elise's heart twisted at the very idea. How awful.

Yeah, it was. Eva betrayed Rio and the others to Marek. In exchange, Lucan was to be the primary target of the explosion. Lucan was supposed to die that night, but the bomb only injured him. He and Rio were hit, but Rio took the worst of the impact. Gabrielle took a sip of her wine, her gaze sober, reflective. I was there when Eva confessed what she'd done...and when she proceeded to take her own life.