Midnight Rising (Midnight Breed 4)

"Forget it."

Not likely. Not when he seemed so protective of the information. As in, do-or-die protective. "What do all those weird symbols on the walls mean? Is it some kind of ancient language? Some kind of code? Just what are you so desperate to hide?"

He came at her so fast, she didn't even see him move. She blinked and suddenly he was bearing down on her, the broad bulk of his body towering over her, making her shrink back on the bed.

"Listen to me and hear me well, Dylan Alexander," he said tightly. The sound of her name rolling off his lips was jarring in its intimacy. "This is not a game. It's not a puzzle for you to piece together. And it sure as hell isn't a story that I'm going to permit you to tell. So do us both a favor and stop asking questions about something that doesn't concern you."

His eyes were livid, the topaz color of them flashing with anger. It was that hot, penetrating gaze that scared her the most - even more than the threat of his coiled strength or the terrible scars that stretched across the left side of his face and made him look so frightening.

But he was wrong when he said that the cave and whatever secrets it might contain did not concern her. She was personally invested in the story, and not just because it was beginning to feel like the kind of story that would not only save her so-called career, but quite possibly make it.

Dylan's interest in the cave and its strange wall art had gotten very personal from the moment she noticed the teardrop-and-crescent-moon symbol that identically matched the birthmark she had on the back of her neck.

She considered that bizarre coincidence as the hotel phone began to ring. Her uninvited guest picked it up and carried on a short, confidential exchange. He hung up, slung her messenger bag over his shoulder then went over to grab the backpack containing the rest of her belongings. He took her pocketbook off the nightstand and tossed it to her.

"That's our ride," he said as she caught the small handbag. "Time to go."

"What do you mean, our ride?"

"We're leaving, right now."

A wave of dread roared up on her, but she tried to maintain a brave front. "Forget it. You really are crazy if you think I'm going anywhere with you."

"You don't have a choice."

He came toward her, and Dylan knew that she stood little chance of overpowering him or outrunning him. Not when she had to navigate three floors of the hotel in order to get away from him. But she could sure as hell scream for help - and would, the very second he dragged her into the hotel lobby.

Except he didn't bring her into the very public lobby so she could make her escape.

He didn't even open the door that led out into the hallway outside her room.

With that same speed and strength she couldn't help but be amazed by, he grabbed her at the wrist and pulled her to the window that overlooked a side street several dizzying yards below. He threw open the glass and climbed out onto the fire escape, still holding fast to her arm as he started to haul her outside with him.

"What the hell are you doing?" Dylan dug in her heels, her eyes wide with fear. "Are you insane? You're going to break both our necks if you - "

He didn't give her a chance to finish the thought, let alone speak it.

Before Dylan realized what was happening, she was lifted out the window and over the solid bulk of his shoulder. She heard his boots clanking on the rattling iron of the fire escape. Then she felt her whole world shift as he incredibly - impossibly - vaulted over the railing with her.

They hit the dark pavement three stories below.

It wasn't the bone-breaking crash she anticipated, but a soft, almost graceful connection between his feet and the ground. She was still trying to process how that could be when suddenly she was pushed into the back of an open delivery truck that idled near the place they'd touched down.

Dylan tumbled in with her abductor right behind her. Disoriented and thoroughly confused, she was too stunned to form a single word as he brought the heavy trailer door down with a hard thump and enclosed them in darkness.

The truck's engine roared to life, and with a sharp squeal of tires, the vehicle took off with its cargo.

Back in Boston, it was nearly five A.M . and the last of the Order's warriors were heading in from their night patrols. Lucan, Tegan, and Dante - the mated ones, like Gideon, with females awaiting their return to the compound - had been in for about an hour already. Sterling Chase, the ex - Darkhaven Enforcement Agent who'd joined up with the Order last year and had proven to be a formidable - enthusiastically lethal - addition to the group, was present and accounted for too.

Now, as the three remaining members of the Order filed in, Gideon wasn't surprised to find Nikolai bringing up the rear. Although he was the youngest of the warriors, Niko was also the most relentless fighter Gideon had ever seen. An adrenaline junkie and vicious combatant, the Russian-born vampire never called it a night until dawn was creeping over the horizon, forcing him off the streets.

And when it came to high-octane weaponry, Niko was an absolute demon.

Tonight, as the black-clad warrior with the golden-blond hair and glacial blue eyes sauntered in behind the two newest members of the cadre, Kade and Brock, Gideon noted that he was armed with some of his latest creations. A nasty-looking 9mm semiauto with a clip full of titanium hollowpoint rounds rode at Niko's hip, and a laser-sighted sniper rifle tricked out with the same custom ammo was slung from a strap over his shoulder.

Even from behind the glass enclosure of the compound's tech lab, Gideon could smell fresh death on the warrior. Not human, as the Breed in general tried to maintain as peaceful a cohabitation as possible with their Homo sapiens cousins. They fed from humans in order to survive, but it was rare that a vampire killed his Host. It was a matter of simple logic after all. No sense wiping out your sole food source, or, for that matter, exposing yourself as a mortal threat to that food source and encouraging them to wipe you out instead.

But there was a small, splintered percentage of the vampire nation that didn't give a damn for solid logic. Rogues - vampires who'd become addicted to blood and gone feral, living only to feed that addiction - were the ones who found themselves in the crosshairs of the Order's lethal brand of justice.